Laura Rowland - The Cloud Pavilion

A hulking shape moved on the floor. Rhythmic thumps punctuated whimpers and cries. Sano recognized the shape as Nanbu, hunched on his knees and elbows on a mattress. Under him thrashed a girl. She shrieked and beat her fists at him while his body thrust at her and he uttered growls as fierce and bestial as his dogs'.

"Stop!" Sano shouted.

Marume and Fukida burst into the shack, grabbed Nanbu, and dragged him off the woman.

"Hey, what is this?" Nanbu protested. His face was dripping sweat, engorged with lust. His erection showed under his clothes. "Let me go!" As he struggled to break free of the detectives, he saw Sano and exclaimed, "How did you get in here?"

Sano ignored Nanbu and stepped over to the girl. She wept as she tried to cover herself with her torn kimono. He said, "Are you all right?"

Gazing up at him in speechless fear, she pushed long, tangled black hair away from her face. Bruises surrounded both her eyes. Her nose was bleeding.

"Where is the shogun's wife?" Sano asked Nanbu.

"How should I know? Why don't you let me finish?" Nanbu cursed as the detectives hauled him outside and threw him on the mud. The trainers and their dogs surrounded him. "She's just a girl who cleans the dog cages."

"You can go," Sano told the girl. "For your own good, don't come back. Find another job."

She scrambled out the door and ran. Sano left the shack and stood over Nanbu, who said, "I didn't do anything wrong. We were just having a little fun."

"You hit her," Sano said.

"So what?" Nanbu said. The dogs barked and snapped. He cringed. "She got wild. I had to show her who was boss."

His attitude disgusted Sano. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself."

Nanbu looked honestly surprised. "Why? The girl works for me. Besides, she asked for it. She led me on, and then she changed her mind and started fighting."

Sano spotted new variations on the theme. Servants were at their masters' disposal, and Nanbu had only done what countless other men did every day. And many men justified forcing women into sex by saying the women wanted it. However, those excuses didn't make Sano any more favorably disposed toward Nanbu.

"Is that what you told yourself when you violated my cousin?" Sano said.

"I didn't," Nanbu protested. "I told you already." The dogs strained their chains, slavering at him. "Now please, call off your dogs!"

"What's the matter, don't you like a taste of your own medicine?" Marume laughed.

"What about Fumiko and the nun?" Sano said.

"Not them, either!" Nanbu was livid with anger, his hands and knees soiled by the dog feces that littered the ground. "And not the shogun's wife! I've never even laid eyes on her. Why are you looking for her, anyway? Doesn't she always stay inside the palace?"

"She's missing," Fukida said. "We think she's been kidnapped."

"Well, not by me," Nanbu declared. "Search this whole place, search my house, too, if you want-I haven't got her."

Just because he, like Joju and Ogita, indulged in dubious behavior, that didn't mean Nanbu had committed the crimes under investigation. Sano couldn't ignore the possibility that none of the three was behind the disappearance of the shogun's wife.

Then a thought occurred to Sano. What if the oxcart drivers had kidnapped her for another client and hidden her in a secret place? The suspects would know where it was. Sano thought up a deal that might induce Nanbu to cooperate.

"You're in trouble even if you don't have the shogun's wife," Sano told Nanbu. "If she's not found, or if she's hurt, the shogun will blame me. I'll be looking to pass the blame to someone else. You'll make a good scapegoat."

"That's not fair." The horror on Nanbu's face weakened his pose of defiance.

"You want me to be fair? All right, here's a chance to save your life." Sano said, "You tell me where Jinshichi and Gombei take the women they kidnap. I'll let you off the hook."

"I told you I don't know those people," Nanbu whined, but Sano heard the lie in his voice. "You're trying to trick me into confessing."

"Let the dogs have at him," Marume suggested.

"Not yet," Sano said, then addressed Nanbu. "Let's just suppose there have been rumors about two oxcart drivers: They kidnap women and take them to a certain place. Let's suppose you've heard the rumors, even though you've never met Jinshichi or Gombei. Just tell me where the place is. That's not a confession. Nothing will happen to you." Sano hated to play games with a man who might have committed four serious crimes, but he continued: "What do you say?"

Nanbu hesitated. Sano knew that if Nanbu answered, it would mean he was guilty, but Sano would have to spare Nanbu or renege on the deal and violate his code of honor.

"I don't know where it is," Nanbu said slowly.

Sano had had just about all he could take from these men whose true, ugly colors he'd seen even if they weren't guilty of these par tic ular crimes. If Nanbu didn't talk right now, he would kill him. The thought must have shown on his face, because Nanbu recoiled from him in terror.

"I don't know where it is because it doesn't stay in the same place all the time," Nanbu hastily amended. "It moves."

"How can it move?" Sano said, wary of a trick.

"It's a boat," Nanbu said.

When Reiko arrived in Asakusa, she found Chiyo waiting for her in the street a few blocks from the Kumazawa estate. Chiyo clutched the folds of the black drape she wore over her head. She huddled against a wall as pedestrians and mounted samurai moved past her. She looked small, frightened, and vulnerable. Reiko supposed this was the first time she'd left home since Sano had brought her back. When Chiyo spied Reiko's palanquin, she ran up to it and spoke through the window.

"Many thanks for coming. I'm sorry I can't invite you to the house."

"I understand," Reiko said. "What is the trouble you mentioned in your message?"

Gasping, Chiyo bent over and clasped her chest. Not only was she afraid to be out of doors; she was still weak and ill. Reiko told the bearers to set down the palanquin, opened the door, then said to Chiyo, "Come in. Sit down."

Chiyo obeyed. When she'd recovered her breath, she said, "This morning, Jirocho came to the house. My father's soldiers have orders not to let him in, but he stood by the gate and shouted Fumiko's name until she heard him and went running outside. She was so glad to go with him, it broke my heart."

"What changed his mind?" Reiko asked.

"I asked him that. He said he had a new plan for finding out who violated her. And he needed Fumiko to make it work."

Sano wouldn't be pleased that Jirocho had taken the law into his own hands. "What is Jirocho's plan?"

"Jirocho knows about the three suspects that your husband found." The words spilled from Chiyo in breathless haste. "He sent a message, the same message, to Nanbu, Ogita, and Joju. It said that Fumiko has identified him as the one who violated her, and unless he wants her to tell Chamberlain Sano, he should meet Jirocho this evening and pay him a thousand koban."

Reiko stared in surprise and confusion. "But Fumiko didn't get a good look at the man. Has she suddenly remembered more?"

"Maybe. I don't know. She wouldn't talk about it," Chiyo said. "Jirocho is gambling that one of those men will think so."

Now Reiko saw Jirocho's intent. "He's setting a trap. He's hoping that whoever violated his daughter will show up to pay the blackmail, and then Jirocho will kill him. But why did he take Fumiko?"

"He wanted her to go with him to the meeting," Chiyo said. "If someone shows up, Jirocho thinks she'll remember, and she's supposed to say whether he's the one. Jirocho wants to be certain."

The gangster boss didn't want to kill the wrong man, who might show up for reasons that Reiko didn't have time to discuss. Jirocho especially wouldn't want to kill someone as important as Nanbu, Joju, or Ogita without being absolutely sure it was worthwhile.