“If we wander around after dark, we’ll only get lost,” Marume pointed out. “The sōsakan-sama will have to send somebody to look for us. Lot of good that will do your wife and her friends. We must wait until morning.”
Hirata couldn’t bear to call off the search for a moment, let alone a whole night, while Midori was somewhere in the vast countryside, at the mercy of killers he believed had been hired by her insane father. Yet he had to admit that Marume and Fukida were right.
Reluctantly, Hirata accompanied the detectives back down the trail toward the Tōkaidō. “We’ll ride to the Odawara post station and find lodgings at an inn,” he said. “We can ask around town to see if anyone there has seen or heard anything that might help us find the kidnappers.”
The Edo Castle sickroom was isolated in a separate compound, situated low on the hill and far from the palace to protect the court from the spirits of disease and pollution from death. Inside the drab one-story building surrounded by a plank fence and tall pine trees, the Tokugawa physicians treated castle residents who were seriously ill or injured. A shrine beside the door contained a rock that served as a seat for protective Shinto deities. In front of the shrine burned a purifying fire. A sacred straw rope encircled offerings of food and drink, a wand festooned with paper strips, and a lock of woman’s hair to keep away demons.
Police Commissioner Hoshina, accompanied by two personal retainers, strode into the sickroom. At one end, apprentice physicians tended herbal infusions simmering in pots on a hearth. Screens that usually partitioned the building into separate chambers had been pushed against the walls to accommodate the large crowd of palace officials that had gathered. On the crowd’s fringes hovered maids and servants. Anxious conversation mingled with chanting and the rhythmic jangle of bells. The sickroom was hot from the fire and redolent with medicinal steam.
“Let me through,” Hoshina commanded the crowd.
People stepped aside, bowing to Hoshina as he passed through their midst. At the center of the crowd, on the tatami floor, a woman was lying upon a futon. A white sheet covered her body; a white bandage wrapped her head. Her face, with its prominent cheekbones, was deathly pale, the closed eyelids shadowed purple. Near her head, an elderly sorceress clad in white robes banged a tambourine to summon healing spirits, while a priest recited spells and waved a sword to banish evil. At her feet squatted two highway patrol captains. Dr. Kitano, the chief castle physician, knelt beside the prone woman.
“This is Lady Keisho-in’s maid, Suiren, who survived the massacre?” Hoshina asked the doctor.
“Yes, Honorable Police Commissioner,” said Dr. Kitano. He had a creased, intelligent face, and sparse gray hair knotted at his nape. He wore the dark blue coat of his profession.
Hoshina turned to the officials. “Leave us,” he said, annoyed that they’d come to gawk at Suiren, when he himself had important business with her. “You, too,” Hoshina told the maids. He gestured for the sorceress and priest to move away. “Not so loud.”
Soon he was alone with his own men, the highway soldiers and the apprentices, Dr. Kitano and the patient. While the priest and sorceress quietly continued their ritual in a corner, Hoshina crouched by Suiren. She lay still, apparently oblivious to the world. Her breath sighed slowly through her chapped, parted lips. Hoshina frowned in concern.
“Is she asleep?” he said to Dr. Kitano.
“She’s unconscious,” the physician said.
The news dismayed Hoshina. He addressed the patrol captains: “You brought her back to Edo?”
“Yes, Honorable Police Commissioner.” The captains, brawny and keen-featured, sweating in their armor, spoke in unison.
“How long has she been like this?” Hoshina said.
“Ever since we found her after the massacre,” said one captain.
“Describe how you found her,” Hoshina said.
“We were examining the bodies to see if there were any survivors,” said the other captain. “We thought she was dead. There was blood all over her, and she didn’t move.”
“But then we heard her moan. We rushed her to Odawara post station. The local doctor treated her,” continued the first captain. “He warned us that she was too sick to travel, but our superiors said she had to be taken to Edo. We were afraid she would die on the way here.”
Hoshina had hoped that a quick, easy interview with the witness would give him the identity of Lady Keisho-in’s kidnappers. Disappointed, he turned to Dr. Kitano. “Exactly what are her injuries?”
“I was just about to examine her.”
Dr. Kitano gently unwrapped the bandage from Suiren’s head, exposing hair clipped away from a large, indented purple bruise above her right temple. Frowning, he covered the wound, then drew back the sheet that blanketed Suiren and opened the white cotton kimono she wore. A white bandage swathed her abdomen. Dr. Kitano removed this. Underneath, a gash slanted from just below the left side of her rib cage to her navel. The wound, crusted with dried blood and stitched together with horsehair, oozed yellowish fluid. Hoshina winced; Dr. Kitano’s frown deepened. Suiren didn’t even stir.
“This is a very bad sword cut,” the physician said. “The head wound is also serious.”
Dr. Kitano touched the skin around Suiren’s sunken eyes, lifted the lids, and peered into her dull, sightless pupils, according to ancient Chinese medical technique. His fingers palpated her cheeks, rubbed her dry, brittle-looking hair, and squeezed her neck. He opened her mouth, revealing pale gums and tongue, then sniffed the air near her face. Finally, he clasped one wrist, then the other. The sorceress’s tambourine marked the lengthy passage of time as Dr. Kitano felt the pulses that corresponded to different internal organs. When he finished, he covered the maid and lifted his troubled gaze to Hoshina.
“She is suffering from a deficiency of blood, fluid, and ki-life energy,” Dr. Kitano said. “There is also internal festering and inflammation.”
“Can you heal her?” Hoshina said.
“I’ll do my best,” Dr. Kitano said, “but it will be a miracle if she lives.”
Hoshina cupped his chin in his hand and brooded over Suiren while the tambourine rang and the priest chanted. The maid represented a chance to save Lady Keisho-in and solidify Chamberlain Yanagisawa’s position in court long enough for the shogun to name Yoritomo his heir. But Hoshina had other, personal reasons for wanting Suiren to recover. If he could extract from her a clue that led to the kidnappers, he would win the shogun’s esteem and gratitude for himself. The bakufu would have to recognize him as a power in his own right, not just as Yanagisawa’s lover. And Yanagisawa would have to treat Hoshina with the respect he craved instead of always demeaning him.
“I must question Suiren about the kidnapping,” Hoshina told Dr. Kitano. “Wake her up.”
Concern shadowed the doctor’s eyes. “It is not advisable to disturb her. She needs rest.”
Hoshina experienced overwhelming impatience. Unless he could find the kidnappers and rescue Lady Keisho-in, he might never make his name in the bakufu. He and Yanagisawa might fall so far from the shogun’s grace that their plans for the future could never work. And failure, like success, posed serious personal ramifications for Hoshina. His lover admired skill and despised incompetence, and so far, Hoshina had managed to do everything Yanagisawa asked-but what if the kidnapping case proved more than he could handle? Would Yanagisawa cease to want him?
Even as Hoshina rued his love for a man as difficult yet alluring as the chamberlain, the thought of losing Yanagisawa stabbed terror into his heart.
“Suiren may be the only person who can give me information about who kidnapped the shogun’s mother,” Hoshina said. “It’s imperative that she speak to me.”