Tora looked dumfounded. "To be unpacked?"

"No, of course not. According to Kinsue, Sakanoue drove the last cart himself, and it was night again. He probably dumped the body someplace on the road. A headless corpse is not readily identifiable."

Tora cried, "No, sir! He didn't have to do that. He passed through Rashomon! They bring their dead there at night. You could leave the chancellor himself, and nobody would think anything of it."

"Rashomon? But surely the men who pick up the dead would report a headless corpse?"

"Maybe they would and maybe they wouldn't," Tora said darkly. "Things happen to dead people in that place, and not all of them are done by the living." He shuddered, then added more cheerfully, "Congratulations, sir! You've solved the case."

Akitada nodded glumly.

"What's wrong? You got that bastard Sakanoue. I thought that's what you wanted."

"You and I may know he killed the prince, but we will never prove it. The emperor himself has put his seal on Sakanoue's safety."

They had reached the top of the ridge and caught their first glimpse of the capital spread across the vast plain below them. In the heat of the midday sun, a haze hung over the great city, and only the blue-tiled or black-thatched roofs of the imperial palaces and government halls were clearly visible. From there, Suzaku Avenue stretched southward, its willows fading in the distance as into a fog. They both looked for the tiled roofs of the distant Rashomon, but the great gate was lost somewhere in the blue vapor.

Tora cried out, "Look! There's been a fire! I thought I smelled smoke this morning." He pointed at heavy streaks of charcoal gray hanging over the northwest quadrant of the city. "I knew it would happen in this weather. Poor bastards! Thank Heaven it's a long way from home!"

Akitada thought of his family and the young boy who was their visitor. He spurred on his horse. They made the descent rapidly and were soon close enough to see the location of the disaster more clearly. The fire had been brought under control. Only a slight dark haze was left over a particular grove of trees and rooftops, while the black smoke was slowly drifting away in the blue sky.

Akitada reined in his horse with a jerk. "Merciful heaven! I hope my eyes deceive me." He pointed. "Look, Tora! Isn't that gap among the charred trees where the Hiratas' house used to stand?"

Tora came alongside, glanced at his master's white face, and shaded his eyes. "Amida!" he muttered. "It is! Let's go!"

Twenty

Charred Embers

The smell of acrid smoke greeted them blocks before they reached the Hiratas' street. It was almost palpable in their nostrils, burnt their eyes and felt greasy on their skin.

The street itself looked at first glance the same as usual. The Hiratas' garden wall stood firm, and the two willows by the gate swayed their graceful branches in the breeze. But the breeze also wafted gray filaments of smoke across the wall, and a gaggle of onlookers was gathered about the open gate.

To Akitada they seemed to peer in with the avid curiosity of people who, having been spared by disaster, savor their own luck complacently. Seized by a sudden furious hatred for them, he sent his lathered, gasping horse forward with a sharp kick to scatter them in all directions.

Inside the gate the scene was reminiscent of hell. He slid from his saddle and stood speechless, staring in horror and disbelief. Wet steaming mounds of charred rubble lay among blackened vegetation, and a bluish haze hung over the place where once the deep-gabled house with its attached pavilions had stood. Soot-darkened figures, their faces covered with wet rags, moved through the smoke like demons in search of lost souls, walking paths that had once meandered through Tamako's lush gardens.

Tamako! Akitada tried to call her name, but an icy fear made his voice falter and his tongue refuse to obey.

"You there!" shouted Tora, jumping off his horse behind him, "What happened to the family?"

One of the dark figures, a fireman, turned briefly and pointed. "Over there."

At the foot of a charred cedar there were two patches of bright color. A red-coated police constable stared down at a bundle covered by a blue and white cotton robe.

A woman's robe.

Akitada moved towards the cedar stiffly, forcing one foot in front of the other until he stood beside the constable and looked down on death.

The cotton robe had been folded back to show part of a human body. The charred remains were unrecognizable and looked surprisingly small, almost like a child's corpse. Bent double, arms and legs drawn up to the torso as if defending itself against the indignities inflicted on the dead, it was the first victim of fire Akitada had seen. That shrunken black mass of scorched flesh and bones could not be . . . but, oh, that robe!

The constable growled, "Hey! What do you think you're doing here?"

Akitada looked up dazedly. "Who is this?" he croaked.

"'Was' is the correct word," said the man lugubriously. "They dragged him out of that pile over there."

Him? Akitada looked again at the corpse and saw that the back of the blackened head still retained remnants of a gray topknot. For a moment his relief was almost too intense to contain. Belatedly, Akitada looked where the constable had pointed. The rubble was what was left of Hirata's study, a pavilion separate from the main house. Oh, God! he thought. Hirata! Not Tamako, but her father. But where was she then? His brief hope died, as his eyes searched the debris, looked past the constables for other bodies, for there had been the servants, too. Were they all dead?

Tora walked up, stared at the corpse and asked, "Where are the others? There were the professor, his daughter and two servants."

"Three more?"The constable whistled. "I just got here. I guess they haven't found them yet."

Akitada's stomach knotted. No! Oh, no! Please, not Tamako too! Not his slender, graceful girl! Only the smoking ruins of the main house and of the two other pavilions remained. Nothing could have survived under those blackened beams and the burnt thatch of the roofs. Tamako's room used to be in the pavilion farthest from her father's study. Oh, Tamako! He swallowed, gagging at the memory of that twisted black corpse under the cedar, and started towards the steaming mountain of debris, forcing his trembling legs into a run.

"Wait," cried Tora, coming after him and snatching at his arm. "You can't go in there. It's still hot."

Akitada shook him off, and vaulted onto the remnants of a veranda, then flung himself on a piece of roofing and began to tear at charred timbers and kick away sodden thatch. Before he could make much headway, strong arms seized his shoulders and pulled him back. Tora and one of the firemen shouted at him. Struggling against their grasps, Akitada finally took in their words.

"The young lady's at the neighbor's house. The servants, too."

"Tamako?" He stared stupidly at Tora. "Tamako is alive?"

Tora nodded, patting his shoulder reassuringly. "She's all right, Amida be praised! Come along, sir. We'll go see her."

Akitada swayed with the relief. Barely allowing himself to hope, he walked with Tora to the adjoining house. When he knocked, an elderly man opened and looked at them questioningly.

"M-Miss Hirata? She's here?" Akitada stammered.

The man nodded and led them into the main room of the small villa.