Laura Joh Rowland - Sano Ichiro 08 - Dragon King's Palace

by Dragon King's Palace(lit)

  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.

  Profound Wisdom lunged toward the door. The detectives caught him and shoved him down on his knees. Sano stood over him. "Did Mariko come here seven days ago?" Sano repeated.

  Fists clenched, the priest huffed at Sano as though ready to explode from hatred. Then the breath seeped out of him; defeat slackened his face and posture. "She did," he muttered.

  "Why?" Sano said.

  "To report on the shogun's mother. She said Lady Keisho-in was planning to travel the next day."

  Vindication elated Sano: His theory had proved correct. "So Mariko got permission to leave Edo Castle that night because she wanted to see you," he said. "She was your spy."

  And Profound Wisdom appeared a likely suspect in the kidnapping. A leader in a sect persecuted by Police Commissioner Hoshina, the priest boasted many followers willing to kill for revenge. The bizarre poem about the Dragon King seemed a product of his insanity.

  But Profound Wisdom shook his head. "Not my spy."

  "Then why did she report to you?" Sano asked as his elation turned to confusion.

  "The news Mariko brought was for someone else."

  "For whom?" Sano said, increasingly baffled.

  "A man. He worships at my temple," Profound Wisdom said. "Mariko came here to see him. He wasn't here. She left the message in case he should come, then went to look for him."

  Now it appeared, to Sano's disappointment, that Profound Wisdom was neither the Dragon King nor the final stage in the search for Reiko. "Who is this man?" Sano said.

  "I don't know," the priest said sullenly.

  Sano gripped his stole. "Tell me, or the word goes out right now that you betrayed the Black Lotus."

  Although Profound Wisdom recoiled in terror, he cried, "I speak the truth! I don't know his name."

  Sano flung Profound Wisdom down; he folded his arms and waited. Eager to placate Sano, the priest explained, "He joined the Black Lotus about three years ago. One day this past winter, he said he needed a quiet, obedient girl to work for him. I introduced him to Mariko. He got her a position as a maid to the shogun's mother. She was supposed to find out whenever Lady Keisho-in was leaving the castle, where she was going, and what route she would be taking. Mariko would either tell me or send me a message, and I would relay the news to the man when he came to the temple."

  Now Sano speculated that this unknown man was the Dragon King. He must have been looking for the right opportunity to abduct Lady Keisho-in. But Sano wondered how he'd gotten Mariko a position in Edo Castle. And Profound Wisdom's tale struck a note of disbelief in Sano.

  "Since when do you, a high Black Lotus priest, do favors for a follower whose identity you don't even know?" Sano said.

  "Since he became a patron of the Black Lotus," said Profound Wisdom. "He gave me large donations. He paid me for Mariko, and for taking her messages for him. I did other things for him, too."

  Money bought service even from Black Lotus priests who usually tyrannized their followers, Sano noted. It also helped the sect survive in a hostile climate. Sano deduced that Mariko had met the man that night, and he'd paid her in gold coins, which she'd hidden in her room until she could give them to her priest.

  "Later on the night that Mariko brought her message," Profound Wisdom said, "the man came here. He wanted some good fighters. I asked why, but he just counted money into my hand. I gathered eighty-five ronin and some peasant toughs and sent them to Shinagawa to meet him the next day."

  A thrill of revelation sped through Sano's veins. Shinagawa was the Tokaido post station nearest Edo. The man, whom Sano now believed was the Dragon King, had borrowed an army to pursue Lady Keisho-in's party, massacre her attendants, and kidnap the women. His initial hunch had been half right: The Black Lotus was involved in the crimes, though not chiefly responsible for them. The merchant Naraya had spoken a partial truth when he'd blamed the kidnapping on the Black Lotus. But Sano's thrill immediately turned to horror.

  Black Lotus samurai were a vicious scourge that killed at the slightest provocation. Now Sano's earlier fears gained substance. The Black Lotus had Reiko. Although her role in High Priest Anraku's downfall had been hushed up, the secret could have leaked. If the Black Lotus kidnappers knew what she'd done, Reiko was doomed no matter what plans the Dragon King had for her.

  "How can you not know who the man is?" Sano said as his terror boosted his ill will toward Profound Wisdom. "I thought you Black Lotus priests were supposed to be all-seeing, all-knowing. What happened? Did your spies let you down?"

  Crestfallen, Profound Wisdom twisted his mouth. "I had them follow the man every time he left the temple. Every time, they lost him. He was good at sneaking away."

  "Describe what he looks like," Sano said, avid in pursuit of the Dragon King, who seemed almost close enough to touch yet still eluded him.

  The priest scrutinized Sano, using him as a standard of comparison. "He's younger and heavier than you. His eyes are rounder, his lips puckered."

  That description fit thousands of men. Sano's hopes waned. "Is he a samurai or commoner?"


  "I don't know. He always wears a hood under his hat." The hood had concealed whether the Dragon King had the shaved crown and topknot of the warrior elite. "But he didn't wear swords."

  Then he could be a peasant, artisan, or merchant-or a samurai disguising his class. "Was there anything notable about his voice or manner?" Sano asked.

  "His voice was deeper and quieter than yours. He moved as if. " The priest searched for the right words. "As if he was afraid but wanted everyone to think he was brave."

  This detail might help identify the man-if Sano could find him first. "Did he say or do anything that gave you any information about him?"

  Profound Wisdom meditated, the blackness of his eyes deepening with recollection. "He paid me to conduct a ritual for him. He wanted to communicate with someone who had died."

  Certain Black Lotus priests claimed the ability to speak to the dead and receive messages from them, Sano knew. "Who was it?" His instincts vibrated alert as he sensed the advent of a clue.