Laura Rowland - The Iris Fan

“The Mount Fuji eruption.” Sano remembered the faint roar and minor earth tremors, a rain of pebbles, and the fumes. Although Edo was distant from Mount Fuji, the effects had been dramatic. Yoshisato must have been in the zone near the volcano.

“Yes.” Yoshisato said, “I was tied up. I wriggled off the road, into the woods. The trees protected me from the rocks, but I could hardly breathe. I rolled down a hill. At the bottom there was a cave. I crawled in. The air was better there. I chewed the ropes off my wrists and untied my ankles. If I went outside, I would suffocate or get killed by the rocks, so I stayed put.”

Sano imagined the unbearable suspense Yoshisato must have experienced, waiting for Ienobu’s men to come after him.

“The rocks kept falling until the next morning. When I came out of the cave, the woods were covered with ash. The air was like the breath of hell. I tore off a piece of my kimono and tied it over my face. Then I started walking. I never saw Ienobu’s men again. Either they were dead or they’d run away because they were afraid to tell him they’d lost me.”

The eruption that had killed many and caused so much suffering and damage had been wonderful luck for Yoshisato. Sano asked, “How did you survive afterward?”

“That first day I found some people dead on the road. A merchant and some servants and a samurai bodyguard. Their noses and mouths were full of ash. I stole the merchant’s money and the bodyguard’s swords. I traveled from village to village, living on the money until it ran out.” Yoshisato said without pride or guilt, “Then I started robbing live people.”

The shogun’s heir had become a bandit.

“I made my way to Osaka.” That was a market city, some thirty days’ journey from Edo. “It was big enough to hide in. I fell in with a gang.”

Now Sano understood the new difference he’d sensed in Yoshisato. Had Sano not been so shocked to see him, he would have identified it at once. During his time with the gang, Yoshisato had killed-he’d bloodied his hands, crossed a line. That changed a person, Sano knew. He’d crossed that line, too.

“The gang was a major one, with its fingers in every illegal business in Osaka,” Yoshisato said. “I eventually became the boss.” Sano intuited that Yoshisato had killed the former boss. Once he’d thought Yoshisato would make a good shogun despite his dubious origins; now Yoshisato had demonstrated his leadership ability by taking over a gang.

It sounded like exactly what Yanagisawa, his father, would have done in his position.

Sano’s distrust of Yoshisato grew. “So you’re a gang boss. You have a new life. Why did you come back? Are you tired of beating up people who won’t pay you protection money?”

Yoshisato grinned; he answered as if flinging a challenge at Sano. “I’m here to reclaim my rightful place as the shogun’s heir.”

He was as ambitious as Yanagisawa. “Why did you wait so long?”

“Do you think Lord Ienobu would just let me stroll into town? He’s got the army scouring the country for me. In the early days, I tried several times to come back, but there were soldiers at every checkpoint along the highway. They were detaining every man who looked the slightest bit like me. Ienobu wants to find me before I can tell the shogun I’m alive. I had to wait until my disguise was good enough.” Yoshisato opened his kimono and rolled up his sleeves. His arms and chest were covered with tattoos of demons and lucky symbols.

“The soldiers never suspected that the shogun’s dead heir was hiding under those,” Sano said. “Am I the only person who knows you’re back?”

Yoshisato nodded.

“Why did you reveal yourself to me? Why not Yanagisawa?”

“I don’t want to talk about Yanagisawa.” Before Sano could ask why, Yoshisato said, “I need a favor from you. Will you take me to the shogun?”

Surprised that Yoshisato would ask him of all people, Sano said, “You know I don’t believe you’re the shogun’s son. Why do you think I would help you get yourself reinstated as the heir?”

“Because you’ve dedicated your life to seeking truth and justice. The truth is that I’m alive. The shogun deserves to know. The truth is that even though I wasn’t murdered, Lord Ienobu had me kidnapped and held prisoner for years. He deserves to be punished. And you’re the one person I can trust to deliver him to justice.”

Sano smiled glumly. Yoshisato had him pegged. He could guess what Reiko would think of all this. And the fact that Yoshisato was alive had other ramifications. Sano hesitated a moment before he said, “Let’s go.”

Yoshisato smiled as if he’d known Sano would agree; he rose.

“Not so fast. Have you heard what’s happened?”

“No…?”

The news hadn’t trickled into town yet. “The shogun was stabbed last night. As of a few hours ago he was still alive, but he’s seriously injured.” Sano added, “It’s a good thing you didn’t wait any longer to come back. If the shogun dies before he finds out you’re alive, then Lord Ienobu wins.”

And now that Lord Ienobu couldn’t be convicted of Yoshisato’s murder, Sano’s hopes of defeating him hinged on proving he was responsible for the attack on the shogun.

Accompanied by one of Sano’s few troops, Reiko walked up through the snow-blanketed passages inside Edo Castle. The trembling began as she neared the palace. Her heart raced as her memory carried her back in time.

The day she’d lost the baby had begun with her and Sano and the children escaping from house arrest and a death sentence. Since then, her mind had gone over and over each moment of that day, like a waterwheel churning a pond. Now, more than four years later, as she walked the same path as then, she again felt the weight of her pregnant belly and the painful contractions that signaled that the baby was coming soon, too soon.

“What’s the matter?”

Her escort’s worried voice jolted Reiko out of memory, into reality. She was bent over, panting, and holding her stomach outside the little house where the shogun’s wife lived. The soldier asked, “Are you sick?”

“No, I’m fine.” But the sight of the house made Reiko feel giddy and faint. She hadn’t been here since that day; the last time she’d seen Lady Nobuko was four years ago, at her own home. This was where she’d come to confront Lady Nobuko, to extract information that would save her family. She’d succeeded at the cost of her baby’s life. Black spots coalesced in her vision, as if from the darkness that the house exuded.

She couldn’t go in there. Sano was right: She wasn’t up to it. The boldness that had sustained her through fifteen investigations was gone.

“Do you want me to take you home?” asked the soldier, a fatherly, kind man.

But she’d made Sano let her question Lady Nobuko. It was her duty to help him, no matter how bad things were between them, and she had to protect her family. The gods help them if they didn’t solve this crime.

“No,” Reiko said. She mustn’t be a coward. “Wait here.”

As she walked up to the door and knocked, she strained against panic as if against a fierce wind. A woman with a mouth like a pickled plum opened the door, looked at Reiko, and said, “You’re not welcome here.”

“I know,” Reiko said. Lady Nobuko had declared, during their last conversation, that she was severing all ties between them. The memory of that conversation dredged up anger, which formed a screen between Reiko and her panic. “I don’t care.”

She pushed through the door and moved down the passage even though she was shaking. Lady Nobuko was in her chamber, kneeling at a low table, ink brush in hand. The brush’s tip was poised above a sheet of paper covered with spiky black calligraphy. All manner of evil memories buzzed like wasps behind the mental screen of Reiko’s anger.