arousal.
“But if you don’t help me, I’ll lose my fight against Lord Matsudaira. He’ll have my head as his war trophy. You and I will be separated.”
Sadness tinged the chamberlain’s voice. “You wouldn’t want that to happen… would you?”
He eased himself so close beside her that she could hear him breathing, smell his masculine scent of tobacco smoke and wintergreen hair oil. The nearness of him raised a hot, tumultuous fever in her blood. He stroked her cheek.
A groan escaped Lady Yanagisawa as her skin burned under the caress that wandered over her lips, trailed down her throat. He loosened her robes. His intense, luminous gaze and smile transfixed her as he caressed her breasts. Her nipples hardened and tingled. She cried out with a pleasure and a keenness of desire she’d never known before. Now the chamberlain lowered her to the floor and reclined at her side. His hand moved under her skirts, up her thigh, sending shivers through her. His fingers caressed her moist, slick womanhood. She heard herself moaning while her pleasure mounted toward heights she’d never scaled. And he alone could send her to those heights.
“If you love me, you’ll help me,” the chamberlain murmured, his breath like fire upon her ear.
Lady Yanagisawa heard his meaning that he would never love her unless she gave in. “Please,” she whimpered, begging him to love her without conditions attached. Ravenous for him, she clutched at his surcoat and pulled him toward her.
The chamberlain pried her fingers off him, sat back on his heels. “Not until you’ve done what I’ve asked.”
Beautiful and adamant, alluring and cruel, he loomed over Lady Yanagisawa. Her desperate need for him shattered the remains of her will. If she wanted him to fulfill her lusts and dreams, she had no choice but to capitulate. Sobs of terror and surrender convulsed Lady Yanagisawa.
“Yes,” she cried, “I’ll do it.”
17
An hour’s brisk ride out of Edo brought Hirata to Asakusa Kannon Temple. Located near the Sumida River and on a main highway, the Buddhist temple was a popular attraction surrounded by inns, shops, and teahouses. The famous pagoda raised its five scarlet tiers and golden spire into the frigid blue afternoon sky. Bells pealed as Hirata dismounted and left his horse outside the temple grounds. He joined the crowds streaming through the main gate. By the time he entered the precinct, the joy of escaping his watchdogs had completely dissipated.
They would be furious. If only he’d just put up with them instead of running away like a bad boy playing a game! This murder case was no child’s play. Hirata didn’t want to think what might happen to him on account of his rash impulses. He decided that it was too late for regrets, and he would face the consequences when necessary. For now, he must concentrate on investigating Senior Elder Makino’s widow, Agemaki.
Inside the temple precinct, Buddhist and Shinto religion coexisted with commerce. Market stalls decorated with colorful lanterns and banners lined the main avenue. Vendors sold food, plants, medicines, umbrellas, toys, and rosaries. People haggled over prices; money changed hands. Roving entertainers performed puppet shows and acrobatics; monks begged alms. Fragrant incense smoke drifted over the crowds.
Hirata walked past the main hall to Asakusa Jinja Shrine, dedicated to the men whose discovery of a statue of Kannon, Buddhist goddess of mercy, had led to the founding of the temple. Painted woodwork and sculpture embellished the building. Sacred doves cooed from the eaves. Shinto shrine attendants dressed in white, and gray- robed Buddhist nuns with their heads shaved bald, flocked outside the shrine, accosting male pilgrims. Their shrill voices besieged the men with offers of their favors. At Asakusa Kannon, religion also coexisted with sex. Many nuns and shrine attendants lived by selling themselves as well as by begging alms, Hirata knew. Although the law forbade prostitution outside the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter, enforcement was lax in the temple districts.
A young nun, gawky and plain, rushed up to Hirata, caught hold of his arm, and said, “Do you want some company, master?”
A shrine attendant grabbed Hirata by his other arm. “Come with me,” she wheedled. “We can have fun together.” She was pretty, with long, streaming hair and a winsome smile.
“I saw him first,” the nun said, scowling at her rival. “Go away.”
The women began squabbling over Hirata, tugging him back and forth, cursing each other. An elderly, bald priest dressed in a gray cloak over his saffron robes, leaning on a cane, hobbled up to them.
“Are these girls bothering you, master?” he asked Hirata. He spoke in a loud voice that indicated he was deaf. Cloudy eyes denoted failing vision. The women let go of Hirata; they stood demure and respectful in their superior’s presence.
“Not at all,” Hirata said, then introduced himself. “I’m seeking information on a woman named Agemaki. She was once a shrine attendant here. She was the wife of Senior Elder Makino, whose murder I’m investigating.”
“I knew her. I can tell you all about her,” the pretty shrine attendant said with a sly, knowing look.
“Me, too,” the plain nun hurried to say.
The priest appeared not to hear them. “I am the caretaker of Asakusa Jinja Shrine,” he told Hirata. “I knew Agemaki quite well. Perhaps you’d like to come in from the cold and have some refreshment while we talk?”
“Yes, I would, thank you.”
Hirata, who also wanted to hear what the women had to say, was about to ask them to wait for him, when the priest said to the shrine attendant, “Come along, Yuriko-san, and help me serve our guest.”
Yuriko flashed a triumphant look at the disappointed nun. She trailed Hirata and the priest to the clergy residence, a rustic plaster and timber building secluded in a garden. The priest seated Hirata and himself in an austere chamber whose alcove held a vase of winter branches and a religious poem written on a scroll. Yuriko heated an urn of water on a hearth sunk in the floor. The tranquil atmosphere muted the bustle of the temple grounds outside.
“Agemaki was born and raised at Asakusa Kannon,” the priest said. “Her mother was a shrine attendant, too. She died many years ago. She was a very dedicated religious woman.”
Yuriko, kneeling at the hearth, spoke to Hirata in a low, covert tone. “Don’t believe it. Agemaki’s mother was a beggar and a whore, just like most of us. She came to Asakusa Kannon because the temple gives us a place to live and food to eat, and the law doesn’t bother us here.”
There were two different versions of the history of Senior Elder Makino’s wife, Hirata realized. Thanks to the priest’s deafness, he was going to hear both. “Who is Agemaki’s father?” Hirata asked the priest.
“He was a wealthy samurai official. He died in a fire the year she was born. His death left her and her mother to fend for themselves.”
“That’s what Agemaki told everyone,” Yuriko muttered. “She liked to put on airs. But everyone here knows her father was a ronin who spent a few months with her mother, then left town, never to be seen again.” Casting a fond, apologetic glance at the priest, Yuriko added, “He always thinks the best of people.”
“Agemaki grew up to be as beautiful as her mother,” the priest continued, oblivious. “She followed in her footsteps.”
“Indeed she did,” Yuriko said while measuring powdered green tea into porcelain bowls. “She was popular with the men. Sometimes she had seven or eight customers a day.”
Hirata reflected that Senior Elder Makino had displayed a low taste in women for a man of his high rank. First his concubine had proved to be a former prostitute; now, his wife. Had his low taste-and dubious choice of female companions-led to his death?
“Agemaki had a rare, genuine spiritual calling,” the priest said. “She seemed not quite of this world.”
Yuriko snorted as she poured hot water into the tea bowls. “That holy, mysterious manner was just an act. Some men like that. It excites them. But we girls knew the real Agemaki. She was crude and selfish. She loved money and the things it bought.”
Hirata remembered the widow he’d seen. Had her refined dignity, her grief for her murdered husband, and her desire to help apprehend his killer also been an act? “Agemaki left the temple to marry Senior Elder Makino,” Hirata reminded the priest. “That doesn’t suggest a very strong religious faith.”
The priest smiled gently and spread his hands. “When a man as important as the senior elder wanted her,
