Shogun

was no longer terrible.

Footsteps approached.

“Yes, Chimmoko?”

“It’s time, Mistress.”

“Is everything ready?”

“Yes, Mistress.”

“Wait for me beside the lily pond.” The footsteps went away. Mariko turned back to Blackthorne and kissed him gently.

“I love thee,” she said.

“I love thee,” he said.

She bowed to him and went through the doorway. He followed.

Mariko stopped by the lily pond and undid her obi and let it fall. Chimmoko helped her out of her blue kimono. Beneath it Mariko wore the most brilliant white kimono and obi Blackthorne had ever seen. It was a formal death kimono. She untied the green ribbon from her hair and cast it aside, then, completely in white, she walked on and did not look at Blackthorne.

Beyond the garden, all the Browns were drawn up in a formal three-sided square around eight tatamis that had been laid out in the center of the main gateway. Yabu and Kiri and the rest of the ladies were seated in a line in the place of honor, facing south. In the avenue the Grays were also drawn up ceremoniously, and mingling with them were other samurai and samurai women. At a sign from Sumiyori everyone bowed. She bowed to them. Four samurai came forward and spread a crimson coverlet over the tatamis.

Mariko walked to Kiritsubo and greeted her and Sazuko and all the ladies. They returned her bow and spoke the most formal of greetings. Blackthorne waited at the gates. He watched her leave the ladies and go to the crimson square and kneel in the center, in front of the tiny white cushion. Her right hand brought out her stiletto dagger from her white obi and she placed it on the cushion in front of her. Chimmoko came forward and, kneeling too, offered her a small, pure white blanket and cord. Mariko arranged the skirts of her kimono perfectly, the maid helping her, then tied the blanket around her waist with the cord. Blackthorne knew this was to prevent her skirts being blooded and disarranged by her death throes.

Then, serene and prepared, Mariko looked up at the castle donjon. Sun still illuminated the upper story, glittering off the golden tiles. Rapidly the flaming light was mounting the spire. Then it disappeared.

She looked so tiny sitting there motionless, a splash of white on the square of crimson.

Already the avenue was dark and servants were lighting flares. When they finished, they fled as quickly and as silently as they had arrived.

She reached forward and touched the knife and straightened it. Then she gazed once more through the gateway to the far end of the avenue but it was as still and as empty as it had ever been. She looked back at the knife.

“Kasigi Yabu-sama!”

“Yes, Toda-sama?”

“It seems Lord Kiyama has declined to assist me. Please, I would be honored if you would be my second.”

“It is my honor,” Yabu said. He bowed and got to his feet and stood behind her, to her left. His sword sang as it slid from its scabbard. He set his feet firmly and with two hands raised the sword. “I am ready, Lady,” he said.

“Please wait until I have made the second cut.”

Her eyes were on the knife. With her right hand she made the sign of the cross over her breast, then leaned forward and took up the knife without trembling and touched it to her lips as though to taste the polished steel. Then she changed her grip and held the knife firmly with her right hand under the left side of her throat. At that moment flares rounded the far end of the avenue. A retinue approached. Ishido was at their head.

She did not move the knife.

Yabu was still a coiled spring, concentrated on the mark. “Lady,” he said, “do you wait or are you continuing? I wish to be perfect for you.”

Mariko forced herself back from the brink. “I—we wait .?.?. we .?.?. I?.?.?.” Her hand lowered the knife. It was shaking now. As slowly, Yabu released himself. His sword hissed back into the scabbard and he wiped his hands on his sides.

Ishido stood at the gateway. “It’s not sunset yet, Lady. The sun’s still on the horizon. Are you so keen to die?”

“No, Lord General. Just to obey my Lord.?.?.?.” She held her hands together to stop their shaking.

A rumble of anger went through the Browns at Ishido’s arrogant rudeness and Yabu readied to leap at him, but stopped as Ishido said loudly, “The Lady Ochiba begged the Regents on behalf of the Heir to make an exception in your case. We agreed to her request. Here are permits for you to leave at dawn tomorrow.” He shoved them into the hands of Sumiyori, who was nearby.

“Sire?” Mariko said, without understanding, her voice threadbare.

“You are free to leave. At dawn.”

“And—and Kiritsubo-san and the Lady Sazuko?”

“Isn’t that also part of your ‘duty’? Their permits are there also.”

Mariko tried to concentrate. “And .?.?. and her son?”

“Him too, Lady,” Ishido’s scornful laugh echoed. “And all your men.”

Yabu stammered, “Everyone has safe conducts?”

“Yes, Kasigi Yabu-san,” Ishido said. “You’re senior officer, neh? Please go at once to my secretary. He is completing all your passes, though why honored guests would wish to leave I don’t know. It’s hardly worth it for seventeen days. Neh?”

“And me, Lord General?” old Lady Etsu asked weakly, daring to test the totality of Mariko’s victory, her heart racing and painful. “May—may I please leave also?”

“Of course, Lady Maeda. Why should we keep anyone against her will? Are we jailers? Of course not! If the Heir’s welcome is so offensive that you wish to leave, then leave, though how you intend to travel four hundred ri home and another four hundred ri here in seventeen days I don’t understand.”

“Please ex—excuse me, the—the Heir’s welcome isn’t offen—”

Ishido interrupted icily. “If you wish to leave, apply for a permit in the normal way. It’ll take a day or so but we’ll see you safely on your way.” He addressed the others: “Any ladies may apply, any samurai. I’ve said before, it’s stupid to leave for seventeen days, it’s insulting to flout the Heir’s welcome, the Lady Ochiba’s welcome, and the Regents’ welcome?.?.?.”—his ruthless gaze went back to Mariko—“or to pressure them with threats of seppuku, which for a lady should be done in private and not as an arrogant public spectacle. Neh? I don’t seek the death of women, only enemies of the Heir, but if women are openly his enemy, then I’ll soon spit on their corpses too.”

Ishido turned on his heel, shouted an order at the Grays, and walked off. At once captains echoed the order and all the Grays began to form up and move off from the gateway, except for a token few who stayed in honor of the Browns.

“Lady,” Yabu said huskily, wiping his damp hands again, a bitter vomit taste in his mouth from the lack of fulfillment, “Lady, it’s over now. You’ve .?.?. you’ve won. You’ve won.”

“Yes—yes,” she said. Her strengthless hands sought the knots of the white cord. Chimmoko went forward and undid the knots and took away the white blanket, then stepped away from the crimson square. Everyone watched Mariko, waiting to see if she could walk away.

Mariko was trying to grope to her feet. She failed. She tried a second time. Again she failed. Impulsively Kiri moved to help her but Yabu shook his head and said, “No, it’s her privilege,” so Kiri sat back, hardly breathing.

Blackthorne, beside the gates, was still turmoiled by his boundless joy at her reprieve and he remembered how his own will had been stretched that night of his near-seppuku, when he had had to get up as a man and walk home as a man unsupported, and became samurai. And he watched her, despising the need for this courage, yet understanding it, even honoring it.