Текст книги "The Dragon Scroll "

Автор книги: Ingrid J. Parker

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

When Tora’s watering eyes adjusted, he saw that the room contained a crudely made serving counter and a dirt floor where several men of the poorest class—bare-legged laborers in loincloths and quilted cotton jackets—were eating or getting drunk. They greeted his arrival as a comic entertainment.

Tora got to his feet. The food, he thought, must be cheap and decent, or the place would be empty. Besides, he was more likely to pick up useful information in a low dive than in a respectable business.

The owner, a fat, bald fellow, was leaning on the counter, looking at Tora from under bushy eyebrows.

“Salted vegetables and a pitcher of your best wine, my large friend,” Tora called out to him and took a seat beside one of the other guests. His neighbor lowered his bowl and wiped his mouth with a sleeve. Tora asked, “What’s that you’re eating, brother? Is it good? I’m half-starved.”

The man grinned. “Best bean soup in town, if you can hold it. And if you can’t, run outside. Old Denzo’s stunk up the place enough.” There was a burst of laughter from the others, and old Denzo stood up to demonstrate his powers.

Tora applauded, then became aware of the host’s round belly looming over him.

“Perhaps the gentleman would prefer the food at the Golden Dragon,” the fat man growled. “It’s the big restaurant at the corner of the market.”

“Why?” asked Tora, looking up at him. “If I wanted to eat there, I would’ve gone there. You must be all belly and no brains to tell a paying customer to eat elsewhere. I want some bean soup, and bring my friends here some wine.”

Suddenly he was everybody’s friend. The fat host muttered under his breath and waddled away. Tora hoped the wine would loosen tongues. “Tell me...” he began, when the curtain flapped back and three strangers joined them. They waited for the other men to move away, then sat down next to Tora. The room had fallen silent.

Tora looked them over: an ugly scarred brute, a fat giant, and a short, long-nosed man. He put on a ferocious scowl. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded. “Sit someplace else. I was talking to my friends.”

“We like it here,” said the ugly brute with the scarred face. His open shirt revealed more scars. Knife fights, Tora decided and became intensely aware of being unarmed. The scarred man bared broken teeth as his deep-set black eyes roamed over Tora. His two companions stared silently. The giant had a strangely small shaven head perched on his enormous shoulders. He had the vacuous look of a baby. Slow in the head, thought Tora, and all the more dangerous for that. The third man was middle-aged, with the sharp features and sly eyes of a weasel. All three looked at Tora hungrily.

Courage aside, Tora had enough sense not to tangle with them in this place. Any one of the other customers might join in and knife him in the back. He tried bluster.

“If you’re hard up for company, scum,” he sneered, half rising, “let’s step outside and I’ll make all three of you wish you’d never left your mother’s tits.”

The big oaf reached into his sleeve and pulled out a large knife. He licked his lips. “Can I cut him a little, boss?” he wheedled in a thin voice. The hair bristled on Tora’s scalp.

The scarred man gave the moron a box on the ear without taking his eyes off Tora. The giant whimpered and put his knife away.

“We saw you collect our money from the rice-cake vendor,” Scarface said in a flat voice. “We don’t allow strangers to move into our territory and take what’s rightfully ours.”

So that was it. Protection money. These hoodlums collected money from small merchants with threats of roughing them up or worse. The rice-cake vendor had mistaken Tora for one of their gang and landed him in a bad spot. Even if he turned over the money, they would hardly let him walk away in one piece. His only chance lay in quick and decisive action.

Familiar with the fighting practiced by street gangs, Tora suddenly lashed out with his right arm in a backhanded sweep, letting the knuckles of his balled fist land squarely in the face of the small man. Simultaneously he rose and kicked the scarred man in the stomach. The idiot tried to get up but lost his balance stumbling over his friend. Before he could reason out the incident and reach for his knife again, Tora kicked him in the head. The idiot’s face puckered up like that of a hurt child.

The small man was not moving, but Scarface was up and coming at him with a knife in each hand.

A two-handed knife fighter was the most dangerous. Tora retreated, saw a wooden stool, and grabbed it to ward off the knife thrusts while looking for a weapon of his own. There was nothing, not even a broom handle.

Scarface slashed and Tora dodged, fending off one knife with the stool, then twisting out of reach of the other one. It was an uneven contest he had little hope of winning. He was about to try to make a run for it when someone extended a bamboo pole to him.

Tora snatched it with his free hand and immediately attacked. Scarface cursed when one of his knives skittered across the floor. His right arm hung useless. But he kept coming, his face distorted with pain, his eyes wild, the long puckered scar that ran from his hairline to his nose turning blood-red with his fury. A mad animal.

Tora dropped the stool and concentrated on working the pole. He almost enjoyed himself. The scarred man suffered a hard hit on the skull and another vicious jab in the stomach before the pole deprived him of his remaining knife, then pinned him against the wall by the neck.

Noisy applause broke out. Tora, breathing hard, adjusted the end of the pole firmly on his opponent’s windpipe and looked around. What he saw almost caused him to drop his weapon.

The giant was stretched out on the floor. On his back sat a burly man with thick gray hair and beard surrounding a deeply tanned face. His eyes twinkled gleefully at Tora, and the grin showed a gap in his front teeth.

“Hito!” gasped Tora. “What the devil are you doing here?”

The other man gave a laugh. “Glad I found you in time, little brother. I was passing and thought I heard your voice.”

The scarred man began to gasp and choke and his face turned purple. Tora eased the pressure on the pole a little. “Go get some rope,” he told the host, who was wringing his hands and goggling at the scene.

Hidesato asked, “What will you do with them?”

Tora considered. “Turn them over to the constables?”

There was a collective gasp from the patrons. A few men began to inch toward the door. The host, coming back with an armful of rope, cried, “Not the constables! We’ll take care of them ourselves.”

Their disposition could wait, but they made secure bundles of the three before Tora and Hidesato sat down together to drink to their unexpected reunion.

“You’ve been well?” Tora asked, looking at the gray in Hidesato’s hair and beard.

The other man grimaced. “Left the army a month after you did. Been knocking about since then, hiring myself out to people with more money than fighting skill.”

Their fat host became obsequious, bringing a large pitcher of wine, two bowls of soup, and a platter of rice and vegetables. “On the house,” he said with an ingratiating smile.

“Much obliged,” said Tora, raising his cup to Hidesato. “Welcome, older brother!” he said. “It warms my heart to see you. Wait till you hear what’s happened to me.”

Hidesato took a sip of his soup and nodded at Tora’s clothes. “You look very respectable.”

“More than respectable. I’m special assistant to ...” He leaned across and whispered in Hidesato’s ear.

Hidesato stared, then raised his cup and said dryly, “I congratulate you.” Turning to the host, he said, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but we got the feeling you don’t like those men over there any better than we do.”

“Those bastards?” The host spat in the direction of their prisoners. “Been paying the weasel and his idiot for years, and a small fortune since the ugly devil joined them. Most of my customers get knocked about every time they show up. I’d like to see them flayed alive, but we don’t care much for constables here.”

“They’ve been extorting money from the market vendors,” Tora said.

Hidesato raised his brows. “You don’t say. A gang.”

“Tax collectors,” shouted the comedian in the group. “Taking from the poor just like those cursed dogs the governor sends around.”

All eyes turned to Tora and an embarrassed silence fell.

Hidesato grinned.

Tora inwardly cursed his blue robe. “I’m just a visitor,” he said, “and I work for wages like you do. But if we let those three bastards go, they’ll be back and take it out on you.”

The host paled. “He’s right. Let’s kill them,” he decided.

“That’ll bring the constables for sure,” Tora pointed out.

The host waddled behind the counter and brought out a heavy earthen jar. Delving into its clinking depth, he took out ten silver pieces. “Here,” he said, counting out five each for Tora and Hidesato. “That’s for you if you get rid of them.”

“No,” said Tora, pushing the silver back.

“C’mon! A quick slash with a knife and it’s done. And we’ll help you carry the bodies to Squatters’ Field later. They always find bodies there. Nobody’ll know the difference, and you’ll be long gone before there’s any trouble.”

“No. We’re not hired assassins,” snapped Tora.

Hidesato gave him a long look, then got up to peer at the three ruffians. “You know their names?” he asked the host.

The host spat again. “Scum. The big monster’s Yushi. A guy I know watched him disembowel a puppy. Yushi used to work for the thin geezer, Jubei. Jubei was a pimp for the soldiers till they found out he trained his girls to roll their customers. They beat him up and told him to stay out of that business. That’s when he got into the extortion racket around the market. Then, a couple of weeks ago, the ugly guy showed up. We call him Scarface. Nobody knows his name.”

“They should be in jail,” said Tora stubbornly.

“Suppose,” said Hidesato, “my very official-looking friend here tells the constables they attacked him, which is no more than the truth. You all say that you’re not sure what happened exactly. The constables take them away and lock them up till the next court session. If no one appears against them, the magistrate will let them go, but they’ll leave you alone from then on, for fear that you’ll testify against them. They may even move to another province.”

This was considered and met with approval. The constables arrived, listened to Tora’s story, and departed with their prisoners.

Tora breathed a sigh of relief. He was going to invite Hidesato to his quarters for the night so that they could talk over old times, but when he looked around for him, his friend was gone. Without so much as a good-bye.

* * * *

EIGHT

THE WIDOW

A

kitada, neatly robed and wearing his official hat, knocked for the second time that day on the gate of the Tachibana mansion. By now the news had spread and he had an audience of a gaggle of curious idlers. This time the response was prompt and he was admitted by Junjiro, who was dressed in the hempen robe appropriate for servants in mourning for their master but also wore an expression of cheerful importance. When he saw Akitada, he straightened his back, folded his arms across his chest, and bowed deeply from the waist. In a high, penetrating voice, he sang out, “Welcome. This poor hovel is greatly honored by Your Highness’s condescension.”

This provoked a burst of laughter from the people in the street. Akitada stepped in quickly. “Ssh!” he said. “Close the gate.”

Junjiro obeyed. “It is not the right thing to say?”

“No. Only your master and mistress can refer to their home in those terms. And if you must use an honorific, er, a title for me, you may call me ‘Excellency.’“

“I am grateful for your instruction, Your Excellency,” said Junjiro, then spoiled the effect by adding with a broad grin, “You missed all the fun. All those baldpates chanting and hopping about on their bare feet, the servants squalling, pulling their hair, and looking like sacks of beans in these hemp gowns”—he held out his robe and grimaced—”and outside the gate everybody’s trying to see what’s going on. Just like a bon festival.”

“Aren’t you grieving for your master?” asked Akitada, astonished at such callousness.

“Time enough to grieve when the mistress throws us out,” said the boy. “I like to eat.”

Akitada opened his mouth but thought better of it. “Take me to her,” he demanded instead.

“She’s in there with the corpse and the monks,” Junjiro informed him crudely, pointing to the main building.

Muffled sounds of Buddhist chanting came from inside. On the veranda, Junjiro helped Akitada remove his wooden clogs and then opened the door.

The odor of incense overwhelmed Akitada. Chanting flowed back and forth across the dusky space, seemingly drawn, like a tide, by the periodic tinkling of small brass bells at opposite ends of the room: the waves of sound swelled and pulsated with the rhythmic throbbing of drumbeats. He could barely discern shapes in the thick fog of incense. It hung low over the seated figures of yellow-robed monks, the pale hempen gowns of kneeling servants, and the darker, more formal robes of visitors, all of them faceless with their backs toward Akitada, all of them motionless in respect to the dead. Wisps of incense floated about standing candles and outlined each flame in a glowing nimbus of smoke and light.

The thick scent of burning aloe and sandalwood made Akitada’s eyes water and his nose burn. He blinked and perceived in the center of the flickering candles the funeral palanquin with the shrouded body of the late Lord Tachibana seated like some deity about to be carried in procession.

Behind and toward the side of the palanquin, a screen had been placed. The corner of a full sleeve showed at its bottom. The widow.

Suddenly aware that she had a clear view of him from behind the wooden lattice, Akitada approached the palanquin, bowed, and took a seat as close to the screen as he dared.

He could now see the monks and mourners better. The servants, only five of them, were clustered about old Sato and looked not so much sad as fearful. The visitors, all male and strangers to Akitada, wore the politely pious expressions of people who would rather be elsewhere. Where were Tachibana’s friends? Had he outlived them all? Where were the friends of the widow?

Poor young girl! She had no family of her own, he knew, and was too young and too timid to have cultivated friendships with ladies from neighboring families. His heart went out to her and he glanced toward the screen. He thought he heard a soft sob, but the sound was drowned out by a renewed tinkling of brass bells.

The monk who handled the bells was young and emphatic in his movements, too emphatic perhaps. The drumming also rolled along unevenly, and Akitada, who was no connoisseur in matters of Buddhist ritual, thought the chanting lacked practice. This struck him as strange, and he studied the faces of the monks. They were almost all young, their expressions a mix of self-importance and boredom. They reminded him of the young recruits to the imperial guard he had watched at their first public parades in the Daidairi, the seat of the imperial administration, not sure whether they ought to be insulted or flattered by the function they had been given. There was certainly nothing monklike about these young men. Still, they did not look quite as reprehensible as the ones Akitada had seen in the market or seem at all capable of behaving like the two who had abducted Tora’s deaf girl. Perhaps their expressions and lack of expertise with music were typical of novices.

His thoughts wandered to his distant friend Tasuku, who by now must be a novice himself, perhaps chanting sutras at this very moment. It seemed to him that only great personal tragedy could make a man like Tasuku give up both his pleasures and a promising career.

This time he was certain he heard a sigh from behind the screen. When he glanced that way, the sleeve twitched a little. He bowed, trying to convey his pity with his eyes.

A silken rustling. Then the sleeve was abruptly withdrawn, followed by more rustling and the sound of a door closing softly in the rear of the hall. Akitada felt oddly bereft. Ashamed, he turned his attention back to the service.

The shape of the dead man was only a vague outline in its shrouding and looked insubstantial and shrunken. They must have broken his joints, Akitada thought, to achieve the customary seated position. The body had already been stiffening when he found it. An old man, done with life. Akitada recalled how Tachibana’s skeletal, age-spotted hand had stroked the shell pattern on the dark blue silk robe he had worn to Motosuke’s dinner. He had died in a different gown. What had he done after he arrived home? Had he retired but then got up again, dressed in a plain gown, and gone to his death? When had that happened? Had someone or something roused him? Where had he gone? He had not died in his study. There had not been enough blood there. Neither had there been any green-glazed splinters apart from the one found in his topknot. Akitada wondered again about the weapon. Whatever it was, it must have been made of glazed clay; it had broken or cracked on impact. No, it was hopeless. Better to think of a motive.

If Tachibana had been killed to prevent him from speaking to Akitada, then someone at Motosuke’s dinner had visited during the night or sent an assassin. Once again Akitada weighed each man and what he knew of him. Motosuke, though most suspect in the tax theft, would hardly murder an old man at this point. He was about to become the emperor’s father-in-law. Not, at any rate, unless he believed that Akitada and Tachibana between them could change the emperor’s mind, and Akitada doubted that.

Yukinari was hiding something. The young captain had appeared too opportunely on the scene this morning. What had he been doing there? Since the crime must have happened in the dark, a murderer might have wanted to check the scene by daylight, before Akitada’s visit, to make sure nothing had been overlooked. Akitada’s early arrival would have surprised and dismayed the killer, and Yukinari had looked upset. Akitada recalled that the young man had acted strangely at Motosuke’s. Somehow he must be connected with both Motosuke and Tachibana, and in a way that touched him profoundly and perhaps shamefully.

What about the abbot? Akitada glanced at the chanting monks and noticed for the first time an elderly man, the only old monk there. As Akitada stared at him, the man lifted his eyes and looked back. A strange expression crossed his face and he raised his hands to make the gesture of the praying Buddha before looking down again. Very odd! Everything about Joto and his monks was strange. Could Joto have sent, one of his disciples to remove the troublesome ex-governor? Very possibly. The villainous monk in the marketplace would make a good assassin. Akitada decided to look into the wealth of that temple.

Lastly there was Ikeda, who had persistently called the death an accident when he should have known by training and experience that it was not. Seimei’s explanation that Ikeda was a mere provincial booby was not convincing in view of the very knowledgeable way in which the prefect had quoted local laws and ordinances to Akitada. But Ikeda seemed too colorless and cautious a man to plot and mastermind criminal activities on this scale.

Akitada shifted uncomfortably. He was stiff and cold, and his back was beginning to hurt. How long should he remain? He wanted to offer his condolences to the widow, to this child left alone among servants who resented and hated her. As far as he knew, she had no one to support her but her nurse. No relation, no male protector, not even a woman friend of her own class. Had anyone been to see her? Yukinari? Ikeda? Motosuke? A girl of her tender years could not be expected to know much about settling and managing an estate. Akitada pictured her, deserted by the servants, cowering in the middle of this large, dark, empty hall, without food, while rats scurried about waiting to gnaw . . . Something tugged at his sleeve and he jerked it violently aside.

But it was only one of the servants, a large, middle-aged female wrapped in the stiff folds of hemp. She was kneeling next to him, staring at him from eyes that looked like blackened seeds in a large, doughy moon cake.

“My mistress begs the gentleman for a moment of his time,” she said in a harsh whisper accompanied by a thin spray of spittle.

This must be the nurse, Akitada thought. Dabbing at his face, he rose stiffly on feet that prickled painfully from the cold and followed her from the hall.

Upright, the nurse was as tall as Akitada and seemed like a giantess. She stepped along with the large, noisy strides of a brawny laborer. They passed through a number of dim corridors along wooden floors that felt and looked like sheets of black ice. He caught occasional glimpses of rooms, sparsely but elegantly furnished. Once he noted a beautifully written calligraphy scroll, another time an earthenware container planted with a miniature pine tree of perfect shape.

When the big woman finally pushed open the door to her mistress’s quarters, Akitada blinked. Innumerable candles and lanterns spread light over an exotic scene that resembled a Chinese palace more than a Japanese villa. The beams overhead were lacquered bright red and green, and the room seemed filled with standing racks holding embroidered robes and brocade-trimmed curtains of state. Against the wall stood carved and lacquered tables, decorated leather trunks for clothes, and tea stands of woven bamboo with dainty cups like those Akitada had once seen in the capital in the shop of a Chinese merchant. When he stepped inside, he felt underfoot a softness, warmer and more caressing than the thickest mat of sea grass and saw that rarest of luxuries, a Chinese carpet with a colorful pattern of blossoms and butterflies. Even the sliding doors were made of lacquered latticework or covered with scenic paintings on paper. The one behind him closed with a soft swish, and he was alone with the widow.

If the room had taken his breath away, the lady who had sent for him dazzled his eyes. She was seated on a dais quite high enough for an imperial princess. The curtain stand, which by etiquette must hide a lady of gentle birth from the eyes of male visitors, was small and low. He could see almost all of her seated figure as he stood near the door.

She had covered her mourning robe with another colorful jacket, this one embroidered with plum blossoms on a sky-blue ground. Her hair framed the pale oval of her face and trailed over her narrow shoulders like liquid black lacquer. She was looking at him with large pleading eyes and softly parted lips. He stared, enchanted by her beauty, and she blushed and raised an exquisitely painted fan before her face.

“It is so kind of you to come,” she said from behind the fan, bowing to him. “Please take a seat, my lord.”

Akitada approached and seated himself on a cushion as close to her dais as he dared. “Although I have only just had the honor of meeting your late husband,” he said softly, “I think I would have come to admire him very much. I came to express my sorrow at his passing.”

“Thank you.” There was a sigh and a pause. Then she cried out, “I think I hate monks. And incense nauseates me. I got quite sick and faint in the hall, sitting there for hours, hearing nothing but the chanting, the bells and drums, and always that smell. I wanted to die.”

Akitada’s heart smote him. This was no sophisticated woman who could be expected to deal with the rigors of public mourning. She was a child, too young to grasp the significance of the ritual, too weak for the fortitude and stoicism an older woman would have prided herself in.

“I know you must find it very difficult,” he said gently. “How can I help?”

“Please, could you come to visit me sometimes? Just to talk, as you are now. It is so lonely since ...” She choked.

Akitada did not know what to say.

“Oh!” she cried. “Forgive me. You must think me awful. You are a very important person from the capital, aren’t you? I should not have asked such a thing.”

“No, no. Not at all.” Akitada took the plunge. “I will gladly call on you every day if you will permit it. I feel honored by your ladyship’s confidence.”

She gave a soft gasp of relief, and then a small hand crept out from under the hangings. Akitada stared at it. Touching a lady who was not a member of one’s household was forbidden, but the hand was so small and helpless, a mere child’s hand, smaller than that of his younger sister. She might be Lord Tachibana’s widow, but she was still a girl, no different from his sister. Only, unlike his sister, she was alone in the world and needed reassurance, someone who could, however briefly, be to her the brother or father she did not have. He leaned forward and took her hand in both of his and held it. It was pitifully cold and curled about his warm fingers eagerly.

She whispered, “Your hands are so warm. I am nearly frozen from sitting in the hall for so many hours.”

Akitada began to feel silly and intensely aware that they were alone together again. “Perhaps,” he offered, “I should call your nurse and have her bring a brazier?”

Her fingers tightened on his. “No, please don’t. She fusses too much.”

“Then will you let me be of some assistance to you in a practical way? I have legal training and there must be a great deal of paperwork and estate business to face quite soon. Did Lord Tachibana appoint an executor?”

Her hand twitched and clenched on itself. “I have no idea what that is,” she said. “I know nothing of such things. Nobody has come to see me.”

“Nobody? How odd.” His position was becoming awkward; he squeezed her fingers lightly and tried to disengage himself. She returned the pressure before releasing him and pulling back her hand. To his dismay, the sound of weeping now came from behind the curtain stand.

“I am sorry,” Akitada said inadequately. The sobbing grew louder. He pleaded, “You must not cry. Everything will be all right, you’ll see. You are young and very beautiful. Life will be happy again.”

“No,” she wailed. “No one will ever want me again. I wish I could die, too.”

Akitada rose. She had flung herself down, a slender shape in colored silks and glossy hair, her narrow shoulders and back heaving with grief, and two small feet in white socks twisted about each other in distress. He pushed the stand aside, knelt, and gathered her against his chest as one might hold a weeping child. Stroking her back, he buried his face in the scented hair and murmured soothing words to her, and she held on to him with the desperation of a lost child.

“Ahem!” The harsh, rasping sound broke into Akitada’s efforts at comforting the widow. The nurse towered above them with a disapproving frown on her unpleasant face.

Akitada released the weeping girl and scrambled up. “Oh, good. There you are,” he said. “Your mistress needs you. She is very distressed and, er, cold. Get a brazier. And something hot to drink!” Aware that he was babbling, he stepped aside.

The nurse grunted and moved past him to replace the curtain stand. There was a whispered exchange between the women, then the nurse said harshly, “She needs rest. Come back tomorrow.”

Akitada turned to leave.

“No, wait,” cried the widow.

He waited. Afraid to look at her behind her inadequate screen, he stared across the room at a painted scroll of dancing cranes between a pair of tall, carved tables, one of which held a thin-necked jade-green vase of Chinese origin.

“My husband invited you, didn’t he?”

“Yes, Lady Tachibana. I was looking forward to becoming better acquainted with him.”

“Had he anything particular in mind? Perhaps he promised to show you something, tell you something?”

Akitada hesitated. “No, I don’t think so,” he said. “Why do you ask?”

“Oh, I only thought that, if I knew what it was, perhaps I could help you find it.”

Akitada thought of the document boxes in the studio. “Your husband spoke of the history he was working on. I was interested in that.”

“Then you must feel free to study his notes at your convenience. They are all in his studio.”

“Thank you, Lady Tachibana. That is most kind of you.” Still avoiding a glance at her, Akitada bowed and left the room.

The nurse followed him out, clearing her throat with another resounding “Ahem.”

Akitada looked at her questioningly. Really, the woman was very unpleasant in her manner as well as her appearance. “Yes?” he asked.

“She’s just a baby,” the woman said accusingly. “Needs taking care of, not upsetting.”

Akitada softened. “I have offered to help settle the estate,” he explained. “Is it true that there is no one to take care of such matters for her?”

“It’s true. And no wonder! Always with his nose in his books. Wouldn’t have company in his house. When he wasn’t in his studio, he was messing about with plants and rocks in the garden. Spent more time feeding his fish than talking with his lady. The poor child.”

“Yes, she is very young.” Akitada sighed. The woman deserved credit for her fondness of her young mistress, even though the criticism of her master was improper.

“Only just seventeen. For a while this past summer that young captain came to visit them. Oh, how my young lady used to laugh at his quips and stories. She was a different person then. But the master wouldn’t have it. Drove him away, he did.”

“Captain Yukinari?” asked Akitada.

“He’s the one. And now he won’t even talk to her,” she said.

That explained Yukinari’s reaction when Akitada had suggested a visit to the widow. Suddenly he got an image of the late Lord Tachibana as a besotted old man who kept this beautiful child in every luxury imaginable but drove away potential rivals in fits of irrational jealousy. This thought begot another.

“Did your master visit his wife’s room last night after the governor’s party?” he asked.