Black Lotus

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “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 Haru into confessing to the arson and murders.”

  “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 Haru’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 Haru’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. “Are 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?”

  Now Reiko realized she’d again pushed him too far. She was appalled that her attempt to sway him had backfired. “No, I’m just asking you to be objective and reconsider—”

  “You dare tell me to be objective?” Sano’s expression turned furious. “You’re the one who’s lost your objectivity where Haru is concerned. And you’ve forgotten where your loyalty belongs.” He was shouting, oblivious to the presence of the people around them. “Don’t you see that Haru has corrupted you? You’re becoming as deceitful and wayward as she is. Well, go ahead and choose her over your husband. Let her destroy our life, because I don’t care anymore—I’m sick of you both!”

  His bitter fury seared Reiko. She was aghast to think he believed their trouble was solely due to her friendship with Haru, and that her reckless words had caused the final rupture between them. How could she explain that there was much more involved than a fight over the girl, and that his honor was at stake, without further angering him?

  Sano gave her no chance to try. “I’ll have no more of your criticism or interference,” he said, his words cutting like a steel blade, his face taut with anger. “Either you come to your senses, treat me with respect, and stay out of this investigation, or—”

  He seemed to notice that he was shouting in public for all to hear, and a look of mortification came over his face. He mounted his horse and galloped ahead, leaving Reiko sitting in her palanquin, amid the ruins of their life together. He was threatening to divorce her! Imagining consequences too terrible to contemplate, she suddenly realized how much she would hate to lose him.

  As Sano rode beside Hirata, emotion contradicted his ultimatum. Reiko was his wife and the mother of his son. Though he hated her stubborn defense of Haru, they’d shared so many accomplishments, happy times, and dangers. He didn’t really want to end their marriage, yet he refused to tolerate her misbehavior any longer, and if she refused to yield, there seemed no alternative except divorce. Sano maintained a stoic countenance that hid his regret and bewilderment.

  Hirata said, “Maybe it’s just coincidence, but every main road we’ve tried to follow has been blocked. We’ve been constantly having to take detours.”

  Sano had been too preoccupied to pay attention. Now his memory recalled images subconsciously noted: a burning trash heap at one intersection and a big stack of wood at another; jugglers performing for a crowd. None of these things was unusual, but Hirata was right to bring the combination to Sano’s notice.

  “I don’t like this,” he said, looking around suspiciously.

  The detours had diverted them into a labyrinth of narrow lanes between houses whose balconies almost touched overhead. Sano and his men had to ride single file, and Reiko’s palanquin barely fit. The street they were on seemed oddly empty for such a populous district, with not a soul in sight.

  “I smell a trap,” Hirata said.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Sano said. Slapping the reins, he called to the palanquin bearers and the guards at the rear of the procession: “Hurry.”

  The procession gathered speed. Ahead loomed the portals of a neighborhood gate. Through it rushed six men dressed in hooded cloaks, with cloths tied over the lower portions of their faces. They wore daggers at their waists and carried spears. They charged at the procession.

  “It’s an ambush!” Sano yelled. His party of twelve men outnumbered the attackers, but he didn’t want to be stuck in this confined space. “Go back!”

  He and Hirata and the detectives turned their horses, but the palanquin, with its long poles, was too big. The bearers hastily backed down the street. Eight more hooded, masked, armed men stormed in from the opposite direction. Now the attackers had the advantage, and Sano’s party was trapped.

  “Fight!” Sano shouted.

  He saw the four bearers set down the palanquin and hurry to join the four guards in a rear defense. Drawing his sword, he leapt from his mount. Hirata and the detectives followed suit. An attacker rushed Sano, spear aimed at his heart. Sano dodged He bumped into Hirata, who was parrying slices from the spears of two more attackers. Sano clashed blades with his opponent.

  “Reiko!” he called. “Stay inside the palanquin!”

&nb
sp; Another attacker joined the man battling Sano. They lunged and jabbed at him. Sano hacked at the wooden shaft of one opponent’s spear. The shaft broke. Sano sliced the man across the throat. Blood spurted, and the man fell dead.

  The other man lunged; Sano sidestepped, crashed against a building, and the spear grazed his shoulder. Swinging his sword around, he struck at the man’s hands. The man dropped the spear, ducked another cut from Sano, and drew a long-bladed dagger. As he slashed and parried, Sano noticed that another attacker lay facedown in a pool of blood nearby, slain by Hirata or the detectives. Through the narrow gap between the palanquin and the buildings he saw his men fighting the attackers on the other side of the palanquin. The remaining four on his side formed a line of offense. Thrusting spears crowded Sano and his men together, forcing them backward. Sano glimpsed the attackers’ intent, merciless eyes above the masks.

  Who were they? Why did they risk ambushing an armed Tokugawa procession?

  The horses, frightened by the battle, neighed and circled, trying to escape, but the fighters and the palanquin hemmed them in. One of the horses reared; its flailing hooves struck the detective at Sano’s right, and he stumbled. A spear pierced his middle. He screamed, collapsed, then lay still.

  Outraged by the murder of a loyal retainer, Sano fought harder. Spears and swords flashed, battered, and rang in the air between his side and the attackers. Sano darted past spears and around to the rear of the offense. He sliced an attacker down the back. The man howled and died. Sano, Hirata, and the other detective circled the three remaining attackers and soon felled them, then ran to the back of the palanquin. There, two guards were wielding swords against the spears of two attackers. The corpses of the other guards, attackers, and the palanquin bearers lay strewn upon the road.

  Sano called to the attackers, “Your comrades are dead. Surrender!”

  They turned toward him, and he saw them realize that they were now outnumbered five men to two. They fled down the street. Hirata, the detective, and the guards raced off in pursuit. Reiko jumped out of the palanquin and gaped at the carnage.

  “You’re bleeding,” she said to Sano, pointing at his shoulder.

  Sano inspected the wound, which hurt but had stopped bleeding. “It’s not serious. Are you all right?”

  Reiko nodded, but her lips trembled. Sano worried that this trauma, so soon after the murders of the Fugatami, was too much for his wife. He felt an impulse to hold her, to reassure her that she was safe. Yet their strife had created a distance between them that precluded intimacy. Reiko averted her gaze from Sano and walked over to the corpse of an attacker.

  The man lay sprawled on his back. Blood from the fatal gash across his belly drenched his garments; his hood and face cloth had fallen off. He was young, with coarse features, and a stranger to Sano. His head was shaved bald.

  “A priest,” Reiko said.

  Leaning closer, she examined his neck, then pointed at a tattoo just below his throat. It was a black lotus flower.

  “First the sect attacked Haru, and now us,” Reiko said, her voice deliberately calm. “They must have followed us from the jail and set up the ambush. They wanted to keep us from discovering the truth about the Black Lotus.”

  Sano agreed with her logic, and he began reassessing his opinion of the attack on Haru, but before he could reply, his men returned. “You lost the last two?” Sano said.

  “We cornered them in an alley,” Hirata said, “but they cut their own throats to avoid capture.” Eyeing the corpse beside Reiko, he added, “They’re both priests, with that same tattoo.”

  Reiko turned a bleak gaze on Sano. “They’ll stop at nothing to destroy their enemies and protect their secrets.”

  30

  The land of the Bodhisattva of Infinite Power

  Will be filled with treasures and heavenly palaces.

  The faithful will be transformed,

  Their bodies will glow with light,

  They will feed on joy and unlimited knowledge.

  —FROM THE BLACK LOTUS SUTRA

  Iridescent pink cloud glowed in the twilight sky above the Zj temple district. Bells clamored, heralding evening rites. Peddlers and late worshippers trudged homeward from the marketplace, while nuns and priests streamed into temples. But the gates to the Black Lotus Temple were closed; no one passed in or out. Shrouded in secrecy, the walled compound gathered the night around itself.

  Inside the temple precinct, monks armed with spears guarded the gates and patrolled the grounds. Lights burned behind the windows of the buildings. Flames flickered in stone lanterns along the main path, where a hundred nuns and priests stood in rows, each holding a wooden dagger. Priest Kumashiro, armed with a steel dagger, headed the group. He whirled, slashing the air in ritualistic combat. The nuns and priests imitated his actions like an army of shadows.

  Midori clutched her dagger, panting as she tried to keep up with her comrades. She wondered why they needed to learn how to fight. Kumashiro had merely told them it was vital to their future. Her comrades mimicked him with rapt concentration, as if they shared his secret purpose. The lesson, which reminded Midori of military drills at Edo Castle, intensified her fears about the Black Lotus. As she darted and stabbed, she tried to keep an eye on Toshiko, in the next row.

  All day she’d waited for her friend to create a diversion so she could escape the sect’s supervision, but Toshiko had done nothing. She hadn’t winked; she hadn’t even spoken to Midori. Now Midori was starving because she didn’t want to be poisoned by eating the sect’s food. She wanted to finish spying and avoid spending another night at the temple, but she feared that Toshiko had changed her mind about helping.

  Beyond the rows of moving figures Midori saw nuns stationed along both sides of the path, watching the group. She would never get past them without Toshiko’s cooperation. Despair filled her.

  The lesson halted, and the group stood at attention while three priests joined Kumashiro. Each carried a horizontal pole with a life-sized human dummy at the end. The dummies had wooden heads and wore men’s kimonos and wicker hats.

  “Watch carefully,” Kumashiro ordered the group.

  The priests moved in a staggered line toward him, dummies extended Kumashiro charged at the dummies. He swung his dagger right, left, and right, slashing tears across the dummies’ middles.

  “Form a line, run up one at time, and do as I showed you,” Kumashiro said.

  Midori and the others jostled into position. The monk at the head of the line ran forward. The priests thrust the dummies at him, and he whacked his wooden dagger against the stuffed figures. Other monks and nuns followed his example. As the line moved up, Midori fidgeted in anxiety. The violence of the exercise disturbed her, as did the ferocity with which her comrades attacked the dummies. Dreading her turn, she watched Toshiko, who stood four places ahead of her.

  Suddenly Toshiko let out a loud cry. Midori’s heart jumped. Everyone looked at Toshiko as she dropped her dagger and clutched her stomach.

  “Ow, ow, it hurts!” she screamed, toppling to the ground.

  The nuns on the sidelines hurried toward her. Toshiko rolled back and forth, grimacing in pain, and her gaze briefly met Midori’s. She winked.

  Overjoyed, Midori turned and ran into the grounds. Trees screened the light from the moon and the buildings, and she could barely see where she was going. She plunged into a passage between solid walls, then through a patch of woods, and emerged into open space. Her foot struck a stone or fallen branch. She tripped, sprawling flat on the grass.

  The fall knocked the dagger out of her hand and the breath from her lungs. Midori lay stunned for a moment, heart pounding. Then she scrambled up, aware that she hadn’t thought what to do after escaping. Where should she go? Uncertainty immobilized her. She felt very small and alone and scared.

  Now that her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, she saw that she was in a garden. Jagged pine trees stood out against the indigo sky, and a pond reflected the moon’s bleach
ed circle. Midori smelled the odor of burnt wood and saw a large square of bare, charred earth. A chill tingled her skin. This must be where the cottage had been burned with Commander Oyama, the woman, and the little boy inside, and the debris cleared away.

  Rapid footsteps rustled through fallen leaves, coming toward Midori. Panic ripped a gasp from her throat. She whirled, raising her hands to fend off the dark figure approaching her.

  The person halted and whispered loudly, “It’s me!”

  “Oh!” Midori went limp with relief as she recognized Toshiko. “I’m so glad to see you. How did you get here?”

  “I told them I had cramps,” Toshiko said, “and then pretended to get better. After the lesson started up again, I sneaked away. So, what’s next?”

  Before Midori could admit that she didn’t know, a creaking noise came from the site of the fire. They both started. Midori saw an eerie glow issuing from the burnt ground.

  “It’s the ghosts of the people who died here!” she whispered as superstitious fright shot through her.

  She and Toshiko hugged each other, cowering behind a tree. Up from the ground rose a hand, bearing a lantern; then an entire figure emerged. It was a woman dressed in a gray kimono and long white head drape: Abbess Junketsu-in. She held the lantern over a large hole out of which she’d climbed.

  “That must be an opening to the underground tunnels Lady Reiko told me about,” Midori whispered to Toshiko. Apparently, it had once led into the cottage.

  As they watched, there were more creaking sounds, and two male figures climbed from the hole. They had shaved crowns and wore swords. Midori recognized the crest of the Kuroda clan on their glossy silk robes. They and Junketsu-in walked away down a path toward the main precinct.