The Shogun's Daughter (13 page)

Resisting the urge to run, Taeko meekly obeyed. Despite her fear, she wanted to impress Masahiro. This was her chance.

The housekeeper led her into a big tent. Peasant women and girls were washing clothes and linens in huge tubs of boiling-hot water. Mountains of more dirty laundry waited. Steam filled the air, which smelled of lye soap that made Taeko’s eyes burn.

“Wash those.” The housekeeper pointed to baskets ranged around a tub.

The baskets contained men’s loincloths. The long strips of white cotton fabric were soiled and rank. Taeko’s stomach turned. She gingerly picked up some cloths, dropped them in the steamy water, and didn’t know what to do next. At home the maids did the laundry.

“They’re not going to wash themselves, idiot!” The housekeeper picked up a ceramic jar, poured soap into the tub, and hit Taeko hard on the back of her head. She shoved a washboard into Taeko’s hands. “Start scrubbing!”

Taeko gasped with pain and shock. Nobody had ever hit her before, except her brother when they were playing. The other women laughed. Taeko wanted to tell her father that the housekeeper had hit her. He was the best fighter in Edo; he would teach the mean old woman a lesson. But her father was away. And Taeko must help Masahiro.

Swallowing her pride and distaste, she thrust her hand into the hot, caustic water, picked up a dirty loincloth, and began scrubbing.

*   *   *

AS HIRATA RODE
away from the Ryōgoku Bridge, his cheek and mouth hurt where Sano had hit him. He wished Sano had hit him harder; he was so angry at himself. He’d managed to make things worse! Belatedly he realized he shouldn’t have approached Sano until after he’d dealt with Tahara, Deguchi, and Kitano. He cursed his mistake.

And here they came. Their aura pulsed faintly, like a whispered taunt, in the distance. Hirata wanted to gallop his horse in the opposite direction. But he’d promised Sano, and himself, that he would set things right.

He had five days.

The aura’s rhythmic cadence boomed more distinctly, thrumming along his nerves. Hirata followed the aura through the Nihonbashi merchant quarter. The men were leading him on, to a location they’d chosen for this first encounter in the four months since he’d told them he knew the truth about them and wanted to quit the secret society.

In a poor neighborhood that hadn’t yet been rebuilt, the aura magnified to such an intensity that the landscape of Hirata’s mind shivered with every boom. Colored lightning veined his vision. He could barely see the piled ruins that still lined the streets or hear the construction noises from other parts of the city. At the end of the street, where the neighborhood gate was crushed under two collapsed houses, wind spun up from the ground. A funnel cloud of debris formed. Hirata halted his mount. The aura shut off suddenly. The whirlwind dissipated. The debris settled around three men standing side by side.

Panic constricted Hirata’s lungs; he could hardly breathe. His horse reared and whinnied. As Hirata calmed the horse, Tahara, Deguchi, and Kitano strolled toward him as casually as if they’d just stepped out of a teahouse. Hirata dismounted and walked to meet them. It took every bit of courage he could muster.

“Hello, stranger,” said Tahara, the leader of the society, who walked between his two comrades. His voice was simultaneously smooth and rough, like rapids flowing over jagged boulders. A black surcoat with broad epaulets, a flowing bronze silk kimono, and wide trousers clothed his athletic physique. A twinkle in his deep black eyes, and a left eyebrow that was higher than the right, gave his strong, regular features a rakish charm.

“Look what the wind blew in.” Hirata echoed the words he’d heard Marume say about him earlier.

Deguchi, the priest with the shaved head, dressed in a saffron-dyed robe, smiled. He never spoke; he was mute. When he and Tahara and Kitano had tried to steal the magic spell book from Ozuno the first time, Ozuno had tried to strangle Deguchi and damaged his vocal cords. His ageless oval face had an eerie, radiant beauty despite the fact that it was plain, with a flat nose and pursed mouth. His heavily lidded eyes glowed with sweetness and menace.

“You led us on a merry chase,” Kitano said. In his fifties, gray-haired but robust, he wore the iron helmet and armor tunic of a soldier. A smile crinkled his eyes, but the rest of his face was an immobile mesh of scars. During the battle, Ozuno had cut Kitano’s face, severing the nerves. “A lot of good it did you, though. Here you are, back in the fold with us.”

“No, I’m not,” Hirata said as the three men surrounded him. They were clean, neatly groomed, and fresh. During the chase across Japan they’d probably slept in nice inns and eaten well while they let him tire himself out. Furious at them for playing with him, he said, “I’m only with you for as long as it takes to tell you this: I quit. I’m dissolving the secret society.”

“Oh, please.” Tahara grimaced. “Not this foolishness again.”

“Haven’t you gotten it through your head yet?” Kitano said. “Once you’re in the society, you can’t quit.”

Deguchi drew his index finger across his smooth throat. Hirata felt his own neck muscles contract as he imagined the cold graze of a blade. The second time the men had tried to steal the spell book, they’d succeeded, and they’d killed Ozuno. They could kill Hirata. But he knew of one person who’d quit the society and lived to tell, an itinerant monk he’d met via a tip from a friend. Hirata clung to the hope that he, too, could walk away from them and survive.

“I’m changing the rule,” Hirata said.

“How?” Tahara said, scornful and amused.

“Your lord would be interested to know what you’re up to.” Hirata moved his gaze to Kitano. “So would yours.” He told Deguchi, “And so would the authorities at Zōjō Temple. Unless you all agree to dissolve the society and never summon the ghost again, I’m going to tell your masters. They won’t like you putting them in trouble with the regime.” If Tahara, Deguchi, and Kitano’s conspiracy were exposed, their masters would be reprimanded and heavily fined, if not put to death for harboring traitors. “They’ll kill you to protect themselves.”

“Oh, come now,” Kitano said impatiently. “There’s not an army that can stand up to us. If you report us, it will only force us to kill a lot of innocent people.”

“Sano-
san
among them,” Tahara said. Deguchi nodded.

The threat to Sano was the trio’s strongest hold on Hirata.

“Enough of your silly threats,” Kitano said. “It’s time for another ritual.”

Frantic, Hirata said, “No.” He could think of nothing else to do except fight them. If he were dead, killing Sano would serve them no purpose. Despite the anguishing thought of his family, Hirata reached for his sword.

An invisible energy wave issued from the three men. It hit Hirata with a solid, numbing force. His hand stopped short of his weapon. He struggled to move it but couldn’t. The numbness spread up his arm and through his nerves, paralyzing him. The force exerted by Tahara’s, Kitano’s, and Deguchi’s will reduced Hirata’s whole body to a heavy, inert mass of flesh. The only movable parts were his eyes. They rolled wildly with terror. He tried to speak but couldn’t.

The other men watched him with amusement. Tahara said, “I think he wants to say something. Shall we let him?”

“Why not?” Kitano said.

Their energy waned slightly. The numbness left Hirata’s throat, lips, and tongue. He said, “If you have the power to do things like this, why do you need me? Why can’t you do whatever the ghost wants by yourselves?”

“The ghost has special plans for you.” Tahara sounded as if he begrudged Hirata the privilege. “In the meantime, you’re doing the ritual.”

Hirata tried to protest, but the numbness silenced him again.

“Get on your horse,” Tahara said.

Animation suddenly returned to Hirata’s muscles. His legs walked him to his horse. His foot placed itself in the stirrup; his hands pulled him onto the horse; his rear end sat in the saddle. Tahara grasped the reins. He and Deguchi and Kitano led the horse, with Hirata their captive rider, through the ruined streets toward the hills outside town.

13

A GENTLE SPRING
twilight descended on the city as Sano and Marume rode up to Edo Castle. The sky was radiant in shades of pink, gold, and lavender. The noise from hammers and saws ceased. Dust settled out of the cooling air.

“Peace at last,” Marume said with relief.

Sano thought Edo was holding its breath, waiting for tomorrow’s onslaught of rebuilding. Nearing the gate, he looked for the family he’d seen that morning. He saw human shapes huddled along the avenue, but he couldn’t tell which were theirs. Inside the castle he heard the ordinary sounds of evening—footsteps and horses’ hooves on stone pavement, talk and laughter from sentries in the covered corridors and watchtowers along the walls. Patrol guards carrying lanterns passed. Everything had a semblance of normalcy. At Sano’s estate, shadows softened the irregular lines of walls and buildings still under reconstruction. Sentries by the recently finished guardhouse let Sano and Marume in the new gate. Sano and Marume left their horses with a stable boy. As Sano walked through the inner precinct, birds trilled. After the earthquake, birds had been scarce, as if most of them had sensed the earthquake coming and flown away. Any that had stayed had been devoured by starving citizens, in spite of the Buddhist prohibition against eating meat and the Tokugawa law against hunting. But the canals and highways were now clear of earthquake debris, and transport of food into the city had resumed. The birds had returned to nest in Edo Castle. It was a good omen, Sano hoped.

Flames in stone lanterns lit his path to his mansion. Repairs to its front section, where he conducted business, had been completed. Reiko, Masahiro, and Akiko appeared on the veranda. They called excitedly to Sano. He smiled, thankful for them. That his family had survived the earthquake was a miracle. He could savor their togetherness despite the tribulations of politics.

“Masahiro and I have a lot to tell you,” Reiko said as Sano climbed the steps.

“I have a lot to tell you,” Sano said.

Akiko said, “Papa!” and held up her arms to him.

She always brightened his spirits. He picked her up, hugged her, and set her down. “You’re getting so big. Pretty soon I won’t be able to lift you anymore.”

They went into the house. As Sano removed his shoes and hung his swords on the rack in the entryway, Reiko asked, “Where have you been all day?”

“Working at my new job, mostly.” Sano told her about the accident. “The engineer is under a lot of pressure to finish the bridge. The supports weren’t installed properly. He’s to blame for six deaths. I had to arrest him for negligence.” Sano didn’t mention his disturbing encounter with Hirata. “Let’s have dinner while we talk about our investigation.”

They went to the private chambers, which weren’t quite refinished; some rooms still needed floors varnished and tatami mats laid. The parlor still contained displaced furniture and trunks of clothes. Sano and his family ate rice, grilled seafood, and soup made with tofu and spring greens.

“I’m glad it’s not dried fish and seaweed and pickles anymore,” Akiko said, referring to the preserved edibles they’d relied on for months. “I’m sick of earthquake food.”

Sano smiled at her innocent pleasure in the return of good meals to their table.

“Did you find evidence that Yanagisawa murdered the shogun’s daughter?” Reiko asked.

“Not exactly.” Sano described his visit to Lord Tsunanori’s estate. “If I didn’t want to believe Yanagisawa killed her, Lord Tsunanori would be my favorite suspect.” He swallowed a mouthful of tea. “Did you talk to that nurse I sent you?”

“I did. What a nasty woman! She deliberately coughed in my face, and she taunted me about giving me smallpox!” Reiko scrubbed her face with a napkin. “She hated Tsuruhime. And she’s had smallpox. She could have gone to the tent camps, found someone with smallpox, then brought back their soiled bedsheet and put it in with Tsuruhime’s things without any harm to herself. If
I
didn’t want to believe Yanagisawa is guilty, she would be
my
favorite suspect.” Reiko thought a moment. “Tsuruhime is starting to sound not very nice. If everybody hated her, it will be hard to figure out who killed her. But someone inside her house would have had an easier time killing her than someone from outside.”

“Not everybody hated her.” Masahiro told Sano, “I got inside Lord Tsunanori’s estate today.” He described the young samurai whom the others had teased. “It sounded as if he liked her too much.”

“If there was an affair between him and Tsuruhime, that adds new complications,” Sano said, interested. “What else did you find out?”

“Nothing.” Masahiro’s eyes clouded, as if with a troubling memory. “When he ran out of the estate, I lost him. I can go back tomorrow and talk to him.”

“All right.” Sano would give Masahiro a chance to pursue the lead he’d found.

“The nurse did tell me something that implicates Yanagisawa,” Reiko said. “Yoshisato came to call on Tsuruhime shortly before she took ill.”

Sano felt a stir of excitement followed by trepidation.

“That means Yoshisato had a chance to put the infected sheet in her room,” Masahiro said. “Yanagisawa could have told him to. Aren’t you glad?”

“Yes, because this could be construed as evidence against Yanagisawa. No, because it’s also evidence against the shogun’s heir. We have to be careful with it.” Sano turned to Reiko. “Do you believe the nurse’s story?”

“She said Tsuruhime’s servants and ladies-in-waiting can confirm it.”

Although it connected Yanagisawa with Tsuruhime’s death, Sano had mixed feelings. Was Yoshisato a willing participant in Yanagisawa’s plan to seize power? Or had Yanagisawa forced him to pose as the shogun’s long-lost son? Sano thought of Yanagisawa’s elder son, Yoritomo, and recalled what Hirata had told him today. Even if the secret society were to blame for Yoritomo’s death, Sano still felt responsible for creating the circumstances for it to occur. Sano hated to destroy another young life. But he’d undertaken this investigation with full knowledge of where it might lead. If he brought down Yanagisawa, then Yoshisato would probably go down, too. And Yoshisato might be far from an innocent pawn. He might be guilty of murdering Tsuruhime as well as becoming her father’s heir by fraud.