Shogun (130 page)

She’s lucky though that it was only the backs of her legs and her back and not her face. He looked down at her face. It was still as
square and flat as ever, her teeth just as sharp and ferretlike, but the warmth that flowed from her eyes compensated for the ugliness. He gave her another hug. “Now. No weep. Order!”

He sent the maid for fresh cha and saké and many cushions and helped her recline on them, as much as at first it embarrassed her to obey. “How can I ever thank you?” she said.

“No thanks. Give back—” Blackthorne thought a moment but he couldn’t remember the Japanese words for “favor” or “remember,” so he pulled out the dictionary and looked them up. “Favor:
o-negai”…
“remember:
omoi dasu.” “Hai, mondoso o-negai! Omi desu ka?”
Give back favor. Remember? He held up his fists mimicking pistols and pointing them. “Omi-san, remember?”

“Oh, of course,” she cried out. Then, in wonder, she asked to look at the book. She had never seen Roman writing before, and the column of Japanese words into Latin and into Portuguese and vice versa were meaningless to her, but she quickly grasped its purpose. “It’s a book of all our … so sorry. Word book,
neh?”

“Hai.”

“‘Hombun’?”
she asked.

He showed her how to find the word in Latin and in Portuguese. “
Hombun:
duty.” Then added in Japanese, “I understand duty. Samurai duty,
neh?”

“
Hai.”
She clapped her hands as if she had been shown a magic toy. But it is magic, isn’t it, he told himself, a gift from God. This unlocks her mind and Toranaga’s mind and soon I’ll speak perfectly.

She gave him other words and he told her English or Latin or Portuguese, always understanding the words she chose and always finding them. The dictionary never failed.

He looked up a word. “
Majutsu desu, neh?”
It’s magic, isn’t it?

“Yes, Anjin-san. The book’s magic.” She sipped her cha. “Now I can talk to you. Really talk to you.”

“Little. Only slow, understand?”

“Yes. Please be patient with me. Please excuse me.”

The huge donjon bell sounded the Hour of the Goat and the temples in Yedo echoed the time change.

“I go now. Go Lord Toranaga.” He put the book into his sleeve.

“I’ll wait here please, if I may.”

“Where stay?”

She pointed. “Oh, there, my room’s next door. Please excuse my abruptness—”

“Slowly. Talk slowly. Talk simply!”

She repeated it slowly, with more apologies. “Good,” he said. “Good. I’ll see you later.”

She began to get up but he shook his head and went into the courtyard. The day was overcast now, the air suffocating. Guards awaited him. Soon he was in the donjon forecourt. Mariko was there, more slender than ever, more ethereal, her face alabaster under her rust-gold parasol. She wore somber brown, edged with green.

“
Ohayo
, Anjin-san.
Ikaga desu ka?”
she asked, bowing formally.

He told her that he was fine, happily keeping up their custom of talking in Japanese for as long as he could, turning to Portuguese only when he was tired or when they wished to be more secretive.

“Thou …” he said cautiously as they walked up the stairs of the donjon.

“Thou,” Mariko echoed, and went immediately into Portuguese with the same gravity as last night. “So sorry, please, no Latin today, Anjin-san, today Latin cannot sit well—Latin cannot serve the purpose it was made for,
neh?”

“When can I talk to you?”

“That’s very difficult, so sorry. I have duties….”

“There’s nothing wrong, is there?”

“Oh no,” she replied. “Please excuse me, what could be wrong? Nothing’s wrong.”

They climbed another flight in silence. On the next level their passes were checked as always, guards leading and following them. Rain began heavily and this eased the humidity.

“It’ll rain for hours,” he said.

“Yes. But without the rains there’s no rice. Soon the rains will stop altogether, in two or three weeks, then it will be hot and humid until the autumn.” She looked out of the windows at the enveloping cloudburst. “You’ll enjoy the autumn, Anjin-san.”

“Yes.” He was watching
Erasmus
, far distant, down beside the wharf. Then the rains obscured his ship and he climbed a little way. “After we’ve talked with Lord Toranaga we’ll have to wait till this has passed. Perhaps there’d be somewhere here we could talk?”

“That might be difficult,” she said vaguely, and he found this odd. She was usually decisive and implemented his polite “suggestions” as the orders they would normally be considered. “Please excuse me, Anjin-san, but things are difficult for me at the moment, and there are many things I have to do.” She stopped momentarily
and shifted her parasol to her other hand, holding the hem of her skirt. “How was your evening? How were your friends, your crew?”

“Fine. Everything was fine,” he said.

“But not ‘fine’?” she asked.

“Fine—but very strange.” He looked back at her. “You notice everything, don’t you?”

“No, Anjin-san. But you didn’t mention them and you’ve been thinking about them greatly this last week or so. I’m no magician. So sorry.”

After a pause, he said, “You’re sure you’re all right? There’s no problem with Buntaro-san, is there?”

He had never discussed Buntaro with her or mentioned his name since Yokosé. By agreement that specter was never conjured up by either of them since the first moment. “This is my only request, Anjin-san,” she had whispered the first night. “Whatever happens during our journey to Mishima or, Madonna willing, to Yedo, this has nothing to do with anyone but us,
neh?
Nothing is to be mentioned between us about what really
is. Neh?
Nothing. Please?”

“I agree. I swear it.”

“And I do likewise. Finally, our journey ends at Yedo’s First Bridge.”

“No.”

“There must be an ending, my darling. At First Bridge our journey ends. Please, or I will die with agony over fear for you and the danger I have put you in….”

Yesterday morning he had stood at the threshold of First Bridge, a sudden weight on his spirit, in spite of his elation over
Erasmus.

“We should cross the bridge now, Anjin-san,” she had said.

“Yes. But it is only a bridge. One of many. Come along, Mariko-san. Walk beside me across
this
bridge. Beside me, please. Let us walk together,” then added in Latin, “and believe that thou art carried and that we go hand in hand into a new beginning.”

She stepped out of her palanquin and walked beside him until they reached the other side. There she got back into the curtained litter and they went up the slight rise. Buntaro was waiting at the castle gate.

Blackthorne remembered how he had prayed for a lightning bolt to come out of the sky.

“There’s no problem with him, is there?” he asked again as they came to the final landing.

She shook her head.

* * *

Toranaga said, “Ship very ready, Anjin-san? No mistake?”

“No mistake, Sire. Ship perfect.”

“How many extra men—how many more want for ship….” Toranaga glanced at Mariko. “Please ask him how many extra crew he’ll need to sail the ship properly. I want to be quite sure he understands what I want to know.”

“The Anjin-san says, to sail her a minimum of thirty seamen and twenty gunners. His original crew was one hundred and seven, including cooks and merchants. To sail and fight in these waters, the complement of two hundred samurai would be enough.”

“And he believes the other men he needs could be hired in Nagasaki?”

“Yes, Sire.”

Toranaga said distastefully, “I certainly wouldn’t trust mercenaries.”

“Please excuse me, do you wish me to translate that, Sire?”

“What? Oh no, never mind that.”

Toranaga got up, still pretending peevishness, and looked out of the windows at the rain. The whole city was obscured by the downpour. Let it rain for months, he thought. All gods, make the rain last until New Year. When will Buntaro see my brother? “Tell the Anjin-san I’ll give him his vassals tomorrow. Today’s terrible. This rain will go on all day. There’s no point in getting soaked.”

“Yes, Sire,” he heard her say and smiled ironically to himself. Never in his whole life had weather prevented him from doing anything. That should certainly convince her, or any other doubters, that I’ve changed permanently for the worse, he thought, knowing he could not yet diverge from his chosen course. “Tomorrow or the next day, what does it matter? Tell him when I’m ready I’ll send for him. Until then he’s to wait in the castle.”

He heard her pass on the orders to the Anjin-san.

“Yes, Lord Toranaga, I understand,” Blackthorne replied for himself. “But may I respectfully ask: Possible go Nagasaki quick? Think important. So sorry.”

“I’ll decide that later,” Toranaga said brusquely, not making it easy for him. He motioned him to leave. “Good-by, Anjin-san. I’ll decide your future soon.” He saw that the man wanted to press the point but politely didn’t. Good, he thought, at least he’s learning some manners! “Tell the Anjin-san there’s no need for him to wait for you, Mariko-san. Good-by, Anjin-san.”

Mariko did as she was ordered. Toranaga turned back to contemplate the city and the cloudburst. He listened to the sound of the rain. The door closed behind the Anjin-san. “What was the quarrel about?” Toranaga asked, not looking at her.

“Sire?”

His ears, carefully tuned, had caught the slightest tremble in her voice. “Of course between Buntaro and yourself, or have you had another quarrel that concerns me?” he added with biting sarcasm, needing to precipitate the matter quickly. “With the Anjin-san perhaps, or my Christian enemies, or the Tsukku-san?”

“No, Sire. Please excuse me. It began as always, like most quarrels, Sire, between husband and wife. Really over nothing. Then suddenly, as always, all the past gets spewed up and it infects the man and the woman if the mood’s on them.”

“And the mood was on you?”

“Yes. Please excuse me. I provoked my husband unmercifully. It was my fault entirely. I regret, Sire, in those times, so sorry, people say wild things.”

“Come on, hurry up, what wild things?” She was like a doe at bay. Her face was chalky. She knew that spies must have already whispered to him what was shouted in the quiet of their house.

She told him everything that had been said as best she could remember it. Then she added, “I believe my husband’s words were spoken in wild rage which I provoked. He’s loyal—I know he’s loyal. If anyone is to be punished it’s me, Sire. I did provoke the madness.”

Toranaga sat again on the cushion, his back ramrod, his face granite. “What did the Lady Genjiko say?”

“I haven’t spoken to her, Sire.”

“But you intend to, or intended to,
neh?”

“No, Sire. With your permission I intend to leave at once for Osaka.”

“You will leave when I say and not before and treason is a foul beast wherever it’s to be found!”

She bowed under the whiplash of his tongue. “Yes, Sire. Please forgive me. The fault is mine.”

He rang a small hand bell. The door opened. Naga stood there. “Yes, Sire?”

“Order the Lord Sudara here with the Lady Genjiko at once.”

“Yes, Sire.” Naga turned to go.

“Wait! Then summon my Council, Yabu and all—and all senior
generals. They’re to be here at midnight. And clear this floor. All guards! You come back with Sudara!”

“Yes, Sire.” Whitefaced, Naga closed the door after him.

Toranaga heard men clattering down the stairs. He went to the door and opened it. The landing was clear. He slammed the door and bolted it. He picked up another bell and rang it. An inner door at the far end of the room opened. This door was hardly noticeable, so cleverly had it been melded with the woodwork. A middle-aged heavy-set woman stood there. She wore a cowled Buddhist nun’s habit. “Yes, Great Lord?”

“Cha please, Chano-chan,” he said. The door closed. Toranaga’s eyes went back to Mariko. “So you think he’s loyal?”

“I know it, Sire. Please forgive me, it was my fault, not his,” she said, desperate to please. “I provoked him.”

“Yes, you did that. Disgusting. Terrible. Unforgivable!” Toranaga took out a paper kerchief and wiped his brow. “But fortunate,” he said.

“Sire?”

“If you hadn’t provoked him, perhaps I might never have learned of any treason. And if he’d said all that without provocation, there’d be only one course of action. As it is,” he continued, “you give me an alternative.”

“Sire?”

He did not answer. He was thinking, I wish Hiro-matsu were here, then there’d be at least one man I could trust completely. “What about you? What about your loyalty?”

“Please, Sire, you must know you have that.”

He did not reply. His eyes were unrelenting.

The inner door opened and Chano, the nun, came confidently into the room without knocking, a tray in her hands. “Here you are, Great Lord, it was ready for you.” She knelt as a peasant, her hands were rough like a peasant’s, but her self-assurance was enormous and her inner contentment obvious. “May Buddha bless you with his peace.” Then she turned to Mariko, bowed as a peasant would bow, and settled back comfortably. “Perhaps you’d honor me by pouring, Lady. You’ll do it prettily without spilling it,
neh?”
Her eyes gleamed with private amusement.

“With pleasure, Oku-san,” Mariko said, giving her the religious Mother title, hiding her surprise. She had never seen Naga’s mother before. She knew most of Toranaga’s other official ladies, having
seen them at official ceremonies, but she was on good terms only with Kiritsubo and Lady Sazuko.

Toranaga said, “Chano-chan, this is the Lady Toda Mariko-noh-Buntaro.”

“
Ah, so desu
, so sorry, I thought you were one of my Great Lord’s honored ladies. Please excuse me, Lady Toda, may the blessings of Buddha be upon thee.”

“Thank you,” Mariko said. She offered the cup to Toranaga. He accepted it and sipped.

“Pour for Chano-san and yourself,” he said.

“So sorry, not for me, Great Lord, with your permission, but my back teeth’re floating from so much cha and the bucket’s a long way away for these old bones.”