Black Lotus

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “Be careful,” he said. “There’s someone down there.”

  “Midori.” Hirata’s voice exuded fear and the hope that she was within reach. “I’ll go down first.”

  He sheathed his sword and hurtled down the ladder. Sano and the detectives followed. When they reached the bottom and paused to rearm themselves, Hirata was already racing down a tunnel. An overpowering stench hit Sano as he sped after Hirata. A din of voices crying, “Help! Let us out!” erupted. Down the tunnel, Hirata skidded to a stop and exclaimed, “Merciful gods!”

  Catching up, Sano saw doors, bolted with thick iron beams, lining the tunnel. From inside the chambers, skeletal hands reached outward through tiny barred windows in the doors. This was the Black Lotus’s secret prison.

  “Midori! I’ve come to get you!” Hirata yanked the bolt away from one cell and threw open the door.

  Cheers arose. Out of the cell stumbled some twenty emaciated young men dressed in dirty rags. Their faces were gaunt, their hair shaggy. Sano and the detectives opened other cells, releasing hundreds more men and women in similar condition, who’d apparently run afoul of the Black Lotus. Hirata pushed through the crowd, calling, “Midori!”

  Prisoners stampeded toward the exit. Sano and Hirata inspected the cells. They found a few remaining prisoners, too weak to move, but no Midori.

  “She’s not here,” Hirata said, stricken by disappointment.

  “Stay calm. We’ll find her,” Sano said, although he, too, had hoped to find Midori among the prisoners and was worried about why she wasn’t there. “Midori is alive,” he said, hoping he was right. “We’ll save her, and Reiko too.”

  He felt panic erode his own self-control, but his words calmed Hirata, who nodded and assumed a stony composure. They and the detectives hurried deeper into the tunnels. Entering a three-way junction, Sano heard fierce yells. He and his party froze, trapped, as priests waving swords charged toward them from all directions.

  “Haru-san,” Reiko compelled herself to say through her terror, “look at me.”

  Emitting a frightened mewl, Haru stared at the sword in her hands. Then her gaze slowly rose, drawn by Reiko’s desire to reestablish a connection between them.

  “You don’t really want to kill me, do you?” Reiko said, feigning calmness while Kumashiro held her tight and the sword’s sharp touch contracted her throat muscles.

  Haru said with defiant bravado, “I have no choice.”

  Reiko’s heart sank. Haru’s choice was between their friendship and Anraku, and Reiko knew how the odds lay. “We all have choices,” Reiko said, improvising fast. “I chose to take your side when no one else did. I chose to help you against my husband’s wishes. Don’t you owe me a favor?”

  Haru’s mouth worked; uncertainty clouded her eyes. But as Reiko dared to hope, Kumashiro said to Anraku, “Time is short. If Haru won’t kill Lady Reiko, I can.”

  Reiko sensed his blood lust in the hot pressure of his flesh against hers. Suddenly the clattering noise stopped. Quiet settled upon the underground; everyone looked around in surprise.

  “The slaves have deserted the air bellows,” Kumashiro said. “Soon we won’t be able to breathe down here. Let me dispose of the prisoners so we can go.”

  “No. It is Haru’s duty,” Anraku said firmly.

  A new resolve set Haru’s jaw. Anraku fixed a tantalizing stare on Reiko. She saw that this had become a contest between them. He cared less about making a timely escape than about controlling his followers, because his desire for power over them outweighed all other concerns. But Reiko was competing for her life.

  “Haru-san, he doesn’t deserve your loyalty,” she said. “After the fire, did he try to protect you? No—he let you shift for yourself. When you were in jail, did he comfort you?” Reiko shook her head regretfully. “He never came near you. Did he try to clear your name and save you from execution? On the contrary: He left you to the law.”

  “I don’t care about the past,” Haru said belligerently. “All that matters is that Anraku-san and I are together again.”

  But Reiko could tell that Haru did mind his desertion. “He and his followers did everything possible to incriminate you,” Reiko said. “Dr. Miwa and Abbess Junketsu-in revealed your bad reputation. Kumashiro tried to force you to confess. The orphans placed you at the scene of the crime. Black Lotus priests attacked you in jail.”

  “That was their own doing,” Haru faltered.

  Anraku radiated a confidence that scorned Reiko’s plan to break his hold on Haru.

  “But Anraku knows everything, doesn’t he?” Reiko said.

  Haru hesitated, then nodded.

  “And everyone in the Black Lotus serves and obeys him?”

  “ … Yes.” Haru’s expression turned wary.

  “Then he not only knew how your enemies tried to destroy you,” Reiko said, “he must have ordered them to do it

  “No!” Glaring at Reiko, Haru said, “He wouldn’t.”

  Yet she withdrew the sword and stole an uneasy glance at Anraku. Displeasure darkened his aspect.

  “Oh, yes, he would.” Reiko listened for sounds indicating that Sano’s troops had invaded the tunnels, but heard none. Since the bellows had stopped, the atmosphere had become stale; the suffocating smoke from the lamps increased her sense of urgency. Midori stirred, yawning: she would soon awake. Reiko tried to believe that rescue was near. “I’ll tell you why.”

  “You’re just trying to mix me up.” Haru took an aggressive step toward Reiko. Fresh terror pumped through Reiko’s blood as she strained away from the blade and Kumashiro immobilized her. Haru appealed to Anraku: “I don’t have to listen to her, do I?”

  “No, indeed,” Anraku said. “Just kill her, and she’ll speak no more.”

  “He wanted to make sure you were blamed for Commander Oyama’s death.” Reiko swallowed desperation. “But he also wanted you blamed for the crimes you didn’t commit.” She saw Haru’s forehead contract in bewilderment, and hurried on, “Remember Nurse Chie and the little boy. You really didn’t kill them, did you?”

  The trial hadn’t filled in the major gap in Sano’s case against Haru—her lack of motive for the other two murders. Reiko had never believed that Haru had killed the woman and child, and in spite of her disillusionment with Haru, she still didn’t believe it.

  Haru was nodding, though wariness lurked in her eyes. Reiko said, “If you didn’t kill Chie and the boy, then someone else in the Black Lotus did.”

  As Haru looked around at the other people in the room, her features sharpened with suspicion.

  “Someone set you up to be punished for his crimes,” Reiko said, feeling sudden tension in Kumashiro’s body. “Someone wanted you executed so he—or she—could go free.”

  The eight priests seemed indifferent to Haru’s scrutiny, but Abbess Junketsu-in and Dr. Miwa averted their eyes from her, their expressions suddenly guarded. Haru’s gaze came to rest on Anraku, whose face took on an ominous intensity.

  “Yes,” Reiko said. “Even if he didn’t kill Chie and the boy with his own hands, he ordered their deaths. He meant for you to die, too.” Haru shook her head vigorously, but her stricken countenance belied the denial. Reiko challenged the high priest: “Didn’t you?”

  Anraku’s tongue rolled inside his cheek, and Reiko saw from his discomfiture that she’d placed him in an intolerable position, as she’d meant to do. Either he must acknowledge his guilt and weaken his influence over Haru, or admit that he didn’t control everything that happened. He didn’t want to lose this contest with Reiko, but neither could he afford to have his omnipotence exposed as a fraud.

  Wicked inspiration glinted in the high priest’s eye. He spoke to Abbess Junketsu-in: “You shall tell us about the events leading up to the fire in the cottage.”

  “Me?” Junketsu-in blanched as everyone looked at her. “But—I don’t know anything. I—”

  Anraku’s gaze captured hers, and she halted. Her resistance dissolved as his will subdu
ed her. She said meekly, “That night I was walking alone in the precinct, when I saw two girls sneak out of the orphanage.”

  So she hadn’t been in her quarters with her attendants as she’d claimed, Reiko observed. She realized that Anraku had cleverly diverted Haru’s suspicion from himself to the abbess, and she’d lost a round in her fight for her life. But here was her chance to learn the truth about the murders and fire, and the telling of the story bought her more time.

  “I meant to send the girls back to bed,” Junketsu-in went on, “but then I spotted Haru walking ahead of them. They were following her. I wanted to know what she was doing, so I followed, too. When we got near the cottage, the other two girls turned and headed back toward the orphanage. I hid behind a tree so they wouldn’t see me. Then I continued after Haru.

  “There was a light in the cottage. She slipped through the door. I stood outside and watched through the window. I saw Haru with Commander Oyama. His legs were around her neck, and she was screaming. He shouted at her. Then they were fighting, and she hit him on the head with a statue and killed him.”

  While Junketsu-in described watching Haru come out of the cottage, hide the statue, and return to the scene of Oyama’s s death, Reiko listened in utter amazement. Here was Haru’s exact story, confirmed by a witness who had no reason to lie for the girl’s benefit. Haru had told the truth about how Oyama died!

  “I thought of how Commander Oyama had arrested me and doomed me to whoredom in the Yoshiwara and forced me to service him here, and I was so delighted by his death that I laughed.” Vindictive glee shone in the abbess’s eyes. “And at last I’d caught Haru at something bad enough to persuade Anraku to throw her out of the temple.”

  Clearly, the abbess had hated Oyama and relished the turn of fate that had not only punished him, but placed Haru in her power. Junketsu-in hadn’t cared whether Haru was punished by the law, as long as the girl no longer troubled her, and Reiko guessed why she hadn’t reported Haru later.

  “Then I remembered that I was the only one who’d seen Haru kill. Oyama,” the abbess said, confirming Reiko’s guess. “She could deny everything. It would be my word against hers, and Anraku might take her side. She could get away with murder!”

  Outrage shook Junketsu-in’s voice. “But I wouldn’t let her. After I followed her back to the cottage, I slipped off my sandals, which had thick wooden soles, and grabbed one.” The abbess raised her hand, the fingers curled around an imaginary shoe. “I stole up behind Haru, and I hit her on the head with my sandal.”

  Junketsu-in pantomimed the blow. “Haru fell down and didn’t move, but she was breathing. I went to the storehouse and got some oil and rags. I tied the rags around a stick to make a torch. Then I returned to the cottage. Haru was still unconscious. The lantern was still burning in the room where she’d left Commander Oyama, and I lit the torch there. I poured oil on the floor and along the corridor, and I ran around splashing more kerosene on the outside of the cottage. I touched the torch to the wall, and it burst into flames. I tucked the oil jar in the bushes and put on my shoes. Then I went back to my quarters, leaving Haru lying in the garden. I knew that her husband had died in a fire, and I wanted people to think she’d burned Oyama to death.”

  This was how Haru had come to be found at the scene, ready to receive the blame for the fire and Oyama’s murder, Reiko understood at last. A wondrous sense of vindication momentarily lifted her above her fear. Haru hadn’t murdered Oyama in cold blood; she hadn’t set the fire. That she was innocent of those crimes indicated that her husband’s death had been accidental, as she’d claimed. Haru was indeed a liar and troublemaker, yet also a victim. Reiko’s instincts had been true all along.

  Haru had been listening with an expression of mingled disbelief and confusion. She said to Junketsu-in, “It was you who framed me.”

  The abbess sneered. “I just made you face the consequences of your actions.”

  “And you killed Chie and Radiant Spirit.” Now Haru spoke in a tone of angry realization. “You were jealous of them because Anraku liked Chie, and Radiant Spirit was his son.”

  “I had nothing to do with their deaths,” Junketsu-in retorted. “They weren’t even in the cottage when I was there.”

  Reiko, elated by personal triumph, seized the chance to reintroduce the issue of Anraku’s culpability. “The abbess’s story explains why you were unconscious in the garden and couldn’t remember anything about the fire,” she said, “but not how Chie and the boy died. That was Anraku’s doing.”

  Haru swiveled her head toward Anraku, refocusing her fury on him. New hope kindled in Reiko, but he gave her a disdainful smile and said, “Dr. Miwa shall tell the rest of the story.”

  Behind Haru, the doctor started in fear; air whistled through his teeth. “Oh, but—” Anraku’s gaze impaled him, and he surrendered. “Chie became unhappy here after she bore her son. She wanted to care for Radiant Spirit herself, but the nuns took him away to raise with the other children and rarely allowed her to see him. She disliked the way the children were trained. She couldn’t understand that prayer and fasting builds their spirits, and she complained whenever Radiant Spirit was beaten for disobeying.”

  Reiko thought of the boy’s bruises and emaciated body, the result of the cruel indoctrination.

  “Soon Chie began questioning our other practices,” Dr. Miwa said. “She objected to my experiments—she said it was wrong to give helpless people medicines that made them sick instead of healing them. She demanded to know the purpose of the potions we mixed. When she learned that they were poisons for contaminating the wells in Edo, she tried to persuade me that what we were doing was wrong. She begged me to stop. We argued, and she ran from me.”

  The maltreatment of the child had broken down Chie’s loyalty to the sect, Reiko noted. The argument that Haru had described to Sano really had occurred, although he’d misinterpreted it.

  “But I didn’t kill Chie,” said Dr. Miwa, quailing as Haru wheeled around and pointed the sword at him. “All I did was tell Kumashiro that she was becoming a problem.”

  A chill coursed through Reiko. The doctor had passed along the “problem” to the man holding her—the man responsible for the deaths of Chie and son. Now, as Anraku fixed his compelling gaze on Kumashiro, Reiko felt the priest stiffen, then yield.

  “I had Chie watched,” Kumashiro said. “Just before dawn on the day of the fire, she stole her son from the nursery. My men and I caught them as they were running toward the gate. I dealt with them according to the usual procedure for handling escapees.”

  By strangling them, Reiko thought, appalled by Kumashiro’s callousness and abhorring the close physical contact with him.

  “As my men and I carried the bodies to the tunnel entrance, a watchman ran up and said the cottage was on fire. He’d found Haru unconscious outside. That gave me an idea. We took the bodies to the burning cottage and put them inside. We saw Commander Oyama lying dead in the other room. It seemed that Haru had killed him and set the fire to cover up what she’d done. Why not implicate her in the other deaths? Then the police would be sure to arrest her. I organized the attack on her in jail, to make sure she confessed.”

  At last Reiko fully understood why Haru had known nothing about the other murders. She also understood why Kumashiro, Junketsu-in, and Miwa had been so eager to incriminate Haru, yet so evasive when she’d questioned them. They’d all played roles in the crimes, while Kumashiro and Junketsu-in had separately taken advantage of Haru’s actions.

  The girl regarded her enemies with hatred. She said to Anraku, “They all hurt me. You’ll punish them, won’t you?”

  “Of course,” Anraku promised gravely, “after you pass your test.” He canted his chin toward Reiko.

  “If Anraku is all-powerful, then he caused the wrongs they did you,” she said. “He let you down then; if you stay with him, he will again. Don’t do his dirty work.”

  Haru moaned, and the sword shuddered in her hands. A malicious sm
ile thinned Anraku’s mouth. “Lady Reiko only helped you as a means of attacking me. What does she offer you in exchange for sparing her life?” he said to Haru. “Freedom?” He laughed. “She came here to capture you. Unless you earn my protection, she’ll turn you over to the law.”

  He’d spoken the damning argument that Reiko had hoped he wouldn’t get a chance to use. Despair washed over her while she watched Haru absorb his words. The girl looked momentarily nonplussed, then beheld Reiko with hurt and dawning anger.

  “His protection is just an illusion,” Reiko said quickly. “He can’t escape justice. He can’t save you.”

  “Shut up!” Haru yelled, furious. “Stop keeping me from doing what I have do!”

  With the sword wavering between her and her executioner, Reiko rushed on: “Anraku is an evil madman. He would kill you and everyone else in the world to please himself. He’s ultimately responsible for all the ills that you’ve suffered since you came to the Black Lotus Temple.” Encouraged by Haru’s hesitancy, Reiko said, “You called me your friend. You said you loved me and want to make up for the trouble you caused me. Now is your chance.”

  The girl began shaking violently, wracked by opposing impulses, but she kept the sword aimed at Reiko. Her eyes blazed with blind compulsion; a growling sound issued through her bared teeth. Reiko saw Anraku’s smug smile; the other sect members waited, their gazes averted from her and Haru, expecting violence. Haru, wheezing furiously, moved the weapon sideways and stood poised to strike. And Reiko realized with helpless futility that she’d lost the contest. She was going to die. She’d failed to capture Haru and save herself and Midori; she would never see Sano or Masahiro again.

  Reiko wanted to scream out her terror, to shut her eyes in anticipation of the blade slicing her throat. But a samurai woman must face death with courage and dignity. Trembling in Kumashiro’s grip, Reiko silently prayed that fortune would bless her husband and son and she would be reunited with them someday. She looked straight at Haru and steeled herself for the pain, the spill of her blood, the plunge into oblivion.