“Got you, bastard!” snarled Tora, yanking Akitada’s arms back. Akitada shouted at the pain in his shoulder, and the rest was confusion, because Genba arrived next and swung at Tora, knocking him across the narrow space and against one of the pillars. With a crash, the pillar gave and the garden house collapsed.

They disentangled themselves. Tora rubbed his back. “Sorry, sir. When I saw someone slipping into the garden house, I. . .”

“And I heard the master cry out,” Genba said, “and thought some scoundrel had got hold of him. This is a very strange place. Where are all of Sunada’s people? There is nobody here but us and two old cripples. Why surround yourself with cripples when you’re as rich as Sunada?”

Akitada massaged his throbbing shoulder. “Sunada is a strange character. I remember he behaved with the utmost humility at Takata, but in the city he swaggered among the merchants and attempted to control my staff. Apparently he lives alone here, in a house which is large and empty—for we have seen neither bedding nor clothes boxes for a family—yet in the city he keeps women and indulges in lavish and luxurious parties. He hires cutthroats to intimidate the little people outside, but employs injured fishermen who can no longer make a living on the sea.”

“Fishermen?” Genba asked, surprised.

“The two servants. Both of them are local men by their dialect and both are maimed.”

“No wonder they wouldn’t help us.”

“Yes. But I wonder why the houseman looked so worried.” Akitada turned to Tora. “Did you see anything unusual?”

Tora grumbled, “This whole place is haunted. There are ghosts in the trees playing lutes.”

Genba laughed. “You’ve got to stop seeing ghosts all the time, Tora. It’s addling your brains.”

“Playing lutes?” said Akitada, grasping Tora’s arm. “Where did you hear that? Show me!”

Tora retraced his steps. Suddenly, faintly, through the whistling of the wind in the boughs, they heard it. Someone was playing a lute.

Tora froze. “There. That’s what I heard.”

Akitada pursued the sound, followed by Genba and, reluctantly, Tora. They broke through a thicket at the end of the property and stood before a small pavilion. Beyond, the dunes began and sere grasses grew all around and up to its bleached wooden steps. The wind was loud here, but so was the sound of a lute, inexpertly plucked, but hauntingly sad in this desolate place.

Akitada’s face was grim. He turned and said, “Both of you wait here till I call you.”

He walked quickly up the steps of the small veranda, almost stumbling over the huddled shape of the one-armed servant who was cowering there, and flung open the door.

The room was tiny. All it contained were a pristine grass mat and the owner of the estate. If he had noticed Akitada’s abrupt entrance, he gave no sign.

Sunada sat hunched over a beautiful lute, muttering to himself as he picked out a vaguely familiar tune. “The snows will come, and the snows will go,” he sang softly, “and then my heart will melt into a flood of tears.”

“A famous old tune,” Akitada remarked, closing the door behind him. “Where did you learn it?”

Sunada did not look up. “She used to sing it.” His voice was brittle, like the dried leaves of the summerhouse. “She sang beautifully. Astounding in someone of her class. I fell in love with her when I first heard her. Of course, there was also her physical beauty, but other girls had that.” He paused to pluck more notes, random ones, and smiled. “I have traveled far and had many women. She was like none of them.”

Akitada quietly lowered himself to the floor.

“How did you find me?” Sunada asked almost casually.

“The lute. The curio dealer told me that the woman Ofumi had one that was so rare and expensive that it could only be purchased by you.”

“Ah. I did not plan this. One does not plan an obsession. Imagine. The daughter of peasants and wife of a doss-house keeper on the post road! She could not speak properly when I first met her.’’

“How did you meet?”

He waved a dismissive hand. “Pure chance. The Omeya woman used to find entertainment for me. One day I came to make arrangements for a small party and found her giving lute lessons to a perfect goddess. I canceled the party and spent the night with my goddess instead.”

“She was willing?” Akitada thought of the widow’s claims that she had been forced to submit to Mrs. Omeya’s customer.

Sunada finally looked at him, surprised. With a cynical grimace, he said, “Naturally—eager even, as soon as the old one explained who I was. Oh, I always knew Ofumi for what she was, but I wanted her, needed her ...” He grimaced again and broke off. Raising the lute with both hands above his head, he brought it down violently, smashing the delicate inlaid woods into splinters, and tearing at the strings with frantic fingers until the wires parted with a sound that hung in the room like a scream, and blood ran from his hands.

“It was you who killed her, wasn’t it?” Akitada said softly.

“Dear heaven!” Sunada looked at his bleeding hands and began to weep. “This woman whom I raised from the gutter to become my consort, for whom I built and furnished this house, for whom I did unimaginable things—she betrayed me. Betrayed me with an oaf of a soldier. One of yours, Governor.” He clutched his head and rocked back and forth in his grief.

“You did not answer my question,” Akitada persisted.

Sunada lowered his hands and looked at Akitada. “Come, Governor, don’t plague me with questions. Nothing matters any longer.”

“What about Mrs. Omeya? Did you kill her?”‘

Sunada frowned. “That woman! You know what she whispered to me? That your lieutenant had been spending his nights with my future wife. She thought I could use the information against you.” Sunada laughed. “The fool!”

Silence fell.

Akitada said, “I am arresting you for the-murders of the woman Ofumi, her landlady, Mrs. Omeya, and the vagrant Koichi.”

Sunada ignored him. He fingered the broken lute. “Music fades ...” He raised his eyes to Akitada’s. “You know,” he said with a crooked smile, “Uesugi underestimated you, but I never made that mistake. A worthy adversary is preferable in a contest for power, don’t you think? And I was winning, too. Wasn’t I?”

Yes, thought Akitada, Sunada had been winning all along. Had it not been for the merchant’s fatal obsession with that arch seductress, Akitada would have been powerless to prevent a disastrous uprising. Aloud he said, “No. The gods do not permit the destruction of divine harmony. You raised your hand against the Son of Heaven.”