Shogun (The Asian Saga Chronology) (57 page)

"We're preparing for war and you're no longer bound and you can drop a little honey here and bile there and those pile-infested dungmakers will eat themselves up!"  Hiro-matsu had said with a rush.  "Ah, Yoshi Toranaga-noh-Minowara, you're a man among men.  I'll eat my arse if you're not the wisest man in the land!"

Yes, it was a good plan, Toranaga thought, and they all played their parts well: Hiro-matsu, Kiri, and my lovely Sazuko.  And now they're locked up tight and they will stay that way or they will be allowed to leave.  I think they will never be allowed to leave.

I will be sorry to lose them.

He was leading the party unerringly, his pace fast but measured, the pace he hunted at, the pace he could keep up continuously for two days and one night if need be.  He still wore the traveling cloak and Kiri's kimono, but the skirts were hitched up out of the way, his military leggings incongruous.

They crossed another deserted street and headed down an alleyway.  He knew the alarm would soon reach Ishido and then the hunt would be on in earnest.  There's time enough, he told himself.

Yes, it was a good plan.  But I didn't anticipate the ambush.  That's cost me three days of safety.  Kiri was sure she could keep the deception a secret for at least three days.  But the secret's out now and I won't be able to slip aboard and out to sea.  Who was the ambush for?  Me or the pilot?  Of course the pilot.  But didn't the arrows bracket both litters?  Yes, but the archers were quite far away and it would be hard to see, and it would be wiser and safer to kill both, just in case.

Who ordered the attack, Kiyama or Onoshi? or the Portuguese? or the Christian Fathers?

Toranaga turned around to check the pilot.  He saw that he was not flagging, nor was the woman who walked beside him, though both were tired.  On the skyline he could see the vast squat bulk of the castle and the phallus of the donjon.  Tonight was the second time I've almost died there, he thought.  Is that castle really going to be my nemesis?  The Taikō told me often enough: 'While Osaka Castle lives my line will never die and you, Toranaga Minowara, your epitaph will be written on its walls.  Osaka will cause your death, my faithful vassal!'  And always the hissing, baiting laugh that set his soul on edge.

Does the Taikō live within Yaemon?  Whether he does or not, Yaemon is his legal heir.

With an effort Toranaga tore his eyes away from the castle and turned another corner and fled into a maze of alleys.  At length he stopped outside a battered gate.  A fish was etched into its timbers.  He knocked in code.  The door opened at once.  Instantly the ill-kempt samurai bowed.  "Sire?"

"Bring your men and follow me," Toranaga said and set off again.

"Gladly."  This samurai did not wear the Brown uniform kimono, only motley rags of a
ronin,
but he was one of the special elite secret troops that Toranaga had smuggled into Osaka against such an emergency.  Fifteen men, similarly clothed, and equally well armed, followed him and quickly fell into place as advance and rear guard, while another ran off to spread the alarm to other secret cadres.  Soon Toranaga had fifty troops with him.  Another hundred covered his flanks.  Another thousand would be ready at dawn should he need them.  He relaxed and slackened his pace, sensing that the pilot and the woman were tiring too fast.  He needed them strong.

Toranaga stood in the shadows of the warehouse and studied the galley and the wharf and the foreshore.  Yabu and a samurai were beside him.  The others had been left in a tight knot a hundred paces back down the alley.

A detachment of a hundred Grays waited near the gangway of the galley a few hundred paces away, across a wide expanse of beaten earth that precluded any surprise attack.  The galley itself was alongside, moored to stanchions fixed into the stone wharf that extended a hundred yards out into the sea.  The oars were shipped neatly, and he could see indistinctly many seamen and warriors on deck.

"Are they ours or theirs?" he asked quietly.

"It's too far to be sure," Yabu replied.

The tide was high.  Beyond the galley, night fishing boats were coming in and going out, lanterns serving as their riding and fishing lights.  North, along the shore, were rows of beached fishing craft of many sizes, tended by a few fishermen.  Five hundred paces south, alongside another stone wharf, was the Portuguese frigate, the
Santa Theresa.
  Under the light of flares, clusters of porters were busily loading barrels and bales.  Another large group of Grays lolled nearby.  This was usual because all Portuguese and all foreign ships in port were, by law, under perpetual surveillance.  It was only at Nagasaki that Portuguese shipping moved in and out freely.

If security could be tightened there, the safer we'd all sleep at night, Toranaga told himself.  Yes, but could we lock them up and still have trade with China in ever increasing amounts?  That's one trap the Southern Barbarians have us in from which there's no escape, not while the Christian
daimyos
dominate Kyushu and the priests are needed.  The best we can do is what the Taikō did.  Give the barbarians a little, pretend to take it away, try to bluff, knowing that without the China trade, life would be impossible.

"With your permission, Lord, I will attack at once," the samurai whispered.

"I advise against it," Yabu said.  "We don't know if our men are aboard.  And there could be a thousand men hidden all around here.  Those men"—he pointed at the Grays near the Portuguese ship—"those'll raise the alarm.  We could never take the ship and get it out to sea before they'd bottled us up.  We need ten times the men we've got now."

"General Lord Ishido will know soon," the samurai said.  "Then all Osaka'll be swarming with more hostiles than there are flies on a new battlefield.  I've a hundred and fifty men with those on our flanks.  That'll be enough."

"Not for safety.  Not if our sailors aren't ready on the oars.  Better to create a diversion, one that'd draw off the Grays—and any that are in hiding.  Those, too." Yabu pointed again at the men near the frigate.

"What kind of diversion?" Toranaga said.

"Fire the street."

"That's impossible!" the samurai protested, aghast.  Arson was a crime punishable by the public burning of all the family of the guilty person, of every generation of the family.  The penalty was the most severe by law because fire was the greatest hazard to any village or town or city in the Empire.  Wood and paper were their only building materials, except for tiles on some roofs.  Every home, every warehouse, every hovel, and every palace was a tinderbox.  "We can't fire the street!"

"What's more important," Yabu asked him, "the destruction of a few streets, or the death of our Master?"

"The fire'd spread, Yabu-san.  We can't burn Osaka.  There are a million people here—more."

"Is that your answer to my question?"

Ashen, the samurai turned to Toranaga.  "Sire, I'll do anything you ask.  Is that what you want me to do?"

Toranaga merely looked at Yabu.

The
daimyo
jerked his thumb contemptuously at the city.  "Two years ago half of it burned down and look at it now.  Five years ago was the Great Fire.  How many hundred thousand were lost then?  What does it matter?  They're only shopkeepers, merchants, craftsmen, and
eta.
  It's not as though Osaka's a village filled with peasants."

Toranaga had long since gauged the wind.  It was slight and would not fan the blaze.  Perhaps.  But a blaze could easily become a holocaust that would eat up all the city.  Except the castle.  Ah, if it would only consume the castle I wouldn't hesitate for a moment.

He turned on his heel and went back to the others.  "Mariko-san, take the pilot and our six samurai and go to the galley.  Pretend to be almost in panic.  Tell the Grays that there's been an ambush—by bandits or
ronin,
you're not sure which.  Tell them where it happened, that you were sent ahead urgently by the captain of our escorting Grays to get the Grays here to help, that the battle's still raging, that you think Kiritsubo's been killed or wounded—to please hurry.  If you're convincing, this will draw most of them off."

"I understand perfectly, Sire."

"Then, no matter what the Grays do, go on board with the pilot.  If our sailors are there and the ship's safe and secure, come back to the gangway and pretend to faint.  That's our signal.  Do it exactly at the head of the gangway."  Toranaga let his eyes rest on Blackthorne.  "Tell him what you're going to do, but not that you're going to faint."  He turned away to give orders to the rest of his men and special private instructions to the six samurai.

When Toranaga had finished, Yabu drew him aside.  "Why send the barbarian?  Wouldn't it be safer to leave him here?  Safer for you?"

"Safer for him, Yabu-san, but not for me.  He's a useful decoy."

"Firing the street would be even safer."

"Yes."  Toranaga thought that it was better to have Yabu on his side than on Ishido's.  I'm glad I did not make him jump off the tower yesterday.

"Sire?"

"Yes, Mariko-san?"

"I'm sorry, but the Anjin-san asks what happens if the ship's held by the enemy?"

"Tell him there's no need to go with you if he's not strong enough."

Blackthorne kept his temper when she told him what Toranaga had said.  "Tell Lord Toranaga that his plan is no good for you, that you should stay here.  If all's well I can signal."

"I can't do that, Anjin-san, that's not what our Master has ordered," Mariko told him firmly.  "Any plan he makes is bound to be very wise."

Blackthorne realized there was no point in arguing.  God curse their bloody-minded, muleheaded arrogance, he thought.  But, by the Lord God, what courage they've got!  The men and this woman.

He had watched her, standing at the ambush, in her hands the long killing sword that was almost as tall as herself, ready to fight to the death for Toranaga.  He had seen her use the sword once, expertly, and though Buntaro had killed the attacker, she had made it easier by forcing the man to back off.  There was still blood on her kimono now and it was torn in places and her face was dirty.

"Where did you learn to use a sword?" he had asked while they rushed for the docks.

"You should know that all samurai ladies are taught very early to use a knife to defend their honor and that of their lords," she had said matter-of-factly, and showed him how the stiletto was kept safe in the obi, ready for instant use.  "But some of us, a few, are also taught about sword and spear, Anjin-san.  Some fathers feel daughters as well as sons must be prepared to do battle for their lords.  Of course, some women are more warlike than others and enjoy going into battle with their husbands or fathers.  My mother was one of these.  My father and mother decided I should know the sword and the spear."

"If it hadn't been for the captain of the Grays being in the way, the first arrow would have gone right through you," he had said.

"Through you, Anjin-san," she corrected him, very sure.  "But you did save my life by pulling me to safety."

Now, looking at her, he knew that he would not like anything to happen to her.  "Let me go with the samurai, Mariko-san.  You stay here.  Please."

"That's not possible, Anjin-san."

"Then I want a knife.  Better, give me two."

She passed this request to Toranaga, who agreed.  Blackthorne slid one under the sash, inside his kimono.  The other he tied, haft downwards, to the inside of his forearm with a strip of silk he tore off the hem of his kimono.

"My Master asks do all Englishmen carry knives secretly in their sleeves like that?"

"No.  But most seamen do."

"That's not usual here—or with the Portuguese," she said.

"The best place for a spare knife's in your boot.  Then you can do wicked damage, very fast.  If need be."

She translated this and Blackthorne noticed the attentive eyes of Toranaga and Yabu, and he sensed that they did not like him armed.  Good, he thought.  Perhaps I can stay armed.

He wondered again about Toranaga.  After the ambush had been beaten off and the Grays killed, Toranaga had, through Mariko, thanked him before all the Browns for his "loyalty."  Nothing more, no promises, no agreements, no rewards.  But Blackthorne knew that those would come later.  The old monk had told him that loyalty was the only thing they rewarded.  'Loyalty and duty, señ or,' he had said. 'It is their cult, this
bushido.
  Where we give our lives to God and His Blessed Son Jesus, and Mary the Mother of God, these animals give themselves to their masters and die like dogs.  Remember, señor, for thy soul's sake, they're animals.'  They're not animals, Blackthorne thought.  And much of what you said, Father, is wrong and a fanatic's exaggeration.

He said to Mariko, "We need a signal—if the ship's safe or if it isn't."

Again she translated, innocently this time.  "Lord Toranaga says that one of our soldiers will do that."

"I don't consider it brave to send a woman to do a man's job."

"Please be patient with us, Anjin-san.  There's no difference between men and women.  Women are equal as samurai.  In this plan a woman would be so much better than a man."

Toranaga spoke to her shortly.

"Are you ready, Anjin-san?  We're to go now."

"The plan's rotten and dangerous and I'm tired of being a goddamned sacrificial plucked duck, but I'm ready."

She laughed, bowed once to Toranaga, and ran off.  Blackthorne and the six samurai raced after her.

She was very fleet and he did not catch up with her as they rounded the corner and headed across the open space.  He had never felt so naked.  The moment they appeared, the Grays spotted them and surged forward.  Soon they were surrounded, Mariko jabbering feverishly with the samurai and the Grays.  Then he too added to the babel in a panting mixture of Portuguese, English, and Dutch, motioning them to hurry, and groped for the gangway to lean against it, not needing to pretend that he was badly winded.  He tried to see inside the ship but could make out nothing distinctly, only many heads appearing at the gunwale.  He could see the shaven pates of many samurai and many seamen.  He could not discern the color of the kimonos.