Red Chrysanthemum Read Online Free PDF Page B

her.
    The panorama of Edo spread in every direction. Lights glimmered in windows and reflected from boats on the river. A crescent moon adorned the sky. Roofs, trees, and shadows hid the activity within the Mori estate, but she had a good view of the main gate. Lanterns burned outside it. She could see the guards stationed in front and anyone who came or went.
    At first she observed only Lord Mori’s retainers arriving home. Later she noticed men crouched on roofs of the estate next door. They must be
metsuke
agents, spying as part of the routine surveillance on prominent citizens. The moon ascended over the hills; stars appeared while night extinguished the city’s lights and traffic thinned. Temple bells signaled the passage of two hours when a woman trudged up the street, leading a small child by the hand. They stopped by Lord Mori’s gate. Reiko watched the woman speak with the guards, heard their distant, unintelligible words. The guards let the pair in the gate. Soon the woman came out alone. She trudged away.
    After a long, cold, uneventful vigil, Reiko thought she’d never been so glad to see the sun rise. She stretched muscles cramped from sitting in the tower the whole night except for brief descents to relieve herself. Now the woman reappeared, a peasant dressed in faded robes. Again she spoke with the guards. They shrugged and shook their heads. She became agitated; she pleaded with them. They shouted at her, and she fled, weeping.
    Reiko had just witnessed a scene identical to the one Lily had described: Another mother had rented her son to Lord Mori and failed to get him back.
    Anger filled Reiko because this kind of thing was allowed to happen. She felt more determined than ever to rescue Jiro. But what had happened to him, and to this other child?
    Lord Mori’s retainers and servants came and went. Two porters carried out an oblong wooden crate. Below the tower, Lieutenant Asukai gestured for Reiko to come down before the day-shift fire-watcher arrived. As she alit on the ground, her mind drew a disturbing connection between the crate and the boy she’d seen last night.
    “Go look for two porters who just carried a big wooden crate out of the Mori estate,” she ordered Lieutenant Asukai. “Hurry! Stop and search the crate for a dead body!”
    He rode off, but after a long time he came back to report that he’d been unable to find the men she’d seen. Edo was full of porters. He’d stopped and searched many, but none of them had come from the Mori estate, and none were carrying anything except groceries. The pair in question had vanished into the crowds.
    “I feel certain that Lord Mori is up to no good,” Reiko told Lieutenant Asukai while she journeyed homeward in her palanquin and he rode his horse alongside her. “I must get inside that estate and find out what’s going on.”
    That afternoon, Reiko rode in her palanquin up the street she’d watched the previous night. She wore silk robes and lacquered clogs instead of the cloak and wicker hat. Her makeup was perfect, her upswept hair studded with floral ornaments. Her bearers set her palanquin down outside Lord Mori’s gate.
    “Lady Reiko, wife of the Honorable Chamberlain Sano, is here to call on Lady Mori,” Lieutenant Asukai told the sentries.
    They summoned servants to notify Lady Mori that she had a visitor. Reiko was glad that her social position entitled her to call on any ladies in Japan, who must see her whether they wanted to or not. Soon Reiko found herself seated in a chamber with Lady Mori.
    “I am so flattered that you have come to see me,” Lady Mori said. She was in her forties, dressed in an expensive but dull green kimono. Her hair, worn in a simple knot, was threaded with silver. She was slim, but heavy cheeks, full lips, sloping shoulders, and a broad bottom gave her an appearance of weightiness. She spoke with delicate, formal precision. “This is an unexpected honor indeed.”
    “It is you who has done me the