Senior Elder Makino, a crony of Chamberlain Yanagisawa and persistent detractor of Sano. He had an emaciated body and ugly skull-like face. The letter expressly instructs you not to pursue them.”
“Those villains do not command the supreme dictator of Japan!” roared the shogun.
“They might make good on their threat to kill the women,” Makino said.
“They wouldn’t dare!”
“They’ve already dared to kidnap your mother and murder her entourage,” Chamberlain Yanagisawa pointed out.
“Even if we knew where the kidnappers went, we can’t mount an assault without endangering the women’s lives,” Sano said, and Hirata nodded.
“Ahh, yes. You are right.” Unhappy comprehension deflated the shogun. He wailed, “But we must do something!”
“May I propose an alternative to the army?” Chamberlain Yanagisawa said deferentially. “Police Commissioner Hoshina and I have formed an elite squad of troops who are trained to handle dangerous, sensitive missions. We can employ them to find and rescue the women.”
The very idea repelled Sano. He knew those troops were assassins whom Yanagisawa employed primarily to keep himself in power. Though Sano respected their skill, he didn’t trust them.
“I’ll lead the squad,” Hoshina said, his face alight with eagerness. “The kidnappers won’t even see us coming. Just leave everything to us, and the Honorable Lady Keisho-in will be back in Edo in no time.”
Nor did Sano want Yanagisawa and Hoshina to take charge of the situation. Their sole concern was rescuing Keisho-in, and perhaps Lady Yanagisawa. They wouldn’t care if the other women got killed in the process. Sano burned with hatred toward Hoshina. The police commissioner saw the kidnapping as his big chance. He would climb to power over the corpses of Reiko and Midori!
The shogun brightened, ready as usual to believe someone could solve his problems for him. Before he could speak, Sano turned his rage on Chamberlain Yanagisawa. “I won’t let you shut me out of this,” he said.
“I’ll do what’s best,” Yanagisawa said with equal ire. “And you’re forbidden to object.”
Bushido-the Way of the Warrior-demanded a samurai’s unswerving obedience to his master and superiors. Yet in this situation, Sano must defy the code by which he lived. “Hirata-san and I aren’t leaving our wives’ fate in your hands,” Sano declared.
“I suppose you’d rather entrust the rescue to those hundred reckless amateurs that you call your detective corps?” Police Commissioner Hoshina sneered. “You might as well condemn the women to death right now.”
The elders conferred among themselves. The shogun’s gaze moved from one man to another as he tried to follow the argument.
“We shall compromise,” he said, waving his hands to silence the assembly. “I’ll send out the army.” He thumped his chest. “You lead your, ahh, elite squad, and you take along your detectives,” he said, pointing at Hoshina, then Sano. “Together we’ll hunt down the kidnappers and rescue my mother.”
The shogun swelled with authoritative pride. But Sano saw his dismay mirrored on the faces of his companions as they all imagined the chaos that would result from their lord’s plan.
“That’s a brilliant idea, Your Excellency,” Chamberlain Yanagisawa said in the warm, admiring tone he used when he disagreed with the shogun and meant to have his own way.
“But… ” Police Commissioner Hoshina began cautiously.
Sano had no patience for the process of manipulating the shogun. He said, “Pardon me, Your Excellency, but we don’t know who the kidnappers are or where they are, or anything else about them except that they’ve already murdered a hundred people. To launch any attack is too big a risk to our women.”
“You’re a coward who fears any risk, and too incompetent to deserve any part in this matter. Do not listen to him, Your Excellency,” Hoshina said, leaping to defend his own plan and make Sano look bad.
“Don’t you insult my master!” Hirata glared at the police commissioner.
With great effort, Sano ignored Hoshina and said to the shogun, “We must obey the kidnappers’ instructions.”
A storm of voices raised in protest greeted his words. “But if we, ahh, wait for a letter, what might those, ahh, criminals do to my mother in the meantime?” the shogun wailed.
“Surely you don’t expect us to give the kidnappers whatever they ask in exchange for the women’s release,” Chamberlain Yanagisawa said in outraged scorn.
“Or to let them get away with their crime.” Hoshina matched his lover’s tone.
“To bow down to the kidnappers would portray the Tokugawa regime as weak and vulnerable,” Senior Elder Makino said, and his colleagues nodded their agreement.
Hirata turned a wounded gaze on Sano, as if Sano had betrayed him. “We can’t just do nothing. Let’s fetch our detectives and go!”
Sano hated to deny Hirata’s wishes. He hated to bide time while Midori and Reiko were in peril; yet he believed he must convince the assembly that they had no reasonable choice but delay.
“The women are the kidnappers’ insurance against retaliation from us,” he said. 'Criminals who are intelligent enough to plan and carry out that ambush know better than to kill the hostages. They won’t harm the women as long as they think they can get what they want.”
Observing the other men’s skepticism, Sano wished he had more faith in his own argument. He said, “Whatever price the kidnappers ask should be a small price to pay for the return of the Honorable Lady Keisho-in.”
Antipathy narrowed Yanagisawa’s and Hoshina’s eyes, but the shogun knelt; his resolve visibly waned. “Indeed,” he said.
“We can hunt down and punish the kidnappers after the women are safe,” Sano said, then addressed the elders. “That the procession was ambushed, the troops slain, and the women taken has already shown that the regime is vulnerable. Denying it now would be senseless. The news will spread across the country before we can stop it. A hasty, blind rescue attempt is likely to fail, and if it does, the bakufu will look even worse.”
Makino nodded grudgingly; the other elders followed suit. Chamberlain Yanagisawa conceded with a faint grimace, and the shogun set his weak jaw. “Sano-san is right,” he declared. “We shall wait for the, ahh, ransom demand.”
“And in the meantime, do nothing,” Hoshina said, glowering at Sano, obviously hating to lose his big chance to be a hero.
Sano gleaned no triumph from this victory, because his real enemies were the kidnappers, against whom he felt helpless. “On the contrary,” he said. “We must work together to figure out who’s behind the crime, so we can locate and capture him when the time is right.”
Crisis demanded unity. Tokugawa Tsunayoshi nodded his approval, calmer now that argument had ceased and Sano had reduced the disaster to a solvable problem. An uneasy concord settled upon the other men. The atmosphere in the chamber was hot and stuffy, acrid with smoke and the stink of nerves.
“I propose that we begin the investigation by identifying potential suspects,” Sano said.
“The leader of the kidnappers must be someone who has enough troops to massacre an armed procession, or enough money to hire them.” Hirata, though clearly opposed to Sano’s strategy, was duty-bound to support his master.
“He had to have known in advance that the women were going on the trip, so he could position troops to lie in wait for them,” Hoshina said. Sano noted how quickly the police commissioner had turned the investigation into an opportunity to display his detective talent. “Since the trip was a sudden impulse of Lady Keisho-in’s, and the news didn’t have time to spread far, he must live in or near Edo.”
Sano had an unfounded but powerful sense that the crime wasn’t as straightforward as it seemed. “I wonder who is the real target of the kidnapping plot,” he said.
Surprise lifted eyebrows on the faces around him. The shogun said, “How can there be, ahh, any doubt that I am the target, and the kidnapping is an act of war against me?”
“The kidnapper must be an enemy of the regime, who seeks to humble His Excellency and extort ransom money from the treasury,” said Senior Elder Makino.
Candidates included citizens who chafed under the bakufu’s strict laws, and daimyo-feudal lords-oppressed by the Tokugawa. Disgruntled ronin-masterless samurai-were a continuing source of trouble. Yet Sano saw other possibilities.
“Maybe the kidnappers want more than just to strike at the regime, or money for freeing the hostages,”
