beyond the rooftops. Along the street, businesses that catered to travelers sold hats, noodles, sake, and guidebooks depicting highway attractions. Noisy crowds of religious pilgrims, carrying walking staffs and laden with heavy packs, browsed the merchandise.
The Buddhist supply shop occupied a storefront in the middle of the block. Inside, past the blue entrance curtain, a white-haired man sat behind a counter amid beaded rosaries hung from the low ceiling and shelves crammed with Buddha statues and boxes of incense. Sano and Detective Arai loitered outside while Detective Inoue, clad in a plain cotton robe hastily purchased for this occasion, entered the shop and approached the proprietor.
“I’m looking for Yoshi,” Detective Inoue said, as Sano had instructed him to do.
The proprietor scrutinized Inoue, and a leery expression came over his wrinkled face. “I’m sorry, master, there’s no one by that name here.”
Sano was dismayed because the proprietor had obviously guessed that the detective wasn’t a real Black Lotus member. He also discerned that Inoue posed a threat, because he darted toward a curtained doorway behind the counter. Inoue lunged across the counter and caught him. As Sano and Arai rushed into the shop, Inoue held the proprietor by the arms.
“Please, masters, don’t hurt me,” the old man cried.
“I won’t if you tell me where the Black Lotus temple is,” Sano said.
“But I don’t know.”
The proprietor gave a nervous giggle that turned into a shriek as Sano whipped his sword out of its scabbard. “Where is the temple?” Sano demanded. To menace a helpless old man filled him with shame even though his victim abetted the Black Lotus, a crime punishable by death. But the abduction was teaching Sano that his principles had limits. He would do anything to find out who’d kidnapped Reiko, and saving his lord’s mother took precedence over personal ideals.
“All right-I’ll tell you. It’s in the teahouse by the Inari Shrine on the north side of the Kanda vegetable market.” The proprietor begged, “Please don’t kill me.”
Sano sheathed his sword; Detective Inoue relaxed his hold on the proprietor, who babbled in relief.
“Listen carefully,” Sano told the old man. “You’ll carry on your business as usual. You won’t tell your Black Lotus friends about our talk. Do you understand?”
Resignation slumped the old man’s body. “Yes, master.”
“Detective Arai will be here watching to make sure you obey,” Sano added, then turned to Arai. “Arrest anyone who comes and asks for the temple’s location.”
“Yes, Sosakan-sama,” the detective said, though obviously wondering how many outlaws might come and worried about whether he could subdue them by himself.
“I’ll send men to help you as soon as possible,” Sano said. Suddenly his detective corps seemed smaller than usual and stretched far too thin to net the Black Lotus. “Detective Inoue and I have to find that temple.”
The teahouse was located in a row of dilapidated buildings dwarfed by the torii gate of the shrine to Inari, the Shinto rice god. The shrine’s gong clanged and peasants streamed out the gate while Sano and Detective Inoue secured their horses to a nearby post. As the sun rose higher toward noon, shadows receded and stray dogs lay panting under the eaves. Raucous voices drifted from the vegetable market, and the still, hot air reeked of rotten cabbage. Sano and Inoue appraised the teahouse from a distance. With its thatched roof, barred window, and weathered plank walls, it resembled Edo’s thousand other drinking places-except that it showed no sign of life.
Sano signaled Inoue to wait, then walked to the sliding door that stood open just enough for a man to squeeze through. He pressed himself against the building and peered sideways into a small room, unfurnished and empty, with a closed door at the rear. Sano beckoned Inoue, who slipped after him into the teahouse. They leaned their ears to the door and heard high, faint voices, chanting. Sano’s heart beat a cadence of caution and excitement because he was certain he’d discovered a Black Lotus ritual. He drew his sword because the sect’s priests, nuns, and worshipers would fight to the death rather than be captured. Then he nodded at Inoue.
The detective opened the door, which required all his strength to budge and yielded with a groaning noise. Sano yelled, “Don’t move! In the name of the shogun, I order you to surrender!”
He and Inoue rushed into a long, narrow chamber. Unlit lanterns dangled from the rafters. Against the far wall, a black lacquer table held burned-out candles. The space in front of the altar where worshipers would have knelt was unoccupied. Sano halted, lowering his sword, stunned by the letdown; yet the chanting went on, louder now. Sano and Inoue frowned in confusion. Then a slim, vertical rectangle of sunlight at the edge of a back door caught Sano’s eye. He and Inoue raced to the door, flung it wide, and looked outside.
In an alley, four little girls crouched in a circle by the opposite house, chanting in some childish game. Sano and Inoue shook their heads at each other. Disappointment grieved Sano as he voiced the obvious: “The sect has abandoned this temple.”
The Black Lotus had an uncanny ability to sense danger coming and skip out just in time. Sano looked forward to long hours of chasing it. Worse, he had no proof that the hunt might lead him to Reiko except the word of a criminal… and his own instincts, which he realized might lead him as badly astray. Maybe he’d convinced himself of the Black Lotus’s guilt because he couldn’t bear to think he was just wasting time until the ransom letter arrived. Still, Sano clung to his convictions rather than admit helplessness.
“We’ll go ask the neighbors where Profound Wisdom and his followers went,” Sano told Inoue. “If they can’t tell us, I know a few Black Lotus hideouts to check.”
Yet although Sano found comfort in believing he was headed in the right direction, he hoped he was wrong about the Black Lotus and that it didn’t have Reiko. The sect’s cruelty toward its victims had no limits. And one disturbing notion seemed to Sano the only certainty: No matter who had Reiko, the longer she was captive, the less her chance of survival.
7
Birdsong had replaced the whine of nocturnal insects in the forest outside the prison. The gaps in the shutters had turned from moonlit gray to rose-pink at dawn; now they were bright streaks of sunshine. Reiko sat and watched while day illuminated her surroundings.
Dusty cobwebs festooned the grid of cracked, rotting rafters. The ceiling and the plaster on the walls were stained black with smoke from a fire long ago. Dead bugs and mouse and bird droppings littered the floor. An abandoned nest made of twigs perched high above Lady Keisho-in, who reclined in a corner. With her face powder and rouge smeared, she looked clownish, pitiful, and a decade older than usual. Near her, Midori heaved over on her side, her eyes puffy from tears. Only Lady Yanagisawa had slept during the terrible night. She lay facing a wall, knees drawn up and arms folded, motionless.
“Almost a day has passed since we were abducted,” Reiko said. Despite her anxiety, she must raise her friends’ morale. “By now someone should have found our entourage murdered and discovered us missing. The crime should have been reported to the authorities, who should have begun searching for us. We’ll be rescued soon.”
No one answered. No one could guess whether her optimistic prediction would come true, or if worse things might happen.
“It’s getting too warm in here,” Keisho-in said, fanning herself with the end of her sash. “I’m so thirsty I would kill for a drink.” They’d finished the last drop of water in the jar hours ago. “And I’m dying of hunger.”
Reiko’s own empty stomach growled with a fierce appetite. Did their captors intend them to starve to death? Why had they been kidnapped? What reason could justify the slaughter of a hundred people? Reiko shook her head at the futility of speculating in the absence of clues.
“This place stinks,” Lady Keisho-in complained. The buckets filled the room with the odors of urine, feces, and vomit. “I’ve never had to put up with the likes of this!”
Nor had Reiko, who realized what a comfortable life she’d always taken for granted. Her father’s wealth and her advantageous marriage had given her luxurious surroundings, servants to wait on her, and good meals whenever she wanted. But now she hadn’t a grain of rice to eat. She couldn’t even have a bath, or clean clothes to wear. This intimation of what poor people endured every day enlightened and appalled Reiko.
