The elders and General Isogai looked as outraged as Sano was. Even Kato, Yanagisawa’s crony, shook his head. Ienobu looked ready to explode. “But, Honorable Uncle,” he began.
“But what?” The shogun fixed Ienobu with such a baleful stare that Ienobu subsided. The other men didn’t dare object, even though they suspected Yanagisawa was Yoshisato’s real father. The shogun accepted Yoshisato as his son. That was that.
When Sano left the guesthouse, Yanagisawa caught up with him and said, “What do you think of the shogun’s new son?”
“He’s astonishing,” Sano said, “but not nearly as much so as his father.”
Yanagisawa chuckled; he knew Sano wasn’t talking about the shogun. His humor turned to menace. “My adopted son will inherit the dictatorship, which will make me as good as the father of the next shogun. But I won’t wait that long to deal with you.” His eyes blazed through tears. Today’s coup hadn’t assuaged his grief for Yoritomo or his rage at Sano. “Your days are numbered.” He looked past Sano. “And so are your son’s.”
Sano turned and saw Masahiro in the garden with Ienobu. Ienobu was jabbing his finger at Masahiro, scolding him in a loud, raspy whisper. Yanagisawa strode back into the guesthouse. Before Sano could join Masahiro and Ienobu and find out what was going on, he saw Priest Ryuko and the shogun’s mother walking toward him.
“Chamberlain Sano!” Lady Keisho-in was all dimples. “Have you met my new grandson? Isn’t he wonderful?”
“Yes, Your Highness,” Sano said, bowing.
“I’m so excited. All these years I’ve prayed for a grandson, and this is a dream come true!” She turned to Priest Ryuko. “My dearest love, you can be his step-grandfather.”
Priest Ryuko smiled down at her, nodded, and said, “Suppose you go inside and give Yoshisato my regards while I speak to Chamberlain Sano.” After Lady Keisho-in left, he said, “My sources tell me that you discovered it was Minister Ogyu and his wife who poisoned those women, and they’re both dead.”
“Your sources are well informed,” Sano said.
Ryuko spoke in a lowered voice. “Regarding what you discovered about me-don’t try to use it against me. I’ve told Lady Keisho-in that there’s a rumor that I fathered a child on another woman. I’ve assured her that the rumor is false, and she believes me.” He added, “You just saw how high in her favor I am. And she’s high in His Excellency’s. All is well within the upper stratus of the Tokugawa court.”
“What about the astronomer’s proclamation that the cosmos is displeased with an important person in his regime who’s to blame for the earthquake?” Sano asked.
Ryuko waved his hand, as if brushing away a fly. “That’s old news. All the shogun cares about is the astronomer’s latest proclamation, the one about Yoshisato.”
Yanagisawa must have bribed the court astronomer to back his hoax, Sano thought.
“Lady Keisho-in is safe, and so am I.” Ryuko added with a sly smile, “Probably safer than you, Chamberlain Sano.”
Yanagisawa met Yoshisato inside the guesthouse. “We need to talk,” Yanagisawa said, glancing up and down the corridor to make sure no one was listening.
“I don’t think so.” Yoshisato tried to brush past Yanagisawa.
Yanagisawa caught his son’s arm. “I have to coach you on how to prevent the shogun from being manipulated by our enemies.”
“You’ve already drummed that into my head,” Yoshisato retorted. “How could I forget? Do you think I’m stupid?”
“What’s the matter?” Yanagisawa asked, surprised by his son’s anger.
“Nothing. Your scheme worked. You’ve positioned me to rule Japan after the shogun dies. Everything is fine.”
“I also saved your life,” Yanagisawa reminded him. “Now that the shogun has accepted you as his son, the order for you to be convicted of treason has been canceled. Ienobu can’t touch you. You should be grateful.”
“Oh, I’m grateful.” Yoshisato said the last word as if it tasted bad. “Grateful to you for disowning me, for foisting me off on the shogun. Grateful because you don’t have to pretend to be my father.”
Astonishment struck Yanagisawa. He’d never dreamed that Yoshisato would mind. “But it was necessary.” Now he saw that Yoshisato hated him for denying their kinship. “We agreed.”
“Not that I had much choice.”
“You should be happy about the way things worked out,” Yanagisawa said. “You’ll get to be the next shogun without sleeping with the current one.” The shogun drew the line at sex with the fruit of his own loins.
“Oh, yes, I’m happy.” Yoshisato gave a bitter laugh. “Because now that I’m the shogun’s son, I don’t need you anymore.” He smiled.
For the first time Yanagisawa saw himself in Yoshisato. It chilled him to the core.
Sano spent the rest of the day organizing the relief mission for the provinces. By evening, the team members had been designated and provisioned, the carts and oxen assembled. The mission would leave at dawn tomorrow, accompanied by troops to guard the cash contributed by the daimyo. For the first time since the earthquake, Sano felt as if he’d actually accomplished something, even though so much remained to be done.
When he got home, he found Reiko propped up in bed. She was watching Akiko play with her dolls. Sano smiled at the cozy scene and greeted his family. A maid brought them a dinner of rice, soup made from dried bonito and seaweed, and pickled radish.
“Aren’t you going to eat?” Sano asked Reiko as he wolfed down the food.
She sipped a cup of mint tea. “No, I feel sick to my stomach. But that’s a good sign that I’m not going to lose the baby. The doctor says it should be fine.”
Sano was glad but still a little angry with her. “You should have told me about the baby before I let you help me with the investigation.”
“But if I had told you, then you wouldn’t have let me help. We might be in the middle of a civil war now.”
“I can’t argue with that.” Sano never could argue with his wife when she was right. Things had worked out better than he’d expected, although he regretted the deaths of Minister Ogyu’s nurse and Madam Usugumo’s apprentice, which Reiko had told him about. If he hadn’t told Ogyu where Korin was, Ogyu couldn’t have taken Korin out of jail and brought him to the theater where he’d died. Then again, if Ogyu hadn’t, perhaps he’d have killed Reiko at the nurse’s house and Sano couldn’t have saved her. The events of that night were far from simple or clean. Sano knew that Reiko mourned for her guards, especially Lieutenant Tanuma, whose dying words had saved her life. Sano also pitied the Ogyu children, now orphans, adopted by relatives. Their parents’ deaths would surely haunt them all their lives.
Akiko stacked wooden blocks, building a house. She put her dolls inside, shouted, “Boom!” then knocked down the blocks. She clapped her hands and laughed.
“I wish she wouldn’t keep doing that,” Reiko said.
“Maybe it comforts her to make a game of it.” Sano hoped the bombing wouldn’t have any permanent ill effects on Akiko. Some scars were invisible. As Reiko sipped her tea, he told her about the shogun’s dramatic announcement. She sputtered tea and choked.
“The shogun has a new heir, and it’s Yanagisawa’s son, but he thinks Yoshisato is his!” she exclaimed. “I can’t believe it!”
“Neither could I, but in retrospect, passing his son off as the shogun’s seems just like Yanagisawa. This could be the biggest political upheaval of the shogun’s reign.”
“It’s disgusting how Yanagisawa took advantage of the earthquake.”
Sano thought back over the past month. “He’s not the only person who has, or has tried to. There’s Ienobu, who ingratiated himself with the shogun while the shogun’s usual companions were either too busy or dead. There’s Lord Hosokawa, who used the regime’s financial problems to blackmail me into investigating the murders, and the daimyo who wanted to overthrow the Tokugawa regime while it was vulnerable. There’s Korin, who cheated earthquake victims, not to mention the scores of merchants who are making fortunes off them. Don’t forget the people who tried to get rid of Lady Keisho-in and the shogun by blaming them for the earthquake. And then there’s Masahiro and his promotion.”