The Withering Flame (The Year of the Dragon, Book 6)

by James Calbraith

“Nariakira?” repeated Edern. “Kagoshima? Wait — ” He put his hand on Dylan’s chest. “Is this why you are not coming back to Qin? Because you’re giving one of the dragons away?”

  Dylan glanced nervously towards the Gorllewin rider.

  “I’ll explain later. For now, prepare both mounts for a night flight. Don’t worry, you won’t be going alone. Gwen, come with me. This should be interesting.”

  The blonde rider tapped her toe impatiently, glancing from the council hall to Dylan and back.

  She doesn’t look like somebody who’s about to be arrested, thought Gwen. What was the point of all that fighting?

  A triumphant smirk refused to disappear from Dylan’s face as the delegates sat down again on the straw mats of the council hall. The assembly was almost the same as it had been before the Black Wing’s arrival, minus the Qin delegation and without Bran, but with the Gorllewin rider, Frigga, sitting lonely under the sliding wall.

  Gwen leaned over to Dylan’s ear as the servants brought in more cha as Lord Nabeshima had ordered.

  “When you stormed after her,” she whispered, “you looked as if you would tear her with your bare hands if you got her.”

  Dylan nodded, still smiling. He was holding some piece of paper tightly in his hand.

  “What happened on that hill top?”

  “You’ll see,” he answered.

  Lord Nabeshima studied the new arrival to the council, slurping his drink. At last, he put down the bowl.

  “Please explain,” he said to Dylan in Bataavian.

  “The attack was a misunderstanding,” replied Dylan. “Lady Frigga arrived here to present us with the conditions of the Taikun’s treaty.”

  Gwen’s eyes narrowed.

  A misunderstanding?

  She glanced at the rider, slumped forlorn in the corner.

  She is pretty. But the pin in her heart vanished as soon as it appeared. She shook her head.

  No, Edern’s right. It’s just another of Dylan’s little games.

  “A misunderstanding, you say?” Lord Nabeshima stroked his chin. “The dorako did very little damage to the city itself. Still, you should have been more aware how sensitive the information of this council is to third parties.” His brow furrowed ever so slightly.

  He means you shouldn’t have brought her here, Dylan. Gwen wanted to punch him. What’s got into you?

  “I merely wanted to show our guest how determined we all are to serve the Taikun,” replied Dylan; his smirk was now in danger of tearing his face in two.

  “Oh? I see,” said the daimyo. He leaned forward on one knee. “Go on.”

  “If you forgive me, Lord Nabeshima,” said Dylan, “I have something that I would like to show Lord Mizuno first.”

  The daimyo nodded. Dylan handed the paper he’d been holding to the Magistrate. The official’s eyes darted up and down along the page, following the vertical writing, and with every line his face grew redder, his eyes more bulgy, and his nostrils wider.

  He cried something in his language when he reached the end. The piece of paper flew from his hand onto the floor.

  Gwen glanced at the Gorllewin rider. The girl was taken aback with the Magistrate’s reaction. Frigga hadn’t been following the conversation until now — it seemed she knew neither Yamato nor Bataavian; but Lord Mizuno’s fury needed no interpreter.

  Lord Nabeshima nodded at a servant to give him the fallen letter. He took one glance at it, and his smile grew wider. “Is this the proof you wanted, Mizuno-dono?”

  Overwizard reached out his hand.

  “May I see this, kakka?” He read through it and nodded. The Bataavian alone did not smile.

  “Now I understand your glee, Dracalish. Of course, you’d recognise this order for what it is. This is straight out of Dracaland’s playbook, isn’t it?”

  Dylan raised his hands. “What can I say? It takes a villain to know a villain.”

  “We bow to your expertise, Di Lan-sama,” Lord Nabeshima said with a nod. “But, I notice there are some blank faces among the council,” he said, looking at the delegates around him, including his own entourage. “Perhaps we are being too cryptic.”

  He ordered one of the retainers to read the missive aloud and then his interpreter read the part in Bataavian. Gwen gasped when the man finished, but others remained as stupefied as before.

  “The treaty, which Lord Mizuno had so kindly read to us a few hours ago,” Dylan started his explanation — a dozen captive eyes followed every movement of his lips — “was a standard diplomatic opening used by the Western nations to slowly gain influence in a country like yours.” He paused and sipped some cha. “The procedure is similar for everyone — be it Breizh in Khmeria, or Dracaland in Qin… We usually wait a little with the next step, but the Grey Hoods — Gorllewin, rather — move faster than anyone. No doubt they are well aware of the advantage their dorako are giving them.”

  “The next step?” asked the retainer who’d read the letter.

  “It’s one thing to demand exterritoriality,” said Dylan, and waited patiently for the interpreter to find a Yamato equivalent of the difficult word, “where foreigners are exempt from the laws of the land they’re in, and can only be tried by their own courts. This treaty — as shown by the order — goes further than that: this obliges Yamato laws and courts to follow those of the Gorllewin.”

  It was just one of the possible interpretations of the situation; Gwen knew the order was not, in itself, as incriminating as Dylan was making it sound. If looked at in a more positive light, it was nothing more than a mutual understanding between allies: a Vasconian who attacked Dracalish ships in Breizh harbour would have been treated with the same harshness by the Breizh police as Bran had been by the Taikun. This was nothing out of the ordinary. Dylan and Curzius both knew that, and she was certain Lord Nabeshima was aware of it as well.

  But the council hall had already been primed to construe anything coming from Edo in the most negative way possible — and Dylan’s speech did the rest. The audible gasps spread like a gust of wind throughout the hall, as the understanding finally dawned on the delegates.

  “The sovereign Edo government is no more,” said the Magistrate, putting to words what everybody was thinking. “Yamato is a colony.”

  The mountain rumbled and belched out a cloud of ash. Lord Nariakira, daimyo of Satsuma, stumbled and grasped onto a large rocky outcrop to support himself. He hissed — the sharp edge of the boulder cut his hand.

  Yokō stood still, silent, waiting for the eruption to end. Her robe was daubed in ash and soot, just like Lord Nariakira’s clothes. When the rumbling stopped, she was the first to resume climbing the narrow, winding path up the slope of Sakurajima.

  Officially, the two were making an unexpected inspection of the fire elemental mines. But they had left the entrance to the flame-churning mine, and all the inspectors, far below in Nabeyama village, at the start of the path. Accompanied only by a dumb and deaf servant, they were now almost at the lowest of the mountain’s three peaks.

  It was one of the few places Nariakira felt were free of spies in his entire domain. He admitted to himself he may have been growing increasingly paranoid, but not without reason. Dōraku could enter his castle unopposed at any moment; the Kumamoto rebels had escaped his net, and were gaining followers in the northern provinces; and the Taikun’s spies were popping up on every corner of Kagoshima. Takamori’s guards were capturing them by the dozen, but that only meant there were dozens more they did not detect.

  But secrecy was not the sole reason Nariakira had decided to climb Sakurajima today.

  “How is our guest doing with the language?” he asked.

  Yokō slowed down, and raised the hem of her robe to climb over an old lava tongue. “Not well, kakka. He’s getting an odd word here and there… but not enough to explain something as complex as the mission you have planned for him.”

  Nariakira nodded. “We’ll have to wait for Li with that. What about map studies?”
<
br />   “He seems… resistant to this kind of knowledge, kakka. But I’m sure he’ll manage to reach the target in time.”

  He sighed. “Do you have any good news for me?”

  “He’s good with the sword,” she said. “Do not worry, kakka,” she hastened to add, sensing his exasperation, “he will do well, I’m sure of it.”

  “If you say so, Yokō, then it must be true.”

  They reached the torn, serrated edge of the dormant crater. Nariakira offered his arm to support the girl, and guided her between shattered boulders and peaks of frozen lava, to a dainty, open-walled pavilion of cypress wood and clay tiles, dusted with ash. They sat on stone benches opposite each other, and submerged their weary feet in a stream of steaming hot, sulphurous water, which flowed out of a fissure in the crater, through the pavilion, and hop-skipped over the rocks down Sakurajima’s jagged slope. Lord Nariakira sighed with delight.

  He looked down over the crater’s edge at his beloved Kagoshima. He saw almost the entire city from the peak, sprawling in a shallow crescent around the edge of Kinko Bay, golden-red in the light of the sun setting beyond the Isaku Pass. When a gust of wind cleared the ash and mist, he was even able to discern the details: the stone-walled harbour, the blue-tiled roofs of the castle, the dark-blue river of the moat canal…

  “It will be a real shame to see it all go up in flames,” he said, and sighed again, but this time with the kind of nostalgic foresight one had for things that were to pass before his very eyes. “Are you sure nothing can be done to save at least the harbour?”

  “Not unless you want to surrender the city.”

  “No.” He stood up against the cypress wood pillar.

  Cold wind picked up the ash and threw it in his face. “I am prepared to sacrifice all fifty thousand people, if that’s what it takes.”

  At least the ships are safely hidden… and most of my magic artefacts.

  He wiped the ash from his eyes; the deaf servant brushed it from his robe. “Still,” he added, “maybe I should be down there, commanding the defences, after all.”

  “I am sure Heishichi-dono and Takamori-dono will manage just fine. Nothing you could have done would turn the tide of the battle.”

  Nariakira smiled and sat back down. “You are the best advisor I’ve ever had, Yokō.”

  She bowed. “This pleases me, kakka”

  Nariakira raised his feet, and the servant wiped them with a white towel. He leaned back on the bench. I must not become too dependent on her, he thought. Nobody should be that irreplaceable.

  CHAPTER XII

  The three Qin delegates burst into the hall. Li stepped aside, brushing dust off his yellow jacket; the other two struggled with a lithe, brooding samurai in battered breastplate and torn clothes, with bruises and scratches all over his face and hands. The crest on his armour was the same as on the Taikun’s order — the three-leafed mallow.

  Lord Nabeshima’s guards rushed to help restrain the samurai. The Magistrate jumped up at the sight.

  “O-Metsuke-dono!”

  “Let me go, curs!” The samurai pushed the guards away with surprising strength. He then straightened his breastplate and bowed before Lord Nabeshima. The daimyo returned his bow graciously and nodded at the retainers to step away.

  “We found him in the Qin district,” explained Li. “He must have fallen off the dorako.”

  “Is this true?” asked Lord Nabeshima. “Have you come here with her?” He pointed with the paddle at Frigga. The girl, noticing they were talking about her, sat up and stared at them coldly.

  “I am the Taikun’s representative and have been sent here to expose your little conspiracy,” the metsuke spat. He looked at the faces of the men gathered in the council hall. “But I see I don’t have to do any work — you’re all here.”

  “We have gathered here to express our worry about His Excellency’s fate,” replied the daimyo. “Why don’t you join us, metsuke-dono?” He moved the paddle again, pointing a seat next to the Gorllewin rider. A burly retainer laid a forceful hand on the metsuke’s shoulder. The Taikun’s envoy brushed it off in anger, but sat down where he’d been ordered. Despite his obvious defeat — the proof of which was sitting to his right — he retained a haughty, unwavering demeanour.

  How exactly did they communicate with each other? wondered Dylan.

  “I am the Taikun’s representative,” the samurai repeated in an irate murmur.

  “You need not fear us, metsuke-dono,” Lord Nabeshima said with a mocking smile.

  “Fear? Who said anything about fear?” The metsuke looked back at him in defiance. “It is you who should be afraid. The Taikun’s armies are on their way.”

  “I’m looking forward to meeting more of His Excellency’s representatives,” replied the daimyo, “in whatever capacity they arrive.”

  “Once we deal with the traitor Mori, nothing will stand between them and your lands, Nabeshima of Saga!” The metsuke raised an accusing finger. “Not even your barbarian friends will help you then.”

  Mori… isn’t that the man who imprisoned Bran? What’s he got to do with it?

  “Ah, speaking of barbarian friends…” Lord Nabeshima glanced at the Gorllewin rider. “You’ve chosen a curious mode of transport to reach us.”

  “The Gorllewin are Yamato’s allies. They will protect us against the greedy claws of Dracaland and Bataavia,” replied the metsuke, glancing at Dylan and Curzius.

  “And who will protect you from their greedy claws?” asked Curzius. “Face it, metsuke-dono, you’ve sold your nation to the highest bidder.”

  The samurai, purple-faced, raised himself off the floor, but the retainer’s hand forced him back down again.

  “That’s quite enough, Oppertovenaar-dono,” said Lord Nabeshima. “I see our tempers are getting the better of us. Let’s wrap this meeting up.”

  Dylan studied the daimyo’s face. His smile was sagging like a melting mask.

  He’s tired. We all are. We’ve been sitting here all day, after all.

  “The settlement still needs a final polish…” said Lord Mizuno. “And we still don’t have all the signatures.”

  “We’ll get back to it first thing tomorrow morning.”

  The servants brought out small wet towels to everyone to signify that the meeting was over. Dylan washed his hands and wanted to hand the dirty towel back, when he noticed a small note written on the back, in Qin: Please stay a moment.

  The metsuke struggled with the burly retainer who was helping him up. “Where are you taking us, traitor?”

  Lord Nabeshima’s eyebrow arched. “To your rooms, of course. Where else? Bugyō-dono, is the room the metsuke-dono used last time still available?”

  The Magistrate’s eyes darted from the daimyo to the metsuke and the blonde rider. “Y-yes.”

  “Excellent,” the daimyo said. “Please, you must be tired after the long journey.”

  The metsuke’s head slumped between his shoulders in confused defeat. The guards pushed Frigga after him, out of the hall.

  The delegates all departed. Only Lord Nabeshima and his translator, Curzius, Li, Dylan and Gwen remained in the room.

  “What’s going on?” whispered Gwen.

  “I don’t know,” replied Dylan. “I was told to stay. Did your towel have a message written on it?”

  “I don’t think so, no…”

  “It doesn’t matter. Don’t move anywhere.”

  Lord Nabeshima poured what looked like Bataavian gin into small porcelain cups, and had the servants hand it around.

  “That was well played, kakka,” said Curzius. He downed the cup in one go and breathed out loudly, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “This way, he will have no ground to complain about his treatment.”

  “And if we are open with him like this, it renders his spies useless,” added Li.

  “There were spies here?” asked Gwen. She sipped the gin and grimaced.

  “Of course!” The daimyo laughed. “Nothing escapes the T
aikun’s attention. I’m sure they’re reporting their findings to the metsuke, even now.”

  “Couldn’t you have set up guards around his room?” she asked, not bothering with formalities. The daimyo didn’t seem to notice.

  “There’s no point. Tomorrow we’ll declare our intentions openly. But — I need you to do me one more favour tonight, Di Lan-sama, and it might be a difficult one.”

  “I’m listening,” said Dylan. He put the cup to his nose — it had a vile smell, like paint thinner; he never liked Bataavian gin. I’ve had worse. He held his breath and gulped the liquor. He held a burp — it didn’t sit well with all the food he had had earlier.

  “How fast can your dorako get to Kagoshima and back?” the daimyo asked.

  Dylan frowned, remembering the map of Yamato.

  “It’s about a hundred miles in a straight line,” Curzius said.

  “Ah, in that case, it would take about two hours each way at good speed, plus, I’d say, an hour’s rest halfway. Why do you ask?”

  “I need a firm statement from Nariakira-dono before the declaration of rebellion. He says he will back us up — but hasn’t put his name on anything. He keeps wavering, talking about ‘keeping the balance’… Give him this copy of the Taikun’s order,” he said, shoving an envelope into Dylan’s hand. “This should finally convince him.”

  “Oh, I can’t be flying to Kagoshima now,” Dylan protested. “Gwen, will you let Edern know to make ready?”

  “Sure,” said Gwen.

  “And… explain to him the situation with Nariakira and Wulf.”

  She nodded and hurried outside.

  Dylan turned to Li. “Will you help us?” he asked. “Edern doesn’t know his way around Yamato, and will need an interpreter.”

  “You mean fly to Kagoshima — now? At night?” Li’s eyes nearly popped out of his skull.

  “Night or day doesn’t matter for Edern — you could join him on his dragon.”

  “I — I will take my long,” said Li, mustering his pride. “If your officer can get to Satsuma by night, so can I.”

  “Why won’t you go with him?” the daimyo asked Dylan.