Yori sat on the floor, surrounded by pieces of paper and small containers of paints. Noami had removed his quilted red robe and given him a short cotton shirt which covered his full trousers and jacket. It was liberally stained with paint. Yori turned a smiling face to his father.

“Look at my paintings,” he cried.

The studio looked much like the last time, except that all the sliding doors were closed against the winter chill. Noami had lit a lamp near some cushions. A large brazier warmed the room.

“May I offer refreshments?” Noami asked.

“Please do not bother,” Akitada said quickly. He disliked the man intensely, but felt it would be boorish to express his feelings, when the painter had done no more than entertain Yori for an afternoon. “We must return immediately. His mother is anxious.”

“Yes, of course. I forgot. But let me get something to clean him up a little. Please do have some wine. You look chilled. Surely on such a cold night… ?”

Akitada saw a wine flask on the brazier. His fingers and ears felt nearly frozen, and the sweat was like ice against his skin. “Very well.” He seated himself. Noami poured and offered the wine with a bow, then hurried away.

Akitada warmed his frozen hands by holding them over the brazier. Yori was dipping his fingers into some yellow paint and making hand prints on the paper.

“Stop that!” his father snapped. “Why did you run away without permission?”

Yori turned round eyes to his father. “But I asked permission. You were reading some papers and nodded your head.”

Akitada did not remember. Seimei had been busy with the sick Harada, and Akitada had worked over the accounts himself. An unpleasant draft passed through the studio, chilling him to the bone but doing little to disperse the strong smell of paints and pigments which hung about the studio. He sipped a little of the spiced wine and found it strange but not unpleasant. Papers lay scattered about the floor, Yori’s handiwork. He remembered the last painting lesson and became angry again. “Wipe your hands and come here.”

Yori obeyed, using Noami’s shirt for the purpose. Picking up some of the papers, he brought them to his father. “Look!”

The boy had tried to draw people this time, strange creatures with large heads, open mouths, huge eyes, and missing hands or feet. Childish distortions because he had found them too difficult to draw? Akitada took another sip, letting the wine warm and settle his stomach, and rose to look at the other sheets. As he did so, he came across a drawing by Noami. This, too, was of a human being, a small boy, whose eyes were wide with fear and his mouth open in a scream. Akitada dropped the paper in sudden revulsion. This drawing also had only stumps where the hands and feet should have been. How dare the man show such things to a child!

Then two memories coalesced in Akitada’s mind: the bleeding wounds of the tortured souls on the hell screen and the maimed son of the poor woman in the market nearby. At first his mind refused a connection too horrible to contemplate, but he sifted through the rest of the papers with frantic haste, turning up two more sketches of children with missing limbs. Remembering the rolls of drawings Noami had so angrily prevented him from seeing, Akitada took up the lamp, found the pile in the corner of the studio, and unrolled sketch after sketch, letting each fall from his trembling hands. Most were of women and children, though there were two frail old men. All of them poor weak creatures, and all of them horribly wounded or burned. Several sketches showed Yukiyo, her face slashed and her naked body bleeding from the breasts and abdomen. Akitada’s stomach turned, and the sour taste of wine rose to his mouth.

He thought too late of what might happen if Noami returned and found him so. Yori! He must get the boy away.

Akitada swayed, suddenly dizzy. With shaking hands he rolled up the papers and pushed them back in their corner. Then he staggered back to Yori. He was barely in time.

Noami came in, carrying a bowl of water and some towels. For a moment, Akitada could not focus. The room swam before his eyes.

Noami busied himself wiping paint off Yori’s face and hands.

“Papa saw my pictures.” Yori’s voice sounded a long way off, but quite cheerful. “I shall come back to paint the puppies soon.”

Noami put down the dirty towels and took off the stained shirt. “I shall look forward to it, young master,” he said in his grating voice. Yori ran to Akitada. Catching the child in his arms, Akitada stared at the painter. He must act naturally, or Noami would prevent their leaving.

“Are you quite well, my lord?” asked Noami. “You look very pale.”

“No, I’m… I’m fine. His coat? We must g… g …” Yori was already struggling into his red coat.

“We must go home,” Akitada managed to say quite clearly. He felt strangely light-headed. Making an attempt to get to his feet, he found that his legs would not support him.

“Perhaps another cup of wine before your long walk back?” asked Noami, pressing the cup into his hand.

Anything to get to his feet. He must leave. He must take Yori. Akitada drank and staggered up. “Come, Yori,” he said, and bent to take his son’s hand. But he miscalculated, overbalanced, and fell to his hands and knees.

“Oh, dear, oh, dear,” said Noami. “Sit down and rest, my lord. Shall I get you some water?”

Akitada nodded. “Some water. Yes.”

The light was very poor, but the man seemed to be grinning as he left. For a moment, Akitada stared after him nervously. It seemed darker in the room. Then he realized that he had left the lamp in the corner with Noami’s drawings. The painter knew he had seen them. Almost at the same moment, another thought worked its way through the haze of his mind: the wine he had just drunk must have been drugged to make him so dizzy and weak.

Akitada made a superhuman effort. “Yori,” he mumbled, “you must run home now!”

Yori nodded. “We’ll run home, Papa. I’m hungry.”

“No. You must go home alone. Can you …” Akitada’s tongue would not obey. “Alone. Now! Can you … run alone?” He had meant to ask if the child could find the way. Silly question. “Get Genba… tell Genba…” No time! He raised his voice. “Run, Yori! Now! Run!”

The boy stood irresolute, staring at him wide-eyed. Outside, there were the returning steps of Noami.

“Please, Yori,” Akitada begged. “Please, hurry! And don’t look back!” He gave the child a little push toward the entrance.

His urgency must have registered, for Yori nodded and ran. In a moment, he was gone. Akitada staggered to his feet again, grabbing for a pillar to stay upright. He must prevent Noami from going after Yori. Pushing himself away from the pillar, he stumbled toward the rear of the studio and slid open the doors to the garden.

“What are you doing?” cried the painter.

Akitada staggered forward and fell headlong down some steps. The pain to his knees and the cold air cleared his head a little. Noami, a vague presence in Akitada’s confused state, attempted to lift him to his feet. Akitada mumbled, “Yori…”

“Where’s the boy? Did he run out?”

Akitada clutched the shoulders of the small man and nodded. “Li’l rascal was looking for the … dogs,” he slurred.

“Let’s get you back in first,” said Noami. “Then I’ll go find the boy!”

He half supported, half dragged Akitada back into the studio and let him drop onto the cushion.

Waves of nausea washed over Akitada; the room spun and receded crazily; someone pressed a cup to his lips. He tried to shake his head, opened his mouth to say no, but the liquid poured between his teeth; he gagged and swallowed.

Before him hovered the broad, grinning face of Noami. “There, now,” he rasped. “That should put you to sleep.” His laughter sounded like a cracked bell. “I was right about you. I knew you’d come yourself and alone, my lord. Men like you are too arrogant to think common folk would dare lay a finger on them.”