Toru: Wayfarer Returns (Sakura Steam Series Book 1)

by Stephanie R. Sorensen

  “He does, Lord Abe. Shall we ask him directly?”

  At this, Lord Abe permitted himself a small, private smile, as though at a joke only he heard. “Why not? Chie.”

  Chie flashed a wide grin, putting Tōru in mind of Masuyo-sama wild and free in her laboratory. She rose to her feet gracefully but a touch too quickly for a powerful lord’s noble daughter, unable to contain her excitement. From behind the golden screen where she had tucked her koto, Chie drew out a gleaming telegraph device, all wood and wire and brass.

  Tōru would not have guessed Lord Abe was such a technophile, nor such a rebel. Lord Abe must have ordered the telegraph line built, all the way along the Tōkaidō to Kyoto and beyond, the moment Kato returned with his report nearly three months ago.

  Chie tugged the device forward, uncoiling the wire as she brought it to the center of the cluster of small tables. She knelt beside it, arranging giant brass earphones over her delicate ears and elaborate hairstyle. She placed her finger on the sending switch.

  “O-tō-sama, what message shall I send?”

  Tōru looked at her in wonderment. This strange evening was getting odder yet.

  Lord Abe asked Asano, “He is standing by for us?”

  “Yes, my lord. We communicated additional details before the meal. He will be there.”

  “Then ask him to tell us his plan.” Lord Abe now grinned openly. He looked at Masuyo and smiled gently. “Do not fret, child. We have other plans for your father.”

  Masuyo drew in a quick breath and held it, lest she burst into tears in front of everyone. She bowed her head and stared at her hands until she could face the room again.

  All watched as Chie confidently tapped out the Morse code, turning transliterated Japanese syllables into short and long beeps.

  A silence filled the room as the last beep faded away. Someone had silenced the flute player, leaving the only sound a soft blend of quiet breathing and a faint rustling of trees in the park outside the thin walls. They waited. They waited some more.

  Then, like a miracle, the device leapt to life, scratching out the signals on paper, but also into Chie’s giant earphones. She began to recite the message, translating directly from the sounded dots and dashes, a sign of a good mind and much practice.

  “Rescue…team…standing by. Ready…tomorrow…dawn. In contact…Aya…Tōmatsu? Can…Lady…Aya…ride? Fisherman…is…well? Over.” Chie leaned back, proud, and checked her verbal message against the scratched marks. She had done it correctly.

  The room burst into laughter and questions.

  Lord Abe held out his hands for order. He smiled. “How do you expect me to run a country without proper communications channels? I cannot do it openly yet or involve my useless officials, or the Shogun would have my head too. Furthermore, I cannot have my daughter visiting a geisha house or a distillery.” He glared at Obata, as though scolding him for Lord Aya’s lapses in selecting initial sites for telegraph offices, “so I had a line secretly installed directly here. Chie hid in the storage closet of your classroom and watched your lectures on the telegraph. She tells me she has mastered this Mōrusu Cōdo.” He indulgently allowed himself a proud smile at Chie. She covered her mouth with her hand to hide her smile of delight at his praise.

  “Tell Lord Shimazu that yes, we are in contact with Lords Aya and Tōmatsu. And tell him the fisherman is fine.” Chie began tapping away, and getting a wave of answering beeps in return.

  “Lady Aya, I hesitate to ask a lady of your gentle upbringing, but…would you be willing…to disguise yourself as a man? Can you… can you…ride a horse…like a man?” Abe was embarrassed at the question, the unthinkable image, but they all knew a palanquin could not keep up in a fast-paced escape. They also knew that if they moved into open defiance of the scheduled executions, and Lord Aya failed to report as promised, Masuyo would die in his stead, female or no, as his sole heir. Rude soldiers would cut off her head in a public square. No discreet suicide in a private room, watched only by a respectful representative of the Shogun. As the daughter of a convicted traitor, her punishment and death would be public and shameful, a harsh but necessary lesson to one and all.

  “Do not tell my lord father, Lord Abe, but yes, I ride well, like a man. I have brought with me suitable clothes, for a male servant. With armor hidden underneath. Forgive me, my lord, but I have been planning my own escape, if it would save my father from returning to save me.” Her eyes were bright. She understood lands and position were forfeit, but she would see her father alive again.

  Lord Abe laughed. “I should have known. Aya’s daughter is a rebel, too. Child, if we pursue this plan, you and your father will lose everything. You will be poorer than the poorest peasant, and hunted from one end of this land to the other, for the rest of your lives, until and unless the Shogun somehow realizes the value of your father’s contribution. Do not doubt this. I can save his life this way, but not his lands, nor your claim, if your father does not return in twenty days. Your father is willing to die to see you safe and well provided for after him. As your guardian, since earlier this evening, charged by your lord father with your well-being, I will not pursue this plan unless we have your consent.”

  Masuyo’s carefully cultivated composure finally crumbled. Tears slipped from her eyes. “Save my father, Lord Abe!” She bowed to the tatami and wept, marring her fine white painted cheeks. Chie leapt to her side, and gently lifted Masuyo up, cradling the openly sobbing girl. Tōru did not move, but he longed to cradle her in his arms himself and reassure her. He had never seen her falter or break for even an instant. Her outburst tore at him. He turned away, to save her embarrassment at her loss of composure.

  “There, there. My father will save him, you’ll see. Won’t you, O-tō-sama?” asked Chie.

  “Yes, child. We will save Lord Aya and Lord Tōmatsu, and Saigo Takamori here. And the wretched fisherman who created all this trouble. Chie, let Lord Shimazu know all members of the party ride and will be in appropriate gear.”

  Far into the night the telegraph beeped and buzzed between Lord Shimazu’s Kagoshima Castle and Lord Abe’s compound in Edo, minutes from the Shogun’s Chiyoda Castle. Plans were made, scrapped, argued over and finally settled. Lord Shimazu’s men in disguise would brazenly “kidnap” the prisoners on their way back from the meeting with the Shogun at Chiyoda. Pre-arranged, pre-wounded “witnesses” would send Lord Abe’s men and the Shogun’s men in the wrong direction, west to the Tōkaidō. The party would ride for their lives in the opposite direction to a sheltered patch of forest north of Edo where a dragon dirigible awaited them.

  Tōru thought it a fine plan. A worthy plan. He also recalled the words of a Prussian officer, Helmuth von Moltke, whom he had met while visiting West Point. Moltke commented, over excellent whiskey and cigars in the officers’ lounge one evening, that “no battle plan ever survived contact with the enemy.”

  What could possibly go wrong?

  CHAPTER 14

  FLIGHT

  “To a brave man, good and bad luck

  are like his right and left hand.

  He uses both.”

  – St. Catherine of Siena

  Obata and Sugieda left Lord Abe’s compound before dawn to return to their lords. Led by Kato and surrounded by a handpicked escort of Lord Abe’s men, Tōru, Takamori, Asano and Masuyo rode out of Lord Abe’s majestic main gate, plodding forward through a busy narrow street with measured pace on Lord Abe’s horses. The streets were crowded with early morning merchants and servants running errands. They had not gone far when a low whistle rang out and Lord Abe’s men to either side of Tōru fell without even a moan from their mounts, arrows shot through their necks.

  Masuyo’s palanquin lurched and fell as her bearers collapsed, clutching arrows to their unarmored chests. Masuyo leapt out as it tottered and crashed. She dashed forward, tiny in the crowd of the busy market street. She yanked her naked and unwrapped naginata free from where she had hidden it fastened beneath her palanquin. M
asuyo grabbed the bridle of a horse left riderless by one of Lord Abe’s men and swung herself up.

  Masuyo kicked the horse forward, shouting at Tōru. “Himasaki! Attackers!” Her kimono flew open over her legs, flapping around her, revealing peasant trousers and small leather boots beneath. She leaned down low and kicked her horse forward, clutching her naginata as she pressed forward through the crowd, smashing aside black-clad attackers who attempted to grab her horse’s bridle with her naginata.

  Tōru shouted a warning to Kato and Saigo and kicked his borrowed horse forward, looking for their assailants. He could see no one, but two more of Lord Abe’s men fell as suddenly and silently as the first pair, arrows shot through their necks. Then another pair fell in swift unison, this time from either side of Saigo Takamori. A servant girl shrieked as one of the men fell silently at her feet, knocking her market basket from her hands.

  Saigo was at Tōru’s side now, his katana drawn and ready, looking everywhere, seeking their hidden assailants. Asano raced after Masuyo, katana out, and moved protectively to her side. They could not gallop through the crowded streets. They pressed forward through the mass of people, looking for their attackers.

  Kato shouted for his remaining men to protect Masuyo and sent one to return for reinforcements from Lord Abe’s compound. The crowd parted for their horses, slowly, not nearly fast enough to allow them to escape the trap. They were helplessly exposed to archers positioned on the roofs and windows above them.

  “We are betrayed. Forget Chiyoda,” barked Kato at them as he wheeled his horse around, looking for their assailants. “Ride north, hard, and get to your dirijibi.”

  Kato said no more, but fell from his horse as well, pierced at neck and breast with arrows. Lord Abe’s men were all down now, shot through with multiple arrows. One stared up from the ground, an arrow through his eye.

  Tōru froze, shocked at the fall of the man who had protected him and their party since they left Lord Aya’s domain months ago, the dour old retainer to Lord Abe who said little and saw much. Kato was too distant and highly ranked to be considered a friend, but he had become a reassuring figure during the tumultuous past several months.

  Saigo grabbed his friend’s bridle and dragged him forward as assailants in black poured out of a dark alleyway, katanas raised.

  “Go! Go now! We cannot help them!” shouted Saigo.

  Tōru, Takamori, Masuyo and Lord Shimazu’s emissary Asano pushed forward, shouting to the crowd to let them through. Asano and Saigo slashed down with their katanas as more men in black came at them with daggers and katanas.

  Trapped in the middle, Tōru spurred his horse forward, clearing a path for them through the crowd. They reached a broader street where they could move more swiftly. Masuyo clung low to her horse, making herself into the smallest possible target, her naginata held close to her side. They raced ahead.

  “Should we go to meet Lord Shimazu’s men?” shouted Tōru.

  Takamori bent low to his horse, urging it forward. “Too late, no need. They were our diversion. Someone else has given us one.”

  Asano agreed. “Get to the dirijibi. We can send a message there. Go!”

  “Let’s go!” shouted Masuyo, her voice high and sharp above the morning crowd.

  Asano pointed to a narrow bridge looming up swiftly. It was not meant for horses, but ran above a slender stream winding its way through the busy downtown.

  “Keep going!” shouted Tōru. He thundered over the slender bridge, followed by the others as pedestrians threw themselves out of the way. Now they were on a wide thoroughfare. They could see the imposing gates of Chiyoda Castle in the distance to their left. On they urged their horses, as fast as the faithful beasts could go.

  Up ahead was a checkpoint, where they would be asked for their passage permits in order to leave the city. They had no such permits. Three lethargic soldiers lounged by the gate.

  “Ride through them!” shouted Asano. The four riders thundered through the gate as soldiers leapt out of their way, barely escaping being trampled. Shouts rang out, a few wild arrows shot over their heads, but no pursuit came after them. The soldiers had no horses, to the great good fortune of the fleeing riders.

  Asano led them. He and Kato had planned the escape, and he had scouted and practiced the route, choosing the weakest points in the Shogunate guard.

  “It’s three hours hard ride to the dirigible,” Asano shouted as they galloped hard, pushing their horses to the limit. They were out of the city center by now. The wide thoroughfare had given way to an unpaved track, rutted by the wheels of peasant wagons bringing food to the great city.

  Asano slowed them to a walk, to give the horses a chance to rest. “My lord Shimazu’s men were to have left fresh horses up ahead.” He looked troubled. They were to have attended the meeting at the Shogun’s Chiyoda Castle, and on their return been “kidnapped” by a strong protective force of Lord Shimazu’s men in disguise, sufficient to get them safely out of the city. But that plan had been arranged for several hours from now. To avoid arousing suspicion, the relief horses were hidden in several friendly stables, to be brought to the exchange place just in time.

  “Is it safe to go there?” asked Tōru. If their escape plans were known, a new clutch of foes would be waiting for them at the stable.

  “I’ll go scout.”

  “Sore wa mazui. No good. You are the only one who knows the way to the dirigible with Kato gone.”

  Asano considered this. Tōru was right.

  “We can get there on these horses, just slower.”

  “And we are ahead of schedule now.”

  Saigo coughed out a bitter laugh. “True enough.”

  Masuyo joined them. “Let us skip the stables and go on to the dirijibi. We’ve not been followed,” she said. She looked behind them once more, checking to see if her assertion was still true.

  No pursuers thundered toward them.

  Asano nodded. “Lady Aya, you can keep up?”

  At this, both Tōru and Takamori burst into laughter, the first light moment of the troubled morning. “Lady Aya will keep up, and run you into the ground if she wishes.”

  Around the time of her invention of the black silk trousers, Masuyo had pestered Tōru and Takamori into secretly teaching her to ride, an activity she took to effortlessly, swiftly developing both a love for speed and a graceful seat in the saddle.

  “Yes, Asano-san, I will keep up,” said Masuyo, as demurely as though she were letting him know she would have the flowers arranged and the tea served. She grinned, a full broad smile like the ones Tōru had missed, and kicked her horse forward, leaving them behind as her lighter weight gave her horse an edge.

  The men roared with laughter and chased after Masuyo. They were fleeing for their lives from powerful enemies, but they were young, and strong, and the sun shone bright above.

  They trotted slowly through a narrower, less traveled track under thick foliage from the trees above. Led by Asano, they had gone around the relief horse stable, giving it a wide berth as they entered the village where it stood. They had stopped at a quiet bend of the road to open up Asano’s saddlebags to retrieve for Masuyo an old ragged cloak and a tattered straw peasant hat.

  She bound her kimono up around her and hid her female hair and form so she would not attract attention. Tattered peasant leggings with a droopy seat allowed her to ride like a man astride her mount. She wore patched worn gloves over her delicate pale hands, protecting them both from spying eyes as well as the strong sun and coarse leather of the reins of her horse.

  The three samurai rode slightly ahead of her, as though she were their servant, close enough to move back protectively if necessary. She had shown them her small dagger and a short sword retrieved from her own bag, now belted around her obi under her cloak.

  Asano recognized her naginata as a fine and fearsome weapon.

  “Does she know how to use—” Asano began.

  “I’m right here. You can ask me, Asano-san.”
Masuyo flashed him a wicked smile. “I am skilled enough.”

  “She’s a fine archer, but yes, she’s particularly vicious with her naginata,” added Tōru. “Her father taught her to defend herself from an early age. As she likes to explain it, he had no son, so she got some odd lessons.”

  Masuyo shrugged and murmured soothingly to her horse as they plodded forward. She held her long bladed staff at the ready.

  Asano nodded and blinked, unsure how to deal with a warrior female, an innovation little known even in progressive Satsuma. He motioned them to a halt for a moment and pulled out a battered map from his bulging saddlebag. “Let’s take a break. Get something to eat.” He handed around onigiri rice balls wrapped in seaweed, and gave Masuyo a bag of feed for the horses. “We are here,” he said, “and this road leads on to this path. Follow along here until it curves up and around that hill and then—”

  “Wait, where are you going?” asked Tōru.

  “I want to scout ahead and see if we can travel the main road north. Our planned path takes us a much longer route through small villages and country lanes, to keep us away from prying eyes, but it will add hours to our journey at this slow pace. We’ll be arriving several hours later than scheduled, even with our unfortunate early start.”

  “I’d rather stay together, and stick to the back roads,” said Tōru.

  Takamori nodded agreement with Tōru.

  Masuyo let the men argue as she quietly moved among the horses. She fed the panting, thirsty horses and caressed their long noses, as the “servant” of the group.

  Asano nodded. They had planned on taking the back roads to avoid attracting attention. And speed would not help them against overwhelming force, which they were more likely to meet on the main road, as well as bandits. “It’s a tough call, either way. I agree, we stick to the back roads, but will your man Jiro know to wait?”