Yamada Monogatari: To Break the Demon Gate Read Free Page A

screen was in place as I forced myself to concentrate on the business at hand.
    “Nothing so distasteful,” she said. “Besides, Kiyoshi died in loving service to my husband, the late Emperor, and on the path he himself chose. If he left a ghost behind, I would be quite surprised. No, Lord Yamada, Kiyoshi left something far more reliable—a letter. He sent it to me when he was in the north, just before . . . his final battle. It was intended for his favorite and was accompanied by a second letter for me.”
    I frowned. “Why didn’t he send this letter to the lady directly?”
    She sighed then. “Lord Yamada, are you a donkey after all? He couldn’t very well do so without compromising her. My friendship with Kiyoshi was well known; no one would think twice if I received a letter from him in those days. In his favorite’s case, the situation was quite different. You know the penalty for a Lady of the Court who takes a lover openly.”
    I bowed again. I did know, and vividly: banishment or worse; yet, for someone born for the Court and knowing no other life, there probably
was
nothing worse. “Then clearly we need to acquire this letter. If it still exists, I imagine the lady in question will be reluctant to part with it. Who is she, if it is not indiscreet to ask?”
    “Her name was Taira no Hoshiko, not that this is of consequence now. The letter was never delivered to her.” Teiko raised her hand to silence me before I even began. “Do not think so ill of me, Lord Yamada. News of Kiyoshi’s death reached us months before his letter did. By then my husband had given the wretched girl in marriage to the Lord of Hizen province as reward for some service or other, and I did not wish to risk complicating her new position. Since Kiyoshi’s letter was not intended for me, I never opened it. I should have destroyed it, I know, but I could not.”
    “That decision was perhaps foolish but potentially fortunate. Though I presume there is a problem, or I would not be here?”
    “The letter has been stolen, Lord Yamada. Without it I have no hope of saving my reputation and my son’s future from the crush of gossip.”
    I let out a breath. “When did you notice the letter was missing?”
    “Lord Sentaro says it disappeared three days ago.”
    Now I really didn’t understand, and judging from the grunt to my immediate right, neither did Kanemore. “What has Lord Sentaro to do with this?”
    “He is the Emperor’s Minister of Justice. In order to clear my reputation I had to let him know of the letter’s existence, and arrange a time for the letter to be read and witnessed. He asked that it be given to him for safekeeping. Since he was also Kiyoshi’s uncle, I couldn’t very well refuse.”
    She said it so calmly, and yet she had just admitted cutting her own throat. “Teiko-hime, as much as this pains me to say, the letter has surely been destroyed.”
    There was nothing but silence on the other side of the veil for several seconds, then she simply asked, “Oh? What makes you think so?”
    I glanced at Kanemore, but there was no help from that direction. He looked as confused as I felt.
    “Your pardon, Highness, but it’s my understanding that the Fujiwara have their own candidate for the throne. As a member of that family, it is in Lord Sentaro’s interest that the letter never resurface.”
    “Lord Sentaro is perhaps overly ambitious,” Teiko said, and there was more than a hint of winter ice in her voice. “But he is also an honorable man. He was just here to acquaint me with the progress of the search. I believe him when he says the letter was stolen; I have less confidence in his ability to recover it. Lord Yamada, will you help me or not?”
    I bowed again and made the only answer I could. “If it lies within my power, I will find that letter for you.”
    Kanemore and I did not speak again until we had taken our leave of Princess Teiko. Kanemore was the first to break the silence.
    “That,”