“I am.” Slim and muscular, the young man wore the traditional garb of a woodsman. Like Hitomaro, he had a short beard and mustache but his hair was long and loose. He came closer and looked down at Hitomaro. “I doubt it was the dumplings,” he said. “Those men were set on giving you a beating, maybe even killing you. It was hard to get their attention.” He smiled, his teeth very white against the brown skin.
Hitomaro smiled back, painfully since his lip was split and swollen. “No, it wasn’t the dumplings. You’re the one who brought me here?” he asked. “Thanks, friend. I won’t forget the favor.How did you manage it by yourself?”
“Oh, I was not alone.” Kaoru smiled again, and, reaching for a large, beautifully made bow, said, “Meet my assistant, Dragon Flash.” He whistled softly, “And my best friend, White Bear.”A large, shaggy white dog appeared. The dog leaned against the woodsman’s leg and looked down at Hitomaro. Yawning largely, he revealed a set of ferocious teeth, then let his tongue loll out to give Hitomaro a friendly greeting.
“You managed to incapacitate two of them. I wounded four,” the woodsman said. “White Bear savaged the legs and buttocks of four more, and the rest decided to run for it, carrying offtheir wounded. There were twelve altogether, I think.”
“You have made a bad enemy,”remarked the old man to Hitomaro, as he came to change the compress on his head. “Perhaps you would rather not tell us your name under the circumstances.You are among friends here. We know all about keeping secrets and we often give refuge to those in trouble with the authorities.”
“The authorities?” Hitomaro looked shocked. “Good heavens! Those bastards were scum. They were the hiredthugs of a fellow called Sunada. We had a small disagreement earlier in the dayafter one of them roughed up a friend of a friend.”
The old man sighed. “Sunada’smen? In this place, authority is not always in official hands, so watch your self, my son.” Turning to Yasuko, he said, “He will stay here overnight. A very light supper, and a solid breakfast, and he should do well enough. Now I must check on my other patient.”
“No!” Hitomaro began toscramble up again, but the white-beard placed a surprisingly strong hand against his chest and forced him back. “You don’t understand,” Hitomaro pleaded. “I have to return to the city tonight. I’m meeting a friend.”
“Why?” Just that word, but the inflection expressed surprise rather than curiosity, as if in the larger scheme of things nothing mattered but Hitomaro’s health.
“Well…” Hitomaro hedged, thensaid, “Never mind.”
The old man nodded. “You will stay.” His tone left no room for argument.
Yasuko accompanied the healer to the door and bade him farewell with many deep bows. When she returned,Hitomaro said, “You have strange doctors here. He was a yamabushi, wasn’the?”
She smiled. “Not just any yamabushi. The master himself. He lives in the mountains in a cave and only visits to tend the sick and dying. He’s a great man, a saint.”
“I admit that compress of his is very soothing. Who’s his other patient?”
“Oh, that one!” She sniffed. “An army deserter came here to hide. He showed his gratitude by raping one of our girls.There was a fight after that. We should’ve known from his broken teeth that he was bully. I think someone broke his arm.”
“Why do you hide criminals?”
“They aren’t always criminals.Some just don’t get along with the authorities. The master insists we take in anyone who’s in trouble. He says in a world without justice, every man deserves a second chance. It’s a rule that can’t be broken. Most of those who came to us have been grateful. I’ll get your dinner now.”
After she left, an old crone sidled up and sat down next to Hitomaro. She stared fixedly at his bandaged head and muttered under her breath.
Her glittering eyes made him nervous. “What’s that, Grandmother?” he asked.
Suddenly she bent over him soclosely that he flinched away from her foul breath. “Are you afraid, myhandsome lord?” She cackled crazily, rocking back and forth. “Blood. Red bloodand white snow. Ah, the pretty flower and the pretty bud.” She leaned over him again. A thin thread of saliva drooled from her toothless gums. She hissed, “The dead will have their due, my lord. Where will you hide then? In your grave?”She doubled over with a wild shriek of laughter.
“Quiet, Grandmother!” Kaorureached down and helped her up. “Time for your supper and bed.”
The crone clung to him, whimpering now. “Make him go away. Make him go away.” Kaoru made soothing noises and tookher to the far corner of the house, where he bedded her down and gently wrappeda blanket around her. Yasuko took her a bowl of food, and Kaoru returned toHitomaro.
“Grandmother is a shamaness,”he said. “Such women suffer great mental strain in their work. She’s beenhaving spells of confusion for the past year, and today has been an especiallybad day for her. I hope you will forgive her.”
“Of course, but what the devil was she talking about? What blood? Which dead?”
“She doesn’t know what she issaying. She’s old and weak and gets confused.”
Hitomaro said nothing. He hadbegun to wonder why this outcast woodcutter spoke like an educated man.
Yasuko brought a bamboo traywith fragrant pink chunks of fish nestled in green cabbage leaves. “She’s calm now,” she told Kaoru. “The fit started when she heard someone talk about theold lord’s death. I put your food next to her bed, Kaoru. Please sit with herfor a little.” Turning to Hitomaro, she said, “I promised you salmon, and here it is.” She knelt beside him and selected a tempting piece with the chopsticks.Proffering it, she added, “You mustn’t be greedy though! The master said you are to eat lightly, and I mean to make sure you behave.”
She looked so charming with her face rosy in the firelight, that a man might well forget his manners. Hitomaro enjoyed the experience of being fed, and not only because the fish was delicious and he was hungry. He swallowed and thanked her, then asked, “Why would your grandmother be upset by old Uesugi’s death?”
“Otakushi is Kaoru’sgrandmother. She used to visit Takata manor just as her mother did before her.They both had the gift of foretelling the future. It’s dangerous work. Otakushi’s mother once almost lost her life. She foretold that one of the lord’s son swould kill his brother.”
Kaoru appeared beside her, eyes blazing with anger. “Yasuko. Come.”
She looked up, startled.Gathering the tray with shaking hands, she told Hitomaro, “You must rest now,”and scurried away.
SEVEN
FLUTE PLAY
In the gray predawn hour of the following morning, Akitada sat hunched over his desk, reading documents from the provincial archives. From time to time his eyes moved to a twist of paper and a scrap with some childish scrawls on it,and he muttered to himself.
Hamaya put his head in the door. “Did you wish for anything, your Excellency?”
“No, no! Just. . . you might glance outside and see if either of my lieutenants is about.”
Hamaya disappeared. Akitada shivered, took a sip from his teacup and made a face. The tea was cold already,and no wonder in this chilly place. If he could only shake this trouble in hisbelly, he might have more energy, ideas, solutions. The gods knew he needed them.Neither Tora nor Hitomaro had seen fit to make their reports last night asinstructed. He had waited for hours. When he had finally gone to the room heshared with his wife, she had been fast asleep. Not wanting to disturb her, hehad ended up spending the night in his office, hardly closing an eye, chilledto the bone by the icy drafts coming from the doors and through the walls.
Then, this morning, on hisdesk, he had found the mysterious twist of paper on top of one of Tora’s illegible notes. The paper contained some mud-colored bits smelling vaguely of dried grass and resembling rabbit dung.