Laura Rowland - The Iris Fan

“I’d rather shovel dung than give Lord Ienobu this message,” Marume said.

“An order is an order.” Never had Sano been charged with such a distasteful errand. It was small comfort that he’d thwarted Yanagisawa’s scheme to seize power. He already regretted his decision, but what else could he have done? Let Madam Chizuru die for a crime she hadn’t committed? And Yanagisawa probably would have killed her granddaughter to erase the evidence of his role in her confession.

The granddaughter had reminded Sano of Akiko.

The sentry at the guardhouse told Sano, “You can come in. Your man stays outside. Give me your swords first.” Sano handed them over. The guard frisked him, checking for hidden weapons, then led him into the reception chamber. Lord Ienobu knelt on the dais, Manabe beside him. Manabe puffed on a tobacco pipe.

“Have you come to rub salt in my wounds?” Ienobu asked. Yesterday he’d been within arm’s reach of ruling Japan. Today he looked like a crippled beggar plucked off the street and dressed up in opulent silk robes. His face was as gray as old meat.

“No,” Sano said. “The shogun has disowned Yoshisato and demoted Yanagisawa. He ordered me to bring you back to the castle so he can reinstate you as his heir.”

The tobacco pipe fell from Manabe’s open mouth. An odd, serene smile crept across Lord Ienobu’s face. He said to Manabe, “Didn’t I tell you?” He laughed a wheezy chuckle. “Better put out that fire.” Smoke rose from embers on the floor mat in front of Manabe; the smell of burning straw filled the room. Manabe picked up his pipe and tamped out the fire with his calloused hand. Lord Ienobu asked Sano, “What occasioned my uncle’s change of heart?”

Sano was not only puzzled by Lord Ienobu’s reaction but offended. The shogun’s change of heart was a huge blow to honor and decency as well as to Sano, and Lord Ienobu seemed to take it for granted as his due! “His Excellency learned that Madam Chizuru’s confession was false and Yanagisawa blackmailed her into incriminating you.”

Lord Ienobu laughed in exultation, slapping his bony knee. Color returned to his face, as if from an infusion of fresh blood. “How did he find out?”

“Madam Chizuru told my wife. I told the shogun.”

“You did?” Lord Ienobu’s eyebrows lifted; he seemed more surprised by this second piece of news than the first. “Why, when you could have kept quiet and let me die?”

“You were wrongfully incriminated.” Never had Sano hated conceding any point as much as this one. The truth was a double-edged sword, and this time it had cut him instead of his enemy. “It was the right thing for me to do.”

“I’m moved, Sano- san .” Genuine sincerity inflected Ienobu’s raspy voice. “You did me a good turn even though you don’t like me.”

“I hope it’s the last thing I ever do for you,” Sano said, tasting his own bitterness.

“I suppose I owe you something in return. What would you like?”

“I’d like you to refuse the dictatorship and crawl back under your rock.”

Angered by the insult to his lord, Manabe made a move toward Sano, but Ienobu waved him down and said, “Come now, Sano- san , don’t take that attitude. Suppose we let bygones be bygones, and when I’m shogun, I’ll make you my chamberlain. You can help me rule Japan.”

That Ienobu would keep him alive, let alone want him in his regime! Then Sano recalled that Ienobu’s battle for power wasn’t over yet. Powerful men- daimyo and Tokugawa branch clan heads-didn’t want him to be shogun, and Yanagisawa and Yoshisato were still lurking in the wings. Ienobu needed all the help he could get. Sano knew he should consider Ienobu’s proposition, for his family’s sake if not his own, but he was appalled by the conditions attached.

“Which bygones do you mean?” Sano asked. “The fact that you’re responsible for the murder of the shogun’s daughter? That you had the shogun’s heir kidnapped?” Lord Ienobu shrugged; his smile said he was proud of these maneuvers he’d never admitted to. Sano laughed in disdain. “Those are pretty big bygones to let slide.”

Lord Ienobu’s smile turned cunning, malicious. “Face it, Sano- san : I’m set to rule Japan. If you want to live, you make peace with me.”

“There are other contenders for the succession. Lord Yoshimune, for example.” But Sano recalled that with Madam Chizuru’s confession discredited, Yoshimune and his cousin Tomoe were once again suspects in the attack on the shogun. Yoshimune could take the fall for it. He wasn’t a safe harbor for Sano.

“There are no other contenders as closely related to the shogun as I am.”

“The others aren’t suspects in the attempted murder of the shogun,” Sano went on even though he knew he was digging his own grave.

“Madam Chizuru’s confession was false,” Ienobu pointed out. “You said so yourself.”

“So you didn’t order her to stab the shogun. You could have sent a different assassin. Your friend Lady Nobuko, perhaps.”

Frowning in displeasure but not surprised, Ienobu said, “Are you refusing my offer?”

Honor decreed that Sano should, but this was surely his last chance for security for his family under Lord Ienobu’s seemingly inevitable rule. The doubts that infected Sano swelled like a boil filling with pus. But Sano would rather live with the boil than stomach serving a man he believed was responsible for the murderous attack on their lord. And he didn’t trust Ienobu. A man capable of assassinating the shogun wouldn’t hesitate to do the same to Sano rather than keep his part of a bargain.

“I am,” Sano said with regret as well as conviction.

“Then we have nothing more to discuss.”

Ienobu and Manabe rose. Ienobu seemed more limber than yesterday, his back less stooped, like an insect hatching from its cocoon with fresh, damp wings. Transformed by the knowledge that the dictatorship was once again within his grasp, he said with a sly smile, “I’m afraid you’ll have to do me one more service: Escort me to the palace.”

* * *

Officials and troops were massed outside the palace when Sano and Marume returned with Lord Ienobu and his retinue. News of Ienobu’s impending reinstatement had spread. People lined up alongside the path to witness his triumphant return or curry his favor. They bowed as he shuffled past them. Ienobu acknowledged them with formal nods. His lips strained to repress a grin that peeled them back from his teeth. Sano was disgusted with himself as well as Ienobu. After more than four years of fighting to keep Ienobu from inheriting the dictatorship, he was practically joining Ienobu’s and the shogun’s hands as if he were the priest at a wedding.

At the palace entrance, Ienobu said, “Have you had second thoughts about my offer?”

“No.” Sano imagined the sound of an iron door clanging shut.

“You’ll wish you’d accepted,” Ienobu called over his shoulder as he hobbled up the steps to the palace.

“No, you won’t,” Marume said. “The man’s a monster.”

But Sano knew the consequences of his decision would be bad. He hadn’t jumped into the grave he was digging; honor had pushed him in, and he would pull Reiko and the children in with him. But he clung to the stubborn hope that serving honor would get him out of trouble. It always had. Let it not fail him now!

A soldier came up to him and said, “Yanagisawa wants to see you at his compound.”

“Who cares what he wants?” Marume scoffed.

Yanagisawa didn’t have the authority to command him anymore, but Sano said, “I’d better go.” A new phase of the battle for the succession was beginning, and his refusal of Lord Ienobu’s offer had driven Sano straight into Yanagisawa’s camp.