"He has to answer," Tomohito said. "That was the deal."

"But it's my turn to question you now," Sano told him. "What was your opinion of Left Minister Konoe?"

Tomohito's eyes widened in surprise. Sano deduced that few people ever held him to his word or changed the subject of a conversation without his permission. Then he frowned. "I heard Konoe was murdered. Do you think I had something to do with it?"

Holding up a hand, Sano shook his head. "Remember our agreement."

The emperor gaped. He looked around for help, but when no one intervened, he said sullenly, "The left minister was my adviser since I was a little boy. He taught me how to perform sacred rituals and court ceremonies. He listened to me recite my lessons and made sure I understood everything." Tomohito shrugged. "He was a good teacher."

Sano considered what he knew of the emperor. "There's only a few people he'll listen to," Yoriki Hoshina had said. "His mother, Lady Asagao, and Ichijo. Left Minister Konoe also had influence over him, but now that Konoe is dead, Tomohito is worse than ever-acting as if he owns the world, always trying to see what he can get away with." Had the emperor resented Konoe for checking his unruly behavior?

"Now it's my turn to ask something," Tomohito said. "Is it true that there is a very long road from Miyako to Edo that pa.s.ses through many cities?"

"There are fifty-three village post stations," Sano said, "and the trip takes about fifteen days."

"Fifty-three villages? Fifteen days?" Obviously disconcerted, Tomohito said, "I didn't know Edo was so far. How long would it take to travel across the whole country?"

"Around three months, depending on the weather."

Chewing his lip, the emperor brooded on this fact, then said in a chastened voice, "I didn't know that."

Tomohito's ignorance about his nation was understandable, because emperors ventured outside the palace only when natural disasters necessitated the court's evacuation. Tomohito saw few people from outside his court and remained cloistered for good reasons.

First came physical safety. j.a.pan's sacred sovereign must be protected from accidents, attacks, and diseases. Second, his spiritual well-being required isolation from impure things, places, people, or ideas that might pollute his soul. Therefore his education was limited to court tradition and the arts. However, the most important reason was political. The bakufu feared that dangerous elements of society might persuade an impressionable sovereign to act against the shogun's regime by establishing a rival government, raising armies, commandeering the loyalty of the populace, and weakening Tokugawa rule. Young Emperor Tomohito was a storm center around which the winds of insurrection could coalesce. Better that he remained secluded and ignorant than be free to realize his inherent power.

"You had lessons and practiced rituals and ceremonies with Left Minister Konoe, and received his advice," Sano reiterated. "He would have criticized your performance, corrected your mistakes. Perhaps he sometimes shamed you?"

Jolted out of his preoccupation with the size of j.a.pan, Tomohito shook his head. "It was for my own good. The left minister wanted me to be the best possible ruler and fulfill my great destiny. I was thankful for his attention."

"Weren't there ever times when you would rather have been amusing yourself than working?" Sano suggested gently. "Did you ever get angry at him for disciplining you, when he was a mere subordinate and you his lord?"

The emperor's face flushed; his eyes turned stormy. "The left minister never made me do anything I didn't want to do," he said defiantly. "He never chastised me. He couldn't even touch me. I obeyed him because I chose to."

"I see."

However, Sano knew that cutting remarks from an older man could wound a tender young ego, and Tomohito's unbidden reference to chastis.e.m.e.nt suggested that his relationship with Left Minister Konoe had included this element.

"If you think I killed him, you're crazy!" Emperor Tomohito burst out. He leapt off his seat and stood. Fists clenched, he glared at Sano. His eyes darted, as if looking for something to throw. "How dare you accuse me?"

"Is it really necessary to provoke him, Sosakan-sama?" murmured Right Minister Ichijo.

"The forces of the cosmos are mine to command. Insult me, and you'll be sorry!" the emperor shouted.

"Please accept my apologies," Sano said hastily, shocked by this sudden fit of temper, which offered disturbing proof of the emperor's volatile nature. Perhaps Tomohito had argued with Left Minister Konoe in the garden. Did he really have deadly mystical powers, as his threat implied?

"Do you regret the loss of the left minister?" Sano asked Tomohito.

The emperor flung himself stomach-down inside his pavilion, his temper spent and his expression merely sullen now. "I miss him. But I don't need him anymore."

"What do you mean?" Sano said, intrigued by this odd remark.

"Nothing."

Setting his jaw, Emperor Tomohito stared at the floor. Sano waited, but when the emperor didn't elaborate, Sano changed the subject. "I understand that you discovered the left minister's body."

"Yes, that's right," Tomohito said, giving Sano a furtive, wary glance. "My cousin was with me." Then a sly smile brightened his face. "I suppose you want to talk to him, too."

"Yes, Your Majesty." Sano needed to verify the emperor's story, and the cousin might be more cooperative than Tomohito.

Turning to his attendants, the emperor said, "Summon Prince Momozono."

6.

As her palanquin carried her through the labyrinth of the imperial compound, Reiko experienced an odd sense of moving far away from everyday life, into a place that existed outside time. The archaic costumes of the people who pa.s.sed her in the narrow lanes, and the old-fashioned houses glimpsed through open gates, evoked ancient legends of emperors and empresses, princes and princesses, n.o.bles and ladies. But the dark reality of murder overshadowed the romantic past.

Now the old, white-haired courtier led her into a separate compound within the palace, to a large hall that presided over a quadrangle of connected buildings. The bearers set down the palanquin. Stepping out, Reiko saw curved eaves shading wide verandas and ornately latticed windows. Birds winged over trees visible beyond the horizontal ridge of the roofs.

"What is this place?" Reiko asked the courtier.

"It is the Palace of the Abdicated Emperor."

Reiko knew that emperors surrendered the throne for various reasons. Some did so because of old age or poor health; some preferred to let a successor take over the wearisome rituals while they managed court affairs from behind the scenes. Others entered monasteries. However, many were forced off the throne. Strife within the imperial family could depose weak emperors; bad omens unseated others. When the reign of Emperor Go-Sai had been plagued by natural disasters, the court had deemed these evidence of his unfitness as a ruler and ordered his abdication. The grandfather of the present emperor had clashed with the bakufu over the establishment of laws that limited his power; he'd resigned in protest. Reiko couldn't recall why Abdicated Emperor Reigen, father of Tomohito, had retired.

"Lady Jokyoden spends most days here," said the courtier. "She awaits your arrival."

Mounting the steps, Reiko pictured the emperor's mother as a frail, shy old woman who was hardly likely to possess the power of kiai. Reiko smiled to herself, recalling Sano's warnings about danger. At best, she hoped to clear up the mystery of Lady Jokyoden's whereabouts on the night of the murder and cross one suspect off the list.

In the hall's s.p.a.cious, bare audience chamber, raised wall panels framed a view of a park outside, where maple and cherry trees created cool oases around a miniature mountain from which the former emperor could view the city. Brightly dressed figures strolled; their laughter blended with the tinkle of wind chimes. On the veranda overlooking the park, a man and woman knelt side by side, their backs to the room. A line of seated n.o.bles faced them; servants waited to one side.

"As you will note from these figures, the imperial budget for this year exceeds the funds provided by the bakufu," said a n.o.ble. "Since we can't reduce expenses without degrading the emperor's manner of living, we recommend selling some more of his poems to the public. Do you approve, Your Highness?"

"He approves," said the woman. "Draft an order for all court poets to write verses for the emperor to copy and sign."

A secretary wrote busily. The courtier led Reiko over to the group and said, "Honorable Abdicated Emperor and Imperial High Council, please excuse the interruption." Conversation ceased as Reiko knelt on the veranda and bowed. "The wife of the shogun's sosakan-sama has come to see Lady Jokyoden."

Abdicated Emperor Reigen gave a weary sigh. In his late thirties, he had a pudgy, placid face; his stout body sagged against cushions that propped him up. He regarded Reiko with calm indifference. "Greetings," he said in a lethargic voice.

Reiko murmured a polite reply, her attention riveted upon the woman.

"How good of you to come, Honorable Lady Sano." In sharp contrast to her husband, Lady Jokyoden sat upright and alert; her cultured voice was brisk. Some years older than the abdicated emperor, she had a smooth, youthful complexion and long, blue-black hair upswept with combs. She was a cla.s.sic Miyako beauty: slender, long-limbed, with thin, delicate nose and mouth, her eyes narrow ovals beneath high, painted brows. But Reiko detected strength in the body beneath the ivory and mauve silk layers of Jokyoden's garments. There was intelligence in those lovely eyes, and confident self-possession in the way her pale, tapered hands rested, fingertips together, on top of the ebony desk before her. "Your attention is an undeserved honor for this humble woman."

Reiko's preconceptions about the emperor's mother shattered like the reflection in a pond when a stone drops on the surface. Fl.u.s.tered, she said, "Many thanks for receiving me."

"Please allow me a moment to conclude my business," said Lady Jokyoden. It was less a request than an order, given by a woman accustomed to commanding obedience. Lady Jokyoden turned to the abdicated emperor. "My lord, you will please sign the directive to the court poets?"

Reigen sighed again. "Well, if I must, I must."