Dragon's King Palace (29 page)

Would she never be allowed to forget that men desired Reiko and not her? Must circumstances always force her to remember that Reiko, not she, possessed the qualities that could win a husband’s love?

Even now, with the threat of death menacing them all, her jealousy toward Reiko surged hot and turbulent within Lady Yanagisawa. She bowed her head, pressed her hands against her temples, and felt the blood throb under the skin.

“I never expected this,” she muttered.

“Neither did I,” Reiko said, obviously interpreting the comment as a response to her story and unaware of the direction that Lady Yanagisawa’s thoughts had taken. “The Dragon King stopped short of ravishing me,” she continued, “but what about next time? If no one rescues us first, what then?”

Reiko paced the prison, wringing her hands. “He’ll take me, while his men watch. If I resist, they’ll kill me—and punish you, Midori, and Lady Keisho-in.” Anger flamed in Reiko’s eyes. “I hate being so helpless!”

Pity for Reiko abated Lady Yanagisawa’s other emotions. She rose, moved behind Reiko, and lay a consoling hand on her shoulder. “There must be something we can do to escape.”

Reiko whirled, turning a fierce gaze on Lady Yanagisawa. “Such as what?” she demanded. While Lady Yanagisawa stood mute, at a loss for answers, Reiko said, “Shall we break down the door and overpower the guards with our bare hands?” She pantomimed the actions. “Shall we walk across the lake and back to Edo Castle before the Dragon King’s troops can catch us?”

Lady Yanagisawa shrank from Reiko’s sarcasm. “I don’t know what to suggest,” she murmured. “I wish I did.” She was hurt that the friend she loved should lash out at her, and beneath the hurt, the tide of her jealousy rose. Yet she hastened to appease Reiko, whose friendship she dreaded to lose. “I’m sorry if I’ve upset you. Please forgive me.”

“It’s I who should apologize,” Reiko said, equally contrite. Midori stirred, Keisho-in mumbled in her sleep, and Reiko lowered her voice: “I shouldn’t have taken out my anger on you.”

They clasped hands. Lady Yanagisawa tried to believe that Reiko wanted to placate her because they needed each other, but the memory of their children and the pond in Reiko’s garden on a day last winter nagged at Lady Yanagisawa. Had Reiko remembered that Lady Yanagisawa had the power to hurt her?

“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.