“She must not exert her vital energy, which is already depleted,” Dr. Kitano said. “And unconsciousness spares her terrible pain. Please give her time to grow stronger.”

“I don’t have time,” Hoshina said, angered by the physician’s calm, authoritative manner. “If Suiren dies without telling what she knows, we may never get Lady Keisho-in back or capture the criminals.” And Hoshina might never achieve his desires. He rose, squared his shoulders, and glared down at Dr. Kitano, asserting his rank. “I order you to awaken her now.”

Dr. Kitano’s composure wavered as he beheld Hoshina. “The honor code of my profession forbids me to endanger the life of my patient.”

Hoshina thought the man was less concerned about violating the code than afraid that he would kill the only witness to the kidnapping and the shogun would punish him. “I’ll take responsibility for whatever happens to her,” Hoshina said. Better that Suiren should die during an interrogation than before he ever tried to question her.

Nodding reluctantly, Dr. Kitano called to his apprentices: “Bring me some musk.”

An apprentice brought a ceramic cup full of coarse powder to Dr. Kitano. The acrid, animal scent of the musk tinged the air. Hoshina watched Dr. Kitano hold the cup near Suiren’s nose. As the maid inhaled, her nostrils quivered; her lips twitched in an involuntary grimace. Her eyelids fluttered slowly open. Hoshina nodded his approval to Dr. Kitano.

“Try not to upset her,” the physician warned.

Hoshina knelt beside the maid, leaning over her. “Suiren-san,” he said. Her blurry gaze wandered over his face. Fear enlivened her still features. “Don’t be afraid. You’re safe at home in the castle.” Hoshina spoke gently, stifling his excitement. “I’m the police commissioner of Edo.”

Breath eased from Suiren; her face relaxed. Her eyelids drooped, veiling her again in sleep.

“Give her another whiff of that musk,” Hoshina ordered Dr. Kitano.

The doctor complied with reluctance. “This medicine is very potent, and repeated doses are dangerous to persons in weak health.”

When Suiren smelled the musk, her eyes blinked wide. She looked as alarmed as though she’d forgotten, or hadn’t understood, who Hoshina was and what he’d told her.

“Do you remember traveling on the Tōkaidō with Lady Keisho-in?” Hoshina asked. “Do you remember being attacked?”

Her eyes clouded with confusion; then terror glazed them. A piteous groan shivered her body.

“Did you see who abducted Lady Keisho-in?” Hoshina pressed as his urgency mounted.

Groaning louder, the maid tossed her head from side to side. She writhed and gasped in pain. Sweat moistened her complexion, which had turned gray.

“It’s all right. Be still,” Dr. Kitano soothed, stroking her forehead. He fixed a stern gaze on Hoshina. “She can’t speak. And whatever she remembers is upsetting her. That’s enough.”

Hoshina ignored the physician. He wondered why Suiren had lived while everyone else in Keisho-in’s entourage had died. An idea occurred to him. “Are you the kidnappers’ accomplice?” he said, grasping Suiren by her shoulders. “Did you tell them that Lady Keisho-in would be traveling on the Tōkaidō? Did they spare your life as a reward?”

Suiren shrieked. The blank light of panic shone in her eyes. Thrashing under the sheet, she resembled a moth trying to escape a cocoon.

Dr. Kitano said to Hoshina, “If she doesn’t calm down, she’ll hurt herself. Leave her alone.” His voice was harsh with censure.

“Who kidnapped Lady Keisho-in?” Hoshina demanded. “Where did they take her? Tell me!”

Suiren’s mouth formed silent words, but her thrashing weakened. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and the lids closed. Her gasps subsided into slow, somnolent breathing as unconsciousness reclaimed her. Frantic because she’d appeared ready to talk, Hoshina shook the maid.

“Wake up!” he shouted.

“Stop!” Dr. Kitano dragged Hoshina away from Suiren. “You’ll hurt her!”

Furious, Hoshina pulled free of Dr. Kitano. “Use the musk on her again. Quick!”

“No more,” Dr. Kitano said, with the stony defiance of a man driven to stand by his principles no matter the cost. “Your interrogation will be the death of her. And whatever she knows, she’ll take to her grave.”

Hoshina stood, panting in frustrated ire. He gazed helplessly at Suiren, who lay unmoving and incommunicative. His hands clenched tight with his need to wrest facts from her, but he accepted temporary defeat. Recovering his composure, he addressed Dr. Kitano: “You’d better keep her alive.”

His tone implied the threat he didn’t speak. He turned to his men. “Stay here and guard Suiren. Don’t let anyone else talk to her.” He must prevent Sano from questioning the maid and eliciting who and where the kidnappers were. “I’ll be at the palace. If she wakes up, notify me at once.”

He stalked out of the sickroom. Outside, he paused under the pine trees. The hot, brassy light of late afternoon streamed through the boughs. Temple bells echoed across the city, heralding another hour gone. That half a day had passed while his inquiries had gotten nowhere shook Hoshina’s confidence. And he began to doubt his theory that Suiren knew the kidnappers and had helped them arrange the crime. Would they have wounded an accomplice so badly? Lesser injuries would have sufficed to make everyone think she was an innocent victim who’d escaped death by a fluke of luck. Perhaps Suiren was indeed innocent; perhaps she didn’t know who had abducted her mistress. But the circumstances didn’t completely discount Hoshina’s theory. The kidnappers might have accidentally hurt the maid worse than they’d intended-or meant to kill her so that she could never betray them.

Hoshina decided that his theory merited further exploration. Although Suiren couldn’t speak, there were other ways to find out whether she was his best lead or a dead end. He hastened out the gate and up the walled passage toward the palace women’s quarters. There resided the ladies Suiren had lived with, as well as the female palace officials who’d supervised her. If she was party to the kidnapping, they might provide the clues Hoshina needed, whether or not she survived.

And one good clue would put him ahead of everyone else who was looking for Lady Keisho-in.

10

Lady Yanagisawa, if you can hear, please listen to me,” Reiko said.

She knelt beside Lady Yanagisawa, as she’d done most of the day. The glaring sun had dimmed and shifted westward, but still Lady Yanagisawa lay in her same, deathlike state. Her vacant eyes fixed on the ceiling, where the holes showed a sky tinged with the gold of approaching twilight. Outside, the windless weather quieted the forest. The waves lapped so quietly that Reiko could barely hear them above the chirping of songbirds and screeching from the gulls. Reiko clasped Lady Yanagisawa’s limp hand. It was cold despite the ovenlike heat in the prison. Sweat trickled down Reiko’s face, and she wiped her forehead with her sleeve. Anxiety mounted in her after countless failed attempts to communicate with Lady Yanagisawa.

“We’re still trapped,” Reiko said. “We still don’t know why those men kidnapped us or who they are, because they won’t say. Two of them came back this afternoon, but they just looked us over, then left.”

Though Reiko had often heard the men outside during the day, they hadn’t returned again. Flies buzzed around the empty food pail and full waste buckets. The heat worsened the stench. Mosquitoes whined and stung, and the women had red, itchy welts on their skin; yet hunger and discomfort were the least of Reiko’s concerns.

“The kidnappers can’t be intending to just let us go,” she told Lady Yanagisawa. “They mean some kind of harm, I know it. I’m so afraid Lady Keisho-in will provoke them again, no matter how hard I try to stop her.”