Things fell into a routine. I would go to the Spring Palace every other day or so and work with the students. After a couple of training sessions, Surei got a small archery range set up in the rear of the property, so every other session we worked with yumi.

Benkon kept after me about my saké drinking, even going so far as to give me a saké jug filled with his herbal brew to wear around my neck. “This way, you’ll never be without it,” he told me.

The part I felt was totally unfair was that he enlisted Akiko, Surei, Dimples, and Cook in his efforts to ensure I didn’t drink any saké. I never had a chance.

I felt more than a little aggrieved that, while working in and around a saké house that served some of the best saké in the capital, I was reduced to drinking boiled plant juice. Perhaps I had been a little free with the saké in Isé and had allowed the assassins to ambush me. And I probably wouldn’t have gambled everything away if I had stayed sober. What were the chances someone was going to try and ambush me here at the Spring Palace? It just wasn’t fair. At least I got some personal “moving meditation” sessions with Benkon for my troubles.

One day, I dropped by Surei’s office to speak with her about the progress of the training. She was looking over a number of scrolls with receipts scattered around the table. As I sat down, she told me, “Just let me finish this up, it will only take a few moments,” without looking up from her work.

Just then, we heard a sound like galloping horses. A white and orange streak tore through the door, followed by a black flash. Lady Song, hotly pursued by Lord Mao, went racing around the room. Before either Surei or I could react, both cats hurtled across the table, sending the papers and receipts flying into the air, landing all over the floor. Surei stood and yelled, “CAT!” but by then, the two animals had darted out through the door, the sound of their furiously pounding paws fading in the distance.

Surei looked at the mess of the papers she had been working on and sighed in frustration.

One of the Ume twins burst into the room. “Mistress, that Taira person is impossible! He won’t listen to anything we tell him! He is even more ignorant and obnoxious than a country bushi. He insists he has to talk to you immediately, says it is vital.”

Surei frantically motioned me back behind a decorative panel she had in a dark corner of the room, then quickly straightened up her receipts. I ducked into hiding just as District Magistrate Taira charged in. I watched through the gap between the folding sections of the panel.

Whatever Surei was doing for Taira’s wardrobe was working. He no longer looked the buffoon. His robes and jacket were stylish, made with the finest fabrics, and dyed in fashionable colors.

However, clothes were not on his mind at the moment. “I appreciate your help with this,” he said, indicating his robes, “but I need more. I am here in the capital to meet with some influential people, but I can’t get them to see me. While their underlings treat me with more respect now, they still keep stalling me when I press them to arrange an appointment to visit. I have to find a better way to get their attention.”

Surei looked troubled. “I don’t know what I can do to help you.”

“I have been told you periodically hold festivals here at the saké house. No one would miss the opportunity to attend a function held at the Spring Palace.”

Surei pursed her lips in thought. “Well, we usually have the kurabiraki, the new saké taste festival, at the beginning of the sixth month. This marks the arrival of the initial batch of the year’s saké. In the past, Senior Retired Emperor Toba has been kind enough to sponsor it, but he is indisposed this year, and we were forced to cancel it.”

The district magistrate sat back, a satisfied smile on his face. “Uncancel it. I will be the sponsor.”

Surei waved her hand in front of her in negation. “Oh no, you have no idea how much that would cost. Besides, it is probably too late now. I am not sure we could get all the preparations done in time. I would need to refurbish the dance pavilion, lay in new stocks of saké, have the girls prepare the music and dances.” She shook her head. “No, it is impossible. The absolute earliest we could hold it would be the tenth day of the sixth month, much later than usual.”

The magistrate leaned forward intently. “I don’t care what it costs. I don’t care how long it takes. You can hire more men to fix the pavilion. Pay them extra to work through the night. Offer a premium price to the saké brewers. Tell your girls I will personally reward everyone who participates in the ceremony.”

Surei continued to shake her head. “I just don’t see how we can do it. Most of the skilled builders are already committed to other projects for the summer. There is no way we can get enough men to finish the pavilion.”

“What if you had an extra twenty-five men helping, would that be enough?”

Surei’s eyes widened then she slowly nodded her head. “That might do it. Where are we going to get the men?”

“I’ll lend you some of mine. They’re not skilled artisans, but they can do rough shaping of timbers, freeing the artisans for the skilled work. Put them under the direction of master builders, and they will be able to do much of the work on the project.”

Surei wavered. “Well…”

The district magistrate smiled in what I suppose he thought was an ingratiating manner. “I would be most appreciative if you manage to put on the festival this year. You can rely on my generosity.” He took out a sack and laid it on the table with a conspicuous metallic clink.

Surei shrugged her shoulders and gave him a smile. “Very well, I’ll see what we can do.” Her face turned serious. “I can’t make any promises, though. It’s really quite late to be making preparations.”

“All I can ask is you do your best.”

She sat up straighter. “Then we will need a guest list as soon as possible. It will take some time to prepare suitable invitations.”

The magistrate nodded his head. “I will get right on it.” He stood to leave and gave her a smile. “Thank you for your help. I should go back and let your women finish fitting me for my new clothes.” His footsteps faded in the distance.

I came from behind the curtain. “How are you going to get all the work done for the festival if you are busy working on the defenses and stockpiling food?” I asked Surei.

She opened the bag Taira had left and upended it. Some small gold bars spilled out onto the table. There was at least fifteen tael of gold there.

Surei smiled. “I put in orders for all the materials and saké and reserved the labor a fortnight ago. I knew he would hear about the festival. I just told him all that so he would insist on sponsoring it.” She flashed an evil grin. “Also, so I could bleed him dry on the costs.”

I was astonished. “So all this is part of your plan?”

“Oh yes. Tell a man he can’t have something, and he will stop at nothing to acquire it.” She cocked her head thoughtfully. “He didn’t say who he wants to invite, but if they won’t even see him, they have to be important. Maybe even cabinet ministers.”

She chuckled. “When Senior Retired Emperor Toba invited high-ranking people to a party, they came. When a district magistrate from Isé does the same thing, the response will be different. Even if it is being held at the Spring Palace. He will learn that it needs to be even more appealing. We will soon have to let him hear about the Magic Dance.”

I marveled at how thoroughly she understood the thinking of the district magistrate. “Did you plan all this ahead of time?”

“Most of it. I hadn’t counted on having him supply the labor to build the pavilion, though,” she mused. “That’s a nice extra. I suppose I should start making plans for the banquet.”

She sent one of her girls to bring Dimples.

When Dimples arrived, Surei told her, “We will be doing the kurabiraki this year, and I want you to play the koto.”

Dimples’ eyes got round, and she stuttered, “M-m-m-me?”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“Yes, you are skilled enough to start playing with the other performers, even if you are too young to be seen by customers. But everyone will wear masks for this. This will be an excellent opportunity to get some experience playing for a real audience.”

Dimples couldn’t contain her excitement. She seemed to be bouncing in place as she said, “Oh thank you, thank you.” She ran out the door, and we could hear her calling to someone, “I’m going to be playing in the kurabiraki!”

Surei turned to me and smiled. “Yoshi, can you join the players with your flute? I will have Dimples do the melody on the koto. Have you kept in practice enough to play harmony? We are going to want you in the room, and that is the easiest way to have you there. The players will be wearing animal spirit masks, so no one will recognize you.”

I nodded. “Just give me a chance to practice with the players before we have to perform.”

*****

I stayed at Akiko’s, spending time with her and the children. It was calming to be around her. Until I started living with her, I didn’t realize how unsettled my mind and emotions had been. It had been years since I had truly been at peace. Between Akiko’s presence and Benkon’s meditations, I was able to achieve tranquility for the first time in years.

Akiko and I spent our nights together, although I had to make sure to return to my sleeping area at dawn each day. One night, I woke up well before sunrise. Akiko was already awake and looking over at me. I could see her eyes were open, even in the gloom of the bedchamber.

She asked softly, “Yoshi, what am I to you?”

“Huh?” I recognized the danger in the question and desperately tried to clear the sleep from my brain.

“What do you see in me? Am I just a just a substitute for Surei?” It doesn’t matter who the woman is, or what other qualities she has. Every female has the tactical instincts of a take-no-prisoners general on the battlefield of love. How else to explain their innate ability to ambush a man at the moment when is he is least prepared?

I propped myself up on one elbow and sighed. “When I first received Surei’s note, I intended to pursue her. On the trip into town, all I could think about was what our reunion would be like, imagining all sorts of emotional scenes.” I gave a rueful laugh. “It didn’t turn out the way I thought it would. Not only didn’t she want to renew any relationship, but my old friend and childhood companion seemed gone, replaced by someone who treated me like an employee or a distant acquaintance. It felt like a physical blow.” I shrugged. “If things had gone differently with Surei and me, I doubt anything would have happened between the two of us.”

I sat up and looked out into the darkness, searching for the right words. The wrong ones could be disastrous. I truly cared for Akiko and I didn’t want to hurt her. “When I am with you I feel like I am in an exquisite garden. I am calm, happy, surrounded by beauty. I am at peace. Living with Surei is like being on the deck of a ship in a storm. It is spectacular, exciting, you never know what is going to happen next, but there is no peace.”

I looked at her, hoping she understood what I meant.

“So, what you are saying is I am boring?” she said, after a long silence.

I began to panic. “No! You are simply very different from Surei. And I treasure that difference.”

I caressed her face. “You are kind, gentle, and sincere. I can’t imagine what I could have done to deserve the affection of someone like you. The Gods have blessed me. I love who you are.”

Akiko smiled, took my hand and kissed it. I could feel the dampness of her tears on my fingers. “Then you love us both.”

She looked away. “It is a cruel fate that keeps us out of the arms of the ones we love. But, even if we can’t have the love we want, we can still take comfort in the affection we share.”

Akiko pulled me down next to her and stroked my hair. I stared into the darkness.

Do I still love Surei? Even after she rejected me?

My pride demanded I should not. But I could not deny the empty spot in my soul even Akiko couldn’t fill.

*****

We finally received notification the Minbushou had the documents ready for my inspection. Professor had expressed a desire to accompany me to the palace the next time I went. The imperial library had some texts on strategy he had never seen, and I promised to show them to him. He was uninterested in the bureaucratic maneuverings of the government offices, so he waited outside the building when I went into the Minbushou.

Junior Recorder Watanabe was behind the counter again that day, so I showed him the notice. He took me to a small room off to one side of the main entryway and had me wait there while he got the documents.

He came back with several scrolls bound in official ties. He said, apologetically, “I have to wait here while you look at the documents. I can’t let them leave my sight.” It didn’t matter to me. Nothing I did was a secret.

I presented Akiko’s deed to the junior recorder. He looked it over carefully. “This is a valid deed,” he commented. “Note the imperial seal on the bottom.” He put it on the table.

The deed itself consisted of a description of the properties making up the shouen. The descriptions were given in terms of landmarks, references to villages, and local names.

I opened the property grants from the Minbushou. It was evident they were intended to be word-for-word copies of the deeds for their respective shouen. However, there was a problem. The land grant with Akiko’s name on it contained an entirely different description of the properties making up her shouen. Not one line of the description of the supposed “copy” matched the original.

Quickly glancing through the other documents, I found what I was looking for. In a land grant held by the Tendai Monastery, the description of the properties making up their shouen was an exact copy of the wording in Akiko’s original deed. Clearly, this was how the substitution had taken place. Someone had laboriously switched the descriptions of the two shouen and relied on the fact that only a side-by-side inspection of the original with the copies would reveal the change.

The certifications at the bottom of the land grants caught my eye. On the two forged scrolls, the certification read “Ikeda Minbukyou,” with a date three years previous. The other property grants had a certification that read “Subminister Hayashi for Fujiwara Minbukyou,” and were dated several years earlier.

So, the two dubious documents were certified personally by Ikeda Minbukyou after Akiko’s husband died. That doesn’t seem at all suspicious.

Despite what the land grants said, Akiko’s deed was the controlling legal document. Presented with the evidence, the Minbushou would have no choice but to restore her rightful property.

I looked over the deeds further, but discovered nothing of any interest. I laid out the two suspect documents next to the original deed. Then I called Recorder Watanabe over. I pointed out to him the discrepancies among the three. His eyes grew wide when he realized the original deed contradicted the ministry copies.

“Is it the habit of Ikeda Minbukyou to certify property documents personally?” I asked.

“Oh, yes. Ikeda Minbukyou often says these documents form the basis for our entire governmental and taxation system and we hold a sacred trust to ensure they are accurate. He personally checks and verifies each one, unless he is out of the capital. I don’t know how he’ll react when he hears about this.”

Recorder Watanabe took me to find one of his superiors, but there appeared to be no one around. Finally, at the very back of the building, we found several people in a group. I glanced over their shoulders, and saw a colorful scroll opened across a desk. It was a picture scroll, but it didn’t contain the usual illustrated tale or monogatari. Instead, it consisted of drawings of men, women, and animals engaged in . . . unusual carnal acts.

The attributes of the participants were exaggerated, the men in particular, to the point where I would have thought it would have been physically painful for the women involved. Despite that, the women’s faces held conventional ecstatic expressions, as if they were enjoying the experience. The officials were deeply immersed in their inspection of the scroll, and didn’t notice us coming up behind them. Recorder Watanabe cleared his throat. The men started and turned to face us.

I said, “I’ve heard of these Chinese scrolls, but I’ve never seen one. May I?” I held my hand out.

Reluctantly, one of the men handed the scroll over. I looked at it a little more carefully. The illustrations were of a surprisingly high quality, the drawings executed quite skillfully. The captions and narrative were written in native script, not Chinese.

I started reading out loud:

After seeing the gifts of her other

suitors, Princess Kaguya asked

the last, “What have you brought

for me?” She gasped in pleasure

as he opened his robe. She reached

out to wrap her hand around his

enormous—

“What is this, Taketori Monogatari, The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter?”

One of the men blushed. “I trained to become an artist, but I couldn’t find a patron. I got a good job here, and one day we were talking about art and those Chinese scrolls, and I said I didn’t think it would be particularly hard to do something like that. Before long, I was writing versions of some old tales that were a bit more, uh, exciting than the originals.”

Reading through the rest of the scroll, I commented, “I see she doesn’t go back to the moon, but stays and…” I raised my eyebrows in astonishment when I got near the end. “Is that even physically possible? And all five suitors at once!” I read a little more. “My, the Emperor is certainly quite a man, isn’t he?” I handed the scroll back to him. He quickly tucked it back into a cabinet with a large number of similar scrolls.

Recorder Watanabe’s face was bright red, and he seemed anxious to return to the business at hand. He rolled out the three documents and explained the problem. I pointed out where Akiko’s deed contradicted the ministry property records. The officials were quite disturbed by the discrepancies.

The man who appeared to be in charge said, “We shall find out what caused these irregularities. May I borrow the deed, please?” He took it from me then quickly transcribed the relevant portions, noting where it disagreed with the ministry records. He handed me back Akiko’s document and said, “We will begin investigating this immediately. We will let you know when we discover something.”

From his tone of voice, I realized that was the best I was going to get from them at that time. I tucked the deed back into the chest of my robe. Recorder Watanabe offered to show me out. As we left, I heard the cabinet opening behind us and the men pulling out the scrolls.