The Samurai's Wife

by Laura Joh Rowland

  Today he’d received a message from his spy in Sano’s household, describing the ambush. Yanagisawa had quickly organized his own scheme, commandeering the mansion of a rich tobacco merchant for a lookout station. If he succeeded, he would soon see his rival destroyed. The misfortunes of the past would end.

  Since his youth, Yanagisawa had been the shogun’s lover, influencing the weak Tokugawa Tsunayoshi and winning his post as second-in-command. As the ruler of Japan in all but name, Yanagisawa had virtually absolute power. Then Sano, the upstart scholar, martial arts teacher, son of a rnin—masterless samurai—and former police commander, had been promoted to the position of ssakan-sama. The shogun had developed a high regard for Sano, who now commanded a staff of one hundred detectives and had gained influence over the bakufu, Japan’s military government. Yanagisawa faced opposition from Sano whenever he proposed policies to Tokugawa Tsunayoshi and the Council of Elders; they sometimes took Sano’s advice instead of his own. Sano’s daring exploits overshadowed Yanagisawa’s own importance, making him crave the adventure of detective work. And those exploits often meant serious trouble for him.

  A case of double murder had led to Sano’s discovery of a plot against the Tokugawa regime; he’d saved the shogun’s life and won a post at Edo Castle. During his investigation of the Bundori Murders, when a madman had terrorized Edo with a series of grisly killings, Yanagisawa had been taken hostage by the murderer and nearly killed. Last year he’d exiled Sano to Nagasaki, but Sano had returned a hero. The final outrage had come when Sano, while investigating the poisoning of the shogun’s concubine, had caused the death of Yanagisawa’s lover.

  Now Yanagisawa couldn’t stand the sight of Sano and Reiko’s happiness together. Tonight he would be rid of them. There’d be no more competition for the shogun’s favor; no more humiliation. And as a bonus, he would steal Sano’s reputation as a great detective.

  A movement in the street outside caught Yanagisawa’s eye. The foreshortened figure of an old man with a cane passed beneath the window. Yanagisawa beckoned Aisu, who glided swiftly to his side. They watched as the old man approached the noodle restaurant.

  “Go!” Yanagisawa ordered.

  “Oh, yes, Honorable Chamberlain.” Aisu snatched up the cloth bundle and vanished without a sound.

  Reiko said, “Look! He’s stopping.”

  The old man beat his cane on the restaurant’s door. It opened, and he disappeared inside.

  “Let’s go,” Sano said to Hirata, then told Reiko, “We’ll be back soon.”

  Her face shone with excitement. “I’m going with you!” She pushed up her sleeve, revealing the dagger strapped to her arm.

  Consternation halted Sano. The problem with their partnership was that Reiko always wanted to do more than he could allow; to go places where a respectable woman could not be seen, risking social censure and her own life for the sake of their work. Always, Sano’s desire for her assistance vied with his need to protect her. Sympathizing with Reiko’s desire for adventure didn’t ease his fear that their unusual marriage would provoke scandal and disgrace.

  “I can’t let you,” he said. “You promised you would just watch if I let you come.”

  Reiko began to protest, then subsided in unhappy resignation: Promises between them were sacred, and she wouldn’t break her word.

  Sano and Hirata bounded down the staircase. In the dim shop, six detectives, waiting by the tobacco bins, sprang to attention. “The Lion is inside,” Sano said. “We’ll surround the place, and—”

  From above the ceiling came a clatter, as though something had hit the floor upstairs, then the whump of a muffled explosion, followed by a scream.

  “What was that?” Hirata said.

  “Reiko!” Sano’s heart seized. He turned to run back upstairs.

  A fist-sized object flew in through the window. It landed in front of Sano and erupted in a cloud of smoke. Sulfurous fumes engulfed the shop. Coughs spasmed Sano’s chest; his eyes burned. Through the dense haze, he heard the men coughing and thrashing around. Someone yelled, “A bomb!”

  “This way out,” Hirata cried.

  Sano heard Reiko calling from the attic, but he couldn’t even see the stairway. “Reiko!” he yelled. “Don’t come down here. Go to the window!”

  He rushed outside and saw Reiko climbing down a wooden pillar from the balcony. More smoke billowed out the window and skylight. Gasping and wheezing, Sano reached up and grabbed Reiko, who fell into his arms. Coughs wracked her body. From a nearby firewatch tower came the clang of a bell. Carrying his wife, Sano staggered down the street, where the air was fresh and a crowd had gathered. The fire brigade, dressed in leather tunics and helmets, arrived with buckets of water.

  “Don’t go in there!” Sano shouted. “Poison fumes!”

  The crowd exclaimed. The fire brigade broke down the shop doors and hurled water inside. Sano and Reiko collapsed together on the ground. The detectives joined them, while Hirata stumbled over to the Good Fortune. He went inside, then returned. “There’s no one in there. The Lion has escaped.”

  Sano cursed under his breath, then turned to Reiko. “Are you all right?”

  Sudden shouts and pounding hoofbeats scattered the crowd.

  “I’m fine.” Coughing and retching, Reiko pointed. “Look!”

  Up the street ran the man who’d entered the Good Fortune, no longer stooped and white-haired but upright and bald. The torn kimono flapped open, exposing muscular arms, chest, and legs blue with tattoos—the mark of a gangster. Mounted troops wearing the Tokugawa triple-holly-hock crest galloped after him. His face, with the broad nose and snarling mouth that had earned him his nickname, was wild with terror.

  “It’s the Lion!” Hirata exclaimed.

  Sano stared as more soldiers charged from the opposite direction. “Where did they come from?”

  The leader, clad in armor, slashed out with his lance. It knocked the Lion flat, just a short distance from Sano. Instantly soldiers surrounded the Lion. Leaping off their horses, they seized him and tied his wrists.

  “You’re under arrest,” the leader shouted.

  Sano recognized his voice at once. Shock jolted him. “Chamberlain Yanagisawa!”

  The chamberlain dismounted. Removing his helmet, he triumphantly surveyed the scene. Then his gaze fell upon Sano and Reiko. Dismay erased his smile. He stalked away, calling to his troops: “Take my prisoner to Edo Jail!”

  In Sano’s mansion in the Edo Castle Official Quarter, Sano, Reiko, and Hirata sat in the parlor, drinking medicinal tea to cleanse the poison from their systems. The sliding doors stood open to admit fresh air from the garden. Sano could still taste the acrid fumes on his breath. His head ached violently, and he knew they were lucky to be alive.

  “This has gone on long enough,” he said in a voice taut with fury. “Yanagisawa has been after me ever since I came to the castle.” During the Bundori Murders case, Yanagisawa had sent a spy to give Sano false leads, and almost ruined a trap he’d set for the killer. “He’s tried again and again to assassinate me.” Sano had narrowly escaped death by attacks from Yanagisawa’s henchmen. “When we were investigating the murder of Lady Harume last fall, his scheming almost destroyed me, but I’m the one he blames for Shichisabur’s death, which was his own fault. He’s tried everything possible to get rid of me, including banishment.” In Nagasaki, Sano had become embroiled in a politically sensitive case involving the murder of a Dutch trader and was almost convicted of treason.

  “I’ve tolerated his evils for two years because I had no choice,” Sano continued. According to Bushido—the Way of the Warrior—any criticism of the shogun’s second-in-command implied criticism of Tokugawa Tsunayoshi himself. Any attack on Yanagisawa translated into an attack on the lord to whom Sano had sworn allegiance: blasphemy! Therefore, Sano had refrained from speaking out against Yanagisawa. “But he’s gone too far by attacking Reiko.”

  “So you’re sure the chamberlain is responsible for the bombing,
” Hirata said.

  Sano nodded grimly. “His arrival on the scene was too coincidental, and he wasn’t surprised to find us there—he was disappointed to see us alive. He must have somehow discovered our plans, then taken advantage of the situation.”

  A servant entered the room, knelt, and bowed. “Please excuse the interruption, master, but the shogun wants to see you right away.”

  “What does His Excellency want?” Sano asked.

  “The messenger didn’t say, except that it’s urgent.”

  “At any rate, I have urgent business with him, too.” Rising, Sano saw concern on the faces of his wife and retainer.

  “You’re planning to tell the shogun about Yanagisawa?” Hirata said.

  “I can’t fight off his plots forever; he’ll get me eventually,” Sano said. “It’s time for open warfare.”

  “The chamberlain will deny everything you say,” Reiko said. “He’ll hate you even more for reporting him to the shogun. It might only make things worse.”

  “I’ll just have to take that chance,” Sano said, “because they won’t get better by themselves.”

  He left the house and walked uphill through walled passages and security checkpoints to the shogun’s palace. Inside, guards admitted him to the formal audience chamber, a long room lit by metal lanterns suspended from the ceiling. All the windows and doors were shut, the heat and smoky atmosphere stifling. On the dais sat the shogun, dressed in dark robes and cylindrical black cap. Attendants awaited orders. In the place of honor at the shogun’s right, on the upper of two descending levels of the floor, knelt Chamberlain Yanagisawa. Both men silently watched Sano approach them. The shogun’s mild, aristocratic face wore a pensive frown. Veiled hostility shimmered in Yanagisawa’s dark, liquid gaze.

  Frustration sharpened Sano’s anger at the chamberlain. By airing his grievances with Yanagisawa there to oppose him, he risked immediate defeat in the opening round of battle, but if he waited until he could get Tokugawa Tsunayoshi alone, Yanagisawa’s next attack might succeed first.

  “Ahh, ssakan Sano.” The shogun beckoned with his fan. His voice was distant, unfriendly. “Come. Join us.”

  “Thank you, Your Excellency.” As Sano knelt in his customary spot on the upper level at the shogun’s left and bowed to his lord, trepidation chilled him. Surely he was in trouble, and he thought he knew why. Bowing to Yanagisawa, he said, “Good evening, Honorable Chamberlain.”

  “Good evening,” Yanagisawa said in a cold, polite tone.

  “I’ve brought you here for two important reasons,” the shogun said to Sano. “First, I regret to say that I am most, ahh, disappointed in your failure to capture the Lion of the Kant. I have just been informed that you and your men were drinking and smoking in a tobacco shop tonight, and, ahh, accidentally set it on fire, while unbeknown to you, the Lion was right across the street! Your gross ineptitude forced Chamberlain Yanagisawa to step in and capture the Lion himself. He has displayed the, ahh, wits and initiative that you lack.”

  With horror, Sano saw his suspicions confirmed. Yanagisawa had twisted the truth to his own advantage, stealing credit for solving the case. The shogun, perhaps not the brightest dictator in the world, often misunderstood situations; he remained ignorant of the animosity between Sano and Yanagisawa. He was also too ready to believe whatever Yanagisawa told him. Although Bushido forbade Sano to contradict his lord, he had to amend this bizarre distortion of the facts.

  “It wasn’t exactly like that,” he began cautiously.

  Chamberlain Yanagisawa’s suave voice cut in: “Are you saying that His Excellency has made a mistake and presuming to correct him?”

  Sano was indeed, but when he saw displeasure darken the shogun’s face, he said quickly, “No, of course not. I would just like to present my version of events.”

  Tokugawa Tsunayoshi silenced him with a raised hand. “There is no need. The, ahh, truth is evident. You failed in your duty. My faith in you has been, ahh, sadly misplaced.”

  The undeserved reproach wounded Sano. How unfair that one failure—which wasn’t his fault—should negate everything he’d done right in the past! Although furious at Yanagisawa for thwarting his attempt to defend himself, he realized that persisting would only worsen Tsunayoshi’s disapproval. He bowed his head. “My deepest apologies, Your Excellency.”

  Shame and dread sickened him as he suffered the blow to his honor and faced the likelihood of losing his post, and probably his life.

  “However,” the shogun said, “I have decided to give you a chance to ameliorate your, ahh, disgrace.”

  The prospect of a reprieve gladdened Sano, as did the sudden anxiety he sensed behind Yanagisawa’s neutral expression. His defeat wasn’t sealed, as the chamberlain had obviously hoped.

  “This brings me to my second reason for summoning you,” the shogun said.

  He nodded to a servant, who left the room and immediately returned with a samurai clad in an armor tunic with red Tokugawa crests on the breastplate. The samurai knelt on the lower level and bowed.

  “This is Captain Mori,” the shogun said. “He is an envoy from the office of my, ahh, shoshidai in Miyako.”

  The old capital, unlike other cities, was governed not by a provincial daimyo—feudal lord—but by a special deputy. This shoshidai was always a Tokugawa relative whose rank and trustworthiness merited this important position.

  After introducing Sano and Yanagisawa, the shogun continued, “The captain has just arrived with some disturbing news. Ahh…” Memory or words failed Tsunayoshi, and he gestured to the newcomer. “Repeat what you told me.”

  Captain Mori said, “Sixteen days ago, Konoe Bokuden, the imperial minister of the left, died suddenly. He was only forty-eight, and in good health. The court officials who reported his death were vague about how it occurred. Foul play seems a possibility. The shoshidai has begun an inquiry, but under the circumstances, he thought it best to seek advice from Edo.”

  Hope and apprehension rose in Sano as he realized that the shogun was going to send him to Miyako to investigate the death. A new case offered a welcome opportunity to reclaim his honor and reputation. Yet Sano didn’t want to go away, leaving Chamberlain Yanagisawa free to menace Reiko and undermine his influence with Tokugawa Tsunayoshi.

  “Even if Left Minister Konoe’s death was murder, isn’t the shoshidai’s police force in charge of handling all crimes in Miyako?” Sano said, stalling to delay the order he couldn’t disobey. “May I ask why this matter concerns Your Excellency?”

  Granted, the Imperial Court occupied a unique position in Japan. The emperor was revered by citizens as a descendant of the Shinto gods who had created the universe. He had the sole power to give official sanction to the nation’s government.

  Eighty-eight years ago, Emperor Go-Yozei had named Tokugawa Ieyasu shogun, conferring divine legitimacy upon the regime. However, the current emperor had no role in governing Japan, or authority over the bakufu. Other than mundane duties associated with running the palace compound, court nobles such as Left Minister Konoe performed a strictly ceremonial function. They were mere symbols of the real power their ancestors had once wielded from behind the throne. Konoe’s death, however mysterious, should hold no personal interest for Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, who never went to Miyako, or the Edo bakufu, which delegated the administration of court affairs to its local representatives.

  “There’s more to the, ahh, situation than one might think, ssakan Sano.” The shogun sighed unhappily. “Left Minister Konoe was a secret agent of the metsuke.”

  The metsuke was the Tokugawa intelligence network. It gathered information from all over Japan, monitoring citizens whose activities might pose a threat to Tokugawa supremacy. Sano, though startled to learn that an imperial noble had been a spy, couldn’t miss the implications of this possible murder.

  “Fifteen years ago, Left Minister Konoe killed a man,” Captain Mori said. “He would have been tried, convicted, and executed, but we had a better use for him.�
�� Sano interpreted this to mean that the bakufu had hushed up the murder and recruited Konoe to inform on his associates. “Perhaps his death is related to that crime, or troubles within the Imperial Court.”

  “Or maybe it had to do with his secret life as a spy,” Sano said, wondering how to protect his family and his interests during an absence from Edo. “Left Minister Konoe might have discovered something worth killing him to hide.” History had shown that the Imperial Court, even when powerless, was a constant potential source of trouble, which the bakufu monitored for reasons inherent in the nature of Japanese government. “This is a serious matter. However, Your Excellency…”

  “Yes, it is indeed serious,” the shogun interrupted. “My regime may be in great danger. That is why I am sending you to uncover the, ahh, truth about Left Minister Konoe’s death. You must solve the mystery and, ahh, neutralize any potential threats.”

  Sano glanced at Yanagisawa. The chamberlain’s eyes had acquired a familiar opaque look that struck a chord of dread in Sano. Surely Yanagisawa was planning a new scheme against him.

  “A thousand thanks for your generosity,” Sano said to the shogun. “My only concern is about what might happen here while I’m gone.”

  While Sano sought words to explain his situation, the shogun said, “Much as I hate to see you go, I’m afraid I must make the, ahh, sacrifice. If a, ahh, problem arises while you’re away, your chief retainer shall handle any necessary investigation.”

  Sano was ready to spill the whole story of his relationship with Chamberlain Yanagisawa and beg the shogun for mercy. Then Yanagisawa said, “Your Excellency, I commend the brilliance of your idea.” He projected the whole force of his personality into his warm, sincere voice. “I predict that we shall all be glad you decided to send ssakan Sano to Miyako.”

  Tsunayoshi beamed, but when he turned back to Sano, distrust shaded his eyes. A smile hovered upon Yanagisawa’s lips. Now Sano lost his meager hope of persuading the shogun to curb Yanagisawa’s destructive machinations. Tonight’s events had strengthened the bond between the shogun and Yanagisawa too much. The only way for Sano to regain the shogun’s favor—or survive to defeat Yanagisawa—was to carry out the assignment with unstinting obedience and great success.