Bundori: A Novel Of Japan

of him to his left stood the No stage, a raised wooden platform with a roof supported on four pillars, which faced right. Seated at the rear of the stage, three drummers and two flutists played a solemn, archaic melody. Under a small potted cherry tree at center stage lay an actor dressed in the striped robe of an itinerant monk, presumably asleep; the chorus and other actors sat in the wings. Sano turned his attention to the man he’d sworn to serve.

The sliding doors of the building opposite the stage stood open. Inside, Tsunayoshi, the fifth Tokugawa shogun, occupied a dais. Seated upon piled cushions, he wore an opulent silk kimono patterned in shades of gold, brown, and cream under a black surcoat with broad padded shoulders, and the cylindrical black cap that marked his rank. He held a closed fan. He was smiling, nodding his head in time to the music. Tsunayoshi, Sano had heard, enjoyed No above all the other arts he patronized. He seemed unaware of the bored expressions of the ten retainers who, forced to watch with him, knelt on either side of the dais.

Sano felt a touch of surprise when he looked at Tsunayoshi, whom he didn’t remember as looking quite so small or benign, or so old for his forty-three years. He had to remind himself that this was the descendant of the great Tokugawa Ieyasu, who, less than a hundred years ago, had triumphed over many warring clans to bring the country under his control. And Tsunayoshi himself commanded the authority he’d inherited. His word was law; he held the power of life and death over his subjects.

A young actor carrying a sword came down the bridgeway that led from the curtained door of the dressing room. He wore a long, flowing black wig, tall black cap, gold brocade robe, and broad, divided scarlet skirt. Taking up a position at the left front of the stage, he performed a slow, stylized dance and sang:

“Driven by my worldly shame,

In ghostly guise I come

To the place where I died,

Taking the shape I had

When I lived upon the earth,

To tell this sleeping monk

My tale of long ago.”

Sano recognized the play as Tadanori, written almost three hundred years earlier by the great dramatist Zeami Motokiyo. Tadanori, lord of Satsuma, had been a poet-warrior of the Heike clan. When the Imperial House compiled an anthology of great poetry, they included one of Tadanori’s poems unsigned, because the Heike were regarded as rebels. Tadanori died in battle, lamenting the exclusion of his name. In the play, his ghost tells a traveling monk his sad story so that his fame as a poet need not be forgotten.

“My poem, ’tis true, was chosen for the Great Book,

Alas! Because of my lord’s displeasure,

It does not bear my- ”

The shogun rapped loudly on the dais with his fan. The actor, halted in midverse, stumbled in his dance.

“Not like that,” Tokugawa Tsunayoshi shouted. “Like this!” He sang the lines himself, in a high, reedy voice at odds with his exalted status. Sano failed to see any improvement over the actor’s rendition, but the rest of the audience murmured in approval. “Never mind, ahh, you are dismissed. Next!”

The actor slunk off stage. The music resumed, and another actor started down the bridgeway. Now Sano understood that this wasn’t a performance given by the shogun’s troupe of professional actors, but an audition for amateurs, those among the Tokugawa vassals and daimyo clans-families who governed the country’s provinces- who curried favor by catering to their lord’s taste in entertainment. A sudden awful thought occurred to Sano: Did Tsunayoshi want him to audition? His visions of performing some feat of great courage began to fade, and he took an involuntary step backward. Then the shogun beckoned.

“Ahh, Sosakan Sano,” Tokugawa Tsunayoshi called. “Approach.” To the actors and musicians: “Go away until I call you.”

The men on stage bowed, walked down the bridgeway, and disappeared into the dressing room. Sano, self- conscious before the curious gazes of the watching officials, crossed the courtyard and knelt before the dais.

“I await Your Excellency’s command,” he said, bowing with his forehead touching the ground and his arms extended straight in front of him.

“Rise,” the shogun ordered, “and come closer.”

Sano did. He locked his knees to still their trembling as Tsunayoshi studied him. Risking a direct glance at the shogun, he wasn’t surprised to see lack of recognition in the mild eyes, or puzzlement creasing the thin, aristocratic face. If he’d forgotten Tsunayoshi’s features, so must the great dictator have forgotten his.

“Well, ahh,” Tsunayoshi said at last. “You seem an able-bodied and able-minded samurai, just right for the task I have in mind. In fact, I cannot think why I have not utilized your services thus far.”

He looked around at his attendants, who offered noncommittal murmurs.

“However, I shall do so now,” Tsunayoshi said. “Kaibara Toju was murdered last night. His head was severed from his body and mounted like a, ahh, war trophy.”

The nature of the crime shocked Sano, as did the victim’s identity. The taking of trophy heads was a war tradition, not normally practiced in peacetime. Kaibara Toju was a hatamoto, a hereditary Tokugawa vassal-one of many soldiers whose clans had served the shogun’s for generations and held time-honored positions in his vast empire. But neither piece of news disturbed Sano as much as his heart-sinking realization that the shogun was going to ask him to investigate the murder. Too many lives had been ruined or lost during his first and only other case. But Sano’s interest stirred in spite of himself. A not wholly unpleasant surge of fearful anxiety made him feel more alive than he had in months. Without his realizing it, his short-lived police career had given him a taste for danger and adventure. And he’d always had a yearning to seek and find the truth. Lately he’d had no chance to satisfy either desire. But now…

“The bundori was found, ahh-” The shogun paused, frowning in an obvious attempt at recollection.

“On a firewatch tower in the Nihonbashi pharmacists’ district, Your Excellency.”

Silk garments rustled as the shogun and his retainers turned toward the sound of a man’s voice that came from within the building. Following their gazes, Sano saw Chamberlain Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu standing behind the dais. His curiosity roused at the sight of this man, about whom he’d heard much but seen only once before.

Yanagisawa’s combination of height, slimness, graceful carriage, and sharp, elegant features added up to a striking masculine beauty. The keen intelligence of his expression drew attention away from his brilliant, fashionable robes and kept it on his face. Rumor said that Yanagisawa, now thirty-two years old and Tsunayoshi’s protege since his twenties, had been and still was the shogun’s lover. Whatever the truth, Yanagisawa supposedly had much influence over bakufu affairs.

Now Yanagisawa knelt beside the dais, in the place of honor nearest the shogun. The retainers’ obsequious bows and the haste with which they made room for him testified to his power.

“Your Excellency,” he said, bowing to the shogun.

Tsunayoshi smiled in greeting. “Ahh, Chamberlain Yanagisawa.” His voice held a hint of relief, as though he welcomed the arrival of someone more knowledgeable than himself. “We were discussing last night’s unfortunate incident. I have decided to give the task of apprehending the, ahh, murderer to my new sosakan.”

Yanagisawa glanced at Sano. His eyes, large and liquid and enhanced with thick, slanting brows, looked black even in the sunlight, as if the pupils were permanently dilated. The hostility in them pierced Sano to the core. What could he have done to offend the chamberlain?

He’d sensed a heightened alertness about the others, including the shogun, when Yanagisawa appeared. Now the tension slackened as Yanagisawa said suavely, “A wise decision, Your Excellency.”

The shogun seemed pleased to have his chamberlain’s approval, and the retainers grateful that no conflict had arisen, Chests heaved sighs of relief; bodies relaxed more comfortably on the cushions. Sano’s own uneasiness subsided. Yanagisawa sounded sincere, despite that first malevolent glance. He even favored Sano with a smile that lifted one corner of his finely modeled mouth.

Tsunayoshi turned to Sano. “This murder constitutes an, ahh, act of war against the Tokugawa clan. The offender must be caught and punished promptly. We cannot let him get away with such a heinous affront to our regime, or let the daimyo think us vulnerable to attack. Therefore I am granting you the full cooperation and assistance of the, ahh, police force. All the necessary orders have been given.