Ogyu gave him the answer to his unspoken question. “This was found on the woman’s body,” he said, taking a folded letter from his desk and offering it to Sano.

Rising, Sano crossed the shirasu and accepted the letter. The delicate rice paper crackled in his hands as he opened it and read the characters inked in a fine feminine hand.

Farewell to this world and to the night farewell

We who walk the path that leads to death-”

To what should it be compared?

To the frost by the road that leads to the graveyard

Vanishing with each step we take:

How sad is this dream of a dream!

Noriyoshi (artist) Niu Yukiko

Sano recognized the passage from a popular Kabuki play about a pair of doomed lovers. This was their final song before their death. Now he knew why Ogyu wanted him to handle the matter with discretion. The man, Noriyoshi, was a peasant, as the lack of a surname and the appendage of his profession made clear. A nobody. But Yukiko was daughter to Niu Masamune, lord of Satsuma and Osumi Provinces and one of the wealthiest, most powerful daimyo.

“I can see that you appreciate the delicacy of this situation,” Ogyu said. “Since the cause of death is obvious, you will dispense with the matter as quickly and quietly as possible. You will have Niu Yukiko’s body returned to her family, and inform your staff that anyone who publicizes her name or the circumstances of her death will meet with the most severe punishment.

“The man Noriyoshi, however… ” Ogyu picked up a brush and dipped it into his inkwell. “Noriyoshi shall suffer the full penalty dictated by the laws of the land. That will be all, Yoriki Sano.”

Conflicting emotions warred within Sano. Ogyu wanted him to close the case without investigation. To keep Yukiko’s identity confidential, and to disgrace Noriyoshi’s family by exposing his corpse in public-customary treatment for love suicides. But Ogyu’s overemphasis on discretion aroused his suspicion. Every instinct told him to probe for the truth about the shinjū . But he had made a pledge to behave correctly and play by the rules.

“Yes, Honorable Magistrate,” he said, bowing. “I obey.”

Police headquarters occupied a site in the southernmost corner of the administrative district, far from the office-mansions and as remote from the castle as possible. According to the tenets of the Shinto religion, any contact with death conferred a ritual impurity, a spiritual pollution. Even the police’s indirect administration of executions made other officials shun them. The appearance of their headquarters reflected this isolation: completely surrounded by a high wall, with not even its rooftops visible from the street.

Sano gained admittance from the guards stationed at the gate and turned his horse over to a stableboy. Crossing a yard lined with doshin barracks, he entered the rambling wooden main building. He walked through the reception room, a large, open space broken by square pillars. There chaos reigned. Four clerks seated at desks on a raised platform in the room’s center dispatched messengers and dealt with the many visitors lined up before them. Doshin waited to sign on or off duty, or to give their reports. Servants streamed through the side entrances, bearing tea trays to and from the inner rooms where the yoriki had their private offices. Muted daylight came in through the windows, falling in shafts through the tobacco smoke from many pipes. The sound level remained at a constant civilized hum with only an occasional raised voice. But Sano found the inner reception room quiet, empty except for two men. Both wore formal dress-full, flowing silk trousers and wide-shouldered surcoats belted with wide sashes-of the most fashionable cut and pattern. The scent of wintergreen oil emanated from their meticulously arranged hair. They were the epitome of the proud, style-conscious yoriki .

“Yamaga-san . Hayashi-san .” Sano bowed. “Good day.”

Yamaga, the taller and elder, inclined his head slightly in acknowledgment. Face radiating hostility, he did not reply to Sano’s greeting. Hayashi, a man of Sano’s age, twisted his thin lips in a sarcastic smile.

“Good day, newcomer,” he said. “I trust that your work goes well with you. Or at least as well as could be expected, for one not born to the responsibility.” His mocking air made the solicitous words an insult.

Saddened, Sano watched them go. He’d seen at once that he would not easily make friends with them or his forty-seven other colleagues. Unlike himself, they were true yoriki who had inherited their positions from their fathers. That an unqualified outsider could slip so easily into their ranks was an affront to their family and professional pride. Now their chill disapproval followed him as he walked down the long corridor and entered his own suite of offices, nodding a greeting to the clerks under his supervision.

When Sano slid open the door to his private office, he found another source of unhappiness awaiting him. Hamada Tsunehiko, his sixteen-year-old personal secretary, lolled on the mats near the charcoal brazier that heated the room, reading an illustrated storybook. The reports that Sano had given him to file lay disregarded upon his desk. His plump body strained the seams of a black cotton kimono patterned in white swirls and bordered with red checks. His shaved crown made him look less like a grown samurai than an enormous infant. When he saw Sano, his round, pudgy face took on an almost laughable expression of horror.

“Yoriki Sano-san !” he cried. “You’re back!” Hastily he scrambled to his knees and bowed, first tucking the book out of sight beneath his buttocks. “I await your orders!”

Sano gazed at Tsunehiko with exasperated affection. The secretary’s father, a powerful bureaucrat who wanted his idle, not-very-bright son to have an occupation, had prevailed upon Ogyu to find work for Tsunehiko. Ogyu had assigned him to Sano’s office. So far he had proven himself lazy and incapable of getting even the simplest tasks right on the first try. He also breathed loud and hard through his chronically plugged nostrils, a further irritation. Still, Sano found it impossible to dislike Tsunehiko. The boy was cheerful, good-natured-and just as out of place as Sano felt.

“All right, Tsunehiko,” Sano said. “Please take this report.” He knelt before his desk while Tsunehiko took paper and writing supplies from the cabinet. After Tsunehiko had ground the ink and settled himself at his own smaller desk, Sano began. “The sixteenth day of the twelfth month, Genroku year one,” he dictated. “Regarding the matter of the suicides of artist Noriyoshi and Lady Niu Yukiko-”

He paused when Tsunehiko gasped in dismay at the two characters he’d written, then crumpled the paper. A mistake, already: Tsunehiko’s skills at calligraphy and taking dictation were minimal. Sano would have preferred to write the reports himself, but he must conform to the rules, even in so small a matter as using the incompetent secretary assigned to him. Just as he must issue a report in accordance with Magistrate Ogyu’s orders, though it ran counter to his own instincts. Besides, he didn’t want to hurt the boy’s feelings. He waited for Tsunehiko to take a fresh sheet of paper from the cabinet. Then, together they slowly and tediously completed the report to the accompaniment of Tsunehiko’s labored breathing. Sano read over the fourth and final draft, saw to his relief that it contained no errors, and affixed his seal to it.

“Take this to the chief clerk and have him convey the orders to the departments involved,” he told Tsunehiko.

“Yes, Yoriki Sano-san !” Tsunehiko took the report, rolled it, and tied a silk ribbon around it. Still breathing hard, he rose and slid open the door.

Laughter sounded in the corridor outside. Yamaga and Hayashi swished past.

“We’ll cut a swath through Yoshiwara tonight,” Sano heard Yamaga say. “The women there will satisfy our every desire.”

Hayashi replied, “Then let us not delay!”

Their laughter rang out again as they disappeared. Phrases of lewd conversation drifted back toward Sano: “… voluptuous buttocks… fragrant loins… ” All at once a picture of the future flashed before him. He saw what would happen if he followed the path that Ogyu had laid out for him. His principles would lose their meaning for him. He would end up like Yamaga and Hayashi, who cared more about fashion and tradition than for their work. He would let his minions run his department while he left his post early to sport with prostitutes in the pleasure quarter. He would sacrifice truth for security, justice for the sake of comfort.

“Wait!” he ordered Tsunehiko.

Snatching the report from his surprised secretary’s hand, he tore it in two. Quickly he wrote another report classifying Noriyoshi’s and Yukiko’s deaths as suspicious and requiring further investigation. This he gave to Tsunehiko. Then he strode from the room. He didn’t want to coast along in his position, reaping the certain rewards that unquestioning obedience would bring. Instead he wanted to feel the excitement of pursuing the truth-as he had when he’d been a scholar, then again during the arson investigation-and the elation of knowing that by finding it, he had done some good. Somehow he must reconcile personal desire with the Way of the Warrior and all its obligations to family and master. He must discover the truth about the shinjū .