Free The Snow Empress: A Thriller by Laura Joh Rowland Page A

outside.
    Matsumae troops loitered on the veranda. She was desperate to look for Masahiro, but if she tried, would they stop her? Sano and Hirata had been escorted away by other troops who’d seemed not about to let them stray. Was she under the same arrest? In Edo, the rules were clear-cut. Here she felt marooned in a lawless, senseless nightmare.
    There was a tap on the door. “Come in,” Reiko called.
    It was the maid from Lady Matsumae’s chamber. She carried in a bundle of leather and fur. “Pardon me, Honorable Lady,” she said, bowing, “but I thought maybe you’d like these.” Her speech was carefully polite. Kneeling, she laid a fur-lined deerskin coat and hood, fish-skin boots, and leather mittens in front of Reiko.
    “Thank you,” Reiko said, grateful for the maid’s kindness. She put on the garments. They were roughly made, similar to what the maid wore, and smelled gamy, but they were much warmer than the clothes Reiko had brought from Edo.
    “I didn’t think
she
would give you anything,” the maid said. “Not after what happened yesterday.”
    She
could only be Lady Matsumae. Reiko studied the maid, whose raised brows and tentative smile indicated eagerness to gossip. “Can you stay a while?”
    “Yes.” The maid went breathy with delight. “A thousand thanks.”
    “What is your name?” Reiko said.
    “Lilac.”
    Her eyes reminded Reiko of bright, quick butterflies looking for sweet flowers. Lilac sidled over to the dressing table and caressed Reiko’s silver comb, looking glass in the lacquer frame with jade inlays, and matching box of makeup. Awe parted her sensuous, pursed lips.
    “Does Edo have lots of shops where people can buy nice things like these?”
    “Yes,” Reiko said. “Haven’t you ever been there?”
    “No. I was born here in Ezogashima, and I’ve never left it. My family are servants of the Matsumae clan. But I wish I could go to Edo.” Passion swelled Lilac’s voice. “More than anything in the world.”
    She stepped over to the cabinet, where Reiko had stored the few clothes she’d rescued from the ship. “May I look?” she said boldly.
    Reiko nodded because they’d struck an unspoken bargain that granted permission for the girl to snoop. Lilac opened the cabinet and lifted out a silk kimono patterned with a blue and silver landscape.
    “So beautiful!” she exclaimed, holding it up to herself. Then she sighed. Even it I had clothes like this, there’s no place to wear them around here. And there’s nobody worthwhile to see me. How I wish I lived in the big city.“
    It was time for Reiko to exact her half of the bargain. “Maybe you can answer some questions for me.”
    “I’ll do my best.” Lilac gave the kimono a last caress, put it away, and knelt by Reiko.
    There was a brazenness about her that put Reiko off, but Reiko was in no position to be choosy about her companion. “First, who are those Ezo women?”
    “They’re concubines.”
    Reiko was startled because the barbarians seemed so strange that she hadn’t imagined sexual relations between them and the Japanese. “Lord Matsumae’s?”
    “No, they belong to his retainers.”
    That explained why the women were in the castle even though Ezo were prohibited. “Why did Lady Matsumae get so angry at them?”
    “She hates them. And I’ll tell you why.”
    Lilac glanced at the open door. Across the hall, other maids were sweeping the men’s rooms. They giggled while Marume, Fukida, and the Rat flirted with them. Lilac beckoned Reiko to lean close and whispered, “She and her ladies-in-waiting think the Ezo concubines are inferior, like animals. They’re jealous because the men want them. They punish them whenever they get a chance.”
    Because they couldn’t punish the men, they took out their jealousy on the concubines, Reiko realized. And the concubines couldn’t fight back because if they made trouble, they and their people would be punished. Reiko began to pity the Ezo.
    “But Lady