The Incense Game si-16 Read online

  “That’s not good enough.” Rage suddenly animated Marume. “I should cut your hands off so you can never play cards again.”

  “Hey!” Korin recoiled in fright.

  Sano shared Marume’s sentiment, but he needed the apprentice in good enough shape to help with his investigation. He was surprised at Marume, who’d often threatened suspects before but never really meant it. Marume clearly meant it now. Grief had robbed him of his good nature.

  “Don’t worry; he won’t hurt you.” Sano turned to Marume, who glowered but subsided. “I want to talk to you about the incense teacher you used to work for. Madam Usugumo.”

  “What about her?” Korin shifted to a more comfortable position. It didn’t quite hide the flinch that jerked his body when he’d heard his employer’s name.

  That slight reaction told Sano that Korin knew something about the murders. “When was the last time you saw Madam Usugumo?”

  “The afternoon before the earthquake,” Korin replied, too quickly.

  “What happened that day?”

  “Nothing special. I helped Madam Usugumo in her workshop. She had some new cassia, nutmeg, and ambergris that needed to be ground up and cooked. Then we chose different kinds of incense for a game she was going to play that night, with some pupils.” He bobbed his head and smiled, encouraging Sano to believe him, hoping this wealth of detail would head off more questions.

  “Were you at the incense game that night?” Sano asked.

  “No!” Korin crossed his arms and scratched under them. “Madam Usugumo gave me the night off. So I went out.”

  “Did you live with her?” Marume interjected.

  Korin edged as far away from Marume as the small space allowed. “Yes, I did. It’s the custom.”

  Employers usually housed their apprentices, but Sano detected a note in Korin’s voice that said his arrangement with Madam Usugumo hadn’t been the usual kind. “Were you lovers?”

  Sheepish pride showed on Korin’s bruised face. “You could say that was one of the services I did for her.” As if he thought that sounded ungallant, he added, “Or one of the benefits of the job.”

  Marume grimaced in disgust. “When did you get home?”

  “I didn’t.” Korin scratched his head, rumpling his wavy hair. Sano thought it was nervousness rather than fleas that made him itch. “I met some friends, and when we were drinking at a teahouse, the earthquake started. I never made it back.”

  “You never checked on Madam Usugumo?” Sano asked. “Weren’t you concerned about her?”

  “Of course I was!”

  “The neighborhood headman says you haven’t been seen there since before the earthquake,” Sano said.

  Korin’s hands scrabbled over his body. The worry bugs were biting harder. “I meant to go. But one thing happened after another, and I ended up in here.”

  Sano noticed that he sounded most reasonable when justifying a bad deed. “You know why I’m asking you these questions, don’t you?”

  “No.” Korin smiled as if he hoped his charm could ward off danger.

  “It’s because Madam Usugumo died during that incense game,” Sano said. “And you’re under suspicion for murder.”

  Korin abruptly stopped scratching. His hands plopped onto his knees. “All right, I knew.” He had the look of a man who’d been trying to outrun an avalanche and failed-woeful yet relieved to give up running. “But I didn’t kill her.”

  “If you think we’re stupid enough to believe that, then you’re the one who’s stupid,” Marume jeered. “What happened? Was she too strict? Did she whip you for ruining a batch of incense? Or wasn’t she satisfied with your lovemaking? Did you get angry and poison her?”

  “No! I didn’t poison her!” Panic filled Korin’s blackened eyes.

  “You knew she was poisoned, didn’t you?” Sano accused. “You just said you chose the incense for the game. You put the poison in it. And you left her and her pupils to burn it and die.”

  “That’s not what happened!”

  Sano realized that his instincts were telling him to believe Korin even though he’d had at least the means to commit the murder. “Then tell me what did happen.”

  Korin swiveled his head from side to side, vacillating between the benefits of telling the truth and the danger of lying. Marume made a sudden move, as if to grab him. Korin flinched, then said, “I did go home, late that night. There was a lantern still lit in the parlor. And the house was full of incense smoke. That was strange-the game should have been over hours ago. So I went into the parlor, and I saw-”

  A shudder passed through him. “Madam Usugumo was lying on the floor with two ladies. They’d thrown up and soiled themselves. The incense bowl had fallen out of her hand. The ash was still smoking. I called to her. She didn’t answer. At first I thought they’d all fainted. But their eyes were open. I shook Madam Usugumo and asked what had happened. But she didn’t move. She was dead. So were the two ladies.” His eyes brimmed with recollected horror. He swallowed, his throat convulsing.

  “What did you do then?” Sano prompted.

  Korin breathed hard. “I packed up my things and some incense samples, and I ran.”

  “Why didn’t you report their deaths to the headman?” Sano asked. “Or fetch the police?”

  “I was scared, all right? I thought I would be blamed.” Korin explained, “I’ve been in trouble with the law. There are a few policemen who’d love to arrest me for murder and see my head stuck on a post by the Nihonbashi Bridge.”

  That was a credible reason. Sano realized something else: If Korin really had found the women dead, and if he’d reported it immediately, before the earthquake, the murders would have been the police’s problem. Sano resisted the temptation to pin them on Korin. He must discover the truth about the murders, no matter how inconvenient the search or dangerous the consequences. But Korin didn’t need to know that.

  “You’re coming with us.” Sano started to rise. “Let’s go.”

  “Where?” Korin goggled at Sano. “Why?”

  “To get an executioner to put you to death. Because I’ve had enough of your lies.”

  “But I’m not lying!” Korin cried as Marume grabbed his arm. “I told you the truth, I swear!”

  “I don’t believe you.” Sano sensed that Korin had told the truth but not all of it.

  “What about my trial?” Korin tried to jerk free of Marume. “Don’t I get one? Shouldn’t a magistrate decide whether I’m guilty?”

  “Things are different since the earthquake,” Marume said. “The Courts of Justice are closed. There’ll be enough delayed trials to fill them for a year after they reopen. So we’ll cross your name off the list tonight. And when you’re dead, that’ll be one fewer scumbag taking up space in jail.”

  “But I’m innocent!” Korin sobbed as he struggled. “I would never have hurt Usugumo or her pupils. I depended on them for my livelihood. You’ve got the wrong man!”

  Marume’s deliberate cruelty disturbed Sano, but he let Marume drag Korin from the tent and followed them. Korin kicked and screamed while other prisoners peeked out of their tents. Sano began to wonder if Korin would force him to give up his bluff.

  “I can tell you who killed Madam Usugumo, if you’ll just stop!” Korin shouted.

  “He’s trying to trick us,” Marume said to Sano. “Don’t listen.”

  Sano raised his hand.

  Marume reluctantly stopped. He lifted Korin and plunked him on his feet. “Talk.”

  Korin shivered from cold and terror. His wounded mouth puffed out white vapors of breath. “It was one of Madam Usugumo’s other pupils. Minister Ogyu or Priest Ryuko.”

  A chord of dismay rang in Sano. “How do you know?”

  “It had to be.” Korin regained his sly smile, although his eyes glinted with desperation. “She knew secrets that they didn’t want anybody to know. They were paying her not to tell.”

  “How did she know these secrets?” Sano said, skeptical. Bla
ckmail seemed the kind of story that a character like Korin would dream up.

  “Ogyu and Ryuko told her during their lessons,” Korin said.

  “You’re not making sense,” Marume said. “If they didn’t want anybody to know, then why would they have told her?”

  “They didn’t mean to,” Korin said hastily. “She had a special incense blend she used during private games with them. When they breathed the smoke, it made them talk.”

  “That’s pretty far-fetched.” But Sano’s friend Dr. Ito had told him about potions that crumbled inhibitions and loosened tongues. “Were you at these games?”

  “Not in the same room. She sent me out during them,” Korin said. “But I was curious, so I spied through the window. They weren’t like regular incense games. Nobody was guessing the types of incense or writing them down. She asked questions, and Ryuko and Ogyu answered.”

  It sounded as if Madam Usugumo had perverted the art of incense for her own nefarious purposes. Again, Sano sensed that Korin was telling the truth, but he resisted belief. “Supposing it’s true, what did they confess?”

  “I don’t know. I couldn’t hear what they were saying.” Seeing Sano frown, Korin said, “But I saw the money they paid her after those rituals. It was a lot more than she usually charged. And you know what else?” His split lips grinned triumphantly. “They both stopped taking lessons, but they kept on paying. Doesn’t that sound like blackmail?”

  The bell at Zojo Temple tolled the hour of the boar. Hirata heard it while eating a late dinner at home, which was a storehouse once used for keeping money and other valuables. Roughly half of the mansion, barracks, and outbuildings of his estate inside Edo Castle had burned to the ground during the earthquake. The portions still standing were too damaged for habitation. While his detectives and servants camped in tents on the grounds, Hirata, Midori, and their three children had moved into the storehouse. Its sturdy structure had withstood the earthquake; its tile roof and plaster-coated walls had protected it from the fire. Hirata had cut windows to let in sunshine and fresh air, but the interior was damp, smoky from the charcoal brazier, and crowded with his family and their possessions. The bell’s tolling was loud, clear, and ominous in the absence of buildings to absorb or deflect the sound. Hirata set his soup bowl on the table at which he and Midori sat with quilts draped over them to keep them warm.

  “I have to go.”

  “Now?” Midori whispered, so as not to wake their children-nine-year-old Taeko, six-year-old Tatsuo, and the baby Tadanobu-who were asleep in beds laid on stacked trunks. “Why must you go out this late?”

  Hirata donned his coat and fastened his swords at his waist. Outside, Tahara’s cheerful voice called, “Hirata- san, are you ready?”

  Midori spoke with annoyance. “Oh. Of course. It’s your friends again.”

  A blast of icy wind ushered Tahara, Kitano, and Deguchi into the storehouse. Tahara smiled and bowed to Midori. “Good evening. How lovely to see you.”

  Her plump, pretty face froze into a polite mask. Hirata knew she didn’t like Tahara’s mocking gallantry. Kitano’s scars and Deguchi’s eerie silence made her nervous. Nor did she like the fact that Hirata allowed them free access to her home. She didn’t know it was because if he tried to keep them out, they might force their way in and hurt someone. He’d never told her about their mystical powers or the society. He feared that if he broke his vow of secrecy, the men would kill her and the children.

  “Let’s go,” Hirata said, stepping into his shoes by the door.

  “In a hurry, are you?” Kitano said. “Your attitude has changed.”

  “Where are you going?” Midori’s voice was sharp. She resented Hirata spending so much time with these men and refusing to tell her what they did together. He knew she feared he was going to leave her, as he’d done for some five years while studying the mystic martial arts. “When will you be back?”

  “Before you know it,” Tahara said in a teasing voice.

  Hirata moved through the door, forcing Tahara, Deguchi, and Kitano to step outside. Tahara waved to Midori and called, “Tell your husband good-bye!”

  20

  Hirata and his three companions walked up a steep, snow-covered trail into the hills. Far below them, Edo Castle’s misshapen bulk hunched, the lights from the guards’ lanterns moving along its corridors like fireflies. The city was a spread of black wasteland. Above, forests mounted to the heavens.

  “This had better be worth it,” Hirata grumbled.

  Tahara’s smile flashed white in the darkness. “Have a little faith, why don’t you?”

  They stopped in a clearing in the forest, where the ground leveled into a plateau surrounded by tall, ancient evergreen cedars whose tops fringed a circle of sky with the full moon at the center. The moon’s light bleached the snow a ghostly silver. A wide, flat rock stood in the middle of the clearing. Deguchi brushed snow off the rock. Kitano emptied his knapsack onto it. He set out a ceramic flask and a metal incense burner. Deguchi lit the burner and the oil lamps around the perimeter of the clearing. The four men gathered around the rock.

  Smoke billowed from the burner, purplish flecked with golden sparks. Tahara had told Hirata that the substance they burned at rituals was a mixture of herbs from China, a recipe from the magic spell book. As Hirata and the others leaned over the burner and let the smoke fill their lungs, the air didn’t seem as cold, and he felt the fatigue of a long day lift like a rising fog. The foliage of the trees glowed green and the snow scintillated with turquoise and pink lights despite the darkness.

  Tahara, Deguchi, and Kitano began to chant in a language, full of hisses and singsong intonations, that Hirata couldn’t understand. They’d told him it was ancient Chinese. He recited the syllables he’d memorized with no idea of their meaning. Tahara took a swig from the flask, then passed it around. When his turn came, Hirata drank. The potion tasted like exotic flowers mixed with sewage, fruit, and spices, and distilled into powerful liquor. It burned down his throat and hit his stomach as if he’d swallowed a red-hot cannonball. He gagged and coughed.

  Unaffected, Tahara, Deguchi, and Kitano chanted louder, faster. Heat spread through Hirata. His muscles, nerves, and bones were on fire. He held up his hands, expecting to see them blacken and wither. His fingers distorted into white, branching, rootlike shapes. Gasping, he glanced around the circle. Tahara’s, Deguchi’s, and Kitano’s images swam, fragmented, and recoalesced.

  “What’s happening to me?” he cried.

  “The spell is working.” The chanting continued. “You’re going into a trance.”

  The words seemed to come from all of the men. The echo ricocheted off the trees. Strange colors swirled, orange and mauve and iridescent blue. Out of the corner of his eye Hirata saw movement in the forest.

  “Who’s there?” he demanded.

  As his eyes chased the movement, a figure reappeared and disappeared, a shadow with a horned helmet, a flared armor tunic, and jutting swords. It was larger than any man, a giant. Power radiated from it in waves that boomed and pulsed.

  “It’s the spirit. He’s come for you.”

  Terror filled Hirata. He didn’t care that the spirit could give him the powers he craved. He only wanted to run away. But his legs were numb as stone; they wouldn’t move. He clawed the air with his hands. They turned numb and useless, too. He spun as he toppled. He sprawled on his back across the altar stone.

  The trees above him leaned inward, their trunks like the sides of a funnel, the sky at the far, narrow end. Tahara, Deguchi, and Kitano extended their arms around the altar, hands touching. They stared down at Hirata, their lips moving as they chanted. Their voices sent pressure waves crashing against his ears. Veins of fiery light crossed, linked, and dissolved around him. His heart thumped so hard that he thought it would explode.

  “Stop or I’ll die!” he screamed.

  The men’s faces, bent over him, shone with exultation. The moon expanded and contracted in rhythm with their chanti
ng. With each expansion it grew larger, exerting a force that sucked Hirata toward the sky. He felt himself rising through the funnel of trees. As he reached the treetops, his point of view suddenly inverted. He was looking down at the clearing. He saw himself lying on the altar, enmeshed in fire-veins, his face a mask of panic, surrounded by Tahara, Deguchi, and Kitano. He tried to call to them, but they didn’t look up. They didn’t know that his spirit had left his body.

  The universe upended in another disorienting shift. The moon filled Hirata’s vision. Black clouds streamed across it like ink on water. They gathered into the shape of a samurai in full armor on horseback. It was the warrior from the forest. His image enlarged as Hirata rose into the sky and the moon expanded. Now the warrior charged his mount toward Hirata. His form took on definition. Hirata could see the plates of his helmet and armor tunic, his eyes glowing above the iron face shield. He drew his sword, which shone as if forged from lightning.

  Hirata screamed again. He heard the faint, feeble sound from his earthbound body. The men’s chanting followed him as he rose faster and faster. Another deep, garbled voice joined theirs, speaking unintelligible words. It was the warrior’s. The noises mixed into a cacophony that grew louder as he accelerated. The earth fell away beneath him. He saw Edo, the castle, and the hills shrink in a landscape of mountains and rivers and lights from distant cities, then the islands of Japan floating in the sea, dwarfed by foreign continents. The men’s chanting pursued him as he whirled through the vacuum of space.

  Celestial bodies appeared-a gigantic ball of red, swirling gas; an orange-and-black-striped orb encircled by a sparkling ring. Stars magnified into white suns with molten, turbulent centers. Hirata’s acceleration suddenly reversed. Now he was falling. Planets and stars streaked by him in columns of light. The chanting rose to an inaudible pitch. Below, the earth soared up to meet him. Mountains raised jagged peaks. Wind shrieked in his ears. Friction burned him as the round gap in the trees around the clearing in the forest swallowed him. He landed with a crash that shattered perception, extinguished thought in silent, empty blackness.