Red Chrysanthemum (7 page)

“They’re setting up the fireworks on the bank,” Enju called.

Lord Mori held Lady Mori close and whispered in her ear: “When I get you alone, we’ll make some fireworks ourselves.”

Lady Mori blushed and smiled at his hint of carnal pleasures to come. Her husband was a wonderful lover who’d taught her the joys of the marriage bed. Even after all these years, desire for him quickened in her.

A boat full of chattering ladies drew up alongside theirs. Enju called, “Hello there!” A lively flirtation ensued, but one lady didn’t join in the fun. She was the youngest and loveliest, regal and aloof. Her gaze lit on Lord Mori. A sly smile curved her lips.

“Good evening, Lord Mori,” she called through the bars of the railing that surrounded the deck on which she sat.

Her voice had an alluring, provocative tone. Her pose reminded Lady Mori of pictures she’d seen of the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter, in which courtesans sat inside barred windows for customers to view. Lord Mori reacted with surprise that this strange woman had addressed him.

“Good evening,” he said. “Have we met?”

“We have now.” Her smile deepened. “Please allow me to introduce myself. I am Reiko, wife of Chamberlain Sano.”

Lady Mori had heard of the famous Reiko. She frowned in instinctive alarm. She’d never been a jealous wife, but she didn’t like for Reiko to talk to her husband.

“Well, I’m pleased to make your acquaintance. Is the chamberlain with you?” Lord Mori glanced over Reiko’s boat.

“No, I’m on my own.” Batting her eyelashes at him, Reiko touched her rouge-red mouth with her fan. “And I’m quite in need of masculine company. How fortunate that we happened to run into each other.”

“Yes. Ah.”

Lord Mori sounded pleased as well as discomposed by Reiko’s flattery. Lady Mori saw admiration for Reiko in his eyes. Her alarm increased as she noticed the predatory glint in Reiko’s.

“May I offer you a drink?” Lord Mori asked.

Reiko slowly licked her lips. “Indeed you may. I am so thirsty.”

Lord Mori poured a cup of sake for her. Lady Mori saw that the cup was her own, but he didn’t notice. He seemed to have forgotten she existed. While Enju bantered with the ladies, Lord Mori reached across the short distance between the two boats. Reiko reached out through the railing. As she accepted the cup from him, her fingers caressed his.

“Thank you,” she murmured.

He poured sake into his own cup. A sudden loud boom rocked the night. The ladies squealed. Enju exclaimed. Brilliant red, green, and gold streamers of light filled the sky. But Lady Mori hardly noticed; she was watching her husband and Reiko sipping their sake, their gazes locked. They reminded Lady Mori of a courtesan and client performing the ritual mock wedding ceremony before the first time they made love. Lord Mori’s face wore a dazed, smitten expression. Reiko’s showed the triumph of a hunter who’d captured a large prey. More explosions thundered; more rockets burst their colored lights above. Happy cries of awe arose from the river, banks, and bridge. Lady Mori quaked as she felt her perfect world begin to crumble.

For intolerable days thereafter, Lady Mori languished in misery, neglected by her husband. At night she waited up late for him. Whenever he finally came home, she asked, “Where have you been?”

“I had business in town,” he always said.

But his eyes always slid away from hers, and she knew he’d been with Reiko. She could smell perfume and sex on him. Even as her heart broke because he’d betrayed her, she dressed herself in new clothes, fixed her hair in a different style, and bought him presents in an attempt to win him back. She tried to entice him to her bed.

“It’s late. I’m tired,” he would say. “Good night.”

Then he would disappear into his private quarters, leaving her to cry herself to sleep alone. The next evening he would ride off, and the ordeal of waiting would begin again.
How could he do this to we?
Lady Mori grieved.

Enju tried to comfort her. “Don’t worry, Mother,” he said as she knelt before the Buddhist altar in the family chapel and prayed for Lord Mori to love her again. “This affair won’t last. Father will soon come to his senses.”

Lady Mori knew that Enju felt just as abandoned as she did. Lord Mori had used to spend hours every day with Enju, teaching him the complex business of governing the provinces he would inherit. Now he rarely spoke to Enju. Lady Mori supposed he felt guilty for hurting her and the sight of her son made him feel worse. How she wished this nightmare would end!

One evening she sat in the garden, listening to the crickets. Lord Mori had taken to staying away for longer periods, and this time he’d been gone four whole days. Lady Mori thought she would die of grief. But now she heard a servant call, “The master is home!”

Her heart leapt with joy and revived hope that he was back to stay where he belonged. But when she hurried to his private chambers to greet him, she heard a woman’s shrill giggle. She saw Lady Reiko run through the garden, her robes and long hair flying. Lord Mori ran after her.

“Catch me if you can!” Reiko cried.

They didn’t notice Lady Mori. She stood staring in horror that her husband had brought his mistress into their home. Lord Mori caught Reiko. They tumbled to the ground. He tore her robes open. She squealed. He flung off his loincloth, mounted her, and took her there in the grass. Lady Mori watched, fraught with jealousy and despair.

Night after night Lord Mori brought Reiko to the estate. Lady Mori spied on them through his bedchamber window. A sick compulsion made her want to see them together, to wallow in torment. If they knew she was there, they didn’t care; they were so absorbed in wild, depraved antics. Once they fought each other naked with swords before they coupled. Another time Reiko whipped Lord Mori until he went berserk with fury and took her from behind, like wolves mating. Lady Mori wondered if this was what her husband had craved all the years of their marriage, if he’d forsaken her because Reiko could give him the excitement that she herself could not. Yet she nursed the hope that he would tire of Reiko, that carnal passion couldn’t permanently eclipse longtime love.

Many days passed in this terrible manner. A warm, wet summer night found Lady Mori kneeling on the veranda, once again spying through the window. Her husband and Reiko had just finished making love. They lay naked, her back against him, his arms around her. The rain streamed from the eaves, splashed on the veranda, and wet Lady Mori’s robes. The lamp shone on Lord Mori and Reiko, cozy inside. Suddenly Lady Mori noticed that Reiko’s stomach looked swollen. Dismay stirred, cold and ominous as a snake rousing from hibernation, through Lady Mori.

Lord Mori caressed Reiko’s belly. “Our child is getting big,” he said in a proud, pleased voice.

Lady Mori went sick with shock. Reiko was pregnant, by her husband! But how could the pregnancy be so far advanced, when Reiko and Lord Mori had met such a short time ago? How could the baby be his?

“Well, it’s been growing almost five months,” Reiko said. “You must have planted your seed the first time you bedded me.”

A second, worse shock hit Lady Mori. Their affair had been going on longer than she’d thought. They’d been lovers before that night on the river, when they’d pretended to be new acquaintances.

“Does Chamberlain Sano know?” Lord Mori asked Reiko.

A mischievous smile twisted her lips. “Oh, he knows I’m pregnant. He’s very pleased. He minks it’s his baby.” She giggled. “He also thinks my son, Masahiro, is his. My honorable husband doesn’t know the truth, which is mat if I’d waited for him to make me pregnant instead of having love affairs, I’d be barren because he’s not capable of fathering a child.”

Reiko turned to face Lord Mori. “But you are.” Her voice turned husky and seductive; her hand fondled his genitals.

Flattered, he laughed. “Yes, I am virile, with you.”

Lady Mori had longed to bear him a child and believed that the fact that she’d been unable was his fault, that he was sterile. After all, she had Enju. But he’d impregnated Reiko. That proved he was potent and Lady Mori was to blame for failing to conceive, for years of regret. Now Reiko would bear him the child that Lady Mori couldn’t. Lady Mori wanted to scream, fall on the ground, and claw herself to bloody shreds.

“I think the baby is a boy,” Reiko said.

“Good,” said Lord Mori. “I’ve always wanted a son.”

New revelation horrified Lady Mori. She’d believed he thought of Enju as his son. Now it was obvious that he cared more for his unborn flesh and blood than for the stepson who’d loved him these sixteen years. Reiko’s child was a betrayal of Enju as well as Lady Mori herself.

Lord Mori pulled Reiko on top of him. She sat upright with his body between her knees, his hands on her middle. He said, “Imagine, a son of mine growing up inside Edo Castle. If Chamberlain Sano manages to hold onto his power long enough, my son will become a top official in the regime.”

“What an honor for you.” Reiko laughed. “And what a fine joke on my husband!”

Lady Mori was forced to acknowledge that her perfect marriage had been an illusion. Yet she still loved her husband; she still wanted him back. She could no longer tolerate the pain of his infidelity, and she couldn’t just wait passively for his affair to run its course. She must take action.

Her first thought was to tell Chamberlain Sano about the affair between Lord Mori and Reiko. Surely Chamberlain Sano would put a stop to the affair and punish his adulterous wife. But he would also punish Lord Mori, strip him of his fief, or even put him to death. Lady Mori devised a better plan.

The next day, she walked into Lord Mori’s office, where he was poring over account books. Trembling with nerves and fright, she said, “I—I have something to tell you.”

“Very well,” he said grudgingly. “Be quick about it.”

“You must stop this affair with Lady Reiko,” she burst out. Tears welled in her eyes. “You must honor your vow to be a faithful husband to me.”

He gazed at her in contempt and scorn. “I will not. I’m in love with Reiko. I don’t care about you. And how dare you tell me what to do?”

“If you don’t give her up, I’ll tell my brother how badly you’re treating me.” Lady Mori’s brother was the
daimyo
of a fief near Lord Mori’s. He and she had been very fond of each other since childhood.

He’d arranged her marriage to Lord Mori, uniting their clans, sealing a treaty of peace and mutual support between them, but he would take personally any offense to her. He would retaliate against the offender, and no treaty would stand in his way.

Lord Mori blenched. “You wouldn’t tell him.”

“Do right by me, or I will,” Lady Mori said, emboldened by the fear in his eyes. “And my brother will declare war on you. His army will invade your provinces. He’ll have your head as a battle trophy.”

Staring at her with amazement, he shook his head. “You would instigate a war to separate me from Reiko? You’re mad!”

“Make your choice,” Lady Mori said.

“This is just a foolish woman’s bluff. No matter how much your brother cares about you, he’s too smart to risk everything he has to avenge you!”

“We shall see.” Lady Mori walked toward the door.

Before she reached it, Lord Mori called, “Wait.”

Lady Mori turned. Her husband sat behind his desk, shrunken by cowardice. “All right,” he said with bitter resentment. “I will end the affair.”

Lady Mori experienced a sad triumph. “You’ll never see Lady Reiko again? You’ll tell her it’s over?”

He expelled his breath. “Yes.” Heartache etched his face. “I’ll tell her.”

“Tonight,” Lady Mori specified.

When night came, Lady Mori was stationed at her spy-post outside her husband’s bedchamber. Storms had beset Edo all day; faint thunder heralded another. Smoke from a fire shrouded Lady Mori as she knelt on the veranda beneath the window. Inside the room, Lord Mori and Reiko sat drinking sake together.

“My, but you’re quiet,” Reiko said. “What’s the matter?” Glum and haggard, Lord Mori wouldn’t meet her gaze. “I can’t see you anymore.” His voice quavered. “This is the last time.”

“What are you talking about?” Reiko demanded. Disbelief marked her beautiful features. “We’re in love. You said you can’t live without me. How can you just cast me off?”

Satisfaction filled Lady Mori. Let Reiko feel the pain of rejection. Let her suffer instead.

“I don’t want to,” Lord Mori hastened to assure her. “I love you more than my life. To lose you will break my heart. But my wife is jealous. She told me that unless I give you up, her clan will declare war on mine.”

“Idle threats!” Reiko scoffed. “You don’t believe her?”

Lord Mori hung his head. “I can’t take the chance that she can make good on them.”

Reiko surged to her feet in outrage. “You mean you won’t stand up to her. You think I’m not worth the danger!”

“That’s not true!” Lord Mori rose and embraced her. “You’re worth the world to me!”

She pushed him away. “Then go tell your wife that you won’t bow to her wishes. Tell her that if she’s stupid enough to start a war, you’ll fight it, for the sake of our love.”

His posture sagged. “I can’t,” he mumbled.

Reiko’s eyes flashed sparks of indignation. “Then it’s over between us? Even though I’m carrying your child?”

He nodded. Lady Mori had never seen him look so miserable.

“Oh, no, it isn’t,” Reiko fumed. “No man has ever rejected me. I won’t let you go.” She sounded like a spoiled, petulant girl on the verge of a tantrum. “I’ll show you that you’re mine until I decide we’re finished!”

She yanked the pins from her hair, which tumbled to her waist. She untied her sash.

“No!” Lord Mori was breathless with alarm.

Reiko dropped her robes to the floor and stood naked. Her pregnant belly protruded round and ripe beneath her breasts.

“Don’t. I beg you,” Lord Mori whispered. Desire engorged his face.

“You want me.” Reiko’s smile was tantalizing. “You know you do.” She snatched at his clothes, undressing him.

“Stop!” Lord Mori tried to push her away, but she tore open his kimono; she tugged down his trousers and pulled off his loincloth. His manhood sprang erect.