The Shadow and the Star (61 page)

"No pay, no pay! I drive." He heaved his fruit baskets into the back of the buggy and went to where the horse was grazing placidly off the edge of the drive. "You come with me. No cry, missy! We get table fix. No cry, no cry!"

Five days of careful work, not too much eagerness, showing just a degree more impatience rather than less in the cautious contacts he made with Ikeno's men, and Samuel was aboard the water barge in Pearl Harbor. He was there as a traitor to his own—as Dojun's
gyaku fukuro
, a sack turned inside out.

Fukurogaeshi no jutsu
—to go deep, to appear to change sides completely—a method effective in exact proportion to the risk of the technique. It would have been impossible without the conveniently incriminating background of Samuel's London theft. He could see nothing of Ikeno's doubts as the man sat cross-legged on the cabin floor, lifting rice on his slender, enameled
hashi
from a bowl, as delicate and graceful as a girl in his movements, and yet with a power hidden, as his suspicions must be.

But Samuel, too, could use chopsticks with refinement. He knelt barefoot in his Western clothes and ate little, quickly, enough to satisfy politeness and calculated to show at the same time his own discipline. Eating, like sleeping, was a pleasure to be leisurely indulged in times of relaxation. This was not one of them; he wished Ikeno to see that he understood it.

He wished, in fact, to keep Ikeno baffled as to what he understood and did not. The man spoke an awkward and schooled English, painfully accented; Samuel deliberately addressed him as superior, refusing to use English, answering persistently in the humble forms of Japanese to any English question. He knew that he was outside all experience: an elephant taught to waltz, not expected to be anything but Western and clumsy, and yet with training that must be as obvious to them as theirs was to him.

He would make mistakes, that he knew. Dojun had rebuked him often enough for transgressing some obscure line of correct behavior, for embarrassing himself with Western ignorance. But his mistakes, perhaps, would win him more credit for what he did correctly. A perfectly trained talking dog might arouse suspicion; an imperfect but willing one had an opportunity to draw the spectators into sympathy.

"You wish to give me fidelity, hmmm?" Ikeno had a soft face, soft eyes, lashes like a woman's, but an aristocratic hook to his nose and an upward slash to his brows that caught the savagery of the Japanese paintings of ancient warriors. He looked young, not much older than Samuel by
haole
standards. Which meant he was likely forty or more. "I don't understand you."

He'd finally given in to speaking Japanese, but he was rude in his tone. Samuel bowed deeply, ignoring it. "With fear and respect, this insignificant person begs Ikeno-sama to deign to spare a few moments of attention. I've little to offer that you need, a poor business and few leaking ships, but perhaps you might condescend to make some use of my education at the hands of Tanabe Dojun Harutake."

"And perhaps I should cut your head off, if the Tanabe has sent you."

Samuel bowed again, then raised his head and stared into Ikeno's eyes. "May you pardon my impudence, but I have not been sent. I owe
giri
to Tanabe Dojun no longer."

"Do you not? That isn't what I've heard about you. I've heard that you visit him in his house, and take
sake
with him. I've heard that he is a father to you. Even now he lives in your new house, and plays the servant to your wife."

"With respect, he is not my father. I share neither name nor family with him." Samuel lifted a thumb toward his hair, a quick motion of self-mockery. "As the honored Ikeno-sama may see with his own eyes."

Ikeno smiled a little. "And he's instructed you anyway. He has told you, perhaps, of the method called
fukurogaeshi
, and sent you here to make fools of us. He's done you no favor. When I send your head back to him, I'll turn the bag inside out. Maybe then he'll realize that we are not
baka. "

Samuel lowered his gaze. "He's told me of this
fukurogaeshi no jutsu
. He didn't ask me to execute it here. He has asked nothing of me lately, beyond the sanctuary of my deplorable house. Perhaps—" He allowed a note of bitterness into his voice. "—he didn't think I was capable of accomplishing it."

Ikeno said nothing. Samuel felt one of the other men move closer behind him.

"Deign to order your honored retainer to swing his sword," Samuel said quietly, "if my impertinence in asking to assist displeases you."

"Are you ready to die?"

"If the respected Ikeno-sama does not think me worthy of his service, I am ready."

"
lie
! Worthy!" he snarled. "I think the Tanabe sent you here to make a fool of me!"

He jerked his chin at the swordsman. In the whistle of the blade Samuel's body recognized intention; he heard his executioner exhale with the effort of the swing; the sword flashed in the edge of his vision, light glittering along a horizontal plane.

He didn't move.

That much, every muscle and cell in him knew, like breathing—the difference between a killing strike and one that would fall short. He knelt relaxed as the blade struck, sliced his collar: the sudden sting of a light cut and the scent of blood revealing how close this slash had come.

Ikeno's face was expressionless. A little too indifferent. The long silence might have been interpreted as detachment, but Samuel rather thought it was surprise.

He bowed all the way to the floor, touching his forehead against the back of his hands. "With reverent thanks for my worthless life."

"You wish to betray your master." Ikeno's voice was a sudden snap. "Not even a dog betrays its master."

Samuel's jaw grew taut. "I've kept faith." With his posture rigid, he made as if to speak, and broke off. Then in a low, passionate voice, he said, "Tanabe Dojun has tested me in all ways. I've not failed him."

"You are here."

"He's made a mockery of me. He holds my competence in contempt."

The echo of Samuel's words died away in the still cabin. There was that deep anger beneath the ice in him; he allowed himself to feel it; to let Ikeno see it in his spirit.
Giri—
righteous duty. A man owed that blood-duty to his master; but he owed too a powerful
giri
to his own name. In a hundred old legends of Japan, warrior-heroes who would have done
seppuku—
slit their own bellies at an order from their lord—turned about and spent their lives in taking vengeance on the same lord for a far lesser insult than disdain and mockery. It was correct behavior. It was a thing Ikeno would understand.

"With my body I still bow to Tanabe Dojun Harutake," Samuel said. "But in my heart, I'm masterless. I've come to the honorable Ikeno-sama to offer my miserable aid in his praiseworthy quest. I stole the Gokuakuma's mounting in London, but I'd not yet been able to reach the blade." He made a short, jeering laugh. "Respected Ikeno-sama had no need to break into my office—I'd have given the mounting in gladness if I'd known who wanted it. This is
giri
that I owe to my name."

"On what terms, this
giri
?"

Samuel didn't speak at once. He looked at each of the other three men in the cabin in turn. Ikeno made no move to dismiss them. In English, Samuel said slowly, "Dojun-san trained me for the Gokuakuma. I loved him. I honored him. I have not failed at any test. None! And he puts me aside, only because—" His mouth curled in scorn. "—I am… what I am. Not
Nihonjin
. White. I'm not to be given the trust. He has taken a boy—a boy of fourteen!—in my place, now that immigration is again allowed." Slowly, he turned his head aside and spit at the floor. "I will not wear this shame he gives me."

One of the other men growled, but Ikeno moved his hand in a slight, soothing gesture. In Japanese, he said, "You assert a stain on your honor? I thought there was nothing important but money to a barbarian."

Samuel came to his feet. The man behind him with the sword reached out. In a backward strike and block, Samuel trapped him against his own blade. They stood locked, while Samuel deliberately made no further move, only held the man so that if he shifted in any direction, he was cut.

"Most feared and respected Ikeno-sama." Samuel let the other man go, thrusting him off, and turned with a bow from the waist. "Forgive my poor ears and blind eyes. I didn't hear the wise and honorable words just spoken."

He straightened. Ikeno stared meditatively at him. Samuel looked back beneath lowered eyelids, holding his deferential posture with a visible defiance.

"What assistance," Ikeno asked slowly, "does the barbarian Jurada-san offer in particular?"

Samuel recognized the elevation of his surname to an honorific. "Respected Ikeno-sama is in possession of the Gokuakuma's mounting. The blade is required."

Ikeno inclined his head, acknowledging the obvious.

"Dojun is aware of the theft of the mounting. He assumes that those who seek the Gokuakuma have it; he does not suspect that I myself stole it. He knows of your presence here, and surmises that the mount is in your hands. So he proposes to take the blade off the island; go into hiding elsewhere." Samuel shrugged. "I don't know where it's hidden or where he intends to go, but I'll know when he makes his move, and how."

"The Tanabe trusts you with this?"

"He trusts me with nothing of importance. But he depends on my devotion. I know him well. And I know the island. I can do what I say."

"And what return for your honored contribution?"

"Only to see the Gokuakuma whole, Ikeno-sama. To see it with my own eyes, and know that it's out of the hands of Tanabe Dojun, who has spent his life in guarding it from being made complete—as I've spent my life in preparing to take his place… until he chose to supplant me."

"Perhaps, in your eagerness for this reprisal, you wish the Tanabe to see it, too?"

"That isn't necessary. It would be dangerous. For me to see it, for me to know that the defilement of my honor has been cleansed in a proportionate manner—that is enough."

Ikeno nodded. "I compliment you. When the world is tipped, it should be balanced. Your design seems a precise vengeance for the indignity offered."

Samuel returned to his most formal demeanor. "The undeservedly generous praise of honored Ikeno-sama causes a heavy weight of gratitude."

His enemy regarded him with austere, intelligent eyes. "What of the weight of gratitude, then? Your teacher has made a man of you. You owe him."

"I owe him. And he has taken from me the means of repayment."

"
Giri
is hardest to bear when it is two sides of the same heart. What will you do to pay your debt to him, Jurada-san?"

Samuel returned the fathomless look, unflinching. "To betray Dojun-san is shame beyond enduring. When it's done, when I give you the Gokuakuma… there's nothing left to me but what honor requires."

Ikeno inclined in a bow that recognized equality. "If it must be so. Bring me the blade—and you may use the Gokuakuma with honor on yourself."