Owariya last night.”
“What did he say?”
“Nitta objected to giving up Wisteria,” said Makino, “especially since this was her third appointment with Lord Mitsuyoshi, and she would finally bed him. But Nitta didn’t dare offend the shogun’s heir apparent by refusing to yield. Instead, he consented, and he joined our party. He sat in a corner, drinking and sulking. When Wisteria arrived and met Lord Mitsuyoshi in the next room, Nitta watched them through a hole in the partition. When they went upstairs, he stormed out of the house. Obviously, he couldn’t bear to stay while Wisteria pleasured another man right above his head.”
“Did you see the treasury minister after that?” Sano said.
“No. I stayed at the party; he never returned.”
But Nitta might have sneaked back to the house, gone upstairs, then stabbed the man who’d done him out of a night with his beloved. “While you were at the party, did you hear any unusual sounds from upstairs?” Sano asked Makino.
“I heard nothing whatsoever. The music was loud, and so were my fellow guests.”
Sano wondered what had become of Wisteria. Was she also dead by the hand of her patron? The idea dismayed Sano, as did the possibility that he might soon find himself for the first time investigating the murder of a former lover.
“That ends my story,” Makino said. “May I ask when I and my fellow captives might be allowed to leave Yoshiwara?”
“As soon as my men have finished taking everyone’s names,” Sano said.
The senior elder eyed him with veiled expectancy. “I’ve handed you a possible culprit in the murder. I trust that is a fair reward for your discretion?”
“Your evidence doesn’t prove Treasury Minister Nitta’s guilt,” Sano said, 'or explain how Lady Wisteria got out of Yoshiwara.”
The door of the teahouse opened, and Sano turned to see Hirata, ruddy-faced and windblown, standing on the threshold. “Excuse me, Sosakan-sama,” Hirata said, bowing, -but I’ve discovered something of possible importance.”
Walking down the street together, Sano and Hirata compared the results of their inquiries. “Jealousy gives Treasury Minister Nitta a motive for wanting Lord Mitsuyoshi dead,” Sano said, “and his attachment to Lady Wisteria is a reason for him to remove her from Yoshiwara.”
Ahead, beyond the rows of teahouses and brothels, the guards had opened the gates. Men emerged from the buildings and streamed out of Yoshiwara. The sky resembled an ink-wash spreading across damp paper; blustering wind and veils of falling snow promised an arduous evening’s journey home.
“Nitta could have taken Lady Wisteria away in the palanquin,” Hirata said. “He seems as good a suspect as the yarite.”
Unless she confessed under torture, thought Sano. He wondered uneasily where Hoshina was. “We’ll interrogate Nitta tomorrow-if he hasn’t fled town with Wisteria.”
As they reached the gates, where Sano’s detectives awaited them, Sano noticed Hirata looking at him as if needing to speak, but reluctant to do so. “Was there something else?” Sano said.
“Oh, no,” Hirata said nervously. “It’s just that my miai is tomorrow…”
Caught up in the investigation, Sano had completely forgotten the miai, in which he, as Hirata’s go-between, must play a key role. Distress flooded him. “Hirata-san, I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to -”
“That’s all right,” Hirata said staunchly. “The miai can be rescheduled after the investigation is over.”
They both recognized that duty took precedence over personal affairs; yet Sano knew how eager Hirata was to marry Midori. “Go ahead with the miai,” Sano said. “I’ll get someone to substitute for me.”
Hope and concern mingled in Hirata’s expression. “I appreciate your generosity, but you need me on the case. I can’t take time away.”
“Yes, you can,” Sano said, although he was loath to lose the services of his chief retainer at a critical time. “The miai won’t last long, and the detectives can help me until you’re finished.” Observing that Hirata was ready to refuse, he said, “You’ll go to the miai. That’s an order.”
“Yes, Sosakan-sama,” Hirata said with heartfelt gratitude.
Sano hoped the miai would succeed without him, but he had more immediate concerns. “We’d better get back to the castle.” On the way he must tell Hirata about his past relationship with Wisteria. He could trust Hirata to keep the information confidential. “The shogun will be expecting a report from us.”
5
Sano and Hirata reached Edo just before the hour of the boar, when the gates to every neighborhood would close for the night, halting the movement of traffic through the streets until dawn. The snowfall had ceased; the indigo sky glittered with stars like ice crystals. A ride up the hill through the stone passages and guarded checkpoints of Edo Castle brought Sano and Hirata to the shogun’s palace. Snow gleamed white upon the gabled roofs and transformed the garden’s shrubs and boulders into ghostly shapes. Sano and Hirata trod softly in the eerie quiet, alone except for the sentries at the palace doors.
But the interior of the palace was a hive of activity. In the shogun’s private chamber, a funeral altar held smoking incense burners, hundreds of lit candles, and a portrait of Lord Mitsuyoshi. Sano and Hirata entered to find Shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi hunched on his bed on a raised platform. Swathed in quilts, his face haggard, and his head bare of the black cap of his rank, he looked less like the dictator of Japan than like an old peasant. He moaned with every breath. Edo Castle ’s chief physician, dressed in a dark blue coat, felt the pulses of the shogun’s body; two more doctors mixed herb potions. Attendants and guards milled about. Near the platform, Chamberlain Yanagisawa sat facing four members of the Council of Elders.
“What is your diagnosis, Dr. Kitano-san?” asked Yanagisawa. Tall and slender, with sharp, elegant features, he was a man of remarkable beauty, clad in brilliant silk robes. His intense, liquid eyes watched the shogun.
“The death of Lord Mitsuyoshi has caused His Excellency a severe shock,” the doctor said gravely. “His emotions are out of equilibrium and threatening his physical health.”
Anxious murmurs arose as the elders, all dignified samurai of venerable age, conferred among themselves. Conspicuously absent was Senior Elder Makino, who Sano supposed was still journeying home from Yoshiwara.
Dr. Kitano palpated the shogun’s chest. “Do the pains persist here, Your Excellency?”
“Yes, ahh, yes!” Tokugawa Tsunayoshi groaned.
“He’s taken neither food nor drink all day,” the doctor informed the assembly. To the shogun he said, “You must keep up your strength. Won’t you please try to eat?”
Servants proffered bowls of broth and tea, which the shogun waved away. “Alas, I cannot. Ahh, how I suffer!”
Sano registered alarm at how badly the murder had affected his lord’s weak constitution, just as Tokugawa Tsunayoshi spied him and Hirata. “Ah, Sosakan-sama, at last!” the shogun said; his swollen, red-rimmed eyes brightened. “Come here to me.”
Everyone watched Sano and Hirata approach the platform, kneel near the other officials, and bow. As the officials bowed to the newcomers, Chamberlain Yanagisawa’s face wore the deliberately bland expression with which he’d greeted Sano throughout their truce. The elders looked hopeful that good news would relieve the shogun’s illness, and Sano felt apprehension tighten his nerves.
“Have you caught the, ahh, evil criminal who killed my beloved cousin?” the shogun said with eager anticipation.
“Not yet, Your Excellency,” Sano was forced to reply.
Disappointment drew the shogun’s features into a frown. “And why have you not?”
“I apologize for the delay, Your Excellency, but there’s been insufficient time.” Sano masked fear with a calm,
