Shogun (The Asian Saga Chronology) (174 page)

He whirled and peered at the wreck, then saw Toranaga and all of them staring at him and realized he'd been talking English to them.  "Ah, so sorry, Sire.  Think too quick.  Big guns—there, in sea,
neh?
  Must get quick!"

Toranaga spoke to his men, then faced Blackthorne again.  "Samurai say everything from ship at camp.  Some things fished from sea, shallow, here at low tide,
neh?
  Now in camp.  Why?"

Blackthorne felt light-headed.  "Can make ship.  If have big guns can fight enemy.  Can Toranaga-sama get gunpowder?"

"Yes.  How many carpenters?  How much need?"

"Forty carpenters, blacksmiths, oak for timbers, do you have oak here?  Then I'll need iron, steel, I'll set up a forge and I'll need a master . . ."  Blackthorne realized he was talking in English again.  "Sorry.  I write on paper.  Carefully.  And I think carefully.  Please, you give men to help?"

"All men, all money.  At once.  I
need
ship.  At once!  How fast can you build it?"

"Six months from the day we lay keel."

"Oh, not faster?"

"No, so sorry."

"Later we talk some more, Anjin-san.  What else Mariko-sama say?"

"Little more, Sire.  Say give money to help ship, her money.  Say also sorry if . . . if she help my enemy destroy ship."

"What enemy?  What way destroy ship?"

"Not say who—or how, Sire.  Nothing clear.  Just sorry if.  Mariko-sama say
sayonara
.  Hope seppuku serves Lord Toranaga."

"Ah yes, serves greatly,
neh?
"

"Yes."

Toranaga smiled at him.  "Glad all good now, Anjin-san.  Eeeeee, Mariko-sama was right.  Don't worry about that!"  Toranaga pointed at the hulk.  "Build new ship at once.  A fighting ship,
neh?
  You understand?"

"Understand very much."

"This new ship . . . could this new ship fight the Black Ship?"

"Yes."

"Ah!  Next year's Black Ship?"

"Possible."

"What about crew?"

"Please?"

"Seamen—gunners?"

"Ah!  By next year can train my vassals as gunners.  Not seamen."

"You can have the pick of all the seamen in the Kwanto."

"Then next year possible."  Blackthorne grinned.  "Is next year possible?  War?  What about war?"

Toranaga shrugged.  "War or no war—still try,
neh?
  That's your prey—understand 'prey'?  And our secret.  Between you and me only,
neh?
  The Black Ship."

"Priests will soon break secret."

"Perhaps.  But this time no tidal wave or
tai-fun
, my friend.  You will watch and I will watch."

"Yes."

"First Black Ship, then go home.  Bring me back a navy.  Understand?"

"Oh yes."

"If I lose—
karma
.  If not, then everything, Anjin-san.  Everything as you said.  Everything—Black Ship, ambassador, treaty, ships!  Understand?"

"Yes.  Oh yes!  Thank you."

"Thank Mariko-sama.  Without her . . ."  Toranaga saluted him warmly, for the first time as an equal, and went away with his guards.  Blackthorne's vassals bowed, completely impressed with the honor done to their master.

Blackthorne watched Toranaga leave, exulting, then he saw the food.  The servants were beginning to pack up the remains.  "Wait.  Now food, please."

He ate carefully, slowly and with good manners, his own men quarreling for the privilege of serving him, his mind roving over all the vast possibilities that Toranaga had opened up for him.  You've won, he told himself, wanting to dance a hornpipe with glee.  But he did not.  He reread her letter once more.  And blessed her again.

"Follow me," he ordered, and led the way toward the camp, his brain already designing the ship and her gunports.  Jesus God in heaven, help Toranaga to keep Ishido out of the Kwanto and Izu and please bless Mariko, wherever she is, and let the cannon not be rusted up too much.  Mariko was right: 
Erasmus
was doomed, with or without me.  She's given me back my life.  I can build another life and another ship.  Ninety tons!  My ship'll be a sharp-nosed, floating battle platform, as sleek as a greyhound, better than the
Erasmus
class, her bowsprit jutting arrogantly and a lovely figurehead just below, and her face'll look just like
her
, with her lovely slanting eyes and high cheekbones.  My ship'll . . . Jesus God, there's a ton of stuff I can salvage from the wreck!  I can use part of the keel, some of the ribs—and there'll be a thousand nails around, and the rest of the keel'll make bindings and braces and everything I need . . . if I've the time.

Yes.  My ship'll be like
her
, he promised himself.  She'll be trim and miniature and perfect like a Yoshitomo blade, and that's the best in the world, and just as dangerous.  Next year she'll take a prize twenty times her own weight, like Mariko did at Osaka, and she'll rip the enemy out of Asia.  And then, the following year or the one after, I'll sail her up the Thames to London, her pockets full of gold and the seven seas in her wake.  "
The Lady
will be her name," he said aloud.

CHAPTER 61

Two dawns later Toranaga was checking the girths of his saddle.  Deftly he kneed the horse in the belly, her stomach muscles relaxed, and he tightened the strap another two notches.  Rotten animal, he thought, despising horses for their constant trickeries and treacheries and ill-tempered dangerousness.  This is me, Yoshi Toranaga-noh-Chikitadanoh-Minowara, not some addle-brained child.  He waited a moment and kneed the horse hard again.  The horse grunted and rattled her bridle and he tightened the straps completely.

"Good, Sire!  Very good," the Hunt Master said with admiration.  He was a gnarled old man as strong and weathered as a brine-pickled vat.  "Many would've been satisfied the first time."

"Then the rider's saddle would've slipped and the fool would have been thrown and his back maybe broken by noon. 
Neh?
"

The samurai laughed.  "Yes, and deserving it, Sire!"

Around them in the stable area were guards and falconers carrying their hooded hawks and falcons.  Tetsu-ko, the peregrine, was in the place of honor and, dwarfing her, alone unhooded, was Kogo the goshawk, her golden, merciless eyes scrutinizing everything.

Naga led up his horse.  "Good morning, Father."

"Good morning, my son.  Where's your brother?"

"Lord Sudara's waiting at the camp, Sire."

"Good."  Toranaga smiled at the youth.  Then because he liked him, he drew him to one side.  "Listen, my son, instead of going hunting, write out the battle orders for me to sign when I return this evening."

"Oh, Father," Naga said, bursting with pride at the honor of formally taking up the gauntlet cast down by Ishido in his own handwriting, implementing the decision of yesterday's Council of War to order the armies to the passes.  "Thank you, thank you."

"Next:  The Musket Regiment is ordered to Hakoné at dawn tomorrow.  Next:  The baggage train from Yedo will arrive this afternoon.  Make sure everything's ready."

"Yes, certainly.  How soon do we fight?"

"Very soon.  Last night I received news Ishido and the Heir left Osaka to review the armies.  So it's committed now."

"Please forgive me that I can't fly to Osaka like Tetsu-ko and kill him, and Kiyama and Onoshi, and settle this whole problem without having to bother you."

"Thank you, my son."  Toranaga did not trouble to tell him the monstrous problems that would have to be solved before those killings could become fact.  He glanced around.  All the falconers were ready.  And his guards.  He called the Hunt Master to him.  "First I'm going to the camp, then we'll take the coast road for four
ri
north."

"But the beaters are already in the hills. . . ."  The Hunt Master swallowed the rest of his complaint and tried to recover.  "Please excuse my—er—I must have eaten something rotten, Sire."

"That's apparent.  Perhaps you should pass over your responsibility to someone else.  Perhaps your piles have affected your judgment, so sorry," Toranaga said.  If he had not been using the hunt as a cover he would have replaced him.  "Eh?"

"Yes, so sorry, Sire," the old samurai said.  "May I ask—er—do you wish to hunt the areas you picked last night or would you—er—like to hunt the coast?"

"The coast."

"Certainly, Sire.  Please excuse me so I can make the change."  The man rushed off.  Toranaga kept his eyes on him.  It's time for him to be retired, he thought without malice.  Then he noticed Omi coming into the stable compound with a young samurai beside him who limped badly, a cruel knife wound still livid across his face from the fight at Osaka.

"Ah, Omi-san!"  He returned their salute.  "Is this the fellow?"

"Yes, Sire."

Toranaga took the two of them aside and questioned the samurai expertly.  He did this out of courtesy to Omi, having already come to the same conclusion when he had talked to the man the first night, just as he had been polite to the Anjin-san; asking what was in Mariko's letter though he had already known what Mariko had written.

"But please put it in your own words, Mariko-san," he had said before she left Yedo for Osaka.

"I am to give his ship to his enemy, Sire?"

"No, Lady," he had said as her eyes filled with tears.  "No.  I repeat:  You are to whisper the secrets you've told me to Tsukku-san at once here at Yedo, then to the High Priest and Kiyama at Osaka, and say to them all that without his ship, the Anjin-san is no threat to them.  And you are to write the letter to the Anjin-san as I suggest, now."

"Then they will destroy the ship."

"They will try to.  Of course they'll think of the same answer themselves so you're not giving anything away really,
neh?
"

"Can you protect his ship, Sire?"

"It will be guarded by four thousand samurai."

"But if they succeed . . . the Anjin-san's worthless without his ship.  I beg for his life."

"You don't have to, Mariko-san.  I assure you he's valuable to me, with or without a ship.  I promise you.  Also in your letter to him say, if his ship's lost,
please build another
."

"What?"

"You told me he can do that,
neh?
  You're sure?  If I give him all the carpenters and metalworkers?"

"Oh, yes.  Oh, how clever you are!  Oh yes, he's said many times that he was a trained shipbuilder. . . ."

"You're quite sure, Mariko-san?"

"Yes, Sire."

"Good."

"Then you think the Christian Fathers will succeed, even against four thousand men?"

"Yes.  So sorry, but the Christians will never leave the ship alive, or him alive as long as it's floating and ready for sea.  It's too much of a threat to them.  This ship is doomed, so there's no harm in conceding it to them.  But only you and I know and are to know his only hope is to build another.  I'm the only one who can help him do that.  Solve Osaka for me and I'll see he builds his ship."

I told her the truth, Toranaga thought, here in the dawn at Yokohama, amid the smell of horses and dung and sweat, his ears hardly listening now to the wounded samurai and Omi, his whole being sad for Mariko.  Life is so sad, he told himself, weary of men and Osaka and games that brought so much suffering to the living, however great the stakes.

"Thank you for telling me, Kosami," he said as the samurai finished.  "You've done very well.  Please come with me.  Both of you."

Toranaga walked back to his mare and kneed her a last time.  This time she whinnied but he got no more tightness on the girth.  "Horses are far worse than men for treachery," he said to no one in particular and swung into the saddle and galloped off, pursued by his guards and Omi and Kosami.

At the camp on the plateau he stopped.  Buntaro was there beside Yabu and Hiro-matsu and Sudara, a peregrine on his fist.  They saluted him.  "Good morning," he said cheerfully, beckoning Omi to be part of their conversation but waving everyone else well away.  "Are you ready, my son?"

"Yes, Father," Sudara said.  "I've sent some of my men to the mountains to make sure the beaters are perfect for you."

"Thank you, but I've decided to hunt the coast."

At once Sudara called out to one of the guards and sent him riding away to pull back the men from the hills and switch them to the coast.  "So sorry, Sire, I should have thought of that and been prepared.  Please excuse me."

"Yes.  So, Hiro-matsu-san, how's the training?"

Hiro-matsu, his sword inevitably loose in his hands, scowled.  "I still think this is all dishonorable and unnecessary.  Soon we'll be able to forget it.  We'll piss all over Ishido without this sort of treachery."

Yabu said, "Please excuse me, but without these guns and this strategy, Hiro-matsu-san, we'll lose.  This is a modern war, this way we've a chance to win."  He looked back at Toranaga, who had not yet dismounted.  "I heard in the night that Jikkyu's dead."

"You're certain?"  Toranaga pretended to be startled.  He had got the secret information the day he left Mishima.

"Yes, Sire.  It seems he's been sick for some time.  My informant reports he died two days ago," Yabu said, gloating openly.  "His heir's his son, Hikoju."

"That puppy?" Buntaro said with contempt.

"Yes—I agree he's nothing but a whelp." Yabu seemed to be several inches taller than usual.  "Sire, doesn't this open up the southern route?  Why not attack along the Tokaidō Road immediately?  With the old devil fox dead, Izu's safe now, and Suruga and Totomi are as helpless as beached tuna. 
Neh?
"

Toranaga dismounted thoughtfully.  "Well?" he asked Hiro-matsu quietly.

The old general replied at once, "If we could grab the road all the way to Utsunoya Pass and all the bridges and get over the Tenryu quickly—with all our communications secure—we'd slice into Ishido's underbelly.  We could contain Zataki in the mountains and reinforce the Tokaidō attack and rush on to Osaka.  We'd be unbeatable."

Sudara said, "So long as the Heir leads Ishido's armies we're beatable."