Shogun

pain exploded in his head and set off sparks and colored lights and a violent throbbing.

“Sorry,” he muttered, waiting for the agony to lessen, willing it to lessen. “Sorry, ears hurt, neh? But I hear now—understand, Doctor-san? Hear now—little. Sorry, what say?” He watched the man’s lips to help himself hear.

“The Lady Ochiba and Kiritsubo-sama want to know how you are.”

“Ah!” Blackthorne looked at them. Now he noticed that they were formally dressed. Kiritsubo wore all white, except for a green head scarf. Ochiba’s kimono was dark green, without pattern or adornment, her long shawl white gossamer. “Better, thank you,” he said, his soul disquieted by the white. “Yes, better.” Then he saw the quality of the light outside and realized that it was near dawn and not twilight. “Doctor-san, please I sleep a day and night?”

“Yes, Anjin-san. A day and a night. Lie back, please.” The doctor took Blackthorne’s wrist with his long fingers and pressed them against the pulse, listening with his fingertips to the nine pulses, three on the surface, three in the middle, and three deep down, as Chinese medicine taught from time immemorial.

All in the room waited for the diagnosis. Then the doctor nodded, satisfied. “Everything seems good, Anjin- san. No bad hurt, understand? Much head pain, neh?” He turned and explained in more detail to the Lady Ochiba and Kiritsubo.

“Anjin-san,” Ochiba said. “Today Mariko-sama’s funeral. You understand ‘funeral’?”

“Yes, Lady.”

“Good. Her funeral’s just after dawn. It is your privilege to go if you wish. You understand?”

“Yes. Think so. Yes, please, I go also.”

“Very well.” Ochiba spoke to the doctor, telling him to look after his patient very carefully. Then, with a polite bow to Kiritsubo and a smile at Blackthorne, she left.

Kiri waited till she was gone. “All right, Anjin-san?”

“Head bad, Lady. So sorry.”

“Please excuse me, I wanted to say thank you. Do you understand?”

“Duty. Only duty. Fail. Mariko-sama dead, neh?”

Kiri bowed to him in homage. “Not fail. Oh, no, not fail. Thank you, Anjin-san. For her and me and for the others. Say more later. Thank you.” Then she too went away.

Blackthorne took hold of himself and got to his feet. The pain in his head was monstrous, making him want to cry out. He forced his lips into a tight line, his chest aching badly, his stomach churning. In a moment the nausea passed but left a filthy taste in his mouth. He eased his feet forward and walked over to the window and held on to the sill, fighting not to retch. He waited, then walked up and down, but this did not take away the pain in his head or the nausea.

“I all right, thank you,” he said, and sat again gratefully.

“Here, drink this. Make better. Settle hara.” The doctor had a benign smile. Blackthorne drank and gagged on the brew that smelled like ancient bird droppings and mildewed kelp mixed with fermenting leaves on a hot summer’s day. The taste was worse.

“Drink. Better soon, so sorry.”

Blackthorne gagged again but forced it down.

“Soon better, so sorry.”

Women servants came and combed and dressed his hair. A barber shaved him. Hot towels were brought for his hands and face, and he felt much better. But the pain in his head remained. Other servants helped him to dress in the formal kimono and winged overmantle. There was a new short stabbing sword. “Gift, Master. Gift from Kiritsubo-sama,” a woman servant said.

Blackthorne accepted it and stuck it in his belt with his killing sword, the one Toranaga had given him, its haft chipped and almost broken where he had smashed at the bolt. He remembered Mariko standing with her back against the door, then nothing till he was kneeling over her and watching her die. Then nothing until now.

“So sorry, this is the donjon, neh?” he said to the captain of Grays.

“Yes, Anjin-san.” The captain bowed deferentially, squat like an ape and just as dangerous.

“Why am I here, please?”

The captain smiled and sucked in his breath politely. “The Lord General ordered it.”

“But why here?”

The samurai said, “It was the Lord General’s orders. Please excuse me, you understand?”

“Yes, thank you,” Blackthorne said wearily.

When he was finally ready he felt dreadful. Some cha helped him for a while, then sickness swept through him and he vomited into the bowl a servant held for him, his chest and head pierced with red hot needles at every spasm.

“So sorry,” the doctor said patiently. “Here, please drink.”

He drank more of the brew but it did not help him.

By now dawn was spreading across the sky. Servants beckoned him and helped him to walk out of the large room, his guards going in front, the remainder following. They went down the staircase and out into the forecourt. A palanquin was waiting with more guards. He got into it thankfully. At an order from his captain of Grays the porters picked up the shafts and, the guards hovering protectively, they joined the procession of litters and samurai and ladies on foot, winding through the maze, out of the castle. All were dressed in their best. Some of the women wore somber kimonos with white head scarves, others wore all white except for a colored scarf.

Blackthorne was aware that he was being watched. He pretended not to notice and tried to keep his back stiff and his face emotionless, and prayed that the sickness would not return to shame him. His pain increased.

The cortege wound through the castle strongpoints, past thousands of samurai drawn up in silent ranks. No one was challenged, no papers demanded. The mourners went through checkpoint after checkpoint, under portcullises and across the five moats without stopping. Once through the main gate, outside the main fortifications, he noticed his Grays become more wary, their eyes watching everyone nearby, keeping close to him, guarding him very carefully. This lessened his anxiety. He had not forgotten that he was a marked man. The procession curled across a clear space, went over a bridge, then took up station in the square beside the river bank.

This space was three hundred paces by five hundred paces. In the center was a pit fifteen paces square and five deep, filled with wood. Over the pit was a high matted roof dressed with white silk and surrounding it were walls of white linen sheets, hung from bamboos, that pointed exactly East, North, West, and South, a small wooden gate in the middle of each wall.

“The gates are for the soul to go through, Anjin-san, in its flight to heaven,” Mariko had told him at Hakone.

“Let’s go for a swim or talk of other things. Happy things.”

“Yes, of course, but first please may I finish because this is a very happy thing. Our funeral is most very important to us so you should learn about it, Anjin-san, neh? Please?”

“All right. But why have four gates? Why not just one?”

“The soul must have a choice. That’s wise—oh, we are very wise, neh? Did I tell thee today that I love thee?” she had said. “We are a very wise nation to allow the soul a choice. Most souls choose the south gate, Anjin-san. That’s the important one, where there are tables with dried figs and fresh pomegranates and other fruits, radishes and other vegetables, and the sheaves of rice plantlets if the season is correct. And always a bowl of fresh cooked rice, Anjin-san, that’s most important. You see, the soul might want to eat before leaving.”

“If it’s me, put a roast pheasant or—”

“So sorry, no flesh—not even fish. We’re serious about that, Anjin-san. Also on the table there’ll be a small brazier with coals burning nicely with precious woods and oils in it to make everything smell sweet.?.?.?.”

Blackthorne felt his eyes fill with tears.

“I want my funeral to be near dawn,” she had always said so serenely. “I love the dawn most of all. And, if it could also be in the autumn?.?.?.”

My poor darling, he thought. You knew all along there’d never be an autumn.

His litter stopped in a place of honor in the front rank, near the center, and he was close enough to see tears