Frowns of confusion marked the faces turned to Sano as he passed Makino’s letter up the line of elders to the shogun.
Tokugawa Tsunayoshi read the letter, silently mouthing the words, then looked up from the page. “Makino-san feared that he would be, ahh, assassinated. Therefore, he asked that the sosakan-sama investigate his death.”
Chamberlain Yanagisawa snatched the letter from the shogun’s hand. While he read, Sano saw his face acquire the glow of a man who has found light amid darkness.
“Let me see the letter,” commanded Lord Matsudaira. He looked as though he’d just stepped from high, solid ground into quicksand.
With mock courtesy, Yanagisawa handed over the letter. Lord Matsudaira read, his expression deliberately blank. Sano sensed his mind racing to chart a safe path through the dangers that the letter posed for him.
“Have you begun investigating Makino-san’s death as he wished?” Yanagisawa asked Sano.
“Yes,” Sano said.
“And what has your investigation revealed?”
Sano gave a carefully edited summary: “At first it appeared that Makino died in his sleep. But I discovered that his elbow joints had been broken so he could lie flat. And there were bruises on him from a savage beating.”
Sano didn’t mention the anal injury, which wouldn’t have been noticeable from casual observation. He hoped no one would ask exactly how-or where-the broken joints and bruises had been discovered. To his relief, no one did.
“Aah, my poor, dear friend,” moaned the shogun.
Yanagisawa greeted the news with an air of satisfaction. The discomposure on Lord Matsudaira’s face deepened. The elders watched the pair, more concerned about present developments than interested in what had happened to their colleague.
“Did you conclude that Makino was a victim of foul play?” Yanagisawa asked Sano.
“Yes, Honorable Chamberlain.”
“And who murdered him?”
“That remains to be discovered.” Sano saw Yanagisawa’s thin smile, and his heart sank because he realized that the chamberlain intended to use him as a tool in a scheme against Lord Matsudaira.
Tears and puzzlement blurred the shogun’s features. “But everyone respected and loved Makino-san.” Everyone else in the room looked at the floor. “Who would want to kill him?”
“Someone who stood to gain by his death,” Yanagisawa said-and looked straight at Lord Matsudaira.
Lord Matsudaira stared back at Yanagisawa, clearly appalled by the implicit accusation, though not surprised: He’d expected suspicion to fall on him the moment he’d heard murder mentioned in connection with Makino’s death.
The two elders allied with Lord Matsudaira sat still as stones. Yanagisawa’s cronies visibly swelled with the advantage they’d gained. Hirata stifled a sharp inhalation. The shogun gazed around in befuddlement. Everyone except him knew that the chamberlain meant to pin Makino’s murder on his rival. And if he succeeded, he and his faction would dominate the shogun and rule Japan unopposed. Sano’s heart beat fast with alarm.
“Before we decide who killed Makino, we need evidence,” Lord Matsudaira said, hastening to parry Yanagisawa’s strike against him. “Sosakan-sama, what else did you find at the scene of the crime?”
Now Sano found himself Lord Matsudaira’s tool, and he liked it no better than serving Yanagisawa. That each man wanted his support disturbed Sano.
The corrupt chamberlain had parlayed his longtime sexual liaison with the shogun into his current high position and kept himself on top by purging or assassinating rivals. He’d enriched himself by channeling money from the Tokugawa treasury into his own. Yanagisawa had treated Sano as a rival until they’d established a truce some three years ago. But Sano knew their truce would continue only as long as it was convenient for the chamberlain.
Lord Matsudaira was the nobler character of the two rivals, a wise, humane ruler of the citizens in the Tokugawa province he controlled and a crusader against corruption in the bakufu. He had more claim to power than Yanagisawa because he was a Tokugawa clan member. But he lacked the birthright to head the regime, even though he was smarter and stronger than his cousin. And Sano knew that Lord Matsudaira was as ruthlessly ambitious as Yanagisawa. Power wouldn’t improve his nature. Sano hated the thought of bloodshed for nothing more than another corrupt man ruling Japan from behind the scenes.
At the moment, however, honesty compelled Sano to play into Lord Matsudaira’s hands. “I found a woman’s torn sleeve tangled in the senior elder’s bedding.”
“A woman?” Lord Matsudaira’s alert posture bespoke his urgent wish to implicate someone else in the murder. “She was with Makino last night?”
“It would appear that way,” Sano said, though reluctant to cooperate with Lord Matsudaira. “A stain on the sleeve indicated that sex had recently occurred.”
The shogun squinted with his effort to understand the conversation. Chamberlain Yanagisawa scowled at the evidence that diverted suspicion from his rival. Lord Matsudaira relaxed. He said, “Then the woman could have killed Makino.”
“She could have had the opportunity,” Sano clarified.
Questions about Lord Matsudaira surfaced in his mind. Could Lord Matsudaira have been involved in the murder, even if there wasn’t yet any evidence that pointed to him? Perhaps he wasn’t an innocent man defending himself from political attack but a killer trying to escape punishment.
“So this woman is a suspect in the murder.” Chamberlain Yanagisawa addressed Sano, but his glare at Lord Matsudaira presaged another attack. “Can you tell us who she is?”
“I’m sorry to say my inquiries haven’t progressed that far,” Sano replied.
Satisfaction gleamed in Yanagisawa’s eyes. “Then you haven’t determined whether she did kill Makino.”
“That’s correct.” Sano felt the reply detach him from Lord Matsudaira’s camp and place him in Yanagisawa’s. Hirata watched the rivals in fascination, as if he perceived their invisible lines reeling Sano back and forth.
Lord Matsudaira forced a chuckle as he saw the advantage move toward his enemy. “But the sosakan-sama hasn’t proved that the woman didn’t kill Makino.” Or that I did, said his gaze that encompassed everyone in the room.
Yanagisawa acknowledged his rival’s parry with a faint sneer. “What else did you find at the death scene, Sosakan Sano?” he said, intent on wringing every last piece of ammunition out of Sano.
Much as Sano loathed to help the chamberlain, he couldn’t withhold important facts. “There were signs that someone broke into the study adjacent to Makino’s bedchamber.”
While he described the scene in the study, he saw Yanagisawa’s sneer turn to gloating exultation and Lord Matsudaira try in vain to hide distress.
“The woman had nothing to do with the murder,” Yanagisawa said, stating opinion as fact. “It’s obvious that Makino was killed by an assassin who sneaked into his estate, then attacked and beat him, on orders from one of his enemies.”
His hostile gaze at Lord Matsudaira conveyed the accusation that he verged on speaking. A thrill of horror shot through Sano. Would his personal quest for truth and honor ignite the war he dreaded? The elders loyal to Yanagisawa shot vindictive glances at their counterparts, who looked anxiously toward Lord Matsudaira. Sweat glistened on his face. He knew, as Sano did, that if the shogun were made to believe he’d had Makino assassinated, and done it to gain power, his status as a Tokugawa branch clan leader wouldn’t protect him from the law. The shogun would execute him to crush the threat to his own supremacy.
But Lord Matsudaira rallied without hesitation. “Have you identified the assassin?” he asked Sano.
“I’m sorry to say I haven’t.”
“What? Do you mean he didn’t leave his name at the murder scene? He didn’t drop a letter ordering him to kill Makino, signed by his employer?” Lord Matsudaira feigned surprise; the sharp blade of his sarcasm lashed out at Yanagisawa. When Sano gave a negative reply, he said, “Then there’s no proof of who the assassin is or who hired him. Is that true?”
“Yes,” Sano said as the invisible line hauled him back toward Lord Matsudaira’s side.
“In fact,” Lord Matsudaira said, “there’s no proof that an assassin did break into the study and kill Makino. Someone already in the house could have killed him. Someone could have planted evidence that an outsider assassinated Makino.”
