Four witnesses besides the driver and the boy! Akitada shook his head and said, "It seems strange that your master should suddenly have decided to remove the whole family to the country on the very day of his annual visit to the Ninna temple."

Kinsue shook his head sadly. "Who can say? The soothsayer cursed us," he muttered. "It was an evil day when the master had him whipped from the gate. That's what I told my old woman, when there was the trouble with the young lady we weren't supposed to know about."

That confirmed the boy's account. Akitada returned to the events at the temple. "You say you saw everything that happened at the temple. Were you not tending to your ox?"

"No. That's what the boy was there for. I was sitting down by the wall, watching the gentlemen on the veranda and listening to the master praying."

"Are you sure you could hear and see?" Akitada asked in disbelief. "It was surely dark, and you were across the courtyard if you were sitting by the wall."

"It's only a small courtyard, and the sky was getting light."

"Very well. Go on. Tell me everything you saw and heard from the moment you arrived."

Kinsue got a faraway look in his eyes. "After His Highness got out," he said, "I untied the ox and told Noro to take it to the next courtyard and feed it. Then I sat down to wait. His Highness had already gone in and I could hear him chanting. The gentlemen were sitting on the veranda outside the door. After a time the sun started coming up over the mountain. Then the monks rang the great bell of the temple, and the master stopped chanting. Lord Sakanoue got up and walked to the balustrade to tell me to bring the ox, which I did. I remember Noro and I were talking about being back in town in time for a good breakfast. We hitched the ox to the carriage, and then we all waited. The gentlemen were still standing on the veranda. They were talking, but I couldn't hear what they said. Some of them came down to get their horses. Then Lord Sakanoue went to the door and knocked, crying, 'Your Highness! Everything is ready!' But my master did not come out. One of the gentlemen and Lord Sakanoue talked and then they went in. Me and Noro stood staring up, wondering what was wrong. The other gentlemen came to look, too. Then Lord Sakanoue came back out, and he was carrying the master's purple robe and he was weeping. He said the master was gone."

The old man let his head drop to his chest and he wiped his eyes again. "I never saw my master again," he muttered. "The monks came then, and the abbot, and they all searched and searched. Then they brought an exorcist and a medium. The medium went inside and when she came out, she said that the master had been reborn in paradise because of his devotion in reading the sutra and in wishing to be with his son. I suppose it must be so." Kinsue stopped, exhausted.

Akitada gave him time to recover. Then he said, "You must have wondered what happened. Did you not think your master might have just walked away? Or that someone might have abducted him or even killed him and hidden his body?"

Kinsue shook his head. "It was impossible," he said stubbornly. "I watched. The gentlemen watched. Lord Sakanoue made all of us come up and see that there was no one in the hall, and there was no way the master could have left. It must have been as the medium said."

"Kinsue," cried a faint, quavering voice outside. The interruption was so startling that both men jumped a little.

"My wife," explained Kinsue.

"I would like to meet her."

Akitada followed Kinsue out. Under the paulownia tree stood a short, fat old woman who was staring at the rake and the pile of leaves as if her husband might suddenly materialize. When Kinsue called out to her, her face lit up until she saw Akitada. Her husband made the introductions. Getting awkwardly down on her knees, she bowed rapidly several times.

Akitada said, "Please get up. I wondered if you might have some message for Sadamu from his sister. He is worried."

The old woman began to cry. "Oh, my poor little lady," she sobbed. "All alone now. May Amida protect her!" She fell to praying, eyes closed and lips moving soundlessly.

"Hush, old woman!" cried her husband, scandalized. "Do you want to frighten the young lord?" He turned to Akitada to explain. "My wife took the young lady her morning rice before she left for the country. The young lady's maids were busy loading the carts, and so she was allowed into the young lady's quarters. The young lady was weeping terribly, but it was a bad time, what with the sad news. I am sure the young lady is quite well by now. Being married to Lord Sakanoue, she is now number one lady of the household. That is something, isn't it, when she is but fifteen years old?"

Fifteen? She was a mere child then. "Was there really a marriage?" asked Akitada, looking at Kinsue's wife. She nodded, her eyes unhappy.

"But I thought Prince Yoakira had refused to give his consent," Akitada said.

The two old people looked at each other, puzzled. "But they must be married," said the old woman. "His lordship spent the night with her three nights running, and I baked the wedding dumplings myself on the third day." Her face crumpled again. "It was the day before the master went away to heaven."

Kinsue shook his head in wonder. "What a day! So many things happening!"

"Yes," said Akitada. "It must have been. Thank you both. I shall tell Lord Minamoto what you said."

The old woman scrambled up to whisper something in her husband's ear, then wobbled off at a half-run. Kinsue said, "My wife went to fetch something for the young lord."

Akitada nodded and turned to look up at the prince's quarters. Here the quarrel had taken place after Yoakira had discovered to his shock that his granddaughter had, willingly or otherwise, become Sakanoue's wife. No wonder he had been furious! What had passed between the old nobleman and his new grandson-in-law? Had he acknowledged the marriage, or refused to countenance it? Akitada thought he knew the answer to that. It was the motive for the murder of the prince. Poor children, both at the mercy of an unscrupulous man. He tried to imagine what the girl must have felt, must be feeling now.

Lost in thought, he walked up the steps again and stood in the doorway looking in. It must be a marriage as empty and desolate as this room. He thought of his parents, their formality with each other, the absence of any signs of fondness, of physical familiarity. But his mother had always been a strong character, well able to cope with an autocratic husband. Was this what had frightened Tamako? Had she been afraid that he would be a distant husband, leaving her to the cold demands of her mother-in-law? He sighed unhappily. That mystery would never be solved, but the strange disappearance of the man who used to occupy these rooms would be, if he could help it.

As he thought this, Akitada felt his hair bristle. It was as if something spoke to him with a terrible urgency.

He looked around. Not so much as a clothes chest remained, only the outline where one had stood, obliquely, near the door. Packed and ready for transport to the country? Why had they removed the prince's things? he wondered. He had been gone by then and would hardly need his clothes.

Someone had inexpertly scoured the wooden floor after the chest had been removed. The marks had dulled the deep gloss of the floor-boards. Kinsue, no doubt, in his fervent desire to keep the master's room spotless.