“I want the killer brought to justice as much as anyone else,” Keisho-in said, “but not at the expense of peace in the Large Interior. Alas!” She wiped tears on her sleeve; her voice thickened with emotion. “Nothing can bring back the child that died with Harume. We must say good-bye to the past and plan for the future.” Smiling tenderly at her son, she said, “For the sake of the succession, you must forget about revenge and concentrate on begetting a new child.” She turned to the assembly. “Now permit an old woman to offer you men some advice.”
With the condescending air of a nursemaid instructing a child, Keisho-in addressed Japan ’s supreme governing council. “The female body is very sensitive to outside influences. The weather, the phases of the moon, a quarrel, disagreeable noises, a bit of bad food-anything can upset a woman’s humor. And bad humor can interfere with the flowering of a man’s seed inside her womb.”
Lady Keisho-in ran her hands down her stout body, then spread them against her abdomen. The elders looked down at the floor, repelled by such frank discussion of delicate matters. Chamberlain Yanagisawa gazed at Keisho-in as if fascinated. The shogun hung on his mother’s words.
Hirata cringed with embarrassment, but Sano felt only dread, because he guessed what Lady Keisho-in was doing.
“Conception requires tranquillity,” Keisho-in continued. “With detectives trooping in and out of the Large Interior, asking questions and prying everywhere, how do you expect the concubines to get with child? Impossible!”
She rapped Tokugawa Tsunayoshi’s hand with her fan. “That is why you must get rid of the detectives.” Folding her arms, she gazed around the assembly, daring anyone to challenge her.
The elders frowned, but said nothing: several predecessors had lost their seats on the council for disagreeing with Lady Keisho-in. While Sano summoned the courage to do what honor and conscience required, Chamberlain Yanagisawa broke the uncomfortable silence.
“Your Excellency, I understand your honorable mother’s concerns,” he said carefully. Even the shogun’s second-in-command must respect Lady Keisho-in. “But we must balance our wish for an heir against the need to uphold the strength of the Tokugawa regime. By letting a traitor get away with murder, we demonstrate weakness, and vulnerability to further attack. Wouldn’t you agree, Sōsakan Sano?”
“Yes,” Sano said unhappily. “The investigation must proceed without restriction.” Lady Keisho-in was blocking his access to the Large Interior and its occupants, but surely not for the reason she’d given. She sought to prevent him from discovering anything that would implicate her in the murder. She feared that someone would reveal her affair with Lady Harume, and she wanted to find the letter before he did. Her interference was additional evidence in favor of an open accusation against Lady Keisho-in.
“Don’t listen to them,” Keisho-in ordered her son. “I have the wisdom of age. My Buddhist faith has given me knowledge of mystical forces of destiny. I know what’s best.”
A picture of helpless uncertainty, the shogun looked from Keisho-in to Yanagisawa, then to Sano. Sano’s ears thrummed with the pounding of his heart. The faces of the assembly blurred before him. His lips felt cold and numb under the pressure of the words he must speak to save the investigation and focus it on Lady Keisho-in. But the demands of honor and justice fueled his courage. His hand went to his sash, ready to produce the letter. In Bushido, the life of one lone samurai mattered less than the capture of a murderer and traitor.
Then, in a searing blaze of awareness, Sano remembered that he was no longer alone. Should he be condemned to death for treason, then Reiko and Magistrate Ueda would join him at the execution ground. He was willing to sacrifice himself to his principles, but how could he endanger his new family?
A new sense of connection filled Sano’s spirit with a sweet, painful warmth. He let his hand drop from his sash. Through years of solitude, how he’d longed for marriage! Then came a surge of resentment. Marriage encouraged cowardice at the expense of honor. Marriage had brought new obligations that conflicted with prior ones. Now Sano understood Reiko’s dissatisfaction even better. Both had lost their independence through marriage. Was there a way to make the loss bearable?
Would that they lived to find it!
At last Tokugawa Tsunayoshi spoke. “Sōsakan Sano, you shall, ahh, continue the murder investigation. But you and your detectives must stay away from the Large Interior and the women. Use your ingenuity to catch the killer by other means. And when you do, we shall all, ahh, rejoice.” Then he fell, weeping, upon his mother’s bosom.
Looking straight at Sano, Lady Keisho-in grinned.
24
Out of the Large Interior filed the nine men Sano had assigned to the investigation there, ejected by the shogun’s order. Sano and Hirata, waiting beside the palace door, fell into step with the detective in charge as the group trudged homeward through the night. “Did you find anything?” Sano asked.
Detective Ozawa, a man with flat features and a past career as a metsuke spy, shook his head. “No poison or any other clues anywhere.”
Along the castle’s walled passages, burning torches smoked in the misty air. Owls hooted in the forest preserve; across the city, dogs bayed. Autumn’s melancholy charm had always appealed to the poet in Sano, but now its connotations of death worsened his spirits. “What about the interviews?”
“Nobody knows anything,” Ozawa said, “which could mean they’re telling the truth, they’re afraid to talk, or someone ordered them not to. I’d bet on the last.”
“Did you search Lady Keisho-in’s chambers?” Sano asked.
Ozawa looked at him in surprise. “No. I didn’t know you wanted us to, and we would have needed special permission from her. Why?”
“Never mind,” said Sano, “that’s all right.”
“It’s probably just as well that we quit,” Ozawa said. “We could have spent the rest of the year in the Large Interior without learning anything.”
That was little consolation to Sano, because the shogun’s edict had deprived him of access to not only Lady Keisho-in’s quarters and five hundred potential witnesses, but also another important suspect: Lady Ichiteru. Now the thought of her reminded Sano of an unpleasant task he must perform tonight.
When they reached Sano’s mansion, the detectives headed for the barracks. Sano said to Hirata, “Let’s go to my office.”
There, warmed by charcoal braziers and cups of hot sake, they knelt facing each other. Hirata looked miserable, his head bowed in anticipation of punishment. Sano hardened his heart against pity. He’d let Hirata’s dubious behavior slide for too long. Now it had compromised their work, perhaps irretrievably. Sano hated to risk damaging the friendship he valued above any other, but this time he meant to get some answers.
“What happened during your interview with Lady Ichiteru, and why did you let our superiors think we believe she’s innocent?” Sano said.
“I’m sorry, sōsakan-sama.” Hirata’s voice quavered. “There’s no excuse for what I did. I-Lady Ichiteru-” He gulped, then said, “I couldn’t get her to answer my questions, so I don’t really know if she killed Lady Harume. She-she got me all mixed up…” His gaze turned luminescent with memory. Then he looked down, as if caught in a shameful act. “I shouldn’t have spoken at the meeting. I made a bad mistake. You should dismiss me. I deserve it.”
The news shook Sano. Accustomed to relying on his chief retainer, he felt as though an essential support beam had been yanked from the structure of his detective corps. But Sano’s anger dissolved at the sight of Hirata’s humility.
“After all we’ve been through together, I won’t dismiss you for one mistake,” he said. Overcome with relief, Hirata blinked moist eyes. Tactfully Sano busied himself with pouring them each another drink. “Now let’s concentrate on the case. We’ve lost our chance for an official interview with Lady Ichiteru, but there must be other methods of getting information on her.”