The Pillow Book of Lady Wisteria by Laura Joh Rowland Page A

Wisteria.”
    As they reached the gates, where Sano’s detectives awaited them, Sano noticed Hirata looking at him as if needing to speak, but reluctant to do so. “Was there something else?” Sano said.
    “Oh, no,” Hirata said nervously. “It’s just that my miai is tomorrow…”
    Caught up in the investigation, Sano had completely forgotten the miai, in which he, as Hirata’s go-between, must play a key role. Distress flooded him. “Hirata-san, I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to -”
    “That’s all right,” Hirata said staunchly. “The miai can be rescheduled after the investigation is over.”
    They both recognized that duty took precedence over personal affairs; yet Sano knew how eager Hirata was to marry Midori. “Go ahead with the miai,” Sano said. “I’ll get someone to substitute for me.”
    Hope and concern mingled in Hirata’s expression. “I appreciate your generosity, but you need me on the case. I can’t take time away.”
    “Yes, you can,” Sano said, although he was loath to lose the services of his chief retainer at a critical time. “The miai won’t last long, and the detectives can help me until you’re finished.” Observing that Hirata was ready to refuse, he said, “You’ll go to the miai. That’s an order.”
    “Yes, Sōsakan-sama,” Hirata said with heartfelt gratitude.
    Sano hoped the miai would succeed without him, but he had more immediate concerns. “We’d better get back to the castle.” On the way he must tell Hirata about his past relationship with Wisteria. He could trust Hirata to keep the information confidential. “The shogun will be expecting a report from us.”

5
    Sano and Hirata reached Edo just before the hour of the boar, when the gates to every neighborhood would close for the night, halting the movement of traffic through the streets until dawn. The snowfall had ceased; the indigo sky glittered with stars like ice crystals. A ride up the hill through the stone passages and guarded checkpoints of Edo Castle brought Sano and Hirata to the shogun’s palace. Snow gleamed white upon the gabled roofs and transformed the garden’s shrubs and boulders into ghostly shapes. Sano and Hirata trod softly in the eerie quiet, alone except for the sentries at the palace doors.
    But the interior of the palace was a hive of activity. In the shogun’s private chamber, a funeral altar held smoking incense burners, hundreds of lit candles, and a portrait of Lord Mitsuyoshi. Sano and Hirata entered to find Shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi hunched on his bed on a raised platform. Swathed in quilts, his face haggard, and his head bare of the black cap of his rank, he looked less like the dictator of Japan than like an old peasant. He moaned with every breath. Edo Castle ’s chief physician, dressed in a dark blue coat, felt the pulses of the shogun’s body; two more doctors mixed herb potions. Attendants and guards milled about. Near the platform, Chamberlain Yanagisawa sat facing four members of the Council of Elders.
    “What is your diagnosis, Dr. Kitano-san?” asked Yanagisawa. Tall and slender, with sharp, elegant features, he was a man of remarkable beauty, clad in brilliant silk robes. His intense, liquid eyes watched the shogun.
    “The death of Lord Mitsuyoshi has caused His Excellency a severe shock,” the doctor said gravely. “His emotions are out of equilibrium and threatening his physical health.”
    Anxious murmurs arose as the elders, all dignified samurai of venerable age, conferred among themselves. Conspicuously absent was Senior Elder Makino, who Sano supposed was still journeying home from Yoshiwara.
    Dr. Kitano palpated the shogun’s chest. “Do the pains persist here, Your Excellency?”
    “Yes, ahh, yes!” Tokugawa Tsunayoshi groaned.
    “He’s taken neither food nor drink all day,” the doctor informed the assembly. To the shogun he said, “You must keep up your strength. Won’t you please try to eat?”
    Servants