He looked around at his attendants, who offered noncommittal murmurs.

“However, I shall do so now,” Tsunayoshi said. “Kaibara Tōju was murdered last night. His head was severed from his body and mounted like a, ahh, war trophy.”

The nature of the crime shocked Sano, as did the victim’s identity. The taking of trophy heads was a war tradition, not normally practiced in peacetime. Kaibara Tōju was a hatamoto, a hereditary Tokugawa vassal-one of many soldiers whose clans had served the shogun’s for generations and held time-honored positions in his vast empire. But neither piece of news disturbed Sano as much as his heart-sinking realization that the shogun was going to ask him to investigate the murder. Too many lives had been ruined or lost during his first and only other case. But Sano’s interest stirred in spite of himself. A not wholly unpleasant surge of fearful anxiety made him feel more alive than he had in months. Without his realizing it, his short-lived police career had given him a taste for danger and adventure. And he’d always had a yearning to seek and find the truth. Lately he’d had no chance to satisfy either desire. But now…

“The bundori was found, ahh-” The shogun paused, frowning in an obvious attempt at recollection.

“On a firewatch tower in the Nihonbashi pharmacists’ district, Your Excellency.”

Silk garments rustled as the shogun and his retainers turned toward the sound of a man’s voice that came from within the building. Following their gazes, Sano saw Chamberlain Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu standing behind the dais. His curiosity roused at the sight of this man, about whom he’d heard much but seen only once before.

Yanagisawa’s combination of height, slimness, graceful carriage, and sharp, elegant features added up to a striking masculine beauty. The keen intelligence of his expression drew attention away from his brilliant, fashionable robes and kept it on his face. Rumor said that Yanagisawa, now thirty-two years old and Tsunayoshi’s protégé since his twenties, had been and still was the shogun’s lover. Whatever the truth, Yanagisawa supposedly had much influence over bakufu affairs.

Now Yanagisawa knelt beside the dais, in the place of honor nearest the shogun. The retainers’ obsequious bows and the haste with which they made room for him testified to his power.

“Your Excellency,” he said, bowing to the shogun.

Tsunayoshi smiled in greeting. “Ahh, Chamberlain Yanagisawa.” His voice held a hint of relief, as though he welcomed the arrival of someone more knowledgeable than himself. “We were discussing last night’s unfortunate incident. I have decided to give the task of apprehending the, ahh, murderer to my new sōsakan.”

Yanagisawa glanced at Sano. His eyes, large and liquid and enhanced with thick, slanting brows, looked black even in the sunlight, as if the pupils were permanently dilated. The hostility in them pierced Sano to the core. What could he have done to offend the chamberlain?

He’d sensed a heightened alertness about the others, including the shogun, when Yanagisawa appeared. Now the tension slackened as Yanagisawa said suavely, “A wise decision, Your Excellency.”

The shogun seemed pleased to have his chamberlain’s approval, and the retainers grateful that no conflict had arisen, Chests heaved sighs of relief; bodies relaxed more comfortably on the cushions. Sano’s own uneasiness subsided. Yanagisawa sounded sincere, despite that first malevolent glance. He even favored Sano with a smile that lifted one corner of his finely modeled mouth.

Tsunayoshi turned to Sano. “This murder constitutes an, ahh, act of war against the Tokugawa clan. The offender must be caught and punished promptly. We cannot let him get away with such a heinous affront to our regime, or let the daimyo think us vulnerable to attack. Therefore I am granting you the full cooperation and assistance of the, ahh, police force. All the necessary orders have been given.

“In addition,” the shogun continued, “you will have the services of the castle’s chief shrine attendant, a mystic who has the power to communicate with the spirit world. I have ordered her sent directly to your residence. Now, Sōsakan Sano, go and begin your inquiries at once. Report to me in my chambers this evening to inform me of your, ahh, progress.” He waved his fan in dismissal.

Sano bowed deeply. “Thank you, Your Excellency, for the great honor of being allowed to serve you,” he said, hiding his surprise and skepticism at the mention of the mystic. Never had he heard of one assisting in a criminal investigation-it wasn’t standard police procedure-but he couldn’t challenge the shogun’s decision. “I shall do my humble best.”

He would have gone on to express his appreciation for the assistance granted him, but the shogun’s gaze wandered toward the stage. Obviously he was eager for the auditions to resume.

“Many thanks, Your Excellency,” Sano repeated, turning to leave the theater.

He fought to keep the bounce out of his step, and his exuberance from erupting in an unseemly smile. Earlier this morning, his hope of distinguishing himself had looked minimal. Now he had a chance to prove himself a worthy practitioner of Bushido; to perform an act that could earn his family name a place in history. A chance to experience excitement and danger, and, even more important, to find truth, deliver a criminal to justice, and possibly save lives. Furthermore, with such a wealth of resources at his disposal, success seemed almost assured. Self-confidence flowed through Sano in a warming rush. The assignment offered great potential rewards at small risk.

As he left the palace and stepped out into the bright spring morning, Noguchi’s warning and Chamberlain Yanagisawa’s initial hostility made only a small dark shadow in the back of his mind.

The way to Sano’s residence led down the hill through another series of passages and guarded checkpoints, over a bridge that spanned the castle’s inner moat. From there, he passed through another gate into the Official Quarter, composed of the office-mansions of the shogun’s chief retainers and highest officials.

Sano entered the quarter, experiencing his usual disbelief that he actually lived there. Splendid estates lined the roads, each surrounded by two-story barracks with whitewashed walls decorated with black tiles laid in diagonal patterns, and rows of barred windows. Roofed gates with twin guardhouses punctuated the long expanses of black and white. Past them moved a stream of well-dressed officials and their attendants, ladies in palanquins carried by strong bearers, servants and porters, bands of samurai both mounted and on foot. Sano exchanged brief, formal bows with his colleagues, most of whom he knew only slightly, then stopped before his residence. There the two guards bowed and opened the gate. He passed into a paved courtyard. The empty barracks, meant for retainers he didn’t yet have, loomed around him. A high wooden fence enclosed the main house. With the reluctance he always felt upon arriving home, Sano walked through the inner gate.

From atop a high stone foundation, the house, a huge, half-timbered building with a heavy brown tile roof that spread deep eaves over a broad veranda, seemed to repel rather than welcome him. Dark lattices covered the windows; wooden steps ascended to a protruding entrance porch. Sano entered, remembering the day he’d moved to the castle.

When he’d protested that the house was too big for one man, and its stable of horses unnecessary, the official who’d welcomed him had said, “If you refuse that which His Excellency has bestowed upon you, he will think you ungrateful.”

Sano had acquiesced and taken possession of the house. Now it swallowed him up in its vast, hushed space. He left his shoes in the entryway. Then, resisting the urge to tiptoe, he walked down the corridor and into the main hall.