Shogun (74 page)

Blackthorne was concentrating on Omi, hardly listening to her. “Tell Omi-san I don’t like orders. I’m Lord Toranaga’s guest. I’m Lord Yabu’s guest. You ‘ask’ guests to do things. You don’t order them, and you don’t march into a man’s house uninvited.”

Mariko translated this. Omi listened expressionlessly, then replied shortly, watching the unwavering barrels.

“He says, ‘I, Kasigi Omi, I would ask for your pistols, and ask you to come with me because Kasigi Yabu-sama orders you into his presence. But Kasigi Yabu-sama orders me to order you to give me your weapons. So sorry, Anjin-san, for the last time I order you to give them to me.’”

Blackthorne’s chest was constricted. He knew he was going to be attacked and he was furious at his own stupidity. But there comes a time when you can’t take any more and you pull a gun or a knife and then blood is spilled through stupid pride. Most times stupid. If I’m to die Omi will die first, by God!

He felt very strong though somewhat light-headed. Then what Mariko said began to ring in his ears: ‘Fujiko’s samurai, she is your consort!’ And his brain began to function. “Just a moment! Mariko-san, please say this to Fujiko-san. Exactly: ‘I’m going to give you my pistols. You are to guard them. No one except me is to touch them.’”

Mariko did as he asked, and behind him, he heard Fujiko say, “
Hai.”

“
Wakarimasu ka
, Fujiko-san?” he asked her.

“
Wakarimasu
, Anjin-san,” she replied in a thin, nervous voice.

“Mariko-san, please tell Omi-san I’ll go with him now. I’m sorry there’s been a misunderstanding. Yes, I’m sorry there was a misunderstanding.”

Blackthorne backed away, then turned. Fujiko accepted the guns, perspiration beading her forehead. He faced Omi and prayed he was right. “Shall we go now?”

Omi spoke to Fujiko and held out his hand. She shook her head. He gave a short order. The two samurai started toward her. Immediately she shoved one pistol into the sash of her obi, held the other with both hands at arm’s length and leveled it at Omi. The trigger came back slightly and the striking lever moved. “
Ugoku na!”
she said. “
Dozo!”

The samurai obeyed. They stopped.

Omi spoke rapidly and angrily and she listened and when she replied her voice was soft and polite but the pistol never moved from his face, the lever half-cocked now, and she ended, “
Iyé, gomen nasai
, Omi-san!” No, I’m sorry, Omi-san.

Blackthorne waited.

A samurai moved a fraction. The lever came back dangerously, almost to the top of its arc. But her arm remained steady.

“
Ugoku na!”
she ordered.

No one doubted that she would pull the trigger. Not even Blackthorne. Omi said something curtly to her and to his men. They came back. She lowered the pistol but it was still ready.

“What did he say?” Blackthorne asked.

“Only that he would report this incident to Yabu-san.”

“Good. Tell him I will do the same.” Blackthorne turned to her. “
Domo
, Fujiko-san.” Then, remembering the way Toranaga and Yabu talked to women, he grunted imperiously at Mariko. “Come on, Mariko-san …
ikamasho!”
He started for the gate.

“Anjin-san!” Fujiko called out.

“
Hai?”
Blackthorne stopped. Fujiko was bowing to him and spoke quickly to Mariko.

Mariko’s eyes widened, then she nodded and replied, and spoke to Omi, who also nodded, clearly enraged but restraining himself.

“What’s going on?”

“Please be patient, Anjin-san.”

Fujiko called out, and there was an answer from within the house. A maid came onto the veranda. In her hands were two swords. Samurai swords.

Fujiko took them reverently, offered them to Blackthorne with a bow, speaking softly.

Mariko said, “Your consort rightly points out that a hatamoto is, of course, obliged to wear the two swords of the samurai. More than that, it’s his duty to do so. She believes it would not be correct for you to go to Lord Yabu without swords—that it would be impolite. By our law it’s
duty
to carry swords. She asks if you would consider using these, unworthy though they are, until you buy your own.”

Blackthorne stared at her, then at Fujiko and back to her again. “Does that mean I’m samurai? That Lord Toranaga made me samurai?”

“I don’t know, Anjin-san. But there’s never been a hatamoto who wasn’t samurai. Never.” Mariko turned and questioned Omi. Impatiently he shook his head and answered. “Omi-san doesn’t know either. Certainly it’s the special privilege of a hatamoto to wear swords at all times, even in the presence of Lord Toranaga. It is his duty because he’s a completely trustworthy bodyguard. Also only a hatamoto has the right of immediate audience with a lord.”

Blackthorne took the short sword and stuck it in his belt, then the other, the long one, the killing one, exactly as Omi was wearing his. Armed, he did feel better. “
Arigato goziemashita
, Fujiko-san,” he said quietly.

She lowered her eyes and replied softly. Mariko translated.

“Fujiko-san says, with permission, Lord, because you must learn our language correctly and quickly, she humbly wishes to point out that
‘domo’
is more than sufficient for a man to say.
‘Arigato,’
with
or without ‘
goziemashita
,’ is an unnecessary politeness, an expression that only women use.”

“
Hai. Domo. Wakarimasu
, Fujiko-san.” Blackthorne looked at her clearly for the first time with his newfound knowledge. He saw the sweat on her forehead and the sheen on her hands. The narrow eyes and square face and ferret teeth. “Please tell my consort, in this one case I do not consider
‘arigato goziemashita’
an unnecessary politeness to her.”

Yabu glanced at the swords again. Blackthorne was sitting cross-legged on a cushion in front of him in the place of honor, Mariko to one side, Igurashi beside him. They were in the main room of the fortress.

Omi finished talking.

Yabu shrugged. “You handled it badly, nephew. Of course it’s the consort’s duty to protect the Anjin-san and his property. Of course he has the right to wear swords now. Yes, you handled it badly. I made it clear the Anjin-san’s my honored guest here. Apologize to him.”

Immediately Omi got up and knelt in front of Blackthorne and bowed. “I apologize for my error, Anjin-san.” He heard Mariko say that the barbarian accepted the apology. He bowed again and calmly went back to his place and sat down again. But he was not calm inside. He was now totally consumed by one idea: the killing of Yabu.

He had decided to do the unthinkable: kill his liege lord and the head of his clan.

But not because he had been made to apologize publicly to the barbarian. In this Yabu had been right. Omi knew he had been unnecessarily inept, for although Yabu had stupidly ordered him to take the pistols away at once tonight, he knew they should have been manipulated away and left in the house, to be stolen later or broken later.

And the Anjin-san had been perfectly correct to give the pistols to his consort, he told himself, just as she was equally correct to do what she did. And she would certainly have pulled the trigger, her aim true. It was no secret that Usagi Fujiko sought death, or why. Omi knew, too, that if it hadn’t been for his earlier decision this morning to kill Yabu, he would have stepped forward into death and then his men would have taken the pistols away from her. He would have died nobly as she would be ordered into death nobly and men
and women would have told the tragic tale for generations. Songs and poems and even a Nōh play, all so inspiring and tragic and brave, about the three of them the faithful consort and faithful samurai who both died dutifully because of the incredible barbarian who came from the eastern sea.

No, Omi’s decision had nothing to do with this public apology, although the unfairness added to the hatred that now obsessed him. The main reason was that today Yabu had publicly insulted Omi’s mother and wife in front of peasants by keeping them waiting for hours in the sun like peasants, and had then dismissed them without acknowledgment like peasants.

“It doesn’t matter, my son,” his mother had said. “It’s his privilege.”

“He’s our liege Lord,” Midori, his wife, had said, the tears of shame running down her cheeks. “Please excuse him.”

“And he didn’t invite either of you to greet him and his officers at the fortress,” Omi had continued. “At the meal you arranged! The food and saké alone cost one koku!”

“It’s our duty, my son. It’s our duty to do whatever Lord Yabu wants.”

“And the order about Father?”

“It’s not an order yet. It’s a rumor.”

“The message from Father said he’d heard that Yabu’s going to order him to shave his head and become a priest, or slit his belly open. Yabu’s wife privately boasts it!”

“That was whispered to your father by a spy. You cannot always trust spies. So sorry, but your father, my son, isn’t always wise.”

“What happens to you, Mother, if it isn’t a rumor?”

“Whatever happens is
karma
. You must accept
karma.”

“No, these insults are unendurable.”

“Please, my son, accept them.”

“I gave Yabu the key to the ship, the key to the Anjin-san and the new barbarians, and the way out of Toranaga’s trap. My help has brought him immense prestige. With the symbolic gift of the sword he’s now second to Toranaga in the armies of the East. And what have we got in return? Filthy insults.”

“Accept your
karma.”

“You must, husband, I beg you, listen to the Lady, your mother.”

“I can’t live with this shame. I will have vengeance and then I will kill myself and these shames will pass from me.”

“For the last time, my son, accept your
karma
, I beg you.”

“My
karma
is to destroy Yabu.”

The old lady had sighed. “Very well. You’re a man. You have the right to decide. What is to be is to be. But the killing of Yabu by itself is nothing. We must plan. His son must also be removed, and also Igurashi. Particularly Igurashi. Then your father will lead the clan as is his right.”

“How do we do that, Mother?”

“We will plan, you and I. And be patient,
neh?
Then we must consult with your father. Midori, even you may give counsel, but try not to make it valueless,
neh?”

“What about Lord Toranaga? He gave Yabu his sword.”

“I think Lord Toranaga only wants Izu strong and a
vassal
state. Not as an ally. He doesn’t want allies any more than the Taikō did. Yabu thinks he’s an ally. I think Toranaga detests allies. Our clan will prosper as Toranaga vassals.
Or as Ishido vassals!
Who to choose, eh? And how to do the killing?”

Omi remembered the surge of joy that had possessed him once the decision had been made final.

He felt it now. But none of it showed on his face as cha and wine were offered by carefully selected maids imported from Mishima for Yabu. He watched Yabu and the Anjin-san and Mariko and Igurashi. They were all waiting for Yabu to begin.

The room was large and airy, big enough for thirty officers to dine and wine and talk. There were many other rooms and kitchens for bodyguards and servants, and a skirting garden, and though all were makeshift and temporary, they had been excellently constructed in the time at his disposal and easily defendable. That the cost had come out of Omi’s increased fief bothered him not at all. This had been his duty.

He looked through the open shoji. Many sentries in the forecourt. A stable. The fortress was guarded by a ditch. The stockade was constructed of giant bamboos lashed tightly. Big central pillars supported the tiled roof. Walls were light sliding shoji screens, some shuttered, most of them covered with oiled paper as was usual. Good planks for the flooring were set on pilings raised off beaten earth below and these were covered with tatamis.

At Yabu’s command, Omi had ransacked four villages for materials to construct this and the other house and Igurashi had brought quality tatamis and futons and things unobtainable in the village.

Omi was proud of his work, and the bivouac camp for three thousand samurai had been made ready on the plateau over the hill that guarded the roads that led to the village and to the shore. Now the village was locked tight and safe by land. From the sea there would always be plenty of warning for a liege lord to escape.

But I have no liege lord. Whom shall I serve now, Omi was asking himself. Ikawa Jukkyu? Or Toranaga directly? Would Toranaga give me what I want in return? Or Ishido? Ishido’s so difficult to get to,
neh?
But much to tell him now….

This afternoon Yabu had summoned Igurashi, Omi, and the four chief captains and had set into motion his clandestine training plan for the five hundred gun-samurai. Igurashi was to be commander, Omi was to lead one of the hundreds. They had arranged how to induct Toranaga’s men into the units when they arrived, and how these outlanders were to be neutralized if they proved treacherous.

Omi had suggested that another highly secret cadre of three more units of one hundred samurai each should be trained surreptitiously on the other side of the peninsula as replacements, as a reserve, and as a precaution against a treacherous move by Toranaga.

“Who’ll command Toranaga’s men? Who’ll he send as second in command?” Igurashi had asked.

“It makes no difference,” Yabu had said. “I’ll appoint his five assistant officers, who’ll be given the responsibility of slitting his throat, should it be necessary. The code for killing him and all the outlanders will be ‘Plum Tree.’ Tomorrow, Igurashi-san, you will choose the men. I will approve each personally and none of them is to know, yet, my overall strategy of the musket regiment.”

Now as Omi was watching Yabu, he savored the newfound ecstasy of vengeance. To kill Yabu would be easy, but the killing must be coordinated. Only then would his father or his elder brother be able to assume control of the clan, and Izu.

Yabu came to the point. “Mariko-san, please tell the Anjin-san, tomorrow I want him to start training my men to shoot like barbarians and I want to learn everything there is to know about the way that barbarians war.”