Laura Rowland - The Iris Fan

Yanagisawa blinked, cleared his throat, and spoke in a casual tone. “I’ll have rooms prepared for you and your friends.”

“That won’t be necessary.” Yoshisato sounded as cool and businesslike as if talking to an innkeeper. “We’ll be leaving as soon as I’ve visited my mother.”

“It will be a while before Lord Ienobu is moved out of the heir’s residence and it’s been cleaned up,” Yanagisawa pointed out. Ienobu would probably leave booby traps for Yoshisato.

“I have lodgings in town,” Yoshisato said. “I can stay there.”

His refusal of Yanagisawa’s hospitality was like a slap in the face. He was as contrary as ever! Offense subdued Yanagisawa’s tender feelings toward Yoshisato. “The shogun’s heir can’t live in some flophouse. You’ll stay with me.”

They stopped at the stairs leading to the veranda. As Yoshisato faced Yanagisawa, hostility showed through his indifference like black water seeping through cracked ice. “The shogun’s heir can do as he chooses.”

Yanagisawa didn’t like Yoshisato pulling rank on him, but now that he had Yoshisato back, he couldn’t bear to let him out of his sight. “You won’t be safe in town.”

Yoshisato responded with the insolent smile that had vexed Yanagisawa so often. “Remember what happened to me the last night I spent inside the castle.”

After the fire, the kidnapping, and four years apart, they were even more at odds than before. “Why are you so angry at me?” Yanagisawa asked, honestly puzzled.

Yoshisato looked as if he couldn’t believe Yanagisawa needed to ask. “You let Lord Ienobu hold me prisoner. Was it too much to expect you to rescue me?”

Hating himself for letting Yoshisato down, Yanagisawa hurried to defend himself. “I tried! I’ve spent the last four and a half years searching for you!”

“That’s not what I heard.” Yoshisato seemed caught between distrust and wanting to believe Yanagisawa. “Sano says you’ve been working the whole time for Lord Ienobu.”

Sano, the constant thorn in Yanagisawa’s side. “I kept my search secret so that Ienobu would think I was cooperating with him and he wouldn’t kill you.”

“Do you really expect me to believe that with all your resources you couldn’t find me?”

“You made it hard. My spies were looking for a group of Ienobu’s samurai traveling with a young man who appeared to be drugged or an invalid or restrained, not a tattooed gangster. Lord Ienobu’s army couldn’t find you, either. Your disguise was good.”

Yoshisato nodded, conceding the point, but suspicion drew his eyebrows together. “Maybe you decided to hitch your cart to Ienobu for real instead of gambling that you would be able to find me before the shogun died. You had your own future to think about.” He said with bitter rancor, “It would have been practical for you to give me up for lost and move on.”

“Is that what Sano told you?” Yanagisawa demanded.

“There you go again, blaming Sano for everything. You haven’t changed.” Yoshisato grimaced in exasperation. “No-this has nothing to do with Sano.”

“Then what were you and Sano doing together?”

When Yoshisato explained, Yanagisawa was wounded and jealous. “Why reveal yourself to Sano instead of me? Why ask him to bring you to the palace?”

Yoshisato smiled briefly, pleased that he’d gotten a rise out of Yanagisawa. “Because I trusted Sano more than I trusted you. You might have done Ienobu a favor and stabbed me in the back instead of letting me near the shogun.”

“I did everything in my power to save you! I sacrificed my pride. I rubbed my nose on Lord Ienobu’s bony rear end!” Yanagisawa shouted, “You ignorant, insufferable brat!” He grabbed Yoshisato’s neck and throttled him. The warmth of his son’s living flesh made him sob. “I should have left you to die!”

Yoshisato seized his wrists, broke his grasp. “Don’t you ever touch me!” Blood engorged his face above the lurid tattoos. A terrible look came into his eyes. His fist shot out and belted Yanagisawa’s mouth.

Yanagisawa tasted blood; he roared with pain and fury. “How dare you?” He swung at Yoshisato.

Yoshisato ducked. “You allied with Ienobu to fulfill your political ambitions! And now you want to switch back to my side because the wind is blowing the other way! You two-faced whore!”

They threw punches. One to the chin knocked Yanagisawa’s head sideways. He struck out and his knuckles connected with Yoshisato’s cheekbone. He was beating up the son he’d longed to see, but he couldn’t stop. “I’m going to make you sorry you came back!”

“I’m going to destroy you and Ienobu both!” Yoshisato pummeled Yanagisawa.

Lady Someko came running out of the house, crying, “Stop it!”

Yoshisato kicked Yanagisawa in the gut. “That’s for my mother. You should have told her I wasn’t dead.”

Yanagisawa doubled over and retched. “I couldn’t! I thought she would let it out and Ienobu would kill you, you damned fool!” He rammed his head into Yoshisato’s stomach.

As they wrestled, Lady Someko grabbed Yanagisawa around the waist and pulled. She shrieked at the gangsters, who’d been watching as if they thought they should stay out of this private spat, “Help me stop them before they kill each other!”

The gangsters pulled Yoshisato away from Yanagisawa. Father and son glared at each other and panted. The many sleepless nights he’d passed during Yoshisato’s absence caught up with Yanagisawa. He felt a sudden, overwhelming, despairing exhaustion.

Their reunion had only set them at each other’s throats.

“You’re both bleeding,” Lady Someko said. Yanagisawa and Yoshisato stared at her. She was dressed in clean, opulent maroon silk robes, her hair neatly coiffed and spangled with ornaments, her makeup immaculate. Yoshisato’s resurrection had made her beautiful, vibrant, and imperious again. “Come inside, and I’ll clean you up.”

* * *

In the parlor, Lady Someko wrung out a cloth in a basin of warm water. Yoshisato let her bathe the scrape on his cheek. Her touch was tender, her eyes filled with adoration. He knew she wanted to hug him but she remembered he didn’t like being babied. Today he wouldn’t mind, but for Yanagisawa sitting nearby. He was suddenly exhausted after years on the lam, fighting in gang wars, keeping out of Lord Ienobu’s sights, and the long journey back to Edo. He wanted to curl up in his mother’s lap and let her rock him to sleep. But he wouldn’t show such childish weakness in front of Yanagisawa. He sat rigid and silent.

Lady Someko ministered to Yanagisawa. Obviously furious at him for not telling her that Yoshisato was alive, she scrubbed his split lip so hard that he winced. She dabbed healing balm on it, then said, “What’s wrong with you two?”

Neither answered. Yoshisato supposed that Yanagisawa didn’t want to continue the argument in front of Lady Someko because he knew she would take Yoshisato’s side. Yoshisato didn’t want either of them to figure out why he was so upset with Yanagisawa. This quarrel was only part of a story that had begun long ago.

During his childhood, the absence of his father had been a constant, sore emptiness inside Yoshisato. He’d been four or five when he’d asked his mother, “Why don’t I have a father?” She’d promised to explain when he was older, but he’d kept after her. “Who is my father? Why can’t I see him? Where is he?”

Finally she’d taken him to a festival at Zōjō Temple and pointed out a samurai amid a party of officials. “He’s the chamberlain-the shogun’s second-in-command.” That was Yoshisato’s first sight of Yanagisawa. How tall, handsome, and fierce a man he was!

“He’s a very important person, very busy,” Lady Someko had said. “That’s why he can’t come to see you.”