Shogun (88 page)

“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 itashimashité.”

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.