“I will,” Reiko said, wanting to reassure her father, yet determined to take matters into her own hands if necessary.

She bid Magistrate Ueda farewell, then looked in on Haru. The girl was fast asleep, a guard stationed outside her door. Would that she proved to be as innocent as she looked! Reiko left the mansion. As she rode in her palanquin toward Edo Castle, she wondered how Sano’s investigation into the sect was going.

13

The rain had ceased by the time Sano arrived at the Black Lotus Temple. Sunlight sparkled in puddles along the central path where Sano walked. Worshippers strolled; children ran and laughed. The colors of their clothing, the dripping foliage, and the patches of blue sky among the fleeing clouds were bright in the clean, fresh air.

A priest who’d escorted Sano during his inquiries on the morning after the fire greeted him outside the main hall. “Greetings, Sōsakan-sama. I am at your service.”

“Thank you, but I’d like to explore the temple on my own today,” Sano said.

The priest said, “Very well,” bowed, and departed.

So much for Reiko’s claim that the sect was trying to restrict the investigation, Sano thought. He walked to the novices’ quarters. These were secluded, but looked ordinary and well kept. From inside came the sound of youthful voices, chanting: “I offer gratitude to the god of the world, the god of thunder, the god of the sun, the god of the moon, the god of the stars, and all other deities who protect the followers of the Black Lotus Sutra. I praise the supreme truth hidden in the Black Lotus Sutra and give thanks for the benefits I have received. I offer praise and deepest gratitude to High Priest Anraku, the Bodhisattva of Infinite Power. I pray for spiritual enlightenment, to erase the negative karma created by my past actions, and to fulfill my wishes in this life and in the future. I pray for the truth of the Black Lotus Sutra to bring nirvana to all mankind.”

The chanting gave way to chatter. A priest greeted Sano at the door.

“I’d like to speak with the novice monks,” Sano said.

“Certainly,” the priest said. “It’s time for our noon meal. Will you please join us?”

A noisy crowd of youths ranging from early teens to mid twenties, all sporting muslin robes, swarmed out of the building. They knelt on the veranda. When Sano introduced himself, they studied him curiously. He noted their rosy cheeks, bright eyes, and healthy bodies. Servants brought out the meal. Tasting his share, Sano found the fresh vegetables and noodle soup delicious.

“Are you happy here?” he asked the novices seated nearest him.

Amid chewing, bulging cheeks and cheerful smiles, they chorused, “Yes, master.”

Sano noticed that the priest had vanished, leaving him alone with the novices. “Tell me how you spend your days.”

An adolescent with a pointed face said, “We get up at sunrise and pray. Then we have our morning meal.”

“We clean our rooms,” offered a muscular youth of perhaps twenty years. “The priests teach us religion until noon, when we eat again.”

“Is the food always like this?” Sano asked.

“We get rice and fish and eggs and pickles and fruit, too.”

Other novices chimed in: “We get to play for an hour, then we study until dinner.” “Afterward, we take baths.” “At sunset, we have prayers.” “Then we go to bed.”

It seemed a reasonable routine, Sano thought, and similar to that of other Buddhist orders. “What if you misbehave?”

The young men grinned at a pudgy boy who was evidently a troublemaker. He said, “The priests lecture us on the error of our ways. Then we sit alone and meditate.”

“They don’t beat you?” Sano asked.

The question elicited puzzled looks and denials.

“What if you were unhappy and wanted to leave?”

A general stir of amusement indicated that the novices thought this an unlikely situation. “I missed my family at first,” said the pudgy boy, “and I told the priests I wanted to go home. They sent me back to my parents’ house, but after a few days of cleaning fish at my father’s shop, I came back.”

Evidently he hadn’t been detained against his will or by force, and Sano didn’t see anyone watching to make sure the novices didn’t wander off. Sano said, “Is there a novice monk named Pious Truth here?”

Boys shook their heads.

“He was also known as Mori Gogen,” Sano said, giving the name Reiko had said to be the monk’s original one.

The lack of recognition on the boys’ faces increased his doubts about the tale Reiko had told him. If there was no novice called Pious Truth here, who was it she’d met?

“What do you know about Haru, the girl who was found near the fire?” he asked the novices.

They exchanged sly glances. “She’s generous with her favors,” said the muscular youth. “Two novices were expelled for meeting her at night.”

Reiko wouldn’t welcome this confirmation of Abbess Junketsu-in’s story about the girl, Sano knew. He finished his meal, thanked the novices for their company, then chatted with others, who gave similar answers to the same questions. Afterward, he walked to the novice nuns’ quarters.

There, he found girls sitting inside a room, sewing while a nun read aloud a story about an emperor who entices his subjects to flee a city threatened by a flood, then rewards them with great wealth after they escape drowning. If this was a passage of the Black Lotus Sutra, it seemed to Sano that the scripture borrowed heavily from the famous Lotus Sutra and its Parable of the Burning House, but doctrinal imitation was no crime.

The novices burst into giggles at the sight of a man invading their domain. The nun readily granted Sano’s request to interview them by himself. At his prompting, they described their daily life, which followed a routine similar to that of the boys. Apparently, they all felt free to leave if they wished, and they corroborated Haru’s reputation for seducing young men. They looked healthy and contented; Sano detected no evidence of starvation or drug-induced stupor here, either.

“Is there someone named Yasue among you?” Sano asked.

Heads turned toward a chunky girl of about fifteen, seated near the window. She blushed at finding herself the center of attention.

“Don’t be nervous,” Sano told her. For Reiko’s sake, he was sorry that he’d apparently found the novice Yasue alive and well; yet he was glad to disprove the story about her murder at the hands of the Black Lotus priests. “I just need to know if you’ve ever tried to run away from the temple.”

“Oh, no, master.” Yasue’s surprised expression asked why she would do such a thing.

“Perhaps your brother suggested that you both should leave?” Sano said.

Confusion puckered the girl’s forehead. She murmured, “I’m sorry, but I haven’t got a brother.”

Then she wasn’t the sister of Pious Truth, whoever he might be. “Is there any other Yasue here?”

The novice nuns shook their heads, gazing earnestly at him.

“Is anyone ever punished for trying to run away?”

A wave of denials swept the room. Sano became more convinced than ever that Reiko had been deceived, perhaps by someone masquerading as a monk. What was going on? Sano decided he’d better pursue the matter further, partly because he mustn’t ignore possible clues, but mostly because he needed facts to allay Reiko’s suspicions about the sect.

Sano bid farewell to the novice nuns and walked to a low, thatch-roofed building. The priests had supposedly taken Pious Truth to the temple hospital, and Reiko would expect Sano to look for the monk there.