Oh, no! Dear heaven, no! He must not give the man the satisfaction of seeing him cry. Searching for something to distract his mind, he decided to concentrate on a scheme for freeing himself, impossible as that seemed.
For a while now his contracted leg muscles had protested against supporting his weight on the balls of his feet. They began to cramp in earnest, his ankles wobbled, and he dropped forward. The sudden jerk was agonizing to his already injured shoulder joints. He closed his eyes and slowed his breathing: Inhale! Exhale! Inhale! Exhale! Over and over again, until he became inured to the pain in his shoulders and the cramping in his legs.
His head cleared a little, but breathing was difficult. In his present position, he could not catch deep breaths. The thought of not getting enough air panicked him. Noami had left him here to suffocate slowly.
Back on his toes again and with a little slack to work with, he began to test the rope. If only he had some sensation in his fingers! He might be able to feel a knot, find out how he was attached to the tree limb. He could not raise his head enough to see what was directly above him.
He tried twisting. At the cost of another wave of pain to his shoulders and wrists, he managed it. A wasted effort. It was too dark to make out details, and his hands were in the way. Straightening his body with another painful effort, he slowly transferred his weight to his feet again, rested, and thought.
Had Yori made good his escape? Had he found his way home? Probably not. He was only three years old and two miles from home, in a strange neighborhood. He remembered Takenori’s warning with a shudder. How long would a small child in expensive silk robes last among people who attacked grown men? His heart contracted with fear and grief. Poor child! Poor boy! Sent out by his own father to face more horrors.
Still, it was marginally better than to have let him fall into Noami’s clutches. Any one of the cutthroats roaming the street of the western capital at night would take more pity on a child than that monster.
Besides, there was a chance, a very small chance, that Yori would find help. Even if he did not reach home, he might find someone who would listen to his story and come to investigate. But Akitada thought about how long he had been unconscious, and knew that help would have come by now if the boy had found a friend. Besides, Yori had not been aware of the danger his father was in. And who would listen to the babblings of a lost child in the middle of the night? If only Yori was safe, it was enough. Somewhere inside, because he would freeze to death in this cold. Akitada had begun to shake so badly that the rope vibrated and he could see the bare twigs above him trembling among the icy stars. Strangely, death by freezing was less upsetting than the pain he was in and the thought of his torturer’s return.
He found himself gasping for breath again and shifted his weight for a few minutes’ relief. He could no longer control his shaking. The thought that he would soon be past caring about escape was almost welcome.
But either the instinct to survive or some perverse pride intervened, and he began to tug at the rope to test its strength. It bit cruelly into his wrists and sent shock waves of hot pain along his arms and into his shoulders, but he persisted. Hemp rope was stretchable. If he got enough slack to ease his arms and shoulders, he might also have enough purchase to loosen the knot around his wrists. He pulled and jerked and twisted. Then he rested and began again. Now and then he stopped to check his progress. Then he started the whole process over again—pull, twist, rest—until he lost all sense of time. He could feel the warm blood running into his hands and dripping down his arms and back. Strangely, it did not hurt as much as before, and the moment came when he could bend his elbows a little and move his head.
At that moment, Noami returned. Akitada saw the light of his lantern first. It gleamed eerily through the dense stalks of bamboo. Then the painter appeared. In addition to the lantern, he carried a large basket, which he dropped before Akitada’s feet to raise the lantern.
“Ah, you’re awake,” he said, his eyes glowing like live coals in the flickering light. “Tsk, tsk. Look at what you have been doing to your wrists! Does it hurt very much?” He jerked sharply at the bonds, while his eyes watched Akitada’s face intently. “Cold enough for you? Yes, I expect it is. Not cold enough for a freezing hell, though. But I can always paint in the snow and ice later.” He set down the lantern and began to remove painting supplies from the basket and set them out neatly before Akitada. The basket he turned upside down to seat himself on. Some time was taken up by adjusting both basket and lantern so all of Akitada’s strung-up body was well lit, and Noami could see it from the proper angle. When he was satisfied, he began to rub ink and water.
All of these activities the painter accompanied by a steady flow of chatter. “I don’t like to disappoint a man of your stature,” he said, as he let his eyes travel over Akitada’s body. “Both figuratively and literally. Those are very nice muscles. I am strong for my size, but I hate to think what trouble you would have been without the sleeping draught.”
Akitada managed only a faint growl from behind the stinking rag in his mouth.
Noami laughed. “I would enjoy a conversation, but it’s not advisable. I live like a hermit here, and I doubt anyone would pay attention to your screaming, but then you never know. By the way, your son seems to have disappeared. I was sorry to lose him. A child is always much more effective in conveying horror than a grown man, though a nobleman of your stature should make a rather neat point. On the other hand, Yori was such a charmingly pampered child. A child of a noble house. All my previous subjects have been the spawn of untouchables.”
Without his efforts to stretch the rope, Akitada was beginning to shake again. His relief at Yori’s escape from this maniac was tempered by the knowledge that, even if he managed to loosen the rope enough to free himself, he would by then be in no condition to defend himself, let alone walk away. Dear heaven, what did Noami have in mind?
“I expect you are afraid,” the painter said, sketching rapidly with his brush while casting sharp glances at Akitada. “Yes, I can see it in your eyes.”
Akitada attempted a glare and another grunt of protest.
“No? I don’t believe you. Your situation is quite hopeless, you know. You cannot get away from me, and soon even your sturdy constitution will succumb to the frigid temperatures.” He glanced about him. “Regrettable that the snow did not last. But what I need for my last panel, for my hell of ice, is the suffering produced by freezing to death. You, my lord, will be immortalized.”
Akitada did not think that he would freeze to death very readily. Perhaps the man would be satisfied with some sketches and untie him when he was done. If Noami was the slasher, and there was little doubt he was, he had never actually killed any of his victims, though some had died from their wounds. Some remnant of his Buddhist training probably caused him to shy away from actual murder.
Noami paused to stare at Akitada. “You asked for this, you know,” he said. “If you had not started snooping at the temple, we might never have met. But you could not leave it alone. You had to come here, claiming to be a customer! Hah! I’m not such a fool that I could not tell you wanted to inspect my studio for evidence. Then I caught you back at the temple, asking more questions. I suppose the abbot asked you to investigate? I thought he looked at me strangely after he saw the first panels of the screen. Imagine my shock when I came to your house and saw a girl there that I’d used as a model for the hell of knives. I heard you calling me a slasher, a common criminal! That was when I was sure that you were about to call in the police, and I could not let you do that. Not before my screen was completed.”