The Cloud Pavilion

"They're suspects." Sano wondered whether Joju's business with the drivers was as innocent as the priest claimed. If not, Joju might have denied knowing them. But he also might have realized that people had seen him with them and it was better not to lie. "Can you tell me where they are?"

"I'm afraid not. I haven't seen them in perhaps a month. If they turn up here, I'll be sure to let you know."

He walked toward the door, drawing Sano and the detectives with him, anxious for them to leave. Maybe Sano had hit him close to home after all.

"They're not the only suspects," Sano said. "Your name also came up in the course of my investigation."

"My name?" Joju's expression altered. Sano saw shock, and an emotion harder to interpret. "You can't believe that I kidnapped those two women."

"Three women," Sano said. "There was another-a nun from a convent near this very temple." Was that fear in Joju's eyes? "No, I don't believe you kidnapped them. I believe Jinshichi and Gombei did. They procure women for clients with special tastes. Are you one of those clients?"

"Of course not." Joju's expression shifted into outrage mingled with disdain. "When I became a priest, I vowed never to harm anyone. I also took a vow of celibacy."

"Vows can be broken."

"Not mine." Joju radiated sanctimoniousness. "The work I do requires me to be pure in mind, body, and soul. If I had committed those crimes, the spirits wouldn't speak to me."

Marume laughed. "That was one of the more original proofs of innocence we've ever been offered."

"It's not good enough. Let's see if you can come up with something based in this world." Sano asked the priest where he'd been during the periods when the women were missing.

"I can't recall exactly," Joju said, "but I was probably praying, conducting exorcisms, and fulfilling my other duties at the temple from sunrise to sundown."

"And after sundown?" Sano said.

"I sleep."

"Can anyone vouch for you?"

"The monks, the servants, and the other priests here. The people for whom I conducted exorcisms. I may have called on some government officials."

"I'll need a list of everyone," Sano said.

"I'll gladly provide it. I'll also provide you a list of good character references." Joju said with a sly smile, "The shogun will be at the top of that list. Are you aware that His Excellency is my patron?"

"I am." Sano knew the shogun was enthusiastic about religion in general and mysticism in particular. But now Sano realized that the shogun's patronage of Joju threatened to complicate his investigation.

The shogun was often more loyal to his favorite priests than to his top retainers. In a conflict between Sano and Joju, whose side would he take?

Joju uttered his boisterous laugh. "Then I needn't warn you to think before you persecute me."

32

Sano returned to Edo Castle after dark, when the night watch patrol guards roamed the passages with torches that smoldered and hissed in the moist evening air. Thunder murmured. As Sano and his entourage dismounted at his gate, Hirata rode up. One look at his friend's face warned Sano that things hadn't gone well for Hirata either.

In his office, Sano poured sake for himself and Hirata. "Any news?" Sano asked.

"My men and I spent the day looking for the oxcart drivers, but we haven't found them yet," Hirata said.

That was bad enough, but Sano could tell it wasn't the worst problem Hirata had to report. "What happened with Ogita?"

"He says he's not guilty. He has alibis." Hirata described his interview with the rice broker.

"We expected as much," Sano said. "Did you check those alibis?"

Hirata hesitated, then said, "No."

"Why not?" Sano asked, surprised.

"Ogita has three of your top allies deeply in debt to him. He said he would call in their debts unless I left him alone."

This was a serious threat with potentially dire political consequences, but Sano insisted, "I won't be stopped by blackmail."

"I knew you would say that," Hirata said, "but as your chief retainer, I must advise you to be careful with Ogita. Besides, maybe he's innocent. I propose that we concentrate on the other suspects first."

"That may be a problem, too," Sano said, and told Hirata about his encounters with the other suspects. "Nanbu is still barricaded inside the kennel with his dogs and refusing to talk. And unless I leave Joju alone, I could find myself in trouble with the shogun."

"That is a problem," Hirata agreed. "I must remind you that your ultimate duty is to the shogun, not your cousin or your uncle. Think of what His Excellency will do if you displease him."

Sano didn't have to think. The shogun had threatened him and his family with death often enough. "There must be a way to do right by the shogun and finish this investigation."

"Until we figure it out, we have three suspects we can't touch," Hirata said.

"I did do some discreet inquiries," Sano said. After a long day of meetings at the palace, he'd spent hours tracing Nanbu's and Joju's movements. "I didn't find any evidence to prove that Nanbu and Joju aren't the upstanding citizens they claim to be." Already exhausted, Sano sensed that the day's story of bad luck wasn't over yet. "Have you any more news?"

Hirata bowed his head. "The other day, while I was at Ueno Pond…"

He described how a mysterious stranger had begun stalking him, had later invaded his estate, and had shown up while he'd been interviewing Ogita. As he confessed that he'd killed Ogita's servant, Sano listened in dismay, and not only because of the innocent life destroyed.

"Whoever's stalking you, he has the power to manipulate people against their will, to make them do things they ordinarily wouldn't," Sano said. "You're in extreme danger."

"That doesn't make up for what I did." Hirata's stoic expression didn't hide his misery. "And I can't promise that it won't happen again." He said reluctantly, "I must ask you to take me off the investigation."

As much as Sano hated to lose Hirata's help-or to see him suffering because he couldn't fulfill his duty to his master-he knew Hirata was right. "Very well." And he must take additional steps to protect Hirata and the public. "I'm also relieving you of your other investigations and duties until you've found out who's after you and dealt with the situation. Your detectives can handle your work. If the shogun asks about you, I'll tell him you're ill."

Hirata looked stricken, but he bowed in agreement. "May I be excused?"

Sano nodded.

After Hirata had left, Sano went to look for his family. Perhaps Reiko had news of Chiyo. Perhaps the children could cheer Sano up. He found Akiko asleep in bed, but Masahiro was lying on his stomach in the parlor and drawing pictures.

"Is that a cow?" Sano asked.

"No, Father, it's a cat!" Masahiro said. "Can't you tell?"

"Yes, I was just joking," Sano said. "It's a better cat than I could ever draw. What else have you been doing today?"

As Masahiro chattered about his schoolwork, Sano's mind wandered to the investigation. Then Masahiro said, "Father, what's divorce?"

"That's when a husband and wife stop being married," Sano said absently.

"What's incest?"

Sano's attention snapped back to his son. "Where did you hear that word?"

"Oh, I don't know, someplace." Masahiro scribbled on his drawing pad.

"Well, you'd better ask your mother," Sano said, not eager to tackle sensitive subjects.

"She's not home."

"Where is she?"

"She went to visit Cousin Chiyo this morning. She said she would be spending the night."

Sano heard thunder, went to the door, and opened it. He and Masahiro looked at the rain streaming off the eaves. "Well, at least she won't get caught in this weather."

White veins of lightning split the sky above the Kumazawa estate. Rain deluged the mansion. Thunder boomed. The sentries outside the gate stood beneath its roof, while patrol guards inside the grounds sheltered under the mansion's eaves. They didn't notice the man atop the back wall. The lightning illuminated his crouched figure for an instant before the sky went dark and the thunder reverberated. When the lightning flared again, he was gone. The next thunderclap masked the noise he made when he landed on the ground inside the wall.

In the women's quarters, Reiko played cards with Chiyo and Fumiko. The chamber was stuffy, the doors that led to the garden closed because of the storm. As Reiko dealt the cards, she listened to the rain clatter on the roof tiles. Lightning flickered through the paper windowpanes; thunder cracked.

Although pale and anxious, Chiyo made an effort to smile at Reiko. "I'm glad you're here."

"So am I," Reiko said, smiling back.

Fumiko wasn't much for conversation. Intent on the game, she snatched up the cards Reiko dealt her. The women laid out, matched, and picked up cards illustrated with cherry trees, cranes standing beneath red suns, and other suits. Reiko noticed that Fumiko won every round. She began to watch the girl and spied her slipping cards in and out of her sleeves. Fumiko was cheating! She must have learned how from the gangsters. Reiko decided against reprimanding her. Let the poor girl have some fun. And if Chiyo noticed, she didn't seem to mind. There were issues more serious than cheating at cards.

Reiko had a specific one on her mind. All day she'd wondered how to broach the delicate subject to Chiyo and Fumiko, but it couldn't be avoided any longer. "There's something I must tell you," she began. "The nun who was kidnapped… she had… a disease."

"Oh?" Chiyo said, mildly curious. "What kind of disease?"

"On her…" Reiko glanced down, at her lap. "It came from the man who kidnapped her."

Stricken by horrified comprehension, at first Chiyo didn't speak. She looked at Fumiko, who was matching cards and seemed not to be listening. Then she said, "Fumiko is clean. I saw her when we bathed. But I-"

"Do you…?" Reiko couldn't bring herself to ask Chiyo outright if she had symptoms.

"No," Chiyo whispered. "But…"

But it was too soon to know whether the rapist had given her the disease or not. Reiko said, "If you find anything wrong, you must see a physician."

"All right," Chiyo said unhappily.

Her duty done, Reiko rubbed her eyes, which were bleary with fatigue. Some two hours ago, the temple bells in Asakusa had rung at midnight. Everybody else in the house had gone to bed.

"If you're tired, you needn't stay up," Chiyo said.

"No, I'm fine," Reiko said. Chiyo had confided that she and Fumiko stayed up late because of their nightmares, and Reiko felt a desire as well as an obligation to keep them company.

As she dealt the cards again, Reiko felt a warm, damp draft on the back of her neck. The flame in the lantern wavered. The sound and smell of the rain filled the room. Fumiko, who sat opposite her, dropped the cards she held. Fumiko gazed past Reiko, her eyes wide with terror.

Reiko turned. A man stood inside the open door, his black garments streaming water from the rain. He wore a hood that covered his entire head, with holes cut out for his eyes and mouth. Raising a sword in both hands, he lunged across the room toward Reiko and her friends.

Chiyo screamed.

Fumiko jumped up to run, but tripped on her hem and fell.

Reiko snatched up her dagger, which lay in its sheath on the floor beside her. She usually wore it strapped to her arm under her sleeve when she left home, but she'd thought she would be safe here. The man rushed at Chiyo. She raised her hands to protect herself, and his sword came swinging downward at her. Reiko whipped out her dagger and slashed at the man. Even as he faltered and turned his weapon on Reiko, her blade cut him across his belly.

He uttered an awful yowl. He dropped his sword, sank to his knees, and bent over the wound. Blood mixed with rainwater spilled onto the floor.

Fumiko huddled nearby, hands over her mouth, staring at him. Chiyo called, "Help, help!"

The intruder glared at Reiko through the holes in his hood, his eyes blazing with hatred and anger. He groped for his weapon, but toppled sideways. The emotion faded from his eyes as he collapsed amid playing cards stained red by his blood.

Reiko heard men shouting and running in the corridors and outside the house. Then Major Kumazawa and his guards were in the room. Major Kumazawa wore a night robe; his feet were bare. He carried a sword, which he pointed at the dead man.

"What happened?" he demanded. "Who is this?"

Reiko couldn't answer. She was suddenly dizzy, gasping for breath. She had a frightening sense that time had folded back on itself and she was reliving an earlier attack, during which her children had almost been murdered.

Fumiko pointed to the mask that the corpse wore. "It's the man who kidnapped us!" she shrilled. "He came back to get us, just like he said he would!"

33

Sano roused groggily from a sound sleep. Into his dark chamber spilled light from a lantern held by Detective Fukida, who stood in the doorway. "I'm sorry to bother you," Fukida said, "but there's an urgent message from Lady Reiko."

Instantly wide awake, Sano said, "What?" He bolted upright in bed. "Is she all right?"

"Yes," Fukida said, "but there's been an attack at the Kumazawa house. She asks you to come at once."

Sano threw on some clothes. Heading for the door, he met Masahiro, rubbing his sleepy eyes, in the hall. "Where are you going, Father?"

"To fetch your mother," Sano said. "Don't worry, she's fine. Go back to bed. We'll be home soon."

He rode through the dark, slumbering city with Marume and Fukida and some troops. The neighborhood gates had long been closed for the night, but Sano and his men wore the Tokugawa crest, and the watchmen let them pass. After a hard ride along the highway, they reached the Kumazawa estate.

It was lit up like a house on fire. Flames burned in metal lanterns along the wall and at the gate; more lights flickered from within the courtyard. Smoke melted into the misty night. The guards let Sano's party through the gate. As they dismounted in the courtyard, Reiko came running out of the mansion. Dressed in a night robe, she was agitated and disheveled, her face bare of makeup, her long hair carelessly braided. But she was indeed alive and well, to Sano's relief.

"What happened?" Sano said.

As Reiko told him about the attack, he listened in horror that didn't ease much when she told him she'd killed the man. Killing was a traumatic experience. Reiko must have been terrified, and she hadn't been the only one in danger.

"Where is Chiyo?" Sano said. "And Fumiko?"

Out of breath from excitement and speaking too fast, Reiko gestured toward the house. Chiyo and Fumiko stepped out onto the veranda. They looked shaken but unharmed. Major Kumazawa appeared behind them, fully dressed in his armor tunic, his swords at his waist, as if ready for battle.

"My daughter and her guest weren't touched," he said. "But they would have been killed if not for your wife."

His tone conveyed some admiration and gratitude toward Reiko but more fury at the attack on his house hold. "The man climbed over the wall. We found the rope he used. He got past my guards-he killed two of them. He must have been a professional assassin."

"Where is the assassin now?"

"In the backyard," Major Kumazawa said. "Your wife insisted on keeping his body until you arrived."

Sano cast a thankful glance at Reiko. She smiled briefly through her distress. He was proud of her for having the presence of mind to save the evidence.

"Come," Major Kumazawa said, lifting a lantern off a stand and walking down the steps. "I'll show you."

He led Sano around the mansion, across the garden, and through a gate. The detectives accompanied Sano and Major Kumazawa past the kitchen building, to a small, fenced yard. Major Kumazawa's lantern illuminated wooden bins that reeked of rotten fish, and a blanket-covered shape that lay on the ground. Fukida drew back the blanket. Underneath lay a youngish man with the shaved crown of a samurai, a wiry build, and an oval face with long, thick lashes that fringed his closed eyes. His gray kimono and trousers were drenched with blood from the wound Reiko had inflicted on his belly. The clothes had no identifying crests on them. The man was a stranger to Sano.

"Do you know him?" Sano asked Major Kumazawa.

"Never seen him before. Neither have my daughter or your wife, so they say. At first the girl thought he was the kidnapper, but she was fooled by the mask. It must be like the one the kidnapper wore. When she saw his face, she changed her mind and said she didn't recognize him after all."

Marume and Fukida shook their heads; they didn't know the assassin, either. Fukida covered the corpse.

"Do you know of anyone who would want to hurt your family?" Sano said.

"No one with enough nerve to break into my house."

"We need to find out who he is." Concern filled Sano because he was starting to get an idea about the reason behind the attack.

"It'll be day soon," Fukida said. "Do you want us to take his body around the neighborhood and see if anyone recognizes him?"

"Have some of my troops do it," Sano said. It was hardly standard procedure, but there seemed no other way to identify the dead man. Sano hoped it would work better than his experiment at Edo Jail. Envisioning the gory corpse paraded through the streets, he added, "Tell them to keep the body covered and just show the face."

The detectives went off to obey. Sano and Major Kumazawa walked back toward the mansion.

"It's no coincidence that this happened after you started your investigation." Major Kumazawa spoke as if stating a distasteful fact.

"No. I don't believe it is, either." Sano experienced a bad, familiar feeling. Once again, he hadn't solved a case soon enough. "I think the assassin came to kill Chiyo so that she could never identify the man who raped her."

"Do you think he did it?" Incredulity vied with hope in Major Kumazawa's voice.

Sano knew why Major Kumazawa wasn't ready to accept the idea. The dead assassin seemed so ordinary, not an evil monster. And Sano had other reason to doubt that the man had acted alone, on his own behalf. "No. I think he was sent by the guilty party."

"Those oxcart drivers?" Major Kumazawa turned to Sano, his disbelief clear in the light from the brightening sky.

"Not them," Sano said. "While I was looking for them, I found three new suspects."

He told Major Kumazawa about the kennel manager, the rice broker, and the exorcist. Surprise halted Major Kumazawa in the courtyard. "This happened when?"

"Their names came up yesterday," Sano said.

"And you didn't tell me?" Vexed, Major Kumazawa said, "I expected you to keep me informed about your progress."

"I'm informing you now." Although Sano could understand that Major Kumazawa didn't like being kept in the dark, he'd wanted to prevent his uncle from confronting the suspects himself and causing trouble again.

"Nanbu, Ogita, and Joju." As Major Kumazawa turned their names over on his tongue, he looked stunned to think they could have stooped to kidnapping and rape. Then he nodded, aware that even three such important men could have perverted tastes and no scruples. "If one of them wanted my daughter and hired those oxcart drivers to kidnap her-if one of them sent the assassin to kill her-how can I get my revenge?"

Despair pervaded his stern manner. "If I should go after Nanbu, I'll have to kill his dogs. I'm in debt to Ogita. He could make my clan paupers. And Joju is the shogun's protege." He said bitterly, "I can't touch them any more than you can. I don't care what happens to me, but I can't let my family suffer."

Sano had been in the same position, blocked because his family would share whatever punishment he incurred, too many times to count. But he said, "Let's not give up. Whichever man is guilty-and I'm sure one or more of them is-he shouldn't be allowed to get away with it."

"Shouldn't, but will." Major Kumazawa faced Sano with determination. "Because the investigation stops now."

People had tried to stop his investigations before, but Sano shook his head. "You don't have the authority to call off my investigation."

"Yes, I do," Major Kumazawa said. "I requested your help. Now I'm withdrawing my request."

"You can't just dismiss me as if I were an unsatisfactory servant," Sano said. "I'll continue the investigation until the criminal is brought to justice."

"Even if he sends another assassin who succeeds where this one failed? Even if it means my daughter could die?"

"Another woman has already died. The nun," Sano reminded his uncle. "She deserves justice."

"What in hell do I care about her?"

"And as long as the rapist and the kidnappers are at large, other women are in danger," Sano said.

"I don't care about them, either," Major Kumazawa insisted. "You must stop your investigation."

Under different circumstances, Sano would have respected the wishes of the head of his mother's clan. "I'll continue with or without your blessing," Sano said coldly. "You might recall that my wife was attacked, too. This is personal for me now."

Major Kumazawa stared. Sano saw satisfaction as well as enmity in his eyes. "The longer I know you, the more I realize that you are like your mother. You are just as willful and stubborn as she ever was. Well, that's your choice. But when you choose your actions, you have to take the consequences."

More enraged by the insult to his mother than to himself, Sano retorted, "Willfulness and stubbornness appear to run in the family. It's obvious that my mother and I aren't the only ones who share those traits."

Then he forgot what he was saying, because Major Kumazawa's last sentence had struck a chord in his memory. His anger entwined with the same sense of familiarity that he'd felt during his first visit to this house. In his mind Sano saw Major Kumazawa and his wife standing on their veranda; he heard the woman's voice pleading; he felt the same, dizzy sickness as he had then. Now the vague impressions solidified into a memory of stunning clarity.

"I heard you say that to my mother," he said.

Startled, Major Kumazawa said, "What?"

Recollection flooded Sano, as if a door that sealed off his past had suddenly opened. "I was here. My mother brought me. I must have been four or five years old." Now he knew why she'd defied the ban on contact with her family. "I was sick with a fever. She was afraid I would die." Sano remembered lying in bed, wracked by chills, struggling to breathe. Across the years he heard his mother crying and his father saying they couldn't afford a doctor or medicine. "So she brought me here, to ask for your help."

"You remember?" Major Kumazawa frowned in dismay.

"Yes. I also remember that you said she deserved for me to suffer. You said, 'When you choose your actions, you have to take the consequences.' " Sano's anger burned hotter. "Then you turned us away."

Major Kumazawa wore the expression of a man who'd believed he'd put out a fire and discovered that it had been smoldering underground when it blew up in his face. "I thought you'd forgotten."

"I'm sure you wish I had," Sano said.

He watched Major Kumazawa realize that the incident constituted more than a just punishment of a cast-out relative and her child. Although it had happened in the distant past, it could be interpreted as striking a blow against Sano the chamberlain, the shogun's second-in-command, and the punishment for that was whatever Sano chose.

"I've always regretted what I did," Major Kumazawa said. "I should have helped Etsuko. You were an innocent child; you didn't deserve to suffer. I apologize."

"It's a little late for that," Sano said.

"I only did what was right at the time," Major Kumazawa said, fearful yet insistent. "My parents were still alive. They forbade me to do anything for Etsuko. I had to respect their wishes."

Sano regarded Major Kumazawa with contempt. "Your tendency to justify yourself by blaming other people has made your apology a sham. It's a trait that's even worse than willfulness or stubbornness. So is your belief that you're entitled to things that you won't give to other people. When my mother asked you to save her child, you refused. But when your daughter was kidnapped and you came to me for help, I agreed."

Sano would have been sorry he had, if not for Chiyo, who was as blameless as his own childhood self had been.

"So you're a better man than I am." Major Kumazawa's resentful tone belied the compliment. "Well, if you'd rather not trouble yourself on my behalf or that of my family any longer, then stop your investigation."

"I can't do that," Sano said. "I've already explained why."

The hostility between them solidified, thick as the humid dawn air, as hot and suffocating as smoke. Major Kumazawa said, "Since we'll never see eye to eye, there's no use talking anymore. Be sure to take your wife with you when you go."

The dismissal stung Sano even though he was eager to leave this place and never come back. As he walked toward the house to fetch Reiko, he heard Major Kumazawa call after him, "I should never have broken the ban against contact with Etsuko and her kin. I'll uphold it from now on."

"That suits me just fine," Sano said.

34

The dawn sky glowed iridescent pink and silver, like an abalone shell's lining, as Sano rode alongside Reiko's palanquin down the highway toward Edo. The detectives led the way; Sano's troops guarded the rear of the procession. Sano and his party passed pilgrims walking toward them, bound for the Asakusa Temple district; they followed Tokugawa troops on patrol, nuns and priests headed into the city to beg alms, and porters hauling goods to market. Eta trundled nightsoil bins into the fields beside the road, using the city's copious supply of human wastes to fertilize the rice crop. Amid the stench, flies swarmed and buzzed.

Reiko spoke through her window to Sano. "So your relations with the Kumazawa have been severed again." He'd just told her about his conversation with his uncle. "Is there any chance of a reconciliation?"

"Not that I can see. Maybe it's for the best."

Reiko studied her husband's profile as he sat in the saddle and his horse plodded along beside her. His expression was hard. But she knew Sano had hoped to build a relationship with the unknown side of his family, and to re unite his mother with her estranged kin. He must be very disappointed. So was Reiko.

"But you will continue the investigation, won't you?"

"Of course," Sano said, although he sounded less than enthusiastic. "I've made progress." He told Reiko about the three suspects.

Reiko felt alarm creep under her skin. Sano's position in the regime had been secure for a while, but wouldn't be for much longer if he clashed with Nanbu, Ogita, or Joju. Although she feared for her family, she said, "I'll do whatever I can to help."

Sano smiled, appreciative. "There's not much you can do for the investigation now, though."

"Is Hirata-san still looking for the oxcart drivers?" Reiko asked.

"His men are," Sano said. "Hirata has run into some trouble."

As he explained, Reiko's alarm increased. Sano said, "We'll catch Jinshichi and Gombei eventually. Maybe they'll incriminate Nanbu, Ogita, and Joju, and I'll have enough evidence to take the three of them down without going down myself." He paused. "In the meantime, you must stay away from the Kumazawa estate. It's not safe there, and you wouldn't be welcome anyway."

Reiko knew the estrangement from the Kumazawa clan included her, too. "But Chiyo and I have become good friends. And Fumiko is there. I need to protect them."

"You're not responsible for that. I'll send some troops to help guard the estate."

Reiko sighed. Although she'd often disobeyed Sano, she had to respect his wishes in this instance. She must put aside her friendship with Chiyo and Fumiko until he and Major Kumazawa made up.

If they ever did.

Her bearers' slow pace made the trip back to the city long and tedious. The journey was lengthened by traffic on the highway, backups at the checkpoints, and crowds in town. By the time the procession reached Edo Castle, it was almost noon. Reiko yawned. She was glad to get home, ready for some peace and quiet.

One of the gate sentries said, "Honorable Chamberlain, the shogun has left a message for you. He wants to see you at the palace right now."

Adrift in a dimension between sleep and wakefulness, she opened her eyes upon a vast panorama of clouds. She floated among them, buoyed by their gray, billowing mass. With every breath she exhaled, they rippled. They shrouded her in clammy moisture. At first she drowsed peacefully, thinking it was a pleasant dream. Then the clouds began to swirl.

They were sucking her into their center. Vertigo dizzied and nauseated her. There was no sense of direction, no landmark to tell her which way heaven and earth were. She felt as if she were falling downward into a whirl pool and upward into a tornado at the same time. Gripped by fear, she blinked hard in an attempt to stop the dream. But the clouds were still there, too dense for her vision to penetrate. She tried to sit up and awaken herself. The clouds swirled faster.

This was no dream.

It was real.

Fright turned to panic. Even as she wafted amid the clouds like a feather in a hurricane, spinning in their vortex, she had a sensation of weight as heavy as stone. She couldn't move. She couldn't see her body, couldn't feel her arms or legs. Her mind and senses seemed cut loose from herself. She cried out for help, but the clouds absorbed her voice. Her heart pounded wildly and her lungs heaved somewhere far away. Her panic evolved into terror.

What was happening to her?

Would she survive, or die?

Even as she feared death, she felt a horrific premonition that something worse was to be her fate.

After leaving Reiko at home, Sano went with Detectives Marume and Fukida to the palace. There, officials stood in clusters about the grounds, their expressions somber.

"I smell trouble," Marume said.

So did Sano. Troops hurried about aimlessly, stopping to talk to one another. Idle servants hovered in the background, as if they wanted to know what was going on but were afraid to ask. The shogun flitted back and forth outside the main entrance, attendants trailing him anxiously. When he saw Sano, he cried, "Ahh! Thank the gods you've come at last!"

"What's happened, Your Excellency?" Sano said.

Out of breath from the unaccustomed exercise, the shogun clutched his chest, doubled over, and panted. His attendants seated him on the steps. He choked out, "My wife has disappeared!"

Sano exchanged surprised glances with his detectives. Lady Nobuko, the shogun's wife, left the castle even more rarely than the shogun did. Her bad health kept her confined to the women's quarters. Sano said, "She can't have gone far. Isn't anybody looking for her?"

The shogun gasped and wheezed. "I'm, ahh, going to faint!"

His attendants pushed his head between his knees. Yanagisawa and Yoritomo strode out of the castle together. When Yoritomo saw Sano, animosity hardened his expression. Yanagisawa looked grave.

"Lady Nobuko didn't disappear from the castle," Yanagisawa explained. "It happened at Chomei Temple in Mukojima district. She went there this morning, to drink from the Spring of Long Life and pray for good health."

Sano experienced a stab of shock tinged with foreboding. "How exactly did it happen?"

"There was a crowd at the shrine," Yanagisawa said. "Lady Nobuko got separated from her attendants. They looked for her, but they couldn't find her. One of her guards just came back to the castle and reported her missing."

Another woman gone missing at a religious site. "Was there any sign of foul play?"

Yanagisawa gave him a look that said he knew Sano feared that Lady Nobuko had been kidnapped. "None that we know of yet. We haven't had time to investigate."

That Lady Nobuko had been kidnapped wasn't Sano's only fear. Maybe she'd been kidnapped by the same man who'd raped Chiyo, Fumiko, and Tengu-in. If so, then his failure to catch the rapist by now had put a fourth woman in peril.

A fourth woman who happened to be the shogun's wife.

"How can this be happening to me?" the shogun lamented. He cared little about his wife-theirs was a marriage of political and economic convenience-but he took every misfortune personally. He raised his head and glared at Sano. "You're my chief detective." In his addled state he'd forgotten that Sano no longer was. "Don't just stand there like an idiot." He flapped his hand. "Rescue my wife!"

And the gods help Sano if the shogun should realize that his investigation had a connection with her disappearance. Once Sano would have expected Yanagisawa to rush to tell the shogun. But Yanagisawa shook his head, silently indicating that he would keep Sano's business a secret.

It was Yoritomo who blurted, "Your Excellency, you shouldn't put Sano-san in charge of rescuing the honorable Lady Nobuko. It's his fault she's missing!"

Yanagisawa said, "Yoritomo! Be quiet!" His face mirrored the dismay that Sano felt.

"What? How can that be?" the shogun said, confused. "No, keep talking, Yoritomo-san. I want to hear."

Sano was forced to listen while Yoritomo spilled the whole story of the three women kidnapped and raped, Sano's futile attempt to have Chiyo and Fumiko identify the two suspects at Edo Jail, and the missing oxcart drivers. He must have been keeping track of the investigation. Yanagisawa's face was set in an expression of disapproval toward his son. The shogun frowned, trying to understand the story. Officials and troops moved closer to hear, like sharks scenting blood in the water.

"Chamberlain Sano let the kidnappers go." Yoritomo addressed the shogun but looked straight at Sano. "It's his fault that they're at large." Yoritomo's dark, luminous eyes glittered with hatred. He looked disturbingly like his father had in the past, when Yanagisawa had spoken against Sano at every opportunity. "Therefore, Chamberlain Sano is to blame for whatever happens to Lady Nobuko."

"That's enough, son," Yanagisawa said grimly. "Leave us."

Yoritomo walked away, but the damage was done. He cast a triumphant glance over his shoulder at Sano.

"Your Excellency, please allow me to explain," Sano began, wondering how in the world to defend himself when he was guilty of everything Yoritomo had said.

The shogun gazed after Yoritomo in openmouthed shock, then turned on Sano. "How could you do this to me? After all I've done for you!" He struck Sano's chest with his soft, weak hand. "Find Lady Nobuko, and bring her home safe and sound, or I'll put you and your family and all your close associates to death!"

Here was the threat that he'd used against Sano many times in the past, the threat that Sano most feared. Sano felt a familiar, terrible sinking sensation.

"I've, ahh, told you that before," the shogun said, "but this time I mean it." He jabbed his finger at Sano. "Fail, and you all die!"

"I'll find her. I promise." Sano thought of Reiko, Masahiro, Akiko, and all the people whose lives depended on him. In the past, he'd always managed to solve his cases and avert the threat. Could he this time?

"If I may put in a word, Your Excellency," Yanagisawa said, "but this isn't Chamberlain Sano's fault. The real culprit is the person who kidnapped Lady Nobuko-if indeed she was kidnapped, which we don't yet know for sure."

Even in the midst of his distress, Sano noted the irony that Yanagisawa was defending him after so many attempts to ruin him. He had to appreciate Yanagisawa's efforts whether he trusted Yanagisawa or not.

"You're right, it's not entirely Chamberlain Sano's fault," the shogun said. "If you had been, ahh, doing your job all these years, there wouldn't be evil criminals around to attack my family." He jabbed his finger at Yanagisawa. "It's your fault, too!"

It was Yanagisawa's turn to look dismayed, and Sano's turn to defend his former enemy. "Your Excellency, with all due respect, Chamberlain Yanagisawa had nothing to do with what happened to your wife."

"I just said he does. That means he did!" The shogun had never been known for rationality, but his word was the law. His tearful glare fixed on Yanagisawa, his old friend and onetime lover. "You let me down. You and Chamberlain Sano must find my wife, or you'll share his punishment!"

He turned and flounced into the castle. His attendants traipsed behind him cautiously, afraid of his temper. The troops and officials departed as fast as ants scurrying into their hills. Sano, his detectives, and Yanagisawa looked at each other in mutual, dumbfounded apprehension.

"Well," Sano said to Yanagisawa, "hadn't we better get started?"

35

Two armies of samurai on horse back descended on Chomei Temple, from which Lady Nobuko had disappeared. Sano led one army, Yanagisawa the other. They and their troops stopped and questioned people, searched the temple grounds and the surrounding Mukojima district. The afternoon passed; night fell. Carrying torches, the armies fanned out in widening spirals around the temple. They went from door to door, questioning the residents, inspecting the houses. Not until dawn did Sano and Yanagisawa return to Edo Castle.

"Where is she?" the shogun demanded as they walked into his chamber. "Have you found her yet?"

"I'm sorry, Your Excellency, but we haven't," Sano said.

Lady Nobuko seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth.

The shogun pouted as he picked at his breakfast of steamed buns, noodles with prawns, and sweet cakes. Sano's stomach growled. He hadn't eaten since last night.

"Then go out and look some more," the shogun said. "Find her before sunrise tomorrow, or I'll have both your heads."

"Yes, Your Excellency," Yanagisawa said.

He looked as weary and discouraged as Sano felt. As they walked down the palace corridor, he said, "If this case is like your others, then we won't have to keep up the search much longer. With luck, the kidnapper will dump Lady Nobuko near the shrine in time for us to meet our deadline."

"That's not good enough, and you know it," Sano said, testy from fatigue. "The shogun wants her back safe and sound, not drugged and violated."

"Too bad for us." Yanagisawa added, "I didn't put Yoritomo up to telling the shogun about the connection between your investigation and Lady Nobuko's disappearance. It was his idea again. I'm even sorrier than I was last time."

"Do you believe him?" Hirata asked Sano.

They and Marume and Fukida sat in the private chambers at Sano's estate, where Sano had stopped for a quick meal. Hirata had heard about what had happened and was eager for news.

"Yes and no," Sano said. Reiko poured tea for him and the detectives, then served rice gruel with pickles and fish. Marume and Fukida, who'd been working alongside Sano all night, gobbled the food. Too hungry and in too much of a hurry to mind his manners, Sano ate while he talked. "I believe Yanagisawa is sorry for what Yoritomo said. After all, it got him in trouble, too."

"But?" Reiko said as Sano paused to swallow.

"But Yanagisawa has been behind so many plots against me that I'm not convinced he's innocent this time."

"Neither am I," Reiko said. She looked through the open partition that divided the room from the adjacent one and called, "Masahiro, don't you have a lesson now? Go!"

Sano saw their son in the other room, fiddling with his toy soldiers, and pretending not to listen to their conversation. Masahiro said, "Yes, Mother," and obediently left.

"Do you trust Yanagisawa to help you look for Lady Nobuko?" Reiko asked.

"Yes and no," Sano said. "It's in his own interests to find her, but I still think he's up to something. That's why I have to take other action besides our searching the city together."

"What kind of action?" Hirata asked.

Sano could see how much Hirata wanted to participate in it, but they both knew he shouldn't. Reiko poured Hirata a bowl of tea, all she could offer in the way of sympathy that wouldn't hurt his pride.

"Action against three people who thought they were safe from me," Sano said.

Ogita lived in a modest neighborhood in Kuramae, near his rice brokerage. The two-story houses were respectable rather than elegant, uniformly constructed with brown tile roofs, balconies shaded by bamboo screens, and weathered plank fences. When Sano and his entourage arrived at Ogita's house, Ogita and his samurai bodyguards planted themselves in front of the gate.

"Hello, Honorable Chamberlain," Ogita said. "How may I be of service to you?"

Sano had met Ogita at audiences with the shogun's officials, but they'd never exchanged more than formal greetings. Today he noticed that Ogita wore expressions like layers of clothing. The pleasure on Ogita's fleshy face overlaid apprehension.

"I want to search your house," Sano said. "Stand aside."

The apprehension rose to the surface of Ogita's features like silt in a stream stirred by undercurrents. "May I ask why?"

"I'm looking for the shogun's wife," Sano said. "She's missing, as you may have heard."

"Indeed I have." Now offense hid whatever else Ogita may have felt. "First you think I kidnapped and raped your cousin. Now you think I have the shogun's wife locked up in my house."

"Do you?"

"I'd have to be insane to do such a thing."

"Then you won't mind if I see for myself," Sano said.

Ogita stood his ground. "With all due respect, I do mind. I like my privacy." His features took on a neutral cast, his eyes alert but carefully devoid of emotion. Sano imagined this was the guise he wore when negotiating business deals.

"The sooner I'm finished, the sooner you can have your privacy again," Sano said.

"Didn't your chief retainer tell you what I said when he came to visit me? Before he murdered my servant boy?"

"He said you threatened to call in my friends' debts unless I left you alone."

"I wouldn't call it a threat," Ogita said with a false, congenial smile. He knew, as everyone did, that threatening a top official could mean death. "Just a bit of friendly advice."

"Here's a bit of friendly advice for you," Sano said. "If you call in those debts, I'll seize everything you own."

Ogita kept smiling, but his bulging double chin jerked as he gulped, and Sano could see droplets of sweat on his shiny forehead. Ogita knew the Tokugawa regime had seized property from merchants in the past, for various reasons.

"If I go out of business, the sales of rice will be held up. My customers, including the Tokugawa clan, will be short on cash for quite a while until other brokers can take over for me." Ogita's smile broadened. "Do you want thousands of armed samurai blaming you? How about a famine in the city? You'll be hounded out of the government."

Merchants had gained considerable power because the ruling samurai class had put its financial affairs into their hands, Sano knew. The traditional samurai belief that money was dirty had given the merchants a big advantage. Ogita was right; if Sano shut down a rice brokerage as big as Ogita's, the economy would suffer, and Sano would pay. But Sano's first concern was finding the shogun's wife.

"My men and I are going inside your house whether you like it or not," he said. "We'll kill anyone who tries to stop us."

Ogita's bodyguards looked at each other, shrugged, and moved away from the gate. Ogita dropped his smile just long enough to glare at them. Then he said, "How about if we strike a deal? I convert your rice stipend to cash for half my usual commission, and you leave me out of your investigation."

That discount would save Sano a small fortune, but he said, "Move, or I'll arrest you."

Ogita complied with bad humor. As Sano and his men marched through the gate, Ogita followed with his guards. Sano discovered that Ogita's home consisted of four houses, each at a corner of a square that made up an entire block, built around a central garden and connected by covered corridors. As Sano walked through them, people he took to be Ogita's family and servants scrambled out of his way. Ogita vanished into a maze of rooms crammed with expensively crafted lacquer tables and screens, shelves of valuable porcelain and jade vases and figurines, and cabinets filled with silk clothing that the merchant class wasn't supposed to wear.

"Maybe this is what Ogita didn't want us to see," Fukida said. "He's broken the sumptuary laws."

"Not only the sumptuary laws," Marume said, holding up swords he'd found in a trunk. Martial law said that only samurai were allowed to own swords.

"Never mind about that. All I care about is the shogun's wife." Sano called to his troops, "Turn this whole place upside down."

In a corridor, Sano met Ogita, who said, "Even if I had kidnapped the shogun's wife, surely you can't think I would be keeping her here."

"This is the one place you wouldn't expect anyone to look."

"Look to your heart's content. You're wasting your time."

"We'll see about that. Show me your private quarters."

Ogita led Sano to a bedchamber that adjoined an office and a balcony that gave him a view of his ware house and the river. The bedchamber was bare and austere compared to the rest of the house, furnished with a few tables pushed into its corners and silk cushions neatly stacked. Sano eyed the cupboards built into one wall.

"There's no room for a person in there," Ogita said. "I don't know what you expect to find."

Sano didn't, either. Gazing around the room, he saw a section of tatami that was slightly crooked where the bed would be laid at night. He crouched, lifted a corner of the mat, and touched the floor underneath. One of the boards was shorter than the others, and it was loose. Sano pried it up with his finger and found a square, empty compartment that was about as long as his forearm. He looked up at Ogita.

Ogita smiled. "I sometimes keep money there."

But instinct told Sano the compartment was used for other, secret things that Ogita had just dashed up here to hide. Sano noticed Ogita hovering by the partition that separated the bedchamber from his office. When Sano slid open the partition and stepped into the office, Ogita didn't object or move, but Sano pictured him hurrying to remove contents from the compartment and find somewhere else to secret them moments ago. This was the nearest place, and it offered many possibilities, because the space around the desk was crowded with fireproof iron cabinets and trunks.

"I work at home at night," Ogita said. "I don't need much sleep. That's the secret of my success."

While he spoke, Sano moved around the office. He listened for tension in Ogita's voice and heard it when he drew close to one cabinet.

"That's full of old sales records," Ogita said.

Sano opened the cabinet and saw rows of ledgers. Stuck into one row was a thinner volume with polished teak covers, just the size to fit in the hidden compartment. Sano pulled it out, opened it, showed it to Ogita, and said, "What kind of record is this?"

The book was a "spring book," a collection of erotic art. On the first page was a picture of a woman undressing. A man stood outside her room, peering through the window at her, masturbating his huge erection.

"It's nothing," Ogita said.

Sano turned the page. "If it's nothing, why did you hide it?" The next picture showed the man inside the room. He held the woman and fondled her while she struggled to free herself. His erection pressed against her. Her head was flung back, her mouth open in a scream.

"Every man in Edo has books like that," Ogita said.

"Every man in Edo isn't a suspect in three rapes and possibly four." Sano turned to the next picture. Here, the man straddled the woman. Her legs were spread, his erection thrust into her. She lay limp, her eyes closed, as if unconscious. "Maybe you do more than just look at these pictures."

Obstinacy veiled fear in Ogita's expression. "So what if I do?" He waved his hand at the book. "That doesn't prove I have the shogun's wife."

Marume and Fukida stood in the doorway, craning their necks to get a look at the pictures. "We've finished searching," Fukida said. "She's not here."

"See? I told you," Ogita said triumphantly.

Sano was disappointed, but not ready to consider Ogita exonerated. "What other properties do you own?"

"I have a villa across the river in Honjo and a summer house in the hills outside town," Ogita said. "But you won't find the shogun's wife there, either."

"Excuse me, Lady Reiko, this message just came for you," said Lieutenant Tanuma.

Reiko sat on the veranda, arranging flowers in a vase and worrying about Sano. "Is it from my husband?" Hoping the message said he'd found Lady Nobuko, she accepted the bamboo scroll case from her bodyguard. When she unfurled the scroll, she saw the red signature stamped beneath the characters written in black.

"It's from Chiyo." Reading the message, she raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Chiyo says Fumiko has left the Kumazawa estate. Her father came and took her. I can't believe it! He was so adamant about not wanting her back."

Reiko continued reading, and her surprise turned to concern. "Chiyo says there's trouble. She begs me to come at once. She'll explain when I arrive." Beset by anxiety, Reiko said, "What can be wrong? What should I do?"

"Your husband doesn't want you going back to the Kumazawa house," Tanuma said.

Reiko knew how displeased Sano would be if she went. "But Chiyo needs me. I can't refuse to help."

"Major Kumazawa would probably not let you in the door even though Chiyo invited you," Tanuma said.

"I'll take the chance." Reiko stood. "Are you coming?"

"If you say so." Tanuma had worked for her long enough to understand that arguing with her when she'd made up her mind was a lost cause.

As they hurried off, Reiko hoped she wouldn't be too late to help Chiyo.

Sano and his entourage gathered in the street outside Ogita's house. He assigned a few troops to follow Ogita, in case the rice broker could lead them to the shogun's wife. Fukida said, "Should we go search Ogita's other properties?"

"No," Sano said. "If the shogun's wife were there, he wouldn't have told us about them. I suspect those aren't his only other properties."

"Shall I find out what others he owns?" Fukida asked.

Sano envisioned a long, tedious search through Edo's mountains of property records. "No. We don't have time."

What they did have was two other suspects to investigate.

As they rode down the street, Marume said, "I heard what Ogita said about spring books. He's right-a lot of men have them. You should see the ones in the barracks at home."

Edo had an overabundance of men without women. They were samurai retainers who were single or had left their wives in their lords' provinces, as well as merchants, artisans, and laborers who'd come to seek their fortune in the city and couldn't afford to marry. Under these conditions, prostitution and erotic art flourished. And even rich men, who could have all the women they wanted, enjoyed spring books. But that didn't clear Ogita, not in Sano's opinion.

"I skimmed through the rest of Ogita's book," Sano said. "All the other pictures showed men raping women. Even if Ogita didn't kidnap the shogun's wife, I think he's responsible for one or more of the other crimes."

But so could the other suspects be guilty.

"Where are we going now?" Fukida asked.

"We're going back to the exorcist," Sano said.

36

A group of beggars in ragged clothes loitered in the street outside the exorcist's temple. When they saw Sano's party coming, they held out their hands for alms, but without much hope. Sano and his men proceeded to the hall where he'd seen Joju the day before yesterday. Again, the monks at the door tried to prevent them from entering.

"His Holiness doesn't want to be disturbed."

"Try to keep us out, and he'll be worse than just disturbed," Marume said.

Sano and his detectives went inside the hall while his troops swarmed the grounds and other buildings. He found the hall drastically altered since his last visit. Daylight poured through open skylights. The black drapes, suspended from rods, were drawn back to expose windows cut high in the walls. From one window protruded a wooden bracket that held the painting of bloody fetuses. Through another Sano saw a drum, lute, and samisen in a room where musicians evidently played during rituals. Some windows opened onto platforms. There, monks crouched, setting up flares, rockets, and smoke bombs. More monks leaned out of a hole in the ceiling and lowered a dummy, dressed in white veils, on thin cords. Like puppeteers, they manipulated the dummy; it flew and dived. The scene reminded Sano of a theater undergoing preparations for a new play.

Spying Sano and the detectives, the monks hauled up the dummy, scrambled to close the drapes, and fled through the windows. Marume called, "It's too late." He and Fukida laughed. "We've seen everything."

Joju strode into the room so fast that his saffron robe whipped around his ankles like flames. "What is the meaning of this?" he demanded, his handsome face dark with anger. "Your troops are invading my temple. They say I'm hiding the shogun's wife. That's ridiculous!"

"You've been hiding plenty of other things." Sano gestured around the room.

Joju stopped short, but quickly recovered. "Those are just tools for my rituals."

" 'Tools'? Is that what you call it?" Sano said. "I call it 'fraud.' "

The priest put on a dazzling, condescending smile. "The spirits are real. My exorcisms are real. But they work best if people believe in them. The props help people believe."

"I wonder if the shogun will continue to believe in you when he finds out about this," Sano said.

"You wouldn't tell His Excellency." Joju's intonation made the words a blend of question, statement, and threat.

"He deserves to know when someone is taking his money and playing him for a fool."

"Before you do, you should understand that people want to believe in what I do," Joju said. "His Excellency would rather think that I can communicate with evil spirits and solve problems by driving them out, than hear that my exorcisms are fakery and there's no help for people who are ill and troubled."

"You have a good point," Sano said, "but I have influence with the shogun."

"Then let us present our cases to him and see whose side he takes."

"I'll take my chances," Sano said, although he knew the superstitious shogun might well come down on Joju's side. "Are you ready to gamble that His Excellency will continue his patronage of you when he finds out that you kidnapped his wife?"

"I didn't." Joju spoke with obstinate defiance, but Sano sensed his fear that he would be framed.

"Then you should be able to prove you're innocent," Sano said. From outside came the sounds of his troops overrunning the temple grounds, calling to one another, tramping in and out of buildings. "Where were you early yesterday?"

"Here at the temple."

"Have you seen or heard from Jinshichi and Gombei?"

"The oxcart drivers? No."

Sano glanced at Marume and Fukida. He read on their faces the same concern that had arisen in his mind: If Joju did have the shogun's wife, she was hidden somewhere else. All Joju had to do was keep quiet, and Sano wouldn't find her until he let her go. By then, the damage would have been done to an innocent woman, and the shogun would never forgive Sano.

As much as Sano hated to admit it, this was a time for him to compromise. "Listen," he said to Joju. "Give me the shogun's wife, and I won't tell the shogun that you're a fraud. I won't tell him how I found her, either."

Marume and Fukida frowned: They could tell that Sano wasn't trying to trick Joju; this was a genuine offer. Sano knew they didn't want him to let a supposed criminal go free or compromise his principles. Then they nodded in resignation because they knew that what mattered was returning the shogun's wife safe and sound, and Sano had to do what he must.

Joju favored Sano with a smile that bespoke regret as well as offense. "I'm surprised to say that I believe you would actually uphold your end of the bargain. But I can't give you the shogun's wife because I don't have her. That is the truth, I swear by all the spirits in the cosmos."

"I hate to say this, but I think Joju is telling the truth about the shogun's wife," Fukida said.

"So do I," Marume said.

"Maybe you're right," Sano said.

He and the detectives stood in the temple grounds with his other troops, who'd just finished their search without finding Lady Nobuko. By now Sano was so exhausted that he felt his instincts shutting down; he hardly knew what to think anymore.

"Maybe Joju isn't responsible for Lady Nobuko's disappearance or for the other kidnappings." Sano looked around the grounds. He didn't see the men he'd just assigned to keep surveillance on Joju; they'd mixed with the crowds of worshippers. With luck, Joju wouldn't spot them, either. "But I hope he'll lead us to her, if Ogita doesn't."

"If neither one has her, there's still Nanbu," Fukida said.

"He's next," Sano said.

He and his men left the temple. Outside, there was now only one beggar, a woman with raddled skin, lank hair, and feet so calloused and caked with dirt that they looked like hooves. She said something to Sano that he didn't catch. He was so surprised that he paused before mounting his horse. Beggars usually didn't dare talk to samurai.

"What did you say?" he asked.

A closer look at her showed him that her features were delicate; she must have once been pretty. Her voice marked her as younger than Sano had at first thought, in her thirties. Maybe she was bold because she had nothing to lose except her life, which was a burden to her anyway.

"Is he in trouble?" she said.

"Who?" Sano said.

The woman gestured toward the temple. "Him. Joju."

"Yes, in fact he is," Sano said.

She smiled, showing decayed teeth. "Good." Her eyes sparkled with mischief. "I'm glad. I hate him."

"Why?"

"Because he's a bad man."

Here was someone willing to speak ill of the priest that had the shogun's protection, that so many people revered. Now she had Sano's full attention. "Why do you think he's bad?"

The woman's mouth twisted; a tear traced a glistening rivulet down her dirty cheek. Sano spoke to his men: "Give us some privacy." As they rode off and stopped a short distance away, Sano removed a cloth from under his sash and handed it to the woman. She took it, wiped her eyes, and blew her nose.

"What's your name?" Sano asked.

"Okitsu." She offered the cloth to Sano.

He saw grime on it and smelled her rank odor of sweat, fish, dirty hair, and urine. "You can keep it."

With a lopsided smile, she carefully tucked the cloth inside her ragged blue kimono.

"Tell me what Joju did to make you hate him," Sano said.

Her expression suddenly altered into a scowl so fierce that Sano took an involuntary step backward. "He ruined my life."

"How?"

"When I was a girl, I was possessed by evil spirits," Okitsu said. Her scowl faded, but a shadow of it remained, like a warning. "I heard their voices." She raised her head, as if listening for them now. "They told me things."

"What sort of things?"

"They said people were out to get me. They told me to curse at them and hit them. I did it, because if I didn't, the voices would get louder and louder. They wouldn't stop." She clapped her hands over her ears. "My parents took me to see Joju. They begged him to drive out the spirits."

Dropping her hands, Okitsu said, "They didn't have enough money to pay him. He said that when I was cured, I could be his servant. My parents agreed. He did the exorcism. The spirits went away. I went to live at the temple. During the day I washed laundry and floors and cleaned the privies. At night-"

A sob broke her voice. "At night Joju did things to me. Things that should only happen between husbands and wives. Things that priests aren't supposed to do. But I couldn't stop him. I couldn't say no. I owed it to him." She buried her face in her hands. "I was so ashamed."

Realizing he wasn't the most objective judge of Joju's character, Sano cautioned himself against rushing to believe her story, but it resonated with truth.

"After a while he said my debt was paid, and he sent me back to my parents," she said. "But it was too late. I was already with child."

Sano felt pity toward her, and anger at Joju for exploiting a helpless girl.

"My parents threw me out," Okitsu said. "I had the baby in an alley. It died. I almost did, too. That was when the evil spirits came back." She smiled, and her eyes shone with a feral gleam. "They said I must live and be strong. So I did. For a while I sold myself to men. When I lost my looks, I became a beggar. The spirits said that one day I would have a chance to pay Joju back for what he did to me." She grinned at Sano. "They say that day is coming soon."

An eerie shiver rippled through Sano. He could see the evil spirits looking out of her eyes. Then Okitsu turned and shuffled down the street, muttering under her breath. Sano mounted his horse and joined his men. As they rode, he told the detectives what she'd said.

"Well, well," Marume said. "Our friend Joju is guilty of the same sin as the people he exorcises."

"He doesn't seem to be haunted by the dead baby," Fukida said.

"But I'd believe a mad beggar woman over that fake exorcist any day," Marume said.

"So would I." Sano made an effort to hold on to his objectivity. "But even if Joju raped Okitsu, that doesn't mean he raped the other victims. That's not strong enough evidence."

He saw a theme developing. Ogita liked violent erotic art, but so did other men. Joju had exploited a helpless girl, but untold numbers of other men forced themselves on women and society looked the other way.

"It makes him look bad, though, doesn't it?" Fukida said.

"Maybe Nanbu will look worse," Sano said.

"How are we going to get to him while he's protected by his dogs?" Fukida said.

"Thank you for reminding me about the dogs," Sano said. "Before we pay a call on him, we'd better take precautions."

Accompanied by his two chief detectives, Hirata rode along a street that led him past the canals, quays, and ware houses of the Hatchobori district.

"Do you feel anything yet?" Detective Arai asked.

"Not yet," Hirata said.

The enemy must be biding his time, letting Hirata's anxiety grow before he made his next appearance.

Since Hirata had discovered that his enemy could reach him anywhere, he'd decided to stay away from home as much as possible. He didn't want Midori or the children to get hurt, and he didn't want a confrontation with his enemy to happen inside the castle, because if he drew his sword there, even to defend himself, the penalty was death. Instead, he must lure the enemy to a place he liked better.

"When he comes, we'll help you take him," Detective Inoue said.

"When he comes, you'll stay out of it," Hirata said. His men were good fighters, but no match for the enemy. Only Hirata stood a chance of winning. At least Hirata hoped he did. "Remember, you're not here to fight."

He'd brought his men to protect innocent people from him in the event that he lost control again. Maybe they couldn't, but it was the best precaution he could devise.

At the ferry dock on the Sumida River, he and his men left their horses at a public stable, then commandeered a ferryboat. They sat under the canopy while the ferryman rowed. The river was as flat and gray as a sheet of lead. It smelled of the brackish water downstream where it met the sea at Edo Bay. Fragments of bamboo, wood, paper, vegetables, and other trash mingled with a frayed sandal, a child's broken doll, and spent rockets from the fireworks display that celebrated the beginning of summer. As the boat glided into the deeper, cleaner water in the middle of the river, the ferryman steered around barges. A light rain began, marrying river and sky. Drops stippled the water, transforming it into liquid gooseflesh. Ahead, at the mouth of the river, loomed two islands.

The southern island was Tsukudajima, a fishing village whose residents doubled as spies for the shogun. Hirata knew that the people in the small boats off shore watched for any suspicious movement of watercraft in the bay and reported it to the metsuke.

The ferry stopped at the northern island, Ishikawajima, which was allotted to the controller of the Tokugawa navy. Along the docks, war junks waited for an invasion that might come someday. A shipyard contained vessels undergoing repairs. On a wooded rise in the middle of the island stood the controller's estate. As Hirata and his men stepped out of the ferry, Arai said, "Here, you'll be able to see him coming."

Hirata wondered if the enemy could read his mind and was already here, lying in wait.

A beach separated the shipyard from the village, a cluster of shacks. A crowd of men were gathered at the teahouse and food-stall. Ishikawajima had a reputation as a den of troublesome rnin and vagrants. They came to the island for temporary work and shelter as well as a place to hide from the law. During his police career Hirata had come here once or twice in search of criminals.

Ishikawajima's reputation was one reason Hirata had chosen to come here today. He hoped to accomplish more than a confrontation with the enemy. The other reason was that Ishikawajima had fewer bystanders than anywhere else in Edo, and even fewer who were truly innocent.

Hirata stood on the beach, apart from his men. Gulls picked at dead fish that had washed up at the river's edge. Brackish water lapped at dirty sand. Hirata gazed across the water at the city, which shimmered behind the veil of rain. The ferryboat that had brought him receded toward the opposite shore; no other craft approached Ishikawajima. The sound of hammers pounding and saws rasping came from the shipyard. Hirata breathed deeply, let his thoughts float away, and calmed his mind. He aligned the forces within his body along a spiritual path toward a meditative trance.

His vision expanded until he could see in all directions, the island behind him as well as the river in front of him, red crayfish swimming at the bottom of the river, the sun through the clouds. The gray landscape took on brilliant hues, as if drenched in a rainbow. His nostrils magnified odors; he smelled horse dung, sewage, and garbage in the city, incense burning in the temples, and enough food cooking to make a banquet for the gods. He heard a million hearts beating, and when he reached out his hands, he felt their rhythm through the skin on his fingertips. Closing his eyes, he projected his inner voice across the world.

I'm here, he called silently. Come and get me.

He heard no answer from the enemy even though he waited and listened for what seemed like an eternity.

Instead he felt two different yet also familiar energy auras. They pulsed very near him. He opened his eyes, broke his trance. Looking toward the shipyard, he realized that even though one search had failed, the other had borne fruit. There, among the men working on the hull of a boat, were Jinshichi and Gombei, the two oxcart drivers.

37

Sano, his detectives, and the troops walked up to the kennels behind a pack of huge guard dogs that Sano had borrowed from a friend. Three of the friend's dog trainers led the beasts on iron chains attached to leather harnesses. By the gate stood the troops Sano had posted there. The dogs barked and lunged at them while the trainers hauled on the dogs' chains and yelled, "Down!"

"Is Nanbu still inside?" Sano asked.

"Yes," said the troops' leader. "He never left."

"That gives him an alibi for Lady Nobuko's kidnapping," Fukida said.

"It doesn't mean he doesn't know anything about it," Sano said.

Marume pounded on the gate. "Open up!"

First came the sound of dogs barking inside; then a man's voice shouted, "Go away!"

Sano's soldiers jumped off their horses, unloaded a battering ram, and charged. They rammed the gate until it sagged open. Inside it crouched Nanbu's dogs, restrained on their leashes by two of Nanbu's men. Sano's borrowed dogs leaped forward. A frenzy of barks, howls, and shouts ensued as the trainers urged their dogs through the gate and forced Nanbu's men to retreat with theirs. Sano, the detectives, and his troops walked inside.

"Talk about fighting fire with fire," Marume said.

"If dogs are killed by dogs, that's not against the law," Fukida said.

As the two dog packs faced off, Sano raised his voice over their barks and growls. "Where's Nanbu?"

Nanbu's men didn't answer, but one glanced at a building set apart from the kennels. Sano, his men, and his canine army stampeded toward the building. Nanbu's men and their dogs followed. The building was a wooden shack, raised above the muddy ground on low pilings, with lattice enclosing its base; it resembled an oversized privy. The trainers and their dogs held off the other pack as Marume opened the door. Sano and the detectives drew their swords. They looked inside.

A hulking shape moved on the floor. Rhythmic thumps punctuated whimpers and cries. Sano recognized the shape as Nanbu, hunched on his knees and elbows on a mattress. Under him thrashed a girl. She shrieked and beat her fists at him while his body thrust at her and he uttered growls as fierce and bestial as his dogs'.

"Stop!" Sano shouted.

Marume and Fukida burst into the shack, grabbed Nanbu, and dragged him off the woman.

"Hey, what is this?" Nanbu protested. His face was dripping sweat, engorged with lust. His erection showed under his clothes. "Let me go!" As he struggled to break free of the detectives, he saw Sano and exclaimed, "How did you get in here?"

Sano ignored Nanbu and stepped over to the girl. She wept as she tried to cover herself with her torn kimono. He said, "Are you all right?"

Gazing up at him in speechless fear, she pushed long, tangled black hair away from her face. Bruises surrounded both her eyes. Her nose was bleeding.

"Where is the shogun's wife?" Sano asked Nanbu.

"How should I know? Why don't you let me finish?" Nanbu cursed as the detectives hauled him outside and threw him on the mud. The trainers and their dogs surrounded him. "She's just a girl who cleans the dog cages."

"You can go," Sano told the girl. "For your own good, don't come back. Find another job."

She scrambled out the door and ran. Sano left the shack and stood over Nanbu, who said, "I didn't do anything wrong. We were just having a little fun."

"You hit her," Sano said.

"So what?" Nanbu said. The dogs barked and snapped. He cringed. "She got wild. I had to show her who was boss."

His attitude disgusted Sano. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself."

Nanbu looked honestly surprised. "Why? The girl works for me. Besides, she asked for it. She led me on, and then she changed her mind and started fighting."

Sano spotted new variations on the theme. Servants were at their masters' disposal, and Nanbu had only done what countless other men did every day. And many men justified forcing women into sex by saying the women wanted it. However, those excuses didn't make Sano any more favorably disposed toward Nanbu.

"Is that what you told yourself when you violated my cousin?" Sano said.

"I didn't," Nanbu protested. "I told you already." The dogs strained their chains, slavering at him. "Now please, call off your dogs!"

"What's the matter, don't you like a taste of your own medicine?" Marume laughed.

"What about Fumiko and the nun?" Sano said.

"Not them, either!" Nanbu was livid with anger, his hands and knees soiled by the dog feces that littered the ground. "And not the shogun's wife! I've never even laid eyes on her. Why are you looking for her, anyway? Doesn't she always stay inside the palace?"

"She's missing," Fukida said. "We think she's been kidnapped."

"Well, not by me," Nanbu declared. "Search this whole place, search my house, too, if you want-I haven't got her."

Just because he, like Joju and Ogita, indulged in dubious behavior, that didn't mean Nanbu had committed the crimes under investigation. Sano couldn't ignore the possibility that none of the three was behind the disappearance of the shogun's wife.

Then a thought occurred to Sano. What if the oxcart drivers had kidnapped her for another client and hidden her in a secret place? The suspects would know where it was. Sano thought up a deal that might induce Nanbu to cooperate.

"You're in trouble even if you don't have the shogun's wife," Sano told Nanbu. "If she's not found, or if she's hurt, the shogun will blame me. I'll be looking to pass the blame to someone else. You'll make a good scapegoat."

"That's not fair." The horror on Nanbu's face weakened his pose of defiance.

"You want me to be fair? All right, here's a chance to save your life." Sano said, "You tell me where Jinshichi and Gombei take the women they kidnap. I'll let you off the hook."

"I told you I don't know those people," Nanbu whined, but Sano heard the lie in his voice. "You're trying to trick me into confessing."

"Let the dogs have at him," Marume suggested.

"Not yet," Sano said, then addressed Nanbu. "Let's just suppose there have been rumors about two oxcart drivers: They kidnap women and take them to a certain place. Let's suppose you've heard the rumors, even though you've never met Jinshichi or Gombei. Just tell me where the place is. That's not a confession. Nothing will happen to you." Sano hated to play games with a man who might have committed four serious crimes, but he continued: "What do you say?"

Nanbu hesitated. Sano knew that if Nanbu answered, it would mean he was guilty, but Sano would have to spare Nanbu or renege on the deal and violate his code of honor.

"I don't know where it is," Nanbu said slowly.

Sano had had just about all he could take from these men whose true, ugly colors he'd seen even if they weren't guilty of these par tic ular crimes. If Nanbu didn't talk right now, he would kill him. The thought must have shown on his face, because Nanbu recoiled from him in terror.

"I don't know where it is because it doesn't stay in the same place all the time," Nanbu hastily amended. "It moves."

"How can it move?" Sano said, wary of a trick.

"It's a boat," Nanbu said.

When Reiko arrived in Asakusa, she found Chiyo waiting for her in the street a few blocks from the Kumazawa estate. Chiyo clutched the folds of the black drape she wore over her head. She huddled against a wall as pedestrians and mounted samurai moved past her. She looked small, frightened, and vulnerable. Reiko supposed this was the first time she'd left home since Sano had brought her back. When Chiyo spied Reiko's palanquin, she ran up to it and spoke through the window.

"Many thanks for coming. I'm sorry I can't invite you to the house."

"I understand," Reiko said. "What is the trouble you mentioned in your message?"

Gasping, Chiyo bent over and clasped her chest. Not only was she afraid to be out of doors; she was still weak and ill. Reiko told the bearers to set down the palanquin, opened the door, then said to Chiyo, "Come in. Sit down."

Chiyo obeyed. When she'd recovered her breath, she said, "This morning, Jirocho came to the house. My father's soldiers have orders not to let him in, but he stood by the gate and shouted Fumiko's name until she heard him and went running outside. She was so glad to go with him, it broke my heart."

"What changed his mind?" Reiko asked.

"I asked him that. He said he had a new plan for finding out who violated her. And he needed Fumiko to make it work."

Sano wouldn't be pleased that Jirocho had taken the law into his own hands. "What is Jirocho's plan?"

"Jirocho knows about the three suspects that your husband found." The words spilled from Chiyo in breathless haste. "He sent a message, the same message, to Nanbu, Ogita, and Joju. It said that Fumiko has identified him as the one who violated her, and unless he wants her to tell Chamberlain Sano, he should meet Jirocho this evening and pay him a thousand koban."

Reiko stared in surprise and confusion. "But Fumiko didn't get a good look at the man. Has she suddenly remembered more?"

"Maybe. I don't know. She wouldn't talk about it," Chiyo said. "Jirocho is gambling that one of those men will think so."

Now Reiko saw Jirocho's intent. "He's setting a trap. He's hoping that whoever violated his daughter will show up to pay the blackmail, and then Jirocho will kill him. But why did he take Fumiko?"

"He wanted her to go with him to the meeting," Chiyo said. "If someone shows up, Jirocho thinks she'll remember, and she's supposed to say whether he's the one. Jirocho wants to be certain."

The gangster boss didn't want to kill the wrong man, who might show up for reasons that Reiko didn't have time to discuss. Jirocho especially wouldn't want to kill someone as important as Nanbu, Joju, or Ogita without being absolutely sure it was worthwhile.

"Where is the meeting?" Reiko asked.

"In the paupers' cemetery in Inaricho. At the hour of the boar."

That was not long from now. Reiko felt a stir of apprehension on Fumiko's behalf.

"I'm afraid," Chiyo said. "If one of those men is the criminal and he shows up, I can't imagine that he'll just let himself be killed."

"Neither can I." Reiko remembered Sano's descriptions of Ogita, Nanbu, and Joju. They hadn't sounded like easy targets, and they surely wouldn't go to meet a blackmailing gangster alone.

"There's bound to be trouble. I begged Fumiko to stay with me, but she'll do anything to please her father. That's all she wants. I asked my father to intervene, but he said it was none of his business." Anxious and frantic, Chiyo said, "Reiko-san, I have no one to turn to except you." She clasped her hands, extended them to Reiko. "Please, will you save Fumiko?"

"Of course I will," Reiko said.

She couldn't bear the thought of the poor girl caught between her rapist and her father any more than Chiyo could. She felt her heartbeat quicken with excitement, urgency, and uncertainty about what to do.

"I'll tell my husband. He'll send out his troops," she said, then reconsidered. "No-that will take too long. They'll never get there in time." Reiko looked at her own entourage of five guards plus Lieutenant Tanuma. She had an army of seven, including herself.

Lieutenant Tanuma said in alarm, "No, Lady Reiko. We're not going. Your husband would kill me."

"I'm going with or without you," Reiko said, "and he'll kill you if you don't come."

"All right," Tanuma said, glum in his certainty that he was dead no matter what he did. "But I have a bad feeling about this."

Reiko turned to Chiyo. "You'd better go home. I'll tell you what happens."

Chiyo stayed seated in the palanquin beside Reiko. "No," she said, quiet but firm. "I'm going, too."

Dismay struck Reiko. "I can't let you."

"Why not? Because we might see something disturbing? Because you don't think I can bear it?"

"Because you're not trained in combat, and I can't promise we'll be able to protect you. You might get hurt."

Chiyo smiled sadly. "What could hurt me worse than what has already happened? What have I to lose?"

"Perhaps much more than you think," Reiko said. "You don't know what the future holds. Your husband and children-"

"Are gone for good." Chiyo sounded resigned to the fact decreed by custom. "All I have is Fumiko, and she needs me." Chiyo's soft features hardened with determination. "If you put me out of your palanquin, I'll walk all the way to Inaricho. You can't stop me."

A chamber in the office area of Sano's estate served as a command post for the search for Lady Nobuko. Sano, Yanagisawa, and Yoritomo knelt on the floor while Detectives Marume and Fukida unrolled a map of Edo. The map was crisscrossed by painted blue lines that represented streams and canals. The wider blue ribbon of the Sumida River divided Edo proper from the eastern suburbs. Sano and Yanagisawa pored over the map like generals charting a battle strategy.

"Nanbu said he 'heard' the boat was here," Sano said, pointing to a spot on the Nihonbashi River. "But he also said that was last month."

"At least we know we're looking for a floating brothel and we have one possible location," Yanagisawa said. "Good work, Sano-san."

Sano thought how strange it was to hear Yanagisawa pay him a compliment. It was even stranger that Yanagisawa didn't seem to mind that this estate belonged to Sano now.

"Nanbu also gave me a description of the boat," Sano said. "It's approximately forty paces long, with a single mast, a square sail, a cabin with a red tile roof on the deck, and three sets of oars below."

Once the kennel manager had realized that his cooperation could save him from being punished for Lady Nobuko's kidnapping, he'd spewed information so fast that he'd reminded Sano of a horse with diarrhea.

"I've sent troops to seize the boat if it's there, or to trace it if it's not," Sano said. "I expect a report soon."

"In case they don't find it, we'd better start searching all the waterways," Yanagisawa said.

Sano took up a writing brush and dipped it in ink. He happened to glance toward the door and saw Masahiro standing outside the room, watching with avid curiosity. Sano frowned. Masahiro retreated. Sano said, "I'll cross out the waterways that a boat that size can't pass."

"I'll help you," Yoritomo said.

He seemed to have put aside his animosity toward Sano, but then he was smart enough to realize that if they didn't band together and find Lady Nobuko, both families would suffer.

Even after Sano and Yoritomo marked off the waterways that were too narrow or shallow to accommodate the floating brothel, there remained the whole Sumida River, plus wide stretches along other rivers and canals. Yanagisawa took the brush from Yoritomo and drew a line around half the area. "My army will search these," he told Sano. "Yours can do the others."

He and Yoritomo left. Marume said, "I hate to think of how many boats there are that fit the general description."

"And ours has no name or other distinctive features, according to Nanbu," said Fukida.

"Whoever owns it wouldn't want to call attention to it," Sano said. All brothels outside the Yoshiwara licensed pleasure quarter were illegal. Nanbu had claimed he didn't know the name of the boat's owner.

"Finding it could take forever," Marume said glumly.

Hirata entered the room. He said, "Maybe not."

38

Sano and Hirata stood over the two oxcart drivers, who lay in a muddy courtyard inside Edo Jail. Jinshichi's and Gombei's hands were tied behind their backs and their ankles bound with rope.

The big, muscular Jinshichi glowered at his captors from beneath his heavy brow. In the short time he'd spent on the run, his whiskers had grown into a bristly beard. The scar on his cheekbone was flushed red with anger, but he didn't speak.

Gombei, the wiry younger man, squirmed as he said to Sano, "Why are we under arrest again?" He now had three teeth missing. He'd lost another one during the tussle with Hirata, while resisting arrest. His grin oozed blood. His cunning eyes sparkled with fright. "We haven't done anything wrong."

"Then why did you run away from the men I sent to watch you?" Sano said.

"We got tired of being spied on," Jinshichi said sullenly.

"It's not our fault they couldn't keep up with us," Gombei said. Nervous ness edged his good humor.

"We're innocent," Jinshichi said. "We already told you so."

"Why were you hiding out on Ishikawajima?" Hirata asked.

Despite some misgivings, Sano had decided to let Hirata participate in the interrogation. Hirata had caught the drivers; he deserved to help question them. And his mysterious pursuer hadn't yet made another appearance.

"We weren't hiding," Gombei said with earnest sincerity. "We couldn't go to work because your soldiers would have found us. We needed to make money."

Sano was fed up with evasions. Instinct and evidence told him the men were guilty of kidnapping if not rape. "What's the matter, didn't you make enough by kidnapping women?"

"We didn't touch those women," Jinshichi said, surly and vexed. "They told you so themselves."

Gombei grinned and licked blood from his lips. "You had to let us go last time."

"Not this time." Although Sano was opposed to torture, for once he must bend his own rules. But he would employ the mildest form of torture, one used primarily for women.

Into the courtyard walked two jailers. They were eta, toughs dressed in ragged clothes stained with sweat, grime, and blood from previous torture sessions. Sano said, "Perform kusuguri-zeme on these prisoners."

Kusuguri-zeme was the term for torture by tickling. It was considered harmless, and perhaps sexually arousing for male torturers when they performed it on women. The eta didn't look thrilled by the prospect of applying it to the oxcart drivers, but Jinshichi and Gombei chortled.

"Do you really think you can tickle us into confessing?" Gombei said.

"We'll see," Sano said.

The eta crouched beside the drivers, removed their sandals, and began tickling their feet. Gombei flinched and giggled. A smile tugged Jinshichi's mouth. Soon both men were laughing uproariously. The eta worked with grim concentration. Hirata's face was expressionless, his emotions under control. Sano suppressed the urge to laugh. Mirth was contagious.

"Don't let them make you say anything," Jinshichi ordered Gombei as they guffawed and thrashed.

"I won't," Gombei said, gasping for breath. His body jerked involuntarily; distress showed through his humor. "No matter what."

The eta proceeded to tickle the men's armpits. Gombei and Jinshichi bucked, contorted, and tried to roll away from their tormenters. Their laughter took on a ragged, hysterical edge.

"Did you kidnap my cousin Chiyo?" Sano said. The men just kept laughing. Sano prompted, "She was the woman with the baby. At Awashima Shrine. You took her, didn't you?"

"No," Gombei blurted between giggles.

Jinshichi shook his head, panted, and roared.

"Suit yourselves," Hirata said.

The eta poked their fingers between Jinshichi's and Gombei's ribs, along their waists. Soon the men were covered with mud, sobbing while they laughed. Suddenly it didn't seem funny to Sano anymore. The line between mirth and misery had been crossed. Kusuguri-zeme didn't inflict permanent damage, but it caused as much distress as pain did. It was cruel torture indeed. Sano stoically forced himself to watch. He told himself these men were criminals who deserved to suffer until they talked.

"I can't bear it any longer," Gombei whimpered while he laughed and choked. "Make them stop, and I'll tell you whatever you want to know!"

The eta looked to Sano, who nodded. They stopped tickling, rose, and backed away from the prisoners. Gombei moaned and wept with gratitude. Jinshichi said to his partner, "You stupid coward." He was gasping as hard as if he'd run all the way across town. Both men's faces were awash in dirt and tears. Sano felt almost as relieved as they did.

"Did you kidnap my cousin?" Sano repeated.

"Yes," Gombei said weakly. "We gave her a potion that we buy from a druggist in Kanda. It makes people go to sleep, and they can't move."

Jinshichi muttered in disgust, but he nodded.

"Who hired you to kidnap her?" Sano asked.

"I don't know his name," Gombei said.

"He's lying," Hirata told Sano.

"Ogita, Nanbu, or Joju," Sano said. "Which one was it?"

Startled, Gombei said, "How-?"

"How did I find out who your customers are?" Sano explained, "I've been checking into your background since we last met. The proprietor at the Drum Teahouse told me about your side business. He was happy to supply the names."

"I'll kill that rat," Jinshichi fumed.

"If you live long enough," Marume said. "Tell Chamberlain Sano which one raped his cousin."

"It was Ogita," Jinshichi said, reluctant to confess, yet eager to avoid more tickling.

At last Sano knew the truth. At last he had a target for the anger he felt on behalf of Chiyo and his newfound clan. He thought of Ogita lying to his face, and an intense hatred filled him like venom infusing his veins, like hot smoke suffocating his lungs. He wanted to lash out at the merchant and strike him down. But Ogita wasn't here, and now wasn't the time for Sano to let loose his temper.

"Ogita wanted a woman who'd just had a baby," Gombei said. "He wanted to drink milk from her breasts while he had sex with her. You can't get that in Yoshiwara. So we went to Awashima Shrine. It always has plenty of new mothers. All we had to do was pick one who looked easy. I pretended I was hurt, I called for help, and she came right to me."

That he could speak so casually about his crime! Sano felt his hatred grow to encompass the oxcart drivers for their part in Chiyo's rape.

"I didn't know she was your cousin," Gombei said. "If I had, I'd have kidnapped somebody else."

Sano wanted to grab the man by his hair, grind his face into the dirt, wipe off its sheepish expression, then cut off his head. But he wasn't finished with Jinshichi. "You did kidnap somebody else, didn't you? The girl Fumiko."

"No," Gombei said. "We never-"

"Was she for Nanbu, or Joju?" Sano said.

Jinshichi said, "Keep quiet! He'll kill us!"

Sano motioned to the eta. They moved toward the prisoners. Gombei hastily said, "No! Please! All right! She was for Nanbu. He happened to see her when he and his men were catching dogs at Ueno Temple. He wanted her, but he found out she was the daughter of Jirocho the gangster, and he was afraid to take her himself. So he hired us."

Sano was almost as disgusted by Nanbu's cowardice as by his taking pleasure at the expense of a helpless young girl. "Did he hire you to kidnap the nun, too?"

"No. That was Joju. He likes high-class old ladies."

It was the priest who'd infected the nun with genital disease. He was responsible for her suicide and therefore indirectly guilty of murder. Sano thought about the similarities between the nun and the shogun's wife. He glimpsed a light through the dark tangle of this investigation.

"He's confessed to everything," Jinshichi said with a bitter look at his partner. "Just kill us now."

"Not quite everything," Sano said. "There's another victim besides the three we've discussed. The nun wasn't the only woman you kidnapped for Joju, was she?"

An air of caution fell over the men. They seemed to shrink into themselves under its weight. Their gazes avoided each other as well as Sano and his men. Gombei said, "There were only three."

"Four," Sano said.

"Can't you count that high?" Hirata mocked the drivers.

"Maybe they have short memories and they've forgotten about the shogun's wife," Sano said.

"What?" Jinshichi and Gombei spoke in unison; they stared in disbelieving, apparently genuine shock.

"The shogun's wife went missing yesterday," Sano said. "I think she was kidnapped." He pointed at the two men. "By none other than you."

Now they did look at each other, with appalled expressions. Jinshichi blurted, "You didn't tell me she was the shogun's wife."

"I didn't know!" Gombei cried, too upset to deny the charge or keep his mouth shut. "I thought she was just some old lady." He turned to Sano. "I swear!"

"You're in even bigger trouble now," Hirata said. "The shogun will have your head cut off for that."

"Not just yet." Sano addressed the captives: "Tell me what happened."

"We needed money," Gombei said. "We went to see Joju the day before yesterday. He said that if we brought him another old lady, he'd pay us enough money to get out of town. So we went and found her." He moaned. "Of all the women in Edo, it would have to be the shogun's wife. What rotten luck!"

"Your luck is about to improve," Sano said. "Answer a few more questions, and maybe I'll let you live. Here's the first one: Did you take the shogun's wife to the same boat as the other women?"

"He knows about the boat," Jinshichi said dolefully. "He knows everything."

"I take it that means yes," Sano said. "Here's the second question: Where is the boat?"

Jinshichi began to speak, but Gombei prevented him by yelling, "Shut up!" Gombei's eyes shone with desperate cunning. "Even if we tell you where the boat is, you won't be able to find it by yourself. To you, it would look the same as a thousand other boats. How about if we take you there?"

He grinned. Sano knew Gombei was buying time, hoping that on the way to the boat he and Jinshichi would find a way to escape. But Sano had no time to argue or negotiate; without the men as guides, he might not get to Lady Nobuko before the shogun's deadline.

"All right," Sano said, "but I'm warning you: no tricks."

39

The smoke from the crematoriums hung in a cloud over Inaricho district.

Reiko could see the smoke, lit by the full moon, rising like a ghostly fog in the distance as she and Chiyo rode in her palanquin. The light from lanterns hung on poles attached to her bodyguards' horses didn't extend beyond the roadsides. The vast darkness of the rice fields resonated with a cacophony of frogs singing and insects buzzing. At this late hour, Reiko, Chiyo, and their escorts were the only travelers going to Inaricho.

Inaricho was a backwater, situated between two major temple districts. Reiko could see lights flickering far ahead in Ueno to her left and Asakusa to her right, but Inaricho would have been invisible if not for the smoke. It was a perfect location for cemeteries, and for the crematoriums in which dead bodies burned overnight. Inaricho was conveniently near the temples where funeral rites were held and distant from Edo proper, where crematoriums were outlawed because of the fire hazard.

"Jirocho must have chosen the pauper's cemetery because he knew it would be deserted," Reiko said.

"He'll have privacy for his business," Chiyo agreed.

Few people ventured into these parts at night. As her procession entered the smoke cloud, Reiko smelled the awful odor of burning flesh. She and Chiyo held their sleeves over their noses and mouths, but the odor was so strong she could taste it. Her escorts coughed. Their lanterns lit up the smoke and colored it orange. The procession moved as if through fire, toward some hellish netherworld.

The bearers set down the palanquin in the main street, where shops sold altar furnishings such as Buddha statues, candle holders, gold lotus flowers, and incense burners. The shops were closed, abandoned by the living, surrendered to the dead until day came. The bearers were breathing hard, tired from the journey, wheezing because of the smoke. Lieutenant Tanuma dismounted and said to them, "You stay here and guard the horses. We'll walk from here."

Reiko and Chiyo climbed out of the palanquin. As they and the bodyguards raced along Inaricho's back streets, Reiko's heart beat with quickening excitement and apprehension. Beyond small temples and shrines lay the cemeteries, enclosed within stone walls or bamboo fences. The sickening smell of burned flesh grew stronger. Reiko could feel the heat from the crematoriums.

"Which way?" Lieutenant Tanuma's anxious face shone with sweat in the light from the lanterns that he and the other men had brought.

"I don't know," Reiko said. She'd never been to the paupers' cemetery, and there was no one to ask for directions. "We'll just have to look around."

They tramped through the cemeteries. In each stood a crematorium, a massive, outdoor oven built of stone. Each had a shelter where mourners gathered in the morning, when the oven was opened, to pick out bones and put them in an urn for burial. Reiko heard sizzling inside the crematoriums. The smoke that poured from their vents was so thick that she and her comrades groped between the rows of square stone grave pillars carved with the names of the deceased. They tripped on vases of flowers and offerings of food and drink left for the spirits. But they saw no sign of Jirocho or Fumiko. Exhausted, nearly overcome by the smoke, they stopped in an alley to rest.

Bells in the temples tolled the hour of the boar, the time of the rendezvous. As their peals faded, Reiko heard another sound that sent shivers racing along her skin.

"Listen," she whispered.

From somewhere in the distance came the noise of dogs barking. It grew louder, drew closer. Past the alley marched a horde of some thirty men. A few carried lanterns. They appeared to be samurai; they had shaved crowns and wore swords. Ten or twelve held the leashes of big dogs that sniffed the ground and barked. The man with the hugest, blackest dog walked with a swagger, legs spread wide and arms swinging.

"That must be Nanbu," Reiko whispered. "He seems to know where he's going."

She and her companions followed Nanbu and his group to a gate that sagged on its hinges, into a cemetery enclosed by a rough stone wall. Reiko peeked through the gate and saw a large field thick with shrubs and high weeds. Nanbu and his men trudged within the light from their lanterns. Here, in the paupers' cemetery, wooden stakes that bore names scrawled in fading ink marked the graves. Smoke billowed from a crematorium that had no shelter. Firelight glowed through cracks in its walls, like red veins.

"Fumiko must be there already," Chiyo said.

Careless of her own safety, she hurried into the graveyard before Reiko could stop her. Reiko had no choice but to follow, crouching as she ran through the weeds around the perimeter of the field. Lieutenant Tanuma and her other guards thrashed after her, and she prayed Nanbu wouldn't hear them. She caught up with Chiyo and pushed her behind the crematorium. There they hid with Tanuma and the guards. They watched Nanbu's group gather in the middle of the cemetery.

"Where is that cursed gangster?" Nanbu said.

"This was a bad idea," said a bald man with a prominent double chin. He wasn't a samurai; he wore no swords. His cross voice had a deep, carrying resonance. "I shouldn't have let you talk me into coming."

Surprise stabbed Reiko. "That's Ogita. I recognize him from my husband's description. What are he and Nanbu doing together?"

Chiyo whispered urgently, "It's him! I recognize his voice. He's the man from the pavilion of clouds!"

Reiko saw one rapist matched up with his victim, like suits in a card game. Had Ogita, and Nanbu, also violated Fumiko? Was that why they were both here?

"Hey, you came to me when you got that message," Nanbu said to Ogita. "You asked me what to do. This was my solution. If you have a better one, speak up."

However they'd become acquainted, whether they'd both raped Fumiko or not, they'd evidently banded together to cope with Jirocho's blackmail.

"Maybe we should just buy Jirocho off," Ogita said.

Nanbu snorted. "You're supposed to be an expert at business, you should know that won't make him leave us alone. He'll keep asking for more money until he's bled us dry. This is the only way out."

If the presence of his troops and dogs hadn't made it clear to Reiko that he had other plans instead of paying blackmail, his words did. Some of the men must belong to Ogita; he'd brought his army, too. Chiyo had been right: There was trouble coming. Reiko looked at her six bodyguards. They were badly outnumbered.

"I don't like this," Ogita said. "We're going to get in trouble."

Nanbu laughed. "We're already in trouble. Or have you forgotten what we had to do to get Chamberlain Sano's spies off our tails?"

"You mean, what you did," Ogita said.

"Hey, you didn't stop me, you stood by and watched," Nanbu said. "We're in this together."

Reiko realized that Nanbu and his men and dogs must have killed her husband's troops. She was horrified because not only were the men dead, but they wouldn't be coming to help.

"Besides, you're the one who sent that incompetent fool to Major Kumazawa's house," Nanbu said. "If he hadn't botched the job, we wouldn't be in this mess now. You need me."

At least Reiko now knew who was responsible for the assassination attempt on Chiyo and Fumiko.

"I never should have gotten mixed up with you," Ogita said bitterly.

"It's a little late for regrets," Nanbu said. "When this is over, you'll thank me."

"When this is over, I never want to see your face again." Ogita exclaimed, "A curse on the shogun's wife! If she hadn't gotten kidnapped, we wouldn't have to worry about Jirocho."

Reiko began to understand better why they'd formed this unholy alliance. If their problems had been only a matter of the crimes against Chiyo, Fumiko, and the nun, the two men could have gambled that Jirocho's blackmail attempt was just a bluff and ignored his message. But now the shogun was looking for someone to blame for his wife's disappearance. If Fumiko bore witness against Ogita and Nanbu, the shogun would probably take her at her word and decide they were responsible for whatever had happened to Lady Nobuko even if they weren't. The two men had to destroy Jirocho before he destroyed them.

"We have to warn Jirocho," Reiko whispered.

"But how?" Chiyo said.

They were trapped behind the crematorium, in the radius of its fiery heat. Reiko wiped her perspiring face on her sleeve. If they tried to leave the cemetery, Nanbu and Ogita would see them.

"We won't have to worry about Jirocho much longer," Nanbu said. "Just be patient."

Reiko heard hissing sounds and dull thuds. Men among Nanbu's and Ogita's troops jerked as if they'd been struck. They cried out and clutched at arrows that had suddenly appeared in their chests and backs. Some fell dead or wounded. A dog with an arrow stuck in his side ran off squealing.

"What's going on?" Ogita demanded as his group scattered. He groped after his guards; they drew their swords.

Nanbu struggled to restrain his dog, which lunged and barked wildly. He shouted, "It's a trap!"

More hisses accompanied a storm of arrows that rushed out of the darkness beyond the cemetery. The men raised and swung their lanterns in a frantic effort to see who was shooting at them. More men fell. Stray arrows pelted the grass. As Nanbu's and Ogita's men tried to shield their masters, dark figures climbed onto the cemetery wall. Some took on the shape of archers with bows drawn; others were silhouettes equipped with spears. Some forty in all, they looked like demons risen from hell in the flame-lit smoke that swirled around them. One man wasn't armed. Although short and pudgy, he had a confident, imperious stance.

"Hold your fire!" he shouted.

"It's Jirocho," Reiko whispered.

Laughter and samisen music blared in the moonlit fog over the Kanda River.

Sano, Hirata, Marume, and Fukida walked the two oxcart drivers along the footpath by the water, through the district known as Yanagibashi-"Willow Tree Bridge." Here, the Kanda emptied into the Sumida River. Yanagibashi had once been a mere launching point for boats that carried passengers up the Sumida to the Yoshiwara licensed pleasure quarter, but an unlicensed entertainment quarter had sprung up in the area. Some of the boats moored at the docks and some of the teahouses on the riverbanks contained brothels with local prostitutes. But Yanagibashi had none of Yoshiwara's glamour.

Cheap, garish red lanterns on the boats and teahouses reflected in the water. Raucous parties overflowed from verandas. Under the bridge, beggars slept. Men stumbled off boats returning from Yoshiwara. Girls called out from windows to them, soliciting their depleted reserves of cash and virility.

Sano had left his other troops behind, at the foot of the bridge, on advice he'd received earlier from Gombei.

"If the owner of the boat sees a big crowd of samurai, he'll get suspicious," Gombei had said.

If Sano were the owner of an illegal brothel boat and saw an army coming, he would cast off and take the boat down the Sumida River and out to Edo Bay. He might even dump the shogun's wife in the ocean.

Gombei led the way with Hirata guarding him; Marume and Fukida followed with Jinshichi, who plodded sullen and silent between them. Sano brought up the rear. They avoided drunks vomiting into the water. Tough young townsmen roved, hunting people to rob.

"Which one is it?" Sano said as they passed boats.

"Farther down," Gombei said.

"It had better be there," Marume said, "or you and your friend are dead."

"It will be. It will be!" Gombei's voice was shrill with his fear that the boat had moved.

Sano felt the same fear as he wondered what was happening to the shogun's wife. But he reminded himself that he had the three suspects under surveillance; they couldn't rape Lady Nobuko. Continuing along the footpath, he observed that most of the boats were small, open craft with a single oar. But quite a few others were larger, some forty paces long, each with a single mast, a square sail, a cabin with a red tile roof on the deck, and three sets of oars below. Figures blurred by the mist boarded and disembarked, customers of the illegal floating brothels which all fit the description Nanbu had provided. The only detail Nanbu hadn't mentioned was the red lanterns that hung from the eaves of the cabins. Gombei had spoken the truth: Without him as a guide, Sano would not have been able to pick out the right one.

Gombei stopped so suddenly that Marume, Jinshichi, and Fukida bumped into him and Hirata. He pointed at a boat moored two slips down the river. "That's it," Gombei said.

"How do you know?" Sano asked.

"Do you see that man on the deck?"

The man stood at the railing, facing inland, his tall, gaunt profile a dark silhouette. He had bad posture, his shoulders slumped, his hips and head thrust forward.

"He's the owner," Gombei said. "He takes a cut of the money our customers pay us for the women."

"You'd better be telling the truth," Sano said.

They strolled casually toward the boat, a party of friends out for the evening. "You stay on the dock and guard our informants," Sano told Marume and Fukida. "Hirata-san and I will go aboard."

As they neared the boat, the owner came into clearer view. His long hair was greased back into a knot. His robes hung on him, reminding Sano of a clothes stand. There didn't appear to be anyone else on board, but the windows of the cabin were closed; Sano couldn't see inside it or below the deck. He and his companions had just reached the dock, when four samurai came hurrying down a street that led between the teahouses to the river. The four headed for the dock. When they saw Sano, they stopped in surprise. He recognized them as his own troops.

"What are you doing here?" Sano kept his voice calm. "You were supposed to watch Joju."

"We followed him here from the temple," the leader said. "We just saw him get on that boat."

Shock and dismay filled Sano. The exorcist was already with Lady Nobuko. But that gave Sano the chance to catch him in the act of rape.

Looking toward the boat, Sano saw the owner looking straight back at him. The man had heavy purplish bags under wary eyes; black moles peppered his cheeks. Three more men appeared, climbing up from under the deck, to see what the commotion was all about. They were samurai, heavyset and tough and armed with swords, rnin hired to guard the brothel.

Suddenly Gombei shouted, "Look out! They've come to raid your boat!"

40

In the cemetery, Nanbu called to Jirocho, "What is this?" His face was ugly

with anger. The dog on his leash growled. "You told me to come here and pay blackmail, and now you shoot at me and kill my men. Are you crazy?"

"Not crazy, just practical," Jirocho said. Nanbu's men held lanterns up to him, the better to see his face. He posed like the lead actor onstage in a Kabuki drama. The flames and shadows exaggerated his predatory smile, the ferocity in his eyes. "It's obvious you came to fight instead of paying. Forgive me if I changed the odds in my favor."

Reiko counted only twenty men still standing in the cemetery. Jirocho's forces outnumbered Nanbu's and Ogita's by a good margin, and the gangster had his adversaries surrounded.

"I told you we shouldn't have come," Ogita said bitterly.

"Ah, Ogita-san. How nice to see you." Jirocho's voice dripped vindictive scorn. "Where's Joju the exorcist?"

"How should I know?" Ogita retorted.

"Two out of three will have to do, then." Jirocho beckoned. "Stop hiding behind your guards. You and Nanbu-san, step closer."

When neither man budged, his gang drew their bows, aimed arrows and spears. Ogita and Nanbu reluctantly moved toward the wall upon which Jirocho stood. Peering around the crematorium, Reiko and her comrades had a clear view of them. "Good," Jirocho said, then addressed their men: "Hold your lanterns up to their faces."

"What is this?" Nanbu said again, but he'd lost his bluster. Illuminated by the lanterns, he showed as much anxiety as rage.

Jirocho reached behind him. Reiko saw a small hand reach up from the darkness on the other side of the wall and grasp his. A girl dressed in a white kimono printed with blue irises scrambled onto the wall beside Jirocho.

Chiyo gasped. "Fumiko!"

The dogs began to bark at the girl. She seemed not to notice anyone but Jirocho. She gazed up at him, her eyes filled with adoration.

Jirocho yanked his hand free of hers. He jerked his chin toward Nanbu and Ogita and said, "Which one is it?"

Fumiko reluctantly moved her gaze from her father to the two men. A frown creased her forehead. Ogita said in disgust, "It's just as I thought: She doesn't know. That's why Jirocho blackmailed both of us, and the priest, too, it seems. Nanbu-san, I tried to tell you it was a trick. But you wouldn't listen. Now look at the mess we're in!"

"Shut up!" Nanbu said.

"Open your robes and take off your loincloths." Jirocho was obviously determined to repeat the examination done at Edo Jail, with better results. Nanbu and Ogita looked at each other in consternation. "Do it, or my men will."

Nanbu cursed as he and Ogita stripped. Loincloths shed, they held their robes open, displaying their genitals. Reiko saw the huge, dark mole on Nanbu's penis.

"He's the one," Fumiko said, her shrill voice ringing clear. She pointed at Nanbu.

Reiko saw another pair matched up in the sordid game of criminals and victims. Nanbu had raped Fumiko, Ogita had raped Chiyo, and that probably left the absent Joju guilty of the nun's violation and suicide.

Jirocho fixed Nanbu with a gaze as cold as steel in winter. He said to his gang, "We'll have to kill everybody. We don't want any witnesses."

The gangsters armed with spears jumped down from the wall. As they faced off against Nanbu's and Ogita's troops, Ogita cried, "Wait! I'll give him to you, if you let me go. I promise never to talk!"

His men grabbed Nanbu and shoved him toward Jirocho. Struggling to free himself, Nanbu let go of his dog's leash. He pointed to Jirocho and yelled, "Attack!"

The dog charged. It sprang higher than Reiko had thought possible, up to the top of the wall. Jirocho stepped backward, too late. The dog caught his ankle in its teeth. As it fell, it dragged Jirocho with it. Jirocho yelled and flailed his arms. He and the dog crashed into the cemetery together in a tangle of thrashing, howling, and cursing.

"Father!" Fumiko exclaimed, and jumped off the wall.

A cry of distress burst from Chiyo. She rushed from behind the crematorium toward Fumiko.

"No! Don't!" Reiko drew her dagger and ran after Chiyo.

Lieutenant Tanuma called, "Lady Reiko, stop!" as he and her other bodyguards followed.

The dog savaged at Jirocho's throat. Jirocho shouted, "Help!" and beat at the animal. Fumiko grabbed the dog by its spiked collar. His men hurried to his aid, but Nanbu's troops and dogs headed them off. Chiyo seized Fumiko by the arm. Reiko, close behind Chiyo, saw Fumiko tugging at the dog.

It turned on her and lunged. She screamed and reeled backward, throwing up her arms to protect her face. Chiyo hurled herself between the dog and Fumiko. The dog struck her with all four huge paws, a missile of solid flesh and bone. Chiyo went down. Reiko slashed at the beast, heedless of the laws against hurting dogs. Her blade opened a bloody gash in its side. Now it turned on her. Pure, mindless savagery blazed in its red eyes. It sprang for her throat, its mouth open in a vicious snarl, its throat a gaping red maw. Reiko lashed out her dagger and cut the dog across its belly in midair. It uttered a piercing yowl. Blood and intestines poured from the wound as the dog landed on the ground, panting and squirming.

Reiko hurried to Chiyo. "Are you all right?"

"Yes," Chiyo said while Reiko helped her to stand. "Where's Fumiko?"

Reiko looked around. Jirocho struggled to his feet; his face, neck, and hands were bloody from dog bites. Fumiko stumbled toward him, around gangsters battling Nanbu's troops. Ogita stumbled through the melee, yelling, "Get me out of here!" His guards fought their way toward him.

"You're not going anywhere, you traitor!" Having drawn his sword, Nanbu frantically parried jabs from the gangsters' spears. He ordered his men, "Don't let him get away." A few quit the fight against the gangsters and blocked the gate. "Bring me the girl!" Nanbu shouted.

His men snatched at Fumiko. She dodged. Lieutenant Tanuma called to Reiko, "Take Chiyo outside where you'll both be safe. I'll rescue Fumiko."

He and her other guards ran around the cemetery, lashing their swords at the troops chasing Fumiko, trying to herd her out of danger. Chiyo joined the chase. Reiko ran after Chiyo. They caught up to Fumiko. Nanbu's men surrounded them, swords raised, dogs straining on leashes. Reiko swung her dagger while Chiyo and Fumiko hid behind her. The men laughed and feinted at her; they made her spin, circle, and duck. They were so sure she was a typical, harmless female that they grew careless. She sliced a man on his arm. He yelped in surprise. Another man seized Reiko from behind, picked her up, and threw her.

One moment she was flying through air and smoke; the next, she thudded facedown in the weeds, her breath punched out of her, gasping. Chiyo screamed, "Watch out!"

Reiko raised herself on her elbows and saw the man she'd wounded rushing upon her, sword raised in both hands, face contorted with rage. She rolled out of the way just before his blade came down. It struck the ground where she'd lain. Miraculously, she still had her dagger in her hand. As she regained her feet and fought her attacker, she saw another of Nanbu's men grab Fumiko. He passed the kicking, struggling girl to Nanbu.

"Jirocho!" Nanbu shouted. "I've got your daughter." He held his blade to her throat. "Call off your gang, or she's dead!"

He obviously didn't know that Jirocho had cast off his daughter and had only taken her back as part of his scheme to avenge the insult to himself. Reiko was horrified because she knew Jirocho meant to kill Nanbu and didn't care if Fumiko died, too.

The gangsters faltered and retreated from the battle. Reiko was surprised to see that they evidently weren't so sure of their master's intentions. Nanbu's men maintained their fighting stance. Lieutenant Tanuma and her other guards stood between Reiko and her attacker and shielded her with raised swords. Everyone looked toward Jirocho.

He stood speechless, arms dangling. He beheld his daughter, captured by the man who'd raped her, and his ravaged, bloody face took on an expression of pure anguish.

Shock stunned Reiko. He did care about Fumiko after all. Reiko realized that despite his outlaw status, he was a conventional man who observed the mores of society. He'd rejected his daughter because he felt obligated to, not because he'd stopped loving her. Now he regretted that his plan had put her in danger. Reiko read the other thoughts that he couldn't hide. The child he'd disowned had saved him from Nanbu's dog. Even as he realized he'd made a mistake by casting her off, he feared he would lose her for good.

The crackle of the body burning inside the crematorium was loud in the silence. The people in the cemetery were as still as the corpses that littered the ground. Even the dogs quieted. Fumiko stood in Nanbu's grasp, regarding her father with hopeful anticipation. Everyone waited to see what Jirocho would do.

Gombei ran toward the boat, yelling to the owner, "You have to leave now!"

Jinshichi hurried after him. "We're coming with you!"

"Hey!" Marume yelled. "Stop!"

Sano and Hirata were already racing after the two oxcart drivers. The boat owner shouted commands. Two peasant crewmen bolted up from below deck. One untied the ropes that moored the boat. As Gombei and Jinshichi hit the gangplank, the other crewman tried to raise it. The three rnin on board blocked the gate in the boat's railing. They drew their swords.

"Get off," one of them ordered the oxcart drivers.

"Take us with you, or they'll kill us," Gombei cried.

"You brought them here. You traitors!"

As Hirata caught up with Gombei and Jinshichi, one of the rnin cut the two men across their throats. Blood spurted as they collapsed. The quick, brutal violence horrified Sano even though their deaths were punishment well deserved. Hirata kicked their bodies into the river. Swords drawn, he and Sano clambered up the gangplank, which was slick with blood. Marume and Fukida and their other troops were close behind them. Hirata lunged at the guards on the boat. His blade moved in arcs and slashes too fast for the men to parry. They fell back even as their master shouted at them to stop the intruders. Hirata and Sano leaped aboard.

The crewmen disconnected the gangplank. It fell, carrying Marume, Fukida, and the rest of Sano's men into the river with it. The oars began to move as the crew below deck rowed. The boat pulled away from the bank.

"I'll handle this," Hirata called to Sano as the guards rallied and he began to fight them. "Save the shogun's wife!"

Sano grabbed the boat owner by the front of his kimono and held the sword to his neck. "Where is she?"

"I don't know what you're talking about!"

Sano flung the man into the battle raging between his guards and Hirata. As the boat accelerated down the river, people peered curiously out from the teahouses. Sano saw Marume and Fukida in the water, swimming after the boat. He tried to slide open the cabin door. The wooden panel felt oddly heavy. It was loose in its frame, but locked from the inside. He applied more strength, felt the lock break, and stepped inside.

Dim, silvery light enveloped him. He heard grunts, cries, and rustling that quickly ceased. An odd softness on the floor cushioned his feet. The boat tilted; the door slid shut. Sano found himself in a world of eerie silence. Unnerved, he clutched his sword. As he gazed at his surroundings, he discovered why he couldn't hear any noise from outside.

The walls, floor, ceiling, and windows of the cabin were padded with gray cloth. It glowed silver in the light from a metal lantern suspended from the ceiling. The cloth was ripped in many places, hanging in tatters. There Sano could see white cotton bulging behind the fabric.

He was in the pavilion of clouds.

This was the place where Chiyo had been raped, which she'd described to Reiko. The strange decor plus the drugs explained her memories. The cabin had been furnished to keep sounds from escaping. Sano let out his breath.

He heard someone else breathing fast and hard.

He wasn't alone.

The veils of ripped cloth that dangled from the ceiling partially hid a bizarre tableau in the corner. A naked man with a shaved head lay on his stomach, his muscular legs splayed, arms and hands propping up his body, on a mattress on the floor. His face was turned toward Sano. He didn't move, as if by remaining motionless he could remain unnoticed. His eyes gleamed with lust, silvery reflections, and fright.

It was Joju.

Under him was the nude, emaciated body of an old woman. She lay on her back, her head hidden by the cloth. Alongside her withered limbs and bony torso, a spread of ruddy color glowed, staining her pale, sagging skin crimson. At first Sano thought it was blood and Joju had murdered the shogun's wife. His heart seized. Then she stirred and moaned. Sano saw that the color was Joju's red brocade stole.

"Get up, Joju," Sano said. "Put on your clothes. You're under arrest."

The exorcist slowly pushed himself upright. Sano could see him wondering how much trouble he was in and how to get out of it. His penis withdrew from between the old woman's spread legs. It was limp and shriveled, dripping with semen and blood.

He'd finished the rape.

Sano was dismayed to realize that he'd arrived too late.

But not too late to catch Joju in the act.

Joju yanked his saffron robe out from beneath the woman, who moaned softly. She must have been sedated with the same drug used on Chiyo, Fumiko, and the nun. He pulled the robe over his head and said, "Why are you arresting me?" He'd recovered a semblance of his suave poise. "For having relations with an illegal prostitute?" He uttered a hollow imitation of his boisterous laugh. "That's a minor offense. I'll be let off with a fine. My reputation won't even suffer with the people who matter. You might as well not waste your time."

"I'm arresting you because you violated the shogun's wife and you're a party to her kidnapping. For that, you'll be executed." Sano glanced at the unconscious Lady Nobuko. Her breasts were flat pouches; her rib cage jutted beneath translucent skin laced with blue veins. White pubic hair barely covered her crotch. She looked pitiful and vulnerable. "Now get up." Sano beckoned. "Step away from Lady Nobuko."

Joju didn't move. "You think this is the shogun's wife?" He laughed again, louder. "Well, it isn't."

He pulled aside the dangling cloth that hid the woman's head. Her hair was white, her face as soft and wrinkled as wadded rice paper. She must be in her seventies, much older than Lady Nobuko. The woman Gombei and Jinshichi had kidnapped was someone else. Surprise, disappointment, and confusion stunned Sano.

"Who is she?" he said.

"I don't know. Who cares?"

"Where is Lady Nobuko?" Sano demanded.

"I've no idea," Joju said.

If the two oxcart drivers hadn't kidnapped her, then who had? What was happening to her at this moment? Sano had been so sure he would find Lady Nobuko here!

"Why don't we just agree to call this a misunderstanding, and you let me go?" Joju said. "If you don't tell anybody what you saw here, then I won't tell the shogun that you persecuted me and flubbed the search for his wife."

"How dare you try to bargain with me?" Sano's consternation quickly turned to rage.

Joju had raped this woman, no matter that she wasn't Lady Nobuko. And Sano had noticed the similarity between her and one of the previous victims. She was near the same age as the nun, and the unblemished whiteness of her skin indicated that she came from the same high class. Sano remembered his brief glimpse of Joju's penis, now hidden beneath the saffron robe, and further enlightenment struck.

"The blood on you isn't this woman's," Sano said. "It's your own. You're covered with running sores. It was you who raped the nun. You gave her your disease and drove her to suicide."

The look on Joju's face showed his downslide from confident expectancy into apprehension as Sano spoke. His guilt was as obvious as if words describing his crime had been inked on his face, and it was clear that he could tell that Sano had no intention of letting him go. He suddenly snatched at something under the red stole beside the old woman. It was a knife with a shiny steel blade and a black lacquer handle. Even as Sano rushed to grab it and lash his sword at Joju, the exorcist held the blade to the woman's throat.

"Leave me alone, or I'll kill her," he said.

Sano froze, his sword still raised.

"Drop your weapon." Joju's voice and gaze were steady with determination. So was his hand holding the knife.

Sano let his sword fall. It landed noiselessly on the padded floor. Disarmed and immobilized, he cursed himself for underestimating Joju. He knew the exorcist was a fraud and a rapist, but hadn't thought him capable of murder.

"Walk out the door and don't come back," Joju said.

The boat rocked; the door slid open. In came the sounds of feet pounding the deck and blades clashing. Sano heard Marume shout, "Take that!" The detectives must have climbed aboard the boat. Thuds shook the cabin's wall as bodies bumped it. Sano realized that when Chiyo had been imprisoned in the cabin, the door must have opened long enough for her to hear the rain and thunder outside. Then the boat rocked again and the door slid shut, sealing Sano and Joju in eerie quiet once more.

"Be sure to take your men with you," Joju said.

This was a situation that Sano had faced too many times before: A criminal held an innocent person hostage in a ploy to gain his freedom. Counterstrategies that Sano had used in the past raced through his mind, but he couldn't gamble that old ideas would work again.

"Very well," Sano said, thinking fast. He couldn't let the woman die even if she wasn't the shogun's wife. Inspiration arose from his experience with Joju. He backed toward the door, then paused, his chin lifted and his eyes alert, as if at a sudden sound. "Did you hear that?"

41

Jirocho didn't speak the words that would spare Nanbu and save Fumiko. Reiko saw her face briefly sag with disappointment, then transform into a murderous scowl. Fumiko wrenched her body forward. Her sudden movement swayed Nanbu off balance. She thrust her fist backward, between his widespread legs. At the same moment Jirocho raised his hand; he started to speak. Nanbu uttered a bellow of agony. He dropped his sword, let go of Fumiko, and staggered. He sank to his knees, clutching his groin.

"What-?" Jirocho said, his hand still raised, the words he'd meant to speak forgotten. Everyone else stared at Fumiko.

She stood over Nanbu, her face a picture of grim triumph. She held a knife that she'd kept hidden under her sleeve. Reiko gazed at her in awe. Her pose brought to mind a samurai who'd slain his worst enemy in battle. Perhaps Jirocho would have given in to Nanbu, but he hadn't acted soon enough, so Fumiko had taken matters into her own hands.

Blood pumped from the wound she'd inflicted on Nanbu. He roared, a sound as fierce and inhuman as the din of barking and howling that the dogs now commenced. He pressed his hands to the wound, but the blood spilled over them. As his men rushed to help him, he toppled and fell.

Reiko had seen death too many times before. She saw it coming now, in the blankness that obliterated the terror and pain on Nanbu's face, in the inertia that gradually stilled his body. His men saw it, too. Before his last tremors ceased, the cry burst from them: "Avenge our master's death!"

They rushed at Fumiko. This time Jirocho didn't hesitate. "Save my daughter!" he shouted.

His gang fought Nanbu's men and dogs. Fumiko watched her father pick up a club and deliver merciless blows to the enemy troops around her. Her eyes brimmed with adoration. Reiko saw only seven or eight of Nanbu's men left, and only four dogs; the gangsters had killed the rest. Someone bumped into her. It was Ogita, desperately trying to thread his way through the battle, out of the cemetery. He was alone; his guards had died. He collided with grave posts as he neared the gate.

Chiyo stepped in front of it.

"Get out of my way!" he shouted.

She didn't move even though her expression was filled with terror. Reiko couldn't let her friend face Ogita alone. Leaving the gang to defend Fumiko, she ran to Chiyo.

"Who are you?" Ogita was saying.

Chiyo didn't seem to notice Reiko standing by her side. She frowned in dismay and puzzlement as she beheld Ogita. "Don't you know?"

"If we've met before, I don't remember, I'm sorry," Ogita said impatiently. "Now please move."

"You had me kidnapped. You-you had relations with me while I was drugged." Chiyo's voice shook. "And you don't even remember me?"

Ogita narrowed his eyes, took another look at Chiyo. Recognition dawned. "Oh. Yes." A lascivious smile crept across his face. "It's a pleasure to see you again. But I'm in a bit of a hurry, so if you don't mind-"

"I do mind." Chiyo was so pale that Reiko feared she would faint, but she bravely stood her ground. "You will not leave until you explain to me why you did it."

"Enough of this nonsense." Ogita lifted his hand, perhaps to push Chiyo out of his way, perhaps to strike her down.

Chiyo snatched the dagger from Reiko. She brandished it at Ogita and cried, "Don't you touch me!"

Reiko was as amazed as Ogita looked. Never had she thought Chiyo would have the courage to confront her rapist, let alone threaten him. But she came from the same clan as Sano. The same samurai blood ran in her veins.

Ogita recoiled, his gaze darting between Chiyo's tense, white face to the weapon in her hand, caught between her and the battle that still raged on. "All right, if you must know: I did it because I wanted to. And because I could." He smiled at her shocked expression. "Are you satisfied?"

Such fury blazed in her normally mild eyes that Reiko almost didn't recognize her. Her lips moved, but she could find no words to convey her offense at Ogita's callousness.

"No?" Ogita laughed mockingly. "Well, maybe once wasn't enough for you. Would you like to do it again sometime?"

Reiko gasped in indignation. Chiyo flinched as if Ogita had slapped her and said, "Because of what you did to me, I've lost everything." The dagger trembled in her hands. "My children, my husband, and my honor." Tears glistened in her angry eyes. "And you think it's a joke."

"I don't if you don't," Ogita said patronizingly. "I'm sorry if you're upset, but it's water under the bridge, so let's just forget about it, all right?" He extended his hand to her, waggled his fingers, and said, "Give me that dagger."

Chiyo hesitated. Reiko saw her habit of obeying men weaken her desire to stand up to Ogita. Then she gulped a deep, quick breath, as if she'd jumped off a cliff over the ocean and had to fill her lungs before she hit the water. She swiped at Ogita with all her might. The motion sent him skipping backward and her spinning in a clumsy circle. Ogita chuckled half in shock, half in amusement.

"So you want to play rough?" he said. "Normally, I like a woman with a little fight in her, but I've got to go."

He veered around Chiyo toward the gate. She stumbled in front of him, awkwardly swinging the dagger, totally untrained in combat. Reiko watched in amazement as Chiyo's determination made up for lack of experience. Chiyo chased Ogita straight into the battle. He ran sideways, trying to keep an eye on her and the fighters. Reiko ran after them and grabbed a sword from a dead samurai. How she regretted talking so much about justice! Chiyo had taken Reiko's words to heart. She displayed the recklessness of a warrior on a suicide mission. She seemed oblivious to the swords and spears slicing the air around her. Her desire for revenge on Ogita might get her killed.

Perhaps she wanted death as much as revenge.

Would that Reiko could save her from herself!

Ogita tripped over a bloody corpse. It was Nanbu's. Ogita fell. He sprawled on his stomach over Nanbu. He tried to get up, but the blood was slippery, and he fell again.

Chiyo advanced on him, the dagger raised high. The change that came over her was so startling that Reiko froze in her tracks. Her face was as serene and as hard as a stone Buddha's. Ogita looked up at her over his shoulder as he struggled to rise. All the terror he'd caused her in the pavilion of clouds now glazed his eyes. He opened his mouth to protest, or beg.

Chiyo slashed the dagger down. The blade cleaved deep into Ogita's back. Uttering a pitiful croak, he stiffened. He went limp as he died, lying across Nanbu, his conspirator in sinful crimes.

The unnatural serenity deserted Chiyo. Her face crumpled; she sank to her knees beside Ogita and Nanbu; she began to sob. Reiko moved to console her, but Fumiko came running, cut in front of Reiko, and threw her arms around Chiyo.

"Don't cry," Fumiko said. "They were bad men. They deserved to die."

Now Reiko saw that the battle was over. Nanbu's men and dogs all lay lifeless amid the graves. Only Jirocho and some ten gangsters, and Lieutenant Tanuma and Reiko's other guards remained standing. They were disheveled, bruised, and bloody. In the smoke from the crematoriums and the dropped lanterns whose flames smoldered in the weeds, they looked like survivors of some dreadful catastrophe.

Chiyo wept as though purging all the emotion from her spirit. Reiko felt tears of release sting her own eyes. Jirocho left his gang, walked slowly over to Fumiko, and laid his hand on her hair. He swallowed hard and blinked.

"Don't cry," Fumiko said as she began to sob herself. "It's all right."

"Hear what?" Joju frowned, impatient and threatening, his blade firm against the old woman's throat.

"There's somebody here in this room with us," Sano said.

"There's only you and me and her, and you'll be gone soon," Joju retorted.

Sano gazed around the cabin, lifting his hand, feeling the air. "It's somebody from the spirit world."

Contempt twisted the priest's mouth. "Don't try that on me. I'm the expert at all the tricks. You're just an amateur."

" 'We all have the power to communicate with the spirit world.' " Sano quoted the words Joju had spoken to him during their first meeting.

"But only a few of us know how. You're forgetting the rest of what I said."

"I seem to have become one of the few," Sano said, "and I don't need music or fireworks to hear the spirit. She says she wants to talk to you."

"You're stalling." Joju held the knife firmly against the blue vein visible in the woman's neck. "Get out."

"I'm getting a name," Sano said. "It sounds like…" He paused, straining the muscles of his face, concentrating hard. "Okitsu."

"I don't know anyone by that name." But Joju looked as shocked as the moneylender he'd bilked. He obviously remembered Okitsu, the beggar woman Sano had met outside the temple.

"She was once possessed by evil spirits who told her that people were out to get her," Sano said. "Her parents brought her to you. You performed an exorcism on her."

"How-?"

"How did I know? She just told me." Sano cocked his head, pretended to listen. "She says you raped her and got her pregnant."

Joju beheld Sano with the fearful wonder of a pilgrim hearing a Buddha statue at a woodland shrine tell guilty secrets he thought nobody knew.

Sano gambled that Joju hadn't bothered to find out what had happened to Okitsu afterward. "She died giving birth."

"No," Joju whispered. He evidently didn't know that Okitsu was still alive and begging outside his temple.

Sano remembered something else Joju had said: People want to believe in what I do. He realized that Joju himself believed, and he was as vulnerable to manipulation by false mediums and spirits as his own clients were.

"What does she want?" Joju said reluctantly, unable to help himself. Sano's knowledge of his past had convinced him that the spirit was real.

"There's another spirit with Okitsu," Sano said. "She wants you to meet him."

"Who…?"

"It's her son." Sano paused a beat. "Your son."

"I never had any son." Joju's words were less a denial than a plea for Sano to assure him that they were true.

"Now you know better," Sano said. "He doesn't have a name because he died while Okitsu was having him. She says she's been wandering between the world of the living and the world of the dead, carrying him in her arms. She wants to show him to his father. Here he is."

Sano gestured at the empty air near the bed. Joju's stricken gaze moved to the spot Sano indicated. Sano blew on the cloth that hung from the ceiling over the spot. The cloth fluttered. The flame in the lantern wavered. Joju gasped. Sano could almost see the vision the priest saw-a ghostly woman holding out a baby. The hairs rose on Sano's own neck. The power of suggestion was potent indeed.

"I don't want him," Joju said weakly to the ghost. "Leave me alone."

"She's angry at you for what you did," Sano said. "You caused her and the baby to suffer and die. You doomed them never to find peace. And now that she's found you, she wants revenge."

Joju shuddered as he recoiled from the ghostly mother and child. "Please. Go away," he whispered.

His hand that held the knife trembled. He seemed to have forgotten the old woman was there, but one slip of the knife could kill her. Sano felt an increasing pressure to gain control of Joju, fast.

"Okitsu says she's putting a curse on you," Sano said. "Misfortune will follow you wherever you go. The shogun will turn against you. You'll lose your temple, your money, and your reputation. You'll become a pariah begging in the streets. You'll get every disease known to man. Everybody will shun you. You'll suffer terribly."

Joju glared at Sano as if Sano were responsible for the sins he'd committed, the ills he'd brought upon himself. "Make her stop! Make them go away!"

"I can't," Sano said. "I'm not an exorcist. All I can do is act as a mediator between you and Okitsu."

"Then do it!" Panic agitated Joju.

Sano addressed the ghost he'd conjured up. "How can Joju make amends for what he did? What must he do in order for you to lift your curse and cross into the spirit world?"

He pretended to listen. He forced himself to wait and let the suspense build, while Joju watched him with the helpless faith of a drowning man clinging to a rescuer's hand. At last Sano said, "Okitsu says you must confess your sins."

"All right!" Joju cried. "I took advantage of her. I got her with child. It's my fault they died!"

"She says that's not enough. You have to confess all your sins." Sano asked, "Did you rape the nun?"

Joju hesitated, clearly aware that Sano had led him onto ground where he must dig his own grave. But his fear of the future Sano had painted overcame caution. With a groan, he sank in his shovel. "Yes."

At long last Sano had the admission of guilt that he wanted, but he couldn't stop there. "Okitsu still isn't satisfied. She says that if you hurt that old woman, she'll never forgive you. When you die, she'll lay claim to your soul. You and Okitsu and your child will wander in the netherworld together for all eternity."

The priest gazed at the old woman. She slept, oblivious to the drama taking place. In his eyes warred his desire for salvation and his knowledge that if he gave up his hostage, he was doomed.

Sano pointed at a corner of the padded floor. "Okitsu wants you to throw the knife over there. She says, get up and move away from that woman, or the curse starts now."

Joju's fraught expression didn't change, but Sano felt a dangerous impulse flare in him. Sano ducked at the same instant the priest hurled the knife straight at his heart. The knife struck the wall with a muffled thump; the padding absorbed the blade. Joju uttered a roar of desperate, reckless fury. He lunged at Sano. Sano sidestepped, grabbed Joju by the arm, twisted it behind him, and forced him to the floor.

The resistance leaked out of Joju. Pinned under Sano's knee, he wept, babbling, "Namo Amida Butsu! Namo Amida Butsu! I trust in the Buddha of Immeasurable Light." It was the prayer that the nun had told Reiko he'd forced her to say while he'd raped her here, in the pavilion of clouds.

The door crashed open. The sounds of oars splashing in water accompanied Hirata and Detective Marume into the room. "The boat owner and his guards are dead," Hirata said. "The crew has surrendered, and they're taking the boat back to the dock. Fukida is keeping an eye on them…" His voice trailed off. He and Marume stared at Sano holding Joju down, at the naked, unconscious woman on the bed, at the padded walls.

"So this is the scene of the crime," Marume said, dripping wet from his swim in the river. "It looks like you've got things under control here. All's well that ends well."

"Not quite," Sano said. The full measure of his success and failure struck satisfaction and despair into him. "I hate to tell you this, but the shogun's wife is still missing."

42

In the morning, Sano and his detectives arrived back at Edo Castle. His troops had taken Joju to Edo Jail and the old woman to Keiaiji Convent, where the nuns would care for her until she could be identified and returned to her home.

Sano wasn't eager to return to his. He'd missed the shogun's deadline, and now he must face the consequences. He had to save his family, but he was so exhausted he could hardly see straight. He'd hardly slept in days.

Outside the gate, one of his soldiers was waiting for him. "Honorable Chamberlain Sano! The shogun's wife has been found!"

Fukida groaned. Marume cursed and said, "Why couldn't it have happened just a few hours sooner?"

Sano felt as much foreboding as relief. "How? By whom?"

The soldier shook his head. "All I know is that she was found lying in the Ginza theater district."

"That's a long way from Chomei Temple," Sano said.

Her abduction hadn't followed the same pattern as the others, when the victims had been dumped near the places they'd been taken. But the two oxcart drivers weren't the culprits this time. There was another kidnapper, still at large.

"Where is Lady Nobuko?" Sano asked.

"She's being taken to the palace."

Sano and his men rode at a gallop through Edo Castle. They arrived at the palace in time to join a crowd of officials and troops watching four guards carry Lady Nobuko on a litter up the path to the entrance. Her thin body was covered by a blanket, her black hair matted. Her eyes were closed, but Sano could tell she was conscious. Pain, misery, and humiliation played across her pale, quivering face, which was contorted on the right side.

The shogun scurried out of the palace, trailed by attendants. When the guards brought Lady Nobuko to him, he squinted at her as if he didn't quite recognize her. He said, "Take her to her chambers. Call the court physician."

At the entrance, her maids and the other court ladies surrounded Lady Nobuko in an exclaiming, weeping horde.

Then the shogun saw Sano, and his expression turned furious. "My wife is home, no thanks to you! I understand she was found by some policemen who, ahh, just happened to stumble upon her." Sano started to apologize, but the shogun cut him off. "The police said my wife has been violated. I've been dishonored." He seemed more angry at Sano than glad to have Lady Nobuko back alive. "And it's all your fault because you didn't rescue her in time!"

He seemed to have forgotten that he'd previously thought Yanagisawa shared the blame for the kidnapping. Yanagisawa was nowhere to be seen. The shogun jabbed his finger at Sano's face. "You'll pay for letting me down. As soon as it can be arranged, you and your family and all your close associates shall die!"

"Your Excellency," Sano began.

After twelve years during which Sano had loyally, unstintingly served him, the shogun turned his back on Sano and stalked into the castle.

Everyone's gazes avoided Sano. The crowd moved away from Sano, Hirata, and the detectives like the ocean receding from an island at low tide.

Reiko hurried toward him. Her expression said she'd heard the shogun's pronouncement. Masahiro also came running. Sano was aghast that his wife and son had not only witnessed his public humiliation, but would die because he had failed.

"Don't worry," he said more confidently than he felt. He didn't want to frighten Reiko and Masahiro, but he feared that this time they were all lost.

"I have to tell you what else happened." Breathless with excitement, Reiko said, "Nanbu and Ogita are dead."

She poured out a story of blackmail, an ambush and a battle in a cemetery, and the shocking outcome. Sano's men listened with amazement. Sano could barely absorb what he was hearing.

"Where have you been?" Reiko asked.

Sano didn't have a chance to answer, because Masahiro tugged his sleeve and said excitedly, "Father, I've seen that lady before!"

"What lady?" Sano asked.

"The shogun's wife. Remember how I spied on Chamberlain Yanagisawa? She's one of the three ladies he met."

This latest revelation was too much on top of too much for Sano. He and Reiko stared at Masahiro in surprise.

"Yanagisawa had a miai with the shogun's wife?" Reiko said.

She sounded as confused as Sano felt. But now Sano began to understand what Yanagisawa was up to. The sheer audacity of it took his breath away.

Masahiro pointed at the crowd of women around the shogun's wife. "And there are the two other ladies!"

Sano spotted an old woman with a babyish face, and a tall, plain younger one. They walked close beside Lady Nobuko as the guards carried her litter into the palace. Sano had never seen them before, but the fact that they clearly outranked the other women told him their identities.

"Who are they?" Reiko asked.

"The elder is Lady Oden, a former concubine of the shogun," Sano said. "The younger is Tsuruhime, his daughter by Oden."

A sudden thought struck him. Masahiro hadn't been the only witness to their meeting with Yanagisawa. The spy Toda Ikkyu had been there, too.

Reiko gasped. "Yanagisawa wants to marry the shogun's daughter to Yoritomo!"

"Yes, because if that happens, it will move Yoritomo way up in the succession," Sano said, enlightened at last. "That's how he plans to seize power." His plan explained why Yanagisawa had stopped embezzling from the Tokugawa treasury: He thought the money would be all his someday. "He had to get Lady Nobuko's permission for the match because she's in charge of all business concerning Tsuruhime, her stepdaughter."

"But the shogun's wife told Yanagisawa no," Masahiro said, pleased by his parents' reaction to his news even though Sano doubted he understood its significance. "He said he could get a divorce. But she said it would be incest."

Sano recalled Masahiro asking him what those words meant. Now he knew why. He also knew why Lady Nobuko had refused Yanagisawa's proposal. "Tsuruhime is already married, to a member of a Tokugawa branch clan. They don't have any children, so Yanagisawa must have thought a second marriage for her would be acceptable to everyone. But a divorce apparently couldn't remove all Lady Nobuko's objections to remarrying her stepdaughter to Yoritomo, who is her father's lover."

"I suppose that could be called incest," Hirata said.

"Yanagisawa was very angry," Masahiro said.

And Yanagisawa never let anyone who crossed him go unpunished. Sano saw a dreadful picture taking shape, a horrifying answer to questions in his mind.

"What are you going to do?" Reiko asked.

"I'm going to have a talk with Yanagisawa," Sano said, "and not just about his marriage scheme."

But Yanagisawa wasn't the only person Sano meant to confront. Sano also intended to get an explanation from Toda Ikkyu.

If he lived long enough.

43

Sano had his chance at Yanagisawa and Toda four days later. During those days, an upheaval rocked the government's highest echelon and altered the circumstances of Sano and everyone close to him. And although he'd suffered drastic losses, he and his family were alive, and he was thankful.

Now he, Marume, and Fukida stood among a huge crowd gathered in the grounds of Joju's temple to witness the punishment of the famous exorcist.

The chief official from the Ministry of Temples announced, "Joju has been found guilty of nyobon." That was the offense termed "woman crime," which meant fornication and breaking a vow of celibacy. "He has been sentenced to inu-barai."

"That's a harsh punishment," Marume said as a rumble of awe swept the audience.

"Not as harsh as he deserves," Sano said, "but it was the best I could do under the circumstances."

Joju hadn't actually kidnapped anyone, and although he'd raped the nun and the other old woman, that wasn't a crime under Tokugawa law. Sex in an illegal brothel was a minor offense, as he'd told Sano. And he hadn't actually murdered the nun. Duty-bound to observe the law of the regime, Sano had turned Joju over to the Ministry of Temples, which was responsible for disciplining wayward clergy. Due to testimony from Sano, the ministry had found the priest guilty of the two offenses and imposed the harshest sentence possible.

The exorcist emerged from the hall where he'd once conducted rituals. He was naked, crawling on his hands and knees, with a dead fish crammed in his mouth. Two soldiers led Joju by a rope tied around his neck. They dragged him around the temple grounds three times. Gagging on the rotten fish, hooted at by the mob, he passed Sano without acknowledging his presence. At the temple's gate, the soldiers yanked Joju to his feet; they untied the rope. He spat out the fish and wiped his mouth on his hand. Now his eyes found Sano. They were black with bitter hostility.

The chief ministry official flung a gray hemp robe at Joju and said, "You are hereby expelled from the religious order. You are also banished from Edo."

Joju put on the humble robe. Head bowed, he limped out the gate. The jeering crowd followed him. One woman lingered. It was the beggar named Okitsu. She sidled up to Sano.

"That was worth waiting to see." An impish grin brightened her dirty face.

"It wouldn't have been possible if not for you," Sano said.

Okitsu nodded as though she understood. Then she ambled off. Fate worked in strange ways, Sano thought. Okitsu had gotten her revenge.

A group of male commoners loitered near Sano's party. Four were talking about the scene they'd just witnessed. The fifth hovered at the group's edge. A breeze flapped the wicker hat he wore. When he put up his hand to hold it on his head, Sano saw a large, irregularly shaped brown freckle on his wrist.

"Well, if it isn't Toda Ikkyu," Sano said.

Toda started. "How did you know it was me?"

"Let's just say I've learned a few things from my son." Sano smiled, watching Toda wonder what feature of his Masahiro had noticed and mentioned to Sano. "I've been wanting to talk to you, but you've been pretty scarce lately."

"I've been busy," Toda said.

Sano knew Toda had been avoiding him, with good reason. "You knew who they were."

"What are you talking about?" Toda was all innocence.

"The three women you saw meeting with Yanagisawa," Sano said. "They were Lady Nobuko, the shogun's daughter Tsuruhime, and his former concubine Oden."

The bland expression Toda wore didn't hide his shock. "How did you find out?"

"You said you didn't know who they were. But you did. You know everybody associated with the shogun. You must have recognized them instantly. You lied."

Comprehension glinted in Toda's eyes. "It was Masahiro again. I suppose you also know what became of Yanagisawa's scheme to marry his son to Tsuruhime, ensure that Yoritomo would be the next shogun, and secure his own future?"

"Yes."

"Your son has a talent for espionage," Toda said wryly. "If you'll give him to me, I'll teach him to be the best spy who ever lived."

"My son will never work under a man who double-crossed his father," Sano said.

Toda smiled. "I warned you that I work for both you and Yanagisawa. I try to play fair. I told you about his secret meeting, but I didn't tell you who the women were. I let him know that I was spying on him for you, but I didn't tell him I witnessed his three meetings."

Three meetings? Sano frowned because he'd thought there had been only two. Neither Toda nor Masahiro had mentioned a third. Toda had lied again, by omission. And so had Masahiro.

"So I'm even with you and Yanagisawa," Toda said. "You shouldn't bear me any grudge."

"What you mean is that even if I do bear a grudge, I can't kill you, because someday I may need your services," Sano said. "But next time I'll have a better idea of how far to trust you."

Toda shrugged, his confident superiority restored: He'd successfully navigated another battlefield between two rivals. "That's politics."

He turned and shuffled off, looking for all the world like a peasant to everyone except Sano.

"Don't look now," Marume said, "but here comes another sorry bastard."

The sight of Yanagisawa striding toward him filled Sano with the anger that enflamed his blood every time he thought of what Yanagisawa had done.

"Greetings," Yanagisawa said, smiling as if nothing were amiss.

He'd completely escaped the responsibility the shogun had once placed on him for the disappearance of Lady Nobuko. While Sano had been busy trying to rescue her, Yoritomo had talked the shogun into forgiving Yanagisawa and heaping all the punishment on Sano. The shogun had demoted Sano to his former post of principal investigator. Sano had moved back to his old estate, while Yanagisawa had reclaimed the compound he'd lived in before he'd been exiled. Yanagisawa was now the shogun's only second-in-command, Japan's only chamberlain, once more. That was a crushing blow to Sano, but he knew things could have been worse.

His allies had persuaded the shogun to spare Sano and demote him instead of executing him and his family. They didn't want Yanagisawa in charge of the regime now or in the future. They needed someone to check his power, and Sano was the only man around who had the potential.

"I'm surprised to see you," Sano said evenly. Toda wasn't the only one who'd been avoiding him.

"I had to see this spectacle. Joju wasn't my favorite person in the world."

"I don't suppose he was." Sano knew Yanagisawa didn't like anyone who had strong influence over the shogun. Which was why he'd finally delivered the blow Sano had been expecting.

"Having Joju humiliated and banished was a risky move on your part, since he was still the shogun's favorite exorcist the last I heard," Yanagisawa said. "Does the shogun know?"

"Not yet," Sano said. "In some cases it's better to ask forgiveness after the fact than to ask permission beforehand."

Since he was already in trouble, he'd decided he might as well deliver Joju to justice. That, plus the fact that Ogita, Nanbu, and the oxcart drivers had gotten their comeuppance, was something of a consolation prize.

"That's what I always say." Yanagisawa continued, "I heard about the massacre in the paupers' cemetery. The official word is that Nanbu and Ogita were murdered by bandits. But we both know that the official word isn't always the truth, don't we?"

Sano made no comment. He would never reveal what had actually happened. Neither would Chiyo, Fumiko, Jirocho and his gang, or Reiko and her bodyguards. And all the other witnesses were dead.

"No matter," Yanagisawa said. "Your investigation was a success. Everyone responsible for kidnapping and raping your cousin and those other women has been punished."

"Not everyone." Sano leveled a hard gaze on Yanagisawa.

Yanagisawa raised his eyebrows. "You've accused me of many things in the past, but come now; you can't think I'm to blame this time."

"I don't just think. I know." Sano tried to control his temper. Losing it would only give Yanagisawa more advantage than he already had. "The oxcart drivers didn't kidnap the shogun's wife. Nanbu, Joju, and Ogita didn't rape her. What happened to her was your doing."

"Mine?" Pointing at his own chest, Yanagisawa laughed. "I never touched Lady Nobuko."

"Not personally. You have people to do your dirty work."

Yanagisawa regarded Sano with annoyance, caution, and pity, the kind of look that one gives a madman. "Why would I do such a thing?"

"Because it was the perfect way to sabotage me. You staged Lady Nobuko's kidnapping to look as if it were one in the series I was investigating. You hoped the shogun would blame me. Which he did. Which put me out of his favor." Sano's indignation mounted higher with each consequence of Yanagisawa's scheme he named. "Which is just what you wanted."

"How can you think that? Maybe in the past I would have done it, but since I came back I've done nothing but cooperate with you. Everything that's happened to you was just your bad luck." Shaking his head, Yanagisawa said, "I'm ready to let bygones be bygones."

"You never met a bygone that you could forget," Sano retorted. "Here's another reason you had Lady Nobuko kidnapped and raped: When you tried to marry your son to the shogun's daughter, Lady Nobuko stood in your way."

He watched shock wipe the condescension off Yanagisawa's face. Sano could feel Yanagisawa's impulse to ask how Sano knew about the marriage scheme and who'd thwarted it. In the moment before Yanagisawa regained his usual sardonic expression, Sano knew Yanagisawa was guilty as charged.

"You had an innocent woman kidnapped and raped because she crossed you!" Sano said, letting loose his outrage. This time Yanagisawa had outdone himself in terms of nerve, selfish disregard for human life, and sheer cruelty. "And she's your lord's wife!"

Yanagisawa smiled, his brazen confidence restored. "Let's suppose-just suppose-that I did have Lady Nobuko kidnapped and raped. You have no proof."

"I'm reinvestigating her case. Something will turn up eventually," Sano said, even though he'd been combing the city for four days and no evidence or witnesses had surfaced yet. Yanagisawa had taken pains to cover his tracks.

"Don't count on any help from Lady Nobuko." Yanagisawa's gaze said he knew Sano had asked for an interview with her and she'd refused. Even if Lady Nobuko could recognize the men who'd kidnapped and raped her-which she probably couldn't, because they'd probably given her the same drug that the oxcart drivers had used on their victims-she would never incriminate Yanagisawa. If it was her word against Yanagisawa's, who would the shogun believe?

Probably Yanagisawa.

Furthermore, Lady Nobuko must be aware that no matter how well guarded she was, Yanagisawa could get to her again.

"You won't get away with it," Sano persisted.

"Who's going to stop me? You?" Scorn colored Yanagisawa's voice. "Remember, you have less authority than you once did. I happen to know that His Excellency refuses to speak to you. Meanwhile, my allies are telling him that you're a liability to the Tokugawa regime. When you're gone, I'll still be here."

The genial mask that Yanagisawa had worn for more than a year dropped. At last his face showed his hatred for Sano and his ambition to rule Japan. His dark, liquid eyes shimmered as if with reflections from steel blades.

"Your plan to marry Yoritomo to the shogun's daughter won't work," Sano said. "Try it again, and you'll meet with a lot of resistance."

Sano had told Tsuruhime's husband and his own allies about Yanagisawa's scheme. They'd agreed to block the divorce and remarriage, with military force if need be.

Yanagisawa chuckled. "That's a case of showing up for a battle at the wrong field. Even if I had aimed to wed Yoritomo to the shogun's daughter-which I'm not saying I did-that's not my plan now. I'm exploring other options."

He gestured to a group of samurai who were apparently waiting for him. Sano recognized several Tokugawa clan members among them. Yanagisawa hadn't wasted any time pursuing new, politically advantageous matches for his son.

His son, who'd been his full partner in everything he'd done. Yoritomo had spoken against Sano to the shogun with Yanagisawa's connivance and blessing, whether Yanagisawa ever admitted it or not.

"I won't be out of the shogun's favor forever," Sano said, "and you won't always be in it. As you've learned in the past."

Yanagisawa contemplated Sano. "Here's some friendly advice." He spoke as if he were so confident he'd beaten Sano, he could afford to be magnanimous. "The game has changed. It's not just about the shogun anymore. This concerns the future, after he's gone. There's no point in squabbling with each other, vying for his good grace." Yanagisawa's tone expressed contempt for such past tactics. "The victor will be the one who insinuates himself into the Tokugawa clan and secures a place in the next regime. And even though I might have failed once, I have a head start on you."

A mischievous smile gleamed on Yanagisawa's face. "I have four sons and a daughter of marriageable age. It's too bad for you that your children are so young." As he strode off to join his allies, he said over his shoulder, "Whatever you think happened, I've won this round."

For four days Hirata had been riding through the city, trying to lure his enemy to him. For four days he'd had no luck. Now, as the twilight descended upon Edo, he found himself in the fish market by the Nihonbashi Bridge.

The stalls were vacant. The orange rays of the setting sun cast long black shadows over the empty aisles. Rats and stray dogs scavenged through heaps of seashells. Hirata climbed off his horse and stood in the center of the market. He projected his senses outward, searching.

Once again he failed to detect his enemy's presence.

Hirata breathed his own desperation, which smelled as rotten as the fish market. He was weak, light-headed, and ill from the fatigue born of sleepless nights and constant anxiety. The old wound in his leg ached. He felt as if the enemy had used his own body and mind as weapons against him, had conquered him without a battle.

That was the strategy of the top martial artists in history. Perhaps it had been his enemy's all along.

Other troubles contributed to Hirata's sorry mental and physical state. Before his death, Ogita had told the shogun that Hirata had killed his servant. The shogun, already upset because Hirata had killed too many other men in duels, had decided that Hirata was too dangerous to be allowed near him. Even if Hirata hadn't had to give up his estate to Sano, he'd have had to move out of Edo Castle. Now he and his family lived in a small estate across the river, banished and disgraced.

But Hirata was determined to make amends and regain his good standing. He meant to fight the enemy face-to-face. If he lost, he would at least see his conqueror and know his name before he died.

"Here I am!" he called. "Come and get me. Or are you afraid?"

His taunt echoed across the deserted market. Hirata listened, then froze alert at the sound of footsteps. They approached from every direction, like a multitude converging on Hirata, but they all had the same stealthy, measured gait; they belonged to one lone man. With them came the unmistakable pulse of the enemy's shield.

Even though the familiar panic surged through Hirata, he didn't turn in circles in a futile attempt to locate the man; he resisted the urge to strike out blindly; he didn't waste his strength. He stood still, looked straight ahead down the aisle of stalls, and simply waited.

A man glided into view at the end of the aisle perhaps a hundred paces from Hirata. By some trick of light or sleight of mind he appeared closer, his size formidably magnified. With the sun's orange glow behind him, Hirata couldn't see his features. He was a tall, black silhouette, his topknot a bulge above his shaved crown, his two swords jutting at his waist.

Hirata felt his heart race and the impulse to flee or give chase leap within him as he and his enemy faced each other. He called, "Who are you?"

The enemy turned away, and the fading sun briefly lit the right side of his face. Hirata glimpsed its high cheekbone and strong jaw, and the curve of a smile that was serene and chilling. Then the man stepped behind the stalls and vanished.

Hirata let him go. He knew they would meet again, just as he knew that the matter of when or where wasn't his to choose. The time and place, the weapons and the circumstances, would be the enemy's decision. And then they would fight to the death.

That was their destiny.

"Yanagisawa is right about one thing," Sano told Reiko as they sat in their chamber that night. "He has won this time."

"He did it by fighting dirty." Reiko brushed her hair with hard, angry strokes. "He always does." Sano had told her everything, and she was furious at Yanagisawa. For Sano's sake, she made an effort to smile and look on the bright side of the situation. "This isn't so bad. You always liked investigating crimes better than running the government. And we're back where we started, in the place we lived when we were first married."

Sano nodded. But they both knew that things weren't the same as in the past. He'd suffered a tremendous loss of face, a mortal wound to his samurai honor.

"You'll win in the end," Reiko assured Sano.

"I appreciate your faith in me," Sano said wryly. "And I'm not finished yet."

He had to climb back up the ladder of the regime, Reiko knew. Not only did his honor depend on it; people were counting on him to save Japan from Yanagisawa.

"But Yanagisawa is right about something else, too," Sano said.

"What?" Reiko didn't want to hear that Yanagisawa had yet another advantage over her husband.

"We're not just rivals for power in the here and now, but in the future. And maybe the score won't be settled by us." Sano contemplated Akiko playing in the next room with her dolls. "Maybe that's up to our children."

Reiko was dismayed to think the children would inherit the war between their fathers. "How can we protect them? Especially after we're gone?" That time might come sooner rather than later, if Sano didn't regain the shogun's favor. Even if the shogun was on the decline, he still had the power of life and death over everyone.

"It's not too early to think about marriages for Akiko and Masahiro."

Even though Reiko knew Sano was right, she said, "But they're still babies!"

"There won't be any weddings until they're adults. But we could betroth them to members of powerful clans. That's done all the time. It would not only create more alliances for me; it would secure Masahiro's and Akiko's futures."

Reiko sighed; she wished her children could marry for love, not politi cal considerations. But she and Sano had found love in their arranged marriage. Maybe the children would be lucky, too. "A match for Masahiro should come first, because he's the elder."

"Speaking of Masahiro," Sano said. He put a finger to his lips as their son entered the room. They greeted Masahiro, and Sano asked, "What did you do today?"

"I played detective," Masahiro said.

Sano and Reiko exchanged glances. After he'd proved the worth of his talents, they couldn't not let him play his favorite game. Sano said, "I need to ask you a question. How did you know that the shogun's wife refused Yanagisawa's proposal? I thought you said you couldn't hear what Yanagisawa and the ladies were saying."

"I was too far away the first time they met," Masahiro said. "The second time, it was just Yanagisawa and the shogun's wife, and I heard everything because-" He clapped his hand over his mouth.

"The second time!" Shocked, Reiko said, "Do you mean you spied on Yanagisawa again?" Masahiro's sheepish silence was his answer. She turned to Sano. "How did you know?"

"It was something Toda Ikkyu let slip," Sano said. "He wasn't entirely truthful with me, either."

"We forbade you to go spying on Yanagisawa," Reiko reminded Masahiro. "You disobeyed us!"

Masahiro winced. "Am I going to be punished?"

Reiko spread her hands helplessly and looked at Sano.

"You punish him. I don't have the heart," Sano said.

Neither did Reiko, after Masahiro had helped them figure out Yanagisawa's plot. She leveled a stern look on Masahiro. "You were lucky this time, but don't ever do it again."

"I won't," Masahiro said somberly. "I promise."

Reiko heard the echo of her own voice on past occasions, promising Sano that she wouldn't do something or other, all the while knowing that she would. She felt Sano looking at her, obviously remembering that she'd said she wouldn't go to the Kumazawa house again. But Masahiro's actions had made her feel more optimistic about his future. He'd inherited his father's cleverness and her own talent for getting out of as well as into trouble.

"It's time for bed," Reiko told Masahiro.

"Yes, Mother. Good night, Father." Masahiro trotted off before his parents could change their minds and punish him, buying their goodwill for the future.

"If he wants to help with other investigations, how can we say no?" Reiko said ruefully.

Sano chuckled, but his expression turned sober.

"What are you thinking about?" Reiko asked.

"I'm remembering the day Major Kumazawa came to me for help. I thought that all I had to do was find Chiyo. It seemed like the easiest, least dangerous case I'd ever had." Irony provoked a twisted smile from Sano. "Things didn't turn out quite as I expected."

"But you did find Chiyo. You also found the criminals who kidnapped and violated her and Fumiko and the nun." Reiko felt a fierce admiration for Sano. "If not for you, those men would have gone on to hurt other women, and Chiyo and Fumiko wouldn't have gotten their revenge. What happened to you isn't fair."

"Life isn't fair," Sano said, turning philosophical. "I've been lucky until now. I suppose it was my turn for a little misfortune. But I can handle this." He added with regret, "I just wish I could have saved Lady Nobuko and the old woman on the boat."

"The old woman is safe at home with her family. She has you to thank for that." Reiko loved Sano for his confidence, his determination not to complain, and his tendency to think of other people even while he was in trouble. She, too, believed they would weather this crisis as they had others.

"I also wish I could have mended the breach between my family and the Kumazawa clan," Sano said.

Reiko knew that even though Major Kumazawa had treated him so badly, Sano had wanted to re unite the clan for his mother's sake, if not his own. "Maybe you still can."

"That would salvage some good out of everything that's happened," Sano said. "I do have an idea I'd like to try."

Epilogue

The rainy season had ended by the time Sano went to the Kumazawa house again. The mist had evaporated, and the hot summer sun shone above the Asakusa district. When Sano arrived at the mansion, Chiyo greeted him at the door. She was completely transformed since the first time he'd seen her. She'd regained weight and health; her smile was bright. She held her baby while her little boy clung to her skirt and regarded Sano with solemn curiosity.

"Welcome, Honorable Cousin." Chiyo bowed. "A million thanks for returning my children to me."

"It was no trouble," Sano said.

In fact, it had cost him a good deal of trouble. First he'd appealed to Chiyo's husband, but the man still wanted nothing to do with Chiyo and had refused to let her see the children. Hence, Sano had forced a compromise in which the children would live with Chiyo, at her father's estate, every other month. The husband and his powerful associates were now Sano's enemies and Yanagisawa's allies. But Sano thought that was a small price to pay for Chiyo's happiness.

"I'd like to speak with your father," Sano said. "Is he home?"

Chiyo smiled as if she knew a pleasant secret that Sano didn't know. "Yes. Come in."

When Sano walked into the reception chamber, he found a woman sitting in the place of honor in front of the alcove, drinking tea with Major Kumazawa and his wife.

"Mother?" Sano said, astonished. "What are you doing here?"

She smiled fondly at him. "Major Kumazawa sent me a letter, inviting me to visit." Her remarriage and her new life in a country village suited her. She looked almost young, her complexion fresh, the wrinkles filled out. She also seemed happy about her reunion with her brother, in her family home. "I've been here three days. We were just discussing when to tell you." She gestured to the place on the floor beside her. "Please, sit."

Sano remained standing. He said to Major Kumazawa, "I thought we decided it would be best for our families to stay estranged."

Chagrin softened Major Kumazawa's stiff features. "So we did. But after I thought about what you've done for my daughter, and for me, at such a cost to yourself… I changed my mind." His speech was devoid of his usual grudging manner. "Besides, I've missed Etsuko. I wanted to see her again."

Brother and sister, separated for forty-four years, seemed to be at peace if not openly affectionate with each other. There was much to forgive on at least one side.

Sano's mother said, "We've been getting reacquainted."

"So I see," Sano said.

"I can see now that you have inherited good qualities from your mother," Major Kumazawa said. "Both of you are willing to risk your own skins to do what you think is right. That's courage. Stubborn and reckless, to be sure, but honorable."

A wry smile tugged Sano's mouth. He knew better than to expect unalloyed approval from his uncle, and he couldn't help feeling pleased. It went some way toward making up for the insults that Major Kumazawa had hurled at him, which Sano would forgive for his mother's sake.

"Join us," Major Kumazawa said.

Sano sat. Major Kumazawa's wife served him tea and rice cakes, the first nourishment he'd taken in his ancestral estate. It slaked not just hunger or thirst, but the yearning for family connection that had spurred him to help the Kumazawa clan despite his misgivings.

"I heard what happened to you because of Lady Nobuko. Your wife wrote to Chiyo and told her everything. I wouldn't blame you for blaming me." Major Kumazawa said gruffly, "I'm sorry."

Here was more sincere remorse than Sano had expected from his uncle. "It's not your fault. The blame belongs solely to Yanagisawa."

"After everything else he's done to you!" Sano's mother blurted angrily. "I could kill that man!"

Sano and Major Kumazawa avoided each other's gazes. They both knew she was fully capable of killing someone she thought deserved it. But that was a story now over and done with. Their family had outlived years of guilt, shame, and discord.

"So you and Yanagisawa are enemies again," Major Kumazawa said.

"We always were," Sano said. Their truces had been short-lived flukes. The war was on.

"That's a hard blow he hit you." To his credit, Major Kumazawa didn't gloat because Sano had been demoted or shun him because of the disgrace.

"I haven't yet met a blow I couldn't recover from."

Sano explained that he was gradually working his way back into the shogun's good graces. Oddly enough, that had come about because Sano had humiliated and banished Joju. The shogun had summoned Sano to the palace to give him a tongue-lashing. Some fast talk by Sano had reversed much of the damage done him by Yoritomo and carried the day. "My new task is preparing my family for the future."

"I'll do whatever I can to help," Major Kumazawa said.

Sano's mother smiled and blinked away tears. Major Kumazawa wasn't just repaying a favor, Sano realized. Sano had taken the first step toward mending relations within their clan. Now Major Kumazawa had gone the rest of the distance, by voluntarily welcoming Sano's mother back into the clan. Sano was truly moved.

"Many thanks," he said.

"Just be careful next time," Major Kumazawa said, with a hint of his old, critical tone. "No more foolish heroics."

Sano felt the old offense, tempered with respect and amusement. "I'll try."

This wasn't ever going to be an easy relationship. He and his uncle were too different. Yet Major Kumazawa had taken what he himself probably deemed a foolish risk by allying himself with his unconventional, embattled nephew. They would manage.

Blood was blood.