His shaved head was turned toward his pupil. A hemp monk’s robe clothed his slim body. His long, finely modeled hands toyed with his beaded wooden rosary while he listened. As if Etsuko’s yearning gaze had touched him, Egen turned and saw her. His beautiful, sensitive features made Etsuko tremble inside. Her eyes met his deep, somber ones. She almost fainted.

Until Egen had come to the estate last spring, Etsuko had never been in love. The moment she’d laid eyes on him, she’d felt the sweet, exhilarating rapture. And she could tell by his expression that he’d felt it, too. The stories she’d heard, the plays she’d seen, had told the truth: Souls could meet and know in an instant that they were meant for one another.

Now Tadatoshi finished his recitation. Egen corrected his mistakes, then said, “It’s time for your sword-fighting lesson. You may go.”

Tadatoshi stood, bowed, and exited the room. He had a furtive, scrambling gait. He passed Etsuko without seeming to see her. She hardly noticed him. She floated toward Egen, who rose.

“Hello,” he said in his quiet, gentle voice.

“Hello,” she murmured.

Love imbued their slightest conversations with profound meaning. Every word spoken between them breathed passion-and despair. They both knew their love couldn’t last.

“I had to see you,” she said.

“I’m glad you came.” He moved closer, and Etsuko quaked with the desire for his touch. His smile faded; worry darkened his eyes.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“You know what.”

Her engagement to Doi made a life together as impossible as did his vow of celibacy. The unfairness of their situation was something they often discussed and mourned. But Etsuko sensed more on Egen’s mind. “What else?”

“I’m worried about Tadatoshi.”

Jealousy stabbed Etsuko. She wanted his concern all for herself. “How can you think of him, when-”

“He’s my pupil,” Egen hastened to explain. “I’m responsible for him.”

“Oh,” Etsuko said, trying to be generous and understanding. “Why are you worried?”

“He doesn’t have any playmates or seem to want any. He’d rather brood by himself. And sometimes, I swear, he’s like a ghost. He disappears, and I can’t find him anyplace. Then he reappears as if out of thin air. Where does he go? What’s he doing? He’s not normal.”

Etsuko agreed, but she said, “I don’t think there’s much you can do.”

“I suppose you’re right,” he said, clearly not convinced. Etsuko smiled up at him and grazed her fingers against his wrist. The worry in his eyes gave way to desire. He closed his hand around hers. “Will I see you tonight?” he asked urgently.

Etsuko nodded, breathless with anticipation.

“In our usual place?”

Footsteps coming down the passage startled them. Egen let go of Etsuko’s hand. They sprang apart just as Doi appeared.

“Oh, there you are,” Doi said to Etsuko. “The girls sent me to look for you.”

Etsuko blushed; her heart pounded wildly. He’d almost caught them!

“Your mistress is going to the theater. You’re all to accompany her, and so are some of us men.” Doi beamed, glad for a party, for a chance to sit beside her during the play. Etsuko pitied him because he didn’t know that her feelings toward him had changed. Doi turned to Egen. “You can come, too.”

Shame filled Etsuko. He was a kind, generous man. He’d befriended Egen, who was an outsider in this house, a gentle scholar and poet among rowdy samurai. And she and Egen were betraying him.

“Thank you,” Egen said, and Etsuko could see that he felt as guilty as she did. “But I have lessons to prepare.”

“Oh. Well, maybe next time.” Doi said to Etsuko, “Come on, let’s go.”

But he hesitated, looking curiously at her, then at Egen. Etsuko winced inwardly. Did he suspect?

“Did your mother tell you anything?” Hirata asked.

“Not enough, but it was a lot more than I’d bargained for,” Sano said.

He and Hirata sat in his office, eating a belated breakfast of rice gruel, fish, and pickled vegetables. Sano reluctantly described what his mother had said, ashamed to expose his ignorance about his family even to his closest friend.

Hirata, always considerate, didn’t react except to nod. When Sano finished, he said, “She’s given us some leads.”

Thank the gods for that much, Sano thought. “The broken engagement gives Colonel Doi a possible motive for incriminating her. He’s the prime suspect as far as I’m concerned. I’ll call in my informants and find out what they can tell me about his doings around the time when Tadatoshi disappeared. But there’s another potential witness-and maybe a suspect.”

“The tutor?”

Sano nodded, spooned up the last of his gruel, and washed it down with tea. “Not only was Egen a member of Tadatoshi’s household, he must have been close to the boy. Maybe he saw something or knows something about his disappearance.”

“Maybe he was responsible for it,” Hirata said.

“That could be,” Sano said. “Tadatoshi would have trusted Egen. It would have been easy for him to kidnap the boy.”

“Easier than for a lady-in-waiting,” Hirata said.

Sano thought of his mother vehemently denying that the tutor was the killer, then claiming she’d barely known him. Questions interlaced with suspicions in Sano’s mind. He must have another talk with her, whether she liked it or not. In the meantime, the tutor offered them a chance at salvation even if he wasn’t guilty.

“Maybe Egen could refute Doi’s story,” Sano said.

“He should, if only to protect himself,” Hirata said. “Doi accused him in addition to your mother.”

“Supposing he does, it would be his word and my mother’s against Doi’s,” Sano said, although he wondered if that would carry enough weight. Doi was a high-ranking soldier, backed by Lord Matsudaira. Sano’s mother was a mere woman, vulnerable to attack by Sano’s enemies. The tutor was a nobody. “But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. First we have to find Egen. I want you to start looking.”

“If he’s still alive,” Hirata said, “I’ll find him.”

He and Sano rose. Sano noted the quizzical expression in Hirata’s eyes. Not once had Hirata asked whether Sano’s mother might be guilty; he was too loyal. But he obviously wondered. So did Sano.

“In the meantime, I’m going to visit Tadatoshi’s mother and sister,” Sano said. “Maybe they can shed some light on the crime.”

As much as he hoped that whatever they said would exonerate his mother, he feared it would dig her grave deeper.

Reiko spoke with Lieutenant Asukai in the garden, where she was watching Akiko play with the children’s old nurse. “My husband has enough to do without having to search for the spy,” she said, and explained how Sano’s mother had been charged with murder. “I think we should handle the problem ourselves.” She longed to help Sano, and there wasn’t much else she could contribute.

“I’m ready and willing,” Asukai said. “But how should we go about it? Have you ever unmasked a spy before?”

“No,” Reiko admitted, “but let’s try a little common sense. We can’t watch all the people in the estate. There are too many.” Sano’s retainers, officials, clerks, and servants numbered in the hundreds. “And this spy will be careful not to attract attention.”

“We might never catch him doing anything to betray himself,” Asukai agreed.

“So we must draw him out,” Reiko said.

“Good idea.” Asukai regarded her with admiration, then puzzlement. “How?”

“We’ll set a trap, using something that Lord Matsudaira would want as bait.” Inspiration lit Reiko’s brain. “I know! How about the secret diary in which my husband has listed the names and locations of all his spies?”

Asukai looked surprised. “Is there such a diary?”

“There will be.”

Reiko hurried into the house to her chamber. Asukai followed. She knelt at her writing desk, lifted the lid, and pulled out a book covered in black silk. The pages were blank. She prepared ink, dipped her brush, and wrote a long list of male names as fast as she could invent them. She wrote, after each, “spy,” the place where he was stationed, choosing random locales within Edo Castle, around town, inside daimyo estates, and among Lord Matsudaira’s numerous properties; she threw in cities all over Japan.