Beyond were the distant mountains of northern Sadoshima.
The peaks stood dark against the translucent sky, and the pale moon hung above them like a large paper lantern. The view was magnificent; the occupant of this quiet retreat surveyed the world from godlike heights. Akitada reminded himself that it was the room of a dead man.
Shunsei’s place in this luxurious retreat appeared to be confined to his small prayer mat before the altar. As Akitada stood gazing, the monk lit some candles there also. Suddenly glorious colors sprang to life in a room which otherwise completely lacked them. Behind a small exquisite carving of the Buddha hung a large mandala of Roshana, the Buddha of Absolute Wisdom. The painting’s dominant color was a deep and brilliant vermilion, but there were contrasting areas of black and gold, as well as touches of emerald, cobalt, white, and copper. The mandala shone and gleamed in the candlelight with an unearthly beauty and was surely a treasure the temple would have been proud to display in its Buddha Hall. But here it was, the private object of worship of a prince and his lover.
The symbolic connection between the Buddha and Okisada, once emperor-designate, was instantly clear to Akitada.
On the mandala, the Buddha occupied the very center and was surrounded by concentric rings of petals of the lotus flower, representing an enormous spiritual hierarchy; each petal contained a figure, from the Buddha’s own representations to hundreds of increasingly smaller saints, each representing multiple worlds. The court had always perceived an analogy between this Buddha and the emperor who, surrounded by his great ministers, each in charge of his own department of lesser officials, ruled the lives of the people down to the least significant persons in the realm. When the emperor was a descendant of gods, the religious hierarchy validated the secular one. Okisada had certainly not lost his delusions of godlike majesty in exile.
But what of Shunsei? Apparently the young monk now spent his days and nights in front of the mandala. Praying?
Grieving for his lover? Meditating in an effort to achieve enlightenment? Or atoning for a mortal sin?
The monk stood, waiting passively, patiently, his eyes lowered and his hands folded in the sleeves of his black robe. Up close, he was older than Akitada had at first thought. He must be well into his thirties, no boy but a mature man. He also looked frail and ill, as if the childish flesh had fallen away, the soft skin had lost its healthy glow, and the rounded contours of cheek and chin had disappeared to leave behind the finely drawn features of total abstinence. Startlingly, the very large, soft, and long-lashed eyes and the softly curving lips were still there and powerfully sensual in the pale, thin face.
Shunsei raised those tender liquid eyes to Akitada’s. “Would you like to sit down?” he asked in the same soft voice. “I have only water to offer you.”
“Thank you. I need nothing.” Akitada seated himself on the mat and gestured toward the mandala. “I have never seen a more beautiful painting of Roshana,” he said.
“He sent for it when he built this hall. Now I pray to him.
Perhaps, someday soon, he will allow me to join him.” Somehow this strange statement made sense. Shunsei’s identification of the Buddha with the late prince might have been the result of excessive grief, but Akitada suspected that Okisada had planted the seed of worship in the young monk’s mind a long time ago. For the first time he wondered about Okisada’s physical appearance. He must have been old enough to be Shunsei’s father. Of course, Shunsei himself looked decep-tively young because of his small size and dainty shape. The only imperial princes Akitada had met had been portly men of undistinguished appearance. How, then, had Okisada attracted such deep devotion in his lover unless it was through linking physical lust to spiritual worship? The thought was disturbing, and Akitada glanced away from those soft eyes and curving lips to the Roshana Buddha.
“What do you wish to know?” the soft voice asked.
Akitada pulled his thoughts together. He had a murder to solve and a conspiracy to prevent. “Tell me about him,” he begged.
“Why?”
Akitada phrased his response carefully. “I have been sent here. In the capital his death will raise questions. I have already spoken to the high constable and Professor Sakamoto and I have listened to Lord Taira and the prince’s physician, but still some of the answers escape me.”
It was surprising how easily these half-truths came to his tongue, and amazing how this simple monk accepted them without question. He even smiled a little. “Yes, they all loved him,” he said with a nod, “but not the same as I. We, he and I, became as one when we were together. When he entered the dark path, I wished to join him but couldn’t. Not then, but soon now.” He nodded again and looked lovingly at the altar.
“Will you tell me about it?”
“Yes. It is good that they should know in the capital. That his family should know, and the whole world. You see, he knew the great transformation was approaching. At first he thought it was just an indisposition. He called his doctor in and took medicine, and when the pains got very bad he would come to me, and I would chant as I rubbed his back and his aching belly.” Akitada stared at Shunsei. He had a strange sense that the floor beneath him had lost its solidity and there was nothing to hold on to. “The prince was ill?” he asked.
“At first that was what we thought, he and I. I gave him relief, he said, but now I know the great transformation had already begun. The pain came more and more often, until he wished for release from this world. I thought my weak prayers had failed, and lost my faith.” He hung his head and looked down at his hands, which rested in his lap.
Dazedly Akitada followed his glance. Beautiful hands, he thought, long-fingered and shapely, covered with the same translucent skin as his face. Curled together, they lay passively where once, no doubt, the dead lover’s hands had roamed, where Shunsei and Okisada had found the center of their universe together. The thought was disturbingly erotic, and Akitada felt hot and ashamed. He shifted to look back at the mandala. Death, religious ecstasy, and sexual arousal were perhaps not far apart. The thought would be rejected as blas-phemous by most, but here was at least one man who, in the simplicity of his faith and because of repressed desires, had equated physical lovemaking with spiritual worship. How could you judge a man’s faith?
Was this the secret the others had wanted to hide at all cost?
That the prince had died from a severe and protracted illness?
That would destroy the case against Mutobe and his son.
But what of the poisoned dog? Or had there been a dog?
Perhaps that was a lie, too. Or the dog had been poisoned as an afterthought. And then another, more terrible thought entered Akitada’s mind. What if Okisada had become ill because someone had administered poison to him over a period of time?
Shunsei’s account of Okisada’s “transformation” could describe the effects of systematic poisoning, and his death in the pavilion would have marked the final dose. That would also clear young Mutobe, who could not have had the opportunity to administer all the prior doses. But why kill Okisada, whose return to imperial power had been the object of the plot? Was there someone else who wished Okisada dead? Akitada shook his head in confusion.
Shunsei’s soft sigh brought him back. The monk said gravely, “Do not doubt the miracle, as I did. He achieved what we had both prayed for, a state of blessedness, a cessation of pain. I know, for he has come and told me so.” Akitada looked at Shunsei’s deep-set, feverish eyes and felt a great pity. This man was dying himself, by his own choice, and in the final stages of starvation and meditation he must have been hallucinating.
Kumo, Taira, and Sakamoto need not worry about his testimony. Shunsei would not live long enough to travel to Mano.
Of course, there was still Nakatomi. They had wanted the physician to testify only to the cause of death, and not touch on the prince’s prior state of health. They had known of his illness.
But Akitada’s eavesdropping had convinced him that his death had shocked and surprised them. Sakamoto in particular had complained bitterly about it. Only one fact was certain: they all wanted the governor’s son convicted of murder as soon as possible.
Shunsei still sat quietly looking down at his hands.
“You knew he would die?” Akitada asked.
The monk raised his eyes and smiled sweetly. “Oh, yes. Only not so soon.”
“And young Mutobe? Is he to die also?” The smile faded to sadness. “If it is his karma. We all must die.”
Akitada gritted his teeth. A moment ago he thought he had his answer, but Shunsei seemed to have changed
