“The shogun’s second-in-command is as much in the dark as everybody else?” Ohgami said. “That’s a bad sign.”
The procession marched up the steps to the palace, past the sentries, and into the reception room. The sweet smells of fresh wood and tatami graced the air. A new mural adorned the wall behind the dais-purple irises blooming along a blue-and-silver river on a gilded background. More soldiers than usual lined the walls. General Isogai, commander of the Tokugawa army, stood by the dais. His physique was still stoutly muscled, his head bulbous on his thick neck, but his complexion was too red.
As men knelt in positions according to rank, murmurs arose. “Why all the extra troops? Is the shogun expecting violence to break out?” “It might, if this is about another round of promotions and demotions.” “These are strange times. Even if you’ve performed admirably in your position for decades, you’re apt to be dismissed in favor of a nobody who can bring in supplies from the provinces or pay extra taxes into the government’s treasury.” “How much more of this upheaval can everyone take?”
The earthquake had made and broken more careers than Sano cared to tally. He seated himself on the raised section of floor immediately below the dais. Ohgami and the other four old men from the Council of Elders sat in a row to his right. General Isogai came over and ponderously lowered himself to his knees on Sano’s left. He wheezed and gripped his chest. The air filled with body heat and the odor of sweat. Sano’s nerves vibrated with the tension that had built up in the atmosphere since the earthquake. Nonstop work had taxed his and his colleagues’ endurance, had depleted their physical and mental reserves. He didn’t know how much more they all could take, either.
The door behind the dais opened. Murmurs subsided as the shogun emerged. The shogun looked a decade older than his fifty-eight years, although Sano knew he’d done not a lick of work for the earthquake recovery. Frail shoulders stooped under his gold satin robes. The cylindrical black cap of his rank sat on a balding head with hardly enough hair to form a knot. The skin on his aristocratic face was like a crumpled, yellowish paper. He leaned on Sano’s twelve-year-old son, Masahiro.
Masahiro settled the shogun on cushions on the dais, then knelt behind him. He wore his hair in a long forelock tied with a ribbon, in the style of samurai who haven’t yet reached manhood at age fifteen. Tall and slender, strong from rigorous martial arts practice, he had intelligent eyes set in a mature, handsome face. Whenever Sano looked at his son, he ached with pride. Masahiro served as head of the shogun’s private chambers, a post he’d won by proving himself capable after older, more qualified palace attendants had been killed by the earthquake.
The assembly bowed to the shogun. He raised his hand in a perfunctory greeting, then spoke. “We have had some, ahh, dark days since the earthquake. It was the worst natural disaster of my reign.” A new tremor afflicted his reedy voice. “I hoped that changing the name of the era, from Genroku to Hōei, would help.” Whenever a run of misfortune plagued Japan, the Emperor would proclaim a new era, in a ritualistic attempt to usher in better times. “But alas, it didn’t. I’m afraid I have terrible news. My daughter, Tsuruhime, died of smallpox last night.”
Sano and the other men in the room cast their gazes downward, troubled by the news of yet another death. More than a hundred thousand people had been crushed during the earthquake, burned in the fires, drowned in the tsunami, or succumbed to diseases afterward. Sano thought of Fukida, one of his favorite retainers, who had died. He felt lucky and guilty that his wife and two children were safe and well. He sensed caution in the air, like a veil of smoke.
No one here had personally known Tsuruhime; she’d lived in seclusion for her entire life. The officials were less concerned about her demise than about its effect on the shogun, whose whim commanded the power of life and death over everybody.
“It’s unnatural to outlive one’s child. How could it happen to me?” Anger lit a red blush spot in each of the shogun’s sallow cheeks. “It’s not fair!”
He’d apparently forgotten that many other parents had recently lost children during the disaster. Sano wasn’t surprised that the shogun was more concerned about his own feelings than about his daughter, who’d died at the young age of twenty-seven. The shogun was the most selfish person Sano had ever known.
“I’m just glad I, ahh, stayed away from Tsuruhime when she took ill. Or I might have contracted the smallpox, too!” The shogun looked horrified at the idea rather than sorry he hadn’t visited or said good-bye to her. “Her fate has made me more aware than ever of my own mortality. I, too, could be suddenly carried off by the evil spirit of death! And that is why…” He paused for suspenseful effect. “The time has come for me to, ahh, designate my successor.”
Coughs among the audience disguised exclamations of awe. For many years Tokugawa clan members had vied to manipulate the shogun into bequeathing the regime to them or their children. Officials had backed the contenders in the hope of favors later. So had the daimyo-feudal lords who governed Japan’s provinces. Now the speculation and competition were about to end. Dismay imploded within Sano.
He knew what was going to happen. He’d been fighting to prevent it, and he’d failed.
“For many years I put off naming a successor because I, ahh, didn’t have a son,” the shogun said. “I’ve been reluctant to adopt a relative as my heir.” That was the usual custom for men of position who lacked sons, but the shogun desperately wished to be succeeded by the fruit of his own loins. “I prayed I would father a male child. I hoped Tsuruhime would, ahh, produce a grandson who would at least be my direct descendant. Well, that hope is gone. Thank the gods I don’t need her anymore.”
The relief in his voice offended Sano, who dearly loved his own young daughter, Akiko, and couldn’t imagine valuing her solely as breeding stock.
“The gods have blessed me with a son, whose existence I was unaware of until recently. Now I present him to you as my official heir.” The shogun clapped his hands. “Behold Tokugawa Yoshisato, my newfound son, the next ruler of Japan!”
A door at the side of the dais opened. A young samurai walked out and mounted the dais. Silk robes in shades of copper and gold clothed his compact, wiry build. He knelt at the shogun’s right. His handsome face was wide with a rounded chin, his tilted eyes thoughtful and wary. The audience reacted to him with expressions that ranged from approval to caution to the horrified outrage that Sano felt.
General Isogai muttered, “If Yoshisato is really the shogun’s son, then whales can fly.”
It was common knowledge that the shogun preferred sex with men rather than women. That he’d sired a daughter was a miracle. Sano couldn’t believe the shogun was Yoshisato’s father by any stretch of imagination.
“Merciful gods,” Elder Ohgami whispered. “It’s really happening. The shogun is going to put a pretender at the head of the government!”
Yoshisato sat still and calm, with self-control impressive for a seventeen-year-old. Sano barely knew him but suspected he was smart enough to understand that although he had supporters who wanted him to inherit the regime, he also had many political enemies who would like to see him drop off the face of the earth, Sano and friends included.
Another man followed Yoshisato onto the dais. The shogun said, “And here is Yoshisato’s adoptive father-my good friend Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu.”
Yanagisawa was the only person Sano knew whose appearance had improved since the earthquake. The disaster had strengthened his tall, slender figure and enhanced his striking masculine beauty. His skin glowed with health; his dark, liquid eyes glistened.