Tama’s tearful gaze moved to her daughter’s portrait. Either the painter had flattered his subject or Kumoi had possessed the beauty that her older sister had lacked. Kumoi’s eyes were large and tilted in her oval face, their expression alluring, her lips delicate and sensuous.
“I’ll do whatever I can,” Tama said. “Ask me anything you want.”
“Thank you,” Reiko said. “Who would have wanted to kill Kumoi?”
“Oh, that’s an easy question!” Tama glared at Lady Hosokawa.
“Tama.” Lady Hosokawa didn’t raise her voice, but its ominous force carried it across the room.
Tama choked on whatever words she’d planned to say. Fear hunched her shoulders. Her anger faded into sullenness. Her companions cringed. The maid walked over from Lady Hosokawa’s half of the chamber and said to Reiko, “Lady Hosokawa wants me to take you to the other room for refreshments.”
Reiko looked through the doors. Lady Hosokawa stared back. Reiko had no choice but to say “Many thanks,” and rise. She glanced at Tama as she left the chamber. The concubine wouldn’t meet her gaze.
Following the maid down the corridor, Reiko realized that what little she’d managed to learn was worse than nothing. Tama had seemed about to accuse Lady Hosokawa or her daughter. Here was the clue Reiko had dreaded finding, evidence which implicated a Hosokawa clan member in the crime. Fear brought on morning sickness as Reiko sat in a chamber where the maid poured tea and set food on a tray table before her. The smell of the sweet rice cakes was nauseating. She breathed deeply and sipped the bitter green tea; her stomach settled.
The maid knelt nearby. Her friendly smile broadened, revealing gaps between childlike teeth. She leaned toward Reiko, obviously bursting to talk. Here, perhaps, was the witness who would reveal the things that Reiko had failed to learn from Tama and Lady Hosokawa.
Lying in bed, Yanagisawa watched gray daylight brighten the open slit of his window. He turned restlessly, trying to find a comfortable position. Sleep was a quarry he’d been chasing all night and failed to catch. The order from the shogun had jarred him out of his lethargy. Anger at Ienobu rekindled the fire in him that Yoritomo’s death had extinguished. His blood raced, stimulating muscles and nerves, flushing the rust out of his brain, which teemed with thoughts and plans.
He was reviving in spite of himself. The threat had awakened some primitive, animal instinct that said he’d mourned enough. And there was a spark in him that had never gone out, his hatred toward Sano, who had brought about Yoritomo’s death. He couldn’t let Sano get away with it. Yanagisawa threw off the covers and stood up.
Queasiness and sore joints almost toppled him. Only fury and pride kept him vertical. He called his servants: “I want a bath.”
They scrubbed and poured water over him three times to remove the filth from his emaciated body. By the time he climbed into the tub, he was exhausted. He lay in the hot, steaming water and closed his eyes. This was the first pleasure he’d experienced since Yoritomo’s death. He steeled himself against it because Yoritomo would never feel pleasure again. His servants dried him and put a robe on him. His valet filed his nails and shaved off his scraggly beard and mustache. The mirror showed gaunt cheeks and pallid skin. But his large, liquid eyes still gleamed. Miraculously, he was still handsome.
His reflection smiled a ghost of his old, sardonic smile.
The valet shaved his crown, then trimmed his hair, oiled it with wintergreen oil, and tied it into a topknot. Dressed in opulent crimson and black silk robes, Yanagisawa ate his breakfast, rice gruel with dried fish and pickled vegetables. It tasted wonderful; he was actually hungry.
Kato returned while Yanagisawa was finishing his tea, and said, “Well, well, somebody’s feeling better. When I saw you yesterday, I was afraid you were done for.”
“Never underestimate me,” Yanagisawa said. “And you would be wise to address me with a little more respect from now on.”
“Yes, of course.” Kato hastily knelt opposite Yanagisawa and bowed. The slits of his eyes glinted with the fear that Yanagisawa had always inspired in friends and foes alike, but his narrow mouth smiled; he was glad Yanagisawa had risen from the dead. “I take it you’re not leaving Edo?”
“That’s correct.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Reclaim my rightful place at court. Take up my business where I left off.” Yanagisawa didn’t say that his business was to gain absolute domination over Japan. That would be treason, punishable by death. Spies still lurked in Edo, despite the earthquake. And he didn’t have to say it; Kato understood.
Skepticism wrinkled Kato’s brow. “There’s not much room for you at court these days. Not with Sano leading the government and Ienobu sucking up to the shogun.”
Sano and Ienobu, the two adversaries he had to battle. “I don’t need much room.” Yanagisawa held up his thumb and forefinger, a hairsbreadth apart. “Just enough to slip my secret weapon in.”
“What secret weapon?”
“An ally to plant close to the shogun, to influence him and help me regain control over him,” Yanagisawa whispered.
Kato reacted with confusion and disbelief. “That’s what you did before. You mean to do it again?”
“It worked, didn’t it?” Yanagisawa wouldn’t admit that he wasn’t exactly flush with new ideas; his mind still hadn’t quite regained its usual speed or originality.
“But how are you going to-?” Kato said with startled enlightenment, “You’re going to replace Yoritomo.”
Pain twisted through Yanagisawa like a skewer studded with barbs. “Don’t say that! Yoritomo can’t be replaced! Not ever!”
“Forgive me.” Kato raised his hands, patted the air. “Let me rephrase that: You intend to find a young man to perform the duties that you need performed. Correct?”
Yanagisawa nodded, regretting his outburst. He would have to keep a tighter control over his emotions, which made him vulnerable.
“Who’s the lucky pawn?” Kato asked.
The word pawn rankled. Yanagisawa had made a pawn of Yoritomo, who’d become the shogun’s favorite male concubine, the sole, dubious achievement of his short life. “I have four candidates.”
“Oh, I see. Your other sons.”
Yanagisawa had fathered five sons on five different women. He also had a wife and a daughter, stashed away in the country, whom he seldom saw. His four remaining sons ranged in age from pubescent to late teens, just right to appeal to the shogun’s taste. It couldn’t have worked out better if he’d planned it. Yoritomo had been his favorite, and he didn’t know the others, whom he monitored from a distance, like a merchant keeps track of business interests in faraway provinces. But that was about to change.
Kato regarded Yanagisawa with admiration and repugnance. “First you share the shogun’s bed, then Yoritomo does, and now you’re going to put some more of your flesh and blood there. You must be the most ruthless man in the world!”
“Ruthlessness is the offspring of necessity,” Yanagisawa said.
“I don’t suppose it matters whether the new secret weapon likes following in the previous one’s footsteps.”
“Not at all.” Even though Yoritomo had never complained, and always professed himself eager to do whatever Yanagisawa wanted, Yanagisawa had hated to make Yoritomo sacrifice himself for his father’s political goal. Because he’d loved Yoritomo. But love wasn’t an issue with his other sons. “He should be glad to cooperate. He’ll have a brilliant future.”
As brilliant as Yoritomo’s? The question was written on Kato’s face. Yanagisawa pretended not to notice. Kato asked, “When do you decide which son gets to do the honors?”
“I’m going to look them over today,” Yanagisawa said.
His heartbeat quickened with anticipation that had little to do with the prospect of advancing his political aims, thwarting Ienobu, or punishing Sano. He was surprised to find himself wishing that one of his other sons could fill the emptiness in him. The strength of his desire was alarming.