“One last question,” Hiro asked. “Did you see anyone else in the alley?”
“Anyone else?” Suke looked confused. “Like a vagrant?”
“Anyone at all,” Hiro said.
Suke looked at the ground and scratched his cheek with a filthy hand. “I don’t remember.”
“Thank you, Suke,” Hiro said. “I’ll try to persuade the magistrate to release you as soon as possible.”
“He won’t release me.” Suke smiled cheerfully. “He’ll order me hanged and display my head on a pole as a warning to others. I don’t mind. Death will free me to enter my next incarnation. This time, I hope I return as a cat.”
“A cat.” Hiro had to ask. “Why do you want to become a cat?”
Suke’s lips curled into a knowing smile. He raised a hand to wipe the tendril of drool that started down his chin. “Cats catch mice. Mice eat grain. Grain makes sake. As a cat, I’ll find a brewery and kill its mice. The grateful owner will give me a bowl of sake every day!”
“Cats don’t drink sake,” Hiro said.
“I would,” Suke said.
Hiro had nothing to say to that. Knowing Suke, he probably would.
Hiro returned to Ginjiro’s cage and gestured toward the monk. “He doesn’t know anything at all. He claims he murdered Chikao in self-defense, and in his sleep, while defending his precious sake flask.”
Ginjiro glanced toward Suke. “Did he mention that he’s ‘a dangerous man’?”
“Once or twice,” Hiro said. A wave of stench from the filth on the ground erased his urge to smile.
Ginjiro sighed. “Please persuade the dōshin to let him go. They shouldn’t punish a silly old man for something he didn’t do.”
“I doubt they intend to punish him long.” Hiro remembered the yoriki’s words. “They only arrested him to prevent a scene.”
“Still,” Father Mateo said, “we will speak to the dōshin on his behalf. Is there anything more you can tell us about the night of the murder before we go?”
Ginjiro shook his head. “At closing time I locked the shop and went upstairs. My wife and Tomiko were already sleeping. I went to bed and didn’t wake up until the dōshin came to arrest me.”
“Did you leave anyone downstairs when you locked the shop?” Father Mateo asked.
Ginjiro stared at the priest but didn’t answer.
After a moment that lasted a little too long, Ginjiro asked, “Like a customer? No, they had all gone home.”
“Nobody else?” the Jesuit asked. “Nobody guards the brewery at night?”
“Why would I need a guard?” the brewer asked. “We live upstairs.”
Hiro admired the Jesuit’s effort, but Ginjiro’s answers were exactly as expected. If the brewer hired a guard who killed Chikao, he wouldn’t say so.
Hiro started to turn away but paused when Father Mateo said, “Thank you. We appreciate your answers.”
The brewer did his best to bow despite the cramped conditions. “On the contrary, I am in your debt. You owe my family nothing, yet you help us. I hope I live to repay your generosity.”
“We just hope you live,” Father Mateo said. “No thanks required.”
Hiro nodded, grateful that the foreign priest could speak the words that etiquette denied a Japanese.
* * *
As Hiro and Father Mateo left, they found the elderly dōshin waiting near the whipping posts.
Hiro gestured toward Suke’s cage. “Why is the monk imprisoned?”
“Him?” the dōshin asked. “He’s just a drunk. Word has it, he embarrassed the yoriki. We have orders to keep him until this evening and then release him. No additional punishment. A few more hours in the cage, and he’ll go on his way.”
The dōshin looked at Father Mateo. “Does the foreigner speak Japanese well?”
“A little,” Father Mateo said.
The dōshin looked impressed. “Your Japanese is very good. Are you new to Kyoto?”
Father Mateo smiled. He had spoken only two words, but most Japanese seemed highly impressed to hear a Westerner say any words at all.
“Thank you,” the Jesuit said. “I fear my Japanese is poor, and badly spoken.”
Hiro approved of the priest’s response, which followed the proper self-deprecating manner for answering compliments. He also noted that Father Mateo passed over the question about his time in Kyoto.
With good reason.
The Jesuit mission in Kyoto catered to the samurai ruling class. Nobles would have disapproved of Father Mateo’s work among the commoners, so the Jesuit worked alone from his home on Marutamachi Road instead of living with the other priests. Father Mateo’s mission wasn’t secret, but the priest knew better than to draw unwanted samurai attention.
“Are you enjoying the capital?” the dōshin asked. “Where are you visiting from?”
The Jesuit smiled. “Kyoto is a beautiful city. I have never seen a nicer one.”
“Excuse us,” Hiro said, “we have business to attend to.”
“Of course.” The dōshin bowed. “Any place is better than downwind from the prisoners’ cages.”
As they approached the gates, Father Mateo stopped. Hiro walked past the priest and turned, eyebrows raised in a silent question.
Father Mateo nodded toward the entrance. “Isn’t that Akechi Yoshiko?”
To Hiro’s surprise, the Jesuit was correct.
A little over a year before, Hiro and Father Mateo solved the murder of Yoshiko’s father, retired samurai general Akechi Hideyoshi. The general had raised his only daughter as a samurai warrior, allowing her to dress—and act—like a man.
Yoshiko hadn’t changed her appearance since her father’s death. If anything, she looked more masculine now than she had before. She wore a blue kimono bearing the five-petaled bellflower mon that symbolized the Akechi clan. With her hair drawn back in a samurai knot and a pair of swords at her side, only her unshaven pate revealed her gender.
Yoshiko stood talking with the samurai guard at the gate.
Hiro approached and bowed. Yoshiko returned the gesture instinctively, but as she straightened her eyes widened with recognition. She smiled a genuine smile.
“Matsui Hiro,” Yoshiko said. “A pleasant surprise.”
“Good morning Akechi-san,” Hiro said. “I trust you also remember Father Mateo.”
“Of course.” She bowed to Father Mateo. “Please, call me Yoshiko.”
The woman’s tone seemed a bit too friendly, her smile a bit too bright. Worst of all, her eyes had a sparkle that made Hiro fear her interest in him went beyond professional courtesy.
Before Hiro could find a way to avoid further conversation, Father Mateo said, “It’s nice to see you, Yoshiko. If you’ve finished your business here, we can walk together.”
Her smile widened into a grin. “As it happens, I’ve just finished.” She looked at Hiro. “I would be delighted to walk with you.”
Hiro fought the urge to turn around and return to the cages. He had seen a smile like that on a woman’s face before. Given his aversion to Akechi Yoshiko, Hiro already knew this walk would end in an awkward scene.