The Hell Screen (51 page)

He tried to shout, but something was stuffed in his mouth, a rag with the nauseating taste and smell of paints. He gagged and felt the bile rising in his throat. No! He must not vomit or he would suffocate. Closing his eyes, he concentrated on subduing his nausea. Finally the urge subsided.

His wrists were held together by a rope tied so tightly that he could not feel his hands. His feet were also tied at the ankles, but not so tightly. He could feel sharp gravel biting into the soles of his feet. But when he tried to move his legs, his shoulders, arms, and wrists were in agony. If only he could get some slack in the rope from which he was suspended. He attempted to pull on it, but another excruciating pain ran from his shoulders across his entire torso, and he desisted instantly. To ease the pain, he raised himself to his toes.

He balanced like this for a while, afraid to move until the waves of pain subsided a little. As he waited, it dawned on him that he was strung up in Noami’s garden and that he was alone.

The darkness was not impenetrable. A patch of starlit sky showed between the fronds of rustling bamboo and bare branches. He must be tied up to a tree. It was incredibly cold, and he realized that he was naked except for his loincloth.

The madman had stripped him of his clothes, tied him up to the tree, and left him to freeze in agony. It was a great deal of trouble to go to, in order to eliminate a witness. Why not kill him outright? What did Noami have in mind?

The memory of those sketches of bleeding bodies returned vividly. Perhaps he was about to be carved up while the monster busily sketched away. He, Akitada, would become a character on the hell screen. He had a sudden freakish image of lines of people passing by to stare at his writhing body. Would his friends or acquaintances recognize him? He giggled at the thought of their faces, and then felt warm moisture running down his cheeks.

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.”

Akitada’s foolish hope that Noami might be satisfied with a few sketches collapsed. Noami would not let him go. There was nothing left now but the feeble hope that Yori somehow would make people understand where his father was.

“Hmm,” said Noami, looking at his sketch critically and nodding. “This will have to do. More extreme suffering will have to wait till later.” He held up the sketch for Akitada to see.

Akitada did not recognize himself in the pitiful, twisted creature suspended from a bare branch. Was his face really so contorted? He attempted to straighten up.

Noami grinned. “My compliments on your self-control, by the way. Your position must be quite painful by now.” He rose and came to check Akitada’s bonds again. “Tsk, tsk. You’ve been pulling on the rope. All you accomplished was to tighten the knots on your wrists. Your hands are already blue and quite swollen. I doubt if you have any feeling left in them. You should be safe enough.” He suddenly cocked his head and listened, then turned abruptly and padded off into the garden.

Akitada immediately returned to jerking on the rope. He discovered that he could manage ten sharp pulls before the pain on his wrists and arms became too great and he had to rest. At least he had some leverage by now. Sweat was running down his face despite the cold. He thought at first it was blood, that somehow the cold had thinned his skin until the slightest exertion cracked it wide open. Relieved that it was not, he began his routine again. There was a little more slack than before. Blood started trickling from his wrists again, but he did not care and gave more and harder pulls on the rope. By now his whole torso was a mass of fiery pain, and he was almost certain he had dislocated both of his shoulders, but he finally had some hope that he might have enough purchase to loosen his bonds or break the rope.

He had hardly thought this when the painter reappeared, muttering to himself. He was carrying two heavy pails and some rags. The pails he set down next to Akitada and, dropping the rags into the first pail, he began to wash Akitada’s body down.

Although he was thoroughly chilled already, the shock of the icy water was so great that Akitada groaned and flinched back violently. He could not fathom the purpose of this bath. If Noami wanted to get rid of the blood, he had no need to wet his head, chest, and abdomen.

When Akitada was completely wet, Noami moved the second pail next to Akitada’s feet, then bent to lift them into the pail.

Having his legs knocked out from under him pushed Akitada forward, his whole weight suddenly suspended again from his raw wrists and damaged shoulders. He screamed in agony, a muffled groan because of the gag, and closed his eyes against the excruciating pain which ran down his arms to the rest of his body like hot lightning. When his feet touched ground again and took the weight from his arms, the relief was so enormous that he did not realize right away that Noami had inserted his bound feet into a pail of freezing water halfway up his shins. He shrank into himself, then flinched violently as Noami draped the icy cloths about his bare body, covering him from his head to his hips.