The Snow Empress

25

Reiko tiptoed down a passage in the women’s quarters and stopped outside a door that led to the section where the native concubines lived. Through it filtered their voices, conversing in their language. Reiko banged on the door, then shoved it open without waiting for an answer.

Their conversation halted. Reiko paused on the threshold of a chamber furnished with mats on the walls, thatched curtains over the windows, a table that held wooden spindles, and a loom partially filled with woven cloth. The concubines sat around a hearth, wooden bowls on their laps, spoons in their hands, eating a meal that smelled of dried fish and pungent seasonings. Mouths full, they gazed at Reiko. She was so blinded by anger that their tattooed faces looked identical; she couldn’t tell which belonged to the person she’d come to see.

“Wente!” she called.

One of them set down her food and rose. Wente’s shy smile faded as she perceived that Reiko hadn’t come in friendship.

“Why didn’t you tell me that you and Tekare were enemies? Reiko demanded.

Fright appeared on Wente’s face. She looked at her companions, seeking safety among them. Eyes averted from Reiko, she said, “How you know?”

“Lady Matsumae told me that you and Tekare used to fight. Your friends had to keep you apart.”

The other women clearly didn’t understand what she and Wente were saying but sensed danger in the air, for they scrambled to their feet and exited the room. Wente made a move to follow, but Reiko stepped in front of her. The two of them were alone in the smoky, firelit room that was like a native hut far from anyplace familiar or comfortable to Reiko.

“No have time,” Wente mumbled.

“There was plenty,” Reiko said, although she remembered that she’d been in a hurry to find Masahiro. Her mind veered away from the memory of hopes shattered, from grief. She buoyed herself up with the anger that had fixed on Wente. “It would have taken only a moment to tell me the truth about Tekare.”

Wente bit her lips. “You ask me about Lady Matsumae.”

“Forget Lady Matsumae.” That woman had blown a big hole in Reiko’s certainty that she was a killer. Reiko now acknowledged how rashly quick she’d been to trust Wente, to believe her grief for her sister was genuine and to sympathize with her. “You’re the one I’m interested in now. You had a quarrel with Tekare shortly before she died. What was it about?”

“Why you care?” Wente sounded timid yet resentful of Reiko’s prying. “Why you care who kill my sister?”

“Never mind that.” Anger at herself for her negligence doubled Reiko’s anger toward Wente. “Now why did you and Tekare quarrel?”

Wente’s resistance crumbled. Probably the habit of obeying the Japanese was too strong to break. She sighed, then said, “She ruin my life.”

Reiko felt the clear wind of truth sweep away the atmosphere of deception. “How?”

Extreme hatred came over Wente’s face, disfiguring it so much that Reiko barely recognized it. “When she come castle, she want me by her. I no want leave village. But she say I have to, even though-” She struggled to find Japanese words to explain. “Not concubine, no can live here. So Tekare find soldier want Ainu woman. He bring me.”

Now she was so eager to vent her grievance toward Tekare that she forgot Reiko was looking to pin the murder on her, neglected caution. “I no want him. But he take me.” Bitterness saturated her voice. “And she happy.”

Reiko absorbed the ugly meaning of this tale. Wente had been forced to become a concubine in order that Tekare could have her company at the castle. Tekare had paired Wente up with a Japanese man, regardless of Wente’s feelings. Wente had suffered doubly, from sexual enslavement and her sister’s cruel, selfish connivance in it.

“So you fought with her because of that?” Reiko asked.

Wente nodded, then shook her head: What Tekare had done was the root of the argument but not its topic. “I want go home. She no let me.”

Reiko perceived that she’d stumbled up against another situation beyond her limited understanding of Ezogashima. “But once you became a concubine, wasn’t it up to the man to say where you can go?” That was how the situation worked in Edo. “What authority did your sister have?”

“Soldier tired of me, say he send me back to village. But Tekare say she ask Lord Matsumae let me stay. He do anything she want him do for her.” The hatred exuded from Wente, foul as rot. “I beg her, but she no give in.”

Reiko wondered if Tekare’s side of the story had been different. “Maybe she was scared to be by herself at the castle. Maybe she was homesick and needed someone from her family, someone she loved, with her.”

Wente burst out indignantly, “She no scared. Always, ”Wente do this, Wente do that.“ ‘Wente, bring me food, rub back, brush hair. She no love me!”

It sounded to Reiko as if Tekare had treated her sister as nothing but a servant, adding insult to abuse.

“Same at home,” Wente continued. “When we children, I do all work-gather food, cook, sew, wash. Tekare do nothing. She shamaness. She special. I just plain girl.” Reiko heard old disgruntlement as sharp as a knife blade in Wente’s tone. “She always treated best. Get best things.” Wente touched her clothes, her bead necklace.

“When not enough food, she eat. Village need her. I go hungry. She take everything. Leave nothing for me. And she happy.”

Reiko got a picture of a girl who’d been led to believe she was better than the other villagers. The Empress of Snow Country, who’d enjoyed her privileges, who’d provoked her ordinary sister’s jealousy.

“All my life, I wait to get away from Tekare. I older, I marry first, have own house. We grow up, and I find man. He strong, handsome, good hunter. He best man in village.” Wente’s eyes shone with the memory. “We fall in love.” Tenderness softened her voice. “We-”

She fumbled for words, and Reiko said, “Became engaged?”

Although Wente nodded, her expression went black. “But she want him. Can’t bear I have something she no have. She do magic rituals, make him love her, forget me. He marry her!”

Reiko pitied Wente, having her sister steal her fiance. But she hardened her heart against Wente. This history only strengthened her cause for murder.

“In village, I try not see them, not look at him. But I still love. And she no care about him. She want rich Japanese. When she get Lord Matsumae and she bring me to city, I think I never see Urahenka again.”

“Urahenka?” The familiar name jarred Reiko. “Isn’t he one of the men at the camp?”

Wente nodded. Now Reiko remembered her watching him at the funeral. But she’d not bothered to wonder why; she’d been too preoccupied with her own feelings to perceive a love triangle.

“Men come for Tekare, want take her home. But not Urahenka. He come for me. He say marry Tekare, mistake. He no love, no want. He love me.” Wente touched her bosom; she radiated delight. “He say when we get back to village, he no more Tekare husband. We marry.” That’s why you wanted to go home, and why Tekare wouldn’t ask Lord Matsumae to let you,“ Reiko clarified. ”She didn’t want to give up Urahenka even though she didn’t want him.“ Her greed must have infuriated Wente all the more. ”That was why you quarreled, why you threatened to kill her. She stood in your way.“ But now Reiko realized that Wente hadn’t been the only one whose hopes Tekare had dashed. What about Urahenka? What did he do because Tekare kept you here?”

Wente was quick to sense the accusation implicit in Reiko’s questions. “He not hurt Tekare! No matter how she treat him, he too good, too-” She grasped for an adjective and found one she must have heard often in the samurai domain. “Honorable.”

But honor often took second priority to love. Urahenka wouldn’t have been the first man who’d wanted to rid himself of one woman so he could have another. He had as much reason for murder as Wente.

“He could have killed Tekare,” Reiko said. “I think it was either him or you. Tell me which.”

Maybe Wente would confess now in order to protect Urahenka. But she declared, “Not him. Not me.”

For the first time, Reiko considered the possibility that there was more than one killer, that the murder had resulted from a conspiracy. “Maybe it was both of you. You told Urahenka that Tekare used that path to the hot spring at night. He set the trap. She walked into it. If Lord Matsumae hadn’t gone mad and taken everyone in Fukuyama City hostage, you and Urahenka would have been free to go home and marry.”

Wente repeated, “Not him.” She had the look of a hunted, cornered animal. “Not me.”

“But that’s too complicated,” Reiko said. “Often the simplest answer is the correct one. It’s more likely that you acted alone. Urahenka doesn’t know you killed his wife, your own sister. But I think Lilac did. She saw you. She blackmailed you. And you killed her.”

Now Reiko grew furious on behalf of Lilac, Urahenka, and many others in addition to herself. “Lord Matsumae will kill your people in a war because of what you did. Many Japanese will die, too. If you have any decency at all, you’ll confess. Maybe it’s not too late to save them.

Woe clouded Wente’s eyes. “Mistake,” she pleaded.

“You’re still saying Tekare’s death was an accident? I suppose Lilac’s was, too? And my son’s?” Reiko laughed sarcastically. “ Spare me your nonsense.” She was ready to hold Wente responsible for Masahiro’s death, to believe that the loss of her son stemmed from Wente’s selfishness. “I should kill you for everything you’ve done!

Wente stiffened in terror of Reiko, of the Japanese who held the power of life and death over her. She extended a trembling hand toward Reiko. “Please,” she whispered. “Believe.”

Her appeal begged the favor of Reiko’s mercy in exchange for favors Wente had granted. It called on Reiko to remember the brief yet intense relationship that had sprung up between kindred souls thrown together in harsh circumstances. But Reiko turned her back on Wente. She wasn’t absolutely sure that Wente had killed Tekare or Lilac, but she was certain that true friendship must be based on trust. This relationship was over.