I Parker - The Fires of the Gods

At this point, things got tricky. Because of the darkness, he now had to work by touch and memory. He pictured the wide cross-beams in his mind and squeezed through the opening, letting his bare feet dangle down until they found the beam. He felt around with his toes and stood up.

Only the fact that Jirokichi was as small and slight as a child of ten permitted such work. A larger man would not have been able to fit through the roof opening and would have been too heavy to traverse the tops of flimsy interior walls.

By now his eyes could make out a few things, and he walked along the wide beam to the opposite side of the house. Jirokichi never suffered from vertigo. He had apprenticed with one of the rope walkers in the market when he was a boy, but given up the profession as too uncertain a year later.

The lower part of the house was open to the roof, and only the eave chambers were enclosed by walls. The center of the house was the common room. Jirokichi reached a place above the merchant’s office via one of the cross-beams. There he sat down and fished a key from the secret pocket Hoshina had sewn into his pant leg.

This was one of several thin gadgets fashioned of hard steel by a clever smith who believed that Jirokichi traded in used furniture and needed to open chests where the owner had lost the key. This particular ‘key’ fit locks like the ones on merchants’ money chests.

He prepared to drop down to the floor when a loud pounding made him freeze in place. He listened.

The sound was too muffled to have come from the front of the house, but it was certainly loud enough to wake the owner.

There it was again. And now he heard other sounds, and a light sprang up in one of the eave rooms. The merchant had woken and was muttering angrily.

Jirokichi briefly considered making his way back to the roof opening, but the light would catch his moving figure, and the merchant might look up and see him. The main support beams were visible from most of the rooms below. Instead of risking capture, he scooted as far as possible into the dark corner where the roof descended and two beams crossed. There he cowered and waited.

The merchant’s heavy steps receded. Somewhere in the back of the house, a wooden bar slid back and a door opened. Jirokichi heard excited male voices and the merchant’s angry growl. Then the door slammed, the bar fell into place, and more steps returned. The merchant was bringing visitors into the common room.

When they appeared, lit eerily by the flickering light of the merchant’s oil lamp, Jirokichi’s heart skipped a beat. He recognized the two scruffy young louts instantly. They were the ones that had maltreated him so brutally. One of them was the ugly bastard with the knife scar on his cheek. The other was the thin one with the hungry look. He had a black eye.

They looked around curiously, but seemed polite and deferential. Their presence here surprised Jirokichi. Wealthy merchants like the one below did not associate with such scum. Besides, he would have expected them to use their knives to rob the older man.

Instead of being suspicious, the merchant merely looked angry. He snapped, ‘Wait here,’ then turned his back on them and padded off towards his office. Jirokichi wondered at that, and he wondered even more that they obeyed meekly.

The merchant now stood directly below him. Jirokichi drew in his arms and legs as the light crept towards his crossed beams. Oblivious of the thief cowering above him, the man pulled out a bunch of keys on a string he wore around his neck and unlocked the money chest.

When he lifted the lid, Jirokichi clamped a hand over his mouth to keep from gasping at the size of the treasure. Gold and silver in loose coins rose in piles, and bundles of bulging bags were stacked beside the piles. Golden ingots filled the sides, and more lay underneath the coins and bags. Jirokichi had never seen so much gold in one place.

He knew from the neighbors that the merchant was lending money at high interest, but even that did not explain such wealth. Even as his mouth watered at the sight, he knew that there was far too much for a small man like himself to carry away.

He considered various desperate methods of raising heavy weights up to the roof and lowering them outside. All proved impracticable. He watched in misery as the merchant counted out some gold coins, then closed and locked the chest.

Jirokichi tried to console himself with the thought that even the amount of gold he could comfortably carry offered a rich reward for his trouble. Soon the merchant would get rid of the youths and go back to bed, leaving Jirokichi to reap the fruits of his labors.

The merchant handed the gold to the scar-faced youth. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘that should take care of the next one. It’s more than you deserve. You’ve been getting careless. Two people dead already. Stay away from mat makers and paper merchants.’

The youth took the gold, but he blustered a little. ‘It wasn’t our fault. We made sure to wake up the guy. Who knew about the old one in the back?’

‘You should’ve known better. And if you’re seen again, you’ll be useless. That’s when you’ll disappear permanently.’

The rat saw the fear in their faces as they slunk off without another word. The merchant followed them out, then closed and barred his back door and returned to his sleeping quarters. The light went out.

Jirokichi stayed in his cramped position for a long time, even after he could hear the merchant snoring again. He thought about what he had heard. The young punks weren’t the only ones who were scared. He eyed the money chest longingly and clutched the key in his sweaty hand. After a while, he started shivering. Not even the immense treasure below could tempt him to steal from this man. If he were caught here tonight, he would be a dead man, and if he were merely suspected of having been here, he would be hunted down. When he finally got up to leave, he still trembled so much that he almost slipped off the beam on his way back to the exit hole.

Outside, on his way down the steep roof, he had to force himself to move carefully, but when he gained solid ground, he sped away as if all the devils of hell were after him.

The new closeness Akitada had found in Tamako’s arms was both deeply moving and upsetting to him. She was clearly feeling better but, far from being reassured, he now realized how profoundly her loss would affect him. And that thought kept him in an almost continuous panic – a panic that was always worst in the mornings when he left her bed.

The morning after Akitada’s meeting with Abbot Shokan, Akitada was once again pondering the thin line between happiness and despair, when an unsmiling Superintendent Kobe arrived. He was shown into Akitada’s study by Tora, who withdrew again quickly.

In spite of a sinking feeling that he would not like what Kobe had to say, Akitada offered a jovial greeting: ‘Good morning, my friend. You’re out and about early, but it’s always a pleasure to see you.’ When Kobe did not respond to this and continued to glower, he asked, ‘Is something amiss?’

‘You might say so.’ Kobe sat down and glanced around the room, then seemed to remember his manners. ‘I hope all is well with your lady?’

When he had left her, Tamako had been curled up under the quilt and smiling sleepily up at him. Akitada, putting aside his perverse fears, said, ‘Thank you. She is feeling much better.’

‘I’m very glad to hear it,’ Kobe said stiffly and fell silent.

‘Will you take a cup of wine?’

‘No.’

This blunt refusal was an unpleasant surprise. Akitada tried to ignore it. ‘How may I be of assistance, then? Have there been more disturbances in the city?’