believe it till I see his body.”

Ogata said nothing. He sat hunched, his many chins resting

on his chest.

Tora frowned. “And what makes you call him my master?”

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The doctor gave him a pitying glance and shook his head.

“You’re not his brother or his son. The only other relationship

strong enough to send one man off to risk his life for another is

that between a nobleman and his retainer. I think the man who

claimed to be Taketsuna was taken to one of the mines. I expect

by now his body is in an abandoned mine shaft, covered with a

heap of rubble. You’ll never find him. You’re a good fellow, Tora,

and I’m truly sorry about your master, but there’s nothing you

can do here except die. Go home. And take Little Flower with

you. She’s a nice girl who needs someone to look after her and

she likes you.”

This time Tora did not stop the physician, and Ogata stag-

gered to his feet and departed, weaving an uncertain course

among the guests who waved and called out to him or touched

his hand as he passed.

C H A P T E R S E V E N T E E N

T H E DA R K T U N N E L

Kita, the mine supervisor, stood above Akitada, studying him

with a frown of concentration. The small bright eyes moved from

face to body, pausing at the injured knee, and then returned. They

locked eyes. Kita’s were cold and beady. The eyes of the predator,

thought Akitada, the eyes of the tengu in the Minato shrine.

Akitada wondered if Kita also recognized him. Apparently

not, for the supervisor grunted and said, “Not much to look at,

is he? Thought he’d be younger, in better condition.”

It was very unpleasant to be talked about as if one were no

more than an animal, but Akitada kept his face stiff and waited

for the guard’s response.

The guard said, “He’s been inside the whole time. Sick as a

dog. Since the day the boss brought him.”

Kita pursed his lips and came to a decision. “Put him to

work in the mine.”

Akitada’s eyes flew to the mine entrance, where an ex-

hausted and choking creature dumped his load and crept back

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in when a guard’s whip was raised. He felt such a violent revul-

sion against returning to the darkness in the bowels of the earth

that he thought he would rather die here and now than go back.

“He can’t walk yet,” said the guard dubiously.

“Then put him to work over there till he can,” Kita said,

pointing to the men who were pulverizing rock near the sluice.

And that was where they dragged him. He was given a small

mallet and told to break up the chunks of rock someone

dumped in front of him. In his relief that he had been spared

the mine, Akitada worked away at this chore with goodwill. He

was far from strong, but the activity required little strength, just patience and mindless repetition. When he finished one batch,

a worker would remove the dust and gravel and replace them

with more rock chunks. He saw no silver veins in any of the

chunks he broke up. There were some small yellow spots

from time to time, but he was too preoccupied with his body to

wonder much at this.

He ate and slept where he worked. His legs were hobbled

at the ankles even though he was unable to walk. When he

wished to relieve himself, he dragged himself behind some

bushes and then crawled back. On the next day, a guard forced

him to stand. To Akitada’s surprise, he could put a little weight

on his right leg again and, when poked painfully in the small

of his back, he took the couple of staggering steps to the shrubs

without screaming. All that was left from his injury was a stiff,

slightly swollen, and bruised knee and an ache whenever he

attempted to bend it.

They allowed him another day in the sunlight and fresh

air before they sent him into the mountain. It was not a good

moment for heroics. He was surrounded by hard-eyed guards,

variously armed with whips, swords, and bows, and marched to

the cave entrance, where they slung an empty basket over his

shoulders by its rope and pushed him forward. In front of him

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

287

and behind him shuffled other miserable creatures, each with a

basket on his back. A break from the line was impossible.

The darkness received him eagerly. Air currents pushed and

pulled as he shuffled in near-blindness in a line of about ten

men following a guard with a lantern. They went down a steep

incline, past gaping side passages, turning this way and that un-

til he lost all sense of direction or distance. The rock walls closed in on him, and the tunnels became so narrow that he brushed

the stone with his shoulders, and so low that he had to bend.

Panic curled in his belly like a live snake, swelling and chok-

ing the breath out of him until he wanted to turn and run

screaming out of that place, fighting his way past the men

behind him, climbing over their bodies if need be, clawing his

way back to the surface, because any sort of death was better

than this.

But he did not. And after a while, he could hear the ham-

mering again, and then the tunnel opened to a small room

where by the light of small oil lamps other miners chipped

pieces of rock from the walls with hammers and chisels. He

stood there staring around blankly, his body shaking as if in a

fever. The empty basket was jerked from his back, and a full one

put in its place. Its weight pulled him backward so sharply that

his legs buckled and he sat down hard. A guard muttered a curse

and kicked him in the side. Someone gave him a hand, and he

scrambled to his feet. His bad knee almost buckled again. He

sucked in his breath at the sudden pain. One of the other pris-

oners turned him about, and he started the return journey.

They carried the broken chunks of ore to the surface, where

others dealt with them while they plunged back into the bowels

of the mountain for another load. Kumo, for whatever reason,

had spared his life to condemn him to a more ignominious and

much slower end. As he trudged back and forth, he thought that

he, Sugawara Akitada, descendant of the great Michizane and

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an imperial official, would finish his life as a human beast of

burden, performing mindlessly the lowest form of labor, the

dangerous and unhealthy work the drunken doctor had tried to

spare him, and he knew now he would not survive it for long.

Two facts eased his panic. The smoke from the earlier fire

had cleared and the air was relatively wholesome. The mine also

seemed a great deal cooler than he remembered from the weeks

he had spent in his grave. The other fact concerned his right

leg. He still limped and felt pain in his knee, especially when he

put strain on it carrying his load uphill, but the swelling was

gone and he had almost normal movement in it again. In fact,

activity seemed to be good for it.

But he was still very weak and the rocks in the basket were

abysmally heavy. The rag-wrapped rope, which passed in front

of his neck and over his shoulders, cut into his flesh, and he

had to walk bent forward to balance the load. This, added to

the steep climb back out, strained his weakened muscles to the

utmost. The first trip was not too bad, because he was desperate

to get back to the surface, but on the second one he fell. To his

surprise, the man in front of him turned back to help him