The Incense Game: A Novel of Feudal Japan Page 9

“She was murdered, with poisoned incense. She was playing an incense game with two ladies, her pupils. They died, too.”

  Mizutani’s droopy mouth gaped. His teeth were yellow and the gums red, as if from an internal heat that had given his skin its melted-wax appearance. “Do you think I did it? Is that why you’re here?”

  “Did you do it?” Sano asked.

  “Me? No! Of course not!”

  Sano counted too many denials. “Tell me about the arguments you had with Usugumo.”

  “Who—” Mizutani pulled a face. “The neighborhood headman must have told you. That busybody.”

  “What were the arguments about?”

  Mizutani looked around, as if seeking an excuse for not answering. Failing to find one that he thought Sano would accept, he sighed. “She was stealing my pupils. The ungrateful wretch! Everything she had, I gave her!” Mizutani thumped his chest with his loose-fleshed hand. “Do you know what she was before she became an incense teacher?” He didn’t wait for Sano to say no. “She was a courtesan in Yoshiwara, that’s what!”

  Yoshiwara was the pleasure quarter, the one place in Edo where prostitution was legal. The prostitutes, called courtesans, plied their trade in pleasure houses owned by merchants and regulated by the government. Samurai were officially banned from Yoshiwara but flocked there nonetheless. So did other men, from all classes, who could afford the high prices of the women, the drink, and the festivities. But the earthquake had wrecked the brothels and teahouses and put at least a temporary end to the glittering, glamorous world of Yoshiwara.

  “I started going to Yoshiwara after my wife died. That was eight years ago,” Mizutani said. “I was lonely, I wanted female company, you see. It was fun for a while.” He smiled reminiscently, then sobered. “But it cost too much. Buying the right clothes to wear, the trips there and back in a boat. And the women are so expensive. Not just to sleep with—I had to throw parties for three nights in a row beforehand. Afterward, I had to buy presents for them if I wanted to have them again.”

  Yoshiwara had many rituals that customers were required to observe, which added to the mystique of Yoshiwara and made money for the proprietors of brothels, teahouses, and other businesses associated with the trade.

  “I had decided to give it up, when I met Usugumo.” Nostalgia softened Mizutani’s tone. “She was beautiful and charming and clever. And in bed—” He gave a lascivious shudder. “I got to thinking, why not buy her freedom? Take her home and have her all to myself, all the time? And never have to spend another copper in Yoshiwara.”

  Some courtesans in Yoshiwara were sent to work there as punishment for petty crimes. They could leave when their sentences were finished. Others were sold into prostitution as children by their parents. They could leave after they’d repaid their purchase price to the brothel owner, but even the most popular, highest-priced courtesans could rarely afford to buy their own freedom. The brothels charged them for their clothes, room, and board. Every day they lived in Yoshiwara they went deeper into debt. They depended on patrons to set them free.

  “So that’s what I did,” Mizutani said. “Usugumo was a bargain because she was thirty-five, you see. Way past her prime. I figured she would be grateful to me for rescuing her before the brothel threw her out on the street. I thought she would be faithful, not like those young girls, who’ll use a fellow just to get away from Yoshiwara and then run off as soon as they’re out the gate. At first, everything was fine. She looked after me and my house. I taught her about incense. She was good for business. The ladies admired her because she was fashionable and glamorous and could tell them stories about Yoshiwara. The men liked taking lessons from a beautiful woman. This went on until two years ago. Then—”

  Mizutani’s face flushed with anger. He looked as if his wick had burned down through his head, glowing red-hot from within. “I went on a trip to buy new incense materials. I was away for three months. When I got back, Usugumo was gone. She didn’t even say good-bye! Just packed her things and moved. I had to ask the neighbors where she’d gone. It turned out she’d saved the allowance I’d been giving her and rented that house in Nihonbashi. She’d also taken my best incense with her. I went there and confronted her and said, ‘How could you treat me like this?’ She said she’d done her duty by staying with me for six years. She said I was an ugly, bossy old miser, and she was setting up her own business so she wouldn’t have to depend on any man ever again.”

  Sano had to admire Usugumo’s initiative. “Did you report her to the police?”

  “I was too embarrassed. She insulted me and robbed me. And later, took my pupils. They liked her better than me.” Mizutani’s expression went from shame and rancor to fear as he realized how bad he was making himself look. “But I didn’t poison her incense. How could I have? She wouldn’t have let me. I’m innocent.”

  “If you’re innocent, then you won’t mind if I search your house.” Sano began opening drawers, digging through the contents.

  “Hey!” Mizutani leaped to his feet. “Be careful with those! They’re valuable!”

  “I’ll just take them with me, as evidence.” Sano found a cloth sack, dumped in incense sticks and raw ingredients.

  “No! Please don’t! That’s my livelihood!”

  Sano held up the sack. “Hand over the arsenic, and I’ll leave you this.”

  “I don’t have any.”

  “Suit yourself.” Sano resumed stuffing the sack.

  “All right, all right!” Mizutani scuttled into the adjacent room and returned with a small brown ceramic jar. “Here!”

  Sano took the jar, removed the lid, and saw grayish white powder inside.

  “But I never put it in incense!” Mizutani said. “I only use it to kill rats!”

  Maybe he’d thought Usugumo was one. He’d possessed the means, if not the opportunity, by which to poison the women at the incense game. Sano handed over the sack.

  “If you want to find out who did it, you should talk to Korin,” Mizutani said.

  It was the classic, obvious way to cast off suspicion—direct it toward someone else. Sano took the bait anyway, because he needed all the leads he could get, especially leads that didn’t point to the Hosokawa clan.

  “Who’s Korin?” Sano asked.

  “Usugumo’s apprentice,” Mizutani said, relieved that his ploy had succeeded. “He helped her blend her incense. It would have been easier for him to put poison in it than me. Besides, I’m a respectable, law-abiding businessman, whereas Korin is a shady character. He used to work as a tout for the pleasure houses in Yoshiwara. That’s where he and Usugumo met. He also had a side business pimping for nighthawks.” Nighthawks were illegal prostitutes who operated outside the licensed pleasure quarter.

  Skeptical, Sano said, “But Usugumo was Korin’s employer. His livelihood depended on her. Why kill her? Wouldn’t she have been worth more to him alive?”

  “I once had an apprentice who hated me because I hit him with a stick when he ruined a batch of incense,” Mizutani said. It was common knowledge that apprentices were often worked like slaves and harshly punished by their masters. “That could have happened with Usugumo and Korin. Maybe he wanted to do to her what she did to me: Rob her and run.” Mizutani grinned. “That would have been easier if she was dead.”

  “Where is Korin?”

  “I asked around. He hasn’t been seen since before the earthquake.”

  “He may have died during it,” Sano pointed out.

  “He may have.” Mizutani’s grin broadened, showing his red gums and yellow teeth. “But if he murdered those women, wouldn’t that be a good reason for disappearing?”

  12

  THE SHOGUN STOOD in his chamber, wearing his loincloth and a pair of quilted brown trousers fastened with drawstrings. He held his arms out to his sides while the twins dressed him in layers of quilted underrobes. “I think I’ll wear my, ahh, green brocade kimono today.”

  Masahiro watched the shogun’s other pages search for
the green kimono on stands that sagged under the weight of draped garments. Robes strewn on the floor almost covered the tatami. Cabinets and drawers spilled toiletries and other personal articles. Shoes fallen from their cubbyholes lay in heaps; underclothes were crumpled haphazardly into shelves. The monthlong shortage of servants had resulted in a mess that worsened every day.

  When the pages located the kimono and the twins tried to put it on the shogun, he wrinkled his nose. “It smells! Why hasn’t it been washed? Bring me my burgundy satin instead.” The pages found the burgundy robe wadded up on the floor. The shogun frowned and rubbed at the creases as the twins dressed him. “My black sash with the gold dragons would look well with this.”

  The hunt began again. Masahiro saw the shogun growing impatient, the pages worried and frantic. The twins and the shogun’s bodyguard rushed to help. The shogun’s expression darkened into a scowl. Masahiro joined the search because he knew what that scowl portended. They had to find that sash.

  “I’ve had enough! I can’t stand this any longer!” The shogun hopped from side to side; his hands waved. “I’m surrounded by, ahh, disorder, incompetence, and stupidity! You oafs are driving me mad!”

  He picked up an ivory fan from the mess and struck one of the twins on the head with it. The boy yelped in pain. Masahiro had never seen the shogun hit anyone before, but since the earthquake his temper was even quicker than usual, and violence had seemed inevitable. The shogun beat the boy about the shoulders. The boy fell on the floor and moaned, but he didn’t defend himself or protest, lest he be put to death. Everyone else stood by, helpless. The other concubines, the pages, and the guard didn’t want the shogun to turn his wrath on them. The shogun shrieked as he wielded the fan against the boy’s face, splitting his lip, bloodying his nose. The boy sobbed.

  Even though the shogun had the right to do whatever he wanted, Masahiro couldn’t let an innocent person be hurt. He lunged at the shogun, grabbed his arm, and shouted, “Stop, Your Excellency!”

  The other people in the room gasped, shocked because he dared to lay a hand on their lord. The shogun emitted a startled grunt. Masahiro hauled him away from the fallen boy. He spun the shogun around to face him. Fury twisted the shogun’s mouth. He raised the fan to strike Masahiro.

  Masahiro seized him by the wrist. He was aghast at his own audacity, terrified because the shogun could have him killed, but he said, “Let go of that fan!” in the stern tone that his sword-fighting teacher used when he made a mistake during a lesson.

  The shogun gaped. His hand opened. He let the fan fall. The room was silent except for the injured boy’s weeping. Masahiro released the shogun. As they stared eye to eye, he was astonished to realize that they were of equal height. The shogun’s mouth trembled as if he were about to cry. Suddenly Masahiro was the powerful adult and the shogun the child at his mercy. Suddenly Masahiro pitied the supreme dictator of Japan.

  “It’s all right.” Masahiro spoke in the gentle voice he used toward his sister Akiko when she was upset. “There’s no need to hit anybody. I’ll make things all better.”

  “You will?” The shogun’s eyes shone with hopeful trust.

  “Yes.” Masahiro heard the others sigh in relief because the danger had passed. He remembered when a horse in his father’s stable had gone wild, kicking and bucking, and the groom had seized its reins and talked to it until it calmed down. This was just like that. “I’ll find your sash.”

  “But how?” The shogun gazed despairingly around the room.

  Masahiro took the shogun by the hand. “We’ll sort everything. Your sash will turn up.”

  That was what his nurse had taught him when he was little, when he’d cried because he’d lost his favorite toy soldier. Now he and the shogun picked up clothes, folded them, cleared out cabinets and drawers and shelves, then refilled them with neatly arranged items. Pages, boys, and the guard helped. The shogun seemed captivated by the novelty of it. When they were almost finished, he exclaimed, “Look!” He held up the black and gold sash.

  Everyone cheered. The shogun beamed at Masahiro. “From now on, you shall be in charge of my private chambers.”

  Masahiro felt the pride of every samurai who’d ever won a battle for his lord and been rewarded with riches. Then he realized that he’d done the very thing his father had warned him against doing. He’d attracted the shogun’s notice, and there was no going back.

  * * *

  YANAGISAWA LOOKED AROUND in amazement as he rode through Edo with his four bodyguards. He’d not realized how bad the earthquake damage was, because he’d never gone out to see. He’d heard his retainers and servants talking about it, but the devastation was beyond belief. Along with his horror came an unexpected thrill. The politician in him, which was coming back to life, recognized opportunity in this crisis.

  When they reached the Sumida River, he and his men dismounted at the lone dock that the earthquake hadn’t shaken loose. They climbed into two little wooden ferryboats, the only means of crossing the river now that the Ryōgoku Bridge was gone. The boatmen rowed the ferries through the debris that clogged the shallows. As he crossed the clean middle of the river, Yanagisawa felt like a survivor of a stormy voyage, heading toward a new shore. In spite of his grief over Yoritomo, he felt hopeful, euphoric.

  After the ferry docked, he and his guards trudged through the Honjo district. Its lumberyards, which had once supplied Edo with wood brought from forests in the provinces, looked as if a giant had picked up all the logs and flung them down like a fortune-teller casting yarrow sticks. Peasants labored to pull out the logs that jammed the canals, which had flooded the collapsed neighborhoods. A few houses had survived—the well-built estates of rich lumber merchants. Yanagisawa’s party arrived at one of these. It consisted of four houses grouped around a square courtyard, connected by covered corridors and surrounded by a bamboo fence. Guards stationed outside the gate recognized Yanagisawa and bowed.

  Yanagisawa didn’t like to put all his eggs in one basket, but the earthquake had destroyed the separate villas where his four sons had lived with their mothers. His retainers had managed to commandeer this estate for them during the rush when so many people were seeking housing. Yanagisawa gazed up at the plank walls of the houses’ upper stories, the wooden shutters and bars over the windows, and the drab brown tiles on the roofs. Sumptuary laws forbade commoners to flaunt their wealth. Inside, the estate was luxurious. Yanagisawa felt apprehension mount in him as he walked through the gate. He didn’t know if what he found here would be good enough for his purposes. His heart bounded with the hope that one of these sons had Yoritomo’s looks, intelligence, and sweet, tractable personality. If only one of them could be to him what Yoritomo had been!

  Yanagisawa banished the wish from his mind. Sentimentality had no place in politics.

  As he approached the nearest wing of the mansion, the guard captain came out on the veranda. Yanagisawa said, “I’m here to see my sons.”

  The guard captain looked surprised. Yanagisawa hadn’t seen his sons up close since they were born, when he’d examined the infants to make sure they were normal before he acknowledged them as his and provided for their support. He routinely sent his aides to check on the boys and report back to him. When he’d needed one to place close to the shogun, he’d set out to evaluate his sons and choose the best. He’d met Yoritomo—the eldest—and stopped there. Now, here on the same quest, Yanagisawa found himself jittery with nerves.

  “How are they?” he asked, prolonging the suspense, avoiding disappointment.

  “Tokichika, the youngest, has a fever. He’s often sick with one thing or another.”

  “I don’t need to see him, then.” A sickly boy wouldn’t suit Yanagisawa’s purposes. “What about the other three?”

  “They’re fine. Shall I tell them you’re here?”

  “No.” Yanagisawa strode into the mansion. Walking down the corridor, he came upon a woman. She froze in her tracks. He barely recognized her as his former co
ncubine; he didn’t remember her name. She’d gotten old; she’d gained weight. “Where’s our son?”

  She gazed at him for a moment, fearful and mute, then called, “Rokuro! Come quickly! Your father is here!”

  A young samurai came running. He tripped, stumbled, and almost fell. Scarlet with embarrassment, he bowed and stammered, “Greetings, Honorable Father.”

  Yanagisawa winced. That a child of his could be so awkward! He could see himself in Rokuro, but the resemblance was distorted, as if his son’s features had been shaped by a sculptor using him as a model and working in the dark.

  “Are you doing well in your studies?” Yanagisawa asked.

  Rokuro looked at the floor. His mother answered, “He needs to work harder.”

  Yanagisawa understood that Rokuro was dull-witted. “Can you sing and play music?”

  “A little,” the boy muttered.

  “I see.” Yanagisawa saw that Rokuro could never attract the shogun, who liked only handsome, clever, charming boys. He left the room without a backward look.

  As he walked through the passage to the adjoining house, a boy ran smack into him. Yanagisawa grabbed the youth’s arms to steady them both. They stared at each other in mutual astonishment. Yanagisawa saw a face that was a young version of his own, the image of Yoritomo’s minus some ten years. His breath stopped as if he’d been punched in the chest. Here was Yoritomo, miraculously reborn!

  In the next instant, Yanagisawa realized his mistake. Grief resurged with such force that he pushed the boy away from him, turned, and ran outside, where he leaned on the veranda railing and panted. No matter that the boy looked exactly like Yoritomo and might have the same talents; Yanagisawa couldn’t bear to see him again. Every time he looked at the boy, he would be reminded of Yoritomo, confronted with the fact that the boy wasn’t, and could never be, Yoritomo.

  Yanagisawa forced himself to walk down the steps and around the corner toward the next house, to enter another door despite his fear of what else he would find. A woman met him in the entryway.