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[Continuing chapter 4]
“A commendable beginning, I think,” Lord Naitō said as the three men walked away from the arms master’s audience chamber. “I believe, though, that there is a step you must take before you examine the grounds or interview the secretary.”
“What is that, lord?”
Lord Naitō gestured to a passing servant; when the latter approached he muttered something in the woman’s ear and she hurried away. Hiroki was about to repeat his question when an older woman shuffled up to them, head bowed down but with every aspect of her person radiating the sickness of fear. “This person,” Lord Naitō said, “will take you to the room in which the crime was committed. You will begin your investigation by examining the body.”
Hiroki could not suppress his surprise. “The body? It is still there?”
“It is. By the lord’s command it has not been disturbed. It will not be removed for the performance of the rituals until you have seen it.”
“That will be … difficult, my lord. If I am required to approach a dead person I will be unable to do anything else for the rest of this evening.” At their puzzled looks — even the servant looked up — he added, “I will have to undergo a purification immediately afterward.”
“Lord Buddha does not demand that,” Lord Matsukata said.
“The kami do,” Hiroki replied.
“My apologies,” Lord Matsukata said. “I was not aware that you were such a dedicated follower of Shinto.”
“I will discuss this with the arms master’s chamberlain,” Lord Naitō said. “There is undoubtedly a priest in the household who can assist you. In the meantime, please do not delay this any longer. The sooner you begin the sooner the poor woman’s body can be removed and her soul set at peace.”
Once, when he was a child, Hiroki had fallen from a boat into the Kamo River. He had never felt such a shock before and the sensation he felt now reminded him uncomfortably of the distress of that long-ago moment. How can I do this thing, he asked himself, and how can I not disappoint these lords? He was not unaccustomed to death, the gods knew. But he had not seen death in this domestic form in nearly fifteen years — in fact, since the day he had watched his wife die and his old life had ended. What is going to happen to me when I see another beautiful young woman horribly dead before her time?
The servant seemed determined to spend as little time in Hiroki’s company as she could. She practically ran through the covered walkway connecting the main building with the secondary mansion used by the mansion’s women for meetings with men — their own quarters were forbidden to any man but the arms master — and when she and Hiroki had reached the room that had been Lady Tomiko’s audience chamber the servant said nothing more than, “In there,” before vanishing. Hiroki did not blame her; even outside the room the sour stink of death was strong.
Hiroki stood in front of the shoji for the time it took him to take several deep, slow breaths and settle his mind and spirit. Only after he felt the calm of the mountain forests settle over him did he reach out and slide open the thin screen.
The first thing he saw was the body on the floor, and an aged woman in the court costume of a noblewoman — no, of a noblewoman resident at the imperial palace — seated, staring fixedly at the dead young woman.
His gaze was drawn by the old woman’s to the body: what he saw was the protruding tongue and dark-purple injuries on the throat that proclaimed death by strangulation.
What Hiroki saw after that forced him back a step and nearly made him flee.
The elderly woman staring at Lady Tomiko’s body was his mother.
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