The Cloud Pavilion Read online

  The bed where Tengu-in had lain yesterday was empty, the quilt flung off the mattress. The buzzing was louder here. Reiko glanced around the chamber. She noticed a low wooden table placed in the middle of the floor. A tall, square wicker basket lay on its side near the table as if it had tumbled off. Reiko lifted her eyes above them and saw bare, withered feet dangling.

  Her heart clenched; her breath caught as her gaze traveled upward and she discovered what had become of Tengu-in.

  The nun’s emaciated body, clad in its hemp robe, hung from the ceiling. The stout leather cord of her rosary was looped around her neck and tied to an exposed rafter. Tension had drawn the beads deep into her flesh, which was lividly bruised. Her head had fallen sideways; her face was bloated and purplish, the lips parted to reveal the swollen tongue caught between the teeth. Flies buzzed around the blood that trickled from her mouth.

  A shrill scream blared. At first Reiko thought it was her own, involuntary reaction to the horrid spectacle of death. Then she turned and saw a young novice standing in the doorway, stricken by horror. The novice’s face turned white, went blank. She swayed, then crumpled to the floor in a dead faint.

  After their meeting with the shogun, Sano and Yanagisawa walked together, beneath the roof of an open corridor that joined two wings of the palace. Marume and Fukida trailed them. Silvery rain threaded down outside. The palace grounds were a blur of gray and green in which birds chirped, figures under umbrellas moved, and distant voices called.

  “Another crisis averted,” Yanagisawa said. “Good work, Sano-san.”

  “You, too,” Sano said.

  “In case you’re wondering: I didn’t put Yoritomo up to telling the shogun about your investigation. He did it on his own. My apologies.”

  Sano saw no sign that Yanagisawa was lying. And Yoritomo had reason to do him a bad turn without anyone else’s urging. “I gladly accept your apology.” What else could Sano do until he knew Yanagisawa’s intentions? Sano wasn’t afraid to strike first, but he would rather not maneuver in the dark.

  “By the way,” Yanagisawa said, “I heard about your clever experiment at Edo Jail yesterday. I’m sorry it didn’t work.”

  “So am I.” Once again Sano was impressed with how fast Yanagisawa received news. Now he saw a chance to fish for clues about the meeting that Toda and Masahiro witnessed. “Speaking of Yoritomo, I’ve tried to make amends to him for what happened last year, but he won’t even talk to me.”

  “He’s young, and the young take things too hard. Give him time,” Yanagisawa said reasonably. “He’ll get over it.”

  “Maybe he would be willing to let bygones be bygones if he had something new to think about.” Sano hinted, “Maybe he needs a wife?”

  Yanagisawa’s calm expression didn’t change, although he paused for an instant before he said casually, “I suppose Yoritomo will marry someday.”

  The space of that instant held everything Sano wanted to know, like a jar whose contents are hidden from view by its thick ceramic walls.

  “Someday soon?” Sano prompted.

  “Not in the foreseeable future. We’re waiting for the right match.”

  Sano wondered if the young woman that Yanagisawa and Yoritomo had met yesterday had turned out not to be the right one. If so, which side had refused? Who was she? Sano could feel Yanagisawa wondering whether Sano had learned about the miai, although Yanagisawa didn’t ask.

  Another question occurred to Sano. “If Yoritomo were to marry, would the shogun mind?”

  “Not at all,” Yanagisawa said, perfectly matter-of-fact, perfectly at ease. “I’ve discussed it with His Excellency. He agrees that my son must carry on our family line, in keeping with tradition. His Excellency is fond of tradition. And as long as Yoritomo remains available to him, he has no objection to a marriage.”

  That was the custom for male lovers: Marriage for either or both didn’t disrupt their relationship.

  “When I make a match for Yoritomo, you’ll be the first to know,” Yanagisawa said. As they continued along the corridor, a group of officials approached them. Polite bows and greetings were exchanged. After the group passed, Yanagisawa said, “What’s the next step in your investigation?”

  Sano noted how skillfully and quickly Yanagisawa had changed the subject. Now he was sure that the miai was part of some plan that Yanagisawa wanted to hide. But he couldn’t press the issue without revealing that he knew about the miai because he had Yanagisawa under surveillance.

  “I’ll keep looking for the kidnapper,” Sano said.

  They parted in mutual good cheer that was false on at least one side. As Marume and Fukida joined Sano, a servant from his estate came running toward them.

  “Excuse me, Honorable Chamberlain,” the servant said. “There’s a message from Lady Reiko. She begs you to meet her at Keiaiji Convent right away. She says a nun is dead!”

  When Sano, Hirata, Marume, and Fukida rode up to the convent, they found Reiko pacing the street outside the wall in a fever of anxiety while Lieutenant Tanuma hurried back and forth beside her with an umbrella.

  “What happened?” Sano said as he and his men jumped off their horses.

  “Tengu-in hanged herself.” Reiko tried not to cry. “I found her.”

  Sano shook his head. The other men looked as appalled as he was. Had the nun been so distressed by the kidnapping and rape that she’d taken her own life? Sano was also dismayed that Reiko had been first on the scene.

  “What were you doing here?” he asked.

  “I wanted to see if she could tell me any more about the man who kidnapped her.” Reiko spoke with sorrow and regret. “Now she never can.”

  Sano, Hirata, and the detectives strode into the convent; Reiko hurried to keep up with them. Sano said, “Where is Tengu-in’s body?”

  “Right where I found it,” Reiko said. “I told her people to leave everything as it was until you came.”

  At least the death scene was intact, Sano thought.

  The abbess, the novice that Sano had spoken to on his previous visit, and some nuns hovered in the corridor. The novice sobbed in the abbess’s arms. “I only left her for a moment,” she wailed. “I never thought she would do something like this.”

  The abbess shushed her. Everyone moved aside to let Sano pass. He and his group crossed the threshold of the bedchamber and gathered around Tengu-in’s suspended corpse. Sano expelled his breath in a harsh sigh as they contemplated her limp body and her swollen, lifeless face that swarmed with flies.

  “Are we sure this was suicide?” Marume asked.

  That had been one of the questions on Sano’s mind. He surveyed the room. “It looks as if she pushed the table under the rafter, but she couldn’t reach the rafter because the table was too low.”

  Hirata continued Sano’s reconstruction of the events that had led to the death. “So she fetched the basket, put it on top of the table, and climbed on it.”

  “I would have thought she was too weak to manage that. If only I’d gotten here sooner,” Reiko said.

  “The will to die can be stronger than the will to live,” Hirata pointed out.

  “That rosary belongs to her.” Sano’s gaze took in the leather cord that suspended Tengu-in from the ceiling, the brown jade beads now embedded in flesh, a holy object now profaned. “I saw her praying with it when I was here the first time.” He pictured the frail old woman struggling to tie the rosary to the rafter and around her neck.

  Hirata continued, “She kicked away the basket, and . . .”

  He didn’t need to finish the sentence. Everyone could imagine the basket tumbling to the floor, the rafter creaking under the sudden weight, the crack of Tengu-in’s neck snapping, her body swinging.

  Sano looked around the room, at the bed. “I don’t see any signs of violence.”

  “I asked the abbess, the novice, and the nuns if they’d seen anyone inside the convent who didn’t belong here,” Reiko said. “They said no. And I don’t think they did this
.”

  “Then it was suicide,” Sano concluded.

  He’d considered the possibility that Tengu-in had been killed by the man who’d kidnapped her. That would have prevented her from ever revealing clues to his identity. Now Sano was as disturbed about her death as he would have been had it not been suicide. The suffering that the rapist had caused Tengu-in had led to her death.

  “This isn’t just a matter of kidnapping and rape anymore,” Sano said grimly. “This is murder.”

  Hirata, Reiko, and the detectives nodded solemnly. Everyone knew that the investigation had just taken on more urgent importance. Sano thought of Chiyo and Fumiko, still suffering the consequences from the crimes. Would they choose suicide, too?

  He gave the nun one last look, then said to Marume and Fukida, “Take her down.”

  Marume stepped up on the table. He gingerly supported Tengu-in’s body while Fukida drew his sword and sliced through the rosary. Beads fell from the cut cord, pattered and rolled on the floor. Marume eased the nun down and laid her on the bed. Reiko pulled the quilt over her, and covered her face.

  The abbess entered the room. “May we prepare her for her funeral?”

  Her face was so drawn by grief that Sano hated to deny her request. “Not just yet,” he said. “I’m sending her to Edo Morgue.”

  “Edo Morgue?” Surprise lifted the abbess’s eyebrows to her shaved hairline. “But surely there’s no need.” Her voice expressed distaste for the morgue and offense that Sano would send a woman of Tengu-in’s rank to a place mainly associated with dead commoners.

  “She was a victim of a crime. Therefore, it’s the law,” Sano said. “Formalities must be observed.”

  He couldn’t tell the abbess the real reason he wanted the nun’s body sent to Edo Morgue. And she couldn’t refuse. Her mouth tightened with displeasure, but she nodded. “When the formalities are done, will you send her home so that we can lay her properly to rest?”

  “Yes,” Sano said, although he might have to break his word.

  Hired porters carried the nun’s corpse on a litter to the morgue, which was located inside Edo Jail. Sano went there by a circuitous, less public route.

  After sending Reiko home, he rode to her father’s house in the official district near Edo Castle. Inside, he changed his silk garments for the plain cotton clothing he kept there for occasions when he wanted to travel incognito. Then he rode through the city on an oxcart with three convicted criminals. Escorted by troops who belonged to his father-in-law the magistrate, he climbed off the cart inside the gates of Edo Jail.

  The troops led Sano past the dungeon to the morgue, a low building with a roof made of sparse, decomposing thatch. The damp weather had given the morgue a new film of green mold since Sano had last seen it, a touch of life in this squalid place.

  Sano’s arrival coincided with that of the porters bearing Tengu-in’s body on the litter. Dr. Ito, custodian of the morgue, stepped out of the building. He was in his eighties, a tall man with thick white hair, his eyes shrewd above the high cheekbones of his narrow, ascetic face. He wore the traditional dark blue coat of his profession. The porters carried the litter into the building, then departed. The troops left to wait outside the jail until Sano was ready to be taken back to the magistrate’s estate. As Dr. Ito recognized Sano, his bushy white eyebrows lifted in surprise.

  “Greetings, Sano-san. I never expected to see you again.”

  It had been more than a year since they’d last met. Dr. Ito was a criminal, a former physician to the imperial family who’d been convicted of practicing foreign science he’d learned from Dutch traders. Exile was the usual punishment, but Dr. Ito had instead received a lifetime sentence as Edo Morgue’s custodian. Here, he could conduct his studies and experiments on a never-ending supply of bodies. Sometimes he and Sano worked together. But Sano couldn’t afford to let his friendship with Dr. Ito become known to more than a few trusted people. Associating with a criminal and collaborating in forbidden foreign science could land him in deep trouble.

  “I need help with another investigation,” Sano said, indicating the shrouded corpse on the litter.

  “I’m glad to be of service,” Dr. Ito said, “but how did you get here this time?”

  Sano always took pains to conceal his identity and his clandestine visits to the morgue. As he explained, Dr. Ito shook his head in wonder; his face crinkled with amusement.

  “Your ingenuity is beyond compare,” Dr. Ito said. “Were you hit by any rocks?”

  The public enjoyed stoning criminals on their way to jail. “A few,” Sano admitted. “Luckily, they were small.”

  “I suppose that these times call for extreme measures.”

  Since Yanagisawa had returned to court, Sano had been especially careful not to do anything that could be construed as improper. Perhaps Yanagisawa was biding his time until he caught Sano in a misstep.

  “Yanagisawa’s spies will be wondering where I’ve gone and looking for me,” Sano said. “We’d better get started.”

  “Right away.”

  Dr. Ito ushered Sano into the morgue. Its windows were open to admit fresh air, but the room smelled of decayed meat and blood. Sano greeted Dr. Ito’s assistant, who was cleaning the stone trough used for washing corpses. Mura, a gray-haired man in his fifties, had a square face notable for its intelligence. He was an eta, a member of the hereditary class that was linked with death-related occupations such as butchering and leather tanning. Considered physically and spiritually contaminated, the eta were shunned by other citizens. But Mura and Dr. Ito had become friends across class lines. Mura did all the manual work associated with Dr. Ito’s examinations. A man of few words, he stationed himself beside the body that lay under its gray shroud on one of the waist-high tables.

  “Uncover the deceased,” Dr. Ito said.

  Mura drew back the cloth, revealing Tengu-in To Sano she looked shrunken, an effigy of herself, no longer human.

  “A nun?” Dr. Ito asked, clued by the hemp robe she wore.

  “From Keiaiji Convent,” Sano said, then explained about the three kidnappings.

  Dr. Ito moved closer to her, bent over her neck, and studied the reddish-purple ligature mark. “She appears to have been hanged.” He peered at the round indentations along the mark. “With a rosary, I deduce. There are no fingerprints on her neck, and no wounds on her hands as there would be if she fought an attacker. I would say this was a suicide.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Sano said.

  “But if it was, and if you know how she died, then why risk an examination?”

  “Because I wasn’t able to get any information from her about the man who kidnapped her, and neither was my wife. She was so distraught that she couldn’t tell us. I’m hoping her body can.”

  “It’s unlikely after all this time has passed since the kidnapping, but we shall see.”

  “Don’t cut her unless it’s absolutely necessary,” Sano said. When he returned her body to the convent, he didn’t want to face awkward questions about what had happened to it at Edo Morgue.

  “We shall hope that a visual examination will suffice,” Dr. Ito said. “Mura-san, remove her clothes.”

  Mura fetched a knife, carefully slit the nun’s robe down the front, and peeled back the fabric. Naked, Tengu-in was a skeleton clothed in translucent white skin that the sun had never touched. Sano could see her rib cage, her joints, the blue tracery of her veins. Her breasts were small, flat, empty sacks, her stomach concave, her sex a cleft screened by gray pubic hair.

  But he saw no trace of any foreign material on her, not even when Mura turned the body. Dr. Ito said, “Whatever the kidnapper might have left on her, it’s gone.”

  Sano endured his inevitable disappointment. He offered a silent apology to Tengu-in, for subjecting her to further indignity, for nothing.

  Mura positioned the body on its back. As Dr. Ito reinspected it, his gaze suddenly sharpened. “Wait. There may be something after all.”

&
nbsp; Hope rose anew in Sano. “What do you see?”

  “Mura-san, open her legs,” Dr. Ito said.

  Mura obeyed, with difficulty: The body had begun to stiffen. Dr. Ito pointed between her legs, at ugly red sores on the withered lips of her sex. The white, raised centers of the sores were still moist with pus.

  Sano stepped backward, revolted. “What is that?”

  “A disease,” Dr. Ito replied. “It’s spread by sexual relations and common among prostitutes. But it’s not often seen in nuns.”

  Nuns were supposed to be celibate, and by all accounts, Tengu-in had been a virtuous woman. “Then how—” Enlightenment struck. “She caught it from the rapist. He must have it, too.”

  “That is a logical explanation,” Dr. Ito said. “It seems the examination was worthwhile after all. You’ve learned one fact about the man that you didn’t know before.”

  “Yes. That’s good.” But Sano quickly realized what else the discovery meant. “He could have given the disease to his other victims.”

  “If it was the same man in all three cases,” Dr. Ito said.

  Sano thought of Chiyo, and Fumiko. Would they develop the disease? He found himself hoping that there were three different rapists, even though it would make his job harder.

  “Is the disease curable?” he asked.

  “Sometimes, with proper medicine.” Then Dr. Ito added reluctantly, “Sometimes not.”

  When Sano returned to Edo Castle, one of the guards at the gate said, “Honorable Chamberlain, there’s a message from Ssakan Hirata. He has important news, and he asks that you please call on him at his estate.”

  Hoping that this news was better than what he’d heard so far today, Sano went to the official quarter inside the castle. There, the shogun’s chief retainers and highest officials lived in mansions surrounded by barracks with whitewashed walls decorated with geometrically patterned black tiles. Sano dismounted from his horse outside the estate that had once been his own, before he’d been promoted to chamberlain and given Hirata his old position. Hirata’s sentries let Sano inside the familiar courtyard, through the inner gate. Sano had visited Hirata often enough that he usually felt little nostalgia upon seeing his former home. Today the mansion seemed smaller, like a shell he’d outgrown.