Shigeno grinned. “We’re free. All we need is a boat.”
Tora stared back. “A boat? Is that all?”
“Well, we should have held on to our weapons. Those knives would have come in handy.”
“We have no boat and we no longer have anyone to sail it,” Tora reminded him. “I guess the others didn’t make it.”
“Wrong. Ito didn’t make it. Takeshi’s looking for a boat.”
“Which one’s he?”
“The one that prayed.”
“You’re kidding.”
Shigeno chuckled. “Goes to show, doesn’t it?”
Tora shook his head. “He was good with a knife.”
“Sailors use those long knives all the time. They can do some damage to thick hemp ropes as well as to people’s bodies.” He regarded his arm with a frown. “Well, let’s move on up the coast. There’s nothing for us to do here.”
The broken wreckage and the few-very few-figures on the distant beach seemed a lifetime away. The survivors were beginning to pick through the flotsam, perhaps searching for their friends.
“Terrible!” muttered Tora, shaking his head.
“You’re a softy.” Shigeno chuckled. The big man’s face wore a broad, happy smile, his teeth glinting from his bushy beard. At Tora’s expression, his mouth opened even wider and he laughed out loud.
Tora clamped his hand over the other man’s mouth. “Are you mad? Do you want them to hear you?”
Shigeno stopped laughing and nodded. Tora removed his hand. “How can you laugh?”
“Because I’m alive, Tora. Because I’m filled with joy to be alive to see the beautiful world around me. How can I not laugh?”
The beautiful world was cold, gray, and windy. The sea looked choppy, and a few rain drops struck their faces.
Tora shivered. “Postpone your happy dance,” he said sourly. “We’re still in trouble.”
“You’re right, but I can’t help how I feel. Let’s go then and find Takeshi.”
They started walking along the shore, away from the wreck. It was hard going, because the terrain was rocky and took them up and down, forcing them to trudge inland to skirt small bays and offering little but desolate land with occasional glimpses of the slate-gay sea.
Whenever they rested, Tora asked questions.
“Do you know this place?”
“No.”
“Any idea where they keep the convicts?”
“Near the mine, I’d think.”
“Where is it?”
“Don’t know.”
It was not helpful. And there was no sign of Takeshi who might have been a better source of information. Dusk fell as they approached the sea again. Seagulls circled above, their harsh cries as inhospitable as the weather and the land. Tora was exhausted, and Shigeno had slowed down and stopped often to rest. When they reached a small mossy knoll, Tora suggested a rest. Shigeno nodded and collapsed on a rock.
For a while neither spoke. The seagulls came to look them over, screaming their disappointment at not finding food, and swooped away again.
“This place is uninhabited,” Tora said wearily. “I wish I had something to eat. It’s been at least a day, maybe two.”
“I wish we had some water,” said Shigeno.
They fell silent again. Tora shivered and looked at his companion. If he did not have that scruffy beard and tousled hair, Shigeno might be good-looking. His remaining clothes were mere rags by now, but he was slender, muscular, and not much older than Tora. More interesting were other aspects, not visible to the naked eye. Shigeno was no illiterate thug. He almost seemed wise at times, and his speech was that of an educated man. In addition, he was a formidable fighter and had shown great courage on the ship. How could such a man end up a convict?
But Shigeno had his own doubts about Tora also. He broke the silence first. “Was it the truth that you used to work for a governor?”
Tora smiled. “I still do. I wonder what he’ll have to say about all this.” He paused. “Not just any governor either. I work for Sugawara Akitada, the new governor of Chikuzen province. He’s a famous man in the capital for solving crimes.” He paused again. “I help him,” he added modestly.
“So what happened?”
“We-ell, we barely got to Kyushu, and all hell broke loose. The former governor had been recalled, you see. He left without paying his people. They stole everything they could lay their hands on, and we found an empty tribunal. That bastard Okata refused to investigate, and my master dismissed him.”
Shigeno’s eyes widened. He whistled softly. “I like it so far. Go on.”
“Turns out the former governor never reached home, and we had an investigation on our hands to see what happened to him. I was making some progress with that when Okata and his hired thugs jumped me, beat me up, and left me trussed up like an animal. Turns out that bastard Okata told them to ship me to Tsushima. And that’s how we met.”
“Okata did this just to get back at the new governor?”
Tora pursed his lips. “Well, not quite. I was the one who reported his mishandling of an investigation and his methods. It was personal all right.”
Shigeno laughed and stretched out a hand. “Shake, brother. I’m one of the ones who suffered from his methods.”
They shook hands, and Tora said, “All right. Your turn. What did you do?”
Shigeno’s smile disappeared. “I killed a man, was tried, and sentenced. I’m a convict by rights. The story doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me.”
Shigeno gave him a searching look. “It’s complicated.”
“We have time.”
Shigeno turned his face away. “I don’t like to remember. It’s easier to be no one.”
“I doubt it. How can you wash away the past? It lives with you.”
Shigeno lowered his hands. “You’re right. Since you insist, I grew up in Osumi province. My father had land there, quite a lot of land, but it was poor, so we were poor. There were my father, my mother, my sister, and me. Because we were poor, another man offered my father money for some acres in the mountains. My father refused to sell. It was rough land. Nothing would grow there, but my father and I liked to hunt in the mountains. It was beautiful. You could see for miles.” Shigeno’s eyes misted over as he looked out over the sea.
“What happened?” Tora urged.
“We discovered some men digging on our mountain and sent them away. My father thought they must be searching for silver or gold. Then the same man came to us again. This time he claimed the land belonged to him. Our mountain is on the border between Osumi and Higo. The man was the district prefect on the Higo side. The case went to Dazaifu to be resolved by the assistant governor general. We won. Then, within a month, my father was attacked on the road and left for dead. When he didn’t come home, I went to look for him. He was barely alive and told me the men who attacked him had worn the prefect’s colors. He died in my arms. I carried him home and left immediately for the prefect’s house. There, I killed him in front of his family. I was arrested, tried, sentenced to exile, and our land was confiscated by the government. So, there you have it.”
Tora shook his head. It wasn’t all that rare an occurrence, he thought. Everywhere in the country such things happened, and men in power always ended up getting what they wanted. “I’m sorry,” he muttered. “Was there silver in your mountain?”
“How should I know? I never got to see my home again. I spent months in the prison in Dazaifu until they moved me to Hakata for transport to Tsushima.”
Silence fell.
Shigeno frowned. “I wonder,” he said and stood up to look around. “I don’t think we were at sea long enough to reach Tsushima. This might be some other island. Ikishima maybe.”
“So we’re lost?”
“Well, yes, but we may be much closer to Kyushu than we thought.”
Tora brightened. “Come, let’s walk again. There must be some fishing village on the coast. We can borrow a boat. And once we get home, I’ll have my master look into your case.”