Shogun

Hiro-matsu exhaled and scratched his piles. “You’d better leave now, Yabu-san. That rice maggot’ll give you no more trouble.”

“Yes. At once.”

Kiri kerchiefed the sweat off her brow. “He’s a devil kami! I’m afraid for our Master.” The tears began to flow. “I don’t want to leave!”

“No harm will come to Lord Toranaga, I promise you, Lady,” Hiro-matsu said. “You must go. Now!”

Kiri tried to stifle her sobs and unloosed the thick veil that hung from the brim of her wide hat. “Oh, Yabu- sama, would you escort Lady Sazuko inside? Please?”

“Of course.”

Lady Sazuko bowed and hurried off, Yabu following. The girl ran up the steps. As she neared the top she slipped and fell.

“The baby!” Kiri shrieked. “Is she hurt?”

All their eyes flashed to the prostrate girl. Mariko ran for her but Yabu reached her first. He picked her up. Sazuko was more startled than hurt. “I’m all right,” she said, a little breathlessly. “Don’t worry, I’m perfectly all right. It was foolish of me.”

When he was sure, Yabu walked back to the forecourt preparing for instant departure.

Mariko came back to the gateway, greatly relieved. Blackthorne was gaping at the garden.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said after a pause. “What did Lady Kiritsubo shout out?”

“?‘The baby! Is she hurt?’ The Lady Sazuko’s with child,” she explained. “We were all afraid the fall might have hurt her.”

“Toranaga-sama’s child?”

“Yes,” Mariko said, looking back at the litter.

Kiri was inside the closed translucent curtains now, the veil loosed. Poor woman, Mariko thought, knowing she was only trying to hide the tears. I would be equally terrified to leave my Lord, if I were she.

Her eyes went to Sazuko, who waved once more from the top of the steps, then went inside. The iron door clanged after her. That sounded like a death knell, Mariko thought. Will we ever see them again?

“What did Ishido want?” Blackthorne asked.

“He was—I don’t know the correct word. He was investigating—making a tour of inspection without warning.”

“Why?”

“He’s Commander of the Castle,” she said, not wishing to tell the real reason.

Yabu was shouting orders at the head of the column and set off. Mariko got into her litter, leaving the curtains partially open. Buntaro motioned Blackthorne to move aside. He obeyed.

They waited for Kiri’s litter to pass. Blackthorne stared at the half-seen, shrouded figure, hearing the muffled sobs. The two frightened maids, Asa and Sono, walked alongside. Then he glanced back a last time. Hiro-matsu was standing alone beside the little hut, leaning on his sword. Now the garden was shut from his view as samurai closed the huge fortified door. The great wooden bar fell into place. There were no guards in the forecourt now. They were all on the battlements.

“What’s going on?” Blackthorne asked.

“Please, Anjin-san?”

“It looks like they’re under siege. Browns against the Grays. Are they expecting trouble? More trouble?”

“Oh, so sorry. It’s normal to close the doors at night,” Mariko said.

He began to walk beside her as her litter moved off, Buntaro and the remainder of the rear guard taking up their station behind him. Blackthorne was watching the litter ahead, the swaying gait of the bearers and the misted figure inside the curtains. He was greatly unsettled though he tried to hide it. When Kiritsubo had suddenly shrieked, he had looked at her instantly. Everyone else was looking at the prostrate girl on the staircase. His impulse was to look over there as well but he saw Kiritsubo suddenly scuttle with surprising speed inside the little hut. For a moment he thought his eyes were playing him tricks because in the night her dark cloak and dark kimono and dark hat and dark veil made her almost invisible. He watched as the figure vanished for a moment, then reappeared, darted into the litter, and jerked the curtains closed. For an instant their eyes met. It was Toranaga.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The little cortege surrounding the two litters went slowly through the maze of the castle and through the continual checkpoints. Each time there were formal bows, the documents were meticulously examined afresh, a new captain and group of escorting Grays took over, and then they were passed. At each checkpoint Blackthorne watched with ever increasing misgivings as the captain of the guard came close to scrutinize the drawn curtains of Kiritsubo’s litter. Each time the man bowed politely to the half-seen figure, hearing the muffled sobs, and in the course of time, waved them on again.

Who else knows? Blackthorne was asking himself desperately. The maids must know—that would explain why they’re so frightened. Hiro-matsu certainly must have known, and Lady Sazuko, the decoy, absolutely. Mariko? I don’t think so. Yabu? Would Toranaga trust him? That neckless maniac Buntaro? Probably not.

Obviously this is a highly secret escape attempt. But why should Toranaga risk his life outside the castle? Isn’t he safer inside? Why the secrecy? Who’s he escaping from? Ishido? The assassins? Or someone else in the castle? Probably all of them, Blackthorne thought, wishing they were safely in the galley and out to sea. If Toranaga’s discovered it’s going to rain dung, the fight’s going to be to the death and no quarter asked or given. I’m unarmed and even if I had a brace of pistols or a twenty pounder and a hundred bully boys, the Grays’d swamp us. I’ve nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. It’s a turd-stuffed fornicator whichever way you count it!

“Are you tiring, Anjin-san?” Mariko asked daintily. “If you like, I’ll walk and you can ride.”

“Thanks,” he replied sourly, missing his boots, the thonged slippers still awkward. “My legs are fine. I was just wishing we were safe at sea, that’s all.”

“Is the sea ever safe?”

“Sometimes, senhora. Not often.” Blackthorne hardly heard her. He was thinking, by the Lord Jesus, I hope I don’t give Toranaga away. That would be terrible! It’d be so much simpler if I hadn’t seen him. That was just bad luck, one of those accidents that can disrupt a perfectly planned and executed scheme. The old girl, Kiritsubo, she’s a great actress, and the young one too. It was only because I couldn’t understand what she’d shouted out that I didn’t fall for the ruse. Just bad luck I saw Toranaga clearly—be-wigged, made up, kimonoed, and cloaked, just like Kiritsubo, but still Toranaga.

At the next checkpoint the new captain of Grays came closer than ever before, the maids tearfully bowing and standing in the way without trying to appear as though they were standing in the way. The captain peered across at Blackthorne and walked over. After an incredulous scrutiny he talked with Mariko, who shook her head and answered him. The man grunted and strolled back to Yabu, returned the documents and waved the procession onward again.

“What did he say?” Blackthorne asked.

“He wondered where you were from—where your home was.”

“But you shook your head. How was that an answer?”

“Oh, so sorry, he said—he wondered if the far-distant ancestors of your people were related to the kami—the spirit—that lives to the north, on the outskirts of China. Till quite recently we thought China was the only other civilized place on earth—except for Japan, neh? China is so immense it is like the world itself,” she said, and closed the subject. The captain had actually asked if she thought this barbarian was descended from Harimwakairi, the kami that looked after cats, adding this one certainly stank like a polecat in rut, as the kami was supposed to do.

She had replied that she didn’t think so, inwardly ashamed of the captain’s rudeness, for the Anjin-san did not have a stench like Tsukku-san or the Father-Visitor or usual barbarians. His aroma was almost imperceptible now.