Black Lotus Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Prologue

  Edo

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

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  27

  28

  29

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  31

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  37

  St. Martin’s Paperback Titles by LAURAH JOE ROWLAND

  OUTSTANDING PRAISE FOR LAURA JOH ROWLAND AND HER NOVELS

  THE PILLON OF LADY NISTERIA

  Copyright Page

  Prologue

  The day of tragedy dawned with an iridescent sheen in the eastern sky. As the heavens gradually lightened from indigo to slate blue, stars disappeared; the moon’s crescent faded. The dim outlines of forested hills framed Zj Temple, administrative seat of the Buddhist Pure Land sect in Shiba, south of Edo Castle. Across a vast tract of land spread the domain of ten thousand priests, nuns, and novices who occupied the more than one hundred buildings of Zj proper and the forty-eight smaller subsidiary temples clustered around it. Above countless tiled and thatched roofs soared the tiered spires of pagodas and the open framework structures of firewatch towers. The Zj temple district was a city within a city, deserted and silent in the waning darkness.

  On the platform of a firewatch tower stood a lone figure in the unpopulated landscape: a young priest with a shaven head, a round, innocent face, and keen-sighted eyes. His saffron robe billowed in the cool early autumn wind that carried the scent of fallen leaves and night soil. His high perch afforded him a splendid view of the narrow lanes, walled compounds, and courtyards that comprised the district.

  “Namu Amida Butsu,” the priest repeated over and over again. “Praise to the Buddha.”

  The chant would ensure his entry into paradise after his death, but also served the practical purpose of keeping him alert during a long night of guarding the religious community against Edo’s most dangerous hazard: fire. The priest’s stomach rumbled with hunger; still chanting, he stretched his cold, stiff muscles and longed for food, a hot bath, and a warm bed. Looking forward to the end of his vigil, he turned slowly on the platform.

  Around him revolved the panorama of morning. As the sky brightened to luminous pearl, colors appeared in the landscape: green foliage and multihued flower beds in gardens; scarlet woodwork on buildings; white monuments in cemeteries; the hazy violet mirrors of ponds. The first tentative waking trills of birds rose to a chorus of songs. Sparrows darted over the peaked and gabled roofs; pigeons cooed and fluttered in the eaves; crows winged in the blue distance above the hills, against rosy wisps of cloud. It would be a clear, warm day. Another night had passed safely. Yet even as the thought soothed the priest’s mind, his sharp gaze sighted an aberration in the tranquil scene.

  A small, dark cloud hovered low over the western sector of the district. While the priest watched, it thickened and spread with disturbing speed. Now he smelled the bitter tang of smoke. Frantically, he pulled the rope that dangled from inside the roof of his tower. The brass alarm bell clanged, echoing across the district.

  Fire!

  The insistent ringing of a bell jarred her from deep, black unconsciousness into dazed stupor. She lay facedown on the ground, with damp, fragrant grass pressed against her nose and cheek. Where was she? Panic shot through her, followed by the certainty that something was terribly wrong. Pushing herself up on her elbows, she groaned. Her head throbbed with pain; soreness burned on her buttocks and calves, between her thighs, around her neck. Aches permeated her muscles. The world spun in a dizzying blur. Thick, acrid air filled her lungs. Coughing, she fell back on the ground and lay still until the dizziness passed. Then she rolled over, looking around in bewilderment as her surroundings came into focus.

  Tall pine trees pierced the dim blue sky above her. Smoke veiled stone lanterns and orange lilies in the garden where she lay. She smelled smoke and heard the crackle of fire. Moaning, she sat upright. Nausea assailed her; the pain in her head intensified, and she covered her ears to muffle the loud clangs of the bell. Then she saw the house, some twenty paces distant, beyond red maples circling a pond.

  It was a rustic, one-story cottage built of plaster and weathered cypress, with bamboo lattice over the windows and deep eaves shading the veranda. Fire licked the foundations and crept up the walls, curling and blackening the paper windowpanes. The thatched roof ignited in an explosion of sparks and flame. Instinctively she opened her mouth to call for help. Then the first hint of returning memory stifled her voice to a whimper of dread. Through her mind flashed disjointed impressions: a harsh voice; the taste of tears; a lantern glowing in a dark room; loud thumps and crashes; a violent thrashing of naked limbs; her own running feet and fumbling hands. But how had she arrived here?

  Baffled, she examined herself for clues. Her brown muslin kimono was wrinkled and her long black hair tangled; her bare feet were dirty, her fingernails torn and grimy. She struggled to piece the fragmented recollections into a comprehensible whole, but terror obliterated the images. The burning house radiated menace. A sob rose from her aching throat.

  She knew what had happened, yet she did not know.

  As the firebell pealed its urgent call, an army of priests clad in leather capes and helmets, carrying buckets, ladders, and axes, raced through the crooked lanes of the Zj temple district. A burgeoning cloud of black smoke rose from one of the subsidiary temples enclosed in separate walled compounds. The fire brigade stormed through the gate, whose portals bore the circular symbol of a black lotus flower with pointed petals and gold stamens. Inside, priests and novice monks stampeded the lanes between the temple’s many buildings, up the broad central flagstone path leading to the main hall, toward the rear of the compound and the source of the smoke. Children from the orphanage followed in a chattering, excited flock. Nuns in hemp robes chased after the orphans, trying in vain to herd them away from danger.

  “Let us through!” ordered the fire brigade commander, a muscular priest with stern features.

  He led his troops through the chaos, around the main hall and past smaller buildings, into a wooded area. Beyond a cemetery of stone grave markers, he saw flames through the trees. The priests of the Black Lotus Temple had formed a line from a cylindrical stone well, along a gravel path, and across a garden to the burning house. They passed buckets down the line and hurled water at the fire, which had climbed the timbers and engulfed the walls. The fire brigade quickly positioned ladders to convey water to the blazing roof.

  “Is anyone in the building?” shouted the commander.

  Either no one knew or no one heard him over the fire’s roar and the din of voices. Accompanied by two men, he ran up the steps to the veranda and opened the door. Smoke poured out. Coughing, he and his companions fastened the face protectors of their helmets over their noses and mouths. They groped through the smoke, down a short corridor, through fierce heat. The house contained two rooms, divided by burning lattice and paper partitions. Flaming thatch dropped through the rafters. The commander rushed through the open door of the nearest room. Dense, suffocating smoke filled the small space. Amid the indistinct shapes of furniture, a human figure lay on the floor.

  “Carry it out!” the commander ordered.

  While his men complied, he sped t
o the second room. There, the fire raged up the walls and across the tatami mats. The heat seared the commander’s face; his eyes stung. From the threshold he spied two figures lying together in the corner, one much smaller than the other. Burning clothing enveloped them. Shouting for assistance, the commander waded through the fire and beat his thick leather sleeves against the bodies to extinguish the flames. His men came and helped him carry the two inert burdens out of the house, just before the roof collapsed with a great crash.

  Away from the other priests still fighting the blaze, they laid the bodies on the ground beside the one previously carried out. Choking and coughing, the commander gratefully inhaled the cool, fresh air. He wiped his streaming eyes and knelt beside the victims. They lay motionless, and had probably been dead before he’d entered the house. The first was a large, naked samurai with a paunchy stomach; knotted gray hair looped over his shaved crown. There were no burns on him. But the other two …

  The commander winced at the sight of their blistered, blackened faces. Breasts protruded through the shreds of charred cloth clinging to the larger corpse: It was a woman. The last victim was a very young child. With its hair burned away and the remains of a blanket swaddling its body, the commander couldn’t discern its sex or exact age.

  Priests and nuns gathered near the sad tableau. Shocked cries arose from them, then the click of rosary beads as they began chanting prayers. Someone passed the commander three white funeral shrouds. He murmured a blessing for the spirits of the deceased, then tenderly covered the bodies.

  Lying huddled behind a boulder, she watched the priests continue throwing water on the house while the fire brigade hacked apart the burning shell with axes. The flames and smoke had diminished; ruined walls and timbers steamed; the odor of charred wood filled the air. Soon the fire would be out. But she felt neither relief nor any desire to call out to the firemen, who were walking around the site, examining the wreckage with worried expressions. In her confusion and terror, she felt an overwhelming urge to flee.

  She raised herself on her elbows and knees. Her throbbing head spun. Nausea convulsed her stomach; she retched, but nothing came up. Moaning, she crawled. Her body felt enormously heavy and cumbersome as she dragged herself across the ground. Gasps heaved her lungs. She mustn’t let anyone find her here. She had to get away. Gritting her teeth against the pain and sickness, she inched across coarse white gravel and damp lawn, toward shadowy woods and the temple’s back gate.

  Then she heard purposeful footsteps approaching from behind her. Strong hands lifted her up, turned her around. She found herself looking at a fireman in leather robe and helmet. His stern face was daubed with soot; his eyes were red.

  “What are you doing here, little girl?” he demanded.

  His accusing glare sent tremors of fear through her. Whimpering, she writhed and kicked in a feeble attempt to escape, but he held her tight. She tried to speak, but panic choked her voice; her heart pounded. Dizziness overcame her. The world grew dim and hazy. As she descended into unconsciousness, her captor’s face blurred.

  She wished she had a good answer to his question.

  Edo

  Genroku Period,

  Year 6, Month 8

  (Tokyo, September 1693)

  1

  I have come into this impure and evil world

  To preach the ultimate truth.

  Hear, and you shall be released from suffering

  And attain perfect enlightenment.

  —FROM THE BLACK LOTUS SUTRA

  “There was lamp oil spilled along the path to the cottage and on the ground around it.” In the private audience chamber of Edo Castle, Sano Ichir addressed Shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, Japan’s supreme military dictator. “The fire brigade found a ceramic jar containing a small quantity of oil hidden in some bushes nearby. And a search of the garden turned up what appeared to be a torch: a stump of pinewood with a charred rag wrapped around the end. I’ve examined the scene and the evidence. The fire was definitely the result of arson.”

  “Ahh, this is most serious.” A frown crossed the shogun’s mild, aristocratic features. Dressed in an embroidered bronze satin kimono and the cylindrical black cap of his rank, he stirred uncomfortably upon the dais, where he sat with his back to a mural of blue rivers and silver clouds, facing Sano, who knelt on the tatami floor below. Attendants rearranged the silk cushions around the shogun, filled his silver tobacco pipe, and poured more sake into the cup on the low table beside him, but he waved them away and turned toward the open window, contemplating the crimson sunset descending upon the garden. From the distance came the neigh of horses, the footsteps of patrolling guards, the muted bustle of servants. “I did hope that the, ahh, suspicions of the fire brigade would prove unfounded,” the shogun continued morosely, “and that the fire was just an accident. But alas, you have confirmed my, ahh, worst fears.”

  That morning, a messenger had brought word of the fire at the temple of the Black Lotus sect, along with a report from the fire brigade commander, which stated that the blaze had been set deliberately. Zj was the Tokugawa family temple, where the clan worshipped and its ancestors lay entombed, and any crime against the main temple or its subsidiaries constituted an attack against the shogun. In addition, Tsunayoshi was a devout Buddhist, a generous patron of religion, and took a strong personal interest in the Zj community. Therefore, he’d assigned Sano to investigate the fire. Sano had begun inquiries at the Black Lotus Temple and had just returned.

  Now the shogun said, “I suppose you have also confirmed the, ahh, identity of the man who died in the fire?”

  “I regret to say that I have,” Sano said. “It was indeed Oyama Jushin, chief police commander. When I viewed the body, I recognized him immediately.”

  Prior to becoming the shogun’s ssakan-sama—Most Honorable Investigator of Events, Situations, and People—Sano had served on Edo’s police force as a yoriki, a senior police commander. He and Oyama had been colleagues, although Sano hadn’t particularly liked Oyama. As a hereditary Tokugawa vassal whose family had served the shogun’s clan for generations, Oyama had scorned Sano, who was the son of a rnin, a masterless samurai. Oyama had been promoted to his present higher rank last winter. From priests at the Black Lotus Temple, Sano had learned that Oyama had recently joined the sect. Now the death of an important official transformed the arson into a politically sensitive murder case and grave offense against the bakufu, Japan’s military dictatorship. Fate had brought Sano the responsibility of catching the killer.

  “The other two victims haven’t been identified yet,” Sano said. “One was a woman and the other a small child, but they were badly burned, and at the moment, it seems that no one knows who they are. Membership in the sect has grown rapidly; there are presently four hundred twenty holy men and women living on the premises, with more arriving every day, plus ninety servants and thirty-two orphans. Nobody seems to be missing, but I got the impression that the sect has difficulty keeping its records up to date. And because of the crowds that frequent the temple, they can’t efficiently monitor who’s in the compound at any given time.”

  This situation sometimes occurred as a sect grew in popularity among people in search of spiritual guidance or a new diversion. The many new followers of the Black Lotus Temple could worship or even live together while remaining virtual strangers. Two particular individuals might have easily gone unnoticed by the sect leaders.

  “Ahh, there are so many Buddhist orders nowadays that it is difficult to keep them all straight,” the shogun said with a sigh. “What distinguishes the Black Lotus from the rest?”

  Sano had familiarized himself with the sect while at the temple. He said, “Its central doctrine is the Black Lotus Sutra.” A sutra was a Buddhist scripture, written in prose and verse, parables and lectures, containing the teachings of the Sakyamuni, the historical Buddha who had lived in India approximately a thousand years before. There were some eighty-four thousand sutras, each of which elucidated different asp
ects of his wisdom. Various orders structured their practices around various texts. “The sect members believe that the Black Lotus Sutra represents the final, definitive teaching of the Buddha, and contains the essential, perfect, ultimate law of human existence and cosmic totality. They also believe that worshippers who absorb the truth contained in the sutra will attain nirvana.”

  Nirvana was a state of pure peace and spiritual enlightenment, the goal of Buddhists. The state could not be articulated, only experienced.

  This explanation seemed to satisfy Tsunayoshi. “Will you keep trying to identify the dead woman and child?” he ventured timidly. A dictator with little talent for leadership and less self-confidence, he hesitated to make suggestions that he feared might sound stupid.

  “I certainly will,” Sano reassured his lord. Who the unknown victims had been might prove critical to the investigation. For reasons involving Tokugawa law, Sano forbore to mention that he’d sent all three bodies to Edo Morgue for examination by his friend and adviser Dr. Ito.

  “This is a sorry state of affairs,” lamented the shogun, fumbling with his pipe. A manservant lit it for him and placed the stem between his lips. “Ahh, I wish the Honorable Chamberlain Yanagisawa were here to offer his opinion!”

  Yanagisawa, the shogun’s second-in-command, had gone to Echigo Province on a tour of inspection with his lover and chief retainer, Hoshina; they wouldn’t be back for two months. Although Sano couldn’t share Tsunayoshi’s wish, neither did he welcome the chamberlain’s absence with the joy he might have once felt.

  From Sano’s early days at Edo Castle, Yanagisawa had viewed him as a rival for the shogun’s favor, for power over the weak lord and thus the entire nation. He’d repeatedly tried to sabotage Sano’s investigations, destroy his reputation, and assassinate him. But two years ago, a case involving the mysterious death of a court noble in the ancient imperial capital had fostered an unexpected comradeship between Sano and Yanagisawa. Since then, they’d coexisted in a truce. Sano didn’t expect this harmony to continue forever, but he meant to enjoy it while it lasted. Today his life seemed replete with wonderful blessings and challenges: He had a family that he loved, the favor of the shogun, and an interesting new case.