The Shogun's Daughter: A Novel of Feudal Japan (Sano Ichiro Mysteries) Read online

  Yanagisawa needed to get at the root of the shogun’s belated misgivings and dig it out, fast. He spoke loudly, to draw the shogun’s attention away from Yoshisato. “Why on earth should you wonder, at this late date, if Yoshisato is really your son?”

  The shogun pivoted, as if he were a Bunraku theater puppet and Yanagisawa had jerked the poles that controlled his body. “Last night I woke up to hear two men whispering outside my bedchamber. They said I’m not Yoshisato’s father.” A red, angry spot of blush colored each of his cheeks. “They said you are.”

  Yanagisawa cursed inwardly. He’d given orders, backed by threats, that no one was to talk about Yoshisato’s parentage near the shogun. He and Yoshisato tried to make sure that one of them was with the shogun at all times, to discourage gossip. But lately the shogun had insomnia; he couldn’t fall asleep unless he was alone in his chamber. He’d evidently heard someone whispering, through the thin walls.

  “Who was it?” Yanagisawa said, disguising his consternation with outrage. “Who dared to voice the blasphemous suggestion that I’m your son’s father?”

  Sheepishness weakened the shogun’s anger. “Ahh, I didn’t recognize their voices.”

  They were probably his guards or personal attendants, the only people allowed near the shogun while he was sleeping. “It was just idle speculation,” Yanagisawa said in a consoling, condescending tone. “You should ignore it.”

  “But I can’t!” The shogun flapped his hands. “It’s been happening every night for months.” He whispered loudly, “‘Yoshisato is Yanagisawa’s son. He’s not the shogun’s. Yanagisawa is Yoshisato’s father.’” Shamefaced, he added, “I didn’t mention it earlier because I was afraid to, ahh, have to take it seriously.”

  Yanagisawa realized that something more sinister was at play than careless gossip. The whispering represented a deliberate attempt to make the shogun believe that Yoshisato was a fraud. And Yanagisawa could guess who was responsible.

  “Those are just ignorant dolts talking,” Yoshisato scoffed. “Don’t listen, Honorable Father.”

  The shogun turned on him. “Don’t call me ‘Father’ when I’m not certain you have the right to do so!”

  Yoshisato stared, aghast. The shogun scowled at Yanagisawa, pointed at Yoshisato. “I want the truth: Is he my son, or have you put a cuckoo’s egg into my nest?”

  Yanagisawa deployed the wisdom, skill, and instinct gleaned from his long relationship with the shogun. He arranged his features into an expression of concern and sympathy. “The truth is that there seems to be a problem with your health.”

  “My health?” Always easily distracted by the mention of his favorite topic, always terrified of illness, the shogun gasped. “What sort of problem?”

  “Well, let me see,” Yanagisawa said. “You’ve been having insomnia, is that correct?”

  The shogun nodded, his clasped hands extended toward Yanagisawa, dreading yet eager for bad news.

  “And headaches?”

  “Very often.”

  “What about dizziness?”

  Yoshisato frowned, trying to figure out what Yanagisawa was doing.

  “… No,” the shogun said. Always vulnerable to suggestion, he changed his mind. “A little.”

  “Blurred vision?” Yanagisawa asked.

  The shogun’s pale complexion turned stark white. He nodded, convinced that he had blurred vision, whether he really did or not.

  “And you’ve started hearing strange voices.” Yanagisawa tapped his chin with his fingertip and nodded sagely, as he’d seen physicians do while considering a patient’s symptoms. “Hmm.” The sudden enlightenment on Yoshisato’s face was so comical that Yanagisawa almost laughed. “Taking your other symptoms into account, I would say the voices are hallucinations. The problem is just as I suspected.”

  “Merciful gods!” The shogun clutched at Yanagisawa. “What is wrong with me, pray tell?”

  “Nothing serious.” Yanagisawa’s tone belied his words. “You have a blockage of the energy flow to your brain.”

  The shogun’s eyes bulged with terror. “What should I do?”

  “Go immediately to your physician. He’ll set you right.”

  “Yes, yes.” The shogun hurried out of the room.

  “You made that up,” Yoshisato said scornfully.

  “I got us out of a tough spot,” Yanagisawa said. “You only made things worse.”

  Yoshisato regarded him with offense and disbelief. “How is the doctor supposed to treat the shogun for his imaginary illness?”

  “Oh, he’ll give him a harmless potion. That’s what he always does when the shogun fancies he’s sick.”

  “But those voices are real. How can a potion make the shogun stop hearing them?”

  “It can’t, but I can. The shogun will have a new set of guards and attendants before the day is over. They’ll be my people, who will prevent anyone from saying a word outside the shogun’s chamber. I’ll stop this campaign to poison the shogun’s mind against you.”

  Yoshisato’s ire turned to dismay. “The whispering is part of a campaign? Not just idle gossip?”

  “That should be obvious to you, if you’ve learned anything about the ways of the court.”

  “Who’s behind it? Ienobu?”

  Yanagisawa pointed his finger at Yoshisato. “Very astute of you, if a little slow. If you’re discredited, Ienobu will inherit the dictatorship. He’ll put both of us to death before the ink on the succession document is dry.”

  Realizing that his rival was craftier than he’d thought, Yoshisato looked younger and more vulnerable than he had moments ago. “What are we going to do about Ienobu?”

  “What do you mean, we?” Yanagisawa said with a sarcastic smile. “Are you admitting that you need me after all and you want me to stay?”

  The same anger, frustration, and helplessness that Yanagisawa had felt earlier now showed in Yoshisato’s expression. Yoshisato squared his shoulders and tightened his jaw, striving for dignity. “Yes.” His tone boasted that he was smart enough to recognize that he was in over his head and to accept help from a father he hated rather than perish on his own.

  Yanagisawa’s heart swelled with pride in Yoshisato. What a marvelous son! Would that the shogun never believed that Yoshisato’s fine qualities came from someone other than himself. Hiding his thoughts behind a patronizing smile, Yanagisawa said, “I’m glad that’s understood.”

  He anticipated an eventual clash with Ienobu. Thank the gods that the shogun didn’t have other, closer relatives to contend for the succession! Yanagisawa foresaw more struggles with Yoshisato, but at least he had one consolation.

  The shogun’s daughter was safely dead. She couldn’t produce a rival for Yoshisato.

  8

  “MY WIFE’S CHAMBER is this way.” Stiff with reluctance, Lord Tsunanori led Sano and Marume along a corridor through the women’s quarters of his estate.

  A powerful smell of incense and lye soap filled the air. Sano’s eyes watered. Marume coughed and said, “I’m glad the place has been disinfected, but they overdid it a little.”

  Lord Tsunanori opened a door in the lattice-and-paper wall, stood aside, and said, “This is where Tsuruhime died.”

  Crossing the threshold, Sano tried not to breathe. He felt queasy even though he’d witnessed death so many times that he’d lost count and there was no corpse here. He couldn’t help fearing contagion even though no spirits of disease could possibly withstand such thorough cleansing. The room was empty of furniture, the cabinet doors open to reveal vacant shelves and drawers, the floor bare. A damp, caustic-smelling patch darkened the wooden planks where the sickbed had been.

  “There’s nothing to see, but look as much as you want.” Lord Tsunanori sounded spitefully pleased to disappoint Sano. He waited in the doorway.

  Sano glanced into the cabinets. No soiled linens materialized. Nothing except the lavish mural of marsh scenes indicated that a wealthy, privileged woman had once lived here.

/>   “I had to have everything burned.” Lord Tsunanori spoke with more regret than he’d expressed about his wife’s death. “Her robes alone were worth a fortune. But they might have been contaminated with the smallpox, so they had to go.”

  “Are you finished?” Marume asked Sano, his voice muffled by the hand he held over his nose and mouth. The stout-hearted detective feared smallpox as much as Sano did.

  “Yes.” As Sano exited the chamber, his own relief was strong.

  Lord Tsunanori led the way to the outer portion of the mansion. “You said you wanted to talk to my people.” He ushered Sano and Marume into a vast room created by opening the partitions between three adjacent reception chambers. “Well, here they are.”

  A huge crowd overflowed out the open doors, onto the verandas, and into the garden. Daimyo estates could contain more than a thousand people. The lords had even bigger estates and retinues in their provinces. In Edo they kept only enough people to provide security, to maintain their property, and to wait on them when they were in town for the half of each year that Tokugawa law required, and to care for their women and children, whom the law required to stay year-round as hostages to their good behavior. Sano gazed at the troops mingled with servants, at officials crammed alongside women in silk kimonos. It was a truly impressive, huge pool of witnesses.

  “I’ll start with your wife’s personal attendants,” Sano said. “Detective Marume and I will question each one individually, in private.”

  Displeasure darkened Lord Tsunanori’s face. “I have a right to be present when you talk to them.”

  “It’s not your right by law,” Sano said. “It’s a courtesy that I can allow you or not. And I choose not to have you present.”

  As Lord Tsunanori started to bluster, a samurai official in the front row of the crowd beckoned him. Lord Tsunanori leaned down. The official whispered in his ear. Lord Tsunanori turned back to Sano with a smug, vindictive smile and said, “It seems you’re not the shogun’s second-in-command anymore. My man here tells me you’ve been demoted to Chief Rebuilding Magistrate. Funny, you didn’t mention the fact that you’re out of favor at court.”

  Sano felt the hot sting of humiliation as his heart sank. The bad news had caught up with him at a most unfortunate time. “My position doesn’t matter,” he retorted.

  “Oh, it does. You’ve lost the authority to tell me what to do.” Lord Tsunanori smirked. “Actually, I’ve changed my mind about letting you to talk to my people at all.”

  “In that case, I’ll change my mind about keeping my inquiries confidential,” Sano said. “I’ll tell the shogun my suspicions about Tsuruhime’s death.”

  Lord Tsunanori bit his flaccid lips as he vacillated between his fear of being implicated in the murder of the shogun’s daughter and his desire to best Sano. “All right,” he said sullenly. “You can talk to them. But only in my presence.”

  “Fine,” Sano said, thankful that Lord Tsunanori hadn’t called his bluff. He couldn’t afford to let Yanagisawa hear of his investigation when it had barely begun.

  Lord Tsunanori gathered Tsuruhime’s personal retinue from among the crowd. There were six guards, two palanquin bearers, and ten female attendants. Three of the women sported elaborate hairstyles and fashionable silk garments; they were ladies-in-waiting. Cotton garments marked the other seven females as servants. One of these wore a white drape that covered her head and cast a shadow over her face. Lord Tsunanori took the attendants and Sano and Marume to a smaller audience chamber. He seated Sano and Marume on the dais. His retainers organized the attendants in a line on the floor below, then stationed themselves by the door. Lord Tsunanori knelt beside Sano and said, “Go ahead.”

  Sano beckoned the first witness, a maid with a ruddy complexion. She came forward and bowed. “Did you ever see a stained old sheet among the things in your mistress’s cabinet?” Sano asked.

  Lord Tsunanori shook his head. The maid said, “No.”

  “Stop influencing her,” Sano said.

  “I’m not.”

  Sano stifled a sigh; he turned back to the maid. “Have you ever seen anyone acting strangely while handling your mistress’s clothes or bedding?”

  “No,” the maid said.

  “Do you know of anyone besides your mistress who’d recently had smallpox?”

  “No.” She sounded more eager to provide the answer Lord Tsunanori would deem acceptable than to tell the truth. He rewarded her with a smiling nod.

  Marume rolled his eyes. Sano said, “That will be all.” He called the next person in line, a stout guard. “Did you escort your lord’s wife when she went out of the estate?”

  “Yes,” the guard said.

  “Did she go out often during the ten days or so before she got smallpox?”

  The guard glanced at Lord Tsunanori, who nodded vigorously. “Yes, all the time.”

  Sano had difficulty envisioning Tsuruhime as a gadabout in the earthquake-ravaged city. “Did she go anyplace where there might have been people with smallpox?”

  “Yes, I think we went by the tent camps. In fact, I’m sure we did.”

  Sano thought the guard would probably swear that Tsuruhime had wallowed in the cesspools. He dismissed the man. As the interrogation continued in this fashion, Lord Tsunanori’s retainers wandered out of the room, probably to tell the other household members the questions Sano was asking and the answers Lord Tsunanori wanted them to give. Then came the woman with the white head drape. Her brown-and-lavender flowered kimono was made of cotton but finer than the usual indigo garb worn by servants. Walking up to the dais, she carried her slim, curved figure with a dignity unusual for a commoner.

  “What is your name?” Sano asked.

  “Namiji.” The woman bowed.

  Sano saw what the shadow cast by the white drape partially hid. Round scars stippled with pits marred her complexion. They disfigured the visible half of her mouth and nose, although the eye on that side of her face was clear and well shaped, its expression intelligent. This was the woman who’d had smallpox during her youth, who’d been Tsuruhime’s nurse. Instinct told Sano that she was the most important witness here and he must not let Lord Tsunanori meddle during her interrogation.

  He rose and said, “I’m arresting this woman.”

  Lord Tsunanori’s loose mouth dropped. “Why?” The woman shrank from Sano, pulling the drape tighter around her face.

  “She’s wanted by the law, for suspicion of thievery,” Sano improvised. “I recognized her name and description.”

  He stepped off the dais, seized her arm. She recoiled, protesting, “I’ve done nothing wrong!” Her voice was husky, as though the smallpox had scarred her throat.

  “You’re making that up.” Caught between disbelief and offense, Lord Tsunanori said, “You can’t go around taking people’s servants.”

  “Watch me,” Sano said.

  Marume took the nurse’s other arm and helped Sano pull her toward the door. Lord Tsunanori and his retainers hurried after them. Sano was afraid they would use force to stop him and then would come the fight he wanted to avoid, that could provoke the entire daimyo class into rebellion. But he had to secure his witness.

  Lord Tsunanori pushed past Sano and Marume in the corridor, flung out his arms to block their passage, and sputtered, “I won’t let you do this!”

  “Why are you so afraid?” Sano countered. “What is it you think she’ll say when she’s not under your control?”

  Lord Tsunanori rolled his tongue under his lips. His gaze moved from Sano to the nurse. Then he spoke with his usual arrogant confidence. “Go ahead, take her. See if I care.”

  Sano and Marume escorted the nurse from the mansion. She went without resisting. Lord Tsunanori didn’t follow them outside. His sentries watched Sano and Marume join their troops in the street. Sano saw two bearers carrying a palanquin for hire. He waved them over. When they set the black wooden sedan chair on the ground, he told Namiji, “Get in.”

  Still holding
the drape over her face, she settled herself in the shadowed interior of the palanquin. Sano spoke to his two troops, in a low voice that she wouldn’t hear. “Take her to my estate. Tell my wife that she’s Namiji, the nurse who took care of the shogun’s daughter. My wife will know what to do with her.” Reiko would be happy to question her and find out what she knew about the murder. “Don’t tell her where you’re taking her or why.”

  The troops rode off, escorting the bearers and palanquin toward the castle. Sano and Marume mounted their horses.

  “Where are we going?” Marume asked.

  “To begin my work as Chief Rebuilding Magistrate. Better to let Yanagisawa think I’m bowing to his authority than let him suspect I’m working against him behind his back.”

  As they rode around a team of oxcarts laden with stones, Marume said, “A fat lot we learned from that disgusting Lord Tsunanori.”

  “On the contrary,” Sano said. “He told us that he had reason to kill his wife. And who would have had better opportunity than him, the lord of the estate?”

  “But we came up empty as far as Yanagisawa is concerned.”

  Sano nodded with regret. “I would have liked to ask Lord Tsunanori if Yanagisawa or any of his people had been in the estate shortly before Tsuruhime took ill. But Lord Tsunanori would have guessed that I’m trying to connect Yanagisawa with her death.”

  “He would have run straight to Yanagisawa and told him,” Marume agreed. “Then the investigation wouldn’t be a secret any longer.”

  “And Lord Tsunanori wouldn’t have to worry that it might hurt him, because I would be too busy fighting Yanagisawa for my life.” Sano mulled over his encounter with Lord Tsunanori. “We also learned that Lord Tsunanori is hiding something. Why else would he have interfered while I questioned his people?”

  “Yes, and he was pretty quick to jump to the conclusion that his wife had been murdered and he’s a suspect,” Marume said. “That looked like a guilty conscience. When Lady Nobuko came to see you, did she mention that he hated his wife and wanted to be rid of her?”

  “No.” Sano felt a surge of anger toward Lady Nobuko. Not only did he not have evidence against Yanagisawa; he had an accomplice who lied to him.