Shogun (133 page)

“No pain. See.” Fujiko carefully got off the thick cushions he insisted she use. She knelt directly onto the tatamis with no sign of discomfort, then sat back on her heels and settled herself. “There, all better.”

“Eeeee, very good,” he said, pleased for her. “Show, eh?”

She got up carefully and lifted the hem of her skirts and allowed him to look at the backs of her legs. The scar tissue had not split and there were no suppurations. “Very good,” he said. “Yes, soon like baby skin,
neh?”

“Thank you, yes. Soft. Thank you, Anjin-san.”

He noticed the slight change in her voice but did not comment. That night he did not dismiss her.

The pillowing was satisfactory. No more. For him there was no afterglow, no joyous lassitude. It was just a mating. So wrong, he thought, yet not wrong,
neh?

Before she left him she knelt and bowed again to him and put her hands on his forehead. “I thank you with all my heart. Please sleep now, Anjin-san.”

“Thank you, Fujiko-san. I sleep later.”

“Please sleep now. It is my duty and would give me great pleasure.”

The touch of her hand was warm and dry and not pleasing. Nonetheless he pretended to sleep. She caressed him ineptly though with great patience. Then, quietly, she went back to her own room. Now alone again, glad to be alone, Blackthorne propped his head on his arms and looked up into the darkness.

He had decided about Fujiko during the journey from Yokosé to Yedo. “It is your duty,” Mariko had told him, lying in his arms.

“I think that’d be a mistake,
neh?
If she gets with child, well, it’ll take me four years to sail home and come back again and, in that time, God knows what could happen.” He remembered how Mariko had trembled then.

“Oh, Anjin-san, that is very much time.”

“Three then. But you’ll be aboard with me. I’ll take you back with—”

“Thy promise, my darling! Nothing that is,
neh?”

“Thou art right. Yes. But with Fujiko, so many bad things could happen. I don’t think she would want my child.”

“You do not know that. I do not understand you, Anjin-san.
It is your duty
. She could always prevent a child,
neh?
Don’t forget, she
is
your consort. In truth, you take away her face if you don’t invite her to the pillow. After all, Toranaga himself ordered her into your house.”

“Why did he do that?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. He ordered it, therefore it is the best for you and best for her. It has been good,
neh?
She’s done her duty as best she can,
neh?
Please excuse me, but don’t you think you should do yours?”

“Enough of your lectures! Love me and do not talk anymore.”

“How should I love thee? Ah, like Kiku-san told me today?”

“How is that?”

“Like this.”

“That is very good—so very good.”

“Oh, I forgot, please light the lamp, Anjin-san. I have something to show thee.”

“Later, now I—”

“Oh, please excuse me, it should be now. I bought it for you. It’s a pillow book. The pictures are very funny.”

“I don’t want to look at a pillow book now.”

“But, so sorry, Anjin-san, perhaps one of the pictures would excite you. How can you learn about pillowing without a pillow book?”

“I’m excited already.”

“But Kiku-san said it’s a very first best way of choosing positions. There are forty-seven. Some of them look astonishing and very difficult, but she said it was important to try all…. Why do you laugh?”

“You’re laughing—why shouldn’t I laugh too?”

“But I was laughing because you were chuckling and I felt your
stomach shaking and you won’t let me up. Please let me up. Anjin-san!”

“Ah, but you can’t be cross, Mariko my darling. There’s no woman in the world who can be really even a little cross like this….”

“But Anjin-san, please, you must let me up. I want to show you.”

“All right. If that—”

“Oh, no, Anjin-san, I didn’t want—you mustn’t—can’t you just reach out—please not yet—oh, please don’t leave me—oh, how I love thee like this….”

Blackthorne remembered that loving. Mariko excited him more than Kiku had, and Fujiko was nothing compared to either. And Felicity?

Ah, Felicity, he thought, focusing on his great problem. I must be mad to love Mariko, and Kiku. And yet … the truth about Felicity is that now she can’t compare even with Fujiko. Fujiko was clean. Poor Felicity. I’ll never be able to tell her, but the memory of her and me rutting like a pair of stoats in the hay or under rancid covers makes my skin crawl now. Now I know better. Now I could teach her but would she wish to learn? And how could we ever get clean and stay clean and live clean?

Home is filth piled on filth, but that’s where my wife is and where my children are and where I belong.

“Don’t think about
that
home, Anjin-san,” Mariko had once said when the dark mists were on him. “Real home is here—the other’s ten million times ten million sticks away. Here is reality. You’ll send yourself mad if you try to get
wa
out of such impossibilities. Listen, if you want peace you must learn to drink cha from an empty cup.”

She had shown him how. “You
think
reality into the cup, you think the cha there—the warm, pale-green drink of the gods. If you concentrate hard…. Oh, a Zen teacher could show you, Anjin-san. It is most difficult but so easy. How I wish I was clever enough to show it to you, for then all things in the world can be yours for the asking … even the most unobtainable gift—perfect tranquillity.”

He had tried many times, but he could never sip the drink when it wasn’t there.

“Never mind, Anjin-san. It takes such a long time to learn but you will, sometime.”

“Can you?”

“Rarely. Only in moments of great sadness or loneliness. But the taste of the unreal cha seems to give a meaning to life. It is hard to
explain. I’ve done it once or twice. Sometimes you gain
wa
just by trying.”

Now, lying in the dark of the castle, sleep so far away, he lit the candle with the flint and concentrated on the little porcelain cup that Mariko had given him which now he always kept beside his bed. For an hour he tried. But he could not purify his mind. Inevitably the same thoughts kept chasing each other: I want to leave, I want to stay. I’m afraid of going back, I’m afraid to remain. I hate both and want both. And then there are the “
eters.”

If it was up to me alone I wouldn’t leave, not yet. But others are involved and they’re not eters and I signed on as Pilot:
‘By the Lord God I promise to take the fleet out and through the Grace of God bring her home again.’
I want Mariko. I want to see the land Toranaga’s given me and I need to stay here, to enjoy the fruit of my great luck for just a little longer. Yes. But also duty’s involved and that transcends everything,
neh?

With the dawn Blackthorne knew that though he pretended he had put off the decision again, in reality, he had decided. Irrevocably.

God help me, first and last I’m Pilot.

Toranaga uncurled the tiny slip of paper that arrived two hours after dawn. The message from his mother said simply: “Your brother agrees, my son. His letter of confirmation will leave today by hand. The state visit of Lord Sudara and his family must begin within ten days.”

Toranaga sat down weakly. The pigeons fluttered in their roosts then settled back once more. Morning sun filtered into the loft pleasingly though rain clouds were building. Gathering his strength, he hurried down the steps into his quarters below to begin.

“Naga-san!”

“Yes, Father?”

“Send Hiro-matsu-san here. After him, my secretary.”

“Yes, Father.”

The old general came quickly. His joints were creaking from the climb and he bowed low, his sword loose in his hands as ever, his face fiercer than ever, older than ever, and even more resolute.

“You’re welcome, old friend.”

“Thank you, Lord.” Hiro-matsu looked up. “I’m saddened to see the cares of the world are in your face.”

“And I’m saddened to see and hear so much treason.”

“Yes. Treason is a terrible thing.”

Toranaga saw the firm old eyes measuring him. “You can speak freely.”

“Have you ever known me not to, Sire?” The old man was grave.

“Please excuse me for keeping you waiting.”

“Please excuse me for troubling you. What is your pleasure, Sire? Please give me your decision about the future of your house. Is it finally Osaka—bending to that manure pile?”

“Have you ever known me to make a final decision about anything?”

Hiro-matsu frowned, then thoughtfully straightened his back to ease the ache in his shoulders. “I’ve always known you to be patient and decisive and you’ve always won. That’s why I can’t understand you now. It’s not like you to give up.”

“Isn’t the realm more important than
my
future?”

“No.”

“Ishido and the other Regents are still legal rulers according to the Taikō’s will.”

“I am the vassal of Yoshi Toranaga-noh-Minowara and I acknowledge no one else.”

“Good. The day after tomorrow is my chosen day to leave for Osaka.”

“Yes. I’ve heard that.”

“You’ll be in command of the escort, Buntaro second-in-command.”

The old general sighed. “I know that too, Sire. But since I’ve been back, Sire, I’ve talked to your senior advisers and gener—”

“Yes. I know. And what is their opinion?”

“That you should not leave Yedo. That your orders should be temporarily overruled.”

“By whom?”

“By me. By my orders.”

“That’s what they wish? Or that is what you’ve decided?”

Hiro-matsu put his sword on the floor nearer to Toranaga and, now defenseless, looked directly at him. “Please excuse me, Sire, I wish to ask you what I should do. My duty seems to tell me I should take command and prevent your leaving. This will at once force Ishido to come against us. Yes, of course we will lose, but that seems to be the only honorable way.”

“But stupid,
neh?”

The general’s iron-gray brows knotted. “No. We die in battle, with
honor. We regain
wa
. The Kwanto is a spoil of war, but we’ll not see the new master in this life.
Shigata ga nai.”

“I’ve never enjoyed expending men uselessly. I’ve never lost a battle and see no reason why I should begin now.”

“Losing one battle is no dishonor, Sire. Is surrender honorable?”

“You are all agreed in this treason?”

“Sire, please excuse me, I asked individuals for a military opinion only. There’s no treason or plot.”

“You still listened to treason.”

“Please excuse me, but if I agree, as your commander-in-chief, then it no longer becomes treason but legal state policy.”

“Taking decisions away from your liege lord is treason.”

“Sire, there are too many precedents for deposing a lord. You’ve done it, Goroda did it, the Taikō—we’ve all done that and worse. A victor never commits treason.”

“You’ve decided to depose me?”

“I ask for your help in the decision.”

“You’re the one person I thought I could trust!”

“By all gods I only wish to be your most devoted vassal. I’m only a soldier. I wish to do my duty to you. I think only of you. I merit your trust. If it will help, take my head. If it will convince you to fight, I gladly give you my life, my clan’s life blood, today—in public or private or whatever way you wish—isn’t that what our friend General Kiyoshio did? I’m sorry but I do not understand why I should permit you to throw away a lifetime of effort.”

“Then you refuse to obey my orders to head the escort that will leave for Osaka the day after tomorrow?”

A cloud passed over the sun and both men looked out of the windows. “It’ll rain again soon,” Toranaga said.

“Yes. There’s been too much rain this year,
neh?
The rains must stop soon or the harvest’ll be ruined.”

They looked at each other.

“Well?”

Iron Fist said simply, “I formally ask you, Sire, do you order me to escort you from Yedo, the day after tomorrow, to begin the trek to Osaka?”

“As there seems to be advice from all my counselors to the contrary, I’ll accept their opinion, and yours, and delay my departure.”

Hiro-matsu was totally unprepared for this. “Eh? You won’t be leaving?”

Toranaga laughed, the mask fell off, and he was the old Toranaga again. “I never intended to go to Osaka. Why should I be so stupid?”

“What?”

“My agreement at Yokosé was nothing more than a trick to gain time,” Toranaga said affably. “Ishido took the bait. The fool expects me in Osaka within a few weeks. Zataki also took that bait. And you and all my valiant, untrusting vassals also took the bait. With no real concession whatsoever I’ve gained a month, put Ishido and his filthy allies in turmoil. I hear they’re already scrambling for the Kwanto. Kiyama’s been promised it as well as Zataki.”

“You never intended to go?” Hiro-matsu shook his head, then as the clarity of the idea suddenly hit him, his face broke into a delighted grin. “It’s all a ruse?”

“Of course. Listen, everyone had to be taken in,
neh?
Zataki, everyone, even you! Or spies would have told Ishido and he would have moved against us at once and no good fortune on earth or gods in heaven could have prevented disaster to me.”

“That’s true … ah, Lord, forgive me. I’m so stupid. I deserve to lose my head! So it was all nonsense, always nonsense. But … but what about General Kiyoshio?”

“He said he was guilty of treason. I don’t need treasonous generals, only obedient vassals.”

“But why attack Lord Sudara? Why withdraw your favor from him?”

“Because it pleases me to do so,” Toranaga said harshly.

“Yes. Please excuse me. That’s your sole privilege. I beg you to forgive me for doubting you.”

“Why should I forgive you for being you, old friend? I needed you to do what you did and say what you said. Now I need you more than ever. I must have someone I can trust. That’s why I’m taking you into my confidence. This has got to be secret between us.”