Hirata sighted on the fibers in the bark of one pine tree. He dug in a circle in the snow around its base. Reaching the earth, he found nothing except twigs and leaves. He tried the other pine, digging rapidly with hands stiff from the cold. The object was visually indistinguishable from the debris on the forest floor, but Hirata’s keen nose detected a sweet, spicy, familiar scent that was out of place. He sifted through the debris and held up a short, thin sprig of sassafras wood.

A toothpick.

One of many Hirata had seen chewed, spat out, and littering the ground in Ezogashima. The harmless but now incriminating habit of one person.

Gizaemon.

Victory elated Hirata. He pictured Gizaemon tying the string around the tree, toothpick in his mouth. Before he walked across the path to tie the other end of the string to the spring-bow, he spat the toothpick onto the ground. He’d probably done it unconsciously, his habit so ingrained that he hadn’t even thought to remove the toothpick. And until this instant, his carelessness hadn’t mattered.

Nobody else had noticed the toothpick. But now Hirata had the evidence that connected Gizaemon to the murder, evidence that Gizaemon couldn’t explain away by saying he’d dropped the toothpick when he’d discovered Tekare’s body. It had been nowhere near where she’d died. There was no reason for him to have been loitering in the woods by those tree trunks-except to rig the crime.

Hirata stowed the toothpick in his glove. He ran down the path, heading for the castle. He had to find Sano and tell him the news that Lord Matsumae wasn’t the only person they wanted dead. Gizaemon must be punished for the murder of Tekare and its disastrous consequences.

A peaceful morning graced the women’s quarters. In the garden, the trees’ bare branches resembled black embroidery decorating an azure sky striped with white puffy clouds. Blackbirds pecked crumbs strewn on the snow. Gaily patterned quilts aired on veranda railings. To look at this scene, one would never know that a war was imminent, Reiko thought. But as one of the guards from the keep sneaked her up to the building and the other kept a lookout nearby, she heard distant gunshots from the troops testing weapons and ammunition. Men cheered after each blast.

Crouched on the veranda of the building where the native concubines lived, Reiko knocked on a window shutter until Wente held up the mat inside. Wente’s expression was unfriendly: She remembered too well their last encounter.

“I’m sorry about yesterday,” Reiko said. “I shouldn’t have treated you like that. Will you please forgive me?”

“Why I should?”

“Because I was wrong to accuse you of killing your sister.” Reiko would say anything necessary to regain Wente’s good will. “I didn’t mean it.”

Wente gazed at Reiko with suspicion, but she nodded, accepting the apology. Her eyes shone with even more terror than was due to the war that threatened her people.

“Has something happened?” Reiko asked, sparing a moment of concern for the other woman.

“Nothing.” Wente shook her head, the gesture more a refusal to confide than a denial. “Why you come?”

“I have news. About my son.” The joy in Reiko bubbled over in smiles and tears. “Masahiro is alive.”

As Reiko explained what she’d discovered at the keep, a visible torrent of relief assailed Wente. The woman closed her eyes for a moment; she muttered in her own language, in the universal cadence of prayer. A radiant smile of vicarious joy, far above what Reiko had expected, transformed her face. She reached toward Reiko, and they clasped hands.

“Where?” Wente asked eagerly.

“That’s the problem. I don’t know.” Reiko described how the soldiers had chased Masahiro into the woods. “I have to ask you for another favor. Will you help me hunt for Masahiro? I promise this will be the last time.” Her voice trembled because should she fail this time, Masahiro would surely die.

At first Wente didn’t answer. Thoughts flickered in her eyes; emotions evolved in their dark brown depths. Finally she said, “All right. We go now.”

30

“The wall’s too high to climb,” the Rat said, bright with hope that Sano would give up on his dangerous plans.

“Don’t worry, we won’t try,” Sano said.

They hid with Marume and Fukida in a thicket of pine shrubs against the castle wall. Sano peered through the pine needles at the closest gate, some twenty paces away. It had taken them hours of sneaking and avoiding troops to get near the exterior wall, and he’d given up hope of escaping the castle undetected. By the gate, two guards stood over a fire smoking in a metal urn. There was no way out except through them.

Marume scooped up some snow, packed it into two balls, and leaped out of the shrubs. The guards turned. He hurled the snowballs and hit the men square on their noses. As they exclaimed in surprise, Marume charged them. He grabbed them, banged their heads against the wall, and dumped their unconscious bodies into a snowdrift. Sano and the other men hurried to join him at the gate, which Fukida unbarred.

“They’ll come to before they freeze to death,” Marume said.

“When they do, they’ll report that we escaped,” Fukida said. “We’ll have a hard time getting back inside the castle.”

“Never mind that now,” Sano said. “Let’s go.”

Outside, they cut through the woods and followed a rough track that was deep in snow, with a narrow rut tamped down the middle by not many footsteps. They entered Fukuyama City through its inland fringes. This was clearly the poor side of town, with tiny shacks huddled together, the snow fouled by ashes, cinders, and wastewater frozen in ditches. The few people outdoors had a grimy, primitive appearance. An old man tended a heap of burning trash. When Sano asked him the way to the gold merchant’s shop, he muttered directions and pointed.

Sano and his comrades trudged through the few alleys into the main part of town. As they passed a shrine, a movement beyond its weathered torn gate caught Sano’s attention. He glanced into the shrine and stopped. A little boy, bundled in a fur coat and hood, tiptoed around the brass gong. He aimed a child-sized bow and arrow, hunting imaginary game. Sano’s heart began to thud as the boy turned toward him.

It was Masahiro. He smiled and waved at Sano. Astounded, Sano waved back. Masahiro vanished.

“What’s the matter?” Fukida said.

“Nothing.” Sano didn’t want to explain. What he’d seen must have been the spirit of his dead son. He didn’t want his men to think he was as mad as Lord Matsumae.

They located the gold merchant’s shop. Upon entering, they ignored the clerks who greeted them and made straight for the passage at the back. A clerk ran after them, saying, “That’s private. You can’t go there.”

“Watch us,” Marume said.

Sano and his men hurried down the passage and burst into the office that stank of dead things. Daigoro sat on a bearskin rug beneath a display of mounted animal heads, masturbating. A book of erotic Ainu prints by a Japanese artist lay open on the desk in front of him. When he saw his visitors, he jumped in surprise.

“Hey!” He stuffed his erection into his loincloth, closed his fur coat, and slammed the book shut. “How dare you barge in here?” Recognition stunned him. “Chamberlain Sano?” He pasted an obsequious grin over the fright on his face. “What can I do for you and your friends?”

“You can answer a few questions,” Sano said.

“Oh? About what?”

Sano dumped Lilac’s pouch of gold nuggets on the desk. “Did these once belong to you?”

Daigoro’s eyes took on a hungry, acquisitive gleam as he looked at the nuggets. “Maybe. A lot of the gold in Ezogashima passes through my hands.”

“They were found in Lilac’s room.”