Shogun (The Asian Saga Chronology) (87 page)

"It was almost a miracle," she said.  "I thought I was possessed by a
kami
when I saw him here beside you on the beach."

"He's clever.  Very strong and very clever."

"May I ask what news of Lord Hiro-matsu, Sire?  And Osaka?  Lady Kiritsubo and the Lady Sazuko?"

Noncommittal, Toranaga informed her that Hiro-matsu had arrived back at Yedo the day before he had left, though his ladies had decided to stay at Osaka, the Lady Sazuko's health being the reason for their delay.  There was no need to elaborate.  Both he and Mariko knew that this was merely a face-saving formula and that General Ishido would never allow two such valuable hostages to leave now that Toranaga was out of his grasp.

"
Shigata ga nai,
" he said.  "
Karma, neh?
"  There's nothing that can be done.  That's
karma,
isn't it?

"Yes."

He picked up the scroll.  "Now I must read this.  Thank you, Mariko san.  You've done very well.  Please bring the Anjin-san to the fortress at dawn."

"Sire, now that my Master is here, I will have—"

"Your husband has already agreed that while I'm here you're to remain where you are and act as interpreter, your prime duty being to the Anjin-san for the next few days."

"But Sire, I must set up house for my Lord.  He'll need servants and a house."

"That will be a waste of money, time, and effort at the moment.  He'll stay with the troops—or at the Anjin-san's house—whichever pleases him."  He noticed a flash of irritation.  "
Nan ja?
"

"My place should be with my Master.  To serve him."

"Your place is where I want it to be. 
Neh?
"

"Yes, please excuse me.  Of course."

"Of course."

She left.

He read the scroll carefully.  And the War Manual.  Then he reread parts of the scroll.  He put them both away safely and posted guards on the cabin and went aloft.

It was dawn.  The day promised warmth and overcast.  He canceled the meeting with the Anjin-san, as he had intended, and rode to the plateau with a hundred guards.  There he collected his falconers and three hawks and hunted for twenty
ri.
  By noon he had bagged three pheasants, two large woodcock, a hare, and a brace of quail.  He sent one pheasant and the hare to the Anjin-san the rest to the fortress.  Some of his samurai were not Buddhists and he was tolerant of their eating habits.  For himself he ate a little cold rice with fish paste, some pickled seaweed with slivers of ginger.  Then he curled up on the ground and slept.

Now it was late afternoon and Blackthorne was in the kitchen, whistling merrily.  Around him were the chief cook, assistant cook, the vegetable preparer, fish preparer, and their assistants, all smiling but inwardly mortified because their master was here in their kitchen with their mistress, also because she had told them he was going to honor them by showing them how to prepare and cook in his style.  And last because of the hare.

He had already hung the pheasant under the eaves of an outhouse with careful instructions that no one,
no one
was to touch it but him.  "Do they understand, Fujiko-san?  No touching but me?"  he asked with mock gravity.

"Oh, yes, Anjin-san.  They all understand.  So sorry, excuse me, but you should say 'No one's to touch it except me.'"

"Now," he was saying to no one in particular, "the gentle art of cooking.  Lesson One."

"
Dozo gomen nasai?
" Fujiko asked.

"
Miru!
"  Watch.

Feeling young again—for one of his first chores had been to clean the game he and his brother poached at such huge risk from the estates around Chatham—he selected a long, curving knife.  The
sushi
chef blanched.  This was his favorite knife, with an especially honed edge to ensure that the slivers of raw fish were always sliced to perfection.  All the staff knew this and they sucked in their breaths, smiling even more to hide their embarrassment for him, as he increased the size of his smile to hide his own shame.

Blackthorne slit the hare's belly and neatly turned out the stomach sac and entrails.  One of the younger maids heaved and fled silently.  Fujiko resolved to fine her a month's wages, wishing at the same time that she too could be a peasant and so flee with honor.

They watched, glazed, as he cut off the paws and feet, then pushed the forelegs back into the pelt, easing the skin off the legs.  He did the same with the back legs and worked the pelt around to bring the naked back legs out through the belly slit, and then, with a deft jerk, he pulled the pelt over the head like a discarded winter coat.  He lay the almost skinned animal on the chopping table and decapitated it, leaving the head with its staring, pathetic eyes still attached to the pelt.  He turned the pelt right side out again, and put it aside.  A sigh went through the kitchen.  He did not hear it as he concentrated on slicing off the legs into joints and quartering the carcass.  Another maid fled unnoticed.

"Now I want a pot," Blackthorne said with a hearty grin.

No one answered him.  They just stared with the same fixed smiles.  He saw a large iron cauldron.  It was spotless.  He picked it up with bloody hands and filled it with water from a wooden container, then hung the pot over the brazier, which was set into the earthen floor in a pit surrounded by stone.  He added the pieces of meat.

"Now some vegetables and spices," he said.

"
Dozo?
"  Fujiko asked throatily.

He did not know the Japanese words so he looked around.  There were some carrots, and some roots that looked like turnips in a wooden basket.  These he cleaned and cut up and added to the soup with salt and some of the dark soya sauce.

"We should have some onions and garlic and port wine."

"
Dozo?
"  Fujiko asked again helplessly.

"
Kotaba shirimasen.
"  I don't know the words.

She did not correct him, just picked up a spoon and offered it.  He shook his head.  "Saké," he ordered.  The assistant cook jerked into life and gave him the small wooden barrel.

"
Domo.
"  Blackthorne poured in a cupful, then added another for good measure.  He would have drunk some from the barrel but he knew that it would be bad manners, to drink it cold and without ceremony, and certainly not here in the kitchen.

"Christ Jesus, I'd love a beer," he said.

"
Dozo goziemashita,
Anjin-san?"

"
Kotaba shirimasen
—but this stew's going to be great. 
Ichi-ban, neh?
"  He pointed at the hissing pot.

"
Hai,
" she said without conviction.

"
Okuru tsukai arigato
Toranaga-sama," Blackthorne said.  Send a messenger to thank Lord Toranaga.  No one corrected the bad Japanese.

"
Hai.
"  Once outside Fujiko rushed for the privy, the little hut that stood in solitary splendor near the front door in the garden.  She was very sick.

"Are you all right, Mistress?" her maid, Nigatsu, said.  She was middle-aged, roly-poly, and had looked after Fujiko all her life.

"Go away!  But first bring me some cha.  No—you'll have to go into the kitchen . . . oh oh oh!"

"I have cha here, Mistress.  We thought you'd need some so we boiled the water on another brazier.  Here!"

"Oh, you're so clever!"  Fujiko pinched Nigatsu's round cheek affectionately as another maid came to fan her.  She wiped her mouth on the paper towel and sat gratefully on cushions on the veranda.  "Oh, that's better!"  And it was better in the open air, in the shade, the good afternoon sun casting dark shadows and butterflies foraging, the sea far below, calm and iridescent.

"What's going on, Mistress?  We didn't dare even to peek."

"Never mind.  The Master's—the Master's—never mind.  His customs are weird but that's our
karma.
"

She glanced away as her chief cook came unctuously through the garden and her heart sank a little more.  He bowed formally, a taut, thin little man with large feet and very buck teeth.  Before he could utter a word Fujiko said through a flat smile, "Order new knives from the village.  A new rice-cooking pot.  A new chopping board, new water containers—all utensils you think necessary.  Those that the Master used are to be kept for his private purposes.  You will set aside a special area, construct another kitchen if you wish, where the Master can cook if he so desires—until you are proficient."

"Thank you, Fujiko-sama," the cook said.  "Excuse me for interrupting you, but, so sorry, please excuse me, I know. a fine cook in the next village.  He's not a Buddhist and he's even been with the army in Korea so he'd know all about the—how to—how to cook for the Master so much better than I."

"When I want another cook I will tell you.  When I consider you inept or malingering I will tell you.  Until that time you will be chief cook here.  You accepted the post for six months," she said.

"Yes, Mistress," the cook said with outward dignity, though quaking inside, for Fujiko-noh-Anjin was no mistress to trifle with.  "Please excuse me, but I was engaged to cook.  I am proud to cook.  But I never accepted to—to be butcher. 
Eta
are butchers.  Of course we can't have an
eta
here but this other cook isn't a Buddhist like me, my father, his father before him and his before him, Mistress, and they never, never. . . . Please, this new cook will—"

"You will cook here as you've always cooked.  I find your cooking excellent, worthy of a master cook in Yedo.  I even sent one of your recipes to the Lady Kiritsubo in Osaka."

"Oh?  Thank you.  You do me too much honor.  Which one, Mistress?"

"The tiny, fresh eels and jellyfish and sliced oysters, with just the right touch of soya, that you make so well.  Excellent!  The best I've ever tasted."

"Oh, thank you, Mistress," he groveled.

"Of course your soups leave much to be desired."

"Oh, so sorry!"

"I'll discuss those with you later.  Thank you, cook," she said, experimenting with a dismissal.

The little man stood his ground gamely.  "Please excuse me, Mistress, but
oh ko,
with complete humbleness, if the Master—when the Master—"

"When the Master tells you to cook or to butcher or whatever, you will rush to do it.  Instantly.  As any loyal servant should.  Meanwhile, it may take you a great deal of time to become proficient so perhaps you'd better make temporary arrangements with this other cook to visit you on the rare days the Master might wish to eat in his own fashion."

His honor satisfied, the cook smiled and bowed.  "Thank you.  Please excuse my asking for enlightenment."

"Of course you pay for the substitute cook from your own salary."

When they were alone again, Nigatsu chortled behind her hand.  "Oh, Mistress-chan, may I compliment you on your total victory and your wisdom?  Chief cook almost broke wind when you said that he was going to have to pay too!"

"Thank you, Nanny-san."  Fujiko could smell the hare beginning to cook.  What if he asks me to eat it with him, she was thinking, and almost wilted.  Even if he doesn't I'll still have to serve it.  How can I avoid being sick?  You will not be sick, she ordered herself.  It's your
karma.
  You must have been completely dreadful in your previous life.  Yes.  But remember everything is fine now.  Only five months and six days more.  Don't think of that, just think about your Master, who is a brave, strong man, though one with ghastly eating habits . . .

Horses clattered up to the gate.  Buntaro dismounted and waved the rest of his men away.  Then, accompanied only by his personal guard, he strode through the garden, dusty and sweat-soiled.  He carried his huge bow and on his back was his quiver.  Fujiko and her maid bowed warmly, hating him.  Her uncle was famous for his wild, uncontrollable rages which made him lash out without warning or pick a quarrel with almost anyone.  Most of the time only his servants suffered, or his women.  "Please come in, Uncle.  How kind of you to visit us so soon," Fujiko said.

"Ah, Fujiko-san.  Do— What's that stench?"

"My Master's cooking some game Lord Toranaga sent him—he's showing my miserable servants how to cook."

"If he wants to cook, I suppose he can, though . . ."  Buntaro wrinkled his nose distastefully.  "Yes, a master can do anything in his own house, within the law, unless it disturbs the neighbors."

Legally such a smell could be cause for complaint and it could be very bad to inconvenience neighbors.  Inferiors never did anything to disturb their superiors.  Otherwise heads would fall.  That was why, throughout the land, samurai lived cautiously and courteously near samurai of equal rank if possible, peasants next to peasants, merchants in their own streets, and
eta
isolated outside.  Omi was their immediate neighbor.  He's superior, she thought.  "I hope sincerely no one's disturbed," she told Buntaro uneasily, wondering what new evil he was concocting.  "You wanted to see my Master?"  She began to get up but he stopped her.

"No, please don't disturb him, I'll wait," he said formally and her heart sank.  Buntaro was not known for his manners and politeness from him was very dangerous.

"I apologize for arriving like this without first sending a messenger to request an appointment," he was saying, "but Lord Toranaga told me I might perhaps be allowed to use the bath and have quarters here.  From time to time.  Would you ask the Anjin-san later, if he would give his permission?"

"Of course," she said, continuing the usual pattern of etiquette, loathing the idea of having Buntaro in her house.  "I'm sure he will be honored, Uncle.  May I offer you cha or saké while you wait?"

"Saké, thank you."

Nigatsu hurriedly set a cushion on the veranda and fled for the saké, as much as she would have liked to stay.

Buntaro handed his bow and quiver to his guard, kicked off his dusty sandals, and stomped onto the veranda.  He pulled his killing sword out of his sash, sat cross-legged, and laid the sword on his knees.