Laura Rowland - The Iris Fan

Masahiro’s wife is dead.

Taeko couldn’t believe it. She hadn’t really wanted Masahiro’s wife to die. But she had wished it, and her wish had come horribly true. Taeko screamed and screamed and screamed.

Edo at night rested in an uneasy state of cease-fire. The army, swelled by troops newly arrived from the provinces, occupied the city. The rebel daimyo and their armies had retreated into their estates. The rain had stopped, and the fog dissipated, but smoke from bonfires veiled the sky. Soldiers loaded corpses onto oxcarts that rolled through the deserted city toward the temple districts and the crematoriums.

Inside Lord Mori’s estate, a sick ward had been set up in the barracks. Physicians ministered to wounded soldiers who lay on beds in rows on the floor. Maids brought tea, gruel, and fresh bandages and removed soiled dressings and basins of blood-tinted water. The atmosphere was thick with heat from charcoal braziers and the smell of medicine.

“I have to get back to the castle.” Detective Marume, wearing a bandage wrapped around his left shoulder and back, sat up in his bed. “Sano- san is up there alone!”

“You have to rest.” Kneeling beside him, her bandaged arm in a sling, Reiko sponged his face. She’d found him lying unconscious outside the palace. “You’re badly hurt.”

“It’s just a flesh wound. Sano- san needs me.”

“He can take care of himself.” But Reiko was worried about Sano, too. Some twelve hours had passed since they’d left Sano at the castle, and they’d had no word of what was happening there.

A physician said to Marume, “Rest or you won’t heal. You’ve lost a lot of blood.” He glanced at Reiko. “So have you. Go to bed or infection could set in. You could lose your arm.”

Marume reluctantly lay down. Reiko walked on shaky legs to the guest quarters. She feared that even if Sano survived, their marriage wouldn’t. She’d realized how much she loved him, but maybe it was too late.

* * *

Inside the palace reception chamber, Lord Ienobu sat on the dais. Sano, his hand stitched and bandaged, knelt at Ienobu’s right. On the floor below them, the Council of Elders sat in a row apart from the Tokugawa branch clan leaders, who included Lord Yoshimune. Sano had briefed them on the extraordinary events in the shogun’s bedchamber. They looked as shocked as Sano still was.

Sano still couldn’t believe Yanagisawa was dead. He felt strangely unbalanced, as if a part of him was gone and he hadn’t yet adjusted to the missing weight. Although he’d seen Yanagisawa’s body carried out of the palace, and he knew Yoshisato had gone to the Mori estate to break the news to Yanagisawa’s family, the reality of Yanagisawa’s death wouldn’t sink in until he’d checked the whole city and made sure his enemy wasn’t lurking someplace.

But he couldn’t leave the castle yet. Masahiro had taken Reiko and Akiko, the paralyzed Hirata, and the wounded Marume to the Mori estate, while Sano stayed behind to deal with the aftermath of the war. A messenger had brought Sano the news that Lady Yanagisawa had killed herself and Kikuko. Heaven only knew when Sano would see his family again or what else would happen. Sano gazed down at the assembly gathered to figure out what the government should do.

“Call the meeting to order,” Sano said.

“I call the meeting to order,” Lord Ienobu said.

The senior elder, a bald, pugnacious man named Ogita, scrutinized Lord Ienobu. “Is his mental condition permanent?”

“It’s impossible to tell,” Sano said.

“He’s otherwise normal?”

“Apparently. His physician has examined him.” Sano added, “He can eat and attend to his personal needs and read and write, but he doesn’t seem to remember anything at all.”

“And he won’t do or say anything unless you tell him to.”

“That seems to be the case.”

Lord Matsudaira, spokesman for the daimyo , glared down his long nose at Sano. “For all practical purposes you’re in control of the shogun, the regime, and the whole country.”

Sano was still shocked by this reversal of his fate.

“This is an untenable situation,” Senior Elder Ogita protested. “We can’t have a shogun who’s unable to think for himself!”

A chagrined silence ensued as everyone recalled the dead shogun, his body hastily cremated because of the measles.

“Lord Ienobu has an extreme case of mental impairment,” Lord Matsudaira said. “He shouldn’t be shogun.” Other daimyo nodded. Yoshimune was silent, perhaps chastened by the knowledge that he might have been convicted and put to death for the old shogun’s murder if Lady Nobuko hadn’t confessed.

Although he’d not asked for the opportunity to rule Japan through the new shogun, Sano was reluctant to let it slip away. Yanagisawa would die of envy. Sano had to remind himself that Yanagisawa was dead. “I could tell Lord Ienobu to step down, and he would do it, but then who would be shogun?”

“I understand Yoshisato has given up his claim to the dictatorship,” Lord Matsudaira said.

“That’s correct,” Sano said. Yoshisato had told him so.

“Lord Ienobu’s son is next in line for the succession,” Senior Elder Ogita said. “He’s only two years old, but a regent could be appointed to rule on his behalf until he comes of age.”

“Lord Ienobu wouldn’t have wanted to be shunted aside,” Sano said. A big responsibility accompanied his stroke of good fortune: It was now his duty to look out for the interests of Lord Ienobu, who was helpless to look after them himself. And it was a chance for Sano to try his hand at ruling Japan as well as to control his own destiny.

Maybe he’d absorbed some ambition from Yanagisawa at the moment he’d taken his life. The thought was disconcerting.

“What he would have wanted in the past is irrelevant. He obviously hasn’t any objection now.” Senior Elder Ogita eyed the placid, silent Lord Ienobu.

“How would we explain to the world why he was stepping down?” Sano asked.

“We could say he was seriously injured during the battle. Which would be true.”

“If his son becomes shogun, the government will be in virtually the same situation as it is now-with a dictator who’s unfit to rule. It’ll just be someone other than me in charge.”

Lord Matsudaira smirked. “Precisely.” The other daimyo , except for Yoshimune, nodded.

“Who would be the regent?” Sano asked.

Each daimyo except Yoshimune volunteered for the job. The elders chimed in to support their favorites. During the loud, heated argument about who was most qualified or deserving, Sano said to Lord Ienobu, “Tell them to stop.”

“Stop!” ordered Lord Ienobu.

The argument fizzled. Sano said, “You’re already fighting about who’ll control the dictatorship. What makes you think it will be one of you?” The men looked startled. “A regime with a child at its head and his clansmen squabbling over control of it-that’s a ripe apple for picking. Remember, many of the other daimyo revolted today. They could start a full-scale civil war, and if they win, that’ll be the end of the Tokugawa regime.”

Sano was disturbed to hear another voice in his head, speaking the same words-Yanagisawa’s. How long would it be until he stopped hearing that voice? How long until he could speak or act and not wonder if it was what Yanagisawa would have said or done?

“Sano- san has a point,” Senior Elder Ogita said reluctantly.

“He’s just trying to hang on to the power that his influence over Lord Ienobu gives him,” Lord Matsudaira said. “If we let him, he’ll pick the apple!”