She grieved for Lieutenant Asukai. She’d left the estate for the first time since the ambush during which he’d saved her life, in order to attend his funeral. She would miss him forever. And she was concerned about Sano.
He’d returned to her five days ago, weary but elated. He’d told her that he’d forced Yanagisawa to surface, and Lord Matsudaira was dead. He’d also told her the details about how his mother had confessed to the murder and the shogun had overheard. After summarizing the consequences, he’d said, “The shogun is hosting a banquet to celebrate Yanagisawa’s homecoming. He expects me to be there. I have to go.”
Reiko hadn’t seen him since, except from a distance, when he came home once in a while to sleep or tend to official business. They hadn’t discussed his mother. Reiko had used the time while he was gone to woo her daughter, employing treats and gentle talk, as one might a wild rabbit. Even though Akiko was still shy, she no longer screamed whenever she saw Reiko.
Now Akiko came running up to the pavilion. She held a sprig of cherry blossoms. She stopped and regarded Reiko with somber black eyes. Reiko smiled and said, “Come here, Akiko. Show me your flowers.”
For a long moment Akiko didn’t move. Then she slowly, hesitantly, climbed the steps of the pavilion. She extended the flowers to Reiko, who accepted them. Then Akiko ran off to play. Reiko’s eyes stung. She felt new hope for a reconciliation.
Then she saw Sano walking across the garden toward her, his face closed and stoic. Her heart began to pound with anxiety for him. He entered the pavilion and crouched beside her. He didn’t look at her, and she kept her eyes averted from him because she perceived that he was trying to contain his emotions and wouldn’t welcome her scrutiny. She waited until the silence grew unbearable.
“Has anything happened?” she said, hesitant to speak but eager for news, political and personal.
“The shogun has given the post of chamberlain to both Yanagisawa and me.” Sano’s voice was calm, controlled. “It looks as if we’ll be fighting our battle to the finish while running the government together.”
Reiko was astounded. “That’s another in the recent series of shocks.”
“But not the biggest.” Sano turned to her, and Reiko saw disbelief, astonishment, hurt, and anger on his face. “You were right about my mother.”
Reiko felt no triumph. She couldn’t throw in his face the fact that he’d been wrong. “I’m sorry,” she said, feeling his pain as her own.
“Even though I saved her, even though I’m glad, I can’t accept what she did,” Sano said. “She has the blood of my lord’s kin on her hands.”
This was a sin that any honorable samurai would find difficult to overlook, no matter the circumstances, Reiko knew. She herself hadn’t known how to treat her mother-in-law. When she’d returned home, she hadn’t known what to say to Etsuko.
Etsuko had spoken first. “Honorable Daughter-in-law, I killed the shogun’s cousin-just as you thought. I’ll explain why, if you like.” Her quiet manner had a new confidence and dignity. “But I’m a murderess, and if you want me out of your house, I’ll leave at once.”
Reiko was too surprised to say anything but no, Etsuko must stay until Sano returned; he would want to see her. Since then, Reiko had been cautious with Etsuko, aware that they were on new, equal terms. Reiko saw that there would be no more condescending to her mother-in-law, who would no longer shrink before her. The truth had turned Etsuko into a force worthy of esteem. Reiko realized that they weren’t so different after all. Both of them were women with strong principles, who would risk their lives and flout convention for a good cause. Reiko began to like her mother-in-law better than she’d ever thought possible. Perhaps they could be friends someday. Now she rose to Etsuko’s defense.
“Tadatoshi deserved to be killed,” Reiko said. “Your mother did the world a service.”
“I know. She probably saved thousands of lives.” Wanting to believe, yet unrelenting, Sano shook his head.
“She was a young girl who’d just been through hell on earth during the Great Fire,” Reiko said. “When she came across Tadatoshi afterward, it would have been easier and better for her to let him go. But she was selfless enough to think of the people he’d killed, the people he would kill in the future. And so she took justice into her own hands. She had courage.”
Although Sano nodded, the unhappiness in his expression deepened. “She also had the nerve to lie about what she did, not only to the shogun, but to me.”
That bothered him almost as much as did the fact that his mother was a murderess, Reiko saw. “But she finally told you the truth. If she’d done so sooner, you might not have had the spirit to work as hard as you did to save us all. Things might have turned out for the worse.”
Sano was silent, frowning, resistant. Reiko could guess at part of what troubled him, even if he wasn’t conscious of it. Throughout their marriage she’d constantly ventured beyond the limits of what society deemed acceptable behavior for a wife, a woman. Sano had continually stretched his own limits because he loved her, he wanted her to be happy, and he’d often benefited from her actions. But it was harder for Sano to live with the fact that his mother-the woman sacred to him because she’d borne and raised him-had also defied convention, broken the law.
“She begged me to forgive her,” Sano said at last. “I want to, but how can I?”
“You’ll find a way,” Reiko promised. “Because you love her, and she loves you, and she’ll do everything in her power to make it up to you.” Reiko thought of herself and Akiko, of her and Sano’s past quarrels. She believed that forgiveness was always possible where there was love.
Sano glanced at her. “I forgive you for being right,” he said with a wry smile.
Reiko smiled back, glad to see his sense of humor returning. “That’s a good start.”
He rose, gazed off into space, and Reiko saw his thoughts take a new direction. He said, “Not all my mother’s family can be dead. I vaguely recall hearing of the Kumazawa clan. Somewhere out there is a whole set of relatives I don’t know.”
“They know of you. Everybody does,” Reiko said. “And I’m sure they know that you’re from their clan. My intuition tells me that somebody among them has kept track of your mother all these years. And since you became the shogun’s investigator, then the chamberlain, they’ve been watching you with much interest.”
Amusement crinkled Sano’s eyes as he turned to her. “If your intuition says so, then I’d better believe it.”
“Why don’t you look them up and meet them?” Reiko said. She thought of the blood that joined her children and husband to their yet unknown family, the tie buried forty-three years ago and exposed by the murder investigation. She saw much uncharted territory yet to explore.
Sano’s expression showed reluctance, and perhaps qualms about how he would be received by the people who’d disowned his mother. “Not now. I have too many other things to do,” he said with an air of gladly dispensing with personal matters and moving on to business. “Yanagisawa isn’t going to cooperate with me for the good of the country. He’ll oppose everything I do. And the political scene is still in flux. Who knows how many allies will fall on his side and how many on mine? People are already taking bets on which of us will win.”
Reiko sensed his excitement and eagerness for the challenge. “There’s bound to be more crises, more treachery,” she predicted. She rose and stood close beside Sano. Together they looked at the blossoming cherry trees, at Masahiro and Akiko running under the snowfall of pink petals. Their gazes focused on the future.
Sano said with relish, “This should be the dirtiest fight ever.”