breaths. This was a mere case of two commoners accused of conspiring to kill another. Fujio and Momoko were powerless to resist, and the bakufu didn’t care what happened to them.
From outdoors came shrill yells, and thumps against the wall of the building. Magistrate Aoki ignored the sounds. “However,” he intoned, “Fujio couldn’t manage his crime by himself. He had to perform at the ageya that night. He couldn’t risk getting caught helping his father-in-law’s courtesan run away because his secret would come out. And performing would give him an alibi for Wisteria’s disappearance. So he engaged an accomplice.”
The magistrate gestured his wizened hand at Momoko. “This yarite was jealous of Wisteria and hated her. Momoko was also a friend of Fujio, and when he told her his plan, she was glad to help him. While he sang at the party, Momoko crept upstairs to the room where Wisteria was entertaining Lord Mitsuyoshi. The hour was late, and the lovers had been drinking. Momoko arrived to find them both asleep-or so she thought, until she saw that Mitsuyoshi was dead. Treasury Minister Nitta had sneaked into the room and stabbed him while Wisteria slept.”
Momoko whimpered, shivering; her chains clinked.
“She was horrified,” Magistrate Aoki said, “but she went through with Fujio’s plan. She awakened Wisteria and dressed the frightened courtesan in a hooded cloak she’d brought to disguise Wisteria. Then Momoko hurried Wisteria downstairs, out the back door, and through the streets to the gate.”
Shrieks erupted outside the courtroom. The door shuddered under furious banging. On the far side of it, female voices pleaded; male voices threatened. The audience and guards turned in alarm.
“What is that infernal racket?” Magistrate Aoki demanded.
“It seems that the women from the crowd outside have gotten into the building,” one of his secretaries said, “and they want to see the accused man.”
Fujio looked over his shoulder and gave Hirata a rueful but proud grin: Even when he was facing certain doom, he enjoyed his celebrity.
“Well, they shan’t interrupt this trial.” Magistrate Aoki pitched his voice over the rising din: “Momoko bribed the gate sentries with money Fujio had given her. They let Wisteria out of the pleasure quarter, and she rode away in the palanquin. Then Momoko rushed back to the ageya. She told Fujio that Wisteria had escaped safely, but Lord Mitsuyoshi had been murdered. She was terrified that she would be blamed because her hairpin was the weapon.
“Fujio cleverly told Momoko to go back upstairs, then come running down, screaming that Lord Mitsuyoshi was dead, as if she’d just discovered the body. Momoko was later arrested, but Fujio had evaded suspicion and was free to do as he pleased. He traveled to the cottage where Wisteria was hiding. He beat her to death and left her body to rot.”
The story was plausible enough that Fujio and Momoko might really have contrived the murder as Magistrate Aoki claimed. Yet Hirata wouldn’t believe it without proof that Aoki hadn’t invented the whole tale.
Now the magistrate gazed sternly at the accused pair. “Have you anything to say in your own defense?”
Hirata lost all tolerance for this travesty of justice. Before Fujio or Momoko could answer, he rose and strode toward the dais. Everyone stared. “Honorable Magistrate, I’m stopping this trial until you show some real evidence that these people did what you say they did,” he said.
Magistrate Aoki’s eyes glittered like dark, flinty pebbles as he gave Hirata a contemptuous look. “Your master tried to stop one of my trials. You won’t succeed where he failed. And unless you want a reputation for interfering with the law, you’d best keep quiet.”
The door burst open. A horde of women stampeded into the courtroom. “Fujio-san! Fujio-san!” they screamed. Possessed by hysteria and ardor, samurai ladies, nuns, merchant women, and servant girls rushed toward the hokan. Fujio waved and beamed at them.
“Stop!” Magistrate Aoki shouted at the women, then ordered the guards, “Get them out of here!”
The guards pushed back the mob. Women moaned, struggled, tore their hair, and wept. They overwhelmed the guards and fell to their knees, occupying every empty space on the courtroom floor. Magistrate Aoki grimaced in disgust, then returned his attention to Fujio and Momoko.
“Have you anything to say in your own defense?” he asked, clearly determined to ignore the interruption.
“I didn’t do it!” Momoko’s desperate wail rose over the noise.
Hirata, still standing near the dais, watched with horror and pity as the yarite simpered at Magistrate Aoki. Fluttering her eyelids, she wriggled her body in a grotesque attempt to seduce, and cried, “Please believe that I’m innocent!”
The magistrate’s flinty gaze was merciless. “I pronounce you guilty as an accomplice to murder. You are sentenced to death.”
Guards bore the weeping, swooning Momoko through the crowd, out of the room. Magistrate Aoki addressed Fujio: “What do you say for yourself?”
The room fell silent as the women waited for their idol to speak. Fujio said in a clear, ringing voice, “I confess.”
An uproar of screaming and weeping burst from the women. Young girls beat their heads on the floor; the nuns chanted prayers. Magistrate Aoki yelled orders for the women to be quiet and the guards to remove them. Fujio struggled to his feet, weighted by the shackles. Slowly he turned toward the crowd. His noble, somber mien quieted the women. Tearful adoration shone on their faces as they beheld him.
“Thank you, Hirata-san, for trying to help me,” Fujio said. “Thank you, honorable ladies, for your favor. But I know when I’m beaten, and I’d like to leave this life with grace. Therefore, I will sing my confession in a song I’ve written.”
He looked to Magistrate Aoki, who frowned but nodded. Inhaling deeply, Fujio donned a look of intense concentration. He paused on the verge of the performance of his career, as suspense hushed the court. Then he sang in a stirring, melancholy voice:
“Love is a garden of many flowers,
Where the rose, peony, and iris unfurl their petals to the sun.
My life was a garden of beautiful women,
Which I wandered to my heart’s delight, sampling every blossom.
But in the garden hides a flower of death,
Whose sap is poison, and its thorns sharp as knives.
Into my life came the Lady Wisteria
Whose charms lured me to my downfall.
We loved each other with a passion as hot and bountiful as summer
Until anger and hatred poisoned our paradise.
I bruised the soft petals of her skin, I crushed the fragile stem of her body, I drew the sap of her blood,
Until my Wisteria lay dead before me.
Now love is an empty wasteland,
Where harsh winds blow over weeds, rocks, and bones.
My life is a road to the execution ground,
Which I walk in hopeless misery toward my death.”
Hands upturned, body slumped, and his expression tragic, Fujio let his last note fade in the silence. Then a thunder of cheers, applause, and sobbing burst from the women. Fujio bowed. Magistrate Aoki looked irritated by the spectacle.
“I pronounce you guilty of murder and sentence you to death by decapitation,” he said.
As the guards escorted Fujio out of the room, the women followed him in a wailing, sobbing procession.
Hirata dreaded telling Sano that their last two suspects would be dead before they could resume the investigation.
27
