Shogun (91 page)

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?

Why did the Anjin-san really go after Buntaro with pistols? Because of Mariko, of course. But have they pillowed? They’ve had plenty
of opportunity. I think yes. “Lavish” she said that first day. Good. Nothing wrong in their pillowing—Buntaro was believed dead—providing it’s a perpetual secret. But the Anjin-san was stupid to risk so much over another man’s woman. Aren’t there always a thousand other, free and unattached, equally pretty, equally small or big or fine or tight or highborn or whatever, without the hazard of belonging elsewhere? He acted like a stupid, jealous barbarian. Remember the Rodrigues-anjin? Didn’t he duel and kill another barbarian according to their custom, just to take a low-class merchant’s daughter that he then married in Nagasaki? Didn’t the Taikō let this murder go unavenged, against my advice, because it was only a barbarian death and not one of ours? Stupid to have two laws, one for us, one for them. There should be only one. There must be only one law.

No, I won’t fly the Anjin-san at Buntaro, I need that fool. But whether those two pillowed or not, I hope the thought never occurs to Buntaro. Then I would have to kill Buntaro quickly, for no force on earth would stop him from killing the Anjin-san and Mariko-san and I need them more than Buntaro. Should I eliminate Buntaro now?

The moment Buntaro had sobered up, Toranaga had sent for him. “How dare you put your interest in front of mine! How long will Mariko-san be unable to interpret?”

“The doctor said a few days, Sire. I apologize for all the trouble!”

“I made it very clear I needed her services for another twenty days. Don’t you remember?”

“Yes. I’m sorry.”

“If she’d displeased you, a few slaps on the buttocks would’ve been more than enough. All women need that from time to time, but more is loutish. You’ve selfishly jeopardized the training and acted like a bovine peasant. Without her I can’t talk to the Anjin-san!”

“Yes. I know, Lord, I’m sorry. It’s the first time I’ve hit her. It’s just—sometimes she drives me insane, so much that—that I can’t seem to see.”

“Why don’t you divorce her then? Or send her away? Or kill her, or order her to cut her throat when I’ve no further use for her?”

“I can’t. I can’t, Lord,” Buntaro had said. “She’s—I’ve wanted her from the first moment I saw her. When we were married, the first time, she was everything a man could want. I thought I was blessed—you remember how every
daimyo
in the realm wanted her! Then … then I sent her away to protect her after the filthy assassination, pretending to be disgusted with her for her safety, and then, when
the Taikō told me to bring her back years later, she excited me even more. The truth is I expected her to be grateful, and took her as a man will, and didn’t care about the little things a woman wants, like poems and flowers. But she’d changed. She was as faithful as ever, but just ice, always asking for death, for me to kill her.” Buntaro was frantic. “I can’t kill her or allow her to kill herself. She’s tainted my son and makes me detest other women but I can’t rid myself of her. I’ve … I’ve tried being kind but always the ice is there and it drives me mad. When I came back from Korea and heard she’d converted to this nonsense Christian religion I was amused, for what does any stupid religion matter? I was going to tease her about it but before I knew what was happening, I had my knife at her throat and swore I’d cut her if she didn’t renounce it. Of course she wouldn’t renounce it, what samurai would under such a threat,
neh?
She just looked up at me with those eyes of hers and told me to go on. ‘Please cut me, Lord,’ she said. ‘Here, let me hold my head back for you. I pray God I’ll bleed to death,’ she said. I didn’t cut her, Sire. I took her. But I did cut off the hair and ears of some of her ladies who had encouraged her to become Christian and turned them out of the castle. And I did the same to her foster mother, and cut off her nose as well, vile-tempered old hag! And then Mariko said, because … because I’d punished her ladies, the next time I came to her bed uninvited she’d commit seppuku, in any way she could, at once … in spite of her duty to you, in spite of her duty to the family, even in spite of the—the commandments of her Christian God!” Tears of rage were running down his cheeks unheeded. “I can’t kill her, much as I want to. I can’t kill Akechi Jinsai’s daughter, much as she deserves it….”

Toranaga had let Buntaro rant on until he was spent, then dismissed him, ordering him to stay totally away from Mariko until he considered what was to be done. He dispatched his own doctor to examine her. The report was favorable: bruises but no internal damage.

For his own safety, because he expected treachery and the sand of time was running out, Toranaga decided to increase the pressure on all of them. He ordered Mariko into Omi’s house with instructions to rest, to stay within the confines of the house and completely out of the Anjin-san’s way. Next he had summoned the Anjin-san and pretended irritation when it was clear they could hardly converse at all, dismissing him peremptorily. All training was intensified. Cadres were sent on forced marches. Naga was ordered to take the Anjin-san
along and walk him into the ground. But Naga didn’t walk the Anjin-san into the ground.

So he tried himself. He led a battalion eleven hours over the hills. The Anjin-san kept up, not with the front rank, but still he kept up. Back again at Anjiro, the Anjin-san said in his almost incomprehensible gibberish, hardly able to stand, “Toranaga-sama, I walk can. I guns training can. So sorry, no possibles two at same timings,
neh?”

Toranaga smiled now, lying under the overcast waiting for the rain, warmed by the game of breaking Blackthorne to the fist. He’s a short-wing all right. Mariko’s equally tough, equally intelligent, but more brilliant, and she’s got a ruthlessness that he’ll never have. She’s like a peregrine, like Tetsu-ko. The best. Why is it the female hawk, the falcon, is always bigger and faster and stronger than the male, always better than the male?

They’re all hawks—she, Buntaro, Yabu, Omi, Fujiko, Ochiba, Naga and all my sons and my daughters and women and vassals, and all my enemies—all hawks, or prey for hawks.

I must get Naga into position high over his quarry and let him stoop. Who should it be? Omi or Yabu?

What Naga had said about Yabu was true.

“So, Yabu-san, what have you decided?” he had asked, the second day.

“I’m not going to Osaka until you go, Sire. I’ve ordered all Izu mobilized.”

“Ishido will impeach you.”

“He’ll impeach you first, Sire, and if the Kwanto falls, Izu falls. I made a solemn bargain with you. I’m on your side. The Kasigi honor their bargains.”

“I’m equally honored to have you as an ally,” he had lied, pleased that Yabu had once more done what he had planned for him to do. The next day Yabu had assembled a host and asked him to review it and then, in front of all his men, knelt formally and offered himself as vassal.