by I. J. Parker
Akitada packed the blue robe, the flute, and his other belongings into his saddlebags and walked through the waking forest to the monastery stable to saddle the horses. But there a second shock awaited him.
A distraught Osawa was getting in the saddle, while a red-cheeked novice was holding the reins and listening to Osawa’s agitated instructions with an expression of blank confusion on his young face.
“Why the rush, Master Osawa?” Akitada called out.
Osawa turned. “Oh, there you are. Good. I have no time. I’m off to Minato this instant. Takao’s had an accident. Very bad. You must go on to Mano. There”—he flung a hand toward a small pile of boxes and bundles—“are the records. All of them. Also my letter of resignation. Make my excuses to the governor.” He pulled the reins from the novice’s hand and dug his heels in the horse’s flank.
“Wait . . .” cried Akitada, but Osawa was already cantering down the forest path at breakneck speed, the skirts of his gown fluttering behind him as he disappeared around the first bend of the track.
Akitada and the novice looked at each other. The novice shrugged and smiled.
“What happened?” Akitada asked.
“Not sure. I couldn’t understand the gentleman too well. He came rushing up to the stable, shouting for his horse. I didn’t know which one, and he was jumping up and down, crying it was a matter of life and death. I finally found the right horse, and he had all these instructions. For you, I suppose. I didn’t really understand them at all.”
“But how . . . ? Did a messenger arrive for him?”
The novice nodded. “A man came on a horse and asked the way to the gentleman’s room. I took his horse and showed him.”
“His name?”
The youngster looked blank again. “I didn’t ask. He was short and had a nose like a beak.”
Akitada stared down the path Osawa had taken. So the bird-faced man had reappeared. He wished Osawa had knocked on his door or at least discussed the matter before taking off so precipitously.
“Get my horse,” he told the novice, then changed his mind. “Never mind. I’ll do it.” He ran to the stable. Dropping his saddlebags on the ground beside the mule, he threw blanket and saddle on his horse, which sensed his agitation and sidestepped nervously. The young monk came to lend a hand. Leading the horse out, Akitada told him, “I’ll be back. Load the mule in the meantime!” Then he swung himself into the saddle and kicked his heels into the animal’s flanks.
He plunged down the path after Osawa, bent forward, his eye on the path, worried that his mount might stumble and hurt itself but almost hoping that Osawa, not the best rider, had been thrown. No such luck. The ground leveled, and Tsukahara lay ahead, and beyond stretched the empty road. Akitada reined in and turned back. He could not catch up with Osawa without injuring his animal, and he needed it to get to Mano as quickly as possible.
He worried briefly about what the unsuspecting Osawa might be running into, hoping it had nothing to do with the theft of his papers. But he did not believe in coincidence and knew better. In any case, the urgency of reaching Mano had just increased a hundredfold. The message to Osawa was almost certainly a fabrication, Takao’s accident trumped up to send Osawa back to Minato, leaving Akitada unaccompanied and without papers. For a prisoner to be caught without proper documentation while in possession of an official’s property was enough to subject him at the very least to the most severe and painful interrogation. His only safety lay in reaching provincial headquarters before he was stopped.
Back at the monastery stables, the young monk had the mule ready, and Akitada asked directions to Mano. He would have to go down the mountain to Tsukahara again, he was told, and from there take a road southwestward along the foot of the mountains. “Not far!” the novice said with a cheerful smile. “Only a day by horse.”
Only a day!
Akitada left the monastery, convinced he was riding into an ambush. Saving his horse and the laden mule, he descended the mountain much more slowly this time. His eyes roamed ahead constantly, and he worried about every bend in the road, keeping his ears alert for the sound of weapons and armor, knowing that he had nothing with which to defend himself.
He reached the valley safely, but Tsukahara, the home of Lord Taira, was the next danger spot. He passed through the village quickly, keeping a wary eye out, suspecting even a harmless group of poor farmers who had gathered before the shrine. But they merely turned and stared at him in the way of country people who see few strangers. When Akitada found the crossroads to Mano, he left Tsukahara behind, breathing more easily.
If he had been familiar with the island, he would have tried to find a less obvious route. He could not rid himself of the conviction that, after the unnatural calm of the past days, his enemies were about to act. Whoever had arranged to steal his papers and send Osawa back to Minato knew very well who Taketsuna really was and why he was in Sadoshima. He or they would hardly let him live. The most frustrating thing was that he still did not know exactly with whom he was dealing.
Toward noon of a tense but uneventful journey, Akitada became aware of hunger. In his rush, he had left the monastery without eating or taking provisions for the day. Though he still had a few coppers, he did not dare use them. But when the road crossed a stream, he broke his journey. He took some of the baggage off the mule—an astonishingly well behaved creature— and led both animals, one after the other, down to the water.
Then he searched the saddlebags for food and came up with Osawa’s silk pouch full of coins and a stale and misshapen rice dumpling left over from some earlier picnic. The money he put back, shaking his head. Osawa had been truly upset, to go off without his funds. Having eaten the dumpling and drunk his fill from the stream, he loaded the mule again and returned to the road.
By now he was puzzled that he had been allowed to get this far. There were few other travelers on the road, and none gave him a second glance on the final stretch to Mano. When the road turned westward, the sun sank blindingly low and horse and mule showed the first signs of fatigue. But he passed over the last hillock and saw Sawata Bay spread before him, a sheet of molten gold. The huddle of brown roofs that was Mano was little more than a mile away. He had done it. Possibly there was some slight danger still as he passed through town, but by then he would be too close to provincial headquarters to suffer more than a minor delay until Mutobe was notified.
Blinking against the brightness of sun and sea, he tried to increase his speed to a canter, but the mule finally balked. He pulled on its lead; it snorted and shook its head and tried to dig in its hooves.
Preoccupied with the recalcitrant beast, Akitada did not see the men stepping from the trees up ahead. When he did, his stomach lurched. Still blinded by the sun, he squinted at them. There were six, all brawny men with hard faces and some sort of weapon in their hands. Highway robbers? Pirates on a landfall? Akitada stopped his horse and peered at them. Their clothes looked rough but serviceable, too good for robbers or pirates. And there was a certain uniformity about them. All wore brown jackets with leather belts about their middle and a chain wrapped about that. Constables?
Then a familiar red-coated figure stepped out into the road to wait, legs apart and arms folded, in front of the six men in brown. He was armed with sword and long bow. Wada. The law. He would be arrested and escorted to the provincial jail. Akitada almost smiled with relief.
Urging his horse forward, he stopped before Wada. His relief faded a little when he saw the man’s face.
An unpleasant smile twitched the lieutenant’s thin mustache. “Ah,” he said, “what have we here? A convict, and in possession of a horse and a mule. We met only recently, I believe, and already I find you a runaway?”
“I did not run away, Lieutenant. I’ve been on an assignment for the governor and am on my way back.” Akitada glanced over his shoulder and added, “I would be glad of an escort, though. Someone may be trying to kill me.”
Wada guffawed and turned to his
constables, who grinned. “Did you hear that? Someone’s trying to kill him! He’s funny, this one. Says he’s on official business and wants a police escort, what?”
They burst into laughter.
“Silence!” barked Wada.
The laughter stopped abruptly. The way they looked at him reminded Akitada of a pack of hungry dogs who had found a helpless rabbit.
Wada seemed to be enjoying himself. “The fun’s over. Who would send a convict on a trip with a horse and a mule and all sorts of valuable equipment?” he sneered, then waved his men forward. “Search him and the saddlebags.”
The constables jumped into action. In a moment, Akitada was pulled from his horse and pushed into the dirt. Two men knelt on him, pulling his arms behind his back and wrapping a thin chain around both wrists. It was standard procedure in the apprehension of criminals, but he had never realized how painful tightly wrapped chain could be and gritted his teeth to keep from crying out. He had to remain calm at all cost. Wada, no matter how ruthless he was in his treatment of convicts and how stupid he might be in this instance, was still an official, and one who had been appointed to his present position by someone in authority. He was doing his duty in arresting the supposed escapee. The problem could be worked out later. The important thing was to be cooperative and not give the man an excuse for more physical abuse.
They pulled him to his feet and searched him. The imperial documents being lost, along with Mutobe’s safe-conduct, Akitada submitted meekly, which did not prevent them from pummeling and kicking him a few times.
They found nothing, but the mule’s burden caused an outcry. “Papers,” cried one of the searchers. “A flute,” cried another, tossing Ribata’s precious instrument to Wada. Akitada winced, but Wada caught it, glanced at it incuriously, and tossed it back. This time the flute fell between the mule’s hooves, and Akitada instinctively moved to rescue it. He was jerked back instantly and painfully.
Wada cried, “Wait. It must be valuable. Pick it up. What else is there?”
“This, Lieutenant,” cried a man triumphantly, holding up Osawa’s silk pouch and jingling it. “He’s a thief, all right.” Akitada silently cursed Osawa’s forgetfulness.
Wada rushed over. He opened the pouch, shook out and counted the silver and copper, and then extracted some papers. “Belongs to a man called Osawa,” he said. “A provincial inspector of taxes.” He almost purred when he asked Akitada, “What did you do with him?”
“Nothing. Osawa had to go back to Minato and sent me on by myself.” Akitada knew how this must sound, but was shocked by the viciousness of Wada’s reaction. Wada snatched one of the short whips from a constable’s leather belt and lashed him across the face with it. The pain was much sharper than he could have imagined. Tears blinded his eyes, and he heard Wada sneer, “I warned you that the fun is over. You don’t listen well, do you?”
Akitada was seized by an unreasoning fury. The insult was too much. He would kill the man, but not now, not while Wada had the upper hand. Focusing was difficult. He blinked away the tears. His face was bleeding, and he licked the salty drops from his lips. “Lieutenant,” he forced himself to beg, “please take me to the governor. He’ll explain.”
“The governor?” Wada’s eyes grew round with pretended shock. “You want me to trouble the governor with this? You think he likes me to bring him every robber, thief, and killer we catch?”
“I did not rob, steal, or kill anyone,” Akitada began again, but it was useless.
“Enough chatter!” snapped Wada. “Take him into those woods over there. We’ll soon sort out what he’s done with the body of this Osawa.”
It was getting out of hand. Once the sadistic Wada and his thugs got him out of sight of passersby, it would be too late to remonstrate. “Lieutenant,” Akitada said, drawing himself up as much as he could under the circumstances. “You are making a mistake. I am not a convict, but a government official. I demand that you take me to Governor Mutobe this instant.”
Wada chuckled. “You’ve got to give it to him. He’s pretty good,” he said to his men, who guffawed again. “All right. Let’s show him some fun!” He marched ahead toward a cluster of trees, and Akitada’s guards obliged with some well-placed kicks to his lower back which sent him staggering after Wada.
Dear heaven, he thought, as he stumbled toward the woods, let me get out of this alive and I’ll never be off my guard again. He recalled vividly the battered face and body of little Jisei. Staring at Wada’s swaggering back, he tried to think of some way to talk himself out of this. Then he glanced at the constable who held his chain, wondering about an evasive action he could take to escape. At least his legs were not tied. Maybe he could pull the chain out of his guard’s hand and run. Wada had a bow and arrows. Still, it was worth a try if nothing else offered.
“Lieutenant,” he called out, “if you will stop this nonsense, I’ll explain before it is too late. There are matters you’re not aware of, and they will be easy enough to verify.”
Wada did not stop.
They passed into the trees, and the constables moved in more closely until they reached a clearing, and Akitada saw their horses and a small pile of wooden cudgels near a tree. Cudgels? The moment he realized they had been prepared for him, he exploded into action. Kicking out at the constable on his right, he flung himself forward, feeling the chain bite his wrists and his arms jerking up under the strain. His shoulders were almost wrenched from their sockets, but he pulled away with all his strength, knowing that if he did not get free, much worse awaited him.
And he almost made it. In the confused shouting and angry cries, he felt the chain slacken and took off, twisting past one of the constables to loop back toward the road, dodging another man, and thinking of Wada, who was probably placing an arrow into the groove of his bow even then. He dodged again, a tree this time, and then the chain caught on something, and he fell forward, his face slamming into a tree root.
After that, he had no more chances. They took him back to the clearing and lashed the chain around a large cedar. A cut he had suffered in the fall was bleeding into his right eye, and his left eye was swelling shut because the constable he had kicked had returned the favor. But he glimpsed—and wished he had not—the neat pile of sticks and cudgels and the constables arming themselves before they formed a circle around him. They were going to have their fun.
His chain was loose enough to allow him some minimal dodging. Wada stood off to the side, his face avid with anticipation.
“So,” he said, stroking his skimpy mustache with a finger. “Let’s get started. Where is the body of the man you killed?”
Akitada saw no need to reply. He kept his eyes on the constables.
“Very well,” said Wada, and the first man stepped forward and swung.
Akitada dodged, and the end of the stick merely brushed his hip. Not too bad, he thought.
Wada shook his head. “Go on. All of you. At this rate we’ll be here till midnight.”
What followed was systematic and practiced. As one man stepped forward and swung, Akitada dodged and was met by the full force of the cudgel of the man at the other end. The blows landed everywhere on his body, but for some reason they avoided his head, which he could not in any case have protected. The pain of each blow registered belatedly. The full sensation was blocked by his concentration on dodging the next one, but this did not last long. He had never been so totally at the mercy of an enemy. The experience was simultaneously humbling and infuriating. It became vital not to disgrace himself. In an effort to distance himself from his pain, he thought of playing his flute. Concentrating on a passage which always gave him trouble, he played it in his mind, allowing his body to move by instinct.
Time passed. Perhaps not much, perhaps a long time. Eventually one of the sticks broke, and once Akitada stumbled and fell to his knees. He ducked in time, or the swinging cudgel might have hit his head. Somehow he got back on his feet, and once he even landed a kick to the groin of one of
the men who had strayed a bit too close. But he was quickly wearing out, and his mental flute-playing disintegrated in hot flashes of agony. Parts of him had gone numb. One arm was on fire with pain that ran all the way from his shoulder to his hand. Then one of the cudgels connected with his right knee, and he forgot the other pains and his pride. He screamed and fell.
Mercifully they stopped then—though there was no mercy about it, really. Wada walked over and kicked him in the ribs. “Get up!”
“I can’t,” muttered Akitada through clenched teeth.
They jerked him upright. He screamed again as he put weight on his injured knee and both knees buckled.
“Silence!”
Wada was listening toward the road. At a sign from him, his men dropped Akitada. This time they left him lying there as they walked away. Through waves of torment he heard someone leaving on a horse but did not care.
The grass under Akitada’s face became sticky with the blood from his cut and clung to his skin, but his mind was on his knee. Compared with that even the multiple bruises on the rest of his body, which had combined to form a solid robe of pain, paled. He wondered if his knee was broken and tried to move his leg. The effort was inconclusive. All feeling seemed to have left it. He turned the ankle, and was successful this time, but feeling returned with a vengeance, running all the way from the knee down to his foot. He held his breath, waiting for the spasm to pass.
As the agony in the knee ebbed away slowly, he checked the damage to the rest of his body. His fingers moved, though the skin on his wrists felt raw. Never mind! That was nothing. His shoulders? Painful, but mobile. Ribs and back? He attempted a stretch and managed it without suffering the kinds of spasm a broken rib produces. The knee remained the problem. He could not stand or walk, and that made eventual flight impossible.
Having got that far, he considered Wada and his thugs. Were they planning to kill him? Since they had brutalized him in this manner, they would not let him live if they feared him. He was glad now that he had not told Wada his name. As long as the man believed he was an escaped convict, he had a chance. He heard the horseman returning and twisted his head to look. Wada dismounted. He was giving orders, speaking to the constables separately until each man nodded. Akitada tried to guess where he had been and what these orders were by reading expressions and gestures. The faces were mostly glum. Wada looked determined, but his men were not happy with whatever they were to do. Akitada took courage from this.
