The Hell Screen - [Sugawara Akitada 02]

by I. J. Parker

  Akitada nodded and she left. Just as well, for he did not relish the idea of having her company for a trip to the privy. Testing his limbs, he found them pain-free but strangely languid. He pushed the covers back and saw the white silk bandages about his wrists. His hands were no longer swollen, but stiff and covered with scabs. Getting to his feet was easier than he thought, but he had to catch hold of a screen when he took his first step. Fortunately, his head cleared and he negotiated the hallway and gallery to the privy without incident.

  Feeling better when he emerged, he decided to find his wife and son.

  They were, as Yoshiko had said, in the boy’s room, kneeling over some papers and busy with brush and ink.

  This brought back memories of Noami’s lessons and momentarily nauseated him. He grabbed hold of the open doorway. Tamako looked up.

  “Akitada!” She was on her feet and, flinging her silk skirts aside, rushed to him to put her arms around his waist.

  “A fine greeting for your husband, madam,” he teased. “Have you been taking lessons in the Willow Quarter?”

  She immediately dropped her arms and flushed scarlet. Bowing primly, she said, “Forgive my immodesty, please. I thought you were going to fall and... and ...”

  Akitada reached out and pulled her into his arms, burying his face in her soft, sweet-smelling hair. “You may take me into your arms anytime, my wife,” he murmured.

  “I have missed you,” she whispered.

  Feeling her pliant body press against his, he took a ragged breath and reached for her sash.

  Yoshiko appeared in the corridor, carrying a small footed tray with a steaming bowl on it. “Oh,” she cried, “so here you are. You should not have tried to get up so soon after having been in a fever for a whole week.”

  Akitada released his wife reluctantly. “A week?” he asked, flabbergasted.

  The women nodded and half pushed, half drew him into the room to sit on a pillow. Wrapping him into Yori’s quilts, they made him eat his gruel. He smiled at Yori between sips, wondering why the boy was so quiet. He tried to talk to him, to ask questions about what had happened, but the women would not permit it until he had emptied the bowl.

  The boy sat wide-eyed, watching his father finish. Then he held up a sheet of paper. It bore the wobbly and smudged character for “A Thousand Years.”

  A New Year’s wish. Of course, it was almost that time. Akitada nodded and smiled. “A remarkably fine sign, and very appropriate.”

  “Do you really like it, Father?” Yori whispered, perhaps out of respect for his father’s condition. “It’s Chinese for having a long life and good fortune in the coming year. Mother showed me how to write it.”

  Tamako read and wrote Chinese because her father, a professor at the Imperial University, had taught her as if she had been a son.

  Putting the empty bowl aside, Akitada asked, “Do you remember the night at the painter’s house?”

  Yori nodded. “You sent me home, but I got lost. I asked a man to show me the way. I said, ‘Take me to the Sugawara mansion!’ He was quite rude and laughed at me, so I stomped on his foot and told him I would have him beaten if he did not obey instantly. He grabbed me by the arm and shook me, saying he would wring my neck like a chicken, but a huge giant appeared and snatched me away. The giant was bigger than Genba, but very dirty. He took me to his hut and gave me soup. He did not laugh when I told him to take me home, but he was not terribly polite and he did not obey me. I went to sleep then.”

  “You were very brave!” Akitada complimented him.

  Yori nodded. “I was.”

  So the warden had saved the boy. Good man! He would have to do something for him. If only Yori had told the warden where Akitada was. He could have been rescued before Noami strung him up in the garden. But that was ungrateful. He looked at the women. “How did you find out what happened?”

  Tamako said, “The warden brought Yori home. When we asked about you, he remembered that Yori had said something about his father. We woke up the child and he told us about the painter’s house. After that it was easy. The warden and Genba went to find you. They got there just as Tora carried you out in his arms.”

  Akitada corrected her. “I was walking. But I must thank the warden in person for returning Yori. He appears to be a very decent fellow and an excellent influence in a bad section of the capital. Besides, I have some questions about Noami’s activities. By the way, what happened to the man?”

  The two women looked at each other. Tamako said diffidently, “Superintendent Kobe called daily to inquire about your condition. He mentioned that the painter hanged himself.”

  “What? In prison? They must have been unusually careless.”

  Tamako avoided his eyes. “Not in prison. They found him hanged in his garden.”

  Akitada stared at her. “In his garden? But we left him alive.”

  “Oh. The superintendent thought it strange. He wants to ask you about it.”

  How was this possible? Akitada thought back to his last sight of Noami. Tora had fastened Noami’s wrists to the rope from the tree branch and then shoved the basket under him to prop him up. How could Noami have hanged himself? Even if he had gained consciousness and, like Akitada, climbed on the basket, he could not have tied the rope around his neck with that dislocated shoulder. He shook his head in bafflement.

  When Kobe came to see him, Akitada had had a bath and been shaved by Seimei. He had spoken with Genba, Tora, and the recovered Harada, had eaten a light meal of fish soup, and was resting comfortably in his study.

  The superintendent approached warily, his face anxious. Akitada greeted him affably. “Good afternoon, my friend. I am grateful for your concern during my illness.”

  “Oh,” said Kobe, sitting down with a sigh of relief, “you do look much better now. Yesterday I was afraid you would not make it.”

  Akitada chuckled and poured two cups of wine. “My wife says that Noami hanged himself?”

  Kobe gave Akitada a sharp look. “It is true that we found him hanging by the neck from a rope tied to a tree branch.” He paused, then added, “His hands and feet were tied, and one of his shoulders was dislocated.”

  “Then someone killed him. Tora fought with the man and dislocated his shoulder, but we left him alive, tied to the rope by his wrists. It is impossible that he could have hanged himself!”

  Kobe said nothing.

  Akitada stared at him. In disbelief he asked, “Do you think we hanged him?”

  “It does not matter. He deserved it.” Kobe emptied his cup of wine. “I had my men dig up the garden. They uncovered four skeletons. Two were children, one an old man, and one a woman.”

  Akitada shook his head. What was it that Noami had said about the children’s visits? “It’s getting rid of them that’s hard.” The disposal of the dead and the barely alive must have taxed even his strength. Akitada looked the superintendent in the eyes. “Kobe, I swear to you, we did not hang Noami. I was in no shape to stand, let alone string up a man, and Tora was with me the whole time. We left the man unconscious but alive. Noami got a more humane treatment than he accorded me.”

  Kobe’s eyes went to Akitada’s bandaged wrists. He nodded. “We found the sketches. Tora says you freed yourself.”

  “It was either that or die. He doused me with cold water and left me to freeze because he wanted me in sufficient agony for his cursed hell screen. After that... well, by then he knew that I knew.”

  Kobe clenched his big fists. “He was a demon! I am glad he is dead. But I wish he had suffered like those poor creatures. Someone cheated us of the pleasure of lawful torture.”

  Akitada frowned. “I don’t understand what happened. Perhaps someone took private vengeance before you got there. How long before—” He broke off. It occurred to him suddenly that it must have been the warden who had taken justice into his own hands. It certainly fit his character of running his quarter by his own set of laws.

  “Well, we won’t pursue it.” Kobe
regarded him worriedly. “You still look tired. I won’t stay long. Noami is dead, and good riddance, but there is another matter which troubles me more. Yasaburo was found poisoned in his cell.”

  Akitada sat up. “What?”

  “He had had a visitor, an old priest, just before he fell into convulsions. Nobody knew the monk, but he seemed harmless enough and Yasaburo greeted him as an old friend. Since it was a religious visit, the guard left them alone together. Yasaburo was all right when his visitor left, but shortly afterward he started vomiting and screaming with pain. He died before the guard could question him.”

  “Well, did anyone look for that priest?”

  Kobe bristled. “Of course. What do you take us for? We scoured all the temples around and questioned anyone who was in the street at the time the priest came and went. Nothing. The man disappeared into thin air as soon as he left the prison grounds.”

  “Have you asked Harada?”

  “Harada was still pretty sick, but he said that he never knew Yasaburo to associate with priests. In fact, he says his employer despised Buddhists.”

  “Yet he knew him. Strange.” Akitada caught a momentary glimpse of a pattern, but it was all still too vague to share. He asked, “What about Nagaoka’s brother? How long are you going to hold him? You must know now that someone else is responsible for the deaths in the Nagaoka family.”

  Kobe nodded glumly. “I had him released this morning. He will remain in the capital until the case is cleared up.”

  Akitada thought of Yoshiko. For the past month, he had struggled with the problem of Yoshiko and Kojiro, or rather with himself. While Kojiro was in jail, Akitada had concentrated on the murder cases and pushed the decision about his sister’s future aside. Now the inevitable moment had come when he would have to weigh centuries of his family’s tradition against Yoshiko’s happiness.

  He glanced out into the wintry garden. Had Seimei remembered to feed the fish? How pointless his resentment toward the old man seemed now. Tradition-bound, Seimei had chosen loyalty to Akitada’s father over love for his son. Where lay one’s duty?

  Kobe moved restlessly. “I must go,” he said. “When you are better...” He hesitated. Akitada looked at him questioningly. Such diffidence was out of character for Kobe. “When you feel more yourself,” Kobe blurted, “I would be very glad to have your help with the unsolved cases.”

  The humble plea marked an extraordinary reversal of their previous roles, and Akitada was profoundly moved. He said quickly, “Of course. I look forward to it,”

  Kobe nodded and left.

  A quite ridiculous sense of happiness filled Akitada all of a sudden. He was alive. Yori was safe. They were all together again. He looked around the room. It had once been his father’s and a hated room, but now it was his, truly his, and he was pleased with it. Filled with his books and papers, it was the heart of his home and a refuge against the demons lurking outside. The uncertainties of life were offset by such islands of peace among one’s family.

  His eye fell on an unfamiliar oblong brocade-wrapped package on his desk. Curious, he took it up, untied the silk cord, and unrolled the fabric. It contained his broken flute, now miraculously restored. He turned it slowly in his hands, looking for the seam between the broken halves. He could not find it. Bemused, he raised the flute to his lips and blew. The sound was pure and clear, hanging in the air for a moment like a silken ribbon before he let it dissolve into a shower of trills as joyous as the song of a nightingale outside his veranda door.

  He played remembered tunes, “Mist and Rain over a Mountain Lake” and “Bells on a Snowy Night,” surprised that he recalled them, immersed in the music, totally happy for a time. When he finally lowered the instrument, a soft sound of applause came from the door to the corridor. It had been pushed ajar a little, and in the opening appeared the smiling face of Yoshiko.

  “Oh, that was lovely, Elder Brother,” she cried. “The flute maker promised it would play as well as ever. Do you like it?”

  “Please come in, Little Sister.” Akitada smiled. “It sounds better than before, I think. A miracle. Was it you who had it mended?”

  She blushed and bowed. “It gave me great pleasure.”

  Yoshiko was no longer the laughing young girl Akitada remembered. She was a grown woman, Tamako’s age almost, though she looked older, more worn, quietly composed instead of bubbling with energy as she used to be. He was partially to blame for that. What her mother had started by denying Yoshiko a life of her own, he had finished by extorting a cruel promise. He had taken her last hope of happiness with the man she loved.

  “Yoshiko,” he said humbly, “I find I must beg your pardon. I have given you much pain when I had meant to make you happy. And in spite of this, you have gone to have my flute mended. It was too kind and I don’t deserve it.”

  She gave a little gasp. “Oh, no, Akitada. The flute was nothing. And... you meant well,” she said softly.

  “Do you truly love Kojiro?”

  “Yes,” she said without qualification, her voice matter-of-fact.

  “He has been released.”

  A slight flush rose to her cheeks. “I am glad. Poor man, he has suffered so much. I hope his future will be blessed.”

  “And you? Do you still wish to be a part of his future?”

  For a moment the color receded from her face and he thought she would faint. But the blush returned as abruptly. She looked at him in wonder. “Akitada,” she breathed, “have you changed your mind? For me nothing has changed. I shall always love him. He may only be a farmer and a merchant’s brother, but I am a part of him. But what about you, and the family? If you allow this marriage, must we part forever?”

  “No. I was wrong to forbid the marriage and I was wrong about Kojiro’s character. He is a much better man than most people of rank. However, that does not mean that things will be easy for you. You must be prepared for rejection by people of our rank, perhaps even by your own sister.”

  She smiled. “As long as you and Tamako will not disown me, I shall manage quite well. And Akiko will come around in the end because Toshikage is a kind man.”

  Akitada nodded, remembering that he had once also doubted this brother-in-law. “In three weeks’ time the forty-nine days of mourning for your mother will be up. I see no reason why you cannot have a quiet wedding in the spring. If you like the idea, I shall speak to Kojiro about a marriage contract. I mean to give you the same dower as Akiko.”

  His sister covered her face with both hands and began to weep.

  “Yoshiko!” Akitada struggled up in dismay. “What is it? What have I said?” He went to kneel beside her.

  She buried her face against his chest. “Nothing, everything,” she sobbed, half crying and half laughing. “Oh, Akitada. Thank you so much. Oh, and Kojiro will thank you also. We are both forever in your debt.”

  “Well,” said Akitada, dabbing his own eyes and patting her shoulder. “In that case, I had better get busy clearing up three murders, and you will have to use your needle on your own gowns instead of Yori’s. It is high time we got out of these dark clothes.”

  * * * *

  TWENTY-TWO

  The Dance of the Demon

  On the next to the last day of the year, Akitada was well enough to leave the house. The weather was gray, but the bitter cold had finally broken. Akitada wore elaborate court dress—his new robe, made by Yoshiko from the silk he had bought so many weeks ago—because he was on his way to court to present his official report.

  Years ago this would have been a highly stressful affair for him. Even men older and higher in rank than Akitada quaked at the prospect of making their bow to the chancellor and assorted ministers and imperial advisers. But Akitada had just been given back his life. That sort of experience put the present ordeal and even his six years in the frozen north into a new perspective.

  He therefore arrived calmly smiling at the officious young nobleman who had pitied his frayed costume on his last visit. The youn
g man flushed with embarrassment and bowed Akitada obsequiously into the presence of the great men. Oblivious to their sharp-eyed scrutiny, Akitada extended New Year’s wishes with goodwill and more smiles to the three ministers and the haughty and bored chancellor. Then he presented his official report. He spoke easily and concisely on matters of national security, handing over sheaves of neatly written documents, answered their questions, and stated his recommendations for the region with strong arguments and to such good effect that even the chancellor sat up and listened. What should have been a stiff and formal affair suddenly became a lively exchange of views, and the eminent men consulted Akitada’s opinion with flattering interest and respect.

  He left the palace smiling and whistling under his breath, the recipient of several invitations to seasonal parties. Strange, when one stopped caring so much about impressing the great, they became entirely human and quite likable.