31
At the hour of the boar, business had ceased on Kawaramachi Avenue, except in a few teahouses. The wide avenue, which ran north and south past Miyako’s main commercial district, resembled a long tunnel, with the high earthen wall of the Great Rampart on the east, rows of shops and houses lit by Obon lanterns on the west, and the purple-black night sky above. Gates in the rampart provided access to the Kamo River. At intersections, guards manned neighborhood gates. Although some residents already slumbered on mattresses spread on balconies to catch the river breezes, others sat in doorways, talking and smoking, while pedestrians drifted home from cemetery visits.
Through the thinning crowds walked Right Minister Ichijo, a solitary figure dressed in a modest gray kimono and wicker hat instead of his usual court costume. Leaning on his ebony cane, Ichijo maintained a brisk pace for a man his age, looking neither right nor left nor behind him. His elegant profile and stooped shoulders inclined forward as if he were impatient to reach his destination.
Chamberlain Yanagisawa followed at a discreet distance behind the right minister. Again he wore the garb of a rōnin. After chasing Lady Jokyōden’s messenger, pursuing Ichijo was easy. Either the right minister didn’t think anyone would follow him, or he didn’t care if they did. Instead of weaving through alleys, he marched right down the middle of the street. He certainly didn’t act like a man on a secret mission, but Yanagisawa believed that appearances lied.
His spies had turned up the interesting fact that Ichijo had told his staff he was going out alone tonight, without disclosing his plans. Did this herald one of the mysterious trips that Yoriki Hoshina had mentioned? Yanagisawa still yearned to believe that Hoshina had honestly tried to help him by unearthing genuine clues. He especially needed evidence against Ichijo because of what his spies had reported about Lady Jokyōden.
Servants claimed to have seen Jokyōden in her office shortly before hearing the scream that had killed Aisu. She’d also been there when the imperial watchmen went to inform her about the second murder. No one had seen her elsewhere. Although Yanagisawa didn’t know why she’d refused to admit this to Sano, it seemed unlikely that she’d sneaked outside, killed Aisu, and gotten back to her office without anyone noticing her. If she hadn’t murdered Aisu, then the probability that she’d murdered the left minister decreased; the messenger and the Daikoku Bank might have nothing to do with the conspiracy. Therefore, Ichijo was the prime suspect, now that Sano had broken his alibi for Konoe’s murder. Yanagisawa hadn’t told Sano about Ichijo’s trips. If they revealed a connection between Ichijo and the rebels, Yanagisawa wanted to be the hero who arrested the killer and averted a civil war.
At the Gojo Avenue intersection, Ichijo stopped at a gate in the Great Rampart. Yanagisawa took cover in a doorway and watched Ichijo speak to the sentry, who opened the gate. The right minister vanished through it. Yanagisawa hurried over.
“Let me out,” he ordered the sentry. “Quickly!”
“State your name and your business.” The sentry regarded Yanagisawa’s humble appearance with scorn.
This time Yanagisawa was prepared for encounters with officialdom. From his waist pouch he took a small scroll that gave his name and rank. He showed it to the sentry. The man was probably illiterate, but he recognized the shogun’s personal seal on the document. He hastily let Yanagisawa through the gate.
Outside the Great Rampart, Yanagisawa spied Ichijo walking down the stretch of Gojo Avenue that sloped toward a flight of stone steps leading down to the river. Together yet far apart, Ichijo and Yanagisawa descended these, then crossed the Gojo Bridge. Beneath it the Kamo rippled, faintly luminous. Lights twinkled on the opposite bank; bonfires smoldered. The smell of smoke, the laughter of couples strolling the embankment, music drifting from teahouses, and the warm night all evoked in Yanagisawa the memory of his night with Hoshina. A wave of longing swept through him.
Where was Hoshina now? The search parties had turned up no trace of him. Through sheer will, Yanagisawa banished the thought of the lover who’d betrayed him.
Ichijo walked off the bridge and into a deserted neighborhood of densely packed houses. A few Obon lanterns still burned. Yanagisawa trod softly within the darkness beneath eaves and balconies so that Ichijo wouldn’t notice him. He thought he’d conquered his fear of walking alone in the city, but now it revived. If Ichijo was the commander of the rebel outlaws, he would have to communicate with them somehow. He wouldn’t let them come to the palace; nor could he send or receive messages that might be intercepted. He would have to meet his troops secretly. Was he on his way to their hiding place now? Yanagisawa wanted badly to locate it, but he dreaded an encounter with a band of rōnin, gangsters, and warrior priests. What if they caught him spying? And if Ichijo was the killer, Yanagisawa was in mortal danger.
The right minister quickened his steps. Buildings gave way to a gleaming moat. From a tall stone foundation in its center rose a grassy earthen mound as high as the nearby houses and perhaps a hundred paces in diameter. A fence of stone pillars ringed the top of the foundation, enclosing a tree-shaded plateau from which loomed the mound’s retaining wall.
Lagging behind in an alley, Yanagisawa watched the right minister march around the structure. It was crowned by a stone monument shaped like a squat pagoda. Lights from below illuminated characters engraved there. Reading them, Yanagisawa recognized the structure as the Ear Mound. This was the monument to Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s war on Korea more than a century ago. Although the invasion had failed, Hideyoshi’s forces had slain many defenders. Distance had prevented his army from following the usual practice of presenting the severed heads of their defeated enemies to their commander. Therefore, the ears of some forty thousand Korean soldiers had been pickled in brine, shipped to Japan, and entombed in the Ear Mound.
A bridge spanned the north side of the moat. Ichijo stepped onto it. Yanagisawa hid in the entry way of a house directly opposite the bridge, which led to stone steps in the Ear Mound’s foundation. Above these, beyond an iron gate and the trees, more steps climbed to the base of the mound, where an altar held flowers, burning lamps, and a smoking incense vat. Ichijo walked to the first set of steps. He eased himself down, laid his cane across his lap, and wiped his brow. Then he folded his hands and sat motionless.
Time passed. Yanagisawa grew impatient. Then he heard rapidly approaching hoofbeats. The right minister raised his head. He was meeting the outlaws here, Yanagisawa guessed. Ichijo was too crafty to go to the rebels’ den and risk leading spies there. A meeting in a public place could pass for a chance encounter. Anticipation and fear gripped Yanagisawa. He wanted to see the outlaws, learn their plans. But if they should discover him here in this lonely place, they would most certainly kill him.
From an alley to his right emerged two samurai on horseback. They cast furtive glances around the Ear Mound. Ichijo waved. Yanagisawa peered through the bamboo lattice that screened his hiding place. The two samurai dismounted at the bridge, tied their horses to the posts, and walked toward Ichijo, who rose to meet them. A round of bows ensued, and greetings inaudible to Yanagisawa. Then the three men settled on the steps, their figures haloed by the light of the lamps on the altar behind them.
Yanagisawa slipped out of the entryway. Sidling past buildings and across alleys, he circled the Ear Mound until he was behind it. He tiptoed to the edge of the moat. Now he distinguished three voices speaking in turn-one gruff, one a high whine, and Ichijo’s.