“Kohime, is Mineko around?” Masaie asked. “His lordship here wants to ask her some questions about the murder at the big house.”
The woman’s eyes grew round and she covered her mouth in astonishment as she stood up. “Did she kill her master?” she asked. “If she killed him, take her away and lock her up. You shouldn’t have brought her. She might slit our throats while we sleep.”
Akitada said quickly, “She did not kill Lord Sukemichi. I want to speak to her because she may know something.”
The woman relaxed. “Oh,” she said, somewhat sullenly. “The girl’s in the back, washing clothes. She’s not a very good worker. Spoiled with her fine clothes and smooth hands.” She looked at Masaie accusingly.
“Be patient. She’ll learn,” he said with a grimace. “She’s only eighteen.”
They walked around the house and found the girl on her knees in the dirt, scrubbing some wet garments on a stone. A big wooden tub stood beside her. Gone was her silk gown. She wore an old gray striped shirt and the sort of pants peasant women wore in the fields. Her hair was cut shorter and tied back with a rag, and she was barefoot, wet, and dirty. But when she turned and looked up at them, Akitada saw that she was still very pretty in spite of the red, swollen eyes.
She dropped the shirt she had been scrubbing and jumped up. “Have you come to take me back?” she asked Masaie eagerly. “Oh, please say I may go back.”
Masaie shook his head. “No. I’m very sorry, Mineko. This is Lord Sugawara who was helping to find Lord Sukemichi’s murderer. He has some questions to ask you.”
Tears of disappointment welled up again. Looking down at the ground, she said listlessly, “I’ll answer.”
She was young, a year younger than Yukiko. Akitada felt quite sorry for her and felt again a strong dislike to Sukemichi’s wife. He spoke gently. “I’m very sorry that you had to leave. May I ask why you were dismissed?”
She rubbed her wet hands against her pants and sniffled. “I don’t know why. It was sudden. They wouldn’t tell me.” She raised watery eyes to his. “I have done nothing. I was at my lessons when the majordomo came and took me away and pushed me out into the street, saying I was never to come back on orders of her ladyship.”
From this startling account, Akitada picked one word. “You were at your lessons? What lessons?”
“Lord Sukemichi had me taught by his children’s tutor. I’m studying the classics and practicing poetry. I mean, I was.” She wiped away more tears.
This was astounding. It was unheard of that a nobleman would bother to educate a maid even if he enjoyed her in bed. And surely such preferential treatment would have aggravated his wife’s resentment. Clearly, it had been a painful shock for this girl to leave all that behind to wash clothes in a peasant’s yard. He asked, “Did you love Lord Sukemichi?”
She nodded. “He was very good to me. When I was a child, he used to carry me around on his shoulders. And now he’s gone and I am nothing.” She looked at her work-reddened hands and shuddered.
Akitada exchanged a glance with Masaie, then asked her, “Could you be with child by his lordship?”
She stared at him, turning first white and then red. Forgetting her position, she shouted, “That’s a horrible lie! He was like my father. I would never … I used to think of him as my father. He would never have done such a thing. Never! You dishonor his memory!”
Akitada felt contrite. “Forgive me. I was trying to understand his wife’s anger at you. Do you truly have no family? What about your real father and mother?”
“I don’t have a father. My mother came to work at the Taira manor in the old lord’s time. She died when I was still small.”
Akitada turned to Masaie. “It should be possible to find the mother’s family. I have to return to Otsu, but I think you might talk to people here and at the estate. Someone may remember where her mother came from. There might be relatives.”
Masaie nodded. “I have asked some questions and will ask some more, but I’m afraid there’s nobody. Her mother was a slave, bought by Lord Sukemichi’s father.”
The girl listened with bowed head and murmured, “Thank you, sir,” then turned away to continue her work. Akitada had rarely seen a more poignant gesture of hopeless acceptance of a dire fate. He did not know what to say. He had no right to give her assurances of a better life when he could not promise such a thing. But the sight of her figure bent over her chore haunted him all the way back to Otsu.
∞
In Otsu, work had piled up. They were nearing the completion of their assignment. He was expected to assemble the facts and documents his clerks had gathered and arrive at a legal argument that would settle the continuous litigation between the two temples once and for all.
Over the next two days, he had barely time to eat and sleep, and he slept very little, because at night the ghosts of his failures came to haunt him.
Yukiko, whose love he had rejected;
The weeping maid in Okuni, who had no one in the whole wide world and would surely come to harm;
The dead—Judge Nakano, the sweeper Tokuno, the two peasants Wakiya and Juro, and now also Taira Sukemichi—whose murders remained unsolved;
And the poor fool who had confessed to the Taira murder and would pay the price.
He had failed them all, and all he had left was his duty as an imperial official. And there he had little faith that a decision about the cases would change anything about the war being carried on between the different Buddhist factions and temples. Meanwhile, the dead found no peace and the living, who deserved his help, suffered. Yes, even Yukiko who would marry a man she did not love and who most likely would not love her.
Before dawn on the third day, as he lay awake once again counting up his failures and searching for ways to solve at least one of the problems, he suddenly remembered a conversation with Kosehira. Kosehira had spoken of Sukemichi’s father and mentioned that he had almost missed out on his appointment to the imperial reserve because someone had accused him of having murdered someone. It had all come to nothing, to mere malicious gossip, when the real killer had confessed. The tale was old and probably meant nothing. It must have happened decades ago. But he had nothing else, and he and Takechi had wondered about some old case that might somehow have involved both the judge and the jailer. He had similarly wondered about the connection with the two old peasants in Okuni. It seemed a little far-fetched, but at this point the old murder was the only event that might connect the new murders in Okuni and Otsu. Yes, and it could also link Sukemichi’s death to the others.
Filled with new energy, he jumped out of bed and got dressed. He must wake Kosehira and ask him more questions about this old murder. But when he opened the shutters to the veranda, he saw that it was still dark. Dawn was barely breaking. The sky had turned a silvery gray, but the trees and roofs of Kosehira’s villa stood like black outlines against the shimmering light. Kosehira would still be fast asleep.
Akitada debated the matter for a moment, then decided to go sit on the veranda outside Kosehira’s room to wait for him to get up. Stepping down to a garden path that led from his pavilion to the main house, he found the darkness not quite so impenetrable after all. The first birds were making small, sleepy noises in the branches overhead, and Akitada could feel the cool dew through his slippers as he walked across the moss.
He had almost reached the main house when it occurred to him that he could not very well sit outside his friend’s sleeping quarters. It would be too embarrassing if Kosehira had invited one of his wives to sleep with him. It was not likely, since husbands generally sought out their wives in their own rooms, but such things could happen. He slowed his steps in indecision, then turned around and retraced his way to where another path led to the overlook. He would go there and watch the sun rise over Lake Biwa.