The Masuda Affair

by I. J. Parker

  But all seemed intact in the stable. Only the horses moved nervously and looked at him with large liquid eyes showing their whites. Trouble came, his fur standing in a ridge along his spine. He pushed his nose into Akitada’s hand, whined and wagged his tail. Shaking his head, Akitada went back outside, glanced up at all the roofs and scanned the walls. Finding nothing out of the ordinary, he left on his errand.

  Akitada was convinced that Sadanori had been an unwilling tool in Ishikawa’s hands. He had a marriageable daughter who was his heiress, and Ishikawa had played a game of murder to implicate Sadanori until he was ripe for blackmail. The last time Akitada and Ishikawa had crossed paths, the young man had also resorted to blackmail when he had discovered a guilty secret. This time he had created the guilty secret himself.

  What Akitada was about to do would seem to Sadanori like more blackmail – all the more so because the powerful Fujiwara noble had caused serious problems for Akitada and was in a position not only to reverse them, but to further Akitada’s career. Men like Sadanori were used to the greed of lesser mortals. It would be much wiser not to irritate Sadanori further, but that was impossible.

  The great man’s house lay quiet in the westering sun. There was little activity in the courtyard, and the servant who met Akitada seemed glad of a break in the tedium. He took Akitada into a small reception hall and disappeared to announce him to his master.

  Time passed. Akitada was restless. After sitting for a while, he got up and paced. More time passed.

  Akitada decided that Sadanori had left him waiting in order to be insulting. Thoroughly irritated, he pushed up a shutter and stepped out on to a veranda overlooking the lake and private gardens. The bright blue-tiled roof beyond the far trees must be the new pavilion. And there, in a distance, he saw his unwilling host – his plump figure in a blue gown unmistakable – jogging away past the lake to the pavilion.

  Akitada turned and went back inside. The servant returned to inform him that his master was not at home and it was not known when he would return.

  Suppressing anger, Akitada thanked the man and left. He walked quickly around the walled compound to the back gate. When there was no response to his knock, he pushed the gate open and took the path to the pavilion.

  The garden seemed strangely silent. No birds sang. Near the water’s edge some twenty ducks milled about nervously. Sadanori had had the building raised nearly five feet above ground level – probably for an unobstructed view across the lake to his residence and over the shining roofs of palaces beyond, all the way to the green hills outside the city.

  Akitada climbed the stairs, and Sadanori called out, ‘Who is there? I do not wish to be disturbed.’

  Akitada said nothing and crossed the veranda.

  ‘Go away!’ Sadanori sounded irascible.

  Akitada found him sitting at a desk in the nearest room, drumming his fingers and glaring at the door.

  ‘You!’ he gasped.

  Akitada made him a mocking bow. ‘A charming place for us to meet. Private, yet luxurious.’ The room was not large, but the mats on the sparkling floor were very thick and bound in silk. Sadanori’s desk was of the finest cedar wood and furnished with writing implements carved from ivory and jade.

  Sadanori glowered. ‘I don’t want to see you. Who let you in?’

  Akitada seated himself on a green silk cushion. ‘What a very handsome robe,’ he said lightly. It was in fact a very beautiful and expensive pale blue silk with a woven pattern of clouds. ‘I happened to see you from the reception room and followed to bring you news from your mother.’

  Sadanori’s jaw clenched. ‘My mother? You were trying to curry favor with my mother? I’m warning you, Sugawara, it won’t do you any good.’

  ‘I think,’ said Akitada, ‘you’re under some misapprehension. I’m not here on my account.’

  Sadanori’s eyes narrowed. ‘You’re not? My mother is in good health, I hope?’

  ‘Distraught, but well.’

  ‘Distraught? What happened?’

  ‘Two violent deaths are not reassuring events to witness.’

  The other man’s eyes widened. He gulped. Akitada let him wait. Finally, Sadanori gasped, ‘Wh— who died?’

  ‘Ishikawa died last night, and his mother this morning.’

  Now Sadanori was frightened. ‘Y-you k-killed them?’

  Of course not. But they talked before they died.’

  Turning pale, Sadanori shouted, ‘Get out. Get away from me. Help!’

  His voice was not very loud, and the pavilion was a long way from the main house. Akitada sighed. ‘You should be glad to be rid of your blackmailer.’

  Sadanori stared at him as he thought about this. He still looked a little green and his hands still plucked nervously at his robe, but he weighed Akitada’s words. ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘To tell you what happened.’

  ‘I want to know what they said.’

  So Sadanori was already beginning to fight back.

  ‘You have been implicated in several murders.’ It was not altogether an untruth, if you took in the conversation Tora had overheard here in this pavilion. Much now depended on manipulating Sadanori into making a mistake, a slip of the tongue that would confirm Akitada’s suspicions.

  Sadanori opened his mouth to speak when it happened.

  The carved-ivory water container on his desk began to move. They both stared at it in astonishment. Akitada felt a faint trembling and wondered if Sadanori’s agitation had transferred itself to the floor they were sitting on. Then all the implements on the desk started to slide about and the floor beneath him shook. Outside, the waterfowl took to the air with loud quacking and a clatter of wings. Akitada had the oddest impression of shifting, or rather of the walls around him shifting – or perhaps of the building sliding sideways. He caught his breath, trying to make sense of it, when Sadanori yelped, ‘Earthquake!’ and jumped to his feet to flee.

  Before Akitada could follow, another rolling shake started, the ivory water container danced off the desk, and outside tiles crashed to the ground. The new wooden beams squealed like wounded animals, and a bamboo stand fell over, spilling Sadanori’s library across the floor. Sadanori stumbled over them and out the door. Akitada heard him running down the staircase.

  Akitada got up when the tremor ceased. It was safer outside, provided he was not hit by the tiles sliding down from the roof. Looking up at the ceiling, he saw small cracks. Massive timbers supported this floor and the heavy tile roof above him. Some dust sifted down, but the room looked stable enough. It depended on how long a quake lasted and how strong the shocks were. Perhaps the worst was over.

  It was not. The next shock caused him to stumble. This time the floor under his feet rolled like a ship at sea. The building creaked and squealed. Akitada staggered to the door and on to the veranda. He clutched a pillar at the top of the stairs, gauging his chances of running down, when more tiles fell, smashing on the stairs and the ground. Dust rose as he clung on and wondered where Sadanori was. He thought of Tamako and the rest of his family and of his own house. It had withstood earthquakes before, but never in such a derelict condition. At least they had no tiles to worry about. He looked across the lake towards the city. It shimmered oddly in the sulphurous light of the sunset, but looked peaceful enough. The great danger in an earthquake was fire. All it would take was one oil lamp falling over, or a hot coal spilling from a brazier, and the flames would race quickly from house to house.

  When the earth stopped moving and no more tiles fell, Akitada ran down the steps, leaping over the debris of broken tiles and putting some distance between himself and the pavilion. Then he looked back. A portion of the roof was bare of tiles, and a few veranda supports leaned here and there. In a distance he heard people shouting. There was no sign of Sadanori. Once again fate had interfered at the wrong moment.

  Akitada was turning towards the gate when he caught a glimpse of blue. It was under the pavilion, where it had no business be
ing. He approached the building cautiously to look, but he knew already. Sadanori, in his panic, had crept under his new pavilion.

  ‘You’d better come out,’ Akitada called. ‘It’s not safe down there.’

  There was no answer. Akitada took another step and saw that one of the main supports of the pavilion, a huge beam that rested on a flat rock and held up, along with three others, the elegant, but fragile structure above, had slipped far enough off its foundation that another jolt would bring the whole pavilion down on top of Sadanori.

  ‘Come out,’ Akitada shouted. ‘The building may fall. Hurry!’

  There was still no reply. What was wrong with the man? Maybe a tile had stunned him. Or perhaps he was so afraid of Akitada that he would risk his life to avoid him.

  It was a desperate choice. Someone in his own home might be hurt. Akitada hesitated, then ducked under the pavilion. Tora had hidden here when he overheard Sadanori speaking to Ishikawa. Sadanori was probably not worth saving, but watching him being crushed would be worse. He would grab him and drag him out into the open. And later, if all went well, he’d get the truth out of him.

  Akitada bent double as he made his way to the cowering figure in the blue silk robe. Sadanori had lost his tall hat – Akitada stumbled over it – and sat with his head between his knees and covered by his arms.

  ‘Sadanori,’ said Akitada, ‘stop this foolishness. There’s no time. The building is slipping. You may be crushed at any moment. Come out.’

  ‘No,’ sobbed the other man. ‘I’ll die. It’s my fate.’

  Akitada cursed under his breath and took hold of Sadanori’s arm. Jerking him up, he half carried, half dragged him towards light and safety.

  But there was not enough time. The earth shook again, and the structure above them moaned in protest. Thinking of Tamako and his people, Akitada dropped Sadanori and scrambled towards the open. If he could at least reach the veranda overhang, he might be protected when the heavier timbers collapsed.

  He managed a few more steps, then the ground under him rolled and heaved as if alive, and he fell to his knees. The large beam slipped with a slow squeal. One by one the horizontal supports above cracked, popped, tore, and splintered, and then the whole structure collapsed on him. For a moment the sound was deafening and it turned dark. Something heavy fell down in front of Akitada and blocked his way. The dust was thick and made his eyes burn and filled his nostrils until he choked. He was on his belly without knowing how he’d got there. Coughing, he tried to slide around the obstruction, to find a way out, but something pinned him from behind. When he used his right arm to feel around, he found that the floor of the pavilion was now within inches of his back and shoulders and touched his thighs. He could not reach any farther, and he could not move his legs.

  An initial fear that he was injured severely and possibly paralyzed passed when he became aware of pain in his legs.

  At about the same time, he heard Sadanori. The sound curdled Akitada’s blood. The high keening noise was followed by a rattle and did not sound human.

  Akitada guessed that Sadanori was less than five feet behind him, but debris separated them. He cleared his throat and called out, ‘Sadanori?’

  The keening paused.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ Akitada was not sure how badly he himself was hurt – the pain was mostly in his right leg – but he thought on the whole he had been lucky. Much depended on what happened next. Even if the main tremors were past, aftershocks were common, and the slightest movement might bring down the debris, which merely pinned his legs now, and crush him.

  Sadanori said something, but his words were unintelligible.

  ‘Somebody will come and get us out,’ Akitada told him. That opened up new and frightening possibilities. Sadanori’s servants scrambling about among the broken timbers could well cause a fatal collapse.

  Sadanori suddenly raised his voice and said clearly, ‘I’m dying.’

  Appalled, Akitada asked, ‘Where are you hurt?’

  ‘My arm hurts.’

  That hardly sounded fatal, and Sadanori’s voice was quite strong. Trust the man to wail over a small injury, thought Akitada. He put Sadanori’s problems from his mind and concentrated on his own situation. His right leg still hurt. Worse, he had no feeling in the lower part of it any longer. For all he knew, part of the limb was gone. He gulped down fear and worked his right hand back to feel along his body. At his hip, he encountered the beam which seemed to rest on him. His left hand moved more freely, and his left leg seemed only pinned. He could move his foot. He began a cautious effort to free it, but something shifted as he moved and now pressed on his shoulder. It was becoming hard to breathe. Akitada tried to suppress a rising panic, but he still had nightmares of the weeks he had spent buried in a mine on Sado island. His heart started racing and he was gasping when Sadanori began his dreadful keening again.

  Akitada forgot his own terror and got angry. ‘Shut up!’ he shouted.

  Sadanori broke off.

  ‘What makes you think you’re worth saving?’ Akitada asked nastily.

  Sadanori sobbed.

  Feeling better, Akitada put him from his mind and used his hands to dig away the dirt underneath him. The ground was soft down here. He prayed that the beam, or whatever pinned him, was supported by something other than his body, and that he could get enough purchase to crawl out.

  Sadanori suddenly said, ‘I would not have hurt Hanae. I just wanted her to see what I could do for her. If the chancellor had not summoned me and kept me all day, this would not have happened.’

  Akitada snarled, ‘You lie. You had your servant drug her and tie her up. She escaped on her own a day later.’

  ‘It’s the stupid woman’s fault. She exceeded her orders.’

  Akitada did not think that worth a response.

  Sadanori tried again. ‘I did not intend any of it to happen. How can I be responsible for what Ishikawa did?’

  Akitada stopped digging. What was he talking about? Still angry, he said, ‘You’re beyond the human law now, but the judge of the underworld will know exactly what you did.’

  Sadanori wept noisily.

  On an impulse, Akitada added, ‘Your only option is to make a clean breast of it so that the living will not suffer for your deeds.’

  Sadanori wept harder.

  Akitada went on digging. He was sweating from the exertion, but so far nothing else had shifted and he could now twist his body a little.

  ‘Am I really dying?’

  Akitada almost laughed. ‘How should I know?’ he snapped. ‘I thought you said you were.’

  After a moment, Sadanori said sadly, ‘Yes, I am. I hope it’s quick.’

  Akitada paused to rest. ‘In that case you’d better confess now,’ he said hopefully.

  ‘We’ll both die, so what’s the point?’

  ‘I’m not,’ Akitada said with more conviction than he felt. ‘I’m digging myself out.’ And he started on his labors again.

  And then the first of the aftershocks hit.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The Truth

  Akitada’s first thought was that a quick death would have been preferable. It was not the pain in his arm and back that seemed unbearable, or that his chest felt crushed, but rather it was not being able to breathe. Or at least not enough. Every fiber in his body wanted to gulp air, but could not.

  Panic seized him. He would die here, in minutes that would feel like hours. He was trapped and would suffocate. A fitting punishment for his cruelty to Yori, to Tamako, to Tora and Genba, and even to the dog. The gods had given him back a measure of happiness, only to snatch it all away.

  Whatever weighed down on his chest had probably broken ribs, though breathing was not so much painful as very difficult. Except for the tiniest breath of dust-laden air, which choked him and teased his body into futile spasms that brought nothing but pain, he could not fully inhale.

  He could still move his right arm, the one that did not hurt, and felt around wi
th it. As far as he could make out, the last shock had settled the weight of the building on his body. His frantic efforts to breathe made matters worse. He concentrated on regulating his breathing. By taking slow, shallow breaths, he made his panic subside a little. He thought of Tamako. It seemed a pity that his life should end before they had a chance for another life together.

  Perhaps he had thrown away that chance. Once disrespected, it was gone forever. But that was superstition. And he worried about Tamako. Heaven forbid she should be in such straits and he not there to help her. Then he thought about fire. What if she was trapped in a burning house?

  His wrenching fear for her caused him to gulp for air, and he choked again on thick dust. After an agonizing sneezing and coughing fit, he pushed his terror aside. The others would look after Tamako. Unlike Sadanori’s people, who seemed not to have missed him, Tora and Genba could be relied on. He listened for Sadanori and heard an odd snuffling noise.

  ‘Sadanori?’ he croaked.

  Silence.

  ‘Sadanori? Is that you?’ Silly question, and no wonder he got no answer. But the snuffling had stopped. Speaking had wrought more havoc with his breathing, and Akitada gasped and rested. Then he tried again. ‘Sadanori, did you tell your people where you were going?’

  A sob and a soft, ‘No.’

  So the man who was responsible for his present condition still lived and was probably better off. Akitada felt resentful. The fool! No one would bother checking this building until other emergencies and damage to the main house had been taken care of. He took in more air and choked again. The blood pounded in his temples. It was not likely that he could last that long.

  ‘She was so beautiful.’ Sadanori’s voice sounded dreamy.

  ‘What?’ Akitada was not sure he had heard correctly.

  ‘Peony. She was mine. My wife to be. Did you know that I planned this place for her? We were to live here together. She left me before I could finish it.’