Laura Rowland - The Fire Kimono

“I’m sorry to say I have no idea. My informant doesn’t know.” Asukai added, “But it’s someone who has free run of Chamberlain Sano’s domain.”

Matters were worse than Reiko had initially thought. She didn’t like the idea of anyone snooping and eavesdropping in her house, but this spy was apparently someone she and Sano trusted, who had easy access to them, their business, and their family. And Lord Matsudaira might turn his spy to other, more dangerous purposes.

“Try to find out who it is,” Reiko said. “In the meantime, I’d better tell my husband what you’ve learned.”

No sooner had Asukai left than Reiko heard a commotion of quick footsteps and loud voices from the women’s quarters. Fearing that something else was wrong, she hurried to see what was happening.

Reiko entered the women’s quarters to find Sano carrying an old woman down the hall. “What’s going on?” she asked. “Who-?”

The woman lay limp in Sano’s arms, her complexion sickly pale. Her eyes were closed, and she seemed oblivious to the world. Then Reiko recognized her. “Honorable Mother-in-law,” Reiko said in surprise, then turned to Sano. “What is she doing here? Is something wrong?”

Her relationship with Sano’s mother was cordial but not close. As a new bride Reiko had tried to befriend her mother-in-law, who always seemed nervous around her. The old woman had endured rather than warmed under Reiko’s attentions, and they didn’t have much to say to each other. Sano’s mother had never spent a night in this house during his marriage, and she seldom visited.

“My mother has been accused of the murder of Tokugawa Tadatoshi and placed under house arrest,” Sano said. He looked more stunned than Reiko had ever seen him.

“What?” Reiko said. “How can that be?”

She gazed in bewilderment at her mother-in-law, the most harmless person she knew. She felt as if the world had turned upside down.

Sano called to the servants who loitered in doorways: “My mother will be staying here. Prepare a bed for her. And fetch her maid.”

He carried her into a guest chamber. Reiko followed. The servants hurried to obey his orders. He gently laid her on the futon that they spread on the floor. Hana rushed in and took charge. Sano and Reiko stepped out to the corridor while Hana got the old woman settled. There Sano described how his mother had been dragged out of her house and brought before the shogun, how Colonel Doi had told his incriminating story about her. Reiko listened in shock.

“Who is this Colonel Doi, and why is everybody taking his accusation seriously?” she asked.

“He’s a big man in Lord Matsudaira’s army,” Sano replied.

“I should have guessed,” Reiko said. “Lord Matsudaira is behind everything bad that happens.” She remembered the matter that had been foremost in her mind just moments ago. “I know you don’t need more problems, but there’s something I must tell you that can’t wait. My bodyguard has discovered that Lord Matsudaira has a spy in our house.”

Sano lifted his eyes skyward, simultaneously alarmed, vexed, and overwhelmed. “You’re right, I didn’t need that now. But thank you for alerting me. I’ll mount a search for the spy as soon as I have a free moment.”

Reiko said, “Planting a spy in our midst is bad enough, but now Lord Matsudaira has attacked your poor, helpless mother. This is preposterous! Of course she didn’t kill that boy.”

“Of course.” But Sano’s expression was grave, conflicted.

“You can’t think there’s any chance she did it?” Amazement filled Reiko.

Sano’s frown deepened. “I really don’t know what to think.” He expelled a deep breath. “It seems I don’t really know my mother. She led me to believe she was a peasant, but I just now learned that she’s from a Tokugawa vassal clan.”

As Sano related how this fact had come out, Reiko shook her head. That her meek, shy mother-in-law had a secret past!

But as Reiko recovered from her initial shock, she wasn’t really surprised. She remembered things about Sano’s mother that had never fit her persona. Her manners had the effortless grace of a lady. Her speech was more refined than a typical commoner’s. Although she dressed plainly, her clothes had an elegance that had less to do with expensive fabric and the latest fashion than with the wearer’s style. Sano wouldn’t have noticed such things; men seldom did. Reiko hadn’t told Sano because she hadn’t thought it important enough and he would have scoffed at the idea that his mother was someone other than she seemed. But the revelation about his mother explained a lot.

“How did her life turn out the way it did?” Reiko asked.

“I don’t know. That’s one question I mean to ask her.” Sano’s expression was stony with hurt because his mother had deceived him, and grim because he now must contend with her troubles as well as his own. “And believe me, I have plenty of others. I have to determine who really killed Tadatoshi, and at the moment she’s my only source of clues.”

He turned toward the guest room. “She should be settled by now.”

“Shall I come with you?” Reiko asked, filled with curiosity.

“No,” Sano said. “I’d rather talk to her alone. Whatever she says, I’ll tell you later.”

Reiko resisted the temptation to eavesdrop. As Sano entered the guest room, she drifted down the corridor, marveling at the turn of events. Last night she’d offered to help him with his investigation if something arose that she could work on at home. Now it had. The investigation had come to her, in the form of the one and only suspect.

Sano’s mother lay in bed, propped on cushions, guarded by Hana. Her expression was desolate. She gazed into space, her hands limp on the quilt that covered her. She hadn’t touched the tea set on the table. But at least she was calm.

“Mother?” Sano knelt at her feet.

She blinked, and her eyes focused on him. In them appeared the same expression with which she’d beheld him since his childhood-a mixture of love, pride, and maternal anxiety. But there was something new.

It was fear.

Of him.

Sano didn’t want to think what her fear might signify. “Are you all right?”

She nodded, murmuring, “I’m sorry to make so much trouble for you.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Sano said with affection. She’d always put him first. “I want to help you. I need to ask you some questions about what’s happened. Do you feel up to that?”

“I suppose so.” But she looked ill and exhausted.

Sano wouldn’t have forced her, except that they had no time to lose. Lord Matsudaira was probably working to ruin them already. “Hana-san, will you leave us for a few moments?”

Reluctance compressed Hana’s mouth, but she started to rise. Sano’s mother said, “Please, I want Hana to stay.”

For moral support or protection against him? Sano had never thought to find himself interrogating his own mother who was accused of the crime he was investigating. He could see in her face that her feelings toward him had changed: He was no longer the same son she’d borne. He was the authority, a danger.

“Please don’t be upset,” Sano said, “but I have to ask you: Did you kill Tadatoshi?”

“No!” Hurt encroached on the fear in her eyes. “I’m innocent. You don’t believe him, do you?”

Sano supposed that any woman arrested, dragged out of her house, accused before the shogun, and threatened with death would be afraid, even if not guilty. “Believe Colonel Doi? Of course not. But why would he make up that story?”

“… I don’t know.”

Sano noticed the hesitation before she answered, the glance she and Hana exchanged. “Do you know Colonel Doi?”