Shōgun (The Asian Saga Book 1)

They were hurrying through deserted back streets, circling for the wharf and the galley.  There were ten of them—Toranaga leading, Yabu, Mariko, Blackthorne, and six samurai.  The rest, under Buntaro, had been sent with the litters and baggage train by the planned route, with instructions to head leisurely for the galley.  The body of Asa the maid was in one of the litters.  During a lull in the fighting, Blackthorne had pulled the barbed shaft out of her.  Toranaga had seen the dark blood that gushed in its wake and had watched, puzzled, as the pilot had cradled her instead of allowing her to die quietly in private dignity, and then, when the fighting had ceased entirely, how gently the pilot had put her into the litter.  The girl was brave and had whimpered not at all, just looked up at him until death had come.  Toranaga had left her in the curtained litter as a decoy and one of the wounded had been put in the second litter, also as a decoy.

Of the fifty Browns that had formed the escort, fifteen had been killed and eleven mortally wounded.  The eleven had been quickly and honorably committed to the Great Void, three by their own hands, eight assisted by Buntaro at their request.  Then Buntaro had assembled the remainder around the closed litters and had left.  Forty-eight Grays lay in the dust.

Toranaga knew that he was dangerously unprotected but he was content.  Everything has gone well, he thought, considering the vicissitudes of chance.  How interesting life is!  At first I was sure it was a bad omen that the pilot had seen me change places with Kiri.  Then the pilot saved me and acted the madman perfectly, and because of him we escaped Ishido.  I hadn’t planned for Ishido to be at the main gate, only at the forecourt.  That was careless.  Why was Ishido there?  It isn’t like Ishido to be so careful.  Who advised him?  Kiyama?  Onoshi?  Or Yodoko?  A woman, ever practical would—could suspect such a subterfuge.

It had been a good plan—the secret escape dash—and established for weeks, for it was obvious that Ishido would try to keep him in the castle, would turn the other Regents against him by promising them anything, would willingly sacrifice his hostage at Yedo, the Lady Ochiba, and would use any means to keep him under guard until the final meeting of the Regents, where he would be cornered, impeached, and dispatched.

‘But they’ll still impeach you!’ Hiro-matsu had said when Toranaga had sent for him just after dusk last night to explain what was to be attempted and why he, Toranaga, had been vacillating.  ‘Even if you escape, the Regents will impeach you behind your back as easily as they’ll do it to your face.  So you’re bound to commit seppuku when they order it, as they will order it.’

‘Yes,’ Toranaga had said.  ‘As President of the Regents I am bound to do that if the four vote against me.  But here’—he had taken a rolled parchment out of his sleeve—’here is my formal resignation from the Council of Regents.  You will give it to Ishido when my escape is known.’

‘What?’

‘If I resign I’m no longer bound by my Regent’s oath.  Neh?  The Taikō never forbade me to resign, neh?  Give Ishido this, too.’  He had handed Hiro-matsu the chop, the official seal of his office as President.

‘But now you’re totally isolated.  You’re doomed!’

‘You’re wrong.  Listen, the Taikō’s testament implanted a council of five Regents on the realm.  Now there are four.  To be legal, before they can exercise the Emperor’s mandate, the four have to elect or appoint a new member, a fifth, neh?  Ishido, Kiyama, Onoshi, and Sugiyama have to agree, neh?  Doesn’t the new Regent have to be acceptable to all of them?  Of course!  Now, old comrade, who in all the world will those enemies agree to share ultimate power with?  Eh?  And while they’re arguing, no decisions and—’

‘We’re preparing for war and you’re no longer bound and you can drop a little honey here and bile there and those pile-infested dungmakers will eat themselves up!’  Hiro-matsu had said with a rush.  ‘Ah, Yoshi Toranaga-noh-Minowara, you’re a man among men.  I’ll eat my arse if you’re not the wisest man in the land!’

Yes, it was a good plan, Toranaga thought, and they all played their parts well: Hiro-matsu, Kiri, and my lovely Sazuko.  And now they’re locked up tight and they will stay that way or they will be allowed to leave.  I think they will never be allowed to leave.

I will be sorry to lose them.

He was leading the party unerringly, his pace fast but measured, the pace he hunted at, the pace he could keep up continuously for two days and one night if need be.  He still wore the traveling cloak and Kiri’s kimono, but the skirts were hitched up out of the way, his military leggings incongruous.

They crossed another deserted street and headed down an alleyway.  He knew the alarm would soon reach Ishido and then the hunt would be on in earnest.  There’s time enough, he told himself.

Yes, it was a good plan.  But I didn’t anticipate the ambush.  That’s cost me three days of safety.  Kiri was sure she could keep the deception a secret for at least three days.  But the secret’s out now and I won’t be able to slip aboard and out to sea.  Who was the ambush for?  Me or the pilot?  Of course the pilot.  But didn’t the arrows bracket both litters?  Yes, but the archers were quite far away and it would be hard to see, and it would be wiser and safer to kill both, just in case.

Who ordered the attack, Kiyama or Onoshi? or the Portuguese? or the Christian Fathers?

Toranaga turned around to check the pilot.  He saw that he was not flagging, nor was the woman who walked beside him, though both were tired.  On the skyline he could see the vast squat bulk of the castle and the phallus of the donjon.  Tonight was the second time I’ve almost died there, he thought.  Is that castle really going to be my nemesis?  The Taikō told me often enough: ‘While Osaka Castle lives my line will never die and you, Toranaga Minowara, your epitaph will be written on its walls.  Osaka will cause your death, my faithful vassal!’  And always the hissing, baiting laugh that set his soul on edge.

Does the Taikō live within Yaemon?  Whether he does or not, Yaemon is his legal heir.

With an effort Toranaga tore his eyes away from the castle and turned another corner and fled into a maze of alleys.  At length he stopped outside a battered gate.  A fish was etched into its timbers.  He knocked in code.  The door opened at once.  Instantly the ill-kempt samurai bowed.  ‘Sire?’

‘Bring your men and follow me,’ Toranaga said and set off again.

‘Gladly.’  This samurai did not wear the Brown uniform kimono, only motley rags of a ronin, but he was one of the special elite secret troops that Toranaga had smuggled into Osaka against such an emergency.  Fifteen men, similarly clothed, and equally well armed, followed him and quickly fell into place as advance and rear guard, while another ran off to spread the alarm to other secret cadres.  Soon Toranaga had fifty troops with him.  Another hundred covered his flanks.  Another thousand would be ready at dawn should he need them.  He relaxed and slackened his pace, sensing that the pilot and the woman were tiring too fast.  He needed them strong.

Toranaga stood in the shadows of the warehouse and studied the galley and the wharf and the foreshore.  Yabu and a samurai were beside him.  The others had been left in a tight knot a hundred paces back down the alley.

A detachment of a hundred Grays waited near the gangway of the galley a few hundred paces away, across a wide expanse of beaten earth that precluded any surprise attack.  The galley itself was alongside, moored to stanchions fixed into the stone wharf that extended a hundred yards out into the sea.  The oars were shipped neatly, and he could see indistinctly many seamen and warriors on deck.

‘Are they ours or theirs?’ he asked quietly.

‘It’s too far to be sure,’ Yabu replied.

The tide was high.  Beyond the galley, night fishing boats were coming in and going out, lanterns serving as their riding and fishing lights.  North, along the shore, were rows of beached fishing craft of many sizes, tended by a few fishermen.  Five hundred paces south, alongside another stone wharf, was the Portuguese frigate, the Santa Theresa.  Under the light of flares, clusters of porters were busily loading barrels and bales.  Another large group of Grays lolled nearby.  This was usual because all Portuguese and all foreign ships in port were, by law, under perpetual surveillance.  It was only at Nagasaki that Portuguese shipping moved in and out freely.

If security could be tightened there, the safer we’d all sleep at night, Toranaga told himself.  Yes, but could we lock them up and still have trade with China in ever increasing amounts?  That’s one trap the Southern Barbarians have us in from which there’s no escape, not while the Christian daimyos dominate Kyushu and the priests are needed.  The best we can do is what the Taikō did.  Give the barbarians a little, pretend to take it away, try to bluff, knowing that without the China trade, life would be impossible.

‘With your permission, Lord, I will attack at once,’ the samurai whispered.

‘I advise against it,’ Yabu said.  ‘We don’t know if our men are aboard.  And there could be a thousand men hidden all around here.  Those men’—he pointed at the Grays near the Portuguese ship—’those’ll raise the alarm.  We could never take the ship and get it out to sea before they’d bottled us up.  We need ten times the men we’ve got now.’

‘General Lord Ishido will know soon,’ the samurai said.  ‘Then all Osaka’ll be swarming with more hostiles than there are flies on a new battlefield.  I’ve a hundred and fifty men with those on our flanks.  That’ll be enough.’

‘Not for safety.  Not if our sailors aren’t ready on the oars.  Better to create a diversion, one that’d draw off the Grays—and any that are in hiding.  Those, too.’ Yabu pointed again at the men near the frigate.

‘What kind of diversion?’ Toranaga said.

‘Fire the street.’

‘That’s impossible!’ the samurai protested, aghast.  Arson was a crime punishable by the public burning of all the family of the guilty person, of every generation of the family.  The penalty was the most severe by law because fire was the greatest hazard to any village or town or city in the Empire.  Wood and paper were their only building materials, except for tiles on some roofs.  Every home, every warehouse, every hovel, and every palace was a tinderbox.  ‘We can’t fire the street!’

‘What’s more important,’ Yabu asked him, ‘the destruction of a few streets, or the death of our Master?’

‘The fire’d spread, Yabu-san.  We can’t burn Osaka.  There are a million people here—more.’

‘Is that your answer to my question?’

Ashen, the samurai turned to Toranaga.  ‘Sire, I’ll do anything you ask.  Is that what you want me to do?’

Toranaga merely looked at Yabu.

The daimyo jerked his thumb contemptuously at the city.  ‘Two years ago half of it burned down and look at it now.  Five years ago was the Great Fire.  How many hundred thousand were lost then?  What does it matter?  They’re only shopkeepers, merchants, craftsmen, and eta.  It’s not as though Osaka’s a village filled with peasants.’

Toranaga had long since gauged the wind.  It was slight and would not fan the blaze.  Perhaps.  But a blaze could easily become a holocaust that would eat up all the city.  Except the castle.  Ah, if it would only consume the castle I wouldn’t hesitate for a moment.

He turned on his heel and went back to the others.  ‘Mariko-san, take the pilot and our six samurai and go to the galley.  Pretend to be almost in panic.  Tell the Grays that there’s been an ambush—by bandits or ronin, you’re not sure which.  Tell them where it happened, that you were sent ahead urgently by the captain of our escorting Grays to get the Grays here to help, that the battle’s still raging, that you think Kiritsubo’s been killed or wounded—to please hurry.  If you’re convincing, this will draw most of them off.’

‘I understand perfectly, Sire.’

‘Then, no matter what the Grays do, go on board with the pilot.  If our sailors are there and the ship’s safe and secure, come back to the gangway and pretend to faint.  That’s our signal.  Do it exactly at the head of the gangway.’  Toranaga let his eyes rest on Blackthorne.  ‘Tell him what you’re going to do, but not that you’re going to faint.’  He turned away to give orders to the rest of his men and special private instructions to the six samurai.

When Toranaga had finished, Yabu drew him aside.  ‘Why send the barbarian?  Wouldn’t it be safer to leave him here?  Safer for you?’

‘Safer for him, Yabu-san, but not for me.  He’s a useful decoy.’

‘Firing the street would be even safer.’

‘Yes.’  Toranaga thought that it was better to have Yabu on his side than on Ishido’s.  I’m glad I did not make him jump off the tower yesterday.

‘Sire?’

‘Yes, Mariko-san?’

‘I’m sorry, but the Anjin-san asks what happens if the ship’s held by the enemy?’

‘Tell him there’s no need to go with you if he’s not strong enough.’

Blackthorne kept his temper when she told him what Toranaga had said.  ‘Tell Lord Toranaga that his plan is no good for you, that you should stay here.  If all’s well I can signal.’

‘I can’t do that, Anjin-san, that’s not what our Master has ordered,’ Mariko told him firmly.  ‘Any plan he makes is bound to be very wise.’

Blackthorne realized there was no point in arguing.  God curse their bloody-minded, muleheaded arrogance, he thought.  But, by the Lord God, what courage they’ve got!  The men and this woman.

He had watched her, standing at the ambush, in her hands the long killing sword that was almost as tall as herself, ready to fight to the death for Toranaga.  He had seen her use the sword once, expertly, and though Buntaro had killed the attacker, she had made it easier by forcing the man to back off.  There was still blood on her kimono now and it was torn in places and her face was dirty.

‘Where did you learn to use a sword?’ he had asked while they rushed for the docks.

‘You should know that all samurai ladies are taught very early to use a knife to defend their honor and that of their lords,’ she had said matter-of-factly, and showed him how the stiletto was kept safe in the obi, ready for instant use.  ‘But some of us, a few, are also taught about sword and spear, Anjin-san.  Some fathers feel daughters as well as sons must be prepared to do battle for their lords.  Of course, some women are more warlike than others and enjoy going into battle with their husbands or fathers.  My mother was one of these.  My father and mother decided I should know the sword and the spear.’

‘If it hadn’t been for the captain of the Grays being in the way, the first arrow would have gone right through you,’ he had said.

‘Through you, Anjin-san,’ she corrected him, very sure.  ‘But you did save my life by pulling me to safety.’

Now, looking at her, he knew that he would not like anything to happen to her.  ‘Let me go with the samurai, Mariko-san.  You stay here.  Please.’

‘That’s not possible, Anjin-san.’

‘Then I want a knife.  Better, give me two.’

She passed this request to Toranaga, who agreed.  Blackthorne slid one under the sash, inside his kimono.  The other he tied, haft downwards, to the inside of his forearm with a strip of silk he tore off the hem of his kimono.

‘My Master asks do all Englishmen carry knives secretly in their sleeves like that?’

‘No.  But most seamen do.’

‘That’s not usual here—or with the Portuguese,’ she said.

‘The best place for a spare knife’s in your boot.  Then you can do wicked damage, very fast.  If need be.’

She translated this and Blackthorne noticed the attentive eyes of Toranaga and Yabu, and he sensed that they did not like him armed.  Good, he thought.  Perhaps I can stay armed.

He wondered again about Toranaga.  After the ambush had been beaten off and the Grays killed, Toranaga had, through Mariko, thanked him before all the Browns for his ‘loyalty.’  Nothing more, no promises, no agreements, no rewards.  But Blackthorne knew that those would come later.  The old monk had told him that loyalty was the only thing they rewarded.  ‘Loyalty and duty, señ or,’ he had said. ‘It is their cult, this bushido.  Where we give our lives to God and His Blessed Son Jesus, and Mary the Mother of God, these animals give themselves to their masters and die like dogs.  Remember, señor, for thy soul’s sake, they’re animals.’  They’re not animals, Blackthorne thought.  And much of what you said, Father, is wrong and a fanatic’s exaggeration.

He said to Mariko, ‘We need a signal—if the ship’s safe or if it isn’t.’

Again she translated, innocently this time.  ‘Lord Toranaga says that one of our soldiers will do that.’

‘I don’t consider it brave to send a woman to do a man’s job.’

‘Please be patient with us, Anjin-san.  There’s no difference between men and women.  Women are equal as samurai.  In this plan a woman would be so much better than a man.’

Toranaga spoke to her shortly.

‘Are you ready, Anjin-san?  We’re to go now.’

‘The plan’s rotten and dangerous and I’m tired of being a goddamned sacrificial plucked duck, but I’m ready.’

She laughed, bowed once to Toranaga, and ran off.  Blackthorne and the six samurai raced after her.

She was very fleet and he did not catch up with her as they rounded the corner and headed across the open space.  He had never felt so naked.  The moment they appeared, the Grays spotted them and surged forward.  Soon they were surrounded, Mariko jabbering feverishly with the samurai and the Grays.  Then he too added to the babel in a panting mixture of Portuguese, English, and Dutch, motioning them to hurry, and groped for the gangway to lean against it, not needing to pretend that he was badly winded.  He tried to see inside the ship but could make out nothing distinctly, only many heads appearing at the gunwale.  He could see the shaven pates of many samurai and many seamen.  He could not discern the color of the kimonos.

From behind, one of the Grays was talking rapidly to him, and he turned around, telling him that he didn’t understand—to go there, quickly, back up the street where the God-cursed battle was going on.  ‘Wakarimasu ka?  Get your scuttle-tailed arse to hell out of here!  Wakarimasu ka?  The fight’s there!’

Mariko was frantically haranguing the senior officer of the Grays.  The officer came back toward the ship and shouted orders.  Immediately more than a hundred samurai, all Grays, began pouring off the ship.  He sent a few north along the shore to intercept the wounded and help them if necessary.  One was sent scurrying off to get help from the Grays near the Portuguese galley.  Leaving ten men behind to guard the gangway, he led the remainder in a rush for the street which curled away from the dock, up to the city proper.

Mariko came up to Blackthorne.  ‘Does the ship seem all right to you?’ she asked.

‘She’s floating.’  With a great effort Blackthorne grasped the gangway ropes and pulled himself on deck.  Mariko followed.  Two Browns came after her.

The seamen packing the port gunwale gave way.  Four Grays were guarding the quarterdeck and two more were on the forepoop.  All were armed with bows and arrows as well as swords.

Mariko questioned one of the sailors.  The man answered her obligingly.  ‘They’re all sailors hired to take Kiritsubo-san to Yedo,’ she told Blackthorne.

‘Ask him . . .’  Blackthorne stopped as he recognized the short, squat mate he had made captain of the galley after the storm.  ‘Konbanwa, Captain-san!’ —Good evening.

‘Konbanwa, Anjin-san.  Watashi iyé Captain-san ima,‘ the mate replied with a grin, shaking his head.  He pointed at a lithe sailor with an iron-gray stubbly queue who stood alone on the quarterdeck.  ‘Imasu Captain-san!’

‘Ah, so desu? Halloa, Captain-san!’ Blackthorne called out and bowed, and lowered his voice.  ‘Mariko-san, find out if there are any Grays below.’

Before she could say anything the captain had bowed back and shouted to the mate.  The mate nodded and replied at length.  Some of the sailors also voiced their agreement.  The captain and all aboard were very impressed.

‘Ah, so desu, Anjin-san!’  Then the captain cried out, ‘Keirei!‘—Salute!  All aboard, except the samurai, bowed to Blackthorne in salute.

Mariko said, ‘This mate told the captain that you saved the ship during the storm, Anjin-san.  You did not tell us about the storm or your voyage.’

‘There’s little to tell.  It was just another storm.  Please thank the captain and say I’m happy to be aboard again.  Ask him if we’re ready to leave when the others arrive.’  And added quietly, ‘Find out if there are any more Grays below.’

She did as she was ordered.

The captain came over and she asked for more information and then, picking up the captain’s cue concerning the importance of Blackthorne aboard, she bowed to Blackthorne.  ‘Anjin-san, he thanks you for the life of his ship and says they’re ready,’ adding softly, ‘About the other, he doesn’t know.’

Blackthorne glanced ashore.  There was no sign of Buntaro or the column to the north.  The samurai sent running southward toward the Santa Theresa was still a hundred yards from his destination, unnoticed as yet.  ‘What now?’ he said, when he could stand the waiting no longer.

She was asking herself, Is the ship safe?  Decide.

‘That man’ll get there any moment,’ he said, looking at the frigate.

‘What?’

He pointed.  ‘That one—the samurai!’

‘What samurai?  I’m sorry, I can’t see that far, Anjin-san.  I can see everything on the ship, though the Grays to the front of the ship are misted.  What man?’

He told her, adding in Latin, ‘Now he is barely fifty paces away.  Now he is seen.  We need assistance gravely.  Who giveth the sign?  With importance it should be given quickly.’

‘My husband, is there any sign of him?’ she asked in Portuguese.

He shook his head.

Sixteen Grays stand between my Master and his safety, she told herself.  Oh Madonna, protect him!

Then, committing her soul to God, frightened that she was making the wrong decision, she went weakly to the head of the gangway and pretended to faint.

Blackthorne was taken unawares.  He saw her head crash nastily against the wooden slats.  Seamen began to crowd, Grays converged from the dock and from the decks as he rushed over.  He picked her up and carried her back, through the men, toward the quarterdeck.

‘Get some water—water, hai?‘

The seamen stared at him without comprehension.  Desperately he searched his mind for the Japanese word.  The old monk had told it to him fifty times.  Christ God, what is it?  ‘Oh—mizu, mizu, hai?‘

‘Ah, mizu!  Hai, Anjin-san.’  A man began to hurry away.  There was a sudden cry of alarm.

Ashore, thirty of Toranaga’s ronin-disguised samurai were loping out of the alleyway.  The Grays that had begun to leave the dock spun around on the gangway.  Those on the quarterdeck and forepoop craned to see better.  Abruptly one shouted orders.  The archers armed their bows.  All samurai, Browns and Grays below, tore out their swords, and most rushed back to the wharf.

‘Bandits!’ one of the Browns screamed on cue.  At once the two Browns on deck split up, one going forward, one aft.  The four on land fanned out, intermingling with the waiting Grays.

‘Halt!’

Toranaga’s ronin-samurai charged.  An arrow smashed a man in the chest and he fell heavily.  Instantly the Brown on the forepoop killed the Gray archer and tried for the other but this samurai was too quick and they locked swords, the Gray shouting a warning of treachery to the others.  The Brown on the aft quarterdeck had maimed one of the Grays but the other three dispatched him quickly and they raced for the head of the gangway, seamen scattering.  The samurai on the dock below were fighting to the death, the Grays overwhelming the four Browns, knowing that they had been betrayed and that, at any moment, they too would be engulfed by the attackers.  The leader of the Grays on deck, a large tough grizzle-bearded man, confronted Blackthorne and Mariko.

‘Kill the traitors!’ he bellowed, and with a battle cry, he charged.

Blackthorne had seen them all look down at Mariko, still lying in her faint, murder in their eyes, and he knew that if he did not get help soon they were both dead, and that help would not be forthcoming from the seamen.  He remembered that only samurai may fight samurai.

He slid his knife into his hand and hurled it in an arc.  It took the samurai in the throat.  The other two Grays lunged for Blackthorne, killing swords high.  He held the second knife and stood his ground over Mariko, knowing that he dare not leave her unprotected.  From the corner of his eye he saw the battle for the gangway was almost won.  Only three Grays still held the bridge below, only these three kept help from flooding aboard.  If he could stay alive for less than a minute he was safe and she was safe.  Kill ’em, kill the bastards!

He felt, more than saw, the sword slashing for his throat and leaped backward out of its way.  One Gray stabbed after him, the other halted over Mariko, sword raised.  At that instant Blackthorne saw Mariko come to life.  She threw herself into the unsuspecting samurai’s legs, crashing him to the deck.  Then, scrambling across to the dead Gray, she grabbed the sword out of his still twitching hand and leaped on the guard with a cry.  The Gray had regained his feet, and, howling with rage, he came at her.  She backed and slashed bravely but Blackthorne knew she was lost, the man too strong.  Somehow Blackthorne avoided another death thrust from his own foe and kicked him away and threw his knife at Mariko’s assailant.  It struck the man in the back, causing his blow to go wild, and then Blackthorne found himself on the quarterdeck, helplessly at bay, one Gray bounding up the steps after him, the other, who had just won the forepoop fight, racing toward him along the deck.  He jumped for the gunwale and the safety of the sea but slipped on the blood-wet deck.

Mariko was staring up, white-faced, at the huge samurai who still had her cornered, swaying on his feet, his life ebbing fast but not fast enough.  She hacked at him with all her force but he parried the blow, held her sword, and tore it out of her grasp.  He gathered his ultimate strength, and lunged as the ronin-samurai burst up the gangway, over the dead Grays.  One pounced on Mariko’s assailant, another fired an arrow at the quarterdeck.

The arrow ripped into the Gray’s back, smashing him off balance, and his sword sliced past Blackthorne into the gunwale.  Blackthorne tried to scramble away but the man caught him, brought him crashing to the deck, and clawed for his eyes.  Another arrow hit the second Gray in the shoulder and he dropped his sword, screaming with pain and rage, tearing futilely at the shaft.  A third arrow twisted him around.  Blood surged out of his mouth, and, choking, his eyes staring, he groped for Blackthorne and fell on him as the last Gray arrived for the kill, a short stabbing knife in his hands.  He hacked downward, Blackthorne helpless, but a friendly hand caught the knife arm, then the enemy head had vanished from the neck, a fountain of blood spraying upwards.  Both corpses were pulled off Blackthorne and he was hauled to his feet.  Wiping the blood off his face, he dimly saw that Mariko was stretched out on the deck, ronin-samurai milling around her.  He shook off his helpers and stumbled toward her, but his knees gave out and he collapsed.