The honesty set her off balance. She had expected excuses or denials, not just a frank owning up. ‘If they fire on Nagasaki,’ she said slowly, ‘they’ll murder tens of thousands of people.’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘I don’t know why I’d risk that. Can you think why I’d do that? I didn’t – tell you, somehow?’
‘No.’
He nodded again. He was holding himself steady and still now, but the edges of the panic from before were still there. He was looking past her, not at her.
‘Hokkaido,’ she said after a long time. There was nothing in Hokkaido but endless forest, bears, and those labour camps. It was exactly the kind of place Mori would send someone meddlesome to get her out of the way. ‘I’ll think about it.’
He hugged her, hard, and not like he was worried he could hurt her. It was a thump of bone on bone. When he kissed her forehead, an ashamed part of her was glad he was unhappy.Another part, one that whispered in the Duke’s paper voice, wondered if that couple hundreds of years ago in the woods had thought they’d made a clever deal with the Winter King too.
She was too anxious to go to bed. Instead she sat by one of the hot pools with a view over the bay, her ankles in the water, and tried to calm down. If Mori knew she was helping Kuroda and he was angry, he had no need to send her to Hokkaido on a wild goose chase. He could just arrange for her to be arrested for something vague right here, or for her to break a leg falling down the stairs.
And he wouldn’t have made a promise like the one he had if he’d any intention of keeping it, surely. Surely.
She wondered what it looked like when a fleet of ironclads shelled a town. She knew what it looked like after; when she was little, they used to go on holiday to Kagoshima, which the Americans had blasted to kingdom come not that long ago. Her father had put her in one of the craters in the castle walls to take a photograph. She asked Kuroda when he came out.
‘It’s beautiful, actually,’ he said. When he sat down, he kept a tentative distance. Ever since that night with the Countess, he had been anxious around her. She didn’t know if it was because he was genuinely frightened of himself now around women, or because he was scared of what she might put on the stage. ‘Like God’s own firework show. I’ll take you on a ship one day, you can see. Are you worried about the Russians?’
‘Not worried, I was just thinking about it.’ She sighed. ‘Abashiri prison. Mori wants me to go there. Does that mean anything to you?’
Kuroda frowned. ‘Abashiri, no. Well, it’s a labour camp. It’s one of eight or nine up there. Did he say anything else about it?’
‘I’m worried he’s sending me because he knows I’m talking to you.’ She was almost sure Kuroda was lying. His eyes had sparked when she mentioned Abashiri. It was such a benign-sounding word; it meant ‘netting-run’, so it must have begun life as a fishing village and not a labour camp, but already it had more gravity than it should have. ‘To get me out of the way. If you know what’s there and why he might want me to go, I’ll go. If he’s just getting rid of me – the winters are hard up there. It might be a death sentence.’
Kuroda smiled. ‘How do I know you’re not in cahoots with him and you’re not going to do one of your Kali manoeuvres and screw me utterly? You’re only talking to me at all because I’m the lesser of two evils, but he’s a charming bastard. He could have talked you round.’
She shook her head. ‘You are the lesser of two evils. You’re a vicious idiot with a drinking problem, but he … isn’t. He’s entirely sane, and very clever. And he watched you drink, and drink, and then he watched you kill your wife. Maybe it was you who hit her, but only like it’s the bullet and not the man behind the gun that hits someone. And now, he’s watching the Russian fleet get closer, and closer. If there’s a choice between loyalty to my charming husband or serving my country, I’ll serve.’
‘Well, you’re a samurai now,’ he said gruffly. ‘Obviously you want to serve. Basic chivalry.’
She sighed. Probably it was a decent translation of what she’d said into Hopeless Posh-Boy, but it made her fingernails itch. ‘Chivalry – Kuroda, you know when women put vegetables on a spoon and zoom it round so their kids think it’s a magic butterfly or something? Chivalry is just what your mum called being a decent human so you’d feel like a really good boy when you were nice to people. Don’t say it to grown-ups.’
He snorted. ‘Like I say. Samurai.’
They were both quiet for a while.
‘At Abashiri,’ Kuroda said at last. ‘If you see that he’s set up something – dodgy. Put a stop to it.’
She nodded. God knew what was really going on in Hokkaido. The only thing to do was go to the north and see, and make sure that somehow or other, she got a collar on Mori and Kuroda both, before either of them could do anything too nasty.
Although she had sturdy boots and two pairs of socks on, and thick trousers under the rough work dress, Takiko’s feet were numb by the time she reached the prison’s main doors. One stood propped open. Inside was a broad entrance space, and in the middle of it, boxed off to keep in the heat, was a tiny office. It was all wood, except for a small paper shutter, which was open.
‘Hello?’ she said, feeling like she was looking into a dolls’ house.
The guard hunched up at the kotatsu looked up from his newspaper. Despite the warmth inside, he had a scarf muffled up over his ears. She wasn’t surprised. He looked ill in an unspecific, long-running way; too stringy, too sore-eyed. ‘Who are you?’ he asked indignantly. He sounded like he had a cold.
‘I’m Mr Tsuru’s niece, the new cleaner.’
‘Oh!’ The guard looked startled, then laughed. ‘I was expecting an old lady.’ He stood up, and the little paper hatchway proved in fact to be a tiny door. The hatchway slid sideways and the lower part opened outward like a gate. He looked pleased to find he was a head taller than her. The smell of smoke had drifted out with him. She pined. ‘Right, come with me, Miss Tsuru. You’ll need to get started right away.’
TWENTY-THREE
Tokyo, 10th February 1889
The morning was cold and dim under gathering storm clouds, and the floating market on the Imperial Canal gave off such a beautiful glow from its red lamps that even people who had imagined they were in a hurry for work found themselves coming down from the bridges, onto the jetties cobbled together from apple crates and parts of old carts, and into the warmth under the bright canopies of the boats.Thaniel put Six in front of him on the way across to the first boat. The man who owned it was selling chicken skewers from a big open grill whose frame he’d hung about with paper lamps, the tops spotted with grease. Every boat in the market had red lamps, but all different sizes and all different shades of red, with black characters painted down the sides to say what the stalls were selling. Six shot across the gangplank and vanished out of sight. Thaniel had decided to stop worrying someone was going to steal her or that she would fall in the river. They came to the floating market every morning, and every morning she was fine. She had bitten people before, probably more often than she would have if he hadn’t given her a sugar-mouse every time she did.
The next boat sold fresh lobsters and the one after that had tea and stronger things. Five men were sitting along the tiny makeshift bar on stools of mismatched heights. Nothing was in a straight line and there was music somewhere, but it was too early for crowds. Snow feathered in and disappeared in the heat from the big grills and braziers. Thaniel walked over the gangways with his hands in his pockets, passing between clouds of lovely heat and gusts of river cold.
There was ice around the hulls of the boats, and a veneer just forming over the wider gaps. It was not the morning to fall in.
He found the chestnut boat a good way further downriver than usual. Six wasn’t there, but the chestnut man had just added a bag of new nuts to his grille, which was a caramelised, amber mess from the honey he put over everything. The hot smell of burnt sugar drifted between the boats.
‘Have you
seen …?’
The man pointed next door. Thaniel leaned around the corner. It was a lamp shop, all kinds, but mainly paper with little designs, and a few fittings for gas outlets. Up high on one shelf, wrapped in cotton and paper and tied up with string, like bombs, were lightbulbs. The lamp-seller sat at the back with a newspaper. There was a sign up on a chalkboard on the counter, advertising a half-price sale for something called highly perfumed water, exclamation mark, which Thaniel mulled over for a while before he wondered if it meant kerosene.
‘Morning,’ he said.
‘Morning,’ said the lamp lady. She was in her eighties at least, bundled up so well that she was spherical. ‘Would you like some kerosene? Half price. Won’t be able to give it away if this keeps up.’
‘If what …? No, thank you. Have you seen a little girl?’
‘I’m here,’ Six said dutifully. She was looking at some tiny candles. There was a Catholic mission not far away and they were souvenir versions of gilded altar candles.
‘It really is very cheap for kerosene,’ the lamp lady added.
‘I know, but it’s all right, thank you.’ Thaniel glanced down at Six, who never asked for anything. ‘Do you have any lightbulbs?’
‘Lightbulbs! No, no, no, nasty silly things, you don’t need lightbulbs,’ the lamp lady said quickly.
‘She collects them,’ he explained.
‘No lightbulbs here.’
‘That box on the shelf behind you has “lightbulbs” written on it,’ he said after a moment.
‘No it hasn’t,’ she said. ‘Kerosene is much more useful, you know.’
‘Chestnuts,’ called the chestnut man.
‘See you,’ said the lamp lady, and nodded approvingly when Six bowed.
Thaniel went away none the wiser, which was how most conversations ended now. There was an English way of thinking and a Japanese one, and although he was fluent enough to step over the gap, he still fell into it quite a lot too.
He gave Six the chestnuts and helped rearrange her scarf once she had tucked them down her front for heat, then followed her back through the market and out into the sharp daylight. The sky was gunmetal and grainy with snow. The bell above the Dutch legation tolled eight. Six waited for him at the side gate to the British one.When he looked back the way they had come, the bridges over the canal – which was actually the moat around the Palace – were vivid with deep purple banners. The parades would be tomorrow; the Emperor was announcing the new Constitution. It was going to be huge. Everyone was getting a day off work. It was making Thaniel wish that people in England would see a way to caring so much about politics.
‘May I go over the snow?’ Six said, looking at the pristine white roll of the lawn.
‘Better had, or someone else will.’
She didn’t run, or make shapes; she only walked and watched the marks her shoes left.
Thaniel went on the path, because it was shorter and his lungs hurt already. The borders, bare now, were still spidery with old vines. The gardener had hung labels from parasol handles, and now they and their strings were all frozen perfectly, marking patches where the flowers would be in spring.
‘Morning, Mr Fukuoka,’ Six called toward the tents set up on the lawn. Between them, drooping now in the middle because a fold in the canvas was weighed down with snow, was a protest banner that said in tall kanji, Respect the Emperor, Expel the Barbarian.
‘Morning, love,’ Fukuoka said, tired. He was scooping snow into a kettle, looking worse for wear. He and his mad friend Yuna had been camped out here ever since the junior diplomats had shooed them away from the front door last month, and they had a few more friends now. It was, technically, part of Thaniel’s job to make sure the legation premises were not full of nationalist protesters, but it felt like bullying to call the militia for five miserable men and a sign.
‘How’s it coming?’ Thaniel said.
‘Got some more lads coming soon, for the Promulgation tomorrow. Hoping to get a few journalists up here.’
‘There will be. But don’t get too cold; come in for tea if you want. They’ve been baking a bit over-enthusiastically this week, so there’s plenty of leftovers. If you don’t mind everything in Imperial purple.’
‘I’ve got some already,’ Fukuoka said in a guilty hush. ‘But don’t tell him.’
‘Barbarians go home!’ shouted the tent.
Thaniel bowed slightly to Fukuoka, who bowed back. He went on up the gentle path, feeling grateful he wasn’t living in a tent. As he came up the legation steps, something gave him a vicious static shock through his sleeve and he swore, but when he looked around there was nothing it could have been. The steps were stone. Lightning flickered between the Palace buildings, but there was no thunder. He rubbed his arm and wondered if it might just be the air in general. It tasted of iron. Storm weather; he hoped it would break soon.
‘I thought I might build an igloo,’ Six said quickly before he could tell her to come in.
He wanted to say no, and to keep away from Fukuoka’s friends, but it was instincts like that – people deciding that locals weren’t to be trusted with children – which had made everyone angry in the first place.
‘Come here.’ He knelt down when she did. ‘Let’s see a left hook; right hook; uppercut, uppercut – good. Do it again and move your feet properly. Faster. Good girl. All right, go on.’
In the spacious hallway, the butler must have had some shocks of his own, because he was tying tea-towels around the handles of all the doors. Halfway inside, Thaniel caught another one off the lion knocker on the front door, stronger this time, and heard himself make a resentful noise. The butler nodded sympathetically.
‘This weather – do you normally have electrical storms?’ Thaniel asked, and noticed too late that he was making it sound like the butler’s own personal fault.
‘No, sir, it’s all very singular.’
It was still early and downstairs was quiet, although the ceiling creaked as people moved to and fro upstairs. He took off his coat gradually, because his shoulders ached, but then thought better of it. It was incredibly cold even inside. He could see the current of his breath.
Vaulker shot out of his office waving a piece of paper. ‘This is your department!’
‘Morning,’ said Thaniel.
‘It’s the bloody kitchen staff. They just left me this bloody note. Apparently they’re leaving. Blackmail for another bloody raise like the grubby little Arabs they are.’
Thaniel took the note. ‘This isn’t from all of them, it’s only Mrs Nakano’s girls. They say their mother is bringing in her friend Mrs Enno and her daughters, who are …’ He turned over the page, which smelled of Mrs Nakano’s sinus- destroying cigarette smoke. ‘Thick in the head.’
‘Tell her that if I hear one more squeak about ghosts, I shall sack them all. It’s not New Year anymore. I’m sure I can find other less neurotic people.’
‘Vaulker …’ Thaniel picked up a spare tea-towel from the butler’s basket and tucked it into the letterbox, which had just sparked. He tipped his head to look at it properly, nearly convinced somebody must have posted a sparkler through it, but no. He was going to write his sister a letter about the weather. She’d love to hear about a place with worse weather than Edinburgh. ‘There’s a nationalist protest on the lawn. If we sack our entire staff for no reason, the first thing they’ll do is go out there and join in, and probably bring all their friends, and probably egg anyone who tries to come for an interview.’ He’d enjoyed it at first, but the shine had worn off arguing with Vaulker. They should have been friends and they weren’t. They were the same age, they were in the same place and they knew all the same people at the Foreign Office. But Thaniel could never put aside the certainty that Vaulker was lazy, and Vaulker made no secret of worrying that Thaniel might lose his civilised veneer one day and punch someone. If they had talked about it early on, it would probably have been all right, and they would have forgiven each other a lot, but they hadn�
�t, and now those little dislikes had solidified into a cement block.
‘Damned if I shall be frightened of a protest,’ Vaulker said, but glassily, with cracks in the surface.
Thaniel didn’t say it would have to go into dispatches, and that Fanshaw in Whitehall wouldn’t be impressed to hear that they’d turned a small, pathetic protest into a full-blooded one the day before the new Constitution was announced and government dignitaries were in and out at all hours, along with journalists. It would probably be one of those invisible-ink marks against Vaulker’s name when the next Berlin posting opened. ‘I’m not saying we should be frightened. I’m saying that it will be a long while without cooked food.’
Vaulker seemed to ease. There was a tiny moment, not the first one, during which Thaniel felt like he and Vaulker were both holding chisels, but neither of them knew where to begin chipping, and neither of them wanted to get dust on the carpet. Instead they went into the translation office to fetch the morning papers.
As they came in, Pringle was building a tipi of firewood, his sleeves already sooty. He flushed when Vaulker asked what on earth he was doing.
‘The staff won’t lay fires, sir, they say it brings the ghosts.’
Vaulker made a noise like a disapproving horse and looked at Thaniel. ‘You were saying?’
‘It won’t light,’ Pringle said miserably. He was bundled up in a scarf.
‘I’ll do it,’ Thaniel murmured. Pringle’s tipi was all heavy pieces of wood, no kindling, and no sawdust.
It was a relief to sit down on the hearth and do something practical. Vaulker leaned against the chimney, the back of his paisley waistcoat crackling where it caught against the brickwork. He gave Thaniel a brief, disapproving look; Thaniel had a feeling that Vaulker thought doing anything useful was a sign of bad breeding. Pringle flopped onto the nearest chair and hunched over, rubbing his hands together.
‘I’ve never been so cold in my life.’
Thaniel bent forward over the grate and blew softly on the little flame he’d just coaxed to life in a new nest of sawdust. It caught and clicked, and then snackled over the kindling. Pringle edged gratefully closer. Thaniel showed him the sawdust bag for later, and the little kindling sticks.
The Lost Future of Pepperharrow Page 19
