Mary Gentle (69 page)

“Monsieur Saburo!” I pointed behind me. “My servant Gabriel Santon is like to come out of these woods. Be pleased not to shoot him.”

“Hai.” Saburo glanced over his shoulder and grunted.

That sound, familiar as it was, took me clear back to London. I could not restrain contempt. “You wanted a Nostradamus of your very own? For the King of the Japans? That should always have been in my mind, monsieur. I reprove myself for not thinking of it.”

Dariole said nothing.

Her gaze fixed on Fludd, not Saburo—although she might well have blamed him also; the samurai having been there when she was in the Tower, and on the road to Wookey, and being fully cognisant of every action taken by Robert Fludd. And, afterwards, thus as much of a Judas to her.

She ignored Saburo.

I knotted a handful of the shoulder of her kosode in my fist.

“Do nothing.” I managed to look about me, ostensibly casual. “So M. Saburo is a traitor? So. Offer any man a precious resource, and he will take it. That is human nature—which, I have often thought, is much more like that of Judas than any of the other Apostles.”

Saburo turned away from his soldiers. “Rosh’-fu’, this is difficult for me.”

I let him see me look at his
hashagar
troops. “Evidently.”

“My duty to you and my duty to Tokugawa.” He scowled across the distance between us. “Darioru-sama! Furada doesn’t die at your hands. Furadasan has told me this himself. He made calculation on the ship.”

“Yes; he calculated we’d be fool enough to come here and be killed,” I said bitterly.
Why does a man ignore his instincts and walk into an ambush? I knew these men must be here!

A glance to my side told me why.

Because she would be here whether or not I am. Whether she could ride, or whether she had to walk until her feet bled. I am merely here with her. Even if we stand diametrically opposed: and she needs Fludd dead, and I need him to live; I will still keep her out of any harm I may.

Saburo turned his black gaze on Dariole. He called, across the open ground, “I defend Furada! Don’t attack him. I don’t want to kill you, Darioru. My duty to the Shogun means I will, if you force me.”

Dariole stared.

“I regret and beg pardon.” Saburo bowed. “Shall I tell Furada now that you consent to speak with him, Rosh’-fu’-san?
He
desires peace.”

In the French that I badly hoped Fludd had not taught Saburo, I said, “Go along with this, mademoiselle, or we are dead men here and now.”

A long moment ticked by. Sweat rolled down my back, under my kimono. Dariole gave a single nod, and seemed to shrink into herself.

“Tell him we’ll talk!” I called, at the same time releasing my grip on Dariole. I flexed cramped fingers.

Saburo bowed sharply, turned about, and stomped back towards his first troop of
hashagar,
and Fludd. They spoke. Fludd took the samurai’s arm in European fashion, and took a turn or two up and down on the beach, where thin grass grew out of the sand. The soldiers leaned on their twelve-foot spears. The scent of burning match-cord drifted across the yards between us.

“I do not believe I ever asked if you could swim, mademoiselle.” I looked down at her. “In more than a few feet of the Thames-river.”

No glimmer of recognition or a smile crossed her face. She watched Fludd as if she watched the gates of Paradise shut in her face. Saburo gave Fludd a curt nod, spoke to the officer of that troop, and then strode over to the flanking squad.

“I mention this, mademoiselle, because there will likely be more men in the trees behind us now, and swimming may be one better method of escape. Depending on how well they shoot their muskets—”

—
she isn’t listening,
I realised.

“Dariole—”

Pain jolted through my gut; knocked me breathless, and down on one knee.

I could realise it only in retrospect—with all of a duellist’s speed of reaction she dropped her hand to her dagger, drew, and slammed it back into me, just below the joining of my ribs.

I fell, straining for air through glass-filled lungs.

No blood!
I realised, crouching on the earth, bent over; arms clutching involuntarily across my belly.

The
pommel
of her dagger—why?

Dariole moved forward, not stopping—she walked with a sure, direct stride, anger showing in her clenched fists. Her face was set.

“D—!” I could not get breath to shout out or move.
And I thought her move made when she spurred her horse.
…

She went forward towards the end of the promontory, looking neither to right nor left, immune to the noise and shouting that began. There was barely a split second for the
hashagar
and Saburo both to see her coming. The sun glinted back off her hair, that shone as she walked faster, picking up her pace. The soldiers lowered their spears and lifted the teppo; Saburo cuffed one man, bellowing orders over the noise and shouting. No man fired.

Saburo strode forward, away from his men, to intercept her. Coming across on a diagonal, to cut between her and Fludd.

“No!” Hobbling up to my feet, pain catching my chest, vision blurring; I dragged one of the wheel-lock pistols out of my kimono.

I cannot guarantee who I’ll hit.

Saburo smoothly drew his cattan-blades as he walked towards her. Dariole strode on as if she didn’t see, her gaze fixed on Robert Fludd. I could only think
No, don’t do it, never go into a fight angry—!

She’s not angry. She’s in a cold fury.

The samurai’s two swords took the slightest amount of light from the air and flashed it back like mirrors. Two curved blades, heavy as sabres or broadswords.

Fludd stared across the white sand at Dariole, his expression avid.

This
is what he’s calculated. That she’ll attack. And she’ll die.
She’s angry, she’ll make a mistake, she’ll die
.

I brought up my pistol; every man of the nearest troop of
hashagar
pointed their muskets at me.

Dariole drew her blade as she walked. The same thirty-six-inch Italian rapier that I brought to her at Wookey. She fumbled her dagger in her other hand, almost dropping it. I knew, from that, what fury must surge through her veins, how it will cloud her judgement, ruin reaction-time, leave her dead on the samurai blade.

Am I to bear this: Fludd making Saburo her murderer and I still must keep him alive—?

All of it happened in a few seconds: while a man might tell twenty heartbeats.

Dariole walked forward, not breaking stride, beginning almost to run towards the samurai. Not until then did I realise she saw him in her path. Saburo raised the point of his cattan-blade, a frown appearing on his face. She called out something, I could not hear what.

My hand clenched, white-knuckled, on the pistol.
I dare not fire at them so close together!

I must do
something
.

Dariole broke into a run, straight at the Nihonese man. Rapier-point out at full stretch, and she didn’t stop coming, she ran on—almost running onto the chisel-point of the samurai’s blade, and Saburo curved fluidly and expertly into a long lunge, and thrust instantly home.

I heard myself make a stunned noise.

On the instant he struck, her left arm came up, deliberately blocking the thrust. Blood gouted; flew out in a long, curving string on the air.

Bright metal stuck in; jutted out from the other side of her flesh.

As if it were the sole focus of my vision, I saw his cattan-blade jammed between the radius and ulna bones of her forearm; stuck straight
through
her forearm—

Still coming on, no break in her pace, Dariole thrust her left arm forward, pushing it
up
the cattan-blade—bone grating against steel—and grabbed the metal disc of the sword’s guard, her fingers locking into the holes cut out of the iron.

Blood doused her hand, her arm; streamed like river-water off the point of her elbow.

In the same second Dariole’s rapier licked out, took Saburo’s smaller cattan-blade; made it a flickering whirl of steel that thudded into the dust as she knocked it from his hand.

Tightly gripping his long cattan-blade’s guard, she yanked the weapon towards her. Hauled Saburo towards her, his sword immobilised; pulled him into her own thrust with her rapier.
Inside his guard
—

Shock held my chest rigid. I couldn’t breathe.

Dariole’s rapier blade glinted in the sun and winked out.

Saburo looked down at his stomach with surprised wonder.

Dariole thrust deeper into his body, pushing forward, leaning all her weight into it. Saburo staggered heavily back, Dariole gripping his sword-hilt tenaciously. Her rapier’s razor-edge yanked in a series of jerky movements across his belly; sliced back up towards his rib cage—

Her rapier-blade twisted.

The cattan-blade’s hilt fell out of his hand.

Still with his sword stuck through her arm, Dariole yanked her rapier’s length out of his flesh. Back out of Saburo’s stomach, above his navel.

He staggered back a step, Dariole advanced; the impaling sword trailing grotesquely behind her.

His men yelled; shouted.

Saburo fell onto the sand, first on his knees, then over onto his side.

Dariole collapsed down, one knee touching the sand. Her rapier fell out of her hand. She staggered upright again. She did not look at Fludd, where the man stood. She stared down at Saburo on the ground.

Loud, imperative noise burst from the
hashagar
soldiers; shattering the shock that held me.

I made it to Dariole at a limping, breathless dead run, tensing against the impact of musket-balls.

The
hashagar
soldiers in the front rank moved.

A score of them grabbed hold of Robert Fludd.

I
knelt down, seized her, and held her steady; gritted my teeth, and drew out the inch-wide long blade before the weight of it mangled her flesh still more.

It pours, not spurts; the artery is safe—

She fell back: I caught her under the arms, my hands instantly covered in blood. “A surgeon! A moi!
A surgeon here!
”

“Messire,” Dariole said, sounding bewildered. “I hurt Saburo….”

The sea-wind whipped at her hair, bringing the smell of salt and fish and blood.

Her own blood, pouring out of her butchered arm.

“Whoreson bastards! A doctor—physician—namban igaku!” I could call for gaijin medicine, if not for a doctor. Even as I spoke, I wrenched at the sleeve-cloth of my kosode, ripping it out of the rest of my garment and wrapping it tightly about her forearm.

The cotton instantly reddened, soaked through.

I ripped the remainder of the kosode over my head and bound it over the first makeshift bandage, yanking off my obi-belt to tie it down.

“We’ll go!” I got one hand under her arm, and drew my rapier. Not that this will stop a teppo….

In the bright sunlight, and the soughing of the sea-wind through pines, the
hashagar
stood still, to a man.

Footsteps hammered behind me—and resolved into Gabriel Santon, running from a place where I would have sworn the pines gave no cover sufficient for a man.

“Oh, Jesu! that was brutal!” Gabriel muttered. “Monsieur, is she alive? Will she live?”

“She may if we leave here—” I broke off.

One of the Nihonese soldiers came forward at a dead run; an officer by his armour.

I raised my sword.

He fell prostrate to the ground, head in the sand halfway between Saburo and I, and rattled off words too fast for me to comprehend.

Sluggish, shocked and thick, Saburo’s voice spoke from the ground. “He’ll hold Furada, Rosh’-fu’. Until you’re ready. They’re under my orders, my ashigaru.”

I stared.

Held by the men in Tanaka Saburo’s colours, Fludd yelled out
“Traitor!”
and then himself shrieked high as a sea-bird, although I could not see how they hurt him.

Saburo raised himself up on his elbows.

Sweat ran down his forehead. His clothes were soaked red from chest to thigh, blood pooling and running into the sand under him, and around him, blackening the silver. He looked down at himself.

“A seppuku cut.” Despite the glassy skin and sweat, he smiled. “Thank you, Dari-ko.”

Her weight slid out of my hand. She dropped to her knees, and crawled forward the three or four feet between herself and the samurai.

I came out of my stupor and got her under the arms again, lifting her, helping her across to him. She sank on her knees before Saburo’s body.

The
hashagar
officer scuttled forward to kneel behind Saburo, supporting him.

Dariole, collapsed down, echoed, “‘Thank you?’ How can you say thank you!”

“It’s an honourable cut. Honourable death.” Saburo made a movement with his head, as if he would have bowed. I saw his fingers dug nails into his palms.

“Gabriel, do we have any drink?”

Gabriel stood; looked about for the strayed horses.

The samurai shook his head. “I need nothing.”

“Why don’t you help him!” Dariole stared over Saburo’s head at his officer. “Why don’t you get a surgeon?”

“Because he’s dying and there isn’t time,” I said.

“There’s time,” Saburo contradicted.

I looked at him, aghast and hopeful. “Do you mean we can get help?”

Saburo gave a curt shake of his head. “The yamabushi Katarii-na. She told me, I can live ten hours, after the death-stroke. I’ll ask you to give me the second’s cut, when I’ve finished. Gut wound is a bad death.”

The details of the custom of seppuku have come to my attention. I cannot disagree with him.

Silent tears poured down Dariole’s face. She knelt with her right hand pressed over her mouth, her left hand hanging limp, blood slowly dripping from her fingertips.

The samurai’s skin crinkled around his eyes. “I didn’t know it would be you until now, kitsune, little White Fox. I didn’t think you would be good enough, Dari-ko. That was samurai! Remember, no man can be stopped if he isn’t afraid of death.”

The wind blew cold across my chest. I considered sacrificing my shitage undershirt to mop the blood from his belly. Already a man could see the pink of intestines squeezed out into his lap. No need to hurt him uselessly.

“I also would ask for the mercy-stroke under these circumstances.” I knelt down beside Dariole, put my arm around her shoulders, and held her up. “Mademoiselle, let the man speak.”

Saburo gave me a nod.

Dariole screamed hard enough to wreck her throat.
“Why?”

I felt it shudder through her, and tightened my grip. Blood loss and grief conspired towards her collapse; only sheer determination kept her up and staring at the samurai.

“Understand, all of this, my plan.” Saburo stopped, momentarily. His hesitation was the only sign of what must be agony.

The officer unstoppered a bamboo water container and held it to his lips. Saburo drank.

“I asked more things of Katarii-na than I told you. Now you and Rosh’fu’ will be the only others to know that—I’ve lied to Furada.”

He paused to smile at the noises coming from Robert Fludd, where the European was held by the soldiers, their hands gagging him.

“And I lie to Shogun Hidetada, when I write to him,” Saburo said. “But it was necessary.”

“Why did you do this!”
Dariole gasped.

His smile was more gentle than any expression I’d seen on his face before. “I spoke with Katarii-na. Then, I lied to Furada—
he
thinks I have brought him here to be advisor to Hidetada Shogun. Like the Anjin-sama, to Ieyass. To build an empire of Nihon.”

“And you haven’t?”

I realised, too late, that sarcasm is perhaps not a proper tone to adopt to a dying man.

Saburo chuckled, reached up with one bloody hand, and patted me on the shoulder. “I knew every man would believe that!”

I took his hand, and let him take out some of his pain in his grip of mine. It felt as though my bones crushed. God He knows what the belly-cut felt like.

“Every man believes in building empires.” Saburo actually smiled. “Not
all
lies—I told Furada half of what Katarii-na tell me. That there is a terrible weapon that will be used against Nihon in three, four hundred years’ time, before comet. Fire raining from the sky kills all of Nihon. All Nihon, all our enemy; all other lands too…. I tell Furada, to stop it, we mustbuild empire—Furada come to be advisor with Hidetada, Ieyasu’s son. Then, Furada advisor with Iemitsu, Ieyasu’s grandson.
That
is where I lied.”

His hand fell away from mine. The ground all around him was soaked the black red of clotting blood. The smell caught in my throat, and I felt my gorge rise.

Saburo spoke evenly. “The rest of what Katarii-na truly tells me is this. That fire-rain will come
if
we have empire. No other way to stop this, but to close our country to the namban. Not conquer. No empire. To exist for ourselves, pure, alone….”

In the corner of my vision, I saw Fludd slumping in the soldiers’ grip.

“Fludd didn’t prophesy
this,
” I muttered.

Saburo gave a weak amused grunt. “Almost. Furada, that eta, wants to be another who’ll steer the country from behind the Shogun. This is what he say to me, when he came to me at Whitehall.”

Dariole’s shoulders quivered in my grip. She said something so weak I couldn’t catch it. Her face showed white and tanned together; shock and bloodlessness making her look sick. I noted with relief that the second cloth on her arm was not yet soaked through.

“Does Furada think I’m a fool?” Saburo said amiably. “He plans, he would be our secret master…steer us to conquer Korea, and Chin…and then on. Sow the seeds of hatred against us. The powerful are always hated. But this is not for Nihon’s good. Furada doesn’t care
who
has way to defeat his comet, so long as
some
land does. If way to defeat his comet comes through same weapons as fire-rain…who cares for us, ne? Not like Katarii-na—Fludd thinks there are other countries left, after Nihon is gone.”

Saburo switched his gaze back to Dariole and, with much effort, reached out; touching her wet fingers with his own.

She burst into noisy tears.

“Shh!
Htt!
” He shook his head in remonstration. “You are not boy, now.
Listen
.”

She dragged her sleeve across her face. “I’m listening.”

Her voice was not in her control, but the effort she put into trying made me ache.

“Furada say to me, he cannot make England-empire after Wō-ki, with King-Emperor James alive. The time has passed. I think he calculate, when he foresees I come to England-land, where to go if all things go wrong. Another island. Another sea-empire….”

Saburo gripped Dariole’s good hand hard enough to make her wince. I tightened my grip about her shoulders. There are no surgeons. Selfish as it might be, I could not help the desire in my mind:
She will live. She must.

He looked at Dariole from tar black eyes.
“Katarii-na prophesied for me.
I saw her in the great caverns. She knew I would ask. I think she wanted so bad to get rid of Furada, she look out for me…. She told me that I might save us from most, maybe all, the fire-rain, if the land is shut off from foreigners. Told me how I do that, how I should take Furada here, to Nihon…. Now, I myself will die at a gaijin’s hand—and this will discredit Furada, and all he says, and shift the balance, for Nihon to be closed.”

His smile was all satisfaction, all peace.

“She said, I would know the gaijin who kills me, when I saw. When I see you, Darioru, I think it will be Rosh’-fu’ kills me, after I kill you.
Because
I kill you. I didn’t think that you’re good enough to kill me. Now, I’m glad I’m wrong.”

Dariole only stared at him. “I don’t understand.”

Saburo reached up and touched her cheek with his blood-wet fingers. “You’re all three gaijin. So, how it will look to Hidetada? There’s been a murder of a samurai, who has not long come back from Europe—and three gaijin have run away. Obvious, they are all guilty. Conspirators. How can we trust these foreigners? They must be plotting against Nihon! Lord Hidetada will support every effort to declare gaijin and Kirishitans and Jesuits forbidden from Nihon, perhaps for always. And in three, four hundred years, the fire-rain will touch us only a little, if at all.”

I knew that later I would think of what he said. Now, I could do no more than listen, stunned, and hold Dariole’s shaking body.

“I killed you!” she said.

“Yes. Thank you,” Saburo repeated. “Now Lord Hidetada and Lord Ieyas’ close the country, like Lord Ieyas’ wanted. I wanted to tell true, why I lie to Hidetada Shogun—true is that, Ieyas’ is always my master.”

He smiled at me. And looked back at her.

“You kill me, Dari-ko; that wipes out my debt to you. I have owed you my life, since the other beach.”

She stared at him, outraged.
“No.”

Tanaka Saburo laughed. Weakly, and with pain harsh in it, but nonetheless a laugh. I sweated at the knowledge of what it must cost him.

Dariole looked at him, speechless.

“Is funny, little White Fox,” Saburo said. His body lay still, all except his hands and feet. They now began to shift in very small movements, constantly.
Pain.

“Funny,” Saburo repeated. “On the ships as we come here, I watch Furada at his mathematics. He tells me all where you are. He tells me to fight. He tells me we can fight
this
day, here and now—because his calculating tells him I win.”

He gave Fludd a look of scathing contempt.

“You skilled,” he said, turning back to Dariole. “I am a humble captain of ashigaru, but not bad swordsman. How can Furada calculate every cut, in swordfight? Would need more than three parts of a year!”

“It needs ten years,” I said. “Or so it did, the last time.”

“Eh?”

“No matter.” I shook my head. “Fludd has reason to want to be rid of Dariole and I.”

“I let him send a messenger to you. I knew he’d fail in all his plans.” Saburo made a motion that would have been a shrug, and fat, clear beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. He stared, for a moment, and then spoke, his voice unwavering.

“None of these my men speak any namban language. They have their orders to witness what they see—a quarrel between Furada and other gaijin, then their captain murdered. They will
not
tell they have ship offshore, sailing to Goa—my orders.” He gave a sudden violent grin. “I owe you half horse, Rosh’-fu’! Ship will have to do.”

I thought of the Normandy beach. “Indeed it will.”

He added, “You go, Darioru-ko. Need gaijin discredited and
gone,
not dead. If they interrogate, they find no namban plot. Also, I don’t want you and tall samurai here crucified, common criminals.”