The Fires of the Gods (A Sugawara Akitada Novel) Page 22

  Her eyes widened briefly, then flew around the room again. She leaned down to pour the wine and murmured, ‘Later. After the market closes.’

  That would not be until well after dark. Akitada asked in a low voice, ‘How is Jirokichi? Can’t you at least tell me where he is?’

  She straightened, saying, ‘How should I know? The bastard’s left me. All men are bastards.’ She flounced away, swinging her hips to a chorus of raucous shouts.

  Had that been the truth? He looked after her and knew that he could trust no one in this matter. Something was afoot that was far more important than the disappearance of Shokan’s protégée, and Jirokichi was at the center of it.

  He tasted the wine. It had the strong flavor and murky consistency much loved by the common people. Leaving the rest, he walked out.

  The clouds still hung low over the city. His mood had changed, and it seemed now that they cast a dull, depressing light on the city. He wished for rain because that would close the market early. He had not eaten all day, having been too tense about the hearing this morning. He looked at the foods offered by the few market vendors and settled for a bowl of noodles that he bought from a middle-aged woman who looked clean and was doing a good business.

  He had chosen well. The noodles were plump, and the broth was nicely seasoned. Suddenly ravenous, he finished quickly and bought a second bowl. This earned him the woman’s gratitude.

  ‘Good, eh?’ she asked with a gap-toothed grin.

  ‘Very good,’ said Akitada, slurping noisily.

  ‘Hah.’ She laughed. ‘My old man, he says he only keeps me for my noodles. Better than fresh sea bream, he says. You’re not from around here, are you, sir?’

  So much for trying to pass as a poor man. ‘I don’t come here very often,’ Akitada said vaguely, then changed the subject by nodding at the lowering sky. ‘You must be worried that the rain will close the market early.’

  She glanced up and shook her head. ‘Not likely. It’ll hold off till dark.’ Her bright eyes looked Akitada over more closely. ‘So what are you doing in this part of town, if you’ll forgive a nosy woman’s question?’

  She was a chatterbox, but there was a twinkle in her eyes and her friendliness was generous. Akitada chuckled and decided to ask a question or two himself. ‘You have sharp eyes. I was hoping that I wouldn’t be taken for an official. I’m looking for a young monk. His name is Kansei. He seems to have run away and his abbot is nearly frantic with worry.’

  She cocked her head. ‘Now why would he run away? Plenty to eat in a monastery. Besides, where’s his faith in the Buddha?’

  ‘Not all boys go willingly into a monastery. Sometimes the father or mother hope to gain blessings. Or perhaps they cannot afford to feed a child.’

  She nodded, looking thoughtful. ‘Is he a child then? They do run sometimes.’ She turned away to stir her pot of noodles and serve a customer. ‘Poor boy,’ she said when she turned back.

  ‘Why do you call him poor? As you said, the acolytes lead better lives than the children of the streets.’

  She frowned. ‘Maybe. How old is this boy then?’

  ‘Well, he’s not precisely a child. I believe he’s about seventeen. The abbot thinks he got bored and joined a street gang.’

  Her eyes widened. ‘Oh, that’s bad. They’re young devils, if you ask me. And you should see how much money they have to throw around. Gold, even. Now, where would boys that age get gold? And they have no respect for working people. We all keep an eye out for them. They come here and take whatever they want and don’t pay. And if you make a fuss, they dump your food and dishes in the dirt and kick them around. Devils! I’ve seen them knock down a poor old man and laugh. One day they beat up a constable right over there.’ She pointed towards some leaning stands, their covers of woven reed mats supported by thin bamboo poles. ‘They pulled up those poles and were jumping around pretending to be stick-fighters. The man whose stand it was called the market constable, but they beat up the constable and he ran away.’

  Akitada shook his head. ‘I see what you mean. Were they arrested?’

  She uttered a bitter laugh. ‘Arrested? The police won’t touch them. The constable who got beaten up, he quit and left town. The one we have now disappears whenever they show up.’

  ‘But vendors still do a good trade. The gang can’t be too bad.’

  ‘As I said, we keep an eye open. Take my word, they’re as bad as can be.’

  Yes, perhaps they were. The stick-fighting incident might have been a prank that got out of hand, and the rest was mere hooliganism, but the fact that they had gold to spend suggested that they earned it by committing far more serious crimes. Akitada said, ‘I take it you haven’t heard about any young monks joining them?’

  ‘Oh, no. How could such a one forget the Buddha’s teachings and do such things?’ She eyed Akitada’s empty bowl. ‘You know, that reminds me: one of my best customers is a woman whose son is a monk. She comes regular and always eats three bowls of my noodles.’

  He quickly handed his bowl over for a refill.

  ‘You looked like you needed some food,’ she said with a satisfied nod as he raised the bowl to his mouth. ‘Like I said, this woman, she loves my noodles. Only the rich can afford to put on fat like that. She says she’s come down in the world, but that her son will be a great man some day and she’ll live in a mansion with many servants again. She put her boy in a monastery to have him taught because she can’t afford a university.’

  It was a stretchout Akitada asked anyway, ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘She’s just a customer, but I’ll ask her next time. You’d know her anywhere. She’s so fat she’s got to lean on a child to walk.’

  That image made Akitada feel uncomfortably full. What had he been thinking of to let this clever noodle woman con him into buying three bowls? He quickly handed back the empty bowl, paid, and walked away.

  Noting glumly that the clouds just seemed to hang there, he decided to spend the time until the market closed by checking out some of Tora’s other recent haunts.

  He found the warehouses easily, and like Tora he smelled the characteristic sour odor of fermented rice. The gang’s warehouse looked deserted, its gate leaning drunkenly and only confused tracks marking the dry dirt in front. Looking up and down the narrow lane first to make sure he was alone, Akitada slipped into the yard.

  His steps sounded overly loud as he walked up to the splintered door. He reminded himself that the worthless rascals were responsible for Tora’s festering wound and reached down to pull the knife from his boot before opening it. There was a sudden clatter in the darkness, and he jumped back. When nothing else happened, he walked in cautiously, letting his eyes adjust to the murk. Something darker than the gloom materialized near his feet with a yowl and streaked off to the outside. Before he could catch his breath, a second shadow flew past and also disappeared outside.

  Cats.

  Ashamed, he took a deep breath to calm the frantic beating of his heart and looked around. The light was minimal, but the warehouse did not seem to contain any other creatures. He put the knife back in his boot and circled the open space. An unpleasant smell joined the yeasty one of malt. The odors of rotting flesh and excrement.

  He walked gingerly, looking at the scuffed and bloodstained dirt floor, until he reached the larger stains beneath the iron hook that must have held the captive Jirokichi. A few flies still remained and buzzed up lazily. No one seemed to have attempted hiding the evidence by cleaning up the place.

  It sickened him that what had happened here would go unpunished. Neither he nor Tora could go to Kobe to report.

  Akitada made a half-hearted inspection of the few remnants of the sake trade. Evidence of formerly stored rice was everywhere. When he picked up one empty, broken bag and shook it, a few dark purple grains fell out: malt rice, used to start fermentation. They joined other dark droppings on the dry, sandy floor. Mice or rats had been at work, and that explained the cats he had distu
rbed. A number of rice wine casks and large vats were empty, and so were various boxes. The handcarts that had once served in delivering goods to brewers were mostly in need of repair. The warehouse had not been used for its intended purpose for a while, yet it might be interesting to find out who owned it.

  Its more recent occupants had left their own marks. The remnants of past meals still coated some earthenware bowls, and sake cups lay scattered on the ground. Someone had left a colorful jacket behind, and a pair of dice rested in one of the sake cups. Near the door was another small pile of items: a closed charcoal brazier with a handle, the type maids used to carry live charcoal from one building to another; two stoppered earthenware pitchers; and a cloth bag.

  Akitada picked up one of the pitchers. It was full. So was the other. He thought at first they must contain rice wine, but when he pulled out the wad that stopped the narrow mouth, the liquid inside was dark and viscous and smelled like cheap oil. Lamp oil was a useful item if the gang had spent much time here after dark, but two large pitchers of oil were certainly a lot to keep one small lamp lit. He checked the cloth bag. It contained stuffing of the type used in quilted covers and winter clothing, plus a small container of flints. The charcoal brazier was empty except for some ashes.

  There was no longer any doubt. He was standing in the head-quarters of the gang that had been setting the fires. A small group of street kids had terrified the capital into believing that the gods were punishing the country. Could they have hoped to topple the chancellor’s government? It was not likely. But when Tora and Jirokichi had come too close, they had caught Jirokichi and tried to kill Tora. They would have succeeded if another gang had not interfered.

  That was interesting, but not reassuring. The young ‘monk’ Akitada hoped to restore to Abbot Shokan was most likely involved up to his handsome ears. If caught, he would be arrested and sent into exile and probable death.

  And Shokan would be grievously embarrassed by this discovery and furious with Akitada.

  He paused to listen. He was not safe here.

  Something in the air of the warehouse changed subtly. It seemed dimmer, and there was a moldy smell. Akitada sniffed and looked around without being able to account for it. Then he heard a faint rushing sound, not unlike the distant roar of the sea. A soft plinking noise came from right above his head. He looked up into the darkness of rough beams. The plinking repeated, then multiplied, became a steady drumming… and he realized he heard the rain on the roof.

  Finally, it had come, rushing and gurgling, to soak the land.

  Akitada ran outside to watch it falling in silvery sheets, pock-marking the dry earth, covering the roofs and walls of buildings with glossy darkness. The trees turned a deeper green and danced gently in the shower.

  His spirits lifted. The rain seemed to him to wash away the evil he had found inside. Surely that meant the gods had not forsaken them. There would be a good rice harvest after all. And the fires would cease.

  He let the warm drops run down his face and lifted his hands to the cloudburst. The world became misty. The warm earth and the many roofs of the city that had been baking in the sun gave up their heat in steam. Finally, the summer rains had come.

  Laughing softly to himself, he walked away from the warehouse. Even for him, hope was still possible.

  He arrived at the Fragrant Peach drenched, but full of new energy and determination.

  He knew from Tora’s report that this dirty dive was a hangout for criminals. These days, criminals organized much like tradesmen and merchants did. They formed brotherhoods that protected their members. Akitada thought that Tora had tangled with two different gangs: the one to which the three deaf mutes belonged, and the other, made up of young men in their early twenties or younger. The precise connection between the two gangs was not clear. The deaf mutes had attacked the arsonists to rescue Jirokichi, but they had then allowed the youths to escape. He would have to be careful.

  He was not the only one who had ducked in from the shower that continued outside. The atmosphere was dim, smoky, and smelled of wet dog. Several damp locals sat chatting around a fire that put out more smoke than light, and the young waitress was serving them wine and bowls of pickles.

  Since she played a significant role in Tora’s story, Akitada watched her a moment and decided she was a hardened criminal in spite of her youth and prettiness. They started their lives of crime young in these unsavory parts of the city. Even though she had seemingly helped Tora free Jirokichi, Akitada placed no trust in her.

  The other customers were poor laborers, though a few looked like cut-throats. None were younger than twenty years.

  He walked forward looking for a place to sit and saw that there was another part of the room: a raised section covered with worn mats. A single oil lamp cast its light on a youth. Akitada’s jaw dropped. There, in lonely splendor and apparently at his ease, sat the young Kiyowara heir.

  THE PIT

  Akitada did not know what to make of it. One of the ‘good people’ here, in such a place? It was impossible. But his heart rose. Whatever had brought the Kiyowara heir to this low dive, finding him was a gift from the gods. He had caught the son alone, without his family’s protection and in circumstances that might make him talk.

  Of course, if the censors heard about it, his fate was sealed, but his prospects were poor already and he might just get to the bottom of this mystery in time to avert being arrested for murder because he was expendable while a relative of the chancellor was not.

  He strode across the room with angry determination and stepped on the raised section.

  Young Kiyowara looked up at him blankly.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ demanded Akitada, sitting down across from him.

  The young man said nothing, but stared at Akitada as if he were an apparition.

  ‘Does your mother know you go slumming in this part of town?’

  ‘My mother?’ the other asked, still dumbfounded.

  ‘Hey.’ The young waitress appeared at Akitada’s elbow. ‘This is a private room. Go sit someplace else.’

  The raised portion could hardly be described as a room, being open to the rest of the wine shop on two sides. ‘We have private business,’ he snapped. ‘Bring me some wine.’

  She looked at His young Lordship, who seemed more befuddled than ever. ‘What private business?’ she asked the boy, who shook his head helplessly.

  Akitada growled, ‘Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten. I was supposed to investigate your father’s murder.’

  The girl gasped, and the young man turned perfectly white. ‘M-my f-father’s murder?’ he stammered. ‘Who s-sent you here?’

  The girl now grasped Akitada’s arm and pulled sharply. ‘You’d better leave or I’ll call my father,’ she threatened.

  Akitada shook her off. ‘Go and get me that wine.’

  She hesitated. The youth said nothing. He looked frightened. Reluctantly, and with several backward glances, she left.

  Something did not feel right about this. Akitada looked the terrified youngster over. His robe, while of good silk with an intricate blue and white pattern, was not only worn, but also torn and stained in places. Perhaps it was meant as a disguise of sorts. Under the circumstances, that was almost funny. In any case, the clothing did nothing to hide the handsome face with its slanting eyebrows and pointed chin.

  So what was Katsumi doing here, hanging out with thieves and robbers?

  Then a memory surfaced. Had not Tora insisted the young lord had a double in the western city? On the one occasion that Akitada had met the young lord, the youngster was in the background and had taken no part in the conversation. Still, if this was another youngster, the two were startlingly similar.

  But why had he cast this youth into a panic when he had mentioned the Kiyowara murder? If he was indeed someone else, he could not know of the crime.

  Akitada asked more gently, ‘Are you Katsumi?’

  The boy looked around as if for help. Then
he shook his head.

  ‘Who are you and what exactly is your relationship to the Kiyowaras?’

  The youth panicked. He shot to his feet. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he cried and bounded off the platform.

  ‘Oh no, you don’t,’ Akitada cried and went after him. But the youth was dodging customers in a full run for the door.

  The wine shop became very quiet.

  Akitada tried to follow, but someone put out a leg and he stumbled, caught himself, was tripped again, and fell full-length to the floor. He heard laughter.

  Furious, he scrambled up and looked at sly faces. ‘How dare you? That youth may be a killer. The next person who interferes with me will have to deal with the constables.’

  It was the wrong thing to say. Three burly men suddenly blocked his way. The rest watched, snickering. A dirty bearded man sitting near Akitada took a deep mouthful from his wine flask and spat it at him.

  Akitada tried to shoulder past the bullies. They did not budge. Neither did they speak. They eyed him like hungry dogs.

  In a moment, the situation had become dangerous. He would have to fight his way out. Bending down, he pulled the knife from his boot. ‘Get out of my way,’ he snarled. Their eyes widened at the sight of the knife, and suddenly the path to the door was clear.

  As he flung himself outside into the sheeting rain, Akitada blamed himself for his foolish mistake. These were not people who respected authority. More to the point, he had no authority any longer, and he could not call on the police for assistance. He was very lucky to have escaped real trouble.

  The street was empty – and why not? Too much time had passed, and the youth had long legs and lots of stamina. Akitada put the knife back in his boot and ran to the street corner to check the side street. He found it empty and ran back the other way, past the Fragrant Peach. At the alleyway next to the wine shop he stopped to peer into the gloom. On this rainy day, late afternoon resembled dusk. It was nearly dark between the overhanging roofs of adjoining buildings. Water poured from the eaves and splashed into puddles and ditches below. Was that a movement at the far end? He heard the faint sound of a gate or door closing over the rushing of waters.