CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
DEPARTURES
The sixteenth day of the second month
Hiroki watched closely to see how Kanegawa would respond to the accusation, but for the longest time the secretary seemed frozen. His brush hovered above the paper before him; not even the ink seemed able to move, and so no droplets fell from the brush.
“A man of action,” Hiroki said with scorn, “would perhaps have tried to cut his way out of this trap. Or at least to deny the charge.” The insult was calculated, but Kanegawa seemed not to have heard or understood it. Again, he did not respond at all.
“But — ” the arms master began.
After staring at Kanegawa for a long breath he opened his mouth again. “I had no real reason for believing Kanegawa had done anything wrong. I imprisoned him simply because I had to do something, and he was the most convenient.” If the lord flushed a little at the admission, it was only justified. No proper lord would have behaved in that way toward a vassal, Hiroki thought.
“I remember being told this,” he replied nodding toward the arms master, “and because I wanted to believe an earnest young man innocent, I accepted your justification. And in doing so I failed to look more deeply into any reasons he might have had for killing your sister.”
“But he had none.”
“I admit that he had none of the reasons I normally expect to find underlying evil behaviour,” Hiroki said. “He did not stand to inherit anything through her, nor could he hope to rise in your estimation by removing your sister.” Someone in the room made a noise of disgust, but Hiroki smiled at it. “Many a samurai of rank has been killed or forced into exile or the tonsure for such a motive,” he said, “and everything I have seen of the country lately has convinced me that these things will become much worse before there is any sign of improvement.”
He turned back to Kanegawa. “He had no quarrel with you, my lord, and hence no justification for vengeance. The thing that was hardest for me to understand was that he not only did not have any quarrel with Lady Miyoshi, he may well have been her nearest friend in this household.”
“Of course I was her friend!” Kanegawa began to get to his feet, but the motion of the nearest guard toward him caused him to sit back down abruptly. In doing so he knocked over his ink-stone. There hadn’t been much on it, but what ink there was splashed mostly onto the hem of one hakama leg. How appropriate, Hiroki thought.
“I remember being impressed, my lord, at how well your sister seemed to get along with Kanegawa and with young Lord Hosokawa here. I am unaccustomed to friendships between men and women and so for a considerable time I was unable to penetrate the depths of this relationship. It was much less difficult for me to look for more expected reasons for committing a murder, and so I did look for those.”
“You still haven’t told me why you think my secretary killed my sister,” the arms master said. He sounded the way a child might when told No more lotus-seed cakes.
“My lord, do you remember once telling me how irreplaceable you found Kanegawa?”
“I said it because it was true. Men who can wield the lance and bow are to be found pretty much everywhere. Men who know words and figures and can turn a pretty phrase while being utterly convincing — those are the true treasures of a samurai who wishes to rise in the government.”
“And there are precious few of those remaining,” Hiroki told him, “because the shogunate is losing its ability to govern — if it hasn’t lost it irretrievably already.”
“The Ashikaga may not occupy the shogunate forever,” Hosokawa Katsunata said in a lazy, amused drawl.
“That’s hardly relevant to the issue we’re discussing,” Hiroki said. “The fact of most importance is that you told me, my lord, how necessary was Kanegawa to the proper functioning of your role in your cousin’s administration.”
“You refer to Hosokawa Harumoto’s administration, surely,” the arms master said.
Hiroki smiled. “As you wish, lord. I think we all know where the power lies in the Sakai shogunate.” He turned back to look again at Kanegawa. “Did Kanegawa Akihiro ever formally request that you assign him to one of your warrior companies?”
“Twice,” the lord growled. “Once at the beginning of last year, and again last month, right after the fighting between my cousin Motonaga and that Yanagimoto person. Of course I refused to even discuss the question.”
“Did your sister ever ask you to consider the possibility?”
Kanegawa snapped back into an upright posture and he stared at Hiroki. Hiroki smiled back at him. You know now that it’s over, he thought.
“She may have,” the arms master said. “I don’t remember; I wouldn’t have paid any attention if she had.”
“But she told Kanegawa that she was working to persuade you to change your mind. Didn’t she, Kanegawa?”
The secretary did not acknowledge the question, did not even move. But the lord said, “Why would she say such a mad thing?”
“It was her part of the arrangement she made with her friend Kanegawa,” Hiroki said. This was going to remain guesswork until Akamatsu Noritoyo was well enough to respond to questions, but Hiroki was confident. “She was to persuade you to make Kanegawa a warrior rather than a clerk, in exchange for Kanegawa’s persuading you, lord, to let her marry Akamatsu Noritoyo.”
“My lord,” Kanegawa said, turning to the arms master, “I have never been anything but loyal to you and your family.” Hiroki had no trouble believing the anguish in Kanegawa’s voice was real. His desires notwithstanding, he was not really the man of action he wanted to be; he must have been terrified to find his plans going so badly awry.
“If what this man says is true,” the lord said, nodding toward Hiroki, “then I must say you have a strange idea of loyalty to me.” He began to lift his hands to his eyes, then thought better of it and tried to squint away the fatigue and sorrow instead. “Was she that desperate to leave my house?” he asked Hiroki.
“We will likely never know,” Hiroki told him. “But you should know this, my lord: after your last rejection of Akamatsu’s request for your sister, Lady Tomiko set in motion a plan to remove herself from the world, and join the nun’s temple Hokke-ji in Nara.”
The arms master’s eyes opened wide at this. Kanegawa’s expression did not change at all.
“It was when she told you this,” Hiroki said to Kanegawa, “that you abandoned your self-control and strangled her.”
Next Characters Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6
Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14
Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17
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