I Parker: The Fires of the Gods

It seemed hopeless. These houses were built of wood, bamboo, and grass matting. The fire had gained the upper hand, and Tora could see past the shop to the back where the flames were leaping up to the neighbor’s roof. There was no way to get through those flames.

Tora got up and shouted at the gaping crowd, ‘Don’t stand around. Get sand and use buckets to bring water from the nearest canal. Make a chain and pass the water along. Throw it on the fire and pass the buckets and pails back.’

They knew the routine, kept a bucket of sand in every house in case of accidental fire, but this fire was already much larger than what a single bucket of sand could extinguish. They started running, though, and perhaps it would rain in a moment. Tora turned back to the moaning man on the ground.

‘Is it possible to get in from the back? From an alley?’ he asked.

The man looked dazed with pain. Tora had to repeat the question before he nodded. ‘An alley, yes. An alley. Save him.’

‘I will. Rest now.’

Tora left the fire to the weather and the neighbors. They had the most to lose if the flames spread and so would do their best to put them out. He ran down the street, the first raindrops cooling his face, looking for an opening between buildings that would lead to the backs of the houses. He found it five houses down and, guided by fitful lightning, scrambled over rain barrels, bamboo staves, empty chicken crates and other objects to reach the narrow alley.

As he doubled back towards the fire, he ran into the thick, acrid smoke produced by wet wood. The wind had shifted, and it choked him, making him cough and his eyes water so that he could barely see. Through the murk appeared the orange light of flames. To his relief, the fire had not yet reached the back of the house. Covering his mouth and nose with a sleeve, he vaulted a low fence into the yard of the burning house. The yard, too, was choked with odd objects, hazy shapes that got in Tora’s way. The hot air carried burning bits that started small flames among the debris.

Tora’s lungs labored for every breath and burned as painfully as his hands. He knew he had very little time to find the old man. Half-blinded, he found a shuttered door and pulled with hands that felt raw. A thick cloud of hot, suffocating smoke came out and drove him back. He coughed and gasped, then plunged into the dark room, holding his breath and feeling his way. His foot touched a body, and he bent to feel for the old man. There was no movement or response, and Tora needed air. Staggering back outside, he drew in a lungful of smoky air and choked. Suppressing the coughing bout, he dived back in, found the old man’s ankles and pulled him outside. There his strength gave out and he fell across the old man, his last conscious thought of Hanae and his little son.

After the night’s brief rain, it should have been another fine summer day in the capital, but Akitada woke to the acrid smell of smoke. The Sugawara house was built of wood and cedar shingles.

He got up quickly and stepped on the veranda, looking anxiously about and sniffing the air. The smoke hung like a thin dark fog above the cedar-bark roof of his house and the tree-tops of the garden, but the fire had been elsewhere. The reassurance was brief.

There had been too many fires in the capital lately. Homes and businesses had been destroyed and some people had lost everything. Of course, the danger of fire was always present, what with candles, oil lamps, open braziers, and torches. It was particularly bad in the inner city, where people lived in flimsy houses built close together. Not infrequently a whole quarter went up in flames, and if the wind was high and blew northward, the fires could reach even the imperial palace, though this year there had been fires started in the palace grounds.

Frowning, Akitada went back inside to put on his clothes and prepare to go to work at the ministry. He already had a bad feeling about the day.

When Seimei crept in, balancing his master’s gruel and a pot of tea on the household account ledger, Akitada shifted his worries to more personal matters. Seimei was well past seventy and plagued by aches and pains that were always much worse in the morning, yet he insisted on serving his master as he had done all his life.

Because he felt guilty, Akitada said a little peevishly, ‘Thank you, but I wish you’d let me fend for myself. I’m perfectly capable of going to the kitchen to get my breakfast. Where is the fire, do you know?’

Seimei placed the dishes carefully before answering. ‘It was in the merchant quarter again, sir. The rain put it out, but the wind still carries the smoke our way. People are talking of divine retribution.’

Akitada paused with his cup halfway to his lips. ‘Why?’

‘They demand reinstatement of Prince Atsuyasu as crown prince. He was passed over in the succession.’

‘Nonsense.’ Akitada took little interest in court politics and did not believe that the gods started fires because they disapproved of political shenanigans. Whenever such notions took hold of the simple-minded populace, great mischief ensued. Seeing Seimei still hovering with the account book, he said, ‘Sit down and have a cup of tea. What’s this all about?’

Seimei accepted the invitation. ‘There have been so many fires lately. People say it isn’t natural. They also say there have been omens and portents that a great disaster will befall the capital.’

‘Unsubstantiated rumors.’ Akitada did not know the prince. He was a mere secretary in one of the ministries, and lower-ranking officials did not come into contact with those who lived ‘above the clouds’.

But Seimei was not so easily deterred. ‘His Majesty has ordered the reading of sutras by eight priests and the reciting of prayers and making of offerings in all the Amida halls of the temples.’

Akitada frowned. ‘Hmm. They do that sort of thing frequently anyway.’ Putting the matter from his mind, he changed the subject. ‘How is my wife this morning?’

Tamako, who was due to give birth, slept very poorly these days, and he had not wanted to disturb her during the night. The fear of losing her and his unborn child was with him all the time.

Seimei smiled. ‘Her Ladyship was in good spirits yesterday. She walked a little in the garden with Oyuki. I believe she is still asleep.’

Oyuki, Tamako’s maid, had returned to her service after the death of her husband. Akitada had reason to be grateful to Oyuki these days, and to Tora’s wife Hanae. He was useless in matters of pregnancy and childbirth, and seeing his wife in her present shape terrified him. He said, ‘I’m glad. In that case, I won’t trouble her, but tell her I’ll see her tonight.’

Seimei nodded. He watched his master finish the bowl of gruel, then said, ‘Tora just came home.’

‘What? At this hour? Is he visiting the wine shops and gambling houses again?’

Seimei pursed his lips. ‘I cannot say, sir, but he looks terrible.’

‘The rascal is probably drunk.’ Akitada suspected he had slept in some harlot’s bed and felt angry on Hanae’s account. He had come to like Tora’s pretty wife, who filled the house with her singing and had given Tora a bouncing baby son. Tora did not know how lucky he was in having her and that fine little boy.

The door opened, and Tora walked in. His clothes were in tatters and his face and hands were an angry, sooty red. Gray ashes covered his hair, making him look prematurely old.

‘What happened to you?’ Akitada demanded. ‘Where’ve you been all night?’

Tora’s eyes were red-rimmed. He made a choking sound and swallowed. ‘There was a fire,’ he rasped.

Akitada looked him over. He did not like the labored breathing or the dazed look in Tora’s eyes. ‘Are you hurt?’