I. Parker - Island of Exiles

What’s your name?”

“Yoshimine Taketsuna.”

“What? Which is it?”

Raising his voice again, Akitada repeated the double name, adding that the first was his family name.

The old man stared at him. “If you’re one of the ‘good people,’ where are your servants? Yes, where are your servants, eh? And why were you sent to me? Only common criminals work.”

“I killed a man,” shouted Akitada.

The shijo jumped back, suddenly pale. “I hope you don’t have a violent disposition.”

Akitada lowered his voice a little. “Not at all, sir. It was a personal matter, a matter of loyalty.”

“Oh. Loyalty.” The other man seemed only partly reassured but said, “I’m called Yutaka and you will be plain Taketsuna here. Come along, Taketsuna.”

Sado’s provincial archives were neat and orderly. Akitada looked about with interest. Rows of shelves with document boxes divided the open interior of the hall into convenient smaller spaces. In each was a low table for making entries or searching through records. There were altogether six of these work areas, but only two were occupied by clerks copying documents. The largest space was Yutaka’s own, and he took his new clerk there.

“Sit down,” he said, peering up at one of the shelves. He stretched for a document box, and Akitada jumped up again to get it down for him. “Hmm,” muttered the old man. “You’ll be useful for something, at any rate. Yes, useful.” Akitada suppressed a smile and sat down again. Yutaka opened the box and extracted a thin roll of paper. This he unrolled partially before Akitada. Then he moved a sheet of clean paper, brushes, water, and an inkstone toward him. “Can you read this?” he asked, pointing to the document.

The document began with the usual formalities, and Akitada quickly ran his eye over these, unrolling it further to get to the text. “It appears to be a report on the flooding of Lake Kamo and the damage done to rice fields there.”

“Harrumph,” grunted Yutaka and poked a thin, bent finger at one of the characters. “What’s that?” Suppressing another smile, Akitada pronounced the character in Chinese.

“What? Oh, well. I suppose that one’s too hard. It signifies

‘forced labor.’ The high constable is requesting His Excellency to supply him with more prisoners to help dam the lake waters.

Let’s see you write that character.” Akitada poured a little water into the ink dish and rubbed the ink stone in it. When the ink was the proper thickness, he selected a brush, dipped it, and with a flourish wrote the character on the paper.

“Too big! Too big!” cried Yutaka. “You wasted the whole sheet. Make it very small.”

Akitada selected another brush and wrote it again on an unused corner, this time as small as he could.

Yutaka picked up the paper and brought it close to his eyes.

Without comment, he laid it down. “Come with me,” he said and took Akitada to meet the other two clerks, neither of whom was a prisoner and therefore regarded the new clerk with disdain. Yutaka assigned Akitada to one of the empty desks, with instructions to copy a set of tax accounts from one of the districts. For the rest of the day, as Akitada labored, he appeared on silent feet, peered over the prisoner’s shoulder, muttered, “Harrumph,” and disappeared again.

Akitada made good progress, but after several hours the un-accustomed work caused his back to ache and his wrist to cramp. His stomach growled. After more time passed, his feet had gone to sleep, and his belly ached with hunger. Apparently he was not entitled to a midday rice break.

Or rice, either. That was reserved for better people. Near sunset, a gong sounded somewhere in the compound. Akitada heard his fellow scribes rustling papers and shuffling off rapidly. He continued until he had finished the final page of a document he was working on and stretched. Suddenly Yutaka appeared.

“You didn’t hear the gong,” he said accusingly.

“I heard it. Why?”

“Time for the prisoners’ evening meal.” Akitada said, “Oh.” He started to wash out his brush.

“Never mind,” said Yutaka irritably. “Give it to me and run, or you’ll be too late. Masako doesn’t tolerate stragglers. No.

Doesn’t tolerate them at all.”

“Run where?” asked Akitada, rising.

“The jail. Where else?” Yutaka pointed vaguely. “I think you’ll be too late,” he added glumly.

Akitada bowed. “Thank you. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.”

When he found the jail, or more precisely the jail kitchen, it was empty except for a very shapely young maid who was stack-ing dirty bowls into a basket.

“I was told that the prisoners eat somewhere around here,” said Akitada.

She swung around, and he saw that she was very pretty, with a round face and sparkling eyes. At the moment they sparkled with anger. “Well, you’re too late,” she snapped. “The gong sounded an hour ago.” A threadbare cotton robe, much too big and too short for her, was firmly tied around her small waist, its sleeves rolled up to reveal work-reddened hands and arms, and her hair was pinned up under a kerchief. Surprisingly, the skirts of a pale blue silk gown peeked forth underneath the rough covering.

“I didn’t know. I am new,” he offered hopefully, staring at the silken hem.

She relented a little. “The fire’s out. You’ll have to eat the soup cold.”

He smiled at her with relief. “I don’t mind.” Her speech was more refined than he had expected in a kitchen maid, and his eyes went again to the pale silk hem. As she moved, a dainty bare foot, dirty but white and slender, appeared for a moment.

She scooped something from a large iron kettle into a bowl and handed it to him. Whatever it was, it looked and smelled unappetizing-some kind of millet mush with a few wilted greens. Akitada held the dripping bowl gingerly away from his clothes and looked about for a place to sit. Finding none, he leaned against the kitchen wall and raised the bowl to his lips. But the mush had thickened, and he had trouble drinking it.

“Would you happen to have some chopsticks?” he asked the girl, who was sweeping the floor in a haphazard fashion.

She stopped and stared at him. “Chopsticks? For a prisoner?”

“A little joke.” He chuckled. “I suppose there’s not much hope in asking for wine, so maybe I’d better settle for water, right?”

“Right!” She pointed to a large bucket in the corner.

He did not dare ask for a cup. Instead he used the dipper to pour some water into his food, stirred it with his finger, and then drank it down in several hungry gulps. It had little taste, but he gladly accepted the refill she offered. This, too, he mixed with water, and when he was done, he poured more water in the bowl, took it outside to rinse it, and refilled it to drink.

The girl had watched him surreptitiously. When he returned the bowl to her with a bow and a smile, he said, “Thank you. My name is Taketsuna. You’re very kind. And very pretty. May I ask your name?”

Her eyes narrowed. “I’m Masako,” she snapped. “And my father’s the superintendent, so you’d better watch yourself.” He was so astonished, he was speechless. The superintendent of a provincial jail, though of low rank, was still an official.

How could such a man allow his daughter to work in the prison’s kitchen? It occurred to him that she might be the result of an affair with a native woman, and he said, “Certainly. I’m to report to him. Can you show me the way?”

“You’ll have to wait. I have to finish cleaning up first.” She put his bowl into the basket and bent to pick it up.

“Allow me to carry that for you. Perhaps I could help you wash up?”