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raised her hands to protect herself, but although she looked strong enough to knock Lady Matsumae down, she didn’t fight back. She uttered muffled noises of pain while she took her beating. Nor did the four other Ezo women defend her. They looked on, unhappy but silent. The ladies-in-waiting sipped their tea as if their mistress’s behavior were nothing out of the ordinary. But Reiko was too appalled to stand by and watch.
    “Stop!” She hurried over to Lady Matsumae and pulled her away from the Ezo woman.
    Lady Matsumae shrieked, “Let go of me!”
    She turned on Reiko like a wildcat. She kicked Reiko, clawed at her. The Ezo women huddled together, hands over their mouths. So did the ladies-in-waiting. The maid ran out of the room. Reiko grabbed Lady Matsumae by her wrists. She said to the Ezo women, “You’d better go.”
    They fled. Lady Matsumae screamed and fought while Reiko struggled to control her. The maid hurried back with two guards, who dragged Reiko and Lady Matsumae apart.
    “Why were you so mean to her?” Reiko asked Lady Matsumae. “What’s your trouble?”
    Lady Matsumae’s eyes were red and crazed, her hair disheveled. “None of your business,” she said in a voice harsh with rage. “Don’t interfere with things you don’t understand.”
    She turned her back on Reiko and told the guards, “Get her away from me.”
    The Fukuyama Castle guest quarters were in a building connected to the palace by a covered corridor. Shaded from the sun by dark fir trees, with snowdrifts halfway up its walls, the building looked desolate and forbidding. The guards marched Sano and his men into a dank, cold set of rooms. Servants came to pad the walls with woven mats, to stoke and light the charcoal braziers.
    “Home away from home,” Detective Marume said.
    “Don’t try anything,” Deer Antlers warned Sano as he and the other guards left. “We’ll be watching you.”
    “Do they feed the prisoners in this jail?” Detective Fukida said. When more servants brought in trays of rice balls, smoked salmon, pickled radish, and tea, he said, “I don’t care much for Lord Matsumae’s manners, but he does right by his guests.”
    “After he’s decided to postpone killing them,” Marume said.
    As everyone ate, Sano worried about what had happened to Reiko, until two guards brought her.
    She ran to Sano, knelt by him. “I’m so glad to see you!”
    “Thank the gods you’re all right.” Sano held Reiko’s cold hands. “Where have you been? What happened?”
    “With Lady Matsumae.” Reiko described how she’d stopped Lady Matsumae from beating the Ezo woman, and how Lady Matsumae had then attacked her. “Isn’t that strange?”
    “It is.” Sano couldn’t help thinking that Reiko had been at the castle less than an hour and already gotten into a fight. He told himself he should be glad nothing worse had happened. At least so far.
    “What’s even stranger,” Reiko said, “is that Lady Matsumae and her attendants and maid absolutely refused to help me look for Masahiro. I think they know something, but they wouldn’t talk. They don’t care. I never met such cold-hearted women.” She said eagerly, “What happened with Lord Matsumae?”
    That was a topic Sano would rather not discuss. “He sent us food. There’s some left. Are you hungry?”
    “I’ve already eaten. Did you find out what the trouble is? Did you ask him about Masahiro?” She looked at the other men, who avoided her gaze. In the silence she asked, “What’s wrong?”
    Sano couldn’t hide the facts from her no matter how much he wanted to protect her. He told her as gently as possible about how the murder of his mistress had driven Lord Matsumae mad, now he claimed Masahiro had never reached the castle but Sano didn’t think he was telling the truth.
    Reiko’s eyes went round with shock and horror as she understood that Lord Matsumae might have killed their son. But she only nodded; she didn’t fall apart. She never