came because I wanted to tell the true story to you. It’s my duty.”
“Your duty, my rear end!” Marume shouted. “Take back your lie, or I’ll kill you!”
“I say let the man tell his story,” Lord Matsudaira said.
The shogun wavered, but Lord Matsudaira’s aggressive stare cowed him. “Very well. Let him go.”
Sano and Marume reluctantly did, although Marume smacked the tutor’s ear. Egen drew himself up with haughty dignity and said, “The day the Great Fire started, Tadatoshi went missing. His father sent everybody in the house out to find him. I tried, but when I went into town, the fire was already raging. I decided to save myself. I ran for the hills.
“I wasn’t the only one who had that idea.” His voice took on the same dramatic resonance as when he’d flung down his accusation against Sano’s mother. The shogun hung on his words. Sano saw with disgust that Egen liked an audience; he positively swelled. “Thousands of people were swarming up the hills. And who did I see among them but Tadatoshi and Etsuko?”
He gestured toward Sano’s mother. She stared at him, her mouth open, her hands gripping her middle, as if he’d punched her. “They were with a soldier from the house, a man named Otani. He and Etsuko were lovers. They were holding Tadatoshi by his hands, dragging him along the road.”
“How can you say that?” Sano’s mother cried. “You know it’s not true!”
“Quiet!” ordered the shogun.
“Tadatoshi was crying and lagging behind Etsuko and Otani. I heard him say, ‘I want to go home!’” Egen’s voice imitated a boy’s with startling accuracy. “At the time I thought he was upset and didn’t understand that he couldn’t go home because of the fire. I thought Etsuko and Otani had found him and rescued him. When they disappeared into the crowd, I didn’t run after them because I thought he was safe with them. But later, when the fire was over-”
“You’re making it all up!” wailed Sano’s mother.
“-Etsuko and Otani came back. Without Tadatoshi.” The tutor spoke with emphasis, paused for a theatrical moment.
A glance around the room showed Sano that Yoritomo was listening with horror and awe, Lord Matsudaira and Colonel Doi with cautious satisfaction.
“He never showed up,” Egen went on. “They said they hadn’t found him, hadn’t even seen him. And I realized that they hadn’t saved him after all. They’d killed him.”
“Did you see them do it?” Sano demanded.
“No, but they must have,” Egen said. “I figured they’d cooked up a plan to hold him for ransom. They probably wanted money to elope. Maybe he fought back. Maybe they killed him by accident. But it must have happened. Otherwise, why would they have lied?”
“Why are you lying?” Sano’s mother began to sob.
“Shut her up, Honorable Chamberlain,” Lord Matsudaira said.
“Mother, let me handle this,” Sano cautioned her, then asked Egen, “If you thought my mother and this man murdered Tadatoshi, why didn’t you say something then? Why did you leave town and wait forty-three years?”
“Because it would have been my word against theirs,” Egen said in a tone that proclaimed himself the most reasonable person in the world and Sano an idiot. “They were of the samurai class. Nobody would have believed me, a poor monk and tutor. I’d have gotten in trouble.”
“I’ll show you trouble.” Marume bunched his fists.
Cringing from him, Egen said, “I was ashamed of not speaking up. That’s why I left Edo, broke my religious vows, and became an itinerant peddler.” Now he sounded pious; he bowed his head. “To punish myself.”
Fukida rolled his eyes. Hirata said, “Your Excellency, it’s still Egen’s word against that of the Honorable Chamberlain’s mother. It’s also his word against Colonel Doi’s. Colonel Doi has said she and Egen are guilty. Egen says he’s innocent and puts the blame on her and this soldier-who, by the way, isn’t here to defend himself. The stories contradict each other. They can’t both be true.”
“They have one thing in common.” Lord Matsudaira pointed at Sano’s mother. “She’s a party to the kidnapping and murder in both.”
“Maybe I was wrong about her accomplice,” Colonel Doi said, “but I’m not wrong about her.”
Infuriated, Sano said, “You are wrong. And so is Egen. Neither of you can prove anything you said. You’re both lying.”
His mother wept. “Egen, how can you do this? How can you betray me?”
He regarded her as if her suffering meant nothing to him. Lord Matsudaira said, “Your Excellency, it’s up to you to decide. Is she guilty or not?”
The shogun vacillated, looking to Yoritomo for help. In the past the young man had put in many a good word for Sano; now he sat quiet, eyes downcast. The shogun raised his hand for silence while he thought. At last he said, “I’m afraid that I, ahh, tend to believe that she is, ahh, guilty.”
Horror struck Sano. A high, keening moan issued from his mother. No one else made a sound, but Lord Matsudaira and Colonel Doi shone with such victorious elation that Sano imagined he heard them cheering.
“Take her to Edo Jail,” the shogun told his guards. “Have her executed at sunrise tomorrow.”
The guards descended on Sano’s mother. Sano shouted, “No!”
He and Hirata, Marume, and Fukida leaped to her defense. Lord Matsudaira signaled his troops, who seized and restrained them. As they tussled, Sano’s troops joined the fray. But the shogun’s guards dragged Sano’s mother toward the door. She didn’t resist, but her sobs rose to a wild, crazed pitch. Between them she screamed Sano’s name.
“Mother!” Sano struggled to run after her and rescue her, but Lord Matsudaira’s troops held him immobile. He ordered several of his own troops, “Go with her. Guard her with your lives.”
They obeyed. Her screams faded down the corridor. The shogun said “Well!” as if proud that he’d dispensed with an irksome job.
Egen cleared his throat and said, “Pardon me, Your Excellency, do you mind if I leave now?”
“Go,” the shogun said, waving his hand.
The tutor stood, performed an exaggerated bow to the assembly, then scuttled out the door.
“Hey!” Marume yelled, straining against the Matsudaira troops. “Come back here, you rat!”
But Egen was gone. Sano felt more than rage because the man had stabbed him in the back and gotten away with it. Panic filled him because he knew that worse was yet to happen.
“So much for that.” The shogun’s smile begged for approval. He flapped a hand at Lord Matsudaira’s troops. “You can let Chamberlain Sano and his men go now.”
The soldiers did, but Lord Matsudaira said, “Not so fast, Cousin.” He reeked of the humor of a man who’s had a contest turn in his favor through a heaven-sent piece of good luck. Colonel Doi maintained a somber expression, but he relaxed. “This isn’t over yet. Chamberlain Sano’s mother is guilty of murder and treason, and so is he, by association. You must condemn him to death, too.”
Sano and his men stood speechless with shock even though they’d all seen this coming.
“Oh.” The shogun’s smile faded. He obviously hadn’t foreseen that consequence of his action, and he was alarmed to discover that he’d stepped in deeper water than he liked.
“And not just Sano, but his family and his close associates.” Lord Matsudaira eyed Hirata, Marume, and Fukida.
“Well, then,” the shogun said faintly; he didn’t want to back down and seem weak. “Chamberlain Sano, I am, ahh, afraid I must have you and your people executed…”
Neither Sano nor his men spoke, for the shogun had the right to do with them whatever he wished. But the shogun quailed under their outraged stares. “… unless you can give me a good reason not to.”
Sano pounced on the chance for a reprieve. “I can, Your Excellency.” He felt his men waiting in suspense, their lives riding on his wits. Intuition more than conscious thought guided him. “If you kill me, you’ll be alone with nobody to advise you-except your honorable cousin.” He flung out his hand at Lord Matsudaira. “Do you really want that?”
He willed the shogun to remember the talk they’d had last night. The alarm on the shogun’s face said he did.
“‘things become difficult and troublesome’?” Sano hinted.
Lord Matsudaira’s expression went as dark as a storm cloud. “What are you up to?”
