Reiko closed the pillow book. She sat paralyzed, her heart drumming while she envisioned Sano indulging in sexual depravity. Feverish waves of horror assailed her. To think that Sano’s liaison with Lady Wisteria had continued after their marriage! Perhaps it had continued until Wisteria disappeared.

But this was unthinkable to Reiko. Sano did love her. She recalled their first months together, and their passionate lovemaking. Sano couldn’t have committed adultery, not then, not ever. A unique spiritual bond joined them; they belonged only to each other.

Then Reiko remembered the many times they’d spent apart. Sano could have visited Wisteria during his absences. And one of those absences had occurred the night Reiko gave birth to their child. Sano had gone away on business for the shogun… or so he’d said. Was their love a sham, and her trust in Sano misplaced?

A stinging onslaught of tears rushed upon Reiko; she felt like vomiting. Sano had always seemed a loving father, incapable of trading Masahiro for political security. That he would give their son to the shogun, who used young boys as sexual playthings, was beyond belief. Yet Reiko knew how precarious was Sano’s position at court, and what a toll his constant struggle to stay in the shogun’s good graces took upon him. The honorable samurai she knew would never insult his lord nor plot to usurp power, but perhaps Sano had grown desperate and wayward enough to do both.

She couldn’t know for certain that he hadn’t, because they’d grown apart and he didn’t confide in her. And if he would betray her, then why not Masahiro?

Clutching the pillow book, Reiko glanced around the room, which looked unfamiliar, as if transformed into an alien place. Her mind went on adding links to a terrible chain of logic.

Sano had been hiding something from her.

He didn’t want her to investigate Wisteria.

He’d behaved strangely after discovering the corpse-as if someone he knew and cared about had died.

She had already begun to suspect that there had been something between him and the missing courtesan.

With an anguished cry, Reiko hurled the book across the room. It fell behind a gilded screen; yet she could not ignore the book. Nor could she escape realizing that it was as much of a threat to Sano as Lady Yanagisawa had claimed, and not just because it jeopardized his marriage. She felt helpless in her fear and misery.

Various inquiries took Sano from Edo Morgue to the palace, to the official quarter and daimyo district, and finally to Yoshiwara. Now a sentry at the gate clapped two wooden blocks together to signal midnight and curfew. Lanterns still blazed along the streets; hawkers called customers to teahouses and brothels; samurai and commoners still loitered, flirting with courtesans in the window cages. Gay music spangled the air. A small group of men who didn’t want to spend the whole night in Yoshiwara streamed out a small door in the gate. Among these were Sano, Hirata, and the eight detectives they’d brought. As they rode along the dark causeway toward the city, Sano and Hirata exchanged news.

“The woman we found in Fujio’s house was beaten to death,” Sano said. “She may or may not be Lady Wisteria.” But he’d grown more certain that the dead woman was indeed the courtesan.

“Fujio may not be the killer.” Hirata described how he’d interviewed, then arrested the hokan. “Today I talked to his wife, in-laws, friends, and mistress. They confirmed that he was with them when he says he was. Unless they’re lying, he couldn’t have committed murder in the hills.”

“Maybe Fujio didn’t kill Lord Mitsuyoshi either. Maybe Treasury Minister Nitta was guilty, and a third party murdered Wisteria.” Sano had difficulty believing that the murders were unconnected. Still, he couldn’t ignore the possibility.

“I’ve checked the stories I heard from the Council of Elders and other officials,” he said. “It’s been hard to investigate Mitsuyoshi’s background without appearing to do so. But I learned that Lord Dakuemon and several other men mentioned to me were in Yoshiwara the night of Mitsuyoshi’s murder. Some are former clients of Lady Wisteria. The next step is to determine where they were during the time between Wisteria’s disappearance and the discovery of the body.”

This would be simple if not for the shogun’s orders. Sano regretted that he couldn’t directly interrogate the new suspects instead of working through spies and informants, a laborious, time-consuming process.

“If the killer isn’t Fujio or a bakufu official, there’s still Lady Wisteria’s Hokkaido lover,” Hirata said. “But no one in Yoshiwara seems to know anything about him, and I haven’t gotten any response to the notices I posted.”

Sano gripped the reins; the icy wind penetrated his garments as his horse’s hooves pounded the ground under him. The landscape of fields and starlit sky flowed past, so unchanging that he couldn’t gauge the progress of his journey.

“Things will look more promising after a good night’s rest,” he said.

Hours later, Sano arrived home, frozen and exhausted, to find that Reiko had waited up for him. She was standing in their bedchamber, and one look at her face told Sano something was amiss. Her jaw was set, her gaze simultaneously frightened and accusing.

“What’s wrong?” Sano said, afraid that something bad had happened to her or Masahiro.

She stepped back to avoid the hand he extended to her, and thrust a small book toward him. “Will you please explain this?” Her voice was brittle, stretched between dread and reproach.

Puzzled, Sano took the book, opened it, and frowned in surprise at the inscription. “The Pillow Book of Lady Wisteria? Where did this come from?”

Reiko didn’t answer. Unnerved by her strange expression, Sano began reading the pages. His surprise turned to alarm, then horror at the mixture of fact and fabrication. Lady Wisteria couldn’t have written such disgusting slander about him! The book must be a forgery. But while he read, it was as if he could hear Wisteria’s voice speaking the words, and who except she could have known intimate details of their relations?

If only he’d already told Reiko about the affair! How could he now persuade her that most of the story was a lie while he admitted concealing from her the parts that were true?

Sano read the last passage, which showed him insulting the shogun and plotting to make Masahiro the next dictator. His blood boiled with outrage. Feeling shamed and trapped, he slowly closed the book, delaying the moment when he must face Reiko. When he at last raised his eyes, she regarded him with the brave caution of a warrior encountering a stranger who may be friend or foe.

“Where did you get this?” Sano asked.

“From Lady Yanagisawa.” Reiko explained how the anonymous package had arrived for the chamberlain, and her friend had brought it to her. “Is the story true?”

Nerves raised sweat on Sano’s brow. “Let’s sit down and talk,” he said.

Reiko didn’t move, but her eyes went round, and Sano saw her pride crumble. “Then it is true,” she whispered. “She was your lover. I thought we were-all the while you-” Abruptly Reiko looked away.

“It was over before we married,” Sano said.

“Then why didn’t you tell me about her at the start of the investigation?”

“I didn’t want to upset you.” Sano ached with guilt. The brief pleasure he’d gotten from Lady Wisteria wasn’t worth this.

“That’s what you said to her when she was upset to learn you were engaged.” Reiko was afire with hurt, suspicion, and anger. She gestured toward the book that Sano still held. “She was beautiful. You loved her. She did everything for you that a man could want.” Bitterness twisted Reiko’s mouth. “You only married me because I’m from a high-ranking samurai family instead of a brothel.”