by I. J. Parker
As Tora followed the story, a niggling suspicion arose. Mrs Yozaemon had called the lost boy ‘Nori’. Nori -Sadanori. He asked, ‘Whose child was the boy? Sadanori’s or young Masuda’s?’
She glared. ‘What does it matter?’
Tora smelled a rat. ‘It matters to the boy.’
‘No. He only had his mother and me. And I’m too poor and too old to raise a small child, but I will if this child turns out to be hers.’
As a courtesan, Peony might have slept with many men, regardless of her nurse’s assertions. There was a good chance that her child was neither man’s. ‘What about her family? They might want him.’
She hesitated just a moment too long before saying, ‘No.’
‘What do you mean? What was her father’s name? Her mother’s? How can there be nobody?’
Her anger flared up again. ‘She was nobody to them because her mother was an Ezo chieftain’s daughter.’
‘Oh.’ The Ezo were the barbarians of the north. They were treated like outcasts. Tora looked on Little Abbess with kindlier eyes. The woman had been a devoted nurse and had followed her charge into destitution. ‘Why are you so sure she killed herself? Couldn’t somebody have drowned her?’
She looked startled, then shook her head. ‘When the man she loved had died, what else could she do, poor little bird? There was no going back to her old life. She tried for more than a year. I saw her poor body. She was so thin.’ She started to weep again. ‘I used to take her what I could scrape together: a few coppers, some food, little treats, clothes for the boy. But it wasn’t enough.’
‘It must’ve been bad, finding her dead.’
She nodded. ‘I blame myself. I was too lazy, and one of the boy’s jackets wasn’t done. Such foolishness! If I’d left a day before, it wouldn’t have happened.’ She dabbed at her wet and puffy face. ‘And when she’d sent for me.’
‘She sent for you?’
‘She wanted me to come back to her.’
‘You’re sure the message was from her?’
‘Yes. Who else would’ve written such a thing?’
Tora did not know, but had a notion that Peony’s message was somehow important. ‘Did she say why she wanted you back?’ She shook her head. ‘She didn’t mention Sadanori? Or the child?’ She shook her head again. Tora bit his lip. ‘If she was starving, I don’t see how she expected to feed you.’
‘I thought she’d come into some money, that maybe the old lord had finally seen fit to take care of them as he should’ve in the first place. More fool me!’
Tora got up with a sigh. ‘Thanks for your help.’
She nodded. ‘You’re not such a bad guy. How’s Rikiju?’
The memory of that cough-racked figure returned. ‘Very sick. I left her some money and told her to send for a doctor.’
‘I’ll make sure she does. Poor Rikiju. At least my lady was spared that.’
It was what all the women of the quarter feared more than pain or violence: to lose their appeal to men and die alone and penniless in some slum hole. It looked more and more like Peony had taken the quick way out.
SEVENTEEN
Birds and Rhubarb
After his second visit to the Masudas, Akitada debated talking to the warden again, but it was getting late. He had not eaten since that morning, and by the time he did, it would be dark. Besides, there was the problem of where he was to sleep. He rebelled against returning for a third time to the inn where he had been publicly humiliated, and where the fat innkeeper might well balk at admitting such a guest, even without a small boy victim in tow.
He settled the problem of food by stopping in the main restaurant in Otsu. It was busy, and he felt reasonably anonymous. He enjoyed the steamed dumplings with shrimp and yams, and then found a quiet backstreet lodging house.
Feeling pleasantly tired, he opened the doors to the garden to let in the cool breeze, and then lay down where he could look up at the starry sky.
He had much to mull over. Foremost, of course, was the servant’s shocking charge that Peony had poisoned young Masuda. The second lady, while not precisely charging Peony with murder, had hinted at the same thing. But improperly prepared warabi was an uncertain method of killing a healthy yoting male, no matter how much of it he ate.
Still, the idea of poison was troublesome. The Masuda ladies both had motives. They were the scorned wives. And Akitada had not liked the way Lady Kohime had glanced at the old lord’s dish while she had chattered about poisons. Everything about her suggested that she had been raised in the country, where they had a good knowledge of herbs and plants. The old man stood between her and her daughters and a very large fortune.
Still, if young Masuda had been poisoned, Dr Inabe would have known. He would certainly have reported a murder. Or would he? His friendship with the Masudas might have kept him silent.
The doctor’s room had contained shelves of stacked papers and books. Chances were the man had kept records of young Masuda’s illness. Perhaps he had even left notes about his postmortem findings on Peony. Akitada also wondered where the boy fitted into the tangled relationships and motives, but the child was no longer his only reason for searching for answers.
The stars were extraordinarily clear, as was the great river created by the God of the Sky to separate his daughter from her lover. What importance the Tanabata legend attached to bringing people together! He was suddenly overwhelmed by loneliness.
The stars blurred as his eyes moistened with self-pity. Ashamed, he fought the emotion. It was a long time before the hurt faded and he slept.
Akitada decided to share some of the information with the warden, but when he mentioned the servant’s story that young Masuda had been poisoned by Peony, Takechi became agitated.
‘Not a word of truth to it,’ he cried, waving his hands. ‘It’s their grief talking. That death hit them hard and so they have to blame it on someone. His Lordship went mad, and the old man is simple-minded and loyal to his master. If the old lord had not lost his mind, he’d have seen the truth in time and that tale would never have started.’
Akitada raised his brows. ‘So there’s gossip about it. I understood the servant and the second lady to say that young Masuda became ill at Peony’s house and that Dr Inabe was consulted?’
‘Young Masuda had the flux. A common enough ailment around here. People will drink or eat the wrong things.’
‘Like warabi shoots?’
‘Warabi? The warden looked blank. ‘If it was, nobody mentioned it to me. Anyway, it wasn’t a police matter.’ They looked at each other, and the warden became anxious. ‘You don’t think this is connected to the doctor’s murder, do you?’
‘I don’t know. When you have an unexplained murder, you tend to wonder about everything. I’d like your permission to return to the doctor’s house to go through his papers in case they contain a clue to his death and young Masuda’s.’
‘Of course. Shall I send a constable along to give you a hand?’
‘Thank you, no. I think you need your men. Do you want me to reseal the place when I finish?’
‘No need for a seal. The servant’s watching.’
Akitada started to point out the need for keeping the scene of a crime secured until an investigation was complete, but thought better of it. He asked instead, ‘Who inherits the property?’
‘A nephew. We’re trying to contact him.’
‘Then he does not live here?’
‘He’s not been around for years. The servant says the young man travels a lot.’
‘Hmm.’
The warden chuckled. ‘If you’re thinking he might’ve returned to kill his uncle for the house, I doubt it. It’s practically a ruin, and there was no money apart from the little bit of silver in the trunk.’
This saintly reputation was beginning to irritate Akitada. ‘Did the neighbors see anyone?
‘Just the usual. Servants leaving and returning from shopping. A mendicant monk. A post boy with a letter for someon
e. A sedan chair that picked up one of the ladies for a visit to her shrine and brought her back again.’ He shuffled among his papers. And, yes, the fishmonger with a basket of fish for one of the houses.’
‘You checked them all?’
‘Yes.’ Gloom settled over the warden again. ‘I hope you turn up something.’
Warden Takechi had not bothered to leave a constable at the gate, and so Akitada wandered in uninvited. The doctor’s old servant was sweeping the courtyard.
He blinked, trying to recall Akitada’s name.
‘I’m Sugawara. The warden and I came yesterday. I have permission to look through your master’s papers.’
The servant nodded and put his broom aside. ‘The ladies asked about the funeral,’ he muttered as they walked through the tangled garden. ‘Couldn’t say. The body’s gone. Not even monks chanting. Disrespectful.’
‘The arrangements should be made by Dr Inabe’s relatives. He has a nephew, I hear.’
‘That one.’ The old man spat.
‘Wait until you hear from Warden Takechi.’ Akitada glanced around the lush wilderness. The garden was filled with sound. Birds were singing and chirping, calling out to each other and answering, challenging rivals or warning of the human presence among them. ‘The birds are doing their best to make up for the lack of chanting,’ he said with a smile.
The servant nodded. ‘They know,’ he said quite seriously. ‘Waiting to be fed. I’ll get some food.’
Akitada looked up into the dense branches. The foliage was alive. Did they know their benefactor was dead? They must have seen Inabe’s killer come with murder on his mind and watched him leave, his hands stained with the blood of their friend and that of one of their own. It was a foolish speculation, and Akitada turned to business.
The warden’s people had left the door to the studio unsealed. Muttering angrily under his breath, Akitada walked in. If anything, the stench was worse today. Like the warden, Akitada went to raise the shutters to the back garden. Light, fresh air, and birdsong poured in.
The room looked the same, except that the body was gone. The doctor’s blood still stained the floor, though, and attracted an occasional fly. More flies crawled on the dead crow. The warden had also taken the murder weapon, but the broken birdcage still lay there, and Akitada bent to pick up the pieces.
The old servant hovered at the door. He said, ‘I haven’t come in here.’ He did not explain if he feared the dead man’s spirit, thought to remain around its home for forty-nine days, or the warden’s anger.
Akitada said, ‘I’ll be working with your master’s papers. Don’t let me keep you from your chores.’
The old man looked relieved and crept away. Strange, thought Akitada, how many old men and their old servants he had met on this case. First the old lord and his servant, and now the doctor and his. Or perhaps it was not so strange. If loyalty meant anything, then master and servant would grow old together. He thought of Seimei. The bond between them was as strong as blood. The Masuda servant’s passionate hatred for Peony was due to that loyalty. But the doctor’s servant seemed more confused than grief-stricken or angry. Perhaps his claim that he had walked to his cousin’s funeral was untrue.
Enough theorizing. He needed facts.
He prowled around the room, looking at everything but the books and papers. The clothes box held plain and badly worn black robes and under robes, loin cloths, socks with holes in them, and a moldy black cap. Some of the things were good silk twill, but green with age. The dishes were a similar mix. Some were of cheap earthenware and some of fine china, but the china was cracked and chipped. Two pale rectangles on the wall suggested that paintings had hung there once. Otherwise, there was little of a personal nature in the room. No games or musical instruments. Just the broken birdcage.
It supported what he had been told of the doctor: that he had become an individual who cared nothing for personal luxuries, though once he had been well-to-do and had led a different life.
Akitada inspected the shelves of drugs and ointments next. He opened jars and twists of paper and sniffed at the contents. The doctor must have known what all this was, but Akitada was in the dark. Seimei or Tamako might know. Seimei had always dabbled in herbal medicines, and Tamako was an avid gardener who would probably recognize the dried plants that hung from the doctor’s rafters.
He looked at them: bunches of leaves, glaucous or grey, glossy or downy, coarse and smooth, large, small, feathery and spiny, palmate and toothed. He recognized none. Black, white and brown tubers hung among them, twisted and shriveled in their dried death. They reminded him of the neglected garden at home, of the dead wisteria, and of the coldness that had come between him and his wife.
He turned to the books and papers.
The doctor had the medical texts, the Ishimpo, as well as a series of herbals and pharmacological treatises. These, along with the Book of Changes, the Manyoshu, and the four Confucian classics, made up his library. But there were also handwritten scrolls and notebooks. The notebooks were what he had come for. They seemed to cover interesting medical cases and diary entries. Just what he needed. He laid them aside.
In the rolled-up scrolls, each sheet was carefully pasted to the next, while the notebooks were sewn together along one edge. The scrolls contained drawings and poetry. Akitada recognized some of the lines. Apparently, the doctor had liked the poems and had copied them for his own satisfaction. One of the scrolls was devoted to bird studies. It had drawings, as well as observations about avian habits and wise sayings and legends. On the most recent page, he found drawings of a crow and a detailed sketch of its wing. Under the drawings, Inabe had written down the legend of the crow that was sent by the goddess Amaterasu to guide the first emperor and his army to their new homeland.
The doctor’s peculiar obsession with birds seemed harmless, even attractive, but what if it had affected his judgment? He turned to look at the dead crow. Making a face, he picked it up. The flies had done their work thoroughly; the black carcass was dusted with a snow of eggs and crawling with white maggots. Some fell off as he held the large bird by its foot and carried it outside to place it under a shrub. The birds fell silent for a moment. He looked up. Another crow sat on a low branch, its head cocked and its beady eyes staring at him accusingly. ‘I didn’t do it. I’m sorry,’ he said and felt foolish. The crow gave a harsh squawk and flew off. The bird chatter started up again.
And here came the old man, carrying a small sack. When he reached the open area in front of the studio, he shouted, ‘Here it is. Come and eat.’
Another one who talked to birds.
Akitada watched as the servant loosened the knot on the bag and swung it. An arc of golden grain flew out and spread in a shower of kernels across the ground. In an instant, the air was full of feathered bodies and fluttering wings.
Akitada and the old man stood as hundreds of birds landed and scuttled about, chirping and pecking. More and more arrived, alerted by some secret code of their own, until the ground around them was covered with small feathered bodies in all colors and shapes. Then they were done and flew away again in another rush of wings.
Akitada was enchanted.
The old man folded the empty cloth. ‘The last of the rice,’ he said mournfully. ‘In his honor.’
‘But what will you eat now?’
‘Beans.’
He went back to whatever he had been doing, and Akitada looked after him, astonished that this man had thought it more important to honor his master than to fill his own belly. He had been wrong to suspect the man. This also was great loyalty and filled him with sadness. With a sigh, he returned to his work.
The medical notebooks turned out to be nearly incomprehensible. The doctor’s brush strokes were often careless, and worse, he used a form of abbreviated language that meant that Akitada could only make out a few sentences here and there. Part of the problem was the medical vocabulary. Of course, the notebooks might be deciphered by another medical man, but A
kitada wanted to locate pertinent material on his own.
It took him well past midday to make out Inabe’s method of dating, and then another while to find the two notebooks that covered the dates of the two deaths. By that time, his stomach growled, his head ached, and his eyes no longer focused. He decided to stroll to the market to get a bite to eat.
The old man had disappeared. Akitada wondered if he was eating his meager meal of beans in some dark corner. The thought made him feel guilty. He decided that he could manage quite well with one bowl of noodles, purchased from a stand. But the noodles were surprisingly tasty and so he ate a second. After months with a listless appetite, he was beginning to take pleasure in food again. This also filled him with guilt. It seemed to him that it signified an end to his grief for Yori. He bought a few rice cakes for the doctor’s servant and chose to go back past Mrs Yozaemon’s.
The boy was outside. Even better, he was playing with the red top. Akitada smiled to see him spin the toy with considerable skill. He was afraid of another rejection and just watched the child from a distance. He was a handsome boy for all his thinness, and the old desire to hold a child in his arms again, to hear him laugh, to feel small arms hugging his neck, was back. He turned to leave.
At the doctor’s house, the old servant accepted the rice cakes with many bows and mumbled thanks, and Akitada returned to his work with a heavy heart and scant interest. He had barely started skimming the entries that dealt with the first smallpox cases when the old man appeared at the open door. He carried two ripe plums on a small footed tray, presenting them to Akitada with a bow.
‘Late ones. Very sweet.’ His eyes strayed towards the rotting plums his master had not lived to eat. ‘Wasps,’ he said worriedly, nodding towards them.
Akitada thanked him and said, ‘There are worse things than wasps. Warden Takechi should be back later. We will ask him when you can clean this room.’ When the old man still stood, looking around sadly, he asked, ‘What are your plans now?’
