The Shogun's Daughter Read Online Free PDF Page B

odor. When Sano, Reiko, and Masahiro approached, the kneeling woman helped the prone one sit up. Sano and his family knelt and bowed to their guests.
    “Greetings, Lady Nobuko,” Sano said. “Your visit does us an honor.”
    “My apologies for behaving in this unseemly fashion.” Pain tightened the older woman’s crisp, elegant speech. Lying on the floor had disheveled her knot of silver-streaked hair. “My headache is especially bad today.”
    Although one of the most privileged women in Japan, she was as emaciated as beggars on the streets. Knobby shoulder joints protruded through her silk kimono. Tendons in her neck resembled flaccid ropes. Crimson rouge on her cheeks and lips gave her a flush of vitality, but the muscles around her right eye contracted in a spasm that distorted her narrow, sharp-boned face into a disconcerting mask of agony.
    “I’m sorry you’re not feeling well.” Sano introduced Reiko and Masahiro.
    Lady Nobuko’s good eye studied them with shrewd interest. The other oozed involuntary tears. She seemed to approve; she nodded. “May I introduce Korika, my lady-in-waiting.”
    “I’m honored to make your acquaintance,” Korika said in a sweet, breathless voice. In her late forties, she had a comfortably padded figure. Her hair, still mostly black, arranged in a round puff, emphasized the broadness of her face. Her forehead was so low that the eyebrows painted on it almost touched her hairline. Her wide smile, and eyes as black and shiny as berries, had an intense, eager-to-please expression.
    “May I offer you refreshments?” Reiko asked.
    “No, please.” Lady Nobuko grimaced, as if nauseated by the mere thought of food and drink. “You must be wondering why I am here, so I will come right to the point. I must speak to you about Tsuruhime.”
    Her voice broke on a sob. Tears poured from both her eyes. Korika patted her hand consolingly. Although the shogun didn’t mourn his daughter, his wife did.
    “I’m so sorry,” Reiko said with quiet compassion. “I understand that you and Tsuruhime were very close?”
    Nodding, Lady Nobuko composed herself. “I was with her when she died. I’m only her stepmother, but I loved her as if she were my own child.”
    “Wasn’t her own mother killed by the earthquake?” Sano recalled that Tsuruhime’s mother had been one of the shogun’s concubines.
    “Yes, when part of the Large Interior collapsed,” Lady Nobuko said. The Large Interior was the section of the palace that housed the shogun’s female concubines, relatives, and their attendants and maids. “But even before then, Tsuruhime relied on me for guidance.”
    “Her own mother was a silly, flighty woman who had no business raising the shogun’s daughter,” Korika said.
    “Don’t speak ill of the dead,” Lady Nobuko said, without rancor. Loud hammering came from the part of the house under construction. A wince further distorted her face.
    Sano started to rise. “I’ll tell the men to stop working.”
    “No.” Lady Nobuko lifted a crabbed hand to forestall him. “The noise will prevent eavesdropping. I do not want anyone outside this room to hear what I have to say.” She pitched her voice so that it was barely audible over the noise. “Tsuruhime was murdered.”
    Surprise jarred Sano and showed on Reiko’s and Masahiro’s faces. “I thought she died of smallpox,” Sano said.
    “Indeed she did,” Lady Nobuko said, “but it was not a natural death.”
    “How do you know?” Sano asked.
    Lady Nobuko turned to her lady-in-waiting. “Tell them what happened.”
    Nervous yet pleased to be the center of attention, Korika said, “It was a few days before Tsuruhime fell ill. My lady and I were visiting her. We decided to walk in the garden. Tsuruhime asked me to fetch her cloak from her room. As I was looking through the cabinet, I saw an old cotton bedsheet wadded up on a shelf among her kimonos. It was soiled with dried blood and yellowish stains.” Repugnance