by I. J. Parker
“Ah.” Kumo shook his head. “A dreadful tragedy. Was he successful? The trial is set for the end of this month, is it not?”
“Yes. It’s only a week away. And he was not successful, I think. His spirits were quite low when he came back, and his servants say he does not sleep at night.”
Akitada was surprised how well informed Osawa was about Mutobe’s private life, but he was even more intent on watching the high constable, hoping to get the measure of the man who might have played a part in the late prince’s life and death. Suddenly he found himself the object of Kumo’s interest and quickly lowered his eyes again. Too late.
“You have a new assistant, I see,” drawled Kumo. “Usually you bring only one scribe with you. This signifies some new honor, I assume?”
Osawa flushed and laughed a little. “You are too kind, sir. No, no. The fellow is a prisoner who happens to write well. The governor is desperately short-handed and wished us to return quickly.” He added in an aggrieved tone, “He even insisted we ride horses on this occasion.”
“What? No bearers, and you not used to riding? My dear Osawa, you must have a hot bath immediately and rest before we talk business. Perhaps your assistants can start on the work with the help of my secretary. Come,” he said, getting to his feet, “I have just returned from hunting myself. We shall enjoy a nice soaking together and you can fill me in on all the news from Mano.”
To do Osawa justice, he hesitated. But then he rose. “You are most kind, Your Honor,” he said. “I am a little fatigued. If your secretary will be good enough to give the documents in question to Taketsuna—the new fellow—he will show the scribe what should be copied for our files. This Taketsuna has a good education. I shall inspect their work in the morning.” Turning to his companions, he said, “You heard me?”
Akitada nodded and bowed. Kumo and Osawa disappeared, and a servant took him and Genzo into a large office where several scribes were bent over writing desks or getting books and boxes from the shelves which covered three sides of the room.
Kumo’s secretary was a small, pleasant man in his mid-fifties. He took one look at Genzo’s broad face and dull eyes and addressed Akitada. “I started gathering the relevant tax documents the moment I heard of Inspector Osawa’s arrival,” he said, with a gesture to a desk covered with bulging document boxes. “My name is Shiba. Please feel free to ask for anything. My staff will see to it immediately.”
Kumo’s scribes, all pretending to be busy while casting curious glances at the visitors, were a far cry from the pitiful staff of the governor’s archives, and Akitada, encouraged by Shiba’s courteous manner, said, “I am Taketsuna, an exile from the mainland and still a stranger here. Forgive my curiosity, but I was told that capable scribes and clerks are extremely rare. How is it that your master seems so well supplied with them?”
Shiba chuckled. “We are part of his household. The master and his father before him saved likely boys from work in the mines by training them in different skills,” he said. “I, for example, was sixteen when my mother died in poverty. Like you, my father came here as a prisoner. My mother followed him when I was four. My father died soon after our arrival, and my poor mother worked in the fields to support us. She tried to teach me a little, but when she succumbed also, I—being a boy and small of stature—was sent to the mines. The master’s father found me there and took me into his household, where he had me taught by his son’s tutor. My master continues his father’s legacy.”
Shiba’s image of Kumo differed diametrically from Mutobe’s. The governor had called young Kumo “haughty and overbearing,” but Akitada had seen no sign of it in the man who had greeted a mere inspector like Osawa as a valued guest.
Turning with new interest to the documents, he saw quickly that Shiba and his scribes had indeed been well trained. The system of accounting was efficient and the brushwork of the scribes far superior to Genzo’s. He quickly identified the relevant reports and handed some of them to Genzo with instructions to begin copying.
Genzo folded his arms. “Do it yourself,” he growled. “I’m not your servant.”
The man needed a good beating, but Akitada said peaceably, “Very well. Then you will have to read through those and summarize them for the governor.” He pointed to a stack of documents he had set aside for himself.
Genzo went to look at the top document, frowned, then said, “Dull stuff, this. I prefer the copying.” Having got his way, he settled down and started to rub ink. Akitada smiled.
Shiba had watched with interest. He said in a low voice, “Forgive me, Taketsuna, but I see that you are a man not only of superior education but also of wisdom. Perhaps, before your trouble, you had the good fortune to live in the capital?”
“That is so.”
Shiba pressed his hands together and said fervently, “Truly, how very blessed your life must have been. And by chance, have you ever visited the imperial palace?”
Akitada smiled. “I used to work there and once I even saw His Majesty from a distance. He rode in a gilded palanquin and was accompanied by the empress and her ladies in their own palanquins, a very beautiful sight.”
“Oh!” breathed Shiba. “I imagine it must have been like a glimpse of the Western Paradise.” He was rapt with pleasure for a moment, then remembered his duty. “Forgive my chatter. You will want to get started. Perhaps tonight, after your work, you might join me for a cup of wine?”
Akitada said regretfully, “You are most kind, but I do not think Inspector Osawa will permit it.”
“Ah. Well, I think that may be managed. You are now in the Kumo mansion. All men are treated with respect here. I’ll send someone for you after your evening rice.”
Akitada spent an hour checking the tax statements and writing brief summaries of the salient points, a chore he was abundantly familiar with. At sundown, a gong sounded somewhere nearby. Genzo dropped his brush noisily in the water container, yawned, and stretched. “About time they fed us,” he muttered.
Akitada rose and went to look over Genzo’s shoulders. The sheet of paper the man had been copying was splotched with ink, and the characters were barely legible. Worse, a few were missing so that whole phrases made no sense.
“You’ll have to do better,” he said. “We want clean copies, and you left out words and characters. Do that one over again more carefully.” He leaned forward to reach for the other sheets, pathetically few for an hour’s work. “Is that all you’ve—” he started to say, when Genzo suddenly lashed out, pushing Akitada back so hard that he sat down on the floor.
The scribe was up quickly for someone of his size and general lack of energy. “I’ll teach you to tell me what to do, filthy scum,” he ground out and threw himself on Akitada.
Irritated past reason, Akitada met the attack by leaning back and kicking him with both legs in the stomach. Genzo sucked in his breath sharply as he flew back against the table, scattering papers and ink. Akitada stood and pulled him up by the front of his robe. He said through gritted teeth, “I have had enough of you. Don’t think I don’t know you cut my saddle bands. One more outburst from you, and I’ll make sure you never walk again. Do you understand?”
Eyes bulging, Genzo nodded. He looked green and held his stomach.
“Clean up this mess,” Akitada snapped, dropping him back on the floor. “I don’t think you will feel much like food, so you may as well spend the time copying those papers over neatly. I’ll let the secretary know that you are finishing some work before retiring.” He strolled out of the room and left the building.
The evening was delightfully cool after the heat of the day. If the high constable did, in fact, practice common courtesy toward even the lowliest prisoner on the island, then his staff might share his philosophy and allow him the privileges accorded a guest. He decided to test this theory by exploring and found that, wherever he strayed, servants smiled and bobbed their heads. One or two stopped to ask if he was lost, but when he told them he was just stretching his legs and
admiring the residence, they left him alone. He did not, of course, enter the private quarters but wandered all around them by way of the gardens.
These were extensive and quite as well designed as any he had visited in the noble mansions and villas of the capital. Paths snaked through trees, shrubs, and rockeries, crossing miniature streams over curved bridges to lead to various garden pavilions. Patches of tawny lilies bloomed everywhere and birds flitted from branch to branch.
One of the pavilions turned out to be a miniature temple. Akitada was enchanted by its dainty size, which nevertheless duplicated the ornate carvings, blue-tiled roofs, and gilded ornamentation of large temples. Someone had taken great pains and spent a considerable amount of money on this little building. He climbed the steps to a tiny veranda surrounded by a red-lacquered balustrade and entered through the carved doors. Inside, every surface seemed carved and painted in glorious reds, greens, blacks, oranges, and golds. Even the floor was painted, and in its center stood a gilded altar table on its own carved and lacquered dais. A wooden Buddha statue rested on the altar, and a number of gilded vessels with offerings stood before it. Behind the Buddha figure, a richly embroidered silk cloth was suspended, depicting swirling golden clouds, emblems of Kumo’s family name, on a deep blue background. A faint haze of intensely fragrant incense curled and spiraled lazily from a golden censer, perfuming the air and veiling the gilded tablets inscribed with the names and titles of Kumo ancestors. This was the Kumo family’s ancestral altar.
Akitada read some of the tablets and saw the names of two emperors among the distant forebears of the present Kumo. Only the most recent tablets lacked titles. Kumo’s great-grandfather had been stripped of his rank and sent here into exile. Akitada reflected that few families survived such punishment in the style of this one. His own family, though they had retained their titles, barely subsisted since his famous ancestor had died in exile.
He made a perfunctory bow to the Buddha. No larger than a child of three or four, the figure was an unskilled carving from some dull wood. It seemed out of place among all the gold and lacquer work, yet somehow for that reason more numinous, as if it somehow symbolized what the Kumos had become. Perhaps a local artisan had carved it or, more likely, the first Kumo exile had done so in order to find solace in religious devotion.
Stepping closer, Akitada found that the surface was astonishingly smooth for an artless carving, but the Buddha’s face repelled him. It was quite ugly and the god’s expression was more like a demon’s snarl than the gentle, peaceful smile of ordinary representations. The figure had golden eyes, but they shone almost shockingly bright from that dark, distorted visage. Odd. The Buddha’s shining eyes reminded Akitada of Kumo’s pale eyes and he wondered about his ancestry.
A faint and unearthly music came from the garden. Akitada stepped out on the veranda to listen. Somewhere someone was playing a flute, and he felt a great longing for his own instrument. The melody was both entrancing and beautifully played. Like a bee scenting nectar, Akitada followed the music on paths which wound and twisted, leading him away as soon as he seemed to get closer until he lost all sense of direction. Shrubbery and trees hid and revealed views. He heard the splash of running water and passed a miniature waterfall somewhere along the way; he heard the cries of birds and waterfowl, then caught a glimpse of a pond, or miniature lake with its own small island. The flute seemed to parody the sounds of the garden until he wondered which was real.
The artist was playing a very old tune with consummate skill. It was called “Land of the Rice Ears,” and Akitada stopped, following each sequence of notes, paying particular attention to the second part, for it contained a passage he had never mastered himself. There! So that was the way it was supposed to be. He smiled, raising his hands to finger imaginary stops, wishing he could play as well.
Just after the last note faded, he reached the lake. The sky above was still faintly rosy, almost iridescent, like the inside of a shell. All was silent. A butterfly rose from one of the lilies that nodded at the water’s rim. Then a pair of ducks paddled around the island and lifted into the evening air with a soft flapping of wings and a shower of sparkling drops. Akitada wondered if he had strayed into a dream.
With a sigh, he followed the lakeshore. His stomach growled, reminding him that food was more useful than this longing for a flute he had been forced to leave behind. Then his eye caught a movement on the small island. He could see the curved roof of another small pavilion rising behind the trees. Two spots of color shimmered through a gap between the trees, a patch of white and another of deep lilac.
A dainty bridge connected the island to the path he was on. He crossed it and heard the sound of women’s voices. Two ladies in white and wisteria blue sat behind the brilliant red balustrade and under the gilded bells that hung from the eaves of the pavilion. Thinking them Kumo’s wives, Akitada stopped and prepared to retreat. But then he saw that both women were quite old. The one in purple silk had very long white hair which she wore loose, like young noblewomen, so that it draped over her shoulders and back and spread across the wide skirts of her gown. She was tiny, seemingly shrunken with age, but her skin was as white as her hair, and the rich purple silk of her outer robe was lined with many layers of other gowns in four or five different costly colors. Such a costume might have been worn by a young princess in times gone by. On this frail old woman it mocked the vanity of youth.
It was the other woman who had been playing the flute— the other woman who, in sharp contrast to her companion, wore a plain white robe and veil, and whose face and hands were darkened from exposure to the sun. The nun Ribata.
CHAPTER EIGHT
FLUTE MUSIC FROM ANOTHER LIFE
“Approach, my lord!”
The old lady’s voice was cracked and dissonant, sharply at odds with the lovely sound of the flute which still spun and wove through Akitada’s memory.
He felt a moment’s panic. Was she someone who had known him in another place and recognized him in spite of his beard? Surely not.
The old lady in the gorgeous robes waved a painted fan at him. Gold dust sparkled like stars on its delicate blue paper. “Come, come!” she invited him impatiently. “Do not be shy. You were never shy with me before.”
He felt completely out of his depth and glanced back at the small bridge he had just crossed as if it had led him into an otherworldly place, like the Tokutaro of the fairy tale who had ended up among fox spirits.
The nun Ribata put down her flute and gave him an amused smile.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, bowing to both women. “I heard the music and came to meet the artist.”
“Silly man.” The old lady snickered coquettishly behind her fan. “You thought it was I and hoped to find me alone. Come sit beside me. Naka no Kimi won’t give old lovers away.”
Old lovers? And Naka no Kimi surely referred to an imperial princess? It dawned on him that the old lady must be demented. Akitada heaved a sigh of relief and walked up the steps of the pavilion.
Ribata gestured toward the cushion beside her companion. “Please be seated,” she said, her own voice as warm and resonant as a temple bell. “Lady Saisho is the high constable’s grandmother. We are old friends.”
Whatever her official status, the Lady Saisho had survived the harsh years of early exile to live in luxury again. But to what avail? Close up, she looked incredibly frail, withered, and wrinkled. He saw now that her skin was not abnormally white, but that she had painted her face with white lead. Rouged lips and soot-ringed eyes parodied former beauty, and heavy perfume mingled with the sour smell of old age and rotting gums. Yet she eyed Akitada flirtatiously and batted her eyes at him.
Feeling an overwhelming pity, he bowed deeply and said, “I hope I see your ladyship in good spirits on this lovely evening.”
“Lovely indeed. A poem, Lord Yoriyoshi,” she cried gaily, waving her fan with the studied grace of a court lady. “Make me a poem about the evening so I can respond.”
“She lives in a happier past,” said Ribata softly. “Humor her, please.”
Hardly helpful. His eyes roamed around for inspiration and fell on the bridge. The last of the sunlight was gone and the brilliant red of its balustrade had turned to a dull brown of withered maple leaves. Akitada recited, “The evening sheds a lonely light upon the bridge suspended between two arms of land.”
The old lady hissed behind her fan. “Prince Okisada could have done better, even when his illness was upon him. However, let me see.” She tapped her chin with the fan. “‘Evening,’ ‘lonely,’ ‘suspended,’ ‘arms.’ ” She cackled triumphantly, and cried, in a grating singsong, “Waiting, I cradle loneliness in my arms, hoping you will cross the bridge.”
Akitada and Ribata applauded politely, their eyes on the ridiculous old creature who simpered behind her fan and sent inviting glances toward Akitada.
They were unaware that someone had joined them until Kumo spoke.
“I think my honored grandmother must feel the chill of the air. I have come to escort her back to her quarters.”
Akitada knelt quickly, his head bowed, hoping he had not broken some rule, but Kumo took no notice of him. He went to his grandmother and bent to lift her to her feet.
“No!” She scrambled back like a small, stubborn child. “I don’t want to go. Lord Yoriyoshi and I are exchanging poems. His are not as good as the prince’s, but . . .” She screwed up her face and began to cry. “The prince died,” she wailed. “All of my friends die. It’s your fault.” And she lashed out with a frail hand like a bird’s claw and slapped her grandson’s face. He stepped back, his expression grim, as she staggered to her feet and faced him with glittering eyes. “I hate you,” she shrieked. “You are a monster! I wish you would die, too.” Then she burst into violent tears and the mask of the court beauty disintegrated into a grotesque mingling of black and white paint. Her thin frame shook in its voluminous, many-colored silks, and she began to sway alarmingly.