Shogun (95 page)

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.
Nane 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 corning, 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 corning 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 after-shocks 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?”