Early morning traffic streamed down the boulevard that led south from Edo Castle through the daimyo district. Between the fortified estates, pedestrians and mounted samurai made way for troops escorting a huge palanquin that bore the Tokugawa crest. Inside the palanquin rode Reiko and Lady Keisho-in, seated opposite each other, bound for the Black Lotus Temple. The weather was cool and misty, and the women shared a quilt spread over their laps and legs.

“You look as if you’re thinking about something unpleasant,” Lady Keisho-in said. Her plump body and heavy jowls bounced with the palanquin’s movement. “What’s wrong?”

Reiko had been brooding about her argument with Sano yesterday and the sleepless night she’d spent alone while he stayed in his office. She suspected that Sano hated quarreling as much as she, but both of them were too proud to compromise. Recalling how he’d left the house today without even saying good-bye to her, Reiko felt the stinging pressure of more tears.

“Everything is fine,” she said with false brightness. Aware of her responsibility to entertain the shogun’s mother, she pointed out the window. “Look! Such pretty furniture in that shop!”

“Beautiful!” exclaimed Lady Keisho-in.

Reiko kept up the conversation while they rode through town, but as they traveled the woodland highway approaching the Zōjō district, worry grew within her. Eventually Sano would find out that she’d disobeyed his orders. The fear of losing his love plagued Reiko. She chatted with Keisho-in, all the while thinking that unless she could find new evidence in favor of Haru or against someone else, Haru would be convicted and the Black Lotus would go free. Besides, Reiko had already embarked on the forbidden trip; going the rest of the way could do little more harm.

Beneath the quilt, Keisho-in’s leg bumped Reiko’s. “I’m sorry,” Reiko said, politely taking the blame.

She shifted position to give Keisho-in more room, but soon they bumped again. Keisho-in giggled. Reiko flinched as Keisho-in’s toe tickled her thigh.

“I know a good way to pass the time,” Keisho-in said coyly.

There was no mistaking her intention. Reiko drew her knees up to her chest in appalled, defensive haste. The old woman wanted her, just as she’d feared. What should she do?

Lady Keisho-in moved closer. Her age-spotted hand stroked Reiko’s cheek. “Ah, you’re so lovely,” she said, sighing.

Turning away from Keisho-in’s sour breath, Reiko stifled a cry of protest. “I can’t do this.” The words slipped out of her even though she knew the danger of spurning the shogun’s mother.

“Why not?” Keisho-in asked. “There’s plenty of time before we reach the temple.” Then she drew back, and her gaze sharpened as she studied Reiko. “What you mean is you don’t desire me. You think I’m old and ugly.” Hurt and anger welled in her rheumy eyes. “I can see it on your face. You led me on so I would help you, and now you reject me.” She shouted out the window to their escorts: “Stop so I can throw out this sly little whore. Then take me home.”

The procession halted. “Wait. Please,” Reiko entreated. Being stranded on the road was a minor inconvenience compared to the dire consequences facing her unless she placated Keisho-in.

“I shall tell my son that you hurt my feelings. He’ll punish your husband for your cruelty.” With a dramatic gesture, Lady Keisho-in flung open the palanquin’s door. “Now get out!”

Reiko envisioned Sano stripped of his position, livelihood, and honor-or executed. Dread filled her. “Forgive me, Honorable Lady, I didn’t mean to reject you,” she said.

Keisho-in still looked peeved, but she shut the door.

“It’s just that I’ve never been with a woman before,” Reiko said truthfully, thinking fast. “I’m too shy to do it here, where people might see or hear us. I would be too inhibited to pleasure you now.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Her humor restored, Keisho-in ordered their escorts to continue on to the temple. As the palanquin began moving, she settled back on her cushions. “We shall wait until later.”

Reiko silently thanked the gods for the reprieve and hoped that later never came.

Outside, the traffic noises increased as the procession reached the Zōjō district; shouts drifted from the marketplace. Soon the bearers set down the palanquin, opened the door to a view of the Black Lotus Temple gate, and helped the shogun’s mother out. Reiko followed. She and Keisho-in and their guards entered the temple precinct, where a group of priests came to meet them.

“Welcome, Your Highness,” said a priest at the center of the group. It was Kumashiro. He frowned at Reiko, and the lizard-shaped scar on his head purpled with an influx of blood.

“We want to see High Priest Anraku,” said Lady Keisho-in.

Reiko saw a flicker of displeasure in Kumashiro’s gaze, then the knowledge that he couldn’t refuse the shogun’s mother. He said, “Of course, Your Highness. Please come with me.”

At least her risky episode had gotten her this far, Reiko thought, resolving to make the interview worthwhile.

Kumashiro led her and Keisho-in to a garden of dense, twisted pines behind the abbot’s residence. Reiko saw a thatched roof through the boughs. As they walked along a shaded path toward it, a suave male voice spoke: “A million thanks for gracing us with your presence, Most Honorable Mother of His Excellency the Shogun. Greetings, Lady Reiko.”

Keisho-in said in surprise, “How does he know who it is without seeing us?”

“But I did see you.” Amusement inflected the voice. “My knowledge comes from inner vision, not mere eyesight.”

Probably the high priest employed spies to give him advance notice of visitors, Reiko speculated.

The cool, damp air in the forest was scented with pine resin. A pavilion composed of a raised tatami platform and a roof supported on wooden posts appeared. In the center, a man with a shaved head sat cross-legged, hands upturned on his thighs. Clad in a white robe, he seemed to glow in the misty daylight.

“Please join me,” Anraku said, nodding at two cushions that lay before him.

Keisho-in scrambled up the steps of the pavilion, left her sandals on the bare wooden floor at the edge of the tatami, and knelt upon a cushion. Following, Reiko saw Kumashiro slip away through the trees. While Anraku performed the customary social ritual of offering refreshments, Reiko studied him.

He was in his early thirties, broad-shouldered and muscular, yet slender. With his tawny golden skin, square jaw, high cheekbones, and finely sculpted nose and mouth, Anraku was a man of striking beauty. His left eye, darkly luminous, gazed upon Reiko with faint mirth, as though he perceived and enjoyed her surprise. The other eye was covered by a black cloth patch.

His good looks hadn’t escaped the notice of Keisho-in. She patted her hair, simpering. Nuns appeared, bearing trays of tea and cakes, which they silently served. Keisho-in exclaimed to Anraku, “But you didn’t even call them!”

“My followers have an extra sense that makes speech unnecessary because they anticipate my orders,” Anraku said.

He addressed Keisho-in but looked at Reiko. She supposed that Kumashiro had sent the nuns, and she was eager to prove that the Black Lotus was evil, but she couldn’t help feeling Anraku’s potent, seductive charm.

“Yesterday I had a vision that showed us here as we are now.” Anraku’s lips curved in a faint smile at Reiko. “So you wish to speak to me about Haru and the fire?”

The abbess must have told him she’d asked for an audience, Reiko supposed. “Yes, I do.”