The Iris Fan by Laura Joh Rowland Page A

man of his station would normally use toward a younger, distant, female relative. He conveyed her words to Sano. “She can’t take baths while the other concubines are around. They hold her head under the water. Plain girls like to pick on the pretty one.” He asked Tomoe, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
    “I didn’t want to bother you,” she murmured.
    “Well, you should have. I’d have taken you away sooner.”
    Pity for Tomoe didn’t change Sano’s mind. “She’s still a suspect. She stays here, under house arrest, until my investigation is finished.”
    “She can be under house arrest at my estate.”
    Sano began to see that this crime might not be as straightforward as he’d first thought. Nor did Yoshimune’s turning up to rescue his cousin seem innocent. “Why are you so anxious to take her home with you?”
    “To protect her.” Impatient, Yoshimune explained, “She grew up in my house. She’s like a sister to me. I don’t want her tormented by you or the girls or anyone else.”
    Sano saw Yoshimune’s hand on Tomoe’s waist and suspected that the two were a little more than like brother and sister. He began to see a motive for Tomoe to kill the shogun. “What place in line are you for the succession?”
    Startled by the change of topic, Yoshimune said, “Second, after Lord Ienobu. I’m a great-grandson of Tokugawa Ieyasu, who founded the regime.” His eyes narrowed. “But you must have known that. Why did you ask?”
    “Do you want to be shogun?”
    “Who wouldn’t?” Yoshimune’s laugh was loud, boisterous, uninhibited. “My bad luck, I drew the short straw.”
    He wasn’t like the current shogun, who’d always seemed to consider his rank as much a fearful burden as a blessing. Yoshimune was as ambitious as his other cousin, Lord Ienobu. “Did you decide to change your luck?” Sano asked.
    Yoshimune was also as mentally adroit as Ienobu. “You’re asking if I arranged the attack?” He laughed again. “If I had, you’d be investigating a murder and not a stabbing. But why would I assassinate the shogun? That would make Ienobu the new shogun, not me.”
    “It would make you the new shogun if Lord Ienobu were blamed for murdering the old one and put to death.”
    “Oh, I see.” Vexation tinged Yoshimune’s enlightenment. “You think I cooked up a scheme to get rid of the shogun and Ienobu with one swipe. Well, I’m afraid it never occurred to me.” He grinned, pointing a gloved finger at Sano. “It’s a good thing you’re not in line for the succession. You would bump off everybody else who was ahead of you.”
    It had been a long, difficult night, and the mockery taxed Sano’s patience. “I don’t believe you never thought about how to put yourself at the head of the dictatorship.” Throughout history samurai had assassinated their relatives in order to gain power. “And you had someone to help you.” He pointed at Tomoe, whose bare toes peeked out from under the hem of her robe. “Her feet match the size of the bloody footprints leading from the shogun’s chamber. Where are her socks?”
    “That’s ridiculous. I didn’t send my poor cousin to kill the shogun. I would never.” Yoshimune took the cloak from Tomoe and draped it over her shoulders. “Enough of this!” He thrust his hand against Sano’s chest and shoved.
    “Hey!” Taken by surprise, knocked off balance, Sano stumbled out the door. Disagreements at Edo Castle rarely turned physical. Sano had thought he could talk his way around Yoshimune, but the daimyo had yet to tame the short, hot temper of youth. Having gained so much power at such an early age, used to having his own way, he thought himself exempt from protocol. He pulled Tomoe out of the room and hurried her down the corridor.
    “Stop!” Sano yelled, running after them.
    “Try to make me.” The grin Yoshimune flashed over his shoulder said they both knew that if Sano laid a finger on him, his army would rush to his defense, drag