I. Parker - Island of Exiles

Staying on his feet took all the strength he could muster. He stumbled over to where Tora sat with Haseo. Tora had fashioned some sort of pad for Haseo’s belly wound. When Akitada gave him a questioning look, he shook his head. Belly wounds were fatal. Always. They were also agonizingly painful. Haseo’s eyes were closed, his lips compressed.

Akitada sat down on his other side. “How are you, my friend?” He took the big man’s callused hand in his.

Haseo’s eyes flicked open. He managed a smile. Akitada would always remember Haseo smiling. “A great fight,” Haseo murmured. He paused and added, almost inaudibly, “Wonderful!”

Akitada felt helpless. “Yes,” he said, glancing around with rising sickness at the scattered bodies and noticing for the first time that some of the peasants were timidly peering around corners and from windows. Life would go on.

But not for Haseo.

Tora said to Haseo, “I saw you fighting two of the bastards at the same time. People say it can’t be done, but you did it. I meant to ask you to teach me.”

Haseo smiled. “Thanks. You’ll learn. You’re not bad yourself.”

Akitada had been too hard-pressed to see him fight, but he remembered how Haseo had wished for a sword on the mountain and later longed for Tora’s weapon, and he wondered about his background. “I never asked your name,” he said.

There was a long pause, and he repeated his question. “What is your family name, Haseo?”

Haseo unclenched his bloody hand long enough to make a dismissive gesture. “Gone. Taken away. Sentence.” So they had not only sentenced him to exile, but stripped his family of their ancestral name. “What was it?” Akitada persisted.

At first it seemed that Haseo would not answer. But then he whispered, “Utsunomiya.”

“Utsunomiya. I’ll find your family and try to clear your name. Your sons will want to know of your courage.” Haseo opened his eyes then and looked at him. “It is too much to ask,” he whispered.

Akitada shook his head. “Not among friends.” He was about to ask more questions but there were shouts in the distance.

Someone was coming. Tora jumped up and ran to the road, while Akitada struggled to his feet and seized his sword. What now? More of Kumo’s soldiers? He had no strength left.

But Tora, shading his eyes, was looking toward the south.

He waved to Akitada to come. The distance suddenly seemed very great; Akitada shuffled like an old man, with small uncertain steps.

“It’s the governor, I think,” said Tora when Akitada reached him. Akitada shaded his own eyes. Yes, he could make out the banner flying in front of the cortege. “I thought he’d lost his power,” Tora remarked in a tone of surprise. “Wonder how he got anyone to come with him.”

They were on foot, probably some forty men, foot soldiers with halberds and bearers carrying the governor’s sedan chair. And now that they approached a town, they began to chant the traditional warning, “Make way for His Excellency, the governor! Make way!” Slowly the local people gathered by the roadside and knelt as the banner and sedan chair passed them.

The soldiers’ shouts became more urgent when neither Tora nor Akitada would step aside. Then they caught sight of the bodies of men and horses and lowered their lances.

Akitada raised his hand. “Halt! We have business with His Excellency.”

The column faltered and stopped. The woven curtain of the sedan chair parted and Mutobe stuck out his head.

“What’s going on?” he shouted. “What do these people want?”

“Governor?” Akitada started toward the sedan chair, but a small forest of sharp halberds immediately barred his way.

“Who are you?” asked Mutobe.

“Sugawara.”

Mutobe’s jaw dropped. “Good heavens!” Then he cried, “Put me down! Put me down, you fools.” The sedan chair was lowered and opened. Mutobe climbed out and came to Akitada with outstretched hands. The halberds parted and the soldiers stepped back. Mutobe’s steps faltered. “Is that really you, Sugawara?” he asked uncertainly. “All that blood. Are you hurt?” Belatedly his eyes fell on the carcass of a dead horse, then on human bodies. “What has happened here?” he asked, his eyes wide and his voice hoarse.

“Kumo caught up with us. May I introduce Lieutenant Tora? If he had not found me in time, we would not be speaking to each other now.”

Mutobe looked at Tora, turned a little green at the amount of gore on Tora, and nodded. “Yes. We met. Are you telling me that you two killed all these men?” His eyes counted. “Four mounted soldiers? All by yourselves?”

“No, there were three of us. My friend was wounded. He is dying.” Akitada led the way to the farmyard, where Mutobe counted more bodies, pausing in astonishment beside the corpse of the late high constable.

“It’s Kumo,” he said, picking up the golden helmet. “You killed Kumo. Wonderful! It’s a miracle. Finally we are free of the monster. Oh, we will celebrate this day!” He clapped his hands together like a small child.

Akitada did not feel like celebrating. He knelt beside Haseo.

Mutobe came to lean over him. “Who is he?”

“Utsunomiya Haseo. My friend.”

“Don’t know him. How did you meet?”

“He was a prisoner as I was. In Kumo’s mine.”

“Oh, a convict. He looks dead.”

Akitada was holding Haseo’s hand, willing him to open his eyes, to smile. Tora joined them. He reached down and felt Haseo’s neck. “Gone,” he said bluntly. “Better this way.”

“Yes,” said Akitada dismally, tears blurring his eyes. “But I had so much to ask him still.”

“Well.” Mutobe straightened up and looked about. “The locals will take care of him and the others. Cheer up. He’s only a convict. Would have been executed anyway for escaping.” Akitada felt like striking the man. Even if it had been some other convict and not Haseo, he would have flared up in righteous anger. Mutobe had not confronted Kumo to stop the abuse of prisoners and mine workers. He had been engaged in a miserable private struggle to solidify his and his son’s authority against the increasingly powerful high constable. But Akitada was too exhausted to be able to say more than, “No. He will return with us for an honorable burial in Mano. Whatever he was, he fought bravely in an honorable cause.” Mutobe was distracted. “Oh, very well. Whatever. But where are the ladies?”

“The ladies?” Akitada put Haseo’s hand back on his chest and got to his feet. He saw now that they had been joined by two other men. One was Yamada, looking shocked and anxious, the other the governor’s son. “Toshito?” Akitada gasped. “What are you doing here? I thought you were with Kumo.”

“With Kumo?” Yamada and his son-in-law cried in unison.

“Why would my son be with Kumo?” the governor asked.

“He ran most of the way from Ribata’s hermitage to tell me of your escape and to ask me to bring help in case Kumo came after you. He took quite a risk. I’m sorry we did not get here sooner, but my men were reluctant to obey me.” Akitada said quickly, “Never mind. I’m grateful you’re here.” He glanced toward the governor’s soldiers. An elderly officer was directing his men to collect the bodies and clear the road of dead horses. Mutobe must have had an impossible task. It was a miracle he had appeared with such numbers. And Akitada had been wrong about Toshito and owed the obnoxious fellow an apology. There were more important matters in life than a moment’s humility. Bowing to the governor’s son, he said awkwardly, “I beg your pardon for my mistake, Toshito. I thought when you left last night . . . Ribata is close to Kumo’s family and you were very hostile. When we woke up and saw Kumo and his men coming, there seemed to be only one explanation.”