The Cloud Pavilion

Among the dogs now gathered in the marketplace, Reiko spied a flash of green, from a kimono worn by a girl who'd fallen on the ground. She cringed as the dogs snapped at her.

"Stop!" Reiko cried to her bearers. The moment they set down her palanquin, she was out the door. She called, "Lieutenant Tanuma! Save that girl!"

He and two other guards jumped off their horses. Shouting and waving their swords, they chased the dogs away. People nearby paid scant notice; the public had learned not to get involved in dog attacks. Nobody wanted to hurt a dog and be arrested and executed. Reiko hurried over to the girl, who scrambled to her feet. Near her lay a half-eaten fish that she and the dogs had been fighting over.

"Fumiko-san, are you all right?" Reiko said.

The girl started at the sound of her name. The fright on her dirty face turned to scowling distrust. "Who are you?"

"My name is Reiko. I'm the wife of Chamberlain Sano." Reiko extended her hand. "I want to help you."

Fumiko recoiled. "Don't touch me!" Her voice was gruff, boyish. "Leave me alone!" She turned to run.

"Don't let her get away," Reiko ordered her guards.

Lieutenant Tanuma put out his hand to grab the girl; the other men surrounded her. Reiko warned, "Look out-she's got a knife!" just as Fumiko slashed it at Tanuma. He jerked his hand back. Fumiko cowered within the circle formed by the guards and Reiko, as terrified of them as she'd been of the dogs.

"Shall I take the knife away from her?" Tanuma asked.

"No. Wait." Reiko ran to the palanquin and fetched the lunchbox. She opened the lid and showed the contents to Fumiko. "I brought this for you," she said. "Do you want it?"

Her eyes glazed with hunger, Fumiko breathed through her open mouth as she stared at the food.

"Put your knife away and come sit with me inside my palanquin," Reiko said, "and I'll give it all to you."

Fumiko hesitated. Reiko read in her gaze the fear of what might happen if she put herself in the hands of a stranger. "What do you want?" she asked.

"Just to talk," Reiko said.

18

Fumiko tucked her knife under her sash, climbed into the palanquin with Reiko, and fell upon the food. She crammed fish, rice, dumplings, noodles, and cakes into her mouth. She gulped and slurped, hardly bothering to chew. It was like watching a wild animal feed.

In the close confines of the palanquin, Reiko could smell Fumiko's stench of urine and unwashed hair and body. Fumiko ate and ate until the lunchbox was empty. She washed the food down with water from the jar Reiko had brought. Then she lunged for the door.

Reiko held it closed. "We'll talk first."

"Let me out, or I'll kill you." Fumiko reached for the knife.

Reiko grabbed Fumiko's wrist. It was skin and bone, thin and fragile.

"Let me go!" Fumiko cried.

As she struggled to pull free, their gazes met, and something unspoken passed between them. Maybe it was a sudden realization that they were both women in unusual circumstances-Fumiko the gangster's daughter who'd become a wild, starving street child; Reiko the samurai lady who'd ventured outside her own society to befriend an outcast. Maybe they had more in common than both of them recognized. Fumiko stopped fighting. When Reiko let go of her wrist, she scowled, but she stayed.

"Talk about what?" Fumiko said.

"Your kidnapping," Reiko said.

Now Fumiko looked surprised. "How do you know about that?"

"A friend of mine heard it from the police."

"The police?" Fumiko glanced out the window in sudden fright, as if she suspected a trap. "We don't want them in our business."

"We" meant her father's gangster clan, Reiko supposed. Not all the police were in cahoots with Jirocho, and he undoubtedly steered clear of those who tried to enforce the law.

"Don't worry, I didn't bring the police," Reiko said. "They only knew about the kidnapping because your father reported it to them."

"My father?" Hope appeared on Fumiko's face, breaking through her distrust like the sun through clouds. "Did he send you?" She sounded puzzled but eager.

Reiko realized that Fumiko thought Jirocho had sent the chamberlain's wife to rescue her, as improbable as that would be. Hating to disappoint the girl, she said, "No, I'm sorry," and watched Fumiko's expression turn woeful. "My husband sent me. He and I want to catch the person who kidnapped you."

Fumiko frowned, her suspicion renewed. "Why?"

"Because he hurt you," Reiko said. She didn't mention Sano's cousin and the nun who'd also been kidnapped; she didn't want Fumiko to think she cared only about them. She felt an affection for this savage little girl. "He should be punished."

"If I ever see him again, I'll kill him myself," Fumiko said. "That's the way we do things. We don't wait for other people to get revenge for us."

Reiko began to wonder what kind of life Fumiko had led within the gangster clan. Maybe she'd been wild and violent even before she'd been disowned. "Still, I want to help you," Reiko said. "Tell me about the man who kidnapped you. What did he look like?"

Confusion shadowed Fumiko's face. She pressed her lips together.

"You don't remember, do you?" Reiko said gently. When Fumiko remained silent, Reiko said, "Tell me what happened."

Fumiko bowed her head and mumbled through the tangled hair that fell over her face: "I was at Shinobazu Pond, feeding the fish. After that, it's all mixed up in my head. There was a little monkey…"

Confused, Reiko said, "A monkey? Where?"

"A man had it on a leash. He said that if I came with him, he would let me play with it."

"Who was he?"

"I don't remember." Fumiko sighed.

The kidnapper had used the monkey as bait for the girl, Reiko de-110 110 duced. Fumiko must have gone with him, perhaps to an oxcart in which he'd carried her away. This was a different ploy than Chiyo's kidnapper had used. Reiko considered the disturbing idea that there were two rapists, possibly three.

"I was playing ball with the monkey," Fumiko said. "Then I woke up and it was gone. Everything was gone." The puzzlement she must have felt sounded in her voice. "I was someplace that was filled with clouds."

That did match Chiyo's story. "Was the man there?" Reiko asked.

Fumiko nodded.

"But you didn't see him?"

"No. Because of the clouds."

"What did he do?" Reiko asked.

She expected Fumiko to be so overcome with shame that she couldn't bear to tell the tale. But Fumiko spoke with startling matter-of-factness. "He pawed me all over. He put his thing in my mouth for me to suck."

Reiko remembered that Jirocho ran illegal brothels. Perhaps Fumiko had seen sex there, between the male customers and girls as young as herself.

"I tried to fight him off, but I couldn't move," Fumiko said. "I screamed and cursed at him. He called me a naughty girl. He spanked my behind until I cried. Then he shoved himself into me and did it."

Reiko was disturbed, and not only by what Fumiko had suffered. The man in Fumiko's case seemed to have different tastes in women and sexual practices than the one in Chiyo's. Still, Reiko believed that Chiyo and Fumiko had both been drugged; maybe their minds had been affected, and that explained the discrepancies. But despite the similarities in the stories, Reiko couldn't dismiss the possibility that there was more than one rapist.

"That's all I remember," Fumiko said. "The next thing I knew, I was lying on the ground beside Shinobazu Pond."

"The man hit your face, didn't he?" Reiko said. Although loath to make Fumiko dwell on bad experiences, she must probe the girl's memory for information about the criminal.

Fumiko touched her bruised eye. "No. My father did. He said I led the man on. He said I disgraced myself and our clan."

Here was the most tragic similarity between her story and Chiyo's. Both women had suffered insult heaped upon injury.

"I begged him to forgive me," Fumiko said. Tears trembled beneath her gruff, sullen manner. "I offered to cut off my finger." She added, "That's how we make it up to my father when we've done something wrong."

Reiko had known about the gangsters' rule, but the idea that a little girl should take it for granted was shocking.

"But my father wouldn't listen," Fumiko said. "He threw me out."

At that moment Reiko hated Fumiko's father, and Chiyo's husband, as much as she hated the man-or men-who'd assaulted the women. "I'm sorry about what happened to you. It wasn't your fault, no matter what anybody says. You're a brave, good girl. And I want you to know that my husband will catch the man who hurt you."

But even as she spoke, Reiko remembered that Sano's objective was to punish the man who'd kidnapped and raped his cousin. If a different man had kidnapped Fumiko, would Sano avenge her? He had enough else to do. Reiko made a private vow that if Sano didn't deliver Fumiko's rapist to justice, then she herself would. In the meantime, she could offer Fumiko other assistance.

"For now, you're coming with me," she said, then called to her bearers, "Let's go."

They hoisted the beams of the palanquin to their shoulders. As the vehicle began moving, Fumiko looked aghast. "Go where?"

"To my house," Reiko said, "inside Edo Castle."

"I can't!" Fumiko protested.

Reiko thought the girl must be afraid of a strange place. "Yes, you can," she said soothingly. "I'll give you as much food as you want, clean clothes, and a nice place to sleep. You'll be quite comfortable."

"Please stop," Fumiko said as the bearers carried her and Reiko past the market stalls. "I can't leave!"

Bewildered, Reiko said, "Here you have to sleep outdoors; you have to eat garbage. Why do you want to stay?"

"My father knows I'm here." Fumiko was frantic. "His gangsters have seen me. If I go someplace else, he won't be able to find me."

"Why would he want to?" Reiko asked. "He threw you out."

"After he thinks I've been punished enough, he'll take me back." Fumiko sounded desperate to believe it.

"I'll send word to your father that you're at my house, so he'll know to look for you there."

"He might not like that. He might get even angrier."

"You were just attacked by dogs," Reiko reminded Fumiko. "You might not be saved next time. You might not survive until your father decides to bring you home."

Fumiko flapped her hands, as if to ward off Reiko's logic. "I'm not going with you! Here is where I belong!"

She picked up the empty lunchbox and hurled it at Reiko. Reiko flung up her arms. Fumiko bounded out the door.

"Wait!" Reiko cried. "Fumiko, stop!"

The girl ran away into the marketplace, where the throngs absorbed her. Lieutenant Tanuma called, "Should I go after her, Lady Reiko?"

"No, don't."

Sighing, Reiko closed the door of the palanquin. She wouldn't force Fumiko to accept shelter against her will. Perhaps Fumiko was right in her belief that Jirocho would relent, and when he came to fetch her, she had better be here, or he would change his mind. Reiko didn't understand gangsters well enough to know otherwise. And she had another task to perform for Sano.

"Take me to the Keiaiji Convent," she called to her escorts. "Maybe I'll have better luck with the nun."

Chamberlain Yanagisawa's estate was one of many inside the quarter within Edo Castle where the shogun's top officials lived. Guards opened its gate, and out came Yanagisawa, his son Yoritomo, and their guards, all on horse back. Clad in rain hats and capes, they rode down the street amid mounted soldiers going in the same direction.

One soldier wasn't really a soldier. The face under his helmet belonged to Toda Ikkyu. As he followed Yanagisawa and Yoritomo, they didn't notice him. Neither they nor Toda noticed the boy riding a pony, trailing in their wake.

Masahiro wore, in addition to the rain cape and hat that hid his face and clothes, a flag bearing the Tokugawa crest on a pole attached to his back. He carried a leather sack of bamboo scroll containers. The flag, sack, and scrolls were the standard equipment of messenger boys. He'd borrowed them from Father's office. He hoped Father wouldn't mind. The scroll containers were empty; they were part of his disguise.

He'd gotten the idea for the disguise from Mother. She sometimes dressed as a servant, the better to avoid attention when she went out investigating. Masahiro had also taken a hint from the spy who'd come to visit Father last night. Under the scrolls in his sack were a spare hat and jacket.

As he trailed Yanagisawa, Yoritomo, and their procession along the stone-walled passages that wound downhill through the castle, his heart beat fast with excitement. This was his first day as a real detective. He meant to find out what Yanagisawa was up to.

The procession stopped at a checkpoint, two gates that led in and out of a square enclosure designed to trap invading enemies during war. In peacetime, the guards merely eyed the folks who came by and let them pass. Yanagisawa rode through with his party. Masahiro waited impatiently, stuck behind the people who blocked his view. He mustn't lose track of Yanagisawa. He worried about whether his disguise would pass inspection. Would the guards notice that he was too young to be a messenger? He drew himself up to his full height, held his breath, and silently prayed.

The guards let him through without a second glance. Relieved, Masahiro hurriedly rode after Yanagisawa. But as they approached the castle's main gate, he felt serious qualms.

He'd never gone outside the castle by himself. Father and Mother said it was too dangerous. He didn't want to admit that he was afraid to go out, but he was. The city was a big place filled with scary people. Masahiro carried a dagger hidden beneath his cape, but what if he got attacked by someone too big and strong for him to fight? He also worried about what would happen when Father and Mother found out he'd broken their rule.

Ahead loomed the gate. Masahiro saw Yanagisawa's procession riding through the portals. What should he do?

He drew a deep breath for courage and followed Yanagisawa.

Tonight, when he told Father and Mother what he'd learned about Yanagisawa, they would be so proud of him that they wouldn't be angry.

Inside the bedchamber at the convent, two novices held the nun Tengu-in, who sat on a futon atop a wooden pallet. Another novice spooned miso soup into her mouth. The old woman struggled weakly, spat, and whispered prayers.

"It won't do you any good to talk to her," the abbess said, standing in the doorway with Reiko. "See for yourself."

Reiko watched with dismay as Tengu-in coughed and retched, while the novices poured water into her. The force-feeding seemed like torture, but it had probably kept the old nun alive. "I must try," Reiko said.

She walked toward Tengu-in across the big room where the other nuns slept at night on the pallets laid out in a row. The abbess and the novices bowed and left. Tengu-in lay on her bed, eyes closed, exhausted. In the misty daylight that shone through the paper windowpanes she looked like a corpse. Her face was sunken, her skin so thin that the spidery blue veins pulsed through it on her bare scalp. Her skeletal hands clutched a rosary of round, brown jade beads strung on a thick leather cord.

"Tengu-in?" Reiko said, kneeling beside her. "Can you hear me?"

The nun's lips formed silent prayers. Her fingers counted beads. Chiyo and Fumiko seemed well off compared to her. At least they were more physically and mentally sound, no matter how they'd been treated.

"I'm sorry to bother you," Reiko said, "but my husband sent me to talk to you. He's Chamberlain Sano. He came here yesterday. Do you remember?"

Tengu-in didn't answer. She continued her wordless praying as her fingers slid beads along the cord.

"I need to know what happened to you when you were kidnapped," Reiko persisted. "Maybe if you tell me, you'll feel better."

No response came. Reiko tried a different tack. "Two other women besides you have been kidnapped and attacked. My husband and I think it was the same man." Although Reiko wasn't so sure, after hearing Fumiko's story and comparing it to Chiyo's. "We want to catch him. You may be the only person who can help us. Can you try, for their sake as well as your own?"

As moments passed and the nun seemed unaware of Reiko's presence, Reiko had the eerie feeling that she was alone. Tengu-in's spirit had retreated into another, faraway realm. How could Reiko bridge the distance?

"I'll tell you what I think happened," Reiko said. "Can you give some sign whether I'm right?" It was like talking to herself, but she began to recite the story she'd learned from Sano. "You went to the main temple that day. With the novices. You couldn't keep up with them. They left you behind. That's when he came and took you."

Did Tengu-in stiffen with anxiety? Reiko wondered if it was only her imagination.

"He pretended he was hurt and he asked for your help," Reiko suggested, recalling the ploy that had lured Chiyo.

Tengu-in's expression of stoic suffering didn't alter.

"He had a pet monkey. He said he would let you play with it if you went with him." Even as she spoke, Reiko knew that although the monkey trick had worked for Fumiko, it probably wouldn't have for an old woman, and the kidnapper was smart.

A hoarse whisper came from the nun. Her eyes opened. Filmy and blank, their lids crusted, they gazed at nothing.

"What did you say?" Reiko kept her voice gentle; she hid her excitement.

"Place of Relief," whispered Tengu-in.

That was the polite term for the privy. "Do you need to go?" Reiko asked.

Tengu-in's lips moved, and for a moment Reiko thought she'd resumed praying. But her words were audible now, although barely. Reiko leaned closer to hear.

"I went to the Place of Relief," she said. "I was inside. He opened the door."

Reiko realized that she was talking about that day she'd been kidnapped. Finally her silence had broken. Reiko didn't know why. Perhaps the time had simply come. Reiko pictured Tengu-in crouched over the hole inside a public privy in the temple grounds, and the door opening. The kidnapper had cornered the helpless old woman there.

"Who was he?" Reiko asked urgently.

Tengu-in's head rolled from side to side on the pillow.

Reiko said, "Was he a big man with a shaved head and a scab on his cheek?"

"… I don't know."

If he wasn't the suspect sighted outside the convent, maybe he was the one Hirata's witness had seen by Shinobazu Pond. "Did he have teeth missing?"

"Couldn't see," whispered Tengu-in. "The light…"

The daylight behind the man must have left his features in shadow. "What happened next?" Reiko asked.

The nun's gaze shifted rapidly; her eyelids lowered.

"Then you woke up," Reiko prompted, anxious to prevent Tengu-in from withdrawing beyond her reach. "You were in a place filled with clouds."

"Clouds," Tengu-in echoed in a voice like the wind sighing.

"You couldn't move. The man was there."

A low, fearful whimper resonated through Tengu-in. Her body quaked.

"He nursed at your breasts," Reiko suggested. "He called you 'dearest mother,' and 'beloved mother.' "

Again Tengu-in's head tossed.

Reiko ventured, "He forced you to suck on him. He said you were naughty and beat you?" Tengu-in mumbled something Reiko couldn't hear. "What was that?"

"Pray," whispered Tengu-in. "He made me pray while he had me." Her voice rose to a loud, shrill pitch: "Namo Amida Butsu! Namo Amida Butsu!" I trust in the Buddha of Immeasurable Light. She was praying to be delivered from this life of suffering and reborn into the Pure Land, a heaven of beauty and enlightenment. Her voice trailed off while her lips kept moving. Her eyes closed as she withdrew behind the barrier of her private hell.

19

"I'm bringing these prisoners in for interrogation," Sano told the sentries outside Edo Jail. Behind him, the two suspects knelt in their oxcart, their wrists and ankles bound with rope, guarded by Detectives Marume and Fukida and Sano's other troops. Above him loomed the jail's high, mossy stone walls and guard turrets. "Let us in."

The guards obeyed. Sano and his entourage crowded into a courtyard surrounded by barracks. His soldiers brought in the oxcart and unloaded the two prisoners. His party marched into the dungeon, a building whose dirty, scabrous plaster walls rose from a high stone base. It was a reflection of Edo Castle in a dark mirror-one edifice designed to safeguard the regime's highest society, the other to cage its lowest.

The interrogation rooms, situated along a dank passage that smelled of sewers, had ironclad doors with small windows set at eye level. Hirata marched the young suspect with the missing teeth into one room. Sano, Marume, and Fukida took the other suspect into a room at the passage's opposite end. Shouts, moans, and weeping emanated from the rooms in between. Sano's room was just large enough to hold four people and swing a sword. Dim light seeped from a barred window near the ceiling. The walls were marred with cracks and gouges, discolored by old bloodstains. Marume and Fukida shoved the suspect down on the straw that covered the floor. Sano smelled urine on the straw, which was trampled and grimy; it hadn't been changed since the last interrogation. He stood over the suspect.

The big man stared at the wall behind Sano, his gaze sullen beneath his heavy brow. His unshaven face was mud-streaked from his tussle with the detectives. Sweat plastered his blue kimono against his muscles. He hadn't uttered a word since he'd been captured.

"What's your name?" Sano asked.

The suspect tightened his jaw. Marume kicked his thigh and ordered, "Speak up."

"Jinshichi," the suspect said. His deep voice was thick and raspy, as if he'd swallowed sand mixed with pitch.

"Well, Jinshichi," Sano said, "you're under arrest for kidnapping my cousin."

"Didn't kidnap anybody."

He spoke with conviction, but Sano didn't believe him. Something about the man didn't smell right.

"Let me refresh your memory," Sano said. "My cousin is the woman you met at Awashima Shrine. She'd gone there with her new baby. You hid in the bushes and called to her that you were hurt. She came to help you. You took her and left the baby."

"I never," Jinshichi said, adamant.

"You gave her a drug that put her to sleep." Sano kept his voice calm, but anger mounted inside him. "You locked her up."

"Never."

"Then you raped her," Sano said, controlling an urge to lash out at Jinshichi for hurting Chiyo, to wipe that hard, defiant look off his face.

"You're wrong." If Jinshichi was afraid, it didn't show.

Standing on either side of him, Marume and Fukida exchanged glances. They looked at Sano, who saw that they had doubts about the man's guilt.

"You kept her for two days," Sano said. "When you were finished with her, you dumped her in an alley, as if she were a sack of garbage."

Jinshichi muttered. Fukida smacked his head, and he said, "Wasn't me. I'm innocent."

"I suppose you didn't kidnap Tengu-in, either," Sano said.

"Who?"

"The nun. She was taken from the Zj Temple precinct on the first day of the third month. You were seen outside her convent the day before."

"Couldn't have been," Jinshichi said. "Wasn't there."

"Then where were you?" Sano demanded.

Jinshichi eyed Sano with incredulity. "That was a long time ago. Damned if I can remember. Working, probably."

"Working where?"

"Around town. Hell if I know!" Jinshichi grew loud, impatient. "I didn't do anything wrong. Can I go now?"

"If you really want to," Sano said. "You can go straight to the court of justice and be tried for two kidnappings and two assaults."

For the first time, Jinshichi's face showed fear. It was common knowledge that almost every trial ended with a guilty verdict.

"Better yet," Sano said, "we'll just skip the trial and take you straight to the execution ground."

"But I didn't kidnap those women." Jinshichi strained against the ropes that bound him. "I swear!"

Sano burned with rage at the man's denials. But even though Sano was sure Jinshichi was lying, he couldn't ignore the obvious reason that the man might not be.

There was a second suspect right down the hall.

In the other interrogation room, Hirata studied the prisoner who knelt on the straw at his feet. "Tell me your name," he ordered.

"Gombei, Honorable master." The man bowed and grinned.

He was slender and wiry, the type that was far stronger than he looked. He could probably lift loads as heavy as himself. Even with his wrists and ankles tied up, he exuded a bounding energy. Hirata could hear his rapid heartbeat, his blood swift beneath his skin. Despite his missing teeth, his face wasn't unhandsome. Long, wavy hair, fallen from his topknot, grazed his shoulders and framed ro guish features. His eyes sparkled with vitality and cunning.

Trained perception and samurai instinct told Hirata that Gombei had plenty to hide.

But even as Hirata prepared to extract Gombei's guilty secrets, only half of his attention was focused on the job at hand. He couldn't stop thinking about the presence he'd sensed at Shinobazu Pond yesterday. Who was it? What were the man's intentions?

Now, half of Hirata's mind was attuned to the world beyond his sight, waiting for the mysterious presence to return. He believed that even though he didn't know who it was, it knew who he was. He found himself constantly glancing over his shoulder, sensing that he was being watched. He felt like a coward rather than the best fighter in Edo. The presence had planted a seed of fear in him. Hirata felt the seed growing, feeding on his confusion, against his will.

What would happen the next time he encountered the presence?

There would be a next time, but when?

Gombei's voice brought Hirata back to Edo Jail and the investigation. "Honorable master, please believe me when I say that I am a decent, honest citizen who's never broken the law." He had the kind of earnest, charming manner that Hirata automatically distrusted. "Ask anyone who knows me. My family, my friends, my neighbors, my boss, they'll tell you that I'm-"

"Quite the talker," Hirata interrupted. "Well, let's talk about the little girl you kidnapped."

Amazement snapped Gombei's eyes wide. His full lips silently repeated the word kidnapped. "What little girl?"

"The one at Shinobazu Pond."

"With all due respect, I didn't do it." Gombei oozed earnestness. "I would never hurt a child. In fact, I would never even hurt a fly. Except if it's the biting kind."

"You were in the area," Hirata said. "A witness saw you."

"I've done work over there. A lot of people must have seen me. If I may say so, that doesn't mean I kidnapped somebody."

"I say you did. You kidnapped that girl, put her in a cage, and raped her."

"I didn't!" Gombei bristled with indignation.

He had a combative streak beneath his charm, Hirata observed. He wasn't as harmless as he took pains to appear. But Hirata couldn't discern more about the man. Preoccupation had weakened his mental energy.

"If I want a good time, I don't need to kidnap and force anybody, and besides, I don't go for children. I like women." Gombei's grin turned lecherous. "And they like me. I've got a wife, a mistress, and ladies all over town."

"Not even a big ladies' man like you can have whoever he wants," Hirata said. He couldn't summon the power to see through lies or manipulate Gombei into confessing. He must rely on verbal tactics. "What if you want somebody you can't get?"

"Pardon me, but I can't imagine who that might be."

"How about the chamberlain's cousin? She's a high-ranking samurai woman with a new baby. She was kidnapped, too." Hirata asked, "Do you like to drink mother's milk straight from the breast while you have sex?"

"What?" Disbelief and outrage lifted the pitch of Gombei's voice. "No, indeed."

"How about a sixty-year-old nun? Do you get a thrill out of raping holy women?"

Gombei sputtered. "With all due respect, only a man who's sick in the head would do such things."

"Like your friend?"

"You could save yourself a lot of trouble if you would just confess," Fukida told Jinshichi.

"And save us the trouble of torturing you," Marume said.

They both knew that Sano didn't approve of torture because it often produced false confessions.

"Go ahead," Jinshichi said, his eyes glittering with bravado. "Tell you right now, I say what you want, it's not true."

Today Sano would have been glad to make an exception for Jinshichi, but he had at least one other ploy to try. "Maybe you're right," he said, in such a quick about-face that Marume and Fukida looked at him in surprise. "Maybe you're not the culprit."

"Been telling you all along," Jinshichi said, half relieved, half wary of a trick.

"Maybe it's your friend," Sano said. "What's his name?"

"Gombei." The man sneered. "He didn't do it, either."

"Somebody did," Sano said. "Somebody's going to be punished. Right now my choice is him or you. Which is it going to be?"

"Not him. Not me," Jinshichi insisted. "Like I said, you got the wrong folks."

"Your friend is under interrogation as we speak," Sano said. "My chief retainer is asking him the same kind of questions that I've been asking you. What do you think he's saying?"

Jinshichi shrugged. "That we're both innocent."

"Don't be too sure about that," Sano said. "He puts the blame on you, he goes free."

"He wouldn't," Jinshichi said staunchly.

"Of course he would, if it means he lives and you die."

"You're trying to pit us against each other," Jinshichi said. "Won't work."

"I'm trying to help you see reason," Sano said. "Any moment, my chief retainer is going to walk in here and say that your friend turned on you. Then it will be too late for you to take advantage of the deal I'm offering."

Suspicion lowered Jinshichi's heavy brow. "What deal?"

"Be the first to turn. If your friend kidnapped and raped those women, you tell me everything you know about it, and I'll let you go."

Sano hoped this deal would induce Jinshichi to provide details about the crimes that would help him figure out which, if either, man had committed them. But Jinshichi squared his muscular shoulders and set his jaw.

"Forget it," he said. "Gombei didn't do it, and neither did I. That's the truth, no matter what you do to us."

"What about my friend?" Gombei asked Hirata.

"Maybe he likes little girls, nursing mothers, and old nuns," Hirata suggested.

Gombei chortled. "Oh, now that's ridiculous, if you'll pardon my saying so."

"What makes you so sure?"

"I've known Jinshichi forever. We're from the same neighborhood. He's not sick or crazy."

"People keep secrets even from their closest friends," Hirata said. "How do you know what goes on in Jinshichi's mind-or what he does in private?"

"I know he couldn't have kidnapped the girl or the nun. Because he was with me on the days they were taken." Gombei's grin broadened. The gaps where his teeth had rotted out were black holes.

Hirata had expected Gombei to trot out a double alibi. "Which days were those?" He hadn't said. If Gombei knew, that would mark him as the culprit.

"Every day," Gombei said. "We work together."

"There must have been times when you were out of each other's sight. I can ask your boss if he ever sent you to different jobs."

"Ask him, if you want," Gombei said with brazen nonchalance.

"Then again," Hirata said, "why should I bother? I can just ask Jinshichi. He's right down the hall."

"Go ahead. He'll tell you the same thing: We were together."

Hirata spied a new twist in the case. "Maybe you were in on the kidnapping together, too. That would have made it easier to grab the women and get them into the oxcart." But Sano's cousin Chiyo seemed to think she'd been raped by one man alone. "Did you take turns? He raped the little girl, you raped the nun?"

Anger erased the good cheer from Gombei's expression. "We didn't do it. I'll vouch for him. He'll vouch for me."

"You're pretty loyal to Jinshichi," Hirata observed.

"Yes, indeed," Gombei said. "Because I owe him my life. We were in the mountains, hauling wood, and my cart ran off the road. I was caught hanging by one hand over a cliff. Jinshichi pulled me up. He saved me."

"That explains why you would want to protect him. Why should he care about protecting you?" Hirata added, "He can say that you kidnapped and raped those women, and walk out of here a free man, while you go to the execution ground."

"He won't. Because he owes me, too. A while back, we went swimming in the river. He got swept away by a current. I saved him." So there, Gombei's expression said.

"Old obligations can be easily put aside when new circumstances arise," Hirata said. "You and Jinshichi each have a chance to tell tales on the other and save your own life. Who'll be the smart one?"

Gombei shook his head. "Jinshichi and I always stick together. We always will."

Hirata saw that they had a bond of loyalty as strong as that between a samurai and his master. What threat might change Gombei's story? "I give up, then. I'll let Jirocho decide which one of you is guilty or if both of you are."

Gombei's wary expression showed that he knew of the gangster boss. "What's Jirocho got to do with this?"

"The little girl who was kidnapped is his daughter."

"Well, I'll be," Gombei said, astonished. "Anybody who would touch anything that belonged to him is a fool."

"Indeed. He's looking to get revenge," Hirata said. "Maybe I'll turn you and your friend over to Jirocho. He'll get the truth out of you. Then he'll kill you both, no matter which of you actually raped his daughter and which of you was the accomplice."

Gombei's eyes sparkled with fear of what a gangster out for blood would do. But he shrugged, grinned, and said, "Whatever you want. We all have to die sometime."

Sano, Marume, and Fukida met Hirata outside the dungeon. Jailers escorted new prisoners into the building and led inmates out to go to the court of justice or the execution ground. No one looked happy-not the jailers, prisoners, or Sano's party.

"What did you get out of your suspect?" Sano asked Hirata.

"Gombei claims he's innocent," Hirata replied. "He also says he and Jinshichi are each other's alibi."

"Let me guess," Sano said. "He refused to turn on his friend."

"Right you are."

"So did my suspect." Frustration vexed Sano.

"Those men look like ordinary no-goods, but they're tougher than the rest," Marume commented.

Fukida asked Hirata, "Do you think yours is guilty?"

"Yes," Hirata said, although he seemed uncertain.

"Same here," Sano said. "But there's no evidence. All we have is one witness who saw Jinshichi lurking outside the convent, and one who saw Gombei at Shinobazu Pond."

"Neither man was placed at the scene of the kidnappings at the times they happened," Hirata reminded everyone.

"Or seen in the vicinity when the victims were dumped." Sano had had great hopes for solving the case today, but now the investigation had stalled. "And it doesn't look as if any confessions will be forthcoming."

"If you want confessions, just say the word," Hirata said.

Sano remembered that Hirata knew ways of inflicting pain with or without permanent physical damage. There wasn't a man on earth who could hold out. But Sano said, "No. I'm still opposed to torture. I know those men are guilty, but I won't act on my judgment, or yours, without proof to back it up."

That was part of his code of honor, which seemed particularly difficult to uphold today, when he wanted to punish someone for what had happened to Chiyo and the other women.

Hirata nodded. He shared Sano's principles, if not to the same degree.

"Besides," Sano said, "there's a chance that we're wrong about those men even though we don't think so. If that's the case, it would be a miscarriage of justice for Gombei and Jinshichi to die for the crimes while the real culprit goes free."

"Then we'll find proof." Hirata sounded just as determined to solve the case as Sano was. "Shall I go back to Shinobazu Pond and look for other witnesses?"

Fukida said, "Marume-san and I could sniff around Zj Temple district."

Sano supposed that he himself could go back to Asakusa, but there must be some other way to quicker results. Into his mind popped a strategy he'd never had reason to use before.

"Not just yet," Sano said. "I have another plan."

20

Along the Sumida River northwest of the castle, upstream from the ware houses and docks, stretched a wide embankment planted with cherry trees. It was popular in springtime, when the trees were in flower and the people of Edo flocked to picnic in the pavilions, drink in the teahouses along the path, float in pleasure boats on the river, and admire the pink blossoms.

But today the blossoms were long gone, the pavilions empty, the sky threatening more rain. The trees, in full summer leaf, shadowed the wet ground. Barges and ferries plied the river, which was brown and murky.

Yanagisawa and Yoritomo were among the few people strolling the embankment. They'd shed their rain capes and hats; they wore dark-colored silk robes without identifying crests. Their entourage waited behind them at a distance.

"What's the matter?" Yanagisawa asked.

"You look ill."

Yoritomo's handsome face was pale and sweating; his Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed convulsively. "I'm just nervous."

"Why?"

"I've never done this."

They were about to embark upon a rite of passage that Yanagisawa had never subjected his son to before. Yanagisawa wondered if he should have scheduled a few practice runs to put Yoritomo at ease. He hoped Yoritomo wouldn't make a bad impression.

"I don't know how to act," Yoritomo said, with shame, "I don't have much experience with women."

That was true. Yoritomo had been sheltered as a child, had lived in an isolated country villa with his mother. She was a distant cousin of the shogun, and Yoritomo the product of a brief liaison between her and Yanagisawa. During his boyhood, Yoritomo had encountered few women except her attendants. Later, his relationship with the shogun had precluded love affairs. Yanagisawa knew that Yoritomo had never experienced sex with a female, but that was, Yanagisawa hoped, about to change.

"Just be as respectful and dignified as you would on any other occasion," Yanagisawa said.

"All right," Yoritomo said, but Yanagisawa could see him trembling. Yanagisawa felt pity for his son, and guilt. Yoritomo's life had been far from normal, and Yanagisawa was largely to blame. "But what should I say?"

"Don't say anything unless somebody speaks to you. If you are spoken to, just try to sound like the polite, charming, intelligent person that you are."

Yoritomo squared his shoulders, bearing up under the weight of responsibility. "Yes, Father," he said bravely. "I promise I won't let you down."

Yanagisawa experienced a love for his son that was so strong his knees buckled. "I won't let you down, either."

Ahead, in the distance, three figures appeared. Yoritomo gulped and said, "Here they come!"

"Relax," Yanagisawa said. "Don't be afraid. We're in this together."

The figures drew closer. "Lady Setsu," emaciated and stern, and "Lady Chocho," her plump, babyish companion, walked on either side of a younger woman. She was unusually tall; she towered over them. They wore dark, modest, but sumptuous silk garments; she wore a robe patterned with green leaves and grasses in brighter tones, appropriate for a samurai lady who was some twenty-four years old. Yanagisawa thought her plain in the extreme. She was all awkward bones. Self-conscious about her height, she had bad posture. Her makeup didn't camouflage her beaked nose or heavy eyelids. Her one claim to beauty was her hair, dressed in a thick knot, shiny and lushly black.

"Greetings," Yanagisawa said as he and Yoritomo stopped face-to-face with the women.

"Why, hello!" Lady Chocho exclaimed. As bows were exchanged, she batted her eyes at Yanagisawa and giggled. "What a surprise to meet you here!"

"A wonderful coincidence," Yanagisawa agreed.

They had to act as if this were a chance encounter. That was the custom for a miai, the first meeting between a prospective bride and groom and their relatives. If one side didn't want to go any further, both sides could pretend the miai had never happened and save face.

Yanagisawa was determined to see this miai through to the marriage.

"What a fine place for walking on a day like this." Lady Setsu lifted the water-stained hem of her robe off the ground. "But I suppose the inconvenience couldn't be helped."

They'd had to pick a location with few people to observe them, where they would be unlikely to meet anyone they knew.

"Will you introduce me to your companion?" Yanagisawa said to Lady Setsu.

She was looking at Yoritomo. The right side of her face wore an involuntary, pained wince. The eye on the normal left side scrutinized Yoritomo closely as she said, "May I present the Honorable Tsuruhime."

The young woman stepped forward, graceless and shy. Eyes downcast, she murmured, "It is a privilege to make your acquaintance."

"And this must be your son." Lady Chocho minced over to Yoritomo, beheld him, and gasped. "You look just like your father! My, you're handsome!"

Yoritomo ducked his head, clearly mortified. Lady Chocho exclaimed, "Isn't that sweet, he's blushing!" She tittered and pinched his cheek. "Oh, your skin is so soft! Just like a baby's bottom! If I were younger, I would eat you up!"

Yoritomo cast a pleading glance at Yanagisawa, who sent him a look that warned him not to rebuff Lady Chocho or do anything else that would offend the women.

"Yes, this is my son Yoritomo," he said.

Lady Setsu's gaze registered shock as it moved from son to father. " 'Yoritomo'?" she repeated.

"Meet my daughter," Lady Chocho said, and pushed Tsuruhime at Yoritomo.

They bowed to one another. Tsuruhime wore a sad, resigned expression. Yoritomo regarded her with the look of a man who has come upon a snake that he knows will bite him and wonders if it's poisonous. Not one hint of attraction did Yanagisawa see. But attraction was unnecessary. Yoritomo and Tsuruhime would learn to love each other or not. Other considerations were more important in this marriage that Yanagisawa wanted.

"This boy is the one?" Lady Setsu said in disbelief. "Him?"

Yanagisawa realized that this miai wasn't going as well as he'd expected. He said, "Why don't we let our two young people go off by themselves and get acquainted." That was allowed by custom, as long as the prospective bride and groom remained within their chaperones' sight. "We can talk things over."

Yoritomo shot Yanagisawa a glance filled with panic. Yanagisawa nodded encouragingly at him. Yoritomo and Tsuruhime set off down a path through the cherry trees. She went meekly. Yanagisawa had seen happier faces than his son's on condemned men going to the execution ground.

Lady Chocho clasped her hand to her bosom and sighed. "Don't they make a lovely couple?"

"Can you really mean to marry him to my stepdaughter?" Lady Setsu stared with shock at Yanagisawa.

"That's why we're here," Yanagisawa said. Her reaction was far from flattering, but he hid the offense he felt. "What objection do you have to Tsuruhime marrying a son of mine?"

"I don't," Lady Chocho said, dimpling at him. "If you were to become my daughter's new father-in-law, I would get to see you all the time."

"No objection against your sons in general," Lady Setsu said, "just that one."

"Why?" Yanagisawa asked.

She laughed, a sour cackle. The muscles on the distorted side of her face tightened. "It should be obvious."

It was, and Yanagisawa knew that if he were in her position, he would feel the same disapproval, but he said, "This marriage is a matter of survival-for Tsuruhime as well as you and Lady Chocho and me and my son."

"Why not one of your other sons?" Lady Setsu said.

Yanagisawa didn't love them as much as he did Yoritomo. They were inferior in looks, and their personalities were less malleable; he couldn't control them the way he could his favorite son. Also, Yoritomo deserved compensation for being the shogun's male concubine. But these reasons wouldn't convince Lady Setsu; they didn't matter in the political scheme of things.

"Because Yoritomo has the right bloodline," Yanagisawa said. "The others don't."

Yoritomo's mother was a Tokugawa clan member, which made Yoritomo eligible for the succession, even though he was far down the list of candidates.

Lady Setsu beheld Yanagisawa with such astonishment that both her eyes opened wide. "So it's not just a rumor," she said. "You do intend for your son to be the next shogun."

Yanagisawa put his finger to his lips. Airing such an intention was dangerous. He glanced around to see if anyone was listening. He saw a few other people strolling the embankment, none close by. "If that happens, it would be the best protection you and your family could have."

Lady Setsu watched Yoritomo and Tsuruhime march grimly side by side along the river, not speaking to each other. "If they marry, it would certainly move your son up in the ranks of the succession," she said, her crisp voice turned acid.

"So we both stand to gain from their marriage," Yanagisawa said. "Perhaps you and yours have even more at stake than me and mine. Do you remember the story of Toyotomi Hideyoshi?"

Some hundred years ago, that famous general had aspired to rule Japan but died before achieving his goal. He'd left behind a wife, and a son who should have inherited his rank, his troops, and his chance to be shogun. But his former ally, Tokugawa Ieyasu, had wanted to eliminate the widow and heir and clear the way for his own rise to power. Ieyasu had besieged their castle in Osaka. Hideyoshi's widow and heir had committed suicide while the castle went up in flames.

"I know that story." Lady Setsu's voice had lost some of its crispness, and Yanagisawa knew he'd scored a point.

"I don't," Lady Chocho said. "How does it go?"

"I'll tell you later." Lady Setsu turned to Yanagisawa. "I suppose you would expect the marriage to be consummated?"

"Of course," Yanagisawa said, although he wasn't sure that Yoritomo was capable. "That's the only way to produce an heir, which is the best guarantee for our future."

"They would make such pretty babies," Lady Chocho said.

Lady Setsu shook her head. "Your audacity takes my breath away."

"Better audacious than dead," Yanagisawa said.

"When should we have the wedding?" Lady Chocho asked eagerly.

"Don't get excited," Lady Setsu snapped at her. "The matter is not settled yet."

"The dowry and other terms are negotiable, but this is the deal I'm offering," Yanagisawa said. "Yoritomo marries Tsuruhime. Take it or leave it."

Lady Setsu frowned, insulted by his peremptoriness. "I require some time to think."

"We have to order Tsuruhime's wedding clothes," Lady Chocho said.

"I'll expect your answer by tomorrow," Yanagisawa said.

From his perch high in a cherry tree, Masahiro watched Yanagisawa and the three ladies walk off in opposite directions. The ladies climbed into palanquins. Yanagisawa and Yoritomo passed directly under the tree where Masahiro was hiding. He could have spit on their heads!

Masahiro almost laughed out loud at the thought. They hadn't seemed to notice him following them from the castle or climbing the tree. If they'd seen him at all, they'd probably thought he was just a boy playing. He'd stowed his messenger's flag and pouch in his saddlebag along the way, and tied a blue cotton kerchief around his head. Now he watched Yanagisawa and Yoritomo mount their horses and prepared to follow them some more. He couldn't wait to tell Father and Mother what he'd seen. He hadn't heard anything, but watching Yanagisawa and the ladies was good detective work, wasn't it?

Masahiro scrambled down the tree and jumped to the ground. But as he hurried toward the pavilion where he'd tied his pony, a hand grabbed his arm. He yelped in surprise.

The hand belonged to a samurai who'd stepped out from behind another tree. His face, his tattered wicker hat, and his worn cotton kimono and leggings were dark with soaked-in grime. His other hand rested on the hilt of his long sword. Masahiro froze and went dumbstruck with terror.

This man was surely a rnin bandit who meant to rob him or kill him, or both.

"Not so fast, Masahiro-san," the rnin said.

Astonishment replaced some of Masahiro's fear. "How-how did you know my name?" The man was a stranger.

"I've seen you at your father's house," the rnin said in a flat voice that didn't match his scary appearance.

"You're a friend of Father's?" Masahiro dared to feel relief.

The skin around the rnin's eyes crinkled with amusement underneath the grime. "You could call me that."

Masahiro was suspicious and wary nonetheless. He tried to tug his arm free, but the rnin held on tight.

"I didn't know Father had friends who look like you," the boy said.

"Your father has all sorts of friends you don't know."

That remark didn't comfort Masahiro. "How did you recognize me?"

"I saw you leave the castle dressed as a messenger boy. A while later, I noticed you in a different outfit." The rnin flicked his finger against Masahiro's head kerchief. "I took a closer look, and I thought, 'That's Chamberlain Sano's son.' "

"Nobody was supposed to know." Masahiro was disappointed that his disguise hadn't been as good as he'd thought. "How did you?"

"You were riding the same black-and-white pony."

"Oh," Masahiro said, chagrined.

Suddenly he noticed that the rnin's fiercely slanted eyebrows were drawn on his face with charcoal, like those of actors in Kabuki plays. A thought struck Masahiro: He wasn't the only one wearing a disguise. And the rnin was better at noticing things than most people.

"Did you come to visit Father yesterday?" Masahiro asked.

"Yes…" Now the rnin looked startled, displeased, and amused all at once. "You were eavesdropping."

The rnin was the spy named Toda.

"But I don't recognize you," Masahiro said. "You look so different today."

"Well, that's the purpose of a disguise." Toda added, "I've learned a few more things besides those I inadvertently taught you. Here's one: When you're watching somebody, don't assume that nobody is watching you."

Toda had seen him following Yanagisawa. Masahiro felt foolish because he'd thought himself invisible and hadn't noticed Toda doing the same thing. Now Masahiro realized that Yanagisawa was getting away from them both.

"Excuse me," Masahiro said. "I have to go."

Toda restrained him. "Oh, no, you don't."

"But we're going to lose Yanagisawa!"

"What do you mean, 'we'?" Toda said with a sarcastic laugh. "I am the spy. You are just a child. I'm taking you home."

"But Yanagisawa-"

"No buts," Toda said, "and forget Yanagisawa. If I let you keep playing spy, and something should happen to you, your father would kill me. Come along now."

21

Sano returned to Edo Jail that afternoon with his cousin Chiyo and with Reiko. As he rode across the bridge over the canal that fronted the prison, the women followed in a palanquin. Major Kumazawa had insisted on coming along, and he trailed them with his troops and Sano's. The procession halted at the gate.

Inside the palanquin, Chiyo said, "I'm afraid."

"You'll be all right," Reiko said soothingly.

But she was worried about Chiyo, who seemed even frailer than yesterday. Shadows under her eyes bled through her white makeup. When she spoke, tears trembled in her voice. Under her brown silk kimono, her body was gaunt, hunched like an old woman's; she'd aged years overnight. Reiko didn't know how any woman could recover from kidnapping, rape, and the loss of her children. She was afraid that what Sano had asked Chiyo to do would make matters worse, even though Chiyo had willingly agreed to cooperate.

She heard horses' hooves clattering over the bridge. She looked out the window of the palanquin and saw Detectives Marume and Fukida ride up to Sano.

"Where is the nun?" Sano asked.

"She didn't want to come," Fukida said. "When we tried to take her out of the convent, she became upset."

" 'Upset' is putting it mildly," Marume said. "She cried and threw a fit. We thought we'd better just let her be."

"You did the right thing," Sano said, although Reiko could see that he was disappointed. "We'll manage without her."

"Am I the only one?" Chiyo said, alarmed.

Across the bridge came another procession: Hirata on horse back, accompanied by a few troops, escorting another palanquin. "No," Reiko said. "Here's one more."

The troops dismounted, reached into the palanquin, and pulled out Fumiko. Her kimono had new rips and new streaks of mud. Her face was bunched in a murderous scowl.

"She put up quite a fight, but we got her," Hirata said. Fumiko's hands were tied behind her back and her ankles loosely bound together with rope so that she could walk but not run. "I hated to do this, but otherwise she'd have gotten away."

Chiyo gasped. "Is that the girl who was kidnapped?"

"Yes," Reiko said. "Her name is Fumiko." She explained what had happened to the girl.

"The poor thing." As Chiyo beheld the girl, the misery on her own face was leavened by compassion.

"What are we waiting for?" demanded Major Kumazawa. "Let's get this over with."

Sano looked across the bridge and said, "We've got company."

Reiko saw a pudgy, gray-haired man with sagging jowls stalk up to Sano and Hirata. His sharp, gleaming eyes and the cruel curve of his lips brought to mind a hungry wolf. Three big, muscular fellows with tattoos accompanied him.

"It's Jirocho," Reiko said.

"Who is he?" Chiyo asked.

"A big gangster boss. He's also Fumiko's father."

"Papa!" Fumiko cried.

Her wild eyes lit with happiness. She stumbled toward him, hobbled by the rope around her ankles, and threw herself at Jirocho. He pushed her away as if she were a stranger who'd dared bump into him. He didn't even look at his child.

"Papa," Fumiko said, her voice broken by tears.

In the palanquin, Chiyo murmured in sympathy.

"Honorable Chamberlain. Ssakan Hirata. Good afternoon." Jirocho bowed in respectful yet perfunctory greeting. "I heard that you arrested the two kidnappers."

"You get news quicker than anybody else in Edo," Hirata said dryly. "But the men we arrested are only suspects at this point."

"What are you doing here?" Sano asked Jirocho. His manner was cool and calm, but Reiko sensed his anger at this man who'd broken the law many times and punished his daughter for a crime that wasn't her fault.

"I want to see the suspects," Jirocho said.

"Why?" Sano said. "So that you can kill them?"

Jirocho didn't answer, but his jowls tightened and his predatory eyes glittered. His men grouped around him, his wolf pack.

"Stay out of this," Sano said. "If they're guilty, I'll see that they're punished according to the law."

"Maybe I can help you figure out whether they're guilty," Jirocho said. "Maybe I know them. Maybe I've seen them hanging around my daughter."

Sano hesitated, and Reiko could feel him thinking that even though he distrusted the gangster, perhaps he needed Jirocho. He'd told her that the suspects had refused to confess and he had no evidence to prove their guilt. "All right," Sano said. "You can come with us. But keep quiet and don't interfere."

He signaled the prison guards, who opened the gate. He and Hirata led the way inside. As the women climbed out of their palanquin, Chiyo whispered to Reiko, "I don't know if I can bear this."

Reiko took Chiyo's cold, trembling hands in her own warm ones. "I'll be with you. We'll get through it together."

She'd been inside Edo Jail before, and she knew what a terrible place it was, but she didn't see much of it now. When she crossed the threshold, Sano, Major Kumazawa, and their troops closed protectively around her and Chiyo and Fumiko. On the walk through the prison compound, the men blocked Reiko's view of everything except the upper story of the dungeon. But she heard cries from the prisoners, and the stench was overpowering. Reiko and Chiyo held their sleeves over their noses. Fumiko growled under her breath, like a threatened animal. She kept looking over her shoulder for a glimpse of her father.

The group moved into a plain wooden building and down a passage. There were chambers furnished with desks, some occupied by samurai officials. Sano ushered Reiko, Chiyo, and Fumiko, Major Kumazawa, and Jirocho into a vacant room. Detectives Marume and Fukida followed. Sliding doors along one wall stood open to a veranda that overlooked a courtyard with gravel strewn on muddy earth around a fireproof store house with mossy plaster walls. Sano positioned a lattice screen across the doorway.

"Stand close to the screen," Sano told Chiyo and Fumiko. "Look outside."

Chiyo and Fumiko obeyed. Reiko stood between them. They peered through gaps in the lattice. Jirocho, Major Kumazawa, and Sano stationed themselves behind the women. Into the courtyard walked Hirata, escorting the two oxcart drivers. Hirata positioned the men side by side, near the veranda, facing the screen. Chiyo uttered a faint moan and recoiled.

"Don't be afraid," Sano said. "They can't see you."

Avid curiosity filled Reiko as she beheld the suspects. The big, muscular man looked at the ground, his heavy shoulders slumped, his low-browed face sullen. His comrade, slight and wiry, smoothed his long, disheveled hair and grinned nervously. Gaps from missing teeth were ugly black holes in his mouth. Reiko had seen many criminals, and her instincts told her that these men were of that breed.

"Do you recognize them?" Sano asked. "Be honest."

Chiyo gazed at the suspects. Her eyes shone with fearful fascination. "… I don't know."

"Well? Which one kidnapped you?" Jirocho barked at his daughter. These were the first words he'd spoken to her.

Fumiko turned to him, and Reiko could see on her face her longing to please him, to earn her way back home. She looked through the lattice and slowly pointed at the big man.

Reiko felt her breath catch. Behind her, Sano, Major Kumazawa, and Jirocho stirred. Fumiko's hand moved hesitantly sideways. Her finger pointed at the other suspect. Then she let her hand drop. She shrugged and frowned hard, as if trying not to cry.

"She doesn't know, either," Jirocho said in disgust.

Sano called, "Turn them around."

Hirata gestured his hand in a circular motion at the suspects. They rotated slowly, then faced the women again. Reiko looked from Chiyo to Fumiko. Their faces were devoid of recognition. She sensed their wish to identify their attackers vying with their duty to be honest.

"Maybe if we could get a closer look?" Chiyo murmured.

Sano gave the order. Hirata prodded the two men up the steps, onto the veranda. They stood close enough to touch. Reiko could see the pores in their tanned, weathered skin and smell their odor of urine, sweat, and oxen.

Fumiko shook her head. Chiyo shuddered, her nose and mouth muffled in her sleeve. "I'm sorry. I don't know if it was one of them or not."

The two men exchanged glances. They'd heard Chiyo. The slight one's grin broadened; the big one smirked.

Anger swelled in Reiko. If they were responsible for the kidnapping and rapes, she didn't want them to get away with it. She didn't want Chiyo and Fumiko to have suffered this ordeal for nothing. But what could she do?

A thought occurred to her. "Let us hear their voices," she said to Sano. "Make them say, 'Dearest mother, beloved mother,' and 'naughty girl.' "

Sano gave the order through the screen. "Dearest mother, beloved mother. Naughty girl," the big man said in a deep, thick, scratchy voice. The other man echoed him. Chiyo turned to Reiko in despair.

"I don't think it's either of them," she said. "They both sound too young."

"What do you think?" Reiko asked Fumiko.

The girl shook her head unhappily. Jirocho said, "Well, that's that." His face was grim; so were Sano's and Major Kumazawa's. The two suspects swaggered with glee.

"Have you ever seen them before?" Sano asked Jirocho and Major Kumazawa.

"No," they said.

Reiko tried to hide her own disappointment. She didn't want to make Chiyo and Fumiko feel worse.

Fumiko suddenly said, "Make them take off their clothes."

"What?" Jirocho said, incredulous. He grabbed her arm and yanked her around to face him. "What's the matter, didn't you get enough pleasure while you were kidnapped? Do you want some more men? You little whore!"

He raised his hand to strike her, but Sano shoved him toward the door and said, "I warned you. Get out!"

As Marume and Fukida led the gangster away, Fumiko whimpered, "Papa!" then, "I didn't mean it the way he said."

Chiyo moved to the girl's side. "I understand," Chiyo said, putting her arm around Fumiko. "You want to see if we can recognize the men's bodies. Isn't that right?"

To Reiko's surprise, Fumiko leaned into Chiyo's embrace as she nodded. Reiko saw a tenuous bond form between these two women from different worlds. They had experiences in common that no one else they knew could fully understand.

Sano ordered the suspects to undress. They dropped their garments onto the veranda. Major Kumazawa said to Chiyo, "You don't have to look."

Her expression was resigned. "Yes, Father, I must."

The men stood naked. The big man slouched, surly with embarrassment. The other's nervous grin took on a lascivious cast. His organ began to curve erect.

Reiko averted her eyes, sickened by a sudden, unpleasant memory. She'd seen naked men before-beggars on the streets, youths swimming in the river-but only once had she had such a close observation of any except her husband. That had been the man who'd called himself the Dragon King, who'd kidnapped and nearly raped her. Now she felt her heart race and nausea roil her stomach. She kept her gaze on Chiyo and Fumiko.

Chiyo frowned, pondered the men, and said unhappily, "I don't know. I'm sorry. I just can't remember."

Fumiko turned away, her face miserable with disappointment. "He had a big black mole," she said. "They don't."

It was true: Both suspects' penises were devoid of moles.

The big man guffawed and his friend tittered with relief. Fumiko ran out the door. Major Kumazawa said, "We've had enough," and left with Chiyo.

"Take them back to their cell," Sano told Hirata.

The suspects picked up their clothes, and Hirata marched them off. Sano turned to Reiko. "Well."

Sharing his frustration, Reiko voiced the thought on both their minds: "The real kidnapper is still at large. What if it's not one man but three? And how many more women will they hurt before they're caught?"

22

When Sano emerged from Edo Jail with Reiko, he heard screaming and weeping. Jirocho was planted outside the gate with Fumiko on the ground before him, her arms wrapped around his legs. "Papa, please don't be mad at me," she cried as she sobbed.

"Let go, you dirty little animal!" Jirocho shouted, trying to kick her away.

Chiyo stood near them, watching, her hands clasped under her chin. Beside her, Major Kumazawa said, "Let's go."

His face was stiff with disgust at the scene that Jirocho and Fumiko were making. But Chiyo didn't move. At the bridge waited Sano's troops, Jirocho's gangsters, and the palanquins and bearers that had brought the women to the jail. Prison guards peered out of the watch towers.

"Papa, why don't you love me anymore?" Fumiko wailed. "I didn't do anything wrong!"

"You couldn't identify the bastard," Jirocho said, his face purple with ugly rage. "Are you trying to protect him? Or have you had so many men that you can't remember what they look like?" He seized Fumiko by her hair, pulled her head up, and slapped her face. "Whore!"

"Stop that!" Sano commanded.

As he strode toward Jirocho, the gangster pried Fumiko's arms off his legs. "Papa, forgive me, I want to go home with you," she pleaded.

Jirocho beckoned his men. As they all stalked off, Jirocho threw Sano a baleful glance. Fumiko lay curled on the ground and wept. Even though Sano was furious at Jirocho for punishing the girl, he felt responsible for her suffering. If Sano had caught the culprit, maybe Jirocho would have been willing to reconcile with his daughter. A familiar guilt, heavy and sickening as a physical illness, plagued Sano. Another of his investigations hadn't produced quick enough results, and people had suffered.

Chiyo gently lifted Fumiko to her feet, held her, and murmured soothing words. "You can come home with me. Would you like that?"

Fumiko sobbed brokenheartedly, but she nodded. Major Kumazawa exclaimed, "She's not setting foot in my house!"

Chiyo responded with an obstinacy that matched his. "Yes she is, Father." For the first time Sano saw a family resemblance between them. Chiyo helped Fumiko into the palanquin. The bearers carried the women away.

"I'm glad Fumiko has someplace safe to live," Reiko said. "But it must be awful for her to realize that her father isn't going to take her back."

Sano thought of Akiko and couldn't understand how a man could treat his daughter in such fashion, but he'd never walked in Jirocho's shoes. "Maybe Fumiko and Chiyo will be good for each other," he said hopefully. One had lost her parent, the other her children. They might find solace together.

Major Kumazawa glared after the palanquin, then at Sano. "I don't like how your investigation is proceeding."

Sano didn't like how his uncle was speaking to him, and if Major Kumazawa were anyone else, Sano would put him in his place without hesitation. Yet Major Kumazawa was the father of a crime victim, and Sano felt guilty because he hadn't done better by his family.

"I warned you," Sano said. "No promises."

"You never warned me that my daughter would be dragged to Edo Jail to look at naked men. That's unheard of."

"One can't predict what will need to be done during an investigation," Sano said. "Having Chiyo view the suspects was the only way to determine whether I had her kidnapper."

"Well, it didn't work, did it?"

"I explained to you and Chiyo, beforehand, that either of those men could be guilty or not. And she wanted to come."

"And now I have to give room and board to a gangster's brat." Major Kumazawa laughed, a sour, rasping chuckle. "Asking you for help was a mistake. I should have known better than to expect anything good from a son of your mother."

The outright insult stung Sano and drew a gasp from Reiko. He heard Marume and Fukida grumble under their breath. His forbearance toward Major Kumazawa snapped.

"I should have known better than to help a man who's so small-minded that he values pride and convention above his own family." Sano tasted rage, hot as a fire in his throat. "My mother is fortunate that you cast her out. And so am I."

Major Kumazawa started as if Sano had hit him. His features swelled bloodred with fury as he absorbed the implication that Sano had risen higher than anyone brought up in the bosom of the clan. "How dare you-"

"I dare," Sano said, reminding his uncle that he was chamberlain, the shogun's second-in-command. He had another sudden flash of memory. He'd seen his uncle this angry before, on that long-ago occasion at the Kumazawa house. But he couldn't remember why Major Kumazawa had been angry then. "I suggest you improve your attitude toward me. Otherwise, you might find yourself serving the regime in a much lower capacity, far from Edo. Or maybe not serving at all."

Now the blood drained from Major Kumazawa's face: He understood that Sano had threatened to demote him or banish him from the regime to live in disgrace as a rnin unless he showed Sano due respect. Without a word, he turned, mounted his horse, and galloped across the bridge so fast that his troops had to hurry to catch up.

Sano's sense of victory was minimal; he felt as much depleted by the quarrel as angry at his uncle for goading him into showing off his power. Their relationship was going downhill as fast as his investigation was.

Reiko, Marume and Fukida, and Sano's other troops tactfully pretended that nothing had happened. No one spoke until Hirata came out of the jail.

"What do you want to do with the prisoners?" Hirata asked Sano. "Keep them locked up?"

Sano thought a moment, then said, "No. Let them go."

"Let them go?" Reiko regarded him with disbelief. "Even though Chiyo and Fumiko couldn't identify the suspects, don't you think those men are guilty? I do."

"Let them go, but have them watched," Sano clarified. "Do you have any detectives who are good at secret surveillance?"

"Yes," Hirata said. "I'll get them over here."

"If our suspects are guilty, maybe we can catch them in the act of another kidnapping," Sano said.

He looked at the clouded, darkening sky. The guards lit lanterns inside the turrets of the jail. Flames and smoke diffused in the moist air. Sano said to Reiko, "I'll take you home. We've had enough for one day."

Sano and Reiko arrived at their estate as the temple bells tolled the late hour of the boar. Stone lanterns glowed along the path to the mansion. The misty air vibrated with the sound of crickets and frogs in the garden, dogs barking and castle patrol guards calling to one another in the distance, and water trickling. Sano, Marume, Fukida, and the troops dismounted from their horses; Reiko climbed out of her palanquin. Sano's secretary called from the doorway, "Honorable Chamberlain, Toda Ikkyu is waiting to see you."

"Maybe our luck is about to change," Sano said.

He and Reiko went to the reception room. There, Toda knelt in the light from a metal filigree lantern suspended from the ceiling. Toda said, "I know this is a bit late for a call, but I thought it best not to wait."

"Have you brought some information?" Sano asked.

"Yes. I've also brought something that belongs to you."

Toda pointed to the corner, where Masahiro sat in the shadows. His expression combined chagrin and fright. His shoulders were hunched up to his ears, as if in expectation of a blow.

Reiko exclaimed, "Masahiro! Are you all right? Where have you been?"

"You'd better explain," Sano told Toda.

"I was spying on Yanagisawa today. Imagine my surprise when I caught your son doing the same thing."

Sano felt shock drop his mouth. Reiko gasped.

Toda smiled. "I doubted that you would approve. So I brought him home."

Sano strode over to Masahiro and crouched in front of him. "Is this true?"

Masahiro hung his head. "Yes, Father."

"You went outside the castle?" Reiko was aghast. "By yourself?" When Masahiro nodded sheepishly, she said, "You know you're not supposed to do that!"

Sano cut to the more serious issue. "Why on earth were you spying on Yanagisawa?"

Masahiro cringed from Sano's anger. "You wanted to know what he's doing. I wanted to help."

Sano could only shake his head, his mouth open but empty of words. Although he was furious at Masahiro for breaking a rule intended to keep him safe, and for taking such a risk, Sano couldn't bear to scold Masahiro. His son's wish to do him a good deed moved Sano almost to tears.

Reiko grabbed Masahiro by the front of his kimono and shook him so hard that his head bobbled. "How could you be so foolish? You know how dangerous Yanagisawa is!"

"He didn't even see me," Masahiro defended himself.

"Indeed he didn't," Toda said, amused. "Your son's disguise was pretty good."

"But what if he had?" Reiko demanded.

"Yanagisawa is the kind of man who assumes that anyone following him is an assassin," Sano told Masahiro. "If he'd seen you, he'd have killed you first and asked questions later. And that would have made your mother very, very unhappy."

"It certainly would have," Reiko said, "although right now I'm ready to kill you myself."

Masahiro sagged in capitulation and shame. "I'm sorry." Then he brightened and said, "I followed Yanagisawa and Yoritomo all the way to the river. I saw them meet three ladies."

"Oh?" Sano said, his interest caught even though he knew Masahiro was trying to barter information for forgiveness. "What did they do?"

"Don't encourage him," Reiko protested.

"Yanagisawa talked to the two old ladies," Masahiro answered eagerly. "Yoritomo went for a walk with the younger one. But I couldn't hear what they said."

"That's enough," Sano said. "Masahiro, you are never to spy on Yanagisawa or anybody else ever again. Do you understand?"

Masahiro sighed. "Yes, Father."

"Go to your room," Sano said. "You'll stay there until you realize what a reckless thing you did and I decide you can be trusted again."

As Masahiro rose to obey, Fukida and Marume appeared at the door. Sano said, "Organize a watch on my son. Make sure he doesn't leave his room."

"Why?" Marume asked. "Masahiro, have you been a bad boy?"

"I'm sure he'll tell you all about it," Reiko said as the detectives followed the glum, defeated Masahiro out of the reception chamber.

"I hope that will teach him a lesson," Toda said. "If it does, it might add a few years to his life."

Sano didn't want to discuss Masahiro's future with Toda. "Thank you for bringing him home," he said, then changed the subject. "Did you see the three ladies?"

"I did."

"Who were they?" Sano asked.

"I don't know," Toda said. "I've never seen them before."

"What were they doing with Yanagisawa and Yoritomo?"

"Sorry, I can't answer that question, either. They chose a place that had few people and lots of open space. I couldn't get close enough to eavesdrop. But it looked like a miai."

"It's reasonable that Yanagisawa would decide his son should marry," Reiko said to Sano. "Yoritomo is more than of age. Maybe the meeting had nothing to do with political schemes." She sounded more hopeful than convinced.

"Maybe not, but then why should Yanagisawa keep Yoritomo's marriage prospects under wraps? I'd have expected him to put out the word that he was looking for a wife for his son and send a go-between to solicit offers from important families. No-there's something fishy about that miai."

Sano turned to Toda. "Continue your surveillance on Yanagisawa. Find out who those ladies are and what Yanagisawa is trying to accomplish."

"I'll do my best," Toda said, then bowed and departed.

Alone with his wife, in the quiet of their home, Sano suddenly realized how exhausted he was from the day's endeavors and disappointments. Masahiro's escapade on top of everything else was entirely too much. Sano was also ravenous with hunger.

"Let's eat," he said, "then go to bed."

"That sounds wonderful," Reiko said. "Tomorrow should be a better day," Sano said. "We'll get another chance to catch the kidnapper. And what else could possibly go wrong?"

Morning thunder awakened Edo. Storm clouds obliterated

23

the sunrise. Rain swept the city, drenched people hurrying along streets whose ends vanished into streaming mist. Edo Castle wore a veil of showers that poured down from the sky, rendering the turrets and rooftops invisible from below.

Inside her chamber, Reiko opened the door that led to the garden. She frowned at the rain. Today's journey would be wet and uncomfortable, even more so for her palanquin bearers and guards than for herself. As she closed the door, Akiko toddled into the room and said, "Mama, no go."

Reiko sighed. Akiko often ignored her for days, and Reiko had to work to get her attention. But sometimes-invariably when Reiko had important business to take care of-Akiko couldn't live without her. Akiko had sharp instincts that warned her when Reiko was about to leave the house. Maybe she feared being abandoned again, and her bad timing was perfect.

"I'll be back before you know it," Reiko said as she knelt, hugged Akiko, and tried to soothe her.

Akiko clung and began to cry. Reiko finally had to call the nurse to peel Akiko off her. She left Akiko with a promise to bring her candy. The sound of Akiko's sobs followed her down the corridor. Motherhood and detective work were not always compatible. Reiko swallowed her guilt and went to look in on Masahiro.

He was in his room, practicing calligraphy, supervised by his tutor, guarded by one of Sano's soldiers. When Reiko put her head into the room, he barely glanced up from his work.

"I have an errand, then I'm going to visit your father's cousin," Reiko said. "Be good while I'm gone."

"Yes, Mother." Masahiro looked so unhappy about being confined to his quarters that Reiko felt sorry for him. But she had to uphold the law that Sano had laid down.

"Do you promise to stay home?" she asked.

Masahiro sighed with all the exasperation and impatience that nine-year-old boys could convey so well. "Yes, Mother."

Before Sano could resume his investigation, he had an important meeting with the shogun, Yanagisawa, and the Council of Elders.

In the main reception room in the palace, the shogun knelt on the dais. The mural at his back depicted lily pads and blossoms floating on a blue pond under a gilded sky. Charcoal braziers warmed away the dampness in the air. Sano and Yanagisawa shared the place of honor to the shogun's right. They scrupulously took turns sitting closest to him. Today the privilege was Sano's.

The elders-four old men who comprised Japan's highest governing body-knelt on the floor one level below the dais. A few lesser officials occupied the next, lower level. Secretaries sat at desks off to the side; guards stood along the walls. Everyone was flushed from the heat except the shogun. Although he was bundled up in a thick, bronze satin robe, his complexion had its usual waxen pallor. As Sano, Yanagisawa, and the elders discussed government affairs, he grew bored and restless. Sano could almost see the words going in one of his ears and out the other. When asked to approve decisions, he did so automatically, and the secretaries applied his signature seal to documents.

The assembly reached the final item on the agenda. "His Excellency's pilgrimage to Nikko Toshogu," announced the senior elder.

The Toshogu was a shrine in the city of Nikko, a two-day journey north of Edo, where the first Tokugawa shogun had been laid to rest. Now the shogun perked up.

"Ahh, I've been so looking forward to my trip." He normally preferred not to brave the discomforts of travel, but he was enjoying a rare spell of good health, and it had whetted his taste for adventure. "When would be an auspicious time for me to go?"

The elders didn't answer. Hands folded, expressions grave, they waited for someone else to deliver the bad news.

"Your Excellency, I regret to say that I must advise you against making the trip," Sano said.

"Oh?" Miffed, the shogun turned to Yanagisawa in hope of advice he liked better. "What do you say?"

At one time Yanagisawa would have contradicted Sano to gain points in their lord's favor. But now Yanagisawa said, "I must agree with Chamberlain Sano." The elders looked simultaneously relieved and disappointed. Sano suspected that they missed the excitement of political strife even though they appreciated the peace and quiet. "The trip isn't feasible."

The shogun regarded Sano and Yanagisawa with the hurt expression of a child bullied by his two best friends. "Why not, pray tell?"

Once, Yanagisawa would have let Sano say what the shogun didn't want to hear and suffer the consequences. Instead he explained, "A trip would involve a huge procession, with new ceremonial robes for you and everyone else, plus lodging and formal banquets. That's too expensive."

"How can it be?" the shogun said, puzzled. "I'm rich, I can afford anything I want." Uncertainty crept into his eyes. "Can't I?"

It was Sano's turn to acquaint his lord with reality. "There's not enough money in the treasury to pay for the trip and cover the regime's other expenses."

The shogun wavered between annoyance and dismay. "We've never had this, ahh, problem in the past."

The regime had been chronically short on funds during his rule, and his officials had often tried to tell him, but it never sank in. Ordinarily, Yanagisawa would have jumped at the chance to blame Sano for the shortfall. He'd have accused Sano of squandering and embezzling the money during Yanagisawa's absence. Sano could have accused Yanagisawa of both crimes, which Yanagisawa certainly had committed in the past. But Yanagisawa wasn't doing it now. Sano knew because he kept a close watch on the treasury. Why Yanagisawa now adhered strictly to the rules was a mystery to Sano. So was the reason Yanagisawa didn't seize the opportunity to make Sano look bad.

Sano studied his onetime foe, seeking clues, as Yanagisawa said, "The Tokugawa treasury has become depleted over the years. The cost of rebuilding Edo after the Great Fire-"

The shogun waved away the Great Fire as if it had been a minor inconve nience instead of a disaster that had killed over a hundred thousand people and laid the city to waste. "That was more than forty years ago!"

"There have been other heavy expenditures," Sano said. "You have many temples and shrines to maintain, as well as roads, bridges, and canals."

"Remember that you're supporting thousands of retainers, including the Tokugawa army," Yanagisawa said.

"Ahh." The shogun hunched his back, momentarily weighed down by the thought of his financial responsibilities. "Well, if I need more money, can't you make me some more?"

"It's not that easy," Sano said. "The yield from the gold and silver mines has been decreasing. We can't just mint more coins."

"Much of Japan's wealth has left the country with foreign traders who sell us goods from abroad," Yanagisawa added.

The shogun pouted. "Then why not just, ahh, debase the coinage again?"

That drastic measure had been undertaken six years ago, when coins had been collected, melted down, and alloyed with base metal to reduce their gold and silver content, thereby increasing the supply of currency.

"We can't do that too often," Sano said.

"It has the unfortunate side effect of raising the price of goods," Yanagisawa explained.

"Why should I care?" the shogun said, confused and vexed.

"Many citizens won't be able to afford food," Yanagisawa said. "There will be famine. You don't want that, do you?"

"No, but I still want to go to Nikko." The shogun's face took on the peevish expression that presaged a tantrum that would end with him threatening to execute Sano and Yanagisawa.

"The people need you to take care of them," Sano said. "That's your duty according to Confucius." The shogun was an enthusiast of the Chinese sage whose philosophy had strongly influenced Japa nese government. "Therefore, you must be frugal. As shogun, you're not just a dictator; you're virtually a god, with the power to be generous and merciful."

"I guess I am," the shogun said, preening at this glorified image of himself. In a tone lofty with self-sacrifice he said, "I shall postpone my trip for the sake of doing what's right."

Yanagisawa raised an eyebrow at Sano, suggesting that Sano had laid it on a bit thick, but he didn't complain. No one else in the room would look at them or anyone else. "That's admirable of you, Your Excellency. We must all bow to your superior judgment."

The shogun beamed. Everybody else relaxed. But his mood suddenly darkened. "What is this world coming to?" he lamented. "I'm running out of money. I'm so anxious about the future. When I die, what will become of my regime?"

"Don't worry, you're still young," Sano said. But the shogun's demise was something that everyone in the regime feared. When the reins of a dictatorship changed hands, so could the fate of everyone inside it change for the worse.

"The court astrologer says that the stars predict a long life for you," Yanagisawa said. Had the astrologer predicted anything else, he'd have been executed. And Yanagisawa knew as well as Sano did that they must calm the shogun down or anxiety could bring about another serious, perhaps fatal, illness.

"Everyone dies someday," the shogun said, refusing to be soothed. "And I seem, ahh, destined to go without an heir to carry on my bloodline!" This was a constant source of grief for him. "Ahh, how fate has worked against me."

No one dared point out that his own sexual preference for men had worked against his chances of fathering a son. "There's still time," Sano said, hiding his own doubt.

"Perhaps you could make a special prayer to the gods," Yanagisawa said.

The shogun flapped his hands at the idea. "Nothing I do seems to work. I established laws to protect animals, I build temples." Nobody dared suggest the direct, obvious solution to the problem. "And what good has it all done? My wife is an invalid." She was confined to the women's quarters and rarely seen. "My only son died." Rumor said that the boy, born by one of the palace concubines, wasn't the shogun's. "And my daughter doesn't seem likely to bear a child." The identity of her father was also a matter of speculation, although not in the shogun's hearing. "What have I done to deserve such misfortune?" the shogun wailed.

Before Sano or Yanagisawa could reply, his mood took another turn. "Perhaps it's not my fault. Perhaps I've done wrong because of bad advice from other people."

His glare accused everyone in the room, then focused on Sano and Yanagisawa.

"Chamberlain Yanagisawa has given you the wisest, soundest advice that anyone could," Sano hurried to say.

"So has Chamberlain Sano," said Yanagisawa. "He's devoted his life to your service."

"Oh?" The shogun narrowed his eyes at Sano. "Then what's this I hear about you investigating a crime that I never authorized you to investigate? The abduction of your uncle's daughter, I understand?"

Sano felt the bad wind of the shogun's pique blow harder in his direction. "It's a family matter. I assure you that it has not interfered with my duty to you." But the case had taken time away from his official duties, and the shogun was a jealous man. "May I ask how you heard about the investigation?"

"Yoritomo told me," the shogun said.

Sano glanced at Yanagisawa, who frowned as though genuinely dismayed by his son's actions. "My duty to you is my top priority," Sano assured the shogun. "Should you need anything, I'll drop whatever I'm doing and rush to your aid."

"So will I," Yanagisawa said. "Trust us, Your Excellency, and everything will be fine."

"Well…" The shogun vacillated, torn between the pleasure of indulging in hysterics and his liking for peace, passivity, and indolence. "All right. But if I decide that either of you has served me ill…"

He didn't need to complete the sentence. Everyone knew that the penalty for displeasing him was death by ritual suicide.

"Enough of all this business, I'm tired," he said. "This meeting is adjourned."

When Reiko climbed out of her palanquin in the Zj Temple district, Lieutenant Tanuma held an umbrella over her head to shield her from the rain. He opened the gate of Keiaiji Convent for her, and she lifted the hem of her robe as she walked through the wet garden in her high-soled sandals. The pine trees filled the air with their fresh, resinous scent; their heavy green boughs dripped. The abbess came out on the veranda to greet Reiko.

"May I see Tengu-in again?" Reiko said. "I'm hoping she'll be able to tell me more than she did yesterday."

Now that Chiyo and Fumiko had failed to identify either of the two suspects as their kidnapper, Sano had run out of leads. Questioning the nun one more time was the only way that Reiko could think of to help him.

The abbess's pleasant expression shifted into a frown of concern. "Tengu-in is weaker than when you saw her. Today she hasn't left her bed. I doubt she'll talk to you."

Reiko feared that her previous visit had caused Tengu-in's turn for the worse, but she said, "Please, I must try."

"Very well." The abbess sounded resigned; she knew she couldn't deny a request backed by Sano's authority.

Inside, the convent was quiet; the nuns and novices had left to pray in the temples or do charity work among the poor. The corridor down which Reiko walked was a dim tunnel that echoed with her footsteps and the patter of rain on the roof. Flies buzzed somewhere in the building. Reiko experienced a sudden stab of premonition.

She hastened toward the bedchamber. She ran through the door, breathless with sudden fright, and stopped.

The bed where Tengu-in had lain yesterday was empty, the quilt flung off the mattress. The buzzing was louder here. Reiko glanced around the chamber. She noticed a low wooden table placed in the middle of the floor. A tall, square wicker basket lay on its side near the table as if it had tumbled off. Reiko lifted her eyes above them and saw bare, withered feet dangling.

Her heart clenched; her breath caught as her gaze traveled upward and she discovered what had become of Tengu-in.

The nun's emaciated body, clad in its hemp robe, hung from the ceiling. The stout leather cord of her rosary was looped around her neck and tied to an exposed rafter. Tension had drawn the beads deep into her flesh, which was lividly bruised. Her head had fallen sideways; her face was bloated and purplish, the lips parted to reveal the swollen tongue caught between the teeth. Flies buzzed around the blood that trickled from her mouth.

A shrill scream blared. At first Reiko thought it was her own, involuntary reaction to the horrid spectacle of death. Then she turned and saw a young novice standing in the doorway, stricken by horror. The novice's face turned white, went blank. She swayed, then crumpled to the floor in a dead faint.

24

After their meeting with the shogun, Sano and Yanagisawa walked together, beneath the roof of an open corridor that joined two wings of the palace. Marume and Fukida trailed them. Silvery rain threaded down outside. The palace grounds were a blur of gray and green in which birds chirped, figures under umbrellas moved, and distant voices called.

"Another crisis averted," Yanagisawa said. "Good work, Sano-san."

"You, too," Sano said.

"In case you're wondering: I didn't put Yoritomo up to telling the shogun about your investigation. He did it on his own. My apologies."

Sano saw no sign that Yanagisawa was lying. And Yoritomo had reason to do him a bad turn without anyone else's urging. "I gladly accept your apology." What else could Sano do until he knew Yanagisawa's intentions? Sano wasn't afraid to strike first, but he would rather not maneuver in the dark.

"By the way," Yanagisawa said, "I heard about your clever experiment at Edo Jail yesterday. I'm sorry it didn't work."

"So am I." Once again Sano was impressed with how fast Yanagisawa received news. Now he saw a chance to fish for clues about the meeting that Toda and Masahiro witnessed. "Speaking of Yoritomo, I've tried to make amends to him for what happened last year, but he won't even talk to me."

"He's young, and the young take things too hard. Give him time," Yanagisawa said reasonably. "He'll get over it."

"Maybe he would be willing to let bygones be bygones if he had something new to think about." Sano hinted, "Maybe he needs a wife?"

Yanagisawa's calm expression didn't change, although he paused for an instant before he said casually, "I suppose Yoritomo will marry someday."

The space of that instant held everything Sano wanted to know, like a jar whose contents are hidden from view by its thick ceramic walls.

"Someday soon?" Sano prompted.

"Not in the foreseeable future. We're waiting for the right match."

Sano wondered if the young woman that Yanagisawa and Yoritomo had met yesterday had turned out not to be the right one. If so, which side had refused? Who was she? Sano could feel Yanagisawa wondering whether Sano had learned about the miai, although Yanagisawa didn't ask.

Another question occurred to Sano. "If Yoritomo were to marry, would the shogun mind?"

"Not at all," Yanagisawa said, perfectly matter-of-fact, perfectly at ease. "I've discussed it with His Excellency. He agrees that my son must carry on our family line, in keeping with tradition. His Excellency is fond of tradition. And as long as Yoritomo remains available to him, he has no objection to a marriage."

That was the custom for male lovers: Marriage for either or both didn't disrupt their relationship.

"When I make a match for Yoritomo, you'll be the first to know," Yanagisawa said. As they continued along the corridor, a group of officials approached them. Polite bows and greetings were exchanged. After the group passed, Yanagisawa said, "What's the next step in your investigation?"

Sano noted how skillfully and quickly Yanagisawa had changed the subject. Now he was sure that the miai was part of some plan that Yanagisawa wanted to hide. But he couldn't press the issue without revealing that he knew about the miai because he had Yanagisawa under surveillance.

"I'll keep looking for the kidnapper," Sano said.

They parted in mutual good cheer that was false on at least one side. As Marume and Fukida joined Sano, a servant from his estate came running toward them.

"Excuse me, Honorable Chamberlain," the servant said. "There's a message from Lady Reiko. She begs you to meet her at Keiaiji Convent right away. She says a nun is dead!"

When Sano, Hirata, Marume, and Fukida rode up to the convent, they found Reiko pacing the street outside the wall in a fever of anxiety while Lieutenant Tanuma hurried back and forth beside her with an umbrella.

"What happened?" Sano said as he and his men jumped off their horses.

"Tengu-in hanged herself." Reiko tried not to cry. "I found her."

Sano shook his head. The other men looked as appalled as he was. Had the nun been so distressed by the kidnapping and rape that she'd taken her own life? Sano was also dismayed that Reiko had been first on the scene.

"What were you doing here?" he asked.

"I wanted to see if she could tell me any more about the man who kidnapped her." Reiko spoke with sorrow and regret. "Now she never can."

Sano, Hirata, and the detectives strode into the convent; Reiko hurried to keep up with them. Sano said, "Where is Tengu-in's body?"

"Right where I found it," Reiko said. "I told her people to leave everything as it was until you came."

At least the death scene was intact, Sano thought.

The abbess, the novice that Sano had spoken to on his previous visit, and some nuns hovered in the corridor. The novice sobbed in the abbess's arms. "I only left her for a moment," she wailed. "I never thought she would do something like this."

The abbess shushed her. Everyone moved aside to let Sano pass. He and his group crossed the threshold of the bedchamber and gathered around Tengu-in's suspended corpse. Sano expelled his breath in a harsh sigh as they contemplated her limp body and her swollen, lifeless face that swarmed with flies.

"Are we sure this was suicide?" Marume asked.

That had been one of the questions on Sano's mind. He surveyed the room. "It looks as if she pushed the table under the rafter, but she couldn't reach the rafter because the table was too low."

Hirata continued Sano's reconstruction of the events that had led to the death. "So she fetched the basket, put it on top of the table, and climbed on it."

"I would have thought she was too weak to manage that. If only I'd gotten here sooner," Reiko said.

"The will to die can be stronger than the will to live," Hirata pointed out.

"That rosary belongs to her." Sano's gaze took in the leather cord that suspended Tengu-in from the ceiling, the brown jade beads now embedded in flesh, a holy object now profaned. "I saw her praying with it when I was here the first time." He pictured the frail old woman struggling to tie the rosary to the rafter and around her neck.

Hirata continued, "She kicked away the basket, and…"

He didn't need to finish the sentence. Everyone could imagine the basket tumbling to the floor, the rafter creaking under the sudden weight, the crack of Tengu-in's neck snapping, her body swinging.

Sano looked around the room, at the bed. "I don't see any signs of violence."

"I asked the abbess, the novice, and the nuns if they'd seen anyone inside the convent who didn't belong here," Reiko said. "They said no. And I don't think they did this."

"Then it was suicide," Sano concluded.

He'd considered the possibility that Tengu-in had been killed by the man who'd kidnapped her. That would have prevented her from ever revealing clues to his identity. Now Sano was as disturbed about her death as he would have been had it not been suicide. The suffering that the rapist had caused Tengu-in had led to her death.

"This isn't just a matter of kidnapping and rape anymore," Sano said grimly. "This is murder."

Hirata, Reiko, and the detectives nodded solemnly. Everyone knew that the investigation had just taken on more urgent importance. Sano thought of Chiyo and Fumiko, still suffering the consequences from the crimes. Would they choose suicide, too?

He gave the nun one last look, then said to Marume and Fukida, "Take her down."

Marume stepped up on the table. He gingerly supported Tengu-in's body while Fukida drew his sword and sliced through the rosary. Beads fell from the cut cord, pattered and rolled on the floor. Marume eased the nun down and laid her on the bed. Reiko pulled the quilt over her, and covered her face.

The abbess entered the room. "May we prepare her for her funeral?"

Her face was so drawn by grief that Sano hated to deny her request. "Not just yet," he said. "I'm sending her to Edo Morgue."

"Edo Morgue?" Surprise lifted the abbess's eyebrows to her shaved hairline. "But surely there's no need." Her voice expressed distaste for the morgue and offense that Sano would send a woman of Tengu-in's rank to a place mainly associated with dead commoners.

"She was a victim of a crime. Therefore, it's the law," Sano said. "Formalities must be observed."

He couldn't tell the abbess the real reason he wanted the nun's body sent to Edo Morgue. And she couldn't refuse. Her mouth tightened with displeasure, but she nodded. "When the formalities are done, will you send her home so that we can lay her properly to rest?"

"Yes," Sano said, although he might have to break his word.

Hired porters carried the nun's corpse on a litter to the morgue, which was located inside Edo Jail. Sano went there by a circuitous, less public route.

After sending Reiko home, he rode to her father's house in the official district near Edo Castle. Inside, he changed his silk garments for the plain cotton clothing he kept there for occasions when he wanted to travel incognito. Then he rode through the city on an oxcart with three convicted criminals. Escorted by troops who belonged to his father-in-law the magistrate, he climbed off the cart inside the gates of Edo Jail.

The troops led Sano past the dungeon to the morgue, a low building with a roof made of sparse, decomposing thatch. The damp weather had given the morgue a new film of green mold since Sano had last seen it, a touch of life in this squalid place.

Sano's arrival coincided with that of the porters bearing Tengu-in's body on the litter. Dr. Ito, custodian of the morgue, stepped out of the building. He was in his eighties, a tall man with thick white hair, his eyes shrewd above the high cheekbones of his narrow, ascetic face. He wore the traditional dark blue coat of his profession. The porters carried the litter into the building, then departed. The troops left to wait outside the jail until Sano was ready to be taken back to the magistrate's estate. As Dr. Ito recognized Sano, his bushy white eyebrows lifted in surprise.

"Greetings, Sano-san. I never expected to see you again."

It had been more than a year since they'd last met. Dr. Ito was a criminal, a former physician to the imperial family who'd been convicted of practicing foreign science he'd learned from Dutch traders. Exile was the usual punishment, but Dr. Ito had instead received a lifetime sentence as Edo Morgue's custodian. Here, he could conduct his studies and experiments on a never-ending supply of bodies. Sometimes he and Sano worked together. But Sano couldn't afford to let his friendship with Dr. Ito become known to more than a few trusted people. Associating with a criminal and collaborating in forbidden foreign science could land him in deep trouble.

"I need help with another investigation," Sano said, indicating the shrouded corpse on the litter.

"I'm glad to be of service," Dr. Ito said, "but how did you get here this time?"

Sano always took pains to conceal his identity and his clandestine visits to the morgue. As he explained, Dr. Ito shook his head in wonder; his face crinkled with amusement.

"Your ingenuity is beyond compare," Dr. Ito said. "Were you hit by any rocks?"

The public enjoyed stoning criminals on their way to jail. "A few," Sano admitted. "Luckily, they were small."

"I suppose that these times call for extreme measures."

Since Yanagisawa had returned to court, Sano had been especially careful not to do anything that could be construed as improper. Perhaps Yanagisawa was biding his time until he caught Sano in a misstep.

"Yanagisawa's spies will be wondering where I've gone and looking for me," Sano said. "We'd better get started."

"Right away."

Dr. Ito ushered Sano into the morgue. Its windows were open to admit fresh air, but the room smelled of decayed meat and blood. Sano greeted Dr. Ito's assistant, who was cleaning the stone trough used for washing corpses. Mura, a gray-haired man in his fifties, had a square face notable for its intelligence. He was an eta, a member of the hereditary class that was linked with death-related occupations such as butchering and leather tanning. Considered physically and spiritually contaminated, the eta were shunned by other citizens. But Mura and Dr. Ito had become friends across class lines. Mura did all the manual work associated with Dr. Ito's examinations. A man of few words, he stationed himself beside the body that lay under its gray shroud on one of the waist-high tables.

"Uncover the deceased," Dr. Ito said.

Mura drew back the cloth, revealing Tengu-in To Sano she looked shrunken, an effigy of herself, no longer human.

"A nun?" Dr. Ito asked, clued by the hemp robe she wore.

"From Keiaiji Convent," Sano said, then explained about the three kidnappings.

Dr. Ito moved closer to her, bent over her neck, and studied the reddish-purple ligature mark. "She appears to have been hanged." He peered at the round indentations along the mark. "With a rosary, I deduce. There are no fingerprints on her neck, and no wounds on her hands as there would be if she fought an attacker. I would say this was a suicide."

"That's what I thought," Sano said.

"But if it was, and if you know how she died, then why risk an examination?"

"Because I wasn't able to get any information from her about the man who kidnapped her, and neither was my wife. She was so distraught that she couldn't tell us. I'm hoping her body can."

"It's unlikely after all this time has passed since the kidnapping, but we shall see."

"Don't cut her unless it's absolutely necessary," Sano said. When he returned her body to the convent, he didn't want to face awkward questions about what had happened to it at Edo Morgue.

"We shall hope that a visual examination will suffice," Dr. Ito said. "Mura-san, remove her clothes."

Mura fetched a knife, carefully slit the nun's robe down the front, and peeled back the fabric. Naked, Tengu-in was a skeleton clothed in translucent white skin that the sun had never touched. Sano could see her rib cage, her joints, the blue tracery of her veins. Her breasts were small, flat, empty sacks, her stomach concave, her sex a cleft screened by gray pubic hair.

But he saw no trace of any foreign material on her, not even when Mura turned the body. Dr. Ito said, "Whatever the kidnapper might have left on her, it's gone."

Sano endured his inevitable disappointment. He offered a silent apology to Tengu-in, for subjecting her to further indignity, for nothing.

Mura positioned the body on its back. As Dr. Ito reinspected it, his gaze suddenly sharpened. "Wait. There may be something after all."

Hope rose anew in Sano. "What do you see?"

"Mura-san, open her legs," Dr. Ito said.

Mura obeyed, with difficulty: The body had begun to stiffen. Dr. Ito pointed between her legs, at ugly red sores on the withered lips of her sex. The white, raised centers of the sores were still moist with pus.

Sano stepped backward, revolted. "What is that?"

"A disease," Dr. Ito replied. "It's spread by sexual relations and common among prostitutes. But it's not often seen in nuns."

Nuns were supposed to be celibate, and by all accounts, Tengu-in had been a virtuous woman. "Then how-" Enlightenment struck. "She caught it from the rapist. He must have it, too."

"That is a logical explanation," Dr. Ito said. "It seems the examination was worthwhile after all. You've learned one fact about the man that you didn't know before."

"Yes. That's good." But Sano quickly realized what else the discovery meant. "He could have given the disease to his other victims."

"If it was the same man in all three cases," Dr. Ito said.

Sano thought of Chiyo, and Fumiko. Would they develop the disease? He found himself hoping that there were three different rapists, even though it would make his job harder.

"Is the disease curable?" he asked.

"Sometimes, with proper medicine." Then Dr. Ito added reluctantly, "Sometimes not."

25

When Sano returned to Edo Castle, one of the guards at the gate said, "Honorable Chamberlain, there's a message from Ssakan Hirata. He has important news, and he asks that you please call on him at his estate."

Hoping that this news was better than what he'd heard so far today, Sano went to the official quarter inside the castle. There, the shogun's chief retainers and highest officials lived in mansions surrounded by barracks with whitewashed walls decorated with geometrically patterned black tiles. Sano dismounted from his horse outside the estate that had once been his own, before he'd been promoted to chamberlain and given Hirata his old position. Hirata's sentries let Sano inside the familiar courtyard, through the inner gate. Sano had visited Hirata often enough that he usually felt little nostalgia upon seeing his former home. Today the mansion seemed smaller, like a shell he'd outgrown.

Sano went to the reception room, and Hirata joined him, bringing two young samurai. They were tall, strong specimens of the warrior class, with intelligence written in the poise of their bodies as well as in the set of their facial features. But they looked utterly miserable.

Hirata introduced them as Kurita and Konoe. "They're part of the team I assigned to watch the oxcart drivers."

A bad feeling rippled through Sano. The men fell on their knees before him and confessed, "We lost them."

They were clearly devastated because they'd failed in their duty. In truth, Sano didn't feel much better about the fact that his suspects had escaped.

"On behalf of my men and myself, I apologize." Hirata looked sober and humiliated because he'd let Sano down. "But I know that doesn't do much good."

Sano didn't berate his friend; that wouldn't do much good, either. "Just tell me what happened."

"The two drivers went to work at a bridge that's being built over a canal," Kurita said. "While we were keeping watch on them, the bridge collapsed."

"There were a lot of men on it," said Konoe. "They fell in the water. The beams and posts fell on top of them. There was so much confusion as people were running to rescue them that we lost sight of the drivers."

"When everything settled down, they were gone," Kurita said.

"Honorable Chamberlain, we've betrayed your trust and our master's," Konoe said. He blinked furiously, but tears ran down his high cheekbones. "We're ready to commit seppuku."

"No," Sano said, adamant. "I forbid it." That would be wasting two lives for one mishap that could have befallen anyone. Sano thought that too many good men adhered too strictly to the samurai code of honor and killed themselves, while too many bad men broke its rules and lived happily ever after. "The important thing is to find the suspects." He still believed they were connected with the kidnappings, and they were his only leads. "I need your help. Now is your chance to make up for your mistake."

"Yes, Honorable Chamberlain," the men said, chastened yet relieved.

Hirata gave Sano a grateful look, which Sano returned in kind. Hirata had once saved Sano's life at serious, almost fatal cost to himself. That alone would excuse Hirata for a million mistakes.

"Where shall we start hunting?" Hirata asked.

Sano cast his mind across the city, which was riddled with places for the oxcart drivers to hide. Conducting a street-by-street search and closing off the highways that led out of town would take too much time. Logic offered a better solution.

"In our suspects' home territory," Sano said.

Instead of going home, Reiko had her escorts take her to Major Kumazawa's estate, where she found Chiyo sitting in her chamber, combing Fumiko's hair. Fumiko wore a fresh white kimono printed with pale blue irises, and her face was clean; Chiyo must have given her a bath. She was actually a pretty girl. She sat quietly while Chiyo worked the tangles out of her hair. Reiko smiled at the scene, which appeared as classic and timeless as one in a painting. She was glad that Chiyo and Fumiko seemed to have found some peace.

Then they looked up at her, and the illusion of peace shattered. Chiyo's eyes were red and wet from crying. Fumiko regained the tense, furtive guise of a cornered animal. Neither of them had forgotten what had happened, not for a moment. Fumiko started to rise, primed to flee.

Chiyo said, "Don't be afraid, it's only Lady Reiko." She smiled, with a painful effort, and bowed. "Welcome. Your company does us an honor. Won't you join us?"

Reiko bowed, murmured her thanks, and sat. Chiyo offered refreshments, and after Reiko politely refused and then accepted, a servant brought tea and cakes. Reiko ate, finding herself surprisingly hungry after the terrible events of the morning. Fumiko wolfed down the food. Chiyo smiled indulgently and said, "She's always ready to eat."

She was making up for months of near-starvation, Reiko thought. "It's good of you to feed her."

Even when Chiyo smiled, the sadness never left her eyes. "Having her to take care of has done me good." Reiko knew she was thinking of her children. "What brings you here today? Is there news?"

"Yes, but I'm afraid it's bad." Reiko told Chiyo about the nun's suicide. She didn't want to disturb Chiyo, but neither did she want Chiyo to hear the story via gossip.

Chiyo looked saddened. "That poor woman. I shall pray for her spirit."

Fumiko didn't seem to care. Chewing the last cake, she started to wipe her mouth on her sleeve. Chiyo gently stopped her and handed her a napkin. Fumiko scowled, but she used the napkin, then carefully folded it. Reiko was pleased to see Chiyo teaching the girl manners. Maybe they would do Fumiko good in her uncertain future.

"Has anything else happened?" Chiyo asked.

Reiko sensed how eager Chiyo was to hear that the kidnapper had been caught and that life would somehow return to normal. She hated to disappoint her. "My husband is pursuing some inquiries." She couldn't tell Chiyo what Sano was doing at Edo Morgue; not even his family could know the secret. "Tengu-in's death may furnish new clues."

There came the sounds of heavy footsteps and male voices from the front of the house. Fumiko sat up straight, her ears perked. "It's my father!"

She jumped up and scurried out of the room.

"What can Jirocho be doing here?" Reiko said as she and Chiyo followed.

They went to the reception room, from which Jirocho's and Major Kumazawa's voices emanated. Fumiko would have rushed inside, but Chiyo held her back, gesturing her to be quiet. Reiko, Chiyo, and Fumiko cautiously peeked in the open door. Major Kumazawa was seated on the dais, Jirocho and his bodyguards on the floor below it. The women stepped back, so as not to be seen, and listened through the lattice-and-paper wall.

"Why have you come to call on me?" Major Kumazawa said in an unfriendly tone.

"Because you and I have common interests," Jirocho said, unruffled by Major Kumazawa's cold reception.

"What might those be?"

"We've both suffered insults to our clans."

"A mere coincidence. It doesn't justify relations between us."

"We have something else in common," Jirocho said. "Neither of us likes how Chamberlain Sano is conducting the investigation."

"That hardly makes us comrades." Sarcasm tinged Major Kumazawa's voice. "Why impose on me to talk about it? State your business."

"I'm here to make a proposition," Jirocho said. "We join forces and hunt down the kidnapper ourselves."

There was a short silence in which Reiko could sense Major Kumazawa's surprise. Major Kumazawa said, "I'm conducting my own search. Why would I want to cooperate with you?"

"Because you haven't managed to catch the bastard yet," Jirocho said.

"You haven't, either," Major Kumazawa retorted.

"True," Jirocho admitted. "I don't have enough men to search the whole city. Neither do you. But if we put our troops together, we can cover twice as much area without going over the same ground twice."

That would surely interfere with Sano's inquiries. Reiko shuddered at the idea of Jirocho's gang and Major Kumazawa's troops rampaging through the city, more avid for vengeance than for the truth.

Major Kumazawa said, "That's not a good enough reason. I know what you are, I know how you do business. Joining forces with you would bring me nothing but trouble."

It might well, Reiko thought. Jirocho said, "Before you refuse, listen to this. Have you ever wondered why you haven't been able to find out who kidnapped your daughter?"

"It's only been a few days since she was taken," Major Kumazawa said. "All I need is more time."

"Have you ever stopped to think that maybe you're not getting anywhere because there are places in the city that you don't know and people who won't talk to you?"

"I know the city like the palm of my own hand," Major Kumazawa said, growing more irritable. "I can go everyplace, make everybody talk."

"You're mistaken," Jirocho said evenly. "You high-ranking samurai live in your own little world. There are many people you never even see because they're careful to stay out of your way. People in my world, for instance."

Major Kumazawa laughed, a sound of pure, arrogant scorn. "Even if that's true, it's my problem. Why should you care?"

"Because I have the same problem. There are places that I can't go, and people who won't talk to me." Jirocho added, "People of your class."

Reiko risked another peek through the door. She saw Jirocho lean toward Major Kumazawa as he said, "It seems that there are two different kidnappers. One raped your daughter, the other, mine. What if the man you're hunting is a commoner who's hiding among other commoners, being protected by them? What if the man I'm hunting is a samurai that I can't go near?" His tone grew urgent, intense. "Alone, we're at a disadvantage. Together, we can get the vengeance we both want."

"Oh, I see what this is about. It's not that I can't get vengeance without you; it's that you can't without me." Disdain edged Major Kumazawa's words. "Your offer is an insult. This conversation is finished. Get out."

Jirocho didn't reply, but Reiko could feel his anger and frustration, like heat from a fire burning on the other side of the wall. She and Chiyo pulled Fumiko down the passage, lest they be caught eavesdropping. But as Jirocho and his men stalked out the door, Fumiko called, "Father."

His head turned; he saw her and halted. A strange expression came over his wolfish features. Fumiko didn't run to her father, even though every line in her body strained toward him; she hesitated like a dog whipped too often. Chiyo held her in a protective embrace. Jirocho swallowed; his jaw shifted. His gaze absorbed her new clothes, her clean face. His men looked at him, awaiting his reaction. Beneath his surprise, Reiko detected other emotions she couldn't identify.

Major Kumazawa appeared in the door of the reception room. Jirocho pointed at Fumiko and demanded, "What's she doing here?"

"She lives in this house now." Although Major Kumazawa was, as Reiko knew, far from happy with the arrangement, he seemed pleased to see Jirocho disconcerted.

"Why-how-?" The gangster's face went blank and stupid with incomprehension.

"My daughter insisted on taking her in," Major Kumazawa said. "Have you a problem with that?"

Jirocho didn't speak or move for a moment. Reiko, ignored by everyone, could feel him floundering in unfamiliar waters. It was unheard of for the child of a notorious gangster to be virtually adopted by a high samurai official, and the clash he'd just had with Major Kumazawa obviously didn't make Jirocho any more comfortable with the situation. Reiko watched Jirocho struggle to frame it in a way that made sense according to the laws of his world.

At last he blurted, "You stole my girl."

"You threw her out," Major Kumazawa reminded him. "Which means you haven't any right to object to my giving her a home. But if you want her back, you're welcome to take her."

Reiko felt Fumiko holding her breath, tense with hope. Chiyo hugged the girl close. From the instant Jirocho had first laid eyes on his daughter he hadn't taken his gaze off her, even while he spoke to Major Kumazawa. Now, without a word to her, he stalked away down the hall, his men following. Fumiko hid her face against Chiyo's shoulder and sobbed.

"I'll get my vengeance, and I'll do it without your help," Jirocho said over his shoulder to Major Kumazawa. "And I would wager my entire fortune that you'll never be able to do the same without mine."

26

The road to the oxcart stables led Sano, Hirata, and their entourage past poor tenements that clung to the outskirts of Edo like a dirty, ragged hem. It was twilight by the time Sano and his men arrived at the compound of wooden barns. The yard around them was muddy and trampled, pocked by hoof marks filled with rainwater. The area stank of urine and manure. The fenced and roofed enclosure for parking the carts was empty. Through the open doors of the barns Sano saw empty stalls and idle stable boys.

"I don't suppose our suspects are hanging around waiting to be caught," Sano said. "Their colleagues should be back soon, though. Maybe they can point us in the right direction."

A distant sound of clattering wheels vibrated through the dusk. It grew louder and nearer, punctuated by bellows. The streets around the stables disgorged oxen pulling carts, drivers aboard, returning home for the night. They converged on the stables like a slow, malodorous, and rackety invading legion.

"Divide and conquer," Sano told his men.

They circulated, asking the drivers if they knew the whereabouts of Jinshichi and Gombei. Drivers shook their heads. Finally, Sano's luck changed for the better.

"Jinshichi and Gombei, what a pair of good-for-nothings," said the eighth driver Sano questioned.

Naked except for a dirty loincloth, a rag tied over his head, and straw sandals on his feet, he had skin so tanned and leathery that one could have made a good saddle out of it. As he and his fellows parked their carts under the shelter, he spat on the ground in disgust.

"Why do you have such a poor opinion of Jinshichi and Gombei?" Sano asked.

"They're lazy," the driver said. "They show up late and keep everybody waiting." He unyoked his ox. Other carts racketed into their places in long rows; oxen bellowed and snorted. "Sometimes they leave before the work's done. Which means the rest of us have to haul extra loads. And for what?"

He spat again as he led his ox toward the stables and Sano followed. "No thanks from Jinshichi and Gombei. Lazy slobs!"

Sano was intrigued by this portrait of his suspects. "Where do they go when they're supposed to be at work?"

"Don't know. They keep it to themselves."

Maybe they went hunting and kidnapping women, Sano thought.

"The boss keeps threatening to fire them," the driver said.

"Why doesn't he?"

The driver pantomimed jingling a string of coins. "Where do they get the money to pay him off?"

"Your guess is as good as mine." The driver prodded his ox into a stall. "But they have more than the rest of us. They even brag about going to Yoshiwara."

The Yoshiwara pleasure quarter was too expensive for ordinary oxcart drivers. Sano began to entertain different ideas about the nature of the crimes he was investigating.

"Can you tell me where I might find them?"

"Sorry."

"Where do they live?"

"Same place as me." The driver pointed toward a street of tenements. "But I haven't seen them around there since yesterday."

Sano thanked the man. As he turned his horse to go, the driver said, "Wait, master. I just remembered something. A while back, I ran into Jinshichi and Gombei at a teahouse called the Drum. I was driving past as they were coming out. Not the kind of place I'd have expected to see them."

"Why not?"

"It's for high-class folks. I was surprised that Jinshichi and Gombei got in. I wondered what they were doing there."

So did Sano wonder.

The Drum Teahouse was located a block off the main street in the Nihonbashi merchant quarter, behind the popular dry goods store named Shirokiya. The shops around it were closed for the night, and no one was around except the watchmen guarding the gates at either end of the road. The teahouse occupied a building decorated with drum-shaped blue lanterns whose cold light reflected in the puddles and cast an eerie radiance into the darkening gloom.

Sano and Hirata left their troops and horses down the street. They entered the teahouse and found a spacious room lit by the blue light shining in through the paper windowpanes. Maids poured sake for the customers, all male, who sat on the floor. Along the walls were private enclosures with curtains drawn across the entrances. The dim light gleamed on the shaved crowns of samurai and the oiled, glossy hair of rich commoners. The blue lanterns colored the men's faces with a morbid glow. Conversation was quiet, minimal. Each man appeared to be alone.

The proprietor stepped out of the shadows. "Welcome, masters," he said with a low, obsequious bow to Sano and Hirata. His hushed voice brought to Sano's mind a lizard slithering under a rock. Dressed in a black robe, he had a narrow figure and a square-jawed head. His eyes had the feral gleam of a nocturnal animal; they didn't blink as they assessed Sano and Hirata. "Please allow me to make you comfortable."

He hustled them into an enclosure, fetched a sake decanter and cups, served Sano and Hirata, then drew the curtains. While they drank, he hovered.

Sano exchanged glances with Hirata: They both sensed something not right about the teahouse. The darkness, the quiet, the mix of samurai and commoners, and the lack of camaraderie were unusual, and there was an odd tension in the air. Sano wanted to know what was going on.

"Won't you join us?" he asked the proprietor.

"It would be an honor." The proprietor knelt beside Sano. As he refilled the cups, he murmured, "Might there be something else I can do for you?"

"There might," Sano said. "What have you to offer?"

"It depends."

"On what?" Hirata asked.

"On your particular situation."

The proprietor paused, waiting for Sano and Hirata to answer. They waited for a cue from him. His greed for their business triumphed over caution. He whispered, "Is there somebody who's making trouble for you? I can put you in contact with people who can teach him a lesson."

"What if there is somebody?" Sano said. "What would your people do?"

"It depends on what terms you're willing to meet," the proprietor said.

"How much to have him beaten up?" Hirata said.

"Fifty momme."

That was quite a bit of silver. Sano began to understand how Jinshichi and Gombei might have come by their extra cash. They were apparently among the proprietor's "people," which would explain their presence at a teahouse whose clientele normally didn't associate with low-class men like them.

"How much to eliminate somebody?" Sano asked.

"That would depend on who it was and how difficult it would be. But the price starts at a hundred koban."

It appeared that wealthy folks who didn't want to risk killing their own enemies somehow found their way to the Drum Teahouse, probably by discreet word of mouth. Samurai could kill commoners without punishment, but not one another; for merchants and other citizens, the penalty for any murder was death. The Drum offered a solution to their problems and kept the blood off their hands.

"I'm impressed with your ingenuity," Sano said.

"My humble thanks," the proprietor simpered.

"But you should be more careful whom you do business with," Sano said.

"Allow me to introduce the honorable Chamberlain Sano," said Hirata.

"Allow me to introduce my chief retainer, Hirata-san, the shogun's principal investigator," Sano said.

The proprietor blinked.

"Murder for hire is a crime," Sano said. "We're going to arrest you and put you in jail."

The proprietor lunged out of the enclosure as fast as a snake plunging down a hole. But Hirata was faster. He grabbed the man's arm. Yanked back into place, the man struggled until Hirata squeezed a tender spot between his muscles. He let out a bleat of pain and sank to his knees.

"I didn't mean it," he said with an anxious grin. "We don't really kill anybody. It was just a joke. Hah, hah."

"We'll see about that," Hirata said.

His fingers dug into the man's wrist. The proprietor stopped straining to break free. "I can't feel my arm. I can't move." He beheld Hirata with fright and shock. "What have you done to me?"

Hirata had pressed against nerves that controlled sensations and motion in the human body, Sano knew. Hirata said, "It's just a little trick I learned while walking in the woods one day. You run a murder-for-hire business, don't you?"

The proprietor's body sat as still as a corpse propped upright. Only his face was animated, by terror. "No!"

His gleaming eyes darted in search of help. But his soft voice didn't carry outside the enclosure, and nobody opened the curtain to see what was wrong.

"How do you like this?" Hirata changed his grip slightly.

Now the proprietor's eyes and mouth flared wide as Hirata constricted his lungs. "All right," he choked out. "It's true!"

"Kill him," Sano said, "and spare the bother of an execution."

"No! Please, don't!" The proprietor wheezed; his face turned bluer in the blue light. "Let me live, and I'll do anything you want!"

"Let's see if there's something we want that you can give us," Sano said. He usually pitied helpless people and disapproved of physical coercion, but not this time. "We're looking for two men, named Jinshichi and Gombei. Do they work for you?"

The proprietor's face twisted from side to side as he tried to shake his head and failed. Hirata pressed harder on his wrist, and his voice emerged in a strangled croak. "Yes."

"What do they do?" Sano asked.

Hirata eased his grip long enough for the proprietor to gulp a breath and say, "They get women. For men who want special things."

Now Sano understood Jinshichi and Gombei's sideline occupation and role in the kidnappings. Neither of the oxcart drivers had raped Chiyo, Fumiko, or Tengu-in; they'd procured the women for someone else. Someone who had sexual tastes that couldn't be satisfied in Edo's brothels.

"Was one of these women a nursing mother and another a nun?"

"I don't know who the women were," the proprietor said, then gasped because Hirata had compressed his nerves again. "No, I really don't, honest! All I did was set Jinshichi and Gombei up with my clients and take my share of the money. What they did after that was between them and the clients."

"Tell me the names of your clients," Sano said.

Fresh terror blazed in the proprietor's eyes. Sano could feel his body shaking inside, vibrating the floor, even though he was paralyzed. "I can't tell you. They'll kill me."

"If you don't tell us, I'll kill you," Hirata said.

The proprietor crumpled into a heap as if his bones had dissolved. Sano couldn't begin to imagine what spell Hirata had wrought. The proprietor lay limp, gasping with panic. From outside the enclosure came the voices of the maids, chatting among themselves, unaware that anything untoward was happening.

"All right," the proprietor said. "If you'll just let me go, I'll talk."

27

"You didn't let him go, did you?" Reiko said as she served Sano his dinner at home late that night.

"No, of course not." Sano had begun the story of what had happened at the teahouse. Now he hungrily ate raw mackerel laid on rice balls and dumplings stuffed with vegetables. "Hirata and I closed down the teahouse. We took the proprietor to Edo Jail. Later, I'll figure out exactly what crimes he's guilty of arranging and your father can put him on trial. I've put a watch on the Drum Teahouse, in case Jinshichi and Gombei should show up there."

"Who were the clients?" Reiko asked eagerly.

Before he answered, Sano looked through the open doors that led to other rooms, to see if Masahiro was listening. He'd resolved not to let his son hear any more conversations about detective work. He saw Masahiro exactly where he'd been when Sano arrived home-sitting in bed two rooms away, Akiko curled up beside him. Masahiro was reading his sister a story. Even though he'd spent the whole day indoors, being punished, he seemed contented enough.

"The clients are three individuals who'll be in big trouble if I find out that they touched my cousin," Sano said. "Gombei and Jinshichi did dirty work for some prominent men. I'm not personally acquainted with them, but I've heard of them all. One is a rice broker named Ogita."

"I've heard of him, too," Reiko said. "Doesn't he buy and sell rice from the shogun's family lands?"

"That's him. He's made a lot of money at it." Enough to pay for women to be kidnapped and delivered to him for his pleasure, Sano thought. "The second man is the official in charge of the shogun's dog kennels."

Due to the law that protected dogs, and the public nuisance they caused, the government had established kennels for the strays. Someone had to maintain the kennels, and that duty had fallen to Nanbu Bosai. He was a Tokugawa vassal from an old, respected clan. But good family connections didn't preclude twisted sexual tastes-or crime.

"Who is the third suspect?" Reiko asked.

"A priest named Joju," Sano said.

"The one who's famous for those rituals?"

Joju's unique, extraordinary rituals had captured the attention of the public, which was avid for new diversions. "The very one," Sano said. "But we don't know if any of the three men is responsible for the attacks."

He faced the disturbing possibility that Jinshichi and Gombei had kidnapped the women for other clients that the proprietor of the Drum Teahouse didn't know about. He recalled what he'd seen at Edo Morgue, and another disturbing possibility occurred to him. "Dr. Ito examined Tengu-in's body," he said, and told Reiko about the disease found on the nun.

"Oh, no." Clearly stricken by horror, Reiko voiced Sano's fear: "Does that mean Chiyo and Fumiko might have it, too?"

"Let's hope not," Sano said. "In the meantime, I intend to find out the truth about our suspects tomorrow."

"I must warn you that Jirocho isn't content to leave the investigation to you," Reiko said, and described the scene at Major Kumazawa's house.

Sano was glad his uncle had spurned the gangster's proposition that they join forces, but displeased by the thought of Jirocho running wild in pursuit of blood. "That's bad news," Sano said, "but I won't let Jirocho get in my way."

Hirata raced through the corridors of his mansion. His children stampeded after him, whooping and laughing. Their footsteps shook the floor. Hirata swerved around corners. Taeko and Tatsuo crashed into walls. Midori called from her chamber, "All this noise is giving me a headache!"

But her tone was fond, indulgent. Hirata knew she loved having him at home, romping with the children. He'd been gone for too much of their short lives, and he'd had to win back their love.

He ran ahead of them and darted into a room. Taeko and Tatsuo sped toward him in hot, uproarious pursuit. Hirata jumped out of the room and shouted, "Boo!"

They recoiled and screamed. Now he was chasing them. They all spilled out the door, down the steps into the dark garden. "Try to find us, Papa!" Taeko called.

She and her little brother ran off to hide. Hirata ambled after them. The wet grass soaked his socks. Fireflies glimmered. In their weak, fleeting light Hirata spotted Taeko behind a stone lantern and Tatsuo peeking around a pine tree. He pretended not to see the children, but they screamed when he came near them and bolted. They rustled so loudly through the grass that Hirata didn't need mystic martial arts powers to hear where they went.

Midori appeared on the veranda and called, "That's enough. Come inside. It's time for the children to go to bed."

Taeko and Tatsuo let out woeful cries and begged her to let them play a little longer.

A pulse of energy traveled through the darkness, through Hirata. His breath caught. His flesh rippled as he detected the same presence that he'd encountered at Shinobazu Pond. It was inside Edo Castle, somewhere nearby.

Hirata froze, listening with all his might. The peaceful night vibrated with howls and screeches beyond the range of normal hearing. He moved his gaze from side to side in an attempt to see the invisible threat. His pupils dilated. His vision expanded. The whole interior of Edo Castle, its buildings, streets, and passages, formed an image like a distorted map, composed of echoes and memory, around the periphery of his eyesight. He couldn't locate the presence, but he could feel the danger.

"Taeko! Tatsuo! Get in the house!" he shouted.

He sped toward his children, scooped up Taeko with one arm and Tatsuo with the other. Frightened by his alarm and his rough handling, they started to cry.

"What's wrong?" Midori said. "What are you doing?"

Hirata vaulted onto the veranda and threw the crying, screaming children in the door. He said to Midori, "You, too!"

"Have you gone mad?" she demanded. "What is it?"

"Someone's out to get me." Hirata stood between her and the threat, his arms flung wide to shield her. He gazed into the night, his heart pounding.

"Someone's always out to get you," Midori said. "That's the problem with being the man that everyone wants to beat. Why upset the children?"

"He's here," Hirata said.

"Where? I don't see anyone."

Hirata didn't, either, but the energy still pulsed with ominous power. "Just do as I told you: Go in the house!"

Determined to protect his family, cursing himself because he'd left his swords in the house and there was no time to fetch them, he started down the steps, his body his only weapon.

Midori followed him. "Why are you scared?" she asked. During his time away from home she'd developed a strong will of her own, and she often disregarded his orders. Furthermore, she wasn't quite convinced that her husband lived in dimensions she couldn't see. "You can defeat anybody. Besides, this estate is full of guards. Nobody can get in to hurt us."

Hirata raced in spirals through the garden. He felt like a cat chasing a string it couldn't see, while an unseen hand jerked the string this way and that, just out of reach. The pulse came from all directions and none. As he left the garden and barreled down a passage between buildings in his estate, Midori fell behind. He faintly heard her calling him to come back and calm down. He burst through a gate that led to the street outside the estate.

"Where are you?" he yelled. "Show yourself!"

The sounds of dogs barking and troops patrolling on horse back in the distance were his only answer. The street bordered by the walls of other estates was empty, serene under the moonlit clouds. But Hirata felt no peace.

His enemy had access to Edo Castle. Stone walls and the Tokugawa army hadn't kept him out. He could get close enough to attack Hirata whenever he wanted.

28

Day broke as Sano and Detectives Marume and Fukida and a few troops rode west out of town. The highway extended along a ridge, bypassing the temples of Zj district. Bells and gongs tolled. Distant pagodas rose into the humid air and disappeared into clouds edged with gold by the sun.

Sano and his entourage traversed the suburb of Kojimachi, which boasted factories where soybeans were fermented and processed into bean paste. The odor enveloped Sano like a salty, rotten tide. He and his men continued on to the farther suburb of Yotsuya.

He heard the Tokugawa dog kennel before it came into view.

The sound of the dogs barking and howling blared over the roofs of the shops and teahouses that lined the main road, the temples, and the estates that belonged to various daimyo and Tokugawa vassals.

"What a din!" Marume exclaimed. "How can anybody stand to live around here?"

The din grew louder as Sano and his men forged onward. The smell hit them as they reached the kennel. One of three maintained by the government, it was a huge compound enclosed by a stone wall, set between the city's outskirts and the farm houses, fields, and woodland beyond. It radiated an overwhelming stink of feces.

Marume held his nose. Sano tried not to breathe as he rode up to the unguarded gate. His troops entered first. As Sano followed with his detectives, the stench nauseated him and the barking deafened him. Some forty thousand dogs lived here, all strays picked up in the city, protected by the shogun's laws of compassion, kept fed, sheltered, and off the streets. A muddy yard surrounded rows of barracks, their doors open to reveal the dogs in cages inside.

A pack of loose dogs came bounding toward Sano. They were huge, some with shaggy brown or black fur, others sleek and blotched. They barked and growled as they charged. They all wore leather collars bristling with metal spikes. Their teeth were sharp in their snarling mouths. Their eyes blazed with intent to kill.

"Look out!" Fukida yelled.

Sano's and his men's horses shied, whinnied, and reared. A shrill whistle pierced the uproar. The dogs immediately retreated. They stood around Sano and his men, ears flat, growling deep in their throats. Four samurai strode across the yard toward Sano. Their trousers were tucked into high leather boots. They wore grins that said this wasn't the first time they'd loosed their dogs on visitors and they enjoyed the spectacle.

"Greetings," said the leader. About forty-five years old, with graying hair, he was short, but he had a broad build that he inflated by thrusting out his chest and stomach. He walked with his legs spread apart and his arms held away from his body, so that he took up as much space as possible. His eyes sparked with cunning and aggression under their heavy lids. His lips were thick and sensual, his jowls flaccid. He called to the dogs, who crowded around him, wagging their tails. He caressed their heads. "Scared you, didn't they?"

Sano took an immediate dislike to the man. "Nanbu Bosai, I presume?"

"That I am. And you are…?" Dismay appeared on Nanbu's face as he recognized Sano. "Honorable Chamberlain, if I'd known it was you, I wouldn't have set the dogs on you. A thousand apologies."

"Now who's scared?" Marume said with satisfaction.

Nanbu bowed. His three men, all younger than he but cut along the same brutish lines, followed suit. He said, "Welcome to my humble establishment."

Sano heard rancor beneath Nanbu's anxiety to please. The position Nanbu held came with disadvantages as well as a high stipend and respect from the shogun. Nanbu probably couldn't get the smell of the kennels out of his nose, and he was the shogun's chief dogcatcher. He and his assistants had to roam the streets of Edo and capture strays. The law forbade the public to jeer at the dogcatchers, but the law was often disobeyed. But Sano withheld his sympathy from the man. Nanbu might be responsible for Chiyo's kidnapping and rape.

"May I ask what brings you here?" Nanbu said. "Do you need some guard dogs?"

"Is that what you call them?" Sano looked askance at the animals.

"They're pretty good, if I do say so myself. They cornered you, didn't they?" Nanbu said, not quite in jest. "I train them and sell them. Lord Kii has some at his estate. So do plenty of other daimyo. All these dogs eat up a lot of food. Might as well put them to work."

"I don't want a guard dog," Sano said. "I came to talk to you."

"Me?" Nanbu pointed to his puffed-out chest. "To what do I owe the honor?"

To all appearances, he spoke with the surprise and pleasure of any official singled out for the chamberlain's attention.

"We have acquaintances in common," Sano said.

"Oh? May I ask who they are?"

"Jinshichi and Gombei."

Nanbu frowned, in mild confusion. "I'm sorry, but those names don't sound familiar."

Unconvinced that Nanbu didn't know the oxcart drivers, or that the man was innocent, Sano said, "The proprietor of the Drum Teahouse tells a different story."

"The Drum Teahouse?" Nanbu pondered. Sano couldn't tell if he was actually trying to remember the place or planning to teach the proprietor a lesson for informing on him. "He must be mistaken. I've never been there."

"He says Jinshichi and Gombei work for you."

Nanbu shrugged, unfazed. "He must have me mixed up with somebody else."

"I don't think so," Sano said. "I think you hired Jinshichi and Gombei to kidnap women for you to rape."

"Begging your pardon, but you're the one who's mistaken now!" Nanbu regarded Sano with shock that gave way to dawning comprehension and offense. "I heard that your cousin and some other women had been kidnapped and you were trying to find out who did it. And now you want to pin it on me."

His men's expressions turned hostile. His dogs sensed his animosity toward Sano. They barked and growled an ugly chorus of warning.

"With all due respect, I didn't do it," Nanbu declared.

Sano could have spent the day hurling accusations that Nanbu would refute, but he didn't like wasting time, and he was tired of the kennels' horrific smell.

"Fine," Sano said. "Then you won't mind submitting to an inspection by the women. We'll let them decide whether you're guilty."

"Fine," Nanbu echoed with a smug smile. "Whenever you want."

"You seem very sure that the women won't identify you as their attacker," Sano said.

"They won't," Nanbu said. "Because I'm not."

Maybe he was bluffing. Even if he were the rapist, he would know that the victims had been drugged or otherwise rendered unfit to have observed him well enough to recognize him again. But he couldn't know that they hadn't forgotten everything.

Sano decided to try another ploy. "Take your trousers off. Your loincloth, too."

"What?" Nanbu's lewd mouth dropped in surprise.

He and his men stared at Sano as if he'd gone mad. Detective Marume guffawed.

"Do it," Sano ordered.

Nanbu recovered, laughed, and said, "Does this mean you're interested in me, Honorable Chamberlain? I didn't know you liked men."

There was no stigma associated with manly love, and the remark didn't bother Sano. "I'm interested in finding out if you raped those women. One look at your private parts should do the trick."

"I'm not giving you a look." Nanbu seemed uneasy for the first time since the subject of the crimes had come up. His chest and stomach had deflated a bit and his arms hewed closer to his sides.

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want to."

"You should be glad to cooperate," Sano said. "This is your chance to exonerate yourself."

Nanbu folded his arms and glared. "I already told you I didn't do it." Sano saw sweat droplets on his forehead. "I give you my word, on my honor. I'm not taking off my clothes."

"Your word's not good enough," Sano said, "and I didn't ask you to undress, I ordered you to do it."

"Want us to help him out of his clothes?" Marume asked.

He and Fukida dismounted and advanced on Nanbu. Nanbu pursed his thick lips and whistled. The twelve dogs grouped around him in a tight, snarling huddle.

"You'll have to get past them," Nanbu said, "and you wouldn't dare."

He was right, as much as Sano hated to admit it. The dogs were a living wall around Nanbu, an army more fierce and loyal than any samurai troops. If Sano and his men tried to penetrate it, they would surely kill dogs in the process; and the shogun wouldn't excuse even Sano, his dear friend and trusted chamberlain, for harming a dog, not when he believed that his chances of getting an heir depended on protecting dogs and earning fortune's grace.

"You win for now," Sano said. He might have risked taking on Nanbu's dogs, if not for his family. If he couldn't talk his way out of the punishment later, Reiko and the children and his other relatives-including the Kumazawa clan-would share it. "But you're in trouble even if you didn't rape those women."

"What are you going to do, cut my head off?" Nanbu laughed recklessly. "You can't touch me. Now get out."

He advanced on Sano. The dogs moved with him, panting for a fight, a taste of blood. Sano and his men had no choice except to mount their horses and let Nanbu and the dogs herd them out the gate.

"What do you think you're going to do?" Sano said, almost angry enough to do something he would regret. "Barricade yourself inside the kennel?"

"That's right," Nanbu said. "If you try to get at me, you'll be the one in trouble."

"You can't hide behind your dogs forever," Sano said.

Nanbu responded by closing the gate in the faces of Sano and his men. Sano, Marume, and Fukida shared looks that brimmed with ire and frustration. Marume said, "That didn't go quite as well as we hoped."

"At least we know one thing we didn't before we came here," Sano said. "Nanbu is hiding something."

"Sores, or a mole?" Fukida wondered.

"That I don't know, but I'm sure he raped at least one of the women. I'm going to find out which."

"Even if he did, how are we going to get the bastard?" Marume said.

Sano told three of his troops, "Stay here and keep watch on Nanbu. If he comes out, arrest him. He won't get away with what he's done."

29

Masahiro meant to be a good boy.

While he ate his breakfast and studied with his tutor, he was serious and obedient. He was careful not to pout while Father's soldiers stood around guarding him as if he were a prisoner in jail. He wanted to convince Father and Mother that he'd learned his lesson, and they would surely ask his tutor and his guards whether he'd behaved himself. But now, as his tutor pointed out mistakes in the arithmetic test he'd just finished, Masahiro itched with frustration.

How he hated being cooped up inside the house! He wished Toda hadn't caught him yesterday. He wished that when he'd spied on Yanagisawa and the ladies he'd learned something so important that Father and Mother would have forgiven him. If only he could help them instead of staying home and doing nothing!

The arithmetic lesson ended. His teacher departed. Masahiro fidgeted while he waited for his reading tutor. The soldier on guard duty this morning was a young samurai named Hayashi, who looked as bored and restless as Masahiro was.

"How about if we play outside for a little while?" Hayashi suggested. "I won't tell your parents."

"All right," Masahiro said.

The words escaped before he could stop them. He couldn't take them back, could he? Because he didn't want to disappoint Hayashi. That was what Masahiro told himself as he followed Hayashi out the door.

The sky was gray and the day warm and humid. Masahiro ran across the garden, enjoying the squishy wetness of the grass that soaked his socks through his sandals. He batted at the low foliage on the trees and laughed as water droplets showered onto him. A teenaged garden boy stood on a ladder propped against the wall. He'd removed his short blue kimono and his floppy straw hat, which lay on a rock near the ladder. Clad only in a loincloth, he pruned the pine trees. Hayashi threw a ball to Masahiro. As they played catch, two young, pretty maids came out of the house, batted their eyes at Hayashi, and giggled. Hayashi dropped the ball and went over to talk to them. Masahiro was left alone. He watched the garden boy climb down the ladder and go off on some errand, leaving the ladder and his discarded clothes. Masahiro's heartbeat quickened; he moved toward the ladder.

Wouldn't it be fun to climb up so high?

First Masahiro picked up the clothes and wadded them under his arm. He didn't stop to think why. He mounted the ladder. The pungent, sharp-needled boughs of the pine tree concealed him from anyone below. When he reached the top rung of the ladder, he couldn't see over the wall because he was too short. He set the garden boy's clothes on the wall. While he grabbed the top of the wall in both hands and scrambled his way up, he heard Hayashi chatting with the maids. His feet bumped the ladder, which fell away from him and hit the ground with a soft thud. Horror filled Masahiro as he crouched atop the narrow wall and wondered how he was going to get back down.

"Masahiro! Where are you?" Hayashi called.

Startled, Masahiro lost his balance. He tried to steady himself, but his scrabbling hands found the garden boy's clothes instead of the wall's solid stone. His fingers slipped. He toppled off the wall and landed on his back in a pile of sand on the other side. The hat and kimono plopped onto his face. Masahiro lay, the breath knocked out of him, stunned.

He cautiously wiggled his body. Although the fall had jarred every bone in him, the sand had cushioned his landing, and nothing seemed broken. He flung the clothes off his face, looked up at the wall and the overhanging pine boughs. He heard Hayashi on the other side, saying, "Where did he go? Chamberlain Sano will kill me!"

Dread flooded Masahiro. When Father hears about this, he'll kill me, too. Father would never believe that he hadn't meant to climb over the wall, that he'd fallen off by accident.

Masahiro scrambled to his feet. He was in a passage that divided the mansion's grounds from the rest of the estate. The path between two stone walls had been dug up. The passage was empty except for the sand pile, a stack of new paving stones, and a wheelbarrow. Luckily for Masahiro, the workers had taken a break, or they'd have caught him. But he would be punished no matter what he did next.

Father and Mother would never let him outside again until he was grown up.

Then Masahiro saw a bright spot amid his troubles. Now that he'd escaped, he had another chance to be a detective. What did he have to lose?

He snatched up the garden boy's clothes, which he hadn't meant to steal but would certainly come in handy. Then he ran down the passage before Hayashi could figure out what had happened and come after him. Masahiro would make the most of his freedom. This time he would discover something so good that Father and Mother would be glad he'd broken the rules and he wouldn't feel guilty about his disobedience.

Masahiro didn't let himself think that he must have meant to escape all along.

Accompanied by his two top retainers, Hirata glanced over his shoulder as they rode through Kuramae-the area dubbed "In Front of the Shogun's Store houses," near the Sumida River. He thought he felt the now-familiar presence, but he wasn't sure.

He'd lain awake for most of the night, his senses straining to detect the slightest hint of his unknown foe. Several times he'd sat up in bed, his heart pounding. But nothing happened except that Midori had grown tired of being awakened. She'd flounced off to sleep in another room, telling Hirata that he was imagining things.

Maybe he had been.

Maybe he still was.

Kuramae was known for its many shops, and particularly for toys. Hirata and his men steered their horses around pedestrians in streets devoted to dolls, kites, fireworks, and Dagashiya-san-"cheap-sweet shops"-that sold candy and inexpensive trinkets. Wandering peddlers hawked kokeshi dolls, and blowfish whistles. Hirata didn't think of buying presents to surprise his children, as he might have another time. His mind manufactured threats where none existed. Every casual glance from a stranger, every movement or flare of emotion within the crowds, wound his nerves tighter.

He knew that was exactly what his enemy wanted.

The mind was a warrior's most formidable weapon. When it was strong and steady, it could win battles against opponents with better combat skills. An expert martial artist could influence the mind of his opponent by instilling such fear that the opponent became weak, helpless, and easily defeated. Hirata had often used this strategy, but now he was its target. He felt his confidence draining away, his spirit weakening. Although he usually liked to travel alone, today he'd brought Detectives Inoue and Arai. Their company didn't bring him a sense of security, however; indeed, his wish for protection made him feel more vulnerable.

He and the detectives turned onto Edo Street, the main road that led to the northern highway. On the right, between the road and the river, stood the shogun's rice ware houses. On the left side of the road were teahouses operated by fudasashi, merchants who delivered the rice to the shogun's retainers for a commission, then bought the excess and sold it at a profit. They also loaned money, another business that made them hugely wealthy.

Hirata dismounted outside the biggest teahouse, which bore the name "Ogita" carved on a discreet wooden placard by the door. Inside, male voices shouted numbers. Hirata and his men entered a room where a rice auction was in progress. Arms raised, waving frantically toward a dais at the back of the room, merchants called out bids. Hirata watched the man at the center of the dais.

Ogita paced, shouted, and gestured like an actor in a Kabuki theater. He wasn't more than average height, but he stood tall. His brown kimono, surcoat, and trousers were made of cotton, in accordance with the sumptuary laws that reserved silk for the samurai class, but his garments had the sheen of highest-quality fabric. His bald head and long, fleshy face shone, too-with grease from a rich diet. His eyes were narrow slits that glinted with intelligence and didn't miss a thing as they darted back and forth, spotting bidders. He wasn't fat, but he had a bulging double chin that seemed to amplify his voice as he repeated bids and demanded a better price. His energy aura was bigger and stronger than anyone else's; he dominated the crowd. But as he studied Edo's top rice broker, Hirata made a troubling discovery.

He was usually good at reading people, but his sleepless night and his state of distraction broke the concentration he needed to assess Ogita. His fear had begun to affect his work. How was he going to handle this interrogation?

The auction ended. Losing bidders left to try their luck at other houses. Ogita and the winners closed their deals by applying signature seals to contracts written up on the spot by his clerks. Servants poured ritual cups of sake. When the customers left, Hirata signaled his detectives to wait by the door while he approached Ogita.

He introduced himself, then said, "I'd like a word with you."

The slits of Ogita's eyes opened wider in surprise. "What about?"

"I'm investigating a series of crimes," Hirata said. "I need your assistance."

If Ogita was alarmed, Hirata couldn't tell. "I'm at your service." Ogita spread his hands in the gesture of a man who had much to give and nothing to withhold.

"Then you'll be happy to answer a few questions." Bereft of the extra sense that usually aided him during interrogations, Hirata fell back on standard detective procedure. He asked Ogita his whereabouts on the days that Chiyo, Fumiko, and the nun had been missing.

He'd expected Ogita to claim he couldn't remember details from so long ago, but Ogita called to a clerk: "Bring me my calendar."

The clerk fetched a clothbound book and handed it to Ogita. Ogita paged to the dates Hirata had mentioned and reeled off a list of activities that included rice auctions at his teahouse, business meetings around the city, banquets, his son's wedding, and drinking parties with customers, friends, and government officials. He smiled and asked, "Is that good enough?"

"That only accounts for your days," Hirata said. "What about your nights?"

"I was at home with my family and my bodyguards." Ogita added, "A man in my position has plenty of enemies, and I'm a target for thieves. My bodyguards stay near me wherever I am."

Hirata didn't doubt that they would confirm his alibi. "May I ask why you're so interested in my business?" Ogita spoke with mild curiosity, without the caution of a man who was guilty of crimes and threatened by the law. Hirata despaired because he couldn't discern whether Ogita's manner was an act or not. Used to relying on the powers gained from strenuous training and magic rituals, he felt as if he'd regressed to his days as a mere, ordinary human.

"Three women were kidnapped, held prisoner, and raped during those time periods," Hirata said.

"And you think I'm responsible?" Ogita's expression said he thought the idea was so absurd that he couldn't bother to be offended by it. "I am certainly not."

"You haven't asked who the women are," Hirata pointed out. He wasn't so distracted that he hadn't noticed the omission. "Maybe that's because you already know."

Ogita glanced at the ceiling long enough to convey scorn. "No, I don't know, but I suppose I should find out who's been slandering me. Who are they?"

Was Ogita pretending ignorance? Hirata only wished he knew that. "One is the gangster Jirocho's daughter. The second is a nun named Tengu-in. The third is Lady Chiyo, wife of Captain Okubo and cousin of Chamberlain Sano."

The rice broker's greasy face showed no recognition, except a frown at Sano's name. "Well, my condolences to them, but I never laid a hand on them. I don't even know them."

"You should be familiar with Lady Chiyo," Hirata said. "Her father is Major Kumazawa. He's in charge of guarding the ware houses that hold the rice you sell."

"I know him. Not his daughter."

Hirata couldn't have said whether he was lying or telling the truth. "She grew up in the Kumazawa clan's house, which isn't far from here. You must have seen her."

"Seen her, maybe. Anything else, no." Ogita made a negative, adamant, slashing gesture with his hand. Annoyance crept into his expression. "If I want a woman, I don't have to kidnap or rape one. Here, let me show you something."

Ogita stalked to the dais and spread out the rice contracts that lay upon a table. He jabbed his ink-stained finger at the huge sums written on the contracts. "With what I earned today, I could buy ten women for each day of the year, to do whatever I want. You can't really think I would stoop to kidnapping anybody, especially a relative of a man important to my business."

Hirata couldn't deny that Ogita had a point. But a man could become sexually obsessed with a particular woman who was beyond his reach, and none other would satisfy. "There's a witness to the effect that you did."

"Oh? Who?" Anger tightened Ogita's double chin.

Hirata explained about Jinshichi, Gombei, and the proprietor of the Drum Teahouse.

"Never heard of them," Ogita said. "But I'm not surprised that they've said bad things about me. People like to shoot arrows at the highest apples on the tree."

Hirata gazed at the contracts, disturbed because he'd hoped to bring Sano more than the expected denials from this suspect, and to make up for the fact that his men had lost the oxcart drivers.

"That's more money than you'll see in your lifetime," Ogita said crassly, mistaking Hirata's somber expression for envy. He lowered his voice. "I'm going to offer you a deal. You leave me out of your investigation, and I'll make it worth your while."

Hirata stared in disbelief. "Are you trying to bribe me?"

"Let's just call it a little private business arrangement." Ogita smiled. Nobody had offered Hirata a bribe since his police days. His longtime reputation for incorruptibility, and Sano's, were well known. "Forget it," Hirata said. "You can't stop me from investigating you by paying me off."

"Suit yourself." Ogita's smile persisted, but turned as menacing as a mouth carved in an armor face guard. "If you don't like that deal, then how about this one?

"Three of Chamberlain Sano's biggest allies owe me a lot of money. If you cause me any trouble, I'll call in their debts. They'll be ruined financially, and I'll make sure they know you're to blame. Think about where that will leave Chamberlain Sano."

The allies would surely withdraw their support from Sano. They would also try to influence the shogun to throw him out of the regime, and they would look for another leader.

Who would that be but Yanagisawa?

If three major allies defected from Sano, the balance of power would tip in Yanagisawa's favor, which could give Yanagisawa the impetus to resume his campaign to destroy Sano. Hirata faced a serious dilemma.

"Well?" Ogita said.

In his mind Hirata heard Sano's voice: I won't give in to blackmail. If I lose my allies and Yanagisawa makes his move, so be it. I'll take the risk for the sake of justice. Hirata admired Sano for his principles, but his own principles were different in this case. As Sano's chief retainer, Hirata was duty-bound to protect Sano even if it meant going against his wishes. He couldn't allow Ogita to make good on his threat.

As he vacillated, another thought confused the issue: Maybe Ogita wasn't responsible for the kidnappings or rapes. If so, Hirata would have put his master in jeopardy for nothing.

Hirata never knew what he would have said. Just then, the menacing pulse of energy vibrated through the air, striking him dumb. His whole body snapped to sudden, fearful attention. As his nerves began that ominous tingling and his blood raced, he forgot Ogita. His enemy was close at hand. Ears pricked and nostrils flared to catch the man's scent, Hirata silently vowed that this time he would find his enemy; this time they would fight, and he would win.

The pulse emanated from the teahouse's back room. Drawing his sword, Hirata advanced toward the curtained doorway.

"What are you doing?" Ogita said, puzzled.

Detective Arai said, "Hirata-san?"

Ignoring them, Hirata yanked the curtain aside. Beyond the doorway was a spacious room for parties. Two maids were rolling fresh tatami mats onto the floor. The pulse drew Hirata to another doorway. Ogita and the detectives followed.

"Is something wrong?" Detective Inoue said.

Hirata shushed him with a gesture of his hand. He peeked through the second curtain and saw a large, dim storeroom. Sake barrels were stacked in rows. Three servants unloaded more barrels from a handcart. Hirata slowly put one foot after another into the room. Screeches and howls resounded from other dimensions that impinged on his mind.

A bright flare of energy erupted from behind a row of barrels. Hirata lunged around them toward the energy. The servants yelled in fright, running for cover. Ogita cried, "Have you gone mad?"

Hirata slashed his sword at the place where he thought his enemy was hiding. But there was no one. His sword cut through a sake barrel. Pungent liquor spilled. Sensing the presence behind him, Hirata whirled, charged, and slashed. His blade cleaved more barrels. The space between the rows was vacant.

"Don't just stand there," Ogita said to the detectives. "Stop him before he wrecks my place!"

The detectives grabbed Hirata, but he threw them off. He kept attacking empty air. He didn't know whether he imagined feeling the energy or his foe had projected it toward him, a trick that only the most expert martial artists could manage.

Now the presence seemed to move outside the teahouse. Hirata rushed through the back door, into a yard where fireproof store houses with iron roofs stood. The daylight on their whitewashed walls struck his eyes. Blinded and reckless, he followed the pulsating energy down a path between the store houses. At the end of the path, cornered by a bamboo fence, stood a dark figure holding a sword.

Anticipation and a thirst for blood raged within Hirata. He rushed forward and swung his sword with all his strength.

His blade cut flesh and bone. A scream of agony pierced his ears, drowned out the noise in his mind. The pulsation stopped. The blindness and rage cleared from his vision. Triumphant and panting, Hirata sheathed his sword and looked down at the man he'd killed.

Crumpled on the earth lay a peasant boy not more than thirteen years old. His body was cut clean through across the middle. Viscera and blood pooled around him and a broom he'd dropped. His babyish face was frozen in an expression of terror.

Ogita and the detectives ran up behind Hirata. As they all stared at the carnage, Ogita exclaimed, "You killed my servant!"

It hadn't been his enemy he'd cornered, Hirata realized too late. It had been an innocent bystander. The sword Hirata had thought he'd seen was only the broom the boy had been holding.

"No!" Hirata cried. He knelt by the boy, patted his cheeks, and rubbed his hands in a frantic effort to revive him. But it was no use; not even a mystic martial arts expert could bring the dead boy back to life.

Hirata felt the pulse of his foe's energy, fading into the distance, like a taunt.

"You won't get away with this," Ogita said, loud with fury. "Even if you are the shogun's investigator, you'll pay!"

The detectives pulled Hirata to his feet, away from the dead boy. Inoue said, "Come on, Hirata-san, we'd better go."

As they led him out of the yard, Hirata realized that his troubles had just gone from bad to much worse. And that was exactly what his enemy had intended.

30

Across the Rygoku Bridge from Edo proper, along the Sumida River, spread the city's largest entertainment district. Buildings on either side of a broad, open space housed plays, freak shows, music, wild animal exhibits, and every imaginable sort of diversion. Vendors sold noodles, dumplings, and sweets at food-stalls. Adults stood under eaves and awnings, waiting for the rain to stop, but youngsters roamed, heedless of the weather. Children who worked in the district ran about on errands. Sons and daughters of merchants mingled with beggar children and a few samurai youths in a circle around a man juggling umbrellas.

Masahiro, dressed in the garden boy's kimono and hat, blended right in with the other children.

He was excited because he'd never been here alone. He would have liked to visit the arrow-shooting booth, but instead he watched Yanagisawa and Yoritomo.

They stood near the storytellers' hall, a building plastered with signs that advertised the stories scheduled to be told today. The wall by the entrance was studded with pegs for hanging up the patrons' shoes. Families queued up outside, at a booth where a man sold admissions.

Masahiro was glad that Yanagisawa and Yoritomo had traveled on foot from Edo Castle; otherwise he wouldn't have been able to keep up with them. They were dressed as troops from their own army, but Masahiro had recognized them and stayed on their trail. That wasn't the problem.

The problem was Toda Ikkyu, who must be around somewhere. Masahiro didn't want to be caught again. He'd stayed far, far behind Yanagisawa and Yoritomo, trying to spot Toda, the better to avoid him. But Masahiro hadn't found Toda yet. And he had the strange feeling that even if he came face-to-face with Toda, he wouldn't recognize the man. He couldn't remember what Toda looked like.

Here came a palanquin. The bearers were the same ones Masahiro had seen bring the three ladies to the riverbank. Edging closer to Yanagisawa and Yoritomo, he waited eagerly to see what would happen.

Yanagisawa and Yoritomo watched the bearers set down the palanquin outside the storytellers' hall. Yanagisawa glanced at his son's rigid, morose face and said, "Cheer up. In a moment you'll be engaged."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Yoritomo said.

Lady Setsu stepped out of the palanquin. She was alone. Yanagisawa knew immediately that something was wrong. She pretended not to see him. She and one of her escorts walked to the booth outside the hall. He paid her admission. She disappeared inside the building.

"Stay here," Yanagisawa told Yoritomo. He hurried after Lady Setsu.

Masahiro tried to figure out what to do. He had to go hear what Yanagisawa and the old lady said to each other, but he might run smack into Toda. Then what?

A peasant family with five children gathered at the booth. Masahiro joined them, hoping he looked like he belonged with them. He fingered a coin in the pouch that hung from a string at his waist. Samurai weren't supposed to carry money-they considered it disgraceful-but after he'd been kidnapped two autumns ago, Masahiro had learned to be prepared for emergencies.

A man cut in front of the family. Masahiro was annoyed, but he didn't say anything; he didn't want to draw attention to himself. Neither did the family speak up. The man wore the kind of fancy hat and clothes that Masahiro had seen on rich merchants, and he acted like somebody important. As he handed over his money, his sleeve rode up his arm. He had a large, brown, irregularly shaped freckle on the top of his wrist.

Masahiro frowned. Where had he seen that freckle before? He suddenly remembered. When Toda Ikkyu had grabbed him, while he'd struggled to break loose, he'd seen the mark on Toda's wrist. He'd forgotten about it… until now.

The man was Toda.

Inside the storytellers' hall, an old man on the stage recited the tale of the Battle of Sekigahara. He pantomimed mounted warriors swinging swords. He performed sound effects-the whinnying horses, the guns and cannons booming. The audience seated on the floor laughed and applauded.

Yanagisawa located Lady Setsu, knelt beside her, and asked, "Where is Lady Chocho? Where is Tsuruhime?"

Lady Setsu's face wore her usual sour, pained expression. The distortion on the right side was worse today, the muscles drawn tight. "They had other business."

Her excuse was unconvincing in the extreme. Yanagisawa said, "What other business could be more important than settling our future?"

A man sat down near Lady Setsu. He looked like a merchant. A peasant couple with six children came in and filled up the space beside Yanagisawa. It didn't matter if these nobodies overheard his conversation with Lady Setsu.

"Settling our future is what I have come to discuss with you," she said. "We need not involve Chocho or Tsuruhime."

Yanagisawa felt a portentous, sinking feeling in his stomach. "You've made your decision, then?"

"I have," Lady Setsu said. "I regret to inform you that we cannot accept your proposal."

Had the outcome been different, she'd have brought Lady Chocho and Tsuruhime, to negotiate the terms of the marriage and plan the wedding. Although she'd expressed doubts the last time they'd met, Yanagisawa was shocked nonetheless.

On the stage, the storyteller howled as he acted out the part of a fallen warrior stabbed through the heart.

Yanagisawa had always believed he could get whatever he wanted. Hadn't he risen from obscurity to become the shogun's second-in-command? Hadn't he survived defeat by Lord Matsudaira and exile to Hachijo Island, then returned as if from the dead? Now he felt as if he'd been climbing a mountain path and Lady Setsu had dropped a boulder from a cliff and blocked his way to the top.

The audience cheered, as if mocking his distress.

"Why not?" Yanagisawa demanded. "Why are you refusing?"

Lady Setsu looked down her dainty nose at his belligerence. "You know the reasons, even though you seem determined to ignore them. Chief among them is the fact that Tsuruhime is not free to enter upon this marriage. She is bound by a previous commitment, as you are certainly aware."

"That's a minor problem." Yanagisawa had to change Lady Setsu's mind. There was no use going to Lady Chocho. Lady Setsu had given him the impression that she and Lady Chocho had made the decision together, but of course they hadn't. She was in control. She was the one Yanagisawa needed to convince. "I can obtain a divorce for Tsuruhime."

Lady Setsu raised her left eyebrow in surprise at his audacity. Her right eyebrow was bunched in a spasm. "People will object."

"The fact that Tsuruhime is childless is a point in favor of a divorce. Would you like to wager that she'll be single by tomorrow?"

"I would wager that you would fly in the face of propriety and break every rule in order to have what you want." Offense wrinkled Lady Setsu's nose, as if she smelled something bad. "But you won't get away with it."

"Yes, I will." Yanagisawa would twist every arm necessary, call in every favor, move heaven and earth.

"Even if you do, a divorce won't remove all my misgivings," Lady Setsu retorted. "It won't change the fact that a marriage between Tsuruhime and Yoritomo would be tantamount to incest."

"Why? They're only distant relatives. People who are first cousins marry all the time."

"You know what I mean even if you pretend you don't," Lady Setsu said. "Considering who she is, and who he is-" Her emaciated body shuddered. "The more I think about it, the very idea of them together grows more repugnant."

Many might agree, but Yanagisawa said, "This is no time for squeamishness." He was losing his patience, his disappointment turning to anger. "All our lives are at stake. If we don't make this match, the troubles you'll have in the future will make incest seem like a blessing from the gods."

" 'Squeamishness'? Is that what you call my objection to such a vile, sinful disgrace?" Lady Setsu matched his anger with her own. "I call it honor, respect for tradition, and common decency. All of which you are completely lacking. And that brings me to the last reason why I reject your proposal. I don't trust you to do right by Tsuruhime, Lady Chocho, or myself. You are not a man to uphold his end of the bargain, should it become inconvenient. You would just as soon throw us to the wolves."

She rose. "We have nothing more to say to each other. My decision is final."

On the stage, the storyteller described and pantomimed the rite in which triumphant soldiers paraded the severed heads of their enemies to their lord. The audience cheered. The children beside Yanagisawa laughed. As Lady Setsu walked out of the room, he felt a rage so cataclysmic he could barely restrain himself from drawing his sword, running after her, and cutting her down the middle of her thin, self-righteous back.

When he left the storytellers' hall, Yoritomo was waiting for him. "Father, what happened?"

How could he tell his son that his plans had come to nothing? How could he bear to let Yoritomo down? Hands clenched into fists, jaw tight, Yanagisawa stood helpless and frustrated as he watched Lady Setsu ride off in her palanquin.

"You'll be sorry you disappointed me," he said as she disappeared. "I swear on my life, you'll be sorry."

Masahiro followed Yanagisawa, Yoritomo, and Toda back to Edo Castle. He watched them walk in the gate, then waited until they were safely inside. What a relief they hadn't noticed him! But he dreaded going home. He would be punished for sure.

Hayashi, the soldier who'd been supposed to guard him, rushed out the castle gate, looking desperate. Although he was afraid of what would happen when Hayashi saw him, Masahiro took pity on the man.

"Hayashi-san," he called.

"Young master!" Hayashi staggered with relief. "I've been looking all over for you. Thank the gods you're safe!" He hustled Masahiro past the sentries, who nodded and waved them through the gate. As they hurried along the passages, he said, "Where on earth have you been?"

"The Rygoku entertainment district," Masahiro said.

"You went all the way there by yourself?" Hayashi looked stunned, then forlorn. "I've been going crazy looking all over the castle for you. When your father finds out that you escaped during my watch, he'll kill me!"

Hayashi wasn't the only one Father would kill. Masahiro wondered how long he had to live. "Does anyone else know I've been gone?"

"No. I wanted to see if I could find you by myself first." Hayashi had obviously hoped to stay out of trouble. "And your parents aren't home yet."

"Then let's not tell anybody what happened."

"All right," Hayashi said, wiping sweat off his forehead. "It'll be our secret. Pull that hat over your face. I'll sneak you into your father's estate." He added grimly, "I hope your little trip was worthwhile, because the next one will be over my dead body."

But it hadn't been worthwhile, Masahiro thought unhappily. Although he'd heard everything that Yanagisawa and the old lady had said, he hadn't understood what it meant.

Father and Mother were right.

He was too young to be a detective.

31

The temple run by Joju the exorcist was recently built, in a spacious compound within Zj Temple district. Sano, Marume, and Fukida walked through a gate whose red columns gleamed with fresh lacquer. Inside the compound, the lavishly carved and painted pagoda rose above grounds lush with flowering shrubs. Crowds of people from all classes streamed in and out of the huge main worship hall.

A servant directed Sano and the detectives to a minor worship hall secluded by a grove of pine trees. Two men who looked like wrestlers disguised as monks guarded the door. They bowed curtly to Sano and his men.

"We want to see Joju," said Fukida.

"His honorable holiness can't be disturbed at the moment. He's conducting an exorcism."

"This is the Honorable Chamberlain Sano, and he disturbs whomever he wants when he wants," Marume said.

The monks stood aside. Sano and his men removed their shoes and entered the hall, a large, cool chamber that smelled powerfully of sweet incense. It was dark except for a single lamp burning at the far end, illuminating a tall man. His saffron robe, his brocade stole, his naked arms, and his shaved head gleamed as if he were made of gold. He seemed to float rather than stand. His face was obscured by the shadows that filled the chamber, whose walls and ceiling were draped in black cloth, but Sano figured he must be Joju. Hands pressed together under his chin, fingers pointing upward, Joju gazed silently at the floor. As Sano's eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, he saw other persons present.

One lay at Joju's feet. A second knelt nearby. They and the priest occupied a dais, elevated above the floor on which Sano and his men stood. Below the dais, huddled figures sat.

"Want me to stop the ritual?" Marume said quietly to Sano.

"No." Sano knelt behind the audience; his men followed suit. He was interested in what the ritual could tell him about the exorcist.

Joju addressed the figure that knelt by him. "What is your name?" His voice was hushed, but so deep and so resonant that it filled the chamber.

"Mankichi," the figure said in a voice that belonged to a man in his forties or fifties. "I'm a moneylender."

Fukida whispered, "That figures. You have to be rich to afford an exorcism performed by Joju."

Spirit possession was rampant all over Japan. People often attributed illnesses, mental problems, or bizarre behavior to evil spirits that had taken over their bodies. Exorcists enjoyed a flourishing trade, and Joju was in such demand that he could charge exorbitant prices for his rituals.

"Who is this you've brought me?" Joju asked.

"My wife," said the moneylender. "Her name is Onaru." The prone figure was a woman swaddled in a blanket. Her body squirmed like a caterpillar trying to break out of its cocoon. She whimpered and grunted. "She won't eat or sleep. She won't talk. She just makes those noises."

Onaru's head tossed from side to side. When it turned toward the lamp, Sano glimpsed her face. Her eyes were closed, her features sunken. From the audience came the muffled sound of a woman weeping and other people shushing her. They must be relatives of the couple.

"Do you think she's possessed?" the moneylender asked fearfully.

"Do you?" Fukida whispered to Marume.

"I guess we're going to find out," Marume whispered.

There had been a time when Sano had thought that most if not all people taken over by spirits were either faking or deluded. But then he'd gone to Ezogashima and witnessed an actual horrific case of possession that had changed his mind.

"We shall see," Joju said.

He knelt beside Onaru. His face came within the halo of brightness around the lamp's flame. He had features so perfect, so handsome, and so strongly masculine that he looked like an idealized vision of a man. Sano knew that Joju was well over forty, but in the dim light he seemed ageless. His large, deep-set eyes glowed with wisdom and compassion.

Joju held his hands over the woman, palms down, just above her body. He moved them slowly up and down her length, not touching her. The air between his hands and the woman shimmered. The smell of incense grew stronger, the air thick with smoke. An eerie feeling rippled through Sano. His eyes, throat, and head began to ache. The detectives stirred uneasily. Onaru moaned as if in pain.

"I feel the presence of not one, not two, but three spirits inside her," Joju said.

The audience murmured in consternation. The moneylender said, "Please, can you make them go away?"

"I will try," Joju said.

"This should be good," Marume whispered to Fukida.

Closing his eyes, reaching toward the woman, Joju intoned, "Oh, spirits within Onaru, speak to me."

An orange light flashed to the right of the dais. The audience murmured. The light went out. Its afterimage burned into Sano's vision, trailing streamers of smoke. A blue light, then a red, flared in different parts of the room, then disappeared. A primitive fear crept into Sano. The audience sat in frozen silence.

"I hear them," Joju said. "Honorable spirits, tell me who you are." He listened. "They say they have no names. They are children who died before they were born."

Amazement stirred the audience, even though everyone knew Joju was famous for communicating with the spirits of dead fetuses.

"Children, how did you die?" There was a pause; Joju frowned as if much disturbed. "They were murdered."

Horrified exclamations arose.

"Children, who was your mother?" Joju said.

Onaru gasped and groaned. She sounded as if his outstretched hands were extracting some physical substance from her body. A weird, tuneless music began. Hairs rose on Sano's nape. Fukida nudged Marume, who muttered under his breath.

"I can't hear you. Could you speak more clearly?" As Joju concentrated, the muscles of his face strained. "I'm getting a name. It sounds like ee, eh-"

"Emiko!" the moneylender cried in a voice filled with horror.

Joju opened his eyes and asked, "Do you know this woman?"

"She was a maid in my house."

Sano supposed that Joju could have made a lucky guess, and the moneylender had supplied the name. Furthermore, these exorcisms were booked months in advance, long enough for Joju to investigate his clients. But Sano had once communicated with a spirit himself. He knew the dead did speak.

"The children say you are their father," Joju told the moneylender. "They say that after you planted each of them inside Emiko, you sent her to an abortionist. He cut the children out of her womb. They suffered terribly, and during the third abortion, Emiko died."

As the family members gasped, another orange light flared above the dais, accompanied by a soft explosion. In its brightness appeared an image of fetuses. Their eyes were covered by lotus leaves, their bodies severed at the waist and dripping blood. Women in the audience screamed. Fukida and Marume cursed out loud. Revulsion gripped Sano.

The light went out. The gory image disappeared.

"Is it true?" Joju asked the moneylender. "Did you impregnate Emiko, then have her and her children destroyed?"

"Yes," the moneylender said, sobbing with terror and guilt. "I confess. I didn't want a pregnant maid around; my wife would be jealous. I didn't want the children. I didn't know what else to do!"

His story was a variation on a common tale. People succumbed to lust, begetting unwanted babies; married couples had children they couldn't support; prostitutes were impregnated by their customers. As a result, many infants were killed before or soon after birth, and abortionists had proliferated in Edo. The government forbade abortionists to advertise their services on signs outside their shops, but didn't outlaw them. The number of abandoned, homeless orphans was a big problem. And although Sano deplored this widespread practice of killing children, he conceded that sometimes abortion was the best solution.

Some women were raped. Would Chiyo and Fumiko be among those to discover themselves pregnant afterward? Sano hoped they wouldn't have to bear their rapists' children and compound their suffering.

"The souls of your unborn children are caught between the realms of the living and the dead," Joju said. "They have entered your wife's body. She is so weakened by their sorrow and loneliness that she may die."

"No!" the moneylender cried. "I beg you to save her!"

Joju raised his hands and moved them as if palpating an invisible object in the air. Concern darkened his handsome features. "I feel the presence of another spirit."

A rush like wings in flight whooshed over the assembly. Onaru let out a bone-chilling wail. Her family screamed. Sano felt something soft graze his head. As everyone ducked and gazed fearfully around the room, only Joju remained calm.

"It is Emiko," he said. "She is here."

"Look!" cried a woman in the audience. "Her ghost!"

She pointed at the ceiling. There hovered a black, translucent shape that rippled like a veil in the wind.

"Merciful gods," Marume said.

The moneylender threw himself facedown on the dais, his head shielded by his arms, and moaned. Joju lifted his palms to the ghost. "Emiko-san, why have you come?"

A low, thunderous sound quaked the room. Women in the audience shrieked; men muttered. Onaru wailed and thrashed.

"She's angry with you," Joju explained to the moneylender. "She wants revenge for her and her children's suffering and death. She has punished you by sending the children to haunt your wife."

Weeping hysterically, the moneylender said, "Make her stop them! Make her go away!"

The thunderous sound rumbled louder. The ghost fluttered with a noise like a monsoon whistling. "I cannot," Joju said regretfully. "Only you can."

"But how?"

"You must repent for your sins. She demands a sacrifice."

"Tell me what it is! I'll do anything she wants!"

Thunder boomed. Joju listened, then said, "You must donate a hundred koban to this temple, in order that I may continue helping those in need."

Sano knew that all exorcisms ended like this. The spirits all wanted money, and since they couldn't spend it, the money went to the priest.

The moneylender grabbed a box that had been lying near him in the shadows, opened it, and dumped shiny gold coins in front of Joju. "Here!"

Joju ignored the coins even as they cast glittering reflections onto his face. He addressed the ghost: "You have your wish. Now call your children to come out of this innocent woman." He gestured to Onaru. "You are free to depart to the spirit world, where you belong."

A burst of white light engulfed the ghost. Red, orange, and blue lights flickered. Onaru howled and writhed like a woman giving birth. Screams from the audience drowned in thunder and explosions that rocked the temple. Joju stood, hands spread and face lifted to the heavens, chanting prayers. Acrid smoke billowed while the weird, dissonant music played and Sano, Marume, and Fukida watched in awe.

Then the lights went out; the sounds and music faded. The silence hushed the assembly. Joju announced, "Emiko and the children are gone."

From behind the black curtains stepped monks carrying round white lanterns. Everyone blinked in the sudden brightness. Smoke tinged the air. The moneylender sat up and looked at his wife. "Onaru?"

She lay still and peaceful on the litter on which she'd been brought. "Husband," she murmured.

"Take her home and let her rest," Joju said. "She'll be fine."

The moneylender and the family bowed to Joju. All smiles, they carried the dazed Onaru out of the room.

"Was that real?" Fukida asked.

"I don't know." Marume sounded shaken out of his usual cheer. "But if they're happy, I'm happy."

Sano rose and walked toward Joju, who stood on the dais, hands clasped at his chest. He didn't seem surprised to see Sano; he must have been aware of Sano's presence all along. Perhaps those deep, glowing eyes could see in the dark.

"Welcome, Honorable Chamberlain," Joju said. "Although we've never been formally introduced, I know you by sight."

He didn't look as ageless now. The shadow of black stubble on his head receded far back on his scalp. Lines in his golden skin bracketed his mouth and webbed the skin at the corners of his eyes. His muscles had begun to sag. He also seemed tired from his exertions; he was bathed in sweat. But he descended from the dais with the agility of a young man, and he had an allure that transcended his physical being. He wore holiness as he did his glittering stole. Which caused Sano to distrust him more than he would the usual suspect.

"That was quite a show you put on," Sano said.

Wry humor upturned the corner of Joju's mouth. "I'll take that as a compliment. The salvation of souls can be quite dramatic, as you've just seen."

"Especially with a little help from opium in the incense and a few theatrics?" Sano said. No such theatrics had accompanied the phenomena he'd witnessed in Ezogashima. Sano had more than a hunch that Joju was a charlatan.

Joju laughed, the sound startlingly boisterous. "I see that you like rational explanations. Supposing I did employ the kind of trickery that you accuse me of: Why not, if it drives out the spirits and restores people to sanity?"

"Point taken," Sano said, "but possession by spirits isn't the cause of every illness. It may be rarer than it seems."

"Indeed not. Spirits are all around us, always seeking innocent victims to haunt." Joju opened his arms wide. "We all have the power to communicate with the spirit world, but few of us know how to use it. I am one of the few. I have dedicated my life to freeing humanity from evil spirits and laying them to peaceful rest."

He spoke as if he believed what he said. Perhaps he truly did. "At a handsome profit," Sano commented.

Irritation glinted in the black wells of Joju's eyes. "Not for myself. For my temple. For the benefit of the faithful who come to worship. May I ask why you're here? Perhaps you are in need of my services?"

"As a matter of fact, I am," Sano said.

"Oh?" Joju said, smug because he thought he had the advantage over Sano. "Who is in trouble?"

"My cousin," Sano said. "Her name is Chiyo."

Joju didn't react to the name, but he was clearly a man in control of how he appeared. "What are her symptoms?"

"She has nightmares," Sano said. Reiko had told him that.

"Nightmares are often caused by spirit possession."

"Not in this case," Sano said. "My cousin was recently kidnapped and raped. So was a twelve-year-old girl named Fumiko. I need your help with finding the person who did it."

"I'm sorry, but I don't know what use I could be," Joju said. He hadn't reacted to the mention of the crimes, or seemed to recognize Fumiko's name. "I'm not a policeman."

"You can speak to the spirits. Maybe they can give me some information."

"The spirits speak to me about themselves and their wishes. I can't interrogate them about matters that don't concern them." Joju remained courteous, but impatience tinged his voice.

"Never mind the spirits, then," Sano said. "You can help me in another way."

"How is that?"

"You can tell me about your relations with two oxcart drivers named Jinshichi and Gombei."

Joju looked confused, perturbed. Sano thought he'd finally hit his target, but then Joju said, "They transport supplies for the temple. Are they responsible for the crimes you mentioned?"