Black Lotus (31 page)

"Have you any idea why those men attacked you?" Reiko asked.

Hani's bruised face relaxed as the sedative began to take effect. She said in a soft, drowsy voice, "He wanted me to confess to killing those people and setting the fire. He said that if I didn't, he would hurt me even worse, then kill me."

An ominous chill passed through Reiko. Apparently, Haru was talking about the gang's leader, who'd had a purpose more sinister than blood sport. "Why did he want you to confess?"

"I don't know." Haru yawned. "He didn't say."

"Who was he?"

"… I don't know."

However, Reiko could think of a good explanation. The Black Lotus must have decided that forcing Haru to confess would stop the investigation into the sect. The thugs must be followers of High Priest An-raku, sent by him to threaten Haru. This scenario strengthened Reiko's belief that Haru knew too much about the sect's clandestine business, and Anraku wanted her to take her secrets to the grave. Reiko became determined to remove Haru from Edo Jail. Therefore, she must convince Sano that Haru needed special protection and had knowledge that would further his investigation.

"
Haru-san
, you must tell me what you saw and heard while you were living at the Black Lotus Temple," Reiko said.

The girl stirred. She murmured, "What kinds of things?"

"Secret underground rooms and tunnels," Reiko said. "Novices being starved, imprisoned, tortured, or killed."

Haru tossed her head from side to side. Sleepy anxiety puckered her face.

Reiko thought she knew the reason for the girl's agitation. "High Priest Anraku took you in and you feel indebted to him, but if you want to save yourself, you must tell the truth."

"Anraku…" Hani's voice trailed off on a sad, lonely note. "Why has he forsaken me?"

"What is the sect planning?" Reiko asked urgently. "Did Anraku order the attacks in Shinagawa? Is he going to do something worse?"

"No," Haru protested weakly. "He's good. He's wonderful. I love him. I thought he loved me."

She closed her eyes as if the conversation had exhausted her, and Reiko saw the veil of sleep descending upon her. Reiko believed that Haru knew more than a misguided sense of loyalty allowed her to tell. Might Anraku have enchanted Haru as he had other followers? Could Haru have been involved in his schemes? The cold touch of suspicion disturbed Reiko, yet as she looked down at Haru's small, battered figure, her instincts insisted that Haru could still be basically good, despite the mistakes she'd made. Besides, it seemed improbable that the sect would have entrusted important facts to her. Still, Reiko wondered how strong was Anraku's hold on Haru, and what Haru might have done for the high priest.

"Haru-san," she said, "if you tell me what the Black Lotus is up to, I may be able to get you out of jail."

The girl lay asleep, her breathing slow and even. Her eyelids fluttered, and a moan issued from her parted lips. She said, "I didn't know he was there."

"Who?" Reiko said, startled.

"Radiant Spirit," Haru murmured. Her eyes remained closed; she was apparently talking in her sleep. "Chie's little boy."

"Chie had a child named Radiant Spirit?" Reiko wondered if this was fact, or a fabrication
of
Haru's dreams.

Under the blanket, Haru twitched. "I didn't want to him to get hurt," she cried. "He wasn't supposed to be there. It was an accident!" • ,

"Where?" Premonition solidified into a cold, sinking weight inside Reiko.

"In the cottage," Haru said.

Then she sighed, and her restless movements ceased. She slept peacefully while Reiko beheld her in horror. It sounded as though Haru meant she'd set the cottage on fire and accidentally burned the child because she hadn't known he was inside. Had she started the fire to destroy the bodies of Commander Oyama and Chie --- the people she really had intended to hurt, and had indeed killed?

The terrible possibility held Reiko in a stunned thrall. Over the pounding of her heart, she heard women shouting down the corridor, and a guard ordering them to be quiet. All her doubts about Haru rose up in her. The lies, the fire that had killed her husband, her repeated attempts to incriminate other people, her bond with High Priest An-raku --- these all validated Reiko's sudden notion that Haru had admitted while asleep a guilt her conscious mind refused to recall.

But Reiko didn't want to believe that she'd mistakenly interfered with Sano's attempts to serve justice. Perhaps she'd misinterpreted what Haru had said. The blows Haru had received to her head and the medicine Dr. Ito had given her might have confused her. One thing was certain. Much as Reiko hated to breach the code of honesty in her marriage with Sano, she couldn't tell him about Hani's unconscious ramblings, for that would escalate his campaign against Haru, and the Black Lotus would never be exposed.

29

If there be those who trouble and disrupt the proponents of the true Law,

Their blood will spill like rivers.

----FROM THE BLACK LOTUS SUTRA

Midori awakened to groggy consciousness. A heavy fog of sleep weighed upon her. Through it she heard distant chanting. Her head ached; her mouth was dry and her stomach queasy. Rolling onto her side, she opened her eyes.

She was lying on a futon on a wooden pallet, in a large room illuminated by shafts of sunlight from barred windows. Around her, other women lay asleep on beds arranged in rows. Midori frowned in confusion. Who were they? Where was she? Then she realized that she must be in the Black Lotus convent, and the women were her fellow novices. The fog in her mind lifted, and she recalled the initiation ceremony with lucidity and horror.

She'd enjoyed that man touching her, thinking he was Hirata! She couldn't believe she'd behaved so disgracefully! There must have been poison in the incense that had driven her mad. Anraku's blood must have contained a sleeping potion, because she couldn't recall anything that had happened after drinking it.

Now Midori noticed that the sleeping women were dressed in gray robes instead of the white ones they'd worn last night. Some of them were bald: Their heads had been shaved. Midori's heart lurched as she recalled that now they were all nuns. Her hand flew to her own head. She felt long, silky hair and sighed in relief, though she wondered why she'd been spared. Examining herself, she saw that she, too, wore gray. Someone had changed her clothes while she slept. Misery and shame swelled inside Midori. She'd thought herself such a clever spy, yet she'd succumbed to the Black Lotus.

A nun walked up the aisle, banging a gong. "Get up!" she ordered. "It's time to begin your new life!"

Amid murmurs and yawns, the new nuns stirred. Midori sat up, wincing as vertigo engulfed her. Servant girls passed out steaming bowls of tea and rice gruel.

"No talking," the nun announced.

Midori received her portion and realized she was hungry, but feared that the food contained poison. If she wanted to keep her wits, she must not consume anything the sect gave her.

"If you're not going to eat yours, can I have it?" someone whispered.

Looking up, Midori saw Toshiko kneeling on the bed beside hers. Toshiko looked sleepy; she still had her hair, too. Midori noticed that all the prettier girls did. Concerned for her friend's safety, Midori whispered urgently, "No, you can't! It might be bad!"

"Bad?" Toshiko frowned. "What do you mean?"

The nun patrolled the aisles. Midori didn't want to find out what the punishment was for breaking rules. She realized that she couldn't leave Toshiko at the mercy of the Black Lotus. When she left the temple, she must take her friend with her. "I'll explain as soon as I can." Then curiosity overrode caution. "What did Anraku promise you?"

Toshiko never got a chance to answer, because the nun herded everyone outside to use the privies and fetch water from the well to wash themselves. Then she took them to the main hall. The precinct was full of nuns and priests bringing in rice bales, loads of charcoal and wood, urns of oil, barrels of pickled vegetables and dried fish. Midori wondered why they needed so many provisions. She saw no pilgrims around, and felt a stab of fear.

The Black Lotus had indeed expelled everyone except its members. She must be the only outsider here. The weather was clear and bright, but Midori sensed an undercurrent in the atmosphere, as if from an invisible storm brewing. She longed to run away before anything worse happened to her, but she couldn't go home with nothing to tell except the details of the initiation ceremony, and she'd rather die than have anyone know that. If she returned empty-handed, everything she'd gone through would be for naught. Besides, she'd come to believe that the Black Lotus really was evil, and she wanted to help defeat it. She must be brave and stay long enough to gather the information she'd promised Reiko.

Inside the main hall, her group joined a crowd of monks and nuns who were kneeling on the floor. An elderly priest led them in chanting. Midori secured a place next to Toshiko and chanted the monotonous prayer. The hall looked different today. Curtains covered the mirrors, and only a few candles burned on the altar, yet the emotional intensity she'd felt last night still charged the air. Senior nuns and priests guarded the doors or patrolled narrow aisles between the ranks of kneeling figures. Head bowed, Midori nudged Toshiko.

"The Black Lotus is dangerous," she whispered. "It kills people. Something bad is going to happen."

"How do you know?" Toshiko whispered back.

The thought of revealing her true identity and purpose scared Midori, but she didn't think Toshiko would believe her unless she did. "I'm Niu Midori, a spy for the wife of the shogun's
sōsakan-sama
. She told me," Midori said. "I'm here to find out what's happening. As soon as I do, I'm leaving. You have to come with me because if you stay, you could get hurt."

They kept chanting as Toshiko flashed Midori a frightened glance. Then Toshiko whispered, "All right. What are we going to do?"

"I'll sneak away later and look around," Midori answered. "Then I'll come back for you."

At intervals during the prayers, groups of nuns and priests filed out of the hall and others filed in, worshipping in shifts. Eventually, the nun led Midori's group to a building that housed a workshop for printing prayers. Inside, nuns cut sheets of paper and mixed pots of acrid black ink. Others worked at long tables, spreading ink on wooden blocks incised with characters and pressing the blocks against paper. Midori and Toshiko were assigned to cut the printed prayers into strips that bore the message, "Hail the new era of the Black Lotus." Two priests roved the room, overseeing the work. Midori waited until the priests
were
busy at the other end of the room, then edged toward the door.

"Where are you going?" demanded a loud, female voice.

Startled, Midori looked around and saw a nun glaring at her from the printing table. The priests moved toward her. "To the privy," Midori bed, belatedly aware that everyone here watched one another.

"Go with her," one of the priests told the nun.

On the way to the privy and back, the nun never let Midori out of sight. Working beside Toshiko, Midori whispered, "You have to help me get away."

Toshiko sliced her knife between rows of printed characters. "I'll do something to distract everybody."

"When?" Midori asked anxiously.

"We'll have to wait for the right time. Just be patient and watch me. When I wink at you, run."

Now Midori was glad she'd taken Toshiko into her confidence. Toshiko was exactly the clever accomplice she needed.

"We should not have left Haru in jail," Reiko said to Sano.

It was late afternoon, and they were traveling through Nihonbashi toward Edo Castle. Reiko rode in her palanquin, while Sano walked beside its open window, leading his horse; Hirata and the detectives preceded them. A short time ago, Sano had finished his inquiries at Edo Jail, told Reiko the results, and said it was time to go home. Reiko hadn't wanted to leave Haru, and she didn't agree with his version of events, but she couldn't disgrace her husband by challenging his authority at the jail, so she'd reluctantly kept silent until now.

"Haru will be fine," Sano said. "The two guards I stationed outside her cell will protect her, and Dr. Ito will tend her injuries. I've warned the warden that he'll be demoted if he allows any more harm to come to her. The jailers have been flogged for beating Haru. They won't bother her again."

"But you haven't found all the men responsible for the attack." Reiko described what Haru had told her. "Where's the third one?"

"There were only two men," Sano said as the procession slowed on its way through an outdoor marketplace.

Reiko heard firm conviction in Sano's voice and braced herself for an argument. "Haru says there were three."

"Hirata and I interrogated everyone at the prison, checked their whereabouts last night, and searched their quarters for clothes with fresh bloodstains," Sano said. "We found no cause to think that anyone else besides those two jailers was involved in the attack."

"Maybe not anyone else from the jail," Reiko said, though troubled by the discrepancy between his version of the story and Haru's. "The other man could have come from outside. I think he was a Black Lotus priest. He tried to threaten Hani into confessing to the arson and mur-ders."

"Or so she told you," Sano said skeptically. "After the two jailers admitted beating Haru, I asked them what happened in that cell. They said they warned Haru to be quiet, but there was no other talk. The prisoners in the other cells heard nothing at all."

"The jailers are probably Black Lotus followers, trying to protect their leader," Reiko said. "The prisoners are probably lying because they're afraid of the jailers and don't want to get in trouble."

Sano shook his head; Reiko saw irritation harden his profile. "If anyone is lying, it's Haru. She's obviously trying to use a random incident to manipulate her way out of jail. I won't fall for that, even if you do."

Reiko thought of Hani's words about the murdered child, and lingering doubt resurfaced.

"What is it?" Sano said, peering suspiciously through the window at her.

"Nothing." Reiko turned away so he couldn't read her thoughts.

She should tell him that Haru had identified the boy as Chie's son, but she didn't want to invite questions about what else Haru had said. Reiko envisioned her relationship with Sano as a house they'd built together, and the secrets she hid as invisible flaws in the structure. Her decision to withhold a clue from him eroded its foundation. Every new development in the case further weakened the integrity of their marriage. Reiko experienced a powerful urge to surrender the battle over Haru, placate Sano, and try to restore the harmony between them, yet her crusade against the sect forced her to stand by Haru. And a part of her still believed she was right to defend the girl.

Frustrated by Sano's refusal to change his mind, she said, "Maybe you're eager to believe that the attack was random because if you'd left Haru at my father's house, it wouldn't have happened. You wouldn't like to think that you arrested the wrong person and let the real killers get her."

"What I like is not the issue. Evidence is." Asperity edged Sano's voice, and Reiko knew that her remark had pierced a sore spot in him. Clearly, he wasn't as sure of Hani's guilt as he wished to be, and the possibility that he'd caused undeserved harm to someone disturbed him. "The evidence says Haru is a criminal and that two jailers who enjoy molesting female prisoners attacked her."

"Maybe you've overlooked evidence that proves Haru's story," Reiko said, desperate to prevent him from letting the Black Lotus dupe him.

Sano stared at her in shock. "Arc you saying that I contrived the investigation at the jail to serve my personal aims? Can you really be so smitten with Haru that you think I would do such a dishonest, selfish thing?"