Toshiko never got a chance to answer, because the nun herded everyone outside to use the privies and fetch water from the well to wash themselves. Then she took them to the main hall. The precinct was full of nuns and priests bringing in rice bales, loads of charcoal and wood, urns of oil, barrels of pickled vegetables and dried fish. Midori wondered why they needed so many provisions. She saw no pilgrims around, and felt a stab of fear.
The Black Lotus had indeed expelled everyone except its members. She must be the only outsider here. The weather was clear and bright, but Midori sensed an undercurrent in the atmosphere, as if from an invisible storm brewing. She longed to run away before anything worse happened to her, but she couldn’t go home with nothing to tell except the details of the initiation ceremony, and she’d rather die than have anyone know that. If she returned empty-handed, everything she’d gone through would be for naught. Besides, she’d come to believe that the Black Lotus really was evil, and she wanted to help defeat it. She must be brave and stay long enough to gather the information she’d promised Reiko.
Inside the main hall, her group joined a crowd of monks and nuns who were kneeling on the floor. An elderly priest led them in chanting. Midori secured a place next to Toshiko and chanted the monotonous prayer. The hall looked different today. Curtains covered the mirrors, and only a few candles burned on the altar, yet the emotional intensity she’d felt last night still charged the air. Senior nuns and priests guarded the doors or patrolled narrow aisles between the ranks of kneeling figures. Head bowed, Midori nudged Toshiko.
“The Black Lotus is dangerous,” she whispered. “It kills people. Something bad is going to happen.”
“How do you know?” Toshiko whispered back.
The thought of revealing her true identity and purpose scared Midori, but she didn’t think Toshiko would believe her unless she did. “I’m Niu Midori, a spy for the wife of the shogun’s sōsakan-sama. She told me,” Midori said. “I’m here to find out what’s happening. As soon as I do, I’m leaving. You have to come with me because if you stay, you could get hurt.”
They kept chanting as Toshiko flashed Midori a frightened glance. Then Toshiko whispered, “All right. What are we going to do?”
“I’ll sneak away later and look around,” Midori answered. “Then I’ll come back for you.”
At intervals during the prayers, groups of nuns and priests filed out of the hall and others filed in, worshipping in shifts. Eventually, the nun led Midori’s group to a building that housed a workshop for printing prayers. Inside, nuns cut sheets of paper and mixed pots of acrid black ink. Others worked at long tables, spreading ink on wooden blocks incised with characters and pressing the blocks against paper. Midori and Toshiko were assigned to cut the printed prayers into strips that bore the message, “Hail the new era of the Black Lotus.” Two priests roved the room, overseeing the work. Midori waited until the priests were busy at the other end of the room, then edged toward the door.
“Where are you going?” demanded a loud, female voice.
Startled, Midori looked around and saw a nun glaring at her from the printing table. The priests moved toward her. “To the privy,” Midori lied, belatedly aware that everyone here watched one another.
“Go with her,” one of the priests told the nun.
On the way to the privy and back, the nun never let Midori out of sight. Working beside Toshiko, Midori whispered, “You have to help me get away.”
Toshiko sliced her knife between rows of printed characters. “I’ll do something to distract everybody.”
“When?” Midori asked anxiously.
“We’ll have to wait for the right time. Just be patient and watch me. When I wink at you, run.”
Now Midori was glad she’d taken Toshiko into her confidence. Toshiko was exactly the clever accomplice she needed.
“We should not have left Haru in jail,” Reiko said to Sano.
It was late afternoon, and they were traveling through Nihonbashi toward Edo Castle. Reiko rode in her palanquin, while Sano walked beside its open window, leading his horse; Hirata and the detectives preceded them. A short time ago, Sano had finished his inquiries at Edo Jail, told Reiko the results, and said it was time to go home. Reiko hadn’t wanted to leave Haru, and she didn’t agree with his version of events, but she couldn’t disgrace her husband by challenging his authority at the jail, so she’d reluctantly kept silent until now.
“Haru will be fine,” Sano said. “The two guards I stationed outside her cell will protect her, and Dr. Ito will tend her injuries. I’ve warned the warden that he’ll be demoted if he allows any more harm to come to her. The jailers have been flogged for beating Haru. They won’t bother her again.”
“But you haven’t found all the men responsible for the attack. “ Reiko described what Haru had told her. “Where’s the third one?”
“There were only two men,” Sano said as the procession slowed on its way through an outdoor marketplace.
Reiko heard firm conviction in Sano’s voice and braced herself for an argument. “Haru says there were three.”
“Hirata and I interrogated everyone at the prison, checked their whereabouts last night, and searched their quarters for clothes with fresh bloodstains,” Sano said. “We found no cause to think that anyone else besides those two jailers was involved in the attack.”
“Maybe not anyone else from the jail,” Reiko said, though troubled by the discrepancy between his version of the story and Haru’s. “The other man could have come from outside. I think he was a Black Lotus priest. He tried to threaten Haru into confessing to the arson and murders.”
“Or so she told you,” Sano said skeptically. “After the two jailers admitted beating Haru, I asked them what happened in that cell. They said they warned Haru to be quiet, but there was no other talk. The prisoners in the other cells heard nothing at all.”
“The jailers are probably Black Lotus followers, trying to protect their leader,” Reiko said. “The prisoners are probably lying because they’re afraid of the jailers and don’t want to get in trouble.”
Sano shook his head; Reiko saw irritation harden his profile. “If anyone is lying, it’s Haru. She’s obviously trying to use a random incident to manipulate her way out of jail. I won’t fall for that, even if you do.”
Reiko thought of Haru’s words about the murdered child, and lingering doubt resurfaced.
“What is it?” Sano said, peering suspiciously through the window at her.
“Nothing.” Reiko turned away so he couldn’t read her thoughts.
She should tell him that Haru had identified the boy as Chie’s son, but she didn’t want to invite questions about what else Haru had said. Reiko envisioned her relationship with Sano as a house they’d built together, and the secrets she hid as invisible flaws in the structure. Her decision to withhold a clue from him eroded its foundation. Every new development in the case further weakened the integrity of their marriage. Reiko experienced a powerful urge to surrender the battle over Haru, placate Sano, and try to restore the harmony between them, yet her crusade against the sect forced her to stand by Haru. And a part of her still believed she was right to defend the girl.
Frustrated by Sano’s refusal to change his mind, she said, “Maybe you’re eager to believe that the attack was random because if you’d left Haru at my father’s house, it wouldn’t have happened. You wouldn’t like to think that you arrested the wrong person and let the real killers get her.”
“What I like is not the issue. Evidence is.” Asperity edged Sano’s voice, and Reiko knew that her remark had pierced a sore spot in him. Clearly, he wasn’t as sure of Haru’s guilt as he wished to be, and the possibility that he’d caused undeserved harm to someone disturbed him. “The evidence says Haru is a criminal and that two jailers who enjoy molesting female prisoners attacked her.”