Shogun (The Asian Saga Chronology) (83 page)

"Yes, but it wasn't your maid."  He bit back his anger.  "But leave it as thou desirest."

"It was my maid, Anjin-san," she said placatingly.  "We anointed her with my perfume and instructed her:  no words, only touch.  We never thought for a moment thou wouldst consider her to be me!  This was not to trick thee but for thine ease, knowing that discussing things of the pillow still embarrasses thee."  She was looking at him with wide, innocent eyes.  "She pleasured thee, Anjin-san?  Thou pleasured her."

"A joke concerning things of great importance is sometimes without humor."

"Things of great import will always be treated with great import.  But a maid in the night with a man is without import."

"I do not consider thee without import."

"I thank thee.  I say that equally.  But a maid in the night with a man is private and without import.  It is a gift from her to him and, sometimes, from him to her.  Nothing more."

"Never?"

"Sometimes.  But this private pillow matter does not have this vast seriousness of thine."

"Never?"

"Only when the woman and man join together against the law.  In
this
land."

He reined in, finally comprehending the reason for her denial.  "I apologize," he said.  "Yes, thou art right and I most very wrong.  I should never have spoken.  I apologize."

"Why apologize?  For what?  Tell me, Anjin-san, was this girl wearing a crucifix?"

"No.

"I always wear it.  Always."

"A crucifix can be taken off," he said automatically in Portuguese.  "That proves nothing.  It could be loaned, like a perfume."

"Tell me a last truth:  Did you really see the girl?  Really
see
her?"

"Of course.  Please let us forget I ever—"

"The night was very dark, the moon overcast.  Please, the truth, Anjin-san. Think!  Did you really see the girl?"

Of course I saw her, he thought indignantly.

God damn it, think truly.  You didn't
see
her.  Your head was fogged.  She could have been the maid but you knew it was Mariko because you wanted Mariko and saw only Mariko in your head, believing that Mariko would want you equally.  You're a fool.  A God damned fool.

"In truth, no.  In truth I should really apologize," he said.  "How do I apologize?"

"There's no need to apologize, Anjin-san," she replied calmly.  "I've told you many times a man never apologizes, even when he's wrong.  You were not wrong."  Her eyes teased him now.  "My maid needs no apology."

"Thank you," he said, laughing.  "You make me feel less of a fool."

"The years flee from you when you laugh.  The so-serious Anjin-san becomes a boy again."

"My father told me I was born old."

"Were you?"

"He thought so."

"What's he like?"

"He was a fine man.  A shipowner, a captain.  The Spanish killed him at a place called Antwerp when they put that city to the sword.  They burned his ship.  I was six, but I remember him as a big, tall, good-natured man with golden hair.  My older brother, Arthur, he was just eight—We had bad times then, Mariko-san."

"Why?  Please tell me.  Please!"

"It's all very ordinary.  Every penny of money was tied into the ship and that was lost . . . and, well, not long after that, my sister died.  She starved to death really.  There was famine in '71 and plague again."

"We have plague sometimes.  The smallpox.  You were many in your family?"

"Three of us," he said, glad to talk to take away the other hurt.  "Willia, my sister, she was nine when she died.  Arthur, he was next—he wanted to be an artist, a sculptor, but he had to become an apprentice stonemason to help support us.  He was killed in the Armada.  He was twenty-five, poor fool, he just joined a ship, untrained, such a waste.  I'm the last of the Blackthornes.  Arthur's wife and daughter live with my wife and kids now.  My mother's still alive and so's old Granny Jacoba—she's seventy-five and hard as a piece of English oak though she was Irish.  At least they were alive when I left more than two years ago."

The ache was coming back.  I'll think about them when I start for home, he promised himself, but not until then.

"There'll be a storm tomorrow," he said, watching the sea.  "A strong one, Mariko-san.  Then in three days we'll have fair weather."

"This is the season of squalls.  Mostly it's overcast and rainfilled.  When the rains stop it becomes very humid.  Then begin the
tai-funs.
"

I wish I were at sea again, he was thinking.  Was I ever at sea?  Was the ship real?  What's reality?  Mariko or the maid?

"You don't laugh very much, do you, Anjin-san?"

"I've been seafaring too long.  Seamen're always serious.  We've learned to watch the sea.  We're always watching and waiting for disaster.  Take your eyes off the sea for a second and she'll grasp your ship and make her matchwood."

"I'm afraid of the sea," she said.

"So am I.  An old fisherman told me once, 'The man who's not afraid of the sea'll soon be drownded for he'll go out on a day he shouldn't.  But we be afraid of the sea so we be only drownded now and again.'"  He looked at her.  "Mariko-san . . ."

"Yes?"

"A few minutes ago you'd convinced me that—well, let's say I was convinced.  Now I'm not.  What's the truth?  The
honto.
  I must know."

"Ears are to hear with.  Of course it was the maid."

"This maid.  Can I ask for her whenever I want?"

"Of course.  A wise man would not."

"Because I might be disappointed?  Next time?"

"Possibly."

"I find it difficult to possess a maid and lose a maid, difficult to say nothing. . . ."

"Pillowing is a pleasure.  Of the body.  Nothing has to be said."

"But how do I tell a maid that she is beautiful?  That I love her?  That she filled me with ecstasy?"

"It isn't seemly to 'love' a maid this way.  Not here, Anjin-san.  That passion's not even for a wife or a consort."  Her eyes crinkled suddenly.  "But only toward someone like Kiku-san, the courtesan, who is so beautiful and merits this."

"Where can I find this girl?"

"In the village.  It would be my honor to act as your go-between."

"By Christ, I think you mean it."

"Of course.  A man needs passions of all kinds.  This Lady is worthy of romance—if you can afford her."

"What does that mean?"

"She would be very expensive."

"You don't buy love.  That type's worth nothing.  'Love' is without price."

She smiled.  "Pillowing always has its price.  Always.  Not necessarily money, Anjin-san.  But a man pays, always, for pillowing in one way, or in another.  True love, we call it duty, is of soul to soul and needs no such expression—no physical expression, except perhaps the gift of death."

"You're wrong.  I wish I could show you the world as it is."

"I know the world as it is, and as it will be forever.  You want this contemptible maid again?"

"Yes.  You know I want . . ."

Mariko laughed gaily.  "Then she will be sent to you.  At sunset.  We will escort her, Fujiko and I!"

"Goddamn it—I think you would too!"  He laughed with her.

"Ah, Anjin-san, it is good to see you laugh.  Since you came back to Anjiro you have gone through a great change.  A very great change."

"No.  Not so much.  But last night I dreamed a dream.  That dream was perfection."

"God is perfection.  And sometimes so is a sunset or moonrise or the first crocus of the year."

"I don't understand you at all."

She turned back the veil on her hat and looked directly at him.  "Once another man said to me, 'I don't understand you at all,' and my husband said, 'Your pardon, Lord, but no man can understand her.  Her father doesn't understand her, neither do the gods, nor her barbarian God, not even her mother understands her.'"

"That was Toranaga?  Lord Toranaga?"

"Oh, no, Anjin-san.  That was the Taikō.  Lord Toranaga understands me.  He understands everything."

"Even me?"

"Very much you."

"You're sure of that, aren't you?"

"Yes.  Oh, very yes."

"Will he win the war?"

"Yes."

"I'm his favored vassal?"

"Yes."

"Will he take my navy?"

"Yes."

"When will I get my ship back?"

"You won't."

"Why?"

Her gravity vanished.  "Because you'll have your 'maid' in Anjiro and you'll be pillowing so much you'll have no energy to leave, even on your hands and knees, when she begs you to go aboard your ship, and when Lord Toranaga asks you to go aboard and to leave us all!"

"There you go again!  One moment so serious, the next not!"

"That's only to answer you, Anjin-san, and to put certain things in a correct place.  Ah, but before you leave us you should see the Lady Kiku.  She's worthy of a great passion.  She's so beautiful and talented.  For her you would have to be extraordinary!"

"I'm tempted to accept that challenge."

"I challenge no one.  But if you're prepared to be samurai and not—not foreigner—if you're prepared to treat pillowing for what it is, then I would be honored to act as go-between."

"What does that mean?"

"When you're in good humor, when you're ready for very special amusement, ask your consort to ask me."

"Why Fujiko-san?"

"Because it's your consort's duty to see that you are pleasured.  It is our custom to make life simple.  We admire simplicity, so
men
and
women
can take pillowing for what it is:  an important part of life, certainly, but between a man and a woman there are more vital things.  Humility, for one.  Respect.  Duty.  Even this 'love' of yours.  Fujiko 'loves' you."

"No she doesn't!"

"She will give you her life.  What more is there to give?"

At length he took his eyes off her and looked at the sea.  The waves were cresting the shore as the wind freshened.  He turned back to her.  "Then nothing is to be said?" he asked.  "Between us?"

"Nothing.  That is wise."

"And if I don't agree?"

"You must agree.  You are here.  This is your home."

The attacking five hundred galloped over the lip of the hill in a haphazard pack, down onto the rock-strewn valley floor where the two thousand "defenders" were drawn up in a battle array.  Each rider wore a musket slung on his back and a belt with pouches for bullets, flints, and a powder horn.  Like most samurai, their clothes were a motley collection of kimonos and rags, but their weapons always the best that each could afford.  Only Toranaga and Ishido, copying him, insisted that their troops be uniformed and punctilious in their dress.  All other
daimyos
considered such outward extravagance a foolish squandering of money, an unnecessary innovation.  Even Blackthorne had agreed.  The armies of Europe were never uniformed—what king could afford that, except for a personal guard?

He was standing on a rise with Yabu and his aides, Jozen and all his men, and Mariko.  This was the first full-scale rehearsal of an attack.  He waited uneasily.  Yabu was uncommonly tense, and Omi and Naga both had been touchy almost to the point of belligerence.  Particularly Naga.

"What's the matter with everyone?" he had asked Mariko.

"Perhaps they wish to do well in front of their lord and his guest."

"Is he a
daimyo
too?"

"No.  But important, one of Lord Ishido's generals.  It would be good if everything were perfect today."

"I wish I'd been told there was to be a rehearsal."

"What would that have accomplished?  Everything you could do, you have done."

Yes, Blackthorne thought, as he watched the five hundred.  But they're nowhere near ready yet.  Surely Yabu knows that too, everyone does.  So if there is a disaster, well, that's
karma,
he told himself with more confidence, and found consolation in that thought.

The attackers gathered speed and the defenders stood waiting under the banners of their captains, jeering at the "enemy" as they would normally do, strung out in loose formation, three or four men deep.  Soon the attackers would dismount out of arrow range.  Then the most valiant warriors on both sides would truculently strut to the fore to throw down the gauntlet, proclaiming their own lineage and superiority with the most obvious of insults.  Single armed conflicts would begin, gradually increasing in numbers, until one commander would order a general attack and then it was every man for himself.  Usually the greater number defeated the smaller, then the reserves would be brought up and committed, and again the melee until the morale of one side broke, and the few cowards that retreated would soon be joined by the many and a rout would ensue.  Treachery was not unusual.  Sometimes whole regiments, following their master's orders, would switch sides, to be welcomed as allies—always welcomed but never trusted.  Sometimes the defeated commanders would flee to regroup to fight again.  Sometimes they would stay and fight to the death, sometimes they would commit seppuku with ceremony.  Rarely were they captured.  Some offered their services to the victors.  Sometimes this was accepted but most times refused.  Death was the lot of the vanquished, quick for the brave and shame-filled for the cowardly.  And this was the historic pattern of all skirmishes in this land, even at great battles, soldiers here the same as everywhere, except that here they were more ferocious and many, many more were prepared to die for their masters than anywhere else on earth.

The thunder of the hoofs echoed in the valley.

"Where's the attack commander?  Where's Omi-san?" Jozen asked.

"Among the men, be patient," Yabu replied.

"But where's his standard?  And why isn't he wearing battle armor and plumes?  Where's the commander's standard?  They're just like a bunch of filthy no-good bandits!"

"Be patient!  All officers are ordered to remain nondescript.  I told you.  And please don't forget we're pretending a battle is raging, that this is part of a big battle, with reserves and arm—"

Jozen burst out, "Where are their swords?  None of them are wearing swords!  Samurai without swords?  They'd be massacred!"