“Good, no?”
   “Yes, good.”
   “Thank you, Yabu-sama. I please.”
   Mariko corrected him automatically. “I am pleased.”
   “Ah, so sorry. I am pleased.”
   Jozen took Yabu aside. “This is all out of the Anjin-san’s head?”
   “No,” Yabu lied. “But it’s the way barbarians fight. He’s just training the men to load and to fire.”
   “Why not do as Naga-san advised? You’ve the barbarian’s knowledge now. Why risk its spreading? He is a plague. Very dangerous, Yabu-sama. Naga-san was right. It’s true—peasants could fight this way. Easily. Get rid of the barbarian now.”
   “If Lord Ishido wants his head, he has only to ask.”
   “I ask it. Now.” Again the truculence. “I speak with his voice.”
   “I’ll consider it, Jozen-san.”
   “And also, in his name, I ask that all guns be withdrawn from those troops at once.”
   Yabu frowned, then turned his attention to the companies. They were approaching up the hill, their straight, disciplined ranks faintly ludicrous as always, only because such order was unusual. Fifty paces away they halted. Omi and Naga came on alone and saluted.
   “It was all right for a first exercise,” Yabu said.
   “Thank you, Sire,” Omi replied. He was limping slightly and his face was dirty, bruised, and powder marked.
   Jozen said, “Your troops would have to carry swords in a real battle, Yabu-sama, neh? A samurai must carry swords—eventually they’d run out of ammunition, neh?”
   “Swords will be in their way, in charge and retreat. Oh, they’ll wear them as usual to maintain surprise, but just before the first charge they’ll get rid of them.”
   “Samurai will always need swords. In a real battle. Even so, I’m glad you’ll never have to use this attack force, or—” Jozen was going to add, “or this filthy, treacherous method of war.” Instead he said, “Or we’ll all have to give our swords away.”
   “Perhaps we will, Jozen-san, when we go to war.”
   “You’d give up your Murasama blade? Or even Toranaga’s gift?”
   “To win a battle, yes. Otherwise no.”
   “Then you might have to run very fast to save your fruit when your musket jammed or your powder got wet.” Jozen laughed at his own sally. Yabu did not.
   “Omi-san! Show him!” he ordered.
   At once Omi gave an order. His men slipped out the short sheathed bayonet sword that hung almost unnoticed from the back of their belts and snapped it into a socket on the muzzle of their muskets.
   “Charge!”
   Instantly the samurai charged with their battle cry, “Kasigiiiiiii!”
   The forest of naked steel stopped a pace away from them. Jozen and his men were laughing nervously from the sudden, unexpected ferocity. “Good, very good,” Jozen said. He reached out and touched one of the bayonets. It was extremely sharp. “Perhaps you’re right, Yabu-sama. Let’s hope it’s never put to the test.”
   “Omi-san!” Yabu called. “Form them up. Jozen-san’s going to review them. Then go back to camp. Mariko-san, Anjin-san, you follow me!” He strode down the rise through the ranks, his aides, Blackthorne, and Mariko following.
   “Form up at the path. Replace bayonets!”
   Half the men obeyed at once, turned about, and walked down the slope again. Naga and his two hundred and fifty samurai remained where they were, bayonets still threatening.
   Jozen bristled. “What’s going on?”
   “I consider your insults intolerable,” Naga said venomously.
   “That’s nonsense. I haven’t insulted you, or anyone! Your bayonets insult my position! Yabu-sama!”
   Yabu turned back. Now he was on the other side of the Toranaga contingent. “Naga-san,” he called out coldly. “What’s the meaning of this?”
   “I cannot forgive this man’s insults to my father—or to me.”
   “He’s protected. You cannot touch him now! He’s under the cipher of the Regents!”
   “Your pardon, Yabu-sama, but this is between Jozen-san and myself.”
   “No. You are under my orders. I order you to tell your men to return to camp.”
   Not a man moved. The rain began.
   “Your pardon, Yabu-san, please forgive me, but this is between him and me and whatever happens I absolve you of responsibility for my action and those of my men.”
   Behind Naga, one of Jozen’s men drew his sword and lunged for Naga’s unprotected back. A volley of twenty muskets blew off his head at once. These twenty men knelt and began to reload. The second rank readied.
   “Who ordered live ammunition?” Yabu demanded.
   “I did. I, Yoshi Naga-noh-Toranaga!”
   “Naga-san! I order you to let Nebara Jozen and his men go free. You are ordered to your quarters until I can consult Lord Toranaga about your insubordination!”
   “Of course you will inform Lord Toranaga and karma is karma. But I regret, Lord Yabu, that first this man must die. All of them must die. Today!”
   Jozen shrieked, “I’m protected by the Regents! You’ll gain nothing by killing me.”
   “I regain my honor, neh?” Naga said. “I repay your sneers at my father and your insults to me. But you would have had to die anyway. Neh? I could not have been more clear last night. Now you’ve seen an attack. I cannot risk Ishido learning all this”—his hand waved at the battlefield—” this horror!”
   “He already knows!” Jozen blurted out, blessing his foresight of the previous evening. “He knows already! I sent a message by pigeon secretly at dawn! You gain nothing by killing me, Naga-san!”
   Naga motioned to one of his men, an old samurai, who came forward and threw the strangled pigeon at Jozen’s feet. Then a man’s severed head was also cast upon the ground—the head of the samurai, Masumoto, sent yesterday by Jozen with the scroll. The eyes were still open, the lips drawn back in a hate-filled grimace. The head began to roll. It tumbled through the ranks until it came to rest against a rock.
   A moan broke from Jozen’s lips. Naga and all his men laughed. Even Yabu smiled. Another of Jozen’s samurai leaped for Naga. Twenty muskets blasted him, and the man next to him, who had not moved, also fell in agony, mortally wounded.
   The laughter ceased.
   Omi said, “Shall I order my men to attack, Sire?” It had been so easy to maneuver Naga.
   Yabu wiped the rain off his face. “No, that would achieve nothing. Jozen-san and his men are already dead, whatever I do. That’s his karma, as Naga-san has his. Naga-san!” he called out. “For the last time, I order you to let them all go!”
   “Please excuse me but I must refuse.”
   “Very well. When it is finished, report to me.”
   “Yes. There should be an official witness, Yabu-sama. For Lord Toranaga and for Lord Ishido.”
   “Omi-san, you will stay. You will sign the death certification and make out the dispatch. Naga-san and I will countersign it.”
   Naga pointed at Blackthorne. “Let him stay too. Also as witness. He’s responsible for their deaths. He should witness them.”
   “Anjin-san, go up there! To Naga-san! Do you understand?”
   “Yes, Yabu-san. I understand, but why, please?”
   “To be a witness.”
   “Sorry, don’t understand.”
   “Mariko-san, explain ‘witness’ to him, that he’s to witness what’s going to happen—then you follow me.” Hiding his vast satisfaction, Yabu turned and left.
   Jozen shrieked, “Yabu-sama! Please! Yabuuuuu-samaaaa!”


   Blackthorne watched. When it was finished he went home. There was silence in his house and a pall over the village. A bath did not make him feel clean. Saké did not take away the foulness from his mouth. Incense did not unclog the stench from his nostrils.
   Later Yabu sent for him. The attack was dissected, moment by moment. Omi and Naga were there with Mariko—Naga as always cold, listening, rarely commenting, still second-in-command. None of them seemed touched by what had happened.
   They worked till after sunset. Yabu ordered the tempo of training stepped up. A second five hundred was to be formed at once. In one week another.
   Blackthorne walked home alone, and ate alone, beset by his ghastly discovery: that they had no sense of sin, they were all conscienceless—even Mariko.
   That night he couldn’t sleep. He left the house, the wind tugging at him. Gusts were frothing the waves. A stronger squall sent debris clattering against a village hovel. Dogs howled at the sky and foraged. The rice-thatched roofs moved like living things. Shutters were banging and men and women, silent wraiths, fought them closed and barred them. The tide came in heavily. All the fishing boats had been hauled to safety much farther up the beach than usual. Everything was battened down.
   He walked the shore then returned to his house, leaning against the press of the wind. He had met no one. Rain squalled and he was soon drenched.
   Fujiko waited for him on the veranda, the wind ripping at her, guttering the shielded oil lamp. Everyone was awake. Servants carried valuables to the squat adobe and stone storage building in the back of the garden.
   The gale was not menacing yet.
   A roof tile twisted loose as the wind squeezed under an eave and the whole roof shuddered. The tile fell and shattered loudly. Servants hurried about, some readying buckets of water, others trying to repair the roof. The old gardener, Ueki-ya, helped by children, was lashing the tender bushes and trees to bamboo stakes.
   Another gust rocked the house.
   “It’s going to blow down, Mariko-san.”
   She said nothing, the wind clawing at her and Fujiko, wind tears in the corners of their eyes. He looked at the village. Now debris was blowing everywhere. Then the wind poured through a rip in the paper shoji of one dwelling and the whole wall vanished, leaving only a latticed skeleton. The opposite wall crumbled and the roof collapsed.
   Blackthorne turned helplessly as the shoji of his room blew out. That wall vanished and so did the opposite one. Soon all the walls were in shreds. He could see throughout the house. But the roof supports held and the tiled roof did not shift. Bedding and lanterns and mats skittered away, servants chasing them.
   The storm demolished the walls of all the houses in the village. And some dwellings were obliterated completely. No one was badly hurt. At dawn the wind subsided and men and women began to rebuild their homes.
   By noon the walls of Blackthorne’s house were remade and half the village was back to normal. The light lattice walls required little work to put up once more, only wooden pegs and lashings for joints that were always morticed and carpentered with great skill. Tiled and thatched roofs were more difficult but he saw that people helped each other, smiling and quick and very practiced. Mura hurried through the village, advising, guiding, chivying, and supervising. He came up the hill to inspect progress.
   “Mura, you made …” Blackthorne sought the words. “You make it look easy.”
   “Ah, thank you, Anjin-san. Yes, thank you, but we were fortunate there were no fires.”
   “You fires oftens?”
   “So sorry, ‘Do you have fires often?’”
   “Do you have fires often?” Blackthorne repeated.
   “Yes. But I’d ordered the village prepared. Prepared, you understand?”
   “Yes.”
   “When these storms come—” Mura stiffened and glanced over Blackthorne’s shoulder. His bow was low.
   Omi was approaching in his bouncing easy stride, his friendly eyes only on Blackthorne, as though Mura did not exist. “Morning, Anjin-san,” he said.
   “Morning, Omi-san. Your house is good?”
   “All right. Thank you.” Omi looked at Mura and said brusquely, “The men should be fishing, or working the fields. The women too. Yabu-sama wants his taxes. Are you trying to shame me in front of him with laziness?”
   “No, Omi-sama. Please excuse me. I will see to it at once.”
   “It shouldn’t be necessary to tell you. I won’t tell you next time.”
   “I apologize for my stupidity.” Mura hurried away.
   “You’re all right today,” Omi said to Blackthorne. “No troubles in the night?”
   “Good today, thank you. And you?”
   Omi spoke at length. Blackthorne did not catch all of it, as he had not understood all of what Omi had said to Mura, only a few words here, a few there.
   “So sorry. I don’t understand.”
   “Enjoy? How did you like yesterday? The attack? The ‘pretend’ battle?”
   “Ah, I understand. Yes, I think good.”
   “And the witnessing?”
   “Please?”
   “Witnessing! The ronin Nebara Jozen and his men?” Omi imitated the bayonet lunge with a laugh. “You witnessed their deaths. Deaths! You understand?”
   “Ah, yes. The truth, Omi-san, not like killings.”
   “Karma, Anjin-san.”
   “Karma. Today trainings?”
   “Yes. But Yabu-sama wants to talk only. Later. Understand, Anjin-san? Talk only, later,” Omi repeatedly patiently.
   “Talk only. Understand.”

   “You’re beginning to speak our language very well. Yes. Very well.”
   “Thank you. Difficult. Small time.”
   “Yes. But you’re a good man and you try very hard. That’s important. We’ll get you time, Anjin-san, don’t worry—I’ll help you.” Omi could see that most of what he was saying was lost, but he didn’t mind, so long as the Anjin-san got the gist. “I want to be your friend,” he said, then repeated it very clearly. “Do you understand?”
   “Friend? I understand ‘friend.’”
   Omi pointed at himself then at Blackthorne. “I want to be your friend.”
   “Ah! Thank you. Honored.”
   Omi smiled again and bowed, equal to equal, and walked away.
   “Friends with him?” Blackthorne muttered. “Has he forgotten? I haven’t.”
   “Ah, Anjin-san,” Fujiko said, hurrying up to him. “Would you like to eat? Yabu-sama is going to send for you soon.”
   “Yes, thank you. Many breakings?” he asked, pointing at the house.
   “Excuse me, so sorry, but you should say, ‘Was there much breakage?’”
   “Was there much breakage?”
   “No real damage, Anjin-san.”
   “Good. No hurtings?”
   “Excuse me, so sorry, you should say, ‘No one was hurt?’”
   “Thank you. No one was hurt?”
   “No, Anjin-san. No one was hurt.”
   Suddenly Blackthorne was sick of being continually corrected, so he terminated the conversation with an order. “I’m hunger. Food!”
   “Yes, immediately. So sorry, but you should say, ‘I’m hungry. ’ A person has hunger, but is hungry.” She waited until he had said it correctly, then went away.
   He sat on the veranda and watched Ueki-ya, the old gardener, tidying up the damage and the scattered leaves. He could see women and children repairing the village, and boats going to sea through the chop. Other villagers trudged off to the fields, the wind abating now. I wonder what taxes they have to pay, he asked himself. I’d hate to be a peasant here. Not only here—anywhere.
   At first light he had been distressed by the apparent devastation of the village. “That storm’d hardly touch an English house,” he had said to Mariko. “Oh, it was a gale all right, but not a bad one. Why don’t you build out of stone or bricks?”
   “Because of the earthquakes, Anjin-san. Any stone building would, of course, split and collapse and probably hurt or kill the inhabitants. With our style of building there’s little damage. You’ll see how quickly everything’s put back together.”
   “Yes, but you’ve fire hazards. And what happens when the Great Winds come? The tai-funs?”
   “It is very bad then.”
   She had explained about the tai-funs and their seasons—from June until September, sometimes earlier, sometimes later. And about the other natural catastrophes.
   A few days ago there had been another tremor. It was slight. A kettle had fallen off the brazier and overturned it. Fortunately the coals had been smothered. One house in the village had caught fire but the fire did not spread. Blackthorne had never seen such efficient fire fighting. Apart from that, no one in the village had paid much attention. They had merely laughed and gone on with their lives.
   “Why do people laugh?”
   “We consider it very shameful and impolite to show strong feelings, particularly fear, so we hide them with a laugh or a smile. Of course we’re all afraid, though we must never show it.
   Some of you show it, Blackthorne thought.
   Nebara Jozen had shown it. He had died badly, weeping with fear, begging for mercy, the killing slow and cruel. He had been allowed to run, then bayoneted carefully amidst laughter, then forced to run again, and hamstrung. Then he had been allowed to crawl away, then gutted slowly while he screamed, his blood dribbling with the phlegm, then left to die.
   Next Naga had turned his attention to the other samurai. At once three of Jozen’s men knelt and bared their bellies and put their short knives in front of them to commit ritual seppuku. Three of their comrades stood behind them as their seconds, long swords out and raised, two-handed, all of them now unmolested by Naga and his men. As the samurai who knelt reached out for their knives, they stretched their necks and the three swords flashed down and decapitated them with the single blow. Teeth chattered in the fallen heads, then were still. Flies swarmed.
   Then two samurai knelt, the last man standing ready as second. The first of those kneeling was decapitated in the manner of his comrades as he reached for the knife. The other said, “No. I, Hirasaki Kenko, I know how to die—how a samurai should die.”
   Kenko was a lithe young man, perfumed and almost pretty, pale-skinned, his hair well oiled and very neat. He picked up his knife reverently and partially wrapped the blade with his sash to improve his grip.
   “I protest Nebara Jozen-san’s death and those of his men,” he said firmly, bowing to Naga. He took a last look at the sky and gave his second a last reassuring smile. “Sayonara, Tadeo.” Then he slid the knife deep into the left side of his stomach. He ripped it full across with both hands and took it out and plunged it deep again, just above his groin, and jerked it up in silence. His lacerated bowels spilled into his lap and as his hideously contorted, agonized face pitched forward, his second brought the sword down in a single slashing arc.
   Naga personally picked up this head by the hair knot and wiped off the dirt and closed the eyes. Then he told his men to see that the head was washed, wrapped, and sent to Ishido with full honors, with a complete report on Hirasaki Kenko’s bravery.
   The last samurai knelt. There was no one left to second him. He too was young. His fingers trembled and fear consumed him. Twice he had done his duty to his comrades, twice cut cleanly, honorably, saving them the trial of pain and the shame of fear. And once he had waited for his dearest friend to die as a samurai should die, self-immolated in pride-filled silence, then again cut cleanly with perfect skill. He had never killed before.
   His eyes focused on his own knife. He bared his stomach and prayed for his lover’s courage. Tears were gathering but he willed his face into a frozen, smiling mask. He unwound his sash and partially wrapped the blade. Then, because the youth had done his duty well, Naga signaled to his lieutenant.
   This samurai came forward and bowed, introducing himself formally. “Osaragi Nampo, Captain of Lord Toranaga’s Ninth Legion. I would be honored to act as your second.”
   “Ikomo Tadeo, First Officer, vassal of Lord Ishido,” the youth replied. “Thank you. I would be honored to accept you as my second.”
   His death was quick, painless, and honorable.
   The heads were collected. Later Jozen shrieked into life again. His frantic hands tried helplessly to remake his belly.
   They left him to the dogs that had come up from the village.

Chapter 34

   At the Hour of the Horse, eleven o’clock in the morning, ten days after the death of Jozen and all his men, a convoy of three galleys rounded the headland at Anjiro. They were crammed with troops. Toranaga came ashore. Beside him was Buntaro.
   “First I wish to see an attack exercise, Yabu-san, with the original five hundred,” Toranaga said. “At once.”
   “Could it be tomorrow? That would give me time to prepare,” Yabu said affably, but inwardly he was furious at the suddenness of Toranaga’s arrival and incensed with his spies for not forewarning him. He had had barely enough time to hurry to the shore with a guard of honor. “You must be tired—”
   “I’m not tired, thank you,” Toranaga said, intentionally brusque. “I don’t need ‘defenders’ or an elaborate setting or screams or pretended deaths. You forget, old friend, I’ve acted in enough Nōh plays and staged enough to be able to use my imagination. I’m not a ronin -peasant! Please order it mounted at once.”
   They were on the beach beside the wharf. Toranaga was surrounded by elite guards, and more were pouring off the moored galley. Another thousand heavily armed samurai were crammed into the two galleys that waited just offshore. It was a warm day, the sky cloudless, with a light surf and heat haze on the horizon.
   “Igurashi, see to it!” Yabu bottled his rage. Since the first message he had sent concerning Jozen’s arrival eleven days ago, there had been the merest trickle of noncommittal reports from “Yedo from his own espionage network, and nothing but sporadic and infuriatingly inconclusive replies from Toranaga to his ever more urgent signals: “Your message received and under serious study.” “Shocked by your news about my son. Please wait for further instructions.” Then, four days ago: “Those responsible for Jozen’s death will be punished. They are to remain at their posts but to continue under arrest until I can consult with Lord Ishido.” And yesterday, the bombshell: “Today I received the new Council of Regents’ formal invitation to the Osaka Flower-Viewing Ceremony. When do you plan to leave? Advise immediately.”
   “Surely that doesn’t mean Toranaga’s actually going?” Yabu had asked, baffled.
   “He’s forcing you to commit yourself,” Igurashi had replied. “Whatever you say traps you.”
   “I agree,” Omi had said.
   “Why aren’t we getting news from Yedo? What’s happened to our spies?”
   “It’s almost as though Toranaga’s put a blanket over the whole Kwanto,” Omi had told him. “Perhaps he knows who your spies are!”
   “Today’s the tenth day, Sire,” Igurashi had reminded Yabu. “Everything’s ready for your departure to Osaka. Do you want to leave or not?”
   Now, here on the beach, Yabu blessed his guardian kami who had persuaded him to accept Omi’s advice to stay until the last possible day, three days hence.
   “About your final message, Toranaga-sama, the one that arrived yesterday,” he said. “You’re surely not going to Osaka?”
   “Are you?”
   “I acknowledge you as leader. Of course, I’ve been waiting for your decision.”
   “My decision is easy, Yabu-sama. But yours is hard. If you go, the Regents will certainly chop you for destroying Jozen and his men. And Ishido is really very angry—and rightly so. Neh?”
   “I didn’t do it, Lord Toranaga. Jozen’s destruction—however merited—was against my orders.”
   “It was just as well Naga-san did it, neh? Otherwise you’d certainly have had to do it yourself. I’ll discuss Naga-san later, but come along, we’ll talk as we walk up to the training ground. No need to waste time.” Toranaga set off at his brisk pace, his guards following closely. “Yes, you really are in a dilemma, old friend. If you go, you lose your head, you lose Izu, and of course your whole Kasigi family goes to the execution ground. If you stay, the Council will order the same thing.” He looked across at him. “Perhaps you should do what you suggested I do the last time I was in Anjiro. I’ll be happy to be your second. Perhaps your head will ease Ishido’s ill humor when I meet him.”
   “My head’s of no value to Ishido.”
   “I don’t agree.”
   Buntaro intercepted them. “Excuse me, Sire. Where do you want the men billeted?”
   “On the plateau. Make your permanent camp there. Two hundred guards will stay with me at the fortress. When you’ve made the arrangements join me. I’ll want you to see the training exercise.” Buntaro hurried off.
   “Permanent camp? You’re staying here?” Yabu asked.
   “No, only my men. If the attack’s as good as I hear, we’ll be forming nine assault battalions of five hundred samurai each.”
   “What?”
   “Yes. I’ve brought another thousand selected samurai for you now. You’ll provide the other thousand.”
   “But there aren’t enough guns and the train—”
   “So sorry, you’re wrong. I’ve brought a thousand muskets and plenty of powder and shot. The rest will arrive within a week with another thousand men.”
   “We’ll have nine assault battalions?”
   “Yes. They’ll be one regiment. Buntaro will command.”
   “Perhaps it would be better if I did that. He’ll be—”
   “Oh, but you forget the Council meets in a few days. How can you command a regiment if you’re going to Osaka? Haven’t you prepared to leave?”
   Yabu stopped. “We’re allies. We agreed you’re the leader and we pissed on the bargain. I’ve kept it, and I’m keeping it. Now I ask, what’s your plan? Do we war or don’t we?”
   “No one’s declared war on me. Yet.”
   Yabu craved to unsheath the Yoshitomo blade and splash Toranaga’s blood on the dirt, once and for all, whatever the cost. He could feel the breath of the Toranaga guards all around him but he was beyond caring now. “Isn’t the Council your death knell too? You said that yourself. Once they’ve met, you have to obey. Neh?”
   “Of course.” Toranaga waved his guards back, leaning easily on his sword, his stocky legs wide and firm.
   “Then what’s your decision? What do you propose?”
   “First to see an attack.”
   “Then?”
   “Then to go hunting.”
   “Are you going to Osaka?”
   “Of course.”
   “When?”
   “When it pleases me.”
   “You mean, not when it pleases Ishido.”
   “I mean when it pleases me.”
   “We’ll be isolated,” Yabu said. “We can’t fight all Japan, even with an assault regiment, and we can’t possibly train it in ten days.”
   “Yes.”
   “Then what’s the plan?”
   “What exactly happened with Jozen and Naga-san?”
   Yabu told it truly, omitting only the fact that Naga had been manipulated by Omi.
   “And my barbarian? How’s the Anjin-san behaving?”
   “Good. Very good.” Yabu told him about the attempted seppuku on the first night, and how he had neatly bent the Anjin-san to their mutual advantage.
   “That was clever,” Toranaga said slowly. “I’d never have guessed he’d try seppuku. Interesting.”
   “It was fortunate I told Omi to be ready.”
   “Yes.”
   Impatiently Yabu waited for more but Toranaga remained silent.
   “This news I sent about Lord Ito becoming a Regent,” Yabu said at last. “Did you know about it before I sent word?”
   Toranaga did not answer for a moment. “I’d heard rumors. Lord Ito’s a perfect choice for Ishido. The poor fool’s always enjoyed being shafted while he has his nose up another man’s anus. They’ll make good bedfellows.”
   “His vote will destroy you, even so.”
   “Providing there’s a Council.”
   “Ah, then you do have a plan?”
   “I always have a plan—or plans—didn’t you know? But you, what’s your plan, Ally? If you want to leave, leave. If you want to stay, stay. Choose!” He walked on.


   Mariko handed Toranaga a scroll of closely written characters.
   “Is this everything?” he asked.
   “Yes, Sire,” she replied, not liking the stuffiness of the cabin or being aboard the galley again, even moored at the dock. “A lot of what’s in the War Manual will be repeated, but I made notes every night and wrote down everything as it happened—or tried to. It’s almost like a diary of what was said and happened since you left.”
   “Good. Has anyone else read it?”
   “Not to my knowledge.” She used her fan to cool herself. “The Anjin-san’s consort and servants have seen me writing it, but I’ve kept it locked away.”
   “What are your conclusions?”
   Mariko hesitated. She glanced at the cabin door and at the closed porthole.
   Toranaga said, “Only my men are aboard and no one’s below decks. Except us.”
   “Yes, Sire. I just remembered the Anjin-san saying there are no secrets aboard a ship. So sorry.” She thought a moment, then said confidently, “The Musket Regiment will win one battle. Barbarians could destroy us if they landed in force with guns and cannon. You must have a barbarian navy. Thus far, the Anjin-san’s knowledge has been enormously valuable to you, so much so it should be kept secret, only for your ears. In the wrong hands his knowledge would be lethal to you.”
   “Who shares his knowledge now?”
   “Yabu-san knows much but Omi-san more—he’s the most intuitive. Igurashi-san, Naga-san, and the troops—the troops of course understand the strategy, not the finer details and none of the Anjin-san’s political and general knowledge. Me, more than any. I’ve written down everything he’s said, asked, or commented on, Sire. As best I can. Of course he has only told us about certain things, but his range is vast and his memory near perfect. With patience he can provide you with an accurate picture of the world, its customs and dangers. If he’s telling the truth.”
   “Is he?”
   “I believe so.”
   “What’s your opinion of Yabu?”
   “Yabu-san’s a violent man with no scruples whatsoever. He honors nothing but his own interests. Duty, loyalty, tradition, mean nothing to him. His mind has flashes of great cunning, even brilliance. He’s equally dangerous as ally or enemy.”
   “All commendable virtues. What’s to be said against him?”
   “A bad administrator. His peasants would revolt if they had weapons.”
   “Why?”
   “Extortionate taxes. Illegal taxes. He takes seventy-five parts from every hundred of all rice, fish, and produce. He’s begun a head tax, land tax, boat tax—every sale, every barrel of saké, everything’s taxed in Izu.”
   “Perhaps I should employ him or his quartermaster for the Kwanto. Well, what he does here’s his own business, his peasants’ll never get weapons so we’ve nothing to worry about. I could still use this as a base if need be.”
   “But Sire, sixty parts is the legal limit.”
   “It was the legal limit. The Taikō made it legal but he’s dead. What else about Yabu?”
   “He eats little, his health appears good, but Suwo, the masseur, thinks he has kidney trouble. He has some curious habits.”
   “What?”
   She told him about the Night of the Screams.
   “Who told you about that?”
   “Suwo. Also Omi-san’s wife and mother.”
   “Yabu’s father used to boil his enemies too. Waste of time. But I can understand his need to do it occasionally. His nephew, Omi?”
   “Very shrewd. Very wise. Completely loyal to his uncle. A very capable, impressive vassal.”
   “Omi’s family?”
   “His mother is—is suitably firm with Midori, his wife. The wife is samurai, gentle, strong, and very good. All are loyal vassals of Yabu-san. Presently Omi-san has no consorts though Kiku, the most famous courtesan in Izu, is almost like a consort. If he could buy her contract I think he’d bring her into his house.”
   “Would he help me against Yabu if I wanted him to?”
   She pondered that. Then shook her head. “No, Sire. I don’t think so. I think he’s his uncle’s vassal.”
   “Naga?”
   “As good a samurai as a man could be. He saw at once the danger of Jozen-san and his men to you, and locked things up until you could be consulted. As much as he detests the Musket Battalion he trains the companies hard to make them perfect.”
   “I think he was very stupid—to be Yabu’s puppet.”
   She adjusted a fold in her kimono, saying nothing.
   Toranaga fanned himself. “Now the Anjin-san?”
   She had been expecting this question and now that it had come, all the clever observations she was going to make vanished from her head.
   “Well?”

   “You must judge from the scroll, Sire. In certain areas he’s impossible to explain. Of course, his training and heritage have nothing in common with ours. He’s very complex and beyond our—beyond my understanding. He used to be very open. But since his attempted seppuku, he’s changed. He’s more secretive.” She told him what Omi had said and had done on that first night. And about Yabu’s promise.
   “Ah, Omi stopped him—not Yabu-san?”
   “Yes.”
   “And Yabu followed Omi’s advice?”
   “Exactly, Sire.”
   “So Omi’s the adviser. Interesting. But surely the Anjin-san doesn’t expect Yabu to keep the promise?”
   “Yes, absolutely.”
   Toranaga laughed. “How childish!”
   “Christian ‘conscience’ is deeply set in him, so sorry. He cannot avoid his karma, one part of which is that he’s totally to be governed through this hatred of a death, or deaths, of what he calls ‘innocents.’ Even Jozen’s death affected him deeply. For many nights his sleep was disturbed and for days he hardly talked to anyone.”
   “Would this ‘conscience’ apply to all barbarians?”
   “No, though it should to all Christian barbarians.”
   “Will he lose this ‘conscience’?”
   “I don’t think so. But he’s as defenseless as a doll until he does.”
   “His consort?”
   She told him everything.
   “Good.” He was pleased that his choice of Fujiko and his plan had worked so well. “Very good. She did very well over the guns. What about his habits?”
   “Mostly normal, except for an astounding embarrassment over pillow matters and a curious reluctance to discuss the most normal functions.” She also described his unusual need for solitude, and his abominable taste in food. “In most other things he’s attentive, reasonable, sharp, an adept pupil, and very curious about us and our customs. It’s all in my report, but briefly, I’ve explained something of our way of life, a little of us and our history, about the Taikō and the problems besetting our Realm now.”
   “Ah, about the Heir?”
   “Yes, Sire. Was that wrong?”
   “No. You were told to educate him. How’s his Japanese?”
   “Very good, considering. In time he’ll speak our language quite well. He’s a good pupil, Sire.”
   “Pillowing?”
   “One of the maids,” she said at once.
   “He chose her?”
   “His consort sent her to him.”
   “And?”
   “It was mutually satisfactory, I understand.”
   “Ah! Then she had no difficulty.”
   “No, Sire.”
   “But he’s in proportion?”
   “The girl said, ‘Oh very yes.’ ‘Lavish’ was the word she used.”
   “Excellent. At least in that his karma’s good. That’s the trouble with a lot of men—Yabu for one, Kiyama for another. Small shafts. Unfortunate to be born with a small shaft. Very. Yes.” He glanced at the scroll, then closed his fan with a snap. “And you, Mariko-san? What about you?”
   “Good, thank you, Sire. I’m very pleased to see you looking so well. May I offer you congratulations on the birth of your grandson.”
   “Thank you, yes. Yes, I’m pleased. The boy’s well formed and appears healthy.”
   “And the Lady Genjiko?”
   Toranaga grunted. “She’s as strong as always. Yes.” He pursed his lips, brooding for a moment. “Perhaps you could recommend a foster mother for the child.” It was custom for sons of important samurai to have foster mothers so that the natural mother could attend to her husband and to the running of his house, leaving the foster mother to concentrate on the child’s upbringing, making him strong and a credit to the parents. “I’m afraid it won’t be easy to find the right person. The Lady Genjiko’s not the easiest mistress to work for, neh?”
   “I’m sure you’ll find the perfect person, Sire. I’ll certainly give it some thought,” Mariko replied, knowing that to offer such advice would be foolish, for no woman born could possibly satisfy both Toranaga and his daughter-in-law.
   “Thank you. But you, Mariko-san, what about you?”
   “Good, Sire, thank you.”
   “And your Christian conscience?”
   “There’s no conflict, Sire. None. I’ve done everything you would wish. Truly.”
   “Have any priests been here?”
   “No, Sire.”
   “You have need of one?”
   “It would be good to confess and take the Sacrament and be blessed. Yes, truthfully, I would like that—to confess the things permitted and to be blessed.”
   Toranaga studied her closely. Her eyes were guileless. “You’ve done well, Mariko-san. Please continue as before.”
   “Yes, Sire, thank you. One thing—the Anjin-san needs a grammar book and dictionary badly.”
   “I’ve sent to Tsukku-san for them.” He noticed her frown. “You don’t think he’ll send them?”
   “He would obey, of course. Perhaps not with the speed you’d like.”
   “I’ll soon know that.” Toranaga added ominously, “He has only thirteen days left.”
   Mariko was startled. “Sire?” she asked, not understanding.
   “Thirteen? Ah,” Toranaga said nonchalantly, covering his momentary lapse, “when we were aboard the Portuguese ship he asked permission to visit Yedo. I agreed, providing it was within forty days. There are thirteen left. Wasn’t forty days the time this bonze, this prophet, this Moses spent on the mountain collecting the commands of ‘God’ that were etched in stone?”
   “Yes, Sire.”
   “Do you believe that happened?”
   “Yes. But I don’t understand how or why.”
   “A waste of time discussing ‘God-things.’ Neh?”
   “If you seek facts, yes, Sire.”
   “While you were waiting for this dictionary, have you tried to make one?”
   “Yes, Toranaga-sama. I’m afraid it’s not very good. Unfortunately there seems to be so little time, so many problems. Here—everywhere,” she added pointedly.
   He nodded agreement, knowing that she would dearly like to ask many things: about the new Council and Lord Ito’s appointment and Naga’s sentence and if war would be immediate. “We’re fortunate to have your husband back with us, neh?”
   Her fan stopped. “I never thought he’d escape alive. Never. I’ve said a prayer and burnt incense to his memory daily.” Buntaro had told her this morning how another contingent of Toranaga samurai had covered his retreat from the beach and he had made the outskirts of Osaka without trouble. Then, with fifty picked men and spare horses, disguised as bandits, he hastily took to the hills and lesser paths in a headlong dash for Yedo. Twice his pursuers caught up with him but there were not enough of the enemy to contain him and he fought his way through. Once he was ambushed and lost all but four men, and escaped again and went deeper into the forest, traveling by night, sleeping during the day. Berries and spring water, a little rice snatched from lonely farmhouses, then galloping on again, hunters always at his heels. It had taken him twenty days to reach Yedo. Two men had survived with him.
   “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.
   “Where’s my wife? With the Anjin-san?”
   “No, Buntaro-sama, so sorry, she was ordered to the fortress where—”
   “Ordered? By whom? By Kasigi Yabu?”
   “Oh, no, by Lord Toranaga, Sire, when he came back from hunting this afternoon.”
   “Oh, Lord Toranaga?” Buntaro simmered down and scowled across the bay at the fortress. Toranaga’s standard flew beside Yabu’s.
   “Would you like me to send someone for her?”
   He shook his head. “There’s time enough for her.” He exhaled, looked across at his niece, daughter of his youngest sister. “I’m fortunate to have such an accomplished wife, neh?”
   “Yes, Sire. Yes you are. She’s been enormously valuable to interpret the Anjin-san’s knowledge.”
   Buntaro stared at the fortress, then sniffed the wind as the smell of the cooking wafted up again. “It’s like being at Nagasaki, or back in Korea. They cook meat all the time there, boil it or roast it. Stink—you’ve never smelled anything like it. Koreans’re animals, like cannibals. The garlic stench even gets into your clothes and hair.”
   “It must have been terrible.”
   “The war was good. We could have won easily. And smashed through to China. And civilized both countries.” Buntaro flushed and his voice rasped. “But we didn’t. We failed and had to come back with our shame because we were betrayed. Betrayed by filthy traitors in high places.”
   “Yes, that’s so sad, but you’re right. Very right, Buntaro-sama,” she said soothingly, telling the lie easily, knowing no nation on earth could conquer China, and no one could civilize China, which had been civilized since ancient times.
   The vein on Buntaro’s forehead was throbbing and he was talking almost to himself. “They’ll pay. All of them. The traitors. It’s only a matter of waiting beside a river long enough for the bodies of your enemies to float by, neh? I’ll wait and I’ll spit on their heads soon, very soon. I’ve promised myself that.” He looked at her. “I hate traitors and adulterers. And all liars!”
   “Yes, I agree. You’re so right, Buntaro-sama,” she said, chilled, knowing there was no limit to his ferocity. When Buntaro was sixteen he had executed his own mother, one of Hiro-matsu’s lesser consorts, for her supposed infidelity while his father, Hiro-matsu, was at war fighting for the Dictator, Lord Goroda. Then, years later, he had killed his own eldest son by his first wife for supposed insults and sent her back to her family, where she died by her own hand, unable to bear the shame. He had done terrible things to his consorts and to Mariko. And he had quarreled violently with Fujiko’s father and had accused him of cowardice in Korea, discrediting him to the Taikō, who had at once ordered him to shave his head and become a monk, to die debauched, so soon, eaten up by his own shame.
   It took all of Fujiko’s will to appear tranquil. “We were so proud to hear that you had escaped the enemy,” she said.
   The saké arrived. Buntaro began to drink heavily.
   When there had been the correct amount of waiting Fujiko got up. “Please excuse me for a moment.” She went to the kitchen to warn Blackthorne, to ask his permission for Buntaro to be quartered in the house, and to tell him and the servants what had to be done.
   “Why here?” Blackthorne asked irritably. “Why to stay here? Is necessary?”
   Fujiko apologized and tried to explain that, of course, Buntaro could not be refused. Blackthorne returned moodily to his cooking and she came back to Buntaro, her chest aching.
   “My Master says he’s honored to have you here. His house is your house.”
   “What’s it like being consort to a barbarian?”
   “I would imagine horrible. But to the Anjin-san, who is hatamoto and therefore samurai? I suppose like to other men. This is the first time I’ve been consort. I prefer to be a wife. The Anjin-san’s like other men, though yes, some of his ways are very strange.”
   “Who’d have thought one of our house would be consort to a barbarian—even a hatamoto.”
   “I had no choice. I merely obeyed Lord Toranaga, and grandfather, the leader of our clan. It’s a woman’s place to obey.”
   “Yes.” Buntaro finished his cup of saké and she refilled it. “Obedience’s important for a woman. And Mariko-san’s obedient, isn’t she?”
   “Yes, Lord.” She looked into his ugly, apelike face. “She’s brought you nothing but honor, Sire. Without the Lady, your wife, Lord Toranaga could never have got the Anjin-san’s knowledge.”
   He smiled crookedly. “I hear you stuck pistols in Omi-san’s face.”
   “I was only doing my duty, Sire.”
   “Where did you learn to use guns?”
   “I had never handled a gun until then. I didn’t know if the pistols were loaded. But I would have pulled the triggers.”
   Buntaro laughed. “Omi-san thought that too.”
   She refilled his cup. “I never understood why Omi-san didn’t try to take them away from me. His lord had ordered him to take them, but he didn’t.”
   “I would have.”
   “Yes, Uncle. I know. Please excuse me, I would still have pulled the triggers.”
   “Yes. But you would have missed!”
   “Yes, probably. Since then I’ve learned how to shoot.”
   “He taught you?”
   “No. One of Lord Naga’s officers.”
   “Why?”
   “My father would never allow his daughters to learn sword or spear. He thought, wisely I believe, we should devote our time to learning gentler things. But sometimes a woman needs to protect her master and his house. The pistol’s a good weapon for a woman, very good. It requires no strength and little practice. So now I can perhaps be a little more use to my Master, for I will surely blow any man’s head off to protect him, and for the honor of our house.”
   Buntaro drained his cup. “I was proud when I heard you’d opposed Omi-san as you did. You were correct. Lord Hiro-matsu will be proud too.”
   “Thank you, Uncle. But I was only doing an ordinary duty.” She bowed formally. “My Master asks if you would allow him the honor of talking with you now, if it pleases you.”
   He continued the ritual. “Please thank him but first may I bathe? If it pleases him, I’ll see him when my wife returns.”

Chapter 35

   Blackthorne waited. in the garden. Now he wore the Brown uniform kimono that Toranaga had given him with swords in his sash and a loaded pistol hidden under the sash. From Fujiko’s hurried explanations and subsequently from the servants, he had gathered that he had to receive Buntaro formally, because the samurai was an important general and hatamoto, and was the first guest in the house. So he had bathed and changed quickly and had gone to the place that had been prepared.
   He had seen Buntaro briefly yesterday, when he arrived. Buntaro had been busy with Toranaga and Yabu the rest of the day, together with Mariko, and Blackthorne had been left alone to organize the hurried attack demonstration with Omi and Naga. The attack was satisfactory.
   Mariko had returned to the house very late. She had told him briefly about Buntaro’s escape, the days of being hunted by Ishido’s men, eluding them, and at last breaking through the hostile provinces to reach the Kwanto. “It was very difficult, but perhaps not too difficult, Anjin-san. My husband is very strong and very brave.”
   “What’s going to happen now? Are you leaving?”
   “Lord Toranaga orders that everything’s to remain as it was. Nothing’s to be changed.”
   “You’re changed, Mariko. A spark’s gone out of you.”
   “No. That’s your imagination, Anjin-san. It’s just my relief that he’s alive when I was certain he was dead.”
   “Yes. But it’s made a difference, hasn’t it?”
   “Of course. I thank God my Master wasn’t captured—that he lived to obey Lord Toranaga. Will you excuse me, Anjin-san. I’m tired now. I’m sorry, I’m very very tired.”
   “Is there anything I can do?”
   “What should you do, Anjin-san? Except to be happy for me and for him. Nothing’s changed, really. Nothing is finished because nothing began. Everything’s as it was. My husband’s alive.”
   Don’t you wish he were dead? Blackthorne asked himself in the garden. No.
   Then why the hidden pistol? Are you filled with guilt?
   No. Nothing began.
   Didn’t it?
   No.
   You thought you were taking her. Isn’t that the same as taking her in fact?
   He saw Mariko walk into the garden from the house. She looked like a porcelain miniature following half a pace behind Buntaro, his burliness seeming even greater by comparison. Fujiko was with her, and the maids.
   He bowed. “Yokoso oide kudasareta, Buntaro-san.” Welcome to my house, Buntaro-san.
   They all bowed. Buntaro and Mariko sat on the cushions opposite him. Fujiko seated herself behind him. Nigatsu and the maid, Koi, began to serve tea and saké. Buntaro took saké. So did Blackthorne.
   “Domo, Anjin-san. Ikaga desu ka?”
   “Ii. Ikaga desu ka?”
   “Ii. Kowa jozuni shabereru yoni natta na.” Good. You’re beginning to speak Japanese very well.
   Soon Blackthorne became lost in the conversation, for Buntaro was slurring his words, speaking carelessly and rapidly.
   “Sorry, Mariko-san, I didn’t understand that.”
   “My husband wishes to thank you for trying to save him. With the oar. You remember? When we were escaping from Osaka.”
   “Ah, so desu! Domo. Please tell him I still think we should have put back to shore. There was time enough. The maid drowned unnecessarily.”
   “He says that was karma.”
   “That was a wasted death,” Blackthorne replied, and regretted the rudeness. He noticed that she did not translate it.
   “My husband says that the assault strategy is very good, very good indeed.”
   “Domo. Tell him I’m glad he escaped unharmed. And that he’s to command the regiment. And of course, that he’s welcome to stay here.”
   “Domo, Anjin-san. Buntaro-sama says, yes, the assault plan is very good. But for himself he will always carry his bow and swords. He can kill at a much greater range, with great accuracy, and faster than a musket.”
   “Tomorrow I will shoot against him and we will see, if he likes.”
   “You will lose, Anjin-san, so sorry. May I caution you not to attempt that,” she said.
   Blackthorne saw Buntaro’s eyes flick from Mariko to him and back again. “Thank you, Mariko-san. Say to him that I would like to see him shoot.”
   “He asks, can you use a bow?”
   “Yes, but not as a proper bowman. Bows are pretty much out of date with us. Except the crossbow. I was trained for the sea. There we use only cannon, musket, or cutlass. Sometimes we use fire arrows but only for enemy sails in close quarters.”
   “He asks, how are they used, how do you make them, these fire arrows? Are they different from ours, like the ones used against the galley at Osaka?”
   Blackthorne began to explain and there were the usual tiring interruptions and probing requestionings. By now he was used to their incredibly inquisitive minds about any aspect of war, but found it exhausting to talk through an interpreter. Even though Mariko was excellent, what she actually said was rarely exact. A long reply would always be shortened, some of what was spoken would, of course, be changed slightly, and misunderstandings occurred. So explanations had to be repeated unnecessarily.
   But without Mariko, he knew that he could never have become so valuable. It’s only knowledge that keeps me from the pit, he reminded himself. But that’s no problem, because there’s much to tell yet and a battle to win. A real battle to win. You’re safe till then. You’ve a navy to plan. And then home. Safe.
   He saw Buntaro’s swords and the guard’s swords and he felt his own and the oiled warmth of his pistol and he knew, truthfully, he would never be safe in this land. Neither he nor anyone was safe, not even Toranaga.
   “Anjin-san, Buntaro-sama asks if he sends you men tomorrow, could you show them how to make these arrows?”
   “Where can we get pitch?”
   “I don’t know.” Mariko cross-questioned him on where it was usually found and what it looked like or smelled like, and on possible alternatives. Then she spoke to Buntaro at length. Fujiko had been silent all the while, her eyes and ears trained, missing nothing. The maids, well commanded by a slight motion of Fujiko’s fan to an empty cup, constantly replenished the saké flasks.
   “My husband says he will discuss this with Lord Toranaga. Perhaps pitch exists somewhere in the Kwanto. We’ve never heard of it before. If not pitch, we have thick oils—whale oils—which might substitute. He asks do you sometimes use war rockets, like the Chinese?”
   “Yes. But they’re not considered of much value except in siege. The Turks used them when they came against the Knights of St. John in Malta. Rockets are used mostly to cause fire and panic.”
   “He asks please give him details about this battle.”
   “It was forty years ago, in the greatest—” Blackthorne stopped, his mind racing. This had been the most vital siege in Europe. Sixty thousand Islamic Turks, the cream of the Ottoman Empire, had come against six hundred Christian knights supported by a few thousand Maltese auxiliaries, at bay in their vast castle complex at St. Elmo on the tiny island of Malta in the Mediterranean. The knights had successfully withstood the six-month siege and, incredibly, had forced the enemy to retreat in shame. This victory had saved the whole Mediterranean seaboard, and thus Christendom, from being ravaged at whim by the infidel hordes.
   Blackthorne had suddenly realized that this battle gave him one of the keys to Osaka Castle: how to invest it, how to harry it, how to break through the gates, and how to conquer it.
   “You were saying, senhor?”
   “It was forty years ago, in the greatest inland sea we have in Europe, Mariko-san. The Mediterranean. It was just a siege, like any siege, not worth talking about,” he lied. Such knowledge was priceless, certainly not to be given away lightly and absolutely not now. Mariko had explained many times that Osaka Castle stood inexorably between Toranaga and victory. Blackthorne was certain that the solution to Osaka might well be his passport out of the Empire, with all the riches he would need in this life.
   He noticed that Mariko seemed troubled. “Senhora?”
   “Nothing, senhor.” She began to translate what he had said. But he knew that she knew he was hiding something. The smell of the stew distracted him.
   “Fujiko-san!”
   “Hai, Anjin-san?”
   “Shokuji wa madaka? Kyaku wa … sazo kufuku de oro, neh?” When’s dinner? The guests may be hungry.
   “Ah, gomen nasai, hi ga kurete kara ni itashimasu.”
   Blackthorne saw her point at the sun and realized that she had said “after sunset.” He nodded and grunted, which passed in Japan for a polite “thank you, I understand.”
   Mariko turned again to Blackthorne. “My husband would like you to tell him about a battle you’ve been in.”
   “They’re all in the War Manual, Mariko-san.”
   “He says he’s read it with great interest, but it contains only brief details. Over the next days he wishes to learn everything about all your battles. One now, if it pleases you.”
   “They’re all in the War Manual. Perhaps tomorrow, Mariko-san.” He wanted time to examine his blinding new thought about Osaka Castle and that battle, and he was tired of talking, tired of being cross-questioned, but most of all he wanted to eat.
   “Please, Anjin-san, would you tell it again, just once, for my husband?”
   He heard the careful pleading under her voice so he relented. “Of course. Which do you think he’d like?”
   “The one in the Netherlands. Near ‘Zeeland’—is that how you pronounce it?”
   “Yes,” he said.
   So he began to tell the story of this battle which was like almost every other battle in which men died, most of the time because of the mistakes and stupidity of the officers in command.
   “My husband says it’s not so here, Anjin-san. Here the commanding officers have to be very good or they die very quickly.”
   “Of course, my criticisms applied to European leaders only.”
   “Buntaro-sama says he will tell you about our wars and our leaders, particularly the Lord Taikō, over the days. A fair exchange for your information,” she said noncommittally.
   “Domo.” Blackthorne bowed slightly, feeling Buntaro’s eyes grind into him.
   What do you really want from me, you son of a bitch?


   Dinner was a disaster. For everyone.
   Even before they had left the garden to go to the veranda to eat, the day had become ill-omened.
   “Excuse me, Anjin-san, but what’s that?” Mariko pointed. “Over there. My husband asks, what’s that?”
   “Where? Oh, there! That’s a pheasant,” Blackthorne said. “Lord Toranaga sent it to me, along with a hare. We’re having that for dinner, English-style—at least I am, though there’d be enough for everyone.”
   “Thank you, but … we, my husband and I, we don’t eat meat. But why is the pheasant hanging there? In this heat, shouldn’t it be put away and prepared?”
   “That’s the way you prepare pheasant. You hang it to mature the meat.”
   “What? Just like that? Excuse me, Anjin-san,” she said, flustered, “so sorry. But it’ll go rotten quickly. It still has its feathers and it’s not been … cleaned.”
   “Pheasant meat’s dry, Mariko-san, so you hang it for a few days, perhaps a couple of weeks, depending on the weather. Then you pluck it, clean it, and cook it.”
   “You—you leave it in the air? To rot? Just like—”
   “Nan ja?” Buntaro asked impatiently.
   She spoke to him apologetically and he sucked in his breath, then got up and peered at it and prodded it. A few flies buzzed, then settled back again. Hesitantly Fujiko spoke to Buntaro and he flushed.
   “Your consort said you ordered that no one was to touch it but you?” Mariko asked.
   “Yes. Don’t you hang game here? Not everyone’s Buddhist.”
   “No, Anjin-san. I don’t think so.”
   “Some people believe you should hang a pheasant by the tail feathers until it drops off, but that’s an old wives’ tale,” Blackthorne said. “By the neck’s the right way, then the juices stay where they belong. Some people let it hang until it drops off the neck but personally, I don’t like meat that gamy. We used to—” He stopped for she had gone a slight shade of green.
   “Nan desu ka, Mariko-san?” Fujiko asked quickly.
   Mariko explained. They all laughed nervously and Mariko got up, weakly patting the sheen off her forehead. “I’m sorry, Anjin-san, would you excuse me a moment …”
   Your food’s just as strange, he wanted to say. What about yesterday, the raw squid—white, slimy, almost tasteless chewy meat with nothing but soya sauce to wash it down? Or the chopped octopus tentacles, again raw, with cold rice and seaweed? How about fresh jellyfish with yellow-brown, souped torfu —fermented bean curds—that looked like a bowl of dog puke? Oh yes, served beautifully in a fragile, attractive bowl, but still looking like puke! Yes, by God, enough to make any man sick!
   Eventually they went to the veranda room and, after the usual interminable bowings and small talk and cha and saké, the food began to arrive. Small trays of clear fish soup and rice and raw fish, as always. And then his stew.
   He lifted the lid of the pot. The steam rose and golden globules of fat danced on the shimmering surface. The rich, mouth-watering gravysoup was heavy with meat juices and tender chunks of flesh. Proudly he offered it but they all shook their heads and begged him to eat.
   “Domo,” he said.
   It was good manners to drink soup directly from the small lacquered bowls and to eat anything solid in the soup with chopsticks. A ladle was on the tray. Hard put to stop his hunger, he filled the bowl and began to eat. Then he saw their eyes.
   They were watching with nauseated fascination which they unsuccessfully tried to hide. His appetite began to slip away. He tried to dismiss them but could not, his stomach growling. Hiding his irritation, he put down the bowl and replaced the lid and told them gruffly it was not to his taste. He ordered Nigatsu to take it away.
   “Should it be thrown away then, Fujiko asks,” Mariko said hopefully.
   “Yes.”

   Fujiko and Buntaro relaxed.
   “Would you like more rice?” Fujiko asked.
   “No, thank you.”
   Mariko waved her fan, smiled encouragingly, and refilled his saké cup. But Blackthorne was not soothed and he resolved in the future to cook in the hills in private, to eat in private, and to hunt openly.
   To hell with them, he thought. If Toranaga can hunt, so can I. When am I going to see him? How long do I have to wait?
   “The pox on waiting and the pox on Toranaga!” he said aloud in English and felt better.
   “What, Anjin-san?” Mariko asked in Portuguese.
   “Nothing,” he replied. “I was just wondering when I’d see Lord Toranaga.”
   “He didn’t tell me. Very soon, I imagine.”
   Buntaro was slurping his saké and soup loudly as was custom. This began to annoy Blackthorne. Mariko talked cheerfully with her husband, who grunted, hardly acknowledging her. She was not eating, and it further irked him that both she and Fujiko were almost fawning on Buntaro and also that he himself had to put up with this unwanted guest.
   “Tell Buntaro-sama that in my country a host toasts the honored guest.” He lifted his cup with a grim smile. “Long life and happiness!” He drank.
   Buntaro listened to Mariko’s explanation. He nodded in agreement, lifted his cup in return, smiled through his teeth, and drained it.
   “Health!” Blackthorne toasted again.
   And again.
   And again.
   “Health!”
   This time Buntaro did not drink. He put down the full cup and looked at Blackthorne out of his small eyes. Then Buntaro called to someone outside. The shoji slid open at once. His guard, ever present, bowed and handed him the immense bow and quiver. Buntaro took it and spoke vehemently and rapidly to Blackthorne.
   “My husband—my husband says you wanted to see him shoot, Anjin-san. He thinks tomorrow is too far away. Now is a good time. The gateway of your house, Anjin-san. He asks which post do you choose?”
   “I don’t understand;” Blackthorne said. The main gate would be forty paces away, somewhere across the garden, but now completely masked by the closed shoji wall to his right.
   “The left or the right post? Please choose.” Her manner was urgent.
   Warned, he looked at Buntaro. The man seemed detached, oblivious of them, a squat ugly troll who sat gazing into the distance.
   “Left,” he said, fascinated.
   “Hidari!” she said.
   At once Buntaro slid an arrow from the quiver and, still sitting, set up the bow, raised it, drew back the bowstring to eye level and released the shaft with savage, almost poetic liquidity. The arrow slashed toward Mariko’s face, touched a strand of her hair in passing, and disappeared through the shoji paper wall. Another arrow was launched almost before the first had vanished, and then another, each one coming within an inch of impaling Mariko. She remained calm and motionless, kneeling as she had always been.
   A fourth arrow and then a last. The silence was filled with the echo of the twanging bowstring. Buntaro sighed and came back slowly. He put the bow across his knees. Mariko and Fujiko sucked in their breaths and smiled and bowed and complimented Buntaro and he nodded and bowed slightly. They looked at Blackthorne. He knew that what he had witnessed was almost magical. All the arrows had gone through the same hole in the shoji.
   Buntaro handed the bow back to his guard and picked up his tiny cup. He stared at it a moment, then raised it to Blackthorne, drained it and spoke harshly, his brutish self again.
   “He—my husband asks, politely, please go and look.”
   Blackthorne thought a moment, trying to still his heart. “There’s no need. Of course he hit the target.”
   “He says he would like you to be sure.”
   “I’m sure.”
   “Please, Anjin-san. You would honor him.”
   “I don’t need to honor him.”
   “Yes. But may I please quietly add my request.”
   Again the plea was in her eyes.
   “How do I say, ‘That was marvelous to watch’?”
   She told him. He said the words and bowed. Buntaro bowed perfunctorily in return.
   “Ask him please to come with me to see the arrows.”
   “He says that he would like you to go by yourself. He does not wish to go, Anjin-san.”
   “Why?”
   “If he has been accurate, senhor, you should see that by yourself. If not, you should see that alone too. Then neither you nor he can be embarrassed.”
   “And if he’s missed?”
   “He hasn’t. But by our custom accuracy under such impossible circumstances is unimportant compared to the grace that the archer shows, the nobility of movement, his strength to shoot sitting, or the detachment about the winning or losing.”
   The arrows were within an inch of each other in the middle of the left post. Blackthorne looked back at the house and he could see, forty-odd paces away, the small neat hole in the paper wall that was a spark of light in the darkness.
   It’s almost impossible to be so accurate, he thought. From where Buntaro was sitting he couldn’t see the garden or the gate, and it was black night outside. Blackthorne turned back to the post and raised the lantern higher. With one hand he tried to pull out an arrow. The steel head was buried too deep. He could have snapped the wooden shaft but he did not wish to.
   The guard was watching.
   Blackthorne hesitated. The guard came forward to help but he shook his head, “Iyé, domo,” and went back inside.
   “Mariko-san, please tell my consort that I would like the arrows left in the post forever. All of them. To remind me of a master archer. I’ve never seen such shooting.” He bowed to Buntaro.
   “Thank you, Anjin-san.” She translated and Buntaro bowed and thanked him for the compliment.
   “Saké!” Blackthorne ordered.
   They drank more. Much more. Buntaro quaffed his carelessly now, the wine taking him. Blackthorne watched him covertly then let his attention wander away as he wondered how the man had managed to line up and fire the arrows with such incredible accuracy. It’s impossible, he thought, yet I saw him do it. Wonder what Vinck and Baccus and the rest are doing right now. Toranaga had told him the crew were now settled in Yedo, near Erasmus. Christ Jesus, I’d like to see them and get back aboard.
   He glanced across at Mariko, who was saying something to her husband. Buntaro listened, then to Blackthorne’s surprise, he saw the samurai’s face become contorted with loathing. Before he could avert his eyes Buntaro had looked at him.
   “Nan desu ka?” Buntaro’s words sounded almost like an accusation.
   “Nani-mo, Buntaro-san.” Nothing. Blackthorne offered everyone saké, hoping to cover his lapse. Again the women accepted, but just sipped their wine sparingly. Buntaro finished his cup at once, his mood ugly. Then he harangued Mariko lengthily.
   In spite of himself, Blackthorne spoke out. “What’s the matter with him? What’s he saying?”
   “Oh, I’m sorry, Anjin-san. My husband was asking about you, about your wife and consorts. And about your children. And about what happened since we left Osaka. He—” She stopped, changing her mind, and added in a different voice, “He’s most interested in you and your views.”
   “I’m interested in him and his views, Mariko-san. How did you meet, you and he? When were you married? Did—” Buntaro overrode him with a flurry of impatient Japanese.
   At once Mariko translated what had been said. Buntaro reached over and sloshed two teacups full of saké, offered one to Blackthorne and waved at the women to take the others.
   “He—my husband says sometimes saké cups are too small.” Mariko poured the other teacups full. She sipped one, Fujiko the other. There was another, more bellicose harangue and Mariko’s smile froze on her face, Fujiko’s also.
   “Iyé, dozo gomen nasai, Buntaro-sama,” Mariko began.
   “Ima!” Buntaro ordered.
   Nervously Fujiko started to talk but Buntaro shut her up with one look.
   “Gomen nasai,” Fujiko whispered in apology. “Dozo, gomen nasai.”
   “What did he say, Mariko-san?”
   She appeared not to hear Blackthorne. “Dozo gomen nasai, Buntaro-sama, watashi —”
   Her husband’s face reddened. “IMA!”
   “So sorry, Anjin-san, but my husband orders me to tell—to answer your questions—to tell you about myself. I told him that I did not think that family matters should be discussed so late at night, but he orders it. Please be patient.” She took a large sip of the saké. Then another. The strands of hair that were loose over her ears waved in the slight current made by Fujiko’s fan. She drained the cup and put it down. “My maiden name is Akechi. I am the daughter of General Lord Akechi Jinsai, the assassin. My father treacherously assassinated his liege lord, the Dictator Lord Goroda.”
   “God in heaven! Why’d he do that?”
   “Whatever the reason, Anjin-san, it is insufficient. My father committed the worst crime in our world. My blood’s tainted, as is the blood of my son.”
   “Then why—” He stopped.
   “Yes, Anjin-san?”
   “I was only going to say that I understand what that means … to kill a liege lord. I’m surprised that you were left alive.”
   “My husband honored me—”
   Again Buntaro viciously interrupted her and she apologized and explained what Blackthorne had asked. Contemptuously Buntaro waved her on.
   “My husband honored me by sending me away,” she continued in the same gentle way. “I begged to be allowed to commit seppuku but he denied me that privilege. It was … I must explain, seppuku is his privilege to give, or Lord Toranaga’s. I still humbly ask it once a year on the anniversary of the day of the treachery. But in his wisdom, my husband has always refused me.” Her smile was lovely. “My husband honors me every day, every moment, Anjin-san. If I were he I would not be able to even talk to such a … befouled person.”
   “That’s why—that’s why you’re the last of your line?” he asked, remembering what she had said about a catastrophe on the march from Osaka Castle.
   Mariko translated the question for Buntaro and then turned back again. “Hai, Anjin-san. But it wasn’t a catastrophe, not for them. They were caught in the hills, my father and his family, by Nakamura, the general who became the Taikō. It was Nakamura who led the armies of vengeance and slaughtered all my father’s forces, twenty thousand men, every one. My father and his family were trapped, but my father had time to help them all, my four brothers and three sisters, my—my mother and his two consorts. Then he committed seppuku. In that he was samurai and they were samurai,” she said. “They knelt bravely before him, one by one, and he slew them one by one. They died honorably. And he died honorably. My father’s two brothers and one uncle had sided with him in his treachery against their liege lord. They were also trapped. And they died with equal honor. Not one Akechi was left alive to face the hate and derision of the enemy except me—no, please forgive me, Anjin-san, I’m wrong—my father and his brothers and uncle, they were the real enemy. Of the enemy, only I am left alive, a living witness to filthy treachery. I, Akechi Mariko, was left alive because I was married and so belonged to my husband’s family. We lived at Kyoto then. I was at Kyoto when my father died. His treachery and rebellion lasted only thirteen days, Anjin-san. But as long as men live in these islands, the name Akechi will be foul.”
   “How long had you been married when that happened?”
   “Two months and three days, Anjin-san.”
   “And you were fifteen then?”
   “Yes. My husband honored me by not divorcing me or casting me out as he should have done. I was sent away. To a village in the north. It was cold there, Anjin-san, in Shonai Province. So cold.”
   “How long were you there?”
   “Eight years. The Lord Goroda was forty-nine when he committed seppuku to prevent capture. That was almost sixteen years ago, Anjin-san, and most of his descen—”
   Buntaro interrupted again, his tongue a whip.
   “Please excuse me, Anjin-san,” Mariko said. “My husband correctly points out it should have been enough for me to say that I am the daughter of a traitor, that long explanations are unnecessary. Of course some explanations are necessary,” she added carefully. “Please excuse my husband’s bad manners and I beg you to remember what I said about ears to hear with and the Eightfold Fence. Forgive me, Anjin-san, I am ordered away. You may not leave until he leaves, or passes out with drink. Do not interfere.” She bowed to Fujiko. “Dozo gomen nasai.”
   “Do itashimashite.”
   Mariko bowed her head to Buntaro and left. Her perfume lingered. “Saké!” Buntaro said and smiled evilly.
   Fujiko filled the teacup.
   “Health,” Blackthorne said, in turmoil.
   For more than an hour he toasted Buntaro until he felt his own head swimming. Then Buntaro passed out and lay in the shattered mess of the teacups. The shoji opened instantly. The guard came in with Mariko. They lifted Buntaro, helped by servants who seemed to appear out of nowhere, and carried him to the room opposite. Mariko’s room. Assisted by the maid, Koi, she began to undress him. The guard slid the shoji closed and sat outside it, his hand on the haft of his loosened sword.
   Fujiko waited, watching Blackthorne. Maids came and tidied up the disorder. Wearily Blackthorne ran his hands through his long hair and retied the ribbon of his queue. Then he lurched up and went out onto the veranda his consort following.
   The air smelled good and cleansed him. But not enough. He sat ponderously on the stoop and drank in the night.
   Fujiko knelt behind him and leaned forward. “Gomen nasai, Anjin-san,” she whispered, nodding back at the house. “Wakarimasu ka?” Do you understand?
   “Wakarimasu, shigata ga nai.” Then, seeing her untoward fear, he stroked her hair.
   “Arigato, arigato, Anjin-sama.”
   “Anatawa suimin ima, Fujiko-san,” he said, finding the words with difficulty. You sleep now.
   “Dozo gomen nasai, Anjin-sama, suimin, neh?” she said, motioning him toward his own room, her eyes pleading.
   “Iyé. Watashi oyogu ima.” No, I’m going for a swim.
   “Hai, Anjin-sama.” Obediently she turned and called out. Two of the servants came running. Both were young men from the village, strong and known to be good swimmers.
   Blackthorne did not object. Tonight he knew his objections would be meaningless.
   “Well, anyway,” he said aloud as he lurched down the hill, the men following, his brain dulled with drink, “anyway, I’ve put him to sleep. He can’t hurt her now.”

   Blackthorne swam for an hour and felt better. When he came back Fujiko was waiting on the veranda with a pot of fresh cha. He accepted some, then went to bed and was instantly asleep.
   The sound of Buntaro’s voice, teeming with malice, awoke him. His right hand was already grasping the hilt of the loaded pistol he always kept under the futon, and his heart was thundering in his chest from the suddenness of his waking.
   Buntaro’s voice stopped. Mariko began to talk. Blackthorne could only catch a few words but he could feel the reasonableness and the pleading, not abject or whining or even near tears, just her usual firm serenity. Again Buntaro erupted.
   Blackthorne tried not to listen.
   “Don’t interfere,” she had told him and she was wise. He had no rights, but Buntaro had many. “I beg you to be careful, Anjin-san. Remember what I told you about ears to hear with and the Eightfold Fence.”
   Obediently he lay back, his skin chilled with sweat, and forced himself to think about what she had said.
   “You see, Anjin-san,” she had told him that very special evening when they were finishing the last of many last flasks of saké and he had been joking about the lack of privacy everywhere—people always around and paper walls, ears and eyes always prying, “here you have to learn to create your own privacy. We’re taught from childhood to disappear within ourselves, to grow impenetrable walls behind which we live. If we couldn’t, we’d all certainly go mad and kill each other and ourselves.”
   “What walls?”
   “Oh, we’ve a limitless maze to hide in, Anjin-san. Rituals and customs, taboos of all kinds, oh yes. Even our language has nuances you don’t have which allow us to avoid, politely, any question if we don’t want to answer it.”
   “But how do you close your ears, Mariko-san? That’s impossible.”
   “Oh, very easy, with training. Of course, training begins as soon as a child can talk, so very soon it’s second nature to us—how else could we survive? First you begin by cleansing your mind of people, to put yourself on a different plane. Sunset watching is a great help or listening to the rain—Anjin-san, have you noticed the different sounds of rain? If you really listen, then the present vanishes, neh?Listening to blossoms falling and to rocks growing are exceptionally good exercises. Of course, you’re not supposed to see the things, they’re only signs, messages to your hara, your center, to remind you of the transcience of life, to help you gain wa, harmony, Anjin-san, perfect harmony, which is the most sought-after quality in all Japanese life, all art, all …” She had laughed. “There, you see what so much saké does to me.” The tip of her tongue touched her lips so enticingly. “I will whisper a secret to you: Don’t be fooled by our smiles and gentleness, our ceremonial and our bowing and sweetnesses and attentions. Beneath them all we can be a million ri away, safe and alone. For that’s what we seek—oblivion. One of our first poems ever written—it’s in the Kojiko, our first history book that was written down about a thousand years ago—perhaps that will explain what I’m saying:


‘Eight cumulus arise
For the lovers to hide within.
The Eightfold Fence of Izumo Province
Enclose those Eightfold clouds
Oh how marvelous, that Eightfold Fence!’


   We would certainly go mad if we didn’t have an Eightfold Fence, oh very yes!”
   Remember the Eightfold Fence, he told himself, as the hissing fury of Buntaro continued. I don’t know anything about her. Or him, really. Think about the Musket Regiment or home or Felicity or, how to get the ship or about Baccus or Toranaga or Omi-san. What about Omi? Do I need revenge? He wants to be my friend and he’s been good and kind since the pistols and …
   The sound of the blow tore into his head. Then Mariko’s voice began again, and there was a second blow and Blackthorne was on his feet in an instant, the shoji open. The guard stood facing him balefully in the corridor outside Mariko’s door, sword ready.
   Blackthorne was preparing to launch himself at the samurai when the door at the far end of the corridor opened. Fujiko, her hair loose and flowing over the sleeping kimono, approached, the sound of ripping cloth and another clout seemingly not touching her at all. She bowed politely to the guard and stood between them, then bowed meekly to Blackthorne and took his arm, motioning him back into the room. He saw the taut readiness of the samurai. He had only one pistol and one bullet at the moment so he retreated. Fujiko followed and shut the shoji behind her. Then, very afraid, she shook her head warningly, and touched a finger to her lips and shook her head again, her eyes pleading with him.
   “Gomen nasai, wakarimasu ka?” she breathed.
   But he was concentrating on the wall of the adjoining room that he could smash in so easily.
   She looked at the wall also, then put herself between him and the wall, and sat, motioning him to do the same.
   But he could not. He stood readying himself for the charge that would destroy them all, goaded by a whimper that followed another blow.
   “Iyé!” Fujiko shook in terror.
   He waved her out of the way.
   “Iyé, iyé,” she begged again.
   “IMA!”
   At once Fujiko got up and motioned him to wait as she rushed noiselessly for the swords that lay in front of the takonama, the little alcove of honor. She picked up the long sword, her hands shaking, drew it out of the scabbard, and prepared to follow him through the wall. At that instant there was a final blow and a rising torrent of rage. The other shoji slammed open, and unseen, Buntaro stamped away, followed by the guard. There was silence in the house for a moment, then the sound of the garden gate crashing closed.
   Blackthorne went for his door. Fujiko darted in the way but he shoved her aside and pulled it open.
   Mariko was still on her knees in one corner of the next room, a livid welt on her cheek, her hair disheveled, her kimono in tatters, bad bruises on her thighs and lower back.
   He rushed over to pick her up but she cried out, “Go away, please go away, Anjin-san!”
   He saw the trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth. “Jesus, how bad are you—”
   “I told you not to interfere. Please go away,” she said in the same calm voice that belied the violence in her eyes. Then she saw Fujiko, who had stayed at the doorway. She spoke to her. Fujiko obediently took Blackthorne’s arm to lead him away but he tore out of her grasp. “Don’t! Iyé!”
   Mariko said, “Your presence here takes away my face and gives me no peace or comfort and shames me. Go away!”
   “I want to help. Don’t you understand?”
   “Don’t you understand? You have no rights in this. This is a private quarrel between husband and wife.”
   “That’s no excuse for hitting—”
   “Why don’t you listen, Anjin-san? He can beat me to death if he wishes. He has the right and I wish he would– even that! Then I wouldn’t have to endure the shame. You think it’s easy to live with my shame? Didn’t you hear what I told you? I’m Akechi Jinsai’s daughter!”
   “That’s not your fault. You did nothing!”
   “It is my fault and I am my father’s daughter.” Mariko would have stopped there. But, looking up and seeing his compassion, his concern, and his love, and knowing how he so honored truth, she allowed some of her veils to fall.
   “Tonight was my fault, Anjin-san,” she said. “If I would weep as he wants, beg forgiveness as he wants, cringe and be petrified and fawn as he wants, open my legs in pretended terror as he desires, do all these womanly things that my duty demands, then he’d be like a child in my hand. But I will not.”
   “Why?”
   “Because that’s my revenge. To repay him for leaving me alive after the treachery. To repay him for sending me away for eight years and leaving me alive all that time. And to repay him for ordering me back into life and leaving me alive.” She sat back painfully and arranged her tattered kimono closer around her. “I’ll never give myself to him again. Once I did, freely, even though I detested him from the first moment I saw him.”
   “Then why did you marry him? You’ve said women here have rights of refusal, that they don’t have to marry against their wishes.”
   “I married him to please Lord Goroda, and to please my father. I was so young I didn’t know about Goroda then, but if you want the truth, Goroda was the cruelest, most loathsome man that was ever born. He drove my father to treachery. That’s the real truth! Goroda!” She spat the name. “But for him we’d all be alive and honored. I pray God that Goroda’s committed to hell for all eternity.” She moved carefully, trying to ease the agony in her side. “There’s only hatred between my husband and me, that’s our karma. It would be so easy for him to allow me to climb into the small place of death.”
   “Why doesn’t he let you go? Divorce you? Even grant you what you want?”
   “Because he’s a man.” A ripple of pain went through her and she grimaced. Blackthorne was on his knees beside her, cradling her. She pushed him away, fought for control. Fujiko, at the doorway, watched stoically.
   “I’m all right, Anjin-san. Please leave me alone. You mustn’t. You must be careful.”
   “I’m not afraid of him.”
   Wearily she pushed the hair out of her eyes and stared up searchingly. Why not let the Anjin-san go to meet his karma, Mariko asked herself. He’s not of our world. Buntaro will kill him so easily. Only Toranaga’s personal protection has shielded him so far. Yabu, Omi, Naga, Buntaro—any one of them could be provoked so easily into killing him.
   He’s caused nothing but trouble since he arrived, neh? So has his knowledge. Naga’s right: the Anjin-san can destroy our world unless he’s bottled up.
   What if Buntaro knew the truth? Or Toranaga? About the pillowing…
   “Are you insane?” Fujiko had said that first night.
   “No.”
   “Then why are you going to take the maid’s place?”
   “Because of the saké and for amusement, Fujiko-chan, and for curiosity,” she had lied, hiding the real reason: because he excited her, she wanted him, she had never had a lover. If it was not tonight it would never be, and it had to be the Anjin-san and only the Anjin-san.
   So she had gone to him and had been transported and then, yesterday, when the galley arrived, Fujiko had said privately, “Would you have gone if you’d known your husband was alive?”
   “No. Of course not,” she had lied.
   “But now you’re going to tell Buntaro-sama, neh? About pillowing with the Anjin-san?”
   “Why should I do that?”
   “I thought that might be your plan. If you tell Buntaro-sama at the right time his rage will burst over you and you’ll be gratefully dead before he knows what he’s done.”
   “No, Fujiko-san, he’ll never kill me. Unfortunately. He’ll send me to the eta if he has excuse enough—if he could get Lord Toranaga’s approval—but he’ll never kill me.”
   “Adultery with the Anjin-san—would that be enough?”
   “Oh yes.”
   “What would happen to your son?”
   “He would inherit my disgrace, if I am disgraced, neh?”
   “Please tell me if you ever think Buntaro-sama suspects what happened. While I’m consort, it’s my duty to protect the Anjin-san.”
   Yes, it is, Fujiko, Mariko had thought then. And that would give you the excuse to take open vengeance on your father’s accuser that you are desperate for. But your father was a coward, so sorry, poor Fujiko. Hiro-matsu was there, otherwise your father would be alive now and Buntaro dead, for Buntaro is hated far more than they ever despised your father. Even the swords you prize so much, they were never given as a battle honor, they were bought from a wounded samurai. So sorry, but I’ll never be the one to tell you, even though that also is the truth.
   “I’m not afraid of him,” Blackthorne was saying again.
   “I know,” she said, the pain taking her. “But please, I beg you, be afraid of him for me.”
   Blackthorne went for the door.


   Buntaro was waiting for him a hundred paces away in the center of the path that led down to the village—squat, immense, and deadly. The guard stood beside him. It was an overcast dawn. Fishing boats were already working the shoals, the sea calm.
   Blackthorne saw the bow loose in Buntaro’s hands, and the swords, and the guard’s swords. Buntaro was swaying slightly and this gave him hope that the man’s aim would be off, which might give him time to get close enough. There was no cover beside the path. Beyond caring, he cocked both pistols and bore down on the two men.
   To hell with cover, he thought through the haze of his blood lust, knowing at the same time that what he was doing was insane, that he had no chance against the two samurai or the long-range bow, that he had no rights whatsoever to interfere. And then, while he was still out of pistol range, Buntaro bowed low, and so did the guard. Blackthorne stopped, sensing a trap. He looked all around but there was no one near. As though in a dream, he saw Buntaro sink heavily onto his knees, put his bow aside, his hands flat on the ground, and bow to him as a peasant would bow to his lord. The guard did likewise.
   Blackthorne stared at them, dazed. When he was sure his eyes were not tricking him, he came forward slowly, pistols ready but not leveled, expecting treachery. Within easy range he stopped. Buntaro had not moved. Custom dictated that he should kneel and return the salutation because they were equals or near equals but he could not understand why there should be such unbelievable deferential ceremony in a situation like this where blood was going to flow.
   “Get up, you son of a bitch!” Blackthorne readied to pull both triggers.
   Buntaro said nothing, did nothing, but kept his head bowed, his hands flat. The back of his kimono was soaked with sweat.
   “Nan ja?” Blackthorne deliberately used the most insulting way of asking “What is it?” wanting to bait Buntaro into getting up, into beginning, knowing that he could not shoot him like this, with his head down and almost in the dust.
   Then, conscious that it was rude to stand while they were kneeling and that the “nan ja” was an almost intolerable and certainly unnecessary insult, Blackthorne knelt and, holding onto the pistols, put both hands on the ground and bowed in return.
   He sat back on his heels. “Hai?” he asked with forced politeness.
   At once Buntaro began mumbling. Abjectly. Apologizing. For what and exactly why, Blackthorne did not know. He could only catch a word here and another there and saké many times, but clearly it was an apology and a humble plea for forgiveness. Buntaro went on and on. Then he ceased and put his head down into the dust again.
   Blackthorne’s blinding rage had vanished by now. “Shigata ga nai,” he said huskily, which meant, “it can’t be helped,” or “there’s nothing to be done,” or “what could you do?” not knowing yet if the apology was merely ritual, prior to attack. “Shigata ga nai. Hakkiri wakaranu ga shinpai surukotowanai.” It can’t be helped. I don’t understand exactly—but don’t worry.

  Buntaro looked up and sat back. “Arigato—arigato, Anjin-sama. Domo gomen nasai.”
   “Shigata ga nai,” Blackthorne repeated and, now that it was clear the apology was genuine, he thanked God for giving him the miraculous opportunity to call off the duel. He knew that he had no rights, he had acted like a madman, and that the only way to resolve the crisis with Buntaro was according to rules. And that meant Toranaga.
   But why the apology, he was asking himself frantically. Think! You’ve got to learn to think like them.
   Then the solution rushed into his brain. It must be because I’m hatamoto, and Buntaro, the guest, disturbed the wa, the harmony of my house. By having a violent open quarrel with his wife in my house, he insulted me, therefore he’s totally in the wrong and he has to apologize whether he means it or not. An apology’s obligatory from one samurai to another, from a guest to a host…
   Wait! And don’t forget that by their custom, all men are allowed to get drunk, are expected to get drunk sometimes, and when drunk they are not, within reason, responsible for their actions. Don’t forget there’s no loss of face if you get stinking drunk. Remember how unconcerned Mariko and Toranaga were on the ship when I was stupefied. They were amused and not disgusted, as we’d be.
   And aren’t you really to blame? Didn’t you start the drinking bout? Wasn’t it your challenge?
   “Yes,” he said aloud.
   “Nan desu ka, Anjin-san?” Buntaro asked, his eyes bloodshot.
   “Nani mo. Watashi no kashitsu desu.” Nothing. It was my fault.
   Buntaro shook his head and said that no, it was only his fault and he bowed and apologized again.
   “Saké,” Blackthorne said with finality and shrugged. “Shigata ga nai. Saké!”
   Buntaro bowed and thanked him again. Blackthorne returned it and got up. Buntaro followed, and the guard. Both bowed once more. Again it was returned.
   At length Buntaro turned and reeled away. Blackthorne waited until he was out of arrow range, wondering if the man was as drunk as he appeared to be. Then he went back to his own house.
   Fujiko was on the veranda, once more within her polite, smiling shell. What are you really thinking, he asked himself as he greeted her, and was welcomed back.
   Mariko’s door was closed. Her maid stood beside it.
   “Mariko-san?”
   “Yes, Anjin-san?”
   He waited but the door stayed closed. “Are you all right?”
   “Yes, thank you.” He heard her clear her throat, then the weak voice continued. “Fujiko has sent word to Yabu-san and to Lord Toranaga that I’m indisposed today and won’t be able to interpret.”
   “You’d better see a doctor.”
   “Oh, thank you, but Suwo will be very good. I’ve sent for him. I’ve … I’ve just twisted my side. Truly I’m all right, there’s no need for you to worry.”
   “Look, I know a little about doctoring. You’re not coughing up blood, are you?”
   “Oh, no. When I slipped I just knocked my cheek. Really, I’m quite all right.”
   After a pause, he said, “Buntaro apologized.”
   “Yes. Fujiko watched from the gate. I thank you humbly for accepting his apology. Thank you. And Anjin-san, I’m so sorry that you were disturbed … it’s unforgivable that your harmony … please accept my apologies too. I should never have let my mouth run away with me. It was very impolite– please forgive me also. The quarrel was my fault. Please accept my apology.”
   “For being beaten?”
   “For failing to obey my husband, for failing to help him to sleep contentedly, for failing him, and my host. Also for what I said.”
   “You’re sure there’s nothing I can do?”
   “No—no, thank you, Anjin-san. It’s just for today.”
   But Blackthorne did not see her for eight days

Chapter 36

   “I invited you to hunt, Naga-san, not to repeat views I’ve already heard,” Toranaga said.
   “I beg you, Father, for the last time: stop the training, outlaw guns, destroy the barbarian, declare the experiment a failure and have done with this obscenity.”
   “No. For the last time.” The hooded falcon on Toranaga’s gloved hand shifted uneasily at the unaccustomed menace in her master’s voice and she hissed irritably. They were in the brush, beaters and guards well out of earshot, the day sweltering and dank and overcast.
   Naga’s chin jutted. “Very well. But it’s still my duty to remind you that you’re in danger here, and to demand again, with due politeness, now for the last time, that you leave Anjiro today.”
   “No. Also for the last time.”
   “Then take my head!”
   “I already have your head!”
   “Then take it today, now, or let me end my life, since you won’t take good advice.”
   “Learn patience, puppy!”
   “How can I be patient when I see you destroying yourself? It’s my duty to point it out to you. You stay here hunting and wasting time while your enemies are pulling the whole world down on you. The Regents meet tomorrow. Four-fifths of all daimyos in Japan are either at Osaka already or on the way there. You’re the only important one to refuse. Now you’ll be impeached. Then nothing can save you. At the very least you should be home at Yedo surrounded by the legions. Here you’re naked. We can’t protect you. We’ve barely a thousand men, and hasn’t Yabu-san mobilized all Izu? He’s got more than eight thousand men within twenty ri, another six closing his borders. You know spies say he has a fleet waiting northward to sink you if you try to escape by galley! You’re his prisoner again, don’t you see that? One carrier pigeon from Ishido and Yabu can destroy you, whenever he wants. How do you know he isn’t planning treachery with Ishido?”
   “I’m sure he’s considering it. I would if I were he, wouldn’t you?”
   “No, I wouldn’t.”
   “Then you’d soon be dead, which would be absolutely merited, but so would all your family, all your clan and all your vassals, which would be absolutely unforgivable. You’re a stupid, truculent fool! You won’t use your mind, you won’t listen, you won’t learn, you won’t curb your tongue or your temper! You let yourself be manipulated in the most childish way and believe that everything can be solved with the edge of your sword. The only reason I don’t take your stupid head or let you end your present worthless life is because you’re young, because I used to think you had some possibilities, your mistakes are not malicious, there’s no guile in you and your loyalty’s unquestioned. But if you don’t quickly learn patience and self-discipline, I’ll take away your samurai status and order you and all your generations into the peasant class!” Toranaga’s right fist slammed his saddle and the falcon let out a piercing, nervous scream. “Do you understand?”
   Naga was in shock. In his whole life Naga had never seen his father shout with rage or lose his temper, or even heard of him doing so. Many times he had felt the bite of his tongue but with justification. Naga knew he made many mistakes, but always his father had turned it so that what he’d done no longer seemed as stupid as it had at first. For instance, when Toranaga had shown him how he had fallen into Omi’s—or Yabu’s—trap about Jozen, he had had to be physically stopped from charging off at once to murder them both. But Toranaga had ordered his private guards to pour cold water over Naga until he was rational, and had calmly explained that he, Naga, had helped his father immeasurably by eliminating Jozen’s menace. “But it would have been better if you’d known you were being manipulated into the action. Be patient, my son, everything comes with patience,” Toranaga had counseled. “Soon you’ll be able to manipulate them. What you did was very good. But you must learn to reason what’s in a man’s mind if you’re to be of any use to yourself—or to your lord. I need leaders. I’ve fanatics enough.”
   Always his father had been reasonable and forgiving but today… Naga leapt off his horse and knelt abjectly. “Please forgive me, Father. I never meant to make you angry … it’s only because I’m frantic with worry over your safety. Please excuse me for disturbing the harmony—”
   “Hold your tongue!” Toranaga bellowed, causing his horse to shy.
   Frantically Toranaga held on with his knees and pulled the reins tighter in his right hand, the horse skittering. Off balance, his falcon began to bate—to jump off his fist, her wings fluttering wildly, screaming her ear-shattering hek-ekek-ek-ek —infuriated by the unaccustomed and unwelcome agitation surrounding her. “There, my beauty, there …” Toranaga desperately tried to settle her and gain control of the horse as Naga jumped for the horse’s head. He caught the bridle and just managed to stop the horse from bolting. The falcon was screaming furiously. At length, reluctantly, she settled back on Toranaga’s expert glove, held firmly by her thong jesses. But her wings still pulsated nervously, the bells on her feet jangling shrilly.
   “Hek-ek-ek-ek-eeeeekk!” she shrieked a final time.
   “There, there, my beauty. There, everything’s all right,” Toranaga said soothingly, his face still mottled with rage, then turned on Naga, trying to keep the animosity out of his tone for the falcon’s sake. “If you’ve ruined her condition today, I’ll—I’ll—”
   At that instant one of the beaters hallooed warningly. Immediately Toranaga slipped off the falcon’s hood with his right hand, gave her a moment to adjust to her surroundings, then launched her.
   She was long-winged, a peregrine, her name Tetsu-ko—Lady of Steel—and she whooshed up into the sky, circling to her station six hundred feet above Toranaga, waiting for her prey to be flushed, her nervousness forgotten. Then, turning on the downwind pass, she saw the dogs sent in and the covey of pheasant scattered in a wild flurry of wing beatings. She marked her prey, heeled over and stooped—closed her wings and dived relentlessly—her talons ready to hack.
   She came hurtling down but the old cock pheasant, twice her size, side-slipped and, in panic, tore arrow-straight for the safety of a copse of trees, two hundred paces away. Tetsu-ko recovered, opened her wings, charging headlong after her quarry. She gained altitude and then, once more vertically above the cock, again stooped, hacked viciously, and again missed. Toranaga excitedly shouted encouragement, warning of the danger ahead, Naga forgotten.
   With a frantic clattering of wings, the cock was streaking for the protection of the trees. The peregrine, again whirling high above, stooped and came slashing down. But she was too late. The wily pheasant vanished. Careless of her own safety, the falcon crashed through the leaves and branches, ferociously seeking her victim, then recovered and flashed into the open once more, screeching with rage, to rush high above the copse.
   At that moment, a covey of partridge was flushed and whirred away, staying close to the ground seeking safety, darting this way and that, cunningly following the contours of the earth. Tetsu-ko marked one, folded her wings, and fell like a stone. This time she did not miss. One vicious hack of her hind talons as she passed broke the partridge’s neck. The bird crashed to the ground in a bursting cloud of feathers. But instead of following her kill to the earth or binding it to her and landing with it, she soared screaming into the sky, climbing higher and ever higher.
   Anxiously Toranaga took out the lure, a small dead bird tied to a thin rope, and whirred it around his head. But Tetsu-ko was not tempted back. Now she was a tiny speck in the sky and Toranaga was sure that he had lost her, that she had decided to leave him, to go back to the wilds, to kill at her whim and not at his whim, to eat when she wanted and not when he decided, and to fly where the winds bore her or fancy took her, masterless and forever free.
   Toranaga watched her, not sad, but just a little lonely. She was a wild creature and Toranaga, like all falconers, knew he was only a temporary earthbound master. Alone he had climbed to her eyrie in the Hakoné mountains and taken her from the nest as a fledgling, and trained her, cherished her, and given her her first kill. Now he could hardly see her circling there, riding the thermals so gloriously, and he wished, achingly; that he too could ride the empyrean, away from the iniquities of earth.
   Then the old cock pheasant casually broke from the trees to feed once more. And Tetsu-ko stooped, plummeting from the heavens a tiny streamlined weapon of death, her claws ready for the coup de grace.
   The cock pheasant died instantly, feathers bursting from him on impact, but she held on, falling with him to let go, her wings slashing the air to brake violently at the very last second. Then she closed her wings and settled on her kill.
   She held it in her claws and began to pluck it with her beak prior to eating. But before she could eat Toranaga rode up. She stopped, distracted. Her merciless brown eyes, ringed with yellow ceres, watched as he dismounted, her ears listening to his cooing praise of her skill and bravery, and then, because she was hungry and he the giver of food and also because he was patient and made no sudden movement but knelt gently, she allowed him to come closer.
   Toranaga was complimenting her softly. He took out his hunting knife and split the pheasant’s head to allow Tetsu-ko to feed on the brains. As she began to feast on this tidbit, at his whim, he cut off the head and she came effortlessly onto his fist, where she was accustomed to feed.
   All the time Toranaga praised her and when she’d finished this morsel he stroked her gently and complimented her lavishly. She bobbed and hissed her contentment, glad to be safely back on the fist once more where she could eat, for of course, ever since she had been taken from the nest, the fist was the only place she had ever been allowed to feed, her food always given to her by Toranaga personally. She began to preen herself, ready for another death.
   Because Tetsu-ko had flown so well, Toranaga decided to let her gorge and fly her no more today. He gave her a small bird that he had already plucked and opened for her. When she was halfway through her meal he slipped on her hood. She continued to feed contentedly through the hood. When she had finished and began to preen herself again, he picked up the cock pheasant, bagged it, and beckoned his falconer, who had waited with the beaters. Exhilarated, they discussed the glory of the kill and counted the bag. There was a hare, a brace of quail, and the cock pheasant. Toranaga dismissed the falconer and the beaters, sending them back to camp with all the falcons. His guards waited downwind.
   Now he turned his attention to Naga. “So?”
   Naga knelt beside his horse, bowed. “You’re completely correct, Sire—what you said about me. I apologize for offending you.”
   “But not for giving me bad advice?”
   “I—I beg you to put me with someone who can teach me so that I’ll never do that. I never want to give you bad advice, never.”
   “Good. You’ll spend part of every day talking with the Anjin-san, learning what he knows. He can be one of your teachers.”
   “Him?”
   “Yes. That may teach you some discipline. And if you can get it through that rock you have between your ears to listen, you’ll certainly learn things of value to you. You might even learn something of value to me.”
   Naga stared sullenly at the ground.
   “I want you to know everything he knows about guns, cannon, and warfare. You’ll become my expert. Yes. And I want you to be very expert.”
   Naga said nothing.
   “And I want you to become his friend.”
   “How can I do that, Sire?”
   “Why don’t you think of a way? Why don’t you use your head?”
   “I’ll try. I swear I’ll try.”
   “I want you to do better than that. You’re ordered to succeed. Use some ‘Christian charity.’ You should’ve learned enough to do that. Neh?”
   Naga scowled. “That’s impossible to learn, much as I tried. It’s the truth! All Tsukku-san talked was dogma and nonsense that would make any man vomit. Christian’s for peasants, not samurai. Don’t kill, don’t take more than one woman, and fifty other stupidities! I obeyed you then and I’ll obey you now—I always obey! Why not just let me do the things I can, Sire? I’ll become Christian if that’s what you want but I can’t believe it—it’s all manure and … I apologize for speaking. I’ll become the Anjin-san’s friend. I will.”
   “Good. And remember he’s worth twenty thousand times his own weight in raw silk and he’s got more knowledge than you’ll have in twenty lifetimes.”
   Naga held himself in check and nodded dutifully in agreement.
   “Good. You’ll be leading two of the battalions, Omi-san two, and one will be held in reserve under Buntaro.”
   “And the other four, Sire?”
   “We haven’t guns enough for them. That was a feint to put Yabu off the scent,” Toranaga said, throwing his son a morsel.
   “Sire?”
   “That was just an excuse to bring another thousand men here. Don’t they arrive tomorrow? With two thousand men I can hold Anjiro and escape, if need be. Neh?”
   “But Yabu-san can still—” Naga bit back the comment, knowing that once more he was sure to make a mistaken judgment. “Why is it I’m so stupid?” he asked bitterly. “Why can’t I see things like you do? Or like Sudara-san? I want to help, to be of use. I don’t want to provoke you all the time.”
   “Then learn patience, my son, and curb your temper. Your time will come soon enough.”
   “Sire?”
   Toranaga was suddenly weary of being patient. He looked up at the sky. “I think I’ll sleep for a while.”
   At once Naga took off the saddle and the horse blanket and laid them on the ground as a samurai bed. Toranaga thanked him and watched him place sentries. When he was sure that everything was correct and safe, he lay down and closed his eyes.
   But he did not want to sleep, only to think. He knew it was an extremely bad sign that he had lost his temper. You’re fortunate it was only in front of Naga, who doesn’t know any better, he told himself. If that had happened near Omi, or Yabu, they’d have realized at once that you’re almost frantic with worry. And such knowledge might easily inspire them to treachery. You were fortunate this time. Tetsu-ko put everything into proportion. But for her you might have let others see your rage and that would have been insanity.
   What a beautiful flight! Learn from her: Naga’s got to be treated like a falcon. Doesn’t he scream and bate like the best of them? Naga’s only problem is that he’s being flown at the wrong game. His game is combat and sudden death, and he’ll have that soon enough.
   Toranaga’s anxiety began to return. What’s going on in Osaka? I miscalculated badly about the daimyos —who would accept and who would reject the summons. Why haven’t I heard? Am I betrayed? So many dangers around me…
   What about the Anjin-san? He’s falcon too. But he isn’t broken to the fist yet, as Yabu and Mariko claim. What’s his prey? His prey is the Black Ship and the Rodrigues-anjin and the ugly, arrogant little Captain-General who’s not long for this earth, and all the Black Robe priests and all the Stinking Hairy priests, all Portuguese and all Spaniards and Turkmen, whoever they are, and Islamers, whoever they are, not forgetting Omi and Yabu and Buntaro and Ishido and me.
   Toranaga turned over to get more comfortable and smiled to himself. But the Anjin-san’s not a long-winged falcon, a hawk of the lure, that you fly free above you to stoop at a particular quarry. He’s more like a short-winged hawk, a hawk of the fist, that you fly direct from the fist to kill anything that moves, say a goshawk that’ll take partridge or a hare three times her own weight, rats, cats, dogs, woodcock, starlings, rooks, overtaking them with fantastic short bursts of speed to kill with a single crush of her talons; the hawk that detests the hood and won’t accept it, just sits on your wrist, arrogant, dangerous, self-sufficient, pitiless, yellow-eyed, a fine friend and foul tempered if the mood’s on her.
   Yes, the Anjin-san’s a short-wing. Whom do I fly him at?
   Omi? Not yet.
   Yabu? Not yet.
   Buntaro?