stomach.

“Clean up this mess,” Akitada snapped, dropping him back

on the floor. “I don’t think you will feel much like food, so you

may as well spend the time copying those papers over neatly. I’ll

let the secretary know that you are finishing some work before

retiring.” He strolled out of the room and left the building.

The evening was delightfully cool after the heat of the day.

If the high constable did, in fact, practice common courtesy

toward even the lowliest prisoner on the island, then his

staff might share his philosophy and allow him the privileges

accorded a guest. He decided to test this theory by exploring

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and found that, wherever he strayed, servants smiled and

bobbed their heads. One or two stopped to ask if he was lost,

but when he told them he was just stretching his legs and

admiring the residence, they left him alone. He did not, of

course, enter the private quarters but wandered all around them

by way of the gardens.

These were extensive and quite as well designed as any he

had visited in the noble mansions and villas of the capital. Paths

snaked through trees, shrubs, and rockeries, crossing miniature

streams over curved bridges to lead to various garden pavilions.

Patches of tawny lilies bloomed everywhere and birds flitted

from branch to branch.

One of the pavilions turned out to be a miniature temple.

Akitada was enchanted by its dainty size, which nevertheless

duplicated the ornate carvings, blue-tiled roofs, and gilded

ornamentation of large temples. Someone had taken great pains

and spent a considerable amount of money on this little build-

ing. He climbed the steps to a tiny veranda surrounded by a red-

lacquered balustrade and entered through the carved doors.

Inside, every surface seemed carved and painted in glorious

reds, greens, blacks, oranges, and golds. Even the floor was

painted, and in its center stood a gilded altar table on its own

carved and lacquered dais. A wooden Buddha statue rested on

the altar, and a number of gilded vessels with offerings stood

before it. Behind the Buddha figure, a richly embroidered silk

cloth was suspended, depicting swirling golden clouds, em-

blems of Kumo’s family name, on a deep blue background. A

faint haze of intensely fragrant incense curled and spiraled

lazily from a golden censer, perfuming the air and veiling

the gilded tablets inscribed with the names and titles of Kumo

ancestors. This was the Kumo family’s ancestral altar.

Akitada read some of the tablets and saw the names of two

emperors among the distant forebears of the present Kumo.

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

133

Only the most recent tablets lacked titles. Kumo’s great-grand-

father had been stripped of his rank and sent here into exile.

Akitada reflected that few families survived such punishment in

the style of this one. His own family, though they had retained

their titles, barely subsisted since his famous ancestor had died

in exile.

He made a perfunctory bow to the Buddha. No larger than

a child of three or four, the figure was an unskilled carving from

some dull wood. It seemed out of place among all the gold

and lacquer work, yet somehow for that reason more numi-

nous, as if it somehow symbolized what the Kumos had be-

come. Perhaps a local artisan had carved it or, more likely, the

first Kumo exile had done so in order to find solace in religious

devotion.

Stepping closer, Akitada found that the surface was aston-

ishingly smooth for an artless carving, but the Buddha’s face

repelled him. It was quite ugly and the god’s expression was

more like a demon’s snarl than the gentle, peaceful smile of or-

dinary representations. The figure had golden eyes, but they

shone almost shockingly bright from that dark, distorted vis-

age. Odd. The Buddha’s shining eyes reminded Akitada of

Kumo’s pale eyes and he wondered about his ancestry.

A faint and unearthly music came from the garden. Akitada

stepped out on the veranda to listen. Somewhere someone was

playing a flute, and he felt a great longing for his own instru-

ment. The melody was both entrancing and beautifully played.

Like a bee scenting nectar, Akitada followed the music on paths

which wound and twisted, leading him away as soon as he

seemed to get closer until he lost all sense of direction. Shrub-

bery and trees hid and revealed views. He heard the splash of

running water and passed a miniature waterfall somewhere

along the way; he heard the cries of birds and waterfowl, then

caught a glimpse of a pond, or miniature lake with its own small

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island. The flute seemed to parody the sounds of the garden

until he wondered which was real.

The artist was playing a very old tune with consummate

skill. It was called “Land of the Rice Ears,” and Akitada stopped,

following each sequence of notes, paying particular attention to

the second part, for it contained a passage he had never mas-

tered himself. There! So that was the way it was supposed to be.

He smiled, raising his hands to finger imaginary stops, wishing

he could play as well.

Just after the last note faded, he reached the lake. The sky

above was still faintly rosy, almost iridescent, like the inside of a shell. All was silent. A butterfly rose from one of the lilies that nodded at the water’s rim. Then a pair of ducks paddled around

the island and lifted into the evening air with a soft flapping of

wings and a shower of sparkling drops. Akitada wondered if he

had strayed into a dream.

With a sigh, he followed the lakeshore. His stomach

growled, reminding him that food was more useful than this

longing for a flute he had been forced to leave behind. Then his

eye caught a movement on the small island. He could see the

curved roof of another small pavilion rising behind the trees.

Two spots of color shimmered through a gap between the trees,

a patch of white and another of deep lilac.

A dainty bridge connected the island to the path he was on.

He crossed it and heard the sound of women’s voices. Two

ladies in white and wisteria blue sat behind the brilliant red

balustrade and under the gilded bells that hung from the eaves

of the pavilion. Thinking them Kumo’s wives, Akitada stopped

and prepared to retreat. But then he saw that both women were

quite old. The one in purple silk had very long white hair which

she wore loose, like young noblewomen, so that it draped over

her shoulders and back and spread across the wide skirts of her

gown. She was tiny, seemingly shrunken with age, but her skin

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

135

was as white as her hair, and the rich purple silk of her outer

robe was lined with many layers of other gowns in four or five

different costly colors. Such a costume might have been worn by

a young princess in times gone by. On this frail old woman it

mocked the vanity of youth.

It was the other woman who had been playing the flute—

the other woman who, in sharp contrast to her companion,

wore a plain white robe and veil, and whose face and hands were

darkened from exposure to the sun. The nun Ribata.

C H A P T E R E I G H T

F LU T E M U S I C F RO M

A N OT H E R L I F E

“Approach, my lord!”

The old lady’s voice was cracked and dissonant, sharply at

odds with the lovely sound of the flute which still spun and