The Dragon Scroll

by I. J. Parker

  Even among equals this speech would have been ill-natured. From a servant it amounted to gross insubordination. Many another master would have had Tora beaten unmercifully. Akitada winced. He had decided to accept Tora on Tora's terms because he could not bring himself to spoil a friendship that was as strange as it was satisfying. Tora's total lack of subservience, his complete honesty, and his bluntness of speech and sentiment were more valuable to Akitada than mere obedience and submission. And Akitada was afraid that any attempt to change Tora would surely drive him away.

  Now he merely nodded and said, "I left very early for an appointment with Lord Tachibana. When I got there, I found him dead and had to wait for the authorities."

  Tora's eyes grew round. "Ah! Some bastard got to him before you could."

  Precisely what Akitada thought himself, but he asked, "What makes you say that?"

  Tora grinned. "You dashed off without telling old Seimei. I figured you were on the trail of something criminal."

  "Yes, well. You may be right, though the prefect called it an accident. But let's save the details for later. If you're ready for a workout, let's have it now, and then a bath. I missed both this morning."

  They stripped to their baggy trousers, tossing their outer clothes over the veranda railing. Tora took up the bamboo staves, threw one to Akitada, and they began. The air was still cold, but the sun had melted the thin layer of snow in this protected corner. After only a few bouts, sweat glistened on their backs and chests and steamed off their skin. For a span of time, they thought of nothing but the contest of strength and skill. The air rang with their shouts, the clack clack of the staves, and the crunching of feet on wet gravel. A few timid heads of the tribunal staff peered around the courtyard entrance and disappeared again. Oblivious, they advanced, retreated, slashed, whirled, collided, feinted, and parried stroke for stroke until their breaths came in gasps and their faces reddened with the exertion. Tora was, by a small margin, the stronger and able to push Akitada backward, but Akitada was agile and had learned to plan his moves. The bout ended abruptly when Akitada managed to twist Tora's stave from his grip and trip him at the same time. Tora landed with a thud on his backside and burst into a roar of laughter.

  "Now for that bath," Akitada shouted, throwing his stave on the veranda and dashing off in the direction of the bathhouse. He felt wonderful, completely alive and happy. For the moment none of his worries mattered. He had finally beaten Tora. He had mastered stick fighting. The blood in his veins sang, and he leapt into the air with joy.

  Tora followed with a grin on his face.

  "You had me then, sir," he remarked a little later, when they were crouching naked next to each other. Two attendants in loincloths dipped rough hempen bags filled with rice husks into buckets of cold water and scrubbed their glowing bodies. "It won't be long till I'll have nothing left to teach you. I suppose you won't need me anymore then."

  Akitada sluiced himself down with a bucket of cold water, gasped, and slipped into the steaming vat. The shock of the sudden heat changed to a blissful comfort. He slipped down till the water reached his chin, rested his neck against the wooden rim, and closed his eyes. He said, "Don't be silly. I can't spare you from your other duties."

  "I thought so," said Tora complacently, and stepped into the vat himself. "I've got a knack for solving problems and getting to the bottom of things."

  "Hmm," said Akitada dreamily. He could feel his muscles unknotting and his skin becoming soft and malleable. The steam settled in beads of moisture on his face and tickled, but he was too limp to care. He closed his eyes.

  Lord Tachibana had asked him to come--asked him with both urgency and secrecy--and someone had killed him the same night. Why? Had Tachibana been killed to prevent his meeting with Akitada? Because he knew something that could not be passed on to the inspector? That something could only relate to the tax shipments. So far, so good! But there was more. Only someone who had overheard Tachibana's words could have killed him so promptly. Akitada tried to think of the men who were closest to them at that moment. Motosuke must have been nearby, for courtesy demanded that he accompany his highest-ranking guests. But who else? Yukinari? Ikeda? Joto? For the life of him he could not recall.

  He decided not to force it and turned his mind instead to the Tachibana residence. It was the home of a wealthy and cultured man. The buildings, for all their simplicity, were large and beautifully designed and constructed. The furnishings and objects in the studio had been of the finest materials and craftsmanship. Akitada considered their owner. The fact that the ex-governor had spent his retirement compiling a history of his province proved he was a man who took his duties to posterity seriously. But he was also someone who loved gardening. A man of great seriousness and high moral purpose, but also of a spirituality that sought peace and happiness in the creation of beauty. In other words, a man of honor. Such a man would have abhorred the crimes against his emperor. Apparently he had waited for Akitada to arrive before speaking out. Had he also possessed wisdom? Perhaps not. For how could this aged man have taken to wife that beautiful girl-child who had stood so timidly on the threshold of that scholar's room, her eyes swimming with tears and her trembling lips so soft and moist... ?

  A hand seized his shoulder and shook him, and his eyes flew open.

  "You'll drown if you go to sleep," growled Tora. "Come on. Let's get out. I want to hear all about the murder."

  They sat with Seimei around the sunken brazier in Akitada's room. A servant had brought the noon meal and they helped themselves to bowls of rice and pickled vegetables. Tora poured wine.

  As soon as the servant had gone, Akitada told them about the events at the Tachibana mansion and passed around the green shard he had found in the dead man's hair. "He was murdered," he said flatly. "The body was too carefully arranged, and the murderer made a mistake when he moved the desk. Also, the head wound was on top of the head, not on the side or back, where it would have been if he had hit the corner of the desk in falling. Ikeda tried to explain that away by pointing to the document boxes. He insisted that one of them must have struck his head and knocked him out. But in that case the box would have been stained, not the desk. Besides, the boxes were not heavy enough to inflict a fatal wound. The top of Tachibana's skull was crushed. Ikeda seemed strangely eager to pronounce the death accidental."

  Tora snorted. "An official! What do you expect? He's probably involved. That explains why the bastard showed up himself. Probably just sitting there in his office, waiting for the summons. That'd give him a chance to fix up any mistakes, too. He sure didn't expect you to show up."

  Seimei bristled. "The great sage," he announced stiffly, "said that serving one's prince is the highest calling in the land. Those who serve in official positions do so because they have acquired an education. He also said that it is the lowest class that toils without ever managing to learn. You are a member of that class, and therefore know nothing and should keep your mouth shut when your betters converse."

  Tora flushed with anger. But, to Akitada's surprise, he said only, "Let's hear your views then, so that I may learn and become a better person."

  Seimei nodded graciously. "Very well. It strikes me, sir, that the prefect may be merely incompetent. Provincial officials," he explained to Tora, "are poorly trained in the investigation of crimes and he was filling in for the absent magistrate. What about the time of death, sir?"

  Akitada nodded. "Yes. That may be important, and I wish I could be more certain. My guess is that Tachibana was not dead more than two or three hours when I arrived. And that, of course, means that he could not have gone to his studio upon his return from the dinner. He had changed his clothes. Also, there was no candle, and the room was without a brazier. He could not have been working on his papers when he was killed."

  "But you said the body was stiffening," protested Seimei. "It must have been there all night."

  "It was bitterly cold. That may have accelerated the stiffening. But whatever t
he time of death, I don't think Tachibana died in his studio. The murder happened elsewhere, and the body was carried to the studio to stage the accidental fall. His clogs were outside the door, but they were dry and clean. Besides, and this did not occur to me until I was about to leave, someone swept the path between the main house and the studio. The servants did not do it, so it must have been done by the murderer to remove footprints in the newly fallen snow. I wonder when it started to snow." Akitada looked at Tora.

  "I think," said Tora, feeling invited to express an opinion, "that the murderer must be a strong man to have struck the old man over the head and then carried him across the garden. I hate to say it, but that prefect isn't much of a man from what I hear. Perhaps it was the captain after all. He's young and a soldier."

  Akitada said, "Yes, and that reminds me. Yukinari also showed up and tried to get into the studio. And I thought he behaved very strangely when I suggested he might offer his assistance to the widow instead. Whatever happened, we forced someone's hand and that should bring us closer to the answer, but I feel as though I am groping in a fog. I know the road is there and I'm walking in the right direction, but I can't see my way."

  "I can see it," cried Tora. "Remember the widow! She's young, isn't she?"

  Akitada frowned. "Very young."

  "And pretty?"

  Akitada fidgeted. "Yes, you could call her quite beautiful."

  "There," said Tora, clapping his hands, "is your motive. The handsome captain seduces the young bride. When the old man finds out the captain is mining for his treasure, having the better tools, so to speak, there's a quarrel and the captain hits him over the head."

  "Nonsense!" Akitada jumped up, glaring at Tora. "Seimei is right. Your foolish tongue runs away with your dirty mind."

  Seimei stared up at Akitada. "Oh," he remarked, "the boy may have a point, sir, though he puts it crudely. Not all married women are wives, you know. Such a great discrepancy in age creates disharmony in a household. But it will be easy to discover the truth from the servants. They say only a husband does not know what is going on. Women are creatures without morals."

  Akitada snapped, "Enough! We are not getting anywhere on the tax thefts. Tora, you have been on your own this past week. While Seimei and I were going through the governor's accounts, you were supposed to talk to the local people. What do you have to report?"

  Tora looked uneasy. "I spent a lot of time at Higekuro's, sir. Trying to get a picture of local conditions."

  Seimei snorted.

  "And what are the local conditions?" Akitada asked coldly.

  "Well, it's a rich province. Plenty of rice, good climate, good soil. Besides, they have started making silk."

  "Come, that's not news," said Akitada impatiently. "We saw the mulberry groves on our journey from the harbor. And silk was part of the tax shipments."

  "Whatever it is, it's made a fortune for Higekuro's neighbor. Otomi said the fellow started out with a little shop, selling cheap cotton and hemp. Then he got to trading in silks, and before you knew it, he was a wholesaler with warehouses in the harbor and here in town. Threw up a high wall around his land and no longer speaks to his neighbors."

  "Ah." Seimei nodded. "That sounds suspicious. The sage said: 'Virtue is never a hermit. It always has neighbors.' The silk merchant lacks virtue, or he would share his joy with his neighbors."

  "Perhaps he's just afraid of being robbed," Akitada said dryly. "Is there much crime in the city, Tora?"

  "No more than any place where there's money. Higekuro says there would be a lot more if it weren't for all the soldiers in the garrison."

  "Captain Yukinari mentioned reinforcements at the garrison since the tax shipments started disappearing." Akitada pulled his earlobe thoughtfully. "I would have thought that the number of new recruits, along with the disciples Joto is attracting to his temple, must cause problems in the city."

  Tora wagged his head. "I got the feeling that the people like the soldiers, and they put up with the monks because they make money out of the pilgrims. Even Higekuro and the girls are much better off now. Some of the soldiers come to the school for lessons, and Otomi does a nice little business selling her pictures to the pilgrims."

  "Pictures?" asked Akitada.

  "Oh, didn't I mention it? That girl's a fine painter. She paints scrolls of saints and Buddhist mandalas, and the pilgrims pay very good money for them, as much as a silver bar for a large one. You should see her work. It looks so real you'd think you were there."

  "Where?" asked Seimei, literal-minded as always. "Saints and mandalas are not real. How can she paint them as real people or places?"

  "Well," said Tora defensively, "maybe not those, but she did some real nice pictures of mountains and the sea."

  "I should like to meet your friends sometime." Akitada smiled. "Otomi must be a remarkable artist if you praise her work, Tora."

  Tora looked pleased. Casting a shy glance in Seimei's direction, he asked, "Do you think, sir, that someone like me could learn to write?" Seeing the astonished faces of the other two, he added with a blush, "I mean just a few characters. Some pleasant words a girl might like to hear?"

  Seimei snorted again. "I'll teach you how to hold a brush and place the strokes," he said, "but such a skill is worth a great deal more than writing love notes to women. Women cannot read or write anyway. Their heads cannot grasp such matters."

  "Oh, I promise to try very hard to learn whatever you teach me, Seimei," said Tora, "but you are wrong about Otomi. She reads and writes all the time."

  "What about the other daughter?" asked Akitada.

  Tora grimaced. "Ayako? She's a mannish sort of girl. Helps her father train his students in martial arts. You wouldn't like her, sir."

  "Perhaps not, at least not in the way you mean," Akitada said, and thought of the fragile beauty at the Tachibana mansion. He got up, brushing down his silk gown, and said briskly, "I think I shall pay a proper condolence visit to Lady Tachibana. She is very young and inexperienced and may need some help in settling her late husband's estate. Seimei, you will draw up the final releases for the governor. And you, Tora, had better start to do some useful work talking to the people in this city."

  Seimei regarded his young master fixedly and said, "More dangerous than a tiger is the scarlet silk of a woman's undergown."

  * * * *

  SEVEN

  LOW LIFE

  Tora decided to reassure himself of the safety of Higekuro and the girls. The day was overcast again and it was chilly, but no new snow was falling. His mind on Otomi, he strode out so briskly that he did not feel the cold.

  He was passing the shrine down the street from Higekuro's when he caught sight of two saffron-robed figures and quickly stepped in the shrine entrance to watch them.

  The two monks appeared to be begging for food. They knocked on a door, waited till someone opened, said a few words, and extended their bowls. The householder gave them food, and the monks moved on. Tora began to feel hungry himself. It was past midday, and his master's meals were light by Tora's standards. He was thinking resentfully of those full bowls when, to his amazement, the monks emptied the food into a patch of weeds and began the process of knocking and begging again. Could those ill-begotten monks be so spoiled that they were looking for particular delicacies?

  It was not until they reached the house opposite Higekuro's school that Tora realized their true purpose. Here an elderly maid stepped into the street and pointed across the way. The monks asked questions, and the woman nodded, gesturing to her ears and lips as she spoke. After she went back into her house, the monks stood staring at the school a moment longer, then turned and quickly walked back the way they had come.

  So the bastards had tracked down Otomi!

  Higekuro was alone in the exercise hall when Tora burst in. He was practicing his archery with such concentration that he did not turn his head. Seated on a stool, he dispatched arrow after arrow, effortlessly and smoothly, into a series of small tar
gets some sixty feet away, without once missing his mark. Only when the quiver was empty did he lower the great bow and look over his shoulder.

  Tora applauded. "I thought I could handle a bow," he said, "but not like that. Why are the arrows so long, and how much do you charge for lessons?"

  "These are competition arrows." Higekuro chuckled. "You use shorter ones in the army. And for my friends the lessons are free."

  "I can pay now that I have steady work. Can we start right away?"

  "Never refuse a gift from a grateful man. It diminishes him. Your lessons will be free, but today I'm expecting students. Will you mind returning another time?"

  "No, but I need to see Otomi. Those monks have been snooping around again."

  Higekuro raised his brows. "Really? Well, she'll be back shortly."