‘Like what?’ he replied, teasingly.
‘Jeezuss! The way this thing is moving from side to side as well as up and down! Plus the vibration?! Can’t you feel it? And the noise! Boom, boom, boom! That goddamm engine’s driving me crazy!’
Tough shit, thought Steve. You wanna try working down in the A-Levels for three months – like where you sent me. Bitch.…
He laid on a look of genuine concern. ‘Do you want me to ask them to turn it off, and just use the sails?’
‘And drag this out even longer? Forget it!’
Steve suppressed his own feelings of nausea and smiled. ‘Cheer up. The first twenty-four hours are always the worst!’
Her eyes turned to ice. A moment of pure hatred.
And screw you too, Commander.…
Two hours after sunrise, Senior Secretary Shikobu and Kenzo the Chief Steward each accompanied by two subordinates, rode out of the Winter Palace, followed by three troops of cavalry in battle-order, led by the Castle Commandant. During the night, Ieyasu had had second thoughts. Shikobu was now empowered to use force to bring Domain-Lord Min-Orota to the Palace if all other means of persuasion failed.
By the time the cavalcade thundered through the roofed gateway of the post-house, it was not chickens and pigs that scattered, it was the displaced tarts, card-sharps, itinerant pedlars and street performers who had spent a cold and uncomfortable night dossed down in the barns and outhouses of nearby farms. Word of the domain-lord’s departure soon circulated and they had all hastened back to reclaim their previous accommodation.
It was left to the alarmed inn-keeper and his wife to explain to Shikobu the circumstances of the domain-lord’s early departure. Having already paid in advance, the parties in question had not deemed it necessary to take formal leave of the inn-keeper, but a quick check of the accommodation showed that all the furnishings and fittings were intact.
The riders and drivers had gone about the business of readying their mounts with the minimum of noise, but it was impossible to silence the gritty rumble of loaded carts, the squeak of harness, and the creak of wooden shafts as the oxen took the strain. It was this which had woken Shoshi and brought her first to one of her many spy-holes, then to the front door and the unguarded verandah.
Waiting until the last of the mounted rearguard had passed out through the archway, she gathered her night-clothes about her and ran across the courtyard to where Inazo was sliding the last bolts home in the gate. Having been awakened three times during the night by the arrival and departure of some lowly servants on an ox-cart and now the departing northerners, Inazo, a faithful but crotchety old bugger, was not in the best of humours. He told Shoshi that one group of horsemen and carts had gone north, the other had taken the east road.
Towards the sea.…
Which group, enquired Shikobu, had been led by the domain-lord?
At this, Inazo had bowed deeply and wrung his hands. He could not be certain. The house flags carried by the domain-lord’s party on the previous day had not been displayed. It had been dark. His eyes were not what they were.…
Shikobu dismissed him with a wave.
It was true that no flags had been carried aloft, but Inazo failed to mention that someone on Min-Orota’s staff had tipped him handsomely for all his trouble, and told him to look the other way – a fact he did not intend to reveal in front of his tight-fisted cow of a mistress.
For the last three years she had refused to let her husband spend anything on the hovel Inazo and his wife were obliged to live in, and had she known about the lavish back-hander, she would have taken every penny. On the grounds that all staff contributed to the smooth running of the inn, neat little notices posted in each room requested clients to include any gratuities when settling their bill – the money being shared out later.
Some chance with Shoshi holding the purse-strings! If they saw a tenth of it they were lucky. Still what could you do when young men and women, eager to escape the endless cycle of back-breaking farm work, were lining up in their dozens every time there was a vacancy – willing to take any job at almost any price?
Shoshi, anxious to show her vigilance to these important men from the Palace, recounted the visit by what she believed was a lady of quality to Lord Min-Orota. And she described how she had seen her arrive on an oxcart disguised as a servant-girl with seven companions who were clearly of inferior rank.
Shikobu exchanged glances with Kenzo, and questioned her further. Shoshi was able to supply an approximate time of arrival but confessed to being asleep when the cart departed. Inazo, the gate-keeper, did not have any means of telling the time.
Having dozed off after their arrival he had no clear idea how long they had stayed. He only knew that when called upon to let them out, it was cold and late and, although he could not be absolutely certain, he believed that the domain-lord had watched them go.
Shikobu would have liked more details, but it was enough to go on. He was beginning to regret not acting immediately on receipt of Ieyasu’s first message. But on the other hand, permission to use force had only arrived on his desk an hour ago – and Lord Min-Orota had already left by then.
He held a hurried conference with the Castle Commandant. Kenzo the Chief Steward, was a master of protocol, ceremonies and a gem at catering, but he had nothing to contribute at a moment like this. A decision was made to despatch two troops – sixty men plus their officers – to the north, and the remainder along the east road. Shikobu, Kenzo and the Commandant would return to the Palace with their subordinates, and a fourth troop would be despatched from there to back up the third in case Lord Min-Orota was heading for the harbour at Oshana-sita.
Shikobu believed he knew the identity of Min-Orota’s visitor, but he decided to keep his opinions to himself. It appeared that the ox-cart had taken the road back to the palace – but had she been on it? Or was it a real servant-girl that Min-Orota had made the pretence of bowing to? The answer to this question and others, that were equally disquieting, lay at the Palace.
At Showa, Shikobu was met in the courtyard by Kenzo’s distraught deputy. Lady Mishiko was nowhere to be found. She, her three children, their nurse and sixteen of her personal servants had vanished! He had questioned her remaining staff, but none of them had confessed to knowing where she might be. All they could tell him was that she had retired in the usual manner the previous night and, in the deputy’s view, they appeared to be as surprised as everyone else.
Shikobu briefly considered lining the servants up and having them whipped, one by one, into insensibility until someone decided to save his or her skin by talking. But with no proof of any wrong-doing by Lady Mishiko, his hands were tied. She was, after all, the Shogun’s sister and, in theory, was entitled to go where she liked. An unwarranted attack on her servants could quite easily be construed as a violation of her rights and privileges – granted by her brother, the Shogun.
Dangerous waters.…
Fortunately, there was another avenue he could follow. On the orders of the Palace Commandant, the soldiers who had served on the night-watch were hastily assembled for questioning. Those detailed to guard the gate were able to confirm that an ox-cart carrying eight of Lady Mishiko’s servants had been allowed over the drawbridge at about eight in the evening, returning some three hours later.
Since most were known to the soldiers concerned, they had not been required to show gate-passes or proof of identity – and this was a perfectly normal procedure. The personal servants of Lady Mishiko were regarded as being a cut above the rest, and on a par with those who worked for Yoritomo, and the Lord Chamberlain.
Their testimony, added to that of the inn-keeper’s wife, told Shikobu all he needed to know. Lady Mishiko, disguised as one of her own servants, had left the Palace for a secret meeting with Lord Min-Orota at the post-house inn. Something she had learned there had caused her to return, gather her children and her most trusted servants together, and leave some time during the night. Since no one had passed
out through the gate since the ox-cart’s return and his own departure earlier that morning, she must have left by a secret passageway known only to the Shogun’s immediate family.
She had met Lord Min-Orota at a pre-arranged rendezvous, and they had travelled on towards Oshana-sita. It was the only destination that made sense. To escape in secret implied an intention to evade discovery. A journey by sea was the best means to accomplish that. Somehow, Min-Orota or she had discovered the end-point of the Shogun’s present journey and intended to reach Aron-Giren by boat.
If they succeeded in hiring a vessel and left today, they could reach the Summer Palace before Ieyasu and Yoritomo. Shikobu could only think of one reason for their journey and the secrecy surrounding it. The highly sensitive information Lord Min-Orota claimed to have uncovered at Sara-kusa was not for the Lord Chamberlain. It was about him. Something damaging.…
That was why the domain-lord had refused to speak to anyone else. And why he had enlisted the help of Lady Mishiko. She was the only one who had direct access to Yoritomo. Anyone else wishing to gain audience had to apply to the Lord Chamberlain’s office. More often than not, if their case was accepted, Ieyasu acted as the intermediary or, in the rare event that the supplicant was actually allowed to see the Shogun, Ieyasu was always present. And since Toshiro Hase-Gawa’s death, that now included Yoritomo’s own select band of messengers – the Heralds.
It was pointless to speculate on what this possibly damaging information might be, but it had to be serious. Serious enough to prompt Lady Mishiko to take her children with her … to avoid them being held hostage to secure her silence. But it was not too late to act. The officers leading the mounted troops towards Oshana-sita were intelligent and resourceful. If they failed to intercept Min-Orota, they would at least return with every scrap of information they could glean about his departure.
None of the war vessels owned by the Toh-Yota were fitted with radios. These devices were only used by a trusted ‘inner circle’ of agents – less than a tenth of the army of informers employed by the Lord Chamberlain. There was little that could be done to intercept the boat, but it could be met on arrival. Forewarned was forearmed. Lady Mishiko may have slipped away but she had yet to reach the Summer Palace. All was not lost. Shikobu hurried towards the secret communications room, mentally composing the message he would send to his master.…
By nightfall, the stormy weather had eased noticeably but the the junk was still rolling several degrees and shipping water as she nosed down into the troughs between the waves that angled in across her bows. After sharing dinner, Steve retired to his own cabin as Fran, in her role of Commander, bade him a frosty goodnight. Still plagued by motion-sickness, she had only pecked at her food. Steve, by contrast, had made a point of clearing the decks – a fact that probably contributed to her ill-humour.
Sometime after his mind had filtered out the steady beat of the engine, allowing him to doze off, he was woken by a sudden coldness on his back.
‘It’s only me,’ a familiar voice whispered.
With the shutters closed, it was pitch dark. Steve turned obligingly as Fran dropped the coverlet back into place and wriggled her naked body into close contact with his. She slid her right arm under and round his neck and used her other hand to pull him half on top of her so that they lay with legs entwined. The heat in the high point of her pelvis started a fire in his loins.
‘I couldn’t sleep,’ she whispered. ‘The thought of floating on a few pieces of wood with all that water beneath us.’ A shudder ran through her body. ‘Hold me. Please!’
This was Fran at her most vulnerable. Make the most of it, Brickman. Score a few brownie points while you’ve got the chance.
Slowed at the onset of their voyage by the same bad weather that was giving Fran her first taste of seasickness, the junk carrying Cadillac, Roz and Lady Mishiko took nearly thirty-five hours to cover the two hundred and twenty-five miles between Oshana-sita and Aron-Giren. By the time the look-out in the crows-nest sighted the coastline, at four o’clock in the afternoon, the wind was no longer whipping clouds of spray from the white-capped waves – a sign that Lord Min-Orota took as a good omen as he and his entourage prepared to leave.
Cadillac and Roz had already agreed with his suggestion that he could be of more service to the Progressive cause by returning to his domain and readying his troops to answer the call to arms that would follow the deaths of the Shogun and Ieyasu. It was also a move which put him well out of the line of fire if anything went wrong – but only temporarily. If the plan came unglued he was one of the first people the Toh-Yota would come looking for.
Bidding a fond farewell to Lady Mishiko, the domain-lord transferred to the second vessel that had been following in their wake, and sailed away on an easterly course that would take his party beyond the reach of any coastal patrols mounted by the Toh-Yota.
With the light now fading rapidly, the junk captain pressed on towards the channel between the two long, overlapping sand-bars that protected the southern shore of Aron-Giren from the waves of the Great Eastern Sea. His objective was the harbour at Bei-shura, but as they neared the entrance to the long coastal lagoon, a junk flying the house flag of the Toh-Yota and the long blue and white pennant which marked it out as a naval vessel came into view. It was moving on a course that would bring it across their bow. A red signal rocket, fired from its fo’c’sle, soared into the sky – the order to heave-to and prepare to receive a boarding party.
The throbbing beat of the steam engine slowed, and from the deck above came a shouted command to haul in the big square-cut sail.
Cadillac and Roz watched the navy boat turn and head towards them on the seaward side. ‘Well, we expected trouble,’ said Cadillac. ‘And I think this is it.…’
A sea voyage was the only way of getting to the Summer Palace before Ieyasu and the Shogun arrived by road, but from the outset Cadillac and Roz had known that the Chamberlain would always be able to stay one jump ahead if, as they believed, he was linked by radio to the Winter Palace. If this was so, then there was bound to be a similar set-up at the Summer Palace on Aron-Giren. With virtually instantaneous communication between all three points, it would not take long to organise a blockade of the island, and the ship now bearing down on them was proof that Ieyasu was trying to head off trouble.
It now looked as if Lord Min-Orota’s sudden departure from the post-house had been discovered and tied in with Lady Mishiko’s disappearance from her quarters. They had also been tracked to Oshana-sita. With every vessel logged in and out of port, it would not take long to establish the identity of the two junks they had boarded. Min-Orota had given the destination of both vessels as Bo-sona, but someone had clearly decided not to take any chances. Ieyasu had been alerted, and he had contacted whoever was manning the radio at the Summer Palace and ordered them to intercept all in-coming boats from the south.
Cadillac was still wondering what to do when Lady Mishiko joined them at the starboard window. Roz shifted to the right to make room for her. The window was stepped out from the hull, allowing them a view forward along the side of the ship. They watched in silence as the navy ship swung about to bring her bow in line with the junk’s and threw her engine into reverse. The sea boiled under her stern as she came to a dead stop some fifty yards away.
The six pillar-mounted deck-cannon spaced along the port side were manned and aimed at the junk. They looked too puny to do any serious damage to the hull but, loaded with grapeshot, they were probably highly effective at clearing decks of hostile crewmen.
An oar-boat containing five men was lowered into the calm water between the two vessels. The crew of the junk dropped a rope ladder over the side and the captain got his papers ready to show the boarding party.
‘Two of my guards are on deck,’ said Lady Mishiko. ‘They will warn us if we are in any danger.’
‘Good.’ Cadillac gave Roz a questioning glance. She nodded reassuringly.
‘This may be a routine in
spection,’ said Lady Mishiko. ‘On the other hand, these men may have been ordered to prevent me landing, or take me into protective custody. When we discussed the possible moves open to Ieyasu, those two seemed the most likely – but I have since thought of another which would be even more effective.’
‘And what is that, your highness?’
‘Rather than risk half-measures that might cause difficulties later, he might have decided it would be safer for him if I never saw my brother again. I am travelling under an assumed name. Apart from Ieyasu’s men, no one knows I am here. It would be relatively easy to arrange for this ship to be lost at sea – with all hands.’
Roz saw Cadillac react uneasily. Whatever Mishiko had said was clearly bad news, but since they were speaking Japanese, she didn’t know what it was.
‘I hadn’t thought of that. It is indeed effective. But it is also a very drastic solution. Would the Chamberlain dare do such a thing? His suspicions may have been aroused, but surely he would not try and murder you without trying to ascertain the real reason for this journey?’
‘You do not know my great-uncle,’ said Mishiko. ‘We call him the Old Fox. He is ruthless, cunning, but also very cautious. There is a saying from the World Before which had always guided his actions. "Better to be safe than sorry".’
Cadillac nodded, then said: ‘Please excuse us, your highness. I would like to have a brief word with my companion in private.’
Beckoning Roz to follow, he led the way into the adjoining cabin, and gave her a whispered translation of this latest exchange with Mishiko.
‘So what do you want me to do?’
‘Nothing as yet. I just want you to understand what could be about to happen so we can react in the appropriate manner as and when the time comes.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ said Roz. ‘Just so long as you understand that I can’t solve every problem we run into! I can react pretty quickly, but it would make things a lot easier if I had some kind of advance warning. If I see or feel us getting into a threatening situation I can do something about it, but most of the time I don’t have a clue what’s going on because you don’t explain enough, and I can’t understand a word anyone’s saying! And it’s very frustrating!’
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