Watching her, Sano couldn’t help imagining the softness of her skin, the warm pliancy of her body. Lamp flames guttered in the draft; outside, the rain battered the roof and cascaded off the eaves. With difficulty Sano banished the troubling thoughts from his mind.

“Did you love the left minister?” he asked.

“No.” A faint smile lifted the corner of Kozeri’s mouth. “I was seventeen when we married. He was thirty-two.” She glanced sideways at Sano. “We were never close. I suppose we just weren’t suited to each other.”

“You never had any children?” Sano asked.

A blush warmed her ivory complexion. “Left Minister Konoe has grown daughters.” Sano had interviewed these women along with the rest of Konoe’s family; they had firm alibis and no apparent reason to wish their father dead. “But he and I were married only a year.” Again Kozeri glanced at Sano. “I suppose there wasn’t enough time for us to have a child together.”

“You ended the marriage.” When Kozeri nodded, Sano said, “Why?”

“I decided that I wanted to devote my life to my spiritual calling.”

“Did you have any other reasons for leaving the left minister?”

“No,” Kozeri said. “He was a good man who gave me everything a wife could wish for.”

Evidently the passion in the marriage had been one-sided, and the spiritual connection a figment of Konoe’s imagination. Taking from under his kimono the letters he’d found in Konoe’s house, Sano said, “Let me read you something:

“ ‘How could you leave me? Without you, every day seems a meaningless eternity. My spirit is a fallen warrior. Anger corrupts my love for you like maggots seething in wounded flesh. I long to strangle the wayward life out of you. I shall have my revenge!’ ”

Kozeri shuddered. The heavy lids veiled her eyes. She raised her hand at Sano, as if fending off the ugly words.

“That was written by the left minister, to you,” Sano said. “Hadn’t you read it?”

“… I stopped reading his letters years ago. When I was a novice, I wrote back, trying to make him understand that I meant to stay here. Then, after I took my vows, the temple returned all the letters unopened.” Kozeri pressed her hands against her face. “I’d forgotten what they were like.”

“I’ve read through these,” Sano said, riffling the letters. “He sounds violent and spiteful. Didn’t he act that way toward you when you were married?”

Kozeri shook her head, absently running shaky fingers down her neck. “He changed after we separated.”

Though Sano knew that a broken marriage could compel people to extreme behavior, he didn’t believe that a man’s basic nature could change so radically. But he also saw how a man could become obsessed with Kozeri. Her enigmatic allure explained Konoe’s determination to possess her, and his enraged frustration when thwarted. Sano found himself extremely curious about Kozeri.

Who are you? he wanted to ask Kozeri. What secret thoughts do you banish with meditation and prayer?

Instead Sano said, “Konoe never mistreated you in any way?”

“Never.” She turned away from the altar to face Sano. In her eyes he saw a growing awareness of him as not just a bakufu official, but a man. Unspoken questions punctuated her reply, as though she wanted to know about him too.

“What did you think about the left minister’s persistent attentions?” Sano was too disconcerted by Kozeri’s interest to know whether he should believe her.

“I didn’t understand why my husband acted the way he did,” Kozeri said. “I felt as though I must have driven him to it, although I gave him no encouragement. At first I was resentful, but after years passed, I came to sec the left minister as a man with a flaw in his spirit. He thought he could have whatever he wanted, and he was too stubborn to accept defeat. I pitied him.”

An extraordinarily forgiving attitude, Sano noted. “Still, you must be glad Konoe is dead, because now you’re free of the nuisance.”

Kozeri gave him an uncertain smile. “Perhaps his spirit now enjoys a peace he never knew in life. But I wouldn’t wish murder upon anyone. And I’ve not had time to absorb the fact that he’s truly gone. I suppose I shall rest easier, but I can’t help blaming myself for the pain we caused each other.”

Sano wondered whether her guilt arose from a different source. Had she played a role in Konoe’s death? The room seemed to have grown hotter, and the effort of thinking in Kozeri’s presence strangely difficult. “The left minister visited you,” Sano said, trying to will away confusion. “When did you last see him?”

She frowned, remembering. “At the beginning of summer, 1 think. He forced his way into the convent, as he had many times before. The guards escorted him out, as always.”

If Kozeri was telling the truth, then she had no motive for killing Konoe. Yet Sano would have to check the story of their relationship with people who’d known them both, because Kozeri was still a suspect. Fifteen years in a Buddhist convent offered a possible connection between her and the method used to murder Konoe.

“Do the nuns practice shugendo here?” Sano asked.

Shugendo, the Way of Supernatural Powers, had been pioneered by Buddhist priests. The legendary hero En-no-Gyoja, who’d lived sixteen hundred years earlier, could command armies from far away, walk on water, fly through the air, and appear in different places simultaneously. His followers were renowned for their knowledge of the occult. Ancient magistrates hired them to read men’s minds and divine facts through magic trances. Throughout history, samurai had studied with Zen monks who taught the esoteric techniques of mental control… including the art of kiai.

“We practice some methods related to shugendo,” Kozeri said, “but only those that involve developing inner harmony.” She added, “This is a peaceful religious order. We shun violence and have no need of supernatural combat skills.”

This had been far from true in the past, however, when Buddhist monasteries had participated actively in warfare. Finally the samurai had razed enough temples and slaughtered enough priests to subjugate the clergy. The Tokugawa kept them under strict surveillance. But here at Kodai Temple, a haven of Buddhist tradition, had ancient practices survived? Maybe Yoriki Hoshina was mistaken in believing there’d been no outsiders in the Imperial Palace on the night of the murder. Was it possible that Kozeri could have acquired the ability to kill with her voice? Maybe she was the enemy who had failed to turn up in the preliminary investigation.

Contemplating her, Sano grew ever more aware of Kozeri’s attractions. Her unconscious habit of touching herself suggested a delight in the senses despite her choice of a religious life. Sano pictured the lush body concealed beneath her robe. Sexual desire assailed him in a hot, turbulent rush.

He asked his next question while hardly conscious of the words he spoke: “A clerk from Left Minister Konoe’s staff was murdered soon before you married Konoe. Can you tell me anything about it?”

Kozeri’s veiled eyes and parted lips gleamed wetly in the smoky light. “I vaguely recall the incident.” Hearing her breath catch, Sano knew she felt desire, too. The thought thrilled him. “But I was quite ill at the time, and not much aware of anything except my own troubles. I’m sorry I can’t help you.”

Now horror and guilt overwhelmed Sano; he barely heard Kozeri’s words. How could he want another woman when he had Reiko?

There was something important that he’d forgotten to ask Kozeri, but he couldn’t think what it was. He must get out of here, now. “Excuse me,” he said abruptly.

Leaving Kozeri standing alone, he fled the sanctuary. The rain had slackened to a drizzle; puddles in the temple grounds reflected the leaden sky. Sano breathed the moist, fragrant air and wondered what had come over him. Then he heard someone call out his title. He saw one of his soldiers hurrying toward him.