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 rōnin 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 Tōkaidō 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.
“A woman. He said her name was Anemone.”
“What happened?”
“The ritual was held in the temple here,” Profound Wisdom said. “I went into a trance, and I felt a gate within my mind open to the spirit realm. I called out, ‘Hail, spirit of Anemone. Please come and speak.’ ”
Sano had once raided another temple during a similar ritual, and he could picture Profound Wisdom seated on a dais, eyes closed in concentration, while monks and nuns chanted prayers. He imagined the flickering candlelight, heavy incense smoke, and the mystical atmosphere that induced the crowd of eager onlookers to believe in the priest’s fraud.
“A woman’s voice spoke from my mouth,” Profound Wisdom continued. “It said, ‘I am here. Why do you summon me?’ The man grew very excited. He cried, ‘Anemone! It is I. Do you recognize me?’ ”
Sano envisioned a hooded figure kneeling in supplication before Profound Wisdom, who’d impersonated the dead woman.
“The spirit answered, ‘Yes, my dearest,’ ” said Profound Wisdom. “The man began to weep. He said, ‘Anemone, I will avenge your death. Your spirit can rest in peace after the man who was responsible for your murder is punished.’ She whispered, ‘Avenge my death. Punish him.’ Then the gate to the spirit world closed. My trance broke. The man jumped up and shouted, ‘No! Anemone, come back!’ ”
Even though the priest was a charlatan, he knew how to tell people what they wanted to hear, Sano thought; and by echoing the man’s words instead of inventing conversation, and cutting short the ritual, Profound Wisdom had avoided exposing the spirit as a fake. Yet Sano was more struck by the significance of what the man had said than impressed by Profound Wisdom’s cleverness. He stood immobile while his thoughts registered the one potential clue in Profound Wisdom’s story and raced on to strategies for connecting it to the Dragon King. Outside, lanterns lit the yard bright as day as laborers hauled loads of dirt to fill in the underground temple. Profound Wisdom eyed Sano with a contempt that didn’t hide his fear.
“I’ve told you everything I know,” he said. “Is it enough that you won’t brand me a traitor?”
“Enough for now,” Sano said, though the clue was tenuous.
“What are you going to do to me?”
“I’ll let you live awhile, in case you remember anything else about the man.” Sano addressed his detectives: “Take him to Edo Jail. Okada-san, you guard him so that nothing bad happens to him. Watanabe-san, tell Magistrate Ueda that I ask him to delay Profound Wisdom’s trial because he’s a witness in the kidnapping investigation. I’m going back to the castle. I’m late for my meeting with Chamberlain Yanagisawa.”
“I’m certain that the murder of Anemone is the murder that the ransom letter refers to, and the motive behind the kidnapping,” Sano said.
“And you suggest we investigate your theory that the mysterious Black Lotus follower is the Dragon King?” said Chamberlain Yanagisawa.
“I do.”
Midnight had passed while Sano rode from Ginza to Edo Castle. Now he and Yanagisawa sat in the chamberlain’s estate, in an office whose walls were hung with maps of Japan. Sano had just finished telling Yanagisawa about Mariko, the gold coins, the visit to her mother, and the raid on the Black Lotus temple. In the grounds outside the open window, cicadas droned; torches carried by patrolling guards smeared smoky light across the darkness. Sano reflected that crises forged strange alliances. He and Yanagisawa had become a partnership he’d never thought possible.