Rebels of Gor (69 page)

“Do not!” I called to the shogun.

But I was paid no mind.

The two unused bows and the nine unfired arrows were now beside the shogun, a little behind him, these brought by Ashigaru. The first Ashigaru carried the nine arrows. He who had strung the second bow now carried the two unused bows. A third Ashigaru, who seemed short, and brawny, was slightly in the background. I assessed him a very strong individual. He reminded me of the professional wrestlers who, with their troops, handlers, and drummers, sometimes visited the local villages and towns.

Again, at the closer range, an arrow flashed from the bow.

The crowd, and we prisoners, who had now followed Lord Yamada to the new marker, that set at thirty paces, were absolutely silent.

The only sound had been that of the snap of the flat of a blade against a slender, narrow, swirling cylinder of wood.

We regarded one another.

“Four!” whispered an Ashigaru.

No longer did Lord Yamada extend cordial greetings to the subject of his test, nor did he accord him any longer a pleasant commendation, but merely extended his hand, that a new arrow be placed within it.

The third bow, the shogun having advanced to the twenty-pace mark, was strung by the stout, brawny fellow.

Nine arrows had been expended when we, following Lord Yamada, moved to the ten-pace marker, where the fourth bow was strung, this also strung, though now with difficulty, by the stout, brawny fellow.

“Surely it is enough, Lord,” I said.

But the shogun’s attention was on Nodachi, bound, hands free, the companion sword in hand, awaiting the tenth arrow.

Deflected arrows, and the parts of deflected arrows, were about. Some of the deflected arrows, given the force with which they were sped, lingering even after the deviation suddenly introduced into their trajectory, had seemed to spring to the clouds, and others had bounded over the walls of the enclosure, or struck against the far wall. About, too, were parts of arrows, strewn yards about.

“Do not, Lord!” I cried.

“Ten!” cried an Ashigaru.

“Desist!” I begged.

But I do not think that either Lord Yamada or Nodachi heard me.

I think that these two inhabited a world alien to that of better than a hundred observers, a world shut away from other worlds, a world in which each stood at an opposite end, a narrow world, the two poles of which were linked by a wirelike, invisible path no broader than the breadth of an arrow.

“Eleven!” breathed an officer.

“Arrow!” cried Lord Yamada.

The final arrow, the twelfth arrow, was handed to him, and the shogun set it to the string.

The great bow was lifted, and lowered, and the missile, leveled, trained on its target.

The shogun’s hand trembled on the bow. Sweat was on his brow. It was difficult even for the shogun, with his considerable strength, to draw back that string. It was difficult to conjecture the force with which that long, narrow, poised, iron-tipped missile would be impelled.

“Fire,” I thought to myself. “Fire!”

But the shogun was in no hurry to release the string.

“Now,” I thought, “it is no longer a simple test of skill, of eye and hand, but one of nerves, as well. How can one adjust that delicate balance of muscle and time, how sustain so long, unwavering, that patience, that alertness, that intentness, that intensity of focus, how long manage to survive that indefinite season of uncertain readiness? Lightning was kindled, unhurried, waiting, in the dark sky. When would it strike?”

The face of Nodachi seemed expressionless. One might have thought him of stone, save for the eyes. Those eyes, dark, fierce, and glittering, were very much alive.

“Twelve!” cried more than a dozen throats in the crowd.

“Twelve! Twelve!” I cried.

The blade had caught the arrow behind the head, and, as the arrow slid on the blade, pressed to the side, the blade had caught in the wood and shaved the long, graceful missile lengthwise leaving behind it two almost equal parts, even to the fletching.

These two segments fell at the feet of Nodachi.

Even as we cried out with astonishment and pleasure, and Lord Yamada, shaken, tried to grasp what had occurred, Nodachi thrust the companion sword amongst the ropes which fastened him to the post, and the ropes parted, darting to the sides, as though fleeing from the blade.

Katsutoshi, captain of the shogun’s guard, drew his sword and leaped between Nodachi and the shogun.

At the same time at least a dozen arrows were trained on Nodachi.

“You have done well,” said the shogun to Nodachi. “Put down your sword.”

“Stand back!” cried Katsutoshi.

“Stand aside,” said Nodachi to the captain of the guard.

Katsutoshi almost quivered with tension, in an on-guard position, facing Nodachi, two hands on his field sword. This choice of weapons gave him the advantage of length of blade, as well as heaviness of stroke.

“Put ten men against me, or one hundred,” called Nodachi to the shogun, “but be yourself, mighty lord, the last man in that line.”

“Stand aside, Captain,” called the shogun to Katsutoshi.

“But, great lord!” protested the captain.

But he stepped aside. No command of a shogun is to be disregarded.

“Think carefully before you approach, clever swordsman,” said the shogun. “Five paces before you could bring me within the compass of your blade, you would be greeted by fifteen well-fletched birds of death. Glaives would grow about you as a forest. Nor could you block the storm of steel that would contest your passage.”

“Ten men, or a hundred,” said Nodachi.

“Do not tempt me to betray my station,” said Lord Yamada. “It is not seemly that the shogun should stain his sword with a blood less elevated than his own.”

“My blade would meet your blade,” said Nodachi. “Twelve arrows assert its right, twelve arrows plead its cause.”

“Would that I were not shogun,” said Lord Yamada.

“But you are shogun, Lord,” said Katsutoshi.

“
Ela
,” said the shogun. “It is true.”

“The shogun,” said Katsutoshi, “has slain daimyos.”

“Surrender your sword,” said the shogun.

“You see that I cannot,” said Nodachi. “It has been lifted, in war.”

“Unwisely,” said the shogun.

Nodachi inclined his head, briefly.

“I am sure, great lord,” said Katsutoshi, “from what I have seen in the town, Chrysanthemum of the Shogun, and here, that his skills would be remarkable.”

“Join my guard then, bold, outspoken swordsman,” said the shogun. “I would have such a sword at my side.”

“It has been lifted, in war,” said Nodachi.

“To attack me,” said the shogun, “is suicide, even if I do not draw my blade.”

“The sun is bright. The sky is blue. The day is calm,” said Nodachi. “It is not a bad day to die.”

“Then attend me well, fellow,” said the shogun, “you who value your life so lightly, for on this day others, too, will die.”

“That is not honorable,” said Nodachi.

“Do not concern yourself with us,” I called to Nodachi.

“No, Master,” said Tajima

“No, Master,” said Pertinax.

“No, noble one,” called Haruki.

“It is not honorable,” said Nodachi.

“I am shogun,” said Lord Yamada.

“My sword,” said Nodachi, bowing, and handing his sword, hilt first, to Katsutoshi, the captain of the shogun’s guard.

Chapter Forty-Eight

We Have Tea with Lord Yamada

“We have as yet,” said Lord Yamada, “not discovered the whereabouts of the tarns which brought you south.”

“Perhaps, great lord,” said Tajima, “we came on foot.”

“Scarcely,” said Lord Yamada, lifting his tiny cup of tea.

“Had we come on tarn,” I said, “it seems, after a suitable interval, with no contact, such a party, if it existed, might have departed, returning north.”

“That is possible,” said Lord Yamada.

I sipped my tea, and then put it down on its saucer. Four sat, cross-legged, about the inlaid, lacquered table, Tajima, Pertinax, the shogun, and I. Behind three of us, Tajima, Pertinax, and myself, stood an Ashigaru, armed with a large, weighty beheading sword.

“I wished to speak with you three,” said the shogun, putting down his cup. “Ah!” he said. “Of course! You are concerned with your fellows. Do not fear. Both are well. The swordsman is encelled, of course. Too, as he is neither an officer nor a tarnsman, and outside the command structure of the cavalry, I saw no point in including him in our group.”

“There was another,” I said.

“He is in the garden, working,” said Lord Yamada. “It has suffered much during his absence.”

“He will be concerned to put things right,” I said.

“I trust so,” said the shogun. “I have been much distressed with its condition. But, too, as the swordsman, he is neither an officer nor a tarnsman, and thus, in my view, not a suitable participant in our discussion. Too, of course, both are lowly, which fault bars them from the discussion of matters of moment, such matters being the province of the higher orders.”

“What are we to discuss?” I asked.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“The cavalry,” I said.

“Of course,” he said.

I had been incarcerated separately, but comfortably, for the last few days. Shortly after meeting Tajima and Pertinax in the hall, before we joined Lord Yamada for tea, I had discovered that each had also been kept in isolation. We had, accordingly, had no opportunity for interaction, no opportunity to share views, plan an escape, or such. I had now gathered that Nodachi was most likely encelled similarly. It had come as a surprise that Haruki was allowed the freedom of the garden. The garden, I gathered, was of interest to Lord Yamada. These aesthetic interests, surprisingly to a barbarian, were not that uncommon amongst the Pani nobility. Lord Okimoto, as I recalled, attended to the elegance of his calligraphy. Indeed, the fineness of his hand, I had gathered from Tajima, ruled out the possibility that he might be in league with an opposing house. I found the logic implicit in this assurance difficult to fathom. Lord Yamada, for example, who was apparently sensitive to the delicacy and hue of flowers, and the melodies of their arrangement, could strangle sons, behead enemies, burn and crucify dissidents, and tranquilly administer the test of twelve arrows. I did not know, of course, if the secret entrance to and from the garden still existed or not. I did gather that Haruki was still about. I would not have been surprised, of course, that the secret entrance might still exist and Haruki might still be about. He might have been unwilling to abandon his friends. In the humble gardener I sensed a nobility that would have graced a warrior, a daimyo, even a shogun. But too, of course, there would be work to do in the garden, particularly if it had not been well tended of late.

“And in what way, and to what end, great lord,” I said, “are we to discuss the cavalry?”

“You understand, of course,” he said, “from the demonstration in the vicinity of the holding of Temmu, that the cavalry cannot meet the iron dragon. It would be burned from the sky.”

“But,” I said, “what if it does not choose to meet the iron dragon?”

“Precisely,” said Lord Yamada.

“It may not choose to be incinerated in the sky,” I said.

“That, too, is my speculation,” said Lord Yamada.

“In which case,” I said, “avoiding open combat, eschewing a direct confrontation, which might be suicidal, it might still constitute a force to be reckoned with.”

“Perhaps,” said Lord Yamada.

“Let us suppose,” I said, “that the cavalry maintains several tarns.”

“It does,” said Lord Yamada.

“In which case,” I said, “the cavalry might be in several places at once, whereas the iron dragon can be in but one. Where the iron dragon is not, the cavalry might be.”

“The dragon can destroy the holding,” said Lord Yamada.

“But is that not to be destroyed in any case?” I asked.

“Sooner or later we can find the encampment of the tarns,” said Lord Yamada.

“Found,” I said, “it may disband to reform. And what might be found is where it was, and not where it is. A camp might move, frequently, unpredictably. And there might be many camps, suitably remote, suitably concealed.”

“I am cognizant of such possibilities,” said the shogun.

“So, too,” I said, “will be the senior officers of the cavalry.”

“The mercenaries, Torgus and Lysander,” he said.

“Perhaps,” I said.

“You see, great lord,” said Tajima, “your villages and towns, your fortresses, your storehouses, even your palace, all these remain in jeopardy.”

“Not while I hold Tarl Cabot, tarnsman, prisoner,” said Lord Yamada.