Another one who talked to birds.
Akitada watched as the servant loosened the knot on the bag and swung it. An arc of golden grain flew out and spread in a shower of kernels across the ground. In an instant, the air was full of feathered bodies and fluttering wings.
Akitada and the old man stood as hundreds of birds landed and scuttled about, chirping and pecking. More and more arrived, alerted by some secret code of their own, until the ground around them was covered with small feathered bodies in all colors and shapes. Then they were done and flew away again in another rush of wings.
Akitada was enchanted.
The old man folded the empty cloth. ‘The last of the rice,’ he said mournfully. ‘In his honor.’
‘But what will you eat now?’
‘Beans.’
He went back to whatever he had been doing, and Akitada looked after him, astonished that this man had thought it more important to honor his master than to fill his own belly. He had been wrong to suspect the man. This also was great loyalty and filled him with sadness. With a sigh, he returned to his work.
The medical notebooks turned out to be nearly incomprehensible. The doctor’s brush strokes were often careless, and worse, he used a form of abbreviated language that meant that Akitada could only make out a few sentences here and there. Part of the problem was the medical vocabulary. Of course, the notebooks might be deciphered by another medical man, but Akitada wanted to locate pertinent material on his own.
It took him well past midday to make out Inabe’s method of dating, and then another while to find the two notebooks that covered the dates of the two deaths. By that time, his stomach growled, his head ached, and his eyes no longer focused. He decided to stroll to the market to get a bite to eat.
The old man had disappeared. Akitada wondered if he was eating his meager meal of beans in some dark corner. The thought made him feel guilty. He decided that he could manage quite well with one bowl of noodles, purchased from a stand. But the noodles were surprisingly tasty and so he ate a second. After months with a listless appetite, he was beginning to take pleasure in food again. This also filled him with guilt. It seemed to him that it signified an end to his grief for Yori. He bought a few rice cakes for the doctor’s servant and chose to go back past Mrs Yozaemon’s.
The boy was outside. Even better, he was playing with the red top. Akitada smiled to see him spin the toy with considerable skill. He was afraid of another rejection and just watched the child from a distance. He was a handsome boy for all his thinness, and the old desire to hold a child in his arms again, to hear him laugh, to feel small arms hugging his neck, was back. He turned to leave.
At the doctor’s house, the old servant accepted the rice cakes with many bows and mumbled thanks, and Akitada returned to his work with a heavy heart and scant interest. He had barely started skimming the entries that dealt with the first smallpox cases when the old man appeared at the open door. He carried two ripe plums on a small footed tray, presenting them to Akitada with a bow.
‘Late ones. Very sweet.’ His eyes strayed towards the rotting plums his master had not lived to eat. ‘Wasps,’ he said worriedly, nodding towards them.
Akitada thanked him and said, ‘There are worse things than wasps. Warden Takechi should be back later. We will ask him when you can clean this room.’ When the old man still stood, looking around sadly, he asked, ‘What are your plans now?’
‘Plans?’
‘I mean if the doctor’s nephew decides to sell this place.’
‘Oh, he’ll sell it.’
‘How do you know?’
‘What the master said. Merchants want gold.’
‘Merchants?’ The old man abbreviated speech as his master had abbreviated his journal entries. Some people became garrulous when they were much alone. Apparently not these two.
‘The master’s family. He didn’t like them.’
‘But I’m told he left this property to his nephew.’
‘Who else?’
To the old man’s mind, family, no matter how unpleasant, came first. Akitada wondered if the property, even in its ruined state, might present a motive for a greedy man. ‘The nephew has visited here?’
‘Once.’
‘When was that?’
‘After the harvest. Spent the night.’ The old man made a face. ‘Quarreled and left.’
‘They quarreled? What about?’
‘Don’t know. The master said, “Good riddance.’”
Akitada sampled a plum. It was delicious. Perhaps he should plant another plum tree. The one in the south garden was too old to bear fruit. This reminded him again of Tamako’s wisteria and other garden matters. He glanced up at the dried herbs. ‘Where did your master get his herbs?’
‘The garden. The monks. And the pharmacist.’
‘There is a herb garden? Where?’
The old man took him. Down a narrow path through the shrubbery, there was a small clearing of cultivated land. A spade lay beside a newly-dug section. The old man said, ‘Time to split the rhubarb.’
‘Rhubarb?’ Akitada was beginning to understand the way his mind worked. He had fed the birds all the rice, and now he was digging the herb garden. He was showing his respect to the dead man.
‘ Daiou root. For constipation,’ said his companion.
‘Are any of these plants poisonous? Like warabi, for example?’
The old man gave him a pitying look. ‘Warabi ’s not medicine. Doctors heal.’
True enough. Akitada was hunting another murderer altogether. He thanked the old man and returned to his notebooks.
When he read the entry for Peony, he was disappointed and baffled. She was identified only as ‘drowned woman’. The doctor had noted a bruise on her left temple and written ‘not serious’ next to it. And then came the puzzling part, for he had written in the margin, ‘There is no end to my guilt.’ What guilt?
Akitada put the notebook aside and reached for the one that covered the previous year. But no amount of searching produced an entry for the Masuda heir. It was as if his death had never happened, and yet Inabe had treated the young man. He went through the whole notebook again. There was not only no reference to a patient with the flux at the time, but also the pertinent days did not exist in the notebook. He saw no obvious break in the note-taking, no unfinished sentences, but he checked to see if pages had been removed. If so, it had been done so carefully that there was no trace of it.
EIGHTEEN
After Tora left Little Abbess he made straight for Sadanori’s mansion. As before, the gate stood open, but today no bearers delivered lumber and no carriage waited. At the gate stood one of the monks with a basket hat. When he saw Tora, he placed his wooden begging bowl on the ground between his bare feet and started to play softly on a long, straight bamboo flute. He was not playing very well.
Tora paused to dig out a couple of coppers and drop them in the bowl. The monk lowered his flute and bowed. ‘May Amida bless you.’
‘Your first visit to the capital?’ asked Tora. He gestured at the empty street. ‘Not much traffic here. You’d do a lot better at one of the bridges or in the markets.’
‘Thank you. Do you work in this fine mansion?’
‘No.’ Tora had no time to chat with idle monks. He had his own questions to ask.
A few house servants in their white uniforms and black hats were busy with chores, and in the distance he heard hammering. The builders, apparently, were still busy. The same servant who had discovered Tora on his last intrusion approached.
Tora greeted him like a long-lost friend. ‘Good morning, brother. I was hoping to catch you. We weren’t introduced last time. I’m Tora.’
The other man looked surprised. ‘I’m Genzo,’ he said, nodding a greeting. ‘How’s the job coming?’
‘We ran into a little hitch.’ Tora was pleased with this fabrication. There was always some hitch on a building project. ‘Nothing serious, but the boss wants to know when to expect another inspection. He was hoping Ishikawa was still out of town.’