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dominating the government for another term,” Lady Nobuko went on. “Were that the case, what would happen after the shogun dies? Yanagisawa’s opponents would start a war against Yoshisato, on behalf of Tsuruhime’s son, and possibly seize control of the dictatorship. Yanagisawa understood that. He had Tsuruhime killed because she was a potential threat to his future.”
    “That’s a strong reason for murder,” Reiko said. Sano had to nod. “And Yanagisawa is ruthless enough to have had Tsuruhime murdered.”
    “She enjoyed perfect health all her life,” Lady Nobuko said. “Doesn’t it strike you as odd that she should contract smallpox a few months after Yoshisato made his appearance at court?”
    Sano agreed but continued challenging the theory. “It could be a coincidence.”
    Reiko nodded reluctantly, but disdain twisted Lady Nobuko’s mouth.
    “Are you sure you’re not reading too much into the situation because of what Yanagisawa did to you?” Sano asked. “Might you be snatching at a faint hope of revenge?”
    “I was kidnapped and violated.” Lady Nobuko’s face grew pinched with anger at the memory of the suffering she’d endured. “I can’t prove that Yanagisawa ordered it, but I know he did. I’m not imagining things this time, either.”
    Sano wondered if Yanagisawa’s actions had pushed her to the point where she would invent a murder and frame Yanagisawa for it. He turned to her lady-in-waiting. “You’re very devoted to Lady Nobuko, aren’t you?”
    “Yes,” Korika said proudly. “I’ve served her for twenty-eight years.”
    “Did you really see a sheet soiled with blood and pus?”
    Korika’s broad face fell at his suggestion that she’d made up the whole story. Lady Nobuko said indignantly, “She wouldn’t lie in order to please me.”
    “All right,” Sano said, still reserving judgment. “But the sheet wouldn’t necessarily have been Yanagisawa’s doing. Who else might have wanted to kill Tsuruhime?”
    “No one,” Lady Nobuko said. “She was a sweet, harmless young woman. No one would have profited from her death except Yanagisawa.”
    “There’s Yoshisato,” Masahiro said.
    Sano was proud of his son’s astuteness. “With Tsuruhime dead, Yoshisato no longer needs to worry about a son of hers pushing him out of line for the succession.”
    “Yoshisato could have been an accomplice in the murder, but Yanagisawa was the instigator,” Lady Nobuko declared.
    “Father…” Masahiro seemed hesitant to voice a theory about which he didn’t feel confident. “Even if Yanagisawa did kill Tsuruhime and you prove it, maybe he won’t get in trouble. The shogun said that now that he has Yoshisato, he doesn’t need her anymore. Would he care if she was murdered? Would he punish Yanagisawa for killing her?”
    “You’re a clever boy, but you don’t know my husband as well as I do,” Lady Nobuko said. “He doesn’t care about Tsuruhime, but he will not tolerate anyone hurting anyone or anything that belongs to him.” She said to Sano, “Your mother is proof of that.”
    Sano’s mother had been accused of killing the shogun’s cousin during Edo’s other famous natural disaster, the Great Fire. The shogun had almost put her to death, even though he’d barely known his cousin, had assumed he’d died in the fire, and hadn’t given him a thought until his remains turned up more than forty years later. Only a fluke of circumstance had saved her life.
    “The shogun wouldn’t let Yanagisawa or Yoshisato get away with killing his own daughter,” Sano agreed. “If he were convinced they did it, he would disown Yoshisato and put them both to death.”
    “So,” Lady Nobuko said, “are you going to investigate Tsuruhime’s death or not?”
    Sano felt as if he’d spent fifteen years trudging over the same terrain of his feud with Yanagisawa, and suddenly he’d happened on a new path. Maybe it would take him to vengeance, triumph, and a future without