Hitomaro, who had fallen partly across Uesugi’s body, slowly rolled onto his back. His left hand was at his chest, clutching the blade of Uesugi’s sword which protruded from his ribs. He grimaced with pain. The fingers of his right hand relaxed around the grip of his own bloodstained blade.

Tora came and bent over his friend. When he straightened up, he had a strange, hurt look on his face. “Sir?”

The blood bubbling up between the sword and Hitomaro’s hand was bright red and foamy. There was no surviving such a wound to the lungs. Akitada fell to his knees beside him.

“My friend,” he pleaded, putting his hand on the one that still gripped the deadly blade. “Please forgive me.”

Hitomaro looked up at him and shook his head. “Nothing to forgive ... I wanted death,” he mouthed, half-choking. Then, making a great effort, he added, “Sorry about. . .” and coughed once, blood trickling from the corner of his- mouth into his beard. “Too much . ..” He raised himself up a little, coughed again, then vomited a crimson flood and fell back.

Akitada got up. He looked about the room blindly. “How did this happen? Why did Hitomaro attack Uesugi? There was no need. Uesugi had surrendered. It was all so easy. Why?”

Tora said, “Uesugi drew his sword, sir. While you had your back to him. The slimy coward was going to cut you down. Hitomaro stopped him.”

A grim-faced Kaoru walked up and stood staring down at the two corpses. “A warrior’s death for Hitomaro,” he said. “No man could die better than this.”

Without a word, Akitada turned and strode from the hall. Out in the gallery, he stepped over the dead warriors and threw wide a shutter to gulp in the frigid air. Sleet had gathered like grains of rice on the sill. Below, the land lay dark and forbidding under the heavy clouds. Faintly, the sound of temple bells came on the wind from the distant city.

The icy air settled his stomach a little. His face tingled with cold and when he t6uched it, he found it wet with tears. Ashamed, he rubbed the moisture away. From the courtyard below rose the victorious shouts of Takesuke’s men. He leaned forward and looked down. The Sugawara family crest blazed on the banners. This day he had taken an impregnable fortification for the emperor but lost a loyal friend.

Looking down at his hands he saw that they were stained with blood—Hitomaro’s along with that of too many other men he had killed. How was he to live with his friend’s blood on his hands? Hitomaro had saved his life, and he had stupidly stepped in his way and caused his death as surely as if he had held Uesugi’s sword himself. He clenched his fists until his nails bit deeply into his palms.

Something soft and white drifted in. A snowflake. For him this snow country would always be tinged with blood. He sighed deeply and glanced toward the north pavilion overhanging the ramparts, site of the death of the previous Lord of Takata and the murder of his faithful servant Hideo. It reminded him that he had one more errand to perform.

Hunching his shoulders against the icy air, he walked quickly down corridors. A maid peered from an open doorway, paled at the sight of his blood-smeared face and hands, and ran. When he reached the open gallery, he found that the wind had died down, but the snow still fell softly and silently. There was very little smoke now, and he realized that they must have extinguished the fire.

The door to the north pavilion was unlocked, and inside everything looked the same. He had worried that Uesugi would order a thorough cleaning, but either respect or superstition had caused him to leave the room untouched.

He went to the window above the thick mat where the old lord had died. The crooked blind of speckled bamboo was as he remembered it, and beside the mat was the chest which held the dead man’s bedding and his writing set, the single clue to what had happened that night.

Stepping on the mat, he untied the bamboo shade, half afraid that his guess had been wrong. But it unrolled with a rush and clatter, releasing a sheet of paper which fluttered to his feet. The thick mulberry paper was covered with spidery script and bore a crimson seal.

Picking it up, Akitada noted both signature and seal, glanced at the content, then rolled up the document and put it in his sleeve.

* * * *

TWENTY-TWO

CHRYSANTHEMUM

AND GRASSES

W

hen they returned to the tribunal late that night, Akitada was exhausted in mind and body from the business of settling affairs at Takata—he had left Kaoru and Takesuke in control— and emotionally drained. The long ride back with Hitomaro’s corpse slung over the horse beside him had given him unwanted time to brood on his actions. Takesuke had congratulated him on his courage, and Akitada had wanted to wipe the look of admiration from his face. At least Tora, who had lost a lot of blood, would heal. Akitada felt profoundly guilty that, of the four of them, he had come out of the fight unscathed.

Genba wept like a child when he carried the body of his friend to a temporary bier in the tribunal hall. There he and Tora would keep watch over Hito’s corpse.

Akitada entered his private quarters only briefly. Seimei tried to fuss over him, but the small amount of bleeding from his old shoulder wound and assorted bruises where his body armor had deflected sword blows amounted to nothing. When Akitada saw the joyous relief on Tamako’s face, it seemed so inappropriate to him that he was sickened and turned from her without a word to seek the solitude of his office. He wanted nothing so much as sleep, oblivion, a few hours of escape from himself—from a man he never knew, from the blood lust that had lain hidden inside him all his life, from the death of a friend.

But it was not to be. By the flickering light of the oil lamp, he saw a strange figure sitting at his desk. A very old man was hunched over the lacquered box of the shell game, turning it slowly in gnarled hands, absorbed in the pattern of the decoration. He raised his eyes unhurriedly to Akitada and nodded a greeting. The yamabushi had returned.

He looked at Akitada for a long moment. Then he gently set down the game and indicated the other cushion. “Please be seated, Governor,” he said courteously in a deep, restful voice. “You look very tired.”

Dazed, Akitada obeyed. He tucked his hands into his sleeves and shivered, but it was not from cold, for it was almost cozy in the light of the single oil lamp casting a warm glow on the desk between the two men.

The old priest pushed the brazier a little closer to Akitada. Steam and a curious fragrance rose from the small iron tea kettle on it. The master reached for a cup, poured, and stirred. “Drink this,” he ordered, sharp black eyes watching from a face as wrinkled and dark brown as a nut.