To hell with cover, he thought through the haze of his blood lust, knowing at the same time that what he was doing was insane, that he had no chance against the two samurai or the long-range bow, that he had no rights whatsoever to interfere. And then, while he was still out of pistol range, Buntaro bowed low, and so did the guard. Blackthorne stopped, sensing a trap. He looked all around but there was no one near. As though in a dream, he saw Buntaro sink heavily onto his knees, put his bow aside, his hands flat on the ground, and bow to him as a peasant would bow to his lord. The guard did likewise.
Blackthorne stared at them, dazed. When he was sure his eyes were not tricking him, he came forward slowly, pistols ready but not leveled, expecting treachery. Within easy range he stopped. Buntaro had not moved. Custom dictated that he should kneel and return the salutation because they were equals or near equals but he could not understand why there should be such unbelievable deferential ceremony in a situation like this where blood was going to flow.
“Get up, you son of a bitch!” Blackthorne readied to pull both triggers.
Buntaro said nothing, did nothing, but kept his head bowed, his hands flat. The back of his kimono was soaked with sweat.
“Nan ja?” Blackthorne deliberately used the most insulting way of asking “What is it?” wanting to bait Buntaro into getting up, into beginning, knowing that he could not shoot him like this, with his head down and almost in the dust.
Then, conscious that it was rude to stand while they were kneeling and that the “nan ja” was an almost intolerable and certainly unnecessary insult, Blackthorne knelt and, holding onto the pistols, put both hands on the ground and bowed in return.
He sat back on his heels. “Hai?” he asked with forced politeness.
At once Buntaro began mumbling. Abjectly. Apologizing. For what and exactly why, Blackthorne did not know. He could only catch a word here and another there and saké many times, but clearly it was an apology and a humble plea for forgiveness. Buntaro went on and on. Then he ceased and put his head down into the dust again.
Blackthorne’s blinding rage had vanished by now. “Shigata ga nai,” he said huskily, which meant, “it can’t be helped,” or “there’s nothing to be done,” or “what could you do?” not knowing yet if the apology was merely ritual, prior to attack. “Shigata ga nai. Hakkiri wakaranu ga shinpai surukotowanai.” It can’t be helped. I don’t understand exactly—but don’t worry.
Buntaro looked up and sat back. “Arigato—arigato, Anjin-sama. Domo gomen nasai.”
“Shigata ga nai,” Blackthorne repeated and, now that it was clear the apology was genuine, he thanked God for giving him the miraculous opportunity to call off the duel. He knew that he had no rights, he had acted like a madman, and that the only way to resolve the crisis with Buntaro was according to rules. And that meant Toranaga.
But why the apology, he was asking himself frantically. Think! You’ve got to learn to think like them.
Then the solution rushed into his brain. It must be because I’m hatamoto, and Buntaro, the guest, disturbed the wa, the harmony of my house. By having a violent open quarrel with his wife in my house, he insulted me, therefore he’s totally in the wrong and he has to apologize whether he means it or not. An apology’s obligatory from one samurai to another, from a guest to a host….
Wait! And don’t forget that by their custom, all men are allowed to get drunk, are expected to get drunk sometimes, and when drunk they are not, within reason, responsible for their actions. Don’t forget there’s no loss of face if you get stinking drunk. Remember how unconcerned Mariko and Toranaga were on the ship when I was stupefied. They were amused and not disgusted, as we’d be.
And aren’t you really to blame? Didn’t you start the drinking bout? Wasn’t it your challenge?
“Yes,” he said aloud.
“Nan desu ka, Anjin-san?” Buntaro asked, his eyes bloodshot.
“Nani mo. Watashi no kashitsu desu.” Nothing. It was my fault.
Buntaro shook his head and said that no, it was only his fault and he bowed and apologized again.
“Saké,” Blackthorne said with finality and shrugged. “Shigata ga nai. Saké!”
Buntaro bowed and thanked him again. Blackthorne returned it and got up. Buntaro followed, and the guard. Both bowed once more. Again it was returned.
At length Buntaro turned and reeled away. Blackthorne waited until he was out of arrow range, wondering if the man was as drunk as he appeared to be. Then he went back to his own house.
Fujiko was on the veranda, once more within her polite, smiling shell. What are you really thinking, he asked himself as he greeted her, and was welcomed back.
Mariko’s door was closed. Her maid stood beside it.
“Mariko-san?”
“Yes, Anjin-san?”
He waited but the door stayed closed. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, thank you.” He heard her clear her throat, then the weak voice continued. “Fujiko has sent word to Yabu-san and to Lord Toranaga that I’m indisposed today and won’t be able to interpret.”
“You’d better see a doctor.”
“Oh, thank you, but Suwo will be very good. I’ve sent for him. I’ve … I’ve just twisted my side. Truly I’m all right, there’s no need for you to worry.”
“Look, I know a little about doctoring. You’re not coughing up blood, are you?”
“Oh, no. When I slipped I just knocked my cheek. Really, I’m quite all right.”
After a pause, he said, “Buntaro apologized.”
“Yes. Fujiko watched from the gate. I thank you humbly for accepting his apology. Thank you. And Anjin-san, I’m so sorry that you were disturbed … it’s unforgivable that your harmony … please accept my apologies too. I should never have let my mouth run away with me. It was very impolite—please forgive me also. The quarrel was my fault. Please accept my apology.”
“For being beaten?”
“For failing to obey my husband, for failing to help him to sleep contentedly, for failing him, and my host. Also for what I said.”
“You’re sure there’s nothing I can do?”
“No—no, thank you, Anjin-san. It’s just for today.”
But Blackthorne did not see her for eight days.
CHAPTER 36
“I invited you to hunt, Naga-san, not to repeat views I’ve already heard,” Toranaga said.
“I beg you, Father, for the last time: stop the training, outlaw guns, destroy the barbarian, declare the experiment a failure and have done with this obscenity.”
“No. For the last time.” The hooded falcon on Toranaga’s gloved hand shifted uneasily at the unaccustomed menace in her master’s voice and she hissed irritably. They were in the brush, beaters and guards well out of earshot, the day sweltering and dank and overcast.
Naga’s chin jutted. “Very well. But it’s still my duty to remind you that you’re in danger here, and to demand again, with due politeness, now for the last time, that you leave Anjiro today.”
“No. Also for the last time.”
“Then take my head!”
“I already have your head!”
“Then take it today, now, or let me end my life, since you won’t take good advice.”
“Learn patience, puppy!”
“How can I be patient when I see you destroying yourself? It’s my duty to point it out to you. You stay here hunting and wasting time while your enemies are pulling the whole world down on you. The Regents meet tomorrow. Four-fifths of all daimyos in Japan are either at Osaka already or on the way there. You’re the only important one to refuse. Now you’ll be impeached. Then nothing can save you. At the very least you should be home at Yedo surrounded by the legions. Here you’re naked. We can’t protect you. We’ve barely a thousand men, and hasn’t Yabu-san mobilized all Izu? He’s got more than eight thousand men within twenty ri, another six closing his borders. You know spies say he has a fleet waiting northward to sink you if you try to escape by galley! You�
�re his prisoner again, don’t you see that? One carrier pigeon from Ishido and Yabu can destroy you, whenever he wants. How do you know he isn’t planning treachery with Ishido?”
“I’m sure he’s considering it. I would if I were he, wouldn’t you?”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
“Then you’d soon be dead, which would be absolutely merited, but so would all your family, all your clan and all your vassals, which would be absolutely unforgivable. You’re a stupid, truculent fool! You won’t use your mind, you won’t listen, you won’t learn, you won’t curb your tongue or your temper! You let yourself be manipulated in the most childish way and believe that everything can be solved with the edge of your sword. The only reason I don’t take your stupid head or let you end your present worthless life is because you’re young, because I used to think you had some possibilities, your mistakes are not malicious, there’s no guile in you and your loyalty’s unquestioned. But if you don’t quickly learn patience and self-discipline, I’ll take away your samurai status and order you and all your generations into the peasant class!” Toranaga’s right fist slammed his saddle and the falcon let out a piercing, nervous scream. “Do you understand?”
Naga was in shock. In his whole life Naga had never seen his father shout with rage or lose his temper, or even heard of him doing so. Many times he had felt the bite of his tongue but with justification. Naga knew he made many mistakes, but always his father had turned it so that what he’d done no longer seemed as stupid as it had at first. For instance, when Toranaga had shown him how he had fallen into Omi’s—or Yabu’s—trap about Jozen, he had had to be physically stopped from charging off at once to murder them both. But Toranaga had ordered his private guards to pour cold water over Naga until he was rational, and had calmly explained that he, Naga, had helped his father immeasurably by eliminating Jozen’s menace. ‘But it would have been better if you’d known you were being manipulated into the action. Be patient, my son, everything comes with patience,’ Toranaga had counseled. ‘Soon you’ll be able to manipulate them. What you did was very good. But you must learn to reason what’s in a man’s mind if you’re to be of any use to yourself—or to your lord. I need leaders. I’ve fanatics enough.’
Always his father had been reasonable and forgiving but today … Naga leapt off his horse and knelt abjectly. “Please forgive me, Father. I never meant to make you angry … it’s only because I’m frantic with worry over your safety. Please excuse me for disturbing the harmony—”
“Hold your tongue!” Toranaga bellowed, causing his horse to shy.
Frantically Toranaga held on with his knees and pulled the reins tighter in his right hand, the horse skittering. Off balance, his falcon began to bate—to jump off his fist, her wings fluttering wildly, screaming her ear-shattering hek-ekek-ek-ek—infuriated by the unaccustomed and unwelcome agitation surrounding her. “There, my beauty, there …” Toranaga desperately tried to settle her and gain control of the horse as Naga jumped for the horse’s head. He caught the bridle and just managed to stop the horse from bolting. The falcon was screaming furiously. At length, reluctantly, she settled back on Toranaga’s expert glove, held firmly by her thong jesses. But her wings still pulsated nervously, the bells on her feet jangling shrilly.
“Hek-ek-ek-ek-eeeeekk!” she shrieked a final time.
“There, there, my beauty. There, everything’s all right,” Toranaga said soothingly, his face still mottled with rage, then turned on Naga, trying to keep the animosity out of his tone for the falcon’s sake. “If you’ve ruined her condition today, I’ll—I’ll—”
At that instant one of the beaters hallooed warningly. Immediately Toranaga slipped off the falcon’s hood with his right hand, gave her a moment to adjust to her surroundings, then launched her.
She was long-winged, a peregrine, her name Tetsu-ko—Lady of Steel—and she whooshed up into the sky, circling to her station six hundred feet above Toranaga, waiting for her prey to be flushed, her nervousness forgotten. Then, turning on the downwind pass, she saw the dogs sent in and the covey of pheasant scattered in a wild flurry of wing beatings. She marked her prey, heeled over and stooped—closed her wings and dived relentlessly—her talons ready to hack.
She came hurtling down but the old cock pheasant, twice her size, side-slipped and, in panic, tore arrow-straight for the safety of a copse of trees, two hundred paces away. Tetsu-ko recovered, opened her wings, charging headlong after her quarry. She gained altitude and then, once more vertically above the cock, again stooped, hacked viciously, and again missed. Toranaga excitedly shouted encouragement, warning of the danger ahead, Naga forgotten.
With a frantic clattering of wings, the cock was streaking for the protection of the trees. The peregrine, again whirling high above, stooped and came slashing down. But she was too late. The wily pheasant vanished. Careless of her own safety, the falcon crashed through the leaves and branches, ferociously seeking her victim, then recovered and flashed into the open once more, screeching with rage, to rush high above the copse.
At that moment, a covey of partridge was flushed and whirred away, staying close to the ground seeking safety, darting this way and that, cunningly following the contours of the earth. Tetsu-ko marked one, folded her wings, and fell like a stone. This time she did not miss. One vicious hack of her hind talons as she passed broke the partridge’s neck. The bird crashed to the ground in a bursting cloud of feathers. But instead of following her kill to the earth or binding it to her and landing with it, she soared screaming into the sky, climbing higher and ever higher.
Anxiously Toranaga took out the lure, a small dead bird tied to a thin rope, and whirred it around his head. But Tetsu-ko was not tempted back. Now she was a tiny speck in the sky and Toranaga was sure that he had lost her, that she had decided to leave him, to go back to the wilds, to kill at her whim and not at his whim, to eat when she wanted and not when he decided, and to fly where the winds bore her or fancy took her, masterless and forever free.
Toranaga watched her, not sad, but just a little lonely. She was a wild creature and Toranaga, like all falconers, knew he was only a temporary earthbound master. Alone he had climbed to her eyrie in the Hakoné mountains and taken her from the nest as a fledgling, and trained her, cherished her, and given her her first kill. Now he could hardly see her circling there, riding the thermals so gloriously, and he wished, achingly, that he too could ride the empyrean, away from the iniquities of earth.
Then the old cock pheasant casually broke from the trees to feed once more. And Tetsu-ko stooped, plummeting from the heavens, a tiny streamlined weapon of death, her claws ready for the coup de grace.
The cock pheasant died instantly, feathers bursting from him on impact, but she held on, falling with him to let go, her wings slashing the air to brake violently at the very last second. Then she closed her wings and settled on her kill.
She held it in her claws and began to pluck it with her beak prior to eating. But before she could eat Toranaga rode up. She stopped, distracted. Her merciless brown eyes, ringed with yellow ceres, watched as he dismounted, her ears listening to his cooing praise of her skill and bravery, and then, because she was hungry and he the giver of food and also because he was patient and made no sudden movement but knelt gently, she allowed him to come closer.
Toranaga was complimenting her softly. He took out his hunting knife and split the pheasant’s head to allow Tetsu-ko to feed on the brains. As she began to feast on this tidbit, at his whim, he cut off the head and she came effortlessly onto his fist, where she was accustomed to feed.
All the time Toranaga praised her and when she’d finished this morsel he stroked her gently and complimented her lavishly. She bobbed and hissed her contentment, glad to be safely back on the fist once more where she could eat, for of course, ever since she had been taken from the nest, the fist was the only place she had ever been allowed to feed, her food always given to her by Toranaga personally. She began to preen herself, ready for anot
her death.
Because Tetsu-ko had flown so well, Toranaga decided to let her gorge and fly her no more today. He gave her a small bird that he had already plucked and opened for her. When she was halfway through her meal he slipped on her hood. She continued to feed contentedly through the hood. When she had finished and began to preen herself again, he picked up the cock pheasant, bagged it, and beckoned his falconer, who had waited with the beaters. Exhilarated, they discussed the glory of the kill and counted the bag. There was a hare, a brace of quail, and the cock pheasant. Toranaga dismissed the falconer and the beaters, sending them back to camp with all the falcons. His guards waited downwind.
Now he turned his attention to Naga. “So?”
Naga knelt beside his horse, bowed. “You’re completely correct, Sire—what you said about me. I apologize for offending you.”
“But not for giving me bad advice?”
“I—I beg you to put me with someone who can teach me so that I’ll never do that. I never want to give you bad advice, never.”
“Good. You’ll spend part of every day talking with the Anjin-san, learning what he knows. He can be one of your teachers.”
“Him?”
“Yes. That may teach you some discipline. And if you can get it through that rock you have between your ears to listen, you’ll certainly learn things of value to you. You might even learn something of value to me.”
Naga stared sullenly at the ground.
“I want you to know everything he knows about guns, cannon, and warfare. You’ll become my expert. Yes. And I want you to be very expert.”
Naga said nothing.
“And I want you to become his friend.”
“How can I do that, Sire?”
“Why don’t you think of a way? Why don’t you use your head?”
Shōgun Page 71
