Sowing Ghosts 6.3

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[Continuing chapter 6]

“Thank you for your message,” Hiroki said as lowered himself to Katsumi’s futon. “I apologize for the delay in coming to see you. I have been unexpectedly busy.”

“You’re investigating the murder, then?” Katsumi wore a new kimono today, a pale winter blue with golden herons printed on it. Again, the kimono had been of a high quality, once. “The arms master must think very highly of your skills.”

“Does everyone in this city know of the murder already?” Hiroki didn’t know whether to be irritated or amused.

“There may be a mat-maker or pickle-seller who doesn’t,” she replied, “but those of us who care about our city knew within a few hours of it happening.”


“You have a very good chain of connections, then. Speaking of which, our next poetry lesson will be about chained poems—renga. A very popular form of entertainment at parties, renga is.”

“You are saying our next lesson is not to be now.”

“I hadn’t even counted on seeing you today,” he said. “So I have nothing prepared for you.” He shifted his hips, searching for comfort on the thin futon. “What else does your chain tell you?”

“The sake brewers are very upset. They are all money-lenders, and trouble for the great lords usually means trouble for the people who lend to them.” She stretched herself, arching her neck; it was a most attractive gesture, and Hiroki felt his appreciation with some relief: it was good to know he wasn’t utterly consumed by his multiple assignments. “What I wanted to speak to you about, my lord, was the task you assigned me.”

“You have learned something of Yanagimoto?”

“Of his past, yes. Given that you seem to find yourself mixed up with both the Miyoshi and the Hosokawa clans, I guessed you would find this interesting even though it is not new.”

“Not new? Then shouldn’t I know it already?”

“It may be that Yanagimoto does not wish it talked about,” Katsumi said. “And because it happened years ago many people may have forgotten it.”

“What happened many years ago?”

“Yanagimoto Kataharu was, as a very young man, the lover of Hosokawa Takakuni. Or so I’ve heard.”

“Hosokawa Takakuni,” Hiroki said, drawing out the syllables, savouring them. The chief minister of the Omi shōgun, supposedly Yanagimoto’s enemy. And definitely the Miyoshi clan’s enemy. “This is a very complicated matter,” he told her. “Hosokawa Takakuni is, among other things, the uncle of our landlord.” In whom Lord Hosokawa claims to have little interest, he thought, so long as it doesn’t put him at risk.

Perhaps he is now at risk? Not likely; the fact of this liaison being news to Hiroki didn’t argue that Lord Hosokawa was unaware of it. It’s interesting, though, that he didn’t volunteer the information an hour ago, when he was so eager to tell me all about his family.

“You landlord is the Hosokawa boy who only sleeps with men?” The tone of Katsumi’s voice implied nothing more than disdain at the impossibility of gaining him as a client.

“He has been very gracious with my lords,” he said. And now I’m wondering why. “How are you progressing in your search for my rōnin?”

She shifted her face just far enough that he could no longer look her in the eye. Interesting, he thought. What am I not supposed to see? “I may have some news for you on that subject, my lord. Possibly as early as tomorrow. Might I expect you in the evening? That would give us time for more than just talk.” She smiled, but the look in her eyes was much more speculative than inviting.

“I will do my best to be here,” he said. “I do agree with you that meeting during the day is frustrating, while I have so many duties demanding my attention.”

Hiroki did not stay with Katsumi; it was still early afternoon and he felt obligated to continue his investigation. Investigations. Questions were piling onto questions; it was not a situation he had experienced before. His thoughts refused to align, and he had reached the northern section of the divided city before he had quite realized where he was.

The sight of the imperial palace halted him, then drew him east from Muromachi Avenue. A tall, moated earthen wall ran west-to-east on Tsuchimikado Street and south-to-north on Karasuma Avenue—but only protected two sides of the palace compound. It was as if the government had just given up, half-way through implementation, on the idea of protecting the emperor from assault.

Not that it should ever be necessary to protect the emperor from his subjects. What had the world come to, in his lifetime? What was going to happen? For that matter, what was happening now? Lord Tanuma’s advance in Kozuke was straightforward and honest when set against the treachery that seemed to surround everything and everyone he had encountered in the capital.

And the news about Lord Yanagimoto’s youthful dalliance, while interesting, did not actually provide any solid clue as to which of the parties and factions in the capital wanted Lords Naitō and Matsukata dead.

Well, if he could make no progress on that line of inquiry he could still keep himself busy, talking about the murder of Lady Tomiko.

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