That question stumped them into silence.
"Well, well," Marume said, "our new friends don't seem to have a good excuse."
Reiko rode in her palanquin, accompanied by Lieutenant Tanuma and her other guards, along the misty streets of the city. Peasants on their way to work avoided soldiers on patrol. Peddlers selling water, tea, baskets, and other merchandise hawked their wares. Neighborhood gates slowed the crush of traffic. Shopkeepers arranged their goods on the roadside to catch customers' eyes. At the approach to Zj district, pilgrims streamed toward the temple, while priests, monks, and nuns headed out to the city to beg. Reiko found the marketplace already crowded, with the children out in full force.
They'd emerged from the alleys where they slept at night. Ravenous, they begged at the food-stalls. Reiko was sad for the ragged, dirty boys and girls. She wished she could adopt them all. In fact, she had once adopted an orphan, the son of a woman who'd been murdered, but it hadn't been entirely successful. The boy's nature had been so affected by painful experiences that he'd not warmed to Reiko, despite her attempts to give him a good home. He shunned people, preferring to work in the stables with the horses. He would be an excellent groom someday, able to earn his living, if not overcome his past. Now Reiko watched for a twelve-year-old girl in a green and white kimono. Maybe today she could help another child in trouble.
Dogs barked. Reiko put her head out the window and saw, up the road, a pack of big, mangy black and brown hounds. They growled and lunged at something in their midst.
Feral dogs were plentiful in Edo. They came from the daimyo estates, where in the past they'd been bred for hunting. But the shogun, a devout Buddhist, had enacted laws that protected animals, forbade hunting, and prohibited killing or hurting dogs. He'd been born in the Year of the Dog, and he believed that if he protected dogs, the gods would grant him an heir. The result was that dogs proliferated unchecked. The daimyo still kept them as watchdogs, and when too many litters were born, they couldn't drown the puppies because the penalty for killing a dog was death. Samurai could no longer use dogs to test a sword. Unwanted dogs were simply turned out to fend for themselves. They roved in packs, foraging and competing for food. They befouled the city and posed a danger to all, and too often their victims were the helpless children.
Among the dogs now gathered in the marketplace, Reiko spied a flash of green, from a kimono worn by a girl who'd fallen on the ground. She cringed as the dogs snapped at her.
"Stop!" Reiko cried to her bearers. The moment they set down her palanquin, she was out the door. She called, "Lieutenant Tanuma! Save that girl!"
He and two other guards jumped off their horses. Shouting and waving their swords, they chased the dogs away. People nearby paid scant notice; the public had learned not to get involved in dog attacks. Nobody wanted to hurt a dog and be arrested and executed. Reiko hurried over to the girl, who scrambled to her feet. Near her lay a half-eaten fish that she and the dogs had been fighting over.
"Fumiko-san, are you all right?" Reiko said.
The girl started at the sound of her name. The fright on her dirty face turned to scowling distrust. "Who are you?"
"My name is Reiko. I'm the wife of Chamberlain Sano." Reiko extended her hand. "I want to help you."
Fumiko recoiled. "Don't touch me!" Her voice was gruff, boyish. "Leave me alone!" She turned to run.
"Don't let her get away," Reiko ordered her guards.
Lieutenant Tanuma put out his hand to grab the girl; the other men surrounded her. Reiko warned, "Look out-she's got a knife!" just as Fumiko slashed it at Tanuma. He jerked his hand back. Fumiko cowered within the circle formed by the guards and Reiko, as terrified of them as she'd been of the dogs.
"Shall I take the knife away from her?" Tanuma asked.
"No. Wait." Reiko ran to the palanquin and fetched the lunchbox. She opened the lid and showed the contents to Fumiko. "I brought this for you," she said. "Do you want it?"
Her eyes glazed with hunger, Fumiko breathed through her open mouth as she stared at the food.
"Put your knife away and come sit with me inside my palanquin," Reiko said, "and I'll give it all to you."
Fumiko hesitated. Reiko read in her gaze the fear of what might happen if she put herself in the hands of a stranger. "What do you want?" she asked.
"Just to talk," Reiko said.
18
Fumiko tucked her knife under her sash, climbed into the palanquin with Reiko, and fell upon the food. She crammed fish, rice, dumplings, noodles, and cakes into her mouth. She gulped and slurped, hardly bothering to chew. It was like watching a wild animal feed.
In the close confines of the palanquin, Reiko could smell Fumiko's stench of urine and unwashed hair and body. Fumiko ate and ate until the lunchbox was empty. She washed the food down with water from the jar Reiko had brought. Then she lunged for the door.
Reiko held it closed. "We'll talk first."
"Let me out, or I'll kill you." Fumiko reached for the knife.
Reiko grabbed Fumiko's wrist. It was skin and bone, thin and fragile.
"Let me go!" Fumiko cried.
As she struggled to pull free, their gazes met, and something unspoken passed between them. Maybe it was a sudden realization that they were both women in unusual circumstances-Fumiko the gangster's daughter who'd become a wild, starving street child; Reiko the samurai lady who'd ventured outside her own society to befriend an outcast. Maybe they had more in common than both of them recognized. Fumiko stopped fighting. When Reiko let go of her wrist, she scowled, but she stayed.
"Talk about what?" Fumiko said.
"Your kidnapping," Reiko said.
Now Fumiko looked surprised. "How do you know about that?"
"A friend of mine heard it from the police."
"The police?" Fumiko glanced out the window in sudden fright, as if she suspected a trap. "We don't want them in our business."
"We" meant her father's gangster clan, Reiko supposed. Not all the police were in cahoots with Jirocho, and he undoubtedly steered clear of those who tried to enforce the law.
"Don't worry, I didn't bring the police," Reiko said. "They only knew about the kidnapping because your father reported it to them."
"My father?" Hope appeared on Fumiko's face, breaking through her distrust like the sun through clouds. "Did he send you?" She sounded puzzled but eager.
Reiko realized that Fumiko thought Jirocho had sent the chamberlain's wife to rescue her, as improbable as that would be. Hating to disappoint the girl, she said, "No, I'm sorry," and watched Fumiko's expression turn woeful. "My husband sent me. He and I want to catch the person who kidnapped you."
Fumiko frowned, her suspicion renewed. "Why?"
"Because he hurt you," Reiko said. She didn't mention Sano's cousin and the nun who'd also been kidnapped; she didn't want Fumiko to think she cared only about them. She felt an affection for this savage little girl. "He should be punished."
"If I ever see him again, I'll kill him myself," Fumiko said. "That's the way we do things. We don't wait for other people to get revenge for us."
Reiko began to wonder what kind of life Fumiko had led within the gangster clan. Maybe she'd been wild and violent even before she'd been disowned. "Still, I want to help you," Reiko said. "Tell me about the man who kidnapped you. What did he look like?"
Confusion shadowed Fumiko's face. She pressed her lips together.
"You don't remember, do you?" Reiko said gently. When Fumiko remained silent, Reiko said, "Tell me what happened."
Fumiko bowed her head and mumbled through the tangled hair that fell over her face: "I was at Shinobazu Pond, feeding the fish. After that, it's all mixed up in my head. There was a little monkey…"
Confused, Reiko said, "A monkey? Where?"
"A man had it on a leash. He said that if I came with him, he would let me play with it."
"Who was he?"
"I don't remember." Fumiko sighed.