Red Chrysanthemum

18

At dawn, Sano was fast asleep, worn out from two days of nonstop work. Detective Marume called through the door of his bedchamber, “Excuse me, Sano-san, are you awake?”

Sano stirred groggily and found Masahiro crowded into the bed between him and Reiko. The boy was usually content to sleep by himself, but sometime during the night, he’d crawled under their covers. Maybe he was insecure because of the recent, disturbing events. He didn’t move; nor did Reiko.

“I’m awake now,” Sano said with a yawn. “What is it?”

“Lord Matsudaira wants to see you at his estate.”

Dragging himself out of bed, Sano anticipated another bad scene. In the next few very busy moments, he threw on his clothes, his valet shaved him and dressed his hair, and he was out his gate with Marume, Fukida, and his troops. They hurried on foot to the special enclave within Edo Castle where the important Tokugawa clan members lived.

Soldiers patrolled the area or occupied guardhouses along the walls that separated the estates. The sky was overcast and barely light, the air waterlogged, the scene as devoid of color as if the rain had washed it away. Sano and his entourage stopped at Lord Matsudaira’s gate, which boasted a three-tiered roof and ornate double ironclad doors.

The guards confiscated Sano’s swords and searched him for hidden weapons. Not even the chamberlain was exempted from these strict security precautions.

“Your men will wait out here,” the guard captain told Sano.

Guards escorted him into the estate and left him at a large wooden shed built along one side of an elegantly landscaped garden. Its skylights and wide doors were open. Inside, Lord Matsudaira stood at a table that held some hundred bonsai trees of various species and sizes, planted in ceramic dishes. He was repotting a tiny, gnarled pine tree.

“Greetings, Sano-san,” he said. His voice was quiet, his manner subdued. Dressed in an old cotton robe and trousers, minus his swords, his hands working in dirt, he looked like a peasant instead of a powerful warlord.

Sano bowed, returned the greeting, and entered the shed. It smelled of earth and manure. Why had Lord Matsudaira summoned him here?

Lord Matsudaira said, “I want to talk to you alone.”

Yet Sano knew they weren’t really alone. There would be guards stationed nearby, although out of sight and earshot. Lord Matsudaira took no chances with his safety.

“Morning is the most pleasant time of day.” He gently set the little tree in a new pot and packed soil around its roots. “It’s the time before a man is caught up in business, when he can relax and enjoy life. Don’t you agree?”

“… Yes.” Sano doubted that Lord Matsudaira had brought him here to share a peaceful moment.

“I thought this would be a good chance for you to tell me what progress you’ve made on investigating the murder.”

Sano obliged with a report that skirted the truth. He told Lord Matsudaira that he’d done preliminary interviews with the residents of the Mori estate, but didn’t say they’d confirmed Lady Mori’s story and contradicted Reiko’s. He described how Hirata had traced the anonymous tip and found the stash of guns in Lord Mori’s warehouse, but left out what else Hirata had found. He said he’d begun a search for the medium, who’d suspiciously vanished before he could interrogate her.

When he finished, Lord Matsudaira was silent a moment, planting moss around the base of his tree. “Is there anything more?”

Before Sano could answer, Lord Matsudaira turned to him, held up a hand, and said, “Stop. You’re going to lie, and I am sick of lies.” His mood turned suddenly vicious. “There’s no use trying to hide the truth from me. I know about the messages from you to Lord Mori that have come to light. I know they indicate that you and he were planning a rebellion.”

A chord of dismay reverberated through Sano, and not just because Lord Matsudaira knew about the evidence he’d wanted to keep under wraps. “How did you find out about the messages?” he asked as calmly as he could manage.

“That’s not important,” Lord Matsudaira said. “What have you to say for yourself?”

The evidence must have been leaked to Lord Matsudaira by someone in Sano’s retinue or Hirata’s. “Those messages aren’t what they seem.” He should have told Lord Matsudaira about them himself, presented his side of the story, and cut off an attempt to use them against him. Maybe the leak hadn’t come from within his camp, but from the person who’d planted the messages in the warehouse. No matter what, Sano should have known he couldn’t keep them secret. “I can explain.”

Lord Matsudaira slashed his hand through Sano’s words. “Just tell me if it’s true.” Hostility set his features in angry lines. “Were you and Lord Mori conspiring to overthrow me? Are you still?”

“No,” Sano declared, as sick of wrongful accusations as Lord Matsudaira was of deceit.

Lord Matsudaira stepped closer to Sano. His direct, unblinking gaze measured Sano’s honesty; a twitch of his lips dismissed it as false. “Drop your pretenses. There’s no shogun here for you to trick. We might as well get to the bottom of this because there’s nobody here except ourselves.”

Ourselves and your hidden guards who are ready to jump on me as soon as you call them. Sano said, “I told you yesterday that I wasn’t plotting against you. I’ll tell you again today that I wasn’t-and I’m not. Believe me or don’t; it’s your choice.”

An abrupt change of expression transformed Lord Matsudaira. Now he looked torn between wanting to believe Sano and wanting to prove his suspicions correct. He shook his head, turned away from Sano, and leaned with his hands on the table.

“I don’t know whom to trust anymore,” he muttered. “I used to pride myself on my instincts, but now I can’t tell whether someone is friend or enemy.” A sad chuckle heaved his body. “Every day I seem to have more enemies and fewer friends.”

Sano felt an unexpected pity for Lord Matsudaira, perched on a mountaintop surrounded by people trying to push him off. But although the crisis had passed, Sano knew he wasn’t out of danger yet.

“Merciful gods, how did things come to this?” Lord Matsudaira said in a voice hushed with astonishment.

You overstepped yourself when you made your bid for power, Sano thought but didn’t say.

“I made my bid for power because I thought it was the right thing to do, not just for me, but for the country. I wanted to foster prosperity, harmony, and honor.” Lord Matsudaira gazed at his array of bonsai. The trees stood aligned in perfect rows, like troops at attention. Their limbs were bent and tied into unnatural positions by his hand.

“I thought I could do a better job running the country than my cousin has done. He let that scoundrel Yanagisawa take over.” Contempt for them both wrenched Lord Matsudaira’s mouth. “I thought that bringing Yanagisawa down would end the corruption and purify the regime. But too many people preferred things as they were. They opposed my efforts instead of working with me to rebuild the government after the war.”

And you underestimated your opponents.

“They’ve forced me to crush them or die,” Lord Matsudaira said.

Sano marveled at his combination of intelligence and naivete, idealism and ruthlessness, all crowned by arrogance. Perhaps those were the very qualities that transformed a samurai into a warlord.

“They’ve all but destroyed my dream of forging a new, better, more honorable Japan.”

In a sudden fit of violence, Lord Matsudaira swept the pine tree he’d just repotted off the table. It crashed onto the stone floor. The dish shattered. The tree lay with its roots exposed amid spilled dirt. Sano noticed that it was a valuable living antique, perhaps as old as the Tokugawa regime, which had been founded ninety-five years ago. Lord Matsudaira gazed down at the tree as though appalled by what his temper had wrought. Then he turned to Sano, his features contorted by emotion.

“If those messages aren’t proof that you’re a traitor to me, what are they?” he said.

“Trash scavenged from my garbage and placed out of context,” Sano said.

“Then why didn’t you tell me about them instead of letting me find out from other sources?”

Sano spoke the truth: “Because I thought you would jump to conclusions without listening to my side of the story. Because it seemed wiser to keep the messages a secret than risk that you would send me and my family straight to the executioner.”

Wry self-awareness lightened Lord Matsudaira’s mood, although not much. “Fair enough. But that leaves us right where we started. Are you a traitor or aren’t you? Do I believe you or heed my suspicions?” His gaze measured Sano. “Give me a reason why I should let you continue investigating Lord Mori’s murder even though you’re a suspect yourself.”

Sano recognized this as a critical juncture where one wrong step could irretrievably doom him, Reiko, their son, and all their close associates. While he pondered his options, he picked up the pine tree. Its branches were intact, but it wouldn’t survive if not properly tended. He could say, Because I’ve saved you in the past, which was true; had he not slain the assassin known as the Ghost, Lord Matsudaira’s regime might have fallen before now. But Lord Matsudaira wouldn’t like this reminder of his vulnerability.

Instead Sano said, “Because who else is there that you can trust any more than you do me?”

Lord Matsudaira gravely considered his answer for a long, suspenseful moment. Sano offered him the tree. He hesitated, then took it, but his eyes flashed a warning at Sano.

“If I ever have reason to regret my decision,” he began.

An outburst of childish voices interrupted him. Running footsteps squished across the wet garden. A little boy and girl arrived breathless in the shed.

“Grandfather!” they cried. Each grabbed one of Lord Matsudaira’s legs.

He smiled fondly and hugged them. “What is it, little ones?”

“He hit me,” the girl said, pouting at the boy.

“She hit me first,” he protested.

“Well, then, you’re even,” Lord Matsudaira said. “No more fighting. Run along and play now.”

As they chased each other around the garden, he watched them with the same fierce, possessive tenderness that Sano felt toward his own son. Then Lord Matsudaira turned to Sano and said, “Remember that you’re not the only man who has a family. If you let me down, they’ll suffer, too.”

After Sano left the house, Reiko lay in bed, trying to summon the will to face the day. She’d not slept at all last night because her fears and uncertainties had kept her draughts running in a frantic cycle. She’d forced herself to lie quiet and not waken her husband and son. Now her body and head ached from the effort. Dried tears stiffened her face. She listened to the rain that had begun to fall again. Her chamber felt like a dim cage underwater. She heard the maids cleaning the house; Masahiro had gone off to his martial arts lesson; everyone was busy and productive except her. She must take action, not succumb to the loneliness and despair in her heart.

One thing she needed to do was try to remember more about the night of Lord Mori’s murder, to counteract the terrible result of her first attempt.

The other was to confront old enemies.

Both prospects were so daunting that Reiko wanted to pull the quilt over her head and give up. But she heard Masahiro shouting in the garden as he practiced sword-fighting. She must be strong for his sake if not her own.

She arranged herself on her back with her legs straight and arms resting palms up at her sides. She breathed slowly and deeply, letting her thoughts drift. Her entire body balked at the plunge into the terrifying past, but she persevered. After a long while she entered a meditative trance. Her spirit existed in a space outside herself. She saw herself lying in the bed, while she floated above it, for the instant before her mind zoomed along a black, starlit cosmic tunnel, back in time.

Once again that foggy night at the Mori estate wrapped her in its sounds of water dripping and distant voices, its sensations of dampness and danger. Once again Reiko was kneeling on the veranda of the private quarters, turning away from the spy-hole. She stood, stumbled, and fell as unconsciousness drew her down, down, into a whirlpool of blackness. Once more she drifted in it, until she found herself inside Lord Mori’s chamber again.

She lay naked on the bed. His face was above hers, so close that she could smell the sour breath from his open, drooling mouth. His eyes were half-closed, his expression blank. Her arms were embracing him, her legs wrapped tight around his waist. His body humped against hers with repeated thuds that shook the floor beneath them. Reiko felt herself gasping and the slickness of their sweat. Laughter and jeering echoed in her mind.

Even as she recoiled from this vision, it disappeared. Now Reiko was seated upright. She held her dagger, its hilt clenched in both her fists, its blade pointed outward. The image of Lord Mori emerged from a blur of light and motion before her. His eyes were wide and his mouth agape with terror; he flung out his arms in a wordless plea. A mighty lunge propelled her toward him. The blade of her dagger sank deep into his stomach. He howled, deafening Reiko. The jeering and laughter escalated to a maniacal pitch. Blood spewed from the wound onto her.

Reiko cried, “No!” She struggled to bring herself out of the trance, but it enmeshed her as if it were an invisible steel net.

She was slumped over a puddle of blood that seeped across the tatami from the prone, motionless, naked body of Lord Mori. A white chrysanthemum floated in the puddle, its petals slowly turning red. Her hands were laid palms up on the floor in front of her. They held Lord Mori’s severed, blood-smeared genitals, warm and slippery as fresh meat.

Serves you right, you evil bastard. The words reverberated, gloating and triumphant, through Reiko. Shock exploded her trance. Her body convulsed in spasms; her limbs jerked. She launched herself upright, fell forward, and wailed.

Someone cried, “Reiko-san!”

She turned and saw Midori standing in the doorway. Midori’s face was filled with puzzlement and concern. She hurried over to Reiko, knelt, and hugged her. “I heard what happened. I’m so sorry! I would have come yesterday, but the baby was sick. Are you all right?”

Her friend’s compassion soothed Reiko. Even though her heart was still pounding and her body trembling, her hysteria faded. Relaxing against Midori, she caught her breath. “Yes. I am. Thank you for coming. I’m glad to see you.”

She suddenly realized that not one of the other women she considered friends had come to see her since the murder; nor had her relatives. They must be less curious about her than afraid to associate with such a scandalous criminal as she appeared to be. Yesterday afternoon her father had visited her, but she’d been so upset by her first attempt to relive the night of the murder that she could hardly speak to him. Otherwise she’d been shunned. Even the servants kept their distance from her. She was a pariah.

“I heard you screaming,” Midori said. “What’s the matter?”

Only that Lady Mori is right: Lord Mori and I were lovers; I seduced him that night; then I stabbed him because he spurned me. And after he was dead, I castrated him. Serves you right, you evil bastard.

Reiko drew a deep, shuddering breath. She couldn’t tell Midori that she was now certain she’d murdered Lord Mori and her own memory was the strongest proof. Instead she said, “It must have been a bad dream.” A bad dream that was real and wouldn’t go away.

“I know you didn’t do it,” Midori said with sincere, heartfelt conviction. “No matter what people say.”

Reiko could imagine what they were saying about her. Tears of gratitude stung her eyes. “I appreciate your loyalty.”

“Don’t worry, Reiko-san. Your husband and mine will prove that you’re innocent,” Midori said.

But Reiko feared that it was only a matter of time until Sano found proof of her guilt. Then his love for her would turn to hatred and disgust. He would let the law take its course with her. Unable to bear these thoughts, Reiko clung to a shred of hope that she was innocent despite her memories, despite Hirata’s news that Lily and Jiro didn’t exist. Now it was time to take the next course of action that she dreaded.

“I can’t just sit here while my husband and Hirata-san do everything for me,” Reiko said. She went to the cabinet and took out clothes to wear. “I have to help myself or go mad waiting.”

“But what can you do?” Midori asked.

“I’m going to talk to some people who might be responsible for murdering Lord Mori and framing me.” She summoned a maid and said, “Fetch Lieutenant Asukai.”

While Midori helped her dress and arrange her hair, Reiko pondered which enemy she should confront first. They were all people she’d run afoul of while doing her private detective work. But the one that was most conveniently at hand also had ties to Lord Mori.

When Lieutenant Asukai arrived, Reiko told him, “Bring me Colonel Kubota of the Tokugawa army.”