Read Online The Shogun's Daughter by Laura Joh Rowland - Free Book Online

she broke out in sores, I had her isolated.”
    “Who took care of her?” Sano asked.
    “Her nurse.”
    “Why didn’t she get smallpox?”
    “She had it when she was young.”
    People who’d survived smallpox were safe from a recurrence. “Who had access to Tsuruhime’s room?”
    “Her ladies-in-waiting, the servants.”
    “Could anyone else have handled her things?”
    “Handled, how?” Lord Tsunanori looked puzzled, then alarmed. “Do you mean, put something in with them that was contaminated with smallpox?”
    Sano and Marume shared a surprised glance. How quickly Lord Tsunanori had jumped to the notion that his wife had contracted smallpox from a contaminated item placed among her possessions. “I just wondered,” Sano said. “I’ve heard it’s possible to get smallpox from touching things used by someone who had the disease.”
    “Are you suggesting that somebody deliberately tried to make my wife sick?” Lord Tsunanori demanded.
    How quickly he’d jumped to the idea that her death had involved foul play. “Assassination is always a possibility when an important person dies suddenly from an unusual cause,” Sano said. “Do you think someone killed your wife?”
    “Do I think someone killed my wife?” Lord Tsunanori spoke in a hushed tone. He frowned, stammered, then said, “No. I never thought of it at all.” His loose mouth dropped. “You think I infected her with smallpox. That’s what you’re getting at.”
    “Did you?” Sano asked.
    Lord Tsunanori reacted with the same tone, frown, and stammers as before. “No! I would never! What gave you that ridiculous idea?”
    Behind his back, Marume held up one finger, then two, then three, counting the denials. Sano noted how quickly Lord Tsunanori had interpreted his question as an accusation. Keeping his pact with Lady Nobuko confidential, Sano started to say he’d heard a rumor.
    Lord Tsunanori cut him off with an angry exclamation. “It must have been Lady Nobuko.”
    “Why do you think it was her?” Sano said, startled.
    “She hates me. She thought I was a bad husband.” Lord Tsunanori’s voice took on a whiny, aggrieved note. “I gave my wife every luxury she could have wanted. But Lady Nobuko expected me to worship the ground Tsuruhime walked on. Lady Nobuko was always criticizing me. To please her, I would have had to rub my nose against Tsuruhime’s behind, just to show how grateful I was to be married to the shogun’s daughter.”
    “It sounds as if you weren’t grateful at all,” Sano said.
    “No man in his right mind would have been. I paid dearly for the privilege. I had to give huge tributes to the government.” Lord Tsunanori quaffed another drink, wiped his mouth on his sleeve. His eyes had a glassy look. “After the earthquake, I was the first daimyo that the shogun came to for money to fix Edo.” He held out his palm, which was calloused from sword-fighting practice, and wiggled his fingers. “Because I was his son-in-law.”
    Disturbed by what he was hearing, Sano said, “Didn’t Tsuruhime bring you a big dowry?”
    “It was chicken dung compared to what I’ve spent on account of her. Things didn’t turn out the way I expected when I agreed to the marriage. Tsuruhime was supposed to bear me the shogun’s grandson. I was supposed to have a chance to be the father of the next shogun. But she never conceived. After a few years of trying, I quit sleeping with her. The bitch!”
    Sano was shocked to hear even a garrulous drunk malign his dead wife so crudely. He pitied Tsuruhime, even though she was beyond caring. “It wasn’t her fault that you lost money on her.” Or that she hadn’t borne him a child. Sano knew that Lord Tsunanori had no illegitimate offspring, despite the fact that he had concubines. The wife usually took the blame for infertility. The husband didn’t want to admit he was responsible. It was the same with the shogun. His failure to produce an heir had been blamed on his wife, his