The Fires of the Gods (21 page)

He knew from Tora’s report that this dirty dive was a hangout for criminals. These days, criminals organized much like tradesmen and merchants did. They formed brotherhoods that protected their members. Akitada thought that Tora had tangled with two different gangs: the one to which the three deaf mutes belonged, and the other, made up of young men in their early
twenties or younger. The precise connection between the two gangs was not clear. The deaf mutes had attacked the arsonists to rescue Jirokichi, but they had then allowed the youths to escape. He would have to be careful.

He was not the only one who had ducked in from the shower that continued outside. The atmosphere was dim, smoky, and smelled of wet dog. Several damp locals sat chatting around a fire that put out more smoke than light, and the young waitress was serving them wine and bowls of pickles.

Since she played a significant role in Tora’s story, Akitada watched her a moment and decided she was a hardened criminal in spite of her youth and prettiness. They started their lives of crime young in these unsavory parts of the city. Even though she had seemingly helped Tora free Jirokichi, Akitada placed no trust in her.

The other customers were poor laborers, though a few looked like cut-throats. None were younger than twenty years.

He walked forward looking for a place to sit and saw that there was another part of the room: a raised section covered with worn mats. A single oil lamp cast its light on a youth. Akitada’s jaw dropped. There, in lonely splendor and apparently at his ease, sat the young Kiyowara heir.

THE PIT

A
kitada did not know what to make of it. One of the ‘good people’ here, in such a place? It was impossible. But his heart rose. Whatever had brought the Kiyowara heir to this low dive, finding him was a gift from the gods. He had caught the son alone, without his family’s protection and in circumstances that might make him talk.

Of course, if the censors heard about it, his fate was sealed, but his prospects were poor already and he might just get to the bottom of this mystery in time to avert being arrested for murder because he was expendable while a relative of the chancellor was not.

He strode across the room with angry determination and stepped on the raised section.

Young Kiyowara looked up at him blankly.

‘What are you doing here?’ demanded Akitada, sitting down across from him.

The young man said nothing, but stared at Akitada as if he were an apparition.

‘Does your mother know you go slumming in this part of town?’

‘My mother?’ the other asked, still dumbfounded.

‘Hey.’ The young waitress appeared at Akitada’s elbow. ‘This is a private room. Go sit someplace else.’

The raised portion could hardly be described as a room, being open to the rest of the wine shop on two sides. ‘We have private business,’ he snapped. ‘Bring me some wine.’

She looked at His young Lordship, who seemed more befuddled than ever. ‘What private business?’ she asked the boy, who shook his head helplessly.

Akitada growled, ‘Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten. I was supposed to investigate your father’s murder.’

The girl gasped, and the young man turned perfectly white. ‘M-my f-father’s murder?’ he stammered. ‘Who s-sent you here?’

The girl now grasped Akitada’s arm and pulled sharply. ‘You’d better leave or I’ll call my father,’ she threatened.

Akitada shook her off. ‘Go and get me that wine.’

She hesitated. The youth said nothing. He looked frightened. Reluctantly, and with several backward glances, she left.

Something did not feel right about this. Akitada looked the terrified youngster over. His robe, while of good silk with an intricate blue and white pattern, was not only worn, but also torn and stained in places. Perhaps it was meant as a disguise of sorts. Under the circumstances, that was almost funny. In any case, the clothing did nothing to hide the handsome face with its slanting eyebrows and pointed chin.

So what was Katsumi doing here, hanging out with thieves and robbers?

Then a memory surfaced. Had not Tora insisted the young lord had a double in the western city? On the one occasion that Akitada had met the young lord, the youngster was in the background and had taken no part in the conversation. Still, if this was another youngster, the two were startlingly similar.

But why had he cast this youth into a panic when he had
mentioned the Kiyowara murder? If he was indeed someone else, he could not know of the crime.

Akitada asked more gently, ‘Are you Katsumi?’

The boy looked around as if for help. Then he shook his head.

‘Who are you and what exactly is your relationship to the Kiyowaras?’

The youth panicked. He shot to his feet. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he cried and bounded off the platform.

‘Oh no, you don’t,’ Akitada cried and went after him. But the youth was dodging customers in a full run for the door.

The wine shop became very quiet.

Akitada tried to follow, but someone put out a leg and he stumbled, caught himself, was tripped again, and fell full-length to the floor. He heard laughter.

Furious, he scrambled up and looked at sly faces. ‘How dare you? That youth may be a killer. The next person who interferes with me will have to deal with the constables.’

It was the wrong thing to say. Three burly men suddenly blocked his way. The rest watched, snickering. A dirty bearded man sitting near Akitada took a deep mouthful from his wine flask and spat it at him.

Akitada tried to shoulder past the bullies. They did not budge. Neither did they speak. They eyed him like hungry dogs.

In a moment, the situation had become dangerous. He would have to fight his way out. Bending down, he pulled the knife from his boot. ‘Get out of my way,’ he snarled. Their eyes widened at the sight of the knife, and suddenly the path to the door was clear.

As he flung himself outside into the sheeting rain, Akitada blamed himself for his foolish mistake. These were not people who respected authority. More to the point, he had no authority any longer, and he could not call on the police for assistance. He was very lucky to have escaped real trouble.

The street was empty – and why not? Too much time had passed, and the youth had long legs and lots of stamina. Akitada put the knife back in his boot and ran to the street corner to check the side street. He found it empty and ran back the other way, past the Fragrant Peach. At the alleyway next to the wine shop he stopped to peer into the gloom. On this rainy day, late afternoon resembled dusk. It was nearly dark between the overhanging roofs of adjoining buildings. Water poured from the
eaves and splashed into puddles and ditches below. Was that a movement at the far end? He heard the faint sound of a gate or door closing over the rushing of waters.

The youngster must be hiding behind the buildings. Akitada plunged into the narrow passageway. Halfway down, he was about to slow down and reconsider when a heavy, wet cloth dropped over his head. Akitada struggled against the evil-smelling thing, but strong arms pulled it tight and then bound his flailing arms to his body. He kicked out, but was jerked up roughly and thrown over someone’s back. Gasping for breath, he tried to shout for help, managing only muffled grunts. The need for air grew urgent, and he tried to throw himself off the man’s back. A short struggle later, he struck the ground painfully. He managed to catch a breath, then something struck his head, and blinding pain was the last thing he felt.

Akitada regained consciousness in the dark and knew instantly what had happened. The smell of the suffocating cloth was still in his nostrils, his head hurt terribly, and his arms and legs were tied. At least he could breathe again. Total blackness surrounded him. His fuzzy head at first made him think he had been struck blind, but then he realized he was a prisoner in some dark, moist place with earthen walls.

With the realization came panic. He was transported back on Sado Island, chained in the underground chamber of the mine. He retched, then vomited. His head throbbed worse than before, and he felt dizzy. He vomited again and regained enough control to move away from his vomit.

This brought him up against another dirt wall. His wrists were tied behind his back. Even if his captors had left him the knife, he could not have used it. He pulled on his bonds, but only managed to tighten them. The rope was wet and intractable. Maneuvering about by pushing with his legs, he verified that he was in a pit less than a man’s length in either direction. He could sit and even kneel, but there was not enough headroom to stand up. His prison’s ceiling seemed to be made of rough wooden planks. Something heavy kept them in place, for he could not lift them by pushing upward with his shoulders.

The effort made his headache worse, and he collapsed in a corner. For a while now, he had been vaguely aware of some movement near him. Now it happened again, the merest slither
and scrape. A primal fear made his heart race. Leaning against the dirt wall, he fought down a second panic attack and listened.

Nothing.

Yet still there was the acute sense that he was not alone in a pit that was barely large enough for a man. Tora, who believed in ghostly spirits that played tricks on humans, would have thought that he was buried with some sort of demon, but Akitada did not believe in demons.

He tried to put his fear from his mind and thought about the situation.

The darkness meant little. Night could have fallen while he was unconscious. He seemed to have enough air, and it was reasonably fresh. Perhaps with the morning light he would see chinks in the boards above, but this pit 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 protégé? 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.