Shogun

the foot of the Despot to teach and to learn, and, if it was the will of God, to convert. This was the specific job he had been meticulously trained for by dell’Aqua, who had provided the best practical teachers among all the Jesuits and among the Portuguese traders in Asia. Alvito had become the Taiko’s confidant, one of the four persons—and the only foreigner—ever to see all the Taiko’s personal treasure rooms.

Within a few hundred paces was the castle donjon, the keep. It towered seven stories, protected by a further multiplicity of walls and doors and fortifications. On the fourth story were seven rooms with iron doors. Each was crammed with gold bullion and chests of golden coins. In the story above were the rooms of silver, bursting with ingots and chests of coins. And in the one above that were the rare silks and potteries and swords and armor—the treasure of the Empire.

At our present reckoning, Alvito thought, the value must be at least fifty million ducats, more than one year’s worth of revenue from the entire Spanish Empire, the Portuguese Empire, and Europe together. The greatest personal fortune of cash on earth.

Isn’t this the great prize? he reasoned. Doesn’t whoever controls Osaka Castle control this unbelievable wealth? And doesn’t this wealth therefore give him power over the land? Wasn’t Osaka made impregnable just to protect the wealth? Wasn’t the land bled to build Osaka Castle, to make it inviolate to protect the gold, to hold it in trust against the coming of age of Yaemon?

With a hundredth part we could build a cathedral in every city, a church in every town, a mission in every village throughout the land. If only we could get it, to use it for the glory of God!

The Taiko had loved power. And he had loved gold for the power it gave over men. The treasure was the gleaning of sixteen years of undisputed power, from the immense, obligatory gifts that all daimyos, by custom, were expected to offer yearly, and from his own fiefs. By right of conquest, the Taiko personally owned one fourth of all the land. His personal annual income was in excess of five million koku. And because he was Lord of all Japan with the Emperor’s mandate, in theory he owned all revenue of all fiefs. He taxed no one. But all daimyos, all samurai, all peasants, all artisans, all merchants, all robbers, all outcasts, all barbarians, even eta, contributed voluntarily, in great measure. For their own safety.

So long as the fortune is intact and Osaka is intact and Yaemon the de facto custodian, Alvito told himself, Yaemon will rule when he is of age in spite of Toranaga, Ishido, or anyone.

A pity the Taiko’s dead. With all his faults, we knew the devil we had to deal with. Pity, in fact, that Goroda was murdered, for he was a real friend to us. But he’s dead, and so is the Taiko, and now we have new pagans to bend—Toranaga and Ishido.

Alvito remembered the night that the Taiko had died. He had been invited by the Taiko to keep vigil—he, together with Yodoko-sama, the Taiko’s wife, and the Lady Ochiba, his consort and mother of the Heir. They had watched and waited long in the balm of that endless summer’s night.

Then the dying began, and came to pass.

“His spirit’s gone. He’s in the hands of God now,” he had said gently when he was sure. He had made the sign of the cross and blessed the body.

“May Buddha take my Lord into his keeping and rebirth him quickly so that he will take back the Empire into his hands once more,” Yodoko had said in silent tears. She was a nice woman, a patrician samurai who had been a faithful wife and counselor for forty-four of her fifty-nine years of life. She had closed the eyes and made the corpse dignified, which was her privilege. Sadly she had made an obeisance three times and then she had left him and the Lady Ochiba.

The dying had been easy. For months the Taiko had been sick and tonight the end was expected. A few hours ago he had opened his eyes and smiled at Ochiba and at Yodoko, and had whispered, his voice like a thread: “Listen, this is my death poem:

“Like dew I was born
Like dew I vanish
Osaka Castle and all that I have ever done
Is but a dream
Within a dream.”

A last smile, so tender, from the Despot to them and to him. “Guard my son, all of you.” And then the eyes had opaqued forever.

Father Alvito remembered how moved he had been by the last poem, so typical of the Taiko. He had hoped because he had been invited that, on the threshold, the Lord of Japan would have relented and would have accepted the Faith and the Sacrament that he had toyed with so many times. But it was not to be. “You’ve lost the Kingdom of God forever, poor man,” he had muttered sadly, for he had admired the Taiko as a military and political genius.

“What if your Kingdom of God’s up a barbarian’s back passage?” Lady Ochiba had said.

“What?” He was not certain he had heard correctly, revolted by her unexpected hissing malevolence. He had known Lady Ochiba for almost twelve years, since she was fifteen, when the Taiko had first taken her to consort, and she had ever been docile and subservient, hardly saying a word, always smiling sweetly and happy. But now?.?.?.

“I said, ‘What if your God’s kingdom’s in a barbarian’s back passage?’?”

“May God forgive you! Your Master’s dead only a few moments—”

“The Lord my Master’s dead, so your influence over him is dead. Neh? He wanted you here, very good, that was his right. But now he’s in the Great Void and commands no more. Now I command. Priest, you stink, you always have, and your foulness pollutes the air. Now get out of my castle and leave us to our grief!”

The stark candlelight had flickered across her face. She was one of the most beautiful women in the land. Involuntarily he had made the sign of the cross against her evil.

Her laugh was chilling. “Go away, priest, and never come back. Your days are numbered!”

“No more than yours. I am in the hands of God, Lady. Better you take heed of Him, Eternal Salvation can be yours if you believe.”

“Eh? You’re in the hands of God? The Christian God, neh? Perhaps you are. Perhaps not. What will you do, priest, if when you’re dead you discover there is no God, that there’s no hell and your Eternal Salvation just a dream within a dream?”

“I believe! I believe in God and in the Resurrection and in the Holy Ghost!” he said aloud. “The Christian promises are true. They’re true, they’re true—I believe!”

“Nan ja, Tsukku-san?”

For a moment he only heard the Japanese and it had no meaning for him.

Toranaga was standing in the doorway surrounded by his guards.

Father Alvito bowed, collecting himself, sweat on his back and face. “I am sorry to have come uninvited. I—I was just daydreaming. I was remembering that I’ve had the good fortune to witness so many things here in Japan. My whole life seems to have been here and nowhere else.”

“That’s been our gain, Tsukku-san.”

Toranaga walked tiredly to the dais and sat on the simple cushion. Silently the guards arranged themselves in a protective screen.

“You arrived here in the third year of Tensho, didn’t you?”

“No, Sire, it was the fourth. The Year of the Rat,” he replied, using their counting, which had taken him months to understand. All the years were measured from a particular year that was chosen by the ruling Emperor. A catastrophe or a godsend might end an era or begin one, at his whim. Scholars were ordered to select a name of particularly good omen from the ancient books of China for the new era which might last a year or fifty years. Tensho meant “Heaven Righteousness.” The previous year had been the time of the great tidal wave when two hundred thousand had died. And each year was given a number as well as a name—one of the same succession as the hours of the day: Hare, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Cock, Dog, Boar, Rat, Ox and Tiger. The first year