The Incense Game: A Novel of Feudal Japan

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “So we know that the women were poisoned and how,” Hirata said, gratified yet disturbed. “If only we knew who did it.”

  7

  THE TOP OFFICIALS of the Tokugawa regime had once lived in fine estates within Edo Castle, in mansions surrounded by gardens and walls. Now their quarter was reduced to a few intact sections of buildings amid rubble heaps. Most of the residents had evacuated. Only one estate was still occupied. Here, sentries guarded the private chambers, a square building with rooms arranged around an inner courtyard. Its covered corridors were attached to nothing—the wings once connected to the chambers lay in pieces. The site was as still as a tomb.

  Inside the chamber, he lay in bed beneath heavy quilts. The only light came from a barred window slightly open to vent the smoke from the sunken charcoal braziers. His muscles and bones ached. Pain throbbed in his head behind his sore, closed eyes. Suspended between wakefulness and nightmare, he breathed shallow sips of air. But his physical pain was nothing compared to the agony in his spirit, which wracked him every moment of every day. Emptiness yawned in his heart like a black cavern so deep that all the tears he cried could never fill it. The distant noise of shovels and pickaxes barely impinged on him while he mourned.

  The floorboards squeaked as footsteps paused outside his room. The door slid open a crack. The cautious voice of his manservant said, “Master Yanagisawa-san? Are you awake?”

  Yanagisawa lay still, his eyes closed.

  “You have a visitor,” the servant persisted.

  “I don’t want to see anyone.” Yanagisawa’s voice was rusty from disuse.

  “It’s Kato Kinhide. From the Council of Elders.”

  Kato was an old ally of Yanagisawa’s, from the days when Yanagisawa had still cared about politics. “Tell him to get lost.”

  “I will not get lost,” said a man’s irate voice. “Not until I’ve talked to you.”

  The door scraped all the way open. Yanagisawa screwed his eyes shut tighter. Kato entered the room, made a sound of disgust, and said, “It smells like a wild animal den in here! Don’t you ever wash?” He tripped over trays of food that Yanagisawa had barely touched. “And when was the last time you ate a good meal? Not since Yoritomo died, I’ll wager.”

  Yanagisawa had forbidden everyone to speak Yoritomo’s name or mention his death. That his beautiful, beloved son was gone was unbearable enough. Hearing the fact spoken made it even worse. Anger at Kato’s insensitivity shook him out of his torpor. His eyelids, crusted with dried tears, peeled open. Kato moved across his bleary vision, a thin figure with wide shoulders exaggerated by the epaulets of his surcoat, the topknot protruding from his narrow head. As Kato flung open windows, cold, fresh air blew into the room.

  “Don’t.” Yanagisawa pulled his hand from under the quilts and raised it to shield his eyes from the light.

  Kato stood by the bed, staring down at him. “Merciful gods.” Kato had a flat face with leathery skin, its features so minimal that they looked like slits cut for eyes, nostrils, and mouth. He studied Yanagisawa’s long, scraggly hair, mustache, and beard, sallow skin, sunken eyes, and the fingernails as long and curved as talons. “You’re even worse than I expected.”

  Yanagisawa didn’t care what Kato thought; nor did he care that he’d lost the beauty in which he’d once taken great pride. “You’ve talked to me. Now you can go.”

  “I’m not finished.” Urgency did away with the respect that Kato owed to Yanagisawa. “I came to tell you it’s time to stop playing dead and pull yourself together. It’s been almost a year.”

  A stab of offense pierced the barrier that Yanagisawa had built between himself and his fellow humans. “That’s easy for you to say. You don’t know what it’s like.”

  “I know that Yoritomo had his throat cut. I know he died a horrible, premature death,” Kato said with brutal frankness. “I also know that letting yourself go to hell won’t bring him back.” He noticed the tears welling in Yanagisawa’s eyes. “Unless you snap out of it, you’ll have a lot more to cry about besides Yoritomo.”

  “Leave me alone,” Yanagisawa whispered.

  Kato went on, relentless: “Your political faction is in shambles. Allies have been deserting you like water leaking from a punctured bladder. Pretty soon you can forget about regaining the status and power you lost when the shogun blamed you for that fiasco at the palace last year. You can say good-bye to your hope of ruling Japan.”

  “I don’t care about that anymore.” Yanagisawa pulled the quilt over his head.

  Kato tore it off. The slits of his eyes blazed with anger. “Well, I care! So do the others who’ve stood by you and fought for you all these months. We’re not going to let you destroy us as well as yourself!”

  That was all they really cared about—their own fate. Yanagisawa said, “Thank you for your loyalty. I’m sorry I’ve disappointed you.”

  “You’ll have to do more than apologize.” Desperation roughened Kato’s voice. “Get out of bed, man! Before it’s too late!”

  “I’m not moving.”

  “You will move whether you want to or not.” Kato unfurled a scroll in front of Yanagisawa’s face, displaying elegant black calligraphy and the red official seal. “This is a decree from the shogun. It contains orders for you to vacate your home and travel to Tosa Province.”

  Shock hit Yanagisawa so hard that he stirred in spite of himself. “What for?”

  “To take up a new post, as administrator of the local government office.”

  The daimyo ruled the provinces, but the Tokugawa regime had officials stationed in each, to look out for its interests. Tosa was located in southwest Japan, some two months’ journey from Edo. Yanagisawa couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “I’m being banished.”

  “That’s the gist of it,” Kato said, triumphant because he finally had Yanagisawa’s attention. “You’re to leave Edo in ten days.”

  For the first time in almost a year Yanagisawa’s thoughts turned to matters other than Yoritomo. His mind, dulled by too much sleeping and crying and not enough nourishment and exercise, cranked into motion. A roil of anger encroached on his grief. “This is Sano’s doing.”

  Sano was his longtime rival for the shogun’s favor, for control of the regime. Sano had set off a chain of events that had cost Yoritomo his life. On top of all the other blows Sano had dealt him, Yanagisawa had Sano to thank for the loss of his son, the only person he’d loved and who’d loved him. Hatred burned away the fog of mourning that engulfed Yanagisawa.

  “He’s not satisfied to have brought me so low,” Yanagisawa said bitterly. “He convinced the shogun to run me out of town.”

  “I do believe I see a spark of life returning.” Kato’s sardonic smile was tinged with relief. “But I must correct you. Sano isn’t behind the shogun’s orders. It’s Ienobu.”

  “Ienobu? The shogun’s nephew?” Fresh surprise jolted Yanagisawa upright too fast. He winced at the pain in his muscles. “But we’ve always been on good terms. In fact, we discussed the possibility of a marriage between his daughter and…” He couldn’t say Yoritomo’s name. “It would have sealed our alliance.” An alliance that would have defeated Sano.

  “Water under the bridge. While you’ve been gone, Ienobu and the shogun have become very close. Ienobu thinks he doesn’t need you anymore, with good reason. You seem about as useful as a dead dog.”

  “If I’m a dead dog, why doesn’t he just leave me in peace?”

  “Ienobu is a smart, cautious rascal. He’s not about to gamble that just because you’re down now, it means you’ll stay down. He won’t take the chance that you’ll interfere with his becoming the next shogun. No—he’s sweeping you out of the way as if you were burning cinders in a gunpowder arsenal.”

  Yanagisawa flopped back on the bed. Accustomed to quiet and solitude, he felt exhausted by the conversation, unable to cope with threats. Grief immobilized him like iron shackles. “Go away.”

  Kato regarded Yanagisawa with contempt
that didn’t hide his hope that Yanagisawa would rise to the occasion or his fear that Yanagisawa couldn’t. Then he stood. “Farewell, for now. But hear this: Don’t think you can just ignore the shogun’s orders. When ten days are up and you’re still here, the army will come and pry you out. You’d better do something.”

  8

  SANO AND HIS troops rode back to Edo Castle through deserted streets as the last rays of daylight faded. Since the earthquake the city had been eerily quiet at night. The only sounds were the horses’ hoofbeats and the howling of dogs. Sano fancied that the darkness brought out the evil spirits that had erupted from hell when the earth split open. They owned the night, while humans hid in their tents and ruined homes. Sano looked up at Edo Castle, looming against a sky that was the dull red color of a wound. A black hulk with jagged outlines where broken towers and walls rose, it seemed a haunt for demons.

  Hirata rode up beside Sano on the avenue outside the castle and said, “You were right. It was poison.” In a low voice, in case of spies, Hirata described Dr. Ito’s examination.

  “Just as I thought,” Sano said without satisfaction. “I’ve been hoping I could tell Lord Hosokawa I made a mistake and his daughters weren’t murdered. Because he’s put me in a bad position.” He told Hirata about the bargain that Lord Hosokawa had forced him to make.

  Hirata let his breath out in a whistle. “That is bad. I suppose we’d better not waste any time. Where do we start the investigation?”

  “Meet me at my house and we’ll talk about it. Right now I have to report to the shogun.” As they neared the castle gate, Sano said, “Have you anything else to tell me?”

  He noticed that Hirata paused for an instant before replying, “No. Nothing.”

  * * *

  SANO FOUND THE shogun right where he’d left him, in the guesthouse with Ienobu. The pair sat on the dais in the same positions. The same lanterns burned; the air in the room was just as stale. Sano had the strange sensation that time had stood still for them, whereas a lifetime had passed for him since morning, when all he’d had to worry about was building a new Edo up from the ruins.

  “Well, ahh, it’s about time you came back,” the shogun said.

  “We’ve already finished dinner.” Ienobu scrubbed his protruding teeth with a napkin.

  Their tray tables held the remains of an abundant meal—fish with plenty of meat left on the bones, rice bowls half full, vegetables and dumplings picked over. Sano thought of all the hungry people in Edo. He tried not to think ill of the shogun for wasting food. His own stomach growled. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast.

  “What took you so long?” the shogun demanded.

  “I did an extensive inspection of the city, so I could bring you an accurate report.” Sano couldn’t breathe a word about how he’d really spent the day. Lord Hosokawa’s warning shackled his tongue. “The daimyo have started to rebuild their estates. The townspeople are clearing out their neighborhoods. Everyone is hard at work.” Sano downplayed Edo’s miserable state, lest he upset the shogun. “Things are progressing.”

  “No, they are not!” the shogun exclaimed. “I went up in a guard tower today and had a look at the city. And what did I see? Ruins everywhere! And all those tents.” His face puckered with disgust. “Everyone has reverted to, ahh, savagery!”

  Sano felt his temper slipping even faster than it had that morning. He wanted to say, Where else do you expect the homeless people to live? And, Why did you send me on a tour of inspection when all you had to do was climb a few steps and see for yourself? If he hadn’t gone on the tour, he wouldn’t have found the bodies and he wouldn’t be in this impossible position.

  “Fixing Edo is going to take time,” he managed to say instead. “What you saw was the preliminary stage. Things will improve rapidly from now on.”

  He saw Ienobu smirk: The man was enjoying his struggle to control his tongue. Sano suspected that the shogun’s idea to view Edo from the guard tower had come from Ienobu.

  “You’d better be right,” the shogun said. “Because you’re always using work as an excuse for why you’re too busy to be with me. And since you, ahh, have so little to show for all the time you’ve been gone, I’m beginning to wonder what you’re really up to.”

  If he only knew, Sano thought. But the shogun would never know everything Sano did on his behalf. That now included hiding the fact that the daimyo were close to rising up against his regime. Sano realized that his conspiracy of silence with Lord Hosokawa was tantamount to treason. The irony of it astounded him. That his samurai loyalty required him to commit treason in order to protect his lord!

  “I’ll have more to show soon,” Sano said. It would be a civil war if he didn’t catch whoever had killed Lord Hosokawa’s daughters. That would give the shogun something to complain about.

  “In the meantime, you have me,” Ienobu told the shogun.

  The shogun turned his pique on Ienobu. “You can’t do the things that need to be done! You just, ahh, hang around and live off me! That’s why I need Sano-san.”

  Ienobu sat up straighter than Sano had thought his hunched back would allow. Offense and humiliation showed on his ugly features. He turned to Sano, who felt a sudden change in the atmosphere between Ienobu and himself. They weren’t just cautiously watching each other anymore. Ienobu now resented how much the shogun depended on Sano, and his caution toward Sano had changed to active dislike.

  “Your nephew performs a valuable service by providing counsel to you, Your Excellency,” Sano said in an attempt to help Ienobu regain face. The last thing he needed was another enemy.

  Ienobu tightened his lips until they almost covered his teeth.

  “Well, ahh, you had better think about improving your service to me,” the shogun told Sano. “I want some real progress in the city, and I want it tomorrow!”

  Sano’s fortitude strained toward the breaking point. Mutinous ideas came unbidden to his mind. Maybe the shogun deserved to be overthrown. It would be a fitting punishment for his selfishness and stupidity. What if Sano deliberately failed to satisfy Lord Hosokawa’s demands and let matters run their course? He could then join the rebels. They would surely welcome him, his troops, and the allies he could bring to their side. The shogun would never threaten him, abuse him, or make impossible demands on him ever again. These ideas tempted and horrified Sano. He was infected with the same madness as Lord Hosokawa; the earthquake had eroded his own sanity. The honor he’d served all his life was a dam cracking under the strain.

  The dam held, shored up by forty-six years of following the Way of the Warrior. “Yes, Your Excellency.” Sano promised, “I’ll do better.” Leaving the room, he glanced at Ienobu.

  Ienobu gazed back as if he’d sensed Sano’s thoughts and wondered how best to use them to his own advantage.

  * * *

  NOISES IN THE corridor awakened Reiko from a sound sleep. She stretched under the quilts, drowsy and relaxed. Akiko was gone. The room was dim, the lamps in the corridor lit. It was evening; she’d slept the whole afternoon. She heard Sano’s voice.

  Then she remembered.

  Fully awake now, Reiko clambered out of bed and quickly dressed. She must tell Sano about the baby. But when he came into the room, Hirata and Masahiro were with him. She decided to wait until she and Sano were alone. She wasn’t yet ready to spread the news outside their family, and she and Sano would want to tell Masahiro privately together, as they’d done when she became pregnant with Akiko.

  “You’re home early,” she said to Sano. This was the first time since the earthquake that he’d come home before midnight. He looked even more careworn than usual. “Did something bad happen today?”

  Sano exchanged glances with Hirata. “That would be an understatement.”

  “What is it?” Masahiro said, full of eager curiosity.

  “We’d better sit down,” Sano said. The family took places around the kosatsu—a table built over a sunken charcoal brazier. Their feet and legs were warm in the
space around the fire. A quilt covered the table and their laps. The clutter of their belongings surrounded them. A maid served them tea and departed. “Before I tell you, you must swear to keep it secret.”

  Apprehension crept through Reiko. “I swear,” she and Masahiro said in unison.

  “Hirata-san, will you make sure nobody eavesdrops?” Sano asked.

  There were spies everywhere, Reiko knew; even in their own household. Hirata went to stand outside the door. Sano told Reiko and Masahiro about the dead women in the sunken house, his visit to the Hosokawa estate, and Lord Hosokawa’s blackmail.

  “If you solve the crime, Lord Hosokawa will hand over a million koban to pay for rebuilding Edo? And if you don’t, he and the other daimyo will overthrow the Tokugawa regime?” Reiko was so shocked that she forgot about her own news. “Did I hear you correctly?” When Sano nodded, her disbelief gave way to horror. “Doesn’t Lord Hosokawa know that’s treason?”

  “Yes. I told him,” Sano said. “But he’s not thinking about anything except his own grief and revenge for his daughters.”

  “So you agreed to do what he wants?” Masahiro asked.

  “I didn’t see any other choice.” Sano explained why he couldn’t just report Lord Hosokawa to the shogun. “The best thing to do is solve the case quickly.”

  “But how can you fit a murder investigation in with all the work you have to do?” It seemed impossible to Reiko.

  “I’ll need some help, even if I handle it personally. The problem is, it needs to be kept secret. I can’t send my retainers out to interview people and dig up clues. My enemies would surely notice that I was diverting effort away from the earthquake repairs to investigate the murders. They would wonder what sort of hold Lord Hosokawa has on me.”

  Reiko knew that Sano had many enemies, including a large faction loyal to Yanagisawa. The secret deal between Sano and Lord Hosokawa, and their conspiracy of silence, made Sano a party to treason. This information would be just the weapon his enemies needed to destroy Sano.