The Assassin's Touch Read online

  As soon as General Isogai had departed, the whirlwind outside Sano’s office burst through the door. Aides descended upon him, clamoring for his attention: “Here are the latest reports on tax revenues!” “Here are your memoranda to be signed!” “The judicial councilors are next in line to see you!”

  The aides stacked documents in a mountain on the desk. They unfurled scrolls before Sano. As he scanned the papers and stamped them with his signature seal, he gave orders. Such had been his daily routine since he’d become chamberlain. He read and listened to countless reports in an attempt to keep up with everything that was happening in the nation. He had one meeting after another. His life had become an unceasing rush. He reflected that the Tokugawa regime, which had been founded by the steel of the sword, now ran on paper and talk. He regretted the habit he’d established when he’d taken up his new post.

  In his zeal to take charge, he’d wanted to meet everyone, and hear all news and problems unfiltered by people who might hide the truth from him. He’d wanted to make decisions himself, rather than trust them to the two hundred men who comprised his staff. Because he didn’t want to end up ignorant and manipulated, Sano had opened his door to hordes of officials. But he’d soon realized he’d gone too far. Minor issues, and people anxious to curry his favor, consumed too much of his attention. He often felt as though he was frantically treading water, in constant danger of drowning. He’d made many mistakes and stepped on many toes.

  Regardless of his difficulties, Sano took pride in his accomplishments. He’d kept the Tokugawa regime afloat despite his lack of experience. He’d attained the pinnacle of a samurai’s career, the greatest honor. Yet he often felt imprisoned in his office. His warrior spirit grew restless; he didn’t even have time for martial arts practice. Sitting, talking, and shuffling paper while his sword rusted was no job for a samurai. Sano couldn’t help yearning for his days as a detective, the intellectual challenge of solving crimes, and the thrill of hunting criminals. He wished to use his new power to do good, yet there seemed not much chance of that.

  An Edo Castle messenger hovered near Sano. “Excuse me, Honorable Chamberlain,” he said, “but the shogun wants to see you in the palace right now.”

  On top of everything else, Sano was at the shogun’s command day and night. His most important duty was keeping his lord happy. He couldn’t refuse a summons, no matter how frivolous the reason usually turned out to be.

  As he exited his chamber, his two retainers, Marume and Fukida, accompanied him. Both had belonged to his detective corps when he was sosakan-sama; now they served him as bodyguards and assistants. They hastened through the anteroom, where the officials waiting to see Sano fretted around him, begging for a moment of his attention. Sano made his apologies and mentally tore himself away from all the work he had to do, while Marume and Fukida hustled him out the door.

  Inside the palace, Sano and his escorts walked up the long audience chamber, past the guards stationed against the walls. The shogun sat on the dais at the far end. He wore the cylindrical black cap of his rank, and a luxurious silk brocade robe whose green and gold hues harmonized with the landscape mural behind him. Lord Matsudaira knelt in the position of honor, below the shogun on his right. Sano knelt in his own customary position at the shogun’s left; his men knelt near him. As they bowed to their superiors, Sano thought how similar the two cousins were in appearance, yet how different.

  They both had the aristocratic Tokugawa features, but while the shogun’s were withered and meek, Lord Matsudaira’s were fleshed out by robust health and bold spirits. They were both fifty years of age and near the same height, but the shogun seemed much older and smaller due to his huddled posture. Lord Matsudaira, who outweighed his cousin, sat proudly erect. Although he wore robes in subdued colors, he dominated the room.

  “I’ve requested this meeting to announce some bad news,” Lord Matsudaira said. He maintained a cursory charade that his cousin held the power, and pretended to defer to him, but fooled no one except the shogun. Even though he now controlled the government, he still danced attendance on his cousin because if he didn’t, other men would, and he could lose his influence over the shogun to them. “Ejima Senzaemon has just died.”

  Sano experienced surprise and dismay. The shogun’s face took on a queasy, confused expression. “Who did you say?” His voice wavered with his constant fear of seeming stupid.

  “Ejima Senzaemon,” repeated Lord Matsudaira. “Ahh.” The shogun wrinkled his forehead, more baffled than enlightened. “Do I know him?”

  “Of course you do,” Lord Matsudaira said, barely hiding his impatience at his cousin’s slow wits. Sano could almost hear him thinking that he, not Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, should have been born to rule the regime.

  “Ejima was chief of the metsuke’’ Sano murmured helpfully. The metsuke was the intelligence service that employed spies to gather information all over Japan, for the purpose of monitoring troublemakers and guarding the regime’s power.

  “Really?” the shogun said. “When did he take office?”

  “About six months ago,” Sano said. Ejima had been appointed by Lord Matsudaira, who’d purged his predecessor, an ally of Chamberlain Yanagisawa.

  The shogun heaved a tired sigh. “There are so many new people in the, ahh, government these days. I can’t keep them straight.” Annoyance pinched his features. “It would be much easier for me if the same men would stay in the same posts. I don’t know why they can’t.”

  Nobody offered an explanation. The shogun didn’t know about the war between Lord Matsudaira and Chamberlain Yanagisawa, or Lord Matsudaira’s victory and the ensuing purge; no one had told him, and since he rarely left the palace, he saw little of what went on around him. He knew Yanagisawa had been exiled, but he wasn’t clear as to why. Neither Lord Matsudaira nor Yanagisawa had wanted him to know that they aspired to control the regime, lest he put them to death for treason. And now Lord Matsudaira wanted the shogun kept ignorant of the fact that he’d seized power and virtually ruled Japan. No one dared disobey his orders against telling the shogun. A conspiracy of silence pervaded Edo Castle.

  “How did Ejima die?” Sano asked Lord Matsudaira. “He fell off his horse during a race at the Edo Castle track,” Lord Matsudaira said. “Dear me,” the shogun said. “Horse racing is such a dangerous sport, perhaps it should be, ahh, prohibited.” “I recall hearing that Ejima was a particularly reckless rider,” Sano said, “and he’d been in accidents before.” “I don’t believe this was an accident,” Lord Matsudaira said, his tone sharp. “I suspect foul play.” “Oh?” Sano saw his surprise mirrored on his men’s faces. “Why?”

  “This isn’t the only recent, sudden death of a high official,” Lord Matsudaira said. “First there was Ono Shinnosuke, the supervisor of court ceremony, on New Year’s Day. In the spring, Sasamura Tomoya, highway commissioner, died. And just last month, Treasury Minister Moriwaki.”

  “But Ono and Sasamura died in their sleep, at home in bed,” Sano said. “The treasury minister fell in the bathtub and hit his head. Their deaths seem unrelated to Ejima’s.” “Don’t you see a pattern?” Lord Matsudaira’s manner was ominous with insinuation.

  “They were all, ahh, new to their posts, weren’t they?” the shogun piped up timidly. He had the air of a child playing a guessing game, hoping he had the right answer. “And they died soon after taking office?”

  “Precisely,” Lord Matsudaira said, surprised that the shogun remembered the men, let alone knew anything about them.

  They were all Lord Matsudaira’s trusted cronies, installed after the coup, Sano could have added, but didn’t.

  “These deaths may not have been as natural as they appeared,” said Lord Matsudaira. “They may be part of a plot to undermine the regime by eliminating key officials.”

  While Lord Matsudaira’s enemies inside and outside the bakufu were constantly plotting his downfall, Sano didn’t know what to think about a conspiracy to weaken the regime within a regi
me that he’d established. During the past six months, Sano had watched him change from a confident leader of a major Tokugawa branch clan to a nervous, distrustful man insecure in his new position. Frequent sabotage and violent attacks against his army by Yanagisawa’s outlaws fed his insecurity. Stolen power could be stolen from the thief, Sano supposed.

  “A plot against the regime?” Always susceptible to warnings about danger, the shogun gasped. He looked around as though he, not Lord Matsudaira, were under attack. “You must do something!” he exclaimed to his cousin.

  “Indeed I will,” Lord Matsudaira said. “Chamberlain Sano, I order you to investigate the deaths.” Although Sano was second-in-command to the shogun, he answered to Lord Matsudaira, as did everyone else in the government. In his haste to protect himself, Lord Matsudaira forgot to manipulate the shogun into giving the order. “Should they prove to be murders, you will identify and apprehend the killer before he can strike again.”

  A thrill of glad excitement coursed through Sano. Even if the deaths turned out to be natural or accidental, here was a welcome reprieve from paperwork. “As you wish, my lord.”

  “Not so fast,” the shogun said, narrowing his eyes in displeasure because Lord Matsudaira had bypassed his authority. “I seem to recall that Sano-san isn’t a detective anymore. Investigating crimes is no longer his job. You can’t ask him to, ahh, dirty his hands investigating those deaths.”

  Lord Matsudaira hastened to correct his mistake: “Sanosan is obliged to do whatever you wish, regardless of his position. And you wish him to protect your interests, don’t you?”

  Obstinacy set the shogun’s weak jaw. “But Chamberlain Sano is too busy.”

  “I don’t mind the extra work, Your Excellency.” Now that Sano had his opportunity for action, he wasn’t going to give it up. His spiritual energy soared at the prospect of a quest for truth and justice, which were fundamental to his personal code of honor. “I’m eager to be of service.”

  “Many thanks,” the shogun said with a peevish glare at Lord Matsudaira as well as at Sano, “but helping me run the country requires all your attention.”

  Now Sano remembered the million tasks that awaited him. He couldn’t leave his office for long and risk losing his tenuous control over the nation’s affairs. “Perhaps His Excellency is right,” he reluctantly conceded. “Perhaps this investigation is a matter for the police. They are ordinarily responsible for solving cases of mysterious death.”

  “A good idea,” the shogun said, then asked Lord Matsudaira with belligerent scorn, “Why didn’t you think of the police? Call them in.”

  “No. I must strongly advise you against involving the police,” Lord Matsudaira said hastily.

  Sano wondered why. Police Commissioner Hoshina was close to Lord Matsudaira, and Sano would have expected Lord Matsudaira to give Hoshina charge of the investigation. Something must have gone wrong between them, and too recently for the news to have spread.

  “Chamberlain Sano is the only man who can be trusted to get to the bottom of this matter,” Lord Matsudaira declared. It was true that during the faction war Sano had remained neutral, resisting much pressure to take sides with Yanagisawa or Lord Matsudaira. Afterward, he’d loyally served Lord Matsudaira in the interest of restoring peace. And long before the trouble started, he’d earned himself a reputation for independence of mind and pursuing the truth even to his own detriment.

  “Unless the murderer is caught, the regime’s officials will be killed off until there are none left,” Lord Matsudaira said to the shogun. “You’ll be all alone.” He spoke in a menacing voice: “And you wouldn’t like that, would you?”

  The shogun shrank on the dais. “Oh, no, indeed.” He cast a horrified glance around him, as though he envisioned his companions disappearing before his eyes.

  If Lord Matsudaira allowed attacks on his regime, he would lose face as well as power, and Sano knew that was worse than death for a proud man like him. “Then you must order Chamberlain Sano to drop everything, investigate the murders, and save you,” Lord Matsudaira said.

  “Yes. You’re right.” The shogun’s resistance wilted. “Sano-san, do whatever my cousin suggests.”

  “A wise decision, Your Excellency,” Lord Matsudaira said. A hint of a smile touched his mouth, expressing contempt for the shogun and pride at how easily he’d brought him to heel. He told Sano, “I’ve sent men to secure the racetrack and guard the corpse. They have orders that no one leaves or enters until after you’ve examined the scene. But you’d better go at once. The crowd will be getting restless.”

  Sano and his men bowed in farewell. As they left the room, Sano’s step was light, no matter what calamities might strike during his absence from the helm of the government. Never mind how much work would accumulate while he looked into Chief Ejima’s death; he felt like a prisoner released from jail. Here was his chance to apply all the might and resources of his new position to the cause of justice.

  Chapter 2

  Sentries at the Edo Castle main gate swung open the massive, ironclad portals. Out came a procession of mounted samurai, escorting a palanquin carried by husky bearers. Inside the palanquin, visible through its window, rode Lady Reiko, wife of Chamberlain Sano. Her delicate, beautiful young face shone with eager anticipation.

  A message she’d received this morning from her father had read, “Please come to the Court of Justice at the hour of the sheep today. There is a trial that I would like you to see.”

  Reiko was glad of the prospect of something to enliven her existence. Since Sano had become chamberlain, she’d had little to do except take care of their son Masahiro. Before, when Sano had been sosakan-sama, she’d helped him solve his cases, hunting clues in places he couldn’t go, using her contacts in the world of women. But she couldn’t help him run the government, and he was so busy she seldom saw him except when he came home exhausted at night. Reiko missed the old days, even though she was proud of her husband’s important position. Facing danger and death seemed preferable to whiling away her life as did other women of her class. It didn’t help that the danger of the times had kept her cooped up inside Edo Castle for most of the past six months.

  Her procession moved through the Hibiya administrative district, where the regime’s high officials lived and worked in stately mansions enclosed by high walls. In the streets, more soldiers than usual patrolled, on the lookout for fugitive outlaws from the Yanagisawa faction. Reiko glimpsed an estate that had burned down; only a heap of rubble remained. Arson was a favorite weapon of the outlaws.

  A news-seller, hawking broadsheets, strolled amid the officials, clerks, and servants who thronged the district. “Outlaws robbed a wealthy merchant and his family who were traveling on the Eastern Sea Road yesterday!” he cried. “They killed him and violated his wife!”

  The fugitives were desperate for money to support themselves and their cause, and they often brutalized citizens who had the bad luck to encounter them. Reiko wore a dagger under her sleeve, ready to defend herself if necessary.

  The procession halted outside Magistrate Ueda’s mansion, which housed the Court of Justice. Guards at the gate confronted Reiko’s entourage. “State your names,” they ordered. “Show your identification documents.”

  As her escorts complied, other guards peered suspiciously into her palanquin. Recently an outlaw had disguised himself as a porter, sneaked into an estate, pulled a dagger from the crate he carried, and slain five people before he was captured. Security had tightened everywhere. Now the guard recognized Reiko and let her procession through the gate. In the courtyard she climbed out of her palanquin. More police than usual stood guard over more than the usual number of prisoners awaiting trial. The prisoners were mostly samurai who appeared to be troops from Yanagisawa’s army. Shackled by heavy chains, they were disheveled and bloody, as if they’d fought savagely while resisting capture. No matter that Yanagisawa had been an evil, harsh master, Bushido— the samurai code of honor—demanded their unwaveri
ng loyalty to him. Reiko’s bodyguards led her past them and other prisoners, tough-looking commoners. Crime was rampant among the townspeople; many had taken advantage of the general disorder and an overworked police force.

  Inside the low, half-timbered mansion, Reiko entered the Court of Justice and found the trial ready to begin. On the dais at the end of the long hall sat her father, Magistrate Ueda, portly and dignified in his black ceremonial robes, one of two magistrates who maintained law and order and settled disputes in Edo. A secretary, equipped with a desk and writing implements, sat on either side of him. Except for the courtroom guards, only two other people were present. One was a doshin—a police patrol officer. Clad in a short kimono and cotton leggings, he knelt near the dais. At his waist he wore a single short sword and ajitte—a steel wand with two curved prongs above the hilt, used for parrying and catching the blade of an attacker’s sword. The other was the defendant, a woman dressed in a hemp robe. She knelt before the magistrate on a straw mat on the shirasu, an area of floor covered by white sand, symbol of the truth. Her hands were chained behind her; her long black hair straggled down her back.

  Magistrate Ueda acknowledged Reiko’s presence with a slight nod. He signaled one of his secretaries, who announced, ’The defendant is Yugao from Kanda district.”

  Reiko knelt at the side of the room, where she had a view of the woman’s face. It was sternly beautiful, with a high forehead and cheekbones, a thin, elegant nose, and carved lips. Yugao seemed a few years younger than Reiko’s own age of twenty-five. She sat with her head bowed, her gaze fixed on the white sand. Her slender body was rigid under the baggy robe.

  “Yuago is charged with the murders of her father, her mother, and her sister,” the secretary said.

  Shock jarred Reiko. Murdering one’s family was a heinous crime that repudiated the morals of society. Could this young woman have really done it? Reiko wondered why her father had wanted her to see this trial.