The Incense Game

33

The trip to Mitake was more difficult than Reiko had anticipated. Escorted by four mounted guards, she traveled all morning. They detoured through fields, avoiding huge cracks in the road. She frequently had to get out of her palanquin so that the bearers could maneuver it through the woods. About two-thirds along the way they met a massive landslide of rocks and earth, a cliff that had fallen across the highway. Reiko had to abandon her palanquin and tell her bearers to wait for her. As she climbed over the landslide, her sandals slipped on loose dirt. She clung to Lieutenant Tanuma’s hand for support. Her other escorts walked the horses up. Reiko was afraid she’d fall, afraid for the child inside her, but she’d come too far to turn back. The downward slope was gentler, and Sano needed the information she’d promised him. She wouldn’t let the truth go undiscovered and have a civil war start because she was a coward.

On the other side of the landslide, Tanuma lifted Reiko onto his horse and climbed up in front of her. She clung to him and hoped the swaying and jolting wouldn’t shake the baby loose.

Fewer obstacles arose the farther they traveled. By the time they turned onto the branch of the highway that led to Mitake, it seemed as if the earthquake had never happened. Dikes and canals bordered wide rice fields frosted with snow. Crows flew, black and sharp-edged as ink marks against the blue sky. Mitake consisted of a dirt road that ran past some fifty huts with mud walls and thatched roofs, surrounded by bamboo fences and small yards cluttered with farm equipment. A torii gate marked the entrance to a Shinto shrine. As Reiko and her party rode into the village, peasants lined up along the road to watch. It was probably rare for any samurai except local tax collectors to visit them, and they’d probably never seen a lady on horseback.

“We want to talk to an old woman named Kasane,” Lieutenant Tanuma announced. “Who can tell us where she lives?”

The crowd shifted and murmured. A man lurched forward, pushed by his neighbors. He was short, solid, in his fifties, with a tanned, wind-burned face. Bowing hastily, he said, “She’s my aunt.”

Reiko and her guards followed him to a house at the edge of the village. Larger than the others, it had a stone wall with a roofed gate. The thatch was neatly trimmed, the walls coated with fresh white plaster. The nephew ushered Reiko into the house while her guards waited outside. After she removed her shoes in the entryway, he took her to a room that served as kitchen and parlor, with the hearth, cookware, hanging utensils, and cutting board at one end and a raised tatami floor at the other. He gestured for Reiko to sit on the tatami near a brazier.

“Auntie!” he called. “You have company!”

A tiny woman shuffled in through a doorway at the back of the room. Skeletally thin, bent at the waist and shoulders, her elbows sticking out at angles, she leaned on a wooden cane. She reminded Reiko of a grasshopper. Loose skin hung on her pointed face, which had caved in around her toothless mouth. Her hair was like cobwebs. She was probably closer to eighty than a hundred. She halted in front of Reiko and peered into her face. “Who are you, little girl?” Her voice was high, tremulous. Droopy lids shaded her eyes.

Reiko spoke in a loud, clear voice. “My name is Reiko. I’m the wife of Chamberlain Sano, the shogun’s second-in-command.”

Kasane winced. “You needn’t shout. I may be almost blind, but I’m not deaf.”

“I’m sorry,” Reiko said, ashamed of her mistake.

Carefully lowering herself to the floor, Kasane folded her bony limbs and knelt opposite Reiko. She laid her cane at her side and called to her nephew, “Make my guest some tea.”

She overrode Reiko’s polite refusals. The nephew brewed and poured tea, set rice cakes on a dish, then decamped. Kasane’s toothless smile brimmed with pleasure. “I never had a samurai lady come to visit me. Not even when I lived in Edo. I used to be a nursemaid in the house of a very important family there, the Ogyu clan. My young master grew up to be head of the shogun’s big school.”

“Yes, I know,” Reiko said.

Kasane beamed proudly, then looked confused. “What was it you wanted?”

Reiko had spent much of the journey thinking about how best to approach Kasane. “I need to talk to you about Minister Ogyu.”

“Well, I haven’t seen him in-oh, it must be twenty years. Since I came to live here.”

Ogyu had tried to cut his ties to his old nurse. Reiko was more certain than ever that Kasane had dangerous knowledge about him. Maybe he believed that if she didn’t see him, she would forget it, or that any tales she told wouldn’t reach the ears of anyone who mattered.

“But he still sends me letters and money,” Kasane said. “Because I took care of him when he was young. He’s taking care of me now that I’m old. He was always such a good, kind boy. I never married or had children, but I raised him and loved him as if he were my own.”

But Reiko heard a dubious note in Kasane’s wavering voice. That wasn’t the real reason, and Kasane knew it. The pension Minister Ogyu had given his nurse, that must have paid for this house, was akin to the blackmail Reiko was now sure he’d paid Madam Usugumo.

“I came to see you because Minister Ogyu is a suspect in a murder that my husband is investigating,” Reiko said.

“Murder?” Kasane’s toothless mouth gaped. “Who was murdered?”

“A woman named Usugumo, his incense teacher. And two young ladies, her other pupils.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Madam Usugumo found out something about Minister Ogyu. It must be the same secret you’ve been keeping for him.”

“Secret? I don’t know any secret.” Kasane’s gaze wandered, belying her words.

Reiko described the bodies in the sunken house, the fatal incense game. “She blackmailed him. He poisoned her so that he wouldn’t have to pay her anymore and she could never talk. I must warn you that he may kill you next.”

“But I’ve kept quiet for twenty years!” Alarmed into forgetting to deny knowing the secret, Kasane said, “Why would he think I would tell now?”

“He’s tired of paying you and waiting for you to die.” Reiko was intentionally brutal. “He’d rather murder you than let nature take its course.”

The nurse sat in the shambles of her illusions about the man she’d thought of as her son. She reminded Reiko of the earthquake victims sitting by their ruined homes. “I don’t want to die.” She clutched at Reiko. “What should I do?”

“The only way to protect yourself is to tell me the secret,” Reiko said. “I’ll let the whole world know. Then it won’t serve any purpose for Minister Ogyu to kill you. You’ll be safe.”

Kasane trembled. Reiko thought of the earth quaking and splitting open the ground. The secret buried inside Kasane was erupting, shattering her as she wrestled with her conscience, her instinct for self-preservation, and her loyalty to her master. She said, “I always knew I would have to tell someday.” The words shook out of her like rice on the sieves used to separate grains from husks. Resignation eased her trembling, saddened her face. “It’s time.” She sighed.

“My mother was a midwife in Nihonbashi. My father was a doctor. He died when I was very little.” Kasane’s voice took on a remote, nostalgic tone. “But my mother made a good living. She was one of the best midwives in Edo.”

Reiko glanced at the window. It was past noon, and if she wanted to get home before darkness made the journey even more difficult, she must leave soon. She resisted the urge to hurry Kasane, which might change her mind about confessing.

“Very few of the babies she delivered ever died,” Kasane said proudly. “Very few of the mothers, either.” That was a great accomplishment, Reiko knew, considering that childbirth was fraught with hazards and many mothers and infants didn’t survive. “All the rich ladies in town would call her in as soon as they knew they were expecting. She gave them potions she made from secret recipes she learned from her mother, who was also a midwife. It kept them and the babies healthy. And she learned acupuncture from my father. When the women went into labor, she used the needles to relieve the pains. The parents paid my mother very well. And they told other people about her. Samurai ladies started asking her to deliver their babies. When I was ten years old, she started taking me to the births. I’ll never forget the first time I saw a child born.” Awe illuminated her old face. “Out of all the blood and suffering, a miracle.”

Reiko smiled. Truer words she’d never heard.

“At first I helped my mother with simple things, like boiling water and laying out her tools and cleaning up afterward. As I got older, she taught me her trade. How to make the potions. How to turn a baby that was coming out feet first. How to sew up tears. How to stop bleeding and cure fevers. She died when I was twenty.” Sadness tinged Kasane’s voice. “By then I was almost as good a midwife as she’d been. It was me that everybody called to deliver babies. I never got around to marrying, but I didn’t mind. It was as if I was put on earth to be a midwife. And one day I was called to the Ogyu house.”

At last she was getting to the meat of her story. Reiko’s impatience eased.

“Lady Ogyu-my master’s mother-was pregnant,” Kasane said. “She’d already had four miscarriages and two stillborns. She begged me to help her bear a live child. She was desperate. I promised to do my best. But some women aren’t meant to have children. When she went into labor, I prayed as hard as she did. I’d never lost a baby yet, and it was my worst fear.”

Reiko imagined the scene-the pregnant woman convulsing on the bed, the midwife holding her hands and urging her to push, both hoping for the miracle that neither expected.

“The gods must have heard us,” Kasane said. “The baby was born alive. It was the last one I ever delivered. It was a healthy, perfect little girl.” Her expression signaled a deep, incongruous guilt. “So now you know.”

“That’s the secret? That Minister Ogyu has an older sister?” Reiko couldn’t imagine why this fact would be worth killing to hide.

“It wasn’t his sister,” Kasane said. “He was his parents’ only child.”

“What?” Reiko was thoroughly confused. “You just said his mother gave birth to a-”

“Listen and you’ll understand.” The sudden sharpness of Kasane’s voice silenced Reiko. “When Lady Ogyu saw that she had a daughter instead of a son, she was very upset. She cried so loud that her husband came to see what was the matter. When he saw the baby girl, he was disappointed. He told me to take her into the next room. I washed her while I listened to him trying to comfort Lady Ogyu. She said, ‘I’ll never be able to have another baby! This was my only chance, and I’ve let you down!’

“After a while, she got quiet. I wrapped up the baby and went to listen at the door.” Kasane craned her neck. Her arms curved around the shape of the infant. “Lady Ogyu said, ‘The baby doesn’t have to be a girl. We can raise it as a boy. To be your son. Your heir.’”

Now Reiko understood. Now shock hit her so hard that she fell forward. She caught herself with her hands. Palms splayed on the floor, mouth open, she stared.

The baby wasn’t Minister Ogyu’s sister; it was him.

That was his secret: He’d been born female.

Never would Reiko have guessed. She’d thought his secret would turn out to be embezzlement, treason, or even murder, the usual vices. Instead, it was a simple fact of nature, a circumstance beyond his control.

“How could he and his parents get away with it?” Reiko exclaimed, even though they obviously had. In retrospect, she saw the signs she’d missed: Minster Ogyu’s soft, pudgy figure; his voice that sounded falsely deep; his face that was unnaturally smooth except for those few whiskers-all had hinted at his true sex. But such a deception was unheard of. Minister Ogyu had not only fooled everyone into believing he was male; he’d attained a coveted position in the government.

“That’s what Master Ogyu asked his wife. She said, ‘We’ll say I gave birth to a boy. Nobody knows differently except us.’ He said, ‘Very well.’ Then the baby started to cry. They looked up and saw me.”

The scene was vivid in Reiko’s mind: The woman on the bloodstained bed, plotting with her husband; the shocked midwife standing in the doorway holding the baby. “You were the only witness to the baby’s birth.”

“They asked me to stay and be the baby’s nursemaid. They offered me a lot of money, and something I didn’t know I wanted until then.” Kasane smiled, reliving the surprise she’d felt. “The chance to bring up a child instead of walking away after I’d delivered it. So I stayed.”

Reiko could still hardly believe what she’d heard. “But why would they go to such lengths? Couldn’t Minister Ogyu’s father have just adopted a boy?” That was the custom for men who lacked male offspring. The shogun himself would follow it unless he fathered a son, or as soon as he gave up his hope that it was possible. An adopted heir had all the rights and status of a sired one. “Or had one by a concubine?”

“Lady Ogyu didn’t want him to,” Kasane said. “She wanted to be the mother of his heir. She couldn’t stand the thought of having to treat another woman’s child as the son of the family. And her will was stronger than her husband’s. He did what she wanted.”

“But how could they have turned a girl into a boy?” It seemed impossible. Since birth, Masahiro had been so masculine, and Akiko so feminine, that Reiko couldn’t have imagined trying to switch their sexes.

“It was hard,” Kasane admitted. “Especially for my poor young master. His parents gave him medicine made from goat weed and dong quai to make him masculine and grow whiskers. They were always after him to eat more and get bigger. To talk and act like a boy. To learn everything he would need to know as a man. He had terrible headaches.” She sighed regretfully. “I nursed him as best I could, but not even my potions could take away the pain.”

Reiko couldn’t entirely pity Minister Ogyu. He’d reaped benefits that most women would never have-an education, financial independence, an outlet for his talents, freedom. “Didn’t anyone notice he was different from other boys?”

“My young master was a good, dutiful child. He worked hard at it,” Kasane said. Reiko belatedly noticed that she always referred to Ogyu with male pronouns. She had completely accepted him as a boy. Reiko herself couldn’t help thinking of him as male, even now that she knew better. “He was smart, too. Good at his lessons. And his parents kept him away from people who might find him out. Like other children. No martial arts practice. And they hired tutors who had their heads up in the clouds, who didn’t notice they were teaching a girl.”

Minister Ogyu would have made a good actor, Reiko thought. Although fooling the shogun was no great feat, Ogyu had tricked countless smarter, more observant men, including Sano. But there was one person he had taken into his confidence.

“His wife knows,” Reiko said, remembering the conversation she’d overheard between Minister and Lady Ogyu.

“I wondered what would happen when it was time for him to marry. Then I heard he picked a plain, timid girl. I suppose she didn’t have the nerve to complain to somebody.”

“They have two children. He couldn’t have fathered them. Where did they come from?”

Kasane shook her head, as perplexed as Reiko. “Having children helped him pretend he was a man. Nobody ever guessed he wasn’t.”

How fortunate for him, Reiko thought. “If his secret became public, there would be serious consequences.” The daughter of a magistrate, Reiko knew there weren’t any laws against women posing as men; the problem had never arisen. But the government wouldn’t let Minister Ogyu’s deception go unpunished. “At best, he would be stripped of his position and all his rights as a man, including marriage with a woman.” Lady Ogyu would lose her husband and her status as a wife, her children their legitimacy. “At worst, he would be put to death for fraud against the shogun. So would his wife, as an accomplice in the crime. And no matter what, he would be the center of a scandal, the butt of jokes.”

For the proud samurai into which Minister Ogyu had fashioned himself, the humiliation would be worse than death.

Reiko knew that his was a secret imminently worth killing for. Every intuition told her that Minister Ogyu had murdered Madam Usugumo. She didn’t need physical proof. She didn’t need to wait for news that Priest Ryuko was innocent. She would stake her life on the fact that Minister Ogyu hadn’t been willing to risk the chance that Madam Usugumo would talk after he spent his entire fortune on paying her blackmail. He had poisoned the incense that Madam Usugumo used in her last game.

“He was so desperate that he didn’t care whether he killed her pupils, too.” Reiko was appalled by his indifference to the side effects of his crime. “Lord Hosokawa’s daughters were just accidental casualties.”

“What’s going to happen to him?” Kasane asked anxiously. It was clear that she still cared about him in spite of how he and his family had used her. Her face was woeful with her shame that she’d betrayed his trust. “And his family?”

“That’s for my husband to decide,” Reiko said.

There came the sound of a door opening at the back of the house. A cold draft swept into the room. “Who’s there?” Kasane called.