Sano envisioned a boy flinging up his arms as a sword slashed at him, the blade opening bloody gashes. His screams echoed across the years. “Then he was hacked to death.”
Dr. Ito nodded. “This is definitely a case of murder. I’m curious about the swords buried with Tadatoshi. Why would the killer leave them as a clue to his identity instead of letting him remain anonymous and forestalling an inquiry into his death?”
“That’s a good question.” As Sano gazed down at the skeleton, the sword cuts seemed to glow red and give off smoke like cracks burned into oracle bones. He had a disturbing sense that the message they portended for him was pure bad luck.
“My cousin Tadatoshi was murdered?” the shogun said in dismay when Sano delivered the news to him that evening. “How did you find out?”
He lay facedown in bed, covered by a quilt below the waist, while a physician inserted acupuncture needles into his bony, naked back. He suffered from muscle aches, joint pains, heart palpitations, and other ailments real or imagined, and he tried every treatment known to man. The chamber was hot from the many charcoal braziers he needed to keep warm, and smelled of medicines. Sano was thankful that he didn’t have to watch the herbal enema.
“I made some inquiries,” Sano said, deliberately vague on details. He was glad Lord Matsudaira wasn’t present to ask questions. “I’ve also assured that Tadatoshi’s remains have safely reached the mausoleum.”
Mura had repacked the skeleton in the barrel, and the porters had carried it to Kannei Temple. There, Hirata had sneaked the skeleton into the trunk. Tomorrow the priests would give Tadatoshi a proper cremation and burial.
“But he cannot rest in peace,” the shogun said, wincing as the needles stung him, “not until justice is done. Sano-san, find out who killed him.”
“Of course, Your Excellency.” Sano’s code of honor demanded justice for the murdered relative of the master he was duty-bound to serve even while he battled Lord Matsudaira for control of the regime. “Tadatoshi’s killer must be punished-if he’s still alive.”
“If so, I shall help you catch him,” the shogun said with uncharacteristic, decisive vigor. Lately he had spells during which he tried to take part in court business. Sano thought he’d become aware that he’d left too many important affairs to his officials and begun to regret how little control he had over the government. “Is there something I can do to, ahh, further your investigation?”
“Perhaps there is,” Sano said. “I need to understand Tadatoshi. Can you tell me what kind of person he was?”
The shogun puffed up with pride because Sano was truly consulting him, not just pretending. That didn’t happen often. He frowned in an effort to remember. “Well, ahh, it was a long time ago when I knew him. His father used to bring him to play with me. Many children were brought.”
Sano figured their parents had wanted to ingratiate them with their future ruler.
“Tadatoshi was rather, ahh, shy and quiet.” The shogun flinched as the physician twiddled the needles between his fingers, stimulating the flow of energy through nerves. “He liked to wander off by himself. Once he did it during a visit to me. The servants turned the castle upside down, searching for him. They found him in the forest preserve. But I’m afraid he’s, ahh, mostly a blur. I can’t recall what he looked like.”
At least Sano had the beginning of a portrait of the murder victim. Maybe Tadatoshi had wandered off one time too many, and met his killer. “Do you remember the day he disappeared?”
“I could never forget it,” the shogun said with passion. “It was the day the Great Fire started. There had been no rain for almost six months. A strong northern wind was blowing.”
He and Sano listened to the wind keening outside, rustling the trees. This winter and spring had also been abnormally dry and windy, and fires had broken out around town.
“Late in the afternoon, we heard that a fire was burning through the city,” the shogun continued. “Everyone was afraid the fire would reach the castle. My mother wanted to run for the hills, but we were told that the fire brigades would surely put out the fire before it could reach us.”
Edo’s fire brigades had consisted in those days of four small regiments levied from the daimyo. They’d proved grossly inadequate to combat the Great Fire. Now four squadrons of three hundred men each were managed by Tokugawa bannermen and assisted by the police. The townsfolk had organized their own brigades. Edo had learned its costly lesson.
“A servant from Tadatoshi’s house came and asked whether anyone at mine had seen my cousin,” the shogun said. “He’d wandered off. But we hadn’t seen him. The next day, a second fire started and came toward the castle. There was so much confusion that we forgot about Tadatoshi. It was days later when we heard he’d never been found.”
Days later, when the city lay in ruins, the Tokugawa regime had been too busy trying to feed and shelter thousands of homeless people to search for one lost child from a minor branch. Law and order had disintegrated. It had been a good time for somebody to kill Tadatoshi, bury him, and get away with it because he would be presumed a victim of the fire.
“Who might have wanted him dead?” Sano asked.
“I’m afraid I haven’t the slightest idea.”
“Is there anyone else around who knew Tadatoshi?” Sano asked. “Perhaps his immediate family?”
The shogun’s face took on the queasy look that meant he feared being thought stupid. “I don’t know. I have so many relatives, it’s hard to, ahh, keep track of them all. And I see so few people these days.”
Lord Matsudaira controlled access to the shogun in order to cut him off from people who might tell him what Lord Matsudaira was up to and bully him into doing something about it.
“But I’ll help you find out about Tadatoshi’s family,” the shogun said, eager to make up for his ignorance. He called, “Yoritomo-san! Come here!”
When he got no response, the shogun sat up, bristling with needles like a porcupine, and clapped his hands. A manservant appeared in the doorway. The shogun said, “Where is Yoritomo?”
“He left the castle a while ago.”
Annoyed, the shogun said, “That boy is never here when I need him. Ahh, well, never mind. Fetch Dazai.”
The servant hurried off, then soon returned with the shogun’s elderly, longtime valet. The shogun said to him, “Chamberlain Sano wants to know if my cousin Tadatoshi has any family still alive and in Edo.”
Dazai was a repository of knowledge about his master’s clan. “I’m sorry to say that Tadatoshi’s father was killed in the Great Fire. Most of the people in that unfortunate household were.” The disaster had taken its greatest toll among the commoners but hadn’t spared the privileged classes. “But Tadatoshi’s mother and older sister survived.”
He gave directions to their home, and the shogun dismissed him. Sano said, “Maybe they can shed some light on Tadatoshi’s character and his disappearance. I’ll speak to them tomorrow.”
For now Sano had urgent affairs of state to attend to, which he’d neglected for the sake of this investigation. He would probably be up all night working. And he wanted to see how Reiko was faring after this morning’s attack.
As he left the shogun’s bedchamber, he heard the shogun call to his servants, “Wherever Yoritomo is, find him. I desire his company tonight.”
A small, obscure Buddhist temple stood outside Shinagawa, a village that lay a few hours’ journey from Edo along the highway leading west. At past midnight, the temple was deserted, and silent except for the wind that rattled the bamboo canes in the gardens and rang the bells attached to the roof tiers of the pagoda. The worship hall, abbot’s residence, and priests’ dormitories were dark, but a light burned in the window of a guest cottage. Along the moonlit gravel path to the cottage, a man dressed in a dark, hooded cloak hurried through the shadows cast by pine trees. He carried a walking stick and wore a heavy pack on his back. The cottage door opened, lantern light spilled onto the path, and a voice called softly from inside, “Who goes there?”