Island of Exiles (29 page)

Maybe he could pull the chain out of his guard’s hand and run.

Wada had a bow and arrows. Still, it was worth a try if nothing else offered.

“Lieutenant,” he called out, “if you will stop this nonsense, I’ll explain before it is too late. There are matters you’re not aware of, and they will be easy enough to verify.” Wada did not stop.

They passed into the trees, and the constables moved in more closely until they reached a clearing, and Akitada saw their horses and a small pile of wooden cudgels near a tree.

Cudgels? The moment he realized they had been prepared for him, he exploded into action. Kicking out at the constable on his right, he flung himself forward, feeling the chain bite his wrists and his arms jerking up under the strain. His shoulders were almost wrenched from their sockets, but he pulled away with all his strength, knowing that if he did not get free, much worse awaited him.

And he almost made it. In the confused shouting and angry cries, he felt the chain slacken and took off, twisting past one of the constables to loop back toward the road, dodging another man, and thinking of Wada, who was probably placing an arrow into the groove of his bow even then. He dodged again, a tree this time, and then the chain caught on something, and he fell forward, his face slamming into a tree root.

After that, he had no more chances. They took him back to the clearing and lashed the chain around a large cedar. A cut he had suffered in the fall was bleeding into his right eye, and his left eye was swelling shut because the constable he had kicked had returned the favor. But he glimpsed-and wished he had not-the neat pile of sticks and cudgels and the constables arming themselves before they formed a circle around him. They were going to have their fun.

His chain was loose enough to allow him some minimal dodging. Wada stood off to the side, his face avid with antici-pation.

“So,” he said, stroking his skimpy mustache with a finger.

“Let’s get started. Where is the body of the man you killed?” Akitada saw no need to reply. He kept his eyes on the constables.

“Very well,” said Wada, and the first man stepped forward and swung.

Akitada dodged, and the end of the stick merely brushed his hip. Not too bad, he thought.

Wada shook his head. “Go on. All of you. At this rate we’ll be here till midnight.”

What followed was systematic and practiced. As one man stepped forward and swung, Akitada dodged and was met by the full force of the cudgel of the man at the other end. The blows landed everywhere on his body, but for some reason they avoided his head, which he could not in any case have protected.

The pain of each blow registered belatedly. The full sensation was blocked by his concentration on dodging the next one, but this did not last long. He had never been so totally at the mercy of an enemy. The experience was simultaneously humbling and infuriating. It became vital not to disgrace himself. In an effort to distance himself from his pain, he thought of playing his flute. Concentrating on a passage which always gave him trouble, he played it in his mind, allowing his body to move by instinct.

Time passed. Perhaps not much, perhaps a long time. Eventually one of the sticks broke, and once Akitada stumbled and fell to his knees. He ducked in time, or the swinging cudgel might have hit his head. Somehow he got back on his feet, and once he even landed a kick to the groin of one of the men who had strayed a bit too close. But he was quickly wearing out, and his mental flute-playing disintegrated in hot flashes of agony.

Parts of him had gone numb. One arm was on fire with pain that ran all the way from his shoulder to his hand. Then one of the cudgels connected with his right knee, and he forgot the other pains and his pride. He screamed and fell.

Mercifully they stopped then-though there was no mercy about it, really. Wada walked over and kicked him in the ribs.

“Get up!”

“I can’t,” muttered Akitada through clenched teeth.

They jerked him upright. He screamed again as he put weight on his injured knee and both knees buckled.

“Silence!”

Wada was listening toward the road. At a sign from him, his men dropped Akitada. This time they left him lying there as they walked away. Through waves of torment he heard someone leaving on a horse but did not care.

The grass under Akitada’s face became sticky with the blood from his cut and clung to his skin, but his mind was on his knee.

Compared with that even the multiple bruises on the rest of his body, which had combined to form a solid robe of pain, paled.

He wondered if his knee was broken and tried to move his leg.

The effort was inconclusive. All feeling seemed to have left it.

He turned the ankle, and was successful this time, but feeling returned with a vengeance, running all the way from the knee down to his foot. He held his breath, waiting for the spasm to pass.

As the agony in the knee ebbed away slowly, he checked the damage to the rest of his body. His fingers moved, though the skin on his wrists felt raw. Never mind! That was nothing. His shoulders? Painful, but mobile. Ribs and back? He attempted a stretch and managed it without suffering the kinds of spasm a broken rib produces. The knee remained the problem. He could not stand or walk, and that made eventual flight impossible.

Having got that far, he considered Wada and his thugs. Were they planning to kill him? Since they had brutalized him in this manner, they would not let him live if they feared him. He was glad now that he had not told Wada his name. As long as the man believed he was an escaped convict, he had a chance.

He heard the horseman returning and twisted his head to look.

Wada dismounted. He was giving orders, speaking to the constables separately until each man nodded. Akitada tried to guess where he had been and what these orders were by reading expressions and gestures. The faces were mostly glum. Wada looked determined, but his men were not happy with whatever they were to do. Akitada took courage from this.

After a while, four of the constables left on foot, leading the mule. Wada was busy talking to the two men who were left.

Their faces got longer and longer, and they cast angry looks in Akitada’s direction. Finally they walked off also, and Wada came toward him alone.

The short police officer paused beside him and looked down with an unreadable expression. Panic seized Akitada. He croaked, “Let me go. I won’t report you. If anybody asks, you can claim you had provocation because I tried to escape.” Wada chuckled. It was a very unpleasant sound. “No,” he said. “You are to disappear. Mind you, if it had been my choice, you’d have disappeared permanently here today, but . . .” He used his foot to roll Akitada on his back. “Sit up!” Akitada struggled into a sitting position, and his knee promptly went into another spasm. He doubled over with the pain and gasped.

Wada bent down and roughly straightened the injured leg.

When Akitada turned a scream into a groan, Wada laughed.

“You pampered nobles are all alike, Sugawara,” he said, probing the knee with pleasure in the torment he caused his prisoner.

“You turn into whimpering babes at the first little pain. This is nothing but a bruise, but I’m in a hurry, so you can ride.” Pain and humiliation registered first. Akitada clenched his jaws to keep from groaning as Wada poked, turned, and twisted.

He would not give the bastard the satisfaction of mocking him again.

But then, sweat-drenched and dazed, he opened his eyes wide and stared up at Wada. “What . . . did you call me?” Wada rose and looked down at his prisoner with smug triumph. “Sugawara? Yes, I know you’re not the Yoshimine Taketsuna you pretended to be when you got off the ship. Oh, no.

You’re Sugawara Akitada, an official from Echigo, come to catch us fools at our misdeeds. Look who’s the fool now!” He bent until his face was close to Akitada’s. “This is Sadoshima, my lord, not the capital. You made a bad mistake when you became a convict and put yourself into our hands.”

So. The charade was over.

“Since you know who I am and why I am here,” Akitada snapped coldly, “you also know that continuing this will cost you your life.”

Wada threw back his head and laughed. “You still don’t get it,” he cried, pointing an exulting finger at Akitada. “It’s not my life, but yours that’s lost. Quick or slow, you’ll die. Have no doubt about that. We’ll take you to a place you won’t leave alive and where it won’t matter how loudly you proclaim your name, your rank, and your former position, for nobody will come to your rescue.” Still laughing and shaking his head, he walked away.

Surprisingly, Akitada’s only reaction was relief that he no longer needed to pretend. While he had not precisely disliked the convict Taketsuna, Taketsuna had been a man who had humbled himself with a cheerfulness which had cost Akitada such effort that he had become both foolish and careless about other matters. No wonder a creature like Wada sneered.

He considered his next step. Of course, there was no longer any doubt that Wada was part of the conspiracy. Akitada had not missed Wada’s use of the word “we” when he had talked about his prisoner’s future. Whoever had arrived and given Wada his orders had, for some reason, decided that a slow death was preferable to a quick demise. That was interesting in itself, but more immediately it meant he had gained precious time.

Had Wada continued the beating, he could not have saved himself. Now, however unpleasant the immediate future, he might get another chance to escape.

Apparently he would be moved soon, and far enough to make riding necessary. He looked at his swollen knee. The pain was fading a little. Wada’s manipulation had not necessarily reassured him that nothing was broken, though. He must try to move it as little as possible. At the moment, when even the smallest jolt caused shooting pains all the way up his thigh and down his leg, he was not tempted. He wriggled his wrists again.

Was the chain looser than before?

They were coming back, Wada and two constables, each leading a saddled horse. Wada got in his saddle and watched as the two men untied Akitada’s chain from the tree and then led a horse over. Three horses and four men? Was one of the constables expected to run alongside?

On the whole, while they looked sullen, their treatment of him on this occasion showed a marked improvement. They lifted him into the saddle, a process which was only moderately painful because they allowed him to clutch his knee until he could prop his foot into the stirrup. Their consideration made him wonder what he was being saved for. Once he was in the saddle, they briefly freed his wrists to rechain them in front so he could hold the reins.

To all of this Akitada submitted passively and without comment. He felt as weak as a newborn. All his strength was focused on protecting the injured knee. He realized that, even supported by the stirrup, his leg would respond to every step of the horse, and that the journey, possibly a long one, might make him reconsider the option of a quick death.

But before they could start, there was another shout from the road. Wada stiffened. “Keep an eye on him,” he snapped, and cantered off.

Two thoughts occurred to Akitada: Someone, foe or friend, was on the road. And the two constables were not as watchful as they should be, because they took the opportunity of Wada’s absence to get into a bitter argument about who was riding the third horse. He would not get another chance like this.

Kicking the horse as hard as he could with his good leg, he took off after Wada. His knee spasmed, behind him the constables shouted, before him branches whipped at his face, but he burst into the open at a full gallop. Wada was on the road, talking to another rider. He turned, his mouth sagging open in surprise. Then he flung about his horse to intercept him.

But Akitada’s eyes had already moved to the other man.

Kumo. He made a desperate attempt to wheel away, but his injured leg refused to cooperate. The horse, confused by mixed signals, stopped and danced, and Wada kept coming. In an instant they faced each other. Wada, his sword raised, looked murderous. At the last moment, Akitada raised his chained hands to catch the descending blade in the loop of chain between them. The force of the strike jerked him forward and sideways. Miraculously, he caught the reins and clung on as his horse reared and shot forward. Then another horse closed in, they collided, and both animals reared wildly.

This time, he was flung off backward, and landed hard. For a single breath, he looked up at the blue sky, tried to hold back the darkness that blotted out the day, tried to deny the pain, the fear of dying, and then he fell into oblivion.

Almost a month after the arrival of Yoshimine Taketsuna on Sado Island, another ship from Echigo brought a young man in military garb. Under the watchful eyes of several people, the new arrival made his way from the ship to a small wine shop overlooking Mano Harbor. He was a handsome fellow with white teeth under a trim mustache, and he wore his shiny new half armor and sword with a slight swagger. A scruffy individual in loincloth and tattered shirt limped behind him with his bundle of belongings.

The rank insignia on the visitor’s breastplate marked him as a lieutenant of the provincial guard. Both the iron helmet with its small knobs and the leather-covered breastplate shone with careful waxing. Full white cotton trousers tucked into black boots and a loose black jacket covered his broad shoulders.

He took a seat on one of the benches outside the shop and removed his helmet, mopping it and his sweaty brow with a bright green cloth square he carried in his sleeve. Then he pounded his fist on the rough table. His bearer limped over and squatted down on the ground beside him.

“Hey,” growled the officer, “you can’t sit here. Go over there where I don’t have to smell you.”