Laura Rowland - The Snow Empress

“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Sano said. “He’s gone.”

“Gone where?”

Tekare resurfaced. “Where is Wente? I demand to see her.”

“Wente ran away this morning,” Sano said. “Gizaemon wants to kill her so she can never tell anyone that they conspired to murder Tekare. He went after her.” Sano didn’t mention his wife; Lord Matsumae and Tekare wouldn’t care about Reiko. “My men and I will hunt them down. But we need your help. We need sleds, dogs, and troops.”

“We also need guides,” Hirata said. “Let the two native men come with us.”

“Whatever you want,” Lord Matsumae said. “But I’m going with you.

“So am I,” Tekare said through him.

Sano didn’t like the thought of them running wild. “That’s not a good idea. It may be a long journey. You’re in poor health.”

“If we don’t go, neither do my troops, my sleds, my dogs, nor the barbarians,” Lord Matsumae declared. “And you won’t get far by yourselves.”

If Sano wanted to save Reiko, he had little time to waste arguing and even less choice. “Very well.”

“If anyone’s going to deliver those two murderers to justice, it’ll be me,” Lord Matsumae said.

“Me,” Tekare’s voice echoed.

“We’ll leave at dawn,” Lord Matsumae said.

“Dawn is too late,” Sano protested.

“Traveling through Ezogashima in the dark is too dangerous,” Lord Matsumae said. “We must wait until daylight. In the meantime, we have preparations to make. Untie us.”

“I afraid they come find us here,” Wente said. “Do you mean Lord Matsumae’s men?” Reiko asked. Wente nodded.

That fear had diminished for Reiko the farther they’d traveled from Fukuyama City. “We didn’t see anyone following us. Maybe they don’t even know we’ve left the castle. Or maybe they don’t care.”

Reiko thought it possible that the troops didn’t consider two women worth chasing. The only person certain to care about her was Sano. She felt a pang of sad yearning for him. He probably didn’t know she was gone, and she had no idea what had happened to him.

Heedless of Reiko’s reassurances, Wente paced the cabin, twisting her hands. Reiko began to feel nervous herself. “What makes you so sure they’re coming?”

Wente hesitated, clearly torn between her wish to keep a private matter private and the temptation to unburden herself. She sighed. “He no want I get away.”

“Who?”

“Gizaemon.”

“Why would he be after you?”

Kneeling by the fire, Wente bowed her head and spoke in a barely audible voice: “So I no tell.”

“Tell what?” The fire had burned down to sullen red embers, but the sudden chill Reiko felt didn’t come from physical coldness.

“That he kill Tekare.”

“Gizaemon is the murderer?” Reiko was more confused by Wente’s revelation than stunned by it. The man had been Sano’s favorite suspect; that he should turn out to be guilty didn’t come as a shock. “You knew?”

Wente nodded mutely.

“Since when?”

“The night Tekare die.”

Reiko’s confusion turned to incredulity. “And you didn’t say anything?” She moved closer to Wente, who avoided her gaze. “Do you realize how much trouble you could have prevented if you’d told back then?”

Miserable, Wente hung her head. “I sorry.”

“Sorry isn’t good enough!” Yet even as Reiko wanted to harangue her friend and vent her frustration, she sensed something more to the story, something bad. She probed for the rest. “How do you know Gizaemon killed Tekare? Did you see him set the spring-bow?”

“No,” Wente whispered. The air around her seethed with secrets, like flies around rotten meat.

“Then how?”

“It was mistake,” Wente said in a plaintive tone.

That was what she’d said when Reiko had first asked her about the murder. Now Reiko knew Wente didn’t mean she’d thought Tekare’s death had been an accident. “Tell me what happened. This time I want the truth.”

Gazing into the fire, Wente muttered, “One day I fight with Tekare. Japanese ladies no like noise, tell Gizaemon. He make us stop fighting.”

The sticks in the fire pit were burned white, shaped in a hollow like a rib cage. In this, among smoke tendrils that twisted around red sparks, Reiko saw an image of Wente and Tekare punching and clawing and shouting at each other, and Gizaemon forcing them apart.

“He hear what we say,” Wente continued. “He understand I mad at Tekare because she treat me bad. Later, he come see me. He say we can fix it so Tekare never hurt me again. I say, how? He tell me, just do what he say.”

A breath of astonishment rushed from Reiko. Not in her most farfetched dreams could she have imagined a Japanese plotting the murder with a native. Certainly not a conspiracy between that surly, tough samurai and this meek, gentle woman who had nothing in common-except the desire to be rid of the same person. Horror stole into Reiko.

“Next day he tell me bring Tekare outside castle after dark, Wente said, ”to path in woods. Say make her chase me toward hot spring. He say I not go all the way to spring, should stop by big oak tree. Hide in woods until she pass me. Then I run home. That’s all.

Wente’s tone reflected the surprise she’d felt that her problems with Tekare could be solved with so little effort on her part. Reiko was surprised because the story wasn’t playing out as she’d expected.

The idea of murder didn’t seem to have been discussed by the conspirators.

“So I do what Gizaemon say. Tekare make it easy. While we eat dinner, she scold me, argue with me. I go outside castle. She follow. I bring her to path, I run. Happen just like Gizaemon say. But next morning-”

Memory spread a shadow across Wente’s face. “Tekare dead. Then I know why Gizaemon make me bring her to path.” She turned an anguished gaze on Reiko. “So he can kill her!”

“You never suspected?” Reiko said, amazed.

“No!” Wente pounded her fists on her knees. “I think he just meet Tekare in woods, talk to her. Maybe scare her, she leave me alone.”

“You didn’t wonder why Gizaemon would bother to help you?”

“I think he feel sorry for me,” Wente said, as if mere pity could have induced Lord Matsumae’s uncle to put himself out for a member of the race he despised. She insisted, “It was mistake.”

Her mistake, which had proved fatal to her sister.

“I just want be free of Tekare! I no mean for her die!”

Reiko realized that Wente bore far less responsibility for the crime than Gizaemon did; she was more guilty of naivete than murder. But Tekare was dead whether Wente had intended it or not, and Wente’s actions had contributed to the awful consequences of the murder.

“You should have told!” Reiko said, furious at Wente. “You owed that much to your sister. However badly she treated you, she didn’t deserve to die. You deserved to be punished!”

Wente cringed, humiliated by Reiko’s lashing. “I want tell. Gizaemon say if I do, he kill me. I try make up for what I do.” Remorse and pleading filled Wente’s eyes. “I try help you find son.”

Reiko finally understood why Wente had been willing to take the risk, to befriend her. It wasn’t just because Reiko had protected her from Lady Matsumae. Wente blamed herself for what had happened to Masahiro; she wanted to atone for that as well as her sister’s murder. The lost boy and his desperate mother had given her the chance. But Reiko suspected her of another, less noble motive.

“You didn’t bring me out here just for my sake and my son’s.”

Reiko said. “You were scared of Gizaemon, especially after Lilac died. You must have guessed that he’d killed her.”