epilogue
The stars wheeled above the temple outside Totsuka village, a day’s journey from Edo. There the exiled former chamberlain Yanagisawa admitted two travelers into his small, austere cottage hidden by pine trees. His shaved head and saffron robe glowed in the lantern light. The men bowed to him and removed the hats that shadowed their faces.
“Greetings, Father,” Yoritomo said.
“Welcome, my son.” Yanagisawa turned to his other guest. “Welcome, Enju-san. Or, I should say, Lord Mori.”
“Yes,” Enju said, “I’m daimyo now that my stepfather is dead.”
“Your new position becomes you,” Yanagisawa said, noticing that Enju was no longer the diffident young man who’d hidden a lifetime of pain behind lowered eyelashes and a controlled expression. Now Enju’s face was relaxed and serene, his gaze open and direct. Confidence had given him new vitality. He stood taller, as if he’d shed a heavy burden.
“I owe you a great debt,” Enju said. “Without everything you’ve done, I wouldn’t be where I am today. A million thanks.”
“I can’t take all the credit,” Yanagisawa said modestly. “Some of it goes to Yoritomo, for bringing us together.”
He smiled at his son, who flushed with delight at the praise. Yoritomo had proved to be an intelligent accomplice who hadn’t wasted the past three years at court; he’d spent them watching and listening. He’d identified men for Yanagisawa to enlist in his campaign to seize power. Some were old allies, fugitive troops from his army, daimyo clans oppressed by Lord Matsudaira, and disgruntled officials. Some were young samurai who were eager for combat or had relatives conquered by Lord Matsudaira and been treated badly by him. Others were just bored, unhappy, or looking for a cause. Yoritomo had recruited them, brought them secretly to the temple, and they’d agreed to help stage Yanagisawa’s comeback. They now numbered in the thousands, including their troops.
Enju was one of them.
They sat, and as Yanagisawa poured sake, he remarked, “I must say that things have worked out well for us all.”
“They certainly have,” Yoritomo said, accepting a cup. “With Lord Mori gone, Lord Matsudaira has lost a crucial ally.”
“And I’ve gained one.” Yanagisawa handed a cup to Enju, who’d pledged the huge Mori army to him. “A toast to our alliance. May it triumph over our enemies.”
They drank. “It’s already eliminated my worst one,” Enju said in a voice replete with satisfaction.
When Enju had shown up at the temple the first time, it hadn’t taken Yanagisawa long to coax from him the reasons for his grudge against the world in general and his stepfather in particular. Enju had craved a sympathetic ear. Yanagisawa had listened to Enju describe how Lord Mori had forced him to submit to sexual relations, then to serve as a procurer of boys and accomplice to their murders. Yanagisawa had tried to manipulate Enju into assassinating Lord Mori, but Enju had lacked the nerve. What finally happened had worked even better, Yanagisawa had to admit.
Enju poured another round of sake. “Let’s drink to my late stepfather. May he enjoy the place in hell reserved for perverts and murderers.” He raised his cup, and everyone drank. “But let’s not forget my dear mother. May she spend eternity with her evil husband.”
Yanagisawa had also learned that Enju’s hatred of Lord Mori extended to his mother, who’d sacrificed him to keep her husband happy. After the toast, he said, “Your mother did us a big favor. She picked right up on your hints that Lord Mori would be better off dead. She mentioned the idea to that maid of hers, and the rest is history.”
Enju giggled, more drunk on elation than liquor. “You should have heard them arguing about whose idea it was to kill him. She forgot that it was mine. She took the blame and protected me. She never guessed how much I hated her. I put on a good act, if I do say so myself. She never suspected that I tricked her into doing my dirty work.”
“Here’s to the late Lady Mori,” Yanagisawa said, and they downed another round.
“While we’re at it, down with Lord Matsudaira!” Enju exclaimed.
He also hated Lord Matsudaira, who’d condoned Lord Mori’s offenses against him and hundreds of other children in exchange for military support. Yanagisawa knew that Enju had spent years hiding his grudges, pretending to be a loyal subject. But this was the one place he need not pretend. Here he’d found someone who would take his side, in exchange for his soul.
“I propose a toast to my brilliant father.” Yoritomo gave Yanagisawa a look of admiration. “That was such a good idea to have your man inside Lord Mori’s retinue send Hirata the anonymous tip that Lord Mori was a traitor and plant those guns in the warehouse.”
“And to have him steal those notes from Chamberlain Sano’s trash and plant them with the guns,” Enju said.
Yoritomo looked disturbed by this part, even though he drank with his companions. “Chamberlain Sano has been a good friend to me. Was it really necessary to attack him?”
“Yes,” Yanagisawa said. “Nothing personal against him, but he has my job. I want him out of it.”
Although Yoritomo nodded, he didn’t seem convinced.
“Everything had to happen the way it did, or nothing would have turned out right,” Yanagisawa said in an effort to smooth over the conflict between him and the son upon whom his future depended. “Sano was evidently part of the grand scheme. Had I left him alone, we might not be sitting here congratulating ourselves now.”
“Fate operates in strange ways,” Enju agreed. “How else to explain how Lady Reiko got caught up in our plot?”
Yanagisawa laughed. “That was an unexpected bonus. When my spy brought me the news that Lord Mori had been murdered, I knew right away who’d killed him, but when I heard that Lady Reiko was the primary suspect, you could have knocked me down with a feather.”
“I felt sorry for her,” Yoritomo murmured.
Not Yanagisawa. She’d too often inconvenienced him by helping her husband, and a strike against Reiko was a strike against Sano. “That should teach her to meddle where she doesn’t belong. But my favorite lucky happenstance is that Police Commissioner Hoshina is gone. With his faction out of the way, my path back to the top is a lot clearer.”
Yanagisawa had tried to brand Hoshina a traitor by incorporating guns his henchmen had stolen from the police arsenal into a fake plot that would also ensnare other enemies of his. But that wasn’t what had finally done the trick.
“Here’s to Sano for killing Hoshina,” Enju said, raising his cup to another toast they all drank.
“It’s just too bad that Sano is still chamberlain and more powerful than ever,” Yanagisawa said. “But he won’t be for long.”
Dark excitement charged the air as the three men contemplated the power struggle to come.
“You won’t hurt Chamberlain Sano when you oust him, will you?” Yoritomo said anxiously.
“I promise I won’t.”
But Yanagisawa believed promises were meant to be broken when necessary. And he knew that someone was bound to be destroyed during his bid to seize control of the Tokugawa regime. Better Sano than himself.
About Laura Joh Rowland
Laura Joh Rowland is a detective/mystery author best known for her series of mystery novels set in the late days of feudal Japan, mostly in Edo during the late 1600s. Rowland takes some licence with known figures, creating fictionalised versions of Tokugawa Tsunayoshi and Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu. Objective historical details, however, are credibly accurate.
