The Snow Empress

11

“If you’re in there, come out!” Captain Okimoto banged his gloved fist against the door of the stable.

“Keep your voice down,” Sano said angrily. “Shouting like that will only scare her off.” He called, “Reiko-san, it’s me.”

The hunt for Reiko had gone on all day. Now the early winter dusk descended upon Fukuyama Castle. The western sky glowed with the cold orange flames of sunset, the trees and buildings black against them, the snowdrifts colored deep blue by the encroaching night. The temperature had dropped from cold to lethally cold. And still Reiko was missing.

Standing with his guards outside the stable, Sano heard other search parties crunching through the snow and calling to one another. Their lanterns flickered in the distance. Their desperation to capture Reiko vibrated the air like drumbeats. Earlier, Lord Matsumae had noticed his men rushing about the castle and demanded to know what was going on. He’d forced them to admit that one of his prisoners had escaped, then he’d announced that if she wasn’t found by dark, he would pick a soldier at random and burn out his eyes with a hot poker. Sano feared that if Lord Matsumae made good on his threat, the friends of the unlucky scapegoat would take out their anger on Reiko when they found her.

If she didn’t freeze to death first.

Okimoto flung open the stable door and stalked inside. His two comrades followed, pushing Sano in front of them, holding up their lanterns. Horses neighed in the stalls. The smell of manure filled air warmed by coal braziers. Okimoto hurried along the stalls, opening them and looking inside, as if Reiko were stupid enough to hide behind a horse that could trample her, as if they hadn’t already searched the whole castle.

The guards at the gates swore that Reiko hadn’t gotten out, and the walls were too high for her to climb. She must be still inside, running from one hiding place to the next, a few steps ahead of her pursuers. Sano could feel her fright even though he couldn’t see her.

At the end of the stable stood a huge pile of hay. Okimoto drew his sword and began hacking at the hay, shouting, “Come out from under there! You can’t hide!” His men joined in. “I’m going to get you!”

“Stop!” Sano yelled, horrified because if Reiko was under the hay, they would stab her. They were all so young, so cruel in their thoughtlessness.

He grabbed Okimoto, restraining his arm that wielded the sword. The other guards fell upon Sano. In the tussle, one dropped his lantern. It set fire to the hay. Flames leaped, crackled, and spread.

“Fire!” cried Okimoto as smoke filled the stables. The horses whinnied, reared, and pounded their hooves on the doors of their stalls. “Put it out!”

As he and his men stamped on the flames, they forgot to watch Sano. Sano knew that if Reiko were hiding in the stable, she would have come out by now rather than risk burning to death. She wasn’t here. Sano slipped out the door.

The sky had faded to dull copper along the horizon. Stars and a crescent moon winked in the onrushing ultramarine night. Sano heard barking, excited and bloodthirsty. They’d set the dogs after Reiko. He plunged across the snow, away from his guards. Ahead loomed a group of outbuildings. Sano didn’t see any lights there; other searchers must have already tried them. Maybe Reiko had slipped inside after they’d gone. He trudged down an icy path between two storehouses.

Their doors were open, revealing straw bales of rice stacked on pallets.

“Reiko-san?” he called.

Snow crunched under stealthy footsteps behind him.

He whirled and saw a blur of motion down the path, in the gap between the storehouses. At the same instant his mind registered a human figure hurling an object, something struck him. Sano cried out as pain jabbed between his shoulder and elbow. Stumbling, he skidded on the ice and fell. He grasped the place that hurt. A knife protruded from it. The blade had cut through his heavy coat and pierced his flesh. If he hadn’t turned, it would have struck him in the back and killed him.

Sano yanked out the knife. Even as he grunted in pain and felt warm, slick blood pour down his skin under his sleeve, he lurched to his feet, yelling, “Stop!” Brandishing the knife, he ran after his attacker.

But complete darkness had fallen in the last several moments. Lights flashing from distant lanterns illuminated dark buildings and empty snow. There was no sign of whoever had thrown the knife. From all around Sano heard footsteps beating the snow, men yelling, dogs barking. The assassin had blended in with the search parties.

“There he is!” said a familiar voice.

Captain Okimoto and his two friends surrounded Sano. Their relief turned to alarm as they saw the knife in his hand. “Hey!” Okimoto exclaimed. “Put that down!”

The guards drew their swords. Sano said, “Wait. Let me explain.”

“You were running away,” Okimoto accused.

“I was running after an assassin. He threw this at me.” Sano held up the knife.

That provoked yells and sword-waving from the guards. “Put it down, put it down!” Okimoto screamed.

Sano dropped the knife. The guards pounced on it, dug it out of the snow. “There’s blood on it,” one of them said. “He’s already killed somebody.”

“That’s my blood,” Sano said, his hand clasped over the wound. “I was hit.”

Suspicious and wary, the guards shone their lanterns on him. The blood had soaked through his coat, staining it red. “I guess you were,” Okimoto said, surprised. “Who did it?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t get a good look. He’s gone.”

“We’ll take you to the physician,” Okimoto said. “Lord Matsumae doesn’t need to know about this, but he probably wouldn’t want you to bleed to death.”

“No,” Sano said, even though his arm was sore and throbbing and he was afraid he’d already lost a lot of blood. “I have to find my wife.”

“Forget it! Shut up!”

In the physician’s chamber, Sano eased his injured arm out of his kimono. It was covered in blood. The physician, an old man dressed in the dark blue coat of his profession, peered at Sano’s wound. He soaked a cloth in warm water and bathed off the blood that still oozed from the cut.

“How bad is it?” Gizaemon asked. He and the men with him seemed less concerned about Sano’s fate than worried about how it would affect their own.

“Not too deep,” the physician said. “The honorable chamberlain was fortunate. His coat protected him. The wound should heal perfectly.”

Sano was relieved that his sword arm wouldn’t suffer permanent damage.

“But it needs to be sewn up.” The physician threaded a horse-tail hair through a long, sharp steel needle.

The sight opened a pit of dread in Sano’s stomach. “Fine. Do it,” he said, trying to act as though he didn’t care.

“This must be the work of an intruder who broke into the castle.” Gizaemon turned a fierce stare on Captain Okimoto and the other two guards.

“No one got past us, I swear,” Okimoto protested.

“How would you know?” Sano said. “You were too busy setting the stable on fire to notice a whole army of invading assassins.”

“Go search the whole castle,” Gizaemon told the men.

After they’d left, Sano said, “I doubt they’ll find any outsiders. I don’t think I was attacked by one.”

“Then who did attack you?” Gizaemon said. “And why?”

Sano couldn’t answer the first question, but he had a hunch about the second. “Maybe because of my investigation.”

The physician produced a ceramic jar of brownish green jelly, which he dabbed around Sano’s cut. It smelled a little like mint, but acrid and bitter.

“What’s that?” Sano asked suspiciously.

“Native balm,” the physician said. “To dull the pain.”

Sano said to Gizaemon, “My guess is that whoever threw the knife at me doesn’t want me to find out who murdered Tekare, and tried to kill me because he’s afraid I’m getting too close to the truth.”

Gizaemon’s squinty eyes narrowed further at Sano. “Are you getting close? What have you learned?”

“That the Ezo could have killed Tekare.”

“Well, that’s what I told you. But then some people have to figure things out for themselves. I’ll tell Lord Matsumae. He’ll be eager to get his hands on those bastards.”

The needle pierced Sano’s skin. It didn’t hurt as much as he’d expected, maybe due to the balm, but he had to steel himself against the pain. “Wait,” he said, alarmed by Gizaemon’s premature rush to judgment. “The Ezo had the opportunity to set the spring-bow, but that doesn’t mean they did. When I spoke to them, I wasn’t convinced they’re guilty. And now there’s a good indication they’re not.”

“Oh? What?”

In and out went the needle. The thread tugged Sano’s flesh with every stitch. Sano couldn’t look. “If it was the killer who attacked me, that clears the Ezo.” Sano drew deep, controlled breaths, fighting the waves of faintness that washed over him. “They weren’t in the castle at the time. You sent them back to their camp. If my theory is correct, then they weren’t involved in Tekare’s murder.” Then who was?“

Sano heard skepticism in Gizaemon’s voice. His body flinched involuntarily as the physician sewed. “I’ll need to question all the Matsumae retainers who were in the castle when I was attacked.”

“Our retainers?” Gizaemon scowled, both puzzled and offended. “You think one of them threw the knife?”

“They knew I was out there. Any one of them could have followed me.

The physician knotted the thread and snipped it with a razor. He bound Sano’s arm with a white cotton bandage, then left. Sano stifled a groan of relief.

“You’re saying that one of our retainers killed Tekare?” Gizaemon looked dismayed at the suggestion. “But how could they do that to Lord Matsumae? And why?”

“Those are good questions for them.” Sano paused, then said, “Also for you.”

The moment had come for the confrontation that they’d been moving toward all day. As their gazes locked, Sano felt the antagonism between him and Gizaemon turn as sharp as the needle that had stitched his wound.

“You think I did it.” Gizaemon’s tone made the phrase half question, half statement.

“Evidence against you keeps cropping up,” Sano said. “You hate the Ezo; that includes Tekare. You know all about spring-bows and native poisons.”

“So do most of the men in Ezogashima. And so what if I hate the barbarians? So do plenty other Japanese.”

“You’re constantly pointing the finger at the Ezo. What better reason than to divert me from you?”

“For your own good!” Gizaemon seemed exasperated by what he considered Sano’s foolishness. “And for the sake of my nephew. I in trying to help you solve the crime, so that he’ll get well.”

After ten years as a detective, Sano knew better than to accept at face value even such a logical explanation from a suspect. “Where were you when I was attacked?”

“Searching for your wife in the servants’ quarters. Which are across the castle grounds from where you were.”

“Was anyone with you?”

Instead of answering, Gizaemon picked up the knife from a table and examined it. The blade was about as long as his hand, attached to a short, smooth wooden handle. He turned it over, looked for markings, and said, “No identification on this. It’s not mine, and you can’t prove it is.”

“I doubt that you’d have used a weapon marked with your name.”

Gizaemon jammed a toothpick into his mouth. “I’m starting to wonder if there really was an attack on you. The troops told me they got there after it happened. We have only your word that it did.”

“Then how do you explain this?” Angry at being accused of lying, and at having the interrogation turned on him, Sano pointed to his wound.

“You could have done that to yourself. Wasn’t a fatal cut, was it? And you could have found that knife lying around someplace.”

“Why would I cut myself?” Sano said, on the defensive and more vexed than ever.

“So you could accuse me of murdering Tekare and make it look like I tried to kill you to keep you from finding out,” Gizaemon said. “But I didn’t kill Tekare. I didn’t attack you. And I don’t have to take any more accusations from you.” He called to guards outside the room: “Take Chamberlain Sano back to his quarters.” Then he bowed, insolently courteous, said “Good night,” and walked out the door.

Sano didn’t miss the fact that Gizaemon had avoided the last question he’d asked. He’d not named a witness to furnish him an alibi for the attack on Sano.