imperial faction is beating the Minamoto.” On the battlefield, boys in red-laced armor played dead. “But in real life, the Minamoto defeated your ancestor. Instead of seizing power, he died in exile.”
“If I’d been in his place, I would have won!”
“Is it a game, or are you rehearsing for a real revolt?”
The sword flew out of Tomohito’s grasp. He exclaimed in annoyance. Sano retrieved his sword and sheathed it. “Please answer my question, Your Majesty.”
Prince Momozono had an attack of spasms. The emperor scowled. “I just got clumsy for a moment. Of course the battle is a game, to pass the time. There’s not much to do here; I get bored.”
Observing Tomohito’s refusal to meet his gaze, Sano said, “Has anyone encouraged you to think about restoring power to the Imperial Court and ruling Japan yourself?”
“Nobody tells me what to think. And I’m tired of talking. I’ve got better things to do.”
The emperor and Momozono started toward the battlefield. Sano blocked their way. 'Do you know of a house in the cloth dyers’ district owned by Lord Ibe of Echizen Province?”
“I don’t know any people or places anywhere but here,” Tomohito said sullenly. “I can’t go outside.”
But an accomplice could, and there was one other promising candidate for that role besides Right Minister Ichijo.
“Where were you during the second murder?” Sano asked.
Jutting his chin belligerently, Tomohito said, “I was praying in the worship hall when I heard the scream. My cousin was there, too.”
Sano looked at Prince Momozono, whose face went into a terrible frenzy of tics. The emperor must have sensed Sano’s disbelief, because he looked uneasy and muttered, “We have to go now. Come on, Momo-chan.”
“W-wait,” said the prince. “I just remembered s-something about the n-night the left minister d-died. After the s-scream, when we were h-hurrying through the P-pond Garden, I saw a light in the c-cottage. It went out b-before we got there.”
If this was true, then there’d been someone else at the scene of the murder. Sano looked at the emperor.
“Yes, there was a light,” he said eagerly. “I remember now. I saw it too.”
Sano discounted the story as a lie designed to pin the crime on a mysterious unknown culprit. Watching the emperor resume his battle and Prince Momozono his station beside the arsenal, Sano tallied the results of the interview. He had Momozono’s motive for the first murder, Tomohito’s for the second, and a new joint alibi as flimsy as their previous one. Even if the prince didn’t have the power of kiai, the emperor might, and Sano was sure that the conspiracy involved Tomohito’s participation. But he understood the consequences of incriminating the emperor. He envisioned Tomohito denouncing the Tokugawa regime, and the ensuing civil war. Hopefully, he could prove the guilt of a lesser person.
Perhaps Lady Jokyoden was the murderer and traitor. Sano had planned to visit her next, but a disturbing alternative suddenly occurred to him. He left the palace, knowing that he was risking trouble as well as seeking information.
23
The Jokyu War was over. The troops had dispersed, and the emperor had retired to his bathchamber. There a big, round wooden tub held cool water. Sunlight shone through latticed paper windows; white curtains decorated with the imperial crest hung over open transoms. Emperor Tomohito lay naked and motionless on a platform while attendants washed his body and hair. His eyes were closed. Ritual decreed that an emperor could be groomed only while asleep, so that touching him wouldn’t compromise his sacred dignity.
In a corner of the chamber sat Prince Momozono, quivering and jerking as he watched the ablutions. The attendants ignored his presence. Tomohito seemed oblivious to everything. However, Momozono could tell that he wasn’t really asleep; he flinched and frowned when the attendants scrubbed too vigorously, but he knew that if he protested, his servants would immediately withdraw their attentions. Momozono waited, stifling grunts with a hand over his mouth. For months he’d tried to work up the courage to speak frankly to his cousin. He could keep quiet no longer, even though he risked offending Tomohito, because his silence could doom them both.
At last the attendants finished washing the emperor, bowed to his inert figure, and departed. Tomohito opened his eyes and sat up. “I thought they’d never finish,” he complained. He got off the platform and climbed into the tub, immersing himself with a sigh of contentment. “Someday I won’t have to put up with people washing me like a baby.”
Someday… It was a refrain that Momozono had heard often. He recalled an eight-year-old Tomohito trying to sneak out the palace gate, getting caught by the watchmen, and yelling, “Someday I’ll be able to go outside if I feel like it!” Tomohito had also rebelled against studying and performing ceremonies: “Someday no one will be able to make me do this!”
Prince Momozono heard in the words a new, serious conviction. Tomohito was no longer a young crown prince indulging in childish fantasies. He was a grown emperor, bent on making fantasy a reality. Momozono must bring him to his senses.
“Y-your Majesty… there’s s-something I must say,” he ventured timidly.
Tomohito sank in the water up to his chin; his long hair floated around him like a black fan. “Go ahead.”
More than anyone else in the court, Momozono depended upon the emperor’s favor for his survival. Stalling, he said, “Wh-what do you think of the sosakan-sama?”
“He’s supposed to be a great swordsman, but I bet I could beat him.”
Momozono’s heart sank as he perceived the extent of his cousin’s delusion. For all his skill, Tomohito was no match for a real samurai fighter. If Tomohito failed to recognize this, how could Momozono make him see the dangers he faced? Prince Momozono knew all too well who had fostered Tomohito’s false sense of grandeur. Anger sent spasms through his limbs; he fought to still them.
“Doesn’t it w-worry you that the sosakan-sama is alive and still asking questions?” Momozono asked anxiously.
Tomohito laughed. “He doesn’t scare me.”
Unable to restrain himself, Momozono burst out, “Y-your Majesty, perhaps you should be afraid!”
The emperor sat up in the tub, scowling. “Are you presuming to tell me what to do?”
“No, no!” Momozono scuttled over to the tub, knelt, and bowed, trembling in his haste to appease his cousin. “I-I’m only trying to p-protect you, Your Majesty.”
He had done so before. When Tomohito had reached the age of thirteen, his unhappiness with his sheltered existence had grown unbearable. More than ever he had yearned to experience life outside the palace, and so had befriended three roguish courtiers a few years his senior. Momozono had watched the emperor listen to their talk of drinking in teahouses, romancing girls, and skirmishing with Miyako’s ruffians, his eyes aglow with vicarious excitement. Soon he craved more active participation in the trio’s fun. He began planning adventures for them. At first these were mere pranks, such as stealing fruit from the market and putting an ox calf in a firewatch tower. When the courtiers came back to the palace, Tomohito reveled in their descriptions of the stir they’d created.
Then one day the emperor decided that his friends must break into the shoshidai’s house and bring back some token as proof of their success. Prince Momozono happened to be walking through the kuge quarter when the three courtiers returned from their escapade. Hidden by the darkness, he’d heard them arguing and realized that the fun had gone dreadfully wrong.
“We should never have done it!”
“Everything would have been fine if we’d left right after getting inside and taking the shoshidai’s personal seal. But no, you got greedy. You had to break open that chest and steal the gold coins.”
“How was I supposed to know that the daughter would hear the noise and find us there?”
“Well, you shouldn’t have forced yourself on her!”
“I was so drunk I didn’t know what I was doing.”
“What do we tell His Majesty?”
“Nothing. We’ll say that it went perfectly. I’ll hide the gold.” The latter speaker was Lord Koremitsu, the trio’s leader, the one who’d stolen the gold and raped the shoshidai’s daughter. Prince Momozono was terribly jealous of
