They hurried after Anraku. Suddenly a group of nuns came around a corner and straight toward them. Toshiko shrank back, but Midori pulled her forward, murmuring, “Keep going. Act like you belong here.”
The nuns passed, bobbing perfunctory bows, which Midori and Toshiko returned. Ahead, Anraku and the priests entered a room. Midori and Toshiko huddled near the door.
“How many pieces?” Anraku’s voice said.
A priest replied, “Our samurai patrons have donated enough to arm everyone in the temple and all our brothers and sisters outside.”
“Excellent.”
Midori stole a look through the doorway, into a large cave where Anraku and the priests stood, their backs to her. An eerie radiance surrounded them. Midori saw that the radiance was light from the priests’ lanterns, reflecting on the steel blades of thousands of swords, spears, daggers, and lances mounted in racks on the walls, hung from the ceiling, and stacked on the floor. The sight amazed her. There must be almost as many weapons here as in Edo Castle!
Anraku walked toward an ironclad door at the back of the cave. “Leave the lanterns here. We don’t want to ignite the gunpowder bombs until we’re ready.”
The priests obeyed, following him into the dark cavern beyond the door, from which Midori overheard them discussing the quantity of bombs and the area they could destroy. A thrill of revelation and dread swept through her as she at last perceived the meaning of what she’d seen tonight.
“The Black Lotus is preparing for a war and siege!” Midori whispered excitedly to Toshiko. This was just the sort of discovery that would help Reiko and impress Hirata. “We must go up and warn people!”
She turned to her friend… and discovered that she’d spoken to empty air.
“Toshiko-san?” she said. “Where are you?”
The girl had disappeared. Midori fought panic; she wasn’t sure she could get out by herself, and even if she could, she couldn’t leave Toshiko in this awful place. Desperate to find her friend, she ran down the tunnel.
A gang of priests hurried toward her, shouting,”There’s the intruder. Catch her!”
Terrified, Midori turned and ran in the other direction, but two figures standing in the passage blocked her escape. She skidded to a halt, alarmed to recognize Anraku and Toshiko.
“Such a pity.” Anraku shook his head, regarding Midori with what looked to be genuine regret. “You had a wonderful future with me, but I regret to say that your betrayal of my trust has altered your destiny. They who oppose the Black Lotus must be punished.”
A wave of nauseating horror washed over Midori, followed by remorse. “I’m sorry for dragging you into this,” she said to Toshiko.
However, Toshiko didn’t look frightened. Her face wore a smug smile. Anraku beamed down at her, and terrible comprehension dawned on Midori.
“This morning you asked me what Anraku-san promised me,” Toshiko said. “When I joined the Black Lotus last year, he said that my purpose in life was to expose his enemies, and he would reward me with a life of luxury in his new kingdom.”
Too late, Midori recalled warning signs: how easily Toshiko had befriended her, gone along with her plans, and gotten away from the combat lesson to accompany her here. Toshiko wasn’t a fellow newcomer and victim; she was a Black Lotus spy, who must have been planted among the novices to watch them, her fear and reluctance a mere pose. When she’d vanished a moment ago, she’d gone to report Midori to her superiors.
Now, as the priests seized Midori and marched her down the tunnel, she rued her naïveté. Surely she would pay for it with her life.
31
Beware of rulers, princes of kingdoms, high-ministers, and heads of offices
Who stubbornly adhere to untruth.
– FROM THE BLACK LOTUS SUTRA
Huddled in her palanquin, Reiko heard shouts and clashing blades from the battle raging outside. Then the world shifted, and she was standing alone inside Minister Fugatami’s house, where the minister and Hiroko lay dead in their blood-spattered chamber. Reiko fled through empty rooms and corridors, seeking a door that didn’t exist, fleeing an unknown danger. She came to a window and wrenched at the bars that covered it.
“Help!” she called.
Outside, in a garden eerily still in the gray dawn, stood Haru. She held a flaming torch.
“Haru, let me out!” Reiko pleaded.
But the girl, whose face wore a look of blind, intense concentration, didn’t seem to notice her. Haru raised the torch, and fire exploded around Reiko. She screamed.
The sound of her own voice started her awake. She sat up in bed, her heart thudding. Now she recognized her own chamber, its windows pale with morning light. An afternoon, evening, and night had passed since the attack in Nihonbashi, but she again experienced the breathlessness and tremors of a delayed reaction that had set in after she’d arrived home.
Because her palanquin bearers had all perished in the battle, Reiko had ridden back to Edo Castle on a horse that had belonged to one of Sano’s dead retainers, while Sano held the reins and rode beside her. She’d thought herself unaffected by the attack, until she and Sano were seated in the parlor of their mansion and she tried to discuss what had just happened.
“Surely now you must realize how dangerous and evil the Black Lotus is,” she said.
“Yes, I know the sect is evil,” Sano said. His matter-of-fact tone echoed hers, though he watched her with concern. “But so is Haru.”
“Then you still mean to leave her in jail, awaiting her trial?” Reiko said, dismayed.
“I believe that the arson and murders were Haru’s contribution to the Black Lotus’s scheme, whatever it is,” Sano said. “But let’s not talk about this while you’re upset.”
“I’m fine,” Reiko said, but a sudden onrush of tears contradicted her claim. "You can’t condemn Haru to death when there’s a chance that she’s innocent and blaming her could leave the real killers free to do whatever they please!”
Sano had refused to continue the discussion, and insisted that Reiko go to bed. Toward dawn, she’d fallen into a restless sleep that had brought the nightmare. Now she drew deep breaths, willing away emotion. She couldn’t bring the Black Lotus to justice unless she pulled herself together.
She tried to forget her dream about Haru, and everything it implied.
Reiko washed, dressed, and forced herself to swallow some tea and rice gruel. She fed Masahiro, then went to the palace. She found Lady Keisho-in in her chambers in the Large Interior, eating her morning meal.
“I’ve come to see Midori,” Reiko said.
“She’s not here.” Slurping fish broth, Lady Keisho-in looked surprised. “I thought she was at your house.”
“Not this time,” Reiko said. “I haven’t seen her since the night before last.”
“Well, she told me she had important business, so I gave her a holiday,” Keisho-in said. “She left here some days ago, early in the morning before I was up.” Keisho-in turned to her attendants. “Midori-chan hasn’t come back at all, has she?”
The women shook their heads. Keisho-in said in peevish disapproval, “I didn’t mean for her to be gone so long, and a young lady has no business staying out all night. Midori-chan is probably gallivanting in town with disreputable folk. If you find her, tell her she must return at once.”
“I will,” Reiko said as anxiety stole through her. Midori wasn’t the kind of girl who ran wild. Her extended absence boded no good.
After bidding Keisho-in farewell, Reiko went home and ordered a manservant to find out whether Midori had reentered the castle and might be somewhere inside. Reiko sent another servant to Lord Niu’s estate in the daimyo district to see if Midori had stopped there to visit her family. Within an hour, Reiko received news that the gate sentries recalled Midori leaving, but she hadn’t returned. She wasn’t at her family’s house, and Reiko doubted that Midori had anywhere else to stay. A dreadful suspicion burgeoned in Reiko’s mind.