Mr. Darcy's Great Escape (40 page)

There was a call at the door. “Come.”

It was Miyoshi. “Madokusu-san.”

“Miyoshi-san,” he said, uneasy at the stance of his old protector, which was tenser than normal. “What is it?”

Miyoshi removed his katana from his belt and held it up before Brian. “I would be honored if you would be my second.”

Brian's immediate response was a blank stare.

“You cannot present innocence of
bushido
after all this time, Bry-an,” Miyoshi said, his eyes lowered, his voice intense. “My final task is completed. You are safe in Nagasaki and you will be returning to your homeland soon.”

“Not that soon.”

“I have no wish to delay it.” He did not lower the offered sword. “It is the only way.”

“After all this time, Miyoshi-san, I still cannot say that I do not find the custom outright nauseating and against my very beliefs.”

“Your beliefs are not relevant. It is a matter of honor.”

“And Mugin has no honor?”

Miyoshi, for a moment, faltered; his eyes flickering up before he forced them down again. “Mugin refused. Please, I have no one else.”

“This goes against my beliefs, my morals, my God—everything,” he said, and reached out to also hold the sword. “You understand that?”

“Yes. But you do me a great honor.”

Miyoshi relinquished his own grip, and the blade fell to Brian's. He bowed stiffly. “Thank you.” And he was gone, closing the door behind him.

Brian placed the katana down respectfully, as if he was afraid to touch it, and then ran outside to the small patch of grass to be sick.

***

“I can't do it.”

“You can,” his wife said as she dressed him, like a manservant. It turned out that the pleated hakama pants a swordsman wore were complicated in their tying, and she readily offered to help him.

“It goes against our beliefs. Both our beliefs, I'm assuming, Nady.”

“Of course,” she said dismissively, “but not Shiro's. This is his country, and he is the master of his own soul. He can do as he pleases. Who knows—he may even be right.” She kissed him on the cheek. “You will just be relieving his suffering, darling.”

“Mugin wouldn't do it.”

“How could Mugin be expected to do it?” she said. “Take the head of his own lover?”

Brian stared at her, dumbstruck. To this, his beloved Nadezhda only laughed. “What? This is news to you?”

“I—I—assumed—”

“Assumed what?”

He colored. “I had no idea.”

“Really? Despite the fact they've taken a room together almost every night in an inn? Despite the fact Miyoshi would have never tolerated someone like Mugin from his first appearance unless there was something between them otherwise?”

“B-but they've both been… active. In—you know—houses.”

“I didn't say they were—how do you say, monogamous.” She turned her head. “Am I the only one of the two of us that realizes we are so far from Christendom and all the beliefs we hold to be commonplace?”

“Apparently so,” he said.

***

Mugin did not attend the ceremony. As they stepped onto the porch, they found him slumped against the wall; he only huffed when they passed by.

They had to walk a good distance away from the city proper. Nadezhda held his hand. Brian allowed himself a moment's respite from his horrible thoughts to realize she looked beautiful in a kimono instead of pilgrim's clothes, with an umbrella over her shoulder to protect her from the sun. He smiled at her before returning to his grief.

Miyoshi was dressed all in white, his instruments laid out on the ground before him.

“I will make one last attempt to talk you out of this,” Brian insisted.

Miyoshi ignored the request completely. “I grant my swords to you, Madokusu-san. Both of them.” He turned his head down. “I have not completed my death poem.”

“We have time.”

“No.” He smiled. “I have always been terrible at poetry. A gentle art I never mastered.”

“No great sin.”

Miyoshi nodded. He seemed content; Brian could not deny that, much as he wanted to, as Miyoshi passed Nadezhda the jar of water, which she, as previously instructed, poured over the drawn katana in Brian's shaking hands.

“It has been an honor serving you, Madokusu-san.”

Brian's voice wavered as he said, “It has been an honor to have you as our protector. One I can never repay.”

“You know how,” he said calmly, clasping his hands together. “
Namu Amida butsu
.” His sword, carefully drawn against his stomach, was impossibly quick.

Brian saw his friend suffer. The rest came naturally.

***

A sudden appearance was made by Mugin in the clearing, after Brian had cleaned both swords and placed them in his obi, to help bury the body and the head. He appeared without a word, and the two of them worked in silence. According to custom, he was not placed deep in the ground, creating a mound, where offerings could be left. Nadezhda placed Miyoshi's prayer beads, which he had given her the night before, on the grave. The three of them bowed their heads and said, silently, their good-byes and prayers for the soul of Fuma-no-Shiro, Miyoshi Shiro, in three different native tongues, but as one.

***

Descending the steps, only the great courtyard was left to cross before reentering the gates of Dejima. Mugin came with them. Brian did not ask him why. He was too drained, the weight of the two swords on his belt too heavy as they approached the gate.

“
Tomare!
” (Halt!) the samurai guards said as they approached. “Only foreigners, their servants, and officials beyond this point.”

Brian and Nadezhda removed their tengai as Brian answered in perfect Japanese, “I would like to speak to the head of Dejima and be granted entrance.”

The spears were uncrossed, and a runner sent ahead of them, as the three ascended the bridge. When they came down on the other side, a man in a brown waistcoat and wearing an admiral's black hat was standing there. “
MIJ ben Opperhoofden Hendrik Doeff
.”

Brian bowed. “I'm sorry, I don't speak Dutch,” he replied in Japanese. “I am an Englishman,” he said in English, which sounded strange as he heard it come from his own mouth. “My wife is from Transylvania.”

Nadezhda bowed.

“Then we'd best continue in the local tongue,” said Doeff. “I am Commissioner Hendrik Doeff, in charge of Dejima for the Dutch East India Company and under the authority of the
.”

“Brian Maddox,” Brian said. “This is my wife, Princess Nadezhda of Sibiu, Transylvania.”

“An honor, sir and Your Highness,” Doeff said, removing his hat and bowing deeply to Nadezhda.

“This is Mugin,” Brian said, and Mugin bowed.

Doeff paid him little attention. “You are welcome here, of course, but I am a bit surprised to find an Englishman and a member of the Hungarian aristocracy—”

“We came here by way of Russia,” Brian explained. “Landed in the north. We made our way down with Mugin-san's help.”

“I see,” Doeff said. “Well, I assume you mean to return to Europe?”

“Whenever the next ship leaves, we would like to go to England.”

“You are aware that Emperor Napoleon's blockade—”

“That is still going on?”

“Yes sir, it is,” Doeff said. “In fact, it is more severe than ever. But I can show you to an Englishman who can catch you up—one of the sailors. The next ship leaves for the Continent in a month. Welcome to Dejima, Your Highnesses.” They interchanged English and Japanese words when needed as Doeff led them into the bizarre hybrid city that was Dejima—Japanese buildings with European people.

“You never said you were royalty,” Mugin said from behind him.

“Nady is,” he explained. “I just married her.”

Nadezhda swatted him with her fan.

They were shown to the house of a man named Henry Moss, a first mate currently off duty. “Aren't you a sight for sore eyes?” he said after they were introduced. “You've gone native, I see.”

“I suppose,” Brian said, one hand instinctively falling near his swords. “We are in need of some shelter for the next month. All of our money is in Japanese currency.”

“That's no problem here, obviously. In fact, if you want to do business with the locals, it'll probably help you,” Moss said. “And rent is cheap, what with the war going on. But what you look like you really need, sir, is a whiskey.”

Brian exhaled with delight. “Oh God, yes.”

***

As much as there was the temptation for idleness, the next month was extremely busy for all of them. Mugin did not leave their side, mainly because they kept sharing their food with him, but also because he helped Brian on various missions back in Nagasaki.

“Now I have an idea and it may either be incredibly stupid or make us a fortune. Or both,” he said to Nadezhda, and she just nodded with amusement.

Slowly but surely, a good percentage of the fortune he had carried for so long was spent on Japanese goods. The
tengai
came into use again, as Brian played the
ronin
looking to buy for his master and Mugin played the part of his servant. Selling to their own, the Japanese salesmen had significantly lowered prices, and Brian secured a place on the ship for almost ten trunks of embroidered and raw silk, and various other items he would either want to remember the place by or for sale to the East India Museum in London.

Their last night, they spent in town behind the closed doors of a private room of a Japanese tavern, drinking hot sake with Mugin. “What am I going to do?” he said. “I've been living off you forever.”

“You will manage to live off someone else, I'm sure,” Brian said.

“So… you're not drunk enough for—”

“No, Mugin!”

Mugin pleaded, “Nadi-sama…”

She shook her head. “Mugin, our affection for you runs as deep as a mighty river of your song poetry. That said, we're not jumping into bed with you.”

“
Sa
! No fun, either of you!”

As they emerged into the early morning light, Mugin showed his own affection the same way he did with Miyoshi, which was by leaving in an angry huff.

After they slept a few hours, it took the rest of the day to load the last of the trunks onto the Dutch ship that had agreed to stop in England. It was actually a Danish vessel, neutral enough to cross the complex waters of the channel. Still clothed in their kimonos, Brian and Nadezhda watched the lines being untied and the ship beginning to sail.

“Wait!”

“Mugin?”

The ship had moved away from the edge of the dock, but the clunk-clunk of Mugin's
geta
was unforgettable as he launched himself over the water and grabbed on to the edge of the boat, a large pack on his back. “Help me up, lazy
gaijin
!”

The husband and wife exchanged glances and each grabbed an arm, hauling him over the edge and onto the floor of the deck. They heard shouting in Japanese, and looking back at the disappearing dock, they saw several local policemen waving their swords and juttes. “Get back here and pay your debts!”

“It took you half a day to get in debt?” Brian said, and Mugin just shrugged haplessly.

“Apologies,” he said. “Can I go to England with you for a little while? Just until they forget about me?”

“Mugin, they'll probably forget about you in a few hours, and this ship takes months to get there and back!”

“So?” Like everything else, he waved it off as if it was nothing. “Even better for me.”

Brian turned to his wife, who just smiled, and he couldn't help but join her.

***

Present

“Mugin-san! Mugin-san!”

Mugin looked over his shoulder as Georgiana Bingley approached. “
Hai
, Binguri-chan?”

She curtseyed. “What are you doing?”

He looked around, as if it wasn't obvious and something was missing from the picture. He sat on a rock next to the stream behind Chatton. “You not know fishing? Stupid
gaijin
.”

“Of course I know fishing,” she said. “But why are you doing it?”

“Why not? I catch fish; eat fish. Not complicated.” He took a closer look at her. “You good, Binguri-chan?”

“I'm good,” she said, her voice still wavering. Without lowering his fishing pole, Mugin reached out with one hand, picked her up, and set her on the rock beside him. They sat in silence for some time before she said, “I think I made my father upset.”

“Eh?”

“I was playing with Geoffrey and George, and I got all wet and muddy. I've gotten dirty before, but Mama said it's different now. I'm a little lady, and I shouldn't be messing about like that. She sent me up to my room, and Nurse washed my hair and put in these stupid bows that she knows that I hate,” she said, pulling one out and releasing the complicated braid attached to it. Mugin just watched. “And I shouldn't say ‘hate.' It's not proper. But I do hate these stupid bows. I don't like lying and saying I
dislike
them.” She was tempted to toss it in the river, but realized she would probably have to explain it later, and decided not to. “I don't like being told what to do.”