Текст книги "The Convict's Sword "

Автор книги: Ingrid J. Parker

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 22 (всего у книги 25 страниц)

Akitada wore traveling clothes and had Haseo’s sword slung over his shoulder. It seemed appropriate that he should take up Haseo’s battle with it. His own sword was lost, probably forever, but family tradition paled when you had just lost your only son. Of course, there might be other sons some day. Tamako’s frenzied use of him during the night could result in pregnancy, but Akitada’s flight—and he knew that was what it was—told him that he feared the prospect. He did not want another child to take Yori’s place. He never wanted to lose another child so horribly.

He passed through the capital quickly, riding straight down Suzaku Avenue toward Rashomon. The streets were almost deserted, though red-coated constables were in evidence near the markets. Another distribution of grain? As long as the markets remained closed, the threat of famine was added to the grim specter of smallpox.

The official scavengers were busy at the Great Gate, a customary place to leave your unburied dead. Beyond stretched the Saikaido, highway to the western ocean, toward a green and mountainous countryside. In the far distance, hidden in a blue haze, was Haseo’s home and the sacred Hachiman Shrine. Akitada left death behind, hoping to find a way back to life.

Along the highway was more evidence of the epidemic. He passed two rotting corpses. In their haste to flee the city, a man and a woman had succumbed to the disease, proving, like Soga, the foolishness of trying to escape fate.

Akitada considered fear and found he had none. It seemed to him that this was so because he no longer valued his life. Only those who found happiness and contentment in their existence feared losing it. It was a cruel twist of fate that death had snatched Yori, so young and full of joy and laughter, and left behind his father.

But dwelling on Yori’s death caused unbearable pain, and so Akitada fled—leaving behind an empty house, agonizing memories, and constant reminders of guilt. He followed the trail of an old murder and betrayal, hoping to drive his demons back into the shadows of his mind.

By the time he reached Toba, he had reviewed the facts of Haseo’s case and felt hungry. He could not recall his last meal, or any meal he had felt an appetite for. Now that he had left the nauseating smoke of Toribeno behind and the air was sweeter, his body clamored for sustenance even when life seemed unbearable. Unfortunately, all the doors of the small town were closed to him. People feared travelers from the capital.

He rode on with a painfully empty belly. The highway soon crossed the Kamo River. There was boat traffic here, and a few miles farther he found a temple and stopped.

The monk who greeted him at the gate said they were low on provisions, having fed so many fugitives from the capital that they had only beans and millet left. The beans and millet had been boiled into a thick, pasty stew, but Akitada ate hungrily. He had taken only a few bites, when a small family arrived, a man with two women and two children. One of the children was a boy Yori’s age, and Akitada choked on his food. Leaving most of it behind, along with a donation, he fled back to the road.

Soon the Katsura River joined the Kamo, and more boats plied their trade on the water. He passed the vast Ogura swamp, through which the Uji River flowed to join the Kamo and the Katsura, and within another mile the Kii joined also, forming a wide river delta of swamps and sandbanks before becoming the fast and treacherous Yodo, which carried all the heavy shipping to the Inland Sea and Korea and China beyond. At the river confluence, the highway crossed a long timber bridge and turned west. All around Akitada was a flat landscape of watery rice paddies, with occasional farms shaded by trees rising like islands from a green and billowing sea. Here the peasants worked their land as they always had.

The mountains rose to the south, blue against a paler sky. Some inner need drove Akitada to visit the shrine first. To reach Mount Otoko he passed the barrier into Settsu Province and then crossed the river by ferry.

Before ascending the sacred mountain, Akitada bathed in the river and changed his clothes to cleanse himself of the pollution of the past days. It was getting dark before he reached the shrine on top of the sacred mountain and stabled his horse.

Perhaps he was foolish to come here, but something drew him to this place, a spiritual bond with the ancient gods of heaven and earth. As soon as he had passed under the red-lacquered torii and entered the forest path, he felt that he was in the presence of the gods. Large trees—camphor trees, he thought, but it was too dark here to be certain—enclosed him like sheltering wings. He felt calmer than he had in many months. His grief did not entirely disappear—he was convinced it never would—but it felt more natural, not like some foreign object which had been thrust deep into his belly and lay there festering. He felt a part of the mountain, the trees, the night, and when the tears finally spilled from his eyes, he let them fall unchecked.

Near the shrine was a small Buddhist temple where he asked for and received a place to sleep. And here he found his first rest after many sleepless nights.

He awoke well after sunrise to the cooing of hundreds of doves, and rose to pay his respects to the gods. There was no one about as he walked to the shrine building in the cool mountain air, rinsed his mouth and his hands with the clear water in a stone trough, and then prayed humbly to the gods of the mountain, and to Hachiman, protector of warriors and immanent spirit of this sacred place. He found no answering enlightenment for his troubles or Haseo’s, but he felt a sense of peace, and when he stepped from the shrine, the morning air seemed purer, the scent of camphor and pine fresher, and flocks of doves rose to circle the shrine hall.

He could see for miles from this mountaintop, across a green and fertile land, across the web of rivers, rice paddies, lakes, and villages, all the way to the distant hazy shimmer that was the capital. This land of the rising sun would endure. All else was immaterial, transitory, and of no importance. Men, like the doves of this sacred mountain, were individually short-lived and insignificant, but they too would endure like the mountain itself. And during their fleeting lives, they could soar.

The priest was a member of the Ki family, hereditary head priests of the Hachiman Shrine. He was past middle age, very dignified in his white garments and black court hat, and he received Akitada with smiling courtesy in his private apartments. Another priest, perhaps Ki’s secretary, was bent over some paperwork.

Shinto priests could marry and, apart from their training in ritual and their devotion to the gods, were not much different from ordinary men of rank and education. But this was the shrine of the guardian deity of the Imperial Family, and Ki was accustomed to receiving emperors, chancellors, and nobles of the highest rank. After a few polite preliminaries and fielding a question or two about conditions in the capital, Akitada asked him about Haseo.

The priest’s smile did not fade. He nodded. “I knew him and his family well. They were faithful supporters of this shrine. A dreadful affair. What is it that you wish to know?”

“Did you think him capable of the crime?”

Ki hesitated. “All men are capable of extraordinary acts—both good and evil—if it is fated and their nature demands it. Let me explain. Haseo wanted to take up the life of a warrior, but his father refused his permission. The elder Tomonari wished his only son to manage the family estate and provide him with heirs. Haseo married and fathered two sons, but he held on to his dream of becoming an officer in the Imperial Guard. On the day of the murder, he came to me to take his leave. He was about to tell his father of his decision.” The priest sighed deeply. “They say there was a violent quarrel.”

Akitada found Ki’s continued smile irritating. He could accept Haseo’s anger with his father, but not what the priest suggested. He asked, “What became of his family?”

Ki hedged. “Surely it cannot matter, since they were not witnesses to the murders?”

Akitada said harshly, “When Haseo died in my arms in Sadoshima, his last thoughts were for his family.”

Ki, still smiling, shook his head. “It does you great credit to be concerned on your friend’s behalf, but I assure you that they are well. Consider please that great harm might come to them if the past were stirred up again.”

There it was again: the warning to leave matters alone. Akitada persisted. “There was a nurse who witnessed the crime. Can you at least tell me where she lives?”

“She is dead. Of the people who were in the house that day, no one is left now. They have all died or gone away.”

As if they had never existed, thought Akitada. Had they fled because of shame or due to coercion? “Who lives on the Tomonari Estate now?”

“No one. The manor and the land belong to the emperor. Lord Yasugi is the administrator and sees to the cultivation of the fields.”

Strange the way the lines crossed and recrossed: Yasugi held Haseo’s lands; Yasugi’s unhappy wife was Hiroko, who knew Tomoe, the blind singer of ancient warrior ballads, who was also known to Matsue, who had had Haseo’s sword.

Akitada found neither answers nor encouragement here. Perhaps he should not have expected it. As head priest of the emperor’s tutelary deity, Ki would certainly do nothing to interfere with present arrangements. Before leaving, Akitada asked one more question.

“Did Haseo have any close male relatives his own age? Perhaps a first cousin?”

Ki raised his brows. “None at all. That is what caused the quarrel between father and son in the first place. There was no one else to carry on the family name.”

The priest’s secretary rose and left the room on silent feet, and Ki cleared his throat impatiently. Akitada asked, “May I take it that you know of no one else who might have done the killings?”

“Believe me, if I did, I would have said so at the time,” Ki said in a slightly reproving tone.

Akitada had no reason to doubt him and made his farewells to the still smiling Ki.

Outside the elderly secretary awaited him. “I beg your pardon,” he said urgently, “but I couldn’t help overhearing your question.”

“Yes?”

“I grew up in Tsuzuki District. People gossip among themselves about things they don’t mention to outsiders.”

“I understand. What is it that you know?”

The old man fidgeted. “Know is perhaps too strong a word. As I said, it’s mere gossip. The old lord was said to have fathered a child with a servant. People saw a resemblance when the boy grew up. When Lord Tomonari gave a farmstead to the mother of this boy, it confirmed people’s suspicions. Mind you, there may be nothing to it. Except for an outward resemblance, Sangoro had nothing at all in common with the young master.”

“Where does this Sangoro live?”

“His farm is just over the hill from the Tomonari place. His mother used to walk to work every day.”

Akitada thanked the priest and walked down the mountain, trying to recall where he had heard the name Sangoro before.

The Tomonari Estate was substantial, and peasants worked its fields, treading waterwheels, pulling weeds, and building dams between paddies. They did not raise their heads to stare at the lone horseman, and Akitada soon saw why. An overseer stood on a small hill, a whip tucked under his arm.

The gate to the manor stood open, and Akitada rode in to look around and perhaps to ask directions to Sangoro’s farm, but there was no one about except a scattering of chickens. He dismounted and led his horse to the water trough. The manor resembled many such across the land, a cluster of simple halls with thickly thatched roofs, their wooden walls blackened by age and the elements. The main residence lacked the amenities of noble houses in the capital, but this was a rural household; the men who had built it had maintained a simple lifestyle close to the land around them. Now it looked neglected. The doors were shuttered, grass grew on the roof, and swallows nested under the deep eaves.

The silence and emptiness reminded him of houses in the capital where everyone had died. It opened again the door to memory, shattering the peace so fleetingly won on the mountain. Overcome by his loss, he sank down on the rim of the trough and put his head in his hands.

After a time, he became aware of an odd sound among the clucking of chickens, chirping of birds, and occasional snorting from his horse. Someone was thrumming a zither. Abruptly his memory leapt backward and he was standing again outside the wall of the Yasugi mansion.

His heart beating faster, he tied up his horse.

CHAPTERTWENTY-TWO

HIROKO

Behind the main house was a small overgrown garden, and beyond that an area of shrubs and trees from which rose another, smaller pitched roof. The music was louder here. The zither player plucked the strings tentatively, halfheartedly, putting long pauses between clusters of notes so that the cheerful folk song struck his ear like a lament.

Someone had made a rudimentary path through the small wilderness, and Akitada took it, skirting thorny vines and dusting his boots and the skirts of his traveling robe with yellow pollen from wildflowers. Bush clover bloomed here among buzzing bees, and saffron flowers, and small pink carnations almost suffocated by ferns. Many years ago, as a small boy, Haseo must have played in this garden.

Like Yori.

She was sitting on the wooden porch of a vine-covered garden pavilion, her attention on the zither before her. He almost did not recognize her in a peasant woman’s gray cotton robe and trousers, and with her long hair braided into a single plait. Her face was bare of cosmetics, but her beauty made his heart contract at the futility of his desire.

Reminding himself of her lies, he strode up to the stone step of the porch and demanded, “Are you alone?”

She started and the melody splintered. Then her eyes widened and her face softened into joy. “How did you find me?” she asked.

He said coldly, “By accident. I had planned to call on you at your husband’s house, but this will do very well. How do you come to be here, and where are your people?”

The joy faded. “I have been banished. Yasugi sent me here.”

“You mean you are a prisoner?”

“Something like that.” She studied his face anxiously. “You have changed, Akitada. You look . . . ill.”

He brushed that away. “I’m well enough.” He glanced into the building behind her. It was empty except for a straw mat and the sort of bundle people make of a change of clothes when they travel. “You stay here? Why didn’t they at least open the main house for you?”

“They say it’s haunted. Someone was murdered there.”

“Yes,” he said harshly. “I know, and so do you. This used to be your home. You lied to me.”

She opened her mouth to protest.

“No, don’t deny it. Your first husband was the Tomonari heir. He died in exile for crimes he didn’t commit. Tell me, did you believe him guilty? Is that why you accepted so eagerly the rich man’s offer? Did you at least wait until the authorities confirmed your first husband’s death before you leapt into Yasugi’s bed?”

She had turned very white. The ivory plectrum in her right hand jerked across the zither, and a string tore with a loud, dissonant twang. She dropped the plectrum and bent her head, hunching her shoulders as if she expected him to strike her. “Please don’t.”

He was unmoved. Life was full of horrors, and he had no time for pity; he wanted answers. He said fiercely, “Your husband was my friend and died in my arms. His last thoughts were of you and the others, of the children. He believed you would stay together, and I promised I would find you. But I found only you, married to a rich man and living in luxury. Where are the others? Where are his children?”

She shuddered but did not answer, and that angered him. He went to her, seized her shoulder, and shook her until she raised her head and met his eyes. “Damn you, woman! You will speak and you will not lie to me this time, for I shall have the truth somehow. Your personal feelings no longer matter to me.”

She flinched as if he had struck her, but her eyes remained dry. “No,” she said softly, “I see that now. I think I knew it when I first saw your face. You’re changed. But I have never lied to you, whatever you may think. You never asked about my first husband.”

“You lied about your relationship with the murdered street singer,” he thundered. “I checked your family records. You are an only child, yet you claimed she was your sister and told me a string of lies about your parents abandoning her for making an unsuitable marriage. You even embroidered the tale by making out that her husband was an unfeeling brute who divorced her when she got smallpox. Who was Tomoe really?”

“I did not lie. One may call one’s husband’s wives ‘sisters.’ ”

That stopped him. “Tomoe was Haseo’s wife?”

“She changed her name because she had to earn her living on the streets.” Hiroko looked at him reproachfully, and he wondered if she was feeding him another elaborate lie.

“Even if this is true, the rest was a pack of lies.”

“It was all true. The Atsumis rejected her when she decided to accept the offer of a common gate guard. She and the children lived with him for a year, but when she became ill and blind, he threw them out. She was too proud to ask her parents for help after that.”

Akitada felt as if the ground were shifting beneath him. If this was indeed finally the truth, it was monstrous. He sat down abruptly on the stone step. She rose to fetch a cushion for him, inviting him to sit beside her.

“Please tell me about Haseo,” she begged.

He obeyed. When he was done, there was a long silence. Then she nodded. “Yes, that was like him. He could be very kind. And it’s good to know that he did not forget us in the end.” She sighed. “I have been angry with him for too many years.”

It was hard to know how women felt about their husbands. Apparently she had blamed Haseo for their abandonment. Akitada changed the subject. “How long have you been here?”

“Since we returned from the capital. Don’t look so shocked. I much prefer it to the company of my present husband.”

“You have your maid with you?”

“No.”

“Surely you’re not alone?”

“Someone brings me food once a day.”

He felt outrage at Yasugi’s treatment of her. At least two of Haseo’s wives had been abandoned to fates worse than exile. Uncomfortably aware of the offer of marriage he had made her, he said awkwardly, “You cannot stay here. Do you have relatives?”

She bowed her head. “Only a great-uncle in the capital. He doesn’t want me.”

Akitada felt wretched, but he simply could not bring this beautiful creature into his household now. In truth, he no longer wanted her there.

She guessed his thoughts and twitched a shoulder impatiently. “Don’t worry. I’m not your responsibility.”

“I wish I could offer you my home—” He broke off helplessly.

“I know. Once the cherry blossoms have fallen, not even Buddha can reattach them. We are not the same people any longer.”

He felt constrained to explain. “My little son has died.”

She raised her eyes in dismay. “When?”

“Four days ago. I left the morning after the funeral.” As he said it, he felt as if the suffocating pall of smoke from the pyre once again darkened the sun, and his tongue tasted the acrid stench.

She was still staring at him. “You left? But what about your wife? Your other children?”

“There are no other children. And Tamako is quite strong.”

She moved away a fraction. “Oh, yes. She will need her strength. Left all alone to grieve the death of her only child.”

Akitada detected a note of reproof. “You don’t understand,” he snapped.

She gave a small bitter laugh. “Oh, I understand only too well. You wanted to get away, to turn your back on an empty house, to immerse yourself in your work in order to blot out the pain. All men please themselves. Haseo did, too. I suppose that’s what makes women strong.”

He eyed her resentfully. “You think I’m pleased? You cannot possibly know what it feels like to lose your only son. Besides, my behavior is not for you to judge.”

She rose, her pale face flushed with anger. “I know your grief only too well, my lord. I lost my son. And you have judged me all along.”

He stumbled to his feet. “You lost a son?”

“Yes. He was my only son also, though I still have a daughter. He was barely two years old.”

“Yasugi’s child?”

“I have no children by my present husband.” She twisted her hands, and for the first time her eyes filled with tears. “My daughter is no longer with me. Yasugi keeps her from me. She’s almost eight, and he threatens to sell her into prostitution unless I submit to him.”

“Dear heaven!”

“I no longer have any choice,” she said bitterly. “You do.”

Akitada was dumfounded. “You mean you have refused Yasugi all these years? But why did he marry you if you had no intention of living with him as his wife?”

She leaned against the wall and hid her face in her hands. “He hoped to break down my resistance. I agreed to accept his protection for myself and my children if I could live undisturbed in separate quarters. He was eager to help and very solicitous in those early days, and I was young and afraid, and foolish enough to think that he would be like a father to me.” She shuddered. “Once he tried to rape me. I screamed and servants came. After that he only beat me. When that didn’t change my mind, he took my children away.” She drew a deep shuddering breath. “I think he killed my son. He said it was an accident. That he fell and broke his neck.”

Akitada sat down abruptly and muttered again, “Dear heaven.”

She fell to her knees beside him. “What am I to do? I’ve tried to protect my children and failed. I tried to help Tomoe and she was murdered. I have no strength left. He has won.”

Their eyes met—hers swimming with tears, his shocked. “Do you suspect Yasugi of murdering Tomoe?”

She cried, “I don’t know. Tomoe wanted me to leave him. Only what could I do to support myself and my daughter? There is only prostitution. Tomoe said prostitution was better than having our children killed one by one. And the next day she was found dead. I think my maid told Yasugi what she said.”

Akitada felt a great surge of love and pity for her. He wanted to touch her, console her, but knew he must not. “You’ve been wronged, Hiroko,” he said. “All of you were cruelly wronged. Haseo first, and then his family. None of it is your fault. We shall get your daughter back and find the others. When I return to the capital, I shall file a suit on your behalf. Haseo was innocent and the Tomonari land belongs rightfully to Haseo’s oldest son.”

She dabbed her eyes with her sleeves. “His name is Nobunari. He must be twelve. I don’t know where he is or if he is alive. Tomoe wouldn’t tell me. She was afraid Yasugi would force it from me.”

Akitada remembered the silver coins in Tomoe’s box and the two names written on the slip of paper. Nobunari and Nobuko were her son and daughter, and they were both alive, or had been when she died. If only Hiroko had not accepted Yasugi’s protection! But Akitada had offered the same not too long ago. Alone in the world, a beautiful woman was subject to the selfish whims and desires of men. “What happened to the third wife, Sakyo?”

“She returned to her family and took her little girls with her.”

Akitada thought of those three abandoned wives and their children. One married a rich man, one fled to her family, and the third ended in the gutter. “Haseo thought all of you would stay with Sakyo.”

Hiroko said bitterly, “The Katsuragis didn’t want their name tainted by the scandal. They took only Sakyo and were thankful she had no sons who would have borne their father’s name. Sachi—Tomoe—married quickly. I took my children and went to my great-uncle, who convinced me to accept Yasugi’s offer because he didn’t want to be burdened with us.”

“Do you know where your daughter is?”

She nodded. “With one of Yasugi’s managers, not far from here.”

“Then we shall get her. Is there anywhere you both can stay for a few weeks?”

“Perhaps we could stay with the shrine maidens at the Hachiman Shrine.”

Akitada thought of the smiling priest Ki and shook his head. “It wouldn’t be safe.”

“There’s a temple that has quarters for a few nuns. One of them is an elderly cousin of mine.”

“Yes. You should be safe there until you can return to your own home.” He glanced toward the roofs of the mansion behind him.

She nodded and gave him a tremulous smile. “Yes. Now that we have someone to remember us. Thank you, Akitada.”

His heart twisted. He did not want to pursue that dangerous path but could not help himself. “Tell me about you and Haseo.”

She flushed and looked down at her hands. “I was very young when the matchmaker came. She asked if I was healthy and felt my hips and belly through my gown. I knew I was chosen to give children to this strange man. I hated Haseo then, but I fell in love with him later. Haseo was always gentle. And he was very handsome.” She sighed. “We were all in love with him, but he loved fighting more. He left us for long months to live in the capital. At first I thought he was visiting the courtesans, but he went to study sword fighting and to keep company with soldiers. I soon learned that I was nothing to him.”

Akitada heard the bitterness, but he had learned that wives expected a great deal more than their husbands could give them. He asked, “What about his parents?”

“His father was very stern. Haseo avoided him. I think that angered his father. They both had tempers. Haseo’s mother was kind and timid. She tried to make peace. Haseo loved his mother.”

“Do you remember the day of the murders?”

She looked at him doubtfully. “That day, we—the wives—were not in the main house. We didn’t see or hear the quarrel, but I knew Haseo was planning to do something . . . he looked angry when he left.”

“You saw him just before the murder?”

“He left me in the morning.” She blushed.

“The crime happened at midday. Haseo was arrested at the scene. What was he doing until then?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did he take his sword? This sword?” He showed it to her.

She looked and recoiled slightly. She answered so softly that he almost did not hear, “Yes, he had his sword.”

Akitada began to suspect that Hiroko had believed her husband guilty. “How did you find out about the murders?”

She looked away and let the words pour out. “They brought us the news. First a servant, weeping. Then the steward to tell us that Haseo had killed his father and his mother. We didn’t believe it, but Yasura had been with Haseo’s mother and she saw it all. Yasura used to be Haseo’s nurse. They said she was like a madwoman, crying, ‘He did it. I saw it. He killed them both.’ Later the constables led Haseo away. I ran after him. I saw blood on his clothes, and the look on his face was terrible. They took me away then, and I never saw him again.” She sighed and wiped away tears. “So long ago and still so terrible.”

He waited a moment, then asked, “You did not attend the trial?”

“No. There was a hearing at the Yasugi mansion. Yasugi is the senior district official. A judge asked all of us questions and made us put our names to our testimony.” She paused. “Yasugi was very kind to me that day.”

So Yasugi had been involved in Haseo’s trial and had been solicitous of his beautiful young wife. That the biggest land-owner should hold the top administrative position in his district was common practice, but it raised more suspicions in Akitada’s mind that Yasugi had hatched a plot to incriminate Haseo. He had had a double motive: Haseo’s beautiful third wife and the Tomonari Estate. But it did not explain how the murder happened, and Hiroko was no help there.

She was calmer now that she had poured out her story, and he said, “Your husband . . . Haseo was innocent. A man called Sangoro may help us prove it. Do you know him?”

She frowned. “Sangoro? He grew up with Haseo and tried to be like him. Haseo’s father was amused and let him strut about when the boys were young, but later he could see that it put ideas in his head and that Sangoro was becoming disrespectful, so he put a stop to it. But Sangoro left for the capital and only came to visit his mother sometimes. There’s a distant cousin living at the farm. I think Sangoro works for Yasugi now.”

“Does he indeed?” Akitada wondered just what sort of work he did. He was no farmer. He glanced past her at the bundle inside her room. “Could you leave now? We could stop at Sangoro’s farm on our way to get your daughter.”

“Now?” Apparently she had not thought what her next step would have to be and how quickly it must be taken, but she was still the same Hiroko who had disguised herself to attend Tora’s trial. She went inside to pick up her bundle and rejoined him. “I’m ready,” she said.

He helped her onto his horse, tied her bundle to his own saddlebag, and mounted behind her. There was no sign of Yasugi’s people, and they left the Tomonari manor unchallenged.

A narrow footpath led from the manor over the crest of a low wooded hill into the next valley. Intensely aware of Hiroko, Akitada made himself think of Matsue instead. He hoped he would finally learn what role he had played in Haseo’s tragedy.

Sangoro’s farm consisted of a wooden house and two sheds, the whole surrounded by a low stone wall. Its fields were poorly cultivated, some having gone to weeds, and others showing only thin crops. Near the house, a few vegetables struggled in a small plot. But there were many chickens and, surprisingly, a horse tied up beside one of the sheds.

When Akitada saw the horse, he stopped in the shelter of the trees. “You’d better wait here. Can you ride?”

She nodded and let him help her down. “What are you afraid of ?”

“I have a notion that Sangoro has come home.” He led her to a grassy spot where she could sit and wait. “If there is trouble, take my horse and flee. Get your daughter and head for refuge.”