description, as Minister Ogyu. He was stout, pudgy, and shorter than his attendants. He glanced curiously at Reiko’s escorts, who bowed to him. His attendants led the horses away. Minister Ogyu climbed the steps while Reiko continued down them. She was afraid to look directly at him, lest he ask who she was and what she was doing there. A covert glance showed her a round, youthful face with a faint mustache. When they passed, she bobbed a quick bow and cast her gaze modestly downward. She felt him turn to look at her. Reaching her palanquin, she looked over her shoulder and saw him disappear through the portals. She knew Lady Ogyu would tell him about their talk. How she wished she could hear his reaction and what it might reveal!
She looked around the precinct. The attendants were nowhere in sight. “Wait,” she told her bearers, and hurried up the steps. At the top she peeked into the courtyard. It was empty. From within the tent she heard Lady Ogyu’s voice, loud and agitated, and a lower, calmer voice. She stole into the courtyard and crouched outside the tent.
“-Chamberlain Sano’s wife,” Reiko heard Lady Ogyu say.
“What did she want?” asked the other voice, Minister Ogyu’s. It was deep for such a small man, with an oddly resonant quality.
“She asked me questions about you.” Lady Ogyu sounded on the verge of tears. “Oh, I wish you’d been here to chase her away before I had to talk to her. I was so afraid!”
“It’s all right. I’m here now. Nobody’s going to hurt you. What questions about me?”
Reiko heard a note of worry in his soothing tone. Lady Ogyu said, “She asked if you took incense lessons. That’s when I figured out who she was. Then I knew she was fishing for information that her husband can use to prove that you killed Madam Usugumo.” Lady Ogyu sobbed. “They’re out to get us!”
Minister Ogyu let out a short sigh as eloquent as a curse.
“What is it?” Fright hushed Lady Ogyu’s voice.
“I just saw Chamberlain Sano at the castle. He asked whether Madam Usugumo had been blackmailing me, and if I had any secrets. I said no, but I don’t think he believed me.”
Lady Ogyu moaned. “What if he finds out?”
Excitement filled Reiko. This was as good as an admission that Madam Usugumo had blackmailed Minister Ogyu, who did have a dangerous secret.
“He won’t.” Minister Ogyu sounded too adamant, as if he were trying to convince himself as well as his wife. “Madam Usugumo is dead. She can’t tell.”
But it wasn’t proof that Minister Ogyu had killed her. Maybe Priest Ryuko had, and Minister Ogyu had innocently benefited from the crime.
“Someone else might,” Lady Ogyu said.
“There’s no one else who knows,” Minister Ogyu said. “Except us.”
A long silence ensued. Reiko willed them to say what the secret was. She wished she could see through the opaque fabric of the tent and read it in their eyes.
“What about Kasane?” Lady Ogyu said.
“She must be a hundred years old. She’s probably forgotten.”
“She might remember.” Lady Ogyu sounded as if she wanted to believe her husband, but couldn’t.
“If she does, then she’ll also remember that she was sworn to secrecy,” Minister Ogyu said with a touch of impatience. “Besides, if she hasn’t told anyone yet, why would she ever?”
“If Chamberlain Sano should get hold of her-”
“Don’t worry. He doesn’t even know she exists.”
He soon would, Reiko thought.
“But what if he somehow finds out?” Lady Ogyu said, still fearful.
Another, longer silence fell. Reiko wordlessly exhorted the couple to say something that further identified the old woman and explained what bearing, if any, she had on the murders.
Light footsteps ran toward Reiko, then skidded to a halt. She turned and saw the Ogyus’ little boy, who stood a few paces from her. They beheld each other in alarm. Reiko put her finger to her lips.
“Mama! Papa!” the boy cried.
Reiko fled.
27
After leaving Hirata’s estate, Sano met General Isogai, chief of the Tokugawa Army, in the street in the official quarter. General Isogai was a stout, middle-aged samurai with a thick neck and pugnacious expression. His belly strained the lacings of his armor tunic. The rim of his metal helmet indented his fleshy head.
“Folks have been looking high and low for you,” General Isogai said. His voice was hoarse from barking orders; his piggish eyes were bloodshot. He’d been working day and night, deploying his troops across the city and creating a semblance of order. “The shogun has called an emergency meeting.”
Countless emergency meetings had been called since the earthquake. “What’s this one about?” Sano asked.
“I guess we’re going to find out,” General Isogai said.
At the guesthouse Sano and General Isogai found the shogun and Ienobu seated on the dais with the four aged men of the Council of Elders. The floor below them was crowded with the council’s aides, the shogun’s guards, and palace officials. The audience overflowed out the open door; on the veranda, men stood three deep. The crowd buzzed with low, speculative conversation. The shogun beckoned Sano and General Isogai. As Sano knelt in his place at the shogun’s right, he saw Toda Ikkyu’s bandaged face in the front row of the audience. He noticed Masahiro kneeling in a corner. He remembered that Masahiro was now in charge of the shogun’s chambers, but this was the first time he’d seen Masahiro in an official role at such an important gathering. His son had a man’s job, at twelve years old. The earthquake had created strange circumstances indeed.
The shogun raised his hand; the crowd quieted. “I, ahh, called you together because I, ahh, have just, ahh, received, ahh, disturbing news. Toda- san, tell them what you told me.”
Toda rose on his knees and turned around to face the crowd. “I’ve discovered some activity among the Mori, Maeda, and Date daimyo clans.” Sano felt an internal drumbeat of foreboding. “I’ve done a rough count of their troops, based on what my agents have reported. The number is much higher than normal. It appears that the troops have been sneaking into town since the earthquake. They’ve been parading through the streets, all decked out for battle.”
Murmurs rumbled. Men exchanged alarmed glances. Everyone knew what this massing of troops could mean-a revolt brewing. The shogun cringed inside his quilts. Masahiro looked worriedly at Sano, who fought to keep his composure. It sounded as if the daimyo who wanted to overthrow the Tokugawa regime were so bent on revolt-and so certain they would come out on top-that they didn’t care who knew about their plans.
“Why have you only just discovered this?” General Isogai demanded.
“Because the intelligence service has been as impaired by the earthquake as every other section of the government,” Toda said.
Sano looked at Toda. Toda returned his gaze, inscrutable.
“How have those troops managed to get from the provinces to Edo?” asked Kato Kinhide, on the Council of Elders, a crony of Yanagisawa. “Aren’t the highways impassable?”
“The troops apparently got through somehow,” Toda said.
“Why haven’t the officials at the checkpoints let us know they were coming?” Ienobu asked. Distress knotted his ugly features. Sano supposed he was worried about inheriting a civil war along with the Tokugawa regime.
“The checkpoints have been closed since the earthquake,” Toda said. “The messenger service is virtually shut down. There’s nobody to bring us news from afar.”
Edo was a sitting target, blindly unaware of danger. Sano felt guilty because he’d been aware but hadn’t told.
“Are the daimyo going to attack me?” The shogun clutched Sano’s sleeve. “What should we do?”
All eyes turned to Sano. Sano still couldn’t tell what he knew because that would force the government to respond to the threat and the daimyo to proceed with their insurrection regardless of whether Sano solved the
