wiping the makeup off Agemaki’s and Okitsu’s faces, preparing to demonstrate the new cosmetics. Agemaki watched in the mirror as their naked features emerged. Her skin was sallow and dry, faintly sunken beneath the cheekbones. But Okitsu’s youthful complexion was fair, smooth, and perfect. Okitsu smiled at their reflections while Agemaki seethed with jealousy.
Throughout her marriage to Senior Elder Makino, she’d lived in fear that he would tire of her, for he’d been a man who needed novelty to satisfy his pride and keep him aroused. And he’d preferred his women young. Agemaki had never loved Makino, but she’d loved the status that marriage to him conferred upon her, and she’d loved the things his money bought. She’d labored to preserve the youth and beauty that had attracted her husband, but Makino had begun seeking amusement in the pleasure quarters instead of her bedchamber. Her attempts to entice him back all failed. On the day Okitsu became his concubine, Agemaki knew her days as his wife were numbered; she had no family or political connections to bind Makino to her. But she’d refused to give up her husband without a fight.
Now the proprietor daubed fresh makeup onto her face. “This is the finest, whitest rice powder, mixed with the best-quality camellia wax,” he said.
Okitsu, receiving the same treatment from the clerk, said, “Look, Agemaki-san, it almost hides those terrible wrinkles around your eyes and mouth.”
Offense at the careless insult stoked the jealous rage in Agemaki. She could almost see flames leaping in the eyes of her reflection. Not for the first time she wanted to smack Okitsu. But instead Agemaki smiled. “It’s too bad that makeup can’t hide rudeness or stupidity,” she said in the sweetest voice she could manage.
Okitsu laughed in delight as if Agemaki had made a joke, unaware of the barb directed at her. Agemaki never permitted herself to vent her emotions toward Okitsu in any other way. Because she’d known that making ugly scenes would only disgust her husband, she’d graciously welcomed Okitsu into their home. She’d befriended the girl and suffered silently as she listened to her husband play sexual games with Okitsu and that despicable actor. Most important, she’d never given the slightest hint that she hated Makino for shunning her in favor of his new woman and feared he would cast her off. She’d bided her time, scheming how to take her revenge on him. Now her self- control was benefiting her in a way she’d not foreseen.
The shogun’s sosakan-sama had questioned her after the murder because he obviously thought she might have killed her husband. Yet she needn’t fear him, even though she’d been in the private chambers that night and she was the wife supplanted by a younger rival. Her behavior testified that she didn’t mind about Okitsu. Nobody could tell the sosakan-sama otherwise. All she need do to prevent his suspicion was continue acting the demure, grieving widow.
The proprietor and clerk painted Agemaki’s and Okitsu’s cheeks and lips with rouge. “What do you think?” said the proprietor.
Okitsu viewed her reflection and gasped with delight. “I look beautiful!” Glancing at Agemaki, she said with an unflattering lack of enthusiasm, “You look better than usual.”
Agemaki managed a grim smile.
“We have new potions for softening calluses,” said the proprietor. “Would you like to try them?” When the women agreed, he immersed their hands and feet in basins of fragrant oil. Then he and the clerk left to attend other customers.
“I’m so worried about Koheiji and me,” Okitsu said.
Agemaki prepared to endure another tiresome discussion about Okitsu’s romantic affairs. She always marveled that the girl would talk about them to anyone willing to listen. She wasn’t as discreet as Agemaki, who knew that she must not say anything that would put her in a bad light.
“I love Koheiji so much,” Okitsu said. “Sometimes I think he loves me, and other times I’m not so sure.” Her anxious gaze met Agemaki’s eyes in the mirror. “Do you think he loves me?”
“I think he loves you as much as it’s possible for him to love anyone.” Besides himself, the conceited oaf, thought Agemaki. “You give him such pleasure.” And that’s the only reason he wants a whining, clinging nuisance like you. “Accept what he’s capable of giving. Don’t expect more.” Because if you nag him, you’ll lose him, and you’ll cry while I laugh.
A breathy sigh issued from Okitsu. “I guess you’re right,” she said doubtfully. “But do you think he’ll marry me?
“If you make a special pilgrimage to Kannei Temple, maybe he will.” And maybe monkeys will fly.
Reassured, Okitsu smiled. “I’m so glad I have you to talk to. You’re so wise, even though it must be hard for you to understand what it’s like to be young and in love.”
Agemaki gritted her teeth while her hands curled into claws in the basin of oil. She envisioned bloody red scratches on Okitsu’s face. “Someday you’ll understand that you don’t know as much as you thought you did when you were young. If you live long enough.”
Blind to Agemaki’s implicit threat, Okitsu said, “Oh, I forgot-you have experienced love. You were in love with Senior Elder Makino. But I can’t imagine how you could love that mean, ugly old man.” Okitsu gave an exaggerated shudder of revulsion.
Agemaki wished the sosakan-sama were here to see how much Okitsu had hated Makino. He would arrest Okitsu for the murder, which would delight Agemaki. “I loved my husband for his excellent qualities,” Agemaki said. Money and power excused most evils in a man.
Okitsu looked unconvinced. “You didn’t mind when I came along. You’ve always been so nice to me. If some woman had a man I wanted, I would hate her. I think I’d kill her.”
Agemaki remembered slipping poisonous herbs into an old lady’s tea. “A man can always get more women,” she said. “One can’t do away with all of one’s competition.” She knew there were people who suspected that she’d killed Makino’s first wife. If not for fear that another mysterious death of a woman in his household would get her in trouble, Agemaki would have dispatched Okitsu to the netherworld a long time ago.
“But weren’t you furious at Makino? I’ve never seen him pay you any attention. He didn’t want you; he wanted me.” Okitsu spoke as though it were an indisputable truth that any man in his right mind would prefer her to Agemaki. Completely insensitive to Agemaki’s feelings, she said, “If a man treated me like that, I’d kill him.”
Resentment stung Agemaki. “If Koheiji did, you would fall on your knees to welcome him back,” she said.
Okitsu gazed at her in wounded surprise. “I wouldn’t!”
Agemaki thought perhaps she’d gone too far and revealed too much of her true feelings to Okitsu. “I’m just teasing you,” she said with a kindly smile. “But let us imagine that Koheiji did betray you. Then you would do better to kill him than kill all your rivals. You’d have a better chance of getting away with one murder than with many. And to punish him would be more satisfying than to waste your vengeance on people who don’t matter as much.”
The night Senior Elder Makino died, Agemaki had exulted in having him helpless at her mercy. Such savage joy of venting her rage at him for the humiliation he’d caused her! In some ways his death hadn’t been as good as she’d hoped, but she’d decided that things had turned out for the best.
“No matter what Koheiji did to me or how badly I felt toward him, I would miss him if he died,” said Okitsu.
“A woman does tend to miss a man,” Agemaki said, “especially when he’s given her everything she has in the world.” She thought fondly of the big estate in Edo Castle, the servants, the expensive clothes. “But the company of a man is worth much less than what he leaves behind after he has gone to his grave.” Agemaki cherished the money Makino had left her. “And when a woman has managed to secure her future, she has no need of any man-or fear of any rival. No one can take away what’s rightfully hers.”
Gone was her privileged status as the senior elder’s wife, but luckily he’d died before he’d divorced Agemaki, remarried, and reneged on the inheritance he’d promised her. Agemaki was glad she’d behaved with shrewdness rather than follow her emotions. And as long as she continued thus, she wouldn’t be punished for Makino’s murder. Everything would be fine.
Reiko hovered outside the private room of the Yanagiya, peering through a gap in the curtains at Agemaki and Okitsu, astounded by what she’d heard.
None of the words Agemaki had spoken showed her to be anything but the decent, honorable widow that Sano had described, the wife who’d gladly tolerated her beloved husband’s infidelity. But Reiko had perceived her subtle expressions and the undertones in her voice, even though Okitsu was apparently oblivious to them. They painted Agemaki as a jealous, deceitful woman who hated Okitsu for taking her place in Makino’s affections and
