The Masuda Affair (A Sugawara Akitada Novel)

by I. J. Parker

  ‘Masuda came like a thief and took her from me. Who would allow such a thing?’

  Against his better intentions, Akitada asked, ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Clever Ishikawa found her in Otsu. She would not come back.’

  ‘She died a pauper.’

  Sadanori sobbed. ‘I loved her. I will always love her.’

  ‘Did you tell Ishikawa to kill them both?’

  Silence. Then softly, ‘No, oh no. I thought …’ Sadanori’s voice faded.

  ‘He sent his mother to poison Masuda. And he killed the doctor and Peony’s maid because they knew about it. On your instructions.’ Akitada gasped for air.

  Sadanori said something very faintly, but Akitada was coughing and did not hear. ‘Are you all right?’ Akitada asked when he could speak again, surprising himself.

  ‘I’m dying. May Amida help me.’

  Perhaps he was dying, perhaps not. Akitada felt callous about the spoiled Fujiwara lord’s fate. ‘If you had told your people where you were going,’ he said with a certain satisfaction, ‘they would be here by now.’

  Sadanori did not speak again for a long time, but the periodic sound of sobbing and whimpering meant that he was still alive. Akitada used his free hand to scratch away at the dirt again. It seemed hopeless; he could no longer get his fingers under his body except just below his chin. Mercifully, there were no more shocks, and after a lot of scratching and scraping, he breathed easier. Encouraged, he worked harder.

  Sadanori said suddenly, ‘I would never have allowed Ishikawa to kill Peony. He did not kill her. Masuda deserved to die. But not the others. I did not want that.’

  Akitada managed to ease his left shoulder away from whatever had rested on it. His left arm was still caught, but hurt less. He ignored Sadanori and concentrated on freeing himself. After more grubbing under his body, the fingers of his right hand were bleeding. Never mind. He had certainly suffered worse in his lifetime, and Tamako was worth every effort.

  Sadanori was still talking to himself. Something about stars. Perhaps he was reciting poetry. Or hallucinating. For that matter, there were some chinks and slivers of light in the murky darkness. Akitada bit down on his lip and gave his left arm a sharp jerk. Something shifted and his clothing tore and then he was blessedly free. Or rather, his upper body was free.

  ‘Sugawara?’

  ‘Hmm?’ Akitada flexed his left arm and hand. They hurt too much to be useful. With a sigh he began scratching at the dirt with his bleeding right hand again.

  ‘What will happen to me?’

  ‘I thought you said you were dying.’

  ‘You would like that, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Well –’ Akitada decided to take another chance and used all his strength to force his hips against the weight that rested on the small of his back – ‘you took a life.’ Something gave, and he held his breath in fear that he would be crushed. But all was well. He could twist his body now. It hurt like the devil, but he managed to pull up one leg, and then the other. Sadanori said something else, and Akitada snapped, ‘Be quiet, I’m trying to get out of here.’

  ‘Someone will come and get us.’

  ‘If you’re going to live, you’ll have to stand trial.’

  Sadanori clicked his tongue. ‘If you believe that, you’re a bigger fool than I thought. It’s you who’ll stand trial, and I’ll watch you. Exile is very unpleasant, I hear.’

  Akitada was familiar with exile. It was the most common form of severe punishment bestowed on government officials who embarrassed their superiors and was rarely preferable to execution. His own legendary ancestor, Michizane, had died miserably in Kyushu.

  He pushed himself forwards a few feet. Feeling around, he moved aside some smaller pieces of lumber, then crept around an obstruction and saw daylight ahead of him. It was like a gift from the gods, though he would have to find a way under or around a pile of broken boards and crazily tilting beams. There was no sign of help, but he felt reasonably sure now that he could eventually extricate himself.

  ‘I take it you’ve decided you’ll live,’ he said dryly. ‘In that case, perhaps you would not mind answering a few questions while we wait for rescue?’

  There was a brief silence, then Sadanori said, ‘Since we are alone, it cannot signify.’

  ‘Peony gave birth to a child in Otsu. Is he your son?’

  ‘No. They told me she drowned the boy along with herself.’ Sadanori’s voice broke. There was a long silence marked by faint sniffs.

  Akitada managed to crawl over a pile of splintered wood after slipping off his good silk robe and abandoning it. Peony’s fate still nagged at him. Had she really drowned herself? Her message to her maid could only have meant that she expected money and was no longer desperate. He called back to Sadanori, ‘Could Ishikawa have killed Peony without your knowledge?’

  The tearful noises ceased, and Sadanori said faintly, ‘No, he was here with me when it happened. Never, never did I think she would take her own life.’

  Akitada registered the answer, but he had a new worry. He smelled smoke. Resting for a moment, he sniffed. Yes, and it was getting much stronger. All those reed screens and dry grass mats, all of Sadanori’s paper scrolls and silk paintings would go up in a roar of flames any moment. Something had caught fire, and he had no time to lose on idle conversation.

  The main obstruction between himself and the outside was one heavy beam that rested on smaller debris. He could neither squeeze through nor move things out of his way. There was a small space under it at one point, and he crawled in and heaved upward. But the beam was too heavy or lodged too firmly. Still, he tried again, and again. He heard a creaking and felt a slight movement. Using every ounce of his strength, he heaved again. Splinters cut into his back, and he could feel blood running down his sides, but the beam shifted and rolled a little. Something else shifted also and fell with a dull rumble somewhere behind him. Sadanori squealed briefly. Akitada paused to listen, but his ears now detected the crackling of flames, and he choked on smoke. Coughing, he frantically moved broken tiles and other debris. He thought he could already feel the heat searing his back.

  When he found an opening that was just wide enough, Akitada squeezed through, shedding his under robe in the process. He emerged outside half-naked, dirty and bloody, and staggered to his feet. The pavilion was a leaning pile of rubble. Flames engulfed its north side and already licked eagerly at the near corner.

  Sadanori was trapped.

  Through the thick smoke, Akitada climbed on to the pile to see if he could reach Sadanori from above, but it would take more than one man to lift the heavy timbers, and the fire was getting very close.

  Cradling his painful arm, he set off towards the main house at a limping trot. There was a fire here also, but he saw people milling about: servants, and a small huddle of colorfully robed ladies.

  ‘Ho!’ he shouted. ‘Help! Over here. Your master’s caught under the pavilion.’

  They heard him and came. They tried their best, as Akitada stood by and directed their efforts. Some formed a chain to the lake and passed leather buckets of water up. The fire subsided in hissing steam.

  Eventually, Sadanori was found. He was dead. It was not clear if he had died of suffocation from the smoke, been crushed, or had slowly bled to death. Akitada clambered on to the ruins and looked down at his corpse. He lay in a pool of blood from a deep wound in his upper leg. Everything considered, he looked quite peaceful. Perhaps he had been dying even as they spoke. Loss of blood made people light-headed, and Akitada remembered that Sadanori had sounded strangely calm. His last words had been of Peony.

  Akitada limped home as quickly as he could, frantic with worry. There were many fires in the city. In the west, the evening sun was setting against a lurid sky. Clouds of thick gray smoke turned its light to a copper glow. The scene was as frightening as any Akitada had known.

  And everywhere he heard cries and shouts as people dealt with their individual disasters and tr
agedies. Earthen walls that once had hidden the mansions of the powerful had tumbled down and revealed leaning roofs and fallen galleries. Fine horses ran free in the streets, terrifying people who had fled their homes. A wailing woman came towards him with a child in her arms. The child looked dead. A monk wandered aimlessly, mumbling, ‘Namu Amida butsu – Namu Amida butsu,’ over and over again.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  The Monk

  When Akitada reached his house, he saw that the outer wall had fallen here also, but the rest still stood. Tora and Genba had brought the horses out and tied them to a pine tree. Now the two men were drawing water from the well. Tora dropped his bucket back into the well when he saw the half-naked, bloodied appearance of his master.

  ‘Amida,’ he cried, ‘Are you all right, sir?’

  ‘Yes. What about the others?’

  ‘All safe. Trouble made such a racket that everyone came out to see what was happening. So when it started, they just ran down from the veranda. Your lady and the others are in the garden. We thought it was safer there.’

  ‘Thank heaven.’ Akitada looked around dazedly, but was suddenly lighthearted. ‘And give my thanks to your dog.’

  Genba asked, ‘What happened to you, sir? You look terrible.’

  Akitada laughed. ‘Never mind. We’re alive.’ His heart full with happiness, he hobbled into the garden, where he was greeted with cries of concern. Seimei inspected him and went for his medicine box.

  Akitada smiled at his wife. ‘Thank heaven. I had such fears.’ Over her shoulder, he saw the boy sitting in the grass and he remembered their son, but even that memory was bearable. He was filled with such gratitude and hope. ‘How did Nori fare?’

  She chuckled. ‘Very well. He thought it was a game.’

  Seimei returned to treat his wounds. When Tora and Genba joined them also, Akitada told them what had happened and about Sadanori’s confession and his death. ‘The boy is young Masuda’s son. We must return him, or at least make the attempt. I don’t think he will be very welcome there.’

  ‘No.’ Tamako had tears in her eyes. ‘You cannot be so indifferent as to abandon him again to the cruelty of others?’

  ‘We have no choice, Tamako.’

  ‘But if they don’t want him?’ she murmured.

  ‘If they don’t want him, I shall do my best for the boy.’

  Perhaps she guessed how his feelings for the boy had changed. She pleaded, ‘He’s so small and has been hurt so badly.’

  ‘The law demands that lost children be returned to their parents or relatives. But if it will make you feel better, you can come along. If no one in the Masuda household offers the child a home, we will bring him back with us.’

  She said earnestly, ‘You have always taken on the lost and wretched. First Tora, and later Genba and Hitomaro. Then our very ill-tempered cook. And now Hanae and Trouble.’ She paused. ‘And me, too.’

  ‘No, not you. You found me, and I, fool that I was, almost lost you.’

  Akitada was up early the next day to inspect the damage to the house. Old as it was, it had withstood the earthquake well. The stable, often patched, needed repairs, and there was the collapsed wall. He felt very lucky.

  The old carpenter wandered in with his satchel of tools. ‘Ah,’ he said, contentedly looking around, ‘I thought Your Honor would need me.’

  ‘I’m very glad to see you, but surely today you can find work anywhere,’ said Akitada.

  ‘Oh, they’re clamoring all right. Sent to my house last night, and then tried to hire me on my way here. And, for that matter, my own roof has fallen down, but I said to myself, “Go to him who helped you when you needed work,” and here I am.’ He gave Akitada a toothless grin.

  ‘You are an honorable man,’ Akitada said, his faith in human nature restored.

  * * *

  Life returned to normal – except for the visit from the monk.

  Tora answered the knock at the gate to the barefooted figure in the drab gown, basket hat, and staff. He snapped, ‘What do you want?’

  The monk flinched when he recognized him, but said in a steady voice, ‘I came to see your master.’

  ‘Take off that hat.’

  The monk sighed and removed the basket.

  ‘Ha! I thought it was you. You’d better explain, that’s all I can say.’

  ‘I intend to.’ The young monk’s eyes narrowed. ‘Did you have anything to do with the murder of the woman they called Little Abbess?’

  ‘I was going to ask you the same thing.’

  The monk gave a bitter laugh. ‘She was a friend. I only wanted information.’

  ‘So you say. What information?’

  ‘I really must speak to your master. I came to get my nephew.’

  ‘Your nephew?’

  ‘The boy your master found in Otsu. I’ve been trying to find out what happened to my sister and her son and have only now traced the boy here.’

  Tora wrestled with his surprise. It might be a lie, or it might be the truth, but their struggle for the boy had been too hard to give him up to this beggar monk. He glowered. ‘You’d better leave or I’ll make you sorry you ever bothered us.’

  The monk rolled up his sleeves. ‘I’ll fight for what is mine.’

  Akitada interrupted them. ‘What’s going on here, Tora?’

  ‘He’s the monk I told you about,’ Tora said angrily. ‘He says he wants his “nephew”.’

  Akitada nodded. ‘Yes. I’ve been expecting him. Bring him in.’ He turned and went back inside.

  Tora muttered, ‘Now what?’ He looked at the monk. ‘Does the master know you?’

  The monk shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Oh, well, if you’re here on legitimate business, sorry,’ Tora said ungraciously and led the way to his master’s study.

  The monk’s eyes were watchful and his expression guarded. ‘I’m Shinyo,’ he said. He fished some tattered papers from his robe. ‘My travel permit, signed by my abbot, and letters of introduction to monasteries near the capital.’ Akitada examined them briefly before returning them. The monk said, ‘I’m told you have a homeless child in your care.’

  ‘Yes. You must be Peony’s brother. You led Tora a merry chase. No wonder he’s taken a dislike to you.’

  ‘An unfortunate mistake. I came for the boy. How did you know who I am?’

  ‘You kept showing up, and Peony’s long-lost brother was unaccounted for. Few other people could have such a persistent interest in her affairs. Your outfit is a useful disguise, but it raises suspicions.’

  Tora pursed his lips and studied the ceiling.

  ‘I wanted to find out about my sister’s death and what happened to her child. It became obvious that someone didn’t want people to know.’

  ‘I gather you eventually suspected Ishikawa?’

  ‘Yes, he killed the doctor. I was going to see him about my sister’s death when he came out of the gate, leaving it open. When I went in, I found the doctor murdered.’

  Tora asked, ‘Why didn’t you report that?’

  ‘I thought it more important to find out who the killer was, and so I followed him.’

  Akitada shook his head. ‘We’ve worked at cross purposes. Why has it taken you so long to look for your sister?’

  ‘I live in a monastery on Mount Gassan in the far north. When I finally received permission to travel south, I found my sister dead and her child lost.’

  The monks of Mount Gassan were ascetics who lived strictly cloistered lives and saw nothing of the outside world. ‘I keep wondering if this tragedy could have been avoided. Your father was a nobleman.’

  Shinyo stiffened. ‘When he died, I was sixteen, and my sister fifteen. His family rejected us and we had to fend for ourselves. I became a monk, and my sister a courtesan. We did not choose freely. Such choices are given only to a few, and never to people like us.’

  Akitada said gently, ‘I don’t know how much of your sister’s story you know, but the two men resp
onsible for her tragic end are both dead. It’s time to let the past go.’

  ‘You’re right. I’m grateful that you found the child. I have come to take him with me.’

  Akitada looked at the ragged robe, the bare, calloused feet, the thin body. ‘How do you propose to take care of a child?’

  The monk lowered his head. ‘I shall take him back to my monastery with me. He will be safe there.’

  ‘To be trained as a mendicant monk, or a mountain priest? You made it very clear that you would not have chosen such a life for yourself. Why force the child to follow it?’

  ‘The ways of this world are filled with death and pain. I’ve found contentment in the Buddha’s way. The boy is my responsibility.’

  Akitada shook his head. ‘You can do nothing for him. Your nephew is a Masuda. His grandfather still lives.’

  ‘The Masudas mistreated my sister and sold her son.’

  ‘I know the old lord loved his son very much. For that reason, if for no other, he will adopt his grandson. But, in any case, by law paternal family ties take precedence over maternal ones.’

  Shinyo frowned as he thought this over. ‘Very well,’ he finally said. ‘Do this if you must. But promise that you will not leave the boy there if he’s not made welcome.’

  ‘You have my word. Would you like to meet Nori?’

  The monk shook his head. ‘I saw him in Otsu. If he’s to live there, it will be better if I don’t. Tell him that I shall visit him when I’m permitted to do so.’

  The next day, the minister paid Akitada a surprise visit. He found him in a dirty old robe, carrying timbers to the carpenter. Tora was on the stable roof, hammering nails into boards, and Genba had gone into the city to bring back more supplies.

  His Excellency gaped at Akitada. ‘Is that you?’ he asked, taking in the hatless topknot, the stained cotton robe and the short pants that revealed badly-scratched bare legs and dusty feet in straw sandals.

  Akitada laughed, a new sound even to his own ears. He dropped the armful of wood, awkwardly because his left arm was still swollen and sore, wiped his hands on his robe, and bowed to his superior. ‘Good morning, Excellency. Since I’m on leave of absence, I make myself useful.’