Laura Rowland - The Incense Game

Sano saw a dilemma. The mistress and son were evidence in his investigation. If he let them go, Ryuko could deny their existence. Ryuko would have no verifiable motive for the murders even if he were guilty. Without one, could Sano convince Lord Hosokawa that Ryuko was the culprit? Lord Hosokawa had already warned him against framing a scapegoat. If Ryuko were guilty and Lord Hosokawa didn’t believe it, Sano would either have to frame someone else or let Lord Hosokawa join the rebel daimyo clans and the civil war would begin. Ryuko would surely escape justice because Lady Keisho-in and the shogun would never believe he was guilty in the absence of any reason for him to have committed the crime. They would protect him. And Sano would have let a killer go free.

“I’m begging you!” Priest Ryuko fell to his knees, heedless of the mud that soiled his cloak. He lay forward, arms extended, fingers at Sano’s toes. “Have mercy!”

But Sano couldn’t subject that innocent woman and child to the jealous wrath of Lady Keisho-in, even if Priest Ryuko was a murderer.

“They can go,” Sano said. “I’ll keep your secret for now. But if I find out that you killed Madam Usugumo and Lord Hosokawa’s daughters, it will have to come out.”

The trip to Mitake was more difficult than Reiko had anticipated. Escorted by four mounted guards, she traveled all morning. They detoured through fields, avoiding huge cracks in the road. She frequently had to get out of her palanquin so that the bearers could maneuver it through the woods. About two-thirds along the way they met a massive landslide of rocks and earth, a cliff that had fallen across the highway. Reiko had to abandon her palanquin and tell her bearers to wait for her. As she climbed over the landslide, her sandals slipped on loose dirt. She clung to Lieutenant Tanuma’s hand for support. Her other escorts walked the horses up. Reiko was afraid she’d fall, afraid for the child inside her, but she’d come too far to turn back. The downward slope was gentler, and Sano needed the information she’d promised him. She wouldn’t let the truth go undiscovered and have a civil war start because she was a coward.

On the other side of the landslide, Tanuma lifted Reiko onto his horse and climbed up in front of her. She clung to him and hoped the swaying and jolting wouldn’t shake the baby loose.

Fewer obstacles arose the farther they traveled. By the time they turned onto the branch of the highway that led to Mitake, it seemed as if the earthquake had never happened. Dikes and canals bordered wide rice fields frosted with snow. Crows flew, black and sharp-edged as ink marks against the blue sky. Mitake consisted of a dirt road that ran past some fifty huts with mud walls and thatched roofs, surrounded by bamboo fences and small yards cluttered with farm equipment. A torii gate marked the entrance to a Shinto shrine. As Reiko and her party rode into the village, peasants lined up along the road to watch. It was probably rare for any samurai except local tax collectors to visit them, and they’d probably never seen a lady on horseback.

“We want to talk to an old woman named Kasane,” Lieutenant Tanuma announced. “Who can tell us where she lives?”

The crowd shifted and murmured. A man lurched forward, pushed by his neighbors. He was short, solid, in his fifties, with a tanned, wind-burned face. Bowing hastily, he said, “She’s my aunt.”

Reiko and her guards followed him to a house at the edge of the village. Larger than the others, it had a stone wall with a roofed gate. The thatch was neatly trimmed, the walls coated with fresh white plaster. The nephew ushered Reiko into the house while her guards waited outside. After she removed her shoes in the entryway, he took her to a room that served as kitchen and parlor, with the hearth, cookware, hanging utensils, and cutting board at one end and a raised tatami floor at the other. He gestured for Reiko to sit on the tatami near a brazier.

“Auntie!” he called. “You have company!”

A tiny woman shuffled in through a doorway at the back of the room. Skeletally thin, bent at the waist and shoulders, her elbows sticking out at angles, she leaned on a wooden cane. She reminded Reiko of a grasshopper. Loose skin hung on her pointed face, which had caved in around her toothless mouth. Her hair was like cobwebs. She was probably closer to eighty than a hundred. She halted in front of Reiko and peered into her face. “Who are you, little girl?” Her voice was high, tremulous. Droopy lids shaded her eyes.

Reiko spoke in a loud, clear voice. “My name is Reiko. I’m the wife of Chamberlain Sano, the shogun’s second-in-command.”

Kasane winced. “You needn’t shout. I may be almost blind, but I’m not deaf.”

“I’m sorry,” Reiko said, ashamed of her mistake.

Carefully lowering herself to the floor, Kasane folded her bony limbs and knelt opposite Reiko. She laid her cane at her side and called to her nephew, “Make my guest some tea.”

She overrode Reiko’s polite refusals. The nephew brewed and poured tea, set rice cakes on a dish, then decamped. Kasane’s toothless smile brimmed with pleasure. “I never had a samurai lady come to visit me. Not even when I lived in Edo. I used to be a nursemaid in the house of a very important family there, the Ogyu clan. My young master grew up to be head of the shogun’s big school.”

“Yes, I know,” Reiko said.

Kasane beamed proudly, then looked confused. “What was it you wanted?”

Reiko had spent much of the journey thinking about how best to approach Kasane. “I need to talk to you about Minister Ogyu.”

“Well, I haven’t seen him in-oh, it must be twenty years. Since I came to live here.”

Ogyu had tried to cut his ties to his old nurse. Reiko was more certain than ever that Kasane had dangerous knowledge about him. Maybe he believed that if she didn’t see him, she would forget it, or that any tales she told wouldn’t reach the ears of anyone who mattered.

“But he still sends me letters and money,” Kasane said. “Because I took care of him when he was young. He’s taking care of me now that I’m old. He was always such a good, kind boy. I never married or had children, but I raised him and loved him as if he were my own.”

But Reiko heard a dubious note in Kasane’s wavering voice. That wasn’t the real reason, and Kasane knew it. The pension Minister Ogyu had given his nurse, that must have paid for this house, was akin to the blackmail Reiko was now sure he’d paid Madam Usugumo.

“I came to see you because Minister Ogyu is a suspect in a murder that my husband is investigating,” Reiko said.

“Murder?” Kasane’s toothless mouth gaped. “Who was murdered?”

“A woman named Usugumo, his incense teacher. And two young ladies, her other pupils.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Madam Usugumo found out something about Minister Ogyu. It must be the same secret you’ve been keeping for him.”

“Secret? I don’t know any secret.” Kasane’s gaze wandered, belying her words.

Reiko described the bodies in the sunken house, the fatal incense game. “She blackmailed him. He poisoned her so that he wouldn’t have to pay her anymore and she could never talk. I must warn you that he may kill you next.”

“But I’ve kept quiet for twenty years!” Alarmed into forgetting to deny knowing the secret, Kasane said, “Why would he think I would tell now?”

“He’s tired of paying you and waiting for you to die.” Reiko was intentionally brutal. “He’d rather murder you than let nature take its course.”

The nurse sat in the shambles of her illusions about the man she’d thought of as her son. She reminded Reiko of the earthquake victims sitting by their ruined homes. “I don’t want to die.” She clutched at Reiko. “What should I do?”