“What choice did I have except to protect Koheiji so that he would protect me?” Agemaki’s voice was plaintive with self-justification. “That’s why I lied to you. It wasn’t because I’d done any harm to my husband. I desecrated his body, but he was already dead when I found him.”

In her eagerness to persuade, she leaned toward Sano. Her features sharpened with the cunning that had raised her from her humble station as a shrine prostitute to the rank of wife to a high bakufu official. “Koheiji assassinated my husband. You said so yourself. He’s the murderer, not I. That’s why he was so anxious to keep me silent. If he had an accomplice, it was that little whore Okitsu. She was with him and Makino that night.”

Agemaki’s eyes gleamed with malevolent pleasure at the chance to incriminate her rival. “She must have helped Koheiji kill my husband. She should be punished along with him.”

“Arrest the actor first,” Ibe told Sano. “The girl can wait her turn.”

Sano envisioned the murder case as an onion whose layers he’d peeled only to find more layers concealing the solution at the heart. What Agemaki had told him, and the evidence that Daiemon had hired the actor to assassinate Senior Elder Makino, wasn’t the whole story.

“The girl has information I need,” Sano said, then addressed his detectives: “Bring in Okitsu.”

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.”