The Perfumed Sleeve

32

Reiko found Gosechi in a minor, seldom-used sanctuary inside the main hall of Zōjō Temple.

Lord Matsudaira’s concubine knelt alone before the altar, a roofed enclosure with carved gold columns. Her bronze silk cloak and long, lustrous black hair gleamed in the light from the candles burning in front of the gold Buddha statue. She was small and slender. With her back to the door and her head bowed, she seemed isolated in private thought, oblivious to the chanting of other worshippers in the main sanctuary or gongs pealing outside. Reiko quietly approached her, through shadowy dimness saturated with the odors of incense and burnt wax.

“Gosechi-san?” Reiko said.

The woman turned. Reiko saw that she was very young and stunningly beautiful. Her face was wide at the brow and tapered at the chin, blessed with petal-soft skin and dainty features. Reiko could understand how she’d attracted both Lord Matsudaira and his nephew. Her eyes, as open and innocent as a child’s, brimmed with grief, and confusion because a stranger had addressed her.

Reiko introduced herself, then said, “I’m the wife of the shogun’s sōsakan-sama.” She knelt beside Gosechi. “I’m sorry to bother you, but there are urgent matters that I must discuss with you.”

Wiping tears on her sleeve, the girl murmured, “Perhaps some other time… if you would be so kind.” Her voice was raw from weeping. “Please don’t take offense, but I’m very upset right now.”

“I understand,” Reiko said with pity. “You’re mourning for Daiemon.” She hated that she must disturb Gosechi after she’d just suffered what appeared a devastating loss.

The alarm in Gosechi’s eyes confirmed that she’d had an illicit affair with Daiemon and still feared the consequences should Lord Matsudaira find out. “No-I mean, yes, I’m sad because he died. He was my lord’s nephew.”

“He was more than that to you, wasn’t he?” Reiko said gently. “You and he were lovers.”

Gosechi shook her head in vigorous denial, but her face crumpled. She wept into her hands while her body convulsed in paroxysms of grief. “I loved him more than anything else in the world,” she said between sobs and gasps. Reiko sensed relief in her, as though she found solace in speaking at last to someone who knew her secret. “I can’t bear that he’s gone!”

Reiko put her arm around Gosechi while she continued weeping. After a long while, Gosechi grew calmer. She said in a soft, desolate voice, “I knew I was wrong to love Daiemon. I should have been faithful to Lord Matsudaira. I owe him so much. My parents couldn’t afford to support me. They sold me to a broker who supplies women to the pleasure quarter. If Lord Matsudaira hadn’t bought me, I would have become a prostitute. He’s kind and generous to me. He loves me. He deserves my loyalty.”

Lord Matsudaira was also thirty years older than Gosechi and probably more like a father than a lover to her, Reiko thought.

“But Daiemon was so handsome, and so charming,” Gosechi said. “I fell in love with him the first time we saw each other. And he was smitten with me, too. We couldn’t help ourselves.” Her face briefly shone with the memory, then saddened again. “We used to meet in secret. If Lord Matsudaira had known, he would have killed me. He would have expelled Daiemon from the clan. But every moment we spent together was worth the danger.”

Fresh tears flowed down Gosechi’s cheeks. “But now that Daiemon is gone, I feel so alone, so lost. I feel so guilty because I deceived Lord Matsudaira. I’ll never be happy again until my death reunites me with Daiemon. That I must hide my love for him makes the pain of missing him even worse.”

Reiko hated to exploit a suffering, vulnerable woman, but she was bound by love, honor, and duty to help Sano solve the crime. She said, “There’s a way that you can make amends to Lord Matsudaira for deceiving him and honor your love for Daiemon.”

“Oh? What is it?” Gosechi looked puzzled but hopeful.

“Help me find out who killed him,” Reiko said. “Help my husband deliver his killer to justice.”

Gosechi nodded, brightening as a new sense of purpose distracted her from her pain. “But how can I?”

“You can answer some questions,” Reiko said. “Did you and Daiemon meet at the Sign of Bedazzlement?”

Gosechi’s face crumpled again at the mention of the place where her lover had been murdered. “Yes. Sometimes.”

“Did you meet him there the night he died?”

The girl shook her head. “We had no plans to see each other then. I was at home with Lord Matsudaira.”

“Then why would Daiemon have gone to the Sign of Bedazzlement?”

“The only reason I can think of is that-” A sob wracked Gosechi.

“He was meeting another woman?” Reiko said.

Gosechi fixed her desolate gaze on the altar. The tears sliding down her cheeks glistened in the candlelight. “I didn’t want to believe that Daiemon was unfaithful to me. I couldn’t believe he’d found someone else. But recently…” She sighed. “We didn’t see each other as often. He said he was busy with politics, but I couldn’t help being suspicious.”

“Have you any idea who the other woman is?” Reiko said hopefully.

“None,” said Gosechi, “although I tried to find out.” She covered her face with her hands, then dropped them onto her lap. “I’m ashamed of what I did. It makes me look so jealous. I asked a bodyguard of mine to follow Daiemon if he should leave the estate that night. I told my bodyguard to spy on him and the woman, discover who she was, and tell me.”

“Did the bodyguard obey your orders?” Reiko said as excitement burgeoned inside her.

“I don’t know,” Gosechi said. “After I learned that Daiemon was dead, I couldn’t bear to ask who’d been with him on the last night of his life.”

“Can we ask now?”

“I suppose we must.” Gosechi rose lithely to her feet. “Come with me.”

She led Reiko from the sanctuary. In the dim passage outside loitered a young samurai, who bowed to Gosechi, then stood as tall as his meager height allowed. He had a homely, good-natured, intelligent face that looked upon Gosechi with slavish devotion. Reiko understood at once why Gosechi had assigned him the task of spying on her lover. He was obviously in love with her and would do anything she wanted.

“Hachiro-san, this is Lady Reiko. I want you to tell us if you followed Daiemon as I asked you to do,” Gosechi said.

The young man hesitated, his expression worried. “Yes-I followed him. But I’m afraid that what I saw will upset you.”

“It’s all right,” she said with a sigh of resignation. “I must hear.”

Hachiro nodded and began his tale. “Daiemon left the estate on horseback soon after the hour of the boar that night. He seemed in a big hurry. I had to ride fast to keep up with him, but I stayed far enough behind that he wouldn’t notice me.” Reiko envisioned one horseman shadowing another through the torchlit passages of Edo Castle. “He went into town,” continued Hachiro. “He rode around and around, looking over his shoulder, as if he wanted to make sure nobody was watching him. Finally, he ended up at the Sign of Bedazzlement. I knew the place because…”

The bodyguard paused, blushing unhappily. Reiko deduced that he’d recognized the house of assignation because he’d escorted Gosechi there to her trysts with Daiemon.

“Daiemon left his horse in an alley, then went into the building,” Hachiro said. “I was afraid to follow him in there because he might see me, so I watched from a teahouse across the street.”

“Did you see him meet a woman?” Reiko asked.

“No,” Hachiro said. “I had a drink and waited a few moments. Then I saw a samurai on horseback gallop down the street. He went by me so fast, I couldn’t see him clearly. I thought he was Daiemon. I didn’t know until the next morning that he’d never left the house alive. I thought maybe he’d decided not to stay, and he’d gone out a side door, gotten his horse, and was heading back to Edo Castle. I would have followed him, but just then a woman came out of the house.”

Hachiro squinted, peering into space, as he must have done while observing the woman emerge. “She was wearing a dark cloak, and a dark shawl that covered her head and face. She hurried over to a palanquin that was standing down the street. She climbed inside, and the bearers carried her away. I had a hunch that she was the woman Daiemon had come to meet.”

Reiko saw Gosechi close her eyes as if in pain: She must have been hoping desperately that her suspicions had misled her and there had been no other woman in Daiemon’s life. But Reiko was hoping the woman would turn out to be a valuable witness.

“I wanted to find out who the woman was,” Hachiro said, “so I got on my horse and rode after her.”

“Where did she go?” Reiko said eagerly.

“To Edo Castle. The guards at the gate let her right in. I followed her to Chamberlain Yanagisawa’s compound.”

Reiko felt shock and amazement catch her breath. She’d connected the chamberlain with the murder! The woman seen leaving the Sign of Bedazzlement must have been sent by Yanagisawa to assassinate Daiemon. Probably she wasn’t a woman at all but one of Yanagisawa’s men dressed in female garb. Yanagisawa must have found out that Daiemon was having an affair with Gosechi and where they went to tryst. He must have seen a perfect opportunity to strike at the rival faction.

“How did you and Daiemon arrange your meetings?” Reiko asked Gosechi.

“Whenever I knew that Lord Matsudaira would be busy and he wouldn’t want my company at night, I would send Hachiro to slip a piece of red paper under Daiemon’s door,” said Gosechi. The bodyguard hung his head, sheepish at his role as go-between. “I would travel that evening to the Sign of Bedazzlement. Daiemon would come to me.”

Yanagisawa must have learned their habit, Reiko deduced. A spy he’d employed in the Matsudaira house must have given Daiemon the signal to meet Gosechi that evening. Unaware that she was spending the night with Lord Matsudaira, Daiemon must have gone to the Sign of Bedazzlement expecting amorous pleasure, only to find Yanagisawa’s assassin lying in wait.

“Did you ever get another look at the woman?” Reiko said, although without much expectation that Hachiro had.

“Yes,” Hachiro said. “When her palanquin went in Chamberlain Yanagisawa’s compound, the guards were slow to shut the gate. I rode up and looked inside. There were torches lit in the courtyard. A little girl jumped out of the palanquin and ran off. A woman climbed out and followed her. That’s all I saw because the gate closed then. But I heard the woman call, ‘Kikuko, wait for me,’ and the little girl call, ‘Hurry up, Mama.’ ”

His words collided against a wall of disbelief and astonishment inside Reiko. Her heart began to thunder with excitement. As far as she knew, there was only one little girl named Kikuko who lived in Chamberlain Yanagisawa’s compound. And there was only one woman whom Kikuko called “Mama.”

It was Lady Yanagisawa who’d left the Sign of Bedazzlement soon after Daiemon had arrived.

“Merciful gods,” Reiko said as she clutched the wall for support.

“What’s wrong? Who is the woman?” Gosechi cried, her face avid with fearful curiosity. “I can see that you recognize her. I thought I didn’t want to know, but now I must, so I can see her and understand why Daiemon wanted her instead of me. Please tell me who she is!”

“I can’t tell you,” Reiko said, for innate caution warned her to keep her discovery to herself at least until she’d decided what to do about it. Fortunately, neither Gosechi nor Hachiro had guessed Lady Yanagisawa’s identity. Lady Yanagisawa seldom ventured into society, and few people knew that the chamberlain had a daughter because he was ashamed of her.

“But I can assure you that this woman wasn’t having an affair with Daiemon. She didn’t go to the Sign of Bedazzlement to make love to him.”

There could be no other explanation: Lady Yanagisawa had gone to assassinate Daiemon, on the chamberlain’s orders. Lady Yanagisawa had no lover to meet in secret. She cared nothing for any man except her husband. And she would do anything to please him.

A chill of horror descended upon Reiko. Lady Yanagisawa was even more mad, desperate, and cunning than Reiko had ever suspected. Blackmailing Reiko was the least of the evils that Lady Yanagisawa had recently done. She’d stabbed Daiemon to death, thereby ridding her husband of a rival, weakening the Matsudaira faction, and clearing the way for the chamberlain’s son to inherit the Tokugawa regime and become the next shogun.

Gosechi, Hachiro, and her surroundings faded from Reiko’s perception as she marveled at what Lady Yanagisawa had done. The sound of gongs and chanting barely impinged on her consciousness. Yet even though revolted by Lady Yanagisawa’s crime, Reiko realized that her own luck had turned. Exhilaration dazzled her, for Lady Yanagisawa had unwittingly rendered herself vulnerable to a counterattack.

“Thank you for your help,” she told Gosechi and Hachiro. “Excuse me, but I must go.”

She left them gazing after her in puzzlement and hurried out of the temple hall. Her palanquin and entourage waited amid the crowds in the precinct. As Reiko jumped into the palanquin, she ordered her bearers, “Take me to Edo Castle.”

There she would have her final confrontation with Lady Yanagisawa.