Shogun

Order!”

For a moment all the men on the wharf remained motionless. Then they started to move. The spell broke. Yabu darted at the man who had insulted him. The ronin jumped back, sidestepped, his sword held violently above his head, two-handed, waiting fearlessly for the next attack. His friends hesitated.

“Go there! Now! Order!”

Reluctantly but obediently, the rest of the men backed out of the way, sheathed their swords. Yabu and the man circled each other slowly.

“You!” Blackthorne shouted. “Stop! Sword down! I order!”

The man kept his furious eyes on Yabu but he heard the order and wet his lips. He feinted left, then right. Yabu retreated and the man slipped out of his grasp and rushed nearer to Blackthorne and put his sword down in front of him. “I obey, Anjin-san. I didn’t attack him.” As Yabu charged, he leaped out of the way and retreated fearlessly, more fleet than Yabu, younger than Yabu, taunting him.

“Yabu-san,” Blackthorne called out. “So sorry—think mistake, neh? Perhaps —”

But Yabu spouted a flood of Japanese and rushed the man, who fled again without fear.

Alvito was now coldly amused. “Yabu-san said there’s no mistake, Anjin-san. This cabron has to die, he says. No samurai could accept such an insult!”

Blackthorne felt all their eyes on him as he desperately tried to decide what to do. He watched Yabu stalk the man. Just to the left a Toranaga samurai aimed his bow. The only noise was that of the two men panting and running and shouting at one another. The ronin backed, then turned and ran away, around the clearing, sidestepping, weaving, all the time keeping up a guttural hissing flood of invective.

Alvito said, “He’s baiting Yabu, Anjin-san. He says: ‘I’m samurai—I don’t kill unarmed men like you—you’re not a samurai, you’re a manure-stinking peasant—ah, so that’s it, you’re not samurai, you’re eta, neh? Your mother was eta, your father was eta, and—’?” The Jesuit stopped as Yabu let out a bellow of rage and pointed at one of the men and shouted something. “Yabu says: ‘You! Give him his sword.’?”

The ronin hesitated and looked at Blackthorne for the order.

Yabu turned to Blackthorne and shouted, “Give him his sword!”

Blackthorne picked up the sword. “Yabu-san, ask not fight,” he said, wishing him dead. “Please ask not fight—”

“Give him the sword!”

An angry murmur went through Blackthorne’s men. He held up his hand. “Silence!” He looked at his ronin vassal. “Come here. Please!” The man watched Yabu, feinted left then right, and each time Yabu hacked at him in wild rage but the man managed to slip away and race to Blackthorne. This time Yabu did not follow. He just waited and watched like a mad bull readying his charge. The man bowed to Blackthorne and took the sword. Then he turned on Yabu and, with a howling battle cry, flung himself to the attack. Swords clashed and clashed again. Now the two men circled in the silence. There was another frantic exchange, the swords singing. Then Yabu stumbled and the ronin charged in for the easy kill. But Yabu neatly sidestepped and struck. The man’s hands, still gripping the sword, were sliced off. For a moment the ronin stood there howling, staring at his stumps, then Yabu hacked off his head.

There was silence. Then a roar of applause surrounded Yabu. Yabu slashed once more at the twitching corpse. Then, honor vindicated, he picked up the head by the topknot, spat carefully in the face, and tossed it aside. Quietly he walked back to Blackthorne and bowed.

“Please excuse my bad manners, Anjin-san. Thank you for giving him his sword,” he said, his voice polite, Alvito translating. “I apologize for shouting. Thank you for allowing me to blood my sword honorably.” His eyes dropped to the heirloom Toranaga had given him. Carefully he examined its edge. It was still perfect. He undid his silk sash to cleanse the blood away. “Never touch a blade with your fingers, Anjin-san, that will ruin it. A blade must feel only silk or the body of an enemy.” He stopped and looked up. “May I politely suggest you allow your vassals to test their blades? It will be a good omen for them.”

Blackthorne turned to Uraga. “Tell them.”

When Yabu returned to his house it was late in the day. Servants took his sweat-soiled clothes and gave him a fresh lounging kimono and put his feet into clean tabi. Yuriko, his wife, was waiting for him in the cool of the veranda with cha and sake, piping hot, the way he liked to drink it.

“Sake, Yabu-san?” Yuriko was a tall thin woman with gray-streaked hair. Her dark kimono of poor quality set off her fair skin nicely.

“Thank you, Yuriko-san.” Yabu drank the wine gratefully, enjoying the sweet, harsh rasp as it slid down his parched throat.

“It went well, I hear.”

“Yes.”

“How impertinent of that ronin!”

“He served me well, Lady, very well. I feel fine now. I’ve blooded Toranaga’s sword and made it really mine.” Yabu finished the cup and she refilled it. His hand fondled his sword hilt. “But you wouldn’t have enjoyed the fight. He was a child—he fell into the first trap.”

She touched him tenderly. “I’m glad he did, husband.”

“Thank you, but I hardly got up a sweat.” Yabu laughed. “You should have seen the priest though! It would have made you warm to see that barbarian sweating—I’ve never seen him so angry. He was so angry it almost choked him to hold it in. Cannibal! They’re all cannibals. Pity there’s no way to stamp them out before we depart this earth.”

“Do you think the Anjin-san could?”

“He’s going to try. With ten of those ships and ten of him, I could control the seas from here to Kyushu. With only him I could hurt Kiyama, Onoshi, and Harima and smash Jikkyu and keep Izu! We only need a little time and every daimyo’ll be fighting his own special enemy. Izu would be safe and mine again! I don’t understand why Toranaga’s going to let the Anjin-san go. That’s another stupid waste!” He bunched his fist and slammed it on the tatamis. The maid flinched but said nothing. Yuriko did not make the slightest move. A smile flickered across her face.

“How did the Anjin-san take his freedom, and his vassals?” she asked.

“He was so happy he was like an old man dreaming he had a four-pronged Yang. He—oh yes?.?.?.” Yabu frowned, remembering. “But there was one thing I still don’t understand. When those wako first surrounded me I was a dead man. No doubt about it. But the Anjin-san stopped them and gave me back my life. No reason for him to do that, neh? Just before, I’d seen the hate written all over him. So naive to pretend otherwise—as if I’d trust him.”

“He gave you your life?”

“Oh yes. Strange, neh?”

“Yes. Many strange things are going on, husband.” She dismissed the maid, then asked quietly, “What did Toranaga really want?”

Yabu bent forward and whispered, “I think he wants me to become commander-in-chief.”

“Why should he do that? Is Iron Fist dying?” Yuriko asked. “What about Lord Sudara? Or Buntaro? Or Lord Noboru?”

“Who knows, Lady? They’re all out of favor, neh? Toranaga changes his mind so often no one can predict what he’ll do now. First he asked me to go in his place to the wharf and told how he wanted everything said, then he talked about Hiro-matsu, how old he was getting, and asked what I really thought about the Musket Regiment.”

“Could he be readying Crimson Sky again?”

“That’s always ready. But he hasn’t got the Fruit for it. That will need leadership and skill. Once he had it, not now. Now he’s a shadow of the Minowara he was. I was shocked at how he looked. So sorry, I made a mistake. I should have gone with Ishido.”

“I think you chose correctly.”

“What?”