Laura Rowland - The Iris Fan

It is time to go.

Hirata’s muscles jerked him upright. He and the ghost inside him walked out of the temple, down a mountain path, toward the road to Edo.

Month 1, Hoei Year 6

(Edo, February 1709)

“Has anyone started a search for the attacker?” Sano asked Captain Hosono.

“Not yet. But the sentries reported that no one has left the palace since His Excellency was stabbed, and all the exits are sealed now.”

“So he’s still inside. He can’t go anywhere.” Sano knew that wouldn’t necessarily make catching the attacker easy. There were hundreds of people in the palace, any one of whom could be the culprit. The first order of business was examining the crime scene for clues that would focus the search.

Sano looked around the chamber. The shogun was deep in opium-induced sleep, his breathing harsh and labored. The physician and guards sat by the bed. Lord Ienobu and Chamberlain Yanagisawa hovered warily near Sano. Sano unhooked a lantern from its stand and moved it in a slow arc as he walked, sweeping its light across the floor. He bumped into Ienobu, turned, and came up against Yanagisawa.

“Would you mind not breathing down my neck?”

“We’re supervising your investigation,” Yanagisawa said.

“Supervise it from over there.” Sano pointed at a corner he’d already searched.

“Sano- san , I’d like a word outside with you,” Ienobu said. “Then I’ll leave you to your work.”

Anything to get Ienobu off his back. Sano replaced the lantern, then followed Ienobu and Yanagisawa to the corridor. Ienobu said in a vehement whisper, “I didn’t do it!”

“I don’t believe you,” Sano said.

“Keep your voice down,” Yanagisawa murmured. “You’ll wake the shogun.”

“When he was stabbed, I was with you,” Ienobu insisted.

That Sano himself was the alibi for the man he thought responsible for the attack! “You’d have sent someone else to do your dirty work. There must be an incompetent assassin with your money in his pocket. You’ll have to ask for a refund.”

“I didn’t hire an assassin!” Distraught as well as angry, Ienobu said, “Just ask Yanagisawa- san . He’s privy to all my affairs.”

The day the secretive, cautious Ienobu let anyone in on all his affairs would be the day whales flew. Sano turned his skeptical gaze to Yanagisawa.

A beat passed. Yanagisawa said, “Lord Ienobu is telling the truth.”

Lord Ienobu frowned because Yanagisawa hadn’t spoken up for him fast enough. Sano was all the more puzzled. Was Yanagisawa trying to encourage Sano’s suspicions? If so, why?

“Did you send the assassin?” Sano asked.

“No,” Yanagisawa said calmly.

“What’s going on between you two?”

“Don’t try to change the subject,” Ienobu snapped. “And don’t try to pin another crime on me. It didn’t work last time. It won’t this time.”

“Both the shogun’s children were murdered and now there’s been an attempt on his life,” Sano said. “The two people who confessed to killing Yoshisato and Tsuruhime are dead. They couldn’t have stabbed the shogun. But you’re still around.”

Ienobu sputtered. “That’s ridiculous logic! Everybody else in Japan is still around, too. You might as well say they’re all guilty.”

“The two confessions implicated you, not everybody else in Japan,” Sano said. “You were my primary suspect for those murders. You’re my primary suspect this time.”

“And you think you can use your investigation to frame me and get me this time?” Scornful anger twisted Ienobu’s face. “Well, think again. You’re going to prove I’m innocent.”

“How so?” Sano said, offended that Ienobu would ask him to conduct a dishonest investigation, get Ienobu off the hook, and subvert justice.

“I don’t care. Just do it.” Ienobu jabbed Sano’s chest with his finger.

Sano pushed the finger away. “I don’t take orders from you.”

“I’m Acting Shogun. You’ll do as I say.” Ienobu’s bulging eyes gleamed with vengefulness. “Or I’ll have you and your family put to death.”

Being thrown out of the regime and made a rōnin was trivial in comparison to the threat that Lord Ienobu had kept in reserve for a special occasion like this. Sano knew that Ienobu could kill him, his wife, and his children without asking for the shogun’s permission and worry about the consequences later, but even as fear knotted his stomach, he said, “Go ahead, kill me. That should convince the shogun that you’re afraid of my investigation because you’re responsible for the attack.”

Angrily aware that Sano had a point, Ienobu scowled. Yanagisawa said, “Lord Ienobu, why not let Sano- san do a proper, thorough investigation? You’ve nothing to hide.” A dubious note in his voice suggested the opposite. “Let him find the real culprit, and your innocence will be proven.”

Ienobu turned on Yanagisawa, who’d pretended to uphold his claim of innocence while virtually proclaiming that he was guilty. Sano was stunned because Yanagisawa apparently wanted him alive, after years of trying to destroy him.

“Very well.” The black look Ienobu gave Sano and Yanagisawa said the matter was far from settled.

Sano led the way back inside the shogun’s bedchamber. His knees felt shaky; he’d walked away from a battle he’d expected to lose, and onto very thin ice. This was his most important case ever-the attempted murder of his lord. Bushido required him to find the truth, to exact blood for blood. Yet it might not be Ienobu’s blood. He hadn’t one scrap of evidence against Ienobu, and Ienobu could still make good on his threat.

For now Sano concentrated on solving the crime, his first priority. He would worry about Ienobu-and wonder about Yanagisawa-later. He fetched the lantern, resumed inspecting the floor, and found a dark patch on the tatami, near the wooden sliding door between the bedchamber and the shogun’s study. He crouched.

“What is it?” Ienobu’s tone was half eager, half frightened.

The patch gleamed red. “Blood.” It was irregularly shaped, and wider at the end nearer the door. Sano noted the distinctive marks made by toes and heel. “It’s a footprint.”

* * *

Yanagisawa watched Sano open the sliding door and carry the lantern into the shogun’s study. More footprints led past the niche that contained a desk on a platform, to the lattice-and-paper wall that divided the room from the corridor. They grew fainter with each step.

“The attacker escaped through here.” Sano slid the partition aside and walked into the corridor. Tracking the bloodstains along the palace’s maze of corridors, he gathered an entourage of curious guards, servants, and officials. Yanagisawa and Lord Ienobu walked together behind the parade.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Ienobu demanded in a furious whisper.

“I’m trying to help Sano find out who stabbed your uncle.”

“Don’t feed me that tripe! You as good as told Sano that I’m guilty and dug my grave!”

Yanagisawa smiled at the fear he saw beneath Ienobu’s anger. He’d lived in fear since Ienobu had kidnapped Yoshisato and it felt good to have the shoe on the other foot.

“You’re playing a dangerous game,” Ienobu said.

“Dangerous for whom? I’m not the primary suspect in this crime.”

Ienobu shook his finger in Yanagisawa’s face. “Hold up your end of our deal or you’ll never see Yoshisato again.”

“Our deal is off. I’m going to help Sano convict you of conspiring to assassinate the shogun.”

“Do you really think I did?” Ienobu’s air of wounded innocence stank like old fish.