by I. J. Parker
At the moment, they sat or lay on the ground, but already one of the guards was walking about, snapping a leather whip. One by one, the men stood, chains clinking, heads hanging, arms slack. A few glanced toward the corpses, but nobody spoke.
Some of the miners were half naked, and several of the smallest had rags wound around their knees and lower arms like little Jisei. Akitada glanced up at the holes in the cliff face. They must be the badger holes the doctor had talked about.
The guards rounded up the bigger convicts and marched them back into the smoking cave opening. They resisted briefly, protesting and gesturing, but the whip soon bit into their backs and bare calves and, one by one, they disappeared into the earth. One of the guards followed but returned quickly, gasping and coughing, to wave another guard in. They took turns this way, but the convicts only reappeared briefly, dragging charred timbers or carrying baskets of equipment. The cleanup had begun.
As the daylight grew stronger, he saw that his knee was still swollen and the tight skin was an ugly black and purplish red. But the cooling rain had soothed the throbbing, and after a while Akitada began to test his leg. He could move foot and ankle easily, but the knee was too stiff to bend more than a little. Still, he was encouraged that it would heal in time.
The remaining convicts were fed and put to their normal tasks. Half-naked, childlike figures with small baskets scrambled up the cliff and, one by one, disappeared into the badger holes, from which they reappeared after a while, bare buttocks first, dragging out baskets of chipped rock. The baskets were passed to the ground, where other convicts took them down the slope toward a curious wooden rig. This appeared to be some sort of a sluice carrying a stream of water down a gentle incline. Two men walked a treadmill that raised buckets of water from a stream to the top of the sluice.
Armed guards watched seated workers who used stone mallets to crush the rock chips into coarse sand before emptying that into the sluice. Now and then a worker would lift a traylike section of the wooden sluice to pick through the debris caught in it before reinserting it for the next batch of ground rock.
Akitada watched this, trying to account for the amount of effort expended on rock. He had never seen such a time-consuming and inefficient method of mining. No wonder the emperor saw so little silver from Kumo’s operations.
Toward noon there was an unpleasant interruption. A horseman trotted to the center of the clearing, stared at the smoky cave opening, then shouted, “Katsu.” One of the guards appeared from the mouth of the cave, ran forward, and bowed.
“The master’s displeased,” the rider barked. “This is the second time in one month. You are careless. How many this time?”
The guard bowed several times and stammered something, pointing to the corpses.
“Three? Well, you won’t get any more. Put everybody to work. Guards, too. Your last take was disappointing.”
“But we’re running out of good rock. Just look. We had to make six new badger holes.”
The horseman slid off his horse and together they went to the cliff and looked up. The new arrival was short and had a strange, uneven gait. They stood and watched as one of the miners backed out of his hole and lowered his basket to the ground. The newcomer reached in and inspected its contents, shaking his head.
Akitada could no longer hear what was said, but the horseman seemed familiar. He had heard that voice before. Then it came to him that it had been in Kumo’s stable yard. This was Kita, the mine overseer who had arrived with bad news that night. Another fire.
But he was unprepared for what happened next: Kita turned his head and Akitada saw his profile. Kita was the bird-faced man who had followed him to Minato and later to the monastery. He would have recognized that beaky nose anywhere. Then the overseer turned fully his way, shading his eyes to see better, and asked a question. When the two men started purposefully toward him, Akitada knew that his troubles were far from over.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
LITTLE FLOWER
When Tora and Turtle returned to his sister’s hostel, they found several excited children waiting anxiously at the door. Apparently they looked forward to sharing the remnants of the dinner the generous guest had paid for.
Tora was no longer very hungry after the noodle soup but did not want to seem unappreciative of Turtle’s sister, whose name was Oyoshi, and asked the whole family to join him. An amazing number of children appeared instantly. They all sat down on the torn and stained mats of the main room, the children in their gay, multicolored bits of clothing lined up on either side of their mother, three girls to one side, five boys to the other. She served Tora and her brother first, steaming bowls of rice covered with vegetables and chunks of fish. An appetizing smell filled the room. Tora sampled, while the children watched him fixedly, licking their lips. The food was quite tasty and he said so, inviting the others to join them. To his discomfort, Turtle’s sister served only the little boys. She and the little girls had to wait until the men had eaten their fill.
Nevertheless, it was a cheerful gathering, with Turtle chattering away and the children giggling. But when Turtle mentioned their run-in with Wada earlier that day, his sister suddenly burst into such vicious invective that even he stared at her.
“Why, what’d he do to you?” he asked when she ran out of terms of abuse.
“Not me, you fool. Little Flower. She was near to dying on the street when I heard. I brought her here this morning.”
Turtle’s eyes grew large. “Amida. Not again! And just now. I should have known bad luck was coming when that crow cawed at me.”
“Who’s Little Flower?” Tora asked.
“She’s the whore I told you about,” said Turtle, looking apologetic. “Wada’s girl. They call her that because she’s sort of small and pretty. He likes them that way.”
“Well, she’s not feeling very pretty now,” his sister snapped. “That bastard!”
“Damn,” said the Turtle. “I didn’t know. But if she’s laid up, maybe he’s got somebody else. I can find out.”
“More fool she,” muttered his sister, refilling a boy’s bowl while three little girls watched hungrily. Only the baby, lashed to its mother’s back, was uninterested in the food and stared with unblinking eyes at Tora over its mother’s shoulder. He wondered where the children’s father was. Having tended to her sons, Oyoshi looked sternly at her brother. “You stay out of it, Taimai. He’d kill you as soon as slap at a fly.”
“Could I talk to this Little Flower?” asked Tora, pushing his half-filled bowl toward the little girls.
Their mother snatched it away and divided the contents among the boys. Men came first in her household. Having reestablished the sacred order, she turned a gap-toothed smile on Tora and said, “A strapping officer like you doesn’t want a pitiful little flower. Let me fix you up with a real beauty for the night, Master Tora. Only fifty coppers, and you’ll feel like you’ve been to paradise.”
Her wheedling tone was familiar. Tora had heard such propositions before and was not too surprised that Turtle’s sister also worked as a procuress. People did what they had to do in order to feed a large family. He grinned. “But I like them little and bruised,” he teased.
Her smile faded. She had begun gathering the various leftovers for herself and the hungry girls, but now paused to look at Tora dubiously. “Well, she needs the money, but . . . you aren’t planning to beat her? Because, I tell you, I won’t have it. She can’t take any more.”
Tora flushed to the roots of his hair. “No. I was joking. I don’t beat my women. I just want to talk to her, that’s all.”
“Just talk? Hmm,” she muttered, frowning at him. “Well, I’ll go and ask her.” She left the little girls watching tearfully as one of the boys helped himself to several juicy bits of fish.
When their mother returned a moment later, Tora insisted that she let the girls eat now and watched as they fell on their food like small savages. Then he followed her to the back of the hostel. This part of t
he building looked worse than where Tora’s room was. The walls leaned at odd angles, water had leaked in and stained them black, and doors did not shut properly or were missing entirely. Here and there whole boards were gone, put to use in other places. He glanced into empty rooms, each no more than a tiny cubicle, hardly large enough for two people to lie down together, and passed others, inadequately covered by ragged quilts pinned up in the doorway, where he heard the grunts and squeals of lovemaking. Oyoshi opened the last door and said to someone inside, “Here he is, dear. Mind you, you don’t have to have him.”
Tora ducked into a dark space. In the dim flicker from his hostess’s oil lamp, he made out a cowering figure in one corner. “We’ll need a candle,” he said.
“I have no candles, Master Tora. Too much money,” his hostess said sadly. “I can leave my lamp, but please bring it back. Oil’s expensive, too.” She closed the door behind him.
The oil also stank and smoked. He squatted on the floor, and they looked at each other by the fitful light. Tora thought at first that she was a little girl of ten or eleven. Little Flower was tiny and small-boned, and perhaps she had been pretty once, but now she looked sick and discontented; her eyes were ringed with dark circles, her lips pinched, and her thin cheeks unnaturally flushed. She gave him a nod and a tremulous smile.
He saw no obvious bruises on her and said, “I’ve been told that one of your customers has hurt you badly. Is that so?”
She trembled a bit then, and nodded again. “I can’t lie down on my back, but I could be on top, if the gentleman liked. Or I could kneel and—” Her voice, soft and girlish, was breathless with desperate eagerness to please.
Tora interrupted quickly. “I didn’t come for that.”
“Oh.” Her face fell. “I thought . . .”
Tora pulled a handful of coppers from his sash. “I’ll pay for your time, of course. Whatever you would get from a customer.”
The slender face lit up, and he thought that she had very pretty, soft eyes. “Thank you, sir,” she said in her childlike voice. “Would ten coppers be too much?”
“Not at all.” Tora counted out fifteen and pushed them toward her.
She did not touch the money. “I’m called Little Flower. Does the gentleman have a name?”
“Tora.”
She smiled again, and Tora was glad that Wada had not touched her face.
“What shall I do for you, Master Tora?”
“Tell me about Wada.”
Her eyes widened. She shook her head and pushed the fifteen coppers his way. “No. He’ll kill me if he finds out.”
Tora pushed the money back. “He won’t find out. Can I see what he did to you?”
She hesitated. A flush spread from her cheeks to her ears and neck. It made her look prettier and healthier. She got to her feet, clumsily, supporting herself with one hand against the wall. Tora saw that she wore a wrinkled hemp gown dyed in a blue and white pattern of flowers. Around her tiny middle was a brown-and-black-striped sash. It was tied loosely, and when she undid the knot, it dropped to the floor and her gown fell open. Underneath, she was naked and, except for small, high breasts, entirely childlike, since she had shaved off all body hair. Tora’s skin prickled unpleasantly. He was ashamed for staring.
Turning slowly, she let the gown fall from her shoulders.
Tora felt sick. Muttering a curse, he got to his feet and raised the oil lamp to look at her back and buttocks. The blood had dried, but the welts, and there were many of them crisscrossing each other from the nape of her neck to the back of her knees, looked swollen and inflamed. He could hardly imagine the pain she must endure at every move. And she had offered to service him anyway.
He picked up her gown and placed it very gently around her shoulders again. “Has a doctor treated you?”
She shook her head.
He opened the door and shouted for the landlady. She appeared at a trot, dragging two toddlers behind her.
“What’s the matter?” she asked anxiously.
“Send for a doctor,” he snapped. “I’ll pay for it.” Then he slammed the door in her face and turned back to Little Flower. She was tying her sash. Her head was lowered, but he could see the tears running down her face. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Let me help you down.”
She settled on the floor, carefully, and brushed away her tears, giving Tora a little smile. “I’ll be all right,” she murmured. “It’ll heal.”
He stared at her in helpless anger. His familiarity with the pleasure quarters of the capital had taught him that there were men who enjoyed sex only when they could inflict pain on their partner. But this? He asked harshly, “And next time? Will you let him beat you to death?”
She flinched a little at his tone. “Perhaps he won’t want me anymore.”
Tora ran his eye over her appraisingly. He liked his women well padded and lusty. But a man like that bastard Wada probably got his kicks out of abusing children, and she looked more childlike than ever, cowering there and wiping at her tears with the back of her hand. “What if he does?”
She looked away. “Life is hard. It’s my karma because I did bad things in my previous life.”
He said fiercely, “No. Wada is the evil one, and I’ll make him pay for this.”
She gave him a startled look, then leaned forward and put a small, somewhat dirty hand on his arm. “You’re very kind, Master Tora,” she said softly, “but please do not go near Master Wada. You’re younger, stronger, and very much more handsome, but he’ll kill you.”
Tora threw back his head with a shout of laughter. “What? That little bug? Listen, Little Flower, you don’t know me very well. If he weren’t so repulsive, I’d chew him up and spit him out.”
She started to weep again, covering her face and rocking back and forth.
“What’s wrong? What did I say?”
“Oh,” she said, her voice muffled, “you don’t know him.”
“Well, that’s why I’m here. I was hoping you’d explain. See, I need some information from the bastard. I think he knows something about someone I’m trying to find.”
She looked up then. A shadow passed over her face. “Is she someone . . . like me?”
He shook his head. “No. It’s . . . a man. He came here about a month ago as a prisoner and has disappeared.”
She brightened, but shook her head. “Then he’s dead. Or in the mines, which is the same thing.”
Tora clenched his fists. “I’ve got to make sure.”
“Is it your father, or brother?”
“No. I can’t tell you. Just talk to me about Wada. Whatever you know. His habits, the places he goes after dark, where he eats, his friends.”
She gave a snort. “He’s the head of the police. They have no friends. His constables are worse than the criminals. Everybody’s afraid of them. Those who complain are dead a day later. So nobody complains ever.”
Turtle had said the same thing. “Has it always been this way?”
She frowned. “It’s worse now. Anyway, Master Wada’s got no friends, unless you count the constables, and most of them hate him, too. He eats in the best places for free, compliments of the owners. I don’t know about his habits, except for what he does to girls like me.”
“He has other women?”
“Sometimes. But he likes me best.” She said this almost proudly.
“Where were you when he did this to you?”
“At the Golden Phoenix. He sent word for me to come there. It’s a restaurant near the harbor. There’s a little cottage out back for private parties. He goes there so the other guests won’t hear the girls scream.”
Heavy, dragging steps approached their door, and someone belched grossly. Then the door slid back, and a fat, bald old man peered in, bringing with him the sour fumes of cheap wine.
“What do you want?” Tora snapped.
“I’m the doctor,” the old man grunted, and squeezed his bulk in. He put down a medicine box and used his sleeve to wipe the
sweat off his red face and scalp. His robe was dark, like a doctor’s, but so filthy that it was difficult to guess its original color. Taking a couple of uncertain steps, he sat down heavily in front of Little Flower. More rancid wine fumes filled the small cubicle. Tora closed the door and stood against the wall. The man’s body seemed to fill the space.
“Ah,” the doctor said to the girl, “it’s you again, is it? Same trouble?”
She nodded. “Yes, Dr. Ogata.”
“Let’s see, then.”
She got to her feet and repeated the disrobing process, turning her lacerated back toward Ogata. He gave a soundless whistle.
“Girl,” he said, “you won’t survive the next one. I told you to come live with me.”
At this Tora lost his patience. “You filthy old lecher,” he growled. “Passing yourself off as a healer when you’re a drunk. And then you want to get the poor girl in your bed before you’ve even treated her back. Get out of here. I’ll send for a real doctor.”
Little Flower cried out a protest, but the doctor just turned to stare at Tora. He chuckled. “Well, well, girl, that’s more like it. A handsome fellow, and considerate. Not like that animal you’ve been consorting with. Take my advice and stick with this one.”
Tora glared at the fat man, and Little Flower flushed scarlet and averted her face. She pulled the gown around her and murmured, “He just wanted information. Nothing else.”
“Hmm.” Ogata looked from one to the other, scratched his bald head, and grinned at Tora. “Sit down, young man, or step outside. You’re making me nervous, hanging over me like a mountain. Now, as to my fee, you can pay me five coppers or two flasks of wine, whichever you prefer. You don’t want the other doctor. He knows nothing about the way these girls must live and would make trouble for her.” Turning back to Little Flower, he said, “All right. You know the routine. Lie down. It’ll hurt this time, but you’ve waited too long and I must clean some of the poison out.”
