stretched for a document box, and Akitada jumped up again to

get it down for him. “Hmm,” muttered the old man. “You’ll be

useful for something, at any rate. Yes, useful.”

Akitada suppressed a smile and sat down again. Yutaka

opened the box and extracted a thin roll of paper. This he

unrolled partially before Akitada. Then he moved a sheet of

clean paper, brushes, water, and an inkstone toward him. “Can

you read this?” he asked, pointing to the document.

The document began with the usual formalities, and

Akitada quickly ran his eye over these, unrolling it further to get to the text. “It appears to be a report on the flooding of Lake

Kamo and the damage done to rice fields there.”

“Harrumph,” grunted Yutaka and poked a thin, bent finger

at one of the characters. “What’s that?”

Suppressing another smile, Akitada pronounced the charac-

ter in Chinese.

“What? Oh, well. I suppose that one’s too hard. It signifies

‘forced labor.’ The high constable is requesting His Excellency to

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53

supply him with more prisoners to help dam the lake waters.

Let’s see you write that character.”

Akitada poured a little water into the ink dish and rubbed

the ink stone in it. When the ink was the proper thickness, he

selected a brush, dipped it, and with a flourish wrote the char-

acter on the paper.

“Too big! Too big!” cried Yutaka. “You wasted the whole

sheet. Make it very small.”

Akitada selected another brush and wrote it again on an un-

used corner, this time as small as he could.

Yutaka picked up the paper and brought it close to his eyes.

Without comment, he laid it down. “Come with me,” he said

and took Akitada to meet the other two clerks, neither of whom

was a prisoner and therefore regarded the new clerk with dis-

dain. Yutaka assigned Akitada to one of the empty desks, with

instructions to copy a set of tax accounts from one of the dis-

tricts. For the rest of the day, as Akitada labored, he appeared on silent feet, peered over the prisoner’s shoulder, muttered, “Harrumph,” and disappeared again.

Akitada made good progress, but after several hours the un-

accustomed work caused his back to ache and his wrist to

cramp. His stomach growled. After more time passed, his feet

had gone to sleep, and his belly ached with hunger. Apparently

he was not entitled to a midday rice break.

Or rice, either. That was reserved for better people. Near

sunset, a gong sounded somewhere in the compound. Akitada

heard his fellow scribes rustling papers and shuffling off rap-

idly. He continued until he had finished the final page of a doc-

ument he was working on and stretched. Suddenly Yutaka

appeared.

“You didn’t hear the gong,” he said accusingly.

“I heard it. Why?”

54

I . J . P a r k e r

“Time for the prisoners’ evening meal.”

Akitada said, “Oh.” He started to wash out his brush.

“Never mind,” said Yutaka irritably. “Give it to me and run,

or you’ll be too late. Masako doesn’t tolerate stragglers. No.

Doesn’t tolerate them at all.”

“Run where?” asked Akitada, rising.

“The jail. Where else?” Yutaka pointed vaguely. “I think

you’ll be too late,” he added glumly.

Akitada bowed. “Thank you. I look forward to seeing you

tomorrow.”

When he found the jail, or more precisely the jail kitchen, it

was empty except for a very shapely young maid who was stack-

ing dirty bowls into a basket.

“I was told that the prisoners eat somewhere around here,”

said Akitada.

She swung around, and he saw that she was very pretty, with a

round face and sparkling eyes. At the moment they sparkled with

anger. “Well, you’re too late,” she snapped. “The gong sounded an

hour ago.” A threadbare cotton robe, much too big and too short

for her, was firmly tied around her small waist, its sleeves rolled up to reveal work-reddened hands and arms, and her hair was

pinned up under a kerchief. Surprisingly, the skirts of a pale blue silk gown peeked forth underneath the rough covering.

“I didn’t know. I am new,” he offered hopefully, staring at

the silken hem.

She relented a little. “The fire’s out. You’ll have to eat the

soup cold.”

He smiled at her with relief. “I don’t mind.” Her speech was

more refined than he had expected in a kitchen maid, and his

eyes went again to the pale silk hem. As she moved, a dainty

bare foot, dirty but white and slender, appeared for a moment.

She scooped something from a large iron kettle into a

bowl and handed it to him. Whatever it was, it looked and

I s l a n d o f E x i l e s

55

smelled unappetizing—some kind of millet mush with a few

wilted greens. Akitada held the dripping bowl gingerly away

from his clothes and looked about for a place to sit. Finding

none, he leaned against the kitchen wall and raised the bowl

to his lips. But the mush had thickened, and he had trouble

drinking it.

“Would you happen to have some chopsticks?” he asked the

girl, who was sweeping the floor in a haphazard fashion.

She stopped and stared at him. “Chopsticks? For a prisoner?”

“A little joke.” He chuckled. “I suppose there’s not much

hope in asking for wine, so maybe I’d better settle for water,

right?”

“Right!” She pointed to a large bucket in the corner.

He did not dare ask for a cup. Instead he used the dipper to

pour some water into his food, stirred it with his finger, and

then drank it down in several hungry gulps. It had little taste,

but he gladly accepted the refill she offered. This, too, he mixed

with water, and when he was done, he poured more water in the

bowl, took it outside to rinse it, and refilled it to drink.

The girl had watched him surreptitiously. When he returned

the bowl to her with a bow and a smile, he said, “Thank you. My

name is Taketsuna. You’re very kind. And very pretty. May I ask

your name?”

Her eyes narrowed. “I’m Masako,” she snapped. “And my

father’s the superintendent, so you’d better watch yourself.”

He was so astonished, he was speechless. The superinten-

dent of a provincial jail, though of low rank, was still an official.

How could such a man allow his daughter to work in the

prison’s kitchen? It occurred to him that she might be the result

of an affair with a native woman, and he said, “Certainly. I’m to

report to him. Can you show me the way?”

“You’ll have to wait. I have to finish cleaning up first.” She

put his bowl into the basket and bent to pick it up.

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I . J . P a r k e r

“Allow me to carry that for you. Perhaps I could help you

wash up?”

She regarded his tall figure thoughtfully for a moment. Her

lip twitched. “All right. You can do with a wash yourself. Come

along, then, Taketsuna.”

He followed her across the courtyard to the well and hauled

buckets of water, while she washed the bowls and restacked

them in the basket. “Now take off your robe,” she told him. “You

won’t get a bath tonight, so you’d better wash here.”

He glanced around. The courtyard was empty, so he obeyed,

draping his stained gown carefully over the rim of the well while

he stood in his loincloth, sluicing himself down with the cold

well water, uncomfortably aware of her eyes on his body. When

he reached for his robe, she snatched it away. “It’s filthy. I’ll wash it for you later. Get the basket and come with me.”

“B-but,” he stammered, looking down at his wet self, “I can’t