The Concubine’s Tattoo

3

The gate to Sano’s mansion in the Edo Castle Official Quarter stood open to the bright autumn afternoon. Up the street, past the estates of other high bakufu officials, porters carried wedding gifts from prominent citizens hoping to win favor with the shogun’s sōsakan. Servants transferred the bundles across the paved courtyard, through the wooden inner fence, and into the tile-roofed, half-timbered house. There maids unpacked; cooks labored in the kitchen; the housekeeper supervised last-minute preparations for the newlyweds’ residency. Members of the sōsakan’s elite detective corps passed among the surrounding barracks, the stables, and the house’s front offices, and through the gate, carrying on business in their master’s absence.

Isolated from this clamor of purposeful activity, Ueda Reiko, still wearing her white bridal kimono, knelt in her chamber in the mansion’s private living quarters, amid chests filled with personal belongings brought from Magistrate Ueda’s house. The newly decorated room smelled sweetly of fresh tatami. A colorful mural of birds in a forest adorned the wall. A black lacquer dressing table with matching screen and cabinet, inlaid with gold butterflies, stood ready for Reiko’s use. Afternoon sunlight shone through latticed paper windows; outside, birds sang in the garden. Yet the pleasant surroundings, and even the fact that she was now living at Edo Castle -the goal of all ladies of her class-failed to lift the unhappiness that weighed upon Reiko’s spirit.

“There you are, young mistress!”

Into the room hurried O-sugi, Reiko’s childhood nurse and companion, who had moved to the castle with her. Plump and smiling, O-sugi regarded Reiko with affectionate exasperation.”Daydreaming, as usual.”

“What else is there to do?” Reiko asked sadly.”The banquet was canceled. Everyone is gone. And you said not to unpack, because there are servants to wait on me, and it would make a bad impression if I did anything for myself.”

Reiko had counted on the festivities to take her mind off her homesickness and fears. The death of the shogun’s concubine and the possibility of an epidemic seemed trivial in comparison with these. How could she, who had never left her father’s house for more than a few days, live here, forever, with a man who was a stranger to her? Although Sano’s absence delayed the scary plunge into the unknown future, Reiko had nothing to do but worry.

The nurse clucked her tongue.”Well, you could change your clothes. No use hanging about in bridal kimono, now that the wedding is over.”

With O-sugi’s assistance, off came the white robe and red under-kimono; on went an expensive kimono from Reiko’s trousseau, printed with burgundy maple leaves on a background of brown woodgrain, yet dull and somber compared to her customary gay, bright maiden’s clothing. Its sleeves reached only to her hips-unlike the floor-length ones she had worn until today-suitable for a married woman. O-sugi pinned Reiko’s long hair atop her head in a new, mature style. As Reiko stood before the mirror, watching the trappings of her youth disappear and her reflection age, her unhappiness deepened.

Was she doomed to a secluded existence within this house, a mere vessel for her husband’s children, a slave to his authority? Must all her dreams die on the first day of her adult life?

Reiko’s unusual girlhood had disinclined her for marriage. She was Magistrate Ueda’s only child; her mother had died when she was a baby, and he had never married again. He could have ignored his daughter, consigning her to the complete care of servants, as other men in his situation might have, but Magistrate Ueda had valued Reiko as all that remained of the beloved wife he’d lost. Her intelligence had secured his affection.

At age four, she would toddle into his study and peer at the reports he wrote.”What does this say?” she would ask, pointing to one character after another.

Once the magistrate taught her a word, she never forgot. Soon she could read simple sentences. She still remembered the joy of discovering that each character had its own meaning, and that a column of them expressed an idea. Abandoning her dolls, she spent hours inking her own words on large sheets of paper. Magistrate Ueda had encouraged Reiko’s interest. He’d employed tutors to instruct her in reading, calligraphy, history, mathematics, philosophy, and the Chinese classics: subjects that a son would have been taught. When he’d found his six-year-old daughter wielding his sword against an imaginary foe, he’d hired martial arts masters to instruct her in kenjutsu and unarmed combat.

“A samurai woman must know how to defend herself in case of war,” Magistrate Ueda had told the two sensei, who’d been reluctant to teach a girl.

Reiko recalled their disdainful treatment of her, and the lessons intended to dissuade her from this manly pursuit. They’d brought bigger, stronger boys to serve as her opponents in practice matches. But Reiko’s proud spirit refused to break. Hair disheveled, white uniform stained with sweat and blood, she’d battered at her opponent with her wooden sword until he went down under a storm of blows. She’d wrestled to the floor a boy twice her size. Her reward was the respect she saw in the teachers’ eyes-and the real, steel swords her father had given her, replacing each pair with longer ones every year as she grew. She loved stories of historical battles, envisioning herself as the great warriors Minamoto Yoritomo or Tokugawa Ieyasu. Reiko’s playmates were the sons of her father’s retainers; she scorned other girls as weak, frivolous creatures. She was sure that, as her father’s only child, she would one day inherit his position as magistrate of Edo, and she must be ready.

Reality had soon cured her of this notion.”Girls don’t become magistrates when they grow up,” scoffed her teachers and friends.”They marry, raise children, and serve their husbands.”

And Reiko had overheard her grandmother telling Magistrate Ueda, “It isn’t right to treat Reiko like a boy. If you don’t stop these ridiculous lessons, she’ll never learn her place in the world. She must be taught some feminine accomplishments, or she’ll never get a husband.”

Magistrate Ueda had compromised, continuing the lessons but also engaging teachers to instruct Reiko in sewing, flower arranging, music, and the tea ceremony. And still she had clung to her dreams. Her life would be different from other women’s: She would have adventures; she would achieve glory.

Then, when Reiko was fifteen, her grandmother had persuaded the magistrate that it was time for her to marry. Her first miai-the formal meeting between a prospective bride and groom and their families- had taken place at Zōjō Temple. Reiko, who had observed the lives of her aunts and cousins, didn’t want to marry at all. She knew that wives must obey every command and cater to every whim of their husbands, passively enduring insults or abuse. Even the most respected man could be a tyrant in his own home, forbidding his wife to speak, forcing physical attentions upon her, begetting one child after another until her health failed, then neglecting her to dally with concubines or prostitutes. While men came and went as they pleased, a wife of Reiko’s social class stayed home unless given her husband’s permission to attend religious ceremonies or family functions. Servants relieved her of household chores, but kept her idle, useless. To Reiko, marriage seemed like a trap to be avoided at all cost. And her first suitor did nothing to change her mind.

He was a rich, high-ranking Tokugawa bureaucrat. He was also fat, forty, and stupid; during a picnic under the blossoming cherry trees, he got extremely drunk, making lewd remarks about his patronage of the Yoshiwara courtesans. To Reiko’s horror, she saw that her grandmother and the go-between didn’t share her revulsion; the social and financial advantages of the match blinded them to the man’s flaws. Magistrate Ueda would not meet Reiko’s gaze, and she sensed that he wanted to break off the negotiations but couldn’t find an acceptable reason for doing so. Reiko decided to take matters into her own hands.

“Do you think there was any way Japan could have conquered Korea ninety-eight years ago, instead of having to give up and withdraw the troops?” she asked the bureaucrat.

“Why, I-I’m sure I don’t know,” he blustered, eyeing her with surprise.”I never thought about it.”

But Reiko had. While her grandmother and the go-between stared in dismay and her father tried to hide a smile, she stated her opinion- that Japanese victory over Korea could have been achieved-giving explanations at great length. The next day, the bureaucrat ended the marriage negotiations with a letter that read, “Miss Reiko is too forward, impertinent, and disrespectful to make a good wife. Good luck finding someone else to marry her.”

Subsequent miai with other unattractive men had ended similarly. Reiko’s family protested, scolded, and finally gave up in despair. She rejoiced. Then, on her nineteenth birthday, Magistrate Ueda summoned her to his office and said sadly, “Daughter, I understand your reluctance to marry; it’s my own fault for encouraging your interest in unfeminine pursuits. But I won’t be able to take care of you forever. You need a husband to protect you when I am dead and gone.”

“Father, I’m educated, I can fight, I can take care of myself,” Reiko protested, though she knew he spoke the truth. Women did not hold government posts, run businesses, or work as anything other than servants, farm laborers, nuns, or prostitutes. These options repelled Reiko, as did the prospect of living on the charity of relatives. She bowed her head, acknowledging defeat.

“We’ve received a new marriage proposal,” Magistrate Ueda said, “and please don’t ruin the negotiations, because we may never get another. It’s from Sano Ichirō, the shogun’s most honorable investigator.”

Reiko’s head snapped up. She knew of Sōsakan Sano, as did everyone in Edo. She had heard rumors of Sano’s courage, and a great but secret service he’d performed for the shogun. Her interest stirred. Wanting to see this famous wonder, she consented to the miai.

And Sano didn’t disappoint her. As she and Magistrate Ueda strolled the grounds of Kannei Temple with the go-between, Sano, and his mother, Reiko eyed Sano covertly. Tall and strong, with a proud, noble bearing, he was younger than any of her other suitors, and by far the handsomest. As formal custom dictated, they didn’t speak directly to each other, but intelligence shone in his eyes, echoed in his voice. Best of all, Reiko knew he was leading the hunt for the Bundori Killer, whose grisly murders had plunged Edo into terror. He wasn’t a lazy drunk who neglected duty for the revels of Yoshiwara. He delivered dangerous killers to justice. To Reiko, he seemed the embodiment of the warrior heroes she’d worshipped since childhood. She had a chance to share his exciting life. And when she looked at Sano, an unfamiliar, pleasurable warmth spread through her body. Marriage suddenly didn’t look so bad. As soon as they got home, Reiko told Magistrate Ueda to accept the proposal.

When the wedding date was set, however, Reiko’s doubts about marriage resurfaced. Her female relatives counseled her to obey and serve her husband; the gifts-kitchen utensils, sewing supplies, home furnishings-symbolized the domestic role she must assume. Her books and swords remained at the Ueda mansion. Hope had flared briefly at the wedding, inspired by the sight of Sano, as handsome as she remembered; but now Reiko feared that her life would be no different from any other married woman’s. Her husband was out on an important adventure; she was home. She had no reason to believe that his treatment of her would be different from any other man’s. Panic squeezed her lungs.

What had she done? Was it too late to escape?

O-sugi fetched a tray, which she set upon Reiko’s dressing table. Reiko saw the short bamboo brush, mirror, and ceramic basin; the two matching bowls, one containing water, the other a dark liquid. Her heart contracted.

“No!”

O-sugi sighed.”Reiko-chan, you know you must dye your teeth black. It’s the custom for a married woman, proof of her fidelity to her husband. Now come.” Gently but firmly she seated Reiko before the table.”The sooner over with, the better.”

With leaden reluctance, Reiko dipped the brush in the bowl and opened her mouth in an exaggerated grimace. When she painted the first stroke across her upper teeth, some of the black dye dripped onto her tongue. Her throat spasmed; saliva gushed into her mouth. The dye, composed of ink, iron filings, and plant extracts, was terribly bitter.

“Ugh!” Reiko spat into the basin.”How can anyone stand this?”

“They all do, and so will you. Twice a month, to maintain the color. Now continue, and be careful not to stain your lips or your kimono.”

Wincing and gagging, Reiko applied layer after layer of dye to her teeth. Finally she rinsed, spat, then held the mirror before her face. She viewed her reflection with dismay. The dead, black teeth contrasted sharply with the white face powder and red lip rouge, highlighting her skin’s every imperfection. With the tip of her tongue, Reiko touched her chipped incisor, a habit in times of strong emotion. At age twenty, she looked ancient-and ugly. Her days of study and martial arts practice were over; hope of romance withered. How could her husband want her for anything besides obedient servitude now?

Reiko choked down a sob, and saw O-sugi regarding her with sympathy. O-sugi had been married at fourteen to a middle-aged Nihonbashi shopkeeper who’d beaten her daily, until the neighbors complained that her cries disturbed them. The case had come before Magistrate Ueda, who sentenced the shopkeeper to a beating, granted O-sugi a divorce, and hired her as nurse to his infant daughter. O-sugi was the only mother Reiko had ever known. Now the bond between them strengthened with the poignant similarity in their situations: one rich, one poor, yet both prisoners of society, their fate dependent upon men.

O-sugi embraced Reiko, saying sadly, “My poor young lady. Life will be easier if you just accept it.” Then, in an effort to be cheerful, “After all this wedding excitement, you must be starving. How about some tea and buns-the pink kind, with sweet chestnut paste inside?” This was Reiko’s favorite treat.”I’ll bring them right away.”

The nurse limped out of the room: Her brutal husband had permanently crippled her left leg. Seeing this ignited angry determination inside Reiko. Then and there she refused to let marriage cripple her own body, or mind. She would not be imprisoned inside this house, talents and ambitions wasted. She would live!

Reiko rose and fetched a cloak from the wardrobe. Then she hurried to the front door, where Sano’s staff was unloading the wedding gifts.

“How may I serve you, Honorable Madam?” asked the chief manservant.

“I don’t need anything,” Reiko said.”I’m going out.”

The servant said haughtily, “A lady cannot just walk out of the castle alone. It’s against the law.”

He arranged an escort of maids and soldiers. He summoned a palanquin and six bearers and installed her inside the ornate, cushioned sedan chair. He gave the escort commander the official document that allowed Reiko passage in and out of the castle, then asked her, “Where shall I tell the sōsakan-sama you’ve gone?”

Reiko was appalled. What could she do while hampered by a sixteen-person entourage that would undoubtedly report her every move to Sano and everyone else at Edo Castle? “To visit my father,” she said, accepting defeat.

Trapped in the palanquin, she rode through the castle’s winding stone passages, past guard towers and patrolling soldiers. The escort commander presented her pass at the security checkpoints; soldiers opened gates and let the procession continue downhill. Mounted samurai cantered past. Windows in the covered corridors that topped the walls offered brief glimpses of Edo’s rooftops, spread out on the plain below, and the fiery red-and-gold autumn foliage along the Sumida River. Against the distant western sky, Mount Fuji ’s ethereal white peak soared. Reiko saw it all through the small, narrow window of the palanquin. She sighed.

However, once outside the castle’s main gate and past the great walled estates of the daimyo, Reiko’s spirits rose. Here, in the administrative district, located in Hibiya, south of Edo Castle, the city’s high officials lived and worked in office-mansions. Here Reiko had enjoyed the childhood whose end she now regretted so keenly. But perhaps it wasn’t entirely lost.

At Magistrate Ueda’s estate, she alit from the palanquin. Leaving her entourage outside the wall among the strolling dignitaries and hurrying clerks, she approached the sentries stationed at the gate’s roofed portals.

“Good afternoon, Miss Reiko,” they greeted her.

“Is my father home?” she asked.

“Yes, but he’s hearing a case.”

Reiko wasn’t surprised that the conscientious magistrate had returned to work when the wedding banquet was canceled. In the courtyard she wove through a crowd of townspeople, police, and prisoners awaiting the magistrate’s attention, into the low, half-timbered building. She slipped past the administrative offices and shut herself up inside a chamber adjacent to the Court of Justice.

The room, once a closet, was barely big enough to hold its one tatami mat. With no windows, it was dim and stuffy, yet Reiko had spent some of her happiest hours here. One wall was made of woven lattice. Through the chinks, Reiko had a perfect view of the court. On the other side of the wall her father occupied the dais, wearing black judicial robes, his back to her, flanked by secretaries. Lanterns lit the long hall, where the defendant, his hands tied behind him, knelt on the shirasu, an area of floor directly before the dais, covered with white sand, symbol of truth. Police, witnesses, and the defendant’s family knelt in rows in the audience section; sentries guarded the doors.

Reiko knelt to watch the proceedings, as she’d done countless times before. Trials fascinated her. They showed a side of life that she could not experience firsthand. Magistrate Ueda had indulged her interest, letting her use this room. Reiko’s tongue touched her chipped tooth as she smiled in fond memory.

“What have you to say in your own defense, Moneylender Igarashi?” Magistrate Ueda asked the prisoner.

“Honorable Magistrate, I swear I did not kill my partner,” the defendant said with earnest sincerity.”We fought over the favors of the courtesan Hyacinth because we were drunk, but we settled our differences.” Tears ran down the defendant’s face.”I loved my partner like a brother. I don’t know who stabbed him.”

During discussions of cases, Reiko had impressed Magistrate Ueda with her insight; he’d come to value her judgment. Now she whispered through the lattice, “The moneylender is lying, Father. He’s still jealous of his partner. And now their whole fortune is his. Push him hard-he’ll break and confess.”

She’d often given her advice during trials this way, and Magistrate Ueda had often followed it, with good results, but now his shoulders stiffened; his head turned slightly. Instead of interrogating the defendant, Magistrate Ueda said, “This session will adjourn for a moment.” Rising, he left the courtroom.

Then the door to Reiko’s chamber opened. There in the corridor stood her father, regarding her with consternation. “Daughter.” Taking Reiko’s arm, he led her down the hall, into his private office. “Your first visit home shouldn’t take place until tomorrow, and your husband must accompany you. You know the custom. What are you doing here, alone, now? Is something wrong?”

“Father, I-”

Suddenly Reiko’s brave defiance crumbled. Sobbing, she poured out her misgivings about marriage; the dreams she could not forsake. Magistrate Ueda listened sympathetically, but when she’d finished and calmed down, he shook his head and said, “I should not have raised you to expect more from life than is possible for a woman. It was an act of foolish love and poor judgment on my part, which I deeply regret. But what’s done is done. We cannot go back, but only forward. You must not watch any more trials, or assist with my work as I’ve mistakenly allowed you to do in the past. Your place is with your husband.”

Even as Reiko saw the door to her youth close forever, a gleam of hope brightened the dark horizon of her future. Magistrate Ueda’s last sentence recalled her fantasy of sharing Sōsakan Sano’s adventures. In ancient times, samurai women had ridden into battle beside their men. Reiko remembered the incident that had ended the wedding festivities.

Earlier, preoccupied with her own problems, she’d given hardly a thought to Sano’s new case; now, her interest stirred.

“Maybe I could help investigate Lady Harume’s death,” she said thoughtfully.

Concern shadowed Magistrate Ueda’s face. “Reiko-chan.” His voice was kind, but stern. “You’re smarter than many men, but you are young, naïve, and far too confident of your own limited abilities. Any affair involving the shogun’s court is fraught with danger. Sōsakan Sano will not welcome your interference. And what could you, a woman, do anyway?”

Rising, the magistrate led Reiko out of the mansion to the gate, where her entourage waited. “Go home, daughter. Be thankful you needn’t work to earn your rice, like other, less fortunate women. Obey your husband; he is a good man.” Then, echoing O-sugi’s advice, he said, “Accept your fate, or it will only grow harder to bear.”

Reluctantly Reiko climbed into the palanquin. Tasting the bitterness of the dye on her teeth, she shook her head in sad acknowledgment of her father’s wisdom.

Yet she possessed the same intelligence, drive, and courage that had made him magistrate of Edo -the post she would have inherited if she’d been born male! As the palanquin carried her briskly up the street, Reiko called to the bearers: “Stop! Go back!”

The bearers obeyed. Disembarking, Reiko hurried into her father’s house, to her childhood room. From the cabinet she took her two swords, long and short, with matching gold-inlaid hilts and scabbards. Then she returned to the palanquin and settled herself for the trip back to Edo Castle, hugging the precious weapons-symbols of honor and adventure, of everything she was and wanted to be.

Somehow she would make a purposeful, satisfying life for herself. And she would begin by investigating the strange death of the shogun’s concubine.