The Cloud Pavilion

28

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Look out!" Fukida yelled.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Is that what you call them?" Sano looked askance at the animals.

"They're pretty good, if I do say so myself. They cornered you, didn't they?" Nanbu said, not quite in jest. "I train them and sell them. Lord Kii has some at his estate. So do plenty of other daimyo. All these dogs eat up a lot of food. Might as well put them to work."

"I don't want a guard dog," Sano said. "I came to talk to you."

"Me?" Nanbu pointed to his puffed-out chest. "To what do I owe the honor?"

To all appearances, he spoke with the surprise and pleasure of any official singled out for the chamberlain's attention.

"We have acquaintances in common," Sano said.

"Oh? May I ask who they are?"

"Jinshichi and Gombei."

Nanbu frowned, in mild confusion. "I'm sorry, but those names don't sound familiar."

Unconvinced that Nanbu didn't know the oxcart drivers, or that the man was innocent, Sano said, "The proprietor of the Drum Teahouse tells a different story."

"The Drum Teahouse?" Nanbu pondered. Sano couldn't tell if he was actually trying to remember the place or planning to teach the proprietor a lesson for informing on him. "He must be mistaken. I've never been there."

"He says Jinshichi and Gombei work for you."

Nanbu shrugged, unfazed. "He must have me mixed up with somebody else."

"I don't think so," Sano said. "I think you hired Jinshichi and Gombei to kidnap women for you to rape."

"Begging your pardon, but you're the one who's mistaken now!" Nanbu regarded Sano with shock that gave way to dawning comprehension and offense. "I heard that your cousin and some other women had been kidnapped and you were trying to find out who did it. And now you want to pin it on me."

His men's expressions turned hostile. His dogs sensed his animosity toward Sano. They barked and growled an ugly chorus of warning.

"With all due respect, I didn't do it," Nanbu declared.

Sano could have spent the day hurling accusations that Nanbu would refute, but he didn't like wasting time, and he was tired of the kennels' horrific smell.

"Fine," Sano said. "Then you won't mind submitting to an inspection by the women. We'll let them decide whether you're guilty."

"Fine," Nanbu echoed with a smug smile. "Whenever you want."

"You seem very sure that the women won't identify you as their attacker," Sano said.

"They won't," Nanbu said. "Because I'm not."

Maybe he was bluffing. Even if he were the rapist, he would know that the victims had been drugged or otherwise rendered unfit to have observed him well enough to recognize him again. But he couldn't know that they hadn't forgotten everything.

Sano decided to try another ploy. "Take your trousers off. Your loincloth, too."

"What?" Nanbu's lewd mouth dropped in surprise.

He and his men stared at Sano as if he'd gone mad. Detective Marume guffawed.

"Do it," Sano ordered.

Nanbu recovered, laughed, and said, "Does this mean you're interested in me, Honorable Chamberlain? I didn't know you liked men."

There was no stigma associated with manly love, and the remark didn't bother Sano. "I'm interested in finding out if you raped those women. One look at your private parts should do the trick."

"I'm not giving you a look." Nanbu seemed uneasy for the first time since the subject of the crimes had come up. His chest and stomach had deflated a bit and his arms hewed closer to his sides.

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want to."

"You should be glad to cooperate," Sano said. "This is your chance to exonerate yourself."

Nanbu folded his arms and glared. "I already told you I didn't do it." Sano saw sweat droplets on his forehead. "I give you my word, on my honor. I'm not taking off my clothes."

"Your word's not good enough," Sano said, "and I didn't ask you to undress, I ordered you to do it."

"Want us to help him out of his clothes?" Marume asked.

He and Fukida dismounted and advanced on Nanbu. Nanbu pursed his thick lips and whistled. The twelve dogs grouped around him in a tight, snarling huddle.

"You'll have to get past them," Nanbu said, "and you wouldn't dare."

He was right, as much as Sano hated to admit it. The dogs were a living wall around Nanbu, an army more fierce and loyal than any samurai troops. If Sano and his men tried to penetrate it, they would surely kill dogs in the process; and the shogun wouldn't excuse even Sano, his dear friend and trusted chamberlain, for harming a dog, not when he believed that his chances of getting an heir depended on protecting dogs and earning fortune's grace.

"You win for now," Sano said. He might have risked taking on Nanbu's dogs, if not for his family. If he couldn't talk his way out of the punishment later, Reiko and the children and his other relatives-including the Kumazawa clan-would share it. "But you're in trouble even if you didn't rape those women."

"What are you going to do, cut my head off?" Nanbu laughed recklessly. "You can't touch me. Now get out."

He advanced on Sano. The dogs moved with him, panting for a fight, a taste of blood. Sano and his men had no choice except to mount their horses and let Nanbu and the dogs herd them out the gate.

"What do you think you're going to do?" Sano said, almost angry enough to do something he would regret. "Barricade yourself inside the kennel?"

"That's right," Nanbu said. "If you try to get at me, you'll be the one in trouble."

"You can't hide behind your dogs forever," Sano said.

Nanbu responded by closing the gate in the faces of Sano and his men. Sano, Marume, and Fukida shared looks that brimmed with ire and frustration. Marume said, "That didn't go quite as well as we hoped."

"At least we know one thing we didn't before we came here," Sano said. "Nanbu is hiding something."

"Sores, or a mole?" Fukida wondered.

"That I don't know, but I'm sure he raped at least one of the women. I'm going to find out which."

"Even if he did, how are we going to get the bastard?" Marume said.

Sano told three of his troops, "Stay here and keep watch on Nanbu. If he comes out, arrest him. He won't get away with what he's done."