“Are you suggesting that somebody deliberately tried to make my wife sick?” Lord Tsunanori demanded.
How quickly he’d jumped to the idea that her death had involved foul play. “Assassination is always a possibility when an important person dies suddenly from an unusual cause,” Sano said. “Do you think someone killed your wife?”
“Do I think someone killed my wife?” Lord Tsunanori spoke in a hushed tone. He frowned, stammered, then said, “No. I never thought of it at all.” His loose mouth dropped. “You think I infected her with smallpox. That’s what you’re getting at.”
“Did you?” Sano asked.
Lord Tsunanori reacted with the same tone, frown, and stammers as before. “No! I would never! What gave you that ridiculous idea?”
Behind his back, Marume held up one finger, then two, then three, counting the denials. Sano noted how quickly Lord Tsunanori had interpreted his question as an accusation. Keeping his pact with Lady Nobuko confidential, Sano started to say he’d heard a rumor.
Lord Tsunanori cut him off with an angry exclamation. “It must have been Lady Nobuko.”
“Why do you think it was her?” Sano said, startled.
“She hates me. She thought I was a bad husband.” Lord Tsunanori’s voice took on a whiny, aggrieved note. “I gave my wife every luxury she could have wanted. But Lady Nobuko expected me to worship the ground Tsuruhime walked on. Lady Nobuko was always criticizing me. To please her, I would have had to rub my nose against Tsuruhime’s behind, just to show how grateful I was to be married to the shogun’s daughter.”
“It sounds as if you weren’t grateful at all,” Sano said.
“No man in his right mind would have been. I paid dearly for the privilege. I had to give huge tributes to the government.” Lord Tsunanori quaffed another drink, wiped his mouth on his sleeve. His eyes had a glassy look. “After the earthquake, I was the first daimyo that the shogun came to for money to fix Edo.” He held out his palm, which was calloused from sword-fighting practice, and wiggled his fingers. “Because I was his son-in-law.”
Disturbed by what he was hearing, Sano said, “Didn’t Tsuruhime bring you a big dowry?”
“It was chicken dung compared to what I’ve spent on account of her. Things didn’t turn out the way I expected when I agreed to the marriage. Tsuruhime was supposed to bear me the shogun’s grandson. I was supposed to have a chance to be the father of the next shogun. But she never conceived. After a few years of trying, I quit sleeping with her. The bitch!”
Sano was shocked to hear even a garrulous drunk malign his dead wife so crudely. He pitied Tsuruhime, even though she was beyond caring. “It wasn’t her fault that you lost money on her.” Or that she hadn’t borne him a child. Sano knew that Lord Tsunanori had no illegitimate offspring, despite the fact that he had concubines. The wife usually took the blame for infertility. The husband didn’t want to admit he was responsible. It was the same with the shogun. His failure to produce an heir had been blamed on his wife, his concubines, his preference for men, and sins committed in a past life, but woe betide anyone who suggested that his seed was defective. Sano had had a hell of a time discrediting Yoshisato, partly because the shogun welcomed Yoshisato as proof of his virility.
“Tsuruhime made the situation worse,” Lord Tsunanori said. “She treated me like dirt. And she wasn’t even pretty.” Anger at her turned to disgust. “Lady Nobuko spoiled Tsuruhime. She taught her that because she was the shogun’s daughter, she should expect people to treat her like a goddess and punish them if they didn’t. Her servants were afraid of her. She beat them with a hairbrush. I had to pay them exorbitant wages to work for her. Hell, I was afraid of her. She kept threatening to tell her father that I was a bad husband. The shogun could have granted her a divorce, but you’d better believe he’d have charged me a fortune to get rid of her!”
“Thanks to the smallpox, you got rid of her for free,” Marume said.
“Hey, I don’t like your attitude.” Then Lord Tsunanori realized that his own wasn’t so respectable. “I shouldn’t speak ill of Tsuruhime. But I’m glad not to be married to her anymore.”
“Did Lady Nobuko know how you felt about Tsuruhime?” Sano asked.
“Yes. Whenever she lectured me about what I owed Tsuruhime for the honor of being her husband, I gave her a piece of my mind.”
Sano expelled his breath in consternation. He’d come to prove Yanagisawa was responsible for Tsuruhime’s death, but here was another suspect. And Lady Nobuko knew Lord Tsunanori had strong reason for killing Tsuruhime, but she’d kept quiet about it. She’d set Sano on a dangerous campaign against Yanagisawa while aware that he could be innocent and that if Sano pursued the investigation he might run afoul of Lord Tsunanori, who was a powerful daimyo and the shogun’s son-in-law. But Sano couldn’t stop the investigation just because it might not incriminate Yanagisawa or because it would make him new enemies.
“I’d like to talk to the members of your household,” Sano said.
Surprised by the change of subject, Lord Tsunanori drew back from Sano with appalled realization. “You didn’t come here to offer condolences, did you? That was just a pretense. You think Tsuruhime was murdered, and you’re out to get me for it!”
“You’ve given me reason to think you’re guilty.” Sano could easily imagine Lord Tsunanori getting fed up with Tsuruhime and feeling driven to kill her as a last resort. “I’ve no choice but to investigate.” He had a duty to obtain justice for his lord’s daughter, no matter if it wasn’t Yanagisawa he brought down. Sano rose; so did Marume. “I’m going to talk to your household members. I’m also going to inspect Tsuruhime’s room.”
Lord Tsunanori stood, swayed, pointed his finger at Sano, and shouted, “Get out of my house, or I’ll throw you out.”
His men rushed in. Gathering around him, they glared at Sano and Marume. Sano smelled nerves burning alcohol out of them. Lord Tsunanori’s face flushed and muscles engorged with combat lust. Samurai instinct urged Sano to fight, but a brawl with Lord Tsunanori was too dangerous for another reason besides the fact that he had a huge army at his disposal. The other daimyo already resented the government for draining their treasuries to pay for rebuilding Edo. Sano had barely managed to stave off one rebellion since the earthquake. The daimyo might seize on his clash with Lord Tsunanori as a pretext to launch another.
To defuse the conflict, Sano spoke in a mild tone. “If you’re innocent, you should be glad to cooperate with my investigation. If you don’t cooperate, that would mean you have something to hide.”
Lord Tsunanori shifted his weight as contradictory emotions pulled at him. His eyes flashed with anger because Sano had saddled him with a dilemma, but he wasn’t drunk enough or stupid enough not to foresee the serious consequences of violence against a government official. The cash-strapped regime would welcome the excuse to confiscate his wealth.
“Very well.” Glad to avoid a fight while saving face in front of his men, Lord Tsunanori gestured as if tossing garbage at Sano’s feet. “Interrogate my household. Search my wife’s room. You won’t find any evidence against me.” He spoke with such confidence that Sano wondered if he was really innocent or really sure he’d covered his tracks. He told his men, “Go collect everybody for Chamberlain Sano to talk to.”
They departed. Aggression flared in Lord Tsunanori’s eyes again. “If you go around saying my wife was murdered and I’m under suspicion, you’ll be sorry.” He wasn’t drunk or stupid enough not to recognize how dangerous the suspicion could be to him, or not to know the trouble that he and the other daimyo could cause Sano and the Tokugawa regime.