The Snow Empress: A Thriller (22 page)

“Well, all right.” The sentry sounded unconvinced yet afraid to disobey his lord.

Reiko heard the gate creak open and felt weight depress the sled as Wente sat in front of her. The sled began moving, slowly at first, scraping and bumping on iced-over snow. Then they were skimming fast, faster. The dogs barked gaily. Reiko clung to the sled, which zoomed downhill, veered around trees. Bumps jarred Reiko’s body. Soon her legs went numb. After what seemed like hours, Wente shouted to the dogs. The sled coasted to a stop.

“You come out now,” Wente said.

Reiko flung off the blanket. Icy air frosted her face. Patches of white sunlight and vivid blue shadow blinded her. She squinted as she staggered to her feet. Tingles cramped her legs. She was on the crest of a low, sparsely forested hill. The city and castle were gone. The only signs of them, of civilization, were thin smoke spires that rose from the distant south. In the other directions stretched winter forest and snowy plains. To the north, hills climbed toward lavender blue, ice-capped mountains. Reiko felt awed by the beauty of the landscape, horrified by its vastness that dwarfed her hope of finding Masahiro.

Wente was beside her. “Give me boy’s things.”

Reiko handed Wente the toy horse in the leather pouch. Wente offered it to the dogs. They sniffed the pouch that Masahiro had handled many times. Their breath steamed off their tongues as they panted. They raised their heads, barked, and raced off, spurred by the scent of their quarry.

Wente jumped onto the sled and grabbed the reins. Reiko barely managed to climb on and sit behind her before she and the sled and dogs sped away. “Hold on!” Wente cried.

Sano, Marume, Fukida, and the Rat fanned up the hill toward the castle, hiding behind trees so the sentries in the watch turrets wouldn’t spot them. Marume carried a coil of rope they’d stolen from a shop in town. Some twenty paces from the wall, Sano raised his hand to stop, and they lay flat. He pointed to a section of the wall screened by spindly pine saplings. Marume tied a slip-knotted loop in the rope, crawled up to the trees, and hurled the loop at the iron spikes that topped the wall. He missed; the rope fell.

“It’s not going to work,” the Rat said, less worried than hopeful.

Marume tried and failed again.

“Maybe we should go back to town,” the Rat said, “and try to hitch a boat ride home.”

“Shut up,” Fukida said.

On the third try, the loop fell over a spike. Marume tugged the rope, tightening the knot, then turned and beckoned.

“I’ll go first and be the lookout,” Fukida said.

He joined Marume, took hold of the rope, braced his feet on the wall, and shimmied up. It was slow going with his heavy boots, clothes, and sword. He crouched between the spikes, looked into the castle, then dropped down the other side of the wall. Marume followed even more slowly, hindered by his greater bulk. Then he was over.

“Our turn,” Sano said.

The Rat hung back. “I’m scared.”

“Come with me, or fend for yourself.” Sano crawled up the hill. The Rat groused, but scuttled after him. Sano handed him the rope. The Rat climbed, nimble as his namesake. Then Sano hauled himself up. His muscles strained; too much desk work had left him out of shape. His wounded arm ached; his feet skittered on the wall. He was making so much noise that he expected to hear an uproar at any moment. But he reached the top and saw the other men waiting below him in a passage between the wall and a building. Sano dropped, and they started moving.

He was still bent on revenge. Wente deserved to die for committing murder, for all the trouble she’d caused even if inadvertently, but he was sorry the killer had turned out to be one of the natives. He’d wanted to think of them as more noble than the Japanese who’d mistreated them. Now he had to admit that they were just as capable of jealousy, hatred, and violence as anyone else. He had qualms about executing a woman, especially one who’d tried to help Reiko. But he must slay Wente. Then would come Lord Matsumae’s turn to die for murdering Masahiro.

Crossing the castle grounds, Sano caught his first glimpse of the troops, and he immediately knew something had changed. They were still busy running around, but they seemed less organized, more agitated. They paused to chat in groups, and as they talked, their gazes roved. Crouched behind a bush with his men, Sano cursed under his breath.

“They know we’re out. It’s us they’re looking for.”

“Well, that means we don’t have much time,” Marume said, just as someone shouted, “Hey! There they are!”

A pack of troops chased them. Bows zinged; arrows whizzed and pelted the snow around their feet as they ran. The troops called more men to join the chase. Sano and his comrades burst into the palace’s back garden. Looking for a place to hide, Sano spotted a loose strip of lattice askew at the base of the building. He and Marume pried it back. They and their comrades crawled under the building. He pulled the lattice shut just as troops arrived.

“Did they come in here?” asked a soldier.

Lying on their stomachs on the cold, hard earth in the dim space, Sano and his comrades held their breath and didn’t move a muscle.

“I don’t see them, but we’d better check,” came the answer.

Legs stalked past the lattice. Sano willed the men to give up and go. Then a low voice said in his ear, “They’re gone now.”

Sano jerked with surprise as he found Hirata lying next to him. The Rat startled so violently that he banged his head on the underside of the building. Hirata had stolen up on them so quietly that they hadn’t heard him.

“You almost scared me to death,” Marume said.

“Not so loud!” Fukida whispered. “Someone will hear us.”

“This is excellent timing,” Sano said. “We’ve found out who killed Tekare.”

“So have I,” Hirata said. “It’s all right to talk. There’s nobody in this part of the building.”

“Good work,” Sano said. “Now we can team up to deliver Wente and Lord Matsumae to justice.”

Hirata frowned. “Wente? But she’s not the killer.”

Sano saw that their separate investigations had led them to different conclusions. “Who do you think it is?”

“It’s Gizaemon.” Hirata described how he’d searched the scene of Tekare’s murder; he showed Sano the sassafras toothpick. “This proves it.”

“But I’ve proved it was Wente.” As Sano related what the gold merchant had told him, enlightenment struck. “My version of the story and yours aren’t mutually exclusive. They’re both true.”

Hirata nodded. “Gizaemon set the spring-bow. He must have known how Tekare treated Lord Matsumae-I doubt if anything much around here ever escaped his notice. He’d have wanted to punish Tekare and get her out of Lord Matsumae’s life. But someone needed to make sure Tekare sprang the trap.”

“That was Wente’s job,” Sano realized. “She quarreled with Tekare and provoked Tekare to chase her along the path.”

Hirata marveled, “It was a Japanese-Ainu conspiracy.”

Two people from different cultures historically at odds had joined forces. Their interests had intersected in murder. And Sano saw what this meant for him.

“So now we have two people to kill besides Lord Matsumae,” Fukida said. “Which do we tackle first?”

Sano weighed Wente’s simplicity and kindness to Reiko against Gizaemon’s ruthless cunning. “I don’t think the scheme was Wente’s idea. It smells of Gizaemon. He’s the leader of their conspiracy.” He was also the force behind the war, now that Lord Matsumae was indisposed, and Sano’s greatest adversary. “I choose Gizaemon.”

“That may be a problem,” Hirata said in the tone of a chief retainer duty-bound to contradict his master’s bad decision. “Gizaemon is a tough prospect, surrounded by troops. Something might go wrong. If it does, we’ll lose our chance at Wente.”

“The woman should be easier. We should get her out of the way first,” Fukida agreed.

“All right.” Sano thought how bizarre this was, discussing which murder to commit first, as matter-of-factly as deciding which dish to order at a food stand. It occurred to him that he would probably never eat again. Even if they succeeded in killing all three targets, they wouldn’t live much longer until the troops ganged up on and slaughtered them. “Wente it is.”

“Follow me,” Hirata said.

He slithered across the ground under the palace. Sano trusted that he knew where he was going; maybe he could sense the native women’s energy. Sano and the other men crawled less gracefully after him. They’d traveled long enough for Sano’s knees and elbows to grow sore, when Hirata stopped. He pointed upward, then at the lattice at the bottom of the nearest wall. He inched over to the lattice, peered outside, then heaved his shoulder against it.

The wooden grid broke loose. Everyone emerged into the garden outside the women’s quarters. Troops called to one another, but none were in sight. Sano and his men ran up the steps, through the door, then down the corridor. Sano heard the concubines speaking in their language. Marume halted outside a sliding door, cracked it open, glanced in, and nodded to the others. They all invaded the room.

Women were kneeling grouped together, their tattooed mouths wide, staring at him and his men. Sano saw their ancient fear of his kind. The room was a shambles, with clothes and furniture flung around, ashes from the fire pit scattered on the mats, a loom broken. The women looked so much alike that Sano had to study their faces closely. He noticed fresh bruises, bleeding lips, and swollen eyes, but the person he wanted wasn’t among them.

“We want Wente,” he said. “Tell us where she is, and we’ll leave you alone.”

The oldest, a woman with a strongly beautiful face, uttered a brief phrase. The Rat translated, “‘Wente’s gone.”“

“Gone where?” Sano said, impatient.

As the woman spoke, the Rat said, “She left the castle. She took dogs, a sled, and food.” The woman pointed at Sano, and surprise altered the Rat’s expression. “She took your wife.”

“Reiko?” Sano’s impatience turned to puzzlement. “Why?”

A torrent of words issued from the woman. “She doesn’t know,” the Rat said. “None of the concubines do. But Reiko and Wente were going on a long journey. They took enough food for several days.”

Sano shook his head, trying to make sense of this. Things were changing too fast. What had diverted Reiko from her original plan and sent her off on a trip with Wente? A possible answer alarmed Sano.

“Maybe Wente pretended she’d found out that Masahiro escaped from the castle and he’s alive,” Sano said. “Reiko would have been desperate to believe in miracles and easily tricked. She would go to the ends of the earth with anyone she thought could give her back our son.”

“Anyone, including a murder suspect,” Marume said. His and the other men’s faces showed dismay as they caught Sano’s meaning.

“Reiko could have stumbled onto evidence that incriminated Wente,” Sano said. “Maybe Wente was only afraid Reiko would. But whatever the truth, Wente must have lured Reiko out to the wilderness, to silence her permanently.”

He didn’t think Wente would use outright physical violence against Reiko. That seemed not in character for Wente, considering her part in Tekare’s murder. More likely, Wente would take Reiko far enough from town that she couldn’t make her way back alone, then abandon her to die of the cold. Wente’s devious cruelty shocked Sano. The thought of Reiko, innocent and vulnerable, alone with the murderess!

The native woman shouted something at Sano, waving her hands to get his attention. It sounded like a warning. The Rat said, “She says your wife and Wente are in danger. Gizaemon knows they left. He’s gone after them.”

Misfortune piled on top of misfortune. Reiko was at the mercy of one killer and under pursuit by the other. “How did Gizaemon find out? When was this?”

As the woman spoke, the Rat anxiously translated: “Wente and Lady Reiko left about three hours-ago. Gizaemon came here just before us. He was looking for Lady Reiko.”

Sano realized what had happened while he and his men had been out solving me crime. The guards in the guest quarters had regained consciousness, had reported that the prisoners were missing. Gizaemon had launched a hunt for them and searched for Reiko in the women’s quarters.

“He asked these women if they’d seen her,” the Rat continued. “They said no. Wente had sworn them to secrecy. But he guessed that they were lying.” The woman gestured at the tumbled furniture and clothes. “He got mad and wrecked the room. Then he noticed that Wente wasn’t here. He asked where she was. He seemed even more upset about her being gone than about Lady Reiko. He beat the women until they gave up and told him Wente had taken Lady Reiko away.”

Sano put together the rest of the story. “After Tekare’s murder, Gizaemon would have ordered Wente to keep quiet.” Gizaemon had thought himself safe because she knew that incriminating him would incriminate her as well. “But when I started investigating the murder, he became afraid that Wente would crack.” Now Gizaemon was less concerned that Reiko, Sano, and their comrades were at large than threatened because Wente had escaped his control. “He can’t let her go free to tell anyone about his part in Tekare’s death; he can’t risk that Lord Matsumae might hear. He has to cover his tracks by doing what he knows he should have done sooner.”

“Eliminate Wente,” concluded Marume.

Sano’s horror multiplied as he realized what that meant for his wife. “When Gizaemon kills Wente, he can’t leave a witness. If Reiko is there to see, she’ll figure out why he did it. She can’t be permitted to live and tell. Gizaemon will kill her, if Wente hasn’t yet.” The situation altered drastically once more, as did Sano’s plans. “We have to get to Reiko and Wente before Gizaemon does.”

“All right,” Marume said. “We’ll go after them. But what about Lord Matsumae? Should we forget about him, or kill him first?”

Sano’s attitude toward Lord Matsumae shifted to fit the new reality. Lord Matsumae hadn’t murdered Tekare. And although Sano wasn’t willing to forgive him for everything else, including Masahiro’s death, there was a reason to keep him alive. Sano thought of Reiko and Wente somewhere in the vast, winter wilderness of Ezogashima. He and his men lacked the equipment and skills to find the women. They would surely get lost and freeze to death before they could save Reiko, and Gizaemon had a big head start.

“No,” Sano said, “we shouldn’t forget Lord Matsumae, but we won’t kill him-at least not yet. We need him.”