The assembly reached the final item on the agenda. "His Excellency's pilgrimage to Nikko Toshogu," announced the senior elder.
The Toshogu was a shrine in the city of Nikko, a two-day journey north of Edo, where the first Tokugawa shogun had been laid to rest. Now the shogun perked up.
"Ahh, I've been so looking forward to my trip." He normally preferred not to brave the discomforts of travel, but he was enjoying a rare spell of good health, and it had whetted his taste for adventure. "When would be an auspicious time for me to go?"
The elders didn't answer. Hands folded, expressions grave, they waited for someone else to deliver the bad news.
"Your Excellency, I regret to say that I must advise you against making the trip," Sano said.
"Oh?" Miffed, the shogun turned to Yanagisawa in hope of advice he liked better. "What do you say?"
At one time Yanagisawa would have contradicted Sano to gain points in their lord's favor. But now Yanagisawa said, "I must agree with Chamberlain Sano." The elders looked simultaneously relieved and disappointed. Sano suspected that they missed the excitement of political strife even though they appreciated the peace and quiet. "The trip isn't feasible."
The shogun regarded Sano and Yanagisawa with the hurt expression of a child bullied by his two best friends. "Why not, pray tell?"
Once, Yanagisawa would have let Sano say what the shogun didn't want to hear and suffer the consequences. Instead he explained, "A trip would involve a huge procession, with new ceremonial robes for you and everyone else, plus lodging and formal banquets. That's too expensive."
"How can it be?" the shogun said, puzzled. "I'm rich, I can afford anything I want." Uncertainty crept into his eyes. "Can't I?"
It was Sano's turn to acquaint his lord with reality. "There's not enough money in the treasury to pay for the trip and cover the regime's other expenses."
The shogun wavered between annoyance and dismay. "We've never had this, ahh, problem in the past."
The regime had been chronically short on funds during his rule, and his officials had often tried to tell him, but it never sank in. Ordinarily, Yanagisawa would have jumped at the chance to blame Sano for the shortfall. He'd have accused Sano of squandering and embezzling the money during Yanagisawa's absence. Sano could have accused Yanagisawa of both crimes, which Yanagisawa certainly had committed in the past. But Yanagisawa wasn't doing it now. Sano knew because he kept a close watch on the treasury. Why Yanagisawa now adhered strictly to the rules was a mystery to Sano. So was the reason Yanagisawa didn't seize the opportunity to make Sano look bad.
Sano studied his onetime foe, seeking clues, as Yanagisawa said, "The Tokugawa treasury has become depleted over the years. The cost of rebuilding Edo after the Great Fire-"
The shogun waved away the Great Fire as if it had been a minor inconve nience instead of a disaster that had killed over a hundred thousand people and laid the city to waste. "That was more than forty years ago!"
"There have been other heavy expenditures," Sano said. "You have many temples and shrines to maintain, as well as roads, bridges, and canals."
"Remember that you're supporting thousands of retainers, including the Tokugawa army," Yanagisawa said.
"Ahh." The shogun hunched his back, momentarily weighed down by the thought of his financial responsibilities. "Well, if I need more money, can't you make me some more?"
"It's not that easy," Sano said. "The yield from the gold and silver mines has been decreasing. We can't just mint more coins."
"Much of Japan's wealth has left the country with foreign traders who sell us goods from abroad," Yanagisawa added.
The shogun pouted. "Then why not just, ahh, debase the coinage again?"
That drastic measure had been undertaken six years ago, when coins had been collected, melted down, and alloyed with base metal to reduce their gold and silver content, thereby increasing the supply of currency.
"We can't do that too often," Sano said.
"It has the unfortunate side effect of raising the price of goods," Yanagisawa explained.
"Why should I care?" the shogun said, confused and vexed.
"Many citizens won't be able to afford food," Yanagisawa said. "There will be famine. You don't want that, do you?"
"No, but I still want to go to Nikko." The shogun's face took on the peevish expression that presaged a tantrum that would end with him threatening to execute Sano and Yanagisawa.
"The people need you to take care of them," Sano said. "That's your duty according to Confucius." The shogun was an enthusiast of the Chinese sage whose philosophy had strongly influenced Japa nese government. "Therefore, you must be frugal. As shogun, you're not just a dictator; you're virtually a god, with the power to be generous and merciful."
"I guess I am," the shogun said, preening at this glorified image of himself. In a tone lofty with self-sacrifice he said, "I shall postpone my trip for the sake of doing what's right."
Yanagisawa raised an eyebrow at Sano, suggesting that Sano had laid it on a bit thick, but he didn't complain. No one else in the room would look at them or anyone else. "That's admirable of you, Your Excellency. We must all bow to your superior judgment."
The shogun beamed. Everybody else relaxed. But his mood suddenly darkened. "What is this world coming to?" he lamented. "I'm running out of money. I'm so anxious about the future. When I die, what will become of my regime?"
"Don't worry, you're still young," Sano said. But the shogun's demise was something that everyone in the regime feared. When the reins of a dictatorship changed hands, so could the fate of everyone inside it change for the worse.
"The court astrologer says that the stars predict a long life for you," Yanagisawa said. Had the astrologer predicted anything else, he'd have been executed. And Yanagisawa knew as well as Sano did that they must calm the shogun down or anxiety could bring about another serious, perhaps fatal, illness.
"Everyone dies someday," the shogun said, refusing to be soothed. "And I seem, ahh, destined to go without an heir to carry on my bloodline!" This was a constant source of grief for him. "Ahh, how fate has worked against me."
No one dared point out that his own sexual preference for men had worked against his chances of fathering a son. "There's still time," Sano said, hiding his own doubt.
"Perhaps you could make a special prayer to the gods," Yanagisawa said.
The shogun flapped his hands at the idea. "Nothing I do seems to work. I established laws to protect animals, I build temples." Nobody dared suggest the direct, obvious solution to the problem. "And what good has it all done? My wife is an invalid." She was confined to the women's quarters and rarely seen. "My only son died." Rumor said that the boy, born by one of the palace concubines, wasn't the shogun's. "And my daughter doesn't seem likely to bear a child." The identity of her father was also a matter of speculation, although not in the shogun's hearing. "What have I done to deserve such misfortune?" the shogun wailed.
Before Sano or Yanagisawa could reply, his mood took another turn. "Perhaps it's not my fault. Perhaps I've done wrong because of bad advice from other people."
His glare accused everyone in the room, then focused on Sano and Yanagisawa.
"Chamberlain Yanagisawa has given you the wisest, soundest advice that anyone could," Sano hurried to say.
"So has Chamberlain Sano," said Yanagisawa. "He's devoted his life to your service."
"Oh?" The shogun narrowed his eyes at Sano. "Then what's this I hear about you investigating a crime that I never authorized you to investigate? The abduction of your uncle's daughter, I understand?"
Sano felt the bad wind of the shogun's pique blow harder in his direction. "It's a family matter. I assure you that it has not interfered with my duty to you." But the case had taken time away from his official duties, and the shogun was a jealous man. "May I ask how you heard about the investigation?"
"Yoritomo told me," the shogun said.
Sano glanced at Yanagisawa, who frowned as though genuinely dismayed by his son's actions. "My duty to you is my top priority," Sano assured the shogun. "Should you need anything, I'll drop whatever I'm doing and rush to your aid."
"So will I," Yanagisawa said. "Trust us, Your Excellency, and everything will be fine."
"Well…" The shogun vacillated, torn between the pleasure of indulging in hysterics and his liking for peace, passivity, and indolence. "All right. But if I decide that either of you has served me ill…"
He didn't need to complete the sentence. Everyone knew that the penalty for displeasing him was death by ritual suicide.
"Enough of all this business, I'm tired," he said. "This meeting is adjourned."