Concubine's Tattoo (22 page)

Such contemplation wasn't exactly enjoyable. Sano thanked the priest, then left the temple. Yet even as he regretted the time wasted on this trip, he couldn't help feeling that he'd learned something of importance to the murder case, and to his troubled marriage.

Bakurocho district lay northwest of Edo Castle, between the Nihonbashi merchant quarter and the Kanda River. A marketplace for horses even before the founding of the Tokugawa capital, it supplied Edo's thirty thousand samurai with mounts. Sano rode through muddy streets, past horse breeders herding their merchandise. These shaggy, varicolored beasts had journeyed from far northern pasturelands to be sold to the stables of Bakurocho's dealers. In a stately mansion resided the Tokugawa bailiffs, who administered the shogun's lands. Rustic inns housed provincial officials in town to buy horses or do business with the bailiffs. The famous archery range served as a front for an illegal brothel. Low wooden buildings housed food stalls, teahouses, a saddle maker's store, a blacksmith's workshop where burly men hammered out horseshoes. Porters hauled bales of hay, while eta street cleaners collected manure. Sano turned past the shop of an equestrian armorer and dismounted outside the Jimba Stables, where the crest of a galloping horse adorned the gate.

An assistant hurried out and bowed. "Good day, sosakan-sama. Are you seeking a new mount?"

"I'm here to see Jimba," Sano said.

"Certainly. Come in."

Taking the reins of Sano's horse, the assistant led the way into the largest stable compound in Bakurocho. Gabled tile roofs crowned the fine Jimba family mansion, two stories of pristine white plaster walls, latticed windows, and railed balconies, with servants' quarters at the rear. A far cry from the Fukagawa slum of Harume's birth, Sano decided. Had the adjustment been difficult for her?

Opposite the mansion stretched the corral. Around this, poles supported straw dummies. The barn's open doors revealed stablehands grooming horses. The assistant led Sano to a stall where three samurai stood around a dappled gray stallion. A big man dressed in dark brown kimono and wide trousers held the animal by the head.

"You can tell he's healthy by the condition of his mouth," Jimba said, prying the lips apart to expose huge teeth. His thick fingers moved with practiced skill. At Sano's approach, he looked up; his face lit in pleased recognition. "Ah, sosakan-sama. Good to see you again."

In his mid-forties, Jimba looked as vigorous as his livestock. A thick, sinewy column of neck supported his squarish head. His hair, pulled back from a receding hairline and knotted at the nape, showed only a few white threads. In his coarse features and swarthy complexion Sano could discern no resemblance to Lady Harume.

Jimba grinned, revealing three broken front teeth: a permanent reminder of the one time a horse had gotten the better of him. "Congratulations on your marriage. Ready to enlarge your clan? Ha-ha. What can I do for you today?" Leaving the assistant to complete the sale, he led Sano down the row of stalls. "A good racehorse, perhaps? Impress your friends at Edo Castle. Ha-ha."

Sano had never liked the ingratiating, overly familiar dealer, but he patronized Jimba's stable for the same reason other affluent samurai did: The dealer knew horses. He always picked strong, healthy animals and trained them to be fast, reliable mounts. He gave good value for the price, and never tried to pass off inferior mounts as top quality.

"I'm here about your daughter," Sano said. "As head of the investigation into her death, I must ask you some questions. But first, please allow me to express my sympathy for your loss."

Stalking over to the fence that bordered the corral, Jimba punched it with his fist, muttering a curse. A scowl obliterated his customary genial expression as he stared at a trio of stablehands preparing a horse for a test ride in full battle regalia. They affixed a wooden saddle to its back, then attached the bridle. Sano, having witnessed angry grief in the parents of murder victims before, said, "I'll do everything possible to deliver Harume's killer to justice."

Jimba waved away Sano's words. "Lot of good that will do. She's gone; nothing can bring her back. Ten years of money and hard work I poured into that girl. When her mother died, I took her away from Fukagawa and raised her myself. Put nice clothes on her; hired tutors to teach her music, writing, and manners. I recognized her potential, you see-I know females, horses and women both. Ha-ha." Jimba grinned proudly. "Harume was the prettiest of my three girls. She grew up to have what men like, if you know what I mean." He gave Sano a sly look. "Took after her mother. She was my best chance of making a connection with the Tokugawa."

Sano listened in dismay to the dealer's callous reference to his daughter. He'd obviously considered her less a cherished legacy from a doomed love affair than another piece of livestock to train and trade.

In the corral, the stablehands covered the horse with body armor and a steel helmet shaped like a snarling dragon's head. Two samurai helped the customer don armor tunic, leg guards, and helmet. Jimba continued, "Last winter, two of the shogun's personal attendants came here to buy horses. They mentioned that they were seeking new concubines for His Excellency. I put Harume through her paces, showing them how well she could speak and sing and play the samisen. They took her to Edo Castle and paid me five thousand koban!

"I held a party to celebrate. Harume had good breeding capacity, and if she turned out to be anything like her mother was in the bedchamber, she could have borne His Excellency an heir. Even if he does prefer boys, ha-ha. I was all set to be the grandfather of the next shogun."

With all the associated wealth, power, and privilege, Sano thought. Jimba's greed disgusted him. Yet the horse dealer had only followed the example of many other Japanese, seeking to improve his position through a connection with the Tokugawa. Hadn't Magistrate Ueda married Reiko to Sano with the same goal in mind? In this society, women were chattel to men's ambition. Reiko was intelligent and courageous, yet people would always measure her worth by rank and childbearing ability. Now Sano began to understand her frustration. But after last night, he hoped more than ever that Reiko would obey his orders and stay safe at home.

"Now Harume is dead. I'll never earn back my investment." Jimba's expression was morose; he sagged against the fence. Then he turned to Sano with a speculative glint in his close-set eyes. "On second thought, maybe it will do me some good if you find out who killed my daughter. I'll make him compensate me for my loss!"

Hiding his aversion toward the horse dealer's mercenary attitude, Sano said, "Perhaps you can help me catch the murderer," then explained why he'd come. "What was Harume like?" When Jimba began describing her looks, Sano clarified, "No, I mean what sort of person was she?"

"Just like any other girl, I guess." Jimba looked surprised at the notion that Harume had possessed other attributes besides physical ones. Then, as he watched the stablehands boost the armored rider onto the horse's back, he smiled in reminiscence. "She was a tiny, sad little thing when I brought her here. She didn't understand that her mother was gone, or why I was taking her away from everything she knew. And she missed her friends-the little slum children from Fukagawa. She never really fit in here."

With a wry chuckle, Jimba said, "I'd never told my wife about Blue Apple, you see. Then suddenly, here was this child. She was furious. And my other children resented the attention Harume got. They mocked her for being the daughter of a whore. Her only friends were the maids. Considered them her own kind, I guess. But I put a stop to that. I wanted to separate her from low-class folk who would keep her down at their level. And when she got to be around eleven, the boys started coming around. She drew them like a mare in heat, ha-ha. She was the image of her mother."

Nostalgia softened Jimba's features: perhaps he had in his own way loved Blue Apple. After all, he'd supported their daughter, then adopted her when another man might have turned his back. "Harume started sneaking out of the house at night. I had to hire a chaperone so she wouldn't go and get pregnant by some peasant boy. By the time she was fourteen, she was getting marriage proposals from rich merchants. But I knew I could do better with her."

Imagining Harume's lonely childhood, Sano pitied the concubine. She'd gone from being an outcast in Bakurocho to a similar situation in the Large Interior. As a young girl she'd found solace in the company of male admirers. Apparently she'd followed the same pattern during her months at Edo Castle. Had her past overlapped her recent life in any other way?

"Those peasants Harume knew," Sano said. "Did she keep in touch with any of them after she moved to Edo Castle?" Sano wanted to know if she'd confided secrets to old companions. He also wanted new motives and suspects for her murder-preferably ones not associated with the Tokugawa.

"I don't see how she could have, locked up day after day. Even when she went out, the shogun's men keep a pretty close watch over the concubines."

Yet Harume had managed to slip away and meet Lord Miyagi. Still, a peasant wouldn't have had access to the ink bottle. This line of inquiry seemed a dead end. "Had you seen or heard from your daughter recently?" Sano asked.

An uneasy expression came over the horse dealer's face. "... Yes. I got a message from Harume about three months ago. She begged me to get her out of Edo. Said she was afraid. Seems she'd run afoul of someone-I don't remember her exact words. Anyway, she thought something bad would happen to her if she didn't leave right away."

Sano's heart beat faster in anticipation and dread. "Did Harume say whom she was afraid of?"

Jimba blinked rapidly; his throat muscles spasmed. So he did have feelings toward the daughter he'd used to further his ambitions. To give him time to regain his composure, Sano looked over at the mounted samurai, who was circling the corral at a trot. Watching him wave a spear, Sano thought of Lieutenant Kushida. By blaming Kushida for Lady Harume's murder, Sano could please the shogun and end the investigation. Yet by following Harume's elusive ghost into the past, Sano had already moved beyond the point of easy solutions.

"No," Jimba replied at last, with a grimace of regret. "Harume didn't give the name of the person who was threatening her. I thought she was homesick, or didn't like bedding the shogun, and had made up a story so I would rescue her. Sometimes it takes awhile for a filly to get used to a new stable. Ha-ha." His laugh was a gloomy chortle. "I didn't want to return the money, or ask the shogun to let Harume go. That would have offended His Excellency. I would never get any Tokugawa business again! And people would know it was Harume's fault. How would I ever find a husband for her? She would have been a burden to me forever!"

The horse dealer's voice rose in a defensive whine. "So I didn't answer the message. I didn't bother trying to find out whether someone was really trying to hurt Harume. Thought that if I ignored her, she would do her duty without complaining."

"Did you save the message? May I look at it?"

"It wasn't written. It was delivered by a castle messenger, by word of mouth." When questioned about the messenger, Jimba said, "Didn't get his name. Don't remember what he looked like."

Edo Castle had several hundred messengers, Sano knew. Tracing this one might prove difficult, especially if Harume, desiring secrecy, had persuaded a messenger to convey her words verbally as a favor, rather than writing a letter and employing him through official channels, which would leave a record.

"Was anyone else present when the message came?" Sano asked.

"No. And I didn't tell anyone about it, either, because I didn't want people to think Harume was making trouble. Then, after she died, I was too ashamed to let anyone know she'd been in danger and I'd refused to listen."

Although Sano would have his detectives look for the messenger in question, he could only hope that the man's recall was better than Jimba's.

"I am responsible for my daughter's death," Jimba lamented, folding his arms on top of the fence and burying his head in them. "If only I'd taken her fears seriously, I might have saved her." A sob strangled his voice.

Suppressing the urge to castigate the horse dealer for ignoring his daughter's plea for help, Sano said soothingly, "You couldn't have known what would happen."

Jimba raised a face bloated with tears and rage. "What a fool I am!" He cuffed himself on the head. "I could kill myself! I trained and groomed that girl. She was a prime piece of flesh. Through her, I could have joined the Tokugawa clan. I should have gone to the bakufu and asked them to find out what was wrong in the Large Interior, and to take care of the problem. But no, I failed to protect my investment. Stupid, stupid!"

Sano let him rage without offering further sympathy. Jimba had earned his own fate. And Sano had grave problems of his own.

Around the corral galloped the mounted samurai. He wove between the rows of targets, stabbing at them with his spear. Straw particles dusted the air. At last the rider grasped the reins and brought the horse to a stop beside his waiting spectators.

"This is a fine beast," he said."I'll take her."

Suddenly the horse bucked. The rider sailed over its head and crashed to the ground. While his comrades rushed to his aid, the stablehands grabbed the reins. The horse kicked and strained, biting at their hands. Jimba vaulted the fence and hurried over to his fallen customer.

"The horse is just a bit skittish today," he explained. "Once she knows you're her master, she'll behave!"

Even a tame creature sometimes rebels against a lifetime of discipline, Sano thought. Jimba had trained the wildness out of Harume; yet she hadn't been completely controllable. Sano believed that her message to Jimba hadn't been a mere ruse. She'd made an enemy who had the power, opportunity, and temperament to harm a concubine of the shogun. Of all the murder suspects, who best fit the profile?

Beneath Sano's sash, Lady Keisho-in's letter burned him like a sheet of flame. She ruled the Large Interior and commanded the shogun's love. With the help of allies within the Tokugawa regime, she could have easily managed the murder, as well as an earlier poisoning attempt, and a dagger thrown by a hired assassin in a crowded street.