The Hell Screen by I. J. Parker

you. If Mother has not sent for me, I’ll go to my room.”
     
    “No, she has not. But... what has happened? Can you not speak about it?”
     
    She looked anxious, and Akitada felt guilty that he had inflicted his outrage with Kobe on her. “I am sorry,” he muttered. “There is nothing for you to worry about. Just an injury to my own cursed pride and self-consequence. Come and I’ll tell you about it, if you like.”
     
    She brightened at that and followed to his room.
     
    “Did they deliver the silks?” he asked, glancing at her severe dark blue cotton dress.
     
    “Oh, yes,” she cried. “That is what I wanted to tell you. But Akitada, you should not have bought such very gorgeous fabrics for me. And why two sets, and with all the stuff for under-gowns? I have never had anything half so expensive or lovely. It must have cost a fortune?”
     
    He smiled at that. “Not quite a fortune. I am reasonably well-to-do these days, Little Sister, and it gives me great joy to imagine you in the finished gowns.”
     
    “I am so very grateful, my dear, but I may not get much use out of them, especially the rose-colored one.”
     
    “Why not?”
     
    “Because of Mother.”
     
    For a moment his anger rose at the thought that the meanness of his mother might extend to forbidding her daughter a pretty gown. Then he understood. “Oh, dear,” he said, ashamed of his thoughtlessness. “Yes, I suppose we must be prepared to go into mourning when the time comes. But it may not be for some time.”
     
    Yoshiko shook her head. “Certainly before spring. It will be soon, I am afraid. She has been spitting up some blood.”
     
    Misery settled on Akitada. “What does the physician say?”
     
    Yoshiko looked down. “He says the end is not far away.”
     
    “And she has not asked for me?”
     
    Yoshiko shook her head mutely. He sat, staring sightlessly at his clenched hands. How much she must hate me, he thought. And he knew that his mother was leaving him a legacy of self-doubt along with the memory of rejection. He sighed deeply.
     
    “She is very ill,” said Yoshiko gently, “not really herself, you know.”
     
    He said nothing.
     
    “You look tired and ... have you had your meals in the city?”
     
    “What? No. There was so much to do I forgot.”
     
    She left and came back with a bowl of noodle soup and some rice cakes on a tray, and watched him as he ate. He had little appetite, but the food made him feel better. He put the half-empty bowl down and said gratefully, “It is so good to be back,” then corrected himself quickly with a grimace: “I meant with you. This has never been a happy house for me.”
     
    Yoshiko looked stricken. “You mustn’t feel that way! This is your home, not Mother’s or mine,” she cried. “Do not let her spoil it for you and Tamako and your son. It will be a happy home again. Our family has lived here for many generations and will continue to live here through you.”
     
    Akitada glanced around his room and out to the overgrown garden, now as covered with leaves at Nagaoka’s courtyard had been. From the direction of his mother’s room the voices of the monks penetrated even into his sanctuary. Like Nagaoka’s, this, too, was a house in disarray, but Yoshiko’s words touched something in his heart. She was right! It was up to him to give life back to the family home. Tamako would make short work of the weeds and choking vegetation outside and turn the garden into a flowering grove, while his son Yori, and in due time other children, would play outside, filling the place with their shrill shouts and laughter instead of the horrible drone of prayers for the dying. He smiled.
     
    “There,” said Yoshiko. “That looks much better. Now tell me what happened to upset you so.”
     
    He decided not to mention Toshikage’s problem, but told her of his night at the temple, and how he had run into Kobe in the city and ended up becoming involved in the murder of