Island of Exiles (7 page)

“I see. It seems an incredible story. If you can arrange it, I’d like to meet your son first, but then I must try to see Kumo and the men who attended the dinner. Do you send inspectors to outlying districts?”

“Yes. One is to leave soon.” Mutobe clapped his hands together. “Of course. That’s it. You can go along as a scribe. Both Kumo’s manor and Shunsei’s monastery are on his regular circuit.”

“Perfect.” Akitada rose and smiled. “I pride myself on my calligraphy.”

Mutobe also stood. “In that case,” he said eagerly, “you might start by working in the archives. I will have a pass prepared for you. It gives you a limited amount of freedom. While you are in this compound, you won’t be locked up, but you cannot leave it alone. I’m afraid I can only offer you quarters with the prison superintendent.”

“A jail cell would be more convincing, but perhaps it is better not to keep such very close contact with your son.” They walked out together, Akitada falling several steps behind when the governor clapped his hands for the guard outside.

“Take him back,” Mutobe told the man. “Tomorrow he is to report to the
shijo
. Pick him up at dawn. I want reports on his behavior as soon as possible.” He turned on his heel and walked back to his office without another glance at Akitada.

Akitada followed the guard meekly back across town. His return raised no interest. Only the silent Haseo was still there, curled up in his corner, apparently fast asleep. When Akitada asked one of the sleepy guards, “What happened to the others?” he got a grunted “None of your business” in reply. He decided that the prisoners had been moved at night and hoped that little Jisei had been released. Then he lay down and tried to catch a few hours’ sleep before dawn.

The guard reappeared early and took Akitada back to the tribunal before he had a chance to eat his morning gruel. At this time of day, the merchants were opening shutters, and the first farmers were bringing their vegetables to market. Nobody paid much attention to a guard with a chained prisoner.

In the government compound there were also signs of life. The guard removed the chains, and Akitada looked about curiously. Soldiers passed back and forth, a clerk or scribe with papers and document boxes under his arm rushed between buildings, and a few civilian petitioners hung about in deferential groups.

They crossed the graveled compound to a small building with deep eaves. Its interior was cool and smelled pleasantly of wood, paper, and ink. A gaunt man, bent from years of poring over manuscripts, came toward them.

The
shijo
, or head scribe, was nearsighted and hard of hearing. He had the guard repeat the governor’s instructions.

“Good, good,” he finally said. “We’re very short-handed. Very much so.” Peering up at Akitada, he said dubiously, “You are tall for a scribe. How many characters do you know?”

“I’m afraid I never counted them.”

“Counting? There’s no counting required. You are to write.

Can you use the brush?”

Akitada raised his voice. “Yes. I studied Chinese as a boy and young man. I believe you will be satisfied with my calligraphy.”

“Don’t shout. Hmph. We’ll see. They all brag. The fools think copying work is easier than carrying rocks or digging tunnels. Never mind. I’ll know soon enough. Soon enough, yes.

What’s your name?”

“Yoshimine Taketsuna.”

“What? Which is it?”

Raising his voice again, Akitada repeated the double name, adding that the first was his family name.

The old man stared at him. “If you’re one of the ‘good people,’ where are your servants? Yes, where are your servants, eh? And why were you sent to me? Only common criminals work.”

“I killed a man,” shouted Akitada.

The
shijo
jumped back, suddenly pale. “I hope you don’t have a violent disposition.”

Akitada lowered his voice a little. “Not at all, sir. It was a personal matter, a matter of loyalty.”

“Oh. Loyalty.” The other man seemed only partly reassured but said, “I’m called Yutaka and you will be plain Taketsuna here. Come along, Taketsuna.”

Sado’s provincial archives were neat and orderly. Akitada looked about with interest. Rows of shelves with document boxes divided the open interior of the hall into convenient smaller spaces. In each was a low table for making entries or searching through records. There were altogether six of these work areas, but only two were occupied by clerks copying documents. The largest space was Yutaka’s own, and he took his new clerk there.

“Sit down,” he said, peering up at one of the shelves. He stretched for a document box, and Akitada jumped up again to get it down for him. “Hmm,” muttered the old man. “You’ll be useful for something, at any rate. Yes, useful.” Akitada suppressed a smile and sat down again. Yutaka opened the box and extracted a thin roll of paper. This he unrolled partially before Akitada. Then he moved a sheet of clean paper, brushes, water, and an inkstone toward him. “Can you read this?” he asked, pointing to the document.

The document began with the usual formalities, and Akitada quickly ran his eye over these, unrolling it further to get to the text. “It appears to be a report on the flooding of Lake Kamo and the damage done to rice fields there.”

“Harrumph,” grunted Yutaka and poked a thin, bent finger at one of the characters. “What’s that?” Suppressing another smile, Akitada pronounced the character in Chinese.

“What? Oh, well. I suppose that one’s too hard. It signifies

‘forced labor.’ The high constable is requesting His Excellency to supply him with more prisoners to help dam the lake waters.

Let’s see you write that character.” Akitada poured a little water into the ink dish and rubbed the ink stone in it. When the ink was the proper thickness, he selected a brush, dipped it, and with a flourish wrote the character on the paper.

“Too big! Too big!” cried Yutaka. “You wasted the whole sheet. Make it very small.”

Akitada selected another brush and wrote it again on an unused corner, this time as small as he could.

Yutaka picked up the paper and brought it close to his eyes.

Without comment, he laid it down. “Come with me,” he said and took Akitada to meet the other two clerks, neither of whom was a prisoner and therefore regarded the new clerk with disdain. Yutaka assigned Akitada to one of the empty desks, with instructions to copy a set of tax accounts from one of the districts. For the rest of the day, as Akitada labored, he appeared on silent feet, peered over the prisoner’s shoulder, muttered, “Harrumph,” and disappeared again.

Akitada made good progress, but after several hours the un-accustomed work caused his back to ache and his wrist to cramp. His stomach growled. After more time passed, his feet had gone to sleep, and his belly ached with hunger. Apparently he was not entitled to a midday rice break.

Or rice, either. That was reserved for better people. Near sunset, a gong sounded somewhere in the compound. Akitada heard his fellow scribes rustling papers and shuffling off rapidly. He continued until he had finished the final page of a document he was working on and stretched. Suddenly Yutaka appeared.

“You didn’t hear the gong,” he said accusingly.

“I heard it. Why?”

“Time for the prisoners’ evening meal.” Akitada said, “Oh.” He started to wash out his brush.

“Never mind,” said Yutaka irritably. “Give it to me and run, or you’ll be too late. Masako doesn’t tolerate stragglers. No.

Doesn’t tolerate them at all.”

“Run where?” asked Akitada, rising.

“The jail. Where else?” Yutaka pointed vaguely. “I think you’ll be too late,” he added glumly.

Akitada bowed. “Thank you. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.”

When he found the jail, or more precisely the jail kitchen, it was empty except for a very shapely young maid who was stack-ing dirty bowls into a basket.

“I was told that the prisoners eat somewhere around here,” said Akitada.

She swung around, and he saw that she was very pretty, with a round face and sparkling eyes. At the moment they sparkled with anger. “Well, you’re too late,” she snapped. “The gong sounded an hour ago.” A threadbare cotton robe, much too big and too short for her, was firmly tied around her small waist, its sleeves rolled up to reveal work-reddened hands and arms, and her hair was pinned up under a kerchief. Surprisingly, the skirts of a pale blue silk gown peeked forth underneath the rough covering.

“I didn’t know. I am new,” he offered hopefully, staring at the silken hem.

She relented a little. “The fire’s out. You’ll have to eat the soup cold.”

He smiled at her with relief. “I don’t mind.” Her speech was more refined than he had expected in a kitchen maid, and his eyes went again to the pale silk hem. As she moved, a dainty bare foot, dirty but white and slender, appeared for a moment.

She scooped something from a large iron kettle into a bowl and handed it to him. Whatever it was, it looked and smelled unappetizing-some kind of millet mush with a few wilted greens. Akitada held the dripping bowl gingerly away from his clothes and looked about for a place to sit. Finding none, he leaned against the kitchen wall and raised the bowl to his lips. But the mush had thickened, and he had trouble drinking it.

“Would you happen to have some chopsticks?” he asked the girl, who was sweeping the floor in a haphazard fashion.

She stopped and stared at him. “Chopsticks? For a prisoner?”

“A little joke.” He chuckled. “I suppose there’s not much hope in asking for wine, so maybe I’d better settle for water, right?”

“Right!” She pointed to a large bucket in the corner.

He did not dare ask for a cup. Instead he used the dipper to pour some water into his food, stirred it with his finger, and then drank it down in several hungry gulps. It had little taste, but he gladly accepted the refill she offered. This, too, he mixed with water, and when he was done, he poured more water in the bowl, took it outside to rinse it, and refilled it to drink.

The girl had watched him surreptitiously. When he returned the bowl to her with a bow and a smile, he said, “Thank you. My name is Taketsuna. You’re very kind. And very pretty. May I ask your name?”

Her eyes narrowed. “I’m Masako,” she snapped. “And my father’s the superintendent, so you’d better watch yourself.” He was so astonished, he was speechless. The superintendent of a provincial jail, though of low rank, was still an official.

How could such a man allow his daughter to work in the prison’s kitchen? It occurred to him that she might be the result of an affair with a native woman, and he said, “Certainly. I’m to report to him. Can you show me the way?”

“You’ll have to wait. I have to finish cleaning up first.” She put his bowl into the basket and bent to pick it up.

“Allow me to carry that for you. Perhaps I could help you wash up?”

She regarded his tall figure thoughtfully for a moment. Her lip twitched. “All right. You can do with a wash yourself. Come along, then, Taketsuna.”

He followed her across the courtyard to the well and hauled buckets of water, while she washed the bowls and restacked them in the basket. “Now take off your robe,” she told him. “You won’t get a bath tonight, so you’d better wash here.” He glanced around. The courtyard was empty, so he obeyed, draping his stained gown carefully over the rim of the well while he stood in his loincloth, sluicing himself down with the cold well water, uncomfortably aware of her eyes on his body. When he reached for his robe, she snatched it away. “It’s filthy. I’ll wash it for you later. Get the basket and come with me.”

“B-but,” he stammered, looking down at his wet self, “I can’t go like this. I have nothing to wear.” She was walking away. “Nonsense. Nobody cares what a prisoner wears,” she snapped over her shoulder.

He picked up the basket and followed. The guards outside the gate threw it open as they passed, and two constables appeared, carrying a litter between them. Behind them waddled Ogata, the fat physician.

Masako stopped, and Akitada quickly hid behind her, clutching the basket to his body.

As the litter passed, he saw that the slight shape on it was hidden under a woven grass cover. A dead child? He recalled that Ogata was also the local coroner. The child’s death must have been suspicious, or Ogata would hardly take this kind of interest in the corpse.

For once Ogata’s eyes were alert and sharp. He recognized the prisoner instantly and halted, letting his eyes move from the girl to Akitada and back again. “Are you keeping company with

half-naked men now, Masako?” he drawled. “In broad daylight, too. Must have a talk with your father.” Akitada saw the color rise in Masako’s pale neck. “If you go worrying Father, Uncle,” she cried, raising a clenched fist,

“I’ll . . .”

“Oho! Is that the way the wind blows? A secret affair.” Ogata raised his brows comically.

Masako dropped Akitada’s robe and picked up her skirts to rush at Ogata. The doctor held her away easily, laughing while she shouted at him.

The constables stopped and put down their litter to watch.

They, too, began to laugh, looking from the half-naked Akitada to the angry girl. Guards peered in at the gate and people came from buildings to stare.

Akitada put down the basket and snatched up his robe. Slipping it on, he joined the doctor and the girl. “Is a suspicious death an occasion for mirth on Sadoshima?” he asked.

Masako dropped her arms, looked at the stretcher, and stepped away from Ogata, who continued to chuckle helplessly.

After a moment the doctor choked back another peal and wiped his face. “Sorry,” he gasped, looking mildly shamefaced.

“The sight of you with our lovely Masako here drove this other matter from my mind for a moment. Masako’s my goddaughter, by the way, which accounts for my teasing her.” His eyes narrowed speculatively. “As a man like you knows how to use a brush, come along. I’m to do a postmortem on this man. You can take notes.” With a wave of the hand, he set the constables and their litter in motion and they moved off.