“Sugawara?” Haseo raised his brows and whistled. “And

an imperial official! But you mean you used to be. What crime

did you commit?”

“None. I’m neither a prisoner nor an exile. I’m a free man.”

Haseo fell back into the grass and burst into helpless laugh-

ter. Akitada stopped and chuckled.

I s l a n d o f E x i l e s

327

“Well,” he corrected himself, “I’m theoretically a free man.

The problem is getting back to provincial headquarters in

Mano to establish my identity. And the gods only know what

will await us there.”

Haseo stopped laughing and sat up slowly. “You are serious?

But what happened?”

Akitada bent to give Haseo a hand and winced at the pain in

his knee. “It’s too long a story. Let’s keep moving and I’ll try to tell you some of it on the way.”

But when he turned, his eyes caught some movement on

the other side of the stream. A large furry animal of some sort?

Perhaps, but he did not think so.

“Take cover,” he whispered to Haseo, and crossed the

stream. His knee hurt, but he had to find out if they had

been seen.

He caught sight of the squat brown figure almost immedi-

ately. Resembling some lumbering bear with a curly mane

from this distance, the goblin was hurrying uphill with two

buckets of water. Akitada scanned the area. Could they be

that close to the mining camp? The hillside was empty, but

evidently the stream was where the goblin got the water to

cook with. Dear heaven, what if she had seen them? He could

not take that chance.

The Ezo woman was not particularly agile at the best of

times, and the full buckets hampered her. When she stopped to

look back, Akitada was certain. He made a dash and seized

her shoulders to swing her around. Water splashed from the

buckets, and she gave a little cry.

Now that he had caught the woman, Akitada did not know

what to do with her. Prudence suggested killing her, or at least

tying her up to gain them a little more time, but he remembered

the extra food she had brought him and could not bring himself

to do either.

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I . J . P a r k e r

She looked up at him with an expression that was part fear

and part joy. He dropped his hands, and she set down the buck-

ets and smiled the familiar gap-toothed grin. “You safe,” she

said, nodding her head. “Good! You go quick now.” A dirty

brown hand gestured downhill. When he did not move, she

said, “They looking in mountain.” Her arm swept upward and

waved a circle around the mountain looming above to indicate

that the search had not progressed from the mine yet.

Haseo came up behind him. “We cannot let her go,” he

said softly.

Akitada swung around and hissed, “No. She won’t tell.”

He wished he were as certain as he sounded. Her words had

implied that she would not, but what if she had lied to save

her neck? It was a terrible risk to take, and he was risking

Haseo’s life also.

Haseo shook his head. “Don’t be a fool. She’s the enemy. I’ll

do it, if it bothers you too much.” He brought his hand forward

and Akitada saw that he was clutching a large rock.

He stepped between Haseo and the woman. “No. She saved

me from the fire and was kind to me. I cannot repay her by

letting you murder her.”

They spoke in low voices while she watched nervously.

Someone shouted in the distance, and she cocked her head.

“You go now. Quick or they kill!” she said urgently, gesturing

toward the valley.

Akitada put his finger to his lips, and she nodded. He turned

and took Haseo’s arm and pulled him back into the trees.

Haseo dropped the rock. “That was foolish. They’ll be after

us faster than you can blink an eye. You should have left her to

me. I would have made sure of her.”

Akitada just shook his head.

They struggled on, following the stream down the moun-

tain as fast as their legs could carry them while listening for

I s l a n d o f E x i l e s

329

sounds of pursuit. Fearful of being seen from above, they stayed

under the cover of trees, though it slowed them down.

But all remained quiet, and eventually, out of breath and

unable to run anymore, they reached the valley. The stream had

widened and the mountains receded on either side of them.

They saw the first signs of human habitation, small rice paddies

or vegetable patches tucked on narrow plateaus. Haseo helped

himself to a large radish and a half-ripe melon at one of these,

and they stopped briefly to devour the food and wash it down

with water.

Later they skirted a few small farms, cautious about being

seen, even when the buildings looked like abandoned shacks.

Akitada feared that the peasants were loyal to Kumo and would

report to him the sighting of escaped miners. Walking became

more and more difficult. They needed rest, but fear of their pur-

suers kept them plodding on doggedly.

The sun was setting when they staggered down yet another

hill and found a road.

“I cannot go any farther,” said Akitada, dropping down un-

der a fir tree, one of a small copse, and rubbing his painfully

swollen knee. “How is your leg?”

Haseo stood swaying. He looked terribly pale. “Bleeding

again, I think,” he mumbled. “Don’t really want to know.” Then

he collapsed into the deep grass.

Akitada waited for him to sit back up, but Haseo had either

fallen asleep or passed out. He crawled over and checked. The

bandage was soaked with fresh blood. But Haseo was breathing

normally, his mouth slack with exhaustion. He needed rest and

a doctor’s care.

A small stream passed nearby, and Akitada slid down to it.

Pulling up some moss, he soaked it in the cold water and held it

to his knee. He was faint with hunger and worried about Haseo.

He had no idea where they were, but assumed the road in front

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I . J . P a r k e r

of them led eventually to Mano. Moving southward should

bring them to the sea. But roads were traveled by people, and

they would attract attention. It struck him for the first time that they had a choice between risking recapture or dying from their

injuries or lack of food in the wilderness.

When his knee felt a little better, he gathered more moss and

wetted it, then crawled back to where he had left Haseo.

But Haseo was no longer alone.

Peering down at his sleeping figure stood a youngster of

about ten who had a load of kindling tied to his back. He

wore only a ragged shirt and did not look much better than

they. Perhaps that was why he did not run away when Akitada

approached.

“What’s wrong with him?” he asked, pointing to Haseo’s

bloody bandage.

“He got hurt coming down the mountain,” said Akitada,

busying himself with undoing the bandage and packing the

wound with the wet moss instead. “Do you live around here?”

“In the village. If he’s hurt, you should take him to Ribata.”

Akitada stopped what he was doing. “Ribata? The nun

Ribata?” he asked the boy, dumbfounded. “Do you know her?”

The youngster made a face at such stupidity. “Of course. She

lives here, doesn’t she?”

Akitada stood up and looked around. “Here? Where?”

The boy pointed up the mountain on the other side of the

road. “Up there. You can see the smoke. That means she’s home.

Sometimes she goes away.”

Akitada regarded the child dubiously. Why would the nun

live here on a mountain? Yet the more he thought about it, the

more he was inclined to believe. He squinted at the thin spiral of