I. Parker - Death on an Autumn River

“Yes. The monks taught me the skills. I was a scout.”

“You mean you were a spy,” Akitada snapped. Many people considered spying a particularly cowardly way to fight in a war. As an agent for Fujiwara Hidesato, the young Koharumaru had spied out Taira Masakado’s sleeping quarters in order to let his enemies surprise him. Masakado discovered the plot in time, won the battle, and then hunted Koharomaru down and cut off his head.

Saburo leered at him with his crooked smile. “We don’t all have choices in what we do. I was very good once, but I had to give up spying after I was caught.” He gestured to his face.

As the daylight outside grew stronger, Akitada could see his visitor more clearly. Since he wore nothing but his loincloth, he also saw that many scars made odd patterns across his narrow chest and belly. Shocked, Akitada said, “You were tortured. Did you talk?”

Saburo looked away. “Oh, yes. Eventually. It made them even angrier. That’s when they popped out my eye. After that, I was no longer any use to my monastery as a scout, and I certainly didn’t relish becoming an ordinary monk.”

“But you still carry those strange weapons, climb into people’s houses, and, if I’m not mistaken, you offer to work for me.”

The ugly man looked at him. “A man must eat,” he said. “And you need help. I thought I’d offer, but I see I was wrong about you.” He reached for his shirt, felt it, made a face, and put it on. Getting up, he reached for his pants.

Akitada faced a dilemma. He despised men like Saburo and wanted nothing to do with them, but he had been left without an attendant, and – more importantly – Saburo had saved his life. “Hmm,” he said reluctantly, “what do you propose to do for me?”

The ugly man paused for a moment to glance at Akitada. “I made a mistake,” he said dully. “The fact that you offered me food made me forget how the good people regard us. I may have given up my past life, but it appears it clings to me like pitch. As far as you’re concerned, I’m as much an untouchable as if I’d been born one.”

He sounded bitter, perhaps resentful, and this added to Akitada’s sense of having repaid a gift (that of his life) with insult and rejection. He softened his manner. “Look, I did not mean to offend you, and I’m deeply in your debt, of course, but I cannot represent the Emperor and the Ministry of Justice if I hire men with a criminal past.”

This was not quite true. He had done so before. Three of his retainers had had a criminal past when he had taken them on. Tora had been arrested with a gang of highway robbers, and Genba and Hitomaro had both killed men to avenge great wrongs done to them. But surely that was a far cry from this man, who had devoted his life to nefarious doings.

Saburo finished putting on his pants, then made him a mocking bow. “Good luck, my Lord. May you find your clerk and also the man who betrays secrets to the pirates. Setting a thief to catch a thief may be clever, but unfortunately it offends your sense of righteousness.”

He used one of the shutters for a toehold and swung himself up to a crossbeam like a cat.

Chafing under the other man’s ridicule, Akitada watched him run along the beam like a tightrope walker at a temple fair and disappear into the darkness under the eaves.

He wondered if he had made another bad mistake.

Akitada dressed, tucked his remaining money into his sash, and wrote a letter home. He asked that Tora come to join him, added greetings to the rest of his family, and a poem for his wife Tamako: “Hardly parted, I long to see you again, like the white waves making for the shore.” Pleased with himself, he walked to the post station where he paid for a mounted courier to take his letter to the capital. Tora should reach Naniwa late that night or by morning.

After that, he stopped at the nearest bath house where he bathed and had himself shaved. A modest breakfast of a bowl of noodles, purchased at a stand followed, and he returned to Kawajiri to check with the harbor authorities for news of Sadenari. To his shock, they informed him that a body had been fished out of the river and that the dead man’s appearance tallied with Akitada’s description of his clerk.

Afraid of what he would find, Akitada trudged to the small building they used as a morgue. The corpse was covered with a reed mat. When the custodian turned this back, Akitada saw a stranger who had died from a knife wound in the chest. He heaved a sigh of relief. There was still hope. The custodian waited, and Akitada shook his head. A mild curiosity made him ask, “Do the police have any idea who murdered this man?”

“I doubt it,” said the man, dropping the mat back into place. “This happens all the time. A fight in a wine shop or someone is tossed overboard from one of the ships.”

“But doesn’t anyone investigate?”

“When it gets bad and the bodies pile up, the prefect orders a sweep of the wine shops and whore houses.”

“What about currents? Can they tell where the body entered the water?”

The man looked blank. “Here? Where there’s tides and river currents and ship traffic? Impossible. Besides, nobody cares.”

It was a lawless environment. And yet both the governor and Prefect Munata had seemed reasonably responsible administrators-even if they objected to Akitada sticking his nose into their business when it came to piracy. He thanked the man and returned to Naniwa. Until he got word from Watamaro, he could do little. For that matter, he was beginning to doubt that man’s probity again. Watamaro was too perfectly placed for deals with pirates or for engaging in piracy himself. He decided to spend the rest of the day writing his report for the office of the Minister of the Right.

Back in his cheerless room, he opened the doors to the small courtyard-someone had put away his bedding and closed the doors in his absence-and carried his small writing box outside. The narrow strip of veranda had dried in the sunshine, and the air was still pleasant after the rain. He spread out a sheet of paper, got a little water from the pitcher inside, and rubbed ink. After a while, the cricket started its song again.

Perhaps an hour later he was done with the report. He still hoped he would not have to send it. Blaming his difficulties on Oga, Munata, and Nakahara made him look incompetent. He started on his letter to his own superior. Sadenari’s parents would have to be informed of their son’s disappearance. This letter was even harder to write.

He was staring at the fence across the way, pondering the next phrase, when someone called from the corridor outside his room. He got up and let in Professor Otomo.

The professor wore a sober black robe that had the effect of making his white hair and eyebrows contrast sharply in the dim corridor. He bowed, murmuring an apology and a greeting. When he took in his surroundings, his jaw sagged. “Umm,” he said, flushed, and went on quickly, “They sent me here from the trade office.” His eyes went to the veranda and the writing utensils. “But I see you’re working. I can come another time, or . . .?” He looked nervously at Akitada, who smiled and shook his head.

“I moved here because I thought it best to separate my work from that of the trade office. It’s only for the short time I’ll be staying in Naniwa. And I’m almost done with a letter. What gives me the pleasure of your visit?” Otomo looked about him again and shuffled his feet. There was no place to sit. Akitada gestured toward the veranda. “If you don’t mind sitting outside, I’ll put away my papers and ink.”

“I don’t mind,” said Otomo, “but please don’t let me interrupt. Perhaps I could come back in a little while?”