Akitada lurched forward, his hands reaching for the man’s throat, but Noami pushed him back and laughed. The sound reverberated in Akitada’s ears as he lay helplessly on the floor and watched the painter’s disembodied head recede and fade on waves of mocking laughter.

Then he was alone.

As long as the walls kept whirling and the floor bucking like a wild horse, he despaired of making his escape, but something forced him to try. He got to his knees.

Concentrate! Move! Get away from here! If necessary, on all fours, or crawling like a snake, pulling himself along by his fingernails across the wooden floor, board by board. To the entrance and beyond. Yori must be well clear by now.

On that thought, Akitada passed out.

When he regained consciousness, he was first aware of bitter cold. There were sounds of rustling and more faintly of someone moaning. It was very dark, and he could not see where the sounds came from. He was freezing. There was also pain, great pain in his wrists and shoulders. His arms were stretched above his head. He tried to move, and the moaning turned into an agonized groan. His- groan. His wrists were tied and attached to something above him. Most of the weight of his body depended from his wrists, because he was sagging. He straightened, and the pain eased a little.

He tried to shout, but something was stuffed in his mouth, a rag with the nauseating taste and smell of paints. He gagged and felt the bile rising in his throat. No! He must not vomit or he would suffocate. Closing his eyes, he concentrated on subduing his nausea. Finally the urge subsided.

His wrists were held together by a rope tied so tightly that he could not feel his hands. His feet were also tied at the ankles, but not so tightly. He could feel sharp gravel biting into the soles of his feet. But when he tried to move his legs, his shoulders, arms, and wrists were in agony. If only he could get some slack in the rope from which he was suspended. He attempted to pull on it, but another excruciating pain ran from his shoulders across his entire torso, and he desisted instantly. To ease the pain, he raised himself to his toes.

He balanced like this for a while, afraid to move until the waves of pain subsided a little. As he waited, it dawned on him that he was strung up in Noami’s garden and that he was alone.

The darkness was not impenetrable. A patch of starlit sky showed between the fronds of rustling bamboo and bare branches. He must be tied up to a tree. It was incredibly cold, and he realized that he was naked except for his loincloth.

The madman had stripped him of his clothes, tied him up to the tree, and left him to freeze in agony. It was a great deal of trouble to go to, in order to eliminate a witness. Why not kill him outright? What did Noami have in mind?

The memory of those sketches of bleeding bodies returned vividly. Perhaps he was about to be carved up while the monster busily sketched away. He, Akitada, would become a character on the hell screen. He had a sudden freakish image of lines of people passing by to stare at his writhing body. Would his friends or acquaintances recognize him? He giggled at the thought of their faces, and then felt warm moisture running down his cheeks.

Oh, no! Dear heaven, no! He must not give the man the satisfaction of seeing him cry. Searching for something to distract his mind, he decided to concentrate on a scheme for freeing himself, impossible as that seemed.

For a while now his contracted leg muscles had protested against supporting his weight on the balls of his feet. They began to cramp in earnest, his ankles wobbled, and he dropped forward. The sudden jerk was agonizing to his already injured shoulder joints. He closed his eyes and slowed his breathing: Inhale! Exhale! Inhale! Exhale! Over and over again, until he became inured to the pain in his shoulders and the cramping in his legs.

His head cleared a little, but breathing was difficult. In his present position, he could not catch deep breaths. The thought of not getting enough air panicked him. Noami had left him here to suffocate slowly.

Back on his toes again and with a little slack to work with, he began to test the rope. If only he had some sensation in his fingers! He might be able to feel a knot, find out how he was attached to the tree limb. He could not raise his head enough to see what was directly above him.

He tried twisting. At the cost of another wave of pain to his shoulders and wrists, he managed it. A wasted effort. It was too dark to make out details, and his hands were in the way. Straightening his body with another painful effort, he slowly transferred his weight to his feet again, rested, and thought.

Had Yori made good his escape? Had he found his way home? Probably not. He was only three years old and two miles from home, in a strange neighborhood. He remembered Takenori’s warning with a shudder. How long would a small child in expensive silk robes last among people who attacked grown men? His heart contracted with fear and grief. Poor child! Poor boy! Sent out by his own father to face more horrors.

Still, it was marginally better than to have let him fall into Noami’s clutches. Any one of the cutthroats roaming the street of the western capital at night would take more pity on a child than that monster.

Besides, there was a chance, a very small chance, that Yori would find help. Even if he did not reach home, he might find someone who would listen to his story and come to investigate. But Akitada thought about how long he had been unconscious, and knew that help would have come by now if the boy had found a friend. Besides, Yori had not been aware of the danger his father was in. And who would listen to the babblings of a lost child in the middle of the night? If only Yori was safe, it was enough. Somewhere inside, because he would freeze to death in this cold. Akitada had begun to shake so badly that the rope vibrated and he could see the bare twigs above him trembling among the icy stars. Strangely, death by freezing was less upsetting than the pain he was in and the thought of his torturer’s return.

He found himself gasping for breath again and shifted his weight for a few minutes’ relief. He could no longer control his shaking. The thought that he would soon be past caring about escape was almost welcome.

But either the instinct to survive or some perverse pride intervened, and he began to tug at the rope to test its strength. It bit cruelly into his wrists and sent shock waves of hot pain along his arms and into his shoulders, but he persisted. Hemp rope was stretchable. If he got enough slack to ease his arms and shoulders, he might also have enough purchase to loosen the knot around his wrists. He pulled and jerked and twisted. Then he rested and began again. Now and then he stopped to check his progress. Then he started the whole process over again—pull, twist, rest—until he lost all sense of time. He could feel the warm blood running into his hands and dripping down his arms and back. Strangely, it did not hurt as much as before, and the moment came when he could bend his elbows a little and move his head.

At that moment, Noami returned. Akitada saw the light of his lantern first. It gleamed eerily through the dense stalks of bamboo. Then the painter appeared. In addition to the lantern, he carried a large basket, which he dropped before Akitada’s feet to raise the lantern.

“Ah, you’re awake,” he said, his eyes glowing like live coals in the flickering light. “Tsk, tsk. Look at what you have been doing to your wrists! Does it hurt very much?” He jerked sharply at the bonds, while his eyes watched Akitada’s face intently. “Cold enough for you? Yes, I expect it is. Not cold enough for a freezing hell, though. But I can always paint in the snow and ice later.” He set down the lantern and began to remove painting supplies from the basket and set them out neatly before Akitada. The basket he turned upside down to seat himself on. Some time was taken up by adjusting both basket and lantern so all of Akitada’s strung-up body was well lit, and Noami could see it from the proper angle. When he was satisfied, he began to rub ink and water.