The Cloud Pavilion

4

Sano rode his horse out the northern portal of Edo Castle toward the temple where his cousin Chiyo had last been seen. Although peace had blessed the capital for more than a year, troops still stood sentry outside the massive iron-banded gate and occupied the guard house above. More troops manned the watchtowers. Political or civil unrest could start up again any day. A squadron from his personal army accompanied Sano. He wouldn't put it past Yanagisawa to attack him after lulling him into complacence.

His chief bodyguards, Detectives Marume and Fukida, trotted their mounts beside him along the road that sloped down from the castle. Below them spread the gray tile rooftops of the vast city, whose far reaches disappeared into the mist and rain that cloaked the hills. The brawny, cheerful Marume drew a deep breath of the humid air and said, "It feels good to be out and about again. We've been cooped up inside the castle forever."

"I'm sorry your cousin is missing, Sano-san, but I'm glad to have a new investigation," said Fukida, the serious half of the pair.

Sano shared his men's renewed sense of energy and excitement. The thrill of the chase was a relief after sitting at a desk, shuffling papers, conducting meetings, and defusing crises in the government. That was one reason he'd decided to lead the search himself, even though he'd had to put off other important business.

"And guess what," Marume said. "This is the first time we're not working for the shogun."

"For once he won't be holding the threat of death over our heads," Fukida said.

"Thank the gods for small favors," Sano said.

He and his men laughed, enjoying their unusual freedom. But darker currents of emotion ran beneath Sano's high spirits.

He had a blood connection to the missing woman even though he'd never met Chiyo. He couldn't leave her fate to someone else, not even his most trusted subordinates. And what if he didn't find her? What if she was dead when he did? Not only would a father lose his favorite daughter, a husband his wife, and two children their mother, but Sano would lose an opportunity to know this member of his new family.

"My gut tells me that we'll find your cousin," Marume said.

"Your gut has gotten fat from sitting around and eating too much," Fukida teased with a straight face.

Marume reached behind Sano, swatted at Fukida, and said, "No, I'm telling you, this is our lucky day. But even if we don't find her, at least Major Kumazawa can't kill us."

Nevertheless, Sano feared disappointing Major Kumazawa. He shouldn't care what this relative who'd ostracized him from their clan thought of him, but he did. Meeting his uncle had reawakened feelings of inferiority that he'd believed he'd shed years ago. That short time with Major Kumazawa had reverted him to the mere son of a rnin he'd once been. If he didn't find Chiyo, his uncle's low opinion of him would be justified. And even though the strong, independent part of Sano said, to hell with Major Kumazawa, that would hurt.

"It must be strange to meet relatives that you spent most of your life never knowing you had," Fukida said.

"You can't imagine," Sano said.

Asakusa Kannon Temple, dedicated to Kannon, the Buddhist deity of mercy and salvation, was Edo's most popular temple. The route to Asakusa district lay along the sh Kaid, the northern highway. Beyond the edge of town, the highway was built up on a wide earthen embankment above rice paddies. A few peasants, water buffaloes, and tiny huts dotted the lush, green paddies. The air stank of the nightsoil used for fertilizer. Even on this wet afternoon in the rainy season, Sano and his entourage found the highway crowded with traffic.

Bands of religious pilgrims, carrying staffs and chanting prayers, marched in step. Itinerant priests trudged, laden with heavy packs. Families traveled to Asakusa for blessings. Samurai rode, the privilege of their class; commoners walked. But not all the traffic was connected with religion.

Once Sano and his party had to steer their horses to the edge of the highway to make way for a cart drawn by oxen and heaped with roof tiles. Carts like this, owned by the government, were the only wheeled vehicles permitted by Tokugawa law. This restricted the movement of war supplies and prevented insurrections, at least in theory.

Many of the other travelers weren't going to Asakusa at all. Beyond the temple lay the Yoshiwara licensed pleasure quarter, the only place in Edo where prostitution was legal. Merchants riding in palanquins, gangs of townsmen on foot, and samurai on horse back streamed toward Yoshiwara's brothels. The law banned samurai from the pleasure quarter, but they went in droves anyway. Yoshiwara was good for business in the temple district. Men traveling to Yoshiwara often stopped at the temple for rest, refreshments, and prayers, combining the profane with the sacred.

"What was your cousin doing in Asakusa? If she wanted to go to a shrine, why not one in town?" Marume asked.

"The Kumazawa family estate is out there," Sano said.

His uncle was in charge of guarding the shogun's rice depots, located on the river east of Asakusa. He also commanded the troops that patrolled the district. The Kumazawa house was the one in which Sano's mother had grown up, but Sano had yet to lay eyes on it.

Perhaps he soon would.

Within an hour, Asakusa appeared on the misty horizon. Originally a small outpost of the city, the site of a temple since ancient times, it had grown into a large, flourishing suburb. Other temples clustered around Asakusa Kannon like chicks around a hen. Above the rooftops rose the graceful silhouettes of pagodas. The rice fields gave way to houses on streets that branched off the highway. The neighborhood soon grew as dense as any in town. Hawkers wooed customers into shops that sold Buddhist rosaries, incense, shoes, fans, umbrellas, and other merchandise-a bargain-priced sampling of the goods sold at the big market inside the temple precinct. Balconies adorned with potted plants sheltered the crowds from the drizzle that began to fall. The streets narrowed; Sano and his men rode in single file. Marume led, scouting a safe passage.

"Have you any ideas about what happened to your cousin?" Fukida said, trailing behind Sano with the other guards.

"The only thing I know for sure is that Chiyo is either gone from this district or still inside it," Sano said. "We'll try to determine which is the case."

He dismounted at a gate that divided one block from the next. These gates were features common to all cities. At night they were closed to keep residents confined and prevent trouble; by day, they served as security checkpoints. "This is as good a place to start as any."

Marume backtracked to join Sano and the other men. "Isn't this territory that your uncle has already covered?"

"He might have overlooked something," Sano said, then addressed the watchman at the gate. "I'm looking for a missing woman," he began.

The watchman was a young peasant; he'd been chatting with a tea-seller who'd put down his bucket and cups and stopped to rest. His round face blanched with fright. "I haven't seen her, I swear!" He fell to his knees, bowed, and cringed, almost in tears. "I haven't done anything wrong!"

"If you haven't done anything wrong, then why are you so afraid?" Sano asked.

The tea-seller, an older man with the bluff, confident air of a street merchant, said, "Because of that other samurai who came by yesterday, asking about a missing woman. He and his soldiers roughed up anyone they thought was hiding something or who didn't answer fast enough."

Dismay spread through Sano. "Who was he?"

"I don't know. He didn't bother to introduce himself. He had deep wrinkles here, and here." The tea-seller drew his finger across his forehead and down his cheeks.

"Major Kumazawa," Sano said grimly.

The tea-seller gestured at the watchman. "He gave my poor friend here quite a beating."

"It sounds like your uncle hasn't exactly smoothed the way for us," Marume said.

"I understand how desperate he must be to find his daughter," Fukida said, "but beating up witnesses won't help."

Sano had thought this would be one investigation he could conduct without interference. "My apologies for what happened to you," he said to the watchman. "Now tell me if you've seen a strange woman wandering by herself, or being forced to go with someone, or looking as if she were in trouble."

The watchman swore that he hadn't. So did the tea-seller.

"She's thirty-three years old, and she was wearing a lavender kimono with small white flowers on it," Sano said. He'd asked his uncle what clothes Chiyo had been wearing. "Think hard. Are you sure you haven't seen a woman who matched that description?"

Both men said they were. Sano believed them. He and his comrades moved on, along a street of food-stalls. Vendors grilled eels, prawns, and squid on skewers over open hearths, boiled pots of rice, noodles, and soup. Fragrant steam and smoke billowed into the drizzle.

"I'm hungry," Marume said.

"You always are," Fukida said.

Sano hadn't eaten since morning, before the tournament. He and his men bought food. After they ate, they questioned more people. They soon learned that Major Kumazawa and his troops had already passed through the whole area that surrounded the temple, intimidating, torturing, and offending everywhere. And Sano's attempts to trace Chiyo proved as futile as his uncle's.

"No, I haven't seen her," said one vendor, shopkeeper, and peddler after another.

"Nobody's hiding a woman on my block," said the headmen of every street.

"Major Kumazawa threatened to have my head cut off if I didn't help him find his daughter, so I've been looking for her on my rounds," said a doshin-police patrol officer. "I've questioned everyone I've met, but no luck."

"It's looking as if she left the district," Sano said as he and his men led their horses through an alley, "whether on her own or against her will."

They turned down a road that bordered a canal under construction. Laborers armed with shovels and picks were digging a wide, deep trench. Peasants hauled up dirt and loaded it onto oxcarts. Sano, Marume, and Fukida gazed into the trench, at the lumpy, freshly exposed earth on the bottom.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Marume asked.

Sano refused to consider the possibility that his cousin had been killed and buried here or someplace else. "We'll keep looking. Let's go to the shrine."

As they headed farther into Asakusa district, the drizzle turned into sprinkles, then a fierce downpour. Rain boiled up from tile roofs, cascaded off eaves, and puddled the streets. The air dissolved in mist. Sano, the detectives, and his other men took cover under a balcony while their horses stoically endured the deluge and people ran for shelter.

"There go our witnesses," Fukida said glumly.

Lightning flashed. The dark sky blazed bright white for an instant. Thunder cracked. The world outside the small dry space where Sano and his men stood was a streaming gray blur. Down the vacant street, a lone human figure emerged from the storm and stumbled in their direction.

"Somebody doesn't know enough to get out of the rain," Marume said.

The figure drew nearer, limping and crouching. Sano saw that it was a woman. Her black hair hung in long, dripping tangles. Torn and drenched, her dark red and pale lavender kimono was plastered against her slim body. With one hand she held the garment closed over her bosom; with the other she groped as if she were blind.

"What on earth-," Fukida began.

Now Sano saw that the red streaks on her kimono weren't dyed into the fabric. The rain washed them down her skirts, into the puddles through which she limped barefoot.

She was bleeding.

Sano ran toward the woman. The storm battered him; he was instantly soaked to the skin. She faltered, her eyes wide and blank with terror. Rain trickled into her open, gasping mouth. She wasn't young or old; she could be in her thirties. Her features were startlingly familiar to Sano. She recoiled from him, lost her balance. He caught her, and she screamed and flailed.

"Don't be afraid," Sano shouted over a crash of thunder. "I won't hurt you."

As she fought him, the detectives hurried to Sano's aid. The woman began to weep, crying, "No! Leave me alone. Please!"

"Stand back," Sano ordered his men. They obeyed. "Who are you?" he urgently asked the woman.

Her gaze met his. The blankness in her eyes cleared. She stopped fighting Sano. Her expression showed puzzlement, wonder, and hope. Sano was astounded by recognition. As the rain swept them, he flashed back to a memory from his early childhood.

In those days his mother had often taken him to the public bath house because they didn't have room for a tub in their small, humble home. He remembered how she'd dunked under the hot water and come up with her hair and face streaming wet. His mind superimposed this picture of his mother upon the woman in his arms. The woman was his mother's younger image.

"Is your name Chiyo?" Sano shouted.

"Yes," his cousin whispered, her voice drowned by the storm. Her eyes closed, and she went limp in Sano's grasp as she fainted.