Sano Ichiro 8 The Dragon's King Palace (2003)

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “Desperation is no excuse for rudeness,” Reiko said. “Quarreling among ourselves does no good.” She sighed, rubbed her forehead as if it ached, and resumed prowling about the room. “But how am I to protect myself from the Dragon King? He has swords; I have no weapons. He has an army, and we’re four lone women. All the strength is on his side, all the weakness on mine.”

  “But you are so clever,” Lady Yanagisawa murmured. She knew that Reiko helped Sano with his work, which endeared her to him as much as did her beauty, charm, and the perfect son she’d borne. “Surely you can outwit the Dragon King.”

  Reiko halted her steps, and a thoughtful look narrowed her eyes. A ray of dying golden sunlight streaming through the roof illuminated her features as she motioned Lady Yanagisawa to follow her to the side of the room farthest from the door.

  “The Dragon King does have one weakness,” Reiko said in a conspiratorial whisper that the guards wouldn’t overhear. “Desire for a woman can make a man vulnerable and careless. Maybe I can use his feelings for me as a weapon against him.” Animated by hope, Reiko said, “Maybe I can trick him into setting us free.”

  Lady Yanagisawa enlaced her hands together under her chin as she brimmed with adoration for Reiko and faith in her abilities. “Oh, yes,” she breathed. For the first time since their escape attempt had failed, she began to think they might soon go home. She might see her daughter and husband again. Reiko would deliver them all from this nightmare.

  “Before I can trick the Dragon King, I’ll have to gain his trust.” Reiko focused her gaze inward, as if watching the sequence of events unfold in her mind. “To gain his trust, I would have to pretend I desire him. I would have to seduce him into letting down his guard.” The animation faded from her. “I would have to welcome his love-making, and let him do whatever he wants with me until I can find a way for us to escape.”

  She was obviously disturbed by the realization that her chastity could be the price she must pay for the success of her plan. A needle of panic stabbed Lady Yanagisawa. Although she hated for Reiko to put herself in peril, the plan seemed their only chance of survival.

  “Surely you could manage him so that we can get away before you have to ... before he can… ” Unaccustomed to talking about sex, Lady Yanagisawa could only hint at the horrible degradation that her friend risked.

  “How can I control a madman?” Reiko whispered, incredulous. “What if the plan doesn’t work? I’ll have given myself over to him for nothing.” She turned toward the wall, her back stiff. “I don’t think I can do this.” Her thin voice was a poignant plea for reprieve.

  For once in her life, Lady Yanagisawa was glad to be ugly, because she couldn’t attract the Dragon King’s fancy, and she wouldn’t have traded places with Reiko for anything in the world. Yet she still envied Reiko’s beauty, which now represented a pass to freedom as well as love and marital happiness. Lady Yanagisawa wished she herself had the power to bend a man to her will, as she thought Reiko could bend the Dragon King. If she had it, she could make her husband love her. The jealousy burgeoned, poisoning her affection for Reiko. There seemed no end to Reiko’s wonderful attributes. Lady Yanagisawa resented her dependency on Reiko, even as she relied on her friend.

  Reiko haltingly turned, her face marred by pain and worry, her eyes glittering with tears. “But what alternative do I have, except to try to manipulate him? He’s going to take me no matter what. I could tell from the way he looked at me, the way he touched me. My ravishment is inevitable.”

  Her body slumped in resignation. Then she straightened her posture, as if casting off fear and despair. “So I might as well try to turn the situation to my advantage, rather than surrender without a fight.” Now she acquired the brave, determined air of a soldier marching into battle. Her gaze encompassed Lady Yanagisawa, Midori, and Keisho-in. “I’ll do whatever it takes, and endure whatever I must, to save your lives.”

  “We shall all be most grateful to you.” Though Lady Yanagisawa spoke the truth, she experienced another onrush of jealous anger. Reiko was not only beautiful, she was so noble that she would sacrifice herself for the sake of other people. As Lady Yanagisawa gazed upon Reiko, her tolerance for Reiko’s perfection abruptly snapped, like ice on a pond whose waters have suddenly heated to a seething boil. She clenched her hands so tight that her fingernails dug painful crescents into her palms.

  Even here, in this miserable prison, Reiko shone like a bright flame, while Lady Yanagisawa was but a dreary shadow. Lady Yanagisawa couldn’t bear the contrast between them. Now her anguish swung her to the opposite pole of her love for Reiko. Fevered by hatred, she wanted to see Reiko brought down, her perfection despoiled, her husband, son, and other blessings torn from her. Lady Yanagisawa knew that her wish to ruin what she couldn’t have was pointless; destroying Reiko’s good fortune wouldn’t improve her own. She’d tried that once, and realized the error of her thinking. Yet she still believed in her heart that the universe contained a limited supply of luck, and Reiko had more than her share. She clung to the idea that by taking action against Reiko, she could sway the balance of the cosmic forces and win the happiness that was rightfully hers.

  But how could she attack Reiko when they must stand united against their enemy? How could she satisfy her urges without jeopardizing her chance for freedom?

  “I’ve never done anything like this before,” Reiko said, her face taut with apprehension. “How should I go about it?”

  “You’ll know what to do when the time comes,” Lady Yanagisawa said.

  And so will I, she thought.

  * * *

  23

  Before Sano traveled to the inn where Mariko had been seen, he went home and assembled a squadron of twenty detectives, because he had a hunch about what he would find at the inn, and he anticipated needing military force. Now, after another sultry night had descended upon the town, he and his men arrived in the Ginza district, named for the silver mint established there more than eighty years ago by the first Tokugawa shogun.

  Ginza was a drab backwater located south of Edo Castle. To its north spread the great estates of the daimyo; to the south, upon land reclaimed from Edo Bay, the Tokugawa branch clans maintained wharves and warehouses for storing rice grown in their provinces. To the west, the Tōkaidō ran through the outskirts of Edo, while to the east lay a district of canals used to transport lumber. Sano rode with his troops up the Ginza main avenue, past the fortified buildings of the mint and the local official’s estate, and through a sparse neighborhood of shops, houses, and fire-watch towers. Lights shone in windows and at gates to the side streets, and voices sounded from balconies and open doors, but the streets were empty.

  At the eighth block, Sano and the detectives dismounted outside the gate, left the horses with one man guarding them, and stole on foot up a street that wound into darkness relieved only by the bleached, ovoid moon that hung low above the distant hills. They filed noiselessly past warehouses closed for the night, to Ginza’s southern edge. Here, the merchant quarter yielded to rustic cottages interspersed with woodland. The road ended at a high plank fence that enclosed thatch-roofed buildings amid trees. A signboard on the gate displayed a crude drawing of a carp and the characters for “inn.”

  Faint light diffused up from within the enclosure, but as Sano and his men gathered silently outside, he heard nothing except insects shrilling in the trees and dogs barking far away. He and Detective Inoue peered through cracks in the gate. Sano saw a garden and a short gravel path to the inn. A glowing lantern hung from the eaves above its entranceway. Two samurai stood on the veranda, motionless yet alert—guarding the inn from trespassers. Their presence told Sano that the inn was what he’d deduced it was from hearing the strange tale of Mariko. His heartbeat accelerated with excitement as he and his detectives retreated from the inn.

  “Sneak inside over the fence. Subdue the guards in front, and any others you find,” Sano told Detective Inoue and four other men. “When you’re done, let
the rest of us in the gate.”

  The detectives slipped away. Ages seemed to pass while Sano waited in the dark road, but soon the gate opened. Inoue beckoned Sano, who hurried over with the other detectives.

  “We found eight guards,” Inoue whispered to Sano as they ushered their troops through the gate. “They’re all unconscious now. Otherwise, the place seems deserted.”

  Drawing their swords, Sano and his men moved cautiously up the path, toward buildings grouped among the trees and connected by enclosed walkways. The windows were shuttered, and the buildings gave no sign of occupation, but a strange, rhythmic pulsation resounded up through the ground.

  “Do you hear that?” Sano whispered.

  His men nodded, their faces grim because they recognized the sound from previous, similar missions. They roved the compound, trying to locate its source. Sano pointed to a small storehouse with a tile roof and thick plaster walls. Inoue yanked on the ironclad door.

  As it swung open, the sound intensified. Sano discerned voices chanting and drums beating; cries, moans, and a familiar, pungent odor of incense drifted into the night. He peered inside the storehouse. In the center of the bare wood floor, a ladder extended down a square hole from which arose smoke, flickering light, and the noise.

  “We’re going down there,” Sano said.

  Eight of his men plunged into the hole to scout the way. Sano clambered down the ladder, his other men following, into a dank, earthy-smelling shaft. The chanting, drumming, and cries enveloped them. At its bottom they crowded into a cellar illuminated by a glow that filtered through a curtained doorway. From this emanated the noise, deafening now. Sano hastened to the doorway and lifted the curtain. In a cavernous room hollowed out of the earth, women wearing red kimonos danced in frenetic gyrations, waving black-beaded rosaries. Men dressed in gray monks’ robes, their heads shaved, beat drums as they cavorted around the room. On the floor, countless naked people writhed and embraced in sexual orgy. Wails of rapture or pain rose from couples and groups of various shapes, ages, and erotic combinations. Along the far wall, hundreds of candles flared amid hundreds of smoking incense burners on an altar beneath a mural that depicted a huge black flower.

  The cavern was a secret Black Lotus temple. The orgy was one of the sect’s rituals.

  “Praise the glory of the Black Lotus!” chanted the drummers and dancers.

  Disgusted at the obscene spectacle, Sano stepped into the temple with his detectives. The outlaws were so caught up in their drumming, chanting, and sexual hysteria that they didn’t notice the intrusion. Among them strode their priest, a tall man who wore a glittering brocade stole over his saffron robes and held a flaming torch. His eyes were closed, but his bare feet wove deftly through the orgy. His bold-hewn features wore an expression of unnatural serenity. His lips formed soundless words; ash and sparks from his torch scattered on his congregation.

  Sano inhaled a deep breath, then roared, “Stop!”

  Dancers faltered to a standstill. The drumming pattered into silence as the monks froze. The mass of humanity on the floor ceased squirming. Its cries and wails faded. The priest paused midstep; his eyes opened. Everyone gazed in consternation at Sano, his troops, and their upraised swords. The cavern amplified the hiss of inhaled breath.

  “This temple is condemned,” Sano said. “You’re all under arrest for practicing an illegal religion.”

  The naked orgiasts leapt to their feet and surged toward the door, heedless of the detectives’ weapons: They knew that the punishment for their crime was execution, and they would risk injury to escape. The men bellowed and the women screamed. Hot, moist flesh hurled up against Sano. The detectives seized dancers and drummers, who kicked and fought. Sano looked around for the priest. Beyond the tumult, he saw the flash of a brocade stole disappearing through a doorway. Shoving his way past thrashing bodies, he plunged through the door and found the priest scrambling up a ladder. Sano grabbed the priest by the ankles and jerked. The priest came toppling down on Sano. They fell together.

  “The Black Lotus will triumph over the faithless!” the priest shouted, punching Sano. “They who attack us will die!”

  Blows pummeled Sano’s face while he tried to shield it. He heaved upward and rolled the priest under him. The weight of his armor-clad body flattened the priest. Sano pinned the priest’s arms over his head. In the light from the temple, where noisy chaos still raged, Sano beheld the face of his captive.

  Eyes with pupils dilated so large that there seemed no color surrounding them glared fiercely back at Sano. They were so black, like he could see out of them, but I couldn’t see in, he recalled Yuka saying. This was the man who had pulled her daughter, Mariko, into the darkness of the Black Lotus sect.

  Was he also the Dragon King?

  “Who are you?” Sano shouted into the priest’s face. “Tell me your name!”

  The priest snarled, baring broken, sharp-edged teeth. “I am Profound Wisdom, lord of cosmic forces that will destroy you and all your fellow nonbelievers.”

  Amazement silenced Sano. He had found the Black Lotus priest and secret temple he’d sought at the beginning of the investigation.

  Sano’s troops had overpowered the Black Lotus worshipers. Two monks had committed suicide to avoid capture. Four people had been trampled to death while trying to escape. Sano had sent most of his men to take the remaining Black Lotus members to Edo Jail and notify Ginza officials about the raid. Now he and two detectives stood in a chamber at the inn, where they’d brought Profound Wisdom for interrogation.

  The priest knelt beneath a lantern suspended from the ceiling. His hair was rumpled, dirt streaked his perspiring skin and dimmed the glitter of his stole, but his upright posture exuded insolence. The unnatural serenity masked his emotions. His fathomless black eyes watched Sano, who paced around him while one detective blocked the door and the other leaned against the barred window. Outside, torches flared and figures moved in the yard as local officials came to inspect the clandestine temple that had operated under their noses.

  “Did you kidnap the shogun’s mother?” Sano said.

  He forced himself to be civil, though the priest’s demeanor stoked his hatred for the Black Lotus. Captured sect members relished goading authorities into physical violence that would allow them to test their faith and demonstrate their spiritual superiority. Sano knew that if he got into a fight with Profound Wisdom, he was capable of killing the priest, a collaborator in the enslavement, torture, and murder of countless innocent people. If he killed Profound Wisdom, he might never get the information that would help him save Reiko.

  Scorn rippled the surface of Profound Wisdom’s serene facade. “If I did kidnap Lady Keisho-in, I would not tell you.” He had an odd, deep, resonant voice, as if his throat were made of iron instead of flesh. “My spirit is mighty. You won’t wring a confession out of me.”

  Sano controlled his impatience. He recognized Profound Wisdom as one of the Black Lotus’s true zealots—armed with the courage of his faith, resistant to coercion. “Then suppose we just talk about your followers,” Sano said.

  “I’ll not reveal the identities of the Black Lotus faithful who are still at liberty.” Profound Wisdom sat unmoving as Sano continued to circle him. “Torture me, kill me, but I won’t betray my people and send them to their death.”

  “I’m not interested in making a martyr out of you,” Sano said. “And the only follower I want to know about is already dead. She died in the massacre of Lady Keisho-in’s entourage. Her name was Mariko.”

  “I don’t know any Mariko,” the priest said.

  His indifferent tone and manner would have fooled Sano, had he not known that Profound Wisdom was lying. Sano said, “She joined the Black Lotus two years ago.” When her mother had told him about Mariko’s changed personality and mysterious absences, Sano had recognized the behavior of youngsters lured into the sect. “She’s been seen with you.”

  “Many people come to me,” Profound Wisdom said. “
So many that it is impossible for me to know them all.”

  “She was at the Black Lotus Temple during the disaster,” Sano said. This explained why Mariko had returned home wounded, bloody, and hysterical that night. “She was one of the few survivors who escaped. And she was your mistress. You fathered her child.”

  “Our rituals require me to have so many women that I can’t recall each one,” Profound Wisdom said with a patronizing smile. “Sexual energy fosters spiritual enlightenment.”

  A clever excuse for orgies, Sano thought in disgust. “Did Mariko come here seven days ago?” he said.

  “If so, I don’t recall,” Profound Wisdom said smugly.

  As ire enflamed Sano, he squatted before the priest. He stared through the deep eyes, into a reservoir of madness. “Either you start telling the truth about Mariko, or—”

  “Or you’ll kill me?” Profound Wisdom sneered. “I’ll be executed no matter what I do. So I choose not to talk. There’s nothing you can threaten me with that will keep me from taking my secrets to the grave.”

  Sano said, “I can hold you in jail while I spread word that you named your leaders and told the bakufu where to find them. They’ll send their assassins after you. You’ll be condemned as a traitor to the Black Lotus and never achieve spiritual enlightenment.”

  The mockery in Profound Wisdom’s eyes ignited into alarm. “No!” he bellowed.

  “Yes,” Sano said, gratified by the priest’s reaction. He’d learned from past experience that the worst thing one could do to a Black Lotus member was turn the wrath of the sect on him. The Black Lotus could infiltrate any place and dispense death in painful ways that put the Edo Jail torturers to shame. And zealots like Profound Wisdom believed that the sect had the power to deny them the glory of enlightenment and doom them to burn in a hellish netherworld for all eternity.