The Iris Fan

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “We’ve more important things to do than fight among ourselves,” Yanagisawa said impatiently. “You once asked me to help you prove that Lord Ienobu murdered Yoshisato. That’s obviously impossible, but Yoshisato and I can offer you a sweeter deal: We’ll help you prove that Ienobu was behind the assassination attempt on the shogun.”

  The offer was like a strange new breed of flower spawned from the alien soil laid down by today’s events. Sano couldn’t ignore its allure. With Yanagisawa’s cooperation instead of his hindrance, it would be easier for Sano to solve the crime, do his duty by the shogun, and destroy Ienobu. But Sano smelled poison at the flower’s heart.

  “What about the other suspects?” Sano asked.

  “What about them?” Yoshisato’s tone was dismissive. “You think Lord Ienobu is guilty. So do we.” He and Yanagisawa behaved as if each were alone with Sano yet keenly aware of the other. “The evidence will bear it out. You’ll just find it faster with our help.”

  Sano also knew better than to trust the notoriously unscrupulous Yanagisawa, to whom the truth meant little and victory everything. And Yoshisato was a wild card, unpredictable. “Suppose we prove that Ienobu is guilty?” Sano asked. “Then what? He’s put to death; you the fraud become the next shogun. That’s a violation of samurai duty, loyalty, and honor!”

  “Forget Bushido for a moment. Suppose you refuse us and you don’t prove he’s guilty?” Yanagisawa said. “You’d be giving Ienobu a chance to bite you again another day. If he manages to become the next shogun, it won’t be just Yoshisato and me he’ll put to death. Do you think he’ll let you live?”

  Here was the crux of his dilemma, the devil’s bargain Sano had to make. How drastically the new circumstances had changed the political arena! With Yoshisato restored as the official heir, Lord Ienobu unwilling to give up his hope of ruling Japan someday, and the shogun in bad shape, the battle over the succession was a whole new game. The stakes in his investigation had risen drastically.

  The results would determine who inherited the dictatorship and who died.

  Sano looked back over his long feud with Yanagisawa. If Yanagisawa came out on top in the war with Ienobu, would he let Sano and his family live?

  The choice came down to the fact that Sano believed Ienobu was guilty of the attack on the shogun and so did Yoshisato and Yanagisawa. That gave Sano more in common with them than with Ienobu. “All right,” Sano said reluctantly. “We’ll work together.”

  Heading back to the Large Interior to resume his investigation, he wondered what form Yanagisawa’s participation would take.

  * * *

  WHILE SHE SEARCHED Lady Nobuko’s quarters, Reiko took a spiteful pleasure in riffling through cabinets, messing the piles of neatly folded clothes and bedding. Lady Nobuko angrily watched her every move.

  “Be careful, you idiot!” Lady Nobuko said.

  Reiko went to Lady Nobuko’s dressing table and disarranged the little celadon-glazed porcelain jars of medicines and hair oil. Lady Nobuko snatched them out of her hands and put them back in order. Reiko scattered writing supplies, ledgers, and papers in the office niche. Still tormented by Lady Nobuko’s cruelty, and still close to tears, she didn’t know what, except for bloodstains, she was seeking. The need to find evidence paled before her need to keep busy so she wouldn’t break down. She went through all three rooms. Lady Nobuko hobbled after her with a look savage enough to disembowel.

  “Help me lift the tatami,” Reiko ordered the lady-in-waiting.

  They pulled up the heavy straw mats. Reiko looked under each, inspected the floor for secret compartments. In the privy—a little shed connected to the building by an enclosed corridor—she peered into the malodorous basin set on the ground beneath the raised floor. She went outside and searched the bamboo thickets, then yanked off one of the lattice panels that covered the foundation of the building and crawled around under the house. An hour later, she was tired and cold, her clothes dirty. She found no bloody socks. She had a vague yet troubling sense that she’d missed something. There must be incriminating evidence here, but she’d been too upset and distracted to recognize it. She couldn’t hear the voice of her intuition.

  She was failing at a time when she, and Sano, couldn’t afford a single misstep. Each misstep decreased their chances of victory over Lord Ienobu.

  “Are you satisfied?” Lady Nobuko asked as she followed Reiko to the gate to make sure she left.

  “No.” Ashamed of her haphazard effort, Reiko added with false bravado, “You haven’t seen the last of me.”

  “Leave me alone, or you’ll wish you’d seen the last of me,” Lady Nobuko said. “Lord Ienobu and I can make things worse for your family than we already have.”

  Masahiro burst through the gate, breathless and upset. Reiko asked, “What’s wrong?”

  Lady Nobuko grimaced in annoyance. “Is your whole family going to invade my home?” She and Masahiro glared at each other.

  There was bad blood between them, too; it stemmed from the events following Yoshisato’s murder. Lady Nobuko had known who had set the fire, but she’d kept quiet when she should have told the shogun and prevented Sano from being charged with arson and murder. When the truth had finally come out, it had set off a chase that had almost killed Masahiro. He blamed his brush with death on Lady Nobuko’s lie by omission. So did Reiko. She hated Lady Nobuko for that as much as for her part in the loss of the baby.

  “Get out,” Lady Nobuko ordered Masahiro. He’d done nothing to hurt her, but her dislike of Sano and Reiko extended to their son.

  “Not until I’ve told my mother the news,” Masahiro said. “You’ll want to hear it, too. Yoshisato is alive.”

  It sounded so incredible, Reiko felt nothing but irritation. “Where did you hear that gossip?”

  “It’s not gossip. It’s true! Yoshisato didn’t die in the fire. He’s back! I just saw him. He’s here in the castle.”

  Reiko’s heart slammed in her chest like a pounded drum. The man that everyone had thought had been murdered more than four years ago hadn’t been murdered at all. Sano’s crusade to put the blame for Yoshisato’s death on Lord Ienobu had been for naught.

  “Yoshisato is the shogun’s heir again,” Masahiro said. “He’s also Acting Shogun.”

  Reiko was too stunned to perceive all the ramifications. She stammered, “But how did Yoshisato get out of the fire alive? Where did he come from?”

  “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Father.”

  Confusion assailed Reiko. “How would he know?” Sano had given her no hint of this miracle or disaster or whatever it was.

  “He’s with Yoshisato at the palace.”

  A scream that deepened into a groan issued from Lady Nobuko. Her good eye rolled up in its socket. She fell in a limp faint, her head striking a stone lantern beside the path. A gash on her temple spilled red blood onto the snow.

  18

  INSIDE HIS ESTATE, Yanagisawa walked toward the mansion with Yoshisato, trailed by the gangsters. His body quaked with pent-up sobs. Tears watered his eyes. He wanted to embrace Yoshisato and say how much he’d missed him, how thankful he was to have him safe and sound. But Yoshisato gazed straight ahead with a face like stone. He showed no sign that this reunion with Yanagisawa meant anything to him. Four and a half years spread like a sea between them, fathomless and treacherous.

  Yanagisawa blinked, cleared his throat, and spoke in a casual tone. “I’ll have rooms prepared for you and your friends.”

  “That won’t be necessary.” Yoshisato sounded as cool and businesslike as if talking to an innkeeper. “We’ll be leaving as soon as I’ve visited my mother.”

  “It will be a while before Lord Ienobu is moved out of the heir’s residence and it’s been cleaned up,” Yanagisawa pointed out. Ienobu would probably leave booby traps for Yoshisato.

  “I have lodgings in town,” Yoshisato said. “I can stay there.”

  His refusal of Yanagisawa’s hospitality was like a slap in the f
ace. He was as contrary as ever! Offense subdued Yanagisawa’s tender feelings toward Yoshisato. “The shogun’s heir can’t live in some flophouse. You’ll stay with me.”

  They stopped at the stairs leading to the veranda. As Yoshisato faced Yanagisawa, hostility showed through his indifference like black water seeping through cracked ice. “The shogun’s heir can do as he chooses.”

  Yanagisawa didn’t like Yoshisato pulling rank on him, but now that he had Yoshisato back, he couldn’t bear to let him out of his sight. “You won’t be safe in town.”

  Yoshisato responded with the insolent smile that had vexed Yanagisawa so often. “Remember what happened to me the last night I spent inside the castle.”

  After the fire, the kidnapping, and four years apart, they were even more at odds than before. “Why are you so angry at me?” Yanagisawa asked, honestly puzzled.

  Yoshisato looked as if he couldn’t believe Yanagisawa needed to ask. “You let Lord Ienobu hold me prisoner. Was it too much to expect you to rescue me?”

  Hating himself for letting Yoshisato down, Yanagisawa hurried to defend himself. “I tried! I’ve spent the last four and a half years searching for you!”

  “That’s not what I heard.” Yoshisato seemed caught between distrust and wanting to believe Yanagisawa. “Sano says you’ve been working the whole time for Lord Ienobu.”

  Sano, the constant thorn in Yanagisawa’s side. “I kept my search secret so that Ienobu would think I was cooperating with him and he wouldn’t kill you.”

  “Do you really expect me to believe that with all your resources you couldn’t find me?”

  “You made it hard. My spies were looking for a group of Ienobu’s samurai traveling with a young man who appeared to be drugged or an invalid or restrained, not a tattooed gangster. Lord Ienobu’s army couldn’t find you, either. Your disguise was good.”

  Yoshisato nodded, conceding the point, but suspicion drew his eyebrows together. “Maybe you decided to hitch your cart to Ienobu for real instead of gambling that you would be able to find me before the shogun died. You had your own future to think about.” He said with bitter rancor, “It would have been practical for you to give me up for lost and move on.”

  “Is that what Sano told you?” Yanagisawa demanded.

  “There you go again, blaming Sano for everything. You haven’t changed.” Yoshisato grimaced in exasperation. “No—this has nothing to do with Sano.”

  “Then what were you and Sano doing together?”

  When Yoshisato explained, Yanagisawa was wounded and jealous. “Why reveal yourself to Sano instead of me? Why ask him to bring you to the palace?”

  Yoshisato smiled briefly, pleased that he’d gotten a rise out of Yanagisawa. “Because I trusted Sano more than I trusted you. You might have done Ienobu a favor and stabbed me in the back instead of letting me near the shogun.”

  “I did everything in my power to save you! I sacrificed my pride. I rubbed my nose on Lord Ienobu’s bony rear end!” Yanagisawa shouted, “You ignorant, insufferable brat!” He grabbed Yoshisato’s neck and throttled him. The warmth of his son’s living flesh made him sob. “I should have left you to die!”

  Yoshisato seized his wrists, broke his grasp. “Don’t you ever touch me!” Blood engorged his face above the lurid tattoos. A terrible look came into his eyes. His fist shot out and belted Yanagisawa’s mouth.

  Yanagisawa tasted blood; he roared with pain and fury. “How dare you?” He swung at Yoshisato.

  Yoshisato ducked. “You allied with Ienobu to fulfill your political ambitions! And now you want to switch back to my side because the wind is blowing the other way! You two-faced whore!”

  They threw punches. One to the chin knocked Yanagisawa’s head sideways. He struck out and his knuckles connected with Yoshisato’s cheekbone. He was beating up the son he’d longed to see, but he couldn’t stop. “I’m going to make you sorry you came back!”

  “I’m going to destroy you and Ienobu both!” Yoshisato pummeled Yanagisawa.

  Lady Someko came running out of the house, crying, “Stop it!”

  Yoshisato kicked Yanagisawa in the gut. “That’s for my mother. You should have told her I wasn’t dead.”

  Yanagisawa doubled over and retched. “I couldn’t! I thought she would let it out and Ienobu would kill you, you damned fool!” He rammed his head into Yoshisato’s stomach.

  As they wrestled, Lady Someko grabbed Yanagisawa around the waist and pulled. She shrieked at the gangsters, who’d been watching as if they thought they should stay out of this private spat, “Help me stop them before they kill each other!”

  The gangsters pulled Yoshisato away from Yanagisawa. Father and son glared at each other and panted. The many sleepless nights he’d passed during Yoshisato’s absence caught up with Yanagisawa. He felt a sudden, overwhelming, despairing exhaustion.

  Their reunion had only set them at each other’s throats.

  “You’re both bleeding,” Lady Someko said. Yanagisawa and Yoshisato stared at her. She was dressed in clean, opulent maroon silk robes, her hair neatly coiffed and spangled with ornaments, her makeup immaculate. Yoshisato’s resurrection had made her beautiful, vibrant, and imperious again. “Come inside, and I’ll clean you up.”

  * * *

  IN THE PARLOR, Lady Someko wrung out a cloth in a basin of warm water. Yoshisato let her bathe the scrape on his cheek. Her touch was tender, her eyes filled with adoration. He knew she wanted to hug him but she remembered he didn’t like being babied. Today he wouldn’t mind, but for Yanagisawa sitting nearby. He was suddenly exhausted after years on the lam, fighting in gang wars, keeping out of Lord Ienobu’s sights, and the long journey back to Edo. He wanted to curl up in his mother’s lap and let her rock him to sleep. But he wouldn’t show such childish weakness in front of Yanagisawa. He sat rigid and silent.

  Lady Someko ministered to Yanagisawa. Obviously furious at him for not telling her that Yoshisato was alive, she scrubbed his split lip so hard that he winced. She dabbed healing balm on it, then said, “What’s wrong with you two?”

  Neither answered. Yoshisato supposed that Yanagisawa didn’t want to continue the argument in front of Lady Someko because he knew she would take Yoshisato’s side. Yoshisato didn’t want either of them to figure out why he was so upset with Yanagisawa. This quarrel was only part of a story that had begun long ago.

  During his childhood, the absence of his father had been a constant, sore emptiness inside Yoshisato. He’d been four or five when he’d asked his mother, “Why don’t I have a father?” She’d promised to explain when he was older, but he’d kept after her. “Who is my father? Why can’t I see him? Where is he?”

  Finally she’d taken him to a festival at Zōjō Temple and pointed out a samurai amid a party of officials. “He’s the chamberlain—the shogun’s second-in-command.” That was Yoshisato’s first sight of Yanagisawa. How tall, handsome, and fierce a man he was!

  “He’s a very important person, very busy,” Lady Someko had said. “That’s why he can’t come to see you.”

  Yoshisato had interpreted that to mean he wasn’t worth his busy, important father’s time. He decided to make himself worthy. He studied hard; he diligently practiced martial arts. If his father ever came to see him, he wouldn’t embarrass himself, and if his father didn’t, then it would be his father’s loss. Yoshisato later found out that Yanagisawa had four other sons—half brothers that Yoshisato had never met. One day Yoshisato learned that Yanagisawa had taken Yoritomo, the eldest, to live with him. Yoshisato was so hurt, jealous, and angry that he decided to hate Yanagisawa. Even after he learned that the unfortunate Yoritomo was the shogun’s concubine, he still felt slighted.

  When Yoshisato was seventeen, his father finally came calling. It wasn’t because he’d heard about Yoshisato’s accomplishments. It wasn’t to have wonderful adventures together, as Yoshisato had fantasized. It was because Yoritomo was dead.

  Thence began Yoshisato’s war with Yanagisawa.
Yoshisato was angry because Yanagisawa didn’t care about him; Yanagisawa only needed a new political pawn. Yoshisato was thrilled to meet his father, but he had a deep well of resentment, Yanagisawa hadn’t the patience to win Yoshisato over, and they both had hot tempers.

  And the first thing Yanagisawa had done was to pass Yoshisato off as the shogun’s son.

  Yoshisato knew Yanagisawa had done it to save his life. He even wanted to be shogun; he wanted to try his hand at ruling Japan, to leave his mark on history. He wanted to outrank Yanagisawa and become so important that he needn’t crave his father’s approval. But Yoshisato couldn’t help feeling that Yanagisawa had disowned him, had foisted him off on the shogun, because he didn’t want him. The wound cut deep.

  Then Yoshisato had been kidnapped. He’d found himself in a nightmarish reprisal of his childhood, waiting for Yanagisawa to come for him, feeling empty and hurt because Yanagisawa didn’t. And now he was plagued by the same knowledge that Yanagisawa didn’t care about him except as a political pawn. If Yanagisawa had indeed tried to rescue him, it was for the selfish reason that Yanagisawa wanted him to inherit the dictatorship and rule Japan through him. The wound had festered for more than four years. Yoshisato couldn’t forgive, or trust, Yanagisawa.

  “All right, go ahead and pout,” Lady Someko said. “But whatever you were fighting about, you’d better make it up.”

  “Why? I don’t need him, now that I’m the shogun’s heir again.” Yoshisato was angry at himself because it wasn’t true. Being with Yanagisawa reopened his wound, but it also filled the emptiness that winning the dictatorship couldn’t fill.

  Yanagisawa offered a weary yet adamant protest. “Yes, you do need me. You’ve been away too long; you don’t know what’s going on here.”

  “I seem to remember that when we did things your way, I got kidnapped.” Yoshisato wanted to prove to Yanagisawa, and himself, that he could stand on his own two feet, and he didn’t like Yanagisawa’s strategies for solving problems.