shouting at him to stop, and Hirata holding them off. Forging ahead, he found himself alone in the family living quarters. This wing was as cold, dark, and damp as a cave. The mullioned paper walls were gray squares of waning afternoon light. The Miyagi’s musky odor saturated the air. Pausing to catch his breath and get his bearings, Sano saw no one. At first he heard nothing except his own labored breathing. Then came a thin wail.
Sano’s heart lurched. Reiko! Panic burgeoned in him as he followed the sound, hurrying past the closed doors of unoccupied rooms. His aversion toward the Miyagi couple turned to fear as he imagined Reiko their victim. The wailing grew louder. Then Sano rounded a corner. He halted abruptly.
Lamplight spilled from an open doorway. Outside knelt the manservant Sano remembered from his first visit. Head bowed, the man wept. At Sano’s approach, he looked up.
“The girls,” he moaned. Tears glistened on his wrinkled face. Raising a shaky hand, he pointed into the room.
As Sano rushed through the door, a disturbing, familiar scent hit him: fetid, salty, metallic. At first he couldn’t make sense of the scene that greeted his dazed eyes. Twisted white shapes contrasted violently with black swirls and gleaming red puddles on the slatted floor. Then Sano’s vision focused. In a bathchamber furnished with a sunken wooden tub and bamboo screen lay the naked bodies of two women, curled side by side. Their wrists and ankles were bound with cords. Deep gashes across the throats had nearly severed their heads. Crimson blood drenched their long, tangled black hair and pale skin. It had splashed the walls, run over the floor, and dripped over the sides of the tub into the water.
Horror paralyzed Sano. He felt the turbulent thudding of his heart; a cold sickness gripped his stomach. As vertigo dizzied him, he clutched the door frame. He heard a rasping sound, like a saw against wood, and recognized it as his own breathing. With nightmarish clarity, the faces of the dead women stood out from the carnage. Both bore Reiko’s delicate features.
“No!” Sano blinked hard, rubbing his eyes to rid himself of what seemed a case of shock-induced double vision. “Reiko!” Moaning, he fell to his knees beside the women and seized their hands.
As soon as he touched the cold flesh, awareness penetrated his agony. Sano realized that his inner sense of Reiko remained intact. He was still attuned to her; he could perceive her life force, like a distant bell that was still ringing. The illusion dissolved. These women’s bodies were larger and fuller than Reiko’s. He didn’t recognize their faces. Sobs of relief wracked his body. Reiko wasn’t dead! His stomach convulsed, and he retched, as if trying to vomit up the needless terror and grief.
Hirata rushed into the chamber. “Merciful gods!”
“It’s not her. It’s not her!” In a frenzy of joy, Sano jumped up and threw his arms around Hirata, laughing and weeping. “Reiko’s alive!”
“Sosakan-sama! Are you all right?” Hirata’s face was a picture of frightened bewilderment. He shook Sano hard. “Stop that and listen to me.” When Sano only laughed harder, he smacked Sano’s cheek.
The blow jolted Sano out of his hysteria. Quieting immediately, he stared at Hirata, surprised that his retainer would ever strike him.
“Gomen nasai-I’m sorry,” Hirata said, “but you have to get hold of yourself. The guards told me that Lady Miyagi killed her husband’s concubines. She tied them up. They thought it was a game. Then she cut their throats. When the guards and servants heard screaming and came to see what was wrong, she ordered them not to tell anyone. She and Lord Miyagi left to meet someone at the castle gate so they could travel to the villa together. That was two hours ago.”
Fresh horror drowned Sano’s relief. Though he couldn’t begin to fathom Lady Miyagi’s reasons for killing the daimyo’s concubines, her brutal act surely confirmed her, not Ichiteru, as the murderer of Lady Harume and Choyei. Gazing at the bloody tableau, Sano fought the resurgence of panic.
“Reiko,” he whispered.
Then he was running and stumbling out of the mansion, with Hirata supporting him.
38
Above the western hills outside Edo, a tapestry of golden clouds wove across a sky awash with fire, ensnaring the radiant crimson orb of the setting sun. The distant mountains were shadowy lavender peaks. On the plain below, the city lights flickered under a veil of smoke. The river’s great curve gleamed like molten copper. Temple bells echoed across the landscape. In the east rose the full moon, immense and bright, a mirror with the image of the moon goddess etched in shadow upon its face.
The Miyagi summer estate occupied a steep hillside off the main road. A narrow dirt trail led through the forest to the villa, two stories of vine-covered wood and plaster. A dense thicket of trees nearly obscured the roof. Lanterns burned in the stables and servants’ quarters, but the other windows turned blank, shuttered eyes to the twilight. Except for the evening songs of birds and the wind rustling dry leaves, quiet engulfed the property. Beyond the villa, the terrain climbed through more forest to a bare promontory. A small pavilion topped the rise. In this, Lord Miyagi, his wife, and Reiko sat facing a perfect view of the moon.
Lattice walls at the back and sides of the pavilion shielded them from the wind; charcoal braziers under the tatami floor warmed them. A lantern lit individual desks furnished with writing supplies. A table held refreshments. On a teak stand were the traditional offerings to the moon: rice dumplings, soybeans, persimmons, smoking incense burners, and a vase of autumn grasses.
With a provocative gesture, Lord Miyagi picked up a brush and offered it to Reiko. “Will you compose the first poem in honor of the moon, my dear?”
“Thank you, but I’m not ready to write yet.” Smiling nervously, Reiko wanted to move away from Lord Miyagi, but Lady Miyagi sat too close at her other side. “I need more time to think.”
In truth, she was too frightened to apply her mind to poetry. During the journey from Edo, the presence of her palanquin bearers, guards, and the two detectives had eased her fear of Lord Miyagi. But she hadn’t foreseen that the moon-viewing site would be so far from the villa, where her escorts now waited. She’d had to leave them behind because ordering them to stand guard over her would have aroused Lord Miyagi’s suspicion. Trapped between the murderer and his wife, Reiko swallowed her rising panic. Only the thought of the dagger hidden beneath her sleeve reassured her.
Lady Miyagi laughed, a gruff caw tinged with excitement. “Don’t rush our guest, Cousin. The moon has not even begun to approach its full beauty.” She seemed strangely altered since morning. Her flat cheeks were flushed; the prim line of her mouth quivered. Her eyes reflected pinpoint images of the lantern, and her restless energy filled the pavilion. Fidgeting with a brush, she smiled at Reiko. “Take all the time you need.”
What a pathetic fool, obtaining vicarious thrills by abetting her husband’s interest in another woman! Hiding disgust, Reiko politely thanked her hostess.
“Perhaps you’d like some refreshment to fortify your creative talents?” Lady Miyagi said.
“Yes, please.” Reiko swallowed hard.
The thought of eating in the Miyagi’s presence again brought a wave of nausea. Reluctantly she accepted tea and a round, sweet cake with a whole egg yolk baked inside to symbolize the moon. A sense of imprisonment worsened her discomfort. She could feel night closing in, obliterating the trail leading down the wooded slope to her protectors. Outside the pavilion ran a narrow gravel path. Beyond this, the ground dropped off steeply to the boulder-strewn bank of a stream. Reiko could hear the water rushing far below. There seemed no escape except over the precipice.
Crumbling the moon cake on her plate, Reiko got a tenuous hold on her poise and addressed her host. “I beg you to write the first poem, my lord, so that I might follow your superior example.”
Lord Miyagi preened under her flattery. He contemplated the view, then inked his brush and wrote. He read aloud:
“Once the moon rose above the rim of the mountain,
Casting its brilliant light upon the landscape.
I raised my eyes over the windowsill,
And, with my gaze, caressed the loveliness within.
But now the old moon has waned,
