“I’m glad you’re pleased by your son,” Hoshina said stiffly, “but what has he got to do with the murder case? Why is he more important than destroying a man who’s defeated and humiliated you so many times?”

Yanagisawa lifted his eyebrows in surprise. “I’ve just told you.”

“But I don’t understand.”

“You will.”

Yanagisawa’s expression softened, but Hoshina perceived this as condescension rather than love. He dreaded offending Yanagisawa, yet couldn’t relinquish his campaign against his rival.

“Sano’s influence in the bakufu grows daily,” Hoshina said. “His allies include many high officials. And if he solves this case, he’ll rise another notch in the shogun’s estimation-while everyone else, including us, moves down. He could eventually take your place. Your treatment of him has given him ample cause to hate you. I think he’s biding his time until he gains enough power to strike.”

“He won’t,” Yanagisawa said with offhand confidence.

“Because of the truce between him and you?” Hoshina couldn’t keep the scorn out of his voice. “Your truce is but an unspoken agreement that will last only as long as you both honor it. I say we should take the offensive, break the truce before Sano does, and strike at him now, while he’s vulnerable.”

“I’m aware of the hazards of a truce,” Yanagisawa said, reproachful. “At present they’re of minor concern to me, because I have the advantage over Sano.”

“What advantage is that?” Baffled beyond endurance, Hoshina burst out, “I hate it when you speak in riddles! Why won’t you explain what’s going on?”

The chamberlain appeared unaffected by Hoshina’s anger. “Certain things are best not spoken outright,” Yanagisawa said. “Not even my house is free of spies. I’ve told you my plans, and it’s up to you to figure them out. But I will make one thing clear: You shall not break the truce.”

Hoshina started to protest, but the adamant expression on Yanagisawa’s face silenced him. Then Yanagisawa chuckled.

“Don’t look so disappointed,” he said. “Just be patient, and I promise you’ll be quite satisfied with what happens.”

Although Hoshina wished he could believe Yanagisawa, he couldn’t place his faith in schemes he didn’t understand, or his trust in a man so unpredictable as his lover. He still considered Sano a threat to the chamberlain’s power and his own rise in the bakufu. Hoshina must find a way to advance himself at Sano’s expense, without defying his master. But how? Frustrated ambition roiled inside him.

Yanagisawa smiled; his dark eyes kindled like liquid fire. “That’s enough talk of politics for tonight,” he said.

Whatever of his lover’s other hints had evaded Hoshina, he could interpret very well the innuendo in Yanagisawa’s voice, the curve of his mouth, and the hand he extended. Desire flared in Hoshina; yet he resisted surrender even as he grew erect. How he hated for the chamberlain to rebuke, baffle, taunt, and thwart him, then expect pleasure from him! Hoshina’s pride rebelled. For a moment he hated Yanagisawa.

But need prevailed over resentment. Hoshina craved sex as proof that Yanagisawa still loved him. He let Yanagisawa draw him down onto the bed, the only place in the world where they were equals.

Outside their chamber, Lady Yanagisawa stood peering in through a chink in the wall. She watched the naked bodies of her husband and his lover entwine, grapple, and heave. Her face remained impassive while she listened to their gasps and moans. As they convulsed in climax, a silent breath eased from her. Then she turned and walked away down the dark, vacant corridor.

Troops marched through the Nihonbashi merchant district. Their torches smoked in the night air; their footsteps shattered the quiet. They stopped at each house and pounded their fists against closed doors and shutters.

“Open up!” they shouted. “By orders of the shogun’s sōsakan-sama, come outside and show yourselves!”

Men, women, and children, dressed in their nightclothes, poured into the street. They shivered with cold and fright. The neighborhood headman herded them into a line. He and the captain of Sano’s search team walked down the line, matching each person to a name on the official neighborhood roster, looking for unlisted women. Soldiers raided the buildings in search of anyone hidden there. They burst into a gambling den, interrupting card games and hustling the gamblers outside.

The commotion roused Lady Wisteria and Lightning from their slumber in the back room of the gambling den. Lightning threw off the quilt that covered them and leapt upright, fully alert, while Wisteria lay in groggy confusion.

“What is it?” she mumbled.

“Get up,” Lightning ordered in a hoarse whisper. “Those are soldiers out there. We have to go.”

Terror jolted Wisteria awake, for she understood that the soldiers had come for her. Lightning grabbed her hand, yanking her to her feet.

“Hurry!” he urged.

Wisteria was glad they’d slept in their clothes in case of an emergency. While she scrambled for her shoes, he snatched up her bundle of possessions. He hurried her outside to the alley, just as the soldiers rushed through the curtained doorway between the gambling den and their room.

The bitter cold immediately chilled Wisteria. Her cloak billowed open in the wind, but she had no time to fasten it. Lightning raced along the alley, towing her by the hand. She tripped and fell, emitting a shriek of dismay.

“Quiet!” Lightning whispered furiously.

His speed kept her moving. Her knees scraped painfully against the rough ground until she regained her footing. They veered into another alley, then stumbled through the ruins of a burned house. Wisteria could no longer hear the soldiers, but still Lightning dragged her onward. A thick crescent moon above the roofs illuminated their way along a route that he followed with the ease of an animal that knows its territory.

They clambered down the bank of a narrow canal, and as they plunged waist-deep through frigid water, the muddy bottom tugged off Wisteria’s shoes. Barefoot because courtesans never wore socks, she limped up the opposite bank. Stones and debris hurt her feet. She and Lightning ran through a maze of more dark alleys that stank from privies, garbage, and night soil bins. Wisteria was freezing, her wet garments clinging to her like a coat of ice. Her heart pounded; gasps heaved her chest. But Lightning wasn’t even breathing hard. His hand around hers was warm. Would they keep running until she died?

At last Lightning halted at a building. Wisteria squatted, breathless and limp with exhaustion. Barred windows flanked a door. Lightning knocked: two slow beats, a pause, then three quick ones. The door opened a crack, and light shone into the alley. A man’s face, thuggish and unshaven, appeared in the crack. The man eyed Lightning, then opened the door. As Lightning pulled Wisteria into a passage with an earth floor and bare rafters, she saw that the man held a dagger; tattoos on his arms marked him as a gangster. But Wisteria was too glad for sanctuary to care that she recognized this place and knew its evils.

“Have the soldiers searched this neighborhood yet?” Lightning asked the man.

The man shook his head. Lightning muttered a curse, and Wisteria feared they must go back out in the night. But Lightning took her down the corridor, past rooms enclosed by partitions. Lamplight shining through the tattered paper silhouetted pairs of embracing, writhing human figures. Wisteria heard moans and grunts; she smelled urine, sweat, and sex. As she and Lightning entered a room where a torn lantern hung above a floor made of wood slats that bordered a large, round, sunken tub of water, Wisteria wanted to laugh and cry. This place was a public bath that doubled as an illegal brothel. She’d escaped one whorehouse, only to take shelter in another.