I Parker: The Masuda Affair

When he found an opening that was just wide enough, Akitada squeezed through, shedding his under robe in the process. He emerged outside half-naked, dirty and bloody, and staggered to his feet. The pavilion was a leaning pile of rubble. Flames engulfed its north side and already licked eagerly at the near corner.

Sadanori was trapped.

Through the thick smoke, Akitada climbed on to the pile to see if he could reach Sadanori from above, but it would take more than one man to lift the heavy timbers, and the fire was getting very close.

Cradling his painful arm, he set off towards the main house at a limping trot. There was a fire here also, but he saw people milling about: servants, and a small huddle of colorfully robed ladies.

‘Ho!’ he shouted. ‘Help! Over here. Your master’s caught under the pavilion.’

They heard him and came. They tried their best, as Akitada stood by and directed their efforts. Some formed a chain to the lake and passed leather buckets of water up. The fire subsided in hissing steam.

Eventually, Sadanori was found. He was dead. It was not clear if he had died of suffocation from the smoke, been crushed, or had slowly bled to death. Akitada clambered on to the ruins and looked down at his corpse. He lay in a pool of blood from a deep wound in his upper leg. Everything considered, he looked quite peaceful. Perhaps he had been dying even as they spoke. Loss of blood made people light-headed, and Akitada remembered that Sadanori had sounded strangely calm. His last words had been of Peony.

Akitada limped home as quickly as he could, frantic with worry. There were many fires in the city. In the west, the evening sun was setting against a lurid sky. Clouds of thick gray smoke turned its light to a copper glow. The scene was as frightening as any Akitada had known.

And everywhere he heard cries and shouts as people dealt with their individual disasters and tragedies. Earthen walls that once had hidden the mansions of the powerful had tumbled down and revealed leaning roofs and fallen galleries. Fine horses ran free in the streets, terrifying people who had fled their homes. A wailing woman came towards him with a child in her arms. The child looked dead. A monk wandered aimlessly, mumbling, ‘Namu Amida butsu – Namu Amida butsu,’ over and over again.

When Akitada reached his house, he saw that the outer wall had fallen here also, but the rest still stood. Tora and Genba had brought the horses out and tied them to a pine tree. Now the two men were drawing water from the well. Tora dropped his bucket back into the well when he saw the half-naked, bloodied appearance of his master.

‘Amida,’ he cried, ‘Are you all right, sir?’

‘Yes. What about the others?’

‘All safe. Trouble made such a racket that everyone came out to see what was happening. So when it started, they just ran down from the veranda. Your lady and the others are in the garden. We thought it was safer there.’

‘Thank heaven.’ Akitada looked around dazedly, but was suddenly lighthearted. ‘And give my thanks to your dog.’

Genba asked, ‘What happened to you, sir? You look terrible.’

Akitada laughed. ‘Never mind. We’re alive.’ His heart full with happiness, he hobbled into the garden, where he was greeted with cries of concern. Seimei inspected him and went for his medicine box.

Akitada smiled at his wife. ‘Thank heaven. I had such fears.’ Over her shoulder, he saw the boy sitting in the grass and he remembered their son, but even that memory was bearable. He was filled with such gratitude and hope. ‘How did Nori fare?’

She chuckled. ‘Very well. He thought it was a game.’

Seimei returned to treat his wounds. When Tora and Genba joined them also, Akitada told them what had happened and about Sadanori’s confession and his death. ‘The boy is young Masuda’s son. We must return him, or at least make the attempt. I don’t think he will be very welcome there.’

‘No.’ Tamako had tears in her eyes. ‘You cannot be so indifferent as to abandon him again to the cruelty of others?’

‘We have no choice, Tamako.’

‘But if they don’t want him?’ she murmured.

‘If they don’t want him, I shall do my best for the boy.’

Perhaps she guessed how his feelings for the boy had changed. She pleaded, ‘He’s so small and has been hurt so badly.’

‘The law demands that lost children be returned to their parents or relatives. But if it will make you feel better, you can come along. If no one in the Masuda household offers the child a home, we will bring him back with us.’

She said earnestly, ‘You have always taken on the lost and wretched. First Tora, and later Genba and Hitomaro. Then our very ill-tempered cook. And now Hanae and Trouble.’ She paused. ‘And me, too.’

‘No, not you. You found me, and I, fool that I was, almost lost you.’

Akitada was up early the next day to inspect the damage to the house. Old as it was, it had withstood the earthquake well. The stable, often patched, needed repairs, and there was the collapsed wall. He felt very lucky.

The old carpenter wandered in with his satchel of tools. ‘Ah,’ he said, contentedly looking around, ‘I thought Your Honor would need me.’

‘I’m very glad to see you, but surely today you can find work anywhere,’ said Akitada.

‘Oh, they’re clamoring all right. Sent to my house last night, and then tried to hire me on my way here. And, for that matter, my own roof has fallen down, but I said to myself, “Go to him who helped you when you needed work,” and here I am.’ He gave Akitada a toothless grin.

‘You are an honorable man,’ Akitada said, his faith in human nature restored.

Life returned to normal – except for the visit from the monk.

Tora answered the knock at the gate to the barefooted figure in the drab gown, basket hat, and staff. He snapped, ‘What do you want?’

The monk flinched when he recognized him, but said in a steady voice, ‘I came to see your master.’

‘Take off that hat.’

The monk sighed and removed the basket.

‘Ha! I thought it was you. You’d better explain, that’s all I can say.’

‘I intend to.’ The young monk’s eyes narrowed. ‘Did you have anything to do with the murder of the woman they called Little Abbess?’

‘I was going to ask you the same thing.’

The monk gave a bitter laugh. ‘She was a friend. I only wanted information.’

‘So you say. What information?’

‘I really must speak to your master. I came to get my nephew.’

‘Your nephew?’

‘The boy your master found in Otsu. I’ve been trying to find out what happened to my sister and her son and have only now traced the boy here.’

Tora wrestled with his surprise. It might be a lie, or it might be the truth, but their struggle for the boy had been too hard to give him up to this beggar monk. He glowered. ‘You’d better leave or I’ll make you sorry you ever bothered us.’

The monk rolled up his sleeves. ‘I’ll fight for what is mine.’

Akitada interrupted them. ‘What’s going on here, Tora?’

‘He’s the monk I told you about,’ Tora said angrily. ‘He says he wants his “nephew”.’

Akitada nodded. ‘Yes. I’ve been expecting him. Bring him in.’ He turned and went back inside.

Tora muttered, ‘Now what?’ He looked at the monk. ‘Does the master know you?’

The monk shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Oh, well, if you’re here on legitimate business, sorry,’ Tora said ungraciously and led the way to his master’s study.

The monk’s eyes were watchful and his expression guarded. ‘I’m Shinyo,’ he said. He fished some tattered papers from his robe. ‘My travel permit, signed by my abbot, and letters of introduction to monasteries near the capital.’ Akitada examined them briefly before returning them. The monk said, ‘I’m told you have a homeless child in your care.’