Laura Rowland - The Iris Fan

“I’ll need your help again,” Sano said.

Yanagisawa groaned. “Why am I not surprised?”

* * *

The streets of the Post-Horse Quarter were empty, and so were the stables. The proprietors had rented out all the horses to people fleeing town and closed up shop. Sano and Detective Marume lurked inside the cold, damp yard of Yanagisawa’s house.

“Do you think Manabe will show up?” Marume asked.

An hour had passed since Yanagisawa had sent the anonymous note to Manabe, via his spy among the Tokugawa troops stationed outside the Mori estate.

“He’ll have to,” Sano said. “The note says there’s a traitor inside the palace, who’s going to assassinate Lord Ienobu, and if Manabe wants to know who it is, he has to come. He can’t ignore that kind of threat.”

But if the message hadn’t gotten through, if Manabe didn’t come, there went Sano’s chance to get to the bottom of the attack on the shogun, Lord Ienobu’s secrets, and Hirata’s business, and prevent the war. Moments passed slowly. Sano and Marume tensed at the sound of trotting hooves. They stepped out of the gate to see Manabe, clad in full armor, ride up the street. Manabe reined in his horse and leaned back in the saddle.

“It was you who sent that note.” Manabe seemed less surprised to learn it was a trick than angered and puzzled by the fact that Sano was behind it. “What the hell do you want?”

“Just a chat about Lord Ienobu’s meeting with the Dutch four years ago.”

Manabe kept his face expressionless, but his horse skittered, sensing its rider’s unease. Now Sano knew he was right-something illicit, and serious, had happened at that meeting. Manabe chuckled. “Don’t you remember what happened the last time you two came after me?” He put his fingers to his lips and whistled, a loud, shrill sound. Nothing happened. The smugness on his face turned to consternation.

Sano pointed behind Manabe. Manabe turned to see Yoshisato walk up the street with his two gangsters. Each man dragged an inert human body. “Look who we found sneaking around,” Yoshisato called. He and the gangsters dumped the bodies in front of Manabe.

The bodies were Setsubara, Ono, and Kuzawa. Manabe jumped off his mount, crouched by his friends, shook them, and shouted their names. They lay motionless. Blood from fatal wounds on their heads oozed onto the muddy snow.

“They helped you kidnap me,” Yoshisato said. “I had fun getting reacquainted.”

“The note said to come alone,” Sano said. “You should have.”

Manabe stood up, his eyes hot with fury, and reached for his sword. Sano, Marume, and Yoshisato drew theirs, and the gangsters their daggers and spiked clubs. Marume said, “Five against one. Are you that stupid?”

“Drop your weapon,” Sano said.

Manabe realized he was beaten, yanked both swords from his waist, and threw them on the ground. “I should have known.” He shook his head, disgusted with himself. “There’s no traitor in Lord Ienobu’s camp. This is just you and Yoshisato getting revenge.”

“You’re wrong,” Sano said. “There is a traitor. It’s you.”

* * *

“What happened between Lord Ienobu and the Dutch?” Sano asked.

He and Marume, Yoshisato, and the gangsters surrounded Manabe in the cellar where Yanagisawa had hidden Madam Chizuru’s granddaughter. Manabe knelt, naked except for his loincloth, in front of a wooden post that supported the low ceiling, his wrists and ankles tied behind him around the post. The air was cold and dank, fetid from the wet filth in the corner where the girl had relieved herself. Sano had never wanted to set foot again in this place of suffering. He wouldn’t have brought Manabe here if he’d had an alternative.

“I won’t tell you anything,” Manabe said.

“Yes, you will. It’s only a matter of time.” Not much time, Sano hoped. When the two hours were up, Yanagisawa would attack Edo Castle. If Sano wasn’t back yet, he would be left behind, unable to go after Lord Ienobu or return to the Mori estate to protect Reiko and Akiko. “You might as well talk now and spare yourself some pain.”

Manabe glared. “I thought you didn’t approve of torture.”

Sano glanced at Yoshisato and the gangsters; their robes were stained with blood. “I’m outnumbered.”

“Do your worst. I’ll never betray Lord Ienobu.” Tethered and shivering, Manabe said, “You might as well kill me now.”

Sano mentally crossed the line he’d never thought he would cross. His heart shrank to a chip of ice. He nodded to the gangsters. One struck Manabe on the ribs with his spiked club. Manabe jerked and swallowed a yell as bone cracked.

“What happened at the meeting?” Sano said.

“Rot in hell,” Manabe whispered between clenched teeth; his eyes leaked tears.

The other gangster thumped his club against Manabe’s crotch. Sano’s own genitals contracted. A squeal like a pig burst from Manabe. His body strained forward to curl over his injured testicles. The ropes binding him held up upright. He vomited violently.

“Had enough?” Marume asked.

His big face was pale in the light from the lantern hung on the wall. Sano felt ready to be sick himself. Yoshisato and the gangsters acted as if this were all in a dull day’s work for them. Retching and wheezing, Manabe shook his bowed head. One of the gangsters brandished a rusty cleaver while his comrade untied Manabe’s wrists and held his right hand against a chopping block. Manabe gasped at the sight of his hand laid out like meat to be butchered. Terror shone in his eyes. For a samurai proud of his swordsmanship, an injury to his primary hand was disastrous.

Yoshisato held up the little finger of his own right hand. Sano balled his hands into fists and swallowed a protest. The gangster brought down the cleaver. Manabe roared as the blade whacked and blood poured from severed flesh and bone. The finger sat on the block, a dead relic. Sano’s gorge rose. He’d inflicted worse injuries before, but always in defense of himself or someone else, not in a deliberate effort to cause pain.

“Give up,” Marume said, “or they’ll keep cutting off your fingers until you won’t be able to wipe your behind, let alone pick up a sword again.” But he, too, looked repulsed.

“All right, I’ll talk!” Manabe wept with pain, shame, and relief. “Just stop!”

The victory didn’t taste as rotten as Sano had expected. He had the strange sense that Manabe had intended to confess all along. That was why he’d surrendered after his friends were killed-not because he was outnumbered, but because he wanted to talk. He’d held out longer than most men could, in order that no one could fault him for caving in. Sano wondered why, but he needed other questions answered first.

“Tell me what happened at the meeting,” he said as the gangsters bandaged Manabe’s hand.

“Lord Ienobu made a secret deal with the Dutch,” Manabe said between gasps.

“What was the deal?” Sano asked.

“Lord Ienobu agreed that when he became shogun, he would let the Dutch trade all over Japan and sell whatever they wanted and move about as they pleased instead of being confined to Deshima. They would even be able to settle here if they chose.”

Sano was shocked. “Lord Ienobu means to overturn the isolation policy?”

The isolation policy had been instituted about seventy years ago, after the most serious bloodshed in the history of the Tokugawa regime. On the Shimabara Peninsula near Nagasaki, thirty-seven thousand Christian peasants, joined by many rōnin , had rebelled against corrupt local government and bad economic conditions. It had taken three months and a hundred thousand troops to put down the rebellion. Almost all the rebels, and thousands of troops, had been killed. The regime had purged the country of the evils they blamed for the rebellion-Christianity and the barbarians who’d brought it to Japan. Japanese were forbidden to go abroad, on penalty of death. These measures prevented the current shogun’s worst nightmare-that the powerful daimyo clans would collude with the barbarians to overthrow the Tokugawa regime. And now Lord Ienobu meant to reopen the door to the outside world.