The Shogun's Daughter (44 page)

Reiko made no move to take the box. “Why are you here? Our business is finished.”

Lady Nobuko raised her eyebrows at Reiko’s discourtesy. She set the box by the bed. “I wanted to express my condolences and to thank you and your husband for bringing Lord Tsunanori to justice.” She looked extraordinarily well. The spasm around her eye was slight today. “When he commits
seppuku,
I shall be there to watch.” Her gaunt face seemed fuller, with satisfaction. “My only regret is that he won’t suffer for as long as Tsuruhime did. All in all, things couldn’t have turned out better.”

Reiko couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “A young man was burned to death. You call that good?”

“Yoshisato deserved to die,” Lady Nobuko said, unfazed by Reiko’s repugnance. “And Yanagisawa deserves to be punished for his plot to take over the regime. The loss of his pawn was divine retribution.”

“There was nothing divine about it,” Reiko said. “Korika murdered Yoshisato. She’s dead, too. Don’t you care? Or are you just glad that the shogun decided she was solely to blame and he’s not punishing you?”

Lady Nobuko smiled condescendingly. “You young women think the world should dance to your whims. When you’re my age, you’ll understand that everything has a price, and sometimes one must pay it and be glad to take whatever one can get.”

Reiko thought her innocent baby had paid the ultimate price of everything that had happened since she and Sano had agreed to investigate Tsuruhime’s death. She hated Lady Nobuko for her selfish, cynical attitude.

“Ienobu is going to be the next shogun,” Reiko said. “Is that a price you’re glad to pay?”

“Ienobu is a legitimate Tokugawa.”

Reiko couldn’t reveal that Ienobu had put Korika up to murdering Yoshisato and Lord Tsunanori up to murdering Tsuruhime, exercising his strange, manipulative effect on both. She’d promised Sano that she would keep it secret. Lest she yield to the temptation to blurt it out and smack the contentment off Lady Nobuko’s face, Reiko said quietly, “Please go.”

*   *   *

OUTSIDE THE PALACE,
Yanagisawa stormed through the grounds. Buried up to his chin in the ruins of his hopes, suffocating in anger, he could hardly breathe.

He’d lost his chance to rule Japan. He couldn’t make up a new prophecy and style one of his other sons as the shogun’s offspring. The shogun wouldn’t fall for that again.

Sano had lived to plague him another day. And with Ienobu ensconced as the shogun’s heir, Yanagisawa’s days were numbered.

How could this have happened? What in hell was he going to do?

Terror sped Yanagisawa along the paths. There was no place safe to go. Aimless flight took him to the garden behind the palace. Ienobu shuffled toward him, accompanied by two guards. Yanagisawa’s anger blasted at Ienobu, like a torch flame blown by the wind. Ienobu had exploited Yoshisato’s murder. Ienobu had won.

Yanagisawa stalked over to Ienobu. “I’ll see that you never become shogun.”

Ienobu grinned. “On the contrary—you’re going to make sure I do.”

Yanagisawa stared, incredulous. “Are you insane? I’ll kill you first.”

The guards reached for their swords. Ienobu said to them, “Let us have a private word.” After they’d moved out of earshot, he said, “You’ll change your attitude when you hear the news I have for you.” He spoke in a dramatic whisper: “Yoshisato is alive.”

Surprise momentarily tied Yanagisawa’s tongue. Then he laughed in derision. “Don’t talk nonsense.” But Ienobu’s words gave credence to his secret, irrational notion that Yoshisato wasn’t dead, that Yoshisato was coming back.

“Yoshisato didn’t die in that fire. He wasn’t murdered.” Ienobu’s bulging eyes gleamed. He knew he had Yanagisawa as surely as if he’d closed his fist around Yanagisawa’s heart.

Resisting the desire to believe a man he hated and distrusted, Yanagisawa turned away.

“Don’t you want to know what really happened the night of the fire?”

Yanagisawa kept his back to Ienobu, but he was immobilized.

“I became privy to certain conversations between Lady Nobuko and her lady-in-waiting. I deduced that Korika wanted to harm Yoshisato because of what you supposedly did to her mistress. I recognized an opportunity.”

Smug pride inflected Ienobu’s tone. Yanagisawa listened in spite of himself as Ienobu said, “The next day I paid Korika a visit. I suggested that fire was a good way to kill someone and make it look like an accident. I said that if she went out that night, she would be able to move freely without being observed. That night I arranged for the castle guards to be absent from their posts. Korika went to the heir’s residence. Five of my men got there first. They plugged the well. They killed Yoshisato’s personal bodyguards. Then they went after Yoshisato. He put up quite a fight, but they tied him up and drugged him. Then they waited.”

Yanagisawa envisioned his son struggling as the intruders overpowered him. He turned to stare, eyes wide with shock, at Ienobu.

“Soon Korika arrived. She set the fire and ran away. Before the fire bells started ringing, before the house burned down, my men dragged the dead guards inside. Then they carried Yoshisato out. During the uproar when everyone was rushing to put out the fire, nobody paid attention to my men carrying a trunk out the back gate of the castle.”

Yanagisawa’s wish to believe the story was so fierce, it felt like a wild beast wrestling with the rational part of him that doubted Ienobu’s scenario. “There were four corpses in the ruins. Everybody was accounted for. Yoshisato didn’t get out alive.”

“The arithmetic was a slight problem.” Ienobu chuckled. “I solved it by having my men kill one of their comrades. They left his body in Yoshisato’s chamber. He was the right size.”

This ruthlessness sounded just like the man Yanagisawa had always suspected Ienobu to be. This detail fed the beast in his mind that fought to convince him that Ienobu was telling the truth. The politician in him scorned the story as pure fabrication.

“Why would you save Yoshisato?” Yanagisawa demanded. “If he’s alive, he’s the shogun’s first choice for an heir. He’s a threat to you.”

“Because I need him,” Ienobu said. “He’s not the only threat. There are people who don’t want me to be the next shogun. I want you to help me neutralize my opposition. You’re good at that kind of thing. When I’m shogun, you can have Yoshisato back.”

The cruel manipulation, the nerve, the self-delusion of the man! “I was right. You are insane. I would never lift a finger to help you. And I won’t listen to any more of this.” Yanagisawa vehemently denied his own cherished delusion. “Yoshisato is dead. You can’t trick me into thinking otherwise.”

“Here’s proof that he’s alive.” With a sly smile, Ienobu reached under his sash and pulled out a sheet of white paper, which he offered to Yanagisawa.

Despite his better judgment, Yanagisawa snatched the paper and opened it. He saw black characters written in Yoshisato’s bold, graceful, yet precise hand. The letter was dated the day after the fire. Even as tears of yearning stung his eyes, Yanagisawa said, “This is a forgery.”

“Don’t be so quick to debunk it. Read it first.”

Against his will, Yanagisawa read:

Honorable Adoptive Father:

You’ve really outdone yourself this time. You got me kidnapped by your enemy Ienobu! I never imagined that anyone could match you in ruthlessness, but he does. If you ever want to see me again, you’d better cooperate with him. On second thought, it would be better for you if you didn’t cooperate. Because if I get out of here alive, I’m going to kill you. After all the trouble your schemes have caused me, and my poor mother, you deserve to rot in hell.

Yoshisato

Yanagisawa could almost hear Yoshisato speaking the words. Ienobu couldn’t have written them. Ienobu couldn’t have known how Yoshisato and Yanagisawa talked to each other.

“Handwriting is easily faked, but the voice is more difficult.” Ienobu clucked his tongue. “Yoshisato doesn’t like you very much, does he?”

Yanagisawa wanted to bury his face in the letter and weep with the joy of a father who finally believes that his dead child has been miraculously resurrected. Instead he glared at Ienobu, who’d made him suffer the anguish of thinking Yoshisato had been murdered and now sought to use him. He grabbed the front of Ienobu’s robe.

“Where is he?”

“In a safe, secret place, with my men,” Ienobu said. “Take your hands off me.”

The guards started toward Yanagisawa. He flung Ienobu away from him. “The shogun will be overjoyed to hear that his son is alive. He’ll make you tell me where Yoshisato is.”

“You won’t breathe a word of this conversation to him or anyone else.” Ienobu’s eyes gleamed; he enjoyed Yanagisawa’s distress. “If you do, I’ll have Yoshisato killed. You’ll never see him again.”

Yanagisawa boiled with fury and hatred. “I’ll kill you!”

“If anything bad happens to me, or if you refuse to support me as the next shogun, Yoshisato dies,” Ienobu said.

In spite of himself Yanagisawa felt a grudging esteem for Ienobu, who’d bettered him in imagination and audacity. Yanagisawa had never dreamed of, let alone attempted, such a move.

“If you cooperate with me, you get him back safe and sound.” Ienobu smiled expectantly, confidently. “Well? Do we have a deal?”

The wild beast inside Yanagisawa thrashed and bellowed. Yanagisawa desperately wanted Yoshisato to return. Rationality screamed at him not to be deceived. “You’ve no reason to bring Yoshisato back. If you do, the shogun will disinherit you in favor of him. You’re going to string me along, while I dispatch your enemies for you, until you’re shogun. And then you’ll kill Yoshisato so that he can’t raise a revolt against you.”

“That’s a definite possibility,” Ienobu agreed. “But remember: Unless you cooperate, Yoshisato dies. For real.”

All his life Yanagisawa had taken pride in his ability to find a way around a problem. Now he found none, saw no choice but the bargain offered by Ienobu. Desperation pushed him to accept even though he didn’t trust Ienobu to uphold his part of the bargain, even though it was so humiliating. He would accept for Yoshisato’s sake.

“All right.” The words tasted as foul as excrement in Yanagisawa’s mouth. “You win.”

Ienobu nodded as if he’d never doubted he would. “By the way, you can keep your post as chamberlain. It will give you the authority to do what you need to do for me. Oh, and when you dispatch my enemies, start with your friend Sano.” He turned and shuffled over to his guards. They accompanied him into the palace.

Yanagisawa stood alone in the garden, consumed by rage yet less bereft and lost than when he’d walked out of the assembly. “You win for now,” he said to the absent Ienobu. “But I’m going to find Yoshisato. And I swear that as soon as he’s safe, I will kill you, you bastard.”

*   *   *

STILL GROGGY FROM
the medicine the doctor had given her, Taeko sat on the veranda, her right arm in a sling, watching the ducks swim in the pond. Yesterday seemed like a dream. Her shoulder had hurt so bad that it had blanked out her memory of much that had happened. She did recall her mother crying over her, the doctor saying her shoulder had been dislocated, and fainting because of the awful pain when he reset it in the socket. The rest was hard to believe.

Masahiro came out of the house. Taeko snapped fully alert. He looked as shy as she felt with him. He crouched near her and asked, “How’s your shoulder?”

Looking sideways at him, Taeko said, “Better.”

He nodded, then frowned. “You shouldn’t have climbed up on the tower. It was stupid and dangerous. When you caught me, we could have both fallen and been killed!”

Taeko was relieved as well as saddened by his scolding. The scene on the tower really had happened. She glanced at Masahiro’s ankle. Just above the top of his white sock was a purple bruise that encircled his ankle, dotted with raw, red gouges from her fingernails.

Masahiro sighed. “That’s not what I meant to say.” He said gruffly, “You saved my life. Thank you.”

She heard new respect in his voice. It gave her the confidence to look directly at him. Their eyes met. His were serious, without the usual annoyance, teasing, or condescending affection.

“Why?” Masahiro sounded puzzled. “Why did you risk your life to save me?”

Taeko didn’t have the words to express her feelings, but she couldn’t hide them, either. As she gazed at Masahiro, all her love shone out from her eyes.

His eyes darkened with astonishment. A shadow of fear crossed his expression. This boy Taeko had thought wasn’t afraid of anything was afraid of how much she cared for him, how much she was willing to do for his sake. Something in the air changed. The garden shimmered and flowed, like a painting with water poured on it. Masahiro’s image blurred. Taeko had a sense that years had passed in an instant. She knew, without knowing how she knew, that she was seeing the future. Someday, when she and Masahiro were older, they would be much more to each other than they were now. Their fates were connected.

Clarity returned to the world. Masahiro abruptly stood up. He looked confused, as if he’d experienced something he didn’t understand and didn’t know whether he liked. His trousers covered the bruise around his ankle, but Taeko knew it was there. She had the strange, comforting idea that she’d put her mark on Masahiro.

Without a word he went into the house. Taeko had no urge to run after him. She smiled.

He could leave, and she didn’t mind, because he would come back to her. He would always go, but he would always have to come back.

*   *   *

SANO HESITATED AT
the threshold of Reiko’s chamber. His wife was just as he’d left her this morning—in bed, her tear-swollen eyes gazing into space, her frail hands clasped over her empty womb. When he knelt at her side, she looked at him as if she were alone with her grief on one side of an ocean and he on the other with the rest of the world.

“Are you feeling better?” Sano asked.

The misery on her face intensified. He knew he’d said the wrong thing. Everything he’d said since he’d come home and found her weeping over their stillborn son had been wrong. He couldn’t seem to find the right thing to say.