Island of Exiles

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Kita, the mine supervisor, stood above Akitada, studying him with a frown of concentration. The small bright eyes moved from face to body, pausing at the injured knee, and then returned. They locked eyes. Kita’s were cold and beady. The eyes of the predator, thought Akitada, the eyes of the tengu in the Minato shrine.

Akitada wondered if Kita also recognized him. Apparently not, for the supervisor grunted and said, “Not much to look at, is he? Thought he’d be younger, in better condition.” It was very unpleasant to be talked about as if one were no more than an animal, but Akitada kept his face stiff and waited for the guard’s response.

The guard said, “He’s been inside the whole time. Sick as a dog. Since the day the boss brought him.” Kita pursed his lips and came to a decision. “Put him to work in the mine.”

Akitada’s eyes flew to the mine entrance, where an exhausted and choking creature dumped his load and crept back in when a guard’s whip was raised. He felt such a violent revulsion against returning to the darkness in the bowels of the earth that he thought he would rather die here and now than go back.

“He can’t walk yet,” said the guard dubiously.

“Then put him to work over there till he can,” Kita said, pointing to the men who were pulverizing rock near the sluice.

And that was where they dragged him. He was given a small mallet and told to break up the chunks of rock someone dumped in front of him. In his relief that he had been spared the mine, Akitada worked away at this chore with goodwill. He was far from strong, but the activity required little strength, just patience and mindless repetition. When he finished one batch, a worker would remove the dust and gravel and replace them with more rock chunks. He saw no silver veins in any of the chunks he broke up. There were some small yellow spots from time to time, but he was too preoccupied with his body to wonder much at this.

He ate and slept where he worked. His legs were hobbled at the ankles even though he was unable to walk. When he wished to relieve himself, he dragged himself behind some bushes and then crawled back. On the next day, a guard forced him to stand. To Akitada’s surprise, he could put a little weight on his right leg again and, when poked painfully in the small of his back, he took the couple of staggering steps to the shrubs without screaming. All that was left from his injury was a stiff, slightly swollen, and bruised knee and an ache whenever he attempted to bend it.

They allowed him another day in the sunlight and fresh air before they sent him into the mountain. It was not a good moment for heroics. He was surrounded by hard-eyed guards, variously armed with whips, swords, and bows, and marched to the cave entrance, where they slung an empty basket over his shoulders by its rope and pushed him forward. In front of him and behind him shuffled other miserable creatures, each with a basket on his back. A break from the line was impossible.

The darkness received him eagerly. Air currents pushed and pulled as he shuffled in near-blindness in a line of about ten men following a guard with a lantern. They went down a steep incline, past gaping side passages, turning this way and that until he lost all sense of direction or distance. The rock walls closed in on him, and the tunnels became so narrow that he brushed the stone with his shoulders, and so low that he had to bend.

Panic curled in his belly like a live snake, swelling and choking the breath out of him until he wanted to turn and run screaming out of that place, fighting his way past the men behind him, climbing over their bodies if need be, clawing his way back to the surface, because any sort of death was better than this.

But he did not. And after a while, he could hear the hammering again, and then the tunnel opened to a small room where by the light of small oil lamps other miners chipped pieces of rock from the walls with hammers and chisels. He stood there staring around blankly, his body shaking as if in a fever. The empty basket was jerked from his back, and a full one put in its place. Its weight pulled him backward so sharply that his legs buckled and he sat down hard. A guard muttered a curse and kicked him in the side. Someone gave him a hand, and he scrambled to his feet. His bad knee almost buckled again. He sucked in his breath at the sudden pain. One of the other prisoners turned him about, and he started the return journey.

They carried the broken chunks of ore to the surface, where others dealt with them while they plunged back into the bowels of the mountain for another load. Kumo, for whatever reason, had spared his life to condemn him to a more ignominious and much slower end. As he trudged back and forth, he thought that he, Sugawara Akitada, descendant of the great Michizane and

an imperial official, would finish his life as a human beast of burden, performing mindlessly the lowest form of labor, the dangerous and unhealthy work the drunken doctor had tried to spare him, and he knew now he would not survive it for long.

Two facts eased his panic. The smoke from the earlier fire had cleared and the air was relatively wholesome. The mine also seemed a great deal cooler than he remembered from the weeks he had spent in his grave. The other fact concerned his right leg. He still limped and felt pain in his knee, especially when he put strain on it carrying his load uphill, but the swelling was gone and he had almost normal movement in it again. In fact, activity seemed to be good for it.

But he was still very weak and the rocks in the basket were abysmally heavy. The rag-wrapped rope, which passed in front of his neck and over his shoulders, cut into his flesh, and he had to walk bent forward to balance the load. This, added to the steep climb back out, strained his weakened muscles to the utmost. The first trip was not too bad, because he was desperate to get back to the surface, but on the second one he fell. To his surprise, the man in front of him turned back to help him up, telling him brusquely to grab hold of his basket. In this manner, the other man half dragged him up the rest of the way into the daylight.

When Akitada had unloaded and looked to see who his benefactor was, he was startled to recognize him. The man’s name escaped him for the moment, but he knew he was one of the prisoners from the stockade in Mano, the silent man with the scarred back. Their eyes met, and Akitada thanked him. The other man shook his head with a warning glance at the guards and started back into the tunnel. Akitada followed him.

He would not have lasted the first day if the man with the scarred back had not pulled him up on every trip to the surface.

Even so, Akitada sank to the ground after his last trip. He was too exhausted to notice that the sun had set and it was dusk. His companion pulled him up, saying gruffly, “Come on. It’s over.

Time to rest.”

Akitada nodded and staggered to his feet, heading toward the trees where he had spent the past nights. But the guard gave him a push and pointed his whip after the others who went back into the mine. So he was to spend even his nights underground again. Akitada almost wept.

They gathered in the larger cave by the light of a single smoking oil lamp. The prisoners sat and lay wherever there was room. Akitada found a place beside his benefactor. Someone passed food and water around. He drank thirstily, but his stomach rebelled at the sight and smell of food.

“Better eat,” said the man with the scarred back.

Akitada shook his head. Then he said, “Haseo. Your name is Haseo, isn’t it?”

The other man nodded.

“I’m sorry you ended up here.”

Haseo lowered his bowl and looked at him. “So did you.

Almost didn’t recognize you.”

“My own fault. I was careless.”

An understatement. He had made many careless errors, had thrown caution to the wind, had followed every whim, thought-less and mindless of obligations and prudence. His punishment was terrible, but he had brought it upon himself.

The other man gave a barking laugh. “I suppose that’s true of all of us.”

Akitada looked at the others, so intent on their food that few of them talked. They were here because they had been careless of the law, of the rights of their fellow men, and of their loved ones. He had not broken any laws, but he, too, had failed. He thought of Tamako. She would never know that he had betrayed his promises to her with Masako, but he knew and was being punished for it. If his mind had not been preoccupied with his affair, he would surely not have made the foolish mistakes that led to his capture. He had known that Genzo was treacherous, yet he had left his precious identity papers and orders unattended for hours, no, days, all the while congratulating himself for having so cleverly eavesdropped on the conspirators.

“What’s funny?” asked Haseo.

Akitada started. He must have been smiling-bitterly-at his own foolishness. “I was thinking of my carelessness,” he said.

Most of the prisoners were already settling down to sleep, and the single guard was arranging himself across the tunnel that led to the outside in case anyone attempted to run away during the night. Then he blew out the oil lamp and plunged them all into utter darkness.

Akitada tensed against the terror. His fingers closed convulsively around sharp bits of gravel. Any moment, he knew, he must scream or suffocate. Then he felt a hand on his shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “Sleep,” Haseo whispered.

Akitada took a long, shuddering breath. “Is there any chance of getting out of here?” he whispered back.

Haseo sighed. “Whereto?”

“It doesn’t matter. I have to get out of this mine.”

“They’ll catch you fast enough and you’ll be ten times worse off then,” Haseo hissed.

Akitada thought of the man’s horribly scarred back. “It’s a chance I’ll take. There’s nothing here but certain death.” Haseo said nothing for a long time. Then he muttered, “Go to sleep. You’ll need your strength tomorrow. I can’t drag you behind forever.” He turned his back to Akitada and lay down.

Akitada sighed and closed his eyes.

The next morning began badly, because Akitada’s body, unused to the previous day’s labors, rebelled against movement of any sort. He had to grit his teeth to get up and make his way to the outside. He was determined not to be a burden to Haseo again.

But every step eased the stiffness, and for the first time he felt ravenously hungry. They ate with the others at the mouth of the mine. Akitada looked his fill at the blue sky and the tips of trees gilded by the rising sun, listened to the sound of birds and of water running down the sluice, and drew in the clean sharp scent of the forest.

The goblin brought his food, staring at him intently. He nodded his thanks and smiled. To his surprise, her fierce color-ing deepened to a more fiery red and she scurried away with a giggle. He was too hungry to wonder at her behavior, especially when he saw that his portion was unusually large and contained several generous chunks of fish.

Work was no easier this day, especially since he took care not to burden Haseo again, but he managed to get through it, and that night he decided to ask Haseo more questions.

“Have you been here long?” he began as they settled down to their evening meal.

“Came right after we met.”

It struck Akitada that Haseo, though still taciturn, spoke rather well for a common criminal. “What sort of life did you lead before they sentenced you?”

The bearded face contorted suddenly. “Amida, how can you ask a man that? How about you? Did you leave a wife and children to starve? This”-he waved a hand around to encompass mine, prisoners, sleepy guard, and empty food bowls-“is hell, but it’s nothing compared to the fear for those you leave behind.

They took my land and drove my family into the streets.”

“I am sorry for you and for them.” Akitada felt vaguely guilty. He was an official himself, and had on occasion pronounced sentences like Haseo’s. His crime must have been very serious to warrant not only exile at hard labor, but confiscation of his property. To judge by the man’s speech he was no commoner, and the confiscation of his land implied that he belonged to the gentry. Hoping not to offend again, he probed cautiously, “Sometimes a man’s allegiances may be held against him.”

“Sometimes a man’s greed may cause him to take another man’s property.” Haseo gave a bitter laugh. “If I had known what I know now, I would have left my land with my family before it came to this.”

“What happened?”

Haseo snorted. “You wouldn’t believe it. Forget it.” Akitada whispered urgently, “Don’t you want to escape?” Haseo merely looked at him.

Akitada looked around the room. Nobody paid attention to them. The guard was busy arranging a bed for himself.

Moving closer to Haseo, Akitada whispered, “I know there are problems, but once we are out of this mine, I believe I can get us off the island. What I need to know is if there is another way out of this place. You’ve been here longer than I and you seem an intelligent man.”

Haseo glanced at the figure of the guard who lay across the tunnel opening again and was about to blow out the lamp.

Akitada caught a speculative look on Haseo’s face before they were plunged into the dark. “There might be,” Haseo breathed in his ear.

“How?” Akitada breathed back.

“Old tunnels. The ones they stopped working. Nobody goes in them anymore. There’s one where air is blowing in through the planks that board it up. Fresh air!” Akitada had noticed that the smoke had cleared out of the mine rather quickly, and that cool air currents passed through the tunnel all day and night, but he had not thought why this should be so. Now he realized that the air came from the outside and moved back to the outside, and that meant there were other openings in this mine.

“Of course!” he said, and sat up, causing the chains around his ankles to rattle.

The guard in the tunnel entrance growled sleepily, “Quiet there, filth, or I’ll put you on night shift.” Total silence fell. Even the snorers held their breaths.

There was no chance of further talk that night or during the following day, but Akitada was alert to the air currents as he made his way back and forth with his basket. He found the place Haseo had mentioned, and the next time they passed the boarded-up section, he caught up to him and gave his basket a small nudge. Haseo paused for the space of a breath, then, without looking back, he nodded his head.

The opening was slightly smaller than the tunnel they were in. They would have to crawl, but it was not as tiny as the badger holes and might even widen out later. The boarding-up had been done in a makeshift manner, more to mark this as an abandoned working and to keep people from getting lost than to prevent entrance.

Akitada spent the rest of the day memorizing the location and trying to picture the direction of the abandoned tunnel in relation to the cliff and the rest of the mountain they were working. He thought it likely that somehow one of the workings of a vein of silver ore had led from the interior of the mountain back to its surface. Each time he passed the blocked tunnel, he sniffed the air, and imagined that he could detect a faint tang of pine trees and cedars.

That night he waited impatiently for the guard to go to sleep, then murmured very softly to Haseo, “Are you willing to try?” There was no answer. He opened his mouth to repeat his question more loudly, when a callused hand fell across his lips.

Haseo whispered, “When?” The hand was lifted, and Akitada breathed, “Tomorrow night?”

There was a very soft snort, almost a chuckle, and, “You’re a fool!”

Akitada was not sure what that meant. He spent most of the night considering how they might accomplish such a mad endeavor. And mad it surely was, for no one knew if they would really find a way out. But what did they have to lose?

And staying here longer while he slowly regained his strength was even more foolhardy, for Kumo’s order to put him to death might arrive any moment.

He was methodical about his planning. Their only chance of getting away was at night. Only one guard stayed with them and, certain that the prisoners were too exhausted to attempt anything, he slept. To be sure, he slept with his body blocking their only way out, secure in the knowledge that the chains on their feet would warn him of any improper movements. The guard was the first obstacle, but not an insurmountable one.

Next Akitada considered whether they should invite the other prisoners to join them. He rejected the thought-

reluctantly, because help was useful. The abandoned tunnel might contain obstructions, and Akitada was not really strong enough yet for what might await them inside. He suppressed a shudder at the thought of becoming lost and dying a slow death of starvation in utter darkness. There was also safety in numbers, because the guards would have a much harder time chasing down twenty men than two. But the trouble with taking the others was that they would make too much noise and slow them down. Besides, the cowed creatures he had observed might well give the alarm and draw the guards after them.

So it had best be just the two of them. After overcoming the sleeping guard, they would make their way up the main tunnel to the boarded section. They would need a few tools.

Fortunately, the workers left their hammers and chisels lying about. They would also need an oil lamp and some flint.

And they would need a lot of luck. A great deal depended on whether the boarded-up tunnel led out of the mine, preferably without emerging near the front. Akitada whispered some of this to Haseo, who responded merely by squeezing his shoulder.

The next morning there was little chance for communica-tion with Haseo except through eye contact. Among the discarded debris were rags and remnants of frayed rope. Akitada cast a meaningful glance at one such pile and bent to touch his chained ankle. Then, in passing, he scooped up a handful of the torn material, tucking it inside his shirt. He noticed that Haseo did the same later. They dropped their gatherings near their sleeping places, where they attracted no notice because the floor was already covered with all sorts of litter. At one point, Haseo surreptitiously slipped a chisel under their small hoard, and before the light was extinguished, Akitada marked a place where several hammers had been left.

That night they ate what might be their last meal for a long time, perhaps forever. Then they waited. They did not talk.

There was nothing to talk about, and they could not afford to attract attention.

When he judged that the snoring around them had achieved its usual fullness and rhythm, Akitada began passing rags and rope bits to Haseo. They wrapped the fabric carefully around their chains to muffle them.

When the moment came, it was Haseo who gave the signal and Haseo who moved first. Akitada had wanted to get to the guard himself to silence him because he feared that Haseo would simply kill the man. But it was too late to worry about it.

Too much-their lives-hung in the balance, and this guard was one of the more cruel Ezo males.

Akitada crept toward the tools, felt for two hammers and a second chisel, and tucked them into his belt. Then he crept back to the tunnel opening. By now his heart was pounding so violently that it interfered with his hearing. Where was Haseo?

At one point Akitada put his hand on a sleeper’s leg and froze, but the man merely mumbled and turned over. He was still crouching there, trying to remember the layout of the room, when Haseo’s hand fell on his shoulder. He heard him breathe,

“Follow me,” and took his hand.

Moving soundlessly, they came to the guard, now unconscious or dead, and, feeling their way, stepped over his body.

The room behind them remained quiet. Holding their breaths, they shuffled up the dark tunnel as quickly and silently as they could. Akitada expected to hear an outcry at any moment, but nothing happened.

When they reached the boarded-up tunnel, he passed one of the hammers to Haseo, whispering, “What did you do to the guard?”

Haseo must have rescued his chisel, for he was already loosening the boards. “What do you think?” he hissed as something creaked and splintered.

“Careful,” whispered Akitada. “Someone might hear.” He reached for his own chisel and felt along the edge of the top board. Haseo had loosened it so that it could be pulled outward.

Other boards were nailed to it. “Can we just shift it enough to creep through and close it behind us? It would give us time when they start searching.”

Instead of answering, Haseo bent to loosen the lower edge while Akitada pulled. Working by touch alone was difficult. Akitada had forgotten to bring a light, and had had no opportunity to steal a flint anyway. The thought of creeping into an unfamiliar tunnel in utter darkness momentarily made his stomach heave. He reminded himself that showing a light would have been too dangerous anyway.

The makeshift doorway eventually gaped far enough to let them slip through. They pulled it back into place after them, hoping that their prying chisels had not left noticeable scars.

Starting forward slowly, they felt their way by moving along one of the walls with one hand stretched out in front to keep from running into sudden projections. They had progressed for some distance along the winding tunnel when Haseo stopped.

Akitada heard the sound of a flint, and then the rough tunnel walls lit up around them.

Taking a deep breath of relief, Akitada said, “Thank heaven for that. How did you manage both lamp and flint?” But Haseo was already moving on. “Took them off the guard, of course. It’ll make it harder for them to get out in the morning.”

Seeing their surroundings was not reassuring, however.

Cracked timber supports and large chunks of rock fallen from above marked this as a dangerously unstable section, and when the tunnel eventually widened and the ceiling rose so that they could walk upright, they found numerous branch tunnels, some of which they explored until they ran out. The air remained fresh and sweet, however. They spoke little, and then tersely and in low voices about their desperate undertaking.

“There are too many tunnels,” Akitada said after a while.

“We cannot waste time with all of them, and how do we know we’re in the right one?”

“Don’t know. Have to follow the air current.” Some tunnels were too small to consider. With the rest they checked the air flow, but could not always be certain, and in the end, they chose to stay in the largest tunnel.

“How far have we come?” Haseo asked at one point.

Akitada had attempted to count steps, short ones since their chains still hobbled them. He told Haseo, who muttered, “Got to move faster. Damn these chains,” and took such a large step forward that he fell flat on his face. The oil lamp flew from his hand and broke with a small clatter. Instant darkness enveloped them. Haseo cursed. When Akitada had helped him up, he said,

“Well, we’ll have to feel our way like blind men. But let’s take off these chains.”

“We have no light. It will be time enough when we get out.” Haseo protested, “But we need to get to the outside while it’s still dark and then run like demons. I tell you, this place’ll swarm with guards and soldiers as soon as it’s daylight.”

“What did you do to the guard?” Akitada asked again.

“Hit him with a piece of rock.”

“Did you kill him?”

“Maybe.”

They continued. The tunnel climbed upward, making several turns but still promising escape. It was nerve-racking work in the utter darkness. They groped their way, taking turns at going first, feet testing the ground, and hands stretched out to meet obstacles. Their inability to see seemed to magnify sounds, and small rocks kicked by their feet made them stop to listen, reminded of the constant danger of rock falls. The darkness raised vivid images of being crushed or, worse, becoming walled in alive. Each caught in his own nightmare, they stopped talking.

And then the tunnel ended.

Akitada had been in front for a while, moving more quickly in his impatience. He suddenly stubbed his toe, stumbled, and fell forward onto a pile of rocks.

“What are you doing?” Haseo asked. He came up and felt for Akitada.

“It’s a rock pile,” muttered Akitada, scrambling up it with some difficulty, because the rubble kept shifting under his feet and he kept slipping back down, causing small rock slides.

“Move aside.” Haseo passed him, having better luck.

“How much is there, do you think?” Akitada asked from below. He jumped aside when a low rumble announced another rock slide. When it stopped, he said, “Be careful or you’ll bring the whole mountain down on us.”

Haseo did not answer. Akitada could hear him sliding all the way down. “It’s the end,” Haseo said tonelessly, stopping beside him. “It goes all the way to the ceiling. If this tunnel ever led to the outside, the rock fall has filled it. Maybe that’s why they stopped working it.”

Akitada sat down next to him. He was very tired. “We must think,” he said.

Haseo gave a bark of bitter laughter. “You’re a fool. I told you so last night. We’ll die here.”

“We won’t die here. And if you thought it was so foolish, why did you come?”

Haseo did not answer that. Instead he said, “You’re right.

Let’s think.”

“We could go back and try the other tunnels. One or two seemed promising.”

But they did not have the heart for it. They had been so sure. Perhaps an hour passed while they rested, dozed, tried to gather their strength for the next attempt. Akitada was the first to stand up.

“Come on. There’s not much time. We must try another way.” Haseo staggered to his feet. “All right.” He started back, but Akitada caught his sleeve.

“Wait,” he said. “Do you hear something?” Haseo listened. “No. Nothing. Just the air.”

“Yes, the air. The current is still there. And it makes a whistling sound we did not hear before. Like the sound a flute makes when you blow it. Do you know what that means?”

“Forget it! You can’t go by air flow. See where it got us.”

“But the sound comes from the rock pile. Somewhere up there is a narrow opening letting in the air and that is why it whistles.”

Haseo pondered this. “Surely you don’t plan to move the whole rock pile?” he finally said.

“We’ve carried rocks before. Why not now when it may mean our freedom?”

“The whole thing may come loose and crush us.”

“Yes. But perhaps not.”

Haseo grunted and then climbed back up to the top, Akitada at his heels. He could hear him scrabbling about, and then a large piece of rock slid his way. He caught it barely before it would have crushed his fingers, and slid back down with it.

They worked on like this for what seemed like hours, sweat and stone dust crusting on their skin. Haseo grunted, cursed, and muttered, “Waste of time,” and “Stupid” under his breath, but he continued loosening rocks and passing them down by feel alone. Akitada was tiring. His excitement had carried him this far, but now his weakened body rebelled. After each stone he deposited below, it was a little harder to climb back up the few steps to where Haseo had made a foothold for himself. He was working much faster than Akitada could carry the rocks down.

Eventually Haseo was surrounded by a wall of rocks and stopped. “It’s no good,” he said. “There are too many for us to move. Let’s go back before we wall ourselves in.” Akitada listened. “The whistling has stopped,” he said.

Haseo listened also and started groping around again.

“Wish we had a light. I can feel the air in my hair. Wait a minute.” There was clatter, then the rocks beneath them seemed to come alive and shift.

“Watch out,” cried Akitada as he fell on his back and was carried downward. Haseo began to curse amid the rumble of falling rocks. When the noise stopped, Akitada cried, “Haseo?

Are you all right?”

“Yes. I think so.” Haseo’s voice came from somewhere beyond the rock pile.

“Where are you?”

“You were right. We’re through. The tunnel goes on from here.

Come on, but watch your feet. I got a nasty cut on my ankle.”

“Stand back in case it shifts again.” Akitada groped his way to the top of the pile carefully, found that he could wiggle through beneath the roof of the tunnel, then sat and slowly slid down on the other side.

Their success gave them new hope and they moved forward again. But soon the tunnel narrowed sharply and the ceiling dipped until they had to crawl again. It looked as though they were coming to the end of the lode. Haseo was in front, and when Akitada got down on his hands and knees, he felt something wet on the ground. He raised his hand to his nose and sniffed. Blood.

“Wait, you’re bleeding,” he cried.

Haseo gave a snort-“I know”-and kept crawling.

“It must be bad. We should stop and tie up the wound,” said Akitada.

“There’s not enough room,” grunted Haseo. Then he stopped and said, “Amida. I don’t believe it.”

“What?”

“I can see the stars. Either that or I’m dying.” Since Haseo’s body blocked the crawl space almost completely, Akitada could not see, but his heart started hammering.

“Can you get out?”

A muffled “Yes, oh, yes” came back on what sounded like a sob. Then Haseo slid away from him and there, barely lighter than the tunnel, was a patch of night sky.

Akitada crawled forward like a man in a dream. His hands touched the moist coolness of grass and he felt his shoulders brush past the mouth of the tunnel as he slipped through, then rolled down a steep slope and came to rest in a batch of bracken, breathing the scent of pine and clover and looking up at a starry sky.