The Snow Empress: A Thriller (10 page)

Morning dawned gray and quiet. The air was warmer, its sharp edge blunted by the clouds massed over Fukuyama City. As Sano, Hirata, the detectives, and Gizaemon headed across the castle grounds, smoke from the chimneys dissolved into heavens the same color. The muted light rendered trees and buildings in stark monotones. The snow looked dull and soft, without brilliance or shadow. Sano could smell more coming, its scent like dust, ready to chill, oppress, and conceal.

“How’s the arm?” Gizaemon asked Sano.

“Better,” Sano said, although it ached and the stitches burned. “How is Lord Matsumae?”

“Worse.” Gizaemon’s rough features were etched with concern. “Bad idea to bother him now. Advise you to wait.”

“That’s not possible.” The investigation must continue. Everything depended on it. Every step of it required approval from Lord Matsumae, and Sano wasn’t going to tolerate obstruction from Gizaemon, a suspect.

Gizaemon shrugged. “Your funeral.”

Opening a gate, he ushered them into a forest preserve. Through the evergreen foliage and bare branches Sano saw a tall, square, half-timbered building. Piercing shrieks came from it.

“Lord Matsumae is inspecting his hawks. This is where he keeps them,” Gizaemon said.

He led Sano and Hirata inside the building. The shrieks blared at Sano. He saw some thirty birds of prey tethered to perches, enormous eagles and smaller hawks and falcons. Some screamed incessantly, their curved beaks opening and closing, their wild eyes glaring. Others wore leather hoods over their heads; they sat still and quiet. Huge wings flapped, stirring air laden with the pungent chicken-coop smell of bird dung and the stench of decayed meat.

Lord Matsumae stood in the center of the room, berating three samurai. “These mews are filthy. You’ve been neglecting my precious hawks.”

The men mumbled apologies. Gizaemon said close to Sano’s ear, “The keepers have been busy guarding the ports, as he ordered them to do. This is the first attention he’s paid his hawks since that woman was murdered.”

“You two clean this place up at once,” Lord Matsumae said, pointing at the men. He was as untidy as the mews, his whiskers growing into a straggly beard, his hair long and uncombed; he wore a tattered fur coat and muddy, scuffed leather boots. “And you help me inspect the hawks.”

The two samurai began sweeping up dung, feathers, and castings. The other trailed Lord Matsumae, who headed toward Sano. “What do you want?” Lord Matsumae asked.

Sano was disturbed to see two pinpoints of light in each of his eyes, one from his own soul, the other from the spirit that possessed him. “To tell you my plans for today.”

“Very well,” Lord Matsumae said with an agreeability that Sano didn’t trust. “We can talk while I inspect my hawks.”

The keeper flung a heavy cloth over a sleek gray falcon and lifted her off her perch. She snapped at Lord Matsumae as he examined her talons, beak, eyes, and plumage.

“Clean these talons,” he said. “Fix these broken feathers. She’s my gift to the shogun. She has to be perfect.”

He seemed to have forgotten that he was in trouble for neglecting to send the shogun any gifts. Sano could feel Tekare’s watchful, menacing presence in him. The keeper put the falcon back on her perch. Lord Matsumae tossed the bird a mouse from a bucket full of dead rodents. She gulped it down.

“I’d like Hirata-san to interview the Ezo again,” Sano said. “We ask your permission for him to go to their camp this morning.”

Gizaemon said, under his breath, “Finally someone’s looking for the killer in the right place.”

“Permission granted,” Lord Matsumae said as he and the keeper grappled with another hawk that struggled under the cloth and screamed. But he immediately spoke again, in Tekare’s accented voice, sharp with suspicion: “Why would you let him go after my people?”

He replied in his own voice, “They might have killed you.”

“So might your people have. Would you let them get away with my murder?”

“No, my beloved.” Lord Matsumae’s manner alternated between masculine and feminine. “I just want to be sure not to miss anything.”

Sano listened, appalled. Now Lord Matsumae was not only speaking in Tekare’s tongue, he was carrying on a conversation with her spirit, which had gained a stronger hold on him.

Gizaemon whispered, “I warned you.” He ordered three guards to take Hirata to the camp and said, “He causes any trouble, you’ll be posted to the far north.”

“Take Marume and the Rat with you,” Sano said to Hirata.

Hirata went off with his escorts. Sano said, “Lord Matsumae, I would like permission for my wife to visit yours.”

“I advise against that,” Gizaemon said.

“Oh?” Lord Matsumae scraped dirt off a hawk’s talons with a knife. “Why?”

“Lady Reiko might try to run away again. She should be confined to her quarters, where we can watch her.”

“She’s promised me that she’ll behave herself,” Sano said.

“It’s still not a good idea,” Gizaemon said. “Lady Matsumae is in mourning. She won’t want to be bothered with entertaining a guest.

His concern for Lady Matsumae seemed to Sano more an excuse to keep her and Reiko apart than motivated by genuine sympathy for the bereaved woman. “Perhaps my wife’s company would cheer up Lady Matsumae,” Sano said.

“I think not,” Gizaemon said. “Better forbid this visit, Honorable Nephew.”

Sano wondered whether Gizaemon had guessed that Reiko was working with him on the murder investigation and intended to pump Lady Matsumae for evidence. Sano’s suspicions toward Gizaemon increased.

“What do you think, my beloved?” Lord Matsumae said. He replied in Tekare’s voice, “I think it’s a good idea,” then said in his own voice, “I’ll grant permission for Lady Reiko to visit my wife.”

Now Sano wondered if he-or Tekare-suspected that his wife had been involved in the murder.

Intent on the falcon he was examining, Lord Matsumae gave no sign that Sano could see. “Just make sure the guards stay near her at all times, Uncle.”

“As you wish.” Gizaemon’s dark look said how much he hated being overruled by a ghost although not by his nephew.

The birds were calmer now. Only the largest, a magnificent eagle with gold plumage, still shrieked. Lord Matsumae slipped a gauntlet on his left hand and whistled. With a great flap of wings, the eagle leaped onto his fist. He rewarded the eagle with a dead mouse. Sano thought how barbaric seemed the ancient sport of falconry. Since Buddhism had taken root in Japan some eleven centuries ago, hunting had fallen into disfavor because Buddhist doctrine forbade eating meat. Most samurai kept falcons as a mere bow to tradition. But Ezogashima was a world apart from mainstream Japanese society. Here, blood sport flourished. But Sano was more interested in a different kind of hunt: the search for a killer.

What else are you going to do?“ Lord Matsumae asked. Detective Fukida and I will examine the scene of the murder,” Sano said.

That’s a waste of time,“ Gizaemon scoffed. ”There’s nothing left to see.“

“I still need to have a look.” Sano wondered what Gizaemon didn’t want him to find.

“That’s fine with me.” Lord Matsumae unfastened the tether that tied the eagle to its perch. “And me,” echoed Tekare’s voice. He cast the bird off his fist. It flew in circles while the other birds shrieked and flapped as if envious of its freedom. “Anything else?”

“I have a request from the Ezo,” Sano said. “They ask permission to hold a funeral for Tekare.”

“A funeral? To bury her in the ground?” Lord Matsumae exclaimed in horror. “You want to take her away from me!” He clutched his arms as if embracing his dead mistress in them. “Her remains are all I have left of her. How can you ask me to give them up?”

“The Ezo say a funeral will help her cross over to the spirit world,” Sano said. “She’ll stop haunting you.”

“But I don’t want her to cross over. I don’t want her to leave me!”

Lord Matsumae waved his arms. One struck the eagle as it flew by him. Confused or frightened, it screeched and flew straight at Sano.

“Look out!” Detective Fukida said.

The eagle came so near Sano that he could see the luminous flecks in its golden eyes. Ducking, he felt wings brush his head. Lord Matsumae guffawed and cackled. Sano dodged the eagle as it dived repeatedly at him while the other falcons set up a din of screeches. Fukida ran after the bird and yelled. It swooped toward him, then Sano again. Hands raised up to protect himself from its talons, Sano said, “A funeral could reveal the truth about Tekare’s murder.”

“Nonsense,” Lord Matsumae began, then said in Tekare’s voice, “Wait, my lord. He may be right.”

“But I don’t want you to go to the spirit world, my beloved. I don’t want you to leave me.”

“I won’t. A funeral can’t take me away. I want to know who killed me.

Clasping his hands, Lord Matsumae beseeched the empty air around him: “Do you promise?”

“I promise. Now let the honorable chamberlain live so he can finish what he’s started.”

“All right, my beloved.”

Lord Matsumae held up a scrap of meat and whistled. The eagle alighted on his fist. It gulped the meat and folded its wings. Sano was relieved and amazed that he’d been saved by a ghost.

“The funeral will be held tomorrow morning,” Lord Matsumae decided. “In the meantime, Chamberlain Sano will continue his investigation. Take him to the scene of the murder, Uncle.”

Gizaemon scowled, unhappy to be overruled yet again. “All right, Chamberlain Sano.”
You win this time,
said his tone. “Let’s get it over with.”

The way to the murder scene lay out the back gate of the castle, down the hill through stands of trees, and along a trampled path that divided into a fork. One branch led farther downhill, toward town. The other led along a ridge edged by bare trees. Following Gizaemon onto this path, Sano could see the ocean, gray and dull like beaten steel.

“Not that I wouldn’t like to get rid of that corpse in the teahouse, but you shouldn’t have mentioned a funeral to my nephew,” Gizaemon said. “That always sets him off.”

“You could have told me,” Sano said.

“Next time listen when I warn you to stay away from him.” The path inclined gently into forest that was thick enough to shut off all sight of Fukuyama City, and quiet except for an occasional bird’s squawk. Sano could imagine himself in the wild heartland of Ezogashima instead of a short walk from civilization. “What was Tekare doing out here?”

There’s a hot spring up ahead.“ Gizaemon chewed a sassafras toothpick. Sano smelled acid as well as the spice in his breath. He must have indigestion and need the sassafras to calm his stomach, women in the castle like to bathe in it.”

“They come all the way out here to take a bath?” Sano said, puzzled by what seemed a strange custom.

Takes a long time to heat water in the winter. But there are springs all over Ezogashima, naturally full of hot water all year round. The women can come here whenever they want a bath. They don’t have to wait for the tub to warm up. And the water has healing powers.“

Glancing at the snow on the path, Sano saw his footprints and Gizaemon’s overlap other, smaller ones. The spring got a lot of use even though it was a cold walk, from the castle. He smelled its moisture and warmth, and a whiff of sulfur.

“Where was the spring-bow set?” Sano asked.

“Up there.” Gizaemon stopped and pointed to a patch in the forest where broken stumps remained from trees that had fallen. It lay along a clear line of shot to the path.

“The trip-string was tied to that,” Gizaemon said, indicating a pine beyond the path’s opposite side.

Sano and Fukida examined the trunk of the pine. They moved on to the place where the murder weapon had stood. The snow there looked untouched, except for a few tiny animal tracks.

Gizaemon said, “I hope you’re satisfied. I told you this was a waste of time.”

Sano was disappointed nonetheless. He’d hoped for any clue that might help him solve the case. As they returned to the path and resumed walking, Fukida said, “Where is the spring-bow now?”

“Lord Matsumae hacked it apart with an axe and burned the pieces. He needed something to punish.”

So much for examining the murder weapon for clues. Sano said, “Where was the body found?”

Gizaemon paced some twenty steps farther. Sano and Fukida marched alongside him, stopped when he did. Gizaemon grinned. “Right where you’re standing.”

Sano looked down and saw a mental image of the woman now enshrined in the tea cottage. Tekare lay, her black hair fanned out, against ground covered with pine needles and leaves. Her body was robust, youthful, and ripe instead of withered. Her face was smooth and beautiful instead of decayed. The blood from her wound gleamed red, newly spilled, dotting the path between her body and the place where she’d tripped the spring. The image was so vivid that Sano could feel the essence of the woman, passionate and tempestuous. He blinked. Her image disappeared. He was gazing at blank snow.

“That’s where she fell,” Gizaemon said. “She was strong, to get this far before the poison on the arrow killed her.”

“Who found her?” Sano asked.

“You’re talking to him,” Gizaemon replied.

Now we’re getting somewhere,
Sano thought. “How did you happen to be the one to find Tekare?”

“That morning, Lord Matsumae wanted her company. She wasn’t in the women’s quarters. Her bed hadn’t been slept in. We looked for her all over the castle, no sign of her. I led the search party that checked this path.”

“Why was it your party that came out here?”

Gizaemon shrugged. “Just lucky, I guess.”

But the person who discovered the body often turned out to be the murderer. Maybe Gizaemon had known where to find Tekare because he’d set the spring-bow for her. Maybe he’d wanted to be first on the scene to see if his trap had worked. If he was the killer, that would explain why he wanted to prevent Sano-or Reiko-from finding evidence. But if he wasn’t, then he was an important witness.

“Tell me what you saw when you found Tekare,” Sano said.

“The spring-bow, the loose string.” Gizaemon pointed at the places he’d seen them. “The arrow lying on the ground where she left it after she pulled it out of herself. A trail of blood leading to her body.” ‘Was there anyone around?“