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."
6
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.
He and his men dismounted, and Sano ordered the sentries, "Tell Major Kumazawa I've brought his daughter home."
The sentries rushed to open the gate. Sano found himself in a courtyard lit by fires in stone lanterns outside the mansion, a low, half-timbered building raised on a stone foundation. Rain trickled off the overhanging eaves. Major Kumazawa rushed out the door, trailed by a gray-haired woman. They halted on the veranda. Deja vu assailed Sano. Images surfaced from the depths of his mind.
He had a vision of this same courtyard, of Major Kumazawa and this woman who must be his wife. But they were younger, their hair black, their faces unlined. Sano heard a woman pleading and weeping, somewhere out of sight. Dizziness and chills washed through him. For a moment he couldn't breathe.
His vision was a memory. He had come here before. But when? And why?
The images, sounds, and sensations vanished as Major Kumazawa and his wife hurried to the palanquin. Major Kumazawa opened the door. Inside, Chiyo lay motionless, covered by a quilt that Sano had bought in a shop. Her eyes were closed, her head wrapped in a white cotton cloth stained with blood.
Major Kumazawa's wife cried out in dismay. The major demanded, "What happened to her?"
He didn't thank Sano for bringing Chiyo home. Detectives Marume and Fukida frowned at this affront to their master, but Sano recalled how he'd felt when re united with his own kidnapped child. Courtesy had been the last thing on his mind.
"There's a cut on her head," Sano said. That, as he'd discovered, was the source of the blood on her clothes. "She hasn't any other injuries, as far as I could see. But you should send for a doctor."
Major Kumazawa barked orders to the servants who appeared on the veranda, then asked Sano, "Where did you find her?"
"On a street in Asakusa district," Sano said.
"I'll bring her in the house." As Major Kumazawa lifted his daughter, she awakened. She began to struggle.
"No!" she cried. "Don't touch me! Go away!"
"It's all right, little one," Major Kumazawa said, his voice as gentle as if he were talking to a child. "It's Papa. You're home safe now."
Her struggles ceased; she quieted. "Papa," she whispered.
As he carried her toward the house, his wife bustled along with them, stroking Chiyo's pale, muddy cheek, murmuring endearments. Major Kumazawa looked over his shoulder at Sano.
"I'm indebted to you," he said gruffly. "If you and your men would like to come in, please do."
"Right this way, Honorable Chamberlain," said a servant.
Sano could tell that his uncle didn't want him here, but he was curious to see the house. Perhaps it would trigger more memories. Furthermore, Sano had a stubborn streak.
"Come on," he told his detectives, and followed the servant inside the mansion.
They left their shoes and swords in the entryway. They were led down a corridor with polished cedar floors, past rooms concealed behind lattice and paper partitions. They arrived in a reception room with a dais backed by a landscape mural and an alcove that held a vase of chrysanthemums. The house seemed familiar to Sano, but only because it had the same architecture and decor as other samurai homes including his own. His own was much bigger than this, but he looked at his uncle's home through the eyes of the child he'd once been.
His family had lived in a tiny house behind the martial arts school that his father had operated. Compared to that, Major Kumazawa's estate was a palace. Sano thought of how his mother must have felt, banished to what had surely seemed like squalor to her. He recalled days when food had been scarce, winters when their house had been freezing because they couldn't afford enough coal. He knew his mother had suffered more than he had.
Major Kumazawa must have known about her poverty. He could have helped but hadn't.
Sano thought of the memory he'd experienced outside. He tried to dredge it up into the light where he could examine it, but it slipped away, elusive as a ghost.
After a long interval, Major Kumazawa entered the room. "Chiyo is being cared for by her mother and her maids." He gestured to Sano and the detectives and said, "Please sit."
Sano knelt in the position of honor by the alcove, the detectives near him. Major Kumazawa seated himself on the dais. He didn't offer refreshments, not that Sano would have accepted. Major Kumazawa was clearly ill at ease: He didn't like entertaining a stranger who was his blood kin and an outcast. Sano himself didn't exactly feel at home.
"I looked all over Asakusa district and didn't find Chiyo," Major Kumazawa said. "How did you find her?"
"I spotted her wandering in the rainstorm," Sano said.