“Why, I’m perfectly fine.” Sudden tears glistened in Lord Matsumae’s eyes. Half his attention focused on Sano; half aimed inward, at something dark.

“Then why didn’t you come?” Sano said.

“I had more important things to take care of.”

There shouldn’t be anything more important to a samurai than obeying his lord’s law. “Such as?”

Emotions jerked Lord Matsumae’s face into tics.

“Why have you closed Ezogashima?” Sano said, impatient as well as fearful because this man in the throes of a mental breakdown held the power of life and death over him and his comrades. “Why have you cut off communications?”

Lord Matsumae crouched face-to-face with Sano. His stink nauseated Sano; his teary eyes blazed. “For the sake of justice. That’s something you should understand very well, Honorable Chamberlain. You, who have a reputation for seeking justice yourself and stopping at nothing to get it.” He laughed at the surprise on Sano’s face. “Oh, yes, I know about you. We in the far north aren’t such a bunch of isolated, ignorant brutes as you think. I am simply following your fine example.”

Sano was dismayed that he could have inspired Lord Matsumae’s bad behavior, even unwittingly. “Justice for whom?”

Lord Matsumae dropped to his knees. He whispered, “Tekare.”

Sano felt Deer Antlers and the other guards hold their breath, a signal that the conversation had entered dangerous territory. “Who is Tekare?” Sano asked.

“She was my mistress.” Grief clenched Lord Matsumae’s face. His tears spilled. “My dearest, beloved mistress. She’s been dead almost three months now.”

Glad that they seemed to be getting somewhere at last, Sano said, “What happened to her?”

“She was-” Lord Matsumae gulped. Tremors shook his body.-murdered.“

This, the loss of his woman, was the cause of his breakdown and the reason for everything that had followed. Love and grief had deranged him. Then he’d used his power to act out his madness and put himself in bad odor with the regime.

“I’m sorry to hear that. My sincere condolences.” However, Sano couldn’t quite believe that mourning was all that ailed Lord Matsumae. He’d never seen it cause such a spectacular transformation of character. There must be more to Lord Matsumae’s troubles, although Sano couldn’t imagine what. Again he had the disorienting sense that things were different here, the people as well as their environment subject to strange phenomena. “But I don’t understand why you closed off Ezogashima. What was that supposed to accomplish?”

“I want to know who killed my Tekare,” Lord Matsumae said. Sardonic humor glinted through his misery. “You may think you’re a great detective, Honorable Chamberlain, but I’ve spent twenty years ruling this domain, and I know something about police work. What do you do with a murder suspect?

“You lock him up and interrogate him until he confesses. Well, I have a whole city of murder suspects, all the people who were in the area when Tekare died. I’ve locked them all up. I’ve been busy interrogating them. I don’t want anybody from the outside to come in and interfere. And I won’t stop until one of them confesses to killing Tekare.”

Holding the domain hostage was a clever albeit extreme plan for a murder investigation, but it didn’t seem to have worked. “No one’s confessed?”

Not yet. But somebody will. They can’t hold out much longer.“

A cold, ominous sensation trickled through Sano as he remembered the fear in the townspeople’s faces. “What have you done besides interrogate them?”

Lord Matsumae laughed. “Come now, Honorable Chamberlain. Certainly you’re aware of means of making people talk.”

Torture, Sano thought; legal although not always effective. “I’m aware that they often produce false confessions.”

“No matter.” Lord Matsumae’s hand flicked away the legions who must have suffered at it. “And no matter that some of the suspects couldn’t withstand my interrogation.”

“How many died?” Sano said, all the more disturbed.

Lord Matsumae’s expression turned deliberately vague, mockingly innocent. “Did I say anyone died? But if they did, then their example should encourage someone who knows the truth about the murder to inform on the culprit.”

If Lord Matsumae didn’t kill everybody first. Sano’s ominous feeling turned to dread. “I sent some envoys to you a while ago. They never returned. What became of them?”

The darkness inside Lord Matsumae emanated from him in almost visible waves. “Ask them. You’ll be seeing them soon.”

Sano was horrified for another reason besides his certainty that Lord Matsumae had murdered them and intended to kill him, too. “Lord Matsudaira had my son kidnapped and brought here.” Lord Matsdaira couldn’t have known what the trouble in Ezogashima was; by sheer luck he’d sent Masahiro, and Sano, into peril beyond his wildest imagining. “What’s happened to him?”

The women’s quarters of Fukuyama Castle had winged eaves shading a railed veranda and wooden bars over the windows. A garden that might have been beautiful in summer was bleak with deep snow, bare trees, a frozen pond, and a deserted pavilion. The guard escorted Reiko inside, opened a sliding door, and thrust her into a room.

“Here’s a visitor,” he announced to the people inside, then pointed a finger at Reiko. “You stay put. Or else.”

After he left, Reiko looked at the five women who sat around a kotatsu-a frame with a table on top, a fire underneath, and a quilt spread over it and their legs. As she and the women exchanged bows, Reiko had an unsettling sense that she’d walked into any lady’s chamber back in Edo. They wore silk kimonos, white face powder, and red lip and cheek rouge, just like at home. Their eyes measured her from beneath shaved, painted-on brows. Chopsticks, tea and food in lacquer bowls, and porcelain spoons on the table completed the illusion. Welcome,“ the oldest woman said in a strangely flat, toneless voice. I am Lord Matsumae’s wife.” She was in her forties, her upswept hair streaked with gray. Her face was pretty, but dark shadows of fatigue showed through her makeup. Her features sagged in a misery so strong that it tugged down Reiko’s own spirits. “May I ask who you are?”

As Reiko gave her name, she noticed things about the scene that were different from home. The floor wasn’t tatami but native woven mats, the same kind that insulated the walls. The women’s robes were lined with fur that showed at the collars and cuffs, and they wore gloves. Reiko had an even stranger sense of Japanese culture grafted unnaturally onto Ezogashima, like a peach growing from a thorn bush.

“I’m the wife of Chamberlain Sano from Edo,” Reiko said.

The other four women looked surprised, but Lady Matsumae’s sad, tired expression didn’t change. “Please join us.”

Everyone shifted to make room at the kotatsu. Reiko sat beside the youngest woman-a girl in her teens, who had a round face, hair worn in a long braid, and thick, pursed lips. She helped Reiko cover her legs with the quilt. Lady Matsumae introduced her other three companions. They were her ladies-in-waiting, wives of her husband’s retainers, all in their thirties. They murmured polite greetings. They seemed so much alike that Reiko promptly forgot which was whom. Lady Matsumae didn’t introduce the girl, who was evidently a maid. Her flowered robe was cotton, not silk. She wore no makeup; her face was naturally pale with rosy lips and cheeks. She flashed bright, curious glances at Reiko.

Lady Matsumae offered food and drink. Reiko politely refused twice, then let herself be persuaded. There’d been no time for breakfast before the soldiers came to the Ezo camp, and she was starved. She drank hot tea and ate rice gruel with pickled vegetables and bits of fish. It tasted wonderful.