Huygens nodded and smiled, and Sano knew the doctor grasped his meaning, and sympathized with his plight. He felt closer to this barbarian than to his compatriots who accepted the laws without question. An increasing sense of alienation frightened Sano. In his estrangement from lord and regime, could not the seeds of treason take root?

“You go school?” Huygens asked. At Sano’s assent, he said, “What learn?”

“History,” Sano answered. “Calligraphy; mathematics; military strategy; the Chinese classics; the martial arts. After I left school, I taught those subjects.” But never science. Sano felt ashamed of his ignorance, and newly resentful of the laws that had restricted his education.

“Ah.” Huygens bobbed his head enthusiastically. “You scholar, teacher.” He thumped his chest. “Like me.”

They smiled at each other. The tentative friendship between them deepened, and Sano gave in to an impulse to confide. “I would have remained a scholar and teacher for the rest of my life,” he said, “but for family obligations.” He described how his father, eager to improve their clan’s status, had gotten him the job of police detective, which had led to his current position. “Have you any family?”

The cheerfulness vanished from Huygens’s plump face. “Wife and son dead,” he said somberly. “Father want me be scholar. In Netherlands, I doctor. I teach and study there; Paris and Rome, too. But no more.”

He paused, as if mentally translating an explanation into Japanese. Sano waited, intrigued at the prospect of seeing into the life and soul of a barbarian.

Then the doctor forced a smile and said, “We look Spaen’s body now. We learn. Good, maybe. Yes?” He walked back to the corpse, took up the knife, and beckoned. “Bring lamp, please?”

Disappointed, Sano hesitated while other concerns took precedence over his wish to further their acquaintance. Witnessing a dissection in the relative safety of Edo Morgue, which even the most conscientious spies avoided, was one thing; to do so with a barbarian on Deshima, with guards lurking nearby, after the solemn oath he’d taken … Madness! But Sano wanted the truth about Director Spaen’s death. Without it, he might never identify the killer.

He picked up a lamp, joined Dr. Huygens at the table, and held the light over the corpse.

The doctor cut away pieces of torn flesh from in and around the chest wound. With the pincers, he lifted out blood clots, bone fragments, a snail that had lodged inside the opening. The odor of spoiled meat rose to Sano’s nostrils. His stomach convulsed. To distract himself and thus prevent sickness, he concentrated on unclasping the chain around Spaen’s neck and removing the crucifix, an important clue that he didn’t want buried with the body.

“What are you looking for?” he asked, suppressing a gag and hoping the procedure would be over soon.