“Yes, of course!” The shogun waggled his finger at Ienobu. “Never again take the liberty of acting on my behalf without asking me! Now leave us in peace.”
“Yes, Honorable Uncle.” Ienobu cast a venomous glance at Yanagisawa.
Yanagisawa smiled. Ienobu shut the door harder than necessary. Yanagisawa said to the shogun, “I have good news for you.”
“Really?” the shogun said eagerly. “I could use some good news, to make up for all the, ahh, bad things that have been happening.”
“There’s a very handsome, charming young man that I think you would like,” Yanagisawa said. “His name is Yoshisato. I’ll introduce you to him, if I may.”
Interest brightened the shogun’s eyes. “Indeed you may. Bring him soon.” He hauled himself to his feet, using Yanagisawa’s hand as a support. “I have to go to the Place of Relief. Masahiro, come help me.”
Yanagisawa was startled to see the boy step out of the shadows in the corner. It was Sano’s son. He was taller than when Yanagisawa had seen him-almost a man. He’d been there all along, heard the entire conversation. Yanagisawa inwardly cursed his own obliviousness. He would have to be more alert.
The shogun leaned on Masahiro’s arm. Masahiro accompanied him toward the door that led to his inner chamber. Yanagisawa studied the boy through narrowed eyes. Sano was responsible for Yoritomo’s death. Sano’s own son was still alive. Yanagisawa seethed with envy and hatred.
Masahiro looked over his shoulder at Yanagisawa. His gaze was sharp, intelligent. He was so much like Sano! Yanagisawa had to exert all his self-control to keep himself from killing Masahiro. He rose and walked out of the chamber. Ienobu was waiting for him in the corridor.
“I know what you’re up to.” Ienobu was so agitated that he looked like a swatted fly trying to flap its smashed wings. “You’re trying to put your other son in the shogun’s bed. You want to make him the shogun’s heir and yourself the father of the next dictator!”
“That sounds like a good plan,” Yanagisawa said smoothly. “Thank you for suggesting it.”
Ienobu pointed a shaking, withered finger at Yanagisawa. “Mock me if you want. Your plan won’t work. It might have with Yoritomo. He had Tokugawa blood; he was eligible for the succession. This one doesn’t. He can never be shogun.”
Here lay the flaw in Yanagisawa’s plan. Trust Ienobu to point it out.
“But I am a Tokugawa.” Ienobu thumped his concave chest, triumphant. “I’m first in line for the succession. And I won’t be pushed out of my rightful place by a bastard of yours who services my uncle.”
“‘Bastard?’” Yanagisawa laughed. “It takes one to know one.” He watched Ienobu turn purple with rage at this reference to his own parentage. “And if you want to inherit the dictatorship, you can’t just rest on your Tokugawa blood. You’d better start servicing your uncle. How hard can you suck?”
Ienobu gaped so wide in astonishment that Yanagisawa could see every big tooth in his mouth. He sputtered, “Nobody has ever spoken to me that way!”
“Now somebody has.” Yanagisawa strode off.
He regretted his words the moment he was outside the guesthouse. During his time away from court he’d lost too much self-control. He shouldn’t have fanned the fire of his enmity with Ienobu. The man wouldn’t give up after one failed attempt to get rid of him. Yanagisawa thought of Masahiro and what the boy’s closeness to the shogun signified. Sano was undoubtedly using his own son as a spy, and to gain power. Yanagisawa would have to deal with them soon. Striding through the wintry garden, he thought of Yoshisato and cursed under his breath.
His plan to replace Yoritomo with another son who could gain influence with the shogun was all he had. He really needed Yoshisato as a weapon against Ienobu, as a toehold in the future. But what if Yoshisato would never cooperate?
29
Having reached a dead end in his investigation of Priest Ryuko and Minister Ogyu, Sano worked with General Isogai to prepare the regime for an attack. They organized troop deployments, concentrating soldiers at the castle, leaving a scattered few to patrol the city. They inventoried the arsenal and ordered guns and ammunition placed at strategic locations. They conferred with the engineers and arranged the construction of emergency fortifications. Repair of buildings was postponed while craftsmen and laborers shored up the castle’s ruined defenses. As evening fell, Sano and General Isogai stood in a watchtower and surveyed the results.
Gaps in the broken wall around the highest level of the hill had been filled in with stone-covered earth to create a barrier around the shogun, his family, his top officials, valuables, arsenal, and food supply. Lights shone on the lower levels, where army squadrons were stationed. But the castle was still far from impenetrable.
“I hate to say it, but the crumbled pavements, landslides, and debris left by the earthquake are the best deterrent to an attack,” General Isogai said.
“Any rebels who invade will risk breaking their necks,” Sano agreed.
On the one hand, he was glad the metsuke had noticed the potential threat from the daimyo; on the other, he hoped the regime’s shaky defenses would never be put to the test. He felt more pressure than ever to solve the crime and prevent Lord Hosokawa from joining the rebels.
“Here’s another thing I hate to say,” General Isogai said. “It’s not just the Mori, Date, and Maeda clans we have to worry about.”
Or the Hosokawa clan, Sano thought. “You’re right. If a civil war starts, all the other daimyo will take sides. How many will uphold the Tokugawa, and how many join the rebels?”
He and General Isogai exchanged wary glances as they foresaw alliances shifting, the defections that war always involved. Perhaps the next time they looked at each other it would be from different sides of a battlefield.
A guard shone his lantern into the tower. “Honorable Chamberlain, the Council of Elders needs you at an emergency meeting.”
Sano was dismayed to hear of another emergency so soon, before he could resume his investigation. He rode to the Council’s temporary chamber. Set on a cleared foundation where a wing of the palace had once stood, the chamber was a plank shed large enough to seat a hundred people. Light glowed through chinks in the window shutters. Inside, Sano found the Council occupying a dais improvised from low tables pushed together. Kato Kinhide sat beside Ohgami Kaoru, who was Sano’s ally on the Council. Flanking them were the Council’s other two members. More officials lined the walls. Sano recognized members of the junior council, judicial council, and department heads. Isolated at the center of the room were two samurai. Bundled in winter garments, they warmed their hands at a brazier. The assembly’s expressions were deadly solemn.
Ohgami spoke. “The scouts we sent to inspect the provinces have returned to give their report.” He gestured toward the two samurai.
Sano knelt opposite them. “What did you see?”
Soldiers in their twenties, they looked as if they’d aged ten years during the month since they’d left on their inspection tour. Their hollow eyes contained hellish memories. Sano felt dread trickle through his blood.
“It’s bad,” one scout, named Horibei, finally said. His route had taken him west, along the T o kaid o, the highway that led to the imperial capital in Miyako. “In Odawara, the town and castle were almost completely destroyed by earthquake and fire. Twenty or thirty thousand people died. In Hakone, there were about four hundred casualties.” He related more death tolls and the sights he’d seen in other towns-mass cremations, mass graves, survivors maimed, homeless, and suffering from disease and starvation.
Sano had hoped that the earthquake zone had been confined to Edo and its near environs.
“It’s bad along the coast, too,” said the other scout, Hazama, who’d surveyed the provinces that encircled Edo Bay. “A tsunami came ashore after the earthquake. It washed away entire villages in Awa, Kazusa, and Shimosa provinces. In some places all we found were bodies on the beaches. The waves moved up the rivers far inland. Hundreds of people drowned in floods.”
The devastation was much bigger than Sano or anyone else had suspected. “How many dead, total?”
“It’s hard to estimate,” Horibei said. “Town officials were killed. Hundreds of missing people are unaccounted for. Records were burned. Huge areas haven’t been searched yet.”
