The Incense Game: A Novel of Feudal Japan

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “Who’s there?” the shogun said.

  “It’s I,” Yanagisawa said.

  Surprise fluttered the shogun’s eyes open. “Yanagisawa-san?” He sat up, squinting in disbelief, then smiled. “You’re back!” He held out his hand to Yanagisawa. “Ahh, it’s good to see you again!”

  He’d obviously forgotten that he’d ever been upset with Yanagisawa, ever demoted him. Yanagisawa breathed easier. He mounted the steps to the dais, knelt, and took the shogun’s soft, moist hand. That quickly he was back where he belonged.

  “Where have you been?” the shogun asked. “Why did you leave me for so long?”

  “I was in mourning for Yoritomo.” Yanagisawa’s voice cracked.

  “Who?” The shogun frowned in confusion, then said, “Ahh, yes, your son.”

  Yanagisawa felt hot outrage roil inside him. Yoritomo had been the shogun’s lover for nine years. He’d died trying to save the shogun’s life, and the shogun barely remembered who he was! Yanagisawa compressed his lips in a tight, false smile. He reminded himself that he’d always known how selfish and callous the shogun was and that he’d often taken advantage of it. He warned himself that losing his temper would get him in trouble, which Ienobu would love.

  “I’m here now,” he said. “Ready to serve Your Excellency.”

  He hated having to suck up to the shogun. Someday he wouldn’t have to anymore. When that day came, he would be safe at the top of the regime.

  “Well, ahh, I’m glad. So many, ahh, terrible things have happened. The earthquake, and all the problems. I’m at my, ahh, wit’s end.” The shogun clung to Yanagisawa’s hand. “But now that you’re here, I feel better. You’ll tell me what to do, won’t you?”

  Yanagisawa’s smile turned genuine. “Oh, I certainly will.”

  The door scraped open. Ienobu poked his head into the room. Trust him to intrude when things were going so well, Yanagisawa thought with annoyance.

  “Nephew, I don’t need you now,” the shogun said. “My old friend Yanagisawa is back.”

  An angry flush worsened Ienobu’s looks. He started to withdraw, but Yanagisawa said, “Wait a moment.” Ienobu froze, suspicious. “Your nephew sent me an order stamped with your signature seal,” Yanagisawa told the shogun. “It said I’m supposed to leave Edo and take up a new post in Tosa Province. Is that what you want?”

  “What? For you to leave?” The shogun shook his head, bewildered and dismayed. “No.” He clung harder to Yanagisawa.

  “Then you rescind the order?” Yanagisawa asked.

  “Yes, of course!” The shogun waggled his finger at Ienobu. “Never again take the liberty of acting on my behalf without asking me! Now leave us in peace.”

  “Yes, Honorable Uncle.” Ienobu cast a venomous glance at Yanagisawa.

  Yanagisawa smiled. Ienobu shut the door harder than necessary. Yanagisawa said to the shogun, “I have good news for you.”

  “Really?” the shogun said eagerly. “I could use some good news, to make up for all the, ahh, bad things that have been happening.”

  “There’s a very handsome, charming young man that I think you would like,” Yanagisawa said. “His name is Yoshisato. I’ll introduce you to him, if I may.”

  Interest brightened the shogun’s eyes. “Indeed you may. Bring him soon.” He hauled himself to his feet, using Yanagisawa’s hand as a support. “I have to go to the Place of Relief. Masahiro, come help me.”

  Yanagisawa was startled to see the boy step out of the shadows in the corner. It was Sano’s son. He was taller than when Yanagisawa had seen him—almost a man. He’d been there all along, heard the entire conversation. Yanagisawa inwardly cursed his own obliviousness. He would have to be more alert.

  The shogun leaned on Masahiro’s arm. Masahiro accompanied him toward the door that led to his inner chamber. Yanagisawa studied the boy through narrowed eyes. Sano was responsible for Yoritomo’s death. Sano’s own son was still alive. Yanagisawa seethed with envy and hatred.

  Masahiro looked over his shoulder at Yanagisawa. His gaze was sharp, intelligent. He was so much like Sano! Yanagisawa had to exert all his self-control to keep himself from killing Masahiro. He rose and walked out of the chamber. Ienobu was waiting for him in the corridor.

  “I know what you’re up to.” Ienobu was so agitated that he looked like a swatted fly trying to flap its smashed wings. “You’re trying to put your other son in the shogun’s bed. You want to make him the shogun’s heir and yourself the father of the next dictator!”

  “That sounds like a good plan,” Yanagisawa said smoothly. “Thank you for suggesting it.”

  Ienobu pointed a shaking, withered finger at Yanagisawa. “Mock me if you want. Your plan won’t work. It might have with Yoritomo. He had Tokugawa blood; he was eligible for the succession. This one doesn’t. He can never be shogun.”

  Here lay the flaw in Yanagisawa’s plan. Trust Ienobu to point it out.

  “But I am a Tokugawa.” Ienobu thumped his concave chest, triumphant. “I’m first in line for the succession. And I won’t be pushed out of my rightful place by a bastard of yours who services my uncle.”

  “‘Bastard?’” Yanagisawa laughed. “It takes one to know one.” He watched Ienobu turn purple with rage at this reference to his own parentage. “And if you want to inherit the dictatorship, you can’t just rest on your Tokugawa blood. You’d better start servicing your uncle. How hard can you suck?”

  Ienobu gaped so wide in astonishment that Yanagisawa could see every big tooth in his mouth. He sputtered, “Nobody has ever spoken to me that way!”

  “Now somebody has.” Yanagisawa strode off.

  He regretted his words the moment he was outside the guesthouse. During his time away from court he’d lost too much self-control. He shouldn’t have fanned the fire of his enmity with Ienobu. The man wouldn’t give up after one failed attempt to get rid of him. Yanagisawa thought of Masahiro and what the boy’s closeness to the shogun signified. Sano was undoubtedly using his own son as a spy, and to gain power. Yanagisawa would have to deal with them soon. Striding through the wintry garden, he thought of Yoshisato and cursed under his breath.

  His plan to replace Yoritomo with another son who could gain influence with the shogun was all he had. He really needed Yoshisato as a weapon against Ienobu, as a toehold in the future. But what if Yoshisato would never cooperate?

  29

  HAVING REACHED A dead end in his investigation of Priest Ryuko and Minister Ogyu, Sano worked with General Isogai to prepare the regime for an attack. They organized troop deployments, concentrating soldiers at the castle, leaving a scattered few to patrol the city. They inventoried the arsenal and ordered guns and ammunition placed at strategic locations. They conferred with the engineers and arranged the construction of emergency fortifications. Repair of buildings was postponed while craftsmen and laborers shored up the castle’s ruined defenses. As evening fell, Sano and General Isogai stood in a watchtower and surveyed the results.

  Gaps in the broken wall around the highest level of the hill had been filled in with stone-covered earth to create a barrier around the shogun, his family, his top officials, valuables, arsenal, and food supply. Lights shone on the lower levels, where army squadrons were stationed. But the castle was still far from impenetrable.

  “I hate to say it, but the crumbled pavements, landslides, and debris left by the earthquake are the best deterrent to an attack,” General Isogai said.

  “Any rebels who invade will risk breaking their necks,” Sano agreed.

  On the one hand, he was glad the metsuke had noticed the potential threat from the daimyo; on the other, he hoped the regime’s shaky defenses would never be put to the test. He felt more pressure than ever to solve the crime and prevent Lord Hosokawa from joining the rebels.

  “Here’s another thing I hate to say,” General Isogai said. “It’s not just the Mori, Date, and Maeda clans we have to worry about.”

  Or the Hosokawa clan, Sano thought. “You�
�re right. If a civil war starts, all the other daimyo will take sides. How many will uphold the Tokugawa, and how many join the rebels?”

  He and General Isogai exchanged wary glances as they foresaw alliances shifting, the defections that war always involved. Perhaps the next time they looked at each other it would be from different sides of a battlefield.

  A guard shone his lantern into the tower. “Honorable Chamberlain, the Council of Elders needs you at an emergency meeting.”

  Sano was dismayed to hear of another emergency so soon, before he could resume his investigation. He rode to the Council’s temporary chamber. Set on a cleared foundation where a wing of the palace had once stood, the chamber was a plank shed large enough to seat a hundred people. Light glowed through chinks in the window shutters. Inside, Sano found the Council occupying a dais improvised from low tables pushed together. Kato Kinhide sat beside Ohgami Kaoru, who was Sano’s ally on the Council. Flanking them were the Council’s other two members. More officials lined the walls. Sano recognized members of the junior council, judicial council, and department heads. Isolated at the center of the room were two samurai. Bundled in winter garments, they warmed their hands at a brazier. The assembly’s expressions were deadly solemn.

  Ohgami spoke. “The scouts we sent to inspect the provinces have returned to give their report.” He gestured toward the two samurai.

  Sano knelt opposite them. “What did you see?”

  Soldiers in their twenties, they looked as if they’d aged ten years during the month since they’d left on their inspection tour. Their hollow eyes contained hellish memories. Sano felt dread trickle through his blood.

  “It’s bad,” one scout, named Horibei, finally said. His route had taken him west, along the Tōkaidō, the highway that led to the imperial capital in Miyako. “In Odawara, the town and castle were almost completely destroyed by earthquake and fire. Twenty or thirty thousand people died. In Hakone, there were about four hundred casualties.” He related more death tolls and the sights he’d seen in other towns—mass cremations, mass graves, survivors maimed, homeless, and suffering from disease and starvation.

  Sano had hoped that the earthquake zone had been confined to Edo and its near environs.

  “It’s bad along the coast, too,” said the other scout, Hazama, who’d surveyed the provinces that encircled Edo Bay. “A tsunami came ashore after the earthquake. It washed away entire villages in Awa, Kazusa, and Shimosa provinces. In some places all we found were bodies on the beaches. The waves moved up the rivers far inland. Hundreds of people drowned in floods.”

  The devastation was much bigger than Sano or anyone else had suspected. “How many dead, total?”

  “It’s hard to estimate,” Horibei said. “Town officials were killed. Hundreds of missing people are unaccounted for. Records were burned. Huge areas haven’t been searched yet.”

  “Maybe ninety percent of the people along the Edo Bay coast died,” said Hazama.

  “The death toll across the earthquake zone could be as high as a hundred thousand,” Elder Ohgami said.

  The number was too vast for Sano’s mind to encompass. It approached the death toll from Edo’s Great Fire forty-six years ago. Sano had never imagined a comparable disaster occurring during his lifetime. Everyone was silent. Wet streaks glistened on the stoic faces of the men around him, tears impossible to restrain.

  “Does the shogun know about this?” Sano asked

  “No,” Ohgami said. “The Council has decided he shouldn’t be told.”

  “We’re afraid he couldn’t stand the shock,” Kato said, for once in agreement with his rival.

  Here was another secret for Sano to keep from the shogun.

  Kato said to the assembly, “What you’ve heard in this room tonight is not to be repeated outside. Is that understood?”

  Everyone murmured in assent.

  “Good,” Ohgami said. “Now we must decide what to do about the provinces.”

  Men sat silent, their heads bowed, already sagging under the weight of their duties. Although half dead from exhaustion himself, Sano had to accept the responsibility for organizing a relief effort.

  “We’ll bring supplies to the survivors,” he said. “That means sending a team of men to buy food and building materials and hire workers from areas that weren’t affected by the earthquake. The team will have to include oxcart drivers, and troops to guard the money and shipments. And laborers to clear the roads along the way. And carpenters to build new bridges.” With each item he added, Sano realized anew how impossible the job sounded.

  “We’ll have to provide food and tents and fuel for the men while they’re traveling,” Ohgami said. “They can’t count on finding enough to eat, or places to sleep, until they’re out of the earthquake zone.”

  “The team needs competent men, and a leader,” Kato said. “Whom can we send that’s not needed here?”

  No one answered. Every able-bodied, intelligent person had already been pressed into service. Ohgami said, “Each of you, come up with a list of names by tomorrow morning. We’ll reconvene then and start putting the team together.”

  Sano had to find the money to provision the team, and he saw another problem. “The situation in the provinces can’t be kept a secret for much longer—not with that many other people having to be told what’s happening.”

  “Maybe by the time the news has to come out, the shogun will be in better shape to receive it,” Ohgami said with scant optimism.

  * * *

  WHEN SANO ARRIVED home, the sentry told him, “Lord Hosokawa is here to see you.”

  Sano’s heart sank even though he’d thought it had already hit bottom. He went to the makeshift reception chamber, which had once been an office. Lord Hosokawa knelt there. A tray beside him held empty dishes, a cup half filled with tea, and dirty chopsticks. Sano’s servants had fed him dinner. Lord Hosokawa regarded Sano with a mixture of anticipation and menace. He said, “I’ve been waiting for you all afternoon.”

  “Thank you for your patience.” Sano got a firm grip on his own patience.

  “Have you identified my daughters’ killer yet?”

  “No. I’m sorry.” Sano had to remind himself once again that the man was a grieving father, single-minded in his need for vengeance.

  The anticipation in Lord Hosokawa’s eyes winked out like a snuffed lamp flame to be replaced by anger. “Can you at least tell me who the suspects are?”

  Sano had to tell him something, and he was under too much stress to be tactful. “One is Madam Usugumo. Another is her apprentice, a young man named Korin. There are also your daughters.”

  “My daughters? What nonsense is this?”

  “It’s not nonsense, it’s logic. Your daughters were at the incense game. One of them could have mixed the poison into the incense. I have to consider them suspects.”

  “Why would they do such a thing?”

  “They hated each other, didn’t they?” Sano said. “They’d been rivals all their life, just as their mothers are. Myobu married the man Kumoi loved, and adopted the child that Kumoi bore him out of wedlock. It seemed possible that one sister had tried to kill the other.”

  Lord Hosokawa appeared mortified as well as furious. “You investigated my family.”

  “My investigation wouldn’t be thorough if I hadn’t.”

  “Who told you our private business?” Lord Hosokawa demanded.

  “My sources are confidential.” Sano wasn’t going to throw the maid—or Reiko—into the fire of Lord Hosokawa’s wrath.

  “You have to tell me. You’re working for me.”

  Sano stood his ground even though it was thin ice. “You coerced me into solving the murder because I’m the expert, not you. I’m likelier to succeed if you let me do my job instead of criticizing the way I do it.”

  Lord Hosokawa nodded reluctantly. “What other suspects are there?”

  “Their identities are still confidential.” Sano wouldn’t throw Mizutani, Minister Ogy
u, or Priest Ryuko into the fire, either, until he was sure whether one was guilty.

  “I’m warning you, Honorable Chamberlain.” Anger tightened Lord Hosokawa’s lips.

  Sano’s temper snapped. “And I’m warning you. Do you think I don’t know that your friends are gathering their troops in Edo? Do you think the metsuke, and the army, and the shogun don’t know?” He was gratified to see concern on Lord Hosokawa’s face. “I managed to keep General Isogai from going on the attack, but I don’t know how long I can hold him off. So make your friends be discreet. No more parading in battle formation. Or you’ll find yourself fighting in a civil war whether you really want to or not.”

  Lord Hosokawa sagged a little, as if Sano’s words had punctured him and let out the hot wind of his rage. But he said, “I will fight in a civil war unless you keep your part of our bargain. You’d better have more progress to report when I come back tomorrow.”

  Sano thought of everything he had to do tomorrow. “That’s too soon.” He wished he could tell Lord Hosokawa about the situation in the provinces and the necessity of a relief effort. “My investigation will have to be postponed for a few days.”

  “No. I won’t allow it.” Lord Hosokawa rose.

  “Be reasonable!” Sano’s voice was harsh with frustration.

  Lord Hosokawa shook his head.

  “You’ve forced me to compromise my honor and my duty to the shogun,” Sano said, his anger turning cold and deadly. “You won’t get away with it. There will come a day when you’ll be at my mercy.”

  Lord Hosokawa gave a desolate chuckle. “So be it. But if you don’t solve the murder, that day will never come.”

  * * *

  A KNOCK ON his door woke Yanagisawa. He called through his quilt, “What is it?”