Laura Rowland: The Shogun's Daughter

Another man followed Yoshisato onto the dais. The shogun said, “And here is Yoshisato’s adoptive father-my good friend Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu.”

Yanagisawa was the only person Sano knew whose appearance had improved since the earthquake. The disaster had strengthened his tall, slender figure and enhanced his striking masculine beauty. His skin glowed with health; his dark, liquid eyes glistened.

Hatred boiled inside Sano as he watched Yanagisawa kneel at the shogun’s left. He and Yanagisawa had been enemies for fifteen years, since Sano had entered the shogun’s service. Yanagisawa, then chamberlain, had seen Sano as a rival. He’d done his best to destroy Sano, sabotaging his work, undermining his authority, criticizing him to the shogun. That was standard practice among officials jockeying for position, but Yanagisawa had also set assassins on Sano and attacked his family. While defending himself, his kin, and his honor, Sano had dealt Yanagisawa a few good blows. The rivalry between them was a constant cycle. One’s fortunes rose while the other’s fell. Now Yanagisawa smiled, with blatant triumph, straight at Sano.

Although Sano was currently chamberlain, the top dog in their feud, and Yanagisawa currently had no official position in the government, Yanagisawa was now the adoptive father of the shogun’s official heir. He’d just won his biggest advantage over Sano: influence with the next shogun, a foothold in the future. And Sano knew he’d done it by sheer, outrageous fraud.

“‘Adoptive father,’ my behind.” General Isogai’s face grew redder with anger.

“If he’s not Yoshisato’s real father, then I’m the emperor of China,” Ohgami whispered.

The shogun beamed, trapped between Yanagisawa and Yoshisato. Everyone in the audience turned to Sano. Hostility narrowed the eyes of the men who’d decided to believe Yoshisato was the shogun’s son and approved of his installation as heir. Sano felt hope pinned on him, like needles stuck in his skin, by his allies who didn’t believe or approve.

General Isogai whispered to Sano, “This is your last chance to prevent your worst enemy and his spawn from taking over Japan.”

“Give it your best shot,” Ohgami urged in a low, fervent voice.

Sano was leader of the effort to disqualify Yoshisato. His allies were either too afraid or prudent to touch the job themselves. Sano didn’t know whether his acceptance of it was more courageous or foolish, but he had to thwart Yanagisawa, or Yanagisawa would deprive him of his head as well as his place in the government. And it was his duty to protect his lord and the Tokugawa regime from Yanagisawa’s plot to gain permanent power. That was Bushido, the Way of the Warrior, the samurai code of honor by which Sano lived.

Before Sano could speak, a man in the front row on the lower level of the floor reared up on his knees. He had a stunted figure and a hump on his back. It was Tokugawa Ienobu, son of the shogun’s deceased older brother.

“Uncle, please excuse me.” His tight voice seemed squeezed out of him. His upper teeth protruded above an abnormally small lower jaw. These deformities stemmed from a hereditary bone condition. “I must say this is the wrong time to designate your heir.”

Yanagisawa’s shoulders moved in a slight shrug: He’d expected an objection from Ienobu and he didn’t fear him. Caution veiled Yoshisato’s expression.

“I don’t excuse you,” the shogun snapped. “Why, pray tell, is this the wrong time?”

“You’ve just experienced the tragic loss of your daughter,” Ienobu said. “Your emotions are affecting your judgment.”

“His Excellency has realized the urgent importance of naming an heir,” Yanagisawa interjected in a smooth, reasonable voice. “His son is his rightful successor.”

“Why can’t you be happy for me that I have the heir I always wanted?” the shogun whined at Ienobu. “Why do you want to spoil my, ahh, pleasure?”

“That’s the last thing I want to do, Uncle,” Ienobu said, as desperate to avert the shogun’s wrath as he was to change his mind. “I just think you should consider the alternatives before you make such a serious decision about the future of the regime.”

The shogun frowned in confusion. “What alternatives?”

“Honorable Father, perhaps Lord Ienobu wants to be named as your successor himself.” Yoshisato spoke in a deferential tone while exposing his rival’s base motives.

“Is that true, Nephew?” the shogun demanded. He disliked ambitious men who openly wangled favors from him.

“Not at all, Uncle,” Ienobu hastened to say. But Sano knew Ienobu had worked hard to ingratiate himself with the shogun. Before Yoshisato had appeared on the scene, Ienobu had been the heir apparent. Ienobu’s eagerness to get rid of Yoshisato and regain his former standing was obvious to everyone except the shogun.

“It’s just that you learned about Yoshisato so recently … and the circumstances were so strange.” Ienobu balked at declaring that he thought Yoshisato wasn’t the shogun’s child.

Sano jumped into the fire, although challenging the shogun’s decision, even for his own good, meant walking a narrow path that bordered on treason. To impugn the shogun’s newfound heir equaled courting death.

“‘Strange’ is an understatement, Your Excellency.” Sano repeated the story Yanagisawa had told when he’d sprung Yoshisato on the shogun: “Eighteen years ago, the court astronomer reads a prophecy in the constellations: You will father a son, but unless he’s hidden away upon his birth, you’ll be killed by an earthquake that’s due to strike Edo in Genroku year sixteen.”

Ienobu cast a thankful glance at Sano and continued the tale: “The astronomer confides the prophecy to Yanagisawa. Yanagisawa gives orders that any pregnancies in the palace women’s quarters are to be reported to him and no one else. Soon thereafter, your concubine Lady Someko finds herself expecting your child. She tells Yanagisawa, who takes her into his home. Yoshisato is born.”

“Yanagisawa adopts and raises Yoshisato as his own child,” Sano went on. “He conceals Yoshisato’s real parentage. Five months ago, the earthquake strikes, right on schedule. Your Excellency survives. The danger is past. Yanagisawa reveals the secret: Yoshisato is your son.” Yanagisawa had plopped Yoshisato into first place in line for the succession, to guarantee that he-as Yoshisato’s adoptive father-would be the power behind the next dictator.

The shogun smiled and nodded while he listened, like a child enjoying a favorite bedtime story. “Isn’t it an extraordinary miracle?”

“It’s so extraordinary that I don’t think you should accept it without question,” Sano said.

Vexation darkened the shogun’s face. “Ahh, yes, you said as much when you first heard about Yoshisato. And I thought you had a good point.”

“That’s why I advised His Excellency to have you investigate Yoshisato’s origins,” Yanagisawa said suavely.

Sano suspected that Yanagisawa had suggested the investigation because he’d made sure Sano wouldn’t find any evidence to debunk Yoshisato. “My investigation isn’t finished.”

“You’ve had four months,” Yoshisato said. His youthful, masculine voice had an underlying edge of steel. “Have you proved that His Excellency isn’t my father?”

“No,” Sano admitted. He’d questioned officials, concubines, guards, and servants in the palace women’s quarters, who’d lived or worked there when Yoshisato was conceived. Contrary to common knowledge that the shogun hardly ever bedded a female, the witnesses swore that he’d spent many amorous nights with Lady Someko. Sano suspected they’d been bribed or threatened by Yanagisawa. “But I also haven’t proved that His Excellency is your father.”