family resemblance to her husband, with the same skin, facial features, and thin figure. Yet her posture was rigid, her eyes a flat, lusterless brown, her unpainted mouth firmly set. She had a deep, mannish voice. While everything about Lord Miyagi bespoke weakness and sensuality, she seemed a stern, dry husk within her brocade kimono. “There is no need for us to keep secrets from each other.”
Then she added, “But perhaps we do require a bit more privacy. Snowflake? Wren?” She beckoned to the maidens, who rose and knelt before her. “These are my husband’s concubines,” Lady Miyagi said, surprising Sano, who had assumed they were the couple’s daughters.
With a motherly pat to the cheek of each girl, she said, “You may go now. Continue practicing your music.”
“Yes, Honorable Mistress,” the girls chorused. They bowed and left the room.
“So you knew that your husband was secretly meeting Harume in Asakusa?” Sano asked Lady Miyagi.
“Of course.” The woman’s mouth curved in a smile, baring her cosmetically blackened teeth. “I am in charge of all my lord’s amusements.” Beside her, Lord Miyagi nodded complacently. “I select his concubines and courtesans. Last summer I made an acquaintance with Lady Harume and introduced her to my husband. I organized their every rendezvous, sending Harume letters telling her when to be at the inn.”
Some wives went to extraordinary lengths to serve their men, Sano thought. While this arrangement caused him a prickle of distaste, he wished Reiko possessed some of Lady Miyagi’s willingness to please. “You took a big risk by sporting with the shogun’s concubine,” he told Lord Miyagi.
“I find much enjoyment in danger.” The daimyo stretched luxuriously. His tongue came out, moistening his lips with saliva.
A true devotee of fleshly delights, he seemed acutely conscious of every physical sensation. He wore his robe as though he felt the soft caress of silk against his skin. Picking up a tobacco pipe from the metal tray, he drew on it with slow deliberation, sighing while he expelled the smoke. In his frank pleasure, he appeared almost childlike. Yet Sano saw a sinister shadow behind the veiled eyes. He recalled what he knew of the Miyagi.
They were a minor clan, more renowned for sexual debauchery than political leadership. Rumors of adultery, incest, and perversion haunted both male and female members, though their wealth purchased freedom from legal consequences. Apparently the present daimyo followed the family tradition-which had sometimes included violence.
Addressing both husband and wife, Sano said, “Did you know that Lady Harume planned to tattoo herself?”
Lord Miyagi nodded and smoked. His wife answered, “Yes, we did. It was my husband’s wish that Harume prove her devotion by cutting a symbol of love for him upon her body. I wrote the letter asking her to do so.”
Sano wondered whether Lady Miyagi’s stiff bearing reflected a sexual coldness that precluded normal marital relations between her and her husband. Certainly she possessed none of the physical attractions valued by a man such as him. But perhaps she pursued her own carnal thrills by procuring her husband’s; she, too, was a member of the infamous clan. From the cloth pouch at his waist, Sano removed the black lacquer bottle whose ink had poisoned Harume. “Did she get this from you, then?”
“Yes, that is the bottle we sent with the letter,” Lady Miyagi said calmly. “I bought it. My husband wrote Harume’s name on top.”
So they both had handled the bottle. “And when was this?” Sano asked.
Lady Miyagi considered. “Four days ago, I believe.”
That would have been before Lieutenant Kushida’s suspension from duty in the Large Interior, but after Lady Harume’s complaint. But Kushida claimed to have had no prior knowledge of the tattoo, and Sano didn’t yet know about Lady Ichiteru. Presumably Hirata would obtain the information. For now, the Miyagi seemed the ones with the best opportunity to poison the ink.
“Were you on good terms with Lady Harume?” Sano asked Lord Miyagi.
The daimyo shrugged languorously. “We had no quarrels, if that’s what you mean. I loved her as much as I’m capable of loving anyone. I was getting what I wanted from the affair, and I presumed she was, too.”
“What was it that she wanted?” The diary explained how Lord Miyagi achieved gratification, but Sano was curious to know why the beautiful concubine had risked her life for sordid, joyless encounters with an unattractive man.
For the first time, Lord Miyagi looked uncomfortable; his Adam’s apple bobbed in the loose flesh of his throat, and he looked to his wife. Lady Miyagi said, “Harume had a craving for adventure, sosakan-sama. The forbidden liaison with my husband satisfied it.”
“And you?” Sano asked. “How did you feel about Lady Harume and the affair?”
The woman smiled again-a curiously unpleasant expression that emphasized her homeliness. “I was grateful to Harume, as I am to all my husband’s women. I consider them my partners in serving his pleasure.”
Sano suppressed a shudder of revulsion. Lady Miyagi reminded him of a Yoshiwara brothel owner, catering to clients’ sexual whims with professional skill. She didn’t even seem to care how vulgar or perverted she might appear. From down the corridor drifted faint strains of music, and the concubines’ voices, singing. Sano suddenly became aware of how quiet the house was. He heard none of the sounds usually associated with a provincial lord’s estate-no troops patrolling; no officials conducting business; no servants at work. The solidly built mansion shut out street noises, reinforcing Sano’s impression of a closed world. What an odd household this was!
“So you see,” the daimyo said with a tired sigh, “neither my wife nor I had reason to kill Lady Harume, and we didn’t. I shall sadly miss the pleasure she provided me. And my dear wife has never been jealous about my liaisons with Harume or anyone else.” Raising himself from his cushions, he made a weak gesture toward the refreshment tray.
Quickly Lady Miyagi said, “Let me help you, Cousin,” and poured tea for him. She put the cup in his left hand, a persimmon in his right. For a moment, their arms joined in a circle, and Sano was struck by their resemblance to the Miyagi double-swan crest. A mated pair, mirror images of each other, wings touching, locked in a strange but mutually agreeable union…
The musky odor grew stronger, as though produced by the couple’s contact. Sano perceived between them a deep, emotional connection that did not exclude passion. Weighing the statements they’d given, he found that he believed Lady Miyagi’s story of accepting and even abetting her husband’s infidelity, but Lord Miyagi’s claim of love for Harume rang less true. Had she somehow threatened the marriage? Had one or both spouses wished her dead?
“Who else had access to the ink bottle before it reached Lady Harume?” Sano said.
“The messenger who carried it to Edo Castle,” said Lady Miyagi, “as well as everyone in the house. The retainers; the servants; Snowflake and Wren. When I brought the bottle home, my husband wasn’t here, so I left it on his desk while I attended to other business. Some hours passed before we sent it off. Anyone could have tampered with the ink without our knowledge.”
Was she simply relating facts, or shielding herself and Lord Miyagi by directing suspicion toward other residents of the estate? Perhaps one of them had borne a grudge against Harume. “My detectives shall come and question everyone in your household,” Sano said.
Nodding indifferently, Lord Miyagi ate his fruit. The juice ran down his chin; he licked his fingers. “As you wish,” Lady Miyagi said.
And now for the delicate, critical part of the interrogation, Sano thought. “Have you any children?” he asked the couple.
Neither husband nor wife altered expression, yet Sano’s trained senses detected a sudden pressure in the air, as though it had expanded to push against the walls. Lady Miyagi sat motionless, her gaze fixed straight ahead, a tightness about her jaw muscles. Lord Miyagi said, “No. We do not.” Regret permeated his words. “Our lack of sons has forced me to name a nephew as my heir.”
From the strained atmosphere between the Miyagi couple, Sano guessed that he’d touched a vulnerable spot in their marriage. He suspected that each harbored different feelings about their childlessness. And the answer to his question disappointed Sano. Harume’s pillow book portrayed Lord Miyagi as a voyeur who preferred self-stimulation to bedding a woman. Did this tendency, combined with his lack of offspring, mean that he was impotent? Was the shogun-weak, sickly, and inclined toward manly love-the father of Harume’s child after all?
Sano dreaded both telling Tokugawa Tsunayoshi that his unborn heir had died with the concubine, and the added pressure to solve the murder case. If he failed, the shogun’s unreliable affection wouldn’t save him from
