Laura Rowland - The Incense Game

“The only way to protect yourself is to tell me the secret,” Reiko said. “I’ll let the whole world know. Then it won’t serve any purpose for Minister Ogyu to kill you. You’ll be safe.”

Kasane trembled. Reiko thought of the earth quaking and splitting open the ground. The secret buried inside Kasane was erupting, shattering her as she wrestled with her conscience, her instinct for self-preservation, and her loyalty to her master. She said, “I always knew I would have to tell someday.” The words shook out of her like rice on the sieves used to separate grains from husks. Resignation eased her trembling, saddened her face. “It’s time.” She sighed.

“My mother was a midwife in Nihonbashi. My father was a doctor. He died when I was very little.” Kasane’s voice took on a remote, nostalgic tone. “But my mother made a good living. She was one of the best midwives in Edo.”

Reiko glanced at the window. It was past noon, and if she wanted to get home before darkness made the journey even more difficult, she must leave soon. She resisted the urge to hurry Kasane, which might change her mind about confessing.

“Very few of the babies she delivered ever died,” Kasane said proudly. “Very few of the mothers, either.” That was a great accomplishment, Reiko knew, considering that childbirth was fraught with hazards and many mothers and infants didn’t survive. “All the rich ladies in town would call her in as soon as they knew they were expecting. She gave them potions she made from secret recipes she learned from her mother, who was also a midwife. It kept them and the babies healthy. And she learned acupuncture from my father. When the women went into labor, she used the needles to relieve the pains. The parents paid my mother very well. And they told other people about her. Samurai ladies started asking her to deliver their babies. When I was ten years old, she started taking me to the births. I’ll never forget the first time I saw a child born.” Awe illuminated her old face. “Out of all the blood and suffering, a miracle.”

Reiko smiled. Truer words she’d never heard.

“At first I helped my mother with simple things, like boiling water and laying out her tools and cleaning up afterward. As I got older, she taught me her trade. How to make the potions. How to turn a baby that was coming out feet first. How to sew up tears. How to stop bleeding and cure fevers. She died when I was twenty.” Sadness tinged Kasane’s voice. “By then I was almost as good a midwife as she’d been. It was me that everybody called to deliver babies. I never got around to marrying, but I didn’t mind. It was as if I was put on earth to be a midwife. And one day I was called to the Ogyu house.”

At last she was getting to the meat of her story. Reiko’s impatience eased.

“Lady Ogyu-my master’s mother-was pregnant,” Kasane said. “She’d already had four miscarriages and two stillborns. She begged me to help her bear a live child. She was desperate. I promised to do my best. But some women aren’t meant to have children. When she went into labor, I prayed as hard as she did. I’d never lost a baby yet, and it was my worst fear.”

Reiko imagined the scene-the pregnant woman convulsing on the bed, the midwife holding her hands and urging her to push, both hoping for the miracle that neither expected.

“The gods must have heard us,” Kasane said. “The baby was born alive. It was the last one I ever delivered. It was a healthy, perfect little girl.” Her expression signaled a deep, incongruous guilt. “So now you know.”

“That’s the secret? That Minister Ogyu has an older sister?” Reiko couldn’t imagine why this fact would be worth killing to hide.

“It wasn’t his sister,” Kasane said. “He was his parents’ only child.”

“What?” Reiko was thoroughly confused. “You just said his mother gave birth to a-”

“Listen and you’ll understand.” The sudden sharpness of Kasane’s voice silenced Reiko. “When Lady Ogyu saw that she had a daughter instead of a son, she was very upset. She cried so loud that her husband came to see what was the matter. When he saw the baby girl, he was disappointed. He told me to take her into the next room. I washed her while I listened to him trying to comfort Lady Ogyu. She said, ‘I’ll never be able to have another baby! This was my only chance, and I’ve let you down!’

“After a while, she got quiet. I wrapped up the baby and went to listen at the door.” Kasane craned her neck. Her arms curved around the shape of the infant. “Lady Ogyu said, ‘The baby doesn’t have to be a girl. We can raise it as a boy. To be your son. Your heir.’”

Now Reiko understood. Now shock hit her so hard that she fell forward. She caught herself with her hands. Palms splayed on the floor, mouth open, she stared.

The baby wasn’t Minister Ogyu’s sister; it was him.

That was his secret: He’d been born female.

Never would Reiko have guessed. She’d thought his secret would turn out to be embezzlement, treason, or even murder, the usual vices. Instead, it was a simple fact of nature, a circumstance beyond his control.

“How could he and his parents get away with it?” Reiko exclaimed, even though they obviously had. In retrospect, she saw the signs she’d missed: Minster Ogyu’s soft, pudgy figure; his voice that sounded falsely deep; his face that was unnaturally smooth except for those few whiskers-all had hinted at his true sex. But such a deception was unheard of. Minister Ogyu had not only fooled everyone into believing he was male; he’d attained a coveted position in the government.

“That’s what Master Ogyu asked his wife. She said, ‘We’ll say I gave birth to a boy. Nobody knows differently except us.’ He said, ‘Very well.’ Then the baby started to cry. They looked up and saw me.”

The scene was vivid in Reiko’s mind: The woman on the bloodstained bed, plotting with her husband; the shocked midwife standing in the doorway holding the baby. “You were the only witness to the baby’s birth.”

“They asked me to stay and be the baby’s nursemaid. They offered me a lot of money, and something I didn’t know I wanted until then.” Kasane smiled, reliving the surprise she’d felt. “The chance to bring up a child instead of walking away after I’d delivered it. So I stayed.”

Reiko could still hardly believe what she’d heard. “But why would they go to such lengths? Couldn’t Minister Ogyu’s father have just adopted a boy?” That was the custom for men who lacked male offspring. The shogun himself would follow it unless he fathered a son, or as soon as he gave up his hope that it was possible. An adopted heir had all the rights and status of a sired one. “Or had one by a concubine?”

“Lady Ogyu didn’t want him to,” Kasane said. “She wanted to be the mother of his heir. She couldn’t stand the thought of having to treat another woman’s child as the son of the family. And her will was stronger than her husband’s. He did what she wanted.”

“But how could they have turned a girl into a boy?” It seemed impossible. Since birth, Masahiro had been so masculine, and Akiko so feminine, that Reiko couldn’t have imagined trying to switch their sexes.

“It was hard,” Kasane admitted. “Especially for my poor young master. His parents gave him medicine made from goat weed and dong quai to make him masculine and grow whiskers. They were always after him to eat more and get bigger. To talk and act like a boy. To learn everything he would need to know as a man. He had terrible headaches.” She sighed regretfully. “I nursed him as best I could, but not even my potions could take away the pain.”

Reiko couldn’t entirely pity Minister Ogyu. He’d reaped benefits that most women would never have-an education, financial independence, an outlet for his talents, freedom. “Didn’t anyone notice he was different from other boys?”