The Lost Future of Pepperharrow

by Natasha Pulley

  ‘Ecstatically,’ she said. She nudged Thaniel and, when he glanced down, glinted the edge of a deck of gilded playing cards at him from just under her sleeve.

  Kuroda noticed, but he looked pleased. ‘Baroness,’ he said, ‘would you come and take the edge off me for these nice people?’

  She bowed wryly to Thaniel and Mori and went away with him. Kuroda slowed right down for her, clearly happy to have something so bright in tow. Mori was watching them too.

  ‘She …’ Thaniel couldn’t think of anything to say. ‘She seems not to mind him. I’d have hidden in a barn when I was her age.’

  Mori did smile, but not much. ‘You’re not her age yet.’ Like it often did after several other people had been talking, his voice sounded even more unusual than normal. Everyone else’s was normal unremarkable cotton, but he sounded like velvet to which someone had just held a match.

  ‘Oh,’ said Thaniel. He was already getting a growing sense that a white man was likely to fall apart before any normal person was halfway through their warranty.

  ‘Hurry up!’ Kuroda shouted. ‘Get on your horse, Mori!’

  ‘Would anyone mind if I chucked him in a well?’ Thaniel said, already tired of the purple splotches and glad to change the subject.

  Mori smiled properly this time. ‘No, I think that’s wholly to be encouraged.’ He climbed up on the stirrup and settled in the saddle. The horse shifted to see what the new rider felt like. He sat straight and still, listening to his own balance. Under the hem of the black kimono, he was wearing proper riding boots. Although they were fitted for spurs, with a bronze loop round the heel, he had taken off the sharp edges.

  Kuroda pulled a white stallion right up alongside and Thaniel jerked backward, an inch from being trampled. The clank of horseshoes shot silver into everything. He had just long enough to feel Mori’s stirrup dig into his back and a knife edge of panic before Mori leaned over his head to smack Kuroda with his crop in time to make him pull back again. Kuroda looked down, surprised to see anybody there.

  ‘Well? Should’ve got out the way,’ he said. ‘D’you still shoot, Mori?’

  Thaniel clenched his hand and thumped his knuckles against his own leg to vent the need to swear at him.

  Mori swung his horse and shoved Kuroda out of his saddle. There was a thump as their shoulders met and then another when Kuroda hit the ground. Motes of hay puffed up around him.

  ‘Should’ve held on,’ said Mori drily.

  There was a silence in which it seemed almost certain he would be taken away and shot. Half the men in the stable yard now were the same ones who had met Mori at the front door, and hands went to sword hilts. Not far away, Kuroda’s men in their dark suits eased away from their posts and more towards Kuroda. One was dressed differently – loudly, Thaniel thought – maybe to make absolutely sure people noticed him. He wore a bright red coat and one of the buttons was a tiny Fabergé egg. He was holding a revolver in the easy way of someone who used it all the time, and it was aimed at Mori’s kneecap.

  Kuroda slung some hay at him. ‘Fuck off! ’

  Everyone relaxed. Thaniel stood still, waiting for his heart to stop banging. He didn’t mind jokes. But if Mori hadn’t hit Kuroda, the horses would have collided and he would have gone down under their hooves. After a second, he went around and helped Kuroda up. He understood. Kuroda was a frightening man who liked people who weren’t frightened of him. It was still an effort to brush him down and clap his shoulder like he was harmless. Kuroda was laughing now. He climbed up onto his stirrup again and paused when a boy came to look at the buckles on the saddle. It was a relief not to be the focus of his attention.

  Around them, other men were climbing into their saddles, and the women dropped back from the horses. Mori nodded at Thaniel to step back before Kuroda whistled sharp and hard and the riders spun away as fast as a cavalry regiment. The ground was scattered with pine needles, which jumped under the horses’ hooves. It shook until they were well away. Someone threw a bow and a quiver between horses and someone else caught it, and then he heard the snap of a string and a bird fell from the sky. One of the dogs tore across to fetch it.

  Thaniel watched them from the stable gate, digging his fingernails into the wood. He’d never thought of Mori’s barony as being real in any sense but money. Mori described Japan as a tiny place in the middle of nowhere with no trains and a suspicious attitude toward telegraph lines. Somewhere along the way, Thaniel had filed it away with other middle-of-nowhere bits of the world and pinned on a matching idea of its aristocracy. Tiny African states had kings, though they were kings of less land and fewer people than a Suffolk farmer oversaw in an afternoon. It wasn’t the kingship of England or Germany, the sort that turned the world rather than crops.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  He looked around, didn’t find anyone, then looked down. Takiko Pepperharrow was there again, looking half concerned and half amused.

  ‘I saw Kuroda up to his usual,’ she said. ‘He’s jealous of Mori. He’s possessive about his friends. Doesn’t want you on his patch. He hasn’t got very many friends.’ It was perfect cut-glass English.

  ‘Oh. No, I’m all right.’

  ‘You’re from Yorkshire,’ she laughed.

  It seemed pedantic to point out that actually it was the next shire down. He’d already found on the ship that he would settle happily for anything in Britain. If someone guessed that he was from near Edinburgh, he said yes, because Lincoln was very near Edinburgh if you were coming at it from Nagasaki. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘My father was an English diplomat and my governess was from Whitby.’ She nodded again towards the hunt. The wind brought a breath of jasmine perfume to him. ‘He tries it with me all the time, Kuroda. He wants to see if he can make you flinch. He’s like a sumo wrestler; he throws his weight about but all he wants is a good fight. You just say rhinoceros and he laughs and trots off on his merry way.’

  ‘Rhinoceros?’

  ‘There’s a rumour he killed his wife,’ she said. She was watching him now, too closely, but perhaps it was only something she had taught herself to do in order to keep big men unsettled. ‘And you know the Marumaru, the cartoon newspaper? They published a sketch of him in bed with a new girl and a rhinoceros ghost looming up out of some sake fumes. You know, rhinoceros is “sai”, wife is “sai” …’

  ‘That’s funny,’ he said automatically, then pictured it properly and frowned. ‘Did he? Kill her.’

  ‘Yes. Ow,’ she added. She snatched her hand off the rail and bit her knuckle. ‘Static.’ She left teeth marks in her finger. Thunder snarled to the south and then lightning sparked very high, not a fork but a hanging flicker that looked like the tendrils of a jellyfish.

  ‘Sorry, what? He did?’

  ‘Yes, he’s a drunk,’ she said, as if people who killed their wives were normal. She turned her sleeve back, carefully, and winced when the silk nipped at her again. ‘It’s the mountain,’ she said. ‘There’s been odd weather from there lately.’ She tapped the fence to tell him to step up on it and then she did the same, pointing between a gap in some trees. Fuji showed, lunar, through the grey storm haze. While they were looking, light snapped up in the sky again. There was no bang this time, no thunder, and no rain either. But the air had turned crackly. Somewhere through the woods, a horse shrieked.

  ‘Why is he Prime Minister if—’

  ‘Because Keita wants him to be,’ she said mildly. She studied Thaniel properly, her forearms still resting on the fence. ‘So how do you two know each other? You and Keita.’

  It was horrible hearing her call Mori by his first name. She had introduced herself by her first name in a bid to be modern and Western maybe, but Mori wasn’t modern. First names were only for children and people you wouldn’t be surprised to wake up with. ‘He’s my landlord. I rent his spare room in London.’

  ‘How well do you know him?’ she said.

  ‘Well enough. Why?’

  She was loo
king at him hard now. ‘I’m asking if you know what he can do.’

  ‘Is it polite not to throw coins or dice too near him, yes, I know that.’ He could hear he was being brusque, but more than anything he wanted her to go away. All the questions felt like pressure on a bruise.

  Takiko must have been used to a different league of unfriendly men, though, because she didn’t even seem to notice. ‘Then you must also know that people near to him aren’t really people in his eyes. They’re tools. You’re for something. I’m for something, Kuroda is for something, there is nothing I’m more sure of in the world – or maybe it isn’t you, maybe it’s your interesting little girl.’

  ‘Sorry, what do you want to say?’

  ‘Why are you here?’ she asked softly. It was urgent, not a threat. ‘You seem like a nice person. Nice people don’t do well around Keita, Mr Steepleton, they end up dead. He is the king of useful deaths.’

  Thaniel frowned. It was one way to describe Mori, but he couldn’t help thinking it sounded dramatic. ‘Why are you still married to him then? You could walk out if you wanted.’

  ‘To warn people like you. I hope you don’t mind my saying, but you’re ill, aren’t you? You sound ill.’

  ‘Yes. So?’

  ‘The king of useful deaths,’ she said again, very quietly this time.

  ‘I’m not here to die, I’m here because I can breathe here. London’s a mess.’

  ‘Right.’ She sighed. ‘You probably think I’m just trying to get an annoying gaijin off my territory. I’m not. Ask him what happened to Countess Kuroda.’

  ‘I’m all right, thanks,’ Thaniel said, a touch sharp. It was just one of those things, with Mori; there was a temptation to hold him personally responsible for every evil that happened nearby, given that he could have put a stop to it. But that was a nasty way to think. It didn’t allow for Mori being a person, one who could be tired or ill, or distracted, or upset. Whatever had happened to Kuroda’s wife, Thaniel was inclined to call it Kuroda’s fault.

  ‘All right. But in case you haven’t noticed, you’ve walked into a war. Kuroda wants him here to help beat the Russians; he forced him to come. Keita doesn’t want to help beat the Russians, but I expect he does want to remind Kuroda who not to annoy. Don’t get caught between them.’

  ‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ said Thaniel, who couldn’t see how Kuroda would force Mori to do anything. ‘They look like they’re just having a laugh.’

  ‘They are. But they’re samurai. Their idea of fun is dangerous.’

  He nodded. More than anything, she sounded like someone who would have preferred not to have a herd of men in her house thumping around like a bunch of walruses. If he’d been her size, he would have found Kuroda terrifying. Perhaps Mori, too; perhaps he’d have even hated him a bit, for letting Kuroda charge around so much, and particularly if being married to him meant being his legal property. He didn’t know what the Japanese marriage system was like, but given the way Mori thought about women, it couldn’t have been too dignified.

  ‘You think I’m a woman being worried about woman things,’ she said wryly. ‘I know Kuroda and Mori must look harmless to you from up there, but that isn’t what I’m talking about it all.’

  ‘Well,’ he said. He smiled a bit, annoyed with himself for having been rude before. ‘Thanks for the warning, then.’

  She opened her hands to say she wasn’t going to push any more.

  The blue light flickered again over Fuji. They both watched it for a while. The air felt stormy, but there was still no rain.

  She called something to the other women. He didn’t catch it. A march of bright sleeves and sashes later, and snatches of conversation about the Russian fleet, they were all past him and he was alone on the narrow road.

  Somewhere close by, little bells rang. He couldn’t tell where from. It must have been some kind of signal, because one of Kuroda’s guards hauled himself down from where he’d been perched on the fence about fifty yards away from Thaniel, and started to trudge towards what must have been the back gates of the grounds. He stabbed at the radio.

  Still got him?

  Pause. Thaniel listened, just idly.

  Yes all well. Wish Suzuki had put him in something brighter though, red and black is bloody difficult to keep track of. Every second person’s tack is red and black.

  Thaniel frowned, because he could have sworn Kuroda had been in green. It sounded like they were talking about Mori.

  THIRTEEN

  Between the stables and house was a long, pretty greenhouse. The glass roof traced two curves like a temple to match the old house, each pane fitted at odd contours to make the shape. Wanting to breathe warmer air for a minute, Thaniel let himself in. It faced what must have been the temple grounds at the far end, because it looked out onto a graveyard. On the way, some overladen pear trees made an archway over the little path. There was a bench at the end. He sat down carefully to give his lungs time to soak up the humidity and the green smell of water on leaves.

  It all helped. Even after half a minute, breathing was easier. He stole a pear for later. Beside the bench was a beautiful glass terrarium, full of fat and happy caterpillars. A couple of them were already spinning their cocoons. It was mesmerising. He sat bent towards the glass, wondering how a caterpillar recognised its friends once it was a moth, or if you had to start again as a moth and reintroduce yourself.

  To windward, the glass panes bumped. The weather had turned blustery. Dark clouds had gathered over the sea and the light was struggling through them. There was still no rain, not even in the distance, just more fog, rolling in from the north.

  A child shrieked. It was a horrified primeval sound and he jerked upright in case it was Six. He followed the vivid white after-tone of it down the hill to the graveyard.

  It wasn’t Six. It was the little garden boy. He had a scarf over his face, because he had been shovelling quicklime over a shallow grave. Just beside him was a crate full of dead birds. Crows, mainly.

  ‘What happened?’ Thaniel asked.

  ‘I saw a ghost!’ He sounded panicked.

  Puzzled, Thaniel went to the grave to look in. There were a couple of crates’ worth of birds already there, half covered by the powdery lime. ‘Where …?’ He trailed off, because the boy had begun to cry. ‘What’s your name?’ he said, more softly.

  ‘Hotaru,’ the little boy managed. ‘Yoshida.’

  Thaniel picked him up. He was probably older than he looked, but he was tiny and buttony, and he was so light he was easy to carry back towards the house. He suited his name; he was a little firefly of a person. ‘Where’s your mum, then?’ Thaniel said quietly.

  ‘At the salt, the salt works down the beach,’ the boy said, still sobbing in uneven gulps. ‘But Mr Suzuki won’t like me to go …’

  ‘Mr Suzuki will live with it,’ Thaniel said. ‘Come on, let’s find him.’

  The boy was right; Suzuki didn’t want to let him go home.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, you can’t send staff home whenever they take some silly fancy—’

  ‘How old are you?’ Thaniel said to Hotaru.

  ‘Seven.’

  ‘He’s seven, Suzuki, I’m taking him to his mother. Unless you think he’d be more productive in a weeping heap behind the greenhouse.’

  Suzuki sighed. ‘The salt burners are vulgar people, Mr Steepleton, superstition is only to be expected. The boy will grow out of it sooner if you don’t pander to it.’

  Thaniel took the little boy down to the beach. They passed one of Kuroda’s bodyguards at the gate, looking out to sea, bored. The man didn’t even bother to nod. Above them, despite the grey weather, the lighthouse sat on its leaning rock, unlit. But there was a washing line with a white shirt pegged on it, fluttering.

  He could smell the salt works before they came into sight. They were burning seaweed, and smoke was pouring out into the sky. There was something odd about the way it moved. The smoke coiled sometimes like something was nudging it. Th
ere was no wind. The quiet made the shore eerie. It should have been full of seagulls and sandpipers, but there was nothing.

  He thought the birds must have just flown somewhere safer. It was wishful. Before long, he saw them all in the tideline, downy corpses washing up against the mess of seaweed and pebbles, the softer, lighter feathers masquerading as foam. When he went to look, the weed was swarming with spider crabs having the time of their lives with the carrion. Not much further along the beach, other people had noticed too. They were lifting the crabs out into buckets. Children mostly, with old pails and grey clothes. The smoke from the salt works drifted through them too much for him to see how many. Still unhappy, Hotaru stayed close to him.

  The salt works were set up on what looked like a natural tumble of rocks. He climbed up carefully, his gloves catching on old limpets. At the top, a broad figure with a rake paused and watched him through the smoke and the whirling cinders.

  ‘Afternoon,’ said Thaniel. ‘I’m from the big house. Are you Mr Yoshida?’

  ‘Who’s asking?’ the man rumbled. He had an inhumanly hoarse voice. He must have spent his life breathing the smoke. Just beside him was a deep pit, full of burning seaweed that hissed and popped as its air pockets burst.

  ‘Your boy’s had a bit of a fright, he’s upset.’ He touched Hotaru’s shoulders to put the little boy in front of him. ‘Is his mother here?’

  ‘Why, what’s happened?’

  ‘He says he saw a ghost.’

  ‘What do you mean, he says?’ the man said crossly. ‘If our Hotaru says he saw one then he did. We all have.’

  Hotaru had turned small and still, his eyes fixed on the ground.

  Thaniel frowned. ‘All right.’

  The man grunted at him and then called back to a woman. She came by without a word, only a cringing nod that probably didn’t do her husband’s bullishness much good, and hurried Hotaru away. Thaniel wished he hadn’t brought him, and wondered if Suzuki had been trying to tell him, in his stuffy way, that it would make a bad day worse.