might not be in the open. The floor underneath him seemed to be of stone, covered with a thin layer of dirt. It smelled vaguely of rotting vegetables. Most likely, this was one of those storage pits used to keep fruit and vegetables during the winter months. That and the moistness of the dirt walls made him think it was in someone’s backyard. But his captors would hardly have put him where he might attract notice by shouting for help. He decided to wait before trying that. If they had posted a guard, he might get killed.
His captors had surely come from the Fragrant Peach. There had been more than one: big men, just like the three silent customers who had blocked his way in the wine shop. He had probably fallen into the hands of one of the gangs that ruled the western city. What did they plan to do with him? The possibilities that crossed his mind made his blood run cold.
There was neither food nor water in his prison. Perhaps they meant to leave him here to die. He fought off the horror of such a slow death by piecing together the events before the attack.
He thought about the youth who looked like the Kiyowara heir. Surely he was part of the gang, along with the young waitress and most – or all – of the customers of the Fragrant Peach. What plot had his visit threatened? How had he managed to get into such trouble by looking for the abbot’s missing protege? Nobody would go to these lengths to keep a boy from being returned to a monastery.
But they might do so to help a murderer escape.
The youngster’s reaction when Akitada had mentioned the Kiyowara murder at the very least implicated him. Had Kiyowara’s murder been political? And could it be that the gangs were working for some powerful nobleman in the government? Who among the illustrious men competing for positions would use criminals to further his ambitions?
At this point Akitada’s thoughts became hopelessly tangled and he dozed off.
When he woke again, his situation had worsened. He now sat in about a foot of water and something furry perched on his right shoulder. He gave a violent jerk, and the creature plopped into the stinking water. It splashed around frantically, then caught hold of his pant leg and climbed on to his knee. Disgusted, he shook it off again, but then regretted his cruelty.
It was only some small helpless creature trying to save itself from drowning. They were both caught down here. He decided his companion was probably a rat that had been foraging in the old vegetable cellar when he was tossed down and the exit covered with boards and heavy weights. He could keep his head above water, but the rat was not so lucky. This time, when the rat regained its perch on his knee, he let him be.
He had no idea how long it had taken for the water to rise this far, but it added a new fear. He need not worry about dying from thirst; he was more likely to drown in this hole.
Self-pity seized him. He would never see his baby girl again, would not see her grow, would never return to Tamako and the others. They would not know what had become of him. Perhaps they would eventually assume that he had committed suicide because he was disgraced.
How would they manage?
A new misery broke into his maudlin thoughts. He had to relieve himself. That forced him to his knees, and from there into a standing crouch, which brought his back against the boards above. Though it was repellent to add to the filth in which he and the rat existed, he had no choice. No matter how thirsty he got, nothing could make him drink this water. The rat splashed about trying to climb his legs.
While he was up, he tried again to push upward against the boards. Again he failed. Panic rose, and he doubled his efforts, struggling desperately, slipping in the mud and falling several times, hoping that he had not squashed the rat. He gained nothing by this except that the flow of water increased from a trickle to a steady small stream filled with dirt and mud. It became likely that one or more of the walls of his prison would cave inward under the water pressure and bury him. Drowning was one thing; being suffocated in mud quite another.
He gave up trying to shift the weight above and sat down to work on his bonds. The rat eagerly climbed into his lap and leaped to his shoulder. He was becoming attached to his companion. The creature’s will to survive against all odds inspired him. Through the thin, wet fabric of his shirt he could feel the rat’s every breath, perhaps even the rapid beating of his heart.
The rat might, of course, be a female, but he liked to think of it as a male. How desperately he fought for his life! Perhaps, not having human intelligence, he felt an even greater panic. And yet, what did a rat have to lose? A constant struggle for food – his only joy outside the brief pleasure of mating – and always the threat of predators and killers, dogs, cats, and humans alike.
‘I can’t see you,’ he told the rat, ‘but you’re filled with the spirit of survival. Tora would have thought you a demon in the dark and feared you. Yes, you are a little demon, the way you fight and cling to life.’ He chuckled. ‘Now that we are intimately acquainted, you’ll need a name. I’ll call you Demon, shall I?’
The rat turned on his shoulder, perhaps to hear better, and tickled his ear with his whiskers. Akitada laughed.
He wondered if he was going mad.
He took a lesson from the rat and focused on escaping death. It was not clear how he could free himself, but if he was to die, he wanted to die fighting for his life.
Like the rat.
With his hands tied behind his back, he could do little except to work his bonds loose by pulling and stretching, or to cut the ropes by rubbing them against something sharp. He had already tried and failed to loosen them, and it seemed unlikely that the rat could be trained to gnaw the ropes apart. The thought made him laugh again. There was not enough time in any case. He shook his head, causing the rat to squeak in protest.
Perhaps the knock on his head had addled his brains, or the fear of a very unpleasant death had made him silly.
Tora had once managed to escape death by cutting his bonds with a pottery shard. Akitada started to search the floor of his prison.
His fingers just reached the muddy floor under the water he sat in. Straining, he felt about in the mud, moving around until he had covered every section of the floor. It seemed to take a long time, exhausted him, and turned up nothing but a few pebbles and small stones too smooth to do any good. Amazingly, the rat had clung on patiently, as if he knew the human was trying to save them.
And all the time, the water was rising.
Having failed to find a useful tool on the floor, he knew he must turn to the walls next. He dreaded the effort of raising and lowering himself slowly along the muddy walls.
Leaning back to gather strength, he thought he heard a faint sound, as if someone had shouted in the distance. Akitada struggled up, slipped, and sat down hard in the cold water, the rat scrambling to hold on to his shoulder. He raised his voice, bellowing for help until his throat grew sore and he had to stop.
Nobody came. Nobody heard him.
Yet the small and distant sound gave him new hope. If he could free his hands, he could scratch and scrabble at the seam under the wooden cover. Since fresh air reached him, there must be chinks. He would work more dirt loose.
But first came the slow and painful exploration of the dirt walls, covering each time only an area wide enough for his bound hands to search. Standing, he could not quite reach to the top with his hands. The slow work sitting, then kneeling, and finally standing in a bent-over position, strained his muscles and exhausted him. He slipped many times back into the water. After every third effort, he allowed himself a brief rest. Throughout, the rat adjusted its precarious hold again and again, complaining in high chirps.
‘Be quiet, Demon,’ he said once. ‘I’m trying to save your miserable life along with mine.’ After that, he imagined, the rat’s complaints diminished.
At some point during his efforts, his mind seemed to clear miraculously, and he saw how the murder must have happened and what its real motive had been. He was so startled that he stopped working for a few long moments, overwhelmed by the human suffering that had led to the crime.
But there was no time. The water was rising faster. It already reached the middle of his chest when he was sitting. Soon he would no longer be able to rest.
He found what he was looking for in the third wall. A sharp piece of flinty stone protruded slightly from the dirt. He thanked the gods that it was embedded at a point where he could work on his knees.
‘Now, Demon, we have a chance. Sit tight.’
The rat chittered softly and wrapped its tail around Akitada’s neck.
