The Cloud Pavilion (3 page)

Major Kumazawa bowed his head. “A thousand thanks.” His tone held less relief than resentment, as if he’d done Sano a favor. Although Sano understood that his uncle had lost face, a painful blow to a proud samurai, he was offended at being treated with such a lack of respect or appreciation. Then again, what else could he have expected?

“Don’t thank me yet,” Sano said. There was no guarantee that he would find Chiyo alive. She’d been gone two days, long enough for the worst to happen. “I’m not making any promises.”

The corpse of a young samurai lay amid the irises and reeds beside a pond coated with green algae. Blood covered the front of his kimono. A mosquito alighted between his closed eyes.

His hand flew up and swatted the mosquito.

“Don’t move!” cried Chamberlain Sano’s son, Masahiro, from behind a nearby tree. Almost ten years old, dressed in kimono, surcoat, and trousers, with two swords at his waist, he bore a strong resemblance to his father. He wore his hair in a forelock tied above his brow, the custom for young samurai who hadn’t reached manhood. “You’re supposed to be dead!”

“I’m sorry, young master, but these bugs are eating me up,” the samurai said contritely. “How much longer do I have to lie here like this?”

The boy tiptoed slowly across the grass toward the samurai. “Until after I discover your body.”

From inside the mansion whose wings enclosed the garden, Lady Reiko stepped out onto the veranda. She was beautiful in a green silk summer kimono patterned with dragonflies and water lilies. Lacquer combs anchored her upswept hairdo. “What’s going on?” she called.

“I’m playing detective,” Masahiro answered. “Lieutenant Tanuma is the murder victim.”

“Not again!” Reiko sighed.

She wasn’t sure what to make of her son’s game. On the one hand, she was proud of his cleverness, his imagination. Most boys his age only played ball or fought mock battles. On the other hand, Reiko was concerned about his preoccupation with violent death. He had seen too much of it in his short life, and had even killed, in self-defense. Reiko and Sano blamed their life at the center of political turmoil, and their habit of talking too freely about the murder cases they’d investigated together. They’d thought Masahiro was too young to understand what they were saying, but they’d been wrong.

Masahiro pretended to stumble upon Lieutenant Tanuma. “What’s this?” he exclaimed, and laughed. “Oh, a corpse!”

Reiko didn’t know whether to be glad he had a sense of humor after everything that had happened to him, or worried that his experiences had made him callous, or simply horrified that he’d invented such a ghoulish pastime.

“What is that red substance on Lieutenant Tanuma’s clothes?” she asked, hoping it wasn’t actually blood.

“It’s ink,” Masahiro said.

“You shouldn’t make Lieutenant Tanuma play with you,” Reiko said. “It’s not his job.”

Tanuma was her chief bodyguard when she went outside the estate. “I don’t mind,” he said. A homely, serious young man, he’d replaced Reiko’s favorite, Lieutenant Asukai, who’d died last year in the line of duty. Reiko still missed the handsome, gallant, and adventurous Asukai, who had saved her life more than once. But Tanuma did his own, solemn best. “Anything to entertain the young master.”

“Don’t spoil him,” Reiko protested.

Masahiro was rummaging through the reeds. “Where’s the murder weapon? I put it right down here.”

Giggles issued from behind a flower bed. Out peeked Masahiro’s two-year-old sister, Akiko. She held up a dagger whose blade was stained red.

“Hey! You stole it!” Masahiro said. “Give it to me!”

As he stalked toward Akiko, she ran. “Come here, you little thief!” He chased her while she waved the dagger and laughed, her pigtails and the skirt of her pink kimono flying. She was happy to have the attention of the big brother she adored, who was always too busy to play with her. Reiko gasped in alarm.

“That’s a real dagger! Masahiro, you know you shouldn’t leave weapons lying around where your sister can get at them. She could hurt herself!”

Reiko joined the chase. When she finally caught Akiko, she was breathless and perspiring, her hair windblown. She took away the dagger and said, “The game is over.”

Lieutenant Tanuma got to his feet, bowed, and made a quick exit. Masahiro said, “But Mother—”

“Don’t you have lessons to study?” Reiko said.

“I’m finished.”

“Then practice martial arts.”

“I already did.”

“Can’t you play other games that don’t involve weapons or murder?”

“Yes, but this is the most exciting.” As he traipsed off toward the house with Akiko tagging after him, Masahiro added wistfully, “It’s been a long time since anything exciting has happened around here.”

It had been more than a year, Reiko thought, since Lord Matsudaira’s death had put an end to the political strife that had threatened their family. Reiko shuddered to think of that dreadful time, when she and her children had lived in a state of siege, prisoners in their own home, under constant guard. Lord Matsudaira’s final attack had come from assassins he’d planted in the house hold. Reiko and the children had barely escaped death. She still had nightmares. She didn’t miss those days, and she was disconcerted to see that Masahiro did.

She had to remind herself that Masahiro was too young to realize how serious their situation had been. Children, especially strong, brave boys like her son, believed they were invincible. And Masahiro thrived under conditions that most people found traumatic. No wonder he thought the current state of peace was boring.

Today Reiko realized that she agreed.

At first she’d been thankful for the peace and quiet. She’d been glad that Yanagisawa apparently didn’t intend to continue his hostilities against Sano. She’d wanted only to raise her family without fear; she was glad not to worry every day about whether Sano would come home alive. For the past year she’d devoted herself to being a good mother and wife. She’d become very domestic, taking up feminine activities such as flower-arranging. Since the political situation had stabilized and Sano seemed likely to hold his position for a while, people had flocked to curry favor with him. Prominent men had sent their wives to cultivate Reiko because she had strong influence with the chamberlain. The wives brought their children to play with hers. Reiko found some of the wives dull and catty, but others intelligent and stimulating. She’d made new friends and enjoyed the social whirl.

But enough was enough.

As Reiko stood alone in the garden, her old, adventurous spirit revived. She looked up at the gray clouds, ever-present during this extremely wet rainy season. The leaves of the trees, the shrubs, and the grasses were lush and green. She felt the mist in the air, heard birdsong. She appreciated the natural beauty around her, but where was the challenge?

She wasn’t meant for the circumscribed existence that was normal for women of her class. She missed the days when she’d run a service that helped women in trouble, when she’d helped Sano solve crimes. Reiko inhaled deeply, as if trying to breathe her native air of excitement and danger.

She was eager to take on a new investigation. But how? And when?

Sano rode his horse out the northern portal of Edo Castle toward the temple where his cousin Chiyo had last been seen. Although peace had blessed the capital for more than a year, troops still stood sentry outside the massive iron-banded gate and occupied the guard house above. More troops manned the watchtowers. Political or civil unrest could start up again any day. A squadron from his personal army accompanied Sano. He wouldn’t put it past Yanagisawa to attack him after lulling him into complacence.

His chief bodyguards, Detectives Marume and Fukida, trotted their mounts beside him along the road that sloped down from the castle. Below them spread the gray tile rooftops of the vast city, whose far reaches disappeared into the mist and rain that cloaked the hills. The brawny, cheerful Marume drew a deep breath of the humid air and said, “It feels good to be out and about again. We’ve been cooped up inside the castle forever.”

“I’m sorry your cousin is missing, Sano-
san
, but I’m glad to have a new investigation,” said Fukida, the serious half of the pair.

Sano shared his men’s renewed sense of energy and excitement. The thrill of the chase was a relief after sitting at a desk, shuffling papers, conducting meetings, and defusing crises in the government. That was one reason he’d decided to lead the search himself, even though he’d had to put off other important business.

“And guess what,” Marume said. “This is the first time we’re not working for the shogun.”

“For once he won’t be holding the threat of death over our heads,” Fukida said.

“Thank the gods for small favors,” Sano said.

He and his men laughed, enjoying their unusual freedom. But darker currents of emotion ran beneath Sano’s high spirits.

He had a blood connection to the missing woman even though he’d never met Chiyo. He couldn’t leave her fate to someone else, not even his most trusted subordinates. And what if he didn’t find her? What if she was dead when he did? Not only would a father lose his favorite daughter, a husband his wife, and two children their mother, but Sano would lose an opportunity to know this member of his new family.

“My gut tells me that we’ll find your cousin,” Marume said.

“Your gut has gotten fat from sitting around and eating too much,” Fukida teased with a straight face.

Marume reached behind Sano, swatted at Fukida, and said, “No, I’m telling you, this is our lucky day. But even if we don’t find her, at least Major Kumazawa can’t kill us.”

Nevertheless, Sano feared disappointing Major Kumazawa. He shouldn’t care what this relative who’d ostracized him from their clan thought of him, but he did. Meeting his uncle had reawakened feelings of inferiority that he’d believed he’d shed years ago. That short time with Major Kumazawa had reverted him to the mere son of a
r
nin
he’d once been. If he didn’t find Chiyo, his uncle’s low opinion of him would be justified. And even though the strong, independent part of Sano said,
to hell with Major Kumazawa
, that would hurt.

“It must be strange to meet relatives that you spent most of your life never knowing you had,” Fukida said.

“You can’t imagine,” Sano said.

Asakusa Kannon Temple, dedicated to Kannon, the Buddhist deity of mercy and salvation, was Edo’s most popular temple. The route to Asakusa district lay along the
sh
Kaid
, the northern highway. Beyond the edge of town, the highway was built up on a wide earthen embankment above rice paddies. A few peasants, water buffaloes, and tiny huts dotted the lush, green paddies. The air stank of the nightsoil used for fertilizer. Even on this wet afternoon in the rainy season, Sano and his entourage found the highway crowded with traffic.

Bands of religious pilgrims, carrying staffs and chanting prayers, marched in step. Itinerant priests trudged, laden with heavy packs. Families traveled to Asakusa for blessings. Samurai rode, the privilege of their class; commoners walked. But not all the traffic was connected with religion.

Once Sano and his party had to steer their horses to the edge of the highway to make way for a cart drawn by oxen and heaped with roof tiles. Carts like this, owned by the government, were the only wheeled vehicles permitted by Tokugawa law. This restricted the movement of war supplies and prevented insurrections, at least in theory.

Many of the other travelers weren’t going to Asakusa at all. Beyond the temple lay the Yoshiwara licensed pleasure quarter, the only place in Edo where prostitution was legal. Merchants riding in palanquins, gangs of townsmen on foot, and samurai on horse back streamed toward Yoshiwara’s brothels. The law banned samurai from the pleasure quarter, but they went in droves anyway. Yoshiwara was good for business in the temple district. Men traveling to Yoshiwara often stopped at the temple for rest, refreshments, and prayers, combining the profane with the sacred.

“What was your cousin doing in Asakusa? If she wanted to go to a shrine, why not one in town?” Marume asked.

“The Kumazawa family estate is out there,” Sano said.

His uncle was in charge of guarding the shogun’s rice depots, located on the river east of Asakusa. He also commanded the troops that patrolled the district. The Kumazawa house was the one in which Sano’s mother had grown up, but Sano had yet to lay eyes on it.

Perhaps he soon would.

Within an hour, Asakusa appeared on the misty horizon. Originally a small outpost of the city, the site of a temple since ancient times, it had grown into a large, flourishing suburb. Other temples clustered around Asakusa Kannon like chicks around a hen. Above the rooftops rose the graceful silhouettes of pagodas. The rice fields gave way to houses on streets that branched off the highway. The neighborhood soon grew as dense as any in town. Hawkers wooed customers into shops that sold Buddhist rosaries, incense, shoes, fans, umbrellas, and other merchandise—a bargain-priced sampling of the goods sold at the big market inside the temple precinct. Balconies adorned with potted plants sheltered the crowds from the drizzle that began to fall. The streets narrowed; Sano and his men rode in single file. Marume led, scouting a safe passage.

“Have you any ideas about what happened to your cousin?” Fukida said, trailing behind Sano with the other guards.

“The only thing I know for sure is that Chiyo is either gone from this district or still inside it,” Sano said. “We’ll try to determine which is the case.”

He dismounted at a gate that divided one block from the next. These gates were features common to all cities. At night they were closed to keep residents confined and prevent trouble; by day, they served as security checkpoints. “This is as good a place to start as any.”

Marume backtracked to join Sano and the other men. “Isn’t this territory that your uncle has already covered?”

“He might have overlooked something,” Sano said, then addressed the watchman at the gate. “I’m looking for a missing woman,” he began.

The watchman was a young peasant; he’d been chatting with a tea-seller who’d put down his bucket and cups and stopped to rest. His round face blanched with fright. “I haven’t seen her, I swear!” He fell to his knees, bowed, and cringed, almost in tears. “I haven’t done anything wrong!”

“If you haven’t done anything wrong, then why are you so afraid?” Sano asked.

The tea-seller, an older man with the bluff, confident air of a street merchant, said, “Because of that other samurai who came by yesterday, asking about a missing woman. He and his soldiers roughed up anyone they thought was hiding something or who didn’t answer fast enough.”

Dismay spread through Sano. “Who was he?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t bother to introduce himself. He had deep wrinkles here, and here.” The tea-seller drew his finger across his forehead and down his cheeks.

“Major Kumazawa,” Sano said grimly.

The tea-seller gestured at the watchman. “He gave my poor friend here quite a beating.”

“It sounds like your uncle hasn’t exactly smoothed the way for us,” Marume said.

“I understand how desperate he must be to find his daughter,” Fukida said, “but beating up witnesses won’t help.”

Sano had thought this would be one investigation he could conduct without interference. “My apologies for what happened to you,” he said to the watchman. “Now tell me if you’ve seen a strange woman wandering by herself, or being forced to go with someone, or looking as if she were in trouble.”

The watchman swore that he hadn’t. So did the tea-seller.

“She’s thirty-three years old, and she was wearing a lavender kimono with small white flowers on it,” Sano said. He’d asked his uncle what clothes Chiyo had been wearing. “Think hard. Are you sure you haven’t seen a woman who matched that description?”

Both men said they were. Sano believed them. He and his comrades moved on, along a street of food-stalls. Vendors grilled eels, prawns, and squid on skewers over open hearths, boiled pots of rice, noodles, and soup. Fragrant steam and smoke billowed into the drizzle.

“I’m hungry,” Marume said.

“You always are,” Fukida said.

Sano hadn’t eaten since morning, before the tournament. He and his men bought food. After they ate, they questioned more people. They soon learned that Major Kumazawa and his troops had already passed through the whole area that surrounded the temple, intimidating, torturing, and offending everywhere. And Sano’s attempts to trace Chiyo proved as futile as his uncle’s.