Together they staggered back to the clearing. Noami was conscious and moaning. He glared balefully when he saw them. “Untie me this instant!” he shrieked. “You’ve broken my shoulder. I may never be able to paint again!”
“Good!” remarked Akitada, sinking weakly on the upturned basket. “Make sure, Tora, that he cannot escape before the police get here.”
Tora glanced at the rope dangling from the tree, grinned, and jerked Noami to his feet. The painter screamed. Tora carried him to the tree, attached the rope to his bound wrists, and pulled it taut. The painter screamed again and fainted. His weight caused him to flop forward.
“I wrenched his shoulder out of the socket earlier,” Tora explained with great satisfaction. “When he comes to, he won’t try to move if he can help it.”
Akitada grimaced. “Let him down enough so his feet support his weight,” he said.
Tora obliged, but the unconscious man still drooped forward. Akitada got up from his basket. “Here, set him on this and then let’s go.” As Tora adjusted the unconscious Noami, Akitada flexed his arms and legs experimentally to get some circulation and warmth back into his muscles. But he was too weak and in too much pain and would have fallen if Tora had not caught him in his arms.
Subsequent events were a haze in Akitada’s mind. When they emerged from Noami’s gate, they encountered the giant warden and Genba. Reassured by them that Yori was home safe, Akitada felt his knees buckle under him. He was placed on a litter and whisked home.
His trials, however, were far from over. Fussed over by a white-faced Tamako, he was stripped and immersed in lukewarm water by Genba and Seimei, an experience which turned out to be excruciatingly painful to his nearly frozen flesh. Later Seimei treated his lacerated wrists by applying ointments and herbal packs, which he changed every few hours. Akitada’s hands began to swell and burn. The skin cracked in places and oozed blood.
In spite of this, the satisfaction of knowing Yori was safe was enough in itself, and after drinking a sleeping draught, Akitada asked no questions and slept.
But the exposure during the freezing night had undermined his strong constitution, and his sleep turned into a virulent fever filled with hallucinatory images from the hell screen.
He tossed between nightmare and waking for six days and nights. Finally, on the seventh day, exactly a week after his escape, he woke up clearheaded and hungry. His eyes fell on his sister. Yoshiko sat by his bedside, quietly sewing some child’s garment, no doubt Yori’s. Memory returned abruptly, and he was filled with an immense gratitude that both he and his son were alive, that he might see him grow up after all, play games with him, and laugh at his childish antics together with Tamako.
He longed for Tamako, but perhaps she had gone to rest. He had given them all too much trouble. Yoshiko looked drawn and tired, quite as pale and worn as she had been when he had first seen her on his return from the north. He lay comfortably warm in his silken bedding—how different from that hellish night in Noami’s garden—and wondered if he had done the right thing, forbidding his sister her last chance for happiness. It struck him now that he owed his own happy family to her, for it was Yoshiko who had brought him Tamako.
If only that fellow Kojiro could be cleared of the murder charge. He was innocent, and a much better—and wealthier— man than Akitada had expected. Well, he must see what he could do for him as soon as he was up and about again. He cleared his throat.
Yoshiko’s head shot up. “Akitada?” She looked at him anxiously. “You are awake?”
Silly question. Akitada meant to say yes, but managed only a croak.
“Don’t try to talk,” she cried, and put her sewing by to reach for a teapot on the brazier at her side. She poured a cup and supported his head as he drank.
He was very thirsty and emptied the cup.
“More?”
He nodded and she gave him another cup.
“Thank you,” he managed to say after that. “Where is Tamako?”
“Playing with Yori in his room. Shall I fetch them?”
He felt a little hurt that Tamako had left him, but shook his head. “Later.”
“How are you feeling, Elder Brother?”
He managed a lopsided grin. “Hungry. How’s Tora’s head?”
She got up. “Fine. You know Tora. He recovers quickly. He and Genba have been spending most of their time with Miss Plumblossom and the young actress. If you think you will be all right by yourself for a few minutes, I will go heat some rice gruel in the kitchen.”
Akitada nodded and she left. Just as well, for he did not relish the idea of having her company for a trip to the privy. Testing his limbs, he found them pain-free but strangely languid. He pushed the covers back and saw the white silk bandages about his wrists. His hands were no longer swollen, but stiff and covered with scabs. Getting to his feet was easier than he thought, but he had to catch hold of a screen when he took his first step. Fortunately, his head cleared and he negotiated the hallway and gallery to the privy without incident.
Feeling better when he emerged, he decided to find his wife and son.
They were, as Yoshiko had said, in the boy’s room, kneeling over some papers and busy with brush and ink.
This brought back memories of Noami’s lessons and momentarily nauseated him. He grabbed hold of the open doorway. Tamako looked up.
“Akitada!” She was on her feet and, flinging her silk skirts aside, rushed to him to put her arms around his waist.
“A fine greeting for your husband, madam,” he teased. “Have you been taking lessons in the Willow Quarter?”
She immediately dropped her arms and flushed scarlet. Bowing primly, she said, “Forgive my immodesty, please. I thought you were going to fall and… and …”
Akitada reached out and pulled her into his arms, burying his face in her soft, sweet-smelling hair. “You may take me into your arms anytime, my wife,” he murmured.
“I have missed you,” she whispered.
Feeling her pliant body press against his, he took a ragged breath and reached for her sash.
Yoshiko appeared in the corridor, carrying a small footed tray with a steaming bowl on it. “Oh,” she cried, “so here you are. You should not have tried to get up so soon after having been in a fever for a whole week.”
Akitada released his wife reluctantly. “A week?” he asked, flabbergasted.
The women nodded and half pushed, half drew him into the room to sit on a pillow. Wrapping him into Yori’s quilts, they made him eat his gruel. He smiled at Yori between sips, wondering why the boy was so quiet. He tried to talk to him, to ask questions about what had happened, but the women would not permit it until he had emptied the bowl.
The boy sat wide-eyed, watching his father finish. Then he held up a sheet of paper. It bore the wobbly and smudged character for “A Thousand Years.”
A New Year’s wish. Of course, it was almost that time. Akitada nodded and smiled. “A remarkably fine sign, and very appropriate.”
“Do you really like it, Father?” Yori whispered, perhaps out of respect for his father’s condition. “It’s Chinese for having a long life and good fortune in the coming year. Mother showed me how to write it.”
Tamako read and wrote Chinese because her father, a professor at the Imperial University, had taught her as if she had been a son.
Putting the empty bowl aside, Akitada asked, “Do you remember the night at the painter’s house?”
Yori nodded. “You sent me home, but I got lost. I asked a man to show me the way. I said, ‘Take me to the Sugawara mansion!’ He was quite rude and laughed at me, so I stomped on his foot and told him I would have him beaten if he did not obey instantly. He grabbed me by the arm and shook me, saying he would wring my neck like a chicken, but a huge giant appeared and snatched me away. The giant was bigger than Genba, but very dirty. He took me to his hut and gave me soup. He did not laugh when I told him to take me home, but he was not terribly polite and he did not obey me. I went to sleep then.”