“How bad is it?” Gizaemon asked. He and the men with him seemed less concerned about Sano’s fate than worried about how it would affect their own.
“Not too deep,” the physician said. “The honorable chamberlain was fortunate. His coat protected him. The wound should heal perfectly.”
Sano was relieved that his sword arm wouldn’t suffer permanent damage.
“But it needs to be sewn up.” The physician threaded a horse-tail hair through a long, sharp steel needle.
The sight opened a pit of dread in Sano’s stomach. “Fine. Do it,” he said, trying to act as though he didn’t care.
“This must be the work of an intruder who broke into the castle.” Gizaemon turned a fierce stare on Captain Okimoto and the other two guards.
“No one got past us, I swear,” Okimoto protested.
“How would you know?” Sano said. “You were too busy setting the stable on fire to notice a whole army of invading assassins.”
“Go search the whole castle,” Gizaemon told the men.
After they’d left, Sano said, “I doubt they’ll find any outsiders. I don’t think I was attacked by one.”
“Then who did attack you?” Gizaemon said. “And why?”
Sano couldn’t answer the first question, but he had a hunch about the second. “Maybe because of my investigation.”
The physician produced a ceramic jar of brownish green jelly, which he dabbed around Sano’s cut. It smelled a little like mint, but acrid and bitter.
“What’s that?” Sano asked suspiciously.
“Native balm,” the physician said. “To dull the pain.”
Sano said to Gizaemon, “My guess is that whoever threw the knife at me doesn’t want me to find out who murdered Tekare, and tried to kill me because he’s afraid I’m getting too close to the truth.”
Gizaemon’s squinty eyes narrowed further at Sano. “Are you getting close? What have you learned?”
“That the Ezo could have killed Tekare.”
“Well, that’s what I told you. But then some people have to figure things out for themselves. I’ll tell Lord Matsumae. He’ll be eager to get his hands on those bastards.”
The needle pierced Sano’s skin. It didn’t hurt as much as he’d expected, maybe due to the balm, but he had to steel himself against the pain. “Wait,” he said, alarmed by Gizaemon’s premature rush to judgment. “The Ezo had the opportunity to set the spring-bow, but that doesn’t mean they did. When I spoke to them, I wasn’t convinced they’re guilty. And now there’s a good indication they’re not.”
“Oh? What?”
In and out went the needle. The thread tugged Sano’s flesh with every stitch. Sano couldn’t look. “If it was the killer who attacked me, that clears the Ezo.” Sano drew deep, controlled breaths, fighting the waves of faintness that washed over him. “They weren’t in the castle at the time. You sent them back to their camp. If my theory is correct, then they weren’t involved in Tekare’s murder.” Then who was?“
Sano heard skepticism in Gizaemon’s voice. His body flinched involuntarily as the physician sewed. “I’ll need to question all the Matsumae retainers who were in the castle when I was attacked.”
“Our retainers?” Gizaemon scowled, both puzzled and offended. “You think one of them threw the knife?”
“They knew I was out there. Any one of them could have followed me.
The physician knotted the thread and snipped it with a razor. He bound Sano’s arm with a white cotton bandage, then left. Sano stifled a groan of relief.
“You’re saying that one of our retainers killed Tekare?” Gizaemon looked dismayed at the suggestion. “But how could they do that to Lord Matsumae? And why?”
“Those are good questions for them.” Sano paused, then said, “Also for you.”
The moment had come for the confrontation that they’d been moving toward all day. As their gazes locked, Sano felt the antagonism between him and Gizaemon turn as sharp as the needle that had stitched his wound.
“You think I did it.” Gizaemon’s tone made the phrase half question, half statement.
“Evidence against you keeps cropping up,” Sano said. “You hate the Ezo; that includes Tekare. You know all about spring-bows and native poisons.”
“So do most of the men in Ezogashima. And so what if I hate the barbarians? So do plenty other Japanese.”
“You’re constantly pointing the finger at the Ezo. What better reason than to divert me from you?”
“For your own good!” Gizaemon seemed exasperated by what he considered Sano’s foolishness. “And for the sake of my nephew. I in trying to help you solve the crime, so that he’ll get well.”
After ten years as a detective, Sano knew better than to accept at face value even such a logical explanation from a suspect. “Where were you when I was attacked?”
“Searching for your wife in the servants’ quarters. Which are across the castle grounds from where you were.”
“Was anyone with you?”
Instead of answering, Gizaemon picked up the knife from a table and examined it. The blade was about as long as his hand, attached to a short, smooth wooden handle. He turned it over, looked for markings, and said, “No identification on this. It’s not mine, and you can’t prove it is.”
“I doubt that you’d have used a weapon marked with your name.”
Gizaemon jammed a toothpick into his mouth. “I’m starting to wonder if there really was an attack on you. The troops told me they got there after it happened. We have only your word that it did.”
“Then how do you explain this?” Angry at being accused of lying, and at having the interrogation turned on him, Sano pointed to his wound.
“You could have done that to yourself. Wasn’t a fatal cut, was it? And you could have found that knife lying around someplace.”
“Why would I cut myself?” Sano said, on the defensive and more vexed than ever.
“So you could accuse me of murdering Tekare and make it look like I tried to kill you to keep you from finding out,” Gizaemon said. “But I didn’t kill Tekare. I didn’t attack you. And I don’t have to take any more accusations from you.” He called to guards outside the room: “Take Chamberlain Sano back to his quarters.” Then he bowed, insolently courteous, said “Good night,” and walked out the door.
Sano didn’t miss the fact that Gizaemon had avoided the last question he’d asked. He’d not named a witness to furnish him an alibi for the attack on Sano.
12
“What happened to you?” Hirata asked when the guards brought Sano back to the guest quarters.
As Sano explained, they huddled around the charcoal braziers with detectives Marume and Fukida and the Rat. The room grew colder with the deepening night; icy drafts puffed the mats that covered the walls. More concerned about Reiko than himself, Sano said, “Is there any news about my wife?”
“I’m sorry to say she’s still missing,” Hirata said.
A sense of helplessness threatened to drag Sano into a black whirlpool of despair. He hoped that at least the murder investigation had made progress. “Did you question the gold merchant?”
“Yes,” Hirata said. “You’ll be happy to know that he’s quite a good suspect.”
“What did you find out from him?”
“For a start, he had plenty of reason to kill Tekare. He admits he was angry at her because she left him for Lord Matsumae. Then his alibi for the night of the murder is weak.” Hirata explained: “Even if it’s true that he was at home when Tekare died, he could have set up the spring-bow in advance. Besides, he’s an odd character with a taste for death.” Hirata described the trophies Daigoro had collected. “Maybe Tekare was his latest.”
This sounded promising to Sano, but he spotted a problem. “Exactly when did you talk to the gold merchant?”
“A couple of hours ago.”
