Page 114 of The Lost Future of Pepperharrow

‘This came for you from the Palace,’ he said, holding out an envelope stamped with the seal of the Home Ministry. ‘They want you for a tribunal later this morning. And that idiot Vaulker.’

Mori nodded. The guard captain bowed, not too stiffly, and left. Mori watched him go, all the way back along the corridor until he turned the corner and disappeared down the stairs. When he let his eyes drop, it was to the envelope.

‘I don’t know what’s inside,’ he said. He sounded unnerved. He twisted his head away. ‘What a stupid thing to say.’

‘No, it’s not. Everyone hates ominous envelopes.’ Thaniel opened it for him. ‘Kuroda is calling an investigative tribunal. “To ascertain how a dangerous prisoner escaped custody” – he is a prick.’ He had never liked the bullying wording that permeated English government documents, but Japanese had whole extra levels of language with which to be quietly, snidely, terrifyingly intimidating. He crushed the letter and lobbed it in the fire.

‘I don’t know what to do,’ Mori said quietly.

‘They don’t know that you’ve lost your memory. They’re not going to leave you alone. If we try to go to the docks, Tanaka will be waiting. You have to go to this tribunal. Talk to Kuroda, you’re good at it.’

‘Yes,’ Mori said. He was watching Katsu wheel off for the fire. Then, ‘Can you come?’

‘I have to, I’m the only proper translator,’ Thaniel pointed out.

‘Yes,’ Mori said again. ‘And then …’

Thaniel squeezed his shoulder. ‘Look, the Duke of Choshu owes you a favour. He should have been looking for you, all this time. I think he must be …’ He had been going to say ‘upset’, but he couldn’t imagine the Duke being upset. ‘Very embarrassed.’

‘What if he’s not?’

‘Kuroda convinced him I’d murdered you. Kuroda had a body, and everything; actually it would be worth finding out who that was, you could probably nail him for murder. Kei, Choshu wouldn’t have sent his men here if he weren’t angry. Kuroda pulled one over on him.’ He paused. ‘I can’t believe this is how it was supposed to turn out. I can’t believe you meant for Mrs Pepperharrow to die, or Arinori, but those things are my fault. You arranged everything else perfectly. I think you can trust that the tribunal will be all right.’

‘What do you mean, your fault?’ Mori said, frowning. ‘Arinori is dead? The Education Minister? How?’

‘He was shot. Vaulker was meant to go with him to the Constitution parades, but it was me. Arinori’s wife thought that you and Mrs Pepperharrow were in trouble, and I went with them because I wanted to know more. And then when the gunman fired, I was too slow.’ Thaniel motioned at the bullet scar. ‘And then I went looking for you, at Yoruji—’

Mori caught his hands. ‘Wait, wait. Did you see the message on the wall, in Aokigahara?’

‘Yes, and I – bloody ignored it. I’m sorry. I was scared you were dead, I thought I could find out … I don’t know,’ Thaniel said, all in an excruciated rush. ‘But I went to Yoruji, I was seen, and Kuroda had me arrested. I was sitting locked in a room here like an idiot when I should have been negotiating with the protesters outside. I could have done it, too.’ He took his hands back, because they were shaking. ‘You should have been safe here, when you came back. There shouldn’t have been any protest anymore, never mind a mob. Mrs Pepperharrow would never have had to – she’d still be alive. We would have had time to think of something else, to bring you back to now. I’m so sorry.’

Mori was looking at him as if he’d never seen him before. ‘You were worried.’

‘I didn’t mean for it to get in the way like that, I—’

‘About me,’ Mori said gradually.

Thaniel choked. ‘Are you telling me you didn’t factor in me wanting to look for you? That cannot have been a faint chance.’

‘Everything was faint, when I was putting this together. I had to guess.’

‘So – what, you thought I just tolerated you for the sake of a free room?’

Mori didn’t laugh. ‘Isn’t that what impoverished young artists usually do with old millionaires who fall in love with them?’

Thaniel wanted to splinter into pieces. Part of him sank into a relief like he’d never felt before, but the rest was so shocked that the relief was nearly drowned out. Every conversation they’d ever had rushed across the front of his mind. Suddenly Mori’s endless quietness looked much more like grace and deference than indifference.

‘Why would you have me in the house if you thought I was like that?’ he managed at last.

Mori shifted his shoulder a fraction. ‘It was good enough.’

‘Good enough—’ He wanted to say other things, but they flooded up with a pressure that would have looked like madness if he’d tried to put it into grammar and words. ‘I don’t tolerate you. I can’t breathe when you’re not here, I can’t think, I can’t write music properly, I spend my whole bloody life waiting for the post. I never said because I thought you didn’t want to hear it. We don’t talk about – any of it.’

He looked up when Mori brushed his elbows, and fell still. It was only the touch of a kiss, but it sent burning right down his breastbone and a rush of heat that made the cold room too hot. He leaned up a little and felt Mori’s shoulders tip into his hands, then stepped up and eased him nearer. He didn’t know he was crying until Mori brushed his eyelashes.

FORTY-SEVEN

The tribunal was held in a grand, bright room at the Palace, full of multicoloured sunbeams from the stained-glass panels in the walls. There were tables and chairs set up in a careful arc, some already filled by quiet men in perfect suits. Willis had tried to ban Thaniel from going, on the not unreasonable grounds that he was in no fit state to think about anything more complicated than lunch, but there was no one else to translate.