It seemed a reasonable routine, Sano thought, and similar to that of other Buddhist orders. “What if you misbehave?”
The young men grinned at a pudgy boy who was evidently a troublemaker. He said, “The priests lecture us on the error of our ways. Then we sit alone and meditate.”
“They don’t beat you?” Sano asked.
The question elicited puzzled looks and denials.
“What if you were unhappy and wanted to leave?”
A general stir of amusement indicated that the novices thought this an unlikely situation. “I missed my family at first,” said the pudgy boy, “and I told the priests I wanted to go home. They sent me back to my parents’ house, but after a few days of cleaning fish at my father’s shop, I came back.”
Evidently he hadn’t been detained against his will or by force, and Sano didn’t see anyone watching to make sure the novices didn’t wander off. Sano said, “Is there a novice monk named Pious Truth here?”
Boys shook their heads.
“He was also known as Mori Gogen,” Sano said, giving the name Reiko had said to be the monk’s original one.
The lack of recognition on the boys’ faces increased his doubts about the tale Reiko had told him. If there was no novice called Pious Truth here, who was it she’d met?
“What do you know about Haru, the girl who was found near the fire?” he asked the novices.
They exchanged sly glances. “She’s generous with her favors,” said the muscular youth. “Two novices were expelled for meeting her at night.”
Reiko wouldn’t welcome this confirmation of Abbess Junketsu-in’s story about the girl, Sano knew. He finished his meal, thanked the novices for their company, then chatted with others, who gave similar answers to the same questions. Afterward, he walked to the novice nuns’ quarters.
There, he found girls sitting inside a room, sewing while a nun read aloud a story about an emperor who entices his subjects to flee a city threatened by a flood, then rewards them with great wealth after they escape drowning. If this was a passage of the Black Lotus Sutra, it seemed to Sano that the scripture borrowed heavily from the famous Lotus Sutra and its Parable of the Burning House, but doctrinal imitation was no crime.
The novices burst into giggles at the sight of a man invading their domain. The nun readily granted Sano’s request to interview them by himself. At his prompting, they described their daily life, which followed a routine similar to that of the boys. Apparently, they all felt free to leave if they wished, and they corroborated Haru’s reputation for seducing young men. They looked healthy and contented; Sano detected no evidence of starvation or drug-induced stupor here, either.
“Is there someone named Yasue among you?” Sano asked.
Heads turned toward a chunky girl of about fifteen, seated near the window. She blushed at finding herself the center of attention.
“Don’t be nervous,” Sano told her. For Reiko’s sake, he was sorry that he’d apparently found the novice Yasue alive and well; yet he was glad to disprove the story about her murder at the hands of the Black Lotus priests. “I just need to know if you’ve ever tried to run away from the temple.”
“Oh, no, master.” Yasue’s surprised expression asked why she would do such a thing.
“Perhaps your brother suggested that you both should leave?” Sano said.
Confusion puckered the girl’s forehead. She murmured, “I’m sorry, but I haven’t got a brother.”
Then she wasn’t the sister of Pious Truth, whoever he might be. “Is there any other Yasue here?”
The novice nuns shook their heads, gazing earnestly at him.
“Is anyone ever punished for trying to run away?”
A wave of denials swept the room. Sano became more convinced than ever that Reiko had been deceived, perhaps by someone masquerading as a monk. What was going on? Sano decided he’d better pursue the matter further, partly because he mustn’t ignore possible clues, but mostly because he needed facts to allay Reiko’s suspicions about the sect.
Sano bid farewell to the novice nuns and walked to a low, thatch-roofed building. The priests had supposedly taken Pious Truth to the temple hospital, and Reiko would expect Sano to look for the monk there.
Inside the hospital were thirty mattresses on wooden pallets, all occupied. Three nuns bathed the sick, served them tea, and massaged backs. Sano walked along the rows, inspecting the patients. They were male and female, all middle-aged or old.
“Are there any other patients elsewhere?” Sano asked a nun.
“No, master,” she said.
“Has a young novice monk named Pious Truth been recently treated here?”
“No, master.”
A physician in a dark blue coat entered, knelt beside a bed containing an elderly man, and spooned liquid from a bowl into the patient’s mouth.
Sano walked over to the doctor and asked, “What ails your patient?”
“He has a fever,” the doctor said, adding, “I’m giving him willow-wood juice.”
This was a standard remedy. “Do you ever perform medical experiments on the sect members?” Sano asked.
“Never.”
The doctor looked genuinely shocked by Sano’s suggestion that he would endanger his patients’ lives. The nuns came over to join them, and Sano asked the group, “Has anyone from here disappeared recently?”
“No, master,” said the doctor. The old man in bed mumbled something.
“What did you say?” Sano asked.
“Chie,” said the old man. His bony cheeks were flushed, his eyes dazed. “She’s one of the nurses. Used to take care of me. Haven’t seen her in days.”
“He’s delirious,” the doctor told Sano apologetically. “There has never been a nurse named Chie here.”
Sano looked at the nuns, who murmured in agreement. “Has Haru ever been treated here?” Sano said.
“Yes,” said the doctor. “Haru is a patient of Dr. Miwa, our chief physician. Her spiritual disharmony causes bad behavior.”
Sano considered the possibility that everyone at the temple was part of a conspiracy bent on hiding secrets from him and smearing Haru’s reputation, but these people seemed honest. After leaving the hospital, he wandered through the temple precinct. He observed nuns and monks tending the gardens and washing dishes in the kitchen. They appeared as normal as the clergy at any other temple, and their activities mundane. Sano continued on to the orphanage. He thought of his interview with Haru’s parents, and guilt tugged at him, because he was about to do something else he hadn’t mentioned to Reiko.
Children’s laughter and shouts greeted his entry into the garden surrounding the orphanage. Under the supervision of two nuns, the thirty-one orphans were running, jumping, and skipping in play. They ranged in age from a toddler, who reminded Sano of Masahiro, to two girls of ten or eleven years tossing a leather ball with some younger boys. One of the boys missed a catch, and the ball flew toward Sano. He caught it. The group turned to him, wary at the sight of a stranger.
“Watch,” Sano said.
He kicked the ball high in the air. The children squealed in delight, and a boy caught the ball. He clumsily imitated Sano’s kick, booting the ball into some bushes.
“Here, I’ll show you,” Sano said. With his coaching, the children mastered the trick and began a lively contest to see who could kick the ball highest. Someone sent the ball soaring over the orphanage roof. The boys ran to retrieve it, and Sano turned to the two girls.
“Is Haru a friend of yours?” he asked.
The girls moved close together, suddenly shy. The taller, who was delicate and pretty, blurted, “We don’t like Haru. Nobody does.”
“Why not?” Sano asked.
“She’s mean,” the other girl said, her round face puckering in dislike. “If we don’t do what she says, she hits us. Um, the littler ones are afraid of her because she picks on them.”
Sano listened in consternation. Their story contradicted the one Haru had given Reiko, who he knew would be upset to learn that the orphans Haru had professed to love considered her a bully. Sano also knew that these bad
