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control himself. He didn’t want Sano to hear him, guess how much he didn’t want the shogun to die, and wonder why. He couldn’t let Ienobu know how desperately afraid he was. “Tell me if he’s going to survive.”
    The physician hesitated, clearly reluctant to be negative lest he bring bad luck to the shogun, yet not wanting to hold out false promise. “That he’s still alive is a good sign, but his condition is very serious.”
    Dread sank Yanagisawa’s heart. If the shogun died, it would mean the end of Yanagisawa’s alliance with Lord Ienobu, the end of his ambition to rule Japan someday, the end of his life. But that wasn’t the worst. The shogun’s death would also mean the end of Yanagisawa’s hopes of saving the only person in the world he loved.
    “If you’ll excuse me,” the physician said, “I must tend to my patient.”
    Yanagisawa stood alone in the corridor, remembering his shock at the news he’d received the day after Yoshisato’s funeral. He’d been standing outside the palace, with the smell of smoke and burned flesh in the air, when Lord Ienobu spoke the words that turned the world upside down.
    “Yoshisato is alive. He didn’t die in that fire.”
    At first Yanagisawa hadn’t believed it. Then Ienobu had explained. “I told Korika that if she set a fire that night, she wouldn’t be caught. I arranged for the castle guards to be absent from their posts. Korika went to the heir’s residence. Five of my men got there first. They killed Yoshisato’s personal bodyguards, tied up Yoshisato, and drugged him. Korika set the fire, and ran away. Before the house burned down, my men dragged the dead bodyguards inside. They killed one of their comrades and left his corpse in Yoshisato’s chamber. Then they carried Yoshisato out of the castle in a trunk.”
    “Why would you save Yoshisato?” Yanagisawa demanded. “If he’s alive, he’s the shogun’s first choice for an heir.”
    “I have enemies who don’t want me to be the next shogun,” Ienobu said. “I need you to help me neutralize them. When I’m shogun, you can have Yoshisato back.”
    Then Lord Ienobu had produced a letter written by Yoshisato, that had demolished all Yanagisawa’s doubts about whether Ienobu was telling the truth.
    “Where is he?” Yanagisawa demanded.
    “In a guarded, secret place,” Ienobu said. “Breathe a word of this conversation to anyone, and you’ll never see him again.”
    “I’ll kill you!”
    “If anything bad happens to me, or if you refuse to support me as the next shogun, Yoshisato dies for real.”
    Yanagisawa had known that Ienobu meant to string him along until Ienobu was shogun; then Ienobu would kill Yoshisato. The only way for Yanagisawa to save Yoshisato was to find him before the current shogun died and Ienobu didn’t need a hostage anymore. The only way for Yanagisawa and Yoshisato to rule Japan was to destroy Ienobu before he took over the dictatorship. For more than four years he’d been searching for Yoshisato. He had spies secretly combing Japan while he acted the role of Ienobu’s vigilant ally. He’d exiled some of Ienobu’s enemies within the government to faraway islands, demoted others or dispatched them to posts in the provinces. That had brought other men hostile to Ienobu into line. Although Yanagisawa longed to join forces with Sano to prove Ienobu was a traitor, he pretended to believe Ienobu was innocent. His son’s life depended on his charade.
    But every clue to Yoshisato’s whereabouts had led to a dead end, and if the shogun died, Ienobu would become dictator. He would put Yoshisato—and Yanagisawa—to death. Panic beset Yanagisawa like a horde of shouting madmen pummeling him. How could he save Yoshisato? He might have only days, hours, or moments left in which to do it.
    The instincts that had served him well during three decades in politics gave Yanagisawa the first piece of his emergency strategy: He must keep the shogun alive, keep Sano