"Raiko wasn't responsible. I'd told her none of the girls here, anywhere in the Yoshiwara, were ones I wanted. I wanted someone young, special, a virgin or almost one.

I begged her to find me a flower, explaining exactly what I wanted, and she did and Hana-chan was everything I wanted, perfection-- she came from one of the best Houses in Yedo. You can't imagine how beautiful she is, was..."

He remembered how his heart had leapt the first time Raiko had shown her to him, chattering with other girls in another room. "That one, Raiko, in the pale blue kimono."

"I advise stay with Fujiko or Akiko or one of my other ladies," Raiko had said, when she wanted, her English good. "In time I will find you another. There little Saiko. In a year or two..."

"That one, Raiko. She perfect. Who is she?"' "Her name is Hana, the Flower. Her mama-san say the pretty little thing was born near Kyoto, bought by her House when three or four for training as geisha." Raiko smiled.

"Luckily, she's not geisha--if geisha, she would be not on offer, so sorry."

"Because I gai-jin?"' "Because geisha is for entertainment, not pillowing, and, Furansu-san, so sorry, truly difficult to appreciate if not Japanese.

Hana's teachers were patient, but she could not develop the skills so she was trained for the pillow."

"I want her, Raiko."

"A year ago she was old enough to begin. Her mama-san arranged the best pillow prices, of course only after Hana had approved the client. Three clients only have enjoyed her, her mama-san says she is fine pupil, and only allowed to pillow twice weekly. Only mark against her, she was born in the Year of the Fire Horse."

"What that mean?"' "You know we count time in cycles of twelve years, like the Chinese, each year with an animal name, Dragon, Snake, Cockerel, Bull, Horse and so on. But each also has one of the five elements: fire, water, earth, iron, wood that vary, cycle by cycle. Ladies born in Year of Horse, with the fire sign, are thought to be... unlucky."

"Not believe superstitions. Please say price."

"She is a pillow Flower beyond price."

"The price, Raiko."

"To the other House, ten koku, Furansu-san. To this House, two koku a year, and price of her house of own within my fence, two maids, all the clothes she wants, and parting gift of five koku when you no longer require her services--this sum to be deposited with our Gyokoyama rice merchant-banker, at interest which, until time of parting, is yours--all to be in writing, signed and registered with Bakufu."

The sum was huge by Japanese standards, extravagant by European counting even with the rate of exchange heavily weighed in the European's favor. For a week he had bartered and had managed to reduce the price only a few sous.

Every night his dreams drove him onwards. So he had agreed. With due ritual seven months ago she had been presented to him formally. She agreed to accept him formally. They both signed formally. The next night he had pillowed and she was everything he had dreamed. Laughing, happy, enthusiastic, tender, loving. "She was a gift of God, Henri."

"Of the devil. The mama-san too."

"No, it wasn't her fault. The day before I received Hana, Raiko told me, formally--it was also on the deed of payment--that the past was the past, she promised only to cherish Hana as one of her own girls, to make sure Hana was never seen by other men and remained mine alone, from that day onwards."

"Then she killed her?"

Andr`e poured another drink. "I... I asked Hana to name the three men, one of them is my murderer, but she said she couldn't--or wouldn't.

I, I smashed her around the face to force it out of her and she just whimpered and didn't cry out. I would have killed her, yes, but I loved her and... then I left. I was like a mad dog, it was three or four o'clock by then and I just walked into the sea. Maybe I wanted to drown myself, I don't know, don't remember exactly, but the cold water gave me back my head. When I got back to the House, Raiko and the others were in shock, incoherent. Hana was crumpled where I left her. Now in a mess of blood, my knife in her throat."

"Then she committed suicide?"

"That's what Raiko said."

"You don't believe it?"

"I don't know what to believe," Andr`e said in anguish. "I only know I went back to tell her I loved her, that the pox was karma, not her fault, not her fault, that I was sorry I said what I said and did what I did, that everything would be as before except, except when it became, became obvious we would suicide together..."

Henri was trying to think, his own brain addled.

He had never even heard of the House of the Three Carp before rumors of the girl's death had rushed through the Settlement. Andr`e's always been so secretive, he thought, correctly so, and he's right, it was none of my business--until the Bakufu made it official. "The three men, did this Raiko know who they were?"

Numbed, Andr`e shook his head. "No, and the other mama-san would not tell her."

"Who is she? What's her name? Where is she?

We'll report her to the Bakufu, they could force it out of her."

"They wouldn't care, why should they? The other House--it was a meeting place for revolutionaries, Inn of the Forty-seven Ronin, a week or so ago it was burned to the ground and her head stuck on a spike. Holy Mother of God, Henri, what am I going to do? Hana's dead and I'm alive..."

Early that afternoon Dr. Hoag was in the cutter heading for the Legation wharf at Kanagawa.

Babcott had sent word that he could not leave Kanagawa as he was operating in his clinic there but would return as soon as possible:... sorry, it can't be until late tonight, probably not until tomorrow morning. You're more than welcome to join me here if you wish but be prepared to stay the night as the weather is changeable...

Waiting on the wharf was a Grenadier and Lim who wore a white coat, loose black trousers, slippers and small skullcap. As Hoag came ashore Lim yawned a token bow.

"Heya Mass'er, Lim-ah, Numb'r One Boy."

"We can stop pidgin coolie talk, Lim,"

Hoag said in passable Cantonese, and Lim's eyes crossed. "I am Medicine Doctor Wise Enlightened." This was Hoag's Chinese name--the meaning of the two characters nearest to the Cantonese sound of "hoh" and "geh"-- selected out of dozens of possibilities for him by Gordon Chen, the Struan compradore, one of his patients.

Lim stared at him, pretending not to understand, the usual and quickest way to make a foreign devil lose face who had the impertinence to dare to learn a few words of the civilized tongue. Ayeeyah, he thought, who's this gamy fornicator, this putrid red devil mother-eater with the neck of a bull, this toadlike monkey who has the gall to speak in our tongue with such a foul superior manner...

"Ayeeyah," Hoag said sweetly, "also I have many, very many dirty word to describe a fornicator's mother and her putrefying parts if a man from a dog-piss, dung-heap village gives me an eyelid of cause--like pretending not to understand me."

"Medicine Doctor Wise Enlightened?

Ayeeyah, that's a good name!" Lim guffawed.

"And never have I heard such good man-talk from a foreign devil in many a year."

"Good. You will soon hear more if I am called again foreign devil. Noble House Chen selected my name."

"Noble House Chen?" Lim gawked at him.

"Illustrious Chen who has more bags of gold than an oxen has hairs? Ayeeyah, what a fornicating privilege!"

"Yes," Hoag agreed, adding not quite the truth, "and he told me if I have any dung-mixed troubles from any person of the Middle Kingdom--be he high or low--or not the at-once-service a friend of his must expect, to mention the vile fornicator's name on my return."

"Oh ko, Medicine Doctor Wise Enlightened, it is indeed an honor to have you in our humble dung-heap house."