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  After a short ride along the wintry highway, Akitada found the house. It stood by itself well outside Saga village, was in poor repair, and looked abandoned. The fence was leaning, the gate had been barred by nailing rough boards across it, and no smoke rose into the chill winter air. Still, a trail of footsteps led to the gate. Forest had closed in from both sides. The shrubs and trees were bare now, but impassable hummocks of snow marked the wilderness. A feeling of emptiness and silence had settled over the place.

  It was getting late—already the setting sun left deep purple shadows on the snow—and Akitada had to get back. As he was turning his horse, he heard the rhythmic clinking of metal and stopped. Several black crows started up from a tree, shaking clouds of snow from the branches and breaking the peace with raucous protest. Around the curve of the road appeared a mendicant monk.

  He must have been tall and well built once, but now his figure was very thin and he appeared bowed under the weight of his straw hat. The tinkling sound came from his staff; it had iron rings attached to its top and marked him as a homeless monk wandering the highways of the land and begging his food from farmers and townspeople.

  This one looked more ragged and dirty than most. He had let his hair and beard grow, his clothes had holes that showed the flesh of his arms, and his legs were wrapped in rags. Akitada felt inside his sash for alms.

  The monk ignored him. He turned off the road and approached the house. When he reached the barred gate, he knelt and made a deep obeisance. Then he began to chant in a cracked and disagreeable voice.

  Puzzled, Akitada watched. The house was clearly uninhabited. Had he left the tracks? But why beg there? Was he demented? Wandering monks were frequently a queer lot.

  Eventually, the monk got to his feet again and came over. He raised his wooden bowl in a dirty hand. “Alms, for the Buddha’s sake,” he said in his rough voice, a demand rather than a request.

  Akitada dropped some silver into the bowl. The contrast between this man and the refined Enchin was shocking. The beggar had weather-beaten features, filthy hair and beard, and a broken nose. He also smelled bad.

  “Why do you pray in front of an empty house?” Akitada asked.

  “All is emptiness,” the monk growled and shoved the silver inside his ragged robe. “It makes no difference to Buddha.” He turned and walked away, the rings on his staff jingling with every step.

  The searches made by the junior clerks in the ministry produced no details about Masatsune’s charges or the circumstances of his trial. His sentence was given: exile in Satsuma Province on the island of Kyushu. Since both climate and conditions were very harsh there, it had amounted to a death sentence.

  Akitada next went to see his friend, Police Superintendent Kobe.

  “I could use some help with a possible crime,” he told Kobe.

  Kobe grinned. “When and where did this ‘possible crime’ occur?”

  “Umm, twenty years ago. Near Saga.”

  “You must be joking.” Kobe laughed, then called a constable anyway and told him to check the case files in the archives. “It may take a while,” he said. “Sit down and tell me about it.”

  But Akitada was already on his way out. “Not yet. Maybe when I know a little more.”

  His next visit was to Masatsune.

  The noble exile was staying with a Fujiwara cousin. The cousin looked unhappy, but he led Akitada to a backroom of his mansion, where Masatsune half reclined against an armrest. He was covered with bedding and shivering as on the day before in spite of the large brazier that made the room overly warm. Seeing Akitada, he cried, “You’ve found him!”

  Akitada sat down at a little distance from the brazier and loosened his collar. “Yes. He’s a monk by the name of Enchin and resides at Ninna-ji.”

  “So close?” Masatsune struggled out of his covers. “I must go there. I must speak to him.”

  “I suggest you write him a letter and ask him to come here. His health is better than yours.”

  The other man subsided. “Perhaps,” he said weakly. “Will he come?”

  “Yes. He too has a confession to make.”

  Masatsune’s eyes widened. “You don’t mean . . . ?”

  “No. Not that. He betrayed your secret. He followed you that night and says he watched you fall down into a gully that night. Could the scratches on your face and hands have happened then?”

  Masatsune brightened. “Good old Sasaki! Yes, why not? I didn’t know.”

  “What happened to the old woman who was supposed to look after Lady Tokihime?”

  Masatsune flushed. “So you found out her name.”

  “Not too difficult. What about the servant?”

  “She must be long dead.”

  “Could she have told someone?”

  That shocked Masatsune into a rare display of animation. “Hotoke had served my family all her life. She was absolutely loyal.”

  “In that case, where was she during the murder?”

  “She was in her eightieth year and nearly deaf. It was night. I imagine she was asleep. In any case, I didn’t see her when I found Tokihime.” He covered his face at the memory. “I fled and never saw her again.”

  “What about your neighbors, or the people who lived in Saga?”

  “I made sure I had no neighbors and Saga was a mile away.” Masatsune dismissed the matter with a wave of a hand. “We were hiding from the world.”

  Akitada was becoming irritated by his languid manner. “Someone knew about you. If it wasn’t the palace, and we accept Enchin’s word that he didn’t kill her, it must have been a stranger. Had you or Lady Tokihime been troubled by any visitors?”

  Masatsune blinked. After a moment, he said, “I was only there at night, but she was afraid. She said eyes were peering at her from the garden, and that some goblin was looking over the top of the fence. I thought she imagined all of it. That fence couldn’t be climbed, and the gate was kept barred.”

  “There must have been deliveries.”

  “I suppose. I wouldn’t know how they got food. My old servant would have dealt with that, and she wouldn’t let anyone past the gate.”

  The man had confessed to having left a young woman of rank in the care of a single aged, deaf companion, a fact that almost certainly had cost her her life. Yet still Masatsune showed no understanding of his callous behavior.

  More uneasy than ever, Akitada returned home and saddled his horse.

  Saga had grown prosperous because it offered lodging to travelers on the busy highway to the capital and the great temple Ninna-ji.

  Akitada stopped at a roadside eatery where he saw other horses tied up. In spite of the chilly air, several men sat outside on benches, eating and drinking. He went in, found the usual open fire with the kettles hanging over it, and cooks and servers busy feeding a small crowd. The customers noted his clothes and made room for him near the fire. He ordered a bowl of noodles and some wine. Both were good and he ate hungrily. When he was done, he asked to speak to an elderly woman who had been working in the back, chopping vegetables and washing bowls.

  This odd request caused some consternation, but she came willingly enough, knelt and touched her head to the dirt floor.

  “My name is Sugawara,” he told her. “I’m an official from the capital.”

  “This humble one is named Okatsu. How may I serve the honored gentleman?”

  Her speech was tinged with the local dialect and Akitada asked, “Have you lived long in Saga?”

  “All my life, Your Honor.”

  “I want to ask you about the abandoned house outside town on the road to Ninna-ji. Why is it empty?”

  She rolled her eyes. “A ghost lives there. Nobody goes near it.”

  “But only yesterday I saw a monk praying there. Perhaps you know him?”

  The eyes rolled again. “Oh, that’s Goro. He always prays there. Every time he passes.”

  “Why? The house is empty.”

  “Who knows? Goro doesn’t have go
od sense. He’s given it all to the Buddha.” She chuckled.

  “You know him well, then?”

  “Oh, yes. He’s been here for many years now. They say he had a good business once but lost it gambling. That’s why he left the world and became a monk. He’s a holy man.”

  “A holy man?” Akitada remembered the repulsive character he had met.

  She nodded. “Oh, very holy,” she said firmly. “A man must be very holy to live like that.”

  “Ah, yes. And where would I find him now?”

  This surprised her a little. “Most people don’t go near him,” she said. “He’ll be walking about town, or maybe he’s at Ninna-ji. Sometimes he stays there.”

  Akitada thanked her, paid, and got back on his horse. Goro was not in town, but someone had seen him on the road to Ninna-ji the night before. Akitada returned to Ninna-ji.

  It was the final day of confession services, and people were arriving to rid themselves of the sins of the past year. Akitada asked the monks at the gate about Goro. As he had hoped, they knew him here. One of them directed Akitada to the kitchen area.

  And there he found the mendicant monk at a rain barrel. He was making efforts to wash himself.

  “You’re called Goro, aren’t you?” Akitada said, riding up beside him.

  The monk turned his head and looked up at him without much enthusiasm. “Who wants to know?”

  “We met yesterday. In front of the deserted house near Saga. Do you remember?”

  “So?” He made no effort to be pleasant to the man who had given him a very generous gift only a day before. Instead, he glowered at Akitada from sunken eyes.

  Somewhere a bell rang. Goro looked in that direction and ran wet hands through his greasy hair and beard, combing them into some order. “Confession service,” he said. He dried his hands on his robe and trudged away.

  “Wait,” Akitada called after him. “If you’re confessing, why not confess to the murder you committed in that house?”

  Goro stopped. His back was to Akitada; he did not turn or answer. The bell rang again.

  “You killed a lady there, didn’t you? Twenty years ago? That’s why you stop to pray at that house every time you pass.”

  Goro turned slowly. “Who sent you?”

  “No one. Or perhaps it’s your karma. Your fate followed you like a shadow for twenty years, and now it has caught up with you.”

  The ragged figure sagged a little. Goro’s sunken eyes closed. “Like a shadow. Yes, I knew it was there. Always. I heard its steps, and it breathed down my neck.” He fell to his knees in the dirty snow and uttered a hoarse cry: “What comes out of you, will come back to you.” Then he raised his hands and clasped them around his scrawny neck and squeezed until his mouth gaped and his eyes started from his head.

  Akitada slid from his horse. He grasped Goro’s wrists, trying to loosen their iron grip. They struggled for a moment, then the monk gave up the fight. He let his arms drop, took a gasping breath, and let it out in a long moan that might have been a dying animal’s.

  “Will you tell me what happened?” Akitada asked after a moment.

  GORO’S CONFESSION:

  When I was still in the world, I had both bad luck and good. I was very poor, but I had good health and a strong body. I worked as a laborer and was smart enough to find me a rich wife. She was the only daughter of a rice merchant in the capital. I did my duty by her: five children in five years. When her father died, we got the business. I was a man of leisure then, and I spent my days and nights with bad friends and the women of the town. I drank and gambled and lost the money, and we had to sell the business. My wife turned into a shrew and blamed me when I couldn’t find work. I stole things to feed the kids and got good at it. Then I took to robbing travelers on the road. My wife knew, but she liked nice clothes and gold. She wanted more and more.

  One day, I worked the Saga highway and found a rich man’s house that looked empty, but the fence was too tall and I left. The next night, I went back with a ladder and started looking around the place, but an old crone almost caught me, and I left again. Finally, the third time, I got lucky. I got in, and crept into the house. All was still and dark. I moved quietly, but suddenly a woman screamed. She frightened me, but I asked her nicely to be quiet and give me some gold and I’d leave again. When she carried on, I had to grab her. I was strong back then, and I must have been a little rough because she went limp and when I let her go, she fell from my hands. I found a lamp and lit it. When I saw she was dead, I was afraid. I’d never killed anyone. I just took a robe and a fan and got away from there as fast as I could.

  My wife was very pleased with the robe and fan. She didn’t care that I’d murdered the lady, instead the fiend told me to go back for more. I left her and my children, and I walked away into the night. I knew then life was a lying dream and I abandoned the world.

  Goro still knelt when he was finished, hunched into himself, his greasy head bowed.

  Akitada did not know what to say this time either. Confession was a form of cleansing, of purification of the soul, but none of the three men had felt better after sharing their guilt. Neither did Akitada know whose guilt was the greatest. This man before him was a thief who had committed the actual murder, but was his sin greater than that of Masatsune, who had also taken what was not his, used and abused it, and then discarded it? That what he had taken had been another human being had troubled him less than the danger of getting into trouble. And what of Sasaki? He had betrayed both his best friend and the woman he claimed to have loved to madness, knowing full well that a terrible punishment awaited them. And this he had done out of revenge because he could not have the young woman. Compared to these two noblemen, Goro had merely been reckless: reckless in choosing a greedy and unfeeling wife, reckless in gambling away his wealth, and reckless in strangling to death a young woman as he tried to stop her from making noise.

  What terrified Akitada most, however, was that all three had seemed predestined to do what they did. Was this the will of the gods? Or was it due to their upbringing? Perhaps something in each man had made him act the way he did. Karma.

  “What will you do now?” Akitada asked the miserable figure in the snow before him.

  Goro barely moved. “Nothing. Pray. Wait.”

  When Akitada returned to the capital, he saw Kobe first and, duty-bound, he told him of the confessions. “Will you arrest Goro?” he asked when he was done.

  Kobe looked at him bleakly and then away. “Would you?”

  Akitada shook his head.

  His next visit was to Masatsune. He found him in the company of the monk Enchin. The two men sat together, and the contrast between them struck Akitada again. Masatsune would never be well again.

  They looked at him expectantly.

  Akitada did not bother to sit down. He delivered his news curtly: another man had killed the Lady Tokihime. Without waiting for their questions, or expressions of relief and gratitude, he walked away.

  This year’s confession services had done nothing for his soul.

  Copyright © 2012 I. J. Parker

  * * *

  Author’s note: This story was suggested in part by “Sannin Hoshi” (“Three Priests”), an anonymous folktale from the sixteenth century.

  * * *

  MARLEY’S WINTER

  JOHN C. BOLAND | 2669 words

  The ferry from Calais had diverted for reasons no one explained, and when Charles Marley debarked at Folkestone, the English seaside town was already pulling in its sidewalks. He lost twenty minutes asking about a train to London, of which the last had departed before the ferry’s unexpected arrival. The hotel he found lacked a dining room, and the nearby restaurants—only two—had closed after tea because it was the off-season. He might find a Cornish pasty down on the beach, said the woman who ran the hotel.

  He put his small suitcase in his second-floor room and came downstairs.

  He was trembling. Low blood sugar, his wife would explain. He h
ad left her in Paris, where around eight o’clock she would meet someone from the British embassy for dinner. He refused to think beyond that. He had a meeting of his own the next afternoon in London with a Russian.

  It was cold outside the hotel, and when he found a cement stairway down to the beach he was grateful for his overcoat. He walked a hundred yards in the dusk toward the lights of an amusement park. There was a circular, domed arcade, a wooden roller coaster, a couple of other attractions hidden in fog that had come up from the channel. None of the rides was operating. When he hesitated at the door of the arcade, he could no longer see the town up the hill on his left or the water below the shingle beach on his right. He wasn’t given to whimsy—he had been a case officer for eighteen years and believed only in literal things—but he had known people who might have felt that the channel was asserting a claim on the land with these thin, quick tentacles of fog. Marley wondered if his Russian contact had that sort of bent. It was a national character weakness, poetic, dramatic, knowingly false.

  The woman at the hotel had been right. He found a stand in the arcade building that sold chips and Cornish pasties. Both were grease soaked and cold. While he circled the arcade, past the penny-pusher machine and mechanical games, only two other customers shared the bleak space.

  “Aren’t you from the ferry?” the man in the tweed coat asked him. He had come straight over from the penny machine, so his approach hadn’t startled Marley. His accent was American. His face was pale and resigned, without the peevishness of a tourist who has found himself in a dismal place. A businessman might not expect his travels to be comfortable.

  The man looked down at the coppers still in his hand, three of them, as if he’d forgotten their use. “I’d hoped to get to London this evening,” he said. “Have a look at the museums before I fly home. You were on the ferry, weren’t you? When she started rolling, I thought I was going to be sick.”

  “It was rough,” Marley agreed.

  “And then we come here instead of Dover! I heard there was some sort of labor action at Dover.”