wooden planks.
No answer came. Reiko knocked again, louder. She heard the rasp of a sliding door, and footsteps. Then came the metallic scrape of a bar drawing back; the gates parted to reveal a man dressed in a short brown cotton kimono. He had the thick build and close-cropped hair of a laborer. Suspicion darkened his pockmarked features as he looked Reiko up and down.
“Yes?” he growled.
His unfriendly manner and disreputable appearance intimidated Reiko. “I-I’m looking for Lord Ibe,” she said.
“Nobody by that name here.”
The man started to close the gates. “Wait,” Reiko said, pushing against them. “I know this house belongs to Lord Ibe. I must speak to him.”
A lascivious smile came over the man’s face. “You’re wrong,” he said, “but maybe you should come in anyway. We could have fun with a pretty girl like you.” He reached over and chucked Reiko under the chin.
She recoiled at the liberty. “Who are you?” she asked, trying to sound stern.
“None of your business. Who do you think you are?” The man scowled, obviously displeased that a woman should dare to question him.
“Who’s in there?” Reiko persisted. “What’s going on?”
“Get lost, girl.”
The man slammed the gates shut. Reiko heard the bar slide into place. She looked up at the house in desperation. The man had acted as if he had something to hide. She had to know what Left Minister Konoe had discovered here, because this represented her only chance to solve Sano’s murder. But how could she, a woman alone, find out the secrets of the house?
Reiko hurried to the gate of the house behind Lord Ibe’s and knocked. A maid answered. “Yes, madam?”
“Excuse me,” Reiko said, arranging her face in an apologetic smile, “but I wonder if I could use your place of relief?” This was the polite term for the privy. “I’m sorry to bother you, but it’s an emergency…”
“Yes, of course.” The maid smiled back, eager to help a lady in need. “Come this way.”
She led Reiko around the house, into a narrow backyard that contained a fireproof storehouse and a privy shed.
“Thank you, you’re so kind.” Feigning casual interest, Reiko pointed at the daimyo’s house and said, “Who lives over there?”
“Some men… I don’t know who they are.”
“How many?”
Puzzled, the maid shook her head. “They keep to themselves.” She opened the privy door. “If you need anything, just call.”
“Many thanks.” Reiko went into the privy, waited until the maid was gone, then came out again. She surveyed the yard. Along the fence lay rakes, baskets, urns, a wooden barrel. Quietly Reiko overturned the barrel, stood on it, and peered over the fence. She saw a yard similar to the one she was in, with a storehouse and privy. Wooden bars shielded the back windows of Lord Ibe’s house. As Reiko watched, the door opened, and a muscular man dressed in a loincloth emerged. His body was covered with tattoos, a mark of the gangster class. Leaving the door ajar, he went into the privy.
That open door exerted a powerful, tempting pull on Reiko. Spurning caution, she started to climb the fence. When her long, full robe hindered her, she impatiently tied the skirts around her hips. She eased herself down on the other side, then tiptoed across Lord Ibe’s yard. The presence of a gangster and a peasant ruffian in a daimyo’s house signaled trouble, and Reiko had no doubt that the left minister’s notes referred to their activities. Peeking in the back door, she saw a dim, vacant corridor with rooms opening off it. She glanced toward the privy. Grunts issued from the man inside. Reiko slipped through the door of the house and stood with her back pressed against the wall. Hearing male voices, she tensed.
Footsteps creaked above the ceiling: The men were upstairs. Even armed with a dagger, Reiko had no desire to confront them alone. She’d thought that grief had put her beyond caring what happened to her, but now she regretted her impulsiveness; it was all too clear what men would do to a young female trespasser. She wanted to leave, but then she heard footsteps behind her, outside: The gangster was coming.
Reiko darted down the corridor and through the nearest door, into a storeroom crammed with boxes. Holding her breath, she waited until the man walked past. Planks squeaked as the gangster mounted the stairs. A bitter odor caught Reiko’s attention. She looked around, and when her eyes adjusted to the dimness, she saw wall racks full of spears, swords, and bows. Stacked wooden chests almost covered the floor. Curious now, Reiko lifted a lid. She found a suit of armor.
Uneasiness stirred within her. The odor grew stronger as she moved toward the door leading into the adjacent room. It held more chests. Reiko opened one, and her heart lurched. Inside lay a cache of arquebuses-long, tubular steel guns. Barrels, round wooden boxes, and square wicker baskets stood nearby. When Reiko pried the lid off a barrel, the smell billowed up into her face, smoky and acrid. She dipped a finger into fine black granules. Though she’d never seen gunpowder before, she knew this must be it. In the boxes she found spherical iron bullets. The baskets contained arrows. Reiko wouldn’t have been surprised to find swords and spears in a daimyo’s house, though not in such huge quantity. And guns were reserved for the sole use of the Tokugawa, but she’d just discovered enough weapons and ammunition to equip a small army.
The implications of the discovery stunned and enlightened Reiko. Left Minister Konoe must have watched men gathering at the house, bringing the arsenal. Surely this activity was the object of the surveillance mentioned in his notes. If Reiko was correct about the purpose of the weapons, then here was a secret that constituted the true motive for Konoe’s murder.
Reiko hastened to the door, looked cautiously, and saw no one. Even though the temptation to flee was overpowering, she forced herself to move down the corridor, toward a flight of stairs that led to the second story. The voices sounded louder; Reiko discerned at least three different men speaking. Slowly she ascended the stairs, easing her weight down on the creaky planks. Fear nauseated her, and the sweat on her skin turned cold; she held herself rigid, fighting the sickness. Telling herself she must be strong for Sano, she climbed higher and saw another empty corridor that extended past more doors. The voices came from the second room on the right. Tiptoeing up the last steps, Reiko emerged into hot, stuffy air thick with tobacco smoke. Muddy daylight filtered through the balcony blinds and the paper walls of the corridor. Reiko crept to the doorway of the second room and listened.
“You shouldn’t have been so rude,” said a young man’s worried voice. “You made her suspicious.”
There were murmurs of agreement. Then another man spoke with defensive belligerence: “Who cares what some stupid woman thinks?”
Reiko recognized the voice of the fellow at the gate. “She’s probably just some whore that Lord Ibe uses when he’s in town, and that’s how she knows this is his house. Anyway, she’s gone.”
“You should never open the gate without looking to see who’s there, Gorobei-san,” another man said in cultured Miyako speech.
“I thought it was Ikeda, with another load of weapons,” Gorobei said sullenly. 'I already said I was sorry.”
“I am afraid that this matter is far from done. You know how whores gossip. What if that one has clients in the bakufu and tells them there’s something funny going on here? They could send troops to raid us.”
“They won’t bother,” said a different voice. “Even if they believe her, those bakufu bureaucrats are lazy.”
“It was a mistake to use our master’s place, even though he won’t be back until winter,” fretted the first man.
“Well, where else could we go that’s big enough, private enough, and right in town?”
These two must be Lord Ibe’s retainers, assigned to guard the property, Reiko realized. Instead, they’d taken advantage of his absence by turning the house into an armed fort.
“We shouldn’t be doing this, it’s too dangerous.”
“I’m sick of your whining. Shut up!”
The man with the cultured voice said, “We’ve no more time for argument. We must figure out what to do so that Gorobei’s carelessness won’t jeopardize our mission.”
The nature of that mission seemed obvious to Reiko. The conspirators were planning a military assault. She didn’t think it involved feuding peasant gangs; that wouldn’t have required illegal weapons, or interested the
