Black Arrow (41 page)

“She lived pretty well for a whore,” Tora commented.

“What?” Akitada was still looking about for an object that should have been there but was not.

“It’s clear where Hito’s money went,” Tora said, pointing at the clothes chests.

“Not Hitomaro’s money. Someone else’s,” said Akitada. “All of these things are of extraordinary quality and consummate taste. The innkeeper’s widow, though apparently a woman of many talents, did not have the education to select such treasures. Neither would she have found them in this city.”

Genba scrambled to his feet and joined them. “Sorry,” he said. “The girl’s not just deaf and dumb, but a bit slow. She kept shaking her head when I asked if Ofumi had had any visitors. It seems she found the body when she came to turn down the bedding and she ran to get the constables. When they returned, they found a man, covered with blood, and with a bloodstained sword in his hand, crouching over the dead woman. I think it must’ve been Hito. She believes he was the killer. She kept pointing to the curtain stands. Apparently she thinks that he was hiding behind them when she came the first time.”

“That is no help at all!” Akitada snapped. He caught a glimpse of the girl’s pale, frightened face as she slunk from the room.

“If it wasn’t Hito, then who?” asked Tora. “I mean who else would want her dead? The bastard who hanged the Omeya woman in jail so she wouldn’t testify against this one wouldn’t turn around and kill her, too. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Maybe not,” Genba said hotly, “but it wasn’t Hito. I’d bet my life on it. He loved that fox of a woman. And besides, he would never kill a defenseless female.”

“Hmm,” muttered Akitada. “Genba? When you asked that servant if anyone had come to see Ofumi, did you use the word ‘visitor’?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Look around you. Someone may have called who was not, in the servant’s eyes, a visitor but had a right to be here. Come on, both of you. We are going to Flying Goose village.”

♦

The road to the coast was wide and lined with stands and roadside eateries, among them the shrimp shack where Hitomaro had first tangled with Sunada’s henchman Boshu. The wind carried the tangy smell of the ocean. Now, in this icy weather and at this time of day, the road was deserted. The gusts buffeted them and tossed the horses’ manes and tails. They were thankful when the gray eastern sea came into sight beyond a forlorn cluster of fishermen’s wooden shacks and more substantial warehouses. There were only traces of dirty snow about here, but the sky was an ominous gray and the waves roared and crashed onto the rocky shore. Far out, a fleet of three merchant vessels tossed and bucked on their anchor ropes. All the smaller fishing boats, hundreds of them, lay pulled up on the beach, weighted down with heavy nets and rocks.

Barely glancing at the whitecapped sea, Akitada rode straight through Flying Goose village toward the only buildings important enough to be Sunada’s residence. The large compound was enclosed by dirt walls and shaded by windswept pines.

Its main gate was made of heavy beams and boards, studded with big iron nails which had left bloody trails of rust on wood grayed by the wet and salty sea air.

Tora pulled his sword from the scabbard and delivered a series of resounding knocks with its hilt. “Open up in the name of the governor!” he bellowed.

The right side of the gate opened soundlessly on well-oiled hinges. An elderly one-legged man on a crutch stared up at them. “What is it?” he croaked in the local dialect. “The master’s resting.”

“Out of the way!” Tora urged his horse forward and the man twisted aside, grabbing in vain for Tora’s bridle before he fell.

They galloped past large storehouses, stables, and servants’ quarters to the main residence. There they dismounted, pushed past another gaping servant, this one missing an arm, and into the interior of the house.

Akitada saw with one glance that the mansion was spacious and built from the finest woods but in the style of well-to-do merchants’ houses. He turned to the servant who had fallen to his knees before him and seemed to be objecting in his heavy dialect.

“What is he saying?” Akitada growled to Genba, who was more likely than Tora to have picked up the local patois.

“I think he says that his master’s sick.” Genba sounded dubious and added, “The fishermen hereabout talk differently from the townspeople.”

“Sick? Ask him if Sunada has been out today?”

Genba did so, but the man kept shaking his head and repeating the same phrase while wringing his hands.

Akitada grumbled, “Come on! We’ll find the patient ourselves.”

The anteroom opened into a large, gloomy reception hall where heavy pillars rose to the high rafters. The tatami mats looked thick and springy, and on the walls paintings on silk— courtiers and ladies moving among willow trees and graceful villas—glimmered in the dim half-light. At the far end, a long dais stretched the entire width of the room. It held only a single red silk cushion in its center.

Genba muttered, “If this is how a merchant lives, sir, Takata manor cannot be much better.”

“Not much more impressive anyway,” said Akitada. With a glance at the paintings, he added, “And less richly furnished, I think.”

“Come on,” cried Tora from a corner behind the dais. “Here’s a door to the private quarters.”

They entered a smaller room, a sort of study. A lacquered desk with elegant ivory writing utensils stood in the center. Handsomely covered document boxes lined one wall, and doors opened onto a small garden. But this room, too, was quite empty and had the tidiness of disuse: a new ink cake, an empty water container, new brushes, and neat stacks of fine writing paper.

“Let’s look in those boxes,” said Genba. “I bet that’s where he keeps all his business accounts.”

“Later!”

In the dim hall, the servant still hovered near the other end of the dais. When he saw them coming back, he ducked behind one of the pillars and was gone.

Tora cursed. “Where did that sneaky bastard go? We’d better catch him before he warns Sunada.”

“After him, Tora,” Akitada said. “Genba and I will check the rooms.”

They opened door after door on empty room after empty room. The roar of wind and tide was faint here; only the soft hiss of the sliding doors on their well-oiled tracks and the sound of their breathing accompanied them through luxurious, unlived-in spaces. There were more paintings, carved and gilded statues, pristine silk cushions precisely positioned and unmarked by human limbs, lacquered armrests, bronze incense burners without a trace of ash, copper braziers without coals, innumerable fine carvings, and containers of wood, ivory, jade, or gold.

“It’s like he’s emptied out a treasure house to furnish this place for a bride,” said Genba in one room, looking into brocade-covered boxes of picture scrolls and illustrated books which filled the shelves of one wall.

They reached the end of the hallway without seeing anyone. Heavy double doors led outside to a broad veranda that extended across the back of the villa and continued along two wings on either side. Below was a large garden. Pines tossed in the wind and large shrubs hid paths leading off in all directions. Roofs of other buildings, large and small, were half-hidden by the trees.

“Which way now?” asked Genba, looking from side to side. “Should I shout for Tora?”

“No. Listen! I thought I heard music.”

But the rhythmic boom of the sea and creaking and rustling of the trees covered all human noise.

Akitada shook his head. “It must have been the wind. You take the right wing! I’ll go left.”

“What about the garden?”

“When you’re done. We’ll meet by that bridge over there.”

Akitada strode down the gallery, flinging open doors, checking more empty rooms. One of them contained a large painting of three ships at sea, the same ships, unless he was mistaken, as those in the harbor. Some odd-sized document rolls lay stacked on a large chest and he quickly unrolled the top one. It was a map, carefully prepared, of an unidentified shoreline. Strange symbols marked the land, and lines separated provinces and districts. On the water tiny fleets approached harbors. He was about to roll it up again, when he noticed one of the symbols. It was the emblem drawn by Takesuke’s soldier, from the mysterious banner carried by some of Uesugi’s troops. Proof that Sunada was at the heart of the conspiracy.

Akitada ran down the steps at the corner of the building and joined Genba on the bridge.

“Well?” he asked, seeing Genba’s face.

“The whole wing’s one huge room, sir. But I couldn’t get in. It’s locked.”

“Come,” cried Akitada running ahead. “That must be where he is. Couldn’t you force the door?”—this last in a tone of frustration. Genba was, after all, immensely strong. If he could lift and toss a trained giant from the ring, why could he not break open a mere door?

The answer became obvious. This was no ordinary door. Its hinged, double-sided panels were made of thick slabs of oiled wood and embossed with bronze plates incised with gilded ornamentation. The locking mechanism was hidden in a bronze plate decorated with the same emblem as on the banners and the maps, only here there was no doubt what it represented: an ear of rice. And now Akitada understood the large warehouses outside. No doubt they held a good part of the province’s rice harvests. The crest was that of a rice merchant. Sunada.

Akitada listened at the door. Nothing. Inside all was as silent as a grave. He turned away when he heard a cry of pain in the garden. They rushed down the stairs and along a path that led into the shrubberies. At a fork, they separated. Akitada found a rustic garden house, little more than a tiled roof supported by slender wooden columns. A heavy layer of dead vines curtained it. He thought he saw the vines move and flung the brittle tangle aside. Nothing. He turned to leave when someone flung himself on him, knocking him down.

“Got you, bastard!” snarled Tora, yanking Akitada’s arms back. Akitada shouted at the pain in his shoulder, and the rest was confusion, because Genba arrived next and swung at Tora, knocking him across the narrow space and against one of the pillars. With a crash, the pillar gave and the garden house collapsed.

They disentangled themselves. Tora rubbed his back. “Sorry, sir. When I saw someone slipping into the garden house, I. . .”

“And I heard the master cry out,” Genba said, “and thought some scoundrel had got hold of him. This is a very strange place. Where are all of Sunada’s people? There is nobody here but us and two old cripples. Why surround yourself with cripples when you’re as rich as Sunada?”

Akitada massaged his throbbing shoulder. “Sunada is a strange character. I remember he behaved with the utmost humility at Takata, but in the city he swaggered among the merchants and attempted to control my staff. Apparently he lives alone here, in a house which is large and empty—for we have seen neither bedding nor clothes boxes for a family—yet in the city he keeps women and indulges in lavish and luxurious parties. He hires cutthroats to intimidate the little people outside, but employs injured fishermen who can no longer make a living on the sea.”

“Fishermen?” Genba asked, surprised.

“The two servants. Both of them are local men by their dialect and both are maimed.”

“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.