Shogun

“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 Hakone 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.