Black Arrow - [Sugawara Akitada 04] Page 29

  “No wonder they wouldn’t help us.”

  “Yes. But I wonder why the houseman looked so worried.” Akitada turned to Tora. “Did you see anything unusual?”

  Tora grumbled, “This whole place is haunted. There are ghosts in the trees playing lutes.”

  Genba laughed. “You’ve got to stop seeing ghosts all the time, Tora. It’s addling your brains.”

  “Playing lutes?” said Akitada, grasping Tora’s arm. “Where did you hear that? Show me!”

  Tora retraced his steps. Suddenly, faintly, through the whistling of the wind in the boughs, they heard it. Someone was playing a lute.

  Tora froze. “There. That’s what I heard.”

  Akitada pursued the sound, followed by Genba and, reluctantly, Tora. They broke through a thicket at the end of the property and stood before a small pavilion. Beyond, the dunes began and sere grasses grew all around and up to its bleached wooden steps. The wind was loud here, but so was the sound of a lute, inexpertly plucked, but hauntingly sad in this desolate place.

  Akitada’s face was grim. He turned and said, “Both of you wait here till I call you.”

  He walked quickly up the steps of the small veranda, almost stumbling over the huddled shape of the one-armed servant who was cowering there, and flung open the door.

  The room was tiny. All it contained were a pristine grass mat and the owner of the estate. If he had noticed Akitada’s abrupt entrance, he gave no sign.

  Sunada sat hunched over a beautiful lute, muttering to himself as he picked out a vaguely familiar tune. “The snows will come, and the snows will go,” he sang softly, “and then my heart will melt into a flood of tears.”

  “A famous old tune,” Akitada remarked, closing the door behind him. “Where did you learn it?”

  Sunada did not look up. “She used to sing it.” His voice was brittle, like the dried leaves of the summerhouse. “She sang beautifully. Astounding in someone of her class. I fell in love with her when I first heard her. Of course, there was also her physical beauty, but other girls had that.” He paused to pluck more notes, random ones, and smiled. “I have traveled far and had many women. She was like none of them.”

  Akitada quietly lowered himself to the floor.

  “How did you find me?” Sunada asked almost casually.

  “The lute. The curio dealer told me that the woman Ofumi had one that was so rare and expensive that it could only be purchased by you.”

  “Ah. I did not plan this. One does not plan an obsession. Imagine. The daughter of peasants and wife of a doss-house keeper on the post road! She could not speak properly when I first met her.’’

  “How did you meet?”

  He waved a dismissive hand. “Pure chance. The Omeya woman used to find entertainment for me. One day I came to make arrangements for a small party and found her giving lute lessons to a perfect goddess. I canceled the party and spent the night with my goddess instead.”

  “She was willing?” Akitada thought of the widow’s claims that she had been forced to submit to Mrs. Omeya’s customer.

  Sunada finally looked at him, surprised. With a cynical grimace, he said, “Naturally—eager even, as soon as the old one explained who I was. Oh, I always knew Ofumi for what she was, but I wanted her, needed her ...” He grimaced again and broke off. Raising the lute with both hands above his head, he brought it down violently, smashing the delicate inlaid woods into splinters, and tearing at the strings with frantic fingers until the wires parted with a sound that hung in the room like a scream, and blood ran from his hands.

  “It was you who killed her, wasn’t it?” Akitada said softly.

  “Dear heaven!” Sunada looked at his bleeding hands and began to weep. “This woman whom I raised from the gutter to become my consort, for whom I built and furnished this house, for whom I did unimaginable things—she betrayed me. Betrayed me with an oaf of a soldier. One of yours, Governor.” He clutched his head and rocked back and forth in his grief.

  “You did not answer my question,” Akitada persisted.

  Sunada lowered his hands and looked at Akitada. “Come, Governor, don’t plague me with questions. Nothing matters any longer.”

  “What about Mrs. Omeya? Did you kill her?”‘

  Sunada frowned. “That woman! You know what she whispered to me? That your lieutenant had been spending his nights with my future wife. She thought I could use the information against you.” Sunada laughed. “The fool!”

  Silence fell.

  Akitada said, “I am arresting you for the-murders of the woman Ofumi, her landlady, Mrs. Omeya, and the vagrant Koichi.”

  Sunada ignored him. He fingered the broken lute. “Music fades ...” He raised his eyes to Akitada’s. “You know,” he said with a crooked smile, “Uesugi underestimated you, but I never made that mistake. A worthy adversary is preferable in a contest for power, don’t you think? And I was winning, too. Wasn’t I?”

  Yes, thought Akitada, Sunada had been winning all along. Had it not been for the merchant’s fatal obsession with that arch seductress, Akitada would have been powerless to prevent a disastrous uprising. Aloud he said, “No. The gods do not permit the destruction of divine harmony. You raised your hand against the Son of Heaven.”

  Sunada sighed. “Always the official view.”

  “It is over, Sunada.”

  The other man nodded. “I no longer care. You will find what you seek in my library, the large room in the west wing. Behind the dragon curtain are documents, plans for the insurrection ... it will be enough to end my life . .. and the lives of others.”

  * * * *

  NINTEEN

  THE TURNING WHEEL

  W

  ell done!” grunted Hitomaro, parrying Akitada’s long sword and stepping back.

  Both men were stripped to the waist, their bare skin covered with the sheen of perspiration on this gray and cold morning outside the tribunal hall. Akitada smiled briefly and checked the bandage on his left shoulder. “I think it’s coming back to me,” he said. “I was afraid my arm had stiffened.”

  “One rarely forgets the right moves.”

  Hitomaro’s face did not lose its gravity. Akitada had hoped that the workout would lift his lieutenant’s spirits, but he had not once lost his detachment. Akitada did not like that faraway look in Hitomaro’s eyes; he seemed to be gazing into an unseen world, listening for an unheard sound.

  “I would not wish to disgrace myself before Takesuke,” Akitada joked lamely. “He already has a very poor opinion of me.” They all thought that a battle was unavoidable. Men would die and, unlike Sun Tzu, Akitada did not believe that men ever died gladly. The responsibility frightened him more than his own death, but he could not falter now.

  Hitomaro resumed his position. They reengaged and continued their practice until the nearby monastery bell sounded the call for the monks’ morning rice. When Captain Takesuke arrived, they were bent over the well bucket, sluicing off their sweat.

  Takesuke smiled when he took in the significance of the sword practice. “I’m happy to see you quite recovered, Excellency,” he said with a smart salute. “I also have made preparations. You will be proud of the troops. In fact, I came for your Excellency’s banner so we can make copies to carry into battle.”

  The feeling of well-being after the exercise evaporated with the water on Akitada’s skin. Here was a man after Sun Tzu’s heart. He shivered and reached for a towel. “Hitomaro will supply you with what you need. The problem is getting Uesugi out of Takata. That manor is too strongly fortified.”

  Takesuke said confidently, “He will fight. How can he refuse and retain his honor now that he has openly declared himself ruler of the northern provinces and demanded our formal submission?”

  Akitada shot him a sharp glance as he tossed away the towel and reached for his gown. “Just how do you know that, Captain?”

  Takesuke pulled a folded, bloodstained sheet of paper from under his shoulder guard. “One of my men brought this f
rom Takata. When it got light enough, they noticed two posts that hadn’t been there before. They sent a man to investigate. He found two fresh corpses tied to the posts. They had been disemboweled and one had this attached to his chest with a dagger.”

  Sickened, Akitada unfolded the paper. The writing was large and crude, the characters in the middle obliterated by the blood-soaked hole left by the dagger, but the content was clear: “The traitor Hisamatsu sends this greeting to Sugawara and Takesuke: Bow to the new Lord of the North or suffer as I did.”

  “Hisamatsu is dead,” Akitada said tonelessly, handing Hitomaro the message.

  Hitomaro read and nodded. “He had no chance. What good is a raving lunatic to Uesugi? I suppose the other one is Chobei?”

  Takesuke nodded.

  Akitada said, “They were probably killed last night, a whole day and night after Hisamatsu went to Takata. That means Uesugi did not act until he got news of Sunada’s arrest.”

  Hitomaro looked surprised. “You mean he blamed them for that?”

  “Perhaps.” Akitada refolded the paper and put it in his sleeve. “Or perhaps he had been waiting for Sunada’s instructions. In any case, he keeps himself informed about developments in the city.”

  “The faster we move on him the better,” Takesuke said eagerly. “When will your Excellency give the order to march?”

  The man’s eagerness to sacrifice himself and untold numbers of other humans on the battlefield was too much for Akitada. He swung around angrily. “Have you not been listening, man? We cannot take the manor. It is inaccessible—as you should have realized long ago. And I doubt that Uesugi will accommodate us by coming out. Get it into your thick skull and stop badgering me!”

  Takesuke blanched. He bowed. “My apology.”

  Akitada bit his lip. He was ashamed of his outburst and tempted to leave the awkward scene for the safety of his office. Eventually he said grudgingly, “There is still a great deal of paperwork to be done before we can bring formal charges against Uesugi, but I suppose we must make ready to attack.”

  Takesuke got up and stood to attention. “Yes, Excellency. Thank you, Excellency.”

  Akitada sighed. He could not afford to antagonize this man. “Perhaps tomorrow, Captain,” he said and walked away.

  ♦

  The tribunal archives had lost their dusty, musty air of disuse. On a closer inspection of Sunada’s house, the warehouses had held much of the province’s rice stores, and the locked room had guarded the secrets of a planned uprising.

  Now everywhere in the tribunal piles of document boxes covered the floor. The two clerks were bent over papers, reading, making notes, and sorting Sunada’s records into neat stacks. Seimei bustled about, checking and labeling the stacks and making notes. A harassed but happy Hamaya greeted Akitada.

  “Excellency, I am amazed,” he cried. “You have uncovered an enormous conspiracy! Nobody could have dreamed of such a thing. And it is all here. Lists of conspirators’ names, contacts in other provinces ...” He snatched up one of the piles and followed Akitada into his office. “Look! These are the rice records for the last year. This is the Uesugi seal. Sunada paid Uesugi for eight thousand bales of the provincial fall harvest, and the amount is less than half of its value. According to Uesugi, that rice went to the troops in the north.”

  Akitada suppressed his impatience. Hamaya had worked hard and accounted for part of the missing governmental rice stores. He peered at the figures, nodded, and said, “Excellent work, Hamaya. You and your clerks are to be congratulated. We can charge Uesugi with diverting government property to his own uses. Start drawing up the paperwork.”

  Hamaya bowed, pink with pleasure. “Immediately, sir. Oh, I almost forgot...look at this. It’s a letter from someone in the capital, I think. Stuck in the pages of the merchant’s personal accounts. It must be a hoax. Surely it couldn’t be ... treason?”

  Akitada snatched the letter from Hamaya’s hand, glanced at it, and felt his heart stop. “Someone’s private joke, no doubt,” he told the head clerk and tossed the paper carelessly on his desk. “Let me know when the charges are ready.”

  He waited until Hamaya had left his office, then read the letter again. It was addressed to Sunada and encouraged him in his plan to establish a separate northern rule with promises of high appointment in the capital if his endeavor could influence imperial succession. The letter was unsigned, but Akitada had recognized the seal. It belonged to one of the sons of the retired emperor. This young man had briefly served as crown prince, but had been replaced in the succession by a child, the son of the present empress and grandson of the Fujiwara chancellor.

  Because of Fujiwara marriage politics, intrigue within the imperial family was always a danger, and punishment usually fell heavily on the innocent, on loyal servants and dutiful officials along with their families, rather than the highly placed principals.

  Therefore Akitada stared at the elegant paper with particular horror. It lay on his desk between the black arrow which had killed Kaibara and saved Akitada’s life and the lacquered box of Tamako’s shell-matching game. Men played deadly games everywhere. Not only was he about to risk his life to secure this province, but the letter represented a bloody upheaval about to happen in the capital, and on his, Akitada’s, report. Yet duty required him to make this report. By a twist of fate, he was forced to destroy lives, careers, and families, perhaps his own included, when he had struggled all along to avoid bloodshed.

  Akitada knew that another man would burn the letter and forget its contents. Echigo was a remote province. If the insurrection collapsed here, the disaffected prince in the capital might well give up his aspirations.

  But weighed against the present and future danger to the emperor, this was not an option open to Akitada. What if the news of the collapse of the northern uprising prompted desperate action in the capital? And what guarantee was there that an ambitious prince might not plot again, and again?

  He raised his hands to his face and groaned.

  “What is the matter, husband?” Tamako had entered silently, wide-eyed with concern. She looked frail in the morning light, her hands resting protectively on her swelling body.

  Akitada smiled bleakly. “I am afraid I may have failed both of us,” he said. “I no longer know what is to be done.” He closed his eyes. “And I think I am about to fail the emperor no matter how I choose to act.”

  He heard the rustle of her silk gown as she sank down next to him, then felt the warmth of her body pressed to his. “You cannot fail me,” she whispered, “no matter what you do. It is not in you.” She withdrew a little. “You will fail yourself only if you shirk your duty. And how can you fail the emperor if you obey his laws and perform your duty?”

  He shook his head and smiled a little at her fervor. “Here,” he said, pushing the letter toward her. “This affects you and our unborn child as well. Read it!”

  She read. “Whose is this?” she asked.

  “It is Prince Okisada’s seal.”

  She drew in her breath sharply. “I see.” Her eye fell on the arrow on his desk. “Would you aim an arrow into a dark cave because you thought a bear was moving inside?”

  A bear? A cave? What did she mean? Perversely, Tamako’s words conjured up another memory: White Bear, Kaoru’s dog. Kaoru’s long bow. Akitada’s hand went to the arrow. By its length and rare feather it was a contest arrow, not an ordinary soldier’s issue. He recalled Hitomaro’s amazement at Kaoru’s bow, his skill with it. Like his coroner, his new sergeant of constables was an enigma.

  The more he thought about it, Kaoru’s education and his difference from the other outcasts were mysteries he had not pursued because there were more urgent problems to be solved. Was this just a minor puzzle, or was it at the heart of the Uesugi stranglehold on this province? And how was it connected to Kaibara’s death?

  “Akitada?”

  He was snatched back to the present. “What?”

  “I only meant that you cannot k
now the situation in the capital. If you release the arrow, it may merely wound the bear, or kill its cub. Then you may be hurt instead.”

  How astute she was. “Yes. I know. That is the problem.” He turned his attention to the arrow again, twisting it this way and that.

  Tamako frowned. “A hunter might wait for another opportunity,” she remarked anxiously.

  “Yes. You are quite right. Thank you.” He smiled at her, noting that the protective hand rested on her softly rounded belly again. Women played by their own rules, followed their own concept of honor, he thought and was surprised at the discovery.

  She blushed as if she had read his mind. “Forgive me. It was not my place to advise you.”

  “On the contrary. I think you have helped me solve another mystery.”