I. Parker: Island of Exiles

Tora whistled. “The governor’s son? What’s the world coming to? Shall I start packing my things?”

“No. I am going alone. You and Genba will look after things here. I should be back in a week.”

Tora looked disappointed, but he accepted the decision, especially when Akitada promised to pay his back wages before he departed.

After Tora left, Akitada walked back to his residence. He did not like to leave Tamako and his son but had no choice in the matter. Even if he could have refused such an order, doing so would have ended his career for good. On the other hand, if he managed to solve the problem, he hoped the two imperial secretaries would put in a good word for him in the capital.

Seimei and Tamako were waiting anxiously. Their faces fell when they saw him. Akitada hated to see the hope drain from Tamako’s eyes.

“We are to stay here?” she asked.

“For the time being. I am to go to Sadoshima to investigate a murder.”

“That place?” she cried. “Where they send all the worst criminals?”

“Don’t worry. I shall not be gone long, and perhaps something good may come of it.”

But when the two noble visitors returned the following morning, his optimism vanished. They proposed an extraordinary plan which struck Akitada as both dangerous and uncertain.

The ship had been at sea for two days. Blown off course by a sudden violent summer storm, it had become lost in the open ocean shortly after departing from the coast south of Echigo.

The prisoner was in the back of the ship, unchained since they had left land behind and there was no longer any risk of escape. He lay against the side, as he had for days, suffering from the rough seas and the seasickness they brought.

When he had been taken on board, they had put him below deck, into a tiny black hole. Later, when they were well out at sea, one of the guards had taken off his shackles and left an oil lamp which swung from the low ceiling, putting out little light but a horrible stench. The small area had become hot and so smoky it had been hard to breathe.

But the real misery started with the storm. He had woken from a fitful sleep when the ship began to roll and plunge amid horrendous noise. Outside, dull crashing and roaring sounds of wind and water bore down on the small ship. The sail snapped loudly in the wind and sailors shouted urgent orders to each other. The prisoner had worried about the creaking timbers, which seemed hardly strong enough to withstand the combined onslaught of wind and water. And he had thought of his family.

The stench of the oil lamp, its violent swinging back and forth, the roll and pitch of the flimsy planks underneath him had sickened him until he could not control the heaving in his belly. By nature fastidious, he had crawled out of his hole and up a short bamboo ladder to the pitching deck. Nobody paid attention to him, and he had at first welcomed the icy spray of water, the sharp tearing gusts of wind, until the pitching and rolling of the ship had sent him slipping and scrabbling to the side, where he had vomited into a heaving black sea.

The vomiting was unremitting from then on, keeping pace with the storm, abating as the wind abated a little, but recom-mencing with the next onslaught. He was conscious of little difference between day and night, though the pitch-blackness which must have been the first night, did make way for a dense dark gray world in which water and sky were of a uniform murkiness. It was then that it had dawned on him that they were lost. He swallowed neither food nor water for what seemed like days, nor felt any desire for them, and in time he became too weak and listless to raise himself enough to bring up the bile from his stomach while leaning over the side.

So now he lay in his own filth, only half conscious and soaked to the skin.

The ship was still soaring and pitching, the wind still howled, and spray burst across the deck, but there was a sub-tle change in the atmosphere. Frantic activity ceased, and it became almost quiet. Somewhere someone prayed to Amida, but he was giving thanks for being spared.

The prisoner had neither the strength nor the inclination to give thanks. His journey to the island of exiles had already proven horrible beyond his wildest imaginings, and he had little expectation that what lay ahead would be much easier.

However, sea and weather calmed, the captain changed course, and a brisk wind carried them finally to their destina-tion. A call from the lookout came early the following morning, just as the prisoner was drinking greedily from a flask of water one of the guards offered. It was snatched back quickly, too quickly, for never had water tasted so delicious. There was land westward, and the sailors and guards all rushed to that side of the boat, causing it to lean and the captain to curse them. The prisoner raised himself and peered into a pearly dawn without seeing anything. Below, the green sea slid past like translucent gossamer in a lady’s train, and he leaned down to dip his hand and sleeve into it and washed his face and beard.

Before noon they steered into Sawata Bay and crossed the limpid waters under a clear summer sky toward a green shore dotted with small brown roofs huddled about a temple. Slightly above the low-lying coast a larger compound of broad roofs dominated the town. This was Mano, the provincial capital of Sadoshima.

Having been fed a small amount of millet gruel to give him enough strength to stand and walk, the prisoner was on his feet, but the transfer to the rowboat and stepping on solid land had proved a shameful affair punctuated by several falls and a drunken stagger.

On shore, a reception committee of sorts awaited. Six rough-looking constables, chains wrapped around their middles and whips in their hands, stood behind a red-coated police officer in his official black cap. The short, squat, sharp-faced man in his forties with a scanty mustache and a stiff-legged stance received the papers the captain passed to him and glanced through them.

He looked the swaying prisoner up and down before snapping,

“He looks disgusting. Is he sick?”

Unimpressed by the officer’s manner, much less by his high, nasal voice, the captain spat, crooked a finger over his shoulder at the tattered sails, and said, “We got lost in a spell of bad weather. Spewed his guts out. He’ll be all right in a day or so.”

Reassured that the human cargo suffered from nothing worse, the officer addressed the prisoner next. “You are called Yoshimine Taketsuna?”

The prisoner croaked, “Yes.”

Instantly one of the guards stepped forward and back-handed him. He cried out in protest, staggered, and fell.

“On your knees!” snarled the guard, kicking him in the ribs.

His nose bleeding, the prisoner slowly knelt.

“You will address me as ‘sir’ and bow when you speak,” snapped the police officer.

The prisoner staggered up, squaring his shoulders. He looked at the officer’s cap rank insignia and said contemptuously, “I have never bowed to mere lieutenants.” Punishment was instant again. This time the guard used his fists. The prisoner managed to turn his head just a fraction, but he was struck on the side of his jaw and flung again into the dirt, this time too stunned to rise. His nose gushed blood, and more blood trickled from between his lips.

The police lieutenant, his eyes cold, bent down to him.

“Your past rank, whatever it may have been, is immaterial here.

By imperial order you are to be imprisoned on this island for the rest of your life. You are a nobody and will be assigned to work details to earn your food and clothes. You are not to attempt escape or rebellion on pain of death.” He paused, then added, “We consider lack of respect, disobedience to orders, lack of cooperation, and complaints as indicative of the rebellious character of a prisoner. You have escaped lightly this time.” He straightened up and snapped, “Take him away.”