Shōgun (The Asian Saga Book 1)

Accompanied by Naga, Blackthorne trudged disconsolately down the hill toward the two figures who sat on the futons in the center of the ring of guards.  Beyond the guards were the rising foothills of the mountains that soared to a clouded sky.  The day was sultry.  His head was aching from the grief of the last few days, from worrying about Mariko, and from being unable to talk except in Japanese for so long.  Now he recognized her and some of his misery left him.

Many times he had gone to Omi’s house to see Mariko or to inquire about her.  Samurai had always turned him away, politely but firmly.  Omi had told him as a tomodashi, a friend, that she was all right.  Don’t worry, Anjin-san.  Do you understand?  Yes, he had said, understanding only that he could not see her.

Then he had been sent for by Toranaga and had wanted to tell him so much but because of his lack of words had failed to do anything other than irritate him.  Fujiko had gone several times to see Mariko.  When she came back she always said that Mariko was well, adding the inevitable, ‘Shinpai suruna, Anjin-san.  Wakarimasu?‘  Don’t worry—do you understand?

With Buntaro it had been as though nothing had ever happened.  They mouthed polite greetings when they met during the day.  Apart from occasionally using the bath house, Buntaro was like any other samurai in Anjiro, neither friendly nor unfriendly.

From dawn to dusk Blackthorne had been chased by the accelerated training.  He had had to suppress his frustration as he tried to teach, and strove to learn the language.  By nightfall he was always exhausted.  Hot and sweating and rain-soaked.  And alone.  Never had he felt so alone, so aware of not belonging in this alien world.

Then there was the horror that began three days ago.  It had been a very long humid day.  At sunset he had wearily ridden home and had instantly felt trouble permeating his house.  Fujiko had greeted him nervously.

‘Nan desu ka?‘

She had replied quietly, at length, eyes lowered.

‘Wakarimasen.‘  I don’t understand.  ‘Nan desu ka?‘ he asked again, impatiently, his fatigue making him irritable.

Then she had beckoned him into the garden.  She pointed at the eaves but the roof seemed sound enough to him.  More words and signs and it finally dawned on him that she was pointing to where he had hung the pheasant.

‘Oh, I’d forgotten about that!  Watashi . . .‘  But he couldn’t remember how to say it so he just shrugged wearily.  ‘Wakarimasu.  Nan desu kiji ka?‘  I understand.  What about the pheasant?

Servants were peering at him from doors and windows, clearly petrified.  She spoke again.  He concentrated but her words did not make sense.

‘Wakarimasen, Fujiko-san.’  I don’t understand, Fujiko-san.

She took a deep breath, then shakily imitated someone removing the pheasant, carrying it away, and burying it.

‘Ahhhh!  Wakarimasu, Fujiko-san.  Wakarimasu!  Was it getting high?’ he asked.  As he did not know the Japanese word he held his nose and pantomimed stench.

‘Hai, hai, Anjin-san.  Dozo gomen nasai, gomen nasai.‘  She made the sound of flies and, with her hands, painted a picture of a buzzing cloud.

‘Ah so desu!  Wakarimasu.‘  Once upon a time he would have apologized and, if he had known the words, he would have said, I’m so sorry for the inconvenience.  Instead he just shrugged, eased the ache in his back, and mumbled, ‘Shigata ga nai,‘ wanting only to slide into the ecstasy of the bath and massage, the only joy that made life possible.  ‘The hell with it,’ he said in English, turning away.  ‘If I’d been here during the day Id’ve noticed it.  The hell with it!’

‘Dozo, Anjin-san?’

‘Shigata ga nai,‘ he repeated louder.

‘Ah so desu, arigato goziemashita.‘

‘Tare toru desu ka?‘  Who took it?

‘Ueki-ya.’

‘Oh, that old bugger!’  Ueki-ya, the gardener, the kind, toothless old man who tended the plants with loving hands and made his garden beautiful.  ‘Yoi.  Moue kuru Ueki-ya.’  Good, fetch him.

Fujiko shook her head.  Her face had become chalky white.

‘Ueki-ya shinda desu, shinda desu!‘ she whispered.

‘Ueki-ya ga shindato?  Donoyoni?  Doshité?  Doshité shindanoda?‘  How?  Why?  How did he die?

Her hand pointed at the place where the pheasant had been and she spoke many gentle incomprehensible words.  Then she mimed the single cut of a sword.

‘Jesus Christ God!  You put that old man to death over a stinking, God-cursed pheasant?’

At once all the servants rushed to the garden and fell on their knees.  They put their heads into the dirt and froze, even the children of the cook.

‘What the piss-hell’s going on?’ Blackthorne was almost berserk.

Fujiko waited stoically until they were all there, then she too went down on her knees and bowed, as a samurai and not as a peasant.  ‘Gomen nasai, dozo gomen na—‘

‘The pox on your gomen nasai!  What right’ve you to do that?  Ehhhhh?‘ and he began to swear at her foully.  ‘Why in the name of Christ didn’t you ask me first?  Eh?‘

He fought for control, aware that all of his servants knew he legally could hack Fujiko and all of them to pieces here in the garden for causing him so much displeasure, or for no reason at all, and that not even Toranaga himself could interfere with his handling of his own household.

He saw one of the children was trembling with terror and panic.  ‘Jesus Christ in heaven, give me strength . . .’  He held on to one of the posts to steady himself.  ‘It’s not your fault,’ he choked out, not realizing he wasn’t speaking Japanese.  ‘It’s hers!  It’s you!  You murdering bitch!’

Fujiko looked up slowly.  She saw the accusing finger and the hatred on his face.  She whispered a command to her maid, Nigatsu.

Nigatsu shook her head and began to beg.

‘Ima!’

The maid fled.  She returned with the killing sword, tears streaming her face.  Fujiko took the sword and offered it to Blackthorne with both hands.  She spoke and though he did not know all the words he knew that she was saying, ‘I’m responsible, please take my life because I’ve displeasured you.’

‘IYÉ!‘  He grabbed the sword and threw it away.  ‘You think that’ll bring Ueki-ya back to life?’

Then, suddenly, he realized what he had done, and what he was doing now.  ‘Oh, Jesus God.’

He left them.  In despair he went to the outcrop above the village near the shrine that was beside the ancient gnarled cypress tree and he wept.

He wept because a good man was dead unnecessarily and because he knew now that he had murdered him.  ‘Lord God forgive me.  I’m responsible—not Fujiko.  I killed him.  I ordered that no one was to touch the pheasant but me.  I asked her if everyone understood and she said yes.  I ordered it with mock gravity but that doesn’t matter now.  I gave the orders, knowing their law and knowing their customs.  The old man broke my stupid order so what else could Fujiko-san do?  I’m to blame.’

In time the tears were spent.  It was deep night now.  He returned to his house.

Fujiko was waiting for him as always, but alone.  The sword was across her lap.  She offered it to him.  ‘Dozo—Dozo, Anjin-san.’

‘Iyé, ‘ he said, taking the sword as a sword should be taken.  ‘Iyé, Fujiko-san.  Shigata ga nai, neh?  Karma, neh?‘  His hand touched her in apology.  He knew that she had had to bear all the worst of his stupidity.

Her tears spilled.  ‘Arigato, arigato go—goziemashita, Anjin-san,’ she said brokenly.  ‘Gomen nasai . . .‘

His heart went out to her.

Yes, Blackthorne thought with great sadness, yes it did, but that doesn’t excuse you or take away her humiliation—or bring Ueki-ya back to life.  You were to blame.  You should have known better. . . .

‘Anjin-san!’ Naga said.

‘Yes?  Yes, Naga-san?’  He pulled himself out of his remorse and looked down at the youth who walked beside him.  ‘Sorry, what you say?’

‘I said I hoped to be your friend.’

‘Ah, thank you.’

‘Yes, and perhaps you’d—’  There was a jumble of words Blackthorne did not understand.

‘Please?’

‘Teach, neh?  Understand ‘teach’?  Teach about world?’

‘Ah, yes, so sorry.  Teach what, please?’

‘About foreign lands—outside lands.  The world, neh?‘

‘Ah, understand now.  Yes, try.’

They were near the guards now.  ‘Begin tomorrow, Anjin-san.  Friends, neh?‘

‘Yes, Naga-san.  Try.’

‘Good.’  Very satisfied, Naga nodded.  When they came up to the samurai Naga ordered them out of the way, motioning Blackthorne to go on alone.  He obeyed, feeling very alone in the circle of men.

‘Ohayo, Toranaga-sama.  Ohayo, Mariko-san,’ he said, joining them.

‘Ohayo, Anjin-san.  Dozo suwaru.‘  Good day, Anjin-san, please sit down.

Mariko smiled at him.  ‘Ohayo, Anjin-san.  Ikaga desu ka?‘

‘Yoi, domo.‘  Blackthorne looked back at her, so glad to see her.  ‘Thy presence fills me with joy, great joy,’ he said in Latin.

‘And thine—it is so good to see thee.  But there is a shadow on thee.  Why?’

‘Nan ja?‘ Toranaga asked.

She told him what had been said.  Toranaga grunted, then spoke.

‘My Master says you’re looking careworn, Anjin-san.  I must agree too.  He asks what’s troubling you.’

‘It’s nothing.  Domo, Toranaga-sama.  Nané mo.‘  It’s nothing.

‘Nan ja?‘ Toranaga asked directly.  ‘Nan ja?‘

Obediently Blackthorne replied at once.  ‘Ueki-ya,’ he said helplessly.  ‘Hai, Ueki-ya.’

‘Ah so desu!‘  Toranaga spoke at length to Mariko.

‘My Master says there is no need to be sad about Old Gardener.  He asks me to tell you that it was all officially dealt with.  Old Gardener understood completely what he was doing.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Yes, it would be very difficult for you, but you see, Anjin-san, the pheasant was rotting in the sun.  Flies were swarming terribly.  Your health, your consort’s health, and that of your whole house was being threatened.  Also, so sorry, there had been some very private, cautious complaints from Omi-san’s head servant—and others.  One of our most important rules is that the individual may never disturb the wa, the harmony of the group, remember?  So something had to be done.  You see, decay, the stench of decay, is revolting to us.  It’s the worst smell in the world to us, so sorry.  I tried to tell you but—well, it’s one of the things that sends us all a little mad.  Your head servant—’

‘Why didn’t someone come to me at once?  Why didn’t someone just tell me?’ Blackthorne asked.  ‘The pheasant was meaningless to me.’

‘What was there to tell?  You’d given orders.  You are head of the house.  They didn’t know your customs or what to do, other than to solve the dilemma according to our custom.’  She spoke to Toranaga for a moment, explaining what Blackthorne had said, then turned back again.  ‘Is this distressing you?  Do you wish me to continue?’

‘Yes, please, Mariko-san.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well then, your head servant, Small Tooth Cook, called a meeting of your servants, Anjin-san.  Mura, the village headman, was asked to attend officially.  It was decided that village eta could not be asked to take it away.  This was only a house problem.  One of the servants had to take it and bury it, even though you’d given absolute orders it was not to be moved.  Obviously your consort was duty bound to see your orders were obeyed.  Old Gardener asked to be allowed to carry it away.  Lately he’d been living and sleeping in great pain from his abdomen and he found kneeling and weeding and planting very tiring, and could not do his work to his own satisfaction.  Third Cook Assistant also offered, saying he was very young and stupid and he was sure his life counted for nothing against such a grave matter.  At length Old Gardener was allowed the honor.  Truly it was a great honor, Anjin-san.  With great solemnity they all bowed to him and he to them and happily he took the thing away and buried it to the great relief of all.

‘When he came back he went directly to Fujiko-san and told her what he’d done, that he’d disobeyed your law, neh?  She thanked him for removing the hazard, then told him to wait.  She came to me for advice and asked me what she should do.  The matter had been done formally so it would have to be dealt with formally.  I told her I didn’t know, Anjin-san.  I asked Buntaro-san but he didn’t know either.  It was complicated, because of you.  So he asked Lord Toranaga.  Lord Toranaga saw your consort himself.’  Mariko turned back to Toranaga and told him where she had reached in the story, as he had requested.

Toranaga spoke rapidly.  Blackthorne watched them, the woman so petite and lovely and attentive, the man compact, rock-hard, his sash tight over his large belly.  Toranaga did not talk with his hands like many, but kept them still, his left hand propped on his thigh, the other always on his sword hilt.

‘Hai, Toranaga-sama.  Hai.‘  Mariko glanced at Blackthorne and continued as formally.  ‘Our Master asks me to explain that, so sorry, if you’d been Japanese there would have been no difficulty, Anjin-san.  Old Gardener would simply have gone to the burial ground to receive his release.  But, please excuse me, you’re a foreigner, even though Lord Toranaga made you hatamoto—one of his personal vassals—and it was a matter of deciding whether you were legally samurai or not.  I’m honored to tell you that he ruled you are samurai and you do have samurai rights.  So everything was resolved at once and made easy.  A crime had been committed.  Your orders had been deliberately disobeyed.  The law is clear.  There is no option.’  She was grave now.  ‘But Lord Toranaga knows of your sensitivity to killing, so to save you pain, he personally ordered one of his samurai to send Old Gardener into the Void.’

‘But why didn’t someone ask me first?  That pheasant meant nothing to me.’

‘The pheasant has nothing do with it, Anjin-san,’ she explained.  ‘You’re head of a house.  The law says no member of your house may disobey you.  Old Gardener deliberately broke the law.  The whole world would fall to pieces if people were allowed to flout the law.  Your—’

Toranaga broke in and spoke to her.  She listened, answered some questions, then again he motioned her to continue.

‘Hai.  Lord Toranaga wants me to assure you that he personally saw that Old Gardener got the quick, painless, and honorable death he merited.  He even loaned the samurai his own sword, which is very sharp.  And I should tell you that Old Gardener was very proud that in his failing days he was able to help your house, Anjin-san, proud that he helped to establish your samurai status before all.  Most of all he was proud of the honor being paid to him.  Public executioners were not used, Anjin-san.  Lord Toranaga wants me to make that very clear to you.’

‘Thank you, Mariko-san.  Thank you for making it clear.’  Blackthorne turned to Toranaga, bowed most correctly.  ‘Domo, Toranaga-sama, domo arigato.  Wakarimasu.  Domo.‘

Toranaga bowed back agreeably.  ‘Yoi, Anjin-san.  Shinpai suru monojanai, neh?  Shigata ga nai, neh?‘  Good.  Now don’t worry, eh?  What could you do, eh?

‘Nané mo.‘  Nothing.  Blackthorne answered the questions Toranaga put to him about the musket training, but nothing that they were saying reached him.  His mind was tottering under the impact of what he had been told.  He had abused Fujiko before all his servants and abused the trust of all his household, when Fujiko had done only what was correct and so had they.

Fujiko was blameless.  They’re all blameless.  Except me.

 I cannot undo what’s been done.  Neither to Ueki-ya nor to her.  Or to them.

How can I live with this shame?

He sat cross-legged in front of Toranaga, the slight sea breeze tugging at his kimono, swords in his sash.  Dully he listened and answered and nothing was important.  War is coming, she was saying.  When, he was asking.  Very soon, she was saying, so you are to leave at once with me, you are to accompany me part of the way, Anjin-san, because I’m going to Osaka, but you’re going on to Yedo by land to prepare your ship for war. . . .

Suddenly the silence was colossal.

Then the earth began to shake.

He felt his lungs about to burst, and every fiber of his being screamed panic.  He tried to stand but could not and saw all the guards were equally helpless.  Toranaga and Mariko desperately held onto the ground with their hands and feet.  The rumbling, catastrophic roar was coming from earth and sky.  It surrounded them, building and building until their eardrums were ready to split.  They became part of the frenzy.  For an instant the frenzy stopped, the shock continuing.  He felt his vomit rising, his unbelieving mind shrieking that this was land where it was firm and safe and not sea where the world tilted every moment.  He spat to clear the foul taste away, clutching the trembling earth, retching again and again.

An avalanche of rocks started from the mountain to the north and howled down into the valley below, adding to the tumult.  Part of the samurai camp vanished.  He groped to his hands and knees, Toranaga and Mariko doing the same.  He heard himself shouting but no sound seemed to be coming from his lips or from theirs.

The tremor stopped.

The earth was firm again, firm as it had always been, firm as it always should be.  His hands and knees and body were trembling uncontrollably.  He tried to still them and catch his breath.

Then again the earth cried out.  The second quake began.  It was more violent.  Then the earth ripped open at the far end of the plateau.  This gaping fissure rushed toward them at an incredible speed, passed five paces away, and tore onward.  His disbelieving eyes saw Toranaga and Mariko teetering on the brink of the cleft where there should have been solid ground.  As though in a nightmare he saw Toranaga, nearest to the maw, begin to topple into it.  He came out of his stupor, lunged forward.  His right hand grabbed Toranaga’s sash, the earth trembling like a leaf in the wind.

The cleft was twenty paces deep and ten across and stank of death.  Mud and rocks poured down, dragging Toranaga and him with it.  Blackthorne fought for handhold and foothold, raving at Toranaga to help, almost pulled down into the abyss.  Still partially stunned, Toranaga hacked his toes into the face of the wall and, half dragged and half carried by Blackthorne, clawed his way out.  They both lay gasping in safety.

At that moment there was another shock.

The earth split again.  Mariko screamed.  She tried to scramble out of the way but this new fissure swallowed her.  Frantically Blackthorne crawled for the edge, the aftershocks throwing him off balance.  On the brink he stared down.  She shivered on a ledge a few feet below as the ground reeled and the sky looked down.  The chasm was thirty paces deep, ten wide.  The lip crumbled away under him sickeningly.  He let himself slide down, mud and stones almost blinding him, and caught hold of her, pulling her to the safety of another ledge.  Together they fought for balance.  A new shock.  The ledge mostly gave way and they were lost.  Then Toranaga’s iron hand caught his sash, stopping their slide into hell.

‘For Christ’s sake . . .’  Blackthorne cried, his arms almost torn from their sockets as he held on to her and fought for holds with his feet and free hand.  Toranaga grappled him until they were on a narrow shelf again, then the sash broke.  A moment’s respite from the tremors gave Blackthorne time to get her onto the shelf, debris raining on them.  Toranaga leapt to safety, shouting for him to hurry.  The chasm howled and began to close, Blackthorne and Mariko still deep in its gullet.  Toranaga could no longer help.  Blackthorne’s terror lent him inhuman strength and somehow he managed to rip Mariko out of the tomb and shove her upward.  Toranaga clutched her wrist and hauled her over the lip.  Blackthorne scrambled after her but reeled backward as part of his wall fell away.  The far wall screeched sickeningly as it approached.  Mud and stones tumbled off it.  For a moment he thought he was trapped but he tore himself free and groped half out of his grave.  He lay on the shuddering brink, his lungs gulping air, unable to crawl away, legs in the cleft.  The gap was closing.  Then it stopped—six paces across the mouth, eight deep.

All rumbling ceased.  The earth firmed.  The silence gathered.

On their hands and knees, helpless, they waited for the horror to begin again.  Blackthorne started to get up, sweat dripping.

‘Iyé.’  Toranaga motioned him to stay down, his face a mess, a cruel gash on his temple where his head had smashed against a rock.

They were all panting, their chests heaving, bile in their mouths.  Guards were picking themselves up.  Some began running toward Toranaga.

‘Iyé!’ he shouted.  ‘Maté!‘  Wait!

They obeyed and went down on their hands and knees again.  The waiting seemed to go on forever.  Then a bird screeched out of a tree and took to the air screaming.  Another bird followed.  Blackthorne shook his head to clear the sweat from his eyes.  He was seeing his broken, bleeding fingernails gripping the tufts of grass.  Then in the grass an ant moved.  Another and another.  They began to forage.

Still frightened he sat back on his heels.  ‘When’s it safe?’

Mariko did not answer.  She was mesmerized by the cleft in the ground.  He scrambled over to her.  ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes—yes,’ she said breathlessly.  Her face was daubed with mud.  Her kimono was ripped and filthy.  Both sandals and one tabi were missing.  And her parasol.  He helped her away from the lip.  She was still numbed.

Then he looked at Toranaga.  ‘Ikaga desu ka?‘

Toranaga was unable to speak, his chest grinding, his arms and legs raw with abrasions.  He pointed.  The fissure which had almost swallowed him now was just a narrow ditch in the soil.  Northward the ditch yawned into a ravine again but it was not as wide as it once had been, nor as deep.

Blackthorne shrugged.  ‘Karma.‘

Toranaga belched loudly, then hawked and spat and belched again.  This helped his voice to work and a torrent of abuse poured over the ditch, his blunt fingers stabbed at it, and though Blackthorne could not understand all the words, Toranaga was clearly saying as a Japanese would, ‘The pox on the karma, the pox on the quake, the pox on the ditch—I’ve lost my swords and the pox on that!’

Blackthorne burst into laughter, his relief at being alive and the stupidity of it all consuming him.  A moment, then Toranaga laughed too, and their hilarity swept into Mariko.

Toranaga got to his feet.  Gingerly.  Then, warmed by the joy of life, he began clowning on the ditch, burlesquing himself and the quake.  He stopped and beckoned Blackthorne to join him and straddled the ditch, opened his loincloth and, laughter taking him again, told Blackthorne to do the same.  Blackthorne obeyed and both men tried to urinate into the ditch.  But nothing came, not even a dribble.  They tried very hard, which increased their laughter and blocked them even more.  At length they succeeded and Blackthorne sat down to collect his strength, leaning back on his hands.  When he had recovered a little he turned to Mariko.  ‘Is the earthquake over for good, Mariko-san?’

‘Until the next shock, yes.’  She continued to brush the mud off her hands and kimono.

‘Is it always like that?’

‘No.  Sometimes it’s very slight.  Sometimes there’s another series of shocks after a stick of time or a day or half a stick or half a day.  Sometimes there’s only one shock—you never know, Anjin-san.  It’s over until it begins again.  Karma, neh?‘

Guards were watching them without moving, waiting for Toranaga’s order.  To the north fires were raging in the crude lean-to bivouac.  Samurai were fighting the fires and digging at the rock avalanche to find the buried.  To the east, Yabu, Omi, and Buntaro stood with other guards beside the far end of the fissure, untouched except for bruises, also waiting to be summoned.  Igurashi had vanished.  The earth had gorged on him.

Blackthorne let himself drift.  His self-contempt had vanished and he felt utterly serene and whole.  Now his mind dwelt proudly on being samurai, and going to Yedo, and his ship, and war, and the Black Ship, and back to samurai again.  He glanced at Toranaga and would have liked to ask him a dozen questions, but he noticed that the daimyo was lost in his own thoughts and he knew it would be impolite to disturb him.  There’s plenty of time, he thought contentedly, and looked over at Mariko.  She was tending her hair and face, so he did not watch.  He lay full length and looked up at the sky, the earth feeling warm on his back, waiting patiently.

Toranaga spoke, serious now.  ‘Domo, Anjin-san, neh?  Domo.‘

‘Dozo, Toranaga-sama.  Nané mo.  Hombun, neh?‘  Please, Toranaga-sama, it was nothing.  Duty.

Then, not knowing enough words and wanting it accurate, Blackthorne said, ‘Mariko-san, would you explain for me:  I seem to understand now what you meant and Lord Toranaga meant about karma and the stupidity of worrying about what is.  A lot seems clearer.  I don’t know why—perhaps it’s because I’ve never been so terrified, maybe that’s cleaned my head, but I seem to think clearer.  It’s—well, like Old Gardener.  Yes, that was all my fault and I’m truly sorry, but that was a mistake, not a deliberate choice on my part.  It is.  So nothing can be done about it.  A moment ago we were all almost dead.  So all that worry and heartache was a waste, wasn’t it?  Karma.  Yes, I know karma now.  Do you understand?’

‘Yes.’  She translated to Toranaga.

‘He says, ‘Good, Anjin-san.  Karma is the beginning of knowledge.  Next is patience.  Patience is very important.  The strong are the patient ones, Anjin-san.  Patience means holding back your inclination to the seven emotions:  hate, adoration, joy, anxiety, anger, grief, fear.  If you don’t give way to the seven, you’re patient, then you’ll soon understand all manner of things and be in harmony with Eternity.”

‘You believe that, Mariko-san?’

‘Yes.  Very much.  I try, also, to be patient, but it’s hard.’

‘I agree.  That’s also wa, your harmony, your ‘tranquillity,’ neh?‘

‘Yes.’

‘Tell him I thank him truly for what he did for Old Gardener.  I didn’t before, not from my heart.  Tell him that.’

‘There’s no need, Anjin-san.  He knew before that you were just being polite.’

‘How did he know?’

‘I told you he is the wisest man in the world.’

He grinned.

‘There,’ she said, ‘your age has fallen off you again,’ and added in Latin, ‘Thou art thyself again, and better than before!’

‘But thou art beautiful, as always.’

Her eyes warmed and she averted them from Toranaga.  Blackthorne saw this and marked her caution.  He got to his feet and stared down into the jagged cleft.  Carefully he jumped into it and disappeared.

Mariko scrambled up, momentarily afraid, but Blackthorne quickly came back to the surface.  In his hands was Fujiko’s sword.  It was still scabbarded, though muddied and scarred.  His short stabbing sword had disappeared.

He knelt in front of Toranaga and offered his sword as a sword should be offered.  ‘Dozo, Toranaga-sama,’ he said simply.  ‘Kara samurai ni samurai, neh?‘  Please, Lord Toranaga, from a samurai to a samurai, eh?

‘Domo, Anjin-san.’  The Lord of the Kwanto accepted the sword and shoved it into his sash.  Then he smiled, leaned forward, and clapped Blackthorne once on the shoulder, hard.  ‘Tomo, neh?‘  Friend, eh?

‘Domo.‘  Blackthorne glanced away.  His smile faded.  A cloud of smoke was drifting over the rise above where the village would be.  At once he asked Toranaga if he could leave, to make sure Fujiko was all right.

‘He says, yes, Anjin-san.  And we are to see him at the fortress at sunset for the evening meal.  There are some things he wishes to discuss with you.’

Blackthorne went back to the village.  It was devastated, the course of the road bent out of recognition, the surface shattered.  But the boats were safe.  Many fires still burned.  Villagers were carrying buckets of sand and buckets of water.  He turned the corner.  Omi’s house was tilted drunkenly on its side.  His own was a burnt-out ruin.