“Nitta could have taken Lady Wisteria away in the palanquin,” Hirata said. “He seems as good a suspect as the yarite.”

Unless she confessed under torture, thought Sano. He wondered uneasily where Hoshina was. “We’ll interrogate Nitta tomorrow-if he hasn’t fled town with 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.”

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 proffered bowls of broth and tea, which the shogun waved away. “Alas, I cannot. Ahh, how I suffer!”

Sano registered alarm at how badly the murder had affected his lord’s weak constitution, just as Tokugawa Tsunayoshi spied him and Hirata. “Ah, Sōsakan-sama, at last!” the shogun said; his swollen, red-rimmed eyes brightened. “Come here to me.”

Everyone watched Sano and Hirata approach the platform, kneel near the other officials, and bow. As the officials bowed to the newcomers, Chamberlain Yanagisawa’s face wore the deliberately bland expression with which he’d greeted Sano throughout their truce. The elders looked hopeful that good news would relieve the shogun’s illness, and Sano felt apprehension tighten his nerves.

“Have you caught the, ahh, evil criminal who killed my beloved cousin?” the shogun said with eager anticipation.

“Not yet, Your Excellency,” Sano was forced to reply.

Disappointment drew the shogun’s features into a frown. “And why have you not?”

“I apologize for the delay, Your Excellency, but there’s been insufficient time.” Sano masked fear with a calm, polite manner. The shogun had no understanding of detective work, and thus expected that every killer should be caught within the day.

“This case is a complex one, with many people to interview.”

“And many leads to pursue,” said Hirata, the only person to come to Sano’s defense.

“But I’ve got search parties looking for Lady Wisteria, the missing courtesan who was with the Honorable Lord Mitsuyoshi last night,” Sano said, “and-”

An impatient gesture from the shogun cut him short. “At least you can tell me exactly how, ahh, Mitsuyoshi-san was killed. No one else seems to know.”

Tokugawa Tsunayoshi cast an annoyed look at Yanagisawa and the elders, who turned to Sano. He understood that they did indeed know, but preferred not to deliver the news themselves.

“The Honorable Lord Mitsuyoshi died of a stab wound through the eye, inflicted with a woman’s hairpin, probably while he was semiconscious,” Sano said reluctantly.

The shogun drew a great inhalation of horror. “Merciful gods,” he whispered, then began to pant, clutching his chest. “Ahh, ahh, ahh! I’m dying!”

Physicians hastened to his aid. Sano and Hirata exchanged stricken glances. Tokugawa Tsunayoshi often fancied himself on his deathbed, but perhaps he really was this time.

Dr. Kitano held a cup to the shogun’s mouth and said, “Please drink this, Your Excellency.” The shogun gulped, then flopped back on the bed, sighing.

“My poor cousin,” he lamented weakly. “So beautiful and full of life one day, then dead and disfigured the next. The loss of his, ahh, companionship grieves me.” Tokugawa Tsunayoshi liked handsome young men, and Lord Mitsuyoshi had won the position of heir apparent by flattering, amusing, and flirting with the shogun. “For such a cruel killer, no punishment is too harsh, Sōsakan Sano, have you any idea who committed this terrible crime?”

“So far there’s one definite suspect: Lady Wisteria’s yarite.” Sano explained that the hairpin belonged to Momoko, and that she had found Lord Mitsuyoshi dead.

The shogun pushed himself upright. “Ahh, then this woman may be the culprit?”

“Yes. And I have arrested her,” a masculine voice said from the doorway.

Police Commissioner Hoshina entered the room. He must have ridden as fast and hard from Yoshiwara as had Sano; yet he’d changed from traveling garb to a maroon silk kimono, and looked stylish and vigorous. As he knelt beside the chamberlain, they betrayed no sign of their intimacy. Yanagisawa’s relationship with the shogun had never been exclusive, and it was no secret that they’d both enjoyed many other lovers, but Sano knew Yanagisawa never flaunted his affairs, lest their lord take unexpected offense. The elders’ courteous bows to Hoshina acknowledged his special status. Sano’s gut tightened: Hoshina’s arrival boded no good for him.