Yoshisato’s ire turned to dismay. “The whispering is part of a campaign? Not just idle gossip?”
“That should be obvious to you, if you’ve learned anything about the ways of the court.”
“Who’s behind it? Ienobu?”
Yanagisawa pointed his finger at Yoshisato. “Very astute of you, if a little slow. If you’re discredited, Ienobu will inherit the dictatorship. He’ll put both of us to death before the ink on the succession document is dry.”
Realizing that his rival was craftier than he’d thought, Yoshisato looked younger and more vulnerable than he had moments ago. “What are we going to do about Ienobu?”
“What do you mean, we?” Yanagisawa said with a sarcastic smile. “Are you admitting that you need me after all and you want me to stay?”
The same anger, frustration, and helplessness that Yanagisawa had felt earlier now showed in Yoshisato’s expression. Yoshisato squared his shoulders and tightened his jaw, striving for dignity. “Yes.” His tone boasted that he was smart enough to recognize that he was in over his head and to accept help from a father he hated rather than perish on his own.
Yanagisawa’s heart swelled with pride in Yoshisato. What a marvelous son! Would that the shogun never believed that Yoshisato’s fine qualities came from someone other than himself. Hiding his thoughts behind a patronizing smile, Yanagisawa said, “I’m glad that’s understood.”
He anticipated an eventual clash with Ienobu. Thank the gods that the shogun didn’t have other, closer relatives to contend for the succession! Yanagisawa foresaw more struggles with Yoshisato, but at least he had one consolation.
The shogun’s daughter was safely dead. She couldn’t produce a rival for Yoshisato.
8
“My wife’s chamber is this way.” Stiff with reluctance, Lord Tsunanori led Sano and Marume along a corridor through the women’s quarters of his estate.
A powerful smell of incense and lye soap filled the air. Sano’s eyes watered. Marume coughed and said, “I’m glad the place has been disinfected, but they overdid it a little.”
Lord Tsunanori opened a door in the lattice-and-paper wall, stood aside, and said, “This is where Tsuruhime died.”
Crossing the threshold, Sano tried not to breathe. He felt queasy even though he’d witnessed death so many times that he’d lost count and there was no corpse here. He couldn’t help fearing contagion even though no spirits of disease could possibly withstand such thorough cleansing. The room was empty of furniture, the cabinet doors open to reveal vacant shelves and drawers, the floor bare. A damp, caustic-smelling patch darkened the wooden planks where the sickbed had been.
“There’s nothing to see, but look as much as you want.” Lord Tsunanori sounded spitefully pleased to disappoint Sano. He waited in the doorway.
Sano glanced into the cabinets. No soiled linens materialized. Nothing except the lavish mural of marsh scenes indicated that a wealthy, privileged woman had once lived here.
“I had to have everything burned.” Lord Tsunanori spoke with more regret than he’d expressed about his wife’s death. “Her robes alone were worth a fortune. But they might have been contaminated with the smallpox, so they had to go.”
“Are you finished?” Marume asked Sano, his voice muffled by the hand he held over his nose and mouth. The stout-hearted detective feared smallpox as much as Sano did.
“Yes.” As Sano exited the chamber, his own relief was strong.
Lord Tsunanori led the way to the outer portion of the mansion. “You said you wanted to talk to my people.” He ushered Sano and Marume into a vast room created by opening the partitions between three adjacent reception chambers. “Well, here they are.”
A huge crowd overflowed out the open doors, onto the verandas, and into the garden. Daimyo estates could contain more than a thousand people. The lords had even bigger estates and retinues in their provinces. In Edo they kept only enough people to provide security, to maintain their property, and to wait on them when they were in town for the half of each year that Tokugawa law required, and to care for their women and children, whom the law required to stay year-round as hostages to their good behavior. Sano gazed at the troops mingled with servants, at officials crammed alongside women in silk kimonos. It was a truly impressive, huge pool of witnesses.
“I’ll start with your wife’s personal attendants,” Sano said. “Detective Marume and I will question each one individually, in private.”
Displeasure darkened Lord Tsunanori’s face. “I have a right to be present when you talk to them.”
“It’s not your right by law,” Sano said. “It’s a courtesy that I can allow you or not. And I choose not to have you present.”
As Lord Tsunanori started to bluster, a samurai official in the front row of the crowd beckoned him. Lord Tsunanori leaned down. The official whispered in his ear. Lord Tsunanori turned back to Sano with a smug, vindictive smile and said, “It seems you’re not the shogun’s second-in-command anymore. My man here tells me you’ve been demoted to Chief Rebuilding Magistrate. Funny, you didn’t mention the fact that you’re out of favor at court.”
Sano felt the hot sting of humiliation as his heart sank. The bad news had caught up with him at a most unfortunate time. “My position doesn’t matter,” he retorted.
“Oh, it does. You’ve lost the authority to tell me what to do.” Lord Tsunanori smirked. “Actually, I’ve changed my mind about letting you to talk to my people at all.”
“In that case, I’ll change my mind about keeping my inquiries confidential,” Sano said. “I’ll tell the shogun my suspicions about Tsuruhime’s death.”
Lord Tsunanori bit his flaccid lips as he vacillated between his fear of being implicated in the murder of the shogun’s daughter and his desire to best Sano. “All right,” he said sullenly. “You can talk to them. But only in my presence.”
“Fine,” Sano said, thankful that Lord Tsunanori hadn’t called his bluff. He couldn’t afford to let Yanagisawa hear of his investigation when it had barely begun.
Lord Tsunanori gathered Tsuruhime’s personal retinue from among the crowd. There were six guards, two palanquin bearers, and ten female attendants. Three of the women sported elaborate hairstyles and fashionable silk garments; they were ladies-in-waiting. Cotton garments marked the other seven females as servants. One of these wore a white drape that covered her head and cast a shadow over her face. Lord Tsunanori took the attendants and Sano and Marume to a smaller audience chamber. He seated Sano and Marume on the dais. His retainers organized the attendants in a line on the floor below, then stationed themselves by the door. Lord Tsunanori knelt beside Sano and said, “Go ahead.”
Sano beckoned the first witness, a maid with a ruddy complexion. She came forward and bowed. “Did you ever see a stained old sheet among the things in your mistress’s cabinet?” Sano asked.
Lord Tsunanori shook his head. The maid said, “No.”
“Stop influencing her,” Sano said.
“I’m not.”
Sano stifled a sigh; he turned back to the maid. “Have you ever seen anyone acting strangely while handling your mistress’s clothes or bedding?”
“No,” the maid said.
“Do you know of anyone besides your mistress who’d recently had smallpox?”
“No.” She sounded more eager to provide the answer Lord Tsunanori would deem acceptable than to tell the truth. He rewarded her with a smiling nod.
Marume rolled his eyes. Sano said, “That will be all.” He called the next person in line, a stout guard. “Did you escort your lord’s wife when she went out of the estate?”
“Yes,” the guard said.
“Did she go out often during the ten days or so before she got smallpox?”
The guard glanced at Lord Tsunanori, who nodded vigorously. “Yes, all the time.”
Sano had difficulty envisioning Tsuruhime as a gadabout in the earthquake-ravaged city. “Did she go anyplace where there might have been people with smallpox?”