Yoriki Hoshina joined him. “What’s wrong?”
Yanagisawa stared at Hoshina. Now he understood that their reunion had also changed him, had altered his vision of the world. For two years Sano had been the bane of his existence; yet Sano had always acted out of duty to the shogun and dedication to his work, not out of a desire to injure Yanagisawa. Sano had saved his life, spared him punishment. And Yanagisawa had promised not to harm Sano. Could he repay the good fortune of his happiness by dishonoring their bargain and abandoning a comrade in danger?
Looking up at Kiyomizu, Yanagisawa guessed that Sano had gone into the temple to find Emperor Tomohito. When he did, he would also find Prince Momozono. Yanagisawa took a hesitant step forward. But habit prevailed; a sudden change of heart didn’t negate the goals of a lifetime. Yanagisawa backtracked two steps.
Should he let fate take its course, or rush to Sano’s rescue? Should he serve ambition and self-interest, or comradeship and honor?
35
Everything’s g-going to be all r-right, Your Majesty.”
Head tossing, body convulsing, Prince Momozono stumbled across the temple hall veranda toward his fallen, weeping cousin. Light from the ceiling lanterns splayed his ungainly shadow across the floor; his yelps punctuated the gunfire that boomed from the darkness down the hill. Knotted ropes circled his left ankle and wrist, the loose ends trailing; a cloth strip hung around his neck: The rebels must have bound and gagged him to keep him quiet.
Sano beheld the prince in amazement. Momozono looked as pitiful as ever, but he harbored the force of kiai, and Sano recognized the potentially lethal complications introduced by Momozono’s arrival. He scented the cold breath of danger; his mind raced.
“I’m glad to see you safe, Honorable Prince,” he improvised, anxious not to reveal that he knew Momozono was the killer. Getting the boys back to the city and Momozono into the custody of the bakufu seemed the best strategy. “Now that you’re here, I can take you and His Majesty home.”
“No! I can’t bear for everyone to see me in disgrace!” The emperor’s sobs dwindled to panicky gasps. “I never want to go home again!”
Prince Momozono lurched close to his cousin. He said, “We’re n-not g-going with you.”
The pair looked like frightened children defying a bully. Sano’s heart sank. “Neither of you has anything to fear,” he said, thinking fast. “Prince Momozono wasn’t party to the revolt, and Your Majesty will be spared the consequences of treason.”
Tomohito gazed uncertainly at Sano, betraying his need to give himself over to authority, but Momozono cried, “D-don’t believe him, Your Majesty. You must learn to beware of p-people who want to use you for th-their own purposes. Look at what happened because you trusted the l-left minister!”
Confusion disconcerted Sano. Did Momozono mean the right minister? Was Ichijo behind the conspiracy after all?
“The left minister was my friend,” Tomohito protested. “I wanted to rule Japan, and he helped me. He bought weapons with the money from selling imperial treasure. He raised an army to overthrow the Tokugawa for me. Before he died, he planned the siege of Miyako.”
Sano’s jaw dropped. “Do you mean that Left Minister Konoe was responsible for the revolt?”
Despite his astonishment, he saw that the revelation made perfect sense. The motives and means he’d attributed to Ichijo also fit the murder victim. Konoe, too, had been an ambitious man who’d wielded influence over the emperor. His position, like Ichijo’s, had allowed him the freedom to go about recruiting troops. And Konoe, as chief court noble, would have ruled from behind the throne if he’d lived and the coup had succeeded.
But his status as a metsuke agent had blinded Sano to these facts, and important clues. The notes from Konoe’s secret house must have been his plans for organizing the coup, not observations scribbled while spying on Lord Ibe’s estate. A man capable of murdering Kozeri’s husband, then pursuing her for fifteen years after she repudiated him, was mad enough to attack the Tokugawa. Now Sano recalled Ichijo saying, “Konoe… I should have guessed,” and understood that Ichijo had realized that Konoe was responsible for the plot. Emperor Tomohito had said he didn’t need Konoe anymore, meaning that because Konoe had already launched the revolt, he was no longer necessary for its success. Sano silently cursed his failure to see what now seemed obvious.
Prince Momozono bent over the emperor; while one arm flapped like a broken wing, the other clumsily embraced Tomohito’s shoulders. “It’s t-time to face the facts, Your Majesty. Day after d-day I listened to the left m-minister praising your ancestors who commanded power over Japan. I w-watched his h-hired martial arts experts teach you s-swordsmanship and convince you that you were a g-great warrior. He d-didn’t think I understood what he was d-doing. I heard him fill your h-head with dreams of glory until you agreed that you must lead an uprising against the b-bakufu.”
“It was my idea.” Tomohito’s face puckered with doubt. “He was just helping me fulfill my destiny.”
Prince Momozono shook his head. “Y-you were too c-caught up in the left minister’s scheme to n-notice what he m-muttered to himself every time he d-described the wonderful future when the Imperial C-court was restored to supremacy. But I heard. He s-said, ‘Then she will love me. Sh-she will be forced to obey m-me as her husband and l-lord.’ Your Majesty, h-he planned a revolt to get power over the w-wife who left him!”
“He did it for me!” Tomohito insisted, drumming his heels on the veranda while tears spilled down his cheeks.
Then the siege of Miyako hadn’t been intended as just a drive for political power, but to satisfy an obsessive love. The “accomplishment” that Konoe had mentioned to Kozeri wasn’t his elevation to the post of imperial prime minister, Sano realized; the “special occasion” Konoe had wanted to celebrate with her wasn’t a reward for turning in a traitor. Both euphemisms had referred to his takeover of Japan, which would place her and everyone else in his power. In his last letter to Kozeri, he’d alluded to the site of the revolt, which he knew because he himself had chosen it.
Momozono knelt beside the emperor. “I c-couldn’t let the 1-left minister get you in trouble. So I k-killed him.”
Sano was horrified. He needed a confession, but not here, with nothing to deter Momozono from killing to protect the emperor and eliminate a bakufu official to whom he’d just admitted he was guilty of murder.
“You killed the left minister?” The exclamation burst from Tomohito. Then dismayed recollection came into his eyes. “The night Konoe was murdered, you were already in the Pond Garden when I got there. After we found his body, you asked where I’d been before we met. I said, in the study hall, alone. We agreed to say we’d been there together. When that other man died, I was alone in the worship hall, and you promised to say you’d been there, too. I thought you did it for my sake. But it was you who needed an alibi!”
He jumped up and began beating the prince with his fists, shouting, “You tried to ruin my future. How dare you?”
“I did it to s-save you! An anonymous 1-letter telling what the left m-minister was doing wouldn’t have b-been enough to convince the bakufu-he was too important and r-respectable. I had no choice but to k-kill him. I didn’t know that the r-revolt would go ahead after h-he was gone!” Raising his unwieldy arms in self-defense, Momozono accidentally struck Tomohito’s chin, further enraging him.