Shogun (The Asian Saga Chronology) (23 page)

While she watched Suisen critically, gauging her skill, she told Omi stories to make him laugh and forget the world outside.  The young girl knelt beside Omi, tidied the small bowls and chopsticks on the lacquer tray into a pleasing pattern as she had been taught.  Then she picked up the empty saké flask, poured to make sure it was empty—it would have been very bad manners to have shaken the flask—then got up with the tray, noiselessly carried it to the shoji door, knelt, put the tray down, opened the shoji, got up, stepped through the door, knelt again, lifted the tray out, put it down again as noiselessly, and closed the door completely.

"I'll really have to get another maid," Kiku said, not displeased.  That color suits her, she was thinking.  I must send to Yedo for some more of that silk.  What a shame it's so expensive!  Never mind, with all the money Gyoko-san was given for last night and tonight, there will be more than enough from my share to buy little Suisen twenty kimonos.  She's such a sweet child, and really very graceful.  "She makes so much noise—it disturbs the whole room—so sorry."

"I didn't notice her.  Only you," Omi said, finishing his wine.

Kiku fluttered her fan, her smile lighting her face.  "You make me feel very good, Omi-san.  Yes.  And beloved."

Suisen brought the saké quickly.  And the cha.  Her mistress poured Omi some wine and gave it to him.  The young girl unobtrusively filled the cups.  She did not spill a drop and she thought the sound that the liquid made going into the cup had the right quiet kind of ring to it, so she sighed inwardly with vast relief, sat back on her heels, and waited.

Kiku was telling an amusing story that she had heard from one of her friends in Mishima and Omi was laughing.  As she did so, she took one of the small oranges and, using her long fingernails, opened it as though it were a flower, the sections of the fruit the petals, the divisions of the skin its leaves.  She removed a fleck of pith and offered it with both hands as if this were the usual way a lady would serve the fruit to her guest.

"Would you like an orange, Omi-san?"

Omi's first reaction was to say, I can't destroy such beauty.  But that would be inept, he thought, dazzled by her artistry.  How can I compliment her, and her unnamed teacher?  How can I return the happiness that she has given me, letting me watch her fingers create something so precious yet so ephemeral?

He held the flower in his hands for a moment then nimbly removed four sections, equidistant from each other, and ate them with enjoyment.  This left a new flower.  He removed four more sections, creating a third floral design.  Next he took one section, and moved a second so that the remaining three made still another blossom.

Then he took two sections and replaced the last in the orange cradle, in the center on its side, as though a crescent moon within a sun.

He ate one very slowly.  When he had finished, he put the other in the center of his hand and offered it.  "This you must have because it is the second to last.  This is my gift to you."

Suisen could hardly breathe.  What was the last one for?

Kiku took the fruit and ate it.  It was the best she had ever tasted.

"This, the last one," Omi said, putting the whole flower gravely into the palm of his right hand, "this is my gift to the gods, whoever they are, wherever they are.  I will never eat this fruit again, unless it is from your hands."

"That is too much, Omi-sama," Kiku said.  "I release you from your vow!  That was said under the influence of the
kami
who lives in all saké bottles!"

"I refuse to be released."

They were very happy together.

"Suisen," she said.  "Now leave us.  And please, child, please try to do it with grace."

"Yes, Mistress."  The young girl went into the next room and checked that the futons were meticulous, the love instruments and pleasure beads near at hand, and the flowers perfect.  An imperceptible crease was smoothed from the already smooth cover.  Then, satisfied, Suisen sat down, sighed with relief, fanned the heat out of her face with her lilac fan, and contentedly waited.

In the next room, which was the finest of all the rooms in the tea house, the only one with a garden of its own, Kiku picked up the long-handled samisen.  It was three-stringed, guitarlike, and Kiku's first soaring chord filled the room.  Then she began to sing.  At first soft, then trilling, soft again then louder, softer and sighing sweetly, ever sweetly, she sang of love and unrequited love and happiness and sadness.

"Mistress?" The whisper would not have awakened the lightest sleeper but Suisen knew that her mistress preferred not to sleep after the Clouds and the Rain, however strong.  She preferred to rest, half awake, in tranquillity.

"Yes, Sui-chan?"  Kiku whispered as quietly, using "chan" as one would to a favorite child.

"Omi-san's wife has returned.  Her palanquin has just gone up the path to his house."

Kiku glanced at Omi.  His neck rested comfortably on the padded wooden pillow, arms interlocked.  His body was strong and unmarked, his skin firm and golden, a sheen there.  She caressed him gently, enough to make the touch enter his dream but not enough to awaken him.  Then she slid from under the quilt, gathering her kimonos around herself.

It took Kiku very little time to renew her makeup as Suisen combed and brushed her hair and retied it into the shimoda style.  Then mistress and maid walked noiselessly along the corridor, out onto the veranda, through the garden to the square.  Boats, like fireflies, plied from the barbarian ship to the jetty where seven of the cannon still remained to be loaded.  It was still deep night, long before dawn.

The two women slipped along the narrow alley between a cluster of houses and began to climb the path.

Sweat-stained and exhausted bearers were collecting their strength around the palanquin on the hilltop outside Omi's house.  Kiku did not knock on the garden door.  Candles were lit in the house and servants were hurrying to and fro.  She motioned to Suisen, who immediately went to the veranda near the front door, knocked, and waited.  In a moment the door opened.  The maid nodded and vanished.  Another moment and the maid returned and beckoned Kiku and bowed low as she swept past.  Another maid scurried ahead and opened the shoji of the best room.

Omi's mother's bed was unslept in.  She was sitting, rigidly erect, near the small alcove that held the flower arrangement.  A small window shoji was open to the garden.  Midori, Omi's wife, was opposite her.

Kiku knelt.  Is it only a night ago—that I was here and terrified on the Night of the Screams?  She bowed, first to Omi's mother, then to his wife, feeling the tension between the two women and she asked herself, Why is it there is always such violence between mother-in law and daughter-in-law?  Doesn't daughter-in-law, in time, become mother-in-law?  Why does she then always treat her own daughter-in-law to a lashing tongue and make her life a misery, and why does that girl do the same in her turn?  Doesn't anyone learn?

"I'm sorry to disturb you, Mistress-san."

"You're very welcome, Kiku-san," the old woman replied.  "There's no trouble, I hope?"

"Oh, no, but I didn't know whether or not you'd want me to awaken your son," she said to her, already knowing the answer.  "I thought I'd better ask you, as you, Midori-san"—she turned and smiled and bowed slightly to Midori, liking her greatly—"as you had returned."

The old woman said, "You're very kind, Kiku-san, and very thoughtful.  No, leave him in peace."

"Very well.  Please excuse me, disturbing you like this, but I thought it best to ask.  Midori-san, I hope your journey was not too bad."

"So sorry, it was awful," Midori said.  "I'm glad to be back and hated being away.  Is my husband well?"

"Yes, very well.  He laughed a lot this evening and seemed to be happy.  He ate and drank sparingly and he's sleeping soundly."

"The Mistress-san was beginning to tell me some of the terrible things that happened while I was away and—"

"You shouldn't have gone.  You were needed here," the old woman interrupted, venom in her voice.  "Or perhaps not.  Perhaps you should have stayed away permanently.  Perhaps you brought a bad
kami
into our house along with your bed linen."

"I'd never do that, Mistress-san," Midori said patiently.  "Please believe I would rather kill myself than bring the slightest stain to your good name.  Please forgive my being away and my faults.  I'm sorry."

"Since that devil ship came here we've had nothing but trouble.  That's bad
kami.
  Very bad.  And where were you when you were needed?  Gossiping in Mishima, stuffing yourself and drinking saké."

"My father died, Mistress-san.  The day before I arrived."

"Huh, you haven't even got the courtesy or the foresight to be at your own father's deathbed.  The sooner you permanently leave our house, the better for all of us.  I want some cha.  We have a guest here and you haven't even remembered your manners enough to offer her refreshment!"

"It was ordered, instantly, the moment she—"

"It hasn't arrived instantly!"

The shoji opened.  A maid nervously brought cha and some sweet cakes.  First Midori served the old woman, who cursed the maid roundly and chomped toothlessly on a cake, slurping her drink.  "You must excuse the maid, Kiku-san," the old woman said.  "The cha's tasteless.  Tasteless!  And scalding.  I suppose that's only to be expected in this house."

"Here, please have mine."  Midori blew gently on the tea to cool it.

The old woman took it grudgingly.  "Why can't it be correct the first time?"  She lapsed into sullen silence.

"What do you think about all this?" Midori asked Kiku.  "The ship and Yabu-sama and Toda Hiro-matsu-sama?"

"I don't know what to think.  As to the barbarians, who knows?  They're certainly an extraordinary collection of men.  And the great
daimyo,
Iron Fist?  It's very curious that he arrived almost the same time as Lord Yabu,
neh?
  Well, you must excuse me, no, please, I can see myself out."

"Oh, no, Kiku-san, I wouldn't hear of it."

"There, you see, Midori-san," the old woman interrupted impatiently.  "Our guest's uncomfortable and the cha awful."

"Oh, the cha was sufficient for me, Mistress-san, really.  No, if you'll excuse me, I am a little tired.  Perhaps before I go tomorrow, I may be allowed to come to see you.  It's always such a pleasure to talk with you."

The old woman allowed herself to be cajoled and Kiku followed Midori onto the veranda and into the garden.

"Kiku-san, you're so thoughtful," Midori said, holding her arm, warmed by her beauty.  "It was very kind of you, thank you."

Kiku glanced back at the house momentarily, and shivered.  "Is she always like that?"

"Tonight she was polite, compared to some times.  If it wasn't for Omi and my son I swear I'd shake her dust off my feet, shave my head, and become a nun.  But I have Omi and my son and that makes up for everything.  I only thank all
kami
for that.  Fortunately Mistress-san prefers Yedo and can't stay away from there for very long."  Midori smiled sadly.  "You train yourself not to listen, you know how it is."  She sighed, so beautiful in the moonlight.  "But that's unimportant.  Tell me what's happened since I left."

This was why Kiku had come to the house so urgently, for obviously neither the mother nor the wife would wish Omi's sleep disturbed.  She came to tell the lovely Lady Midori everything, so she could help to guard Kasigi Omi as she herself would try to guard him.  She told her all that she knew except what had happened in the room with Yabu.  She added the rumors she had heard and the stories the other girls had passed on to her or invented.  And everything that Omi had told her—his hopes and fears and plans—everything about him, except what had happened in the room tonight.  She knew that this was not important to his wife.

"I'm afraid, Kiku-san, afraid for my husband."

"Everything he advised was wise, Lady.  I think everything he did was correct.  Lord Yabu doesn't reward anyone lightly and three thousand koku is a worthy increase."

"But the ship's Lord Toranaga's now, and all that money."

"Yes, but for Yabu-sama to offer the ship as a gift was an idea of genius.  Omi-san gave the idea to Yabu—surely this itself is payment enough,
neh?
  Omi-san must be recognized as a preeminent vassal."  Kiku twisted the truth just a trifle, knowing that Omi was in great danger, and all his house.  What is to be will be, she reminded herself.  But it does no harm to ease the brow of a nice woman.

"Yes, I can see that," Midori said.  Let it be the truth, she prayed.  Please let it be the truth.  She embraced the girl, her eyes filling with tears.  "Thank you.  You're so kind, Kiku-san, so kind."  She was seventeen.

CHAPTER 8

"What do you think, Ingeles?"

"I think there'll be a storm."

"When?"

"Before sunset."

It was near noon and they were standing on the quarterdeck of the galley under a gray overcast.  This was the second day out to sea.

"If this was your ship, what would you do?"

"How far is it to our landfall?" Blackthorne asked.

"After sunset."

"How far to the nearest land?"

"Four or five hours, Ingeles.  But to run for cover will cost us half a day and I can't afford that.  What would you do?"

Blackthorne thought a moment.  During the first night the galley had sped southward down the east coast of the Izu peninsula, helped by the large sail on the midships mast.  When they had come abreast of the southmost cape, Cape Ito, Rodrigues had set the course West South West and had left the safety of the coast for the open sea, heading for a landfall at Cape Shinto two hundred miles away.

"Normally in one of these galleys we'd hug the coast—for safety," Rodrigues had said, "but that'd take too much time and time is important.  Toranaga asked me to pilot Toady to Anjiro and back.  Quickly.  There's a bonus for me if we're very quick.  One of their pilots'd be just as good on a short haul like this, but the poor son of a whored be frightened to death carrying so important a
daimyo
as Toady, particularly out of sight of land.  They're not oceaners, Japmen.  Great pirates and fighters and coastal sailors.  But the deep frightens them.  The old Taikō even made a law that the few ocean ships Japmen possess were always to have Portuguese pilots aboard.  It's still the law of their land today."