Sano Ichiro 9 The Perfumed Sleeve (2004)

by Laura Joh Rowland

  Sano longed for the power to divine their thoughts. Was Hoshina afraid because he and Lord Matsudaira really had conspired to murder the shogun’s heir apparent? Or was there no conspiracy, and did Hoshina fear only that Yanagisawa would drive a wedge between him and Lord Matsudaira by implicating him in the murder? The accusation against Hoshina could hurt him either way. Sano had to admire Yanagisawa’s cleverness.

  Desperate, Hoshina addressed the shogun. “Chamberlain Yanagisawa is just flinging mud at me in the hope that you won’t notice the stains of guilt on him!”

  The shogun put his arms over his head to shield himself from the storm of conflicting ideas. The distrust in his eyes encompassed all three combatants.

  “Chamberlain Yanagisawa killed Daiemon, and I’ll tell you exactly why,” Hoshina said, brazen in his need to save himself. “Daiemon knew that Yanagisawa killed Senior Elder Makino. He was going to use his knowledge to destroy Yanagisawa. Therefore, Yanagisawa had Daiemon assassinated.”

  “Daiemon knew nothing of the sort,” Yanagisawa said with a gesture that disdained Hoshina’s attempt to pin both crimes on him. “I didn’t kill Makino. I didn’t kill Daiemon, either. But you needn’t take my word against Lord Matsudaira’s or the police commissioner’s for it, Your Excellency. Let’s consult an impartial source.” Yanagisawa turned to Sano. “Tell us how your investigation has exonerated me of both crimes.”

  His intent gaze reminded Sano of the rewards he’d promised in exchange for Sano’s cooperation. Sano felt a stab of dismay. So far, his investigation hadn’t proved Yanagisawa guilty of either murder, but it hadn’t cleared him, and honor forbade Sano to twist the truth to benefit Yanagisawa. Yet Sano realized that the chamberlain was giving him one last chance to accept his offer. If he refused now…

  “Sōsakan Sano has nothing to say in defense of the chamberlain,” Lord Matsudaira said. His emphatic tone reminded Sano that he’d been ordered not to speak. “His findings show that the chamberlain is guilty of two murders, while I and my associates are innocent of any wrongdoing.” He nodded to Sano, and an ominous smile thinned his lips. “You now have my permission to say so.”

  Although Sano was loath to lie for Yanagisawa, he couldn’t compromise the facts to please Lord Matsudaira either. He sat tongue-tied while the path he’d been navigating between the two adversaries became a narrow, slippery ridge with deep chasms on either side.

  “Have you lost your voice, Sōsakan Sano?” the shogun said, peeved by the argument whose undertones escaped him. “Tell me what to believe. Everyone else will, ahh, remain silent. All this shouting is, ahh, giving me a headache.”

  Damned no matter what he said, Sano opted for the truth. “Daiemon might have seen or heard or found out something that told him who killed Makino. Maybe the murderer did kill Daiemon to keep him quiet.”

  Hoshina looked vindicated and Lord Matsudaira appeased. But Yanagisawa’s face darkened with the thought that Sano had chosen to side with his enemies.

  “That’s possible because Daiemon was at the scene of the murder that night,” Sano continued. “He told me so. But his presence there also makes him a suspect. It’s possible that he killed Makino himself.”

  Yanagisawa nodded, placated. Lord Matsudaira bristled because Sano had impugned his dead nephew.

  Sano continued tiptoeing along the slippery ridge. “But there are other possible reasons for Daiemon’s murder—such as bad blood between him and Chamberlain Yanagisawa.” Sano forbore to say why and break the news of the faction wars to the shogun. As Yanagisawa glared at him, and gratification vied with caution on Lord Matsudaira’s and Hoshina’s faces, Sano said, “I’ve not even begun making inquiries regarding Daiemon. His family will have to be investigated because many murders are committed by someone close to the victim.”

  Loud gusts of breath issued from between Lord Matsudaira’s clenched teeth as he tried to control his fury at Sano’s agreeing that he might, as Yanagisawa had suggested, have killed his own nephew.

  “The police are also suspects,” Sano said, and watched Hoshina tense, ready to lunge at him in a rage. He described the strange tale of how they’d heard about the murder and how quickly they’d arrived on the scene. “And they’re closely associated with Lord Matsudaira.”

  Fear, hostility, and foreboding thickened the atmosphere in the room. Sano knew he’d cast enough aspersion on Chamberlain Yanagisawa, Lord Matsudaira, and Police Commissioner Hoshina to land them all in deep trouble no matter who was guilty or not. But the shogun regarded Sano with an expression of utter, blank confusion.

  “I ahh, did not quite follow everything you said,” Tokugawa Tsunayoshi said. His timid voice conveyed his ever-present fear of seeming stupid. “What I want to know is, who killed Makino? Who killed Daiemon?”

  Yanagisawa and Lord Matsudaira impaled Sano with sharp, steely gazes, each compelling him to name the other. This, Sano realized, was his last opportunity to choose sides, the end of negotiating the path between the two rivals. He felt angry as well as hounded by them. His natural stubbornness hardened his will. He would not bend to pressure, come what might.

  “It’s too early to know who the murderer is,” Sano said. “There are still other suspects who must be investigated, such as the members of Senior Elder Makino’s household and the woman who met Daiemon at the house of assignation and is now missing.”

  Disappointment sagged the shogun’s posture. Lord Matsudaira and Chamberlain Yanagisawa glared at Sano. He saw that by refusing to bend to either, he’d outraged both. Then their gazes turned cold and distant; they looked away from him. Sano imagined himself standing at the edge of a river full of perilous rapids. He envisioned the tenuous security offered by Yanagisawa and Lord Matsudaira as fragile rope bridges, slashed by his own sword, falling into the water.

  “Well, ahh, you had better get busy,” the shogun told Sano. “I hold you responsible for, ahh, finding out who killed Daiemon as well as Senior Elder Makino.”

  In addition to all his other troubles, Sano must now solve two murder cases instead of one. Maybe they were related, and the killer was the same person in both instances, maybe not. But both cases promised him the same, dire penalties for failure—demotion, exile, or death.

  “You’d better watch your step, Sōsakan Sano,” Lord Matsudaira said in a tone replete with malevolence.

  “A man who walks alone has no one to catch him if he falls,” Yanagisawa said softly. “A warrior who throws away his shield during battle invites injury.”

  Menace, scorn for Sano’s stubbornness, and pity mingled in his voice. His meaning was clear: If Sano failed to solve the crimes, he couldn’t expect either faction to protect him from punishment as he could have if he’d allied himself with one or the other. And Yanagisawa had just revoked the truce that had shielded Sano against attacks from him.

  “As for you…” The shogun pointed a trembling finger at Yanagisawa, Lord Matsudaira, and Hoshina. His eyes shone with the atavistic fear of a man confronted by evil spirits. “I don’t want to see any of you again until, ahh, I am certain that you did not kill Daiemon or Senior Elder Makino.”

  Concern marked Yanagisawa’s, Lord Matsudaira’s, and Hoshina’s faces. Sano saw that this meeting had worsened their situation, too. Their open attacks on each other had backfired, and they’d all lost the shogun’s trust. Without it, one faction might crush the other but fail to reach the ultimate goal of dominating the present regime or the next. To what lengths would they go to recoup this critical ammunition that could determine the victor?

  “You are dismissed,” the shogun said, flapping his hand at Sano, Lord Matsudaira, Chamberlain Yanagisawa, and their men. As they rose, so did Yoritomo. The shogun reached toward him and caught the hem of his robe. “You may stay.”

  Sano saw the triumphant look that Yanagisawa flashed at Lord Matsudaira as they all led their men from the reception hall. Lord Matsudaira scowled in reply. Yanagisawa had entered the meeting as a man in extreme jeopardy and left it with
a slim advantage: His potential successor to the dictatorship was alive, while Lord Matsudaira’s was gone.

  Outside the palace, a wintry wind rattled the bare, black branches of the trees. Gray clouds trapped the rising sun and darkened the sky. Lord Matsudaira and Chamberlain Yanagisawa ranged themselves and their troops against each other.

  “I won’t wait for Sōsakan Sano to deliver you to justice for killing my nephew,” Lord Matsudaira told the chamberlain. An ugly smile bared his teeth; hatred, grief, and fury raged like wildfire in his eyes. “I’ll avenge his death myself. My retribution will begin this very day.”

  “Then so will your demise,” Chamberlain Yanagisawa said, equally hostile.

  The two foes and their troops stalked away. Sano suddenly saw his personal concerns dwarfed by the perils that faced Japan. The murder of Daiemon had escalated political strife to the point of war.

  * * *

  22

  Thousands of soldiers marched through Edo. Banner bearers waved flags; horses in battle caparison carried swordsmen, archers sporting bows and arrows, and gunners equipped with arquebuses. Foot soldiers held their spears high. Pale rays of morning sun glinted on armor. As the armies moved along the main street, commanders shouted orders; drummers conveyed signals to troops. War trumpets blared while townspeople exclaimed at the sight of such a great military force, unseen since the civil wars that had ended almost a century ago.

  A short distance away, Reiko and three other maids walked behind a palanquin in which rode Senior Elder Makino’s widow and concubine. Mounted guards and male servants on foot escorted the women. Reiko shivered with cold in her thin cloak and cotton robes, hungry after a meager breakfast of gruel and tea, fatigued from her first night in the servants’ quarters of Makino’s estate.

  It had been almost midnight when the servants were finally excused from work. Reiko had endured a bath in a communal tub of scummy, lukewarm water, then retired to quarters so crowded that she could hardly move on her narrow pallet without bumping someone. Snores, coughs, mutters, and biting fleas kept her awake. Before dawn, the housekeeper Yasue had bustled through the room, beating wooden clappers and ordering everyone out of bed. She’d allowed them barely enough time to dash to the reeking privies outside and wash themselves with ice-cold water in buckets. Then Reiko had cleaned fish until sent out with Agemaki and Okitsu on a shopping expedition. At last she had another chance to spy on them.

  Now a horde of troops galloped by, squeezing Reiko and her companions against a wall. Reiko was alarmed to see the Matsudaira and Yanagisawa clan crests on their armor. Excited cries arose from the other maids: “Where can all those soldiers be going? What’s happening?”

  Lord Matsudaira and Chamberlain Yanagisawa must have declared war, Reiko realized. What had finally ignited the war? Cut off from her husband, Reiko could only wonder. But she had a premonition that solving the murder case might be more important now than ever. As the procession began moving again, she hurried after Agemaki and Okitsu.

  Lady Yanagisawa disembarked from her palanquin outside the sōsakan-sama’s estate. Her legs were so wobbly and her head so dizzy that she almost fell. Recent, momentous events in her life had caused her a turmoil never before experienced. Her body still burned with the memory of the chamberlain’s caresses; she heard again his every tender word. But other, less pleasant memories intruded.

  The conditions attached to his love were even more appalling than Lady Yanagisawa had at first thought. A black, noxious cesspool in her mind churned with thoughts she didn’t want to think. Nausea born of guilt and revulsion spoiled her anticipation of the rewards to come. She wavered among exhilaration, horror, and the temptation to give up now and avoid further torment. But she’d come this far, and the gods hadn’t struck her down as punishment for treachery committed or intended. She must go the rest of the way toward fulfilling her husband’s wishes.

  She stumbled up to the guards at the gate and said, “I want to see Lady Reiko.”

  “She isn’t here,” said a guard.

  Lady Yanagisawa gasped and stared in surprise. She hadn’t expected to be thwarted by the simple mishap of Reiko’s absence. Her need to please her husband reinforced her need to be with her friend. Struck by her constant suspicion that Reiko wished to avoid her, she told the guard, “I don’t believe you.” Her voice shook as tremors rippled her muscles. “Take me to Lady Reiko at once!”

  “I’m sorry, but that’s impossible,” the other guard said. “When she returns, I’ll tell her you called.”

  Crazed by frustration, Lady Yanagisawa began screaming at the men. The commotion brought one of the sōsakan-sama’s detectives hurrying out the gate. He tried to calm her while she demanded to see Reiko.

  “You can come back later,” he said.

  “I know she’s here!” Lady Yanagisawa shrieked. “She has to receive me!”

  After much argument, the detective said, “Very well—you can see for yourself that Lady Reiko isn’t home.”

  Lady Yanagisawa ran in the gate, past the barracks, and across the courtyard; the detective hurried after her. She rushed through the mansion to the private quarters. Maids busy with their chores exclaimed in surprise. Lady Yanagisawa burst, panting and wild-eyed, into the nursery. There, the old nursemaid O-sugi sat playing with Reiko’s little son Masahiro amid his toys. But Reiko was nowhere in sight.

  “Where is your mistress?” Lady Yanagisawa demanded.

  O-sugi regarded her with stern disapproval. “Not here. She left yesterday.”

  “Where did she go?” Hysteria rose in Lady Yanagisawa.

  “I don’t know.”

  “When will she be back?”

  The old nursemaid shook her head. The detective propelled Lady Yanagisawa from the house. Lady Yanagisawa uttered a groan of despair. Everyone was in league against her, conspiring to deny her access to Reiko and her chance to carry out her husband’s wishes. But her determination strengthened, even as a voice inside her whispered that Reiko’s absence was a sign from fate that she could renege on her bargain with the chamberlain and lessen the measure of her sins. She must find Reiko. She must do whatever was necessary to win the love of her husband and satisfy the desires he’d awakened in her.

  The palanquin that carried Makino’s widow and concubine stopped at Yanagiya, a shop in the Nihonbashi merchant district. Lanterns painted with a willow-tree crest decorated the eaves of the shop. Women inspected goods displayed on stands outside its open storefront. Their gaily colored cloaks brightened the drab, gray morning. Male clerks proclaimed the virtues of their wares and urged the women to buy.

  “How wonderful it is to get outside and see people!” Okitsu exclaimed as the bearers set down the palanquin. “This is such a nice change from staying home!”

  “You’ve said that at least a hundred times,” Agemaki said. “Do curb your tendency to repeat yourself. A little variety would improve your conversation.”

  As usual, Agemaki hid her dislike of Okitsu behind a false, affectionate smile. Okitsu, easily deceived as always, took no offense at the rebuke. “Thank you for your kind advice,” she said with sincere affection. “And thank you for inviting me to go shopping with you.”

  While they climbed out of the palanquin, Agemaki resisted the urge to remind Okitsu that she hadn’t been invited. Agemaki had meant this trip as an escape from the gloom of her dead husband’s estate, as well as a distraction from the worrisome events that had followed the murder. She’d also wanted to escape the other inhabitants of the private chambers, who were a daily, sore vexation to her. But Okitsu had spotted her on her way out.

  “Where are you going?” Okitsu had said. When told, she’d run after Agemaki. “I’m going with you.”

  Agemaki had let Okitsu come because she had to pretend she liked the stupid little hussy. She’d been pretending ever since Senior Elder Makino had bought Okitsu. And she must pretend awhile longer, for her own good.

  They entered the Yanagiya. Their maids followed them i
nto a large room crowded with chattering customers. Shelves on the walls held pretty ceramic jars of the face powder, rouge, and scented oil that had made the Yanagiya a favorite among the women of Edo. Clerks rushed about, serving their customers and calculating prices on the beads of their soroban. Jasmine, orange blossom, and ginger perfumed the air. The proprietor, a sleek man with a fawning smile, greeted and bowed to Agemaki.

  “I want to see whatever you have that’s new,” Agemaki said.

  “Of course, Honorable Lady Makino.”

  The proprietor whisked her and Okitsu into a small private room reserved for important customers and seated them at a dressing table and mirror. A curtain secluded them from the bustle in the shop. He and a clerk began wiping the makeup off Agemaki’s and Okitsu’s faces, preparing to demonstrate the new cosmetics. Agemaki watched in the mirror as their naked features emerged. Her skin was sallow and dry, faintly sunken beneath the cheekbones. But Okitsu’s youthful complexion was fair, smooth, and perfect. Okitsu smiled at their reflections while Agemaki seethed with jealousy.

  Throughout her marriage to Senior Elder Makino, she’d lived in fear that he would tire of her, for he’d been a man who needed novelty to satisfy his pride and keep him aroused. And he’d preferred his women young. Agemaki had never loved Makino, but she’d loved the status that marriage to him conferred upon her, and she’d loved the things his money bought. She’d labored to preserve the youth and beauty that had attracted her husband, but Makino had begun seeking amusement in the pleasure quarters instead of her bedchamber. Her attempts to entice him back all failed. On the day Okitsu became his concubine, Agemaki knew her days as his wife were numbered; she had no family or political connections to bind Makino to her. But she’d refused to give up her husband without a fight.

  Now the proprietor daubed fresh makeup onto her face. “This is the finest, whitest rice powder, mixed with the best-quality camellia wax,” he said.