Previous First
[concluding chapter 12]
They saw the smoke when they began their descent from the north-east hills toward the capital. “More fighting between the two administrations,” Tetsuo said, sounding as if he’d grown up with fire and chaos, the way Hiroki had, and not discovered it for the first time earlier this week. “Or the factions inside the Sakai administration, I guess.”
“We’ll have to be careful, then,” Hiroki said. “We don’t want to ride into the middle of a street-fight.” Especially when I can hardly fight in my own defence, much less anyone else’s.
29 May, 2020
28 May, 2020
Sowing Ghosts 12.4
Previous First
[continuing chapter 12]
“It’s Miyoshi Motonaga,” Shiro said, having valiantly kept quiet until they had reached the road south from Mount Hiei to Kyoto. “That wakashū Togashi is betraying your friend Lord Hosokawa to him for money.”
“You don’t look well, Hiroki,” Tetsuo said. “Should we have risked discovery and asked the monks to look after you?”
“I can look after myself well enough once we’re back in the capital,” Hiroki said. “You both did very well, by the way. I’m pleased.”
“Thank you, Hiroki.”
“Aren’t you even a little surprised at this?” Shiro asked. He looked somewhat like a child who’d had his last moon-cake taken from him at the end of the autumn festival. “You’re behaving as if you already knew this — in which case why did we come out here in the first place?”
[continuing chapter 12]
“It’s Miyoshi Motonaga,” Shiro said, having valiantly kept quiet until they had reached the road south from Mount Hiei to Kyoto. “That wakashū Togashi is betraying your friend Lord Hosokawa to him for money.”
“You don’t look well, Hiroki,” Tetsuo said. “Should we have risked discovery and asked the monks to look after you?”
“I can look after myself well enough once we’re back in the capital,” Hiroki said. “You both did very well, by the way. I’m pleased.”
“Thank you, Hiroki.”
“Aren’t you even a little surprised at this?” Shiro asked. He looked somewhat like a child who’d had his last moon-cake taken from him at the end of the autumn festival. “You’re behaving as if you already knew this — in which case why did we come out here in the first place?”
27 May, 2020
Sowing Ghosts 12.3
Previous First
[continuing chapter 12]
Hiroki was still pressed, shivering, against the underside of the bank when he heard Jiro’s voice. “Master?” The volume was low but the sound carrying, a trick Hiroki had taught Jiro as well as Shiro and Tetsuo. “Are you here?”
“I am,” Hiroki said, a little more loudly so that he could be heard above the bank. “I am frozen stiff, and will need your help to stand and dress.”
[continuing chapter 12]
Hiroki was still pressed, shivering, against the underside of the bank when he heard Jiro’s voice. “Master?” The volume was low but the sound carrying, a trick Hiroki had taught Jiro as well as Shiro and Tetsuo. “Are you here?”
“I am,” Hiroki said, a little more loudly so that he could be heard above the bank. “I am frozen stiff, and will need your help to stand and dress.”
26 May, 2020
Sowing Ghosts 12.2
Previous First
[continuing chapter 12]
Hiroki clenched his jaws and tried to put his mind beyond all sensation. I’m sure I will feel better for this, he thought. Any time now.
Jiro had found a stream not twenty paces away from the clearing in which he had tied the horses, and Hiroki had taken it into his mind that an immersion in the fast-running snow-melt waters would ease the pain in his injured knee. Finding a large, flat rock on which he could sit, Hiroki had stripped down to his fundoshi and waded into the stream to reach it. Only now, with one leg in the swift-flowing water and the other awkwardly bent to keep it dry, had he realized that a sunny mid-day in the second month was much warmer when you were dressed than it was when you were naked save for a loin-cloth.
[continuing chapter 12]
Hiroki clenched his jaws and tried to put his mind beyond all sensation. I’m sure I will feel better for this, he thought. Any time now.
Jiro had found a stream not twenty paces away from the clearing in which he had tied the horses, and Hiroki had taken it into his mind that an immersion in the fast-running snow-melt waters would ease the pain in his injured knee. Finding a large, flat rock on which he could sit, Hiroki had stripped down to his fundoshi and waded into the stream to reach it. Only now, with one leg in the swift-flowing water and the other awkwardly bent to keep it dry, had he realized that a sunny mid-day in the second month was much warmer when you were dressed than it was when you were naked save for a loin-cloth.
25 May, 2020
A Regrettable Announcement
I have become, literarily speaking, an orphan.
My publisher has announced the impending closure of her press. Five Rivers Publishing is shutting down as of 1 June 2020. (My novels, A Poisoned Prayer and A Tangled Weave, seem already to have been removed from the catalogue.) This closure isn't (directly) COVID-19 related, but rather a result of family issues that will require the attention that could have been focused on publishing and books. She is absolutely doing the right thing, of course.
The response from the SF writing community in Canada has been supportive, and justifiably so: my own experiences with Lorina and Five Rivers have been marvellous from the moment of first contact. My editorial adventures with Lorina and with Robert were vastly informative and made me, I believe, a better writer now than I was at the start. I had been looking forward to working with Lorina some more, on the third novel in the French Intrigues series. And now...
... Well, what now?
The rights to A Poisoned Prayer and A Tangled Weave will revert back to me in a few days, but to be honest I've no idea what to do with them. I am not at all entrepreneurial, never have been. So the course of the determined self-publishing author just is not for me. I suppose it's remotely possible another publisher might be interested in the series, but somehow this doesn't seem too likely.
At any rate, between the shock of this news and the numbing effect of a prolonged social isolation, I won't be even attempting to do anything about this soon.
My publisher has announced the impending closure of her press. Five Rivers Publishing is shutting down as of 1 June 2020. (My novels, A Poisoned Prayer and A Tangled Weave, seem already to have been removed from the catalogue.) This closure isn't (directly) COVID-19 related, but rather a result of family issues that will require the attention that could have been focused on publishing and books. She is absolutely doing the right thing, of course.
The response from the SF writing community in Canada has been supportive, and justifiably so: my own experiences with Lorina and Five Rivers have been marvellous from the moment of first contact. My editorial adventures with Lorina and with Robert were vastly informative and made me, I believe, a better writer now than I was at the start. I had been looking forward to working with Lorina some more, on the third novel in the French Intrigues series. And now...
... Well, what now?
The rights to A Poisoned Prayer and A Tangled Weave will revert back to me in a few days, but to be honest I've no idea what to do with them. I am not at all entrepreneurial, never have been. So the course of the determined self-publishing author just is not for me. I suppose it's remotely possible another publisher might be interested in the series, but somehow this doesn't seem too likely.
At any rate, between the shock of this news and the numbing effect of a prolonged social isolation, I won't be even attempting to do anything about this soon.
Sowing Ghosts 12.1
Previous First
The fourteenth day of the second month
Hiroki knew he should have stayed at home, and let Tetsuo and Shiro handle today’s investigation. His concerns about the effect riding would have on his knee had been borne out, and the pain was making it hard to think. And he would not be able to infiltrate the temple grounds anyway, because such work required a flexibility he did not currently possess.
But the urge to do something, anything, had overtaken him with the morning rice. And so here he was, his knee swaddled in heavy, wet wraps that made bending it a painful chore, perched atop a puzzled horse who could not understand its rider’s abnormal clumsiness.
CHAPTER TWELVE
TEMPLE
Hiroki knew he should have stayed at home, and let Tetsuo and Shiro handle today’s investigation. His concerns about the effect riding would have on his knee had been borne out, and the pain was making it hard to think. And he would not be able to infiltrate the temple grounds anyway, because such work required a flexibility he did not currently possess.
But the urge to do something, anything, had overtaken him with the morning rice. And so here he was, his knee swaddled in heavy, wet wraps that made bending it a painful chore, perched atop a puzzled horse who could not understand its rider’s abnormal clumsiness.
21 May, 2020
Sowing Ghosts 11.4
Previous First
[concluding chapter 11]
Shiro was first back at the mansion, as the late-afternoon sun hovered just over the tops of the western hills. “I was completely surprised that you turned out to be right, Hiroki,” he said. Then he stopped, flushing furiously. “That’s not what I said — not what I meant to say —”
“Something you learned today has surprised you,” Hiroki said. He had slept most of the day through, and though his knee continued to throb with pain from time to time he had avoided the pain-relieving concoction for hours now. He wanted to be certain he really was feeling better, and not just under the drug’s continued influence. He also wanted to be more alert when Shiro and Tetsuo reported in; he was embarrassed when he thought about the things he had said to Hosokawa Katsunata this morning.
[concluding chapter 11]
Shiro was first back at the mansion, as the late-afternoon sun hovered just over the tops of the western hills. “I was completely surprised that you turned out to be right, Hiroki,” he said. Then he stopped, flushing furiously. “That’s not what I said — not what I meant to say —”
“Something you learned today has surprised you,” Hiroki said. He had slept most of the day through, and though his knee continued to throb with pain from time to time he had avoided the pain-relieving concoction for hours now. He wanted to be certain he really was feeling better, and not just under the drug’s continued influence. He also wanted to be more alert when Shiro and Tetsuo reported in; he was embarrassed when he thought about the things he had said to Hosokawa Katsunata this morning.
20 May, 2020
Artem Etiam Vita Brevior
 |
| RCA 44-A ribbon microphone image: Wikimedia Commons |
But that's not what prompted the dog-Latin header for this post*.
One aspect of the training has been the need for scripts upon which to practise our reading/acting skills, nascent though they be. And while we've been steered to an online repository of free-for-use scripts, a lot of those sample scripts are... not all that useful. Let's just say they wouldn't have passed muster for me back in the day when I worked as an announcer-editor.
This thought gave me an idea, though: Why not use material from my own personal archive?
It has been roughly a decade and a half since I last appeared on CBC (or any) Radio, but in the period between 1986 and 2005 I wrote and recorded nearly a thousand movie reviews or essays for MotherCorp. And while some of those scripts have sadly vanished, there is a big enough pile of them in my files, physical and virtual, that I ought to have been able to find something I could read. Hell's bells, buried at the very bottom of the physical archives are scripts from news reports and radio documentaries I wrote and voiced back in the 1970s, when dinosaurs ruled the earth.
I decided I'd stick with movie reviews, because those were the most recent and easiest to find. And you know what? I couldn't remember more than one in ten of the movies I was paid so much (ha) to talk about, and not that long ago. You can certainly look them up now, but I defy you to figure out, without a search engine, just what was meant by 15 Minutes or Jet Lag or Birthday Girl or John Q or Dragonfly.
These were all big-money Hollywood projects, many of them with big-name actors and directors involved. And I'll bet my 2019 royalty check (don't bother) that nobody out there could identify half of them without help. Because I sure couldn't, and not only did I watch every one of those movies, I was paid to do so, and to write and talk about it/them afterward.
In a way this discovery was somewhat reassuring. Nobody is going to remember any of my novels or short stories even twenty years from now, I suspect. But on the evidence I'm going to be in very good company.
*The headline is my Google Translate-assisted attempt to riff on the old Latin saw Ars longa, vita brevis: "life is short but art lasts." Well, no, it mostly doesn't. According to Google the headline reads "Art is even shorter than life."
Sowing Ghosts 11.3
Previous First
[continuing chapter 11]
“I am still curious about your mother,” Katsunata said, getting to his feet. “But for now I will hold my curiosity in check. I believe I owe you some consideration, after what I have put you through.” He went to the sliding screen and opened it when he heard Jiro approaching.
“I am curious about my mother as well,” Hiroki said. He felt the soft comfort of the futon trying to drag him down into sleep, and fought against it. “But I suspect you may not be able to answer my questions.” Before Katsunata could protest he added, “And any way, I have more immediate questions that I am certain you can answer.”
“I will do my best,” Katsunata said, “once your man and I have got your knee wrapped properly again.”
[continuing chapter 11]
“I am still curious about your mother,” Katsunata said, getting to his feet. “But for now I will hold my curiosity in check. I believe I owe you some consideration, after what I have put you through.” He went to the sliding screen and opened it when he heard Jiro approaching.
“I am curious about my mother as well,” Hiroki said. He felt the soft comfort of the futon trying to drag him down into sleep, and fought against it. “But I suspect you may not be able to answer my questions.” Before Katsunata could protest he added, “And any way, I have more immediate questions that I am certain you can answer.”
“I will do my best,” Katsunata said, “once your man and I have got your knee wrapped properly again.”
19 May, 2020
Sowing Ghosts 11.2
Previous First
[continuing chapter 11]
I did not just hear that, Hiroki told himself. The drug is making me hallucinate.
“How old is he now, do you think?” Lord Hosokawa’s face took on an exaggerated look of calculation. “He looks to be sixteen or seventeen. As I said, a fine-looking young man.”
I cannot escape this. Should I have fought more strongly against the decision to come here? No, he knew that he hadn’t fought the decision at all, nor had he wanted to. Coming to Kyoto had been as enticing a prospect as it was painful, and just as he had not resisted the draw of the capital when Lord Tanuma had first assigned him to the embassy, so he had to stop hiding now.
At least from this strange and dangerous boy. “He’s actually older than you,” Hiroki said, his words sounding slow and distorted in his own ears. “He should turn twenty later this year. If I’m remembering correctly, which I very well may not.”
[continuing chapter 11]
I did not just hear that, Hiroki told himself. The drug is making me hallucinate.
“How old is he now, do you think?” Lord Hosokawa’s face took on an exaggerated look of calculation. “He looks to be sixteen or seventeen. As I said, a fine-looking young man.”
I cannot escape this. Should I have fought more strongly against the decision to come here? No, he knew that he hadn’t fought the decision at all, nor had he wanted to. Coming to Kyoto had been as enticing a prospect as it was painful, and just as he had not resisted the draw of the capital when Lord Tanuma had first assigned him to the embassy, so he had to stop hiding now.
At least from this strange and dangerous boy. “He’s actually older than you,” Hiroki said, his words sounding slow and distorted in his own ears. “He should turn twenty later this year. If I’m remembering correctly, which I very well may not.”
18 May, 2020
Fighting With Swords
 | |
|
(I did a bit more buckling of swashes in A Poisoned Prayer, partly because the plot just demanded it and partly because I wrote the book at least partly under the influences of Dumas the Elder and Richard Lester, the latter of whose film of The Three Musketeers is a thing of joy and wonder. Even so, I tried to be careful about fight scenes.)
 |
| Sword of Goujian, again, via Wikimedia |
Frankly, most pop-culture depictions of sword-fighting strike me (so to speak) as overly stylized and misleading. Much as I admit to enjoying the interminable fight at the climax of the movie version of Scaramouche (I tried reading the book; Sabatini is impossible), I sort of resent the impression it gives of the way sword-fights worked, even in the eighteenth century when they were as much ritual as earnest combat.
So I was intrigued when Do-Ming sent me a link to a scientific paper reporting on investigations of what bronze-age sword-fighting must have been like. Now, based on what has been reported (more), and on a reading of the paper itself, there likely isn't much similarity between bronze-age swordsmanship and that of feudal Japan.
But there is a single important similarity: under normal conditions, sword-fights were over quickly. None of this charismatic wounding and then fighting back to defeat the foe: if you were wounded in a sword-fight, you invariably lost. Forget eight minutes (which is how long the Scaramouche fight lasts); some sword-fights wouldn't last eight seconds. (This is something Richard Lester and his fight coordinator largely got right in the Musketeers movies.)
For an idea of what I mean, check out the fights Kurosawa put into his movies Yojimbo and Sanjuro, especially the "duel" that ends the latter movie. There's a clip of this on YouTube, which I had probably better preface with a trigger warning; first time I saw it I was, I admit, stunned.
Here is the bronze-age paper itself.
14 May, 2020
We Apologize for the Interruption
Somehow this week got away from me, and it wasn't until today I realized I hadn't posted any more of Chapter Eleven of Sowing Ghosts to this collection of bits and bytes.
Well, I am sorry for that. But it's likely too late for me to do anything about it just now. Sowing Ghosts will reappear after, oh, I don't know, a few more days of indolence on my part.
I hope.
Well, I am sorry for that. But it's likely too late for me to do anything about it just now. Sowing Ghosts will reappear after, oh, I don't know, a few more days of indolence on my part.
I hope.
11 May, 2020
Sowing Ghosts 11.1
Previous First
The thirteenth day of the second month
The next morning Hiroki’s knee was so swollen and sore he could not get up, much less walk. “I am going to have to depend on you two to be my legs and eyes today,” he told Shiro and Tetsuo. “The only way I am going to be able to heal myself is to stay here and dose myself with this nasty stuff” — he nodded in the direction of the small table on which Jiro had set a mug, which steamed malevolently — “until either the pain goes away or I do.”
“At least you won’t have any trouble getting cold cloth to wrap that knee,” Shiro said, shivering in exaggerated fashion. “It froze last night and there’s ice on the water in all the ditches in this neighbourhood.”
“Sunny this morning, though,” Tetsuo added. “I won’t mind being out and around on your behalf, Hiroki. What do you want us to do for you?”
CHAPTER 11
FAMILY
The thirteenth day of the second month
The next morning Hiroki’s knee was so swollen and sore he could not get up, much less walk. “I am going to have to depend on you two to be my legs and eyes today,” he told Shiro and Tetsuo. “The only way I am going to be able to heal myself is to stay here and dose myself with this nasty stuff” — he nodded in the direction of the small table on which Jiro had set a mug, which steamed malevolently — “until either the pain goes away or I do.”
“At least you won’t have any trouble getting cold cloth to wrap that knee,” Shiro said, shivering in exaggerated fashion. “It froze last night and there’s ice on the water in all the ditches in this neighbourhood.”
“Sunny this morning, though,” Tetsuo added. “I won’t mind being out and around on your behalf, Hiroki. What do you want us to do for you?”
08 May, 2020
Sowing Ghosts 10.5
Previous First
[concluding chapter 10]
“I told you we should have killed that rōnin when the woman took us to him.” Shiro in a mood of helplessness was not a pretty sight, Hiroki decided.
“It wasn’t Inaba who fired at me,” he said, trying to be patient as he waited for the herbs to dull the pain. Both knees were sore, but the heavy weight of the porter and his load seemed to have twisted the left knee especially badly.
“You don’t know that,” Shiro said.
“Actually, I do.”
[concluding chapter 10]
“I told you we should have killed that rōnin when the woman took us to him.” Shiro in a mood of helplessness was not a pretty sight, Hiroki decided.
“It wasn’t Inaba who fired at me,” he said, trying to be patient as he waited for the herbs to dull the pain. Both knees were sore, but the heavy weight of the porter and his load seemed to have twisted the left knee especially badly.
“You don’t know that,” Shiro said.
“Actually, I do.”
07 May, 2020
Sowing Ghosts 10.4
Previous First
[continuing chapter 10]
The sun was low over the western hills, but still strong enough to warm Hiroki as he made his way north along crowded Muromachi to the rented mansion and evening rice. He was pleased with the results of his meeting with Katsumi, if only because they represented progress on one task — even if that task wasn’t his primary responsibility. He intended to present the two names he had learned to Hosokawa Katsunata, and see if that well-connected young man could provide him with any useful information. And I will be very surprised if he cannot, Hiroki said to himself, shifting toward the centre of the street to pass two porters who were too slow, encumbered as they were, to get out of his way.
About his primary responsibility he was mostly depressed. He could not complain that he had learned nothing over the past few days. Unfortunately, everything he had learned had served only to eliminate suspects from his consideration. Even Lord Miyoshi appeared now to believe that his secretary, Kanegawa, was innocent. Likewise Togashi Shokan, who should have been the best suspect, appeared now to have been nowhere near the capital, much less Lady Tomiko, when the unfortunate woman was killed.
[continuing chapter 10]
The sun was low over the western hills, but still strong enough to warm Hiroki as he made his way north along crowded Muromachi to the rented mansion and evening rice. He was pleased with the results of his meeting with Katsumi, if only because they represented progress on one task — even if that task wasn’t his primary responsibility. He intended to present the two names he had learned to Hosokawa Katsunata, and see if that well-connected young man could provide him with any useful information. And I will be very surprised if he cannot, Hiroki said to himself, shifting toward the centre of the street to pass two porters who were too slow, encumbered as they were, to get out of his way.
About his primary responsibility he was mostly depressed. He could not complain that he had learned nothing over the past few days. Unfortunately, everything he had learned had served only to eliminate suspects from his consideration. Even Lord Miyoshi appeared now to believe that his secretary, Kanegawa, was innocent. Likewise Togashi Shokan, who should have been the best suspect, appeared now to have been nowhere near the capital, much less Lady Tomiko, when the unfortunate woman was killed.
06 May, 2020
Sowing Ghosts 10.3
Previous First
[continuing chapter 10]
“My place would have been less expensive and more private,” Katsumi said.
“But isn’t the view here so much better?” Hiroki said. He had taken her to a tea-shop whose ground floor was built out, on pilings, over the Kamo. The river was still getting over its winter sluggishness, the water more slate-coloured than the green-blue Hiroki liked to remember. But the day was sunny and mild, the promise of spring and blossom-time just that much more pronounced than it had been even yesterday. A cup of rich, fragrant spring tea and a sticky-sweet mochi rice cake was taking the edge off his hunger and soothing his spirit as well.
“I agree that the view is better, but our activities here will be confined to the drinking of tea and of conversation,” she said with a sad expression he knew, by now, to be mostly mocking. Katsumi was, no doubt about it, the strangest woman he had ever met.
[continuing chapter 10]
“My place would have been less expensive and more private,” Katsumi said.
“But isn’t the view here so much better?” Hiroki said. He had taken her to a tea-shop whose ground floor was built out, on pilings, over the Kamo. The river was still getting over its winter sluggishness, the water more slate-coloured than the green-blue Hiroki liked to remember. But the day was sunny and mild, the promise of spring and blossom-time just that much more pronounced than it had been even yesterday. A cup of rich, fragrant spring tea and a sticky-sweet mochi rice cake was taking the edge off his hunger and soothing his spirit as well.
“I agree that the view is better, but our activities here will be confined to the drinking of tea and of conversation,” she said with a sad expression he knew, by now, to be mostly mocking. Katsumi was, no doubt about it, the strangest woman he had ever met.
05 May, 2020
Sowing Ghosts 10.2
Previous First
[continuing chapter 10]
“I wanted to thank you face-to-face for speaking with the arms master on my behalf.”
Kanegawa Akihiro looked embarrassed as he spoke the words, and Hiroki understood the young man’s discomfort. If he had got it into his head that Hiroki had been acting on a generous impulse, doing him a favour, then Kanegawa would quickly come to believe himself in Hiroki’s debt.
And it was a debt that could never be discharged: how did you repay the saving of your life? Hiroki had heard of samurai in similar situations who felt compelled to take their own lives because they could not live with the knowledge of being so irredeemably in debt to another person.
[continuing chapter 10]
“I wanted to thank you face-to-face for speaking with the arms master on my behalf.”
Kanegawa Akihiro looked embarrassed as he spoke the words, and Hiroki understood the young man’s discomfort. If he had got it into his head that Hiroki had been acting on a generous impulse, doing him a favour, then Kanegawa would quickly come to believe himself in Hiroki’s debt.
And it was a debt that could never be discharged: how did you repay the saving of your life? Hiroki had heard of samurai in similar situations who felt compelled to take their own lives because they could not live with the knowledge of being so irredeemably in debt to another person.
04 May, 2020
Sowing Ghosts 10.1
Previous First
The twelfth day of the second month
The neighbourhood Shiro took them to the next morning had, in Hiroki’s childhood, been a well-organized block, like all the other similar blocks in the capital, of near-identical houses on narrow but deep lots, each house with its own substantial garden behind it. Those gardens were gone, their space filled by newer, less-well built houses into which entire families seemed to have been crammed despite them being smaller than what Hiroki considered adequate for even a single man to sleep in.
“So many people,” Tetsuo said as they passed a throng of labourers and their women arguing about something. For a moment Hiroki was convinced that one of the women was Aki, Lady Tomiko’s maid, but she was of no consequence right now and so he kept pace with Tetsuo and Shiro.
“In such a small space,” the latter said.
CHAPTER TEN
SUSPECTS
The neighbourhood Shiro took them to the next morning had, in Hiroki’s childhood, been a well-organized block, like all the other similar blocks in the capital, of near-identical houses on narrow but deep lots, each house with its own substantial garden behind it. Those gardens were gone, their space filled by newer, less-well built houses into which entire families seemed to have been crammed despite them being smaller than what Hiroki considered adequate for even a single man to sleep in.
“So many people,” Tetsuo said as they passed a throng of labourers and their women arguing about something. For a moment Hiroki was convinced that one of the women was Aki, Lady Tomiko’s maid, but she was of no consequence right now and so he kept pace with Tetsuo and Shiro.
“In such a small space,” the latter said.
01 May, 2020
Sowing Ghosts 9.5
Previous First
[concluding chapter 9]
Somebody was out in the rain tonight, even if it wasn’t Hiroki. As he sat by the kitchen fire, searching with only half his mind through the books he’d obtained in the past two days and wondering which of them to give Katsumi next, a servant arrived with a note for him.
“At this hour?” he asked. “It must be the end of the first night-watch by now.”
[concluding chapter 9]
Somebody was out in the rain tonight, even if it wasn’t Hiroki. As he sat by the kitchen fire, searching with only half his mind through the books he’d obtained in the past two days and wondering which of them to give Katsumi next, a servant arrived with a note for him.
“At this hour?” he asked. “It must be the end of the first night-watch by now.”
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