had reversed and it was she telling her story of tragedy to Lady Matsumae. She stammered, “May I ask your daughter’s name?”
“Nobuko.” Lady Matsumae lingered on the word as if it were a spell that could resurrect the dead.
“She was such a beautiful little girl,” said one of the ladies-in-waiting.
Yesterday Reiko hadn’t paid them much attention and they’d seemed identical. She’d forgotten their names, but now she noticed that they were in fact very different in appearance. The one who’d spoken was as slender as a bamboo rod, intelligent of expression, her movements precise as she ground more ink for Lady Matsumae.
“And so good and charming,” twittered the lady who mixed the ink with water. She had a rounded figure and a sweet, vacuous face like a pansy.
“Nobuko was very accomplished,” said the third. Sitting idle, nearest to Lady Matsumae, she had a strong, thick build and features. If she shaved her crown and wore a suit of armor, she could pass for a soldier.
“She played the samisen, wrote poetry, and embroidered. Her honorable mother brought her up as well as any young lady in Edo.”
“It was nothing,” Lady Matsumae murmured as she set aside her finished calligraphy and started a fresh page. “She was just an ordinary girl.”
Despite this obligatory disclaimer, she smiled, her spirits lifted by the praise. Then she saddened again. “The climate in Ezogashima is very harsh on children. Last winter Nobuko took ill. The fever and cough wouldn’t go away. She lost all her appetite.” Lady Matsumae frowned over her writing. “Even though the physician did his best to cure her, it was no use. Soon she was too weak to get out of bed.”
Each spurt of pain Lady Matsumae vented stabbed a bleeding wound in Reiko’s heart.
“When spring came,” Lady Matsumae said, “Nobuko seemed to rally. The cough wasn’t as bad. She ate; she grew stronger. But then-‘
A long, peculiar hush fell upon Lady Matsumae. She trembled as if possessed by emotions that threatened to shatter her. She whispered, “I held Nobuko in my arms as her spirit passed from this world to the next. I said good-bye to her, and I prayed that we will be reunited when I die.”
Her hand gripped the brush, which splattered ink droplets. Reiko felt as though it were her own blood staining the white paper.
Lady Matsumae scrawled on page after page, writing with manic intensity, then said to Lilac, “I’m ready.”
Lilac removed the iron grating from atop the brazier. Lady Matsumae picked up a page and dropped it in.
You’re burning your writing?“ Reiko said, startled.
“It isn’t writing.”
Lady Matsumae held up the other pages for Reiko to see before feeding each one to the fire. They were rough, unskillfully drawn sketches-a kimono printed with flowers, a little house, a pair of sandals, a fan, and a baby doll. “Here are some things for you, my dearest,” Lady Matsumae murmured. “Your mother loves you.”
The fire curled and blackened the pages; smoke swirled heavenward. Lady Matsumae was following the age-old custom of sending gifts to the spirits of the dead. The elaborate miniature wooden models usually burned must not be available here. Reiko saw herself as an old woman, sending toy swords and horses to a son who’d never lived to grow up, whose death she’d never ceased mourning. She couldn’t bear this conversation any longer. She had to change the subject, get the information she needed, then leave.
“There’s something else I should beg your pardon for,” she said. “Please excuse me for interfering between you and the Ezo woman yesterday.” Although she didn’t regret it, especially now that Wente was her friend, she pretended she did and said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t understand.”
Some of the initial hostility crept back into Lady Matsumae’s expression. “And you think you do now?”
The temperature in the room seemed to drop below freezing. The ladies-in-waiting eyed Reiko with reproach. Lilac flashed Reiko a warning glance.
“Two days on Ezogashima, and already you are an expert,” Lady Matsumae said disdainfully. “That’s the same mistake outsiders always make. They believe they know about the ways of this place when they don’t at all.”
Her antagonism roused Reiko’s own ire, like sparks from flint striking tinder. Lady Matsumae knew the pain of losing a child, yet wouldn’t help another mother save hers. Dropping the social niceties, Reiko said, “What do you have against the Ezo concubines?”
“They’re ugly and grotesque. Those horrible tattoos! And they re dirty.” Lady Matsumae scoured her brush with a sponge. “They smell.
“They carry diseases,” said the lady-in-waiting that Reiko thought of as Lady Smart. “My husband got one from his Ezo concubine. He gave it to me. That’s why I’m barren.”
“They’re sorceresses,” said Lady Pansy. “They cast evil spells that-”
The mannish Lady Soldier cleared her throat. Lady Pansy shut her mouth at once. She sneaked a frightened glance at Lady Matsumae. Reiko understood that Lady Pansy had trespassed on another sensitive area. Communication in Ezogashima was as fraught with pitfalls as a pond covered with thin ice.
“Now that you’re in Ezogashima, you’d better watch out,” Lady Soldier told Reiko. “If your man lies with a native girl, you could give birth to a monster.”
“That’s all you need to know about the Ezo,” Lady Matsumae said crisply. “My advice to you is to stay far away from them.”
Reiko felt a kind of abhorrence toward these women that she’d never felt before. Their hatred of the Ezo seemed different from ordinary prejudice against Japanese people from lower classes. It was a blanket castigation of an entire race, based on dubious notions. Lady Matsumae’s attitude didn’t endear her to Reiko, particularly in view of the fact that an Ezo woman had helped Reiko while Lady Matsumae had refused.
Emboldened by anger, Reiko deliberately raised the issue that she figured was the most sensitive of all. “I heard that an Ezo woman was recently murdered,” she said. “Who was she?”
The ladies-in-waiting sucked air through their pursed lips. Lilac waggled her eyebrows at Reiko and mouthed,
“Did you know her?” Reiko said.
“I could hardly not have known her.” Lady Matsumae worked so hard to remove the ink from her brush that she frayed its hairs. “She was my husband’s mistress.” Her voice was as frosty as the Ezogashima winter. “He gave Tekare chambers next to mine. He treated her as if she was his wife. She thought she was the lady of this castle instead of me!”
“She did whatever she pleased,” Lady Pansy said, eager to weigh in on this interesting topic now that it had been broached. “She had parties in her room, with the other Ezo women, late at night. When Lady Matsumae told her the noise was keeping her awake, she just laughed.”
“Lord Matsumae gave Tekare lots of things, but it wasn’t enough for her,” Lady Smart said. “She helped herself to Lady Matsumae’s best clothes.”
“There’s a pavilion in the garden where Lady Matsumae likes to sit when the weather’s nice,” Lady Soldier said. “Tekare took it over for herself. When Lady Matsumae ordered her to move, she wouldn’t.”
“I scolded her. I told her she had to learn her place and show me some respect. I slapped her face. And she slapped me back!” Lady Matsumae touched her cheek as if she could still feel the blow. “The nerve of that witch!”
Her attendants murmured in disapproval. “Normally I handle problems in the women’s quarters myself,” she said, “but I was helpless against Tekare. So I went to my husband. I told him how badly she was treating me, but he took her side. He said no one was allowed to interfere with anything she wanted or anything she did. Then he beat me and threw me outside in the rain. He said I could stay there until I was ready to accept the way things were. He warned me that if I ever laid a hand on Tekare again, he would divorce me and send me back to my family in disgrace.”
Lady Matsumae shuddered at this outrage. She laid down her brush and wrapped her arms around herself, as if to keep from falling apart. “Well, I spent three days outside. My husband never relented.”
