Sowing Ghosts 6.4

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[Continuing chapter 6]

“What do you know about the wakashū, Togashi Shokan?” Hiroki asked Kanegawa. The secretary was still confined to the stuffy storage building, but Hiroki was pleased to see that a number of mats and futon had been moved into the space, so that Kanegawa would perhaps be a bit more comfortable. “We have been to his house,” — Hiroki’s gesture encompassed Shiro, who stood just behind Hiroki with his back against the door — “and there is nobody there. Or at least nobody of any significance.”

“One elderly servant,” Shiro said, in a lazy, disgusted drawl, “who pretended to be completely deaf. He’d better have been deaf, because I don’t ordinarily accept that sort of rudeness and insolence.”

“The point is,” Hiroki said to Kanegawa, “that Togashi seems to have vanished, and if this is a coincidence it is a most unfortunate one. His lover, Lord Hosokawa, tells me he has no idea where the wakashū has gone. Do you have any idea where he might be?”


“I’m sorry but I do not.” Kanegawa bowed his remorse. “My only real dealings with him have been in the presence of —” his voice choked, broke a little “ — Lady Tomiko. He never had any business with my lord arms master and so I never had any formal contact with him.”

“What about his very good friend, Lord Hosokawa?” Shiro asked. “Any formal contacts with him?” Hiroki closed his eyes; if Shiro really felt for Lord Hosokawa the contempt he put into his voice, he was badly underestimating an opponent. And even if he didn’t feel such contempt, to display it even for show was not a productive approach to interrogation. I have some teaching to engage in, he decided.

“Lord Hosokawa has been very careful to stay out of the arms master’s path,” Kanegawa said. “He is — was — friends with Lady Miyoshi, and that was the extent of his connection with the family. They quite liked one another.”

“So I gather. Did she like the wakashū?” Hiroki asked.

“She did not take him in strong dislike,” Kanegawa said.

“I am waiting to hear you say ‘But…’,” Shiro said. “I can practically hear it already.”

“I cannot imagine anyone actively liking Togashi Shokan,” Kanegawa said after an awkward pause. “He is too sarcastic, too vicious, and — speaking frankly — too unhappy a man.”

“His only point of appeal,” Hiroki said, “appears to me to be his good looks.”

“Which are fading,” Shiro pointed out.

“He appears to be much older than a typical wakashū; in fact, I noted the day we were introduced to them that Lord Hosokawa appeared to be the one young enough to justify dressing as wakashū, whereas Togashi should have taken on a grown man’s hair-style several years ago. And yet it is Lord Hosokawa who dresses as a man, young as he is, and Togashi who pretends to adolescence.”

“This is all true,” Kanegawa said, “but Lord Hosokawa seems to enjoy his company anyway. And Lady Tomiko put up with Togashi for Lord Hosokawa’s sake.”

“Was that the extent of the relationship between the wakashū and the lady?”

“I don’t understand what you mean,” Kanegawa said. Hiroki was unable to suppress his surprise at this, and felt his brows rise.

“You cannot have misunderstood my question,” Hiroki said. “Please do not attempt to mislead me; there are many others in this mansion I intend to speak with and who can confirm or deny what you tell me here.”

Kanegawa turned away, squirming with obvious discomfort. “They were not lovers, if that is what you are asking.”

“I was not. I have only been in the capital a short while”—not quite a lie, that— “but it does seem to me that Lord Hosokawa is the wakashū’s only lover, at least at this moment. It must have been something else.”

Kanegawa raised one eyebrow but said nothing, and Hiroki reminded himself that wakashū often had lovers of both sexes at the same time. This still did not seem to him like one of those times, so he returned Kanegawa’s look with a frown of his own. “There was the money,” Kanegawa muttered after a moment. Hiroki gestured for him to continue. “Togashi dresses well but I am told he is in fact quite poor. So he is always in debt to the sake-brewers and rice merchants who provide his funding. Several times in the past six months Togashi has persuaded Lady Tomiko to give him cash he could give to these money-men on account. Most of his wardrobe has been pawned numerous times.”

This is news, Hiroki thought. What a good thing I decided to talk to Kanegawa again. “Do you know if anything changed between them recently?” he asked. “Did Lady Tomiko perhaps refuse to give the wakashū any more money?”

“She said nothing like that to me,” Kanegawa replied.

“Perhaps she wanted to spare the man some embarrassment,” Shiro said. He straightened up from the slumping posture he had adopted. “Though that’s certainly not something I would have considered.”

“It would have been like the lady to want to spare Togashi’s feelings,” Kanegawa said. “But I cannot say anything more. Whatever her reasons, she did not confide them to me.”

Hiroki got to his feet. “Thank you for your help,” he said to Kanegawa. After rapping on the door to get the guard’s attention he added, “Once again I promise to tell the arms master of your cooperation in this matter.” Kanegawa said nothing, but the look on his face told Hiroki all he needed to know about the misery the secretary was feeling.

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