Women were also taught to be humble and accept responsibility for whatever ills came their way. "No!" Reiko said. "You couldn't have known it was a trick. Neither could anybody else. Don't blame yourself."
Weeping contorted Chiyo's face. "My husband does."
So would most other people, Reiko thought sadly. "Your husband is wrong."
"I'm fortunate that my father hasn't cast me off, too."
Most fathers probably would shun a daughter who'd been violated. The fact that Major Kumazawa hadn't bespoke his love for Chiyo. Perhaps Sano's picture of him as a rigid, tradition-bound samurai wasn't completely accurate.
"Your father has put the blame exactly where it belongs-on the man who hurt you," Reiko said. "He wants to catch him and punish him. So do I." She felt her own taste for vengeance. "Don't you?"
"Oh, I don't know." Chiyo looked worried at the thought of taking direct action against anyone. She probably didn't have a vengeful bone in her body, Reiko thought. "But if that's what everyone else wants…"
"We want justice for you. But we need your help."
"All right." Chiyo was clearly used to obeying authority. "What do you want me to do?"
"Tell me everything you can remember about the kidnapping and the attack. Let's begin with the man who tricked you. What did he look like?"
Chiyo pondered, frowned, then shook her head. "I don't know. I recall walking up to the bamboo grove. After that, everything is a blank until…" A shudder wracked her body. "Until I woke up." Chiyo turned her face into the pillow, as if hiding from the recollection.
Reiko speculated that Chiyo had been grabbed, then forced to drink a potion that rendered her unconscious and erased memories. She leaned forward, bracing herself to hear the awful details of the rape. She spoke quietly, trying not to pressure Chiyo. "Then what happened?"
"He… he touched me where no one but my husband has ever touched." Chiyo drew deep breaths and swallowed hard. "He suckled milk from me. And… he bit me."
She opened her robe. On her breasts, around the nipples, were curved rows of tooth marks, red and bloody. Reiko winced. "Did you see his face?"
"Only for a moment. Everything was misty and blurry. It was like…" Chiyo fumbled for words. "I once read a poem about a pavilion of clouds. It reminded me of that."
Reiko wondered if the clouds had been a hallucination caused by a drug.
"The clouds covered his face, except for his eyes and mouth," Chiyo said.
He'd worn a mask, Reiko deduced.
Chiyo shrank against the cushions, reliving her fear. She whispered, "He was so ugly and cruel. Like a demon."
"Was he someone you recognized? Did he seem familiar?"
"No. At least I don't think so."
"Would you recognize him if you saw him again?"
"Perhaps," Chiyo said uncertainly.
Reiko hid her dismay at the idea that the rapist might get away with his crime because Chiyo had so little memory of it. "Can you remember anything that might help us identify him?"
More shudders convulsed Chiyo. "His voice. While he did it, he muttered, 'Dearest mother. My beloved mother.' "
Reiko felt her own body shiver with disgust at the rapist's perversion. "Did you hear anything besides his voice?"
"The rain and thunder outside."
That didn't help narrow down the location; it had been raining all over Edo for days. And maybe Chiyo had imagined the clouds she'd seen. "Clouds and rain," was the poetic term for sexual release. Maybe the drug had conjured up the clouds and linked them with the rain, and her violation, in her dazed mind.
"Think again. Can you remember anything else at all?" Reiko said hopefully.
"I'm sorry, I cannot." Chiyo sighed, exhausted and weakened from reliving her ordeal. "I went back to sleep."
Then she froze rigid, her muscles locked in a sudden, brief spasm. Her expression alternated among shock, fright, and horror. "No! Oh, no!"
"What's wrong?" Urgency seized Reiko. "What do you remember?"
"Something new. I woke up again. Just for an instant. Because he slapped my face." Chiyo touched her cheek. "And I heard him say that if I told anybody what he'd done to me, he would kill me, and kill my baby, too."
Her voice rose in hysteria. "I told! And I shouldn't have! Now I'll be punished. Now my baby is going to die!"
"That's not going to happen," Reiko assured Chiyo. "You're safe here. Your father will protect you. My husband and I will catch the man before he can make good on his threat." Reiko would do everything in her power to deliver the monster to justice. Even though she knew there was no guarantee that she would succeed, she said, "I promise."
10
Sano and his entourage arrived in the street where he'd found Chiyo. The rain had stopped for the moment. The balcony that had sheltered him and his men belonged to one of several shops in a row that sold confectionaries. Lines of customers extended outside the doors. Sano worked his way down the row, asking shopkeepers if they'd seen Chiyo stumbling through the rain yesterday.
"I saw her," said one man as he wrapped cakes. "I thought she was just a drunken whore."
Sano retraced Chiyo's footsteps around a corner and down another block, whose shops sold religious supplies. Two dealers had seen Chiyo; the rest hadn't. Dividing the shops was an alley, wider than the usual narrow space that ran between buildings. It was a firebreak, designed to reduce crowding and prevent the spread of fires, and apparently used as a side street. Sano and Detectives Marume and Fukida walked down the alley, skirting puddles. Balconies overhung recessed doorways and malodorous nightsoil bins. As he examined the paving stones, Sano spotted blood that had collected in the cracks. He pictured Chiyo falling, hitting her head.
"This is where Chiyo was dumped," Sano said.
An old woman with a tobacco pipe clamped between her teeth hobbled out on a balcony, picked up a quilt that had been left out in the rain, wrung out the soaked fabric, and cursed. Sano called up to her, "Did you see anyone come through here yesterday, during the storm?"
"An oxcart. They take a shortcut instead of going around the block." The woman puffed on her pipe, which gave off foul smoke. "There's just enough room for them to squeeze through, but they scrape the walls. And the oxen leave dung. Filthy beasts! I pick up the dung, save it in this bucket, and throw it at the drivers." She cackled.
"Chiyo must have been dumped from that oxcart," Sano said to his detectives, then asked the woman, "Did you get a look at the driver? What was the cart carrying?"
"No. I didn't see. It was covered by a piece of cloth."
"He hid her under the cloth so no one would see her," Fukida said.
"But who is 'he'?" Marume asked.
"That's the question," Sano said. "Let's go find that oxcart." He recalled the construction site they'd passed yesterday. "I know where to start."
The Hibiya administrative district near Edo Castle was thick with samurai. They filled the streets where government officials lived and worked in mansions protected by high stone walls. Some of them wore the silk robes of high rank, some the armor tunics of soldiers; all were equipped with the customary two swords of their class. Some rode in palanquins or on horse back followed by attendants; the lowlier trudged on foot. They all moved aside to make way for Hirata.
As he rode down his cleared path through the crowd, his reputation as the top martial artist in Edo cloaked him like a golden suit of armor. Rumor said he could read minds, see behind him, anticipate an opponent's every move, and communicate with the spirit world.
There was truth to the rumor. His training had developed mental powers that everyone had to some degree but few ever learned to exercise.
Part of his perception focused on his surroundings. It noted the faces he passed, the plod of hooves and sandals on wet streets, the rustle of straw rain capes, the bright umbrellas. The other part, honed by arcane training rituals, sensed the energy auras around each human being. In each pattern of heat and light and vibration he could read personality and emotion. Some pulsed faintly, the auras of weak wills; others flared with confidence. In battle, the aura functioned as a warrior's first line of defense, a shield. A strong aura could deflect blows as effectively as a sword could and defeat an enemy without a single strike.