The shogun beckoned to a guard, who stepped forward holding a long, narrow, cloth-wrapped bundle. The guard unwrapped the cloth from around two swords. They were blackened by dirt, corroded by rust, and shorter than the weapons samurai carried. Sano estimated them as slightly longer than the ones he’d given Masahiro. They’d belonged to a child.
“The swords were buried near the skeleton,” the shogun said. “See the characters on them?”
Sano read the characters that gleamed gold amid the rust: ‘“Tokugawa Tadatoshi.’” He turned to the shogun in surprise. “He belonged to your clan.”
“Yes. Do you know who he was?” the shogun asked, with the air of a child playing a guessing game.
The Tokugawa family tree was huge, many-branched. Before Sano could think through it, Lord Matsudaira said, “He was your second cousin, Your Excellency.”
“That’s right,” the shogun said, clapping his hands.
Lord Matsudaira gave Sano a smile that said he’d scored a point in their competition for the shogun’s favor. Whoever lost it could find himself thrown out of court, banished, or executed. The shogun still had that power.
“Tadatoshi disappeared when he was fourteen years old,” Lord Matsudaira recalled. “In Meireki Year Three, on the eighteenth day of the first month.”
“The day the Great Long-sleeves Kimono Fire started,” Sano said.
“Well, well, the honorable chamberlain knows his dates.”
Everyone knew that infamous date forty-three years ago. No one could forget that fire, Japan’s worst disaster.
The Great Long-sleeves Kimono Fire derived its name from its origin. A girl named Kiku had fallen in love with a pageboy and made herself a long-sleeved kimono, worn by unmarried girls, out of fabric that matched the boy’s clothes. Kiku suddenly died, and the kimono was placed over her coffin at her funeral. Afterward, the kimono was passed on to another girl, named Hana. Hana died a year later, and the kimono covered her coffin. The same fate befell another girl, Tatsu. The girls’ families decided the kimono was bad luck and should be cremated in a ceremony at Honmyo Temple. When the priest lit the kimono, it went up in flames that set the temple ablaze. The fire spread across town. Eventually, some two-thirds of the city burned to the ground.
“I remember the Great Fire,” the shogun said mournfully. “It was terrible, terrible. I was eleven years old. My family took shelter in the, ahh, western part of the castle and watched the rest of it burn. I was so scared.”
Sano had been born two years after the Great Fire. His knowledge of it was limited to what he’d read in accounts and heard from other people, although not from his parents. They hadn’t liked to talk about those times.
“Tadatoshi was thought to have died in the fire,” Lord Matsudaira said.
“Over a hundred thousand people did,” Sano recalled. The casualties had exceeded ten percent of Edo’s population.
“I always wondered where he went,” the shogun said. “Now we know. But how did he, ahh, end up buried by the shrine?”
Sano pondered the remote site, the unmarked grave, the child’s disappearance. “It smacks of foul play.”
“Really?” The shogun’s eyes widened and his mouth opened in awe. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Anybody but you would have,” Lord Matsudaira muttered.
The shogun glanced at Lord Matsudaira and frowned. “Well, I would like to know exactly what happened to Tadatoshi. Chamberlain Sano, I order you to find out.”
Sano had seen this coming the moment he’d heard about the skeleton’s identity. Now he experienced two contradictory reactions. One was eagerness for a new mystery to solve, a chance to seek the truth. Detective work was his vocation, and he missed his old job as the shogun’s sosakan-sama-Most Honorable Investigator of Events, Situations, and People. His spirit craved escape from the pressure of running the government while neck-deep in political intrigue. But Sano’s other reaction was sheer horror.
He didn’t have time for an investigation. Not while he was fighting for survival; not while he had a country to save from civil war. Chasing down the truth about a long-ago death would be suicide.
And Lord Matsudaira knew it. He looked as though he’d just received a miraculous gift. His careworn face relaxed into a smile as ugly as it was delighted. “That’s a wonderful idea, Honorable Cousin. We can count on Chamberlain Sano to get the facts.”
The shogun beamed at this approval from the cousin who intimidated him. Sano could imagine the blows Lord Matsudaira would deal his side while he was busy with the investigation. His men’s faces reflected his dismay. Hirata stepped forward and said, “Your Excellency, the investigation into Tadatoshi’s death is within the scope of my duties.” He’d advanced to the post of sosakan-sama when Sano became chamberlain. “I’ll be glad to handle it for you.”
“Ahh?” The shogun squinted at Hirata as if he didn’t quite remember who he was. “Hirata-san?”
Sano had to admit that Hirata had changed since the shogun had first met him. He’d been away much of the past five years, studying the mystic martial arts. Rigorous practice had whittled the spare flesh off his frame and turned his boyish, innocent face serious and wise. Once crippled by a leg wound in the line of duty, he’d transformed himself into a magnificent fighter. But his reputation at court had suffered.
“I’d almost forgotten you,” the shogun said. “You’re, ahh, hardly ever around.” His voice took on a petulant tone. “You can help Chamberlain Sano investigate this matter. It’s too important to leave entirely to someone who might, ahh”-he flapped his hands like birds’ wings-“go flitting off again.”
The death of a Tokugawa relative was too important, even after forty-three years had passed, for Sano to balk at the investigation, even though the timing couldn’t have been worse. “It’s my honor to serve Your Excellency,” Sano said.
He felt the excitement that he’d once felt at the start of each new case, and a sensation of all the time since his first one, eleven years ago, rushing him to this instant. He remembered the man he’d been then-the lowly ronin, tutor, and martial arts teacher turned reluctant police commander. That man wouldn’t have believed he would ever become the shogun’s second-in-command, would ever fight for control of the Tokugawa regime. That first case had been a crossroads for Sano. He had a hunch that this case would prove just as decisive, the climax of his journey.
“I want progress reports every day,” the shogun said. “What will be your, ahh, first step?”
“I’ll determine the cause of Tadatoshi’s death,” Sano said.
“Just how do you propose to do that, when all that’s left of him is a skeleton?” Lord Matsudaira spoke with relish at the difficulty of Sano’s task.
“I’ll look into his disappearance. Following his trail may lead me to the answer.” Sano would do that, but he had another method in mind that he couldn’t mention.
“And if it doesn’t?” Lord Matsudaira said.
Ignoring him, Sano asked the shogun, “What are you going to do with the skeleton?”
The shogun chewed his lip. “I can’t keep it here.” He eyed the trunk as though afraid it would contaminate the whole castle.
Hirata said, “I suggest that it be taken to your family mausoleum at Kannei Temple.”
“Ahh, what a good idea,” the shogun said, relieved.
“I’ll do it for you,” Hirata said.
Sano knew that Hirata would take the skeleton on a long route to the mausoleum, with a stop on the way. “If you’ll excuse me, Your Excellency, I’ll begin my inquiries at once.” The sooner started, the sooner finished. Would that his world didn’t fall apart in the meantime.
As he and his men departed, he caught Yoritomo’s eye. Yoritomo gave Sano a strange look of sympathy mixed with apology. Lord Matsudaira called, “Good luck, Honorable Chamberlain,” in a voice filled with barely suppressed glee.
3
After Sano left, Reiko tried to rest, but she couldn’t because she kept reliving the attack. Her heart raced with panic that roiled through her in waves. The walls of the mansion seemed to press in on her. She felt trapped, like an
