text: Matsudaira Konnosuke, though high in the estimation of those near to him (and perhaps, who knows, of the Presence Himself) was nonetheless slave to certain requirements. At set times he needs be at certain places, dressed in certain ways, and with very little leeway. He enjoyed some of the ceremonial--that part that related to his substantive activities--and hated other parts.
  
  Social demands were part of the ceremonial he liked least. None of that showed on his face as his secretary read a report of a disturbance in one of the commoner quarters. Visits by retired Senior Clansmen were an unpleasant but necessary part of the job. He checked the detail of the room with one eye. His hands lay flat on his thighs, his elbow barely brushing the silk tied hilt of his dagger.
  
  "Lord Ito is late, Lord," the secretary murmured quietly.
  
  "Hm. Yes. Try to find out what's happening. Discreetly. Let's try not to insult the old bird."
  
  The secretary bowed. One of the attending samurai bowed as well and slipped out of the room. The secretary continued the reading. Half an hour later the samurai came in. He bowed perfunctorily, approached Matsudaira quickly and whispered in his ear. Matsudaira's eyebrows rose and he signed for the secretary to stop.
  
  "Lord Ito was murdered before he left his villa." There was an outburst of excited babbling. "Quiet please. Muto, take some of your senior men and seal the villa. I shall be arriving as soon as possible. His villa is in Daimonji ward it is not? Have some of the chonin detectives see if they can find any rumors. I will be there presently." Four samurai, led by Muto, a square-faced elder, rushed out of the room. Matsudaira rose, turned. The sliding doors opened and he strode out. The doors closed silently behind him.
  
  Matsudaira stood at the scene of the crime and examined everything with minute attention to detail. Behind him were the villa and his men, crouching motionless on the small secluded veranda. Before him was a stretch of gravel, and then a mossy rise. Beyond it was a small pond with gold and silver leopard carp swimming in its limpid depths. Beyond the pool was the villa's high wall. To one side he could see the exposed rafters of a large building. He vaguely recalled that the temple--its name escaped him--had requested permission to rebuild after a period of neglect. The distance to the temple roof on one side, or to the mountain straight ahead, was considerable: several hundred feet.
  
  "Was anyone with him?" Matsudaira asked Muto.
  
  "There was a woman ..." Muto answered and there was some hesitation in his tone. Matsudaira walked out onto the garden, taking care to step only on the halfsunken paving rocks. The body was still there, covered by a woman's kimono. He motioned Muto closer. The other retainers held back.
  
  "Well? What did you not say?"
  
  Old Muto scratched his jaw. "It's kind of delicate, Lord. Ito had, ... well he had some peculiar sexual tastes. I think Saga-san may know more about that. Anyway, he dressed his women in armor and ... ah ... had them that way. He was actually on top of the woman when he was shot."
  
  "The woman was one of his own household? Did she say she saw the shot?"
  
  "Newly employed, I gather. One of the commoner constables interviewed her. She is still in armor. She was bowing before him and saw nothing."
  
  "I'll go and see her. You've gone over the ground?"
  
  "Of course, Lord. No identifiable footsteps beyond Ito, the concubine, and the wife. One set each. We're holding the concubine, but the wife stated that the concubine was on all fours when Ito was shot."
  
  "I'll see them both," Matsudaira ordered.
  
  Midori was ushered into the room where Matsudaira stood, his brows creased thunderously. Some of her ancient fear of him rose to the surface. He took no notice, merely asking, "Are you the woman Midori?"
  
  She bowed on the floor and answered in the affirmative. The constable, dressed in striped short robe and blue pants, looked at her severely as if wishing he could tie her up and lead her to execution. Matsudaira turned to him.
  
  "Where is Mr. Muto? Find him and bring him to me. I'll oversee the woman."
  
  The constable bowed and departed at a run.
  
  "Don't worry Midori," Matsudaira said kindly, kneeling by her side. "I'll have to be severe with you, and I'll order you sequestered at the mansion. Don't worry. Is there anything you need to tell me?"
  
  She nodded her head wordlessly, reassured, as they heard hurrying footsteps. He rose just as Muto and the constable burst into the room.
  
  "Lord?" Muto inquired.
  
  "Muto-san, there are some peculiar aspects to this case. And of course we must treat it ... with delicacy." Muto nodded. "We can't even seal the villa. Have the constables go over every inch of the ground. I want a full report and a plan of the villa. Confiscate the armor and everything else that was at the scene of the crime. Have some men close off and search the area immediately behind the villa and the mountainside."
  
  Wordlessly Muto indicated the servant girl.
  
  "Have her taken to the magistracy. I will interrogate her there. There is no need to tie her," Lord Matsudaira said as he left the Ito mansion. Muto bowed and turned back.
  
  Midori, under escort, arrived at the official mansion and was brought to a familiar door. Matsudaira, Miura Jiro, and Rosamund were waiting for her inside. She found she was more comfortable in the august company than she had felt before. Matsudaira/Goemon was smiling, a smile which wiped out the severe impression he had given in his persona as examining magistrate. He poured her a cup of tea with his own hands and she thanked him with a shy smile.
  
  "Now tell us about it. Don't be reserved. I know what the general setting was."
  
  Midori bobbed her head and described the scene.
  
  "He was holding a sword?" Jiro asked incredulously.
  
  "He liked to pretend he was a great warrior. It was pretty uncomfortable in that old armor."
  
  "I saw it," Goemon confirmed. "I've had it confiscated. All the rest too."
  
  "What does it have to do with his death?" Jiro asked.
  
  "I don't know. Not much I imagine. He was shot," said Goemon thoughtfully. "The shot must have come from the hill. Hit his chest bone, then through the heart and entrails. Very high angle of entry. There's nothing before him but the garden wall, which would have been too low, the temple, which is off to his left, and the mountain."
  
  "I only heard a very muffled sound," Midori said tremulously.
  
  "It must have been from a great distance. You are sure you did not hear the gun closely?" Jiro asked.
  
  "I am sure, Miura-sama." Some of her composure had returned. "It was muffled, from a distance. Perhaps beyond the garden wall. His clothes were scorched, smouldering."
  
  "The hillside?" said Goemon thoughtfully. "That would be five hundred feet away, at least. Some shot. And the burning clothes. That sounds like a shot at close range. It doesn't fit together."
  
  "Or else, from below the wall. At an angle." Jiro mimicked a high trajectory shot with his hands.
  
  "In either case, he'd have to be some shot!" Goemon's lips were pursed. "But what about the flames?"
  
  "My father ..." Jiro was groping for words. "He used to tell me, something, what was it ... Yes. They would heat cannonballs red hot, then ram them into the guns to fire at enemy ships and set them alight."
  
  "It would blow up the powder!" Goemon objected.
  
  Jiro shook his head. "No. They used a wadding of wet clay ..."
  
  "Possible, barely possible. Or else his sins were catching up with him and it was divine wrath." His eyes grew thoughtful, and Midori shrank from them, her awe of the divine surfacing again.
  
  "Oh, stop scaring the poor little girl," Rosamund broke in. She turned to comfort Midori.
  
  A page spoke from the other side of the shoji. "Mr. Muto wishes to speak with you, Lord."
  
  "Wait here!" Goemon said and reassumed the severe expression of Matsudaira Konnosuke. He slipped out of the room and Midori closed the sliding panel behind him.
  
  Muto and Saga, his senior advisors, were seated in a small informal audience room Matsudaira used for private audiences. They bowed as he entered and seated himself.
  
  "Any information?" Matsudaira asked shortly.
  
  "Not much more about the Ito case I'm afraid, Lord," Saga, the younger of the two said.
  
  "We've got to solve it quickly," Matsudaira said with a frown. "Ito was quite high in his clan's councils. We will have to inform them. And report to the Pavilion. I can't understand what he was doing here in Miyako at all."
  
  Muto's pug face cracked a grin. "We don't have to hurry and inform his clan, Lord. They sent him here, and it wasn't a promotion either."
  
  Matsudaira glanced at Muto. The mastiff-faced counsellor had served his father, and his special expertise was politics, of which he was a mine of information. "Do tell," he said thoughtfully, then turned back and ordered his page to bring tea.
  
  "Ito has always been rather sickly," Muto explained, his face creased in effort. "He's served the Mito domain very well, but always in administrative capacities. I think that rankled. Anyway, he fancied himself a warrior, and it got mixed up with his sex life somehow. He just couldn't get it on unless he was playing the warrior. He played too hard one day and killed his wife. It was an accident, but the elders decided he'd better remove himself elsewhere. His present chief wife used to be his Second. Apparently she didn't object to his tastes and got sort of promoted to chief wife. She's from a lower-class samurai family of Mito. I don't think he was vicious or anything, just eccentric."
  
  "We have to check into motive. What about Uemura, the young ward or disciple or whatever he is?"
  
  Saga cleared his throat. "Hm ... There's something about him. He lives way too high. I think we should look at him carefully. Maybe he has a motive."
  
  "Yes, but what about the method?" Muto objected. "We're looking for a superlative gunner. The constables haven't found any trace of a man: wadding, footsteps, anything. We'll just keep looking. But Lord, there is something else. There's been another murder."
  
  "Another mu ..." He held Matsudaira and Saga's attention fully. "Same method?" Matsudaira asked quickly.
  
  "No. Quite a different affair. A ronin fought with a samurai of the Satake clan in the latter's mansion. He gave his name."
  
  "The Satake man challenged him?" Matsudaira asked. "That's no affair of ours then, surely."
  
  "It was a challenge. But he apparently took advantage of the man's wife as well."
  
  Matsudaira rose, his face flushed with blood. "Find him and arrest him! This is intolerable. Some samurai seem to forget their duty and remember only the privileges! I will not have this in my city. Muto, you are responsible for bringing the man in!" Matsudaira thought for a moment then reseated himself. "I'll try another method too, just in case. From my own resources. Get me a description of the man!"
  
  The two counsellors bowed and Matsudaira rose and strode out. They walked out. "He's shaping up quite nicely," Muto said in a low voice.
  
  Saga chuckled. "A chip off the old block. The Old Lord would have been proud. It's a shame they quarreled before the old man's death."
  
  The two old retainers smiled at one another knowingly. They had served Konnosuke's branch of the Matsudaira family all their lives, and gone through the civil wars that brought the Tokugawa family to the Shogunal seat in the Old Lord's train. The family's position was dear to them, and young Konnosuke was beginning to show he was made of the same stuff as his father.
  
  Behind them, Matsudaira and his half-Barbarian friend discussed Sugiyama's future.
  
  "You know," Jiro said. "The description sounds familiar. I got a message from Satsuki."
  
  "Is she back from her pilgrimage?"
  
  "No. But she sent me this and a tale." He showed Goemon a small lacquered box. It was the kind carried by men of fashion, which divided into five compartments, each one for a different medicine. "She took this off a samurai who was about to attack Matsuo, her bodyservant. The events sound similar." He handed a sheet of paper to Goemon.
  
  The slim young man read the letter quickly. He grinned. "Too much Chinese scholarship as usual," he observed. His tone turned serious. "At least she is all right. Yes, it sounds like the same man. Well, we've got a description at least. Think you can try and look yon gentleman up? You know, it might be best to dispose of him quietly. Arresting a samurai always leads to trouble, and I've got too much to handle just right now. Did you know there's a report of false coinage turning up? Saga told me this morning. A merchant complained of receiving counterfeit momme silver coins. And two, now three murders. At least finding this ronin and disposing of him should be no problem. Wish I had that job."
  
  Jiro grinned and rose to his feet. "Tough," he said succinctly. "I've told you before: you should have stayed an itinerant doctor."
  
  His arms folded, Matsudaira stared down at the mat, lost in thought. His giant friend silently took his leave, grinning slightly in anticipation.