by Gai-Jin(Lit)
... I don't seem to..." the words were difficult to form and he heard the change and wondered if this was the beginning of the breakdown he had forecast. Signs were there, fingers and toes working unnoticed, face white, eyes wide, pupils changed.
"What did she say?" he asked easily.
"I... well, nothing except to, to wait until..." The words drifted away and her gaze went to the distance.
"Until?" he asked, to bring her back, hiding his concern.
But she was swept up in what she had read. So the battle lines had been drawn. She knew the worst, or the best. Her enemy had made the first move and declared herself. Now she could join battle.
On her own terms. The nausea slid away.
In its place came fire. The thought that SHE had laid out the foul and possible so icily was making her sting with rage--nothing on her side, no concern for her, no tiny concession for all the love and agony and pain over Malcolm's death, nothing. Nothing. And worst of all illegitimate when they were married properly according to British law... I am assured!
Never fear, she seethed, that's branded on my memory in molten steel, and looked at Hoag again, quivering. "She said she wants to, to wait, to wait until we, you and I, we know if I'm carrying Malcolm's child or not.
She wants to make sure, that's what she wants."
"And then?"
"She doesn't say. She, she wants to wait and me to wait. There's a vague... I think she says perhaps there can be a peace, a resol--" The quivering stopped as a decision washed it away and her voice became sibilant, sizzling with venom, "I hope there will be a peace, because... because, by the Blessed Mother, I am
Malcolm Struan's widow, and no one, no court, not even Tess Goddamned Struan can take that away from me!"
He covered his nervousness, saying cautiously,
"We all believe you are. But you've got to be calm and not worry. If you break, she wins, you lose, whatever the truth. No need..."
The door swung open. Ah Soh waddled in. "Missee-tai-tai?"
"Ayeeyah!" Angelique flared. "Get out, why you no knock?"
Ah Soh planted her feet, secretly pleased that the foreign devil had lost her temper and so lost face. "Mess'ge, you wan', heya?
Mess'ge, Missee-tai-tai?"
"What message?"
Ah Soh shuffled up, offered the small envelope, sniffed and went away. Gornt's writing. Angelique came down from the mountain of her fury.
Inside was a card, engraved E.g. The message said, "Warmest greetings. A most intriguing Hong Kong visit. May we meet tomorrow morning? your most obedient servant, Edward
Gornt."
Abruptly she felt whole again. Strong, filled with determination and hope and fight. "You're right, Doctor, but I won't break, I swear
I won't, I won't for Malcolm and I won't for me, and for you and Jamie and Mr.
Skye. You're a dear friend and I'm all right now. No need to discuss that woman anymore."
She smiled at him and he knew the smile was both good and bad--more danger signals. "We'll wait, we'll wait and see what the future holds. Don't worry, if I don't feel well I'll call at once." She got up and kissed Hoag on both cheeks.
"Thank you again, dear friend. Will you be dining at
Count Zergeyev's?"
"Perhaps. I don't know. I'm a little tired," he said and left, hiding his foreboding.
Again she read the card. Edward's circumspect, another good sign, she thought.
If the card was intercepted or read, it gave nothing away. "Intriguing" was a good word to choose, and "obedient servant" again chosen carefully. Like the words of that woman, God rot her.
What to do?
Dress for dinner. Gather your allies. Bind them to you. Put the plans you've contrived into place. And make Yokohama your impregnable bastion against that woman.
"Ignore the gai-jin soldiers trying to find you, Hiraga, and forget Akimoto,"
Katsumata said, disgusted with the unexpected snag in his plan. "Three of us are enough. We attack tomorrow, burn the church and sink the ship.
Takeda, you take the church."
"Gladly, Sensei, but why not use Ori's plan and burn Yokohama? Hiraga is right, forget the ship, he is right, so sorry," Takeda said, inclined to his side--after all, Hiraga was the Choshu leader and wise to consider how to retreat.
"He is correct that it would be difficult to get close to a ship in this sea and wind unobserved.
Why not use Ori's plan instead, burn the whole gai-jin nest?"
Hiraga said, "Ori's plan needs time, and a south wind. I agree it's a better plan.
We should wait."
"No," Katsumata said harshly, rudely,
"with courage we can do both, with courage! We can.
Both! With shishi courage!"
Hiraga was still rocked by the unforeseen soldiers, his mind slow. That he believed he had killed the scavenger bothered him not a bit--the man was motionless in the dirt when, later, he had slunk for the well head, groped down it, then blindly through the meanness of the tunnel and freezing water.
"Impossible with only three of us," he said,
"and tomorrow night is too soon, whatever we decide. If the plan's to burn the Settlement we need three days to place the flamers, and fuses. I advise against haste."
He was wrapped in a quilt, naked but for a loincloth--maids were drying his clothes, sopping wet from the tunnel water. The little bungalow was cold, the wind whining around the shojis and it took much of his will to keep from shivering openly. It was hard to concentrate. He still could not understand why soldiers were searching for him. The moment he had arrived here,
Katsumata had angrily asked Raiko to send spies into the Settlement to find out what had happened and the three of them made plans to escape the Three Carp in case searchers came into the
Yoshiwara.
Now he was watching Katsumata pour more sak`e. Anger had tightened his already sharp features, making him seem even more dangerous:
"Hiraga, my opinion is we attack tomorrow."
"My opinion," Hiraga said with equal firmness, "is we move when we have a chance of success and not before--always your advice--unless caught in the open and face death or capture.
Takeda, what is your opinion?"
"First I'd like to know what would be your plan? You know the target like no one else. What would you do?"
Hiraga drank his hot tea, pulled the quilt closer again, pretending to think, thankful that
Takeda was teetering towards his position. "If
I had my normal access, Akimoto and I could have all the flamers into place in three days--
I have four already prepared and hidden in my village house," he said, embellishing the story. "We need about six, eight would be best: one in each of both the two-story buildings, they're wood and tinder dry and almost burned up in the last earthquake; the gai-jin leader's house; the house next door; three or four in Drunk
Town; one in each church. In the confusion we can make an escape by our boat to Yedo."
"Now how much time would that take?" Katsumata asked even more rudely and the two men shifted uneasily. "How many days, now you do not have
"normal access"?"
"I can tell you that as soon as I know why the soldiers search for me," Hiraga said narrowly.
Katsumata's swords were beside him, his own swords within easy reach. The moment he had arrived he had asked Raiko for the swords she had hidden for him--in the event they had to make a sudden escape over the walls and into the paddy behind the Yoshiwara. All of them had decided it was too dangerous to hide in the tunnel.
"Takeda?"
"I propose we wait until we know what your trouble is. Then we can agree on a final plan, Sensei--but if we could do as Hiraga says I would be for that."
"We must attack tomorrow. That is our final plan."
Thinking better now, Hiraga threw out a bait. "If we could do both, sink a ship and fire the Settlement that would be best," he said to placate Katsumata. "It woul
d be possible if we planned it, but we need more men. A few men more, Sensei," he added, using the title of respect he had so far avoided, to further flatter him. "We could get three men from Yedo.
Takeda could go, he's not known, he could bring them back in three or four days. I am marked and cannot move until the attack. You will lead us against the ship--I can tell the others where to place the flamers, can still guide them where to go and how to do it."
"It is good plan, Sensei," Takeda said, having seized on the chance of escape by boat-- never one for a suicide attack. "I will go to Yedo, and find the men."
"You would be caught," Katsumata said, his lips a thin line. "You have never been there and do not know the alleys or where to go. You would be caught."
His rage was near exploding for he could not attack by himself and needed these two, or other men, and without consensus nothing would be achieved. If anyone should go it must be him. That thought did not displease him for he did not like this place, not enough exits, not enough places to hide--he only felt safe in
Ky@oto or Osaka or Yedo, or at home in Kagashima. Eeee, it would be good to see my home and family again. But they must wait, he thought and hardened his heart: "Sonno-joi must go forward, Yoshi must be humbled..."
Simultaneously the three men had their hands on their swords. Shadows came on the shoji door.
"Katsumata-sama?" It was Raiko. "I have a maid with me."
"Please come in." When they saw it was she they relaxed. She bowed, the maid did the same, and they bowed back.
"Tell them, Tsuki-chan," she said to the maid.
"I went to the house of the shoya, Sires. He said that Akimoto-sama was taken to the gai-jin leader and after a short time taken to their prison. It has not been possible yet to talk to him but with his first meal, which one of our people serve, we can find out more."
"Good. He been beaten and was dragged?"
Katsumata asked.
"No, Lord, neither, Lord."
"Not beaten, you're sure?"
"The shoya was also surprised, Sire.
Akimoto-sama was whistling and singing and heard to say, as though it was part of the country song,
"Someone's betrayed someone.""
Hiraga said darkly, "That's what he called out in the village. What else did the shoya say?"
"The shoya says, So sorry, he does not know yet why soldiers search for you. Guards are still there. As soon as he knows the reason he will send word."
"Thank you, Tsuki-chan," Raiko said and dismissed her.
Katsumata said, "If he hadn't been beaten, he must have given them the information they want and they jailed him to protect him from you?"
"No. He would not tell them anything,"
Hiraga said, his mind elsewhere: who's the betrayer? His eyes flicked to Raiko.
She was saying, "Perhaps I can find out. A gai-jin client who might know is arriving any moment. He might know, certainly he could find out."
Andr`e came into her room with a forced smile.
"Evening, Raiko-san," he said, disgusted with his weakness. She greeted him coolly and offered tea. When the tea had been taken he handed her the small bag of coins. "Here another payment, sorry not all but enough for moment. You want see me?"
"Waiting a little is fair, Furansu-san, amongst friends," she said, annoyed. Feeling the weight of the bag she was, secretly, content with the amount--for the moment--and that the first important matter had been settled. Then she added, to keep up the pressure, so important with clients,
"A little is fair between friends, but a lot is not correct, not at all."
"I promise more in day or two."
"So sorry your payments are far behind."
Andr`e hesitated, then jerked off his gold signet ring. "Here."
"I do not want that," Raiko said. "Should I release Hinodeh and allow her to leave, then you--"
"No. Please, no... Listen, I have information..."
Andr`e was not feeling at all well, both because of her cool reception and also because of a migraine acquired during the Yoshi interview that would not go away. And because of Angelique. And because Tess
Struan was not aboard Prancing Cloud for surely that would have made it easier for him to negotiate a settlement and so get the wealth he required. He had no wish to go to Hong
Kong, to challenge her there, in the lair of the Noble
House.
Angelique's still the only chance you've got, his brain kept hammering at him. Seratard had again consulted Ketterer, Sir William, and even Skye about the validity of the marriage. They were all convinced it should hold up in a court.
"In Hong Kong? I'm not so sure,"
Ketterer had sneered, the others saying the same with different words, in different degrees--except
Sir William. "Too many scallywags there, judges aren't like they are in London--they're colonials, plenty of corruption, plenty of hanky-panky. A few taels of silver... don't forget Struan's are the Noble House
..."
Raiko leaned closer to Andr`e. "Information,
Furansu-san?"
"Yes." It was now or never with Raiko--and
Hinodeh. "Special. Secrets about secret
Yoshi meeting with gai-jin."
"So ka!" she said, all attention. "Go on, Furansu-sama."
He told her what had happened, in detail, to her intense interest, much sucking in of breath and hissed exclamations. And when, abruptly, he slid in the part about Yoshi wanting Hiraga, she blanched. His anxiety evaporated, he hid his joy and closed the trap: "So Hiraga friend of you?"
"No, not at all, he's a client of a friend," she said hastily, fanning herself, mind humming with the wonderful pieces of intelligence to pass on to the shoya and the Gyokoyama that would put him and them totally into her debt--and to Meikin. Ah,
Meikin! she thought in passing, how long you will stay alive. So sorry, you and yours will have to pay, one way or another, Yoshi invested too much in your late Koiko, but then you know that. Which brings me to my pressing problem, how in the name of all gods and the Amida Buddha, do I rid myself of Hiraga, Katsumata and the other two, they've become far too dangerous and...
Then she heard Andr`e's different voice.
"So Hiraga client of mama-san friend in
Yoshiwara. Hiraga with friend now. Neh?"
Her guard dropped back into place. "I would not know where he is. I imagine he is in the
Settlement as usual. Lord Yoshi wants him?
Why?"
"Because Hiraga is shishi." Andr`e used the word for the first time, aware of what it meant from
Yoshi's revelations. "Also for kill daimyo.
Daimyo Utani. Other killings too."
She kept the fear off her face. "Terrible.
Shishi you say? I've heard of them. About this information, old friend, may I ask about th--"
"Hiraga dis'ppear, Raiko. No in
Settlement. Many soldiers search. Gone,
Raiko. Search all places. He gone."
"Eeee, vanished? Soldiers? Vanished to where?"
"Here. To your friend. Where's your friend?"
"Ah so sorry, I doubt he would be there," she said with perfect sincerity and shook her head emphatically. "Probably he was warned and he has run off to Kanagawa or some such place, and so sorry, old friend, but that is not a good question to ask. Your information is very interesting. Is there more?"
Andr`e sighed. He knew she knew. Now she was at his mercy. For a time. "Yoshi samurai come tomorrow for your Hiraga," he said, no longer afraid because one word from him and patrols,
Japanese or British, would tear the House of the Three Carp to pieces--after Hinodeh was taken to safety. "If gai-jin not have Hiraga tomorrow, much trouble, Raiko. For gai-jin,
Yoshiwara, all." The way he said it sent a tremor through her. "Perhaps gai-jin put Enforcers here, there, all places." He let that hover in the air.
"So?" she asked, a bead of sweat forming on her upper lip, frightened of what
was coming, all else forgotten.
"Have idea: if you... so sorry," he said sweetly, "if your friend hide
Hiraga few day, secret, safe place.
Then, at right time give gai-jin leader Hiraga
