Sano Ichiro 5 The Samurai's Wife (2000)

by Laura Joh Rowland

  "May lighting strike down all you Tokugawa bullies!" the emperor shouted.

  While Momozono emitted anxious yelps, Sano experienced a stab of alarm, accompanied by the urge to laugh. The emperor had the power to invoke the wrath of the heavens, yet Tomohito's curse sounded like a child's extravagant threat. If he also commanded the power of kiai, his unbridled temper would make him all the more dangerous.

  Sano hastened to appease the emperor: "I regret what I did. Lady Asagao has been freed."

  But Tomohito, with the short attention span of youth, had lost interest in the subject. "You're a real fighter, aren't you?" he said, studying Sano with grudging admiration. Pointing at Sano's long sword, he ordered, "Let me see that."

  Sano couldn't refuse an order from the emperor. He unsheathed his sword and handed it over.

  "This is really nice." Tomohito ran a grubby finger along the blade. Suddenly he leapt backward and slashed at Sano, yelling, "Hah!"

  Sano ducked just in time to escape a cut to the head. "Careful! That's not a toy."

  "N-no, Your Majesty," Momozono wailed.

  He grabbed the emperor's arm, but Tomohito pulled away. His eyes shone with the thrill of wielding a real blade. He circled, feinted, and sliced at the air. Sano noted Tomohito's skill. The emperor outshone many samurai of his age. His footwork was quick, each strike gracefully executed.

  "You're pretty good, Your Majesty," Sano said. "How long have you studied kenjutsu?"

  "All my life!"

  "Who taught you?"

  The emperor aimed a swipe at Sano's legs; when Sano jumped to avoid it, he laughed. "The best swordsmen in Miyako."

  "What other martial arts did they teach you?"

  "You ask too many questions!"

  The emperor's impressive swordsmanship meant he could discipline his energies when it suited him, and discipline was crucial to the power of kiai.

  "The battle your soldiers are fighting," Sano said. "It's the Jokyu War, isn't it?"

  That was the war by which Emperor Go-Toba had tried to overthrow the military dictatorship. He'd summoned the Minamoto to a festival in Miyako where his army had attacked them.

  "So what if it is?" Tomohito whirled and slashed around Sano.

  "Then you're not being true to history," Sano said, flinching as the blade came dangerously close. "Your imperial faction is beating the Minamoto." On the battlefield, boys in red-laced armor played dead. "But in real life, the Minamoto defeated your ancestor. Instead of seizing power, he died in exile."

  "If I'd been in his place, I would have won!"

  "Is it a game, or are you rehearsing for a real revolt?"

  The sword flew out of Tomohito's grasp. He exclaimed in annoyance. Sano retrieved his sword and sheathed it. "Please answer my question, Your Majesty."

  Prince Momozono had an attack of spasms. The emperor scowled. "I just got clumsy for a moment. Of course the battle is a game, to pass the time. There's not much to do here; I get bored."

  Observing Tomohito's refusal to meet his gaze, Sano said, "Has anyone encouraged you to think about restoring power to the Imperial Court and ruling Japan yourself?"

  "Nobody tells me what to think. And I'm tired of talking. I've got better things to do."

  The emperor and Momozono started toward the battlefield. Sano blocked their way. "Do you know of a house in the cloth dyers' district owned by Lord Ibe of Echizen Province?"

  "I don't know any people or places anywhere but here," Tomohito said sullenly. "I can't go outside."

  But an accomplice could, and there was one other promising candidate for that role besides Right Minister Ichijo.

  "Where were you during the second murder?" Sano asked.

  Jutting his chin belligerently, Tomohito said, "I was praying in the worship hall when I heard the scream. My cousin was there, too."

  Sano looked at Prince Momozono, whose face went into a terrible frenzy of tics. The emperor must have sensed Sano's disbelief, because he looked uneasy and muttered, "We have to go now. Come on, Momo-chan."

  "W-wait," said the prince. "I just remembered s-something about the n-night the left minister d-died. After the s-scream, when we were h-hurrying through the P-pond Garden, I saw a light in the c-cottage. It went out b-before we got there."

  If this was true, then there'd been someone else at the scene of the murder. Sano looked at the emperor.

  "Yes, there was a light," he said eagerly. "I remember now. I saw it too."

  Sano discounted the story as a lie designed to pin the crime on a mysterious unknown culprit. Watching the emperor resume his battle and Prince Momozono his station beside the arsenal, Sano tallied the results of the interview. He had Momozono's motive for the first murder, Tomohito's for the second, and a new joint alibi as flimsy as their previous one. Even if the prince didn't have the power of kiai, the emperor might, and Sano was sure that the conspiracy involved Tomohito's participation. But he understood the consequences of incriminating the emperor. He envisioned Tomohito denouncing the Tokugawa regime, and the ensuing civil war. Hopefully, he could prove the guilt of a lesser person.

  Perhaps Lady Jokyoden was the murderer and traitor. Sano had planned to visit her next, but a disturbing alternative suddenly occurred to him. He left the palace, knowing that he was risking trouble as well as seeking information.

  23

  The Jokyu War was over. The troops had dispersed, and the emperor had retired to his bathchamber. There a big, round wooden tub held cool water. Sunlight shone through latticed paper windows; white curtains decorated with the imperial crest hung over open transoms. Emperor Tomohito lay naked and motionless on a platform while attendants washed his body and hair. His eyes were closed. Ritual decreed that an emperor could be groomed only while asleep, so that touching him wouldn't compromise his sacred dignity.

  In a corner of the chamber sat Prince Momozono, quivering and jerking as he watched the ablutions. The attendants ignored his presence. Tomohito seemed oblivious to everything. However, Momozono could tell that he wasn't really asleep; he flinched and frowned when the attendants scrubbed too vigorously, but he knew that if he protested, his servants would immediately withdraw their attentions. Momozono waited, stifling grunts with a hand over his mouth. For months he'd tried to work up the courage to speak frankly to his cousin. He could keep quiet no longer, even though he risked offending Tomohito, because his silence could doom them both.

  At last the attendants finished washing the emperor, bowed to his inert figure, and departed. Tomohito opened his eyes and sat up. "I thought they'd never finish," he complained. He got off the platform and climbed into the tub, immersing himself with a sigh of contentment. "Someday I won't have to put up with people washing me like a baby."

  Someday... It was a refrain that Momozono had heard often. He recalled an eight-year-old Tomohito trying to sneak out the palace gate, getting caught by the watchmen, and yelling, "Someday I'll be able to go outside if I feel like it!" Tomohito had also rebelled against studying and performing ceremonies: "Someday no one will be able to make me do this!"

  Prince Momozono heard in the words a new, serious conviction. Tomohito was no longer a young crown prince indulging in childish fantasies. He was a grown emperor, bent on making fantasy a reality. Momozono must bring him to his senses.

  "Y-your Majesty... there's s-something I must say," he ventured timidly.

  Tomohito sank in the water up to his chin; his long hair floated around him like a black fan. "Go ahead."

  More than anyone else in the court, Momozono depended upon the emperor's favor for his survival. Stalling, he said, "Wh-what do you think of the sosakan-sama?"

  "He's supposed to be a great swordsman, but I bet I could beat him."

  Momozono's heart sank as he perceived the extent of his cousin's delusion. For all his skill, Tomohito was no match for a real samurai fighter. If Tomohito failed to recognize this, how could Momozono make him see the dangers he faced? Prince Momozono knew all too well who had foster
ed Tomohito's false sense of grandeur. Anger sent spasms through his limbs; he fought to still them.

  "Doesn't it w-worry you that the sosakan-sama is alive and still asking questions?" Momozono asked anxiously.

  Tomohito laughed. "He doesn't scare me."

  Unable to restrain himself, Momozono burst out, "Y-your Majesty, perhaps you should be afraid!"

  The emperor sat up in the tub, scowling. "Are you presuming to tell me what to do?"

  "No, no!" Momozono scuttled over to the tub, knelt, and bowed, trembling in his haste to appease his cousin. "I-I'm only trying to p-protect you, Your Majesty."

  He had done so before. When Tomohito had reached the age of thirteen, his unhappiness with his sheltered existence had grown unbearable. More than ever he had yearned to experience life outside the palace, and so had befriended three roguish courtiers a few years his senior. Momozono had watched the emperor listen to their talk of drinking in teahouses, romancing girls, and skirmishing with Miyako's ruffians, his eyes aglow with vicarious excitement. Soon he craved more active participation in the trio's fun. He began planning adventures for them. At first these were mere pranks, such as stealing fruit from the market and putting an ox calf in a firewatch tower. When the courtiers came back to the palace, Tomohito reveled in their descriptions of the stir they'd created.

  Then one day the emperor decided that his friends must break into the shoshidai's house and bring back some token as proof of their success. Prince Momozono happened to be walking through the kuge quarter when the three courtiers returned from their escapade. Hidden by the darkness, he'd heard them arguing and realized that the fun had gone dreadfully wrong.

  "We should never have done it!"

  "Everything would have been fine if we'd left right after getting inside and taking the shoshidai's personal seal. But no, you got greedy. You had to break open that chest and steal the gold coins."

  "How was I supposed to know that the daughter would hear the noise and find us there?"

  "Well, you shouldn't have forced yourself on her!"

  "I was so drunk I didn't know what I was doing."

  "What do we tell His Majesty?"

  "Nothing. We'll say that it went perfectly. I'll hide the gold." The latter speaker was Lord Koremitsu, the trio's leader, the one who'd stolen the gold and raped the shoshidai's daughter. Prince Momozono was terribly jealous of Lord Koremitsu, and hated him for his bad influence on Tomohito. "No one will ever know what we did."

  The next day, however, police came to the palace. They reported the theft and rape to the chief court nobles, explaining that the shoshidai's guards had chased the criminals to the imperial compound. They meant to identify and punish the culprits. Upon hearing the news, Prince Momozono was filled with dread. What if the bakufu traced the crimes to Tomohito? They wouldn't arrest him, but with this evidence of his bad character, they might force him to abdicate.

  Momozono couldn't let his beloved cousin risk such a calamity. If Tomohito abdicated, the next emperor might throw Momozono out of the palace. Momozono had to make sure the bakufu found the culprit and the investigation stopped there. But he couldn't tell what he knew; the bakufu would never believe an idiot. He had to find another way.

  Hurrying to his chambers, Momozono wrote on a sheet of paper: Lord Koremitsu is the man you're looking for. He rolled the message inside a scroll case. Then he went to the kuge quarter, where the police were going to every estate, looking for the criminals. He hid around a corner and waited until they came down the passageway. Subduing his noises and spasms by sheer act of will, he threw the scroll case in the police officers' path, then fled.

  The police went to Lord Koremitsu's home. When they found the gold hidden there, he confessed and revealed the names of his accomplices. To protect their families' positions at court, the young men didn't incriminate the emperor. They were exiled, and the bakufu never learned of Tomohito's role in the crimes. The emperor was safe, and so was Prince Momozono.

  But soon new trouble arose. Left Minister Konoe had posed a worse threat to the emperor than had Lord Koremitsu. The emperor's new venture was no harmless prank, and carried a much heavier penalty than theft or assault. Konoe's death hadn't averted the danger. The second murder had focused the sosakan-sama's investigation more strongly on the emperor. Anonymous letters wouldn't help in this situation. Momozono's only chance of preventing disaster lay in convincing the emperor to cooperate.

  Now Momozono said, "Please, y-your Majesty, I beg you to see r-reason. These are dangerous times. Sosakan Sano will keep searching for the k-killer until he's exposed every s-secret in the palace. You must be very careful and n-not give him cause for suspicion."

  "Momo-chan, you worry too much," Tomohito said irritably. "The sosakan-sama doesn't know anything." With a regal lift of his head, Tomohito added, "He can't hurt me. No one can. I have the divine protection of the gods."

  Still, Momozono could tell from Sano's questions that even if he didn't know the truth, he suspected plenty. "D-divine protection won't shield you from the Tokugawa."

  "All we have to do is stick to our story," Tomohito said, "and everything will be fine. We were playing darts together when Left Minister Konoe died. The other night I was praying in the worship hall. You were with me."

  "B-but Sosakan Sano thinks we're l-lying."

  "Who cares what he thinks, when he doesn't have proof?" The emperor laughed. "And he'll never get any, because we were together those nights." He fixed a meaningful stare on Momozono. "Weren't we?"

  Momozono had no choice but to nod, agreeing to maintain their precarious claim of innocence. Yet he couldn't give up without one last attempt to sway his cousin. "Th-this thing that you're d-doing..." He could hardly bear to think of it, let alone call it by name. "You can't p-possibly succeed. If you go through with it, you'll d-destroy yourself and the whole Imperial Court!"

  "Don't be an idiot," Tomohito huffed. "Of course I'll succeed. It's my destiny to rule Japan. And someday..." He lay back in the tub, closed his eyes, and smiled. "Someday soon, I'll be able to do whatever I want."

  24

  At Nijo Manor, Reiko awakened alone in bed. The room was bright with sunlight. The nightmares of believing Sano dead and her adventures while seeking his killer seemed far away, but they'd exhausted her, and she'd slept past noon. As she sat up, a maid entered the room, carrying her breakfast tray.

  "Where is my husband?" Reiko asked.

  "He and his men have already gone out," said the maid.

  "What about my guards and palanquin bearers?"

  "They went, too."

  Reiko felt annoyed at Sano for leaving her with no means of transport. How odd that yesterday she would have given anything, endured any hardships, just to have him back, but now the minor irritations of their life together could fret her once again! Drinking tea and eating pickled vegetables on rice, she pondered how to spend the day. She feared that she'd compromised the investigation by involving Lady Jokyoden, and wished to make up for whatever harm she'd done, but there seemed little she could do.

  A glint of light caught her eye. On the table lay one of the coins that Sano had found among Left Minister Konoe's possessions. Reiko picked up the coin and studied the fern design thoughtfully. Detectives Marume and Fukida hadn't yet managed to discover the coins' significance, but maybe she would have better luck.

  Reiko washed, dressed, and left the inn, taking two maids for company. They walked up and down the hot, crowded streets, visiting shops and tea-houses, food stalls and marketplaces. Everyone Reiko questioned denied having seen such a coin before. Merchants who welcomed her into their establishments turned grim and reticent when shown the coin; clerks, customers, and roving peddlers seemed afraid to look at it. After hours of futile inquiries, Reiko was baffled and frustrated.

  "Everyone's lying," she said to her maids. "There's something strange going on."

  They stopped at a restaurant that sold tea and cold noodles. A teenaged servant girl with a plain, fr
iendly face brought their food. While they ate, Reiko noticed her watching them. When she knelt to refill Reiko's tea bowl, she whispered, "May I please speak to you?"

  Curious, Reiko nodded.

  The girl cast a furtive look toward the kitchen, where an elderly couple tended pots boiling on the stove. "I heard that you were asking about coins with a fern leaf on them," she said, still whispering. "Please excuse me if I seem rude, but you must be a newcomer, so I have to warn you that no one here talks of such things, and you shouldn't, either."

  "Why not?" Reiko asked.

  "Because it's dangerous." The girl leaned closer and said, "The fern leaf is the crest of the Dazai clan. They're very bad men-thieves, hoodlums, murderers. They come to businesses like this and demand money, and they beat up shopkeepers who won't pay. They kidnap girls to work in their unlicensed brothels. They run gambling dens, and if you don't pay your debts, they torture you.