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inquiries he’d conducted.
    “So far it doesn’t sound as if Ejima’s death was murder,” Hirata said, interested yet skeptical. “Can it and the earlier deaths really be part of a plot against Lord Matsudaira, or is he imagining a plot in a set of coincidences?” .
    “That’s what I mean to find out,” Sano said. “I called you here because I need your help.”
    Even as Hirata experienced an ardent wish to work with Sano on such an important case, he worried that it would require more strength than he had. Hirata saw Sano appraising his gaunt figure, and realized that Sano feared he was physically unable to work. Mortification sickened Hirata. He couldn’t let Sano think him weak and useless.
    “It will be an honor to serve you,” Hirata said. He would help Sano or die trying. “Where do you want me to start?”
    “You can start by taking Ejima’s body to Edo Morgue,” Sano said in a low voice that the witnesses and soldiers wouldn’t overhear. “Ask Dr. Ito to examine it.”
    Once a prominent, wealthy physician, Dr. Ito had been sentenced to lifelong custodianship of Edo Morgue as punishment for conducting scientific experiments that derived from foreign lands, a crime strictly forbidden by Tokugawa law. He’d helped Sano on past investigations.
    “Have him find out the exact cause of death,” Sano clarified. “That’s key to establishing whether it was murder.”
    “I’ll go right away,” Hirata said.
    He sounded as eager as ever to do Sano’s bidding. But Sano saw the pain and worry he tried to hide, and sensed him wondering if he could withstand the journey to Edo Morgue, all the way on the other side of town. Sano, who hadn’t seen Hirata in a while, had been dismayed to observe how fragile he still was. Sano didn’t want Hirata taxing his health or getting hurt again for Sano’s sake. But although Sano would rather go to Edo Morgue himself, it was too big a risk: Should the chamberlain of Japan be caught participating in the forbidden science of examining a corpse, he would fall much farther than Dr. Ito had. Nor could Sano take back his request and shame Hirata. He needed Hirata as much as Hirata apparently needed to prove himself capable of the duty that the bond between samurai and master required.
    “Bring the results of Dr. Ito’s examination to me as soon as possible,” Sano said. “If I’ve finished questioning witnesses by then, I’ll be at my estate.” He couldn’t let the government collapse while he investigated a murder that might not be murder. “Then we’ll report to Lord Matsudaira. No doubt he’s anxious for news.”
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5

    One wing of the Court of Justice contained rooms where the magistrate and his staff conferred with citizens seeking to resolve disputes that involved money, property, or social obligations. Here Magistrate Ueda had sent Yugao. As Reiko walked down the passage, she heard raucous male laughter from an open door. She peered inside.
    The room was a cell enclosed by sliding paper-and-lattice walls, furnished with a tatami floor and a low table. Yugao stood between the two guards that Reiko liked the least in her father’s retinue. One, a thickset man with squinty eyes, pawed Yugao’s cheek. The other, athletic and arrogant, groped under the skirt of her hemp robe. Yugao scrambled away, but the men caught her. They yanked at her robe, squeezed her buttocks and breasts. She strained at the shackles that bound her hands while she kicked her bare feet at the men. They only laughed more uproariously. Her face was tense with helpless anger.
    “Stop that!” Reiko exclaimed. Bursting through the door, she ordered them, “Leave her alone!”
    They paused, annoyed at the interruption. Their faces showed dismay as they recognized their master’s daughter.
    “The magistrate will be displeased to hear that you’ve been taking advantage of a helpless woman in his house,” Reiko said, her voice sharp with ire. “Get out!”
    The guards slunk off.