THE HEARING

T

he following day they met in the governor’s residence for an informal preliminary hearing.

Akitada and Motosuke were seated on the dais of the reception room, with the local officials to either side of them. These were the provincial police commissioner, the senior magistrate, the mayor, and the chief of the local guilds. Seimei and two clerks from the governor’s office had their places below, behind low desks with paper and writing utensils. The witnesses in the case against the renegade monks were about to be interviewed.

Akitada had not slept. He doubted that he would ever find peace of mind again. Red-eyed and drawn, he was going through the motions of what remained to be done. He read out the charges against Joto and his followers and asked the senior magistrate to hear the cases against all the accused.

The senior magistrate, a large man with a full black beard, balked. “Your Excellency must be aware that the abbot has many staunch friends in Kazusa,” he pointed out. “I also know that the Buddhist clergy is much admired in the capital. In fact, several imperial princes are abbots themselves. Who is to say that we shall not all be called to account severely over this affair?”

“Joto is dead,” Akitada said, “and if you will be patient, you will hear the evidence against him and his followers. Their crimes are of such magnitude and nature that no one in the capital will be able to gloss over their misdeeds, not even the Buddhist hierarchy.”

The senior magistrate cleared his throat nervously. “I hope Your Excellency will not take it amiss,” he said, “but there seem to be an awful lot of prisoners, and my court docket is already rather full with two murder cases. Should we not send to the capital for additional magistrates and judicial staff?”

Akitada made an effort to feel some sympathy for the man. The judge had just been handed a very complex and politically dangerous case and feared the bureaucratic repercussions as much as the heavy workload. But it could not be helped and he had no assurances to soothe his fears. “There is no time,” he said. “The governor’s staff will assist you and the other judges. Much of the paperwork has already been completed and witnesses will be made available to you. The charges are, in any case, nearly identical for most of the defendants.”

The judge bowed wordlessly.

The three monks entered to a murmur of pity. Two looked seriously ill. Old, rheumy-eyed, and wobbly on their thin legs, they tottered in, blinking against the candlelight. They had washed, shaved their heads and faces, and wore clean robes, but they looked in confusion at the row of officials on the dais. The third man Akitada recognized as the elderly monk from the night of their clandestine visit. He looked better than the others but still wore the bruises of his beating. Motosuke sniffled and dabbed at his eyes with his sleeve.

“Please be comfortable and take your time,” Akitada told the monks as they knelt. “We understand that you have charges to bring against the monk Joto.”

The monk from the storehouse spoke up. “This insignificant monk is called Shinsei,” he introduced himself. “We are greatly indebted to Your Excellencies for releasing us from our grave to charge the monster who buried us alive. I served as deacon of this temple under Abbot Gennin. Joto was one of the monks then, a recent arrival. When he took over, I was away visiting another temple, but my friend Tosai sent me a warning. I returned, passing myself off as a cook. I hoped that way I would be able to move about more freely and be of some use to His Reverence Gennin and the senior monks who were already confined in the underground cellar.” The old man sighed deeply.

“Alas, I could do little more than smuggle some food and a few medicines to them. The devils watched too closely. His Reverence was already ill. I was, of course, known to my brothers, but they were loyal and kept my secret, though they pretended to obey Joto. Then, one night, I spoke carelessly in anger and was buried myself.”

“But how could Joto have made himself abbot?” asked Motosuke.

The old man looked at him sadly. “We allowed it to happen, Excellency. When Joto arrived, his manners and talents, and above all his learning, seemed to us superior to our own. Our prior Kukai was particularly impressed. On his advice, Abbot Gennin made Joto lecturer. When people came in droves to hear him, we were so pleased that we urged the abbot to appoint Joto assistant high priest. I left soon after.”

“I hope His Reverence Gennin will recover and explain more fully how Joto seized power,” Akitada said, “but for the present, can you tell us about any specific crimes committed by this man and his followers?”

“Crimes?” Shinsei cried. “They broke every law of Buddha, they corrupted his teachings, they perverted the faithful who came for instruction, and the children who were given into their care as acolytes they seduced with their filthy lust. But you wish to know about secular crimes. I suppose you can charge them with theft, for they certainly took the treasures of the temple; you may charge them with kidnapping and assault, for they abducted and imprisoned our abbot and his faithful fellow monks; and with murder, for nine of us died from lack of food and medical attention while buried alive in that underground chamber. And one of us, Kukai, joined them in their outrage.”

The officials on either side of Motosuke and Akitada broke into excited questions and comments.

After a moment, Akitada raised his hand for silence. “Gentlemen,” he said, “what you have heard so far is a most heinous crime deserving the full severity of the law. But it is not, as you shall see, all that the monk Joto is guilty of.”

“Yes. Let’s get to the tax robberies,” Motosuke said.

But Shinsei and his companions knew nothing of this, so Akitada let them go.

When the door opened again, Tora brought in a leather box.

“Ah, yes,” said the governor. “That is one of our boxes and here is the mark.” He pointed to the burn mark on one side and explained how it had got there.

“Tell us where you found this, Tora,” said Akitada.

“In one of the temple storehouses. The same one where they hid all those halberds. And the bean barrels were filled with swords. A whole arsenal.”

Of course there should not have been bean barrels in both storehouses when only the second one was used for foodstuffs. Overlooking the swords was an embarrassment to Akitada, but he had made graver mistakes than that.

The officials passed around the leather box, peering and muttering.

The senior magistrate asked, “What happened to the gold? And how did the monks get hold of it?”

“The gold may have been spent on temple buildings and other expenses,” said Akitada. “And the monks attacked the tax convoys. We have an eyewitness to their last raid. Seimei?”