Akitada frowned. ‘Gangs? I thought we were talking about some young troublemakers. Maybe it’s time the police looked into activities around the Western Market. I assume that’s where you made contact?’
Tora looked very uncomfortable. ‘Hoshina has her wine shop there. She knows where Jirokichi is, and Jirokichi knows something about the fires. But the gangs hang out farther west from there.’ He described the warehouse area and the Fragrant Peach. ‘If you do go there, sir, you must take some police constables with you. The local warden is no use whatsoever. They all protect each other.’
Akitada attempted to get more information about his progress with the missing acolyte, but Tora had exhausted his strength. He rambled on about the fires, a serving wench and her boyfriend, and the young lord. He shivered a good deal and seemed to have trouble concentrating. At one point, he did grasp the urgency of all the questions and argued about getting up again. Eventually, his voice faded, and he closed his eyes with a sigh.
‘Sir,’ whispered Seimei, ‘I think we’d better go now. I’ll make him a strengthening broth for his supper later and mix in something to dull the pain and help him rest. After that we must hope that his strong young body will heal quickly.’
Akitada was very worried about Tora. He returned to his room and wandered out into the garden. It was dusk, and the warm air was heavy with the scents of summer. The sky was that lavender hue just before it would dull to gray. A few pale clouds scudded across it, their skirts still gilded by the last rays of the sun. One of the carp in the pool jumped and fell back with a soft splash. For a moment, the sound took his eyes to the thickening darkness below. When he raised them again, even that last faint light had gone.
The joy of the day had passed.
It seemed strange that nobody had become suspicious that the fires always started at night when most householders were asleep with their hearth fires and lamps extinguished. Some had been blamed on lightning. There had been thunderstorms around the time of the fires. That, too, seemed strange. Why set a fire, if the rain would put it out again? And why had the police not investigated? Of course, if the arson was connected to extortion, the victims might have covered up the truth for fear of further retribution.
Akitada had reached that point in his rumination when Seimei came out. The old man’s face told him that there was bad news. Akitada’s thoughts flew to Tora, but Seimei said, ‘A messenger from the Board of Censors, sir.’
Akitada went inside and found a stiff-faced, stiff-backed young man in the uniform of a lieutenant of the outer palace guard. The lieutenant did not bother to salute. He demanded, ‘Are you Sugawara Akitada of the Ministry of Justice?’
Akitada’s heart plummeted into his stomach. ‘Yes, but I no longer serve there.’
‘You are to report tomorrow.’ The lieutenant handed over a rolled document, turned sharply on his heel, and marched out of the room, followed by Seimei.
Akitada untied the ribbon and unrolled a formal letter. It ordered him to appear before a committee of censors to answer charges of ‘acts against the public interest and for personal gain.’
His knees felt so weak he had to sit down. If he was found guilty, he could well be banished from the capital. And even if they did not go that far, he would never get another position. His hopes of a new future for his family were gone, wiped out as if they had never been – immaterial and fleeting as the clouds.
THE CENSORS
The Danjodai, or Board of Censors, occupied buildings directly across the street from the Ministry of Justice. During the performance of his duties as ministerial clerk and secretary, Akitada had had occasion to deal with these feared investigators of all sorts of offenses committed by officials. Some of those occasions had been most unpleasant, but none more so than this one.
These days, the forty-odd censors had little to occupy them beyond inspections of the books of outgoing governors. Most of their judicial tasks had been taken over by the Ministry of Justice or the Capital Police. But the bureau persisted and guarded its ancient privileges jealously, reporting on officials from the sixth rank up and examining misdeeds of those below that rank. The censors enjoyed the status of the office, along with the income, without being overly burdened with work or responsibility.
But this made them doubly dangerous to Akitada, a former member of the Ministry of Justice. He would have to argue his case against their prejudice, and not only his livelihood, but also his honor was at stake.
He wore his second-best official robe and court hat and carried his notes in his sleeve. These he had reviewed during the sleepless hours of the night until he knew the points by heart, but such was his insecurity that he did not dare leave the details up to his memory. The mind plays tricks at the worst moments, and he could not afford to be struck dumb during the interrogation.
The sky was overcast. There had been talk that the long-awaited rainy season would finally start. The summer heat with its ineffectual thunderstorms had been enervating in the capital and disastrous for the rice farmers. Akitada eyed the clouds with misgiving. With his luck, he would arrive wet and bedraggled, his fine robe and trousers splashed with mud. He walked faster and managed to arrive dry, if out of breath and perspiring.
Lack of sleep and a general sense of impending defeat put him at a disadvantage, and things did not start well. A servant showed him into a small, airless room used as a waiting area, leaving the door to the hallway wide open. People passed back and forth, glancing curiously at Akitada, who began to feel like a condemned man on public display before his execution.
Eventually, the five official censors who would hear his case arrived also. They, too, looked in at him, some of them coldly, others frowning. Akitada bowed, recognizing a few faces: three were Fujiwaras and cousins of the emperor and the chancellor, the other two were unfamiliar. Not one of them looked as if he would deal fairly with a Sugawara.
He continued to wait. The perspiration on his skin dried into assorted itches, and the tie of his hat dug uncomfortably into the skin under his jaw. It seemed to take a long time for them to arrange themselves. Perhaps they were already discussing his punishment among themselves. Even exile became a distinct possibility. He thought of Sado Island and shivered in the warm, close air of the anteroom in spite of his heavy formal robe and full trousers.
At long last, the servant reappeared to call him into the hearing room. There had been a time in Akitada’s life when he would have knelt immediately inside the door and touched his forehead to the floorboards. But he had risen in the world since then and was no longer a callow and timid youth. He swallowed his fears and walked in, head held high, telling himself that his past accomplishments had surely made him a better man than the five stiff, black-robed officials lined up on the dais.
Apart from the censors and himself, the room also contained a scribe, who sat to the side behind a low desk to take down the proceedings, and a secretary, who hovered behind the censor in the middle.
When he reached the cushion placed for him, Akitada bowed and said, ‘I am Sugawara Akitada and hope to be allowed to explain the matter that caused the present inquiry.’
Waiting for a response, he looked from face to face. The chief investigator was one of the Fujiwaras and surprisingly young. He was flanked by the two other Fujiwaras, men in their forties or fifties with dull round faces and heavy bodies. The two men on the ends were the strangers to him: one elderly, with a neatly trimmed white beard, the other thin and long-jawed. They barely stirred or changed expression when his eyes met theirs. Were they waiting for more, for signs of abject humility, for pleading? He stiffened his resolve. They would not see him grovel or beg for leniency.
Finally, the young man in the center said petulantly, ‘You may be seated.’
Akitada sat, removed his notes from his sleeve and placed them carefully before him. Then he looked up expectantly. He thought he saw some signs of unease; they looked at each other, fidgeted, frowned. Akitada said, ‘I am at your service, gentlemen.’
More fidgeting. It occurred to Akitada that they found themselves saddled with a problem they did not know how to address. His self-confidence rose marginally.
The Fujiwara in the center was senior in rank even though he was the youngest. The colored strips on his court hat marked the upper fourth rank. He was in his twenties and still slender, unlike most of the chancellor’s family. Akitada thought he looked the sort of young man who would have done well as an officer in the guard.
