The Convict's Sword Read Online Free PDF Page A

compound of the administration of the Left Capital. Akitada stopped. “I wonder if Haseo spent any time studying swordsmanship. Perhaps the city administration has a record of him.”
    “Ah,” said Tora. “Very good! Wish I’d thought of that. But what about Tomoe?”
    “Later. Where does this street singer of yours perform?”
    “On the tower platform of the Left Market.”
    Akitada suppressed a shudder. What had he been thinking of to agree to go to such a public place and listen to a common trollop? “You have low-bred girlfriends,” he said.
    “She’s not low-bred and she’s not my girlfriend,” Tora said, a little stiffly. “Can’t a fellow have women friends without sleeping with them?”
    “In your case it’s doubtful.” Akitada chuckled as he turned into the offices of the Left Capital. Tora’s romantic pursuits were legion. He felt a great deal better. Tora always had that effect on him because he approached all obstacles with energetic zeal, unlike Akitada, who was invariably torn by conflicting duties and agonized over every decision. Even now, he was guiltily aware that he should be in his office.
    The city administration, like other official buildings in the capital, existed in two separate halves, one on each side of Suzaku Avenue, each responsible for its half of the capital. The Right Capital had, soon after its inception, fallen into ruin and ill repute and was now mainly occupied by the poor, the gangs, and a few holdouts. Akitada assumed that Haseo, as a member of the provincial gentry, would have resided in the Left Capital.
    Since he was still wearing his official silk robe and stiff gauze hat and was accompanied by a servant, Akitada was greeted by the head clerk, who listened to his question and shook his head. “Utsunomiya? A single gentleman taking lodgings? And this was more than five years ago? Maybe as many as ten? Impossible, my dear sir. There is considerable coming and going in the city. Unless his family maintains property here, we won’t find anything.”
    The man was not trying very hard, but he had a point. Akitada sighed and glanced around at the shelves of ledgers and registers of city wards. “Perhaps he resided in the area where the training schools in martial arts are located.”
    The clerk was beginning to fidget. Only Akitada’s rank kept him from throwing up his hands and sending this bothersome person away. “Such schools exist in three different wards.”
    “Ah,” said Akitada encouragingly. “That should help. Can we look through the residential registers of those wards for the years I mentioned?”
    “But,” protested the clerk, “we don’t keep records of the students attending every training academy in the capital. Besides, there is no certainty that he even registered. He may simply have been someone’s houseguest. How long was he here?”
    Akitada did not know and decided that he had to use different tactics. He raised his brows. “What possible difference does it make? Don’t you have your wardens report the names of everyone in their ward for every month of each year? Surely that is what the law requires.”
    The clerk capitulated. “Of course,” he muttered. “Just a moment.” He went to consult with an assistant, who went to consult with several more, who dispersed and returned carrying enormous stacks of documents. “There you are,” said the clerk with a smirk. “The registers for the twelfth, thirteenth, and fifteenth wards for the past fifteen years. They are the wards which have or had training schools for martial arts.”
    The stacks were enormous. Akitada saw no point in sifting through tens of thousands of entries. Instead, he informed himself about the location of the wards, the names of the schools, and the identity of the local wardens, and they left.
    The first training school belonged to a master called Takizawa. They found him and his disciples already hard at work. The students, two agile youngsters in their