The Samurai's Wife by Laura Joh Rowland Read Free Book Online

mansion built in the same style as the palace. Wooden rain doors were raised to admit the mild evening breeze. Walking behind the courtier down hallways floored in polished cypress, Sano and his companions passed spacious parlors where cultured voices murmured and a samisen played behind paper partitions.
     
     
In the reception hall, screens decorated with forest scenes formed an enclosure; lanterns cast a soft glow.
     
     
The courtier invited the four samurai to sit on the dais, then left. Presently he returned, announcing, "I present the honorable Konoe clan."
     
     
Sano watched in amazement as a long parade of people, young and old, filed into the room to kneel before the dais. The courtier introduced siblings, cousins, and other relatives of the dead man. Sano had known that court families were large but hadn't expected quite so many people living under the same roof. The men wore traditional court costume. The women were dressed in multilayered pastel robes with voluminous sleeves and narrow brocade sashes; long hair flowed down to their waists. Sano recalled that Tokugawa Ieyasu had established "Laws Pertaining to the Emperor's Retainers," which consigned the noble class to the practice of scholarship and arts rather than politics. Isolated from the world during the seventy-six years that had followed, these people fulfilled little purpose except to preserve their obsolete way of life. They were virtual prisoners of the bakufu, which financially supported them along with the imperial family. Now they comprised a huge pool of potential witnesses.
     
     
"My detectives will question the servants," Sano said to the courtier. "Is there a place where I can interview the family one at a time, in private?"
     
     
Evening immersed Miyako in tropical darkness. In the Market of the Dead, brightly lit stalls turned the streets into lines of multicolored fire where shoppers browsed among Obon supplies. Gongs rang, calling dead souls back to earth. On hillsides and along the Kamo River, bonfires burned, lighting the way for the spirits' journey. Pine torches blazed at the thresholds of houses; incense smoked on windowsills. Citizens bearing lanterns converged on the cemeteries to visit ancestors' graves. The air resounded with the clatter of wooden soles. On the boulevards fluttered the curtains of shops closed for the night, stirred by the wind... or passing ghosts.
     
     
In the city center stood the great bulk of Nijo Castle, built by Tokugawa Ieyasu eighty-nine years ago with funds levied from vanquished warlords. Its stone walls and five-storied keep loomed high above the surrounding houses. Gold Tokugawa crests crowned the curved roofs. No shogun had visited Miyako in more than five decades; since then, Nijo Castle had been occupied by a minimal staff of caretakers. A few sentries manned the gates and guard turrets above the wide moat. From the outside, the castle seemed an inert historical relic.
     
     
But deep inside its dark complex of barracks, gardens, and palace buildings, lights burned in the White Parlor, residence of visiting shoguns. There, in an austere room decorated with murals depicting winter landscapes, sat Chamberlain Yanagisawa and his chief retainer, Aisu.
     
     
Yanagisawa inhaled on his tobacco pipe, then expelled smoke in an impatient gust. Although circumstances required his present state of waiting, he hungered for action. Worry and anticipation consumed him.
     
     
"Are you sure Sano doesn't know I'm here?" he said.
     
     
"Oh, yes, master," said Aisu, who'd just returned from making covert inquiries on Yanagisawa's behalf. "No one in Miyako knows, except your local agents. They received your message from Edo in plenty of time to carry out your orders. They told Shoshidai Matsudaira that the shogun had issued orders to renovate Nijo Castle, then brought in laborers and supplies as if it were true, not just a ploy to keep Sano away. No one else suspects anything. My spies have been watching