Shogun (The Asian Saga Chronology) (135 page)

"But this is important, Mariko-chan.  I thought he understood every day's vital.  Isn't there some way I can get a message to him?"

"Oh yes, Anjin-san.  That's simple.  You just write.  If you tell me what you want to say I'll write it for you.  Everyone has to write for an interview, those are his present orders.  Please be patient, that's all we can do."

"Then please ask for an interview.  I'd appreciate it. . . ."

"That's no trouble, it's my pleasure."

"Where have you been?  It's four days since I saw you."

"Please excuse me but I've had to do so many things.  It's—it's a little difficult for me, so many preparations. . . ."

"What's going on? This whole castle's been like a hive about to swarm for almost a week now."

"Oh, so sorry. Everything's fine, Anjin-san."

"Is it?  So sorry, a general and a senior administrator commit seppuku in the donjon forecourt.  That's usual?  Lord Toranaga locks himself away in the ivory tower, keeping people waiting without apparent reason—that's also usual?  What about Lord Hiro-matsu?"

"Lord Toranaga is our lord.  Whatever he does is right."

"And you, Mariko-san?  Why haven't I seen you?"

"Please excuse me, so sorry, but Lord Toranaga ordered me to leave you to your studies.  I'm visiting your consort now, Anjin-san.  I'm not supposed to visit you."

"Why should he object to that?"

"Merely, I suppose, so that you are obliged to speak our tongue.  It's only been a few days,
neh?
"

"When are you leaving for Osaka?"

"I don't know.  I expected to go three days ago but Lord Toranaga hasn't signed my pass yet.  I've arranged everything—porters and horses—and daily I submit my travel papers to his secretary for signing, but they're always sent back.  'Submit them tomorrow.'"

"I thought I was going to take you to Osaka by sea.  Didn't he say I was to take you by sea?"

"Yes.  Yes, he did, but—well, Anjin-san, you never know with our liege Lord.  He changes plans."

"Has he always been like that?"

"Yes and no.  Since Yokosé he's been filled with—how do you say it—melancholy,
neh?
—yes, melancholy, and very different.  He—yes, he's different now."

"Since First Bridge you've been filled with melancholy and very different.  Yes, you're different now."

"First Bridge was an end and a beginning, Anjin-san, and our promise. 
Neh?
"

"Yes.  Please excuse me."

She had bowed sadly and left, and then, once safely away, not turning back, she had whispered, "Thou . . ."  The word lingered in the corridor with her perfume.

At the evening meal he had tried to question Fujiko.  But she also knew nothing of importance or would not, or could not, explain what was amiss at the castle.

"
Dozo gomen nasai,
Anjin-san."

He went to bed seething.  Seething with frustration over the delays, and the nights without Mariko.  It was always bad knowing she was so near, that Buntaro was gone from the city, and now, because of the "Thou . . ." that her desire was still as intense as his.  A few days ago he had gone to her house on the pretext that he needed help with Japanese.  The samurai guard had told him, so sorry, she was not at home.  He had thanked them, then wandered listlessly to the main south gate.  He could see the ocean.  Because the land was so flat, he could see nothing of the wharves or docks though he thought he could distinguish the tall masts of his ship in the distance.

The ocean beckoned him.  It was the horizon more than the deep, the need for a fair wind washing him, eyes squinting against its strength, tongue tasting its salt, the deck heeled over, and aloft the spars and rigging and halyards creaking and groaning under the press of sails that, from time to time, would cackle with glee as the stalwart breeze shifted a point or two.

And it was freedom more than the horizon.  Freedom to go to any quarter in any weather at any whim.  To stand on his quarterdeck and to be
arbiter
, as here Toranaga alone was
arbiter
.

Blackthorne looked up at the topmost part of the donjon.  Sun glinted off its shapely tiled curves.  He had never seen movement there, though he knew that every window below the topmost floor was guarded.

Gongs sounded the hour change.  For the first time his mind told him this was the middle of the Hour of the Horse, and not eight bells of this watch—high noon.

He put his dictionary into his sleeve, glad that it was time for the first real meal.

Today it was rice and quick-broiled prawns and fish soup and pickled vegetables.

"Would you like some more, Anjin-san?"

"Thank you, Fujiko.  Yes.  Rice, please.  And some fish.  Good—very . . ."  He looked up the word for "delicious" and said it several times to memorize it.  "Yes, delicious,
neh?
"

Fujiko was pleased.  "Thank you.  This fish from north.  Water colder north, understand?  Its name is
'kurima-ebi.
' "

He repeated the name and put it into his memory.  When he had finished and their trays were taken away, she poured more cha and took a package out of her sleeve.

"Here money, Anjin-san."  She showed him the gold coins.  "Fifty koban.  Worth one hundred fifty koku.  You want it,
neh?
  For sailors.  Please excuse me, do you understand?"

"Yes, thank you."

"You're welcome.  Enough?"

"Yes.  Think so.  Where get?"

"Toranaga-sama's chief . . ."  Fujiko sought a simple way to say it.  "I go important Toranaga man.  Headman.  Like Mura,
neh?
  Not samurai—only moneyman.  Sign my name for you."

"Ah, understand.  Thank you.  My money?  My koku?"

"Oh, yes."

"This house.  Food.  Servants.  Who pay?"

"Oh, I pay.  From your—from koku one year."

"Is that enough, please?  Enough koku?"

"Oh, yes.  Yes, I believe so," she said.

"Why worry?  Worry in face?"

"Oh, please excuse me, Anjin-san.  I'm not worried.  No worry . . ."

"Pain?  Burn pain?"

"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.