The Concubine’s Tattoo

17

The intruder whirled. It was Lieutenant Kushida. Around him Sano’s books and papers lay in a scattered mess. Having already swept the shelves clear, he’d been ransacking the cabinet. His wrinkled monkey-face went slack with dismay. For a moment he stood frozen. His panicky gaze skipped from Sano to the barred windows, then lit on his naginata, which leaned against the wall nearby.

“Don’t move!” Sano ordered.

In a motion so fast that it seemed to leap into his hand, Kushida grabbed the spear. He rocketed over the desk, leapt from the alcove’s raised platform, and advanced on Sano. His eyes were black pools of desperation. The weapon’s sharp, curved blade gleamed in the dim lamplight.

“Don’t even try,” Sano warned, assuming a defensive crouch and raising his sword. “My men will be here any moment.” From the front of the mansion came the sound of hurrying footsteps, voices calling. “Even if you kill me, you won’t escape. Drop your weapon. Surrender.”

Lieutenant Kushida charged. Sano jumped aside, and the blade narrowly missed his chest. He circled, preparing to strike back. The lieutenant jabbed the spear at his throat. Sano parried. The impact of the blades knocked him sideways. A stunning blow struck his hip: Kushida had deployed the spear’s handle, as he must have done with the sentries. Sano stumbled, gasping from the pain. Regaining his balance, he lashed out with his sword.

But Kushida deftly evaded each slice. Teeth bared in a fierce grimace, he was everywhere and nowhere, like a ghost fighter who moved through space with unnatural speed. The naginata’s blade battered Sano’s sword. Its metal-tipped end jabbed his legs and back. With his shorter reach, Sano couldn’t get close enough to score a cut. Slashing and thrusting, Kushida chased him around the room. Sano vaulted backward over an iron chest. He slammed into a painted screen, then feinted a backhand slice. Kushida angled his spear to parry. Sano quickly brought his sword around. The blade cut Kushida’s arm, but the lieutenant maintained his relentless assault, driving Sano back toward the wall.

Male voices outside the room grew louder, nearer. Running footsteps pounded the corridor.

“In here!” Sano shouted, losing more ground to Kushida.

A figure dashed through the door. Finally, help at last! Sano glanced around. Relief turned to horror.

Dressed in a pale pink-and-white-flowered night robe, long hair flowing down to her knees, Reiko held a sword in both hands. Her beautiful eyes shone with excitement.

“Reiko! What do you think you’re doing?” Sano demanded, dodging the naginata’s lethal blade.

“Defending my home!” Reiko shot back.

With surprising agility, she lunged at Kushida, hair and skirts streaming. She whipped her sword around and delivered a resounding whack to the spear’s handle, striking one of its metal reinforcing rings.

Sano gaped in shock. One finger’s breadth in either direction, and she would have severed the shaft. It was a stroke worthy of an expert. But Reiko was so small, so delicate. Panic filled Sano. He inserted himself between Reiko and Lieutenant Kushida, nailing his sword.

“This is no game, Reiko. Get out of here before you get hurt!”

“Move! Let me at him!”

Reiko’s face wore the sublime expression Sano had seen on battling samurai. Again she attacked Kushida. Their blades clashed. She gracefully avoided a counterstrike and launched a series of cuts that forced the lieutenant to retreat. Yet she couldn’t possibly stand against such a formidable adversary. Then and there, Sano decided that he must never give her any part of his work. She had no sense. She wouldn’t know when to stop.

Sano positioned himself beside his wife. Fighting off Lieutenant Kushida, he reached out his free hand and shoved Reiko with all his strength.

With an indignant cry, she went flying out the door. Sano heard a crash as her body hit the corridor wall opposite. She was safe, but the moment of lapsed attention cost Sano. Kushida’s spear came slashing toward his heart. He leapt away just in time; the blade grazed his ribcage. An evil grin stretched the lieutenant’s face as he continued wielding the naginata. Sano inflicted more cuts on him, but he wouldn’t stop.

Then an army of samurai burst into the room. Swords drawn, they surrounded Lieutenant Kushida. “Drop the spear!” ordered Hirata.

Cornered, Kushida tensed. His fierce gaze swept the faces of Sano’s men. He took a step backward, his spear lowered ever so slightly.

And then chaos erupted as Kushida began battling the detectives. Blades clashed with. the ear-splitting ring of steel. Whirling, darting figures trampled Sano’s possessions. Shouts arose. Sano plunged into the melee, shouting, “Don’t kill him! Capture him alive!” He had to find out why Lieutenant Kushida had come here.

Though outnumbered ten to one, Kushida fought bravely, ignoring repeated orders to surrender. In the course of the battle, paper walls tore, wooden mullions splintered. Inevitably blades met flesh, and blood spattered the tatami. At last, two detectives grabbed Kushida from behind.

Hirata and three others pried the spear out of his hands. They wrestled him to the floor, where he kicked and thrashed.

“Get your hands off me! Let go!” These were the first words Kushida had spoken.

Sano sheathed his sword, gasping for breath. “Tie him up and dress his wounds. Then bring him to the parlor. I’ll talk to him there.”

Walking down the corridor, Sano met Reiko, who stood alone, sword dangling from her hand. She gave him a look of pure hostility. Then she turned away and swept toward her chambers.

Lieutenant Kushida knelt on the parlor floor, his wrists and ankles tied behind him. Naked except for his loincloth and the bloodstained bandages that covered sword wounds on his arms and legs, he struggled to free himself. His ugly face twisted with rage; angry grunts issued from him. His sweat filled the room with a rank, sour odor. Hirata and two detectives crouched near Kushida, lest he somehow break loose. A lantern above his head bathed him in stark light.

Sano paced the floor, gazing down at the captive lieutenant. His own injury was slight, but he felt a raw, aching need to lie with a woman, to purge himself of battle trauma and reaffirm life through the act of sex. He regretted that the sad state of his marriage wouldn’t permit this release. Tonight’s incident had further damaged relations between him and Reiko, perhaps permanently.

“Did you attack the guards outside my house and the other estates?” he asked Kushida.

The lieutenant fixed him with a hateful stare. “So what if I did?” he spat out. “They’re all alive. I know how to wound without killing.”

So much for remorse, Sano thought. “What were you doing in my office?”

“Nothing!” Lieutenant Kushida strained at his bonds, face reddening with the effort. Hirata and the detectives eyed him warily.

“You’ll have to do better than that, Kushida,” said Sano. “One doesn’t knock out ten guards, enter another man’s house without permission, and ransack his possessions for no reason. Now answer me: Why did you come here?”

“What difference does it make? You’ll invent lies about me and draw your own conclusions, no matter what I say.” Kushida’s body heaved in an awkward lunge toward Sano. Hirata grabbed him, dragging him back. “May the gods curse you and all your clan!” Kushida spewed a stream of bitter invective.

“You’re in a lot of trouble,” Sano said, keeping his voice level despite rising impatience. “Even with your good record, you face execution for using a weapon inside Edo Castle, breaking into my house, and trying to spear my wife, my men, and myself. But I’m ready to listen to your story and recommend a lesser punishment if your reasons are good enough. So talk, and be quick about it. I haven’t got all night.”

Lieutenant Kushida glared at Sano, Hirata, and the detectives. He gave one last, strenuous tug at the ropes. Then resistance seeped out of him. Body limp, head bowed, Kushida said, “I was looking for Lady Harume’s pillow book.”

“How did you know about it?” Sano asked.

A sort of dignified misery settled upon Kushida’s features. “I found it in her cabinet.”

“And when was this?”

“Three days before she died.”

“So you lied when you said you never went into Lady Harume’s room.” Sano felt extreme chagrin as he remembered Reiko telling him that her cousin had placed the lieutenant in Harume’s private quarters at that very same time. Reiko’s information had proved accurate. He had insulted her by questioning it.

“All right, I lied,” Lieutenant Kushida said dully, “because I wasn’t in her room to poison her, like you thought. And I didn’t come here to hurt anyone. I had to get the diary. When I reported for duty tonight, I meant to steal it from Lady Harume’s room. But the guard captain said you’d postponed my return to work.” Kushida flashed a bitter look at Sano. “Then I found out from a soldier that you’d confiscated the diary as evidence. So I came here after it.”

Sano wished he’d barred the dangerous, unbalanced guard from the castle entirely. Still, he might gain some useful information now. “Why do you want the diary?”

“I only managed to read a few pages the first time.” Kushida’s voice sounded weary, desolate. “I wanted to find out who her lover was, and I thought she might have written his name somewhere in the diary.”

“How did you know Harume had a lover?” Sano exchanged a significant glance with Hirata: the lieutenant had not only admitted entering Harume’s room, but also given himself an additional motive for her murder.

With the fight gone out of him, Kushida looked like a small, tragic ape. “When I escorted Lady Harume and the other women on their outings, she would sneak away from the group. Three times I followed her, and lost her. The fourth time, I tracked her to an inn in Asakusa. But I couldn’t get past the gate because there were soldiers guarding it. They weren’t wearing any crests, and they wouldn’t tell me who they were.”

Lord Miyagi’s men, thought Sano, protecting their master’s privacy during his tryst with Harume.

“I never saw the man she chose instead of me,” Kushida continued. “But I know there was one. Why else would she sneak around? I lie awake at nights, wondering who he is and envying him the joy of her. I can’t stand not knowing. It’s killing me!” His eyes burned with an obsession that hadn’t faded, even now that its object was dead. “Do you still have the diary?” Tense with hope, he beseeched Sano, “Please, may I see it?”

Sano wondered if the lieutenant had another, more practical reason for trying to steal the diary. Maybe he believed it contained incriminating evidence against him, which he wanted to destroy.

“When you were in Lady Harume’s room, did you also find a jar of ink and a love letter asking her to tattoo herself?” Sano asked.

Kushida shook his head impatiently. “I’ve already told you, I never saw that ink jar. Or a letter. I wasn’t looking for any such things. All I wanted was a-personal keepsake from Harume.” Lowering his eyes in shame, he mumbled, “That’s how I found the diary. It was with her underclothes. I told you I didn’t know about the tattoo. I didn’t poison her.”

“I understand that Lady Harume became violently ill last summer,” Sano said, “and that someone threw a dagger at her. Did you know? Were you responsible?” Seeking to verify Reiko’s story, Sano also wondered whether Lieutenant Kushida feared that Harume’s diary implicated him.

“I knew. But if you think I had anything to do with what happened, you’re wrong.” Kushida glared at Sano in contemptuous defiance. “I never would have hurt Harume. I loved her. I did not kill her!”

Ahead, shining like a sunlit path through a dark forest, Sano saw a way out of his own dilemma. Lieutenant Kushida’s attempted burglary made him the prime suspect. His earlier lies rendered his denials unconvincing. If Sano charged Kushida with murder, his conviction was virtually assured: most trials ended in a verdict of guilty. Sano could avoid the political perils of continuing the investigation, and the disgrace of execution if he failed. And with a major source of conflict between him and Reiko gone, they could get a fresh start on their marriage. But Sano wasn’t ready to close the case.

“Lieutenant Kushida,” he said, “I’m placing you under house arrest until the investigation of Lady Harume’s murder is complete. At that time, your fate will be decided. Meanwhile, you shall remain inside your family home, under constant guard; you are not permitted to leave for any reason except fire or earthquake.” These were the standard terms of house arrest, the samurai alternative to jail, a privilege of rank. To the detectives, Sano said, “Escort him to the banchō.” This was the district west of Edo Castle where hereditary Tokugawa vassals lived.

Hirata regarded Sano with dismay. “Wait, sōsakan-sama. May I have a word with you first?”

They went out to the corridor, leaving the detectives to guard Lieutenant Kushida. Hirata whispered, “Sumimasen-excuse me, but I think you’re making a mistake. Kushida is guilty, and lying to cover it up. He killed Harume because she had a lover and he was jealous. He should be charged and sent to trial. Why are you being so easy on him?”

“And why are you so eager to accept the easy solution, so early in the investigation?” Sano countered. “This isn’t like you, Hirata-san.”

Flushing, Hirata said stubbornly, “I think he killed her.”

Sano decided that this wasn’t the right time to address his chief retainer’s problems, whatever they were. “The weaknesses in the case against Kushida are obvious. First of all, the break-in is evidence of something wrong with him, but not necessarily that he’s guilty of murder. Second, just because he lied about certain things doesn’t mean we should disregard everything he says.

“Third: If we close the case too soon, the real killer may go free, while an innocent man is executed. More murders could follow.” Sano told Hirata about Magistrate Ueda’s conspiracy theory. “If there’s a plot against the shogun, we must identify all the criminals, or the threat to the Tokugawa line will persist.”

Hirata nodded in reluctant agreement. Sano leaned through the doorway and said to the detectives, “Proceed.” Then he turned back to Hirata. “Besides, I’m not ready to dismiss my questions about the other suspects.”

Although Hirata’s unhappy silence troubled him, Sano didn’t intend to drop his investigation of the Miyagi-or Lady Ichiteru.