Shogun

Toranaga spoke rapidly. Blackthorne watched them, the woman so petite and lovely and attentive, the man compact, rock-hard, his sash tight over his large belly. Toranaga did not talk with his hands like many, but kept them still, his left hand propped on his thigh, the other always on his sword hilt.

“Hai, Toranaga-sama. Hai.” Mariko glanced at Blackthorne and continued as formally. “Our Master asks me to explain that, so sorry, if you’d been Japanese there would have been no difficulty, Anjin-san. Old Gardener would simply have gone to the burial ground to receive his release. But, please excuse me, you’re a foreigner, even though Lord Toranaga made you hatamoto—one of his personal vassals—and it was a matter of deciding whether you were legally samurai or not. I’m honored to tell you that he ruled you are samurai and you do have samurai rights. So everything was resolved at once and made easy. A crime had been committed. Your orders had been deliberately disobeyed. The law is clear. There is no option.” She was grave now. “But Lord Toranaga knows of your sensitivity to killing, so to save you pain, he personally ordered one of his samurai to send Old Gardener into the Void.”

“But why didn’t someone ask me first? That pheasant meant nothing to me.”

“The pheasant has nothing do with it, Anjin-san,” she explained. “You’re head of a house. The law says no member of your house may disobey you. Old Gardener deliberately broke the law. The whole world would fall to pieces if people were allowed to flout the law. Your—”

Toranaga broke in and spoke to her. She listened, answered some questions, then again he motioned her to continue.

“Hai. Lord Toranaga wants me to assure you that he personally saw that Old Gardener got the quick, painless, and honorable death he merited. He even loaned the samurai his own sword, which is very sharp. And I should tell you that Old Gardener was very proud that in his failing days he was able to help your house, Anjin-san, proud that he helped to establish your samurai status before all. Most of all he was proud of the honor being paid to him. Public executioners were not used, Anjin-san. Lord Toranaga wants me to make that very clear to you.”

“Thank you, Mariko-san. Thank you for making it clear.” Blackthorne turned to Toranaga, bowed most correctly. “Domo, Toranaga-sama, domo arigato. Wakarimasu. Domo.”

Toranaga bowed back agreeably. “Yoi, Anjin-san. Shinpai suru monojanai, neh? Shigata ga nai, neh?” Good. Now don’t worry, eh? What could you do, eh?

“Nani mo.” Nothing. Blackthorne answered the questions Toranaga put to him about the musket training, but nothing that they were saying reached him. His mind was tottering under the impact of what he had been told. He had abused Fujiko before all his servants and abused the trust of all his household, when Fujiko had done only what was correct and so had they.

Fujiko was blameless. They’re all blameless. Except me.

I cannot undo what’s been done. Neither to Ueki-ya nor to her. Or to them.

How can I live with this shame?

He sat cross-legged in front of Toranaga, the slight sea breeze tugging at his kimono, swords in his sash. Dully he listened and answered and nothing was important. War is coming, she was saying. When? he was asking. Very soon, she was saying, so you are to leave at once with me, you are to accompany me part of the way, Anjin- san, because I’m going to Osaka, but you’re going on to Yedo by land to prepare your ship for war.?.?.?.

Suddenly the silence was colossal.

Then the earth began to shake.

He felt his lungs about to burst, and every fiber of his being screamed panic. He tried to stand but could not and saw all the guards were equally helpless. Toranaga and Mariko desperately held on to the ground with their hands and feet. The rumbling, catastrophic roar was coming from earth and sky. It surrounded them, building and building until their eardrums were ready to split. They became part of the frenzy. For an instant the frenzy stopped, the shock continuing. He felt his vomit rising, his unbelieving mind shrieking that this was land where it was firm and safe and not sea where the world tilted every moment. He spat to clear the foul taste away, clutching the trembling earth, retching again and again.

An avalanche of rocks started from the mountain to the north and howled down into the valley below, adding to the tumult. Part of the samurai camp vanished. He groped to his hands and knees, Toranaga and Mariko doing the same. He heard himself shouting but no sound seemed to be coming from his lips or from theirs.

The tremor stopped.

The earth was firm again, firm as it had always been, firm as it always should be. His hands and knees and body were trembling uncontrollably. He tried to still them and catch his breath.

Then again the earth cried out. The second quake began. It was more violent. Then the earth ripped open at the far end of the plateau. This gaping fissure rushed toward them at an incredible speed, passed five paces away, and tore onward. His disbelieving eyes saw Toranaga and Mariko teetering on the brink of the cleft where there should have been solid ground. As though in a nightmare he saw Toranaga, nearest to the maw, begin to topple into it. He came out of his stupor, lunged forward. His right hand grabbed Toranaga’s sash, the earth trembling like a leaf in the wind.

The cleft was twenty paces deep and ten across and stank of death. Mud and rocks poured down, dragging Toranaga and him with it. Blackthorne fought for handhold and foothold, raving at Toranaga to help, almost pulled down into the abyss. Still partially stunned, Toranaga hacked his toes into the face of the wall and, half dragged and half carried by Blackthorne, clawed his way out. They both lay gasping in safety.

At that moment there was another shock.

The earth split again. Mariko screamed. She tried to scramble out of the way but this new fissure swallowed her. Frantically Blackthorne crawled for the edge, the after-shocks throwing him off balance. On the brink he stared down. She shivered on a ledge a few feet below as the ground reeled and the sky looked down. The chasm was thirty paces deep, ten wide. The lip crumbled away under him sickeningly. He let himself slide down, mud and stones almost blinding him, and caught hold of her, pulling her to the safety of another ledge. Together they fought for balance. A new shock. The ledge mostly gave way and they were lost. Then Toranaga’s iron hand caught his sash, stopping their slide into hell.

“For Christ’s sake?.?.?.” Blackthorne cried, his arms almost torn from their sockets as he held on to her and fought for holds with his feet and free hand. Toranaga grappled him until they were on a narrow shelf again, then the sash broke. A moment’s respite from the tremors gave Blackthorne time to get her onto the shelf, debris raining on them. Toranaga leapt to safety, shouting for him to hurry. The chasm howled and began to close, Blackthorne and Mariko still deep in its gullet. Toranaga could no longer help. Blackthorne’s terror lent him inhuman strength and somehow he managed to rip Mariko out of the tomb and shove her upward. Toranaga clutched her wrist and hauled her over the lip. Blackthorne scrambled after her but reeled backward as part of his wall fell away. The far wall screeched sickeningly as it approached. Mud and stones tumbled off it. For a moment he thought he was trapped but he tore himself free and groped half out of his grave. He lay on the shuddering brink, his lungs gulping air, unable to crawl away, legs in the cleft. The gap was closing. Then it stopped—six paces across the mouth, eight deep.

All rumbling ceased. The earth firmed. The silence gathered.

On their hands and knees, helpless, they waited for the horror to begin again. Blackthorne started to get up, sweat dripping.

“Iye.” Toranaga motioned him to stay down, his face a mess, a cruel gash on his temple where his head had smashed against a rock.

They were all panting, their chests heaving, bile in their mouths. Guards were picking themselves up. Some began running toward Toranaga.

“Iye!” he shouted. “Matte!” Wait!

They obeyed and went down on their hands and knees again. The waiting seemed to go on forever. Then a bird screeched out of a tree and took to the air screaming. Another bird followed. Blackthorne shook his head to clear the sweat from his eyes. He was seeing his broken, bleeding fingernails gripping the tufts of grass. Then in the grass an ant moved. Another and another. They began to forage.

Still frightened he sat back on his heels. “When’s it safe?”

Mariko did not answer. She was mesmerized by the cleft in the ground. He scrambled over to her. “Are you all right?”