The Emperor's Woman (Akitada Mysteries) Read online

  THE EMPEROR’S WOMAN

  An Akitada Novel

  By

  I. J. Parker

  Published by I. J. Parker

  Visit I. J. Parker’s official website at

  www.ijparker.com

  for the latest news, book details, and other information

  Copyright © I. J. Parker, 2012

  Cover design by I. J. Parker

  Cover image by Ogata Gekko

  e-book formatting by Guido Henkel

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Praise for I. J. Parker and the Akitada Series

  “Elegant and entertaining … Parker has created a wonderful protagonist in Akitada… . She puts us at ease in a Japan of one thousand years ago.”

  The Boston Globe

  “You couldn’t ask for a more gracious introduction to the exotic world of Imperial Japan than the stately historical novels of I. J. Parker.”

  The New York Times

  “Akitada is as rich a character as Robert Van Gulik’s intriguing detective, Judge Dee.”

  The Dallas Morning News

  “Readers will be enchanted by Akitada.”

  Publishers Weekly Starred Review

  “Terrifically imaginative”

  The Wall Street Journal

  “A brisk and well-plotted mystery with a cast of regulars who become more fully developed with every episode.”

  Kirkus

  “More than just a mystery novel, (THE CONVICT’S SWORD) is a superb piece of literature set against the backdrop of 11th-century Kyoto.”

  The Japan Times

  “Parker’s research is extensive and she makes great use of the complex manners and relationships of feudal Japan.”

  Globe and Mail

  “The fast-moving, surprising plot and colorful writing will enthrall even those unfamiliar with the exotic setting.”

  Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

  “…the author possesses both intimate knowledge of the time period and a fertile imagination as well. Combine that with an intriguing mystery and a fast-moving plot, and you’ve got a historical crime novel that anyone can love.”

  Chicago Sun-Times

  “Parker’s series deserves a wide readership.”

  Historical Novel Society

  “The historical research is impressive, the prose crisp, and Parker’s ability to universalize the human condition makes for a satisfying tale.”

  Booklist

  “Parker masterfully blends action and detection while making the attitudes and customs of the period accessible.”

  Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “Readers looking for historical mystery with a twist will find what they’re after in Parker’s latest Sugawara Akitada mystery … An intriguing glimpse into an ancient culture.”

  Booklist

  Also By I.J.Parker

  The Akitada series in chronological order

  The Dragon Scroll

  Rashomon Gate

  Black Arrow

  Island of Exiles

  The Hell Screen

  The Convict’s Sword

  The Masuda Affair

  The Fires of the Gods

  Death on an Autumn River

  The collected stories

  Akitada and the Way of Justice

  The Historical Novels

  The Hollow Reed I: Dream of a Spring Night

  The Hollow Reed II: Dust before the Wind

  The Sword Master

  The Author

  I.J. Parker was born and educated in Europe and turned to mystery writing after an academic career in the United States. She published her Akitada stories in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, winning the Shamus award in 2000. Several stories have also appeared in collections (Fifty Years of Crime and Suspense and Shaken). The award-winning “Akitada’s First Case” is available as a podcast. Many of the stories have been collected in Akitada and the Way of Justice.

  The Akitada series of crime novels features the same protagonist, an eleventh-century Japanese nobleman/detective. It now consists of ten titles. The Emperor’s Woman is the latest. Most of the books are available in audio format and have been translated into twelve languages.

  Her historical novels are set in twelfth-century Japan during the Heike Wars. The two-volume The Hollow Reed tells the story of Toshiko and Sadahira. The Sword Master follows the adventures of the swordsman Hachiro.

  Pronunciation of Japanese Words

  Unlike English, Japanese is pronounced phonetically. Therefore vowel sounds are approximately as follows:

  “a” as in “father”

  “e” as in “let”

  “i” as in “kin”

  “o” as in “more”

  “u” as in “would.”

  Double consonants (”ai” or “ei”) are pronounced separately, and ō or ū are doubled or lengthened.

  As for the consonants:

  “g” as in “game”

  “j” as in “join”

  “ch” as in “chat”.

  Remember well

  Those promises of love

  That bring my end—

  Clouds of yesterday dispersed

  By the cold breath of the mountain wind

  (Fujiwara Teika, “A lady’s final reproach to her lover”)

  Contents

  Characters

  Snow

  A Dangerous Conspiracy

  Genba’s Sweetheart

  A Strange Case of Suicide

  Murder in the Willow Quarter

  Scattered Blossoms

  Tokuzo’s Brothel

  The Trouble with Women

  The Beggars

  The Grieving Father

  The Wisdom of Women

  Tora and the Cook

  Good News and Bad News

  Saburo Dismissed

  Genba Takes the Blame

  Out of Work

  The Grand Lady

  A New Ally

  Tora Investigates

  An Answer of Sorts

  The Mountain Villa

  Panic

  Akiko Investigates

  The Hungry Mountain

  Bashan Returns

  The Novice

  Spies

  The Journal

  The Bathhouse

  The Horse

  Loose Threads

  Historical Note

  Contact Information

  Characters

  Sugawara Akitada — senior secretary in the Ministry of Justice

  Tamako — his wife

  Yasuko and Yoshitada — his daughter and son

  Akiko — his married sister

  Tora — his longtime retainer, a former soldier

  Genba — another retainer, a former wrestler

  Saburo — a severely disfigured man, a former spy and recent servant.

  Fujiwara Kaneie — his superior, minister of justice.

  Kobe — superintendant of the imperial police.

  Nakatoshi — Akitada’s friend in the Ministry of Ceremonial

  Persons Connected with the Death of the Emperor’s Woman:

  Prince Atsuhira — son of an emperor, suspected of a political plot

  Fujiwara Kishi —
his senior wife, daughter of the regent

  Fujiwara Kosehira — Akitada’s friend and Kishi’s cousin

  Minamoto Maseie — Lord of Sagami, powerful provincial nobleman

  Minamoto Masanaga — his son, officer in the imperial guard

  Minamoto Masako — his daughter, the emperor’s “woman”

  Nagasune Hiroko — her attendant in the palace

  Persons Connected with the Case of the Murdered Brothel Keeper:

  Ohiro — Genba’s love, a prostitute

  Shokichi — her roommate, another prostitute

  Tokuzo — owner of the brothel Sasaya

  His mother — subsequent owner

  Miyagi and Ozuru — two dead prostitutes

  Bashan — a blind masseur

  Kenko — a priest and chief of the beggars’ guild

  Jinsai — a beggar

  Mrs. Komiya — a landlady

  Sosuke — a rice merchant

  Abbot Raishin — abbot of a small mountain temple for shinobi training

  Snow

  It started snowing heavily as he made his way uphill with his burden. At first he took little notice, except that the drifting flakes cooled his skin. She was infernally heavy and awkward to hold because of her pregnancy. Besides, her long hair and parts of her clothing swept the ground and kept getting caught on branches. He would have taken her clothes off, but he needed to make this look like suicide.

  He paused a moment to shift his load and use the silk of her full sleeve to mop his face. The snow was falling more heavily. He glanced up the stony path leading to the cliff. Already the dirt between the stones was turning white. He realized that this sudden snowfall was a very good thing and smiled. If he left any tracks, the snow would soon hide them. There would be nothing to show that she had not walked this steep path by herself before jumping off the cliff. Luck was with him. In the end, it was always so. He started climbing again. Best do this quickly and be on his way.

  When he reached the promontory, out of breath and tired, he let his burden slide down and looked around. He was well above the villa, whose roof he could not see from here. He liked the loneliness of the spot. A hermit would have built his hut here to meditate in solitude on the Buddha. On all sides rose forested hills, hazy and immaterial behind the veil of falling snow, and the rock outcropping before him jutted over an abyss. Some fifty feet below him, a small brook splashed over and around rocks toward the valley. The sound of the waterfall that fed the brook blotted out all other small noises, even his heavy breathing.

  This made him look back nervously, but all was empty except for him, the woman on the ground, and the drifting snow. Already snowflakes clung to her hair and turned the deep blue of her silk gown pale. Her face—what he could see of it—was as white as the snow. There was a little blood in her hair, not much. He had been lucky to hit her so as not to break the skin and leave stains in the house.

  Her eyelids fluttered. He gasped. She was coming round. He must hurry. Moving cautiously up to the edge on the slippery rocks, he peered over. He had to make sure she would not catch on something on the way down and survive the fall. Having selected the best spot, a sheer drop fifty feet to the bed of the brook, he turned back, grasped her under the arms and dragged her to the edge. When he released her, she gave a small moan and raised one arm. Shifting her body, he got ready to give it a hard push. At that moment, she opened her eyes and looked up at him.

  If she was pleading, it was too late. He was frightened into sudden action; she slipped forward and was gone.

  Stunned by the momentary eye contact, he crouched near the edge. When she hit the rocks below, the sound was very small, almost lost in the rushing of the waterfall.

  Then there was only the sound of the water and the silent falling of the snow. Cold crept up his hands and knees.

  He shivered and slowly crawled backwards, then straightened up, and stood. The snow fell thickly, in large wet flakes. With darkness, it would become cold, and by morning the world would be covered with in a blanket of purest white.

  He wiped the sweat from his face and found that his hands were shaking. That look she had given him. They said the ghosts of the murdered pursued their killers. With a muttered prayer, he started back down the path, slowly at first, and then faster, until he was running, slipping on the wet stones, brambles ripping at his clothes and hands.

  A Dangerous Conspiracy

  Akitada’s day began quite pleasantly. The sun had made its appearance, the children had woken them early, and now Akitada stood on the veranda, watching as they chased his wife and each other around the garden. Birds chirped and the cherry tree’s branches were thick with buds. From the front of the house came the sound of barking.

  Tamako, raising her long gown and showing smooth legs and bare feet, passed him. She was rosy with exercise and called out, “The wisteria is alive. And I think it will bloom,” then squealed as Yasuko snatched at her long hair. Yoshitada, who was still too slow to be a real contender, burst into loud giggles and toddled after them.

  Akitada strolled over to the wisteria, so pregnant with significance for their marriage, and studied it attentively. Tamako was right. A good omen.

  He had presented her with a blossom from the ancestor of this plant on the morning after their marriage night. It had come from her own home which had been destroyed by the fire that took her father’s life. Years later, when they lost Yori, their first son, to smallpox and grew apart and bitter, the transplanted wisteria had declined and stopped blooming. Since then, both Tamako and Akitada had checked it every spring for signs of new life on the gnarled old trunk.

  Whistling softly to himself, Akitada walked to his study, where Saburo awaited him with tea and hot rice gruel. Saburo, a disfigured ex-monk, had taken over many of Seimei’s functions after the old man had died.

  Akitada thanked him and received in return the grotesque grimace that was Saburo’s smile. Saburo was indefatigable in his efforts to make himself useful and to prove a faithful servant. In spite of his unsavory past, Akitada had not regretted taking him on.

  When his workday at the ministry began, Akitada was still in an excellent mood. He managed to finish a thick stack of dossiers before he was called to the minister’s office. Gathering them up, he went to see Fujiwara Kaneie.

  Kaneie was a privileged member of the ruling clan and had managed to obtain his lucrative assignment without much effort or talent for it. The upper positions in the government were riddled with such men, while the actual work of the government was carried out by underlings or a few career officials in the lower ranks. Kaneie was one of the better senior officials in that he readily admitted his shortcomings and left the work to abler people like Akitada. He was also a friendly and affable man.

  This day he seemed abstracted. He signed and stamped the last document with his seal, then handed the sheaf of papers back to Akitada. “Have you heard the news about Prince Atsuhira?” he asked.

  Akitada searched his memory for Atsuhira and found, hazy by the distance of years, a rather pleasant young man he had met at one of his friend Kosehira’s parties. But, no, there had been a more recent incident. It had involved the prince’s love affair and a case of blackmail. He said, “I haven’t heard anything recently. I believe we met many years ago.” He paused, adding a little doubtfully, “I liked him then.”

  The minister nodded. “Yes, he’s a very pleasant man. Married to one of the Fujiwara daughters. I cannot believe the tale. Nobody thought he had it in him.”

  “Had what in him?”

  “The kind of ambition that makes men overreach themselves. We all assumed he’d given up any hopes of succession, but here his name is linked to a very unsavory business. It may also involve his wife’s father and uncle. And several other high-ranking men as well. A major conspiracy, if one can believe it.”

  Akitada tried to recall what he knew of the prince’s marriages. As a potential heir, he had taken one of the daughters of the present chancellor to
wife. He said, “He seemed unambitious when I first knew him. But that was a long time ago, and his name has come up once before. Is he in serious trouble?”

  It had been six years ago when the prince’s uncle, Bishop Sesshin, had contacted Akitada because he had feared one of the prince’s love letters had fallen into the wrong hands. The letter had contained some very incautious remarks about His Majesty.

  The minister said, “Oh, yes. Exile perhaps. And he won’t be going alone.” The minister shook his head. “There are always the innocent who suffer along with the schemers.” He looked at Akitada. “I should hate to lose this post.”

  Akitada was startled. “But surely not you, sir? Did you know the prince well?”

  The minister gave a weak chuckle. “No, not really. But I do know his wife. The way these things go, once the censors have their teeth into a conspiracy, they make a wide sweep. I recently attended a party with him.” He paused. “Speaking of parties, I think you know Fujiwara Kosehira.”

  “Yes, he’s my friend.” Akitada smiled. “And you’re right. He used to give some famous parties, but Kosehira hasn’t been in the capital for years. He has estates in Yamato and has been serving as governor of Omi Province for two years now.”

  “Oh, then I regret to tell you he has been recalled to explain his role in the affair. It seems there was correspondence between him and the prince.”

  “Kosehira is involved? I cannot believe it. He’s the most apolitical of men. It must be a mistake.”

  “Possibly. But they used to say the same of the prince. Perhaps they kept their intentions from the world?”