The Fire Kimono (si-1) by Laura Joh Rowland

Author:Laura Joh Rowland [Rowland, Laura]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: det_history

The wind tore clouds into streamers in the night sky. Fires burned like flares across the city and lit the figures of men who sat in fire-watch towers, peering through spyglasses. Within Edo Castle, gusts blew torches carried by patrol guards into twisting tongues of flame. Servants snuffed the fires in the stone lanterns with sand and placed buckets filled with water at every gate. Inside the parlor of Sano’s mansion, drafts fanned smoke from the charcoal brazier on which Reiko heated sake.

Sano, Hirata, and the detectives sat waiting for their drinks. Masahiro played with his toy soldiers while Sano summarized the story his mother had told him at Edo Jail.

“So little Tadatoshi was an arsonist,” Marume said.

So my mother had a secret lover, Sano thought. That part of the story had shocked him as much as the part about Tadatoshi setting fires. He wouldn’t have believed his mother had been so unchaste, so wanton, had he not heard it from her own lips. But that wasn’t the only disturbing thing.

“Why do people set fires?” Masahiro asked, lining up wooden horsemen.

“Maybe because they’re possessed by evil spirits, as Tadatoshi’s father thought,” Sano said. “We may never know.”

Something else troubled Sano. It had to do with his mother taking the initiative to spy on Tadatoshi, her enlisting the tutor and Doi in her scheme to prevent him from endangering innocent people. Her actions not only contradicted Sano’s whole image of his docile, quiet mother, but they also flouted propriety and tradition.

“Is Lord Matsudaira possessed by an evil spirit?” Masahiro asked.

The detectives laughed. “That would be a good excuse for what he’s doing,” Fukida said.

Sano was impressed that his son had drawn a parallel between the arsonist in the murder case and the man who’d given him his first personal taste of evil. Masahiro was more astute than most nine-year-olds. But Sano regretted that his insight had come with a price-the loss of innocence.

“Lord Matsudaira is mad for power,” Sano said. “Power is a kind of evil spirit. So you could be right.”

“An exorcism might cure what ails him,” Marume said. “Too bad he’s not about to get one.”

Reiko poured sake into cups and distributed them. Sano and his men drank while Masahiro marched his toy armies.

“It sounds as if Tadatoshi got his comeuppance,” Fukida said. “Whoever killed him did everyone a favor.”

Sano noticed that Reiko was very quiet, waiting on the men, effacing herself as conventional wives did. It seemed strangely out of character.

“Your mother’s story explains why she was spying on Tadatoshi,” Hirata said.

While relating her story, Sano had paused to tell his companions what Lady Ateki and Oigimi had said about her today.

“It also explains why Doi threatened him,” Fukida said, alluding to Hana’s statement, which Sano had related earlier.

“But it won’t help her,” Sano said unhappily.

If the story was true, his mother was slated for execution because of a boy who’d deserved to die. Arson was a capital crime, punishable by burning to death, but even if Tadatoshi had been guilty of it, that made no difference.

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