The Incense Game (22 page)

When Ogyu was twenty, his tutor took him to Z
ō
j
ō
Temple. It was his first venture into public without his parents. The magnificent buildings, the crowds, and the noise terrified him. In front of the main hall, Confucian scholars gathered to show off their talents. They took turns lecturing to each other and whoever happened by. As Ogyu waited for his turn, his head ached so badly that he could hardly hold it upright. His vision speckled the scene around him with black spots one moment, dazzling lights the next. When he mounted the stairs, he was almost blind with pain, almost too weak to stand. But his days of writing, rewriting, and rehearsing his lecture paid off. He delivered it perfectly and received enthusiastic cheers.

Soon afterward, he was invited to visit the shogun at Edo Castle. Determined to make the most of this opportunity, his parents drilled him on his speech, manners, and comportment. They made him study for extra hours, preparing to discuss Confucianism with the shogun. Such excruciating strain and headache did the pressure bring upon Ogyu! But his suffering was worthwhile. He became the shogun’s favorite scholar. Important people began courting his favor. He managed to overcome his nervousness enough to enjoy his new position.

Then his parents decided he must marry. A man in his position needed a wife, an heir. High-ranking families offered their daughters to Ogyu. The very thought of marriage made him sick with dread. His mother and his nurse were the only women he knew. Unlike other young men, he’d never patronized brothels. The idea of sexual relations was terrifying. So was the idea of meeting prospective brides and their families. Ogyu feared being accepted as much as he feared rejection. But his parents told him to trust them; they would find him the perfect wife.

Now his wife fretted over him, smoothing his clothes, adjusting the swords at his waist. “You’ll come back soon?” Even before the earthquake and the murder investigation, she’d hated any separation.

When they’d met at their
miai
, he’d immediately seen that his parents had chosen well. His own personal torment made him sensitive to it in other people, as if it were a smell they gave off. She’d reeked of it. Her lavish kimono had only emphasized her plainness. She’d been rejected by other clans and her parents were eager to get rid of her—facts that Ogyu’s parents knew. And her shame was obvious. She’d stood with her head ducked, shoulders hunched, hands fidgeting. After the
miai
, Ogyu agreed to marry her. She would be in no position to complain when she found out that he wasn’t the powerful, confident man he seemed.

The wedding ceremony had been an ordeal for both of them. Despite the pain in his head, he felt sorry for her because she was as terrified as he. She trembled so hard that when they took the ritual sips of sake that bound them together as husband and wife, she almost spilled the cup. Tears glistened on the white powder on her face. After the banquet, after the guests had left and Ogyu was alone with her for the first time, there came the part of the ordeal he’d dreaded the most. They’d knelt in the bedchamber, the bed between them, not looking at each other. Ogyu could hear her breathing, fast and ragged with panic. He’d forced himself to go to her, take her cold, damp, trembling hand in his, and speak. He was the husband. It was his duty to prepare her for the realities of their marriage.

And he discovered that she had her own troubles, which their marriage forced her to confess. They talked, and by morning they were united in a special way that other couples weren’t. To their amazement and gratitude, their marriage brought them the love and happiness they’d never dared to hope for because it seemed so impossible.

Now Ogyu tenderly caressed her cheek. “Of course I’ll come back soon. Nothing can separate us.”

But fear, like a chisel made of ice, drilled the pain deeper into his head. The murders, and the consequences, had the potential to destroy them both, and their beloved children.

He vowed that he would die before he would let that happen.

23

WALKING UPHILL THROUGH
the passages inside Edo Castle, Sano sidestepped fallen stones from the walls. He came upon a tall samurai with a roguish expression and one eyebrow higher than the other, who jostled him. The samurai apologized, bowed, and passed. Sano went on to the guesthouse, where a servant told him that Priest Ryuko was visiting the shogun’s mother. On his way there, Sano met Lord Ienobu outside the palace construction site. They exchanged polite, wary greetings.

“How is the earthquake recovery progressing?” Ienobu asked.

“As well as can be expected,” Sano said.

“Didn’t I see you with Lords Hosokawa, Mori, Date, and Maeda yesterday?”

It cost Sano an effort to keep his expression placid. “Yes. Lord Hosokawa is a good friend of mine. What were you doing out in such bad weather?”

“I needed a little change of scene. And I’m glad I went. Sometimes one sees interesting things when one steps out of one’s usual routine.” Ienobu’s smile was sly, private. “As I’m sure you are aware.”

“Indeed,” Sano said.

A whole, unspoken world of thoughts accompanied their exchange. Sano could see that Ienobu wondered what that meeting with Lord Hosokawa was about but didn’t dare to come out and ask. He could also see that Ienobu knew he would rather not say, and Ienobu didn’t want to offend him. Although Ienobu resented the fact that the shogun relied on Sano, Ienobu needed Sano’s support for a bid for the succession.

“Well, I won’t keep you from your work,” Ienobu said.

He shuffled off. Sano watched him for a moment, then went to the women’s quarters. He arrived just as Priest Ryuko was coming out. Ryuko’s expression was a smooth skin stretched over turbulent emotions. He paused, bowed, said, “Good morning,” then started to walk past Sano.

Sano could tell he wanted to pretend that yesterday’s clash had never happened. Falling into step beside him, Sano said, “I’ll walk with you.”

“Your company does me an honor.” Priest Ryuko’s courtesy sounded forced.

They walked in silence along the path through the snow-frosted grounds. Sano didn’t broach the subject of Madam Usugumo’s murder. He sensed that all he had to do was wait. Priest Ryuko had the air of a man with a scab he wanted to pick even though he knew better.

“You’re not going to ask me about my former incense teacher again, are you?” Priest Ryuko sounded vexed that his impulse had won out over wisdom.

“I wasn’t,” Sano said, “but since you brought her up, is there anything else you can tell me?”

“No.” Ryuko’s air vibrated with his need to know if Sano had any new information.

“I did wonder if you’ve heard the rumor about her that I heard.”

“What rumor?” Ryuko said too quickly.

“That she had learned secrets about her pupils, and she was blackmailing them.”

“No, I hadn’t heard.” Priest Ryuko walked faster, as if to escape Sano. “Who told you that?” He blurted the question out as if unable to hold it back, then frowned at his mistake.

Sano fabricated a story. “It was Hirata-
san
. I sent him to check on conditions at the jail. Madam Usugumo’s apprentice is a prisoner. Korin has evidently been telling tales on her, in an attempt to get himself pardoned for cheating earthquake victims.”

Priest Ryuko looked straight ahead, his profile taut, his face moist. “Detestable.”

“Whom do you mean? The apprentice? Or Madam Usugumo?” When Priest Ryuko didn’t answer, Sano asked, “Was she blackmailing you?”

Priest Ryuko plodded to a stop and faced Sano. He had the look of a man who’d buried a cesspool that had fermented underground and just exploded onto him—appalled, furious, and eager to push the mess off onto someone else. “You told me you weren’t investigating the murder, but I know otherwise. I also know why you’re interested in it. After we spoke yesterday, I made a few inquiries myself. I sent my assistant to Madam Usugumo’s house. He talked to the neighborhood headman and found out that she wasn’t the only person who was poisoned. Two of her pupils died with her. They belonged to the Hosokawa clan, which you knew because you were there when the bodies were found.” Priest Ryuko finished with a triumphant glare. “My assistant also discovered that Lord Hosokawa’s two daughters are dead. You are investigating the murders on behalf of Lord Hosokawa.”

Sano was dismayed that his secret investigation wasn’t a secret any longer. “It’s none of your business whether I’m conducting an investigation or not.”

Priest Ryuko smiled a thin, sardonic smile. “It is if I’m a suspect, which you obviously think I am. But why the secrecy? Why not make the investigation official?”

“All right—let’s make it official,” Sano said. “I’ll tell the shogun that you’re under suspicion for killing Lord Hosokawa’s daughters. I’ll tell Lord Hosokawa, too. He’ll be interested to know. He’s out for blood revenge.”

Priest Ryuko’s face was dripping now, and sickly pale. “You wouldn’t.”

“I will, unless you answer my questions truthfully,” Sano said.

“Very well.”
And if I ever get an opportunity to retaliate, then woe betide you!
said Ryuko’s expression.

Sano regretted sealing their enmity, but it was better than failing at the investigation and bringing down the consequences. “Did Madam Usugumo blackmail you?”

“No,” Priest Ryuko said, adamant. “I haven’t any secrets for her or anybody else to use against me. My life is as transparent as water.”

Sano thought of the Sumida River, polluted with debris from the earthquake. “Then why were you so upset that you quit your incense lessons?”

Priest Ryuko flinched at this mention of a fact he hadn’t expected Sano to have learned. He admitted through clenched teeth, “Because she tried to blackmail me. During my last lesson. It didn’t work. I washed my hands of her after that.”

At last Sano was getting somewhere. “Tell me what happened.”

Priest Ryuko sighed, venting the emotion from his body. He spoke in a leaden voice. “I went to Madam Usugumo’s house. She served me tea before the lesson, which was typical. The tea tasted odd, though, and I asked what was in it. She said it was a new blend from China. I drank it, and while she set out the things for the lesson, I started feeling dizzy and drowsy. She lit different samples of incense, and she talked to me about the ingredients and where they came from, and the special aspects of the odors. She held the burner under my nose, and she told me to breathe deeply and concentrate on the voice of the incense.

“After the first three or four samples, I actually started
hearing
it, which was strange because ‘the voice of incense’ is just a figure of speech; smells don’t really produce sounds. It was like a whispering in my ears. I started to get nervous. I said I thought I might be ill and we should stop. But Madam Usugumo said it was a breakthrough—I had reached a new level of my education. So I kept going.

“Her voice began to blend with the whisper of the incense. I couldn’t tell who was speaking. She, or it, told me to raise and lower my arm. I obeyed without intending to.” Priest Ryuko demonstrated. “It just floated up and down, as if it were attached to a string that someone had pulled. Then the whisper told me to say my name, and my mother’s name, and where I’d been born. The words just flowed out of me. I wanted to ask Madam Usugumo what kind of ritual this was, but my tongue was paralyzed except when the incense allowed me to speak.

“Then it asked me questions and commanded me to answer each one truthfully: Did I gamble? Did I bed the courtesans at the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter? Or boy prostitutes? I said no. I started getting angry. What right had anyone to ask me such personal questions? I was shaking and fuming, but I couldn’t resist. Then it asked me if there was something that I didn’t want anyone to know. Had I done something I was ashamed of, that I was afraid could get me in trouble? It said, ‘The secret is a stone you carry on your back. It’s getting heavier and heavier.’

“I swear, I could feel the stone. My back started to hurt. My shoulders bent over. I could hardly breathe. I saw Madam Usugumo gazing into my eyes as she held the incense burner under my nose. I began to realize that she must have put something, a drug, in the incense and the tea. I was in some sort of trance. Her lips moved as the incense voice whispered, ‘Just tell me your secret, and you’ll be free.’”

Sano listened, amazed. What Korin had said was true: Madam Usugumo had perverted the incense ritual to extract shameful confessions from her pupils.

“I gathered all my strength of will,” Priest Ryuko went on. “I reached out and knocked the incense burner out of her hand. The hot ash spilled. She hurried to sweep it up before it could start a fire. I stuck my finger down my throat, and I vomited up the tea that was still in my stomach. When I stopped retching, the dizziness and drowsiness went away. I couldn’t hear the incense whispering anymore.

“I shouted at her, ‘What were you trying to do to me, you witch? Put a spell on me?’ She tried to pretend she was confused. She said ‘Nothing.’ I slapped her face, then stalked out of her house. I never went back. I never saw her or heard from her again.”

Sano gazed askance at Ryuko. “Is that all?”

Ryuko looked Sano in the eye. “Yes.” His sincerity seemed a manifestation of will rather than innocence.

“You didn’t tell her your secrets?” Sano asked.

“I told you, I haven’t any.”

“Did you take any action against Madam Usugumo?”

“No.”

Sano knew that Ryuko was quick to punish anyone who crossed him. He remembered a case when some priests who disliked Ryuko’s influence at court had started evil rumors about him. “You could have told Lady Keisho-in.” She’d gotten the shogun to send the priests to work in the government’s silver mines. The priests had died there within a few months.

“I didn’t want to bother her,” Priest Ryuko claimed. “She’s getting on in years; she’s frail. It seemed better to let the whole thing go.”

But Sano thought he knew the real reason the priest hadn’t told Lady Keisho-in. “Or is it because you didn’t want her to wonder whether you had any secrets and demand to hear what they were?” By taking action against Madam Usugumo, he’d have risked his private business becoming public. And if he had indeed confessed secrets to her during the ritual, she could have exposed him before he managed to do away with her.