The Iris Fan

24

A cold, uncomfortable ferryboat ride took Sano and Marume across the Sumida River. Beyond the entertainment district in Honjo on the other side, past the vegetable markets along the canals, rich government officials lived in villas where they could take refuge from the summer squalor of the city. At Lord Ienobu’s villa, porters carried in hampers and trunks brought from the castle as Sano and Marume arrived.

“I’d rather shovel dung than give Lord Ienobu this message,” Marume said.

“An order is an order.” Never had Sano been charged with such a distasteful errand. It was small comfort that he’d thwarted Yanagisawa’s scheme to seize power. He already regretted his decision, but what else could he have done? Let Madam Chizuru die for a crime she hadn’t committed? And Yanagisawa probably would have killed her granddaughter to erase the evidence of his role in her confession.

The granddaughter had reminded Sano of Akiko.

The sentry at the guardhouse told Sano, “You can come in. Your man stays outside. Give me your swords first.” Sano handed them over. The guard frisked him, checking for hidden weapons, then led him into the reception chamber. Lord Ienobu knelt on the dais, Manabe beside him. Manabe puffed on a tobacco pipe.

“Have you come to rub salt in my wounds?” Ienobu asked. Yesterday he’d been within arm’s reach of ruling Japan. Today he looked like a crippled beggar plucked off the street and dressed up in opulent silk robes. His face was as gray as old meat.

“No,” Sano said. “The shogun has disowned Yoshisato and demoted Yanagisawa. He ordered me to bring you back to the castle so he can reinstate you as his heir.”

The tobacco pipe fell from Manabe’s open mouth. An odd, serene smile crept across Lord Ienobu’s face. He said to Manabe, “Didn’t I tell you?” He laughed a wheezy chuckle. “Better put out that fire.” Smoke rose from embers on the floor mat in front of Manabe; the smell of burning straw filled the room. Manabe picked up his pipe and tamped out the fire with his calloused hand. Lord Ienobu asked Sano, “What occasioned my uncle’s change of heart?”

Sano was not only puzzled by Lord Ienobu’s reaction but offended. The shogun’s change of heart was a huge blow to honor and decency as well as to Sano, and Lord Ienobu seemed to take it for granted as his due! “His Excellency learned that Madam Chizuru’s confession was false and Yanagisawa blackmailed her into incriminating you.”

Lord Ienobu laughed in exultation, slapping his bony knee. Color returned to his face, as if from an infusion of fresh blood. “How did he find out?”

“Madam Chizuru told my wife. I told the shogun.”

“You did?” Lord Ienobu’s eyebrows lifted; he seemed more surprised by this second piece of news than the first. “Why, when you could have kept quiet and let me die?”

“You were wrongfully incriminated.” Never had Sano hated conceding any point as much as this one. The truth was a double-edged sword, and this time it had cut him instead of his enemy. “It was the right thing for me to do.”

“I’m moved, Sano-san.” Genuine sincerity inflected Ienobu’s raspy voice. “You did me a good turn even though you don’t like me.”

“I hope it’s the last thing I ever do for you,” Sano said, tasting his own bitterness.

“I suppose I owe you something in return. What would you like?”

“I’d like you to refuse the dictatorship and crawl back under your rock.”

Angered by the insult to his lord, Manabe made a move toward Sano, but Ienobu waved him down and said, “Come now, Sano-san, don’t take that attitude. Suppose we let bygones be bygones, and when I’m shogun, I’ll make you my chamberlain. You can help me rule Japan.”

That Ienobu would keep him alive, let alone want him in his regime! Then Sano recalled that Ienobu’s battle for power wasn’t over yet. Powerful men-daimyo and Tokugawa branch clan heads-didn’t want him to be shogun, and Yanagisawa and Yoshisato were still lurking in the wings. Ienobu needed all the help he could get. Sano knew he should consider Ienobu’s proposition, for his family’s sake if not his own, but he was appalled by the conditions attached.

“Which bygones do you mean?” Sano asked. “The fact that you’re responsible for the murder of the shogun’s daughter? That you had the shogun’s heir kidnapped?” Lord Ienobu shrugged; his smile said he was proud of these maneuvers he’d never admitted to. Sano laughed in disdain. “Those are pretty big bygones to let slide.”

Lord Ienobu’s smile turned cunning, malicious. “Face it, Sano-san: I’m set to rule Japan. If you want to live, you make peace with me.”

“There are other contenders for the succession. Lord Yoshimune, for example.” But Sano recalled that with Madam Chizuru’s confession discredited, Yoshimune and his cousin Tomoe were once again suspects in the attack on the shogun. Yoshimune could take the fall for it. He wasn’t a safe harbor for Sano.

“There are no other contenders as closely related to the shogun as I am.”

“The others aren’t suspects in the attempted murder of the shogun,” Sano went on even though he knew he was digging his own grave.

“Madam Chizuru’s confession was false,” Ienobu pointed out. “You said so yourself.”

“So you didn’t order her to stab the shogun. You could have sent a different assassin. Your friend Lady Nobuko, perhaps.”

Frowning in displeasure but not surprised, Ienobu said, “Are you refusing my offer?”

Honor decreed that Sano should, but this was surely his last chance for security for his family under Lord Ienobu’s seemingly inevitable rule. The doubts that infected Sano swelled like a boil filling with pus. But Sano would rather live with the boil than stomach serving a man he believed was responsible for the murderous attack on their lord. And he didn’t trust Ienobu. A man capable of assassinating the shogun wouldn’t hesitate to do the same to Sano rather than keep his part of a bargain.

“I am,” Sano said with regret as well as conviction.

“Then we have nothing more to discuss.”

Ienobu and Manabe rose. Ienobu seemed more limber than yesterday, his back less stooped, like an insect hatching from its cocoon with fresh, damp wings. Transformed by the knowledge that the dictatorship was once again within his grasp, he said with a sly smile, “I’m afraid you’ll have to do me one more service: Escort me to the palace.”

* * *

Officials and troops were massed outside the palace when Sano and Marume returned with Lord Ienobu and his retinue. News of Ienobu’s impending reinstatement had spread. People lined up alongside the path to witness his triumphant return or curry his favor. They bowed as he shuffled past them. Ienobu acknowledged them with formal nods. His lips strained to repress a grin that peeled them back from his teeth. Sano was disgusted with himself as well as Ienobu. After more than four years of fighting to keep Ienobu from inheriting the dictatorship, he was practically joining Ienobu’s and the shogun’s hands as if he were the priest at a wedding.

At the palace entrance, Ienobu said, “Have you had second thoughts about my offer?”

“No.” Sano imagined the sound of an iron door clanging shut.

“You’ll wish you’d accepted,” Ienobu called over his shoulder as he hobbled up the steps to the palace.

“No, you won’t,” Marume said. “The man’s a monster.”

But Sano knew the consequences of his decision would be bad. He hadn’t jumped into the grave he was digging; honor had pushed him in, and he would pull Reiko and the children in with him. But he clung to the stubborn hope that serving honor would get him out of trouble. It always had. Let it not fail him now!

A soldier came up to him and said, “Yanagisawa wants to see you at his compound.”

“Who cares what he wants?” Marume scoffed.

Yanagisawa didn’t have the authority to command him anymore, but Sano said, “I’d better go.” A new phase of the battle for the succession was beginning, and his refusal of Lord Ienobu’s offer had driven Sano straight into Yanagisawa’s camp.

* * *

Yanagisawa’s compound was secured with extra troops stationed outside the walls. Sano handed over his swords to the guard who frisked him. Inside the mansion, Sano found Yanagisawa huddled in his office with his top retainers, conversing in low, agitated tones. When Yanagisawa saw Sano at the door, he dismissed his retainers. They departed; he stood. The look he gave Sano could have sliced through stone.

“We had a deal,” he said, “and you stabbed me in the back.”

“Our deal was to work together to prove that Lord Ienobu is responsible for the attack on the shogun,” Sano said. “I’m not the one who broke it.”

“I held up my end of the bargain,” Yanagisawa said. “I gave you the proof.”

“Madam Chizuru’s confession wasn’t proof. It was fraud!” Sano was exasperated because Yanagisawa didn’t seem to know, or care about, the difference.

Yanagisawa’s hostile eyes accused Sano of stupidity. “Well, you should have gone along with it. Now look what you’ve done! You’ve handed the dictatorship to Lord Ienobu!”

Sano badly regretted it, but he said, “It’s not my fault he’s the shogun’s heir again and Yoshisato is disowned.” How infuriating that Yanagisawa should put the blame on him! “If you hadn’t played your trick, and wasted my time on a false confession, maybe I would have found real proof that Ienobu is guilty. Maybe he would be put to death instead of getting ready to inherit the regime.”

“‘Maybe, maybe,’” Yanagisawa mocked. “What’s certain is that Lord Ienobu is on top again, and see where your lofty principles have gotten you? You’re stuck with me, down here in the mud.”

As much as these facts distressed Sano, he couldn’t deny them. “Our deal is still on, if you’re willing.”

“Let bygones be bygones?” Quizzical humor edged into Yanagisawa’s cruel smile. “Why didn’t you make a deal with Lord Ienobu? He must be grateful to you for saving him. Grateful enough to keep you alive in exchange for helping him get rid of his enemies.”

Sano knew how astute Yanagisawa was, but he was nonetheless surprised that Yanagisawa had read the situation so well. Yanagisawa saw his surprise and said, “So Lord Ienobu did offer you a deal. You turned it down. Why not go with him instead of me?”

He sounded honestly puzzled. He had no idea that one reason was Yoshisato. Sano saw Yoshisato as a counterweight to Yanagisawa’s villainy. Lord Ienobu had no such redeeming factor. Sano said, “Just be satisfied that I won’t be joining Lord Ienobu’s attack on you.” Yanagisawa didn’t need to know that Sano hoped to drive a wedge between him and his son.

“How can I be sure you won’t stab me in the back again?”

The price of a rift in their alliance was much higher now, with the shogun weakening by the moment and Lord Ienobu set to claim the dictatorship. Sano said, “You have my word.”

“You’ve shown me that your word is worthless. I want collateral.”

“Squeeze blood out of a turnip. I’ve nothing to my name but a little house and a few coins. Take it all if you want.”

A sly smile leavened Yanagisawa’s expression. “Oh, you have something much more valuable. Your son Masahiro.”

Sano frowned, disturbed and wary. “What do you want with Masahiro?”

“He’s of marriageable age. So is my daughter Kikuko. We’ll wed them to each other.”

Intermarriage was the traditional method by which samurai clans cemented their alliances. Intermarriage between hostile clans made the bride and groom, and any children they had, hostages to each clan’s good behavior. Intermarriage was a completely unreasonable, shocking, and outrageous demand for Yanagisawa to make on Sano.

“No!” Sano was horrified, and not just by the idea of a legal, familial, entrapping bond with Yanagisawa, his ally not by choice and his enemy these twenty years. Nor was it because Reiko would hate the idea or because Masahiro wanted to marry Taeko. “Your daughter tried to drown Masahiro when he was a child! Your wife told her to do it.”

“That was a long time ago.” Yanagisawa sounded annoyed that Sano would bring up such a trivial matter.

Sano wasn’t finished relating his grievances against Yanagisawa’s wife and daughter. “Your wife tried to kill mine! I don’t believe she’s changed. I’m not letting her or Kikuko near my family!” Infuriated and adamantly opposed, Sano headed for the door. “I’m going to tell Lord Ienobu I accept his offer. He didn’t try to marry his child to mine.” Sano knew the offer had expired, but Yanagisawa didn’t. He had to make Yanagisawa retract his demand.

Yanagisawa moved swiftly to block Sano’s exit. “I’m going to change your mind. Three words should do it.” His eyes glinted with determination and malice. “Dr. Ito Genboku.”

Sano’s heart flipped like a speared fish. “Who?”

“You know-your friend at Edo Morgue. The old man who was caught practicing foreign science.”

Foreign science, along with books and religion acquired from Western barbarians, was banned by Tokugawa law, due to a policy of isolation established some seventy years ago. The shogun at that time had feared that foreign weapons and military aid were a threat to Japan’s stability. People caught doing anything that smacked of foreign science were usually exiled, but the government had made an exception for Dr. Ito.

“He was sentenced to a lifetime as the custodian of the morgue.” Yanagisawa’s taunting smile said he saw and relished Sano’s discomfiture. “He’s been helping you with your investigations. He dissects the corpses of murder victims and finds clues for you. Which means you’ve been a party to foreign science.” Triumph broadened Yanagisawa’s smile. “Don’t bother denying it. I’ve had you followed to the morgue; I have spies there. I know.”

Sano experienced a falling, perilous sensation. His collusion with Dr. Ito, begun twenty years ago, had set him up for this moment of reckoning. He’d been young and impulsive then, a single man with little to lose, and he’d unwittingly put himself under Yanagisawa’s power. “How long have you known?”

“Oh, seven or eight years.”

All those years of wearing disguises to the morgue, delivering the corpses there by circuitous routes-all for nothing. Sano didn’t need to ask why Yanagisawa had kept his secret, had let him think he was safe. “You’ve been hoarding the information in case you ever needed it to use against me.”

The corner of Yanagisawa’s smile twisted upward. “How well we know each other.”

“And now, if I don’t agree to marry my son to your daughter, you’ll report me for practicing foreign science.”

“The shogun is too sick to care about it, but Lord Ienobu will like the excuse to banish you to the silver mines on Sado Island. He won’t have to worry that any friends of yours will rally to your defense. They won’t want to be associated with you and share your exile. Which your family will.”

Banishment to Sado Island was tantamount to a death sentence. Nobody lasted long in the mines. Sano hurried to find the advantage in the catastrophe. “So you have my secret to hold over my head. You don’t need Masahiro to marry Kikuko.”

Yanagisawa’s expression told Sano not to take him for a fool. “When I tie up a man, I don’t give him room to wriggle free.”

The falling sensation stopped as Sano hit bottom in a pit of despair. Events had flung him back and forth like a ball between Yanagisawa and Lord Ienobu, and although Yanagisawa was losing the game, he’d claimed Sano’s soul as a prize.

But it wasn’t Sano who would ultimately pay for his sins. It was his beloved son.

“The wedding needs to happen soon,” Yanagisawa said. “Tomorrow, I think. Afterward, Masahiro and his bride will live with me, to guarantee your cooperation.”

Sano felt sick at heart as he nodded. His actions had already caused Reiko and Masahiro enough pain. They would never forgive him for this. He would never forgive himself. And he could see no way out of it … except to kill Yanagisawa.

The solution was so simple, would be so satisfying.

But he didn’t have his swords, and he was trapped in Yanagisawa’s domain, surrounded by Yanagisawa’s men.

He didn’t have any other friends able to help him. Unless Masahiro married Kikuko, the whole family was at Lord Ienobu’s nonexistent mercy.

Yoshisato poked his head in the door and said to Yanagisawa, “Sorry to interrupt, but the word from the palace is, Lord Ienobu has been officially reinstated as the heir and Acting Shogun, and he’s issued orders for our arrest.” He looked at Sano. “Yours, too.”