Laura Rowland - The Iris Fan

The spell makes your aura reflect whatever is around you, General Otani said. You’re like a chameleon.

Under other circumstances Hirata would have been delighted to have such a handy skill. But he knew the ghost was bound to put it to evil use. Please let it not be against Sano!

General Otani’s will propelled him alongside the queue outside the castle. When the sentries let in a group of officials, Hirata slipped through the gate behind them. Otani’s voice said, You’ll be undetectable as long as you don’t bump into anybody and don’t make any noise.

The sound of voices quarreling filled the Large Interior. The attack on the shogun had upset the peace like a kick to a beehive, Sano thought as he and Manabe arrived at Madam Chizuru’s room. The guard outside it let Sano in while Manabe waited in the corridor. The room smelled of peppermint and jasmine. Madam Chizuru sat on the floor, embroidering flowers on a doll-sized pink kimono. She jabbed and yanked, her delicate mouth pressed into an angry line. When she saw Sano, she threw her embroidery in a sewing box and rose.

“I can’t be kept locked up. I must tend to the women.”

Sano was already in bad temper from his confrontations with Manabe, Lord Ienobu, and Chamberlain Yanagisawa. “As soon as you convince me that you didn’t stab the shogun, you’re free to go.”

The room was crammed with wooden chests and wicker baskets stacked up to the ceiling. Sano and Madam Chizuru stood on a small, bare patch of floor where she would lay her bed at night. Shelves bulged with ledgers and scrolls-records she kept and official communications she received. Cabinets too full to close contained her garments, shoes, and linens. A portable desk equipped with writing brushes, inkstone, and water jar sat atop a table alongside a mirror, comb, brush, jars of makeup, a teapot and cup, and playing cards. Sano could see the red veins in the whites of her angry eyes.

“I’m innocent,” she said. “My word should be enough to convince you. I’ve worked for His Excellency for thirty years. My trustworthiness has never been doubted.”

“His Excellency isn’t the only one you work for. You’re also employed by Lord Ienobu.” That was the fact Sano knew about her.

Madam Chizuru reacted with dismay. “How did you know?”

For years Sano had been compiling a dossier on Lord Ienobu, and he’d cultivated a spy in the treasury. “Lord Ienobu pays you a monthly stipend.”

“He pays everybody who works in the Large Interior. He likes to know what goes on here.”

“But he pays you the most,” Sano said. “What do you do for him?”

Chizuru hesitated, trapped between fear of lying and fear of being punished by Lord Ienobu for talking. “I keep track of his concubines’ monthly courses. I’m supposed to tell him if any of them are pregnant.”

Of course Ienobu would be on the lookout for a pregnancy, Sano thought. No matter if the shogun had actually fathered the child, if it was a boy, he might claim it as his own even if he knew it wasn’t; he was that desperate to leave the regime to a direct descendant, and a new son would displace Lord Ienobu. But Sano suspected Madam Chizuru wasn’t telling the whole story of her arrangement with Ienobu.

“What else?” Sano asked.

“I’m paid not to tell anyone except him.”

“So he buys your silence,” Sano said, still unconvinced. “How many pregnancies have there been in the Large Interior since he started paying you?”

“None.”

“Then he hasn’t gotten his money’s worth, has he?”

“If there is one, I’m to make sure the baby isn’t born,” Chizuru admitted reluctantly.

Sano was shocked even though abortion was common and Lord Ienobu had already masterminded the murders of the shogun’s daughter and Yoshisato, the former heir. To pay someone to discover and kill unborn babies, as if they were vermin … “That’s pretty dirty work.”

Chizuru looked offended rather than shamed by his repugnance. “Not all of us can afford to turn down money. I have a granddaughter to support. My stipend isn’t enough.” She glanced at the doll’s dress in her sewing basket. “And you of all people should know what happens to somebody who won’t do what Lord Ienobu wants.”

Sano did, but he couldn’t let sympathy get in the way of justice, and if he didn’t solve the crime, the shogun would put him to death. If he couldn’t pin it on Lord Ienobu, then Lord Ienobu would. “So you couldn’t say no to Lord Ienobu. Did he tell you to stab the shogun?”

“No. He didn’t. And I already told you: I’m innocent.”

“He wants to rule Japan, and he was tired of waiting for the shogun to die, so he decided it was time for you to earn your pay. He sent you to assassinate the shogun.”

Chizuru folded her arms across her stout chest. “If he sent somebody, it wasn’t me.”

“You’re the only woman in the Large Interior who doesn’t have an alibi,” Sano lied. “The shogun has to blame somebody for stabbing him. It’s going to be you.”

The fear rekindled in her eyes; she apparently didn’t know that Tomoe and Lady Nobuko were also suspects.

“Do you think Lord Ienobu will protect you? No-he’ll let you take the fall.”

Chizuru backed away from Sano, but a stack of trunks against the wall stopped her. She glanced at the door. Manabe and the guard blocked her escape.

“You may as well confess and make Lord Ienobu share your death sentence.” Sano heard her breath rasp. Perspiration soured her peppermint-and-jasmine scent.

“When the shogun was stabbed, I was here, asleep. I can’t prove I was, but you can’t prove I wasn’t.” With an emphatic nod, Madam Chizuru clamped her prim mouth shut.

Sano couldn’t break her without using more persuasive tactics, and he didn’t believe in torture even though it was legal and commonly employed. It often produced false confessions, and Madam Chizuru might be innocent. Even without a confession he could make a case for his theory that she had tried to assassinate the shogun on orders from Lord Ienobu. The shogun, who was in a drugged, vulnerable state, might believe it and put Lord Ienobu to death. Sano and his family could make a fresh start.

But no matter how much he wanted that fresh start, Sano also wanted the truth about the crime, even if the truth was that Ienobu was innocent. It was a matter of honor as well as justice. Honor was the source of strength that had sustained him through the most difficult times in his life. If he ever gave up his honor, he was finished no matter how this investigation turned out.

And there were still at least two other suspects.

A guard came to the door and said, “Excuse me, but some man is trying to take that girl Tomoe out of the castle.”

* * *

Yanagisawa stalked through the gate of his secluded compound within Edo Castle. He ran past the barracks where his many retainers lived, then across the courtyard. A young woman skipped down the steps of the mansion to meet him. She was slender and graceful, with shiny black hair that reached her knees. It streamed out behind her like a cape. Her delicate face was stunningly beautiful. Her smile revealed perfect white teeth; her luminous black eyes sparkled. She opened her arms, and the long sleeves of her brilliant pink, flower-embroidered kimono spread like wings.

“Papa,” she cried. “See my new kimono!”

His daughter Kikuko was twenty-four years old, but she spun like a little girl. Yanagisawa shuddered with revulsion. Kikuko was feebleminded; she would never grow up. Yanagisawa was ashamed to have fathered a defective child, mortified because she looked like him. He sidestepped to get away from her as she fluttered around him and giggled.