The front doors of the school stood wide open. As he approached, Hidesato emerged with a broom and dustpan. He emptied debris in the gutter and, turning back, caught sight of Akitada. The expression of happy contentment on his face changed to anxious concern.

“I came to say good-bye,” said Akitada.

Hidesato’s relief was painfully obvious. He looked around, then placed broom and pan against the wall of the building and bowed. “I hope Your Excellency will have a safe journey home,” he said.

“Thank you. I see you’re lending a hand here.”

Hidesato flushed. “The girls needed some help,” he said, adding, “Tora’s inside.”

This news was no surprise, but it hurt nevertheless. Akitada had expected that Tora would stay with Otomi. He thought back to their first meeting. What he felt for the rough ex-soldier and farmer’s son would have seemed inconceivable then.

Hidesato fidgeted. “Er,” he mumbled, “I’m very grateful for your help, sir. I understand you cleared me of the murder charge.”

“It was nothing. Sooner or later you would have been cleared without me.”

Hidesato shook his head. “If it hadn’t been for you and Tora, Ayako and I would not be together. I’m not a young man and never hoped to find a home and a family, let alone a girl like her. I shall never forget what you’ve done for me.”

Hiding his pain and rage, Akitada turned his back on Hidesato and stepped into the exercise hall.

The doors to the backyard were wide open. Outside, snowy bundles of mats and broken blinds were stacked against the fence. Just inside, in the gray light of the morning, Tora sat on the floor near a hot brazier, cleaning Higekuro’s bow. Perhaps Hidesato would be using it soon. From the private quarters came the delicious smell of cooking.

Tora greeted Akitada with a wide grin—another happy man!—and said, “The place looks nice again, doesn’t it?”

Akitada looked around and nodded. Gone were the bloody mats. The floorboards and pillars had been scrubbed and polished till they shone. All the weapons were hanging neatly against the wall or resting in their racks. “You have done a fine job,” he said listlessly and turned toward the kitchen.

He had expected to find Ayako at the stove, but only Otomi was there. She crouched over a silk scroll on the floor, unaware of Akitada, absorbed in painting the image of the Goddess of Mercy. Akitada’s eyes went to the raised platform under the window. It was empty except for a pair of half-finished straw sandals.

A great sadness for Higekuro filled him suddenly. The fact that such a man should have died when far less worthy men lived was utterly unacceptable. In its own way, it had been as shocking a death as that of the child. Yet he at least had not died in vain. What Higekuro had wanted more than anything else in life had been to find husbands for both of his daughters. He had achieved that. Life would go on here. Tora, Hidesato, and Ayako would carry on with the school, Otomi would paint, and the two couples would raise their children here. Their happiness would soon erase the memories of blood spilled across the hall next door.

He turned away. “Where is Ayako?” he asked Tora.

“No idea.” Tora tried to evade, but when he saw Akitada’s expression, he bellowed, “Hidesato?”

The sergeant came in immediately, as if he had been waiting outside, impatient for Akitada to leave.

“Where’s Ayako gone off to?”

Hidesato’s eyes flew to Akitada’s face. He hesitated, then said, “To the temple of the Kannon...like every day since ... since her father died.”

“Thank you.” Akitada asked Tora, “Will I see you tonight?”

“Of course.” Tora was depressingly cheerful. “We’re just about done here. Tell Ayako dinner’s ready.”

The distance to the temple took longer on foot, but Akitada was in no hurry today. How different everything seemed. People walked about in straw boots and colorful scarves and jackets. The muted sound of children’s laughter came from backyards, and plunged him into a deeper depression. Smoke from cooking fires rose from chimneys, mingling with the white haze of falling snow. His steps inaudible in the white softness underfoot, Akitada felt as if he were walking through a cloud.

The sensation of unreality intensified when he reached the deserted temple. All was silent here. The buildings seemed surreal, a fairy palace inhabited by celestial princesses. He remembered how ominously the dark roofs of the hall and pagoda had risen from the black wilderness of trees the other night. Now a silvery blanket of snow covered the roof tiles and wrapped the curving eaves in feathery white so that they appeared to rise into the swirling air above like the wings of snowbirds. Behind the magic palace, trees made a filigree of white and black branches, silent guardians of the place. Akitada stopped. It seemed that no mere human could pass into that unearthly world without becoming irrevocably lost.

But he had obligations. Crossing the street quickly, he passed between the red-lacquered pillars of the gate into the courtyard. On the snowy ground, a single set of footsteps led to the main hall and up its stairs. He followed, careful not to mar them with his own large boot prints.

She was not inside, though a candle still burned at the foot of the goddess painting and a thin white spiral of incense curled from a censer she had placed before it. Akitada walked through the hall and stepped out onto the rear veranda.

Ayako was leaning against one of the pillars, soberly dressed in a dark quilted robe, looking out at the silent, snowy grove below. “I knew you would come eventually,” she said without turning her head.

“I have been very busy.” He was not really aware of his words, so intent were his eyes on her, memorizing the curve of her cheek, the graceful column of her neck, the way she held her shoulders straight and proud. Guessing at the rounded hips tapering to long thighs, he undressed her in his mind one more time, seeing the golden skin, touching its smoothness, breathing her scent.

She turned. “I have waited here every day.” Her eyes moved over him slowly, tenderly.

Akitada gazed back. “Everything has changed,” he said.

She nodded. Then, surprisingly, she said, “You are still angry with me. And with Hidesato.”

“Yes. I know I have no right.”

She turned away again. “You think that I took him to the bathhouse and made love to him where you and I used to lie together.”

He was ashamed of his jealousy but could not lie. “Yes,” he said softly.

“You are wrong.” She sighed. “Perhaps that will make you feel better. I don’t know. It makes no difference, because you and I are of different worlds. Although my father once held rank, we have become nonpersons in this nation, neither noble nor common. My father accepted this and taught us that human relationships depend on qualities rarely found in your world. He believed in honor, but by his standards even the Rat has honor, perhaps more honor than a high-ranking nobleman from the capital.”