Laura Rowland - The Perfumed Sleeve

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” Tamura said, hostile and suspicious.

“I’m a poor woman who has fallen on hard times,” Reiko said, feigning a humble commoner’s speech, desperate to conceal her true identity and purpose. “I’m here to earn my living.”

Disbelief showed on the faces around her. Yasue said, “I knew there was something not right about her. It was strange that the estate manager should hire her, because I can tell she’s never worked a day in her life.”

Koheiji said, “I remember you waited on Okitsu and me yesterday. You seemed a little too interested in us.”

“In me, too,” Agemaki said. “When she brought my meal, she tried to hang around me, even though it was obvious that I didn’t want her.”

“She must be a spy,” Tamura said.

Quiet descended. Reiko felt as if Tamura’s words had depleted all the air from the room. But at least she’d managed to learn a few things about the members of the household. Now she sensed them wondering how much she’d observed, to their detriment.

“Whose spy are you?” Tamura demanded. He seized Reiko’s chin in a painful grip, wrenching her face upward and glaring into her eyes. “Are you working for Lord Matsudaira? Did he send you to report on Senior Elder Makino’s household?”

Startled by his erroneous assumption, Reiko kept silent. His hands quickly felt along her body. He found the dagger strapped to her thigh under her skirts, tore it off, and threw it aside. A dreadful moment passed while Tamura contemplated her.

“Well, it doesn’t matter whose spy you are,” he said. “Whatever you’ve seen or heard here, you won’t be telling anyone.”

He drew the short sword at his waist. Panic shot through Reiko. He meant to kill her! Yasue grabbed her hair, tilting back her head, exposing her throat for Tamura’s blade. As Tamura advanced on her, Okitsu and Agemaki watched, their faces vacant with shock or confusion. Reiko felt her heart racing fast and hard, and the vertigo that heralded a bad spell. Through her mind flashed images of the ambush on the highway; screams echoed in her ears. Aghast that this should happen when she most needed her strength and wits, Reiko fought the evil magic. She jabbed her elbow into Yasue’s stomach. The old housekeeper grunted and let go. But even as Reiko lunged for the door, Koheiji caught her.

“Hey, Tamura-san,” he said, “how about if I have a little fun with her before you kill her?”

His cheerful voice was edged with malice. He yanked on her clothes. The flimsy cotton fabric tore, exposing her shoulders and bosom. As she struck out at him, Koheiji laughed and dodged. He seized her in a crushing embrace, grinding their bodies together. His snarling face was close to hers. As Reiko turned her head, pushed on his chest, and strained away from him, she saw the others ranged around her and Koheiji.

Okitsu pressed her knuckles to her mouth and closed her eyes. Tamura frowned in disgust but said nothing; Agemaki’s expression was blandly indifferent. Yasue’s beady eyes glittered with vicarious lust and excitement. None of them intended to stop Koheiji.

“Help!” Reiko shouted, in the desperate hope that Sano’s detectives were near and would come to her rescue.

“When you watched me with Okitsu yesterday, you wanted some of what you saw, didn’t you?” Koheiji said, panting with his effort to quell Reiko’s thrashing arms and legs. “Well, I’ll give it to you now. You can die happy.”

Reiko felt the hardness in his groin pummeling her. She dug her fingernails into his arms, but he held fast; he was too strong. The liquor on his breath and the heat of his body revolted Reiko. She screamed in terror as he forced her down on the floor. This was what she’d feared most of all-a reprise of that terrible scene in the Dragon King’s palace. The actor’s handsome, cruel face above her dissolved into the Dragon King’s strange, crazed visage. The thought of Senior Elder Makino, savagely beaten to death, flashed across Reiko’s dazed consciousness.

Had Koheiji killed Makino? Was this man ravishing her the murderer she and Sano sought?

Koheiji tore open her skirts. The panic and vertigo dizzied Reiko, weakening her as she fought him. But her instinct for survival ignited her resistance. Her wish to see her husband and child again, and her determination not to surrender to evil, infused her with new strength. She heaved forward and slammed her head into Koheiji’s face. Pain exploded through her brow. Her vision went momentarily black. Koheiji yelled, and the sound revived her. The vertigo was gone, her mind clear. She saw Koheiji recoil from her. Blood poured from his nose and mouth.

“Hey, you like to play rough?” Koheiji said, grinning and licking the blood on his swollen lips. “Well, so do I.”

As he remounted her, Reiko shoved her knee hard into his groin. He howled in agony, rolled off her, and lay curled around his injured manhood. Reiko jumped to her feet. Tamura stepped between her and the door, his expression murderous, his sword held ready to slash.

“Get her!” Yasue shrilled.

Reiko saw a charcoal brazier on the floor near her. She snatched it up and hurled it at Tamura, striking him across his knees. He staggered. Soot and live, glowing coals flew out of the brazier. Fire blackened Tamura’s robes where the coals touched them. He dropped his sword and beat his hands against himself to extinguish the flames. Reiko raced toward the door.

“Stop her!” Tamura shouted, coughing amid a cloud of smoke.

Okitsu collapsed, but Yasue and Agemaki chased Reiko. Agemaki caught her sleeve. Reiko grabbed Agemaki by the arm, whipped her around, and flung her away. Agemaki tumbled knees over head. Yasue charged at Reiko, hands spread, screeching like a crow gone berserk. Reiko picked up a lacquer tray table and bashed her across the face. The housekeeper fell, stunned. Tamura had his sword back in hand. Out the door Reiko raced.

“She’s getting away!” Koheiji cried in a strangled voice.

Reiko heard Tamura’s footsteps pounding after her as she sped down the corridor. She burst through the door and ran down the steps into the garden. Trees, shrubs, and boulders were monochrome shapes beneath the dull silver sky of late dusk. Icy rain lashed her; the cold instantly chilled the skin bared by her torn robes.

Tamura shouted for the patrol guards. He called to Reiko, “It’s no use running. You won’t get out of Edo Castle alive.”

Fortunately, Reiko didn’t need to get out of Edo Castle, only to reach her home in the official quarter, a few streets distant. Answering shouts came from the patrol guards; their hurrying footsteps drew close. Reiko dashed between buildings, around corners, groping in near darkness. Across a courtyard she spied a crooked pine tree. Behind it loomed the outer wall of the estate. Reiko launched herself up the tree’s low branches and climbed through cold, prickly needles. She crawled onto the top of the wall, lowered herself feetfirst over the outer side, then dropped down.

In the private quarters of his estate, Sano sat drinking hot tea with Hirata in his office. Outside, temple bells tolled, summoning priests, monks, and nuns to evening prayer rites; the distant gunfire subsided as darkness fell. The watchdogs had left Sano to make their reports to Lord Matsudaira and Chamberlain Yanagisawa, but their men still occupied the house. Through open partitions that divided several rooms adjoining his office, Sano watched the maids feeding Masahiro his supper in the nursery. Two thugs sat near Masahiro, guarding him. The little boy didn’t chatter or laugh as usual; he and the maids were quietly somber. Detectives stood in the corridor, ready to protect the household from the unwanted guests. An ominous gloom infected the estate.