Pity softened Jokyōden’s expression, though she remained aloof. “I regret that you’ve suffered,” she said. “However, I presume you have some other purpose for coming here besides discussing past events. What do you want from me?”
“I want you to help me find out who killed my husband,” Reiko said.
“I see.” The noncommittal reply carried a strange inflection, as though Jokyōden had half expected Reiko’s request, but couldn’t quite believe she’d actually heard it. Then she brought her hands together in front of her, fingertips pointed outward and touching. “Don’t you think the bakufu will assign someone to investigate the matter?”
“Yes. But I want to finish my husband’s work and learn the truth about his death.” Reiko forbore to mention that she intended to execute Sano’s killer with her own hands.
“While I sympathize with your wishes,” Jokyōden said, “investigating crimes is hardly within your purview anymore. Your husband’s status gave you freedom and power that you no longer have.” She said gently, “May I offer my advice? You are young; time will heal your pain. Your family will eventually arrange another marriage for you; with luck, you’ll find love and happiness again. Accept reality, go on with your life, and let the authorities handle official business.”
Wild desperation filled Reiko as she realized Jokyōden wasn’t going to help her. The suggestion that she would forget Sano and should abandon her quest for justice infuriated her. She retorted, “I doubt that you’ve ever accepted fate or left any business you care about to others. Shall I do as you say, not as you do?”
Jokyōden stared, affronted by Reiko’s blunt speech. Then she shook her head and smiled in self-mockery. Her rueful gaze conveyed a new respect for Reiko. “I see that hypocrisy cannot persuade you,” she said.
Reiko took this response as a sign that Jokyōden might relent. She pressed on: “I realize I’m powerless without my husband. But you command much authority in the Imperial Court. You can take me where I need to go in the palace. You can introduce me to witnesses and ask them to cooperate with me. You can provide information I need.” Belatedly, Reiko feared that she sounded too presumptuous. “If you choose to grant my request,” she added.
Frowning, Jokyōden interlaced her fingers and looked down at them for a moment. “What you do not seem to realize is that my interests run opposite to yours. You are asking me to open the palace to you, for your purpose of incriminating someone here. Since Lady Asagao has been proven innocent, the array of suspects has narrowed to those who were in the palace last night. That includes the emperor. Do you expect me to betray my own son for your sake?” Incredulity edged Jokyōden’s calm voice. “And I am still a suspect. Would you expect me to lead you to evidence of my own guilt?”
Reiko had known that Jokyōden was still a suspect. She also knew the danger of involving a suspect in her investigation, especially one as intelligent as Jokyōden. To protect herself, her son, and the court, Jokyōden could destroy clues, plant false evidence, and order witnesses to lie. Reiko would never be sure whether she was helping or sabotaging. And there was a possibility of more extreme treachery if Reiko enlisted Jokyōden’s aid. Maybe the killer had feared that Sano wouldn’t believe Asagao was guilty and had halted his investigation by slaying him. If Jokyōden was the killer, she might do the same to Reiko. Working with Reiko would give her plenty of opportunity.
However, Reiko had no choice except to take the risk. “Before my husband died, he said he had a feeling there was more to the murder case than was obvious. He thought there might be other suspects nobody knew about, and that one of them was more likely the killer than His Majesty the Emperor, Prince Momozono, or you. By helping me discover the truth, you could clear yourself and your son.”
Jokyōden regarded her skeptically. She unlaced her hands and folded her arms.
“I have no one else to turn to,” Reiko said, abandoning logic in favor of an emotional appeal. She knelt before Jokyōden. “If you won’t help me, I’ll have to go back to Edo without knowing who killed my husband, and depend on the bakufu to obtain justice for him. And I-I can’t bear-”
An upheaval of suppressed grief shattered Reiko’s artificial poise. She thought of Sano, his voice, his smile, the scent and feel of him. She imagined the long years ahead without him. Desolation swept over her. She pressed a hand against her mouth to stifle a sob and tried to compose herself by focusing on her surroundings: the morning sunlight casting the shadows of buildings across the quadrangle; the bearers standing by her palanquin; the floral pattern woven into Jokyōden’s azure silk robe.
Jokyōden watched her in silent speculation. Was she weighing sympathy for a bereaved widow against her loyalty to the Imperial Court? Was she thinking of what she and Reiko shared as women unique in society and how she could honor their comradeship while protecting her kin? Or was she a murderess considering how to exploit the situation to her own advantage?
Then Jokyōden said, “My authority does not entitle me to let you roam around the palace or interrogate members of the court, but perhaps there is another way I can be of assistance, if you will accompany me on a short trip.”
She spoke as though leery of committing herself, and her shrewd gaze held no warmth, but Reiko was too overjoyed to mind her manner.
“A million thanks,” Reiko exclaimed, fighting tears of gratitude. “You won’t regret your decision.”
Jokyōden gave her an enigmatic smile. “I sincerely hope that neither of us will,” she said.
Reiko chose to ignore the implicit warning in the words. She didn’t know what had finally swayed Jokyōden in her favor. She could not afford to care.
Miyako’s textile industry was centered in a district known as Nishijin-“Western Camp”-named for the army encampment located there during the civil wars. The main avenues of Kuramaguchi and Imadegawa on north and south, and Horikawa and Senbon on east and west, bounded a grid of narrower lanes that ran through Nishijin. Down these flowed stinking open sewers. Workers carried bolts of cloth and baskets containing silk cocoons. Women sprinkled water on thresholds to keep down the dust. Outside shops, hawkers invited customers to view shelves of bright fabrics. The rattle-clack of many looms resounded.
A procession of imperial guards and Tokugawa troops escorting two palanquins halted in the middle of a block. Reiko stepped out of her palanquin and Lady Jokyōden from the other. Together they walked to a shop. Unlike the establishments on either side, whose open storefronts were filled with customers, this one stood deserted, its tall wooden doors closed.
“What are we doing here?” Reiko asked.
Jokyōden said, “This shop belonged to Left Minister Konoe. He purchased it some years ago.”
“What for?” Reiko said, baffled. The noble class didn’t engage in trade, and she couldn’t imagine Konoe wanting quarters in the noisy, dirty, and bustling textile district.
“He wanted privacy that he couldn’t get at home.” Jokyōden unlocked the shop’s doors, and Reiko followed her inside.
Hot, musty darkness engulfed them. Jokyōden picked up a long wooden pole that stood near the entrance, pushed open the trap door of a skylight, then closed the doors. In the dust-flecked light from above, Reiko saw a room that had once been the display area of a textile business. It was empty, the floor littered with dead insects. She smelled mildew; sweat trickled down her temples. The ache of grief swelled in her. Would that she were here working with Sano instead of investigating his murder! She kept her misery at bay by speculating on why Left Minister Konoe had needed the privacy afforded by this shop.