The house-boats remained moored to the jetty but were always kept ready for sea in case the natives became restless. So when word reached the Cheboygan agent – Koto Shigari – that two Iron Masters in full battle armour were sitting tall in the saddle on the northern shore of the straits, he weighed anchor immediately.
And what an honour awaited him! There, battered but unbowed, were Samurai-General Oshio Shinoda, one of the senior military aides of the late domain-lord, and his companion-at-arms Samurai-Major Akido Mitsunari! And what a tale they had to tell!
Mitsunari, the junior-ranking officer, had a ragged, dirty bandage covering a deep throat wound that made it impossible for him to speak but after boarding the houseboat, Shinoda gave them a graphic description of a great battle in which thousands of grass-monkeys had perished under the swords of the samurai cavalry and the knives of their trusty auxiliaries, the D’Troit and C’Natti.
Shigari had already received incoherent accounts of the engagement from the very same grass-monkeys, and he told the General that a brief report had been sent to Sara-kusa by carrier-pigeon. But, he asked respectfully, had the lake really risen up and swept all before it?
Ahah! Yes!
Now firmly established in his impersonation of the Samurai-General, Cadillac used the wealth of anecdotal material he had amassed on the disaster to weave a spell-binding narrative that had the mouths of Mr and Mrs Shigari and their trusty sergeant-at-arms opening and closing like three goldfish glued nose-first to the side of their glass bowl.
Beginning at the point when the wheel-boats had come in sight of the shore, Cadillac took them through the battle as seen from the Iron Master’s side, only pausing when he, as Shinoda, and the ever-silent Mitsunari had clawed their way out of a tangled mass of timber and bodies – unrecognisable fragments, torn from their great ships whose dismembered hulls now lay spread across the landscape. A scene of bloody horror and utter desolation.
Hhhh-awwwww!!
Shinoda went on to relate how he and Mitsunari had met while trying to round up the five half-crazed horses whose lives had been spared by the same divine hand. They eventually managed to catch two, riding away as the hordes of Mutes came streaming down the bluffs to plunder the scattered heaps of wreckage and bodies of those who had died bravely at their posts.
But the wall of water, ventured Shigari, where had it come from? Tsunami, the great wave that could appear on the oceans, overwhelming everything in its path, was a well-known and justly-feared phenomenon, but it was not one associated with navigation of the Great Lakes.
Exactly! replied Shinoda. This wall of water was not a work of Nature. This was witchcraft! It had been raised by diabolic forces called from the bowels of the earth – primal energies which certain of the despised grass-monkeys, known as summoners, were able to mould to their will and fashion into a weapon that could strike down whole armies!
Hhhh-awwwww!!
Shigari and his small entourage bowed low on hearing these startling revelations, but privately he was drawn to the idea that either Shinoda had been unhinged by the experience which – without any need for exaggeration – had been an appalling tragedy, or he was rehearsing the story which he planned to use to cover his illustrious ass, and that of his silent companion.
As supreme commander of the expedition, the blame for any tactical blunders or lack or preparedness was bound to fall on his shoulders and would probably cost Shinoda his life.
To Koto Shigari, the idea that these misshapen grass-monkeys could conjure up evil kami at will and apply their diabolic force in such a selective way was quite laughable – but no hint of the amusement it caused showed on the Resident’s face. As a middle-ranking ‘commercial’, Shigari was the social inferior of the military men who now sat facing him. Any sign of disrespect on his part could send his head rolling across the tatami. But witchcraft? No.… By the time his two war-weary guests reached Sara-kusa, they would need a better excuse than that.
As the house-boat headed eastwards across Lake Huron, Shigari and his staff were completely unaware that their illustrious passengers had vari-coloured skins just like the grass-monkeys whose magic powers they had casually dismissed. Cadillac and Roz had removed their face masks, allowed themselves to be undressed and assisted as they savoured the joys of a hot, deep bath, had donned fresh kimonos (furnished with the usual abject apologies for offering garments of such inferior quality to cover the bodies of those appointed to high office) and had eaten a meal served with yet more apologies without anyone seeing them as they really were.
What Shigari, his wife Ono, and their staff saw were two battle-hardened samurai, and the voice they heard was Cadillac’s, speaking faultless Japanese. Roz had drawn the physical shape of their characters from Cadillac’s memory and implanted them in the minds of their hosts. And the images were so real that when the bandages on her neck were carefully unwound, they revealed a deep, suppurating neck wound created from her own medical knowledge. A wound that Ono Shigari had cleaned with the utmost delicacy, without ever knowing that it was her own mind that was projecting the livid gash and surrounding inflammation onto Roz’s unbroken skin.
It was only when their hosts retired, leaving them alone in their quarters, that Roz relaxed her grip on their minds. But by that time, Shigari and everyone else aboard were totally convinced they were carrying two VIPs on the next stage of their journey to Sara-kusa.
Steering a parallel course to the chain of islands that fringed the northern edge of Lake Huron, Shigari’s vessel entered Georgian Bay via the Lucas Channel and headed south-east into the smaller Nottawasaga Bay, making landfall at navref Collingwood.
The first Iron Master cartographers, who had based their maps on a carefully-preserved copy of the Millennium Edition of the Rand McNally Road Atlas of the United States, Canada and Mexico, had revised the spelling of all place names to suit their mother-tongue and Collingwood was now known as Korina-Gawu.
There was no Iron Master presence here, and nothing remained of the pre-Holocaust township, but the area had been explored by surveyors and engineers despatched by the Yama-Shita family, to study the feasability of cutting a new canal across the hinterland to shorten the sea journey to the trading post at Du-Anita (Duluth, Minnesota).
The surveying teams concluded that it was indeed possible but that it would require a great deal of time and money. If other road-building and construction projects were not to suffer, a huge new labour force would have to be recruited. The Chinese accountants working for the Yama-Shita family rattled the sums around on their abacuses and decided they didn’t add up.
Even if an unpaid labour force could be mobilised, they still had to be fed. The slavemasters and construction supervisors had to be fed and paid. There were material costs, and when the canal was completed, the twelve massive locks required to compensate for the three hundred and thirty foot difference in the level of the two bodies of water would have to be manned and maintained 365 days a year.
Given the then-current vessel throughput, the savings on shipping costs in terms of reduced journey times would only compensate for a fraction of the costs involved. To balance the books, trading revenues from the Great Lakes would have to increase by some 300 per cent over the next three years and 15 per cent annually thereafter. Even if a home market could be found, the Mutes could not produce the volume of raw materials required without a radical alteration in their lifestyle. They would, to put it bluntly, have to start working.
The project was shelved. The samurai nobles might regard the merchant classes as their social inferiors, but they liked to keep the coffers well filled by taxing everything in sight. Making money was as important as dying a ‘good death’. Poverty was a condition to be borne uncomplainingly by the lower classes, and any samurai who fell on hard times. These unfortunates who lost all social standing usually joined the ranks of the ronin – roving bands of cut-throats and brigands who preyed on the road-convoys and outlying estates.
It was this abortiv
e accounting exercise that led the late Domain-Lord Hirohito Yama-Shita to draw up his plan to divide and conquer the Plainfolk by setting the D’Troit and C’Natti against the other bloodlines. It would have provided the required massive new labour force, and permitted the exploitation of the natural and mineral wealth of the interior, providing the revenues the accountants required.
And it was this very same plan which his successor, Acting Regent Aishi Sakimoto, had tried to implement – with insufficient preparation and with disastrous consequences. That was why Sakimoto had been greatly heartened by the arrival of the carrier-pigeon from the Cheboygan out-station concerning the appearance of Samurai-General Shinoda and Samurai-Major Mitsunari. Now, at last, he and the family council might get the chance of hearing what had happened from the horse’s mouth, instead of having to make sense of the conflicting reports gathered from clans belonging to the routed D’Troit faction – the equivalent, in Sakimoto’s view, of putting one’s ear to the horse’s ass.
Shinoda and the injured Mitsunari would be landed at Korina-gawu. From there they would ride south-east by east across the hinterland to O-shawa on Lake Ona-taryo. Sakimoto had already despatched a wheel-boat to await their arrival. Once safely aboard, they would cross to the small port of Osa-wego on the eastern shore of the lake, some thirty miles from their final destination – the palace at Sara-kusa.
At Osa-wego, the returning samurai would be received with the honour due to their rank by two junior members of the Yama-Shita family council and the usual clutch of local dignitaries, before proceeding along the river and canal system to the Yama-Shita’s palace-fortress on the shores of Lake O-neida.
And then the questioning would begin.…
As Cadillac and Roz watched the small house-boat turn about and start its 250 mile trip back to Cheboygan, they knew that Shigari had arranged for a second pick-up-boat at O-shawa.
Using the hand-drawn route map he had provided, they encountered no major difficulty in finding their way to the western edge of Lake Ona-taryo. The horses had been fed and rested while on the boat, but it still took three days to travel the eighty odd miles from shore to shore. Riders and mounts had already come a hell of a long way – seven hundred pain-filled miles; far enough to convince Cadillac and Roz that they might die from saddle-soreness before reaching Ne-Issan. When they boarded Shigari’s house-boat and fell prey to motion-sickness, there were times they wished they had.
Cadillac had tried to plan for every eventuality but he was not prepared for the extent of the reception that awaited them at Osa-wego. As the pick-up-boat came alongside the jetty and a gangway was manoeuvred into place, a number of well-dressed men and women – about fifteen or so – came aboard, accompanied by six men-at-arms, two of whom carried long poles bearing the black and silver house-flag of the Yama-Shita.
Cadillac, watching the scene below through the side window of the wheel-house, said: ‘I think we may be in trouble.’
Roz peeked round his shoulder. ‘Is that a reception committee? Heavens! Do you think they might know us? I mean, Shinoda and Mitsunari?’
‘They’re bound to, this close to home.’ Cadillac frowned. ‘A couple of those women are little more than girls and see – there’s a boy amongst them.’ He slapped the hilt of his sword. ‘Sweet Sky Mother! Do you think they could be our wives?!’
‘Don’t ask me. You’re the one who "read" their clothes.’
‘I just got a feel for the man, not his date of birth and the details of his domestic life!’
‘You got the names…’
‘The names were painted inside the rim of their helmets!’
‘And here was I thinking how amazingly gifted you were…’
‘Look! Another time, okay?!’ Cadillac broke off and paced about the empty wheel-house. ‘What a pill! It didn’t matter with that crew from Cheboygan and these guys. As long as we looked the part it was good enough. What the hell are we going to do?!’
‘The first thing we’re going to do is calm down,’ said Roz. ‘If I can get inside their heads fast enough, there shouldn’t be a problem. They’re all expecting to see Shinoda and Mitsunari, so their mental image of them should be at the forefront of their minds. There may be a slight hiccup, but once I get a grip on ‘em we’ll be –’
‘Sure. And don’t forget to make them think this junk I’m wearing is a perfect fit. You look pretty good, but I must be almost a head taller than Shinoda.’
The sudden return of Cadillac’s confidence made Roz smile. He loved giving orders. ‘You’re probably bigger all round. His wife might like that.’
‘Roz! Be serious!’ He motioned her to silence as he heard footsteps on the stairs.
It was the captain of the pick-up-boat. Roz trapped his mind as he came into view. Bowing from the waist, he begged leave to inform them that Tojo and Akori Yama-Shita were waiting to greet them in the small stateroom below. Would they be gracious enough to descend …?
Cadillac silently invited Roz to precede him.
Iron Master protocol saved the day. Only the two council members were in the room when Roz and Cadillac entered, strode forward and bowed deeply from the waist. Tojo and Akori experienced a momentary sensation of unease then relaxed as Roz cast her spell, trapping their minds like flies in a spider’s web. Within seconds she had the information she needed to cloak themselves in the true likenesses of Shinoda and Mitsunari.
Since the ship’s captain had already given him the names of the two family councillors, Cadillac was able to coast through the welcoming formalities, skilfully extracting a great deal of useful information about Aishi Sakimoto the acting regent, and the other members of the reception committee. Most important of all, Cadillac succeeded in teasing out the names of the well-bred women who were anxiously waiting to be reunited with their soldier-husbands.
But first, said Tojo, there were the local dignitaries who were eager to have the opportunity of welcoming their illustrious personages on behalf of the towns-people of Osa-wego.
Tojo and Akori had already been obliged to endure the same rigmarole. Two members of the Yama-Shita family, an army general and a regimental commander all in one day constituted a major event. Hastily-commissioned commemorative scrolls were presented to Cadillac and Roz, together with small beautifully-wrapped gifts as a mark of gratitude for honouring the town with their presence.
Cadillac was gratified to discover they had also brought along several bottles of their best sake to drink to the health and safe return of all concerned, and to pledge their unswerving loyalty to the House of Yama-Shita. Tojo and Akori allowed the Osa-wego reception committee one big swallow each then dismissed them, ordered the captain to get the boat underway and invited Cadillac and Roz to join them in some serious drinking on a strictly man-to-man basis.
Refilling their cups to the brim, Tojo said: This may sound rather odd, but when you first came into the room, I didn’t recognise you. In fact I could swear you looked completely different to the way you do now.’
‘Indeed? In what way?’ enquired Cadillac. He and Roz were now sitting cross-legged facing their two hosts.
‘It’s hard to say.’ Tojo appealed to his cousin, Akori. ‘Did you not notice anything?’
‘Well, yes, since you mention it, I did.’ Akori faced his guests with a baffled frown. ‘You both seemed a lot taller, but now…’
Cadillac exchanged a sideways glance with Roz. ‘It must have been a trick of the mind, sire.’
The palace-fortress of the Yama-Shita family stood near the western end of Lake O-neida, several miles north-east of Sara-kusa. The Iron Master town with its bustling streets had taken its name from the pre-H city of Syracuse, but had been built around a loop in the canal linking Lake Erie with the Hudson River, some distance from the buried remains of its predecessor. Lake O-neida – a twenty-mile-long stretch of water – was part of this liquid highway. Wheel-boats of every shape and size and barges carrying cargoes of every description passed in a constant two-way flow beneath
the palace ramparts.
The port of Osa-wego was also linked to this inland waterway by the river of that name and it was along this that the vessel carrying Cadillac and Roz now sailed. A left turn at the junction with the main east-west canal led them into the lake and directly to the stepped stone jetty below the palace.
Cadillac stared up at the massive stone walls and the multi-storied wooden superstructure with its maze of galleries and tiled roofs. Two huge wooden doors decorated with spiked iron bolts barred the exit from the jetty steps. Flanked by stone towers, this was the keep – part of the outer defences like the surrounding moat. To reach the palace from the lake, you had to cross a drawbridge which could be raised to cover the equally massive inner gates.
Preceded by the two flag-bearers, Tojo and Akori Yama-Shita led the way up the steps. Cadillac and Roz, sandwiched between them and the rest of the welcome-home committee, had no choice but to follow. Cadillac edged shoulder to shoulder with Roz. ‘This is the crunch-point,’ he muttered. ‘Are you going to be able to keep this up?’
‘That’s what we’re about to find out,’ whispered Roz. ‘Just keep talking and leave the thinking to me.’
Cadillac was not at all happy with this somewhat arbitrary division of effort. It sounded distinctly like a demotion, but he could not afford to take umbrage. This was no ordinary joint enterprise; he had to stay glued to Roz’s side – the illusion could not be sustained without her! Cadillac made an effort to compose himself but when they reached the top of the steps his heart was still pounding – and it wasn’t due to the climb.
On they went, across the drawbridge and through the yawning palace gates into the courtyard beyond. A series of court officials of ascending rank progressively weeded out their entourage until only Tojo and Akori were left ahead of them in the stairways.
Earth-Thunder Page 11
