1636: Seas of Fortune (50 page)

“I do not know the words to thank you, my lord.”

“Thank me through more fine deeds, Captain. And Captain—I think the time will come when we will need you to captain a warship, not a merchant ship. So learn what you can of such matters from our Dutch allies.”

“Last but not least, Mr. Tokubei.”

“Y-yes, my lord?”

“You go by the nickame ‘Tenjiku,’ do you not? Because you once visited the fabled land of India, where the Buddha was born?”

“Yes, Grand Governor.”

“Well then, I give you the right to use Tenjiku as your
kamei
.” The
kamei
was the house name, and only a samurai could have one. “You have a
wakizashi
already, but you must now have a katana. Now, where will we find one in this wild land of California?”

Masamune snapped his fingers. “Hosoya Yoritaki!”

The commander of the
Ieyasu Maru
’s samurai came to attention. “Sir!”

“My daughter Iroha-hime has requested that her husband’s katana be given to Daidoji Shigehisa, his lieutenant, and he in turn has asked me to offer his own long sword to you, in gratitude for your own role in the rescue of Iroha-hime and his party. Is that agreeable to you?”

“Of course, my lord,” said Yoritaki.

“And would you be willing to give your katana, in turn, to your comrade at arms Tenjiku Tokubei?”

Yoritaki nodded. “With great pride.” The exchanges had, of course, already been proposed and agreed to in private. The only one to whom it came as a suprise was Date Masamune’s newest samurai, Tenjiku Tokubei.

Spring 1635,

Kawa Machi/Salinas

It had become quite apparent to First-to-Dance that, despite initial impressions, the visitors were
not
her ancestral dead. They acted as if they were alive; eating, drinking, pissing, shitting, and fornicating. Her people had never been very clear as to exactly what happened in the Land of the Dead and she supposed that it was possible that the dead mimicked the living. But if that were the case, wouldn’t they also speak the language and preserve the dress and customs of the People?

The Japanese had made clear to her from their gestures that they came from across the sea. And she had seen their ships, floating in the water. Her own people weren’t seafarers; they built little rafts of
tule
, the marsh reeds, and they used them only in quiet waters. But she couldn’t deny the evidence of her own eyes; the Japanese had come over the Great Water. So she supposed that the Land of the Dead was simply farther away.

Even if the visitors were living folk, they were nonetheless very powerful. So powerful that she had sometimes wondered whether she would be better off joining their community than remaining with her own people. She had been quick to notice that there were more men than women among the Japanese. Well, that was something she didn’t have to decide right now. Especially since they were shooing her off. Date Masamune had decided that there was more to be gained by returning First-to-Dance to her people than by keeping her in Chiyo’s company. She was to be given presents and sent on her way.

First-to-Dance resolved that she would find her tribesmen and then, somehow, turn the arrival of the Japanese to her advantage . . .

* * *

The Ohlone
people did not live in just one place. Each tribelet, consisting of a couple hundred Indians, had a reasonably permanent winter settlement, and several summer camps. And every once in a while, they would decide that a particular site was unprofitable, or unlucky, and replace it with a new one.

Still, First-to-Dance had a fairly good idea of where her people would have gone after abandoning the coast to the Japanese.

When she strode into the clearing, conversation stopped abruptly. She understood why; to them she was one who had been touched by the spirits, and survived. The supernatural was now wreathed about her like the fog that waxed and waned along the California coast.

“You’re in big trouble,” she announced. “You have made them angry.”

“Who?” asked the chief, his voice quavering. “The Dead?”

First-to-Dance had already considered and rejected the idea of insisting that the Japanese were ancestral ghosts. Close and prolonged observation would reveal otherwise.

“Worse than that,” she said, her voice a stage whisper. “They are the Guardians of the Lands of the Dead. They are alive, but they have great power. They decide whether the dead are treated well or poorly in that land. And our people have failed to make any offerings to them, all these years. So they will punish us, unless . . .”

“Unless what?”

“Unless someone persuades them that we didn’t know any better, and are ready to make amends.”

“I will send our speaker to them.” The speaker was second-in-rank to the chief, and had served as an envoy to other Ohlone tribelets.

“But . . . Ah, well. He is already an old man, with few summers left to him. He has little to lose . . .”

“What do you mean by that?” asked the speaker, somewhat sharply.

“The Guardians are so very angry. They might kill our envoy. . . .”

The speaker’s wife gave the speaker a nudge. “Send her in your place. They have already let her live once.”

The speaker cleared his throat. “Since First-to-Dance has already, um, begun negotiations, perhaps it is best that she should continue . . .”

The chief grunted. “Where’s the shaman? Let’s find out what he thinks. . . .” The shaman’s nephew was sent to look for him, and the chief stalked into his hut. Hence, he didn’t see First-to-Dance run after the boy.

* * *

The chief frowned. He didn’t much like First-to-Dance. She had been married when she reached puberty to his uncle, and he was pretty sure she had cheated on him. She certainly hadn’t shown him the respect that he deserved. He had been a great warrior in his youth . . .

A high-pitched voice intruded on his thoughts. It was the boy he had sent out earlier that day. “The shaman has come.”

The chief emerged from his hut, and greeted the shaman. First-to-Dance stood a little behind him.

The shaman spoke up. “You will all recall that I spoke of a dream which foretold that this would happen.”

“I don’t remember . . .” said the chief, rather doubtfully.

“Oh, I do,” said First-to-Dance brightly. “We are fortunate to have so farseeing a medicine man.”

The chief had the feeling he was being conned. And that somehow, that little minx First-to-Dance had managed to form an alliance with his shaman. But he remembered how frightening the samurai on their horses seemed at the Time of Mourning. Even now, he wasn’t convinced that they were entirely human. Perhaps they
were
the Guardians of the Land of the Dead. And if not, well, First-to-Dance would regret that she had trifled with him.

“All right, First-to-Dance, tell us exactly what these Guardians want from us. . . .”

She did. And she also told them what they needed to do for her, so that she could properly serve as their speaker to the guardians.

Niji Masu (Watsonville)

Konishi Hyonai had been an important man in his village before he confessed to being a
kirishitan
. His grandfather had been a
ji-samurai
, who farmed in times of peace and fought in times of war. In 1591, then-Shogun Hideyoshi issued the Edict on Changing Status, which forced the “country samurai” to choose whether to forfeit samurai privileges and give up their weapons and other special privileges, or to become full-time retainers and live in castle towns. Hyonai’s grandfather was one of the many who decided to surrender the sword and pick up a hoe.

Still, his fellow villagers did not forget his former status, and at village gatherings he was always given the seat of honor. Naturally, he was chosen as the village headman, the
shoya
, the only villager who could legally present a petition to the daimyo’s district officer, the
daikan
. When he died, his son took his place, and in his turn, Hyonai did the same.

Since many of the farmers of Niji Masu came from his district, Hyonai found himself chosen as the headman of the new colony. And as headman, he found himself forced to deal with the farmers’ outrage when they were told that they would be planting vegetables, not rice, in the spring.

Hyonai walked slowly toward the quarters of Moniwa Motonori, Date Masamune’s
daikan
for Niji Masu. As he walked, he turned over in his mind the words that he must speak, polishing them until they were as smooth as the pebbles in the bed of a swift mountain stream.

* * *

“A thousand pardons for this intrusion on your time,
daikan
.”

“Ah, Hyonai. Your family is well?”

“Quite well.
Daikan
, the farmers of this village are very grateful that by the grace of our shogun, Lord Iemitsu, and his grand governor, Masamune of the Date, their miserable lives were spared, and they were permitted to practice the Christian religion in this new land.

“Honorable
daikan
, I am sure you are familiar with the age-old saying, ‘who can ever weary of moonlit nights and well-cooked rice?’ The moon rises and falls just as often as it did in the old country. But what of rice? We took rice across the Great Ocean with us, and we eat it when we are homesick. Every week, we have less of it than we did before. If we are not allowed to plant it here, then one day soon, we will run out. We did not mind planting wheat and barley last autumn, those are winter crops. But it is now spring, and if we cannot see the cherry trees blossom, or hear the skylark sing, then at least let us prepare the paddies and sow the uneaten rice. Until we eat rice that we have grown in this land, we cannot call it New Nippon, we cannot call it home.”

“Hyonai, I thank you for sharing your concerns with me. Our lord’s scholars knew about this land before we boarded a single ship. They told him that this would be a great place for growing vegetables, but that they were doubtful that rice would grow here. You must trust to their judgment.”

“Most worthy
daikan
, I have another saying to remind you of: ‘You will never behold the rising sun by looking toward the west.’ We will of course grow vegetables as the lord commands. Last month, we sowed maize and beans, and in summer, we will plant the sweet potatoes and the onions. But if we do not plant any rice, how will we know for sure that rice cannot grow here? Here in Niji Masu, it rains more than in Andoryu, but less than in the mountains that loom over Kodachi Machi. Walk around this land, and it is colder in some places, warmer in others. Perhaps we can find a good place for a rice paddy.”

* * *

Moniwa Motonori bowed respectfully to the grand governor’s chief advisor, Katakura Shigetsuna. The latter gestured for him to sit. Motonori gracefully knelt, folding his legs beneath him. He waited in silence for Shigetsuna to speak.

“My lord has instructed me to explain our agricultural policy to you, that you may better reassure the farmers under your jurisdiction that their petition has received a fair hearing.” Shigetsuna paused a moment to collect his thoughts. “As perhaps you know, by act of Heaven”—he declined to specify whether this was the Buddhist, Shinto or Christian Heaven—“a town of the future was brought into our world. This town, Grantville, was part of a great kingdom that stretched from this coast to the one far to our east. The town had books of great learning, called ‘encyclopedias,’ and several of these were delivered as gifts to the shogun. These books provided information on how hot and how rainy this land, which they call California, is. And they provided similar information for Japan. Even though we do not know how they measure ‘temperature’ and ‘precipitation,’ we can compare the numbers for California to those for Japan. It was clear that this ‘Monterey Bay’ that we have colonized is much drier than Japan, save for eastern Ezochi, and also has cooler summers.”

Motonori was no farmer, but he knew the rhythms of rural life, and understood the significance of these teachings. Rice was called “the child of Water.” If the land around Monterey Bay was dry, then it would have to be irrigated in order for a rice crop to be possible. But that wasn’t all. Even in Japan, the rice crop would fail if the summer was too cool. That was why there had been little effort to grow rice in Ezochi, the land of the Ainu.

“So, will rice become something that is just remembered and not eaten?”

“No, no,” said Shigetsuna. “At worst, we can pay for Japanese or Chinese rice with goods from New Nippon. But we know rice was grown in Grantville’s California, in the valleys of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers.”

“So why did we come to Monterey Bay?”

“Military considerations. The rice growing areas are well inland, we would have to deal with more Indian tribes. And those lands have gold, and thus will soon attract the Spanish.”

“Ah. I must bow in reverence to your superior knowledge of this land. However . . . I do know a bit about how our peasants think. . . . Could we perhaps authorize them to construct a small rice paddy? One near a river or marsh, so irrigating it is not a lot of work? ‘Experience is the best teacher.’”

The adviser snorted. “‘Experience is a comb which nature gives to men when they are bald,’” he quoted. “But I will pass on your suggestion.”

May 1635,

Kawa Machi/Salinas

“One should never ponder the purpose of an order,” said Hosoya Jinbei, “merely obey.” He was one of the older samurai in the settlement, and had once guarded Date Chiyo-Hime and her wet nurse. He had fought at Sekigahara.

Watari Yoshitsune, a samarai of the younger generation, scowled. “But this order . . . It is one thing to order us to attack an enemy, even if it means certain death. It is another to treat us as if we were commoners.” The samurai in Salinas had been ordered to help with the wheat harvest.

“Requiring us to help with the farming isn’t treating us as commoners.
Ji-samurai
did it, in the old days.”

“These are not the days of our grandfathers.”

“Happy are the samurai who have long been in service to a lord,” said Toshiro Kanesada. “In time of peace, they can study the classics and practice in the
dojo
. If you were a ronin, as I was until this voyage, you could have found yourself a bodyguard to a fat merchant, or worse. I have known ronin who worked as carpenters or plasterers, ronin who made lanterns and umbrellas. Even ronin who were merely bandits. A ronin would not be so quick to complain about fishing or farming . . . especially in a foreign land where one may be attacked at any time.”