Laura Rowland - The Iris Fan

The iron grille that covered the hole in the stone wall swung open. Reiko and Akiko cautiously poked their heads out of the tunnel and looked both ways along the footpath and canal below them. “I don’t see Papa and Detective Marume,” Akiko said.

“We can go, then,” Reiko said.

They’d followed the men down the tunnel. “Papa would be so angry if he knew.” Akiko sounded delighted to be misbehaving with Reiko.

Reiko knew Sano would be furious at her for risking her own and their daughter’s safety, but she didn’t care. Masahiro was married to Kikuko, their family’s fate was tied to Yanagisawa’s, and there was going to be a war. Anything Reiko did couldn’t hurt, and if she discovered who’d stabbed the shogun, it might help. She was glad to take her fate into her own hands, and although she had qualms about taking Akiko’s, they belonged together. She was also glad she wouldn’t be at the Mori estate when Sano found the note she’d left.

She and Akiko scooted out of the hole and slid down the bank of the canal. Holding hands, they hurried through a city that Reiko had never seen so empty. Even the neighborhood gate sentries were missing. The castle’s guard towers and walls loomed on the hill. Reiko and Akiko stopped in an alley that gave onto the avenue that circled the castle. It was crowded with thousands of mounted troops and foot soldiers. Gun and cannon barrels poked through the barred windows of the towers, the covered corridors, and the guardhouse above the main gate. The gate was protected by a whole squadron of sentries.

“Is the war going to start today?” Akiko asked.

“Yes,” Reiko said. The castle was prepared. Her husband and son would be among the forces attacking.

“How are we going to get inside the castle?”

The thought of entering Lord Ienobu’s stronghold, and the prospect of war, excited as well as terrified Reiko. She saw the same emotions in her daughter. Samurai blood ran in their veins. They could have waited at the Mori estate for Lord Ienobu’s army to come; they could have prepared to commit suicide to avoid being captured and savaged by their enemies. That was what samurai wives and daughters did during wars. But they had stepped outside the bounds of womanhood. They would not retreat to the false security behind the front lines.

“Come with me.” Reiko took Akiko’s hand.

Keeping to the streets of Nihonbashi, they circled the castle to a small gate used by servants. This gate was open to admit porters lugging in rice bales; people inside the castle still needed to eat. Pages carrying message pouches hurried out; the court still needed to communicate with the outside world. Before she could lose her nerve, Reiko walked Akiko up to the gate. Fortunately they weren’t the only women in line. The others were maids. Reiko and Akiko, dressed in cotton kimonos and head kerchiefs, fit right in. The maids carried baskets or bundles. Reiko hoped their empty hands wouldn’t mark her and Akiko as imposters.

“Don’t speak unless you’re spoken to,” Reiko whispered to Akiko as the line advanced.

Heads bowed, they shuffled up to the sentries. Reiko was glad Akiko stayed so calm. Her own heart pumped currents of fear through her. This wasn’t the first time she’d impersonated a servant in order to gain entry to a forbidden, dangerous place, but it was the first time she’d brought her daughter. They were officially kin to Yanagisawa. If caught sneaking into the castle, they could be deemed enemy agents and killed. At the front of the line, they removed folded papers from beneath their sashes. Reiko handed the papers to a sentry and waited in a fever of anxiety as he examined the passes she’d forged. She’d given herself and Akiko the names of two maids who worked in the Large Interior. She hoped he didn’t know the real maids and wouldn’t look too closely at the blurry red signature seals on the forged passes.

He handed the passes back to her and Akiko and waved them through the gate. Reiko almost fainted from relief. Akiko stifled a giggle as they hurried up the wet passage. She turned serious as they were scrutinized by troops stationed at the checkpoints. Reiko died a small death of fright each time. She recognized some of the men, whom she’d seen often when she’d lived in the castle. If they recognized her and Akiko, how many could she kill with the dagger she wore hidden under her sleeve? Could she buy Akiko enough time to escape?

They reached the top tier of the castle. Akiko flashed Reiko a triumphant smile. Reiko forced herself to smile back as she noticed how strangely quiet the palace grounds were-so quiet that the plop of icicles falling from the eaves of the building onto the damp snow seemed loud. The guards usually stationed at the entrance were nowhere in sight.

“Mama, do you hear that sound?” Akiko whispered.

A soft hum rose and fell within the palace, from hundreds of voices. Reiko hazarded a guess. “They must be chanting prayers for the shogun. He must be dying.”

His death would make Lord Ienobu dictator and undermine Yanagisawa’s chance of victory. It was one thing to attack the shogun’s heir apparent, another to revolt against a sitting shogun. Some of Yanagisawa’s allies would desert him on the grounds that they couldn’t violate the samurai code of loyalty to their lord. Bushido was also a good excuse for those who would rather accept Lord Ienobu’s rule than fight a war. A takeover by Lord Ienobu would mean death for his enemies and all their close associates-including Sano and his family. Never had their plight seemed so gravely real to Reiko. She hadn’t much time to prove Lord Ienobu was responsible for the attack on the shogun, guilty of treason, and unfit to inherit the regime.

She hurried Akiko around the palace to the separate wing of the Large Interior where Lady Nobuko lived, retracing a path she’d followed four years ago under circumstances equally dire. Memories impinged, as harmlessly as the raindrops, on Reiko. Her newfound confidence, and Akiko’s company, kept her fixed in the present moment. The palace grounds were deserted. Everybody must have gone to the vigil for the shogun. Reiko cautiously opened the door of the little house attached to the main building and listened to the silence. She and Akiko stole through the entryway and down the corridor to Lady Nobuko’s inner chamber. The house exuded a fusty, medicinal, old-woman smell. The chamber was empty, but two cups of cold tea and two bowls of half-eaten gruel on tray tables suggested that Lady Nobuko and her lady-in-waiting had left in a hurry to go to the shogun. There was no telling when they would return.

Reiko stood in the room she’d searched three days ago. She eyed the table where Lady Nobuko had sat writing, the cabinets, and the dressing table. All seemed the same.

“Mama, what are we looking for?”

“I’ll know when we find it.” Reiko knelt and opened scroll cases on the writing table. Akiko rummaged through Lady Nobuko’s toiletries. The first scroll was a letter from a daimyo ’s wife, inviting Lady Nobuko to a tea ceremony. Suddenly Reiko smelled a sharp, strong fragrance of peppermint and jasmine. She felt a startling sense of vindication that she didn’t immediately comprehend. She exclaimed, “What is that?”

Akiko held a little, celadon-glazed porcelain jar in one hand and the stopper in the other. Her face showed the guilty defiance that it always did when Reiko caught her disobeying. “I just wanted to see what was in it.” She set the jar and lid on the dressing table. “I’m sorry. I won’t touch anything else.”

“No, it’s all right, you haven’t done anything wrong, I’m not angry.” Reiko snatched up the jar, sniffed the thick, cloudy oil in it, and exclaimed, “You found what I was missing!”