Akitada jumped up in horror and stood helplessly by as the maid busied herself, mopping blood and holding the gasping, coughing figure of his mother.

“A doctor,” said Akitada, “I’ll get the doctor. Where does he live?”

The maid glanced up impatiently. “No, sir. He can’t help. She’ll calm down in a moment. But you’d best go away. It upsets her to see you.”

Akitada almost ran from the room. In his haste he stumbled over one of the monks outside. The man grunted, and Akitada mumbled an apology as he fled.

In his room his breakfast waited. He stared at the bowl of rice gruel, then rushed out onto the veranda and vomited into the shrubbery.

Feeling slightly better, he returned to his room to put on his outdoor clothes. Then he left the house.

The weather was still overcast and chill. Now and then the frigid wind picked up and shifted some of the dead leaves. Most trees were bare already. A good time for death, Akitada thought morosely, hunching his shoulders against the cold.

He no longer hoped for a reconciliation with his mother. Her venomous hatred of himself had to be accepted. It seemed to him that it must always have existed, contained for all those years under a mantle of propriety. Now that she was dying and no longer cared what anyone, least of all himself, thought of her, she spat out the stored-up bitterness of a lifetime as if it had been her life’s blood. At least it absolved him from further attendance on her.

But the thought gave him no peace. His mother’s words had poisoned something in him, and for the first time in his life he wished her dead. In fact, he hoped fervently that she would die soon, before his family arrived, before she could poison also his beloved Tamako and the child she had given him! He hated the thought of those skeletal hands touching Yori, those wrinkled, hate-dripping lips kissing the soft, rosy cheek of his son. Bitter resentment twisted inside him like an awakening dragon. How dare his mother destroy the peace and happiness he had finally won after leaving his home? He clenched his fists in helpless misery and wished he had not returned. By heaven, now that he was here, he would not allow her to spoil his future and that of his family.

In his aimless walking, he had reached a quiet street in he knew not which quarter, but before him rose the tall gates to a shrine. It was one of the many Shinto shrines which occupied small tranquil spaces in the middle of the mercantile bustle around them. The torii, gateways of two tall upright wooden pillars topped with a gently up-curved top beam, marked the entrance to sacred space. A grove surrounded the modest thatched shrine building, but the trees were bare of leaves now, and the weather had driven worshipers away. The isolation of the place exerted a powerful pull on Akitada, and the shrine gate seemed to beckon. As if under a spell, he obeyed.

Once through the torii, he entered a world of silence. A thick carpet of leaves under his feet muffled his steps, and the human sounds of voices and wagon wheels dropped away behind. Somewhere a bird chirped. Turning a corner, Akitada found a stone basin. With a soft flutter of wings, a sparrow landed on its rim and drank. Akitada stood very still and waited until the bird had his fill and flew away. Then he approached and dipped some water with a bamboo ladle which lay on the basin. He rinsed his mouth with it, a familiar and comforting action, then spat the water on the ground. Next he rinsed his hands. The water tasted and felt cool and fresh, and it seemed to him that the symbolic cleansing had eased his mind and he approached the shrine with a calmer heart. Above the doorway, small paper twists tied to the sacred rice-straw ropes rustled softly in the wind, as if whispering the prayers inscribed on them by the troubled worshipers who had come here before him. He had brought no paper and, surprised at the impulse, regretted it.

At the door to the shrine he bowed. The sweet smell of fruit and rice wine, gifts presented to the god in small bowls on the plain wooden veranda, mixed pleasantly with a trace of incense. He looked into the dim interior, a space too sacred to enter. There were no images in this particular shrine, just a large carved box in the center of a table. It housed the spirit of the deity, an ancestral god associated with the neighborhood, perhaps. Akitada was about to turn away when his shoulder touched a thick straw rope suspended from the eaves of the roof. It was for ringing a bell which would announce a request. Akitada paused.

Then he turned back to the face the shrine, clapped his hands three times, concentrated his thoughts, and pulled the rope sharply. A muffled clanging sounded in the roof. He bowed again, stood a moment longer, and then left.

The ritual was as ancient as his people and familiar to him from his earliest childhood. He felt strangely calm and at peace, as if performing the simple act of worship had exorcised his demons and had helped him see his way. He was grateful to the god of the shrine.

At home, in the house filled with his dying mother’s curses, it had been impossible to think clearly, but now he knew that he must turn his back on a past which was dying with his mother and care for the future of the living. His sisters needed his help. His heart had gone out to Yoshiko, no longer the laughing young girl he remembered, but a sadly changed young woman who rarely smiled these days. He would find her a husband as soon as he had settled back into his work and met eligible men. Someone, he hoped, that she could laugh with.

But Akiko’s problem was her husband. There was nothing Akitada could do about her marriage, of which, in any case, Akiko herself seemed to approve. He wondered if she would if she knew the trouble Toshikage was in.

And so, because of Toshikage, Akitada went to see Nagaoka again. He still had Toshikage’s list of the treasures which had disappeared from the Imperial Treasury, but had never consulted the antiquarian about them.

When he knocked at Nagaoka’s gate, the same servant opened. To Akitada’s surprise, he was back in ordinary clothes, and the courtyard looked raked and tidy. Apparently Nagaoka had reestablished some order in his house and put aside mourning his wife.

Nagaoka was in his study, sitting behind his desk much as the day before, except that he was busy inspecting an object in a wooden box. When he saw Akitada, he rose and invited him to sit. There was something cool and formal about his manner which told Akitada that he was not really welcome.

“I apologize for another unannounced visit,” said Akitada, taking the offered seat, “but there is something I forgot to ask you. I hope I do not intrude?”

Nagaoka sat also and pushed the open box aside. “Not at all, my lord,” he murmured formally. “May I offer you some refreshments?”

Having left without his morning rice, Akitada became aware of feeling ravenously hungry, but in the present chill ambiance he decided against accepting hospitality. “Thank you, no.”

A brief silence fell. Nagaoka apparently had no wish to discuss the murder. Akitada was puzzled and wondered what had brought about the change. He glanced at the box. “Have I interrupted your work?”

“I was merely looking at an antique I may sell. Are you interested in theatrical performances?” He tipped the box toward Akitada, who suppressed a gasp.

His first shocked impression was of a man’s severed head. From the brocade folds surrounding it, a human face glared back at him. Disconcertingly, the disembodied head appeared alive. The forehead was wrinkled in a deep frown, bushy eyebrows nearly meeting above a large hooked nose, and the thick lips were compressed in a scowl. Fathomless black eyes stared angrily at Akitada. The head wore a folded cap resembling formal court hats, but the face was demonic rather than human.