The party broke up soon after. It was during the confusion of farewells at the door that Lord Tachibana stumbled against Akitada and clutched his arm. As Akitada reached out to steady the old gentleman, he remembered his foolish suspicions. All of a sudden Tachibana whispered something. Then he detached himself quickly and hobbled out.

Akitada stared after him, not sure if he had heard correctly. What the retired governor seemed to have said with great urgency was “I must talk to you. Come tomorrow and tell no one.”

* * * *

FIVE

THE WINTER BUTTERFLY

W

hen Akitada awoke, the room seemed filled with an unearthly light. He blinked. It was not sunshine; the light was too gray for that. Then he remembered the events of the previous night, and the weight of utter failure descended again. Motosuke, who was his prime suspect—his only one—could not be charged because of his daughter’s upcoming marriage to the emperor. Akitada had been unable to sleep after the banquet, but at some point he must have dozed off and overslept, for it was daylight outside.

With a sigh he slipped from the warm cocoon of the silk quilt into the chilly room. Tossing his robe over his underclothes, he eased open one of the shutters.

A new world met his eye. Thin layers of undisturbed snow covered the graveled courtyard, capped the earthen wall, and turned the curving tiled roofs of the halls and offices into large luminous rectangles suspended in the silver gray of an overcast sky. From the bare branches of the persimmon tree next to the veranda a white cloud of dust descended; a pair of brown sparrows, their feathers fluffed up against the cold, eyed him with cocked heads and beady eyes. One of them chirped, and Akitada’s spirits lifted.

He turned back into the room for one of the rice cakes the governor’s servant had left. Pulling it apart, he tossed the crumbs out into the snow. His two visitors swooped down, chattering loudly. Within seconds their call had been heard, and the snow below the veranda was covered with noisy, fluttering sparrows. They fought angrily over every crumb, pushing aside the weaker ones, pecking at the youngsters. One little fellow in particular hovered on the outskirts, making determined efforts to break through and snatch the food but suffering repeatedly from the vicious beaks of his elders. Akitada aimed the crumbs in his direction but only succeeded in causing worse hostilities. Eventually the little sparrow flew up and landed next to the building, practically at Akitada’s feet, where a scattering of small bits had escaped his more cowardly fellows.

Akitada watched the little bird eat his fill and smiled. Survival in nature, as in his own world, depended on determination, courage, and finding alternate solutions to problems. Perhaps his enemies had planned to bring him to certain ruin with this assignment. In case his youth and lack of influence would not bring him to grief, they had assigned him to a crime they believed was unsolvable. Motosuke could only be accused of stealing the taxes if Akitada was willing to face imperial displeasure. Either way he would be ruined.

But here was a little sparrow that had found a way past his enemies. And Akitada would also seize an opportunity: Lord Tachibana’s invitation. He brushed rice dust from his hands, closed the shutter, and turned to finish dressing.

♦

It was really too early to call on a gentleman, Akitada realized, as he strode through the snowy streets of the city, but his was no courtesy visit. The more he thought about the ex-governor’s whispered words and the circumstances of the dinner, the more convinced he became that Tachibana had been afraid and had turned to him for help.

Akitada lengthened his stride. When he reached the quarter where substantial private compounds, secluded behind high walls, lined the streets, he asked directions of a beggar, tossing him a few copper coins in return.

Lord Tachibana’s villa was not far, but after Akitada knocked at the fine old wooden gate, there was a considerable delay before it creaked open. He was admitted by an aged male servant, so bent and decrepit that Akitada expected him to creak like the gate. Beyond the small courtyard rose the main house, its steep roof covered with snowy thatch, and its wooden walls and shutters, blackened by years of exposure to the weather, stark in their contrast.

“I am Sugawara,” Akitada told the old man, who raised a hand to his ear and blinked at him uncertainly. “Lord Tachibana asked me to call today,” Akitada shouted.

Without a word, the servant turned and shuffled off down a snowy path that led past the main house into the garden. After a moment’s hesitation, Akitada followed.

The garden had been laid out by a master. Elegantly clustered rocks, shrubs, and clipped pine trees, beautiful even in this season, were covered with new snow. The path wound past a stone lantern and a small pond, where, with flashes of silver and gold, carp moved sluggishly on the murky bottom.

Their path joined another, this one swept clean of snow, and they came to a small building, a secluded pavilion surrounded by a wooden veranda.

The old servant climbed the steps slowly and slipped out of his wooden clogs. Akitada, following, bent to take off his boots. He heard the sound of the door sliding open, then a cry. Quickly pulling off his boots, he looked into a spacious studio, its walls lined with shelves of books and document boxes, and its floor covered with thick grass matting.

The servant had his back to him. “Master?” he quavered. “Oh, my poor Master! Oh, sir. Would you see if he is alive? Oh, I must run for the doctor. Oh, dear! How terrible!”

Since he seemed incapable of movement, let alone running, Akitada said, “Calm yourself,” and stepped past him.

Lord Tachibana, bareheaded and dressed in a plain gray silk robe, lay facedown next to his desk and just below one of the walls of shelves. A stepping stool was beside him, on its side, and loose papers, half-opened document boxes, and rolls of records were strewn about his lifeless figure.

Akitada knelt and felt for a pulse on the old man’s neck. There was none and the body was quite cold. A very small amount of blood had seeped into the matting under Lord Tachibana’s head. Akitada tried to recall what the medical texts had said about timing a person’s death. He touched the old man’s hand, flexed the fingers, and moved the wrist. There was some resistance: the body was stiffening. It meant that death had occurred many—he was not sure how many—hours ago.

But did it really matter when? On one corner of the writing desk were traces of blood and a few gray hairs. Akitada glanced up at the shelves. One of them, quite high up, was partially empty. And there was the toppled stool and the scattered papers. Apparently the former governor had suffered an accidental fall while reaching for some documents.