Laura Rowland: The Cloud Pavilion

"We have to warn Jirocho," Reiko whispered.

"But how?" Chiyo said.

They were trapped behind the crematorium, in the radius of its fiery heat. Reiko wiped her perspiring face on her sleeve. If they tried to leave the cemetery, Nanbu and Ogita would see them.

"We won't have to worry about Jirocho much longer," Nanbu said. "Just be patient."

Reiko heard hissing sounds and dull thuds. Men among Nanbu's and Ogita's troops jerked as if they'd been struck. They cried out and clutched at arrows that had suddenly appeared in their chests and backs. Some fell dead or wounded. A dog with an arrow stuck in his side ran off squealing.

"What's going on?" Ogita demanded as his group scattered. He groped after his guards; they drew their swords.

Nanbu struggled to restrain his dog, which lunged and barked wildly. He shouted, "It's a trap!"

More hisses accompanied a storm of arrows that rushed out of the darkness beyond the cemetery. The men raised and swung their lanterns in a frantic effort to see who was shooting at them. More men fell. Stray arrows pelted the grass. As Nanbu's and Ogita's men tried to shield their masters, dark figures climbed onto the cemetery wall. Some took on the shape of archers with bows drawn; others were silhouettes equipped with spears. Some forty in all, they looked like demons risen from hell in the flame-lit smoke that swirled around them. One man wasn't armed. Although short and pudgy, he had a confident, imperious stance.

"Hold your fire!" he shouted.

"It's Jirocho," Reiko whispered.

Laughter and samisen music blared in the moonlit fog over the Kanda River.

Sano, Hirata, Marume, and Fukida walked the two oxcart drivers along the footpath by the water, through the district known as Yanagibashi-"Willow Tree Bridge." Here, the Kanda emptied into the Sumida River. Yanagibashi had once been a mere launching point for boats that carried passengers up the Sumida to the Yoshiwara licensed pleasure quarter, but an unlicensed entertainment quarter had sprung up in the area. Some of the boats moored at the docks and some of the teahouses on the riverbanks contained brothels with local prostitutes. But Yanagibashi had none of Yoshiwara's glamour.

Cheap, garish red lanterns on the boats and teahouses reflected in the water. Raucous parties overflowed from verandas. Under the bridge, beggars slept. Men stumbled off boats returning from Yoshiwara. Girls called out from windows to them, soliciting their depleted reserves of cash and virility.

Sano had left his other troops behind, at the foot of the bridge, on advice he'd received earlier from Gombei.

"If the owner of the boat sees a big crowd of samurai, he'll get suspicious," Gombei had said.

If Sano were the owner of an illegal brothel boat and saw an army coming, he would cast off and take the boat down the Sumida River and out to Edo Bay. He might even dump the shogun's wife in the ocean.

Gombei led the way with Hirata guarding him; Marume and Fukida followed with Jinshichi, who plodded sullen and silent between them. Sano brought up the rear. They avoided drunks vomiting into the water. Tough young townsmen roved, hunting people to rob.

"Which one is it?" Sano said as they passed boats.

"Farther down," Gombei said.

"It had better be there," Marume said, "or you and your friend are dead."

"It will be. It will be!" Gombei's voice was shrill with his fear that the boat had moved.

Sano felt the same fear as he wondered what was happening to the shogun's wife. But he reminded himself that he had the three suspects under surveillance; they couldn't rape Lady Nobuko. Continuing along the footpath, he observed that most of the boats were small, open craft with a single oar. But quite a few others were larger, some forty paces long, each with a single mast, a square sail, a cabin with a red tile roof on the deck, and three sets of oars below. Figures blurred by the mist boarded and disembarked, customers of the illegal floating brothels which all fit the description Nanbu had provided. The only detail Nanbu hadn't mentioned was the red lanterns that hung from the eaves of the cabins. Gombei had spoken the truth: Without him as a guide, Sano would not have been able to pick out the right one.

Gombei stopped so suddenly that Marume, Jinshichi, and Fukida bumped into him and Hirata. He pointed at a boat moored two slips down the river. "That's it," Gombei said.

"How do you know?" Sano asked.

"Do you see that man on the deck?"

The man stood at the railing, facing inland, his tall, gaunt profile a dark silhouette. He had bad posture, his shoulders slumped, his hips and head thrust forward.

"He's the owner," Gombei said. "He takes a cut of the money our customers pay us for the women."

"You'd better be telling the truth," Sano said.

They strolled casually toward the boat, a party of friends out for the evening. "You stay on the dock and guard our informants," Sano told Marume and Fukida. "Hirata-san and I will go aboard."

As they neared the boat, the owner came into clearer view. His long hair was greased back into a knot. His robes hung on him, reminding Sano of a clothes stand. There didn't appear to be anyone else on board, but the windows of the cabin were closed; Sano couldn't see inside it or below the deck. He and his companions had just reached the dock, when four samurai came hurrying down a street that led between the teahouses to the river. The four headed for the dock. When they saw Sano, they stopped in surprise. He recognized them as his own troops.

"What are you doing here?" Sano kept his voice calm. "You were supposed to watch Joju."

"We followed him here from the temple," the leader said. "We just saw him get on that boat."

Shock and dismay filled Sano. The exorcist was already with Lady Nobuko. But that gave Sano the chance to catch him in the act of rape.

Looking toward the boat, Sano saw the owner looking straight back at him. The man had heavy purplish bags under wary eyes; black moles peppered his cheeks. Three more men appeared, climbing up from under the deck, to see what the commotion was all about. They were samurai, heavyset and tough and armed with swords, rnin hired to guard the brothel.

Suddenly Gombei shouted, "Look out! They've come to raid your boat!"

In the cemetery, Nanbu called to Jirocho, "What is this?" His face was ugly

with anger. The dog on his leash growled. "You told me to come here and pay blackmail, and now you shoot at me and kill my men. Are you crazy?"

"Not crazy, just practical," Jirocho said. Nanbu's men held lanterns up to him, the better to see his face. He posed like the lead actor onstage in a Kabuki drama. The flames and shadows exaggerated his predatory smile, the ferocity in his eyes. "It's obvious you came to fight instead of paying. Forgive me if I changed the odds in my favor."

Reiko counted only twenty men still standing in the cemetery. Jirocho's forces outnumbered Nanbu's and Ogita's by a good margin, and the gangster had his adversaries surrounded.

"I told you we shouldn't have come," Ogita said bitterly.

"Ah, Ogita-san. How nice to see you." Jirocho's voice dripped vindictive scorn. "Where's Joju the exorcist?"

"How should I know?" Ogita retorted.

"Two out of three will have to do, then." Jirocho beckoned. "Stop hiding behind your guards. You and Nanbu-san, step closer."

When neither man budged, his gang drew their bows, aimed arrows and spears. Ogita and Nanbu reluctantly moved toward the wall upon which Jirocho stood. Peering around the crematorium, Reiko and her comrades had a clear view of them. "Good," Jirocho said, then addressed their men: "Hold your lanterns up to their faces."

"What is this?" Nanbu said again, but he'd lost his bluster. Illuminated by the lanterns, he showed as much anxiety as rage.