The Fire Kimono(6)

“It does not,” the shogun said, triumphant. “I know who it is.”

“How, if the grave was unmarked?”

The shogun beckoned to a guard, who stepped forward holding a long, narrow, cloth-wrapped bundle. The guard unwrapped the cloth from around two swords. They were blackened by dirt, corroded by rust, and shorter than the weapons samurai carried. Sano estimated them as slightly longer than the ones he’d given Masahiro. They’d belonged to a child.

“The swords were buried near the skeleton,” the shogun said. “See the characters on them?”

Sano read the characters that gleamed gold amid the rust: ‘“Tokugawa Tadatoshi.’” He turned to the shogun in surprise. “He belonged to your clan.”

“Yes. Do you know who he was?” the shogun asked, with the air of a child playing a guessing game.

The Tokugawa family tree was huge, many-branched. Before Sano could think through it, Lord Matsudaira said, “He was your second cousin, Your Excellency.”

“That’s right,” the shogun said, clapping his hands.

Lord Matsudaira gave Sano a smile that said he’d scored a point in their competition for the shogun’s favor. Whoever lost it could find himself thrown out of court, banished, or executed. The shogun still had that power.

“Tadatoshi disappeared when he was fourteen years old,” Lord Matsudaira recalled. “In Meireki Year Three, on the eighteenth day of the first month.”

“The day the Great Long-sleeves Kimono Fire started,” Sano said.

“Well, well, the honorable chamberlain knows his dates.”

Everyone knew that infamous date forty-three years ago. No one could forget that fire, Japan’s worst disaster.

The Great Long-sleeves Kimono Fire derived its name from its origin. A girl named Kiku had fallen in love with a pageboy and made herself a long-sleeved kimono, worn by unmarried girls, out of fabric that matched the boy’s clothes. Kiku suddenly died, and the kimono was placed over her coffin at her funeral. Afterward, the kimono was passed on to another girl, named Hana. Hana died a year later, and the kimono covered her coffin. The same fate befell another girl, Tatsu. The girls’ families decided the kimono was bad luck and should be cremated in a ceremony at Honmyo Temple. When the priest lit the kimono, it went up in flames that set the temple ablaze. The fire spread across town. Eventually, some two-thirds of the city burned to the ground.

“I remember the Great Fire,” the shogun said mournfully. “It was terrible, terrible. I was eleven years old. My family took shelter in the, ahh, western part of the castle and watched the rest of it burn. I was so scared.”

Sano had been born two years after the Great Fire. His knowledge of it was limited to what he’d read in accounts and heard from other people, although not from his parents. They hadn’t liked to talk about those times.

“Tadatoshi was thought to have died in the fire,” Lord Matsudaira said.

“Over a hundred thousand people did,” Sano recalled. The casualties had exceeded ten percent of Edo’s population.

“I always wondered where he went,” the shogun said. “Now we know. But how did he, ahh, end up buried by the shrine?”

Sano pondered the remote site, the unmarked grave, the child’s disappearance. “It smacks of foul play.”

“Really?” The shogun’s eyes widened and his mouth opened in awe. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Anybody but you would have,” Lord Matsudaira muttered.

The shogun glanced at Lord Matsudaira and frowned. “Well, I would like to know exactly what happened to Tadatoshi. Chamberlain Sano, I order you to find out.”

Sano had seen this coming the moment he’d heard about the skeleton’s identity. Now he experienced two contradictory reactions. One was eagerness for a new mystery to solve, a chance to seek the truth. Detective work was his vocation, and he missed his old job as the shogun’s sosakan-sama—Most Honorable Investigator of Events, Situations, and People. His spirit craved escape from the pressure of running the government while neck-deep in political intrigue. But Sano’s other reaction was sheer horror.

He didn’t have time for an investigation. Not while he was fighting for survival; not while he had a country to save from civil war. Chasing down the truth about a long-ago death would be suicide.

And Lord Matsudaira knew it. He looked as though he’d just received a miraculous gift. His careworn face relaxed into a smile as ugly as it was delighted. “That’s a wonderful idea, Honorable Cousin. We can count on Chamberlain Sano to get the facts.”

The shogun beamed at this approval from the cousin who intimidated him. Sano could imagine the blows Lord Matsudaira would deal his side while he was busy with the investigation. His men’s faces reflected his dismay. Hirata stepped forward and said, “Your Excellency, the investigation into Tadatoshi’s death is within the scope of my duties.” He’d advanced to the post of sosakan-sama when Sano became chamberlain. “I’ll be glad to handle it for you.”