Rashomon Gate (32 page)

Kinsue shook his head sadly. "Who can say? The soothsayer cursed us," he muttered. "It was an evil day when the master had him whipped from the gate. That's what I told my old woman, when there was the trouble with the young lady we weren't supposed to know about."

That confirmed the boy's account. Akitada returned to the events at the temple. "You say you saw everything that happened at the temple. Were you not tending to your ox?"

"No. That's what the boy was there for. I was sitting down by the wall, watching the gentlemen on the veranda and listening to the master praying."

"Are you sure you could hear and see?" Akitada asked in disbelief. "It was surely dark, and you were across the courtyard if you were sitting by the wall."

"It's only a small courtyard, and the sky was getting light."

"Very well. Go on. Tell me everything you saw and heard from the moment you arrived."

Kinsue got a faraway look in his eyes. "After His Highness got out," he said, "I untied the ox and told Noro to take it to the next courtyard and feed it. Then I sat down to wait. His Highness had already gone in and I could hear him chanting. The gentlemen were sitting on the veranda outside the door. After a time the sun started coming up over the mountain. Then the monks rang the great bell of the temple, and the master stopped chanting. Lord Sakanoue got up and walked to the balustrade to tell me to bring the ox, which I did. I remember Noro and I were talking about being back in town in time for a good breakfast. We hitched the ox to the carriage, and then we all waited. The gentlemen were still standing on the veranda. They were talking, but I couldn't hear what they said. Some of them came down to get their horses. Then Lord Sakanoue went to the door and knocked, crying, 'Your Highness! Everything is ready!' But my master did not come out. One of the gentlemen and Lord Sakanoue talked and then they went in. Me and Noro stood staring up, wondering what was wrong. The other gentlemen came to look, too. Then Lord Sakanoue came back out, and he was carrying the master's purple robe and he was weeping. He said the master was gone."

The old man let his head drop to his chest and he wiped his eyes again. "I never saw my master again," he muttered. "The monks came then, and the abbot, and they all searched and searched. Then they brought an exorcist and a medium. The medium went inside and when she came out, she said that the master had been reborn in paradise because of his devotion in reading the sutra and in wishing to be with his son. I suppose it must be so." Kinsue stopped, exhausted.

Akitada gave him time to recover. Then he said, "You must have wondered what happened. Did you not think your master might have just walked away? Or that someone might have abducted him or even killed him and hidden his body?"

Kinsue shook his head. "It was impossible," he said stubbornly. "I watched. The gentlemen watched. Lord Sakanoue made all of us come up and see that there was no one in the hall, and there was no way the master could have left. It must have been as the medium said."

"Kinsue," cried a faint, quavering voice outside. The interruption was so startling that both men jumped a little.

"My wife," explained Kinsue.

"I would like to meet her."

Akitada followed Kinsue out. Under the paulownia tree stood a short, fat old woman who was staring at the rake and the pile of leaves as if her husband might suddenly materialize. When Kinsue called out to her, her face lit up until she saw Akitada. Her husband made the introductions. Getting awkwardly down on her knees, she bowed rapidly several times.

Akitada said, "Please get up. I wondered if you might have some message for Sadamu from his sister. He is worried."

The old woman began to cry. "Oh, my poor little lady," she sobbed. "All alone now. May Amida protect her!" She fell to praying, eyes closed and lips moving soundlessly.

"Hush, old woman!" cried her husband, scandalized. "Do you want to frighten the young lord?" He turned to Akitada to explain. "My wife took the young lady her morning rice before she left for the country. The young lady's maids were busy loading the carts, and so she was allowed into the young lady's quarters. The young lady was weeping terribly, but it was a bad time, what with the sad news. I am sure the young lady is quite well by now. Being married to Lord Sakanoue, she is now number one lady of the household. That is something, isn't it, when she is but fifteen years old?"

Fifteen? She was a mere child then. "Was there really a marriage?" asked Akitada, looking at Kinsue's wife. She nodded, her eyes unhappy.

"But I thought Prince Yoakira had refused to give his consent," Akitada said.

The two old people looked at each other, puzzled. "But they must be married," said the old woman. "His lordship spent the night with her three nights running, and I baked the wedding dumplings myself on the third day." Her face crumpled again. "It was the day before the master went away to heaven."

Kinsue shook his head in wonder. "What a day! So many things happening!"

"Yes," said Akitada. "It must have been. Thank you both. I shall tell Lord Minamoto what you said."

The old woman scrambled up to whisper something in her husband's ear, then wobbled off at a half-run. Kinsue said, "My wife went to fetch something for the young lord."

Akitada nodded and turned to look up at the prince's quarters. Here the quarrel had taken place after Yoakira had discovered to his shock that his granddaughter had, willingly or otherwise, become Sakanoue's wife. No wonder he had been furious! What had passed between the old nobleman and his new grandson-in-law? Had he acknowledged the marriage, or refused to countenance it? Akitada thought he knew the answer to that. It was the motive for the murder of the prince. Poor children, both at the mercy of an unscrupulous man. He tried to imagine what the girl must have felt, must be feeling now.

Lost in thought, he walked up the steps again and stood in the doorway looking in. It must be a marriage as empty and desolate as this room. He thought of his parents, their formality with each other, the absence of any signs of fondness, of physical familiarity. But his mother had always been a strong character, well able to cope with an autocratic husband. Was this what had frightened Tamako? Had she been afraid that he would be a distant husband, leaving her to the cold demands of her mother-in-law? He sighed unhappily. That mystery would never be solved, but the strange disappearance of the man who used to occupy these rooms would be, if he could help it.

As he thought this, Akitada felt his hair bristle. It was as if something spoke to him with a terrible urgency.

He looked around. Not so much as a clothes chest remained, only the outline where one had stood, obliquely, near the door. Packed and ready for transport to the country? Why had they removed the prince's things? he wondered. He had been gone by then and would hardly need his clothes.

Someone had inexpertly scoured the wooden floor after the chest had been removed. The marks had dulled the deep gloss of the floor-boards. Kinsue, no doubt, in his fervent desire to keep the master's room spotless.

The calligraphy scroll caught Akitada's eye. Idly, he deciphered the Chinese ideograms, feeling strangely as if he were hearing the words in his head. "Seek the truth and thou shalt find it! Neglect the truth and it shall be lost forever! The seeking is within thy power, but the finding is in the hands of heaven. Thou must search the truth within, for thou shalt not find it without." The words were attributed to Meng Tse.

With a sigh Akitada turned away and went out into the courtyard. Kinsue and his wife awaited him.

"Tell me," he asked them, "what has become of the prince's clothes and other things?"

"Oh, they've been taken to the country," the old man said. "Lord Sakanoue took them himself in the last cart."

"I see. Well, I see your wife has returned, and I must be on my way. Thank you for telling me your story. Lord Minamoto will be glad to know that you and your wife are taking such good care of his home and are thinking of him."

Kinsue's wife shuffled up. With a toothless smile splitting a round face that resembled a dried yam, she bowed and extended the small box tied with a bit of hempen string towards Akitada.

"It's sweet dumplings," Kinsue explained for her. "The young lord is partial to them."

"Thank you," said Akitada, accepting the parcel, "and thank you also for your explanations. Should either of you remember anything else, even if it seems unimportant, send for me. It may help the young lord to understand."

Kinsue nodded. "There's nothing else, sir," he said, "except the horse, but how can that matter?"

"Horse?"

"Lord Sakanoue's horse, the one he took to the mountains. It wasn't his and it wasn't one of ours. I know all of our animals, sir."

In spite of the brutal murder of its most famous scholar, the university was open as usual. Akitada arrived just in time for his first class. He was relieved, because that meant that he need not exchange pleasantries with Hirata. Their relationship had become unbearably strained, not only because Akitada still resented the way Hirata had trapped him into a marriage proposal— one which had turned out to be unwelcome to Tamako— but also because even the briefest encounter with the father reminded Akitada painfully of the daughter. Striding quickly through the main hall, he went directly to his own classroom.

His students sat waiting, their faces turned eagerly towards the door as he entered, their smiles welcoming him before the fifteen blue-robed backs and the fifteen black-capped heads bowed low before their master. His heart warmed with gratitude. He considered for the first time that a teacher had a blessed life. Encouraged by his reception, he spent the morning expounding the laws governing provincial administrations and was pleased with their patience.

In fact, Mr. Ushimatsu, the middle-aged student, outdid himself, having not only memorized the names of all the provinces, but volunteering to point them out on the map. He also supplied fairly accurate information about crops, industries, towns and temples, until even his peers looked impressed. When Akitada praised him, Ushimatsu's eyes sparkled with pleasure. He murmured shyly that he dreamed of being sent to one of the provinces as a recorder or junior clerk on the staff of one of the governors. Therefore he had thought it wise to prepare himself by studying all the possible assignments ahead of time.

One of the young nobles snorted. "You want to leave the capital for some godforsaken place?" he cried. "And as a mere clerk? I have more ambition than that, I hope. Why bother to attend the university if that is all you want, Ushimatsu?" A chorus of supporters joined him, and it looked for a moment as though poor Ushimatsu would once again be cowed by his sneering comrades.

But Ushimatsu bowed to his critic. "Forgive me, Mokudai, but that is all very well for you. And for a lot of the others, too, I imagine. You have relatives who are great men here in the capital, and your Chinese is much, much better than mine." With a smile at the others, he added, "I am quite content to be a secretary to one of your cousins, or perhaps some day to one of you. As for leaving the capital, I quite look forward to that because it means that I shall get to see what the rest of the country looks like."

Young Lord Minamoto cried, "And I shall envy you, Ushimatsu. I wish I were free to see the world." For a moment a look of great sadness passed over the boy's face. "Oh, Ushimatsu," he said softly, "when you talked of the great snows and the bears in Echigo, I wished I could see them for myself. And I wished to sail the Inland Sea to see the monkeys in Kyushu, and travel the Tokaido Highway until I looked on Mount Fuji. But I know that I will probably never leave the capital as long as I live."

The critics yielded, and Akitada said quickly, "None of us knows what the future may bring. Many a great lord has been sent on missions of importance by His Majesty. We all serve where we can."

Akitada was inordinately proud of the progress Ushimatsu had made. If he kept up his pace, he would pass the next examination. Making a mental note to lend Ushimatsu some of his documents, he assigned an essay on the system of corvée to the class and dismissed them for their noon rice.

As young Minamoto passed his desk on his way out the door, Akitada remembered the present from Kinsue's wife. "Sadamu," he said, "I have something for you."

The boy's eyes widened with pleasure. "For me? What is it?" he cried, taking the box.

"It is not from me. This morning I went to speak to your grandfather's driver. He and his wife are the only ones left at the mansion."

"Kinsue," nodded the boy, his eyes suddenly intent. "What did you discover?"

Akitada hesitated. "Essentially Kinsue supports the official story. Your grandfather entered the temple hall, but did not emerge. When his attendants looked for him, he had disappeared."

The boy sighed. "Kinsue would not lie. He loved Grandfather. There must be an explanation. Will you go to the temple?"

"Yes. I will after I have talked to the men who were with your grandfather. I am told the Lords Abe, Yanagida and Shinoda, as well as some general, accompanied your grandfather. Do you know any of them?"