Laura Rowland - The Iris Fan

Lady Nobuko glared up at Reiko. “I told you I never wanted to see you again.”

Her right eye was half closed, the muscles on that side of her narrow face bunched together by the pain of her constant headache. Her figure was as bony as a skeleton in her padded lavender silk robe, and her hair had gone white since Reiko had last seen her, but she’d held up remarkably well. She looked as if she were sustained by drinking vinegar, unaffected by the events that had devastated Reiko.

“If you hadn’t pretended to be too sick to speak with my husband, then I wouldn’t have had to come,” Reiko said.

Lady Nobuko didn’t argue that she really had fallen ill upon hearing the news that the shogun had been stabbed. She regarded Reiko with a dislike colored by amusement. “So you’re dabbling in another investigation. I would have thought you’d learned your lesson. After all, you gave birth to a dead baby last time.”

Reiko felt as if Lady Nobuko had stabbed her in the heart. To hear the baby’s death mentioned in such a callous manner was unbearable. Tears welled up from the bottomless reservoir inside Reiko.

“Besides that, you and your husband came to a mistaken conclusion about the murder of the shogun’s daughter,” Lady Nobuko said. “Lord Ienobu wasn’t responsible.”

“We weren’t mistaken.” Reiko’s voice quavered.

“So you told me the last time we met. I must say this for you: You never give up.” Lady Nobuko’s tone scorned Reiko’s persistence. “I hope you think it was worth it.” She obviously knew all about Sano’s downfall. Studying Reiko, she said, “You’re losing your looks.” Her facial spasm relaxed a little; Reiko’s loss was balm to her headache. “You used to be beautiful.”

Her cruelty worsened Reiko’s anguish. Reiko had insisted to Sano that she could handle Lady Nobuko, but she’d been wrong. Struggling not to cry, Reiko lashed back at Lady Nobuko. “You should have listened to us and helped us avenge the death of the shogun’s daughter. But you prefer to believe the official story because you don’t like to think that Lord Ienobu got away with conspiring to kill Tsuruhime. You’d rather think that my husband and I are wrong than that you let Tsuruhime down.”

Lady Nobuko winced with grief. She was Tsuruhime’s stepmother, but she’d loved Tsuruhime as if she’d been her own child. In a fit of anger she threw down her writing brush. “You have the gall to say I let Tsuruhime down! You’re the one who killed your baby!”

The low blow hit Reiko right in the tender, vulnerable center of her guilt. Her tears spilled even as she furiously blinked them away. To talk back would invite more personal attacks, but there was no other choice except running out of the room, and Reiko could imagine Lady Nobuko jeering at her. “You’re the one who’s made a mistake, by allying with Lord Ienobu after he learned that my husband was reinvestigating Yoshisato’s murder.”

Sano had tried to keep his investigation secret, but someone he’d questioned had informed on him. Ienobu had begun persecuting Sano with Lady Nobuko’s help. Lady Nobuko was a powerful ally, but not because she was married to the shogun-theirs was a marriage of convenience; they rarely, if ever, spoke. Lady Nobuko had amassed a fortune by investing an inheritance from her father. She had Japan’s biggest bankers under her thumb because she was their best client. They extended credit or called in debts on her orders. Reiko hadn’t known that about Lady Nobuko until she’d become Sano’s enemy. Lady Nobuko had persuaded her powerful relatives who were allies of Sano to desert him and pressure other powerful clans to do the same. Rather than let her bankrupt them, they’d obeyed.

Blotting the page she’d written, Lady Nobuko said, “I don’t believe Lord Ienobu is guilty of Yoshisato’s murder, either.”

“It’s in your interest not to.” Reiko heard her voice rise too high and break as she recalled how much of her family’s trouble was due to Lady Nobuko. The information that Lady Nobuko had withheld could have prevented Sano from being charged with Yoshisato’s murder. It might have prevented Reiko from losing the baby during her strenuous efforts to prove Sano’s innocence. She was flustered by anger as well as grief. “Lord Ienobu stands to inherit the dictatorship. You need his goodwill.” She had to breathe deeply and swallow a sob before she said, “Did he tell you to kill the shogun? What did he offer you in return?”

Lady Nobuko squinted at Reiko. “Do you really think I stabbed my husband as a favor to Lord Ienobu?”

“I’m beginning to.” Reiko thought the old woman was ruthless and heartless enough.

“And you came here to make me admit it?” Lady Nobuko chuckled. “Look at you! You’re so weak, you’re still crying over a baby that died four years ago. You couldn’t make a mouse squeal!”

Humiliated, Reiko couldn’t hold back the tears any longer.

“There, there, it’s all right.” Lady Nobuko’s false sympathy was like sugar syrup mixed with lye. “I’m going to make things easy for you.” She picked up her jade signature seal and pressed the carved end into a red ink stick. “I’ve written out my statement.” She applied the seal to the paper, under her spiky writing, then handed the paper to Reiko.

Reiko read, I did not stab the shogun. I was asleep in bed when it happened. My lady-in-waiting can vouch for me. I had no reason to want him dead. I am innocent.

“Take it to your husband. Then you can go home and have a good cry.”

Hating herself because that was what she wanted to do, insulted because Lady Nobuko thought Sano would be stupid enough to accept this statement, Reiko said, “Your lady-in-waiting would say anything you ordered.”

“Nevertheless, she is my witness.” Lady Nobuko radiated complacency. “ You don’t have a witness to prove I wasn’t asleep when my husband was stabbed. Now get out.”

She was obviously not going to give Reiko any evidence against herself or Lord Ienobu. Reiko had failed. Longing to escape before she completely broke down, Reiko said, “First I’ll search your quarters.”

“You will not.” Bracing herself on the table, Lady Nobuko stood up. Her skeletal body leaned toward the distorted side of her angry face, as if the pain were an unbalancing weight.

“If you won’t let me, it must mean you have something to hide.” Reiko resorted to a threat that was stronger than her own power of persuasion. “My husband will tell the shogun.”

Lady Nobuko gave an exasperated, conceding sigh.

* * *

At Edo Castle, Sano on his horse, accompanied by Yoshisato and the gangsters on foot, marched up to the main gate. The sentries said to Sano, “You can come in. They can’t.”

“This is the shogun’s son,” Sano said.

The sentries laughed; they thought Sano was joking. Yoshisato said, “Bow down! Show some respect!” The sound of his voice choked off their laughter. They stared at him with shocked recognition.

“But-but you’re dead,” one said.

“Obviously not,” Yoshisato said.

The sentries fell over themselves in their rush to open the gate and spread the news. Sano dismounted and walked Yoshisato and the gangsters up the hill, through the stone-walled passages inside Edo Castle. An uproar followed them. Patrol guards shouted, “Yoshisato is back!” Curious faces peered from watchtowers. Running footsteps echoed as people flocked to see the shogun’s resurrected son. Officials poured out of their quarter, blocked the passage, and craned their necks.

Plowing through the crowd, Sano and Yoshisato hurried to deliver the news to the shogun before anyone else could. At the palace Sano rushed Yoshisato past the sentries and in through the door. “Wait outside,” Yoshisato called to his gangsters.