“I didn’t mean to,” Masahiro said, “but she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. And she somehow knew the things I wanted. It was so … exciting, we did it three times, all different ways. I couldn’t help myself.”
The news that he’d betrayed her not once but three times, and the awe in his tone, were like stabs to Taeko’s heart, and he didn’t seem aware that he was hurting her. It was her punishment for wanting Kikuko to die.
“But I didn’t love her. I don’t think I ever could have. Because it’s you I love.”
The passion in his voice astonished Taeko. She turned to gape at him. He seized her hands and said, “Please tell me you don’t really hate me! Please take me back!”
It didn’t matter that he only thought he couldn’t have loved Kikuko; it didn’t matter that her death might be the only reason he wanted to be with Taeko again. Taeko pressed his hands to her face and sobbed, wracked by joy and guilt. Masahiro sniffled as they clung to each other. He stepped back to look at Taeko. His cheeks were wet from their tears. “Will you marry me?”
She was so unworthy of this good fortune. If he only knew about her evil thoughts toward his wife! She had to confess.
He misinterpreted her hesitation. “Oh, you’re worried about our parents. But I’ll stand up to them this time. I want to be with you, and our baby.”
“But—”
“I know, you’re not sure you should trust me.” He drew a deep breath, let it out, and said, “I’m not going to make any more promises I can’t keep. If somebody else like Kikuko comes along … well, I’m as weak and selfish as you said. All I can say is, if you marry me, I’ll try to be better.” Impatient, he said, “Will you?”
Taeko was impressed by his honesty, thrilled by the prospect of being his wife and their baby having a father. “Yes,” she whispered. She could live with knowing that Masahiro might hurt her again someday. She would probably hurt him again. They would make up. She would remember Kikuko, and she would try to be better, too.
Masahiro laughed, hugged her, lifted her off her feet, and spun her around until she laughed with him. “As soon as my father comes back, we’ll tell everybody.”
* * *
SANO LEFT HIS retinue in the courtyard of an inn located down the street from the Shark Teahouse. He climbed the stairs to the balcony and knocked on a door. Yoshisato opened it. He wore plain cotton garments and a somber, aloof expression. The sight of him gave Sano a shock. Despite his tattoos, Sano could see Yanagisawa in him more clearly than ever. It was as if Yoshisato had absorbed some of Yanagisawa’s persona.
“Come in,” Yoshisato said.
Sano recalled Yanagisawa’s last words to him: This isn’t over. We’ll meet again someday. Next time I’ll win. Maybe they didn’t need to meet again in order for Sano to get his comeuppance. It was a son’s duty to avenge his father’s death. But Yoshisato gave no hint of aggression. Sano entered the room, which was small, sparsely furnished with a bedroll and a charcoal brazier on the tatami floor, but clean. He heard someone moving around in the chamber on the other side of the wooden partition. Yoshisato faced Sano and waited.
“I’m sorry for your loss.” Sano didn’t offer the excuse that Yanagisawa had attacked first. Nor did he say he was sorry he’d killed Yanagisawa. That would be a lie, and Yoshisato would know and feel insulted.
Yoshisato accepted Sano’s qualified but genuine sympathy with a stoic nod. In the awkward silence, Sano looked around the room and noticed a trunk and a knapsack in the corner and Yoshisato’s cloak thrown over them. “Where are you going?”
“Back to Osaka.”
“To your gang?”
“Yes. My mother is coming with me.” Yoshisato slid open the partition. In the adjacent room Lady Someko knelt by a trunk, folding clothes into it. She looked up at Sano, smiled, and bowed. “It’ll be a fresh start for her.”
“You don’t have to leave Edo,” Sano said. “Lord Ienobu is going to pardon everyone who fought in the war against him.”
“You mean, you’re pardoning us.” Yoshisato’s eyes glinted with amusement; he was among those who knew what had happened to Lord Ienobu. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anybody that you’re the real shogun. But I am leaving. It’s for the best.”
“I came to offer you a position in the regime.”
“You don’t need to buy me off. You’ve nothing to fear from me—I won’t swear out a vendetta against you. Yanagisawa’s death was really his own fault.” Bitter sorrow twisted Yoshisato’s mouth. “He had a grudge against you, and he just couldn’t let it go.”
Sano was impressed that Yoshisato had the insight to realize it and not simply blame Sano. “I’m not trying to buy you off.” Sano was trying to assuage his guilt about hurting Yoshisato, whom he now respected more than ever. “The regime needs talented, capable men like you.”
Yoshisato’s thin smile said he saw through Sano’s ploy. “I’m honored, but no thanks.”
“Please consider it,” Sano urged. “Your life as a gang boss is bound to be violent and short.”
“And my life at court wouldn’t be?” Yoshisato uttered a sarcastic laugh that sounded eerily like Yanagisawa’s. “I saw what politics did to my father. They brought out the worst in him. I’m not following in his footsteps.”
Sano remembered Lord Ienobu saying that Yoshisato had no stomach for politics. It hadn’t been true then, but now Yoshisato had made up his mind and wasn’t going to change it. And perhaps he was right: Politics and power could destroy, and Yoshisato might have more in common with Yanagisawa than mannerisms. Blood was blood.
“Let me at least do something for you,” Sano said.
“All I want is this: Just leave me alone. I promise not to hurt you. Whatever I do, look the other way.”
That was a lot for the boss of a criminal gang to ask, but Sano said, “Very well.”
* * *
WHEN SANO RETURNED to the Mori estate, Akiko ran ahead of him through the guest quarters, exclaiming joyously, “Papa’s back!”
More nervous than when he’d faced the assembly at Edo Castle, Sano entered the chamber where Reiko and Masahiro, and Midori and her children knelt by an oblong wooden box wrapped in white cloth and a table that held smoking incense burners. Sano already knew Hirata was dead; he’d heard it from Marume, whom he’d just visited in the sick ward. The others were silent while Sano stood by the coffin, bowed his head, and said a final, unspoken good-bye to his friend. A sense of peace alleviated Sano’s grief. Death was better than living trapped with a ghost inside a paralyzed body. Sano and Hirata had already said everything that was necessary. Sano raised his head; his gaze met Reiko’s.
Her eyes reflected his uncertainty and discomposure. Sano was hardly aware of walking with her to their chamber; everyone else seemed to recede from them while their surroundings changed as in a theater set moved by hidden stagehands. Sano spoke first rather than let her say what he dreaded hearing—now that the crisis was over, she was going to leave him. As he explained what had happened at Edo Castle, his gaze moved between her impassive face and her bandaged arm, which symbolized all the ways in which he’d brought her pain.
Why had she defended him against Yanagisawa? Surely not because she cared about him, but because he was her children’s father, because of duty toward him, not love.
When he was finished, Reiko spoke in a toneless voice. “You and your honor won.”
She seemed dismayed rather than gladdened by his reversal of fortune. She saw his victory as a victory over her. That was how she thought he saw it. But nothing could have been farther from how he really did.
His honor had stood up to every test. By faithfully serving it, he’d gained power beyond imagination. But the spoils of his victory were devalued by what he’d lost—the woman he loved in spite of all their differences, the wife who’d risked her own life to save his. He felt as defeated as if he, not Yanagisawa, had been killed in their fight. The dam that contained his emotions crumbled. Anguish fl
ooded Sano. He wished he had been killed, rather than live without Reiko. All he could do was give her what she wanted, what he owed her after ignoring her wishes for so long.
“I’m moving back to Edo Castle. If you don’t want to come with me—if you don’t want to be my wife anymore…” Sano blinked and swallowed; he was going to cry. But although it devastated him, he would let Reiko go. “I’ll give you a divorce. Pick a place you’d like to live, and I’ll build you a house there and support you.” Sano’s heart broke as he thought of the children. He couldn’t take Akiko from her mother, and Masahiro surely wanted to be free of his father’s demands. “Masahiro and Akiko can live with you. None of you will ever have to see me again.”
Reiko stared as if at a tornado whirling toward her. Sano was too distraught to analyze her reaction. Tears ran down his face; sobs heaved his chest. He was as good as shogun, and he must pay the price. “You’ll never again have to take second place to my honor.”
Honor was all he would have when his family was gone.
“Is that what you think I want?” Reiko cried. Horror was written so clearly on her face that Sano couldn’t miss it. “No, that’s what you want—never to see me again!” She was crying, too. “It was too much to hope for, that you would still love me after I’ve criticized and blamed you. Why should you, just because I still love you?” Her expression scorned her own hope. “Don’t worry—I won’t fight you this time.” She held her head high, wiped her streaming eyes on her sleeve, and gathered her pride around her like a torn cloak. “I’ll go.”
“What?” Sano said. “No! That’s not what I want!”
Confused and astounded, they stared at each other. Reiko said, “Do you mean—” and Sano said, “I want you with me. Because I love you. I want us to start over.” She gasped, smiling through her tears, and nodded. Overjoyed that she still wanted to be with him, astonished that love had survived their ordeals, he felt as if he had the world at his command.
Sano slowly moved toward Reiko; she slowly moved toward him. Her eyes reflected his caution as they came close. After years of avoided contact, they’d forgotten how to be lovers, but their bodies remembered. Reiko’s waist fitted into the curve of Sano’s arm. His cheek rested against her hair, her cheek on its familiar place against his heart. They were careful not to touch the wound on her arm, his palm. Eyes closed, they wept as they held each other.
It was a line crossed that Sano had thought they would never be able to cross.
As happy as he was that they could make a fresh start, Sano didn’t want it founded on the illusion that love erased everything that had kept them apart. He had to be brutally honest with Reiko, with himself. He sniffled, cleared his throat, then said, “I have to tell you: There are people who don’t want me controlling the regime. I can’t promise you and the children safety or prosperity or peace.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Reiko said with quiet passion. “When I saw you losing the fight with Yanagisawa … well, I didn’t try to save you from him because I wanted to be free of you. We belong together.”
Sano was glad to learn that, but he said, “Before you decide whether you really want to be with me, hear this: If I had it all to do over again, I would do it the same way.” Coming close to losing what he held dearest changed a man, but not entirely. Reiko was motionless, quiet, listening. “If you stay with me, I promise to do the best by you and the children that I can. But”—voicing the truth that would never change, he faltered over words whose solemn formality didn’t come naturally to him—“I’m just as married to honor as I am to you.”
Reiko tilted up her head to look at him. “I wouldn’t want you any other way.” Her smile was serene with a hint of the mischief he hadn’t seen in years. “Before you decide whether you really want me, hear this: If I ever think you’re doing something wrong, I will tell you.”
Her warning meant more than that she would never be a conventional wife; she would always put their family ahead of honor and duty. A revelation during a life-and-death crisis hadn’t changed her entirely, and Sano was glad. He wouldn’t want her any other way. He laughed with exhilarated humor. “Fair enough.”
They were both laughing now, tearfully, their emotions spent. They both knew that life in the inner circle of the new shogun’s court wouldn’t be easy, but being together on any terms was better than what had almost happened—losing each other forever.
Akiko rushed into the room, breathless with excitement. “Masahiro and Taeko have something to tell you!”
* * *
MASAHIRO AND TAEKO came in, solemn and frightened. Midori trailed them, wringing her hands under her sleeves. Reiko stepped away from Sano, reluctant to leave the newfound warmth of his embrace. Her gaze flew to Masahiro’s and Taeko’s clasped hands.
“We’re getting married,” Masahiro announced.
It was so soon after Kikuko’s death, but Reiko was glad to see him and Taeko reunited. She wouldn’t deny them the mutual comfort of their love. They deserved it, after Masahiro’s first brief marriage that had been forced on them, that had ended so disastrously.
“I think that’s a wonderful idea,” she said.
Masahiro and Taeko smiled, but they knew that Reiko’s opinion wasn’t the one that counted. They turned anxiously to Sano. His expression was sad, fond, and regretful.
“Please let them!” Midori begged, extending her clasped hands to Sano. Frantic to secure her daughter’s happiness, she called in the favor that his family owed hers. “Taeko’s father sacrificed his life for you. That ought to make her good enough to marry your son even though she can’t bring you a big dowry or important connections!”
“I did what you wanted last time,” Masahiro said. “This time I’m going to marry Taeko and nobody else.”
This was the first test of Sano’s promise to do his best by the children. Reiko held her breath, afraid he didn’t understand, wouldn’t pass the test. Then he said mildly, “I think it’s a wonderful idea, too. In fact, I was going to suggest it.” He added with a wry smile, “I’m sure the shogun won’t have any objections, either.”
Now that he was in control of the shogun and the government, he could afford the risk of letting his son marry for love and foregoing a politically advantageous match. Reiko exhaled and Midori wept with relief. Masahiro and Taeko laughed and jumped up and down.
“The wedding has to be soon,” Masahiro said. “Taeko is going to have a baby.”
Reiko’s breath caught. She and Sano gaped at Masahiro, who looked proud and sheepish, and at Taeko, who blushed, clasped her stomach, and looked at the floor. They turned to Midori and Akiko, who beamed—they’d already been told. Sano and Reiko looked at each other, not really surprised by the news of the pregnancy but astonished to realize they were going to be grandparents.
“She’s so young, she won’t know what to do with a baby,” Midori said, putting her arm around Taeko, “but that’s all right.” She seemed at peace with Hirata’s death and ready to forgive Sano and his family for the sake of her daughter. “I’m going to live with her and Masahiro and help her take care of it. She’ll learn.”
The thought of a baby evoked the familiar surge of emotions in Reiko, but the tears that fell were tears of joy that diluted her sorrow for the baby she’d lost. She felt Akiko tug her hand, and knew that the vestige of emptiness inside her would soon be filled by her first grandchild.
“I have news, too,” Sano said. “Masahiro is the shogun’s new chief investigator. Which means he’ll not only have a good stipend, but he and his new family can live in our old estate inside Edo Castle.”
Everyone expressed delight, including Reiko, but she was alarmed by the thought of her son taking on such an important, responsible position. “But he’s so young and inexperienced.”
“I can handle it, Mother,” Masahiro said, brashly confident. Taeko beheld him with love, pride, and trust.
“He’ll have you and me to advise him and Detective Marume as his assistant. He’ll l
earn.” Sano looked at Reiko; they smiled as they remembered the hard lessons of the past and looked ahead to the challenges of the future.
“We all did,” Sano said. “We all will.”
Historical Note
SHOGUN TOKUGAWA TSUNAYOSHI died in February 1709. Some sources say he was stabbed by his wife, who wanted to prevent him from making Chamberlain Yanagisawa’s son the heir to the dictatorship. Other sources say this story was mere rumor. The official cause of death was measles. His nephew Ienobu became shogun. Ienobu’s reign was uneventful. He died in 1712. His five-year-old son became shogun and died in 1716. Tokugawa Yoshimune became shogun and ruled Japan for twenty-nine years. He went down in history as a great, enlightened reformer. Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu died in 1714 at the age of fifty-six. I took the artistic liberty of moving his death up by five years.
Acknowledgments
WRITING MY NOVELS is a solitary endeavor. Publishing the Sano Ichirō mystery series for eighteen books has required the help of too many people to name. I’ll do my best to name and thank some of them here.
My parents, Lena and Raymond Joh, who taught me to love reading and value books. My brother, Larry Joh, for know-how and family leadership. My husband, Marty Rowland, for thirty-three years of laughs.
The late George Alec Effinger, my mentor and extraordinary science fiction author, and the writers’ workshop he founded. That workshop is where it all started. To my fellow longtime members—John Webre, Mark McCandless, Marian Moore, Andy Fox, and Fritz Ziegler—thanks for the insightful critiques that helped a fledgling author get off the ground.
My first editor, David Rosenthal, who published my first book and started my career. My current editor, Hope Dellon at St. Martin’s Press, who kept it going.
The writers’s organizations that gave me a community: SOLA (the Southern Louisiana chapter of Romance Writers of America), Mystery Writers of America, and Sisters in Crime. And the Wordsmiths: special thanks to Elora Fink for starting the group and holding it together, and to Candice Proctor and Steve Harris for many spirited discussions.
The Iris Fan Page 35