Laura Rowland: The Iris Fan

Edo, Month 1, Hoei Year 6

(Tokyo, February 1709)

Slow, hissing breaths expanded and contracted the air in a chamber as dark as the bottom of a crypt. Wind shook the shutters. Sleet pattered onto the tile roof. In the corridor outside the chamber, the floor creaked under stealthy footsteps. The shimmering yellow glow of an oil lamp diffused across the room’s lattice-and-paper wall. The footsteps halted outside the room; the door slid open as quietly as a whisper. A hand draped in the sleeve of a black kimono held the lamp across the threshold. The flame illuminated a futon, covered with a gold brocade satin quilt, in which two human shapes slumbered.

The quilt rose and fell with their breathing. The black-robed figure hovered at the threshold, then tiptoed, on feet clad in split-toed socks, into the bedchamber. The hem of its silk kimono slithered across the tatami floor. Its breathing was shallow, ragged with anxiety. It paused by the bed, holding the light over the two sleepers, whose gentle, rhythmic respirations continued. Then it crept to the one on the left, nearest the door. Kneeling, it set the lamp on the bedside table without a sound. In the dim light from the flame, a hand slowly, carefully, drew back the quilt.

Underneath, a man lay on his stomach, his head turned away from the intruder. He wore a white nightcap over his hair; his body was naked. The intruder contemplated his thin back, his protruding ribs and spine, his scrawny limbs. Red blotches covered his sallow, sweaty skin. He coughed in his sleep; he didn’t wake.

The intruder sat back on its heels. Its ragged breaths quickened as its hand withdrew from beneath its sash a long, thin object with a sharp, gleaming metal end. The intruder glanced over its shoulder toward the door.

The corridor was silent, still.

Sleet bombarded the roof with a noise like raining arrowheads.

The wind moaned.

The intruder sucked in a deep, tremulous gasp, raised the weapon high above the sleeping man, and brought it slashing down.

“It’s a bad night for a trip to the pleasure quarter,” Detective Marume said.

“It’s a good night when we’re following up on the first lead we’ve had in this investigation in more than four years,” Sano said.

They rode their horses along the Dike of Japan, the long causeway above the rice fields northeast of Edo. Metal lanterns swung from poles attached to their backs. On this winter night just after the New Year, they had the road to Yoshiwara to themselves. Their cloaks were drenched by sleet that lashed and stung their faces. Ice coated their metal helmets. Cold wind seeped through the heavy padding in Sano’s cloak, under his armor tunic and his kimono. As sleet turned to snow, a veil of white crystals obscured the distance.

“How did you get us assigned to patrol the dike tonight?” Marume asked.

“I didn’t even have to try. You know the captain likes giving the worst assignments to the shogun’s disgraced former chamberlain and second-in-command.” Bitterness edged Sano’s wry tone.

In four years he’d been demoted four times, from chamberlain down to patrol guard, the Tokugawa regime’s lowest rank. His son, Masahiro, aged seventeen, was also a patrol guard, with no prospects for advancement, and their family had been evicted from their estate inside Edo Castle. It was a great humiliation for Sano, but he was lucky to have a position at all. For more than four years he’d been pursuing a forbidden investigation, a thankless mission of honor.

Marume laughed. “He did us a favor without knowing it.” The big samurai relished humor in any situation. “How do you know our new suspects are in Yoshiwara tonight?”

“An informer.” Sano had bribed a servant of Lord Tokugawa Ienobu, the shogun’s nephew and designated heir to the dictatorship.

Ahead, Yoshiwara rose up from the rice fields, a city unto itself, the only place in Edo where prostitution was legal. Lights within its high walls made the falling snow above it glow like a halo. Sano and Marume rode across the moat to the gate where two sentries occupied a guardhouse. Moat, gate, and sentries were there to prevent troublemakers from entering the pleasure quarter and unhappy courtesans from escaping. The sentries opened the gate; Sano and Marume rode in.

Naka-no-chō, the long main street that extended between rows of brothels, was almost empty. A few drunks stumbled to and fro. Snow frosted the tile roofs of the brothels; icicles grew between the red lanterns that hung from the eaves. Storm shutters covered the window cages where courtesans usually sat on display. Sano heard faint music played on samisens, flutes, and drums.

“The cold is keeping the customers at home,” Marume said.

“Or the measles epidemic is.”

The epidemic had been raging across the country since autumn. It had come to Japan via Chinese priests visiting Nagasaki, the only place where foreigners were allowed. In Nagasaki some ten thousand people had died. Hundreds of people in Edo were sick. The disease was often but not invariably fatal. Here in Yoshiwara, as well as in town, incense burned outside doors to chase away the evil spirits of disease, and citizens feared contagion.

“Speaking of measles, how is the shogun?” Marume asked. The shogun had come down with the measles just before the New Year.

“I hear he’s recovering, but I haven’t seen for myself,” Sano said. He’d been banned from court four years ago. That had been his punishment after the shogun had ordered him to stop the investigation and he’d disobeyed. Sano had continued pursuing it for the good of the regime, to the detriment of his own career and domestic peace.

He and his wife, Reiko, were seriously at odds over his actions. Long hours of patrol duty were a blessing for a man who didn’t want to go home.

“So it looks like the shogun isn’t going to die,” Marume said with relief.

“Yes, but he’s badly weakened. His health has always been frail, and he’s sixty-three. Lord Ienobu is going to inherit the dictatorship sooner rather than later.”

That was why this new lead was so crucial.

Sano and Marume turned their horses down one of the narrow lanes that crossed Naka-no-chō and stopped outside a small brothel. Laughter burst upon them as they peered through the window whose shutters were cracked open to clear out the smoke from charcoal braziers and tobacco pipes. A party occupied a room bright with lanterns. Young women as colorful as butterflies in their gay kimonos, their faces heavily made up and their hair spangled with ornaments, flirted with four samurai and plied them with sake.

“Who’s who?” Marume asked.

“The old fellow at the head of the table is Manabe Akira, Lord Ienobu’s chief retainer.”

Manabe, in his late fifties, had a gray topknot and wore gray robes. His shaved crown and face were brown and shiny like an iron war mask from martial arts practice in the sun. He’d been a top swordsman in his day. When a courtesan teased him, he responded with grunts.

“A real sociable type,” Marume said.

“The men seated with their backs to us are Setsubara Ihei and Ono Jozan,” Sano said. They were big and muscular, their kimonos fashionable with garish patterns, their black topknots slick with oil. They raised their cups in a toast. “They’re Manabe’s aides.”

“The one across from them must have been a kid at the time of the murder.”

“Kuzawa Daimon, age nineteen. He’s a guard.”

Kuzawa was as big and strong as Manabe’s aides, and dressed like them, but his face and body had the softer look of youth. A courtesan stroked his beefy arm while telling him a joke. He laughed uproariously.