his mind again.
Perhaps he was dealing with a madman after all. He looked long into Shunsei’s eyes. Impossible to tell. The large black orbs gazed back calmly.
“But you do not believe that he murdered the prince?” Akitada finally asked bluntly.
Shunsei smiled again. “He assisted in the transformation,” he corrected.
“What? How?”
“He helped him achieve nirvana more quickly.” Akitada staggered to his feet. He had failed. Shunsei, who had been present, truly believed that young Mutobe had poisoned Okisada. “Thank you,” he muttered, and bowed.
Shunsei also rose. He swayed a little as if light-headed.
“Thank you for coming,” he said politely. “Please tell them what I said. His memory will be sacred forever.” Blindly, Akitada walked to the door, followed by Shunsei.
On the steps, he turned one more time to look back at the other man, who stood on the veranda, supporting himself against a column. The moon cast an eerie whiteness over his face, sharp-ening the angles of the underlying skull and turning the eyes into fathomless pools of darkness.
On some strange impulse, Akitada said, “I was told the prince enjoyed
This time, Shunsei’s smile broke the spell of strangeness and made him almost human again. “Oh, yes. The blowfish. He sent me to the fisherman’s wife for it. He was not well and wished to be strong for the meeting. He always enjoyed
“Oh, no. He prepared it himself in his room and carried a small dose with him. He was very familiar with the preparation.” Shunsei pressed his palms together and bowed. Then he disappeared back into the room, extinguishing the lights until all was plunged into darkness again.
Akitada groped his way back to the monks’ dormitory, his mind as murky as the darkness of the forest around him. Had Okisada died by accidentally poisoning himself?
Or had he committed suicide to escape the torment of his pain?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Akitada woke. At first he was not certain what had disturbed his sleep because all was dark and silent. He turned over, but the memories of the previous day began to crowd in. It was finally over and soon he would be home. The prince had taken the poison himself. Okisada might have mistaken the dosage or, in the knowledge of a slow and increasingly painful death, decided to end it quickly, but ultimately it did not matter. He was dead, all danger of his leading another rebellion was over, and the conspiracy against the governor would fall apart as soon as the fact was known. True, Shunsei’s condition was worrisome, but there was at least one other person who knew that the prince had eaten blowfish: his regular supplier, Haru.
He sat up and stretched. Hearing soft noises next door in Osawa’s room, he got up, opened the door, and peered out. It was still night in the forest, but the sky above the trees was already turning the deep blue-black which precedes dawn, and a few birds chirped sleepily.
It was unusual for Osawa to rise this early, but he, too, now had someone to rush back to. Akitada smiled, yawned, and took a few deep breaths of the pine-scented air. It was deliciously cool and he hated to leave the woods for the hot plain again, but tonight they would be back in Mano.
Akitada looked at Osawa’s closed door and decided to get dressed. If Osawa was in such a hurry, he was not going to delay him. The sooner he could settle this affair and leave Sadoshima, the better. He longed for his family with an almost painful intensity.
After lighting the oil lamp, he reached for the blue robe he had been wearing for days. It looked and smelled the worse for the hard wear. In his bag was still his own robe of plain brown silk, the one he had arrived in and which had been stained and torn during those first appalling days. He shook his head at the memory of the misery suffered by convicts.
He rolled up the blue robe and shook out the brown one after removing the flute from its folds. Surely Osawa would not mind if he put on clean clothes for the trip back. They had no more official calls to make on the way.
The silk robe was a little creased, but it looked and smelled a great deal better than the blue one. He slipped it on and fas-tened the black sash about his waist. Reaching up to adjust the collar, he touched the stiffness of the documents between the layers of fabric. They, too, would soon no longer be needed. He thought guiltily of Masako, who had not only nursed him back to health, but had washed and mended his clothes. He was ashamed of having rejected her affection so harshly. Tonight he would speak to her, explain his situation, and offer her . . . what? He thought he would know once he knew her real feelings for him.
Smoothing down the familiar cool silk, he felt relief that it was over. The judge, once informed of the facts, would know what questions to ask. If Shunsei was too weak to travel, he could sign an affidavit. Taira would be called to testify, and Haru. Nakatomi would be forced to speak about Okisada’s illness. Finally, Sakamoto would be confronted with the mass of evidence, and he would break and reveal the plot to build a murder case against the governor’s son. Yes, it should all unravel nicely, even without Shunsei’s presence.
He used his fingers to comb his beard and hair, retied his topknot, and checked the neck of his robe again. It bulged a bit, refused to lie down flat. He patted the fabric down firmly, but it still buckled. With his index finger he checked the seam where he had inserted the documents and found it torn.
His heart pounding, Akitada fished out the papers and unfolded them. For a long time he stared in disbelief at the blank sheets of ordinary paper.
He turned them this way and that, wondering foolishly if the august words had somehow faded, not wanting to believe the obvious, that someone had stolen his imperial orders and the governor’s safe conduct, and with them his identity.
Sweat broke out on his forehead. He tried to remember when he had last seen the documents. They had still been there after he left Mano, after Masako had found them without realizing what they were.
Or perhaps she had realized only too well! For the documents to have been stolen from such a hiding place, the thief must have known what to look for and where. Had Masako revealed his secret, perhaps unintentionally?
If so, he had been allowed to leave Mano with the documents. Yes, the papers had still been in his robe on the road to Kumo’s manor. Later he had worn his blue clerk’s robe and, foolishly, he had only checked the documents by touch, and not often that. Where had the theft happened? At Kumo’s manor or in Minato? He had slept with the saddlebags under his head in the groom’s room and also later in Takao’s kitchen, but there had been many times when his saddlebags had lain somewhere while he was doing Osawa’s bidding. He had worried more about the flute than the documents.
Anyone could have removed the papers anywhere between Minato and here, but surely the most likely thief was Genzo.
Seimei would say, “Spilled water does not return to its pail.” It was more important to think about what would happen next.
He could not raise an outcry. What could Osawa do, even if he believed him? No, he must return to Mano as quickly as possible. Thank heaven Mutobe had seen the papers and could vouch for him.
Akitada packed the blue robe, the flute, and his other belongings into his saddlebags and walked through the waking forest to the monastery stable to saddle the horses. But there a second shock awaited him.
A distraught Osawa was getting in the saddle, while a red-cheeked novice was holding the reins and listening to Osawa’s agitated instructions with an expression of blank confusion on his young face.
“Why the rush, Master Osawa?” Akitada called out.
Osawa turned. “Oh, there you are. Good. I have no time. I’m off to Minato this instant. Takao’s had an accident. Very bad.
