The Iris Fan

18

Inside his estate, Yanagisawa walked toward the mansion with Yoshisato, trailed by the gangsters. His body quaked with pent-up sobs. Tears watered his eyes. He wanted to embrace Yoshisato and say how much he’d missed him, how thankful he was to have him safe and sound. But Yoshisato gazed straight ahead with a face like stone. He showed no sign that this reunion with Yanagisawa meant anything to him. Four and a half years spread like a sea between them, fathomless and treacherous.

Yanagisawa blinked, cleared his throat, and spoke in a casual tone. “I’ll have rooms prepared for you and your friends.”

“That won’t be necessary.” Yoshisato sounded as cool and businesslike as if talking to an innkeeper. “We’ll be leaving as soon as I’ve visited my mother.”

“It will be a while before Lord Ienobu is moved out of the heir’s residence and it’s been cleaned up,” Yanagisawa pointed out. Ienobu would probably leave booby traps for Yoshisato.

“I have lodgings in town,” Yoshisato said. “I can stay there.”

His refusal of Yanagisawa’s hospitality was like a slap in the face. He was as contrary as ever! Offense subdued Yanagisawa’s tender feelings toward Yoshisato. “The shogun’s heir can’t live in some flophouse. You’ll stay with me.”

They stopped at the stairs leading to the veranda. As Yoshisato faced Yanagisawa, hostility showed through his indifference like black water seeping through cracked ice. “The shogun’s heir can do as he chooses.”

Yanagisawa didn’t like Yoshisato pulling rank on him, but now that he had Yoshisato back, he couldn’t bear to let him out of his sight. “You won’t be safe in town.”

Yoshisato responded with the insolent smile that had vexed Yanagisawa so often. “Remember what happened to me the last night I spent inside the castle.”

After the fire, the kidnapping, and four years apart, they were even more at odds than before. “Why are you so angry at me?” Yanagisawa asked, honestly puzzled.

Yoshisato looked as if he couldn’t believe Yanagisawa needed to ask. “You let Lord Ienobu hold me prisoner. Was it too much to expect you to rescue me?”

Hating himself for letting Yoshisato down, Yanagisawa hurried to defend himself. “I tried! I’ve spent the last four and a half years searching for you!”

“That’s not what I heard.” Yoshisato seemed caught between distrust and wanting to believe Yanagisawa. “Sano says you’ve been working the whole time for Lord Ienobu.”

Sano, the constant thorn in Yanagisawa’s side. “I kept my search secret so that Ienobu would think I was cooperating with him and he wouldn’t kill you.”

“Do you really expect me to believe that with all your resources you couldn’t find me?”

“You made it hard. My spies were looking for a group of Ienobu’s samurai traveling with a young man who appeared to be drugged or an invalid or restrained, not a tattooed gangster. Lord Ienobu’s army couldn’t find you, either. Your disguise was good.”

Yoshisato nodded, conceding the point, but suspicion drew his eyebrows together. “Maybe you decided to hitch your cart to Ienobu for real instead of gambling that you would be able to find me before the shogun died. You had your own future to think about.” He said with bitter rancor, “It would have been practical for you to give me up for lost and move on.”

“Is that what Sano told you?” Yanagisawa demanded.

“There you go again, blaming Sano for everything. You haven’t changed.” Yoshisato grimaced in exasperation. “No-this has nothing to do with Sano.”

“Then what were you and Sano doing together?”

When Yoshisato explained, Yanagisawa was wounded and jealous. “Why reveal yourself to Sano instead of me? Why ask him to bring you to the palace?”

Yoshisato smiled briefly, pleased that he’d gotten a rise out of Yanagisawa. “Because I trusted Sano more than I trusted you. You might have done Ienobu a favor and stabbed me in the back instead of letting me near the shogun.”

“I did everything in my power to save you! I sacrificed my pride. I rubbed my nose on Lord Ienobu’s bony rear end!” Yanagisawa shouted, “You ignorant, insufferable brat!” He grabbed Yoshisato’s neck and throttled him. The warmth of his son’s living flesh made him sob. “I should have left you to die!”

Yoshisato seized his wrists, broke his grasp. “Don’t you ever touch me!” Blood engorged his face above the lurid tattoos. A terrible look came into his eyes. His fist shot out and belted Yanagisawa’s mouth.

Yanagisawa tasted blood; he roared with pain and fury. “How dare you?” He swung at Yoshisato.

Yoshisato ducked. “You allied with Ienobu to fulfill your political ambitions! And now you want to switch back to my side because the wind is blowing the other way! You two-faced whore!”

They threw punches. One to the chin knocked Yanagisawa’s head sideways. He struck out and his knuckles connected with Yoshisato’s cheekbone. He was beating up the son he’d longed to see, but he couldn’t stop. “I’m going to make you sorry you came back!”

“I’m going to destroy you and Ienobu both!” Yoshisato pummeled Yanagisawa.

Lady Someko came running out of the house, crying, “Stop it!”

Yoshisato kicked Yanagisawa in the gut. “That’s for my mother. You should have told her I wasn’t dead.”

Yanagisawa doubled over and retched. “I couldn’t! I thought she would let it out and Ienobu would kill you, you damned fool!” He rammed his head into Yoshisato’s stomach.

As they wrestled, Lady Someko grabbed Yanagisawa around the waist and pulled. She shrieked at the gangsters, who’d been watching as if they thought they should stay out of this private spat, “Help me stop them before they kill each other!”

The gangsters pulled Yoshisato away from Yanagisawa. Father and son glared at each other and panted. The many sleepless nights he’d passed during Yoshisato’s absence caught up with Yanagisawa. He felt a sudden, overwhelming, despairing exhaustion.

Their reunion had only set them at each other’s throats.

“You’re both bleeding,” Lady Someko said. Yanagisawa and Yoshisato stared at her. She was dressed in clean, opulent maroon silk robes, her hair neatly coiffed and spangled with ornaments, her makeup immaculate. Yoshisato’s resurrection had made her beautiful, vibrant, and imperious again. “Come inside, and I’ll clean you up.”

* * *

In the parlor, Lady Someko wrung out a cloth in a basin of warm water. Yoshisato let her bathe the scrape on his cheek. Her touch was tender, her eyes filled with adoration. He knew she wanted to hug him but she remembered he didn’t like being babied. Today he wouldn’t mind, but for Yanagisawa sitting nearby. He was suddenly exhausted after years on the lam, fighting in gang wars, keeping out of Lord Ienobu’s sights, and the long journey back to Edo. He wanted to curl up in his mother’s lap and let her rock him to sleep. But he wouldn’t show such childish weakness in front of Yanagisawa. He sat rigid and silent.

Lady Someko ministered to Yanagisawa. Obviously furious at him for not telling her that Yoshisato was alive, she scrubbed his split lip so hard that he winced. She dabbed healing balm on it, then said, “What’s wrong with you two?”

Neither answered. Yoshisato supposed that Yanagisawa didn’t want to continue the argument in front of Lady Someko because he knew she would take Yoshisato’s side. Yoshisato didn’t want either of them to figure out why he was so upset with Yanagisawa. This quarrel was only part of a story that had begun long ago.

During his childhood, the absence of his father had been a constant, sore emptiness inside Yoshisato. He’d been four or five when he’d asked his mother, “Why don’t I have a father?” She’d promised to explain when he was older, but he’d kept after her. “Who is my father? Why can’t I see him? Where is he?”

Finally she’d taken him to a festival at Zōjō Temple and pointed out a samurai amid a party of officials. “He’s the chamberlain-the shogun’s second-in-command.” That was Yoshisato’s first sight of Yanagisawa. How tall, handsome, and fierce a man he was!

“He’s a very important person, very busy,” Lady Someko had said. “That’s why he can’t come to see you.”

Yoshisato had interpreted that to mean he wasn’t worth his busy, important father’s time. He decided to make himself worthy. He studied hard; he diligently practiced martial arts. If his father ever came to see him, he wouldn’t embarrass himself, and if his father didn’t, then it would be his father’s loss. Yoshisato later found out that Yanagisawa had four other sons-half brothers that Yoshisato had never met. One day Yoshisato learned that Yanagisawa had taken Yoritomo, the eldest, to live with him. Yoshisato was so hurt, jealous, and angry that he decided to hate Yanagisawa. Even after he learned that the unfortunate Yoritomo was the shogun’s concubine, he still felt slighted.

When Yoshisato was seventeen, his father finally came calling. It wasn’t because he’d heard about Yoshisato’s accomplishments. It wasn’t to have wonderful adventures together, as Yoshisato had fantasized. It was because Yoritomo was dead.

Thence began Yoshisato’s war with Yanagisawa. Yoshisato was angry because Yanagisawa didn’t care about him; Yanagisawa only needed a new political pawn. Yoshisato was thrilled to meet his father, but he had a deep well of resentment, Yanagisawa hadn’t the patience to win Yoshisato over, and they both had hot tempers.

And the first thing Yanagisawa had done was to pass Yoshisato off as the shogun’s son.

Yoshisato knew Yanagisawa had done it to save his life. He even wanted to be shogun; he wanted to try his hand at ruling Japan, to leave his mark on history. He wanted to outrank Yanagisawa and become so important that he needn’t crave his father’s approval. But Yoshisato couldn’t help feeling that Yanagisawa had disowned him, had foisted him off on the shogun, because he didn’t want him. The wound cut deep.

Then Yoshisato had been kidnapped. He’d found himself in a nightmarish reprisal of his childhood, waiting for Yanagisawa to come for him, feeling empty and hurt because Yanagisawa didn’t. And now he was plagued by the same knowledge that Yanagisawa didn’t care about him except as a political pawn. If Yanagisawa had indeed tried to rescue him, it was for the selfish reason that Yanagisawa wanted him to inherit the dictatorship and rule Japan through him. The wound had festered for more than four years. Yoshisato couldn’t forgive, or trust, Yanagisawa.

“All right, go ahead and pout,” Lady Someko said. “But whatever you were fighting about, you’d better make it up.”

“Why? I don’t need him, now that I’m the shogun’s heir again.” Yoshisato was angry at himself because it wasn’t true. Being with Yanagisawa reopened his wound, but it also filled the emptiness that winning the dictatorship couldn’t fill.

Yanagisawa offered a weary yet adamant protest. “Yes, you do need me. You’ve been away too long; you don’t know what’s going on here.”

“I seem to remember that when we did things your way, I got kidnapped.” Yoshisato wanted to prove to Yanagisawa, and himself, that he could stand on his own two feet, and he didn’t like Yanagisawa’s strategies for solving problems.

“Stop it!” Lady Someko hurled the cloth into the basin. Bloody water splashed. “Lord Ienobu would love to see you at each other’s throats. He would love for you to be so busy arguing that you don’t notice him yanking the regime out from under your feet!”

The reminder that they had a common enemy silenced Yoshisato and Yanagisawa. Yoshisato said glumly, “She’s right.” Yanagisawa exhaled and nodded.

“I’m glad you’ve gotten that through your thick heads. I’ll let you figure out how to handle Lord Ienobu.” Lady Someko picked up the basin and rose gracefully. “Yoshisato, I won’t hear any nonsense about you leaving. You’re staying here.” She glided out of the room.

Yoshisato hid his massive relief. He and Yanagisawa were unwillingly stuck together, but he wouldn’t have to swim alone in the treacherous waters of the court or feel that aching emptiness. He studied Yanagisawa. Was that relief in Yanagisawa’s hollow, tired eyes? For a moment he dared to hope that his father wanted to be with him and help him not only for the sake of defeating Ienobu and fulfilling lifelong political ambitions, but because his father cared about him. Then he cast aside the childish hope.

“Well?” he said in a belligerent voice. “Do you have any ideas?”

Yanagisawa’s smile was triumphant yet somehow sad. “Don’t I always?”

* * *

Lady Nobuko lay unconscious in bed, her eyes closed, covered up to her chin by a gray quilt. Reiko sat watching the physician clean, stitch, and bandage the gash on Lady Nobuko’s head. This was the first time Reiko had ever seen her face completely relaxed. She looked like a corpse, shocked to death by the news about Yoshisato. Reiko herself was still quaking from shock as her mind teemed with questions. How would Yoshisato’s return affect the investigation into the attack on the shogun? What did it portend for her family as well as the fate of the regime?

The physician held smelling salts under Lady Nobuko’s nose. She grimaced at their sharp, astringent odor; she opened bleary eyes. “What happened?” she murmured.

“You fainted and hit your head,” the physician said.

She touched the bandage. Memory filled her expression with anguish. “Damn Yoshisato,” she whispered. The spasm bunched up her facial muscles like a thread stitched through fabric and pulled to draw the folds together. She gasped. “Merciful gods, the pain.”

“Drink this.” The physician held a cup to her mouth.

Lady Nobuko glugged the opium potion. She saw Reiko, and anger cleared the bleariness from her good eye. “Why are you still here?”

“I wanted to make sure you were all right,” Reiko said.

“Don’t be a hypocrite. You just want to rub Yoshisato in my face.”

Reiko supposed she should feel bad about bothering an old, injured woman, but she didn’t. Lady Nobuko deserved no pity, and Reiko had a second chance at her. “Do you realize what Yoshisato’s return means? It’s no longer certain that your friend Lord Ienobu will take over Japan when the shogun dies.”

“Go away,” Lady Nobuko whispered.

“Now there are two contenders for the succession. Yoshisato was the shogun’s first choice. He’s likely to inherit the dictatorship.”

“No! He mustn’t!” Squirming under the quilt, Lady Nobuko moaned. “I was so happy about his death. It was the best thing that could have happened, after what Chamberlain Yanagisawa did to me.”

Eight years ago Lady Nobuko had been kidnapped and raped after a series of similar crimes against other women. Sano and Reiko had solved those other crimes, and they didn’t believe Lady Nobuko was part of the series. They, and Lady Nobuko, believed she’d been kidnapped and raped by Yanagisawa’s henchmen, as punishment for crossing Yanagisawa. She and Yanagisawa had been enemies ever since.

“I couldn’t prove it, and he got away with it! When his bastard was burned up in the fire, I thought that was his comeuppance. Why couldn’t Yoshisato stay dead? It’s not fair!”

“Life isn’t fair. Everybody has bad luck sometimes.” Reiko was as brutal to Lady Nobuko as the woman had been to her. “You’re no exception.”

“All right, you’ve rubbed it in. Do you feel better now?” Lady Nobuko started to cry.

Reiko took a cruel pleasure in retaliation. “You picked a bad time to stab the shogun. If he dies, you’ll have put Yoshisato, and Yanagisawa, at the head of the regime.”

Lady Nobuko pulled the quilt over her face. “Just leave me alone.”

Reiko pulled the quilt down. “I’m going to do you a favor and point out a fact to you: Yoshisato is going to be the next shogun. You need to get in good standing with him and Yanagisawa. The best way to do that is to sell out Lord Ienobu.”

“I didn’t stab my husband! You’re deluded!”

“Confess that Lord Ienobu conspired with you to kill the shogun. Yoshisato and Yanagisawa will put him to death.” Gripping Lady Nobuko’s arm, Reiko said, “They’ll pardon you because you did them a favor by getting rid of both the shogun and Lord Ienobu.”

“Take your filthy little hand off me!”

“Don’t protect Lord Ienobu. He’s already murdered the shogun’s daughter. He wouldn’t protect you. Betray him and save yourself!”

“No, no, no!” Lady Nobuko pounded her fists and heels on the bed like an elderly child having a tantrum.

“She must calm down or she’ll hurt herself,” the physician told Reiko. “Please go.”

Frustrated because she couldn’t even beat Lady Nobuko while the old woman was down, Reiko had no choice except to leave. And even if she could prove that Lord Ienobu was guilty, how much good would it do, when Yanagisawa and Yoshisato were set to seize power?