The Convict's Sword (21 page)

“We sent only one.”

“Why only one?”

“The messenger came back with a note. We’re not to send anything else from the capital until the minister asks for it.”

“Strange.”

“Yes. There was no explanation.”

A brief silence fell while they considered Soga’s peculiar order.

“Hmm,” said Akitada finally. “Well, let’s get started on this. And then I want to see the people who are waiting. That old fellow—what was his name?—the one whose house was taken over by his nephew. Is there any news on that case?”

“Mr. Chikamura. We verified that he is indeed the owner of record and sent some constables to tell the nephew and his friends to depart.”

“Good. I wonder what he wants now. Well, I expect he’ll tell me.” Akitada took the first letter from the stack and read it. After discussing its contents with Nakatoshi, he dictated a brief answer, and moved to the next document. From time to time, as they worked their way through the daily allotment of bureaucratic paper shuffling, he glanced longingly toward his memorial.

It was midmorning before Akitada had time for the petitioners. Fortunately there were only five left, four men and an elderly woman. Leaving aside Chikamura, theirs were all complaints against a neighbor for infringing on their property rights. Akitada dealt with them quickly. Then he saw Chikamura.

“Welcome, Mr. Chikamura,” he said with a smile, when the old man had fallen to his knees and knocked his head on the floor. “I’m told you are now in possession of your home again?”

“Yes, your honor. I came to thank your honor for throwing out my nephew, whose heart and guts a thousand demons should gnaw for his unfilial behavior.”

“I trust he and his companions left quietly?”

“Oh, yes. The cowards didn’t dare argue with policemen. But he was very angry with me. He said I’d be sorry for what I’d done.”

Akitada frowned. “That’s bad. He might bring his friends back with him to take revenge. Do you have a way to protect yourself?”

Chikamura grinned toothlessly. “He won’t dare. I’ll run out the back door and shout for the constables.”

Akitada smiled back. “Excellent. But be sure to report any further threats.”

Mr. Chikamura bowed deeply again and prepared to withdraw, when Akitada thought to ask him, “Do you happen to know why all those other people left when I arrived?”

“Oh, they’re fools. They saw you come in with that black eye and wearing that plain robe, so they figured you’re in trouble already.”

The perversity of this made Akitada laugh, but he realized that Seimei had been right in the matter of his clothes. Being simpleminded, the common people measured power by its visible signs. Since he had stopped wearing his luxurious court robe, they thought he had lost his rank and position. Perhaps they had also assumed his black eye was due to a beating for some malfeasance.

The rest of the morning passed as he dealt with the new petitions, and it was midday before Akitada could reach for the draft of his beloved memorial. He rubbed fresh ink as he read, saw a number of phrases that needed strengthening, and, feeling again the surge of excitement and happiness, dipped his brush into the ink.

But his pleasure was short-lived, for Nakatoshi showed Kobe in before he had made much progress. Remembering his obligation, Akitada suppressed his annoyance and thanked the superintendent for interceding on Tora’s behalf.

Kobe waved his gratitude away and asked, “What in heaven’s name happened to you?”

“Oh, I forgot.” Akitada chuckled. “I seem to be more than usually scatterbrained. After I left yesterday, I followed that nun and managed to stop three hoodlums from raping her in a residential area west of the palace. She got away, but I did not.”

“You reported this to the police?”

“No. I tried to find the young woman who, by the way, was no nun. It became apparent that the people in the area were afraid to talk to strangers. I was so outraged at the conditions in our capital that I came back here to draft a memorial to his majesty and everything else slipped my mind.”

“A memorial?”

Seeing Kobe’s frown, Akitada added lamely, “I’ve also had a great deal of ministry work.”

“You should have reported the crime immediately. Such conditions persist because people do not report crimes to us. Where exactly did this attack take place and who was involved?”

Akitada told him. As Kobe probed, Akitada realized that he had almost done an unforgivable thing. His memorial would destroy Kobe, who was an excellent official, a fair and honest administrator, and a genuine friend—all in the name of registering an official protest to His Majesty and perhaps furthering his career. Shame crept up his neck and made his ears burn, and he could hardly look Kobe in the eyes.

He had dwelt on the gross failure of the police to control crime in the capital. Kobe’s enemies would not care that Kobe had inherited a problem beyond his meager resources, and that all his efforts were undermined by the continuous sweeping pardons issued by the Imperial House. They would use Akitada’s memorial to remove him.

He hardly knew what he said in answer to Kobe’s questions, and listened with half an ear as Kobe told him that Tora had been to see him and had talked to Ihara. Kobe relaxed a little when he mentioned Tora, but Akitada was aware of a new distance between them, of a withdrawing of good will, and of a guarded wariness in its stead. Eventually Kobe fell silent and rose to leave.

“Perhaps I had better not proceed with the memorial,” Akitada said awkwardly. “It’s not the right time.”

Kobe said coldly, “Many a career has been made by a timely and well-written memorial. You must do what is best.” He turned and left without a smile.

Akitada sat for a long time, unhappily remembering Kobe’s manner and skimming through the draft Nakatoshi had written. He shuddered at how close he had come to submitting this. And yet there was a great need for change, and it was certainly his duty as an official to bring such gross defects to the emperor’s attention. Many a timely reform had died in its conception because a man’s duty had come into conflict with obligations of friendship or family. It was not easy to follow the right path, and not even the Great Sage would have had a simple solution to his dilemma. But he would have been steadfast and held to the rule that an official must always serve his country first of all. Sometimes there was something a bit inhuman about Master Kung.

As Akitada could not put aside his feelings of friendship, he knew himself once again inadequate to his office and powerless to effect even small changes in the administration. With a sigh, he tore up the pages. Nakatoshi had been right: They were good, quite the best thing he had ever written. Then he tore up the notes he had made in the predawn hours—those eloquent phrases, well-chosen citations, and sound solutions. Some day, he hoped, he might mend the breach with Kobe.

He no longer had any appetite for the midday meal Nakatoshi had procured and left instead for police headquarters to make his belated report. It was a sign of Kobe’s new coldness that he had not offered to dispatch a couple of constables to Akitada’s office to take down the information.

The sergeant at police headquarters seemed efficient. When Akitada described the three thugs who had assaulted him and the nun—he decided not to confuse the man with the fact that she had been no nun—he nodded.

“Are you familiar with them, then?” Akitada asked.

“Two of them, sir. The idiot and the big lout. They work together. Small stuff usually. A lot of robberies and thefts. They threaten their victims, but usually don’t attack them.”

“Well,” said Akitada, “they certainly attacked this time. The newcomer had the nun on the ground when I interrupted him. He’s responsible for the damage to my eye. The others tried but did not have a chance to maul me.”

The sergeant raised a finger. “Ah, yes, but there you are, sir. You fought back. If you’d just left them alone, you wouldn’t have been hurt.”

“Look here, sergeant,” snapped Akitada, outraged by this rationale and still upset over having destroyed his memorial, “if I had not resisted, the nun would most certainly have been raped.”

The sergeant flushed. “It was very brave of you, sir, but such things happen. Women should not go out alone.”

“No,” said Akitada bitterly. “Not when we have a police force that does not enforce the law because it does not care about crimes against women unless it is a case of murder.”

“Sir,” protested the sergeant, appalled, “it’s not true that we don’t care. We don’t have enough men to go after any but the most dangerous criminals.”

That was true enough, but should they accept the fact without making an effort to change it? Akitada rose, too angry to listen to more excuses and explanations. “Do you or your fellow police officers have any notion where these three thugs might live?” he asked with heavy sarcasm.

“Of course we do, sir,” the sergeant cried. “Allow me to get the information for you.” He rushed from the office. Akitada studied the bare walls and worked up more fury. When the sergeant returned with a slip of paper and explained that they might have moved elsewhere, he said scornfully, “Well, I must try my best to find them for you and perhaps I had better plan to take them into custody also. Are you willing to put them into a cell if I bring them to you?”

The sergeant gaped. “Er, sir, it’s not a good idea for an ordinary citizen to attempt arrests. These men are known to be dangerous.”

“Are they? And yet you leave them free to rape, rob, and terrorize the ordinary citizens.”

Akitada stormed out of police headquarters.

The street where Akitada had last seen the young woman was empty. He was walking along the wall where the third man had thrown down the woman when he heard the music.

The sound was very faint and came from the other side of the wall, from the property that was said to be uninhabited. Someone was playing a zither. Akitada stopped. The faintness, he thought, was due to the fact that the musician was plucking the strings very softly. He was momentarily enchanted and stood there on a warm and scented afternoon, listening, imagining a beautiful woman daydreaming of her lover.

But he had business to attend to. If someone had returned to this residence, he would ask his questions there before calling on the neighbors again. He quickly walked around the corner and to the main gate, where he knocked loudly.

As before, there was no reply. The gate remained stubbornly closed. He listened. The music had stopped. He stepped back and looked at the gatehouse. Like the gate it was an elaborate structure with a sweeping, tile-covered roof and carved beams and shutters. On the street side, a wooden grate allowed the gatekeeper to see who wanted admittance. The room behind was dark and had seemed unoccupied, but now Akitada thought he noticed a slight movement there. He went closer and peered through the grate. “Open up this instant. This is an official matter,” he called out.

In vain. No answer came from the gatehouse, except the soft sound of a door being closed. Then, silence. He waited a little longer, angry and suspicious. Then he crossed the street to knock at the gate of Lady Kose again.

The same little maid looked out and recognized him. To his surprise, she unlatched the gate immediately and admitted him to a crowded courtyard filled with many large and small containers in which small shrubs and trees were growing. She bowed and said, “This insignificant person humbly apologizes for stupidly turning the honored gentleman away yesterday.”

“Ah. Well, you were no doubt frightened by my appearance.”

She risked a sideways glance. “Yes, sir.”

“May I speak to your lady today?”

“Yes, sir. Please come.”

Akitada followed her, looking bemusedly from her tidy little figure to the many potted plants she was skirting with the practice of familiarity. “Someone here is a fine gardener,” he commented.

“My lady takes great pleasure in her plants.”

Lady Kose was seated on her veranda, wrapped in a large shapeless grey garment that he took at first for a nun’s robe. His heart skipped, but then he saw that she was surrounded by snippets of greenery, bits of wire, small knives, and assorted pebbles, hard at work on a miniature azalea bush growing from a shallow earthenware dish.

“This is the gentleman from yesterday, my lady,” announced the little maid.

Lady Kose looked up. She must be in her eighties, Akitada thought, her skin pale and almost transparent, marked with a million fine lines of age so that it resembled very costly paper with thin bits of dry grass embedded in it. Her eyes were still sharp, though.

And so was her voice. “I am so glad you returned. I told Kiko it was quite unconscionable to turn away a wounded man, but the girl is very protective of me. Please accept my apologies.”

Akitada smiled, bowed, introduced himself, and was invited to take a seat on the veranda. Lady Kose offered him refreshments, which he politely refused. He responded by paying her compliments on her work with the azalea. She was inordinately pleased by these, hiding her smile behind dirt-stained fingers. “I dabble a little in making my small world appear larger,” she said and gestured at the garden. Akitada saw that its size was modest but appeared to encompass a wide and varied landscape. The only full-sized trees belonged to Lady Kose’s neighbors. They stretched their enormous limbs over her garden walls as if they were reaching greedily for the toy-like cushions of clipped azaleas and the miniature moon bridges that spanned a tiny stream. The flowering camellia trees had already dropped their petals in the recent heat, but late azaleas still bloomed in shades of rose and crimson. Dwarfed black pines, maples, and cypresses grew from small hills and mountains, and the stream wound, like a diminutive river, between them and flowed into a tiny pond that reflected the cloudless sky above. Small birds seemed to feel at home here, and somewhere a cicada sang. Lady Kose’s retreat looked unreal—an island of peace surrounded by a threatening world.