Finally, the watchdogs exchanged nods, their expressions churlish. “All right,” Ibe told Sano. “You can trace the women’s whereabouts. But no dragging your feet.”

Sano felt little relief. Could he keep stalling his watchdogs until he solved the crimes-and before impatience forced them to make good on their threat?

In the meantime, war might destroy them all.

On a fallow rice field outside Edo, the two armies clashed. Matsudaira horsemen charged at mounted troops from the Yanagisawa faction. Banners marked with their leaders’ crests fluttered on poles worn on their backs. Hooves pounded the earth; lances skewered riders on both sides. Foot soldiers whirled and darted, their swords lashing their enemies. Gunners at the sidelines fired volleys of bullets. Arrows sizzled through clouds of gunpowder smoke. Men fell, amid howls of agony, in mud already strewn with corpses and darkened by bloodshed.

From the combatants rose savage cries of exultation as they shattered the peace that had stifled the warrior spirit during almost a century of Tokugawa rule. Atop high terrain at either end of the field, generals on horseback surveyed the action. They called to the commanders, who conveyed their orders to the troops via braying conch trumpets and thundering war drums. Soldiers charged, attacked, retreated, regrouped, and counterattacked. Scouts scanned the battlefield through spyglasses, counting casualties.

The victor would be the man who had a large enough army left after the battle to maintain himself in power over the regime.

At the Matsudaira estate, black mourning drapery festooned the portals. A notice of the clan’s bereavement hung on the gate. Inside a wooden tub in a chamber in the private quarters, the naked corpse of Daiemon reposed. Matsudaira womenfolk dressed in white poured water out of dippers filled from ceramic urns into the tub. They wept as they bathed Daiemon, washing away blood from the wound in his chest, tenderly wiping his handsome, lifeless face.

Lord Matsudaira squatted nearby, his head propped on his clenched fists. He wore battle armor, but his golden-horned helmet lay on the floor beside him. As the women prepared his nephew for the journey to the netherworld, grief tortured his spirit.

Someone knelt beside him, and he looked around to see Uemori Yoichi, his crony on the Council of Elders. Uemori was a short, squat man in his fifties, with sagging jowls. He said, “Please pardon my intrusion, but I thought you would want to hear the latest news from the battlefield.”

“Yes? What is it?” Lord Matsudaira said, momentarily distracted from his torment.

“Casualties are estimated at two hundred men,” Uemori said, “with more than half of them on Chamberlain Yanagisawa’s side.”

Grim satisfaction filled Lord Matsudaira. He rose and walked to the corpse of his nephew. The women had lifted Daiemon from the tub and laid him on a wooden pallet. As they dried his body with cloths and sobbed bitterly, Lord Matsudaira gazed down at Daiemon.

“I’ll win this war in your name,” Lord Matsudaira promised. “You won’t have lived or died for nothing. And when I rule Japan, I will expose Chamberlain Yanagisawa as the scoundrel and murderer that he is.”

Chamberlain Yanagisawa and his son Yoritomo stood in a watchtower on the wall of his compound. They gazed through the barred windows, across Edo. Mist and smoke obscured the field where the battle raged. Distance muffled the blaring of conch trumpets. Yanagisawa inhaled deeply, his keen nose detecting the faint, sulfurous odor of gunpowder. He imagined he tasted blood in the air. Exultation pulsed alongside dread inside him.

“I’ve heard that some of our allies have defected to Lord Matsudaira,” said Yoritomo. “That he has three troops for every two of ours, and more guns. Things are bad for us, aren’t they, Honorable Father?”

Yanagisawa nodded, for he couldn’t deny the truth. “But don’t despair. We’ve other weapons against Lord Matsudaira besides troops and guns.”

He looked out the open door, which led to an enclosed corridor that ran along the top of the wall. Some twenty paces down the corridor, in the dim light from its tiny windows, stood his wife. She watched Yanagisawa with such intensity that he could feel her gaze like flames licking his body. He smiled slyly to himself as he turned back to Yoritomo.

“There are other ways to destroy our enemy than fighting on a battlefield.” Yanagisawa laid a reassuring hand on his son’s shoulder. “When we’re finished, we’ll control the regime.”

And he would be above the law, immune to evil consequences from the murder investigation.

27

A party that evening in the reception hall of Senior Elder Makino’s estate mocked the threat posed by the war.

While Koheiji played the samisen and sang, male servants beat drums. Okitsu and two maids danced in a circle, singing along, tipsy and giggling. Other maids poured sake for samurai guards who lounged around the room, laughing, calling out encouragement to the dancers, and toasting one another. The widow and her ladies-in-waiting sat in a corner, drinking. Agemaki’s eyes were glazed; she swayed back and forth. Lanterns glowed brightly. A desperate, uneasy gaiety infused the air.

Reiko, who’d sneaked away from the kitchen, peered in through a gap between the lattice-and-paper partitions. A door across the room from her scraped open. Into the party strode Tamura. His face wore an angry scowl.

“Stop this racket!” he shouted.

Koheiji plinked a few last, discordant notes on the samisen. As his singing trailed off, the drummers fell silent; Okitsu and the dancers stumbled to a halt, their giggles ending in nervous twitters. The guards put down their cups and sat upright; their cheer gave way to apprehension. All the revelers stared in surprise at Tamura.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Tamura demanded, surveying the revelers with contempt.

Reiko was glad to witness something more than drunken merriment and glad to see Tamura, whom she’d not had a chance to observe since yesterday in Makino’s chamber.

After a brief, uncomfortable silence, Koheiji said, “We’re just having a little fun.”

“Fun? With the honorable Senior Elder Makino dead only four days?” Tamura said, incredulous. His hard, shiny complexion turned purplish-red with rage. “You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Such disrespect toward your master! Such disregard for propriety!”

He pointed at the guards. “Get back to your posts.” The men leaped to their feet and collided with one another in their haste to leave the room. Tamura dismissed the maids and ladies-in-waiting, then addressed Agemaki, Koheiji, and Okitsu: “As for you, there will be no more such entertainment.”

His back was toward Reiko, so she couldn’t see his expression, but she had a clear view of the other three people. She saw guilt on Okitsu’s face, blankness on Agemaki’s, and offense on Koheiji’s.

“Hey, you can’t order us around,” Koheiji said. “You’re not our master. We’ll do as we please.”

“I’m in charge here for the time being,” Tamura said. “My master is gone, and I needn’t put up with nonsense from you three for his sake anymore. You’ll behave properly from now on. Now go to your rooms at once.”

Reiko saw anger focus Agemaki’s blank gaze. Okitsu gasped in offense. “Can he make us?” she asked Koheiji.

“Of course he can’t.” Koheiji’s chest swelled with outrage as he glared at Tamura. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Nor am I,” Agemaki said, her voice slurred by drink.

“We’ll see about that,” Tamura said. He stalked over to Agemaki, seized her arm, and hauled her to her feet.

“Let me go!” she cried. “How dare you treat your master’s widow like this!”