Laura Joh Rowland - Sano Ichiro 07 - Pillow Book of Lady Wisteria Read online

  Laura Joh Rowland - Sano Ichiro 07 - Pillow Book of Lady Wisteria

  Japan

  Genroku Period, Year 6, Month 11

  (December 1693)

  Prologue

  "Virtuous men have said, both in poetry and classic works, that houses of debauch, for women of pleasure and for street-walkers, are the worm-eaten spots of cities and towns. But these are necessary evils, and if they be forcibly abolished, men of unrighteous principles will become like raveled thread."

  -FROM THE SEVENTY-THIRD SECTION OF THE LEGACY OF THE FIRST TOKUGAWA SHOGUN

  Northwest of the great capital of Edo, isolated among marshes and rice paddies, the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter adorned the winter night like a flashy jewel. Its lights formed a bright, smoky halo above the high walls; the moon's reflection shimmered silver on the encircling moat. Inside the quarter, colored lanterns blazed along the eaves of the teahouses and brothels that lined the streets. Courtesans dressed in gaudy kimono sat in the barred windows of the brothels and called invitations to men who strolled in search of entertainment. Roving vendors sold tea and dumplings, and a hawker beckoned customers into a shop that sold paintings of the most beautiful prostitutes, but the late hour and chill weather had driven most of the trade indoors. Teahouse maids poured sake; drunken customers raised their voices in bawdy song. Musicians played for guests at banquets in elegant parlors, while amorous couples embraced behind windows.

  The man in an upstairs guest chamber on Ageyacho Street lay oblivious to the revelry. A drunken stupor immobilized him on the bed, which seemed to rock and sway beneath him. Singing, samisen music, and laughter from the parlor downstairs echoed up to him in waves of discordant sound. Through his half-open eyes he saw red lights glide and spin, like reflections in a whirlpool. A painted landscape of gardens slid along the periphery of his vision. Dizzy and nauseated, he moaned. He tried to recall where he was and how he'd gotten here.

  He had a faint memory of a ride through winter fields, and cups of heated sake. A woman's beautiful face glowed in lamplight, eyes demurely downcast. More sake accompanied flirtatious conversation. Next came the hot, urgent intertwining of bodies, then ecstatic pleasure, followed by much more drink. Because he possessed a hearty tolerance for liquor, he couldn't understand how the usual amount had so thoroughly inebriated him. A peculiar lethargy spread through his veins. He felt strangely disconnected from his body, which seemed heavy as stone, yet afloat on air. A pang of fear chimed in his groggy consciousness, but the stupor dulled emotion. While he tried to fathom what had happened to him, he sensed that he wasn't alone in the room.

  Someone's rapid footsteps trod the tatami around the bed. The moving hems of multicolored robes swished air currents across his face. Whispers, distorted into eerie, droning gibberish, pervaded the distant music. Now he saw, bending over him, a human figure-a dark, indistinct shape outlined by the revolving red light. The whispers quickened and rose to a keening pitch. He sensed danger that shot alarm through his stupor. But his body resisted his effort to move. The lethargy paralyzed his limbs. His mouth formed a soundless plea.

  The figure leaned closer. Its fist clenched what looked to be a long, thin shaft that wavered in his blurry vision. Then the figure struck at him with sudden violence. Pain seared deep into his left eye, rousing him to alertness. A squeal of agony burst from him. Music, laughter, and screaming rose to a cacophonous din. Turbulent shadows rocked the chamber. He saw a brilliant white lightning bolt blaze through his brain, heard his heart thunder in his ears. The impact heaved up his arms and legs, which flailed as his body convulsed in involuntary spasms. But the terrible pain in his eye pinned him to the bed. Blood stained his vision scarlet, obliterated the person whose grip on the shaft held him captive. His head pounded with torment. Gradually, his struggles weakened; his heartbeat slowed. Sounds and sensations ebbed, until black unconsciousness quenched the lightning and death ended his agony.

  1

  The summons came at dawn.

  Edo Castle, reigning upon its hilltop above the city, raised its watch-towers and peaked roofs toward a sky like steel coated with ice. Inside the castle, two of the shogun's attendants and their soldiers sped on horseback between barracks surrounding the mansions where the high officials of the court resided. A chill, gusty wind flapped the soldiers' banners and tore the smoke from their lanterns. The party halted outside the gate of Sano Ichiro, the shogun's sosakan-sama-Most Honorable Investigator of Events, Situations, and People.

  Within his estate, Sano slept beneath mounded quilts. He dreamed he was at the Black Lotus Temple, scene of a crime he'd investigated three months ago. Deranged monks and nuns fought him and his troops; explosions boomed and fire raged. Yet even as Sano wielded his sword against phantoms of memory, his senses remained attuned to the real world and perceived the approach of an actual threat. He bolted awake in darkness, flung off the quilts, and sat up in the frigid air of his bedchamber.

  Beside him, his wife, Reiko, stirred. "What is it?" she asked sleepily.

  Then they heard, outside their door, the voice of Sano's chief retainer, Hirata: "Sosakan-sama, I'm sorry to disturb you, but the shogun's envoys are here on urgent business. They wish to see you at once."

  Moments later, after hastily dressing, Sano was seated in the reception hall with the two envoys. A maid served bowls of tea. The senior envoy, a dignified samurai named Ota, said, "We bring news of a serious incident that requires your personal attention. His Excellency the Shogun's cousin, the Honorable Lord Matsudaira Mitsuyoshi, has died. As you are undoubtedly aware, he was not just kin to the shogun, but his probable successor."

  The shogun had no sons as yet; therefore, a relative must be designated heir to his position as Japan's supreme dictator in case he died without issue. Sano had known that Mitsuyoshi-twenty-five years old and a favorite of the shogun-was a likely candidate.

  Ota continued, "Mitsuyoshi-san spent yesterday evening in Yoshiwara." This was Edo's pleasure quarter, the only place in the city where prostitution was legal. Men from all classes of society went there to drink, revel, and enjoy the favors of the courtesans-women sold into prostitution by impoverished families, or sentenced to work in Yoshiwara as punishment for crimes. The quarter was located some distance from Edo, to safeguard public morals and respect propriety. "There he was stabbed to death."

  Consternation struck Sano: This was serious indeed, for any attack on a member of the ruling Tokugawa clan constituted an attack on the regime, which was high treason. And the murder of someone so close to the shogun represented a crime of the most sensitive nature.

  "May I ask what were the circumstances of the stabbing?" Sano said.

  "The details are not known to us," said the younger envoy, a brawny captain of the shogun's bodyguards. "It is your responsibility to discover them. The shogun orders you to investigate the murder and apprehend the killer."

  "I'll begin immediately." As Sano bowed to the envoys, duty settled upon his shoulders like a weight that he wasn't sure he could bear. Though detective work was his vocation and his spirit required the challenge of delivering killers to justice, he wasn't ready for another big case. The Black Lotus investigation had depleted him physically and mentally. He felt like an injured warrior heading into battle again before his wounds had healed. And he knew that this case had as serious a potential for disaster as had the Black Lotus.

  A long, cold ride brought Sano, Hirata, and five men from Sano's detective corps to the pleasure quarter by mid-morning. Snowflakes drifted onto the tiled rooftops of Yoshiwara; it
s surrounding moat reflected the overcast sky. The cawing of crows above the fallow fields sounded shrilly metallic. Sano and his men dismounted outside the quarter's high wall that kept the revelry contained and the courtesans from escaping. Their breath puffed out in white clouds into the icy wind. They left the horses with a stable boy and strode across the bridge to the gate, which was painted bright red and barred shut. A noisy commotion greeted them.

  "Let us out!" Inside the quarter, men had climbed the gate and thrust their heads between the thick wooden bars below the roof. "We want to go home!"

  Outside the gate stood four Yoshiwara guards. One of them told the prisoners, "Nobody leaves. Police orders."

  Loud protests arose; a furious pounding shook the gate's heavy wooden planks.

  "So the police have beat us to the scene," Hirata said to Sano. An expression of concern crossed his youthful face.

  Sano's heart plunged, for in spite of his high rank and position close to the shogun, he could expect hindrance, rather than cooperation, from Edo's police. "At least they've contained the people who were in Yoshiwara last night. That will save us the trouble of tracking down witnesses."

  He approached the guards, who hastily bowed to him and his men. After introducing himself and announcing his purpose, Sano asked, "Where did Lord Mitsuyoshi die?"

  "In the Owariya ageya," came the answer.

  Yoshiwara was a world unto itself, Sano knew, with a unique protocol. Some five hundred courtesans ranked in a hierarchy of beauty, elegance, and price. The top-ranking women were known as tayu. A popular epithet for them was keisei-castle topplers-because their influence could ruin men and destroy kingdoms. Though all the prostitutes lived in brothels and most received clients there, the tayu entertained men in ageya, houses of assignation, used for that purpose but not as homes for the women. The Owariya was a prestigious ageya, reserved for the wealthiest, most prominent men.

  "Open the gate and let us in," Sano ordered the guards.

  They complied. Sano and his men entered the pleasure quarter, while the guards held back the pushing, shouting crowd inside. As Sano led his party down Nakanocho, the main avenue that bisected Yoshiwara, the wind buffeted unlit lanterns hanging from the eaves of the wooden buildings and stirred up an odor of urine. Teahouses were filled with sullen, disheveled men. Women peeked out through window bars, their painted faces avid. Nervous murmurs arose as Sano and his men passed, while Tokugawa troops patrolled Nakanocho and the six streets perpendicular to it.

  The murder of the shogun's heir had put a temporary halt to the festivities that ordinarily never ended.

  Sano turned onto Ageyacho, a street lined with the houses of assignation. These were attached buildings, their facades and balconies screened with wooden lattices. Servants loitered in the recessed doorways. Smoke from charcoal braziers swirled in the wind, mingling with the snowflakes. A group of samurai stood guard outside the Owariya, smoking tobacco pipes. Some wore the Tokugawa triple-hollyhock-leaf crest on their cloaks; others wore leggings and short kimonos and carried jitte-steel parrying wands, the weapon of the police force. They all fixed level gazes upon Sano.

  "Guess who brought them here," Hirata murmured to Sano in a voice replete with ire.

  As they reached the Owariya, the door slid open, and out stepped a tall, broad-shouldered samurai dressed in a sumptuous cloak of padded black silk. He was in his thirties, his bearing arrogant, his angular face strikingly handsome. When he saw Sano, his full, sensual mouth curved in a humorless smile.

  "Greetings, Sosakan-sama," he said.

  "Greetings, Honorable Chief Police Commissioner Hoshina," Sano said. As they exchanged bows, the air vibrated with their antagonism.

  They'd first met in Miyako, the imperial capital, where Sano had gone to investigate the death of a court noble. Hoshina had been head of the local police, and pretended to assist Sano on the case-while conspiring against him with Chamberlain Yanagisawa, the shogun's powerful second-in-command. Yanagisawa and Hoshina had become lovers, and Yanagisawa had appointed Hoshina as Edo's Chief Police Commissioner.

  "What brings you here?" Hoshina's tone implied that Sano was a trespasser in his territory.

  "The shogun's orders," Sano said, accustomed to Hoshina's hostility. During their clash in Miyako, Sano had defeated Hoshina, who had never forgotten. "I've come to investigate the murder. Unless you've already found the killer?"

  "No," Hoshina said with a reluctance that indicated how much he would like to say he had. Arms folded, he blocked the door of the ageya. "But you've traveled here for nothing, because I already have an investigation underway. Whatever you want to know, just ask me."

  The Miyako case had resulted in a truce between Sano and Yanagisawa-formerly bitter enemies-but Hoshina refused to let matters lie, because he viewed Sano as a threat to his own rise in the bakufu, the military government that ruled Japan. Now, having settled into his new position and cultivated allies, Hoshina had begun his campaign against Sano. Their paths crossed often when Sano investigated crimes, and Hoshina always sought to prove himself the superior detective while undermining Sano. He conducted his own inquiries into Sano's cases, hoping to solve them first and take the credit. Obviously, Hoshina meant to extend their rivalry into this case, and there was little that Sano could do to stop him. Although Sano was a high official of the shogun, Hoshina had the favor of Chamberlain Yanagisawa, who controlled the shogun and virtually ruled Japan. Thus, Hoshina could treat Sano however he pleased, short of causing open warfare that would disturb their superiors.

  "I prefer to see for myself." Speaking quietly but firmly, Sano held his adversary's gaze.

  Hirata and his detectives clustered around him, as the police moved nearer Hoshina. The wind keened, and angry voices yelled curses somewhere in the quarter. Then Hoshina chuckled, as though his defiance against Sano had been a mere joke.

  "As you wish," he said, and stepped away from the door.

  But he followed Sano's party into the ageya. Beyond the entryway, which contained a guard stationed at a podium, a corridor extended between rooms separated by lattice and paper partitions. A lantern glowed in a luxurious front parlor. There sat two pretty courtesans, eight surly-looking samurai, several plainly dressed women who looked to be servants, and a squat older man in gray robes. All regarded Sano and Hirata with apprehension. The older man rose and hurried over to kneel at Sano's feet.

  "Please allow me to introduce myself, master," he said, bowing low. "I am Eigoro, proprietor of the Owariya. Please let me say that nothing like this has ever happened here before." His body quaked with his terror that the shogun's sosakan-sama would blame him for the murder. "Please believe that no one in my establishment did this evil thing."

  "No one is accusing you," Sano said, though everyone present in Yoshiwara at the time of the murder was a suspect until proven otherwise. "Show me where Lord Mitsuyoshi died."

  "Certainly, master." The proprietor scrambled up.

  Hoshina said, "You don't need him. I can show you."

  Sano considered ordering Hoshina out of the house, then merely ignored him: Antagonizing Chamberlain Yanagisawa's mate was dangerous. But Sano must not rely on Hoshina for information, because Hoshina would surely misguide him.

  Eyeing the group in the parlor, Sano addressed the proprietor: "Were they in the house last night?"

  "Yes, master."

  Sano ascertained that four of the samurai were Lord Mitsuyoshi's retainers, then glanced at Hirata and the detectives. They nodded and moved toward the parlor to question the retainers, courtesans, other clients, and servants. The proprietor led Sano upstairs, to a large chamber at the front of the house. Entering, Sano gleaned a quick impression of burning lanterns, lavish landscape murals, and a gilded screen, before his attention fixed upon the men in the room. Two soldiers were preparing to move a shrouded figure, which lay upon the futon, onto a litter. A samurai clad in ornate robes pawed through a pile of clothes on the tatami; another rummaged in a drawer of the w
all cabinet. Sano recognized both as senior police commanders.

  "Yoriki Hayashi-san. Yoriki Yamaga-san," he said, angered to find them and their troops disturbing the crime scene and ready to remove the body before he'd had a chance to examine either. "Stop that at once," he ordered all the men.

  The police halted their actions and bowed stiffly, gazing at Sano with open dislike. Sano knew they would never forget that he'd been their colleague, nor cease resenting his promotion and doing him a bad turn whenever possible. He said sternly, "You will all leave now."

  Hayashi and Yamaga exchanged glances with Chief Commissioner Hoshina, who stood in the doorway. Then Yamaga spoke to Sano: "I wish you the best of luck, Sosakan-sama, because you will surely need it." His voice exuded insolence. He and Hayashi and their men strode out of the room.

  The proprietor shrank into a corner, while Hoshina watched Sano for a reaction. Sano saw little point in losing his temper, or in regretting that his old enemies now worked for his new one. He crouched beside the futon and drew back the white cloth that covered the corpse of Lord Mitsuyoshi.

  The shogun's heir lay on his back, arms at his sides. The bronze satin robe he wore had fallen open to expose his naked, muscular torso, limp genitals, and extended legs. A looped topknot adorned the shaved crown of his head. From his left eye protruded a long, slender object that looked to be a woman's hair ornament-double-pronged, made of black lacquer, ending in a globe of flowers carved from cinnabar. Blood and slime had oozed around the embedded prongs and down Mitsuyoshi's cheek; droplets stained the mattress. The injured eyeball was cloudy and misshapen. The other eye seemed to stare at it, while Mitsuyoshi's mouth gaped in shock.