A heavy weight of dismay thudded inside Sano’s chest like an iron clapper in a temple bell. Pregnancy would have serious ramifications for the murder case, and for Sano as well.
Dr. Ito’s gaze conveyed unspoken concern and understanding, but he was not a man to shy away from the truth. “A dissection is the only way to tell for sure.”
Sano drew a deep breath and held it, containing the fear that burgeoned within him. Dissection, a procedure associated with foreign science, was just as illegal as when Dr. Ito had been arrested. During other investigations, Sano had risked banishment and disgrace for the sake of knowledge. So far the bakufu hadn’t discovered his involvement in taboo practices-even the most avid spies avoided Edo Morgue-but Sano feared that his luck would run out. He dreaded verification of Harume’s condition, and the consequential danger. However, a pregnancy offered myriad possible motives for Harume’s murder. Without exploring these, Sano might never identify her killer. And he never evaded the truth, either. Now he exhaled in resignation.
“All right, ' he said to Dr. Ito. “Go ahead.”
At a nod from his master, Mura fetched a long, thin knife from a cabinet. Dr. Ito removed the cloth from Lady Harume’s abdomen. In the air over it, he sketched lines with his forefinger: “Cut here, and here, like so.” Carefully, Mura inserted the sharp blade into the dead flesh, making a long horizontal slash below the navel, then two shorter, perpendicular cuts at each end of the first. He drew back the flaps of skin and tissue, exposing coiled pink bowels.
“Remove those,” Dr. Ito instructed.
A strong fecal odor arose as Mura cut away the bowels and placed them in a tray. Nausea clutched Sano’s stomach; the unclean aura of ritual contamination enveloped him. No matter how many times he observed dissections, they still sickened his body and spirit. He saw, within the cavity of Lady Harume’s corpse, a fleshy, pear-shaped structure about the size of a man’s fist. From this extended two thin, curved tubes, the ends fanning out in fibrous growths resembling sea anemones, meeting two grapelike sacs.
“The organs of life,” Dr. Ito explained.
Shame exacerbated Sano’s discomfort. What right had he, a man and stranger, to look upon the most private parts of a dead woman’s body? Yet growing curiosity compelled his attention while Mura sliced into the womb, then laid it open. Inside nestled a frothy inner capsule of tissue. And curled within this, a tiny unborn child, like a naked pink salamander, no longer than Sano’s finger.
“So you were right,” Sano said. “She was pregnant.”
The child’s bulbous head dwarfed its body. The eyes were black spots in a barely formed face; the hands and feet mere paws attached to frail limbs. Threadlike red veins chased the skin, which stretched across ridges of delicate bone. A twisted cord connected the navel to the womb’s lining. The vestige of a tail elongated the diminutive rump. As Sano stared at this new wonder, awe overcame him. How miraculous was the creation of life! He thought of Reiko. Would their troubled marriage succeed and produce children who would survive, as this one had not? His hopes seemed as fragile as the dead infant. Then professional and political concerns eclipsed Sano’s domestic problems.
Had Lady Harume died because the killer had wanted to destroy the child? Jealousy might have compelled Lady Ichiteru or Lieutenant Kushida, rival and rejected suitor. However, a more ominous motive came to Sano’s mind.
“Can you determine the sex of the child?” he asked.
With the tip of a metal probe, Dr. Ito uncurled the infant and surveyed the genitals, a tiny bud between the legs. “It is only about three months old. Too early to tell whether it would have become a boy or a girl.”
The uncertainty didn’t alleviate Sano’s worries. The dead child could have been the shogun’s long-desired male heir. Someone might have murdered Lady Harume to weaken the chances of continued Tokugawa reign. This scenario posed a serious threat to Sano. Unless…
“Could the shogun have sired a child?” Dr. Ito voiced Sano’s unspoken thought. “After all, His Excellency’s sexual preference is well known.”
“Lady Harume’s pillow book mentioned a secret affair,” Sano said, then described the passage. “Her lover could be the father of the child-if they didn’t limit their activities to the kind Harume wrote about. Maybe I can prove it when I visit Lord Miyagi Shigeru today.”
“I wish you good luck, Sano-san.” Dr. Ito’s face reflected Sano’s hope. The stakes had risen; mortal danger now overshadowed the investigation. If the child belonged to another man, then Sano was safe. But if it was the shogun’s, then Lady Harume’s murder was treason: not just the killing of a concubine, but of Tokugawa Tsunayoshi’s flesh and blood, a crime that merited execution. And if Sano failed to deliver the traitor to justice, he himself could be punished by death.
12
Through the streets of Nihonbashi moved a procession of soldiers and attendants, all wearing the gold flying- crane crest of the Sano family, escorting a black palanquin with the same symbol emblazoned on its doors. Inside the cushioned sedan chair sat Reiko, tense and anxious, oblivious to the colorful sights of mercantile Edo. To disobey her husband’s orders would surely bring divorce, and shame to the whole Ueda clan. But she was still determined to pursue her illicit inquiry. She must prove her competence to herself as well as Sano. And to gain the necessary information, she must use every resource she possessed.
Under the surface of Edo society ran an invisible network composed of wives, daughters, relatives, female servants, courtesans, and other women associated with powerful samurai clans. They collected facts as efficiently as the metsuke-the Tokugawa spy agency-and spread them by word of mouth. Reiko was herself a link in the loose but effective network. As a magistrate’s daughter, she’d often exchanged news from the Court of Justice for outside information. This morning she’d learned that Sano had identified two murder suspects, Lieutenant Kushida and Lady Ichiteru. Social custom prevented Reiko from meeting two strangers without introduction by mutual acquaintances, and she dared not risk Sano’s anger by approaching them directly. However, the strength of the female information network lay in its ability to bypass such obstacles.
The procession skirted the central produce market, where vendors manned stalls heaped with white radish, onions, garlic bulbs, ginger-roots, and greens. Memory brought a smile to Reiko’s lips. At age twelve, she’d begun sneaking out of her father’s house in search of adventure. Dressed in boys’ clothes, a hat covering her hair, swords at her waist, she’d blended with the crowds of samurai who roamed Edo ’s streets. One day, here in this very market, she’d come upon two ronin who were robbing a fruit stall and beating the helpless merchant.
“Stop!” cried Reiko, drawing her sword.
The thieves laughed. “Come and get us, boy,” they goaded her, weapons unsheathed.
As Reiko lunged and slashed, their amusement turned to surprise, then fury. Their blades clashed with hers in earnest. Shoppers fled; passing samurai entered the melee. Horror filled Reiko. Unwittingly she’d started a full-scale brawl. But she loved the thrill of her first real battle. As she fought, someone’s elbow slammed her face; she spat out a piece of broken tooth. Then the police arrived, disarmed the swordsmen, subdued them with clubs, bound their hands, and marched them off to jail. A doshin grabbed Reiko. While she struggled, her hat fell off. Her long hair spilled down.
“Miss Reiko!” the doshin exclaimed.
He was a friendly man who often stopped to talk to her when he visited the magistrate’s house on business. Thus Reiko soon found herself not in jail with the other troublemakers, but kneeling in her father’s courtroom.
Magistrate Ueda glared down at her from the dais.”What is the meaning of this, daughter?”
Quaking with fear, Reiko explained.
Her father’s face remained stern, but a proud smile tugged his mouth. “I sentence you to one month of house arrest.” This was the usual punishment for brawling samurai when no fatalities were involved. “Then I shall provide a more suitable outlet for your energy.”
Hence the magistrate had begun letting her observe trials, on the condition that she stayed off the streets. The broken tooth, though an embarrassment, was also Reiko’s battle trophy, the symbol of her courage, independence, and rebellion against injustice. Now, as the palanquin carried her into a lane of shops with colorful signs above curtained doorways, she felt the same thrill that she’d known during that long-ago battle and the trials she’d
