Laura Rowland: The Cloud Pavilion

"Is your name Chiyo?" Sano shouted.

"Yes," his cousin whispered, her voice drowned by the storm. Her eyes closed, and she went limp in Sano's grasp as she fainted.

Light from a round white lantern cast a lunar glow in the room where Yanagisawa and his son Yoritomo lay side by side, facedown, on low wooden tables. Their long, naked bodies were identically proportioned, Yanagisawa's almost as slender, strong, and perfect as twenty-three-year-old Yoritomo's. Their faces, turned toward each other, had the same dark beauty. Their skin glistened with oil as two masseurs kneaded their backs, working out the aches from the morning's tournament. Incense smoke rose from a brass burner, sweet and pungent, masking the odors of dampness and decay. Outside, rain poured down; thunder rumbled.

"Father, may I ask you a question?" Yoritomo said, respectful and deferential as always.

"Of course," Yanagisawa said.

He didn't hesitate to talk in front of the masseurs. Other people had blind masseurs, an ancient tradition. Yanagisawa's were deaf and dumb. They wouldn't hear or spread tales. And although he usually hated being interrogated, he made an exception for Yoritomo. He distrusted and disliked most people, with good reason; he'd been stabbed in the back so many times that it was a wonder he hadn't bled to death. But his son was his love, the only person to whom he felt a connection, his blood. He had four other children, but Yoritomo was the only one that mattered. He would gladly tell Yoritomo all his secrets. Or almost all.

"Are things really settled between you and Sano?" Yoritomo asked.

"For the moment," Yanagisawa said.

But some scores could never be settled. "I don't understand how you can be friends with him," Yoritomo said. He and Sano had once been close friends, Yanagisawa knew. During the three years that Yanagisawa had been in exile, Sano had taken the opportunity to cultivate Yoritomo, who was the shogun's favorite lover and companion. Yoritomo had grown attached to Sano and bravely defended him against his enemies. But no more. "Not after what he did to us!"

Yoritomo spoke with the indignation of trust and affection betrayed. Last year Sano had accused Yoritomo of treason, and had staged a trial and fake execution, in order to force Yanagisawa into the open. "I've never been so terrified in my life!"

Neither had Yanagisawa, when he'd heard that his son was to be put to death.

"Even though Sano apologized, I'll never forgive him," Yoritomo said, his voice hard, his sweet, gentle nature turned hateful by Sano's trick. "How can you?"

Yanagisawa couldn't. Whenever he thought of that day, he shook with fury. But he controlled his emotions, lest they goad him into rash action. And he had to convince Yoritomo to follow his example. "One can do whatever one must. Don't dwell on what Sano did to you. It'll only make you feel worse."

Yoritomo stared in amazement. "Can you honestly say that you don't hate Sano as much as I do? After all, it's not just me that Sano has humiliated." Yoritomo was so upset that he forgot his polite manners. "Look at yourself, Father! Once you were the only chamberlain, the shogun's only second-in-command. Now you have to share the honors with Sano. And he's not only stolen half your position-he has your house!"

The shogun had given the chamberlain's compound to Sano when Yanagisawa had been exiled. The very idea of Sano in his home rankled terribly with Yanagisawa, who now lived here, in a smaller estate in the castle's official quarter, among his subordinates. His new mansion was too close to the street; he could hear voices and hoofbeats outside. He felt crowded by his servants and troops. How he missed the space and privacy he'd once enjoyed! It was too bad that the traps he'd installed in his old home hadn't killed Sano.

"Why don't you punish him?" Yoritomo said, hungry for revenge. "Why do we have to act as if everything is all right? Why can't we fight back?"

"Because we would lose," Yanagisawa said bluntly.

"No, we wouldn't," Yoritomo protested. "You have lots of allies, lots of troops."

"So does Sano."

"Your position is stronger than his."

"That's what I thought when I went up against Lord Matsudaira. I was wrong. His troops slaughtered mine on the battlefield." Yanagisawa's thoughts darkened with the memory. "My allies defected to him like rats fleeing a sinking ship. No," he declared. "I won't risk another war."

"But-"

"But nothing," Yanagisawa said, harsh in his determination to convince his son. "We were let off easy last time. You were allowed to stay in Edo." The shogun had insisted on keeping Yoritomo with him, even though Lord Matsudaira had wanted to exile Yanagisawa's whole family. "I was banished instead of killed. Next time we won't be so fortunate."

Yoritomo beheld Yanagisawa with a mixture of resignation and disappointment. "You're saying you've given up. Because you're afraid of losing, afraid of dying."

The masseur pressed his fingers deep into Yanagisawa's shoulder joints, touching tender spots. Yanagisawa winced. His son had always idolized him, but now Yoritomo had accused him of being a coward. The accusation was unjust.

"Sometimes fear is a better guide than courage is," he said. "Courage has led many a man to do the wrong things, with disastrous results. I learned that lesson when I took on Lord Matsudaira: We can't seize power by force. You should have learned it, too. But you're young." He watched Yoritomo blush, shamed by the implied accusation of stupidity. "You don't understand that when a strategy fails, you shouldn't rush out and do the same thing again. If you want different results, you have to try a new strategy."

Hope brightened Yoritomo's gaze. "Do you mean you have a new plan for defeating Sano and putting us on top of the regime?"

"Oh, yes." Yanagisawa smiled with pleasure as his masseur worked the stiffness out of his back muscles. "Never let it be said that I don't have a plan."

"But how can you win without going to war?"

"The time for war was over more than a century ago, when the Tokugawa clan and its allies conquered their rivals and unified Japan," Yanagisawa said, wise in hindsight. "This dictatorship won't be won by military maneuvers, I see now. Today's political climate calls for more subtle tactics."

"What are they? What are you going to do?" Apprehension shadowed Yoritomo's beautiful face. "Is there a part in your plan for me?"

Yanagisawa was touched by his son's wish to be included in whatever he did, no matter the dangers. Yoritomo was so good, so loyal. "Never fear," Yanagisawa said. "You're key to my whole scheme." Yoritomo was Yanagisawa's best hope of one day ruling Japan. Yanagisawa had big plans for him. "Now listen."

Sano and his retinue escorted his cousin Chiyo home.

She rode, semiconscious, in a palanquin carried by bearers that Sano had hired. The storm decreased to a light rain and the afternoon faded into dusk as he and his men accompanied the palanquin through the samurai enclave near the shogun's rice ware houses along the river. The rice was used to pay the Tokugawa retainers their stipends. Heavily guarded by Major Kumazawa's troops, it was sold to rice brokers, and converted to cash, by a bevy of officials.

Lanterns flickered outside the walled estates where Major Kumazawa and the officials lived. Sentries in guard houses looked up to watch Sano's procession pass. This part of town was older than the rest of Edo; the white plaster on the walls was patched, the roof tiles weathered, the roads narrow and serpentine. Sano didn't think he'd been here before, but the double-roofed gate that displayed a banner emblazoned with the Kumazawa family crest-a stylized bear head in a circle-struck in him an eerie chord of recognition.