"What lady?" Sano asked.
"The shogun's wife. Remember how I spied on Chamberlain Yanagisawa? She's one of the three ladies he met."
This latest revelation was too much on top of too much for Sano. He and Reiko stared at Masahiro in surprise.
"Yanagisawa had a miai with the shogun's wife?" Reiko said.
She sounded as confused as Sano felt. But now Sano began to understand what Yanagisawa was up to. The sheer audacity of it took his breath away.
Masahiro pointed at the crowd of women around the shogun's wife. "And there are the two other ladies!"
Sano spotted an old woman with a babyish face, and a tall, plain younger one. They walked close beside Lady Nobuko as the guards carried her litter into the palace. Sano had never seen them before, but the fact that they clearly outranked the other women told him their identities.
"Who are they?" Reiko asked.
"The elder is Lady Oden, a former concubine of the shogun," Sano said. "The younger is Tsuruhime, his daughter by Oden."
A sudden thought struck him. Masahiro hadn't been the only witness to their meeting with Yanagisawa. The spy Toda Ikkyu had been there, too.
Reiko gasped. "Yanagisawa wants to marry the shogun's daughter to Yoritomo!"
"Yes, because if that happens, it will move Yoritomo way up in the succession," Sano said, enlightened at last. "That's how he plans to seize power." His plan explained why Yanagisawa had stopped embezzling from the Tokugawa treasury: He thought the money would be all his someday. "He had to get Lady Nobuko's permission for the match because she's in charge of all business concerning Tsuruhime, her stepdaughter."
"But the shogun's wife told Yanagisawa no," Masahiro said, pleased by his parents' reaction to his news even though Sano doubted he understood its significance. "He said he could get a divorce. But she said it would be incest."
Sano recalled Masahiro asking him what those words meant. Now he knew why. He also knew why Lady Nobuko had refused Yanagisawa's proposal. "Tsuruhime is already married, to a member of a Tokugawa branch clan. They don't have any children, so Yanagisawa must have thought a second marriage for her would be acceptable to everyone. But a divorce apparently couldn't remove all Lady Nobuko's objections to remarrying her stepdaughter to Yoritomo, who is her father's lover."
"I suppose that could be called incest," Hirata said.
"Yanagisawa was very angry," Masahiro said.
And Yanagisawa never let anyone who crossed him go unpunished. Sano saw a dreadful picture taking shape, a horrifying answer to questions in his mind.
"What are you going to do?" Reiko asked.
"I'm going to have a talk with Yanagisawa," Sano said, "and not just about his marriage scheme."
But Yanagisawa wasn't the only person Sano meant to confront. Sano also intended to get an explanation from Toda Ikkyu.
If he lived long enough.
43
Sano had his chance at Yanagisawa and Toda four days later. During those days, an upheaval rocked the government's highest echelon and altered the circumstances of Sano and everyone close to him. And although he'd suffered drastic losses, he and his family were alive, and he was thankful.
Now he, Marume, and Fukida stood among a huge crowd gathered in the grounds of Joju's temple to witness the punishment of the famous exorcist.
The chief official from the Ministry of Temples announced, "Joju has been found guilty of nyobon." That was the offense termed "woman crime," which meant fornication and breaking a vow of celibacy. "He has been sentenced to inu-barai."
"That's a harsh punishment," Marume said as a rumble of awe swept the audience.
"Not as harsh as he deserves," Sano said, "but it was the best I could do under the circumstances."
Joju hadn't actually kidnapped anyone, and although he'd raped the nun and the other old woman, that wasn't a crime under Tokugawa law. Sex in an illegal brothel was a minor offense, as he'd told Sano. And he hadn't actually murdered the nun. Duty-bound to observe the law of the regime, Sano had turned Joju over to the Ministry of Temples, which was responsible for disciplining wayward clergy. Due to testimony from Sano, the ministry had found the priest guilty of the two offenses and imposed the harshest sentence possible.
The exorcist emerged from the hall where he'd once conducted rituals. He was naked, crawling on his hands and knees, with a dead fish crammed in his mouth. Two soldiers led Joju by a rope tied around his neck. They dragged him around the temple grounds three times. Gagging on the rotten fish, hooted at by the mob, he passed Sano without acknowledging his presence. At the temple's gate, the soldiers yanked Joju to his feet; they untied the rope. He spat out the fish and wiped his mouth on his hand. Now his eyes found Sano. They were black with bitter hostility.
The chief ministry official flung a gray hemp robe at Joju and said, "You are hereby expelled from the religious order. You are also banished from Edo."
Joju put on the humble robe. Head bowed, he limped out the gate. The jeering crowd followed him. One woman lingered. It was the beggar named Okitsu. She sidled up to Sano.
"That was worth waiting to see." An impish grin brightened her dirty face.
"It wouldn't have been possible if not for you," Sano said.
Okitsu nodded as though she understood. Then she ambled off. Fate worked in strange ways, Sano thought. Okitsu had gotten her revenge.
A group of male commoners loitered near Sano's party. Four were talking about the scene they'd just witnessed. The fifth hovered at the group's edge. A breeze flapped the wicker hat he wore. When he put up his hand to hold it on his head, Sano saw a large, irregularly shaped brown freckle on his wrist.
"Well, if it isn't Toda Ikkyu," Sano said.
Toda started. "How did you know it was me?"
"Let's just say I've learned a few things from my son." Sano smiled, watching Toda wonder what feature of his Masahiro had noticed and mentioned to Sano. "I've been wanting to talk to you, but you've been pretty scarce lately."
"I've been busy," Toda said.
Sano knew Toda had been avoiding him, with good reason. "You knew who they were."
"What are you talking about?" Toda was all innocence.
"The three women you saw meeting with Yanagisawa," Sano said. "They were Lady Nobuko, the shogun's daughter Tsuruhime, and his former concubine Oden."
The bland expression Toda wore didn't hide his shock. "How did you find out?"
"You said you didn't know who they were. But you did. You know everybody associated with the shogun. You must have recognized them instantly. You lied."
Comprehension glinted in Toda's eyes. "It was Masahiro again. I suppose you also know what became of Yanagisawa's scheme to marry his son to Tsuruhime, ensure that Yoritomo would be the next shogun, and secure his own future?"
"Yes."
"Your son has a talent for espionage," Toda said wryly. "If you'll give him to me, I'll teach him to be the best spy who ever lived."
"My son will never work under a man who double-crossed his father," Sano said.
Toda smiled. "I warned you that I work for both you and Yanagisawa. I try to play fair. I told you about his secret meeting, but I didn't tell you who the women were. I let him know that I was spying on him for you, but I didn't tell him I witnessed his three meetings."
Three meetings? Sano frowned because he'd thought there had been only two. Neither Toda nor Masahiro had mentioned a third. Toda had lied again, by omission. And so had Masahiro.
"So I'm even with you and Yanagisawa," Toda said. "You shouldn't bear me any grudge."
"What you mean is that even if I do bear a grudge, I can't kill you, because someday I may need your services," Sano said. "But next time I'll have a better idea of how far to trust you."
Toda shrugged, his confident superiority restored: He'd successfully navigated another battlefield between two rivals. "That's politics."
He turned and shuffled off, looking for all the world like a peasant to everyone except Sano.