“The Father-Visitor has requested an up-to-date report from all of them, Sire, which he will give you as soon as they’re complete.”
“Good. Now tell me, how did you know about my rescue?”
“Hardly a thing that happens to Toranaga-noh-Minowara is not the subject of rumor and legend. Coming from Mishima we heard that you were almost swallowed up in an earthquake, Sire, but that the ‘Golden Barbarian’ had pulled you out. Also, that you’d done the same for him and a lady—I presume the Lady Mariko?”
Toranaga nodded briefly. “Yes. She’s here in Yokosé.” He thought a moment, then said, “Tomorrow she would like to be confessed, according to your customs. But only those things that are nonpolitical. I would imagine that excludes everything to do with me, and my various hatamoto, neh? I explained that to her also.”
Alvito bowed his understanding. “With your permission, could I say Mass for all the Christians here, Sire? It would be very discreet, of course. Tomorrow?”
“I’ll consider it.” Toranaga continued to talk about inconsequential matters for a while, then he said, “You have a message for me? From your Chief Priest?”
“With humility, Sire, I beg to say that it was a private message.”
Toranaga pretended to think about that, even though he had determined exactly how the meeting would proceed and had already given the Anjin-san specific instructions how to act and what to say. “Very well.” He turned to Blackthorne, “Anjin-san, you can go now and we’ll talk more later.”
“Yes, Sire,” Blackthorne replied. “So sorry, the Black Ship. Arrive Nagasaki?”
“Ah, yes. Thank you,” he replied, pleased that the Anjin-san’s question didn’t sound rehearsed. “Well, Tsukku-san, has it docked yet?”
Alvito was startled by Blackthorne’s Japanese and greatly perturbed by the question. “Yes, Sire. It docked fourteen days ago.”
“Ah, fourteen?” said Toranaga. “You understand, Anjin-san?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
“Good. Anything else you can ask Tsukku-san later, neh?”
“Yes, Sire. Please excuse me.” Blackthorne got up and bowed and wandered off.
Toranaga watched him go. “A most interesting man—for a pirate. Now, first tell me about the Black Ship.”
“It arrived safely, Sire, with the greatest cargo of silk that has ever been.” Alvito tried to sound enthusiatic. “The arrangement made between the Lords Harima, Kiyama, Onoshi, and yourself is in effect. Your treasury will be richer with tens of thousands of koban by this time next year. The quality of silks is the finest, Sire. I’ve brought a copy of the manifest for your quartermaster. The Captain-General Ferriera sends his respects, hoping to see you in person soon. That was the reason for my delay in coming to see you. The Visitor-General sent me post haste from Osaka to Nagasaki to make certain everything was perfect. Just as I was leaving Nagasaki we heard you’d left Yedo for Izu, so I came here as quickly as I could, by ship to Port Nimazu with one of our fastest cutters, then by road. At Mishima I fell in with Lord Zataki and asked permission to join him.”
“Your ship’s still at Nimazu?”
“Yes, Sire. It will wait for me there.”
“Good.” For a moment Toranaga wondered whether or not to send Mariko by that ship to Osaka, then decided to deal with that later. “Please give the manifest to the quartermaster tonight.”
“Yes, Sire.”
“And the arrangement about this year’s cargo is sealed?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
“Good. Now the other part. The important part.”
Alvito’s hands went dry. “Neither Lord Kiyama nor Lord Onoshi will agree to forsake General Ishido. I’m sorry. They will not agree to join your banner now in spite of our strongest suggestion.”
Toranaga’s voice became low and cruel. “I already pointed out I required more than suggestions!”
“I’m sorry to bring bad news in this part, Sire, but neither would agree to publicly come over to—”
“Ah, publicly, you say? What about privately—secretly?”
“Privately they were both as adamant as pub—”
“You talked to them separately or together?”
“Of course together, and separately, most confidentially, but nothing we suggested would—”
“You only ‘suggested’ a course of action? Why didn’t you order them?”
“It’s as the Father-Visitor said, Sire, we can’t order any daimyo or any—”
“Ah, but you can order one of your Brethren? Neh?”
“Yes. Sire.”
“Did you threaten to make them outcast, too?”
“No, Sire.”
“Why?”
“Because they’ve committed no mortal sin.” Alvito said it firmly, as he and dell’Aqua had agreed, but his heart was fluttering and he hated to be the bearer of terrible tidings, which were even worse now because the Lord Harima, who legally owned Nagasaki, had told them privately that all his immense wealth and influence were going to Ishido. “Please excuse me, Sire, but I don’t make divine rules, any more than you made the code of bushido, the Way of the Warrior. We, we have to comply with what—”
“You make a poor fool outcast for a natural act like pillowing, but when two of your converts behave unnaturally—yes, even treacherously—when I seek your help, urgent help—and I’m your friend—you only make ‘suggestions.’ You understand the seriousness of this, neh?”
“I’m sorry, Lord. Please excuse me but—”
“Perhaps I won’t excuse you, Tsukku-san. It’s been said before: Now everyone has to choose a side,” Toranaga said.
“Of course we are on your side, Sire. But we cannot order Lord Kiyama or Lord Onoshi to do anything—”
“Fortunately I can order my Christian.”
“Sire?”
“I can order the Anjin-san freed. With his ship. With his cannon.”
“Beware of him, Sire. The Pilot’s diabolically clever, but he’s a heretic, a pirate and not to be trust—”
“Here the Anjin-san’s a samurai and hatamoto. At sea perhaps he’s a pirate. If he’s a pirate, I imagine he’ll attract many other corsairs and wako to him—many of them. What a foreigner does on the open sea’s his own business, neh? That’s always been our policy. Neh?”
Alvito kept quiet and tried to make his brain function. No one had planned on the Ingeles’ becoming so close to Toranaga.
“Those two Christian daimyos will make no commitments, not even a secret one?”
“No, Sire. We tried ev—”
“No concession, none?”
“No, Sire—”
“No barter, no arrangement, no compromise, nothing?”
“No, Sire. We tried every inducement and persuasion. Please believe me.” Alvito knew he was in the trap and some of his desperation showed. “If it were me, yes, I would threaten them with excommunication, though it would be a false threat because I’d never carry it through, not unless they had committed a mortal sin and wouldn’t confess or be penitent and submit. But even a threat for temporal gain would be very wrong of me, Sire, a mortal sin. I’d risk eternal damnation.”
“Are you saying if they sinned against your creed, then you’d cast them out?”
“Yes. But I’m not suggesting that could be used to bring them to your side, Sire. Please excuse me but they … they’re totally opposed to you at the moment. I’m sorry but that’s the truth. They both made it very clear, together and in private. Before God I pray they change their minds. We gave you our words to try, before God, the Father-Visitor and I. We fulfilled our promise. Before God we failed.”
“Then I shall lose,” Toranaga said. “You know that, don’t you? If they stand allied with Ishido, all the Christian daimyos will side with him. Then I have to lose. Twenty samurai against one of mine. Neh?”
“Yes.”
“What’s their plan? When will they attack me?”
“I don’t know, Sire.”
“W
ould you tell me if you did?”
“Yes—yes I would.”
I doubt it, Toranaga thought, and looked away into the night, the burden of his worry almost crushing him. Is it to be Crimson Sky after all, he asked himself helplessly? The stupid, bound-to-fail lunge at Kyoto?
He hated the shameful cage that he was in. Like the Taikō and Goroda before him, he had to tolerate the Christian priests because the priests were as inseparable from the Portuguese traders as flies from a horse, holding absolute temporal and spiritual power over their unruly flock. Without the priests there was no trade. Their good will as negotiators and middle men in the Black Ship operation was vital because they spoke the language and were trusted by both sides, and, if ever the priests were completely forbidden the Empire, all barbarians would obediently sail away, never to return. He remembered the one time the Taikō had tried to get rid of the priests yet still encourage trade. For two years there was no Black Ship. Spies reported how the giant chief of the priests, sitting like a poisonous black spider in Macao, had ordered no more trade in reprisal for the Taikō’s Expulsion Edicts, knowing that at length the Taikō must humble himself. In the third year he had bowed to the inevitable and invited the priests back, turning a blind eye to his own Edicts and to the treason and rebellion the priests had advocated.
There’s no escape from that reality, Toranaga thought. None. I don’t believe what the Anjin-san says—that trade is as essential to barbarians as it is to us, that their greed will make them trade, no matter what we do to the priests. The risk is too great to experiment and there’s no time and I don’t have the power. We experimented once and failed. Who knows? Perhaps the priests could wait us out ten years; they’re ruthless enough. If the priests order no trade, I believe there will be no trade. We could not wait ten years. Even five years. And if we expel all barbarians it must take twenty years for the English barbarian to fill up the gap, if the Anjin-san is telling the whole truth and if—and it is an immense if—if the Chinese would agree to trade with them against the Southern Barbarians. I don’t believe the Chinese will change their pattern. They never have. Twenty years is too long. Ten years is too long.
There’s no escape from that reality. Or the worst reality of all, the specter that secretly petrified Goroda and the Taikō and is now rearing its foul head again: that the fanatical, fearless Christian priests, if pushed too far, will put all their influence and their trading power and sea power behind one of the great Christian daimyos. Further, they would engineer an invasion force of iron-clad, equally fanatic conquistadores armed with the latest muskets to support this one Christian daimyo—like they almost did the last time. By themselves, any number of invading barbarians and their priests are no threat against our overwhelming joint forces. We smashed the hordes of Kublai Khan and we can deal with any invader. But allied to one of our own, a great Christian daimyo with armies of samurai, and given civil wars throughout the realm, this could, ultimately, give this one daimyo absolute power over all of us.
Kiyama or Onoshi? It’s obvious now, that has to be the priest’s scheme. The timing’s perfect. But which daimyo?
Both, initially, helped by Harima of Nagasaki. But who’ll carry the final banner? Kiyama—because Onoshi the leper’s not long for this earth and Onoshi’s obvious reward for supporting his hated enemy and rival, Kiyama, would be a guaranteed, painless, everlasting life in the Christian heaven with a permanent seat at the right hand of the Christian God.
They’ve four hundred thousand samurai between them now. Their base is Kyushu and that island’s safe from my grasp. Together those two could easily subjugate the whole island, then they have limitless troops, limitless food, all the ships necessary for an invasion, all the silk, and Nagasaki. Throughout the land there are perhaps another five or six hundred thousand Christians. Of these, more than half—the Jesuit Christian converts—are samurai, all salted nicely among the forces of all daimyos, a vast pool of potential traitors, spies, or assassins—should the priests order it. And why shouldn’t they? They’d get what they want above life itself: absolute power over all our souls, thus over the soul of this Land of the Gods—to inherit our earth and all that it contains—just as the Anjin-san has explained has already happened fifty times in this New World of theirs…. They convert a king, then use him against his own kind, until all the land is swallowed up.
It’s so easy for them to conquer us, this tiny band of barbarian priests. How many are there in all Japan? Fifty or sixty? But they’ve the power. And they believe. They’re prepared to die gladly for their beliefs, with pride and with bravery, with the name of their God on their lips. We saw that at Nagasaki when the Taikō’s experiment proved a disastrous mistake. Not one of the priests recanted, tens of thousands witnessed the burnings, tens of thousands were converted, and this “martyrdom” gave the Christian religion immense prestige that Christian priests have fed on ever since.
For me, the priests have failed, but that won’t deter them from their relentless course. That’s reality, too.
So, it’s Kiyama.
Is the plan already settled, with Ishido a dupe and the Lady Ochiba and Yaemon also? Has Harima already thrown in with them secretly? Should I launch the Anjin-san at the Black Ship and Nagasaki immediately?
What shall I do?
Nothing more than usual. Be patient, seek harmony, put aside all worries about I or Thou, Life or Death, Oblivion or Afterlife, Now or Then, and set a new plan into motion. What plan, he wanted to shout in desperation. There isn’t one!
“It saddens me that those two stay with the real enemy.”
“I swear we tried, Sire.” Alvito watched him compassionately, seeing the heaviness of his spirit.
“Yes. I believe that. I believe you and the Father-Visitor kept your solemn promise, so I will keep mine. You may begin to build your temple at Yedo at once. The land has been set aside. I cannot forbid the priests, the other Hairies, entrance to the Empire, but at least I can make them unwelcome in my domain. The new barbarians will be equally unwelcome, if they ever arrive. As to the Anjin-san …” Toranaga shrugged. “But how long all this … well, that’s karma, neh?”
Alvito was thanking God fervently for His mercy and favor at the unexpected reprieve. “Thank you, Sire,” he said, hardly able to talk. “I know you’ll not regret it. I pray that your enemies will be scattered like chaff and that you may reap the rewards of Heaven.”
“I’m sorry for my harsh words. They were spoken in anger. There’s so much….” Toranaga got up ponderously. “You have my permission to say your service tomorrow, old friend.”
“Thank you, Sire,” Alvito said, bowing low, pitying the normally majestic man. “Thank you with all my heart. May the Divinity bless you and take you into His keeping.”
Toranaga trudged into the inn, his guards following. “Naga-san!”
“Yes, Father,” the youth said, hurrying up.
“Where’s the Lady Mariko?”
“There, Sire, with Buntaro-san.” Naga pointed to the small, lantern-lit cha house inside its enclosure in the garden, the shadowed figures within. “Shall I interrupt the cha-no-yu?” A cha-no-yu was a formal, extremely ritualized Tea Ceremony.
“No. That must never be interfered with. Where are Omi and Yabu-san?”
“They’re at their inn, Sire.” Naga indicated the sprawling low building on the other side of the river, near the far bank.
“Who chose that one?”
“I did, Sire. Please excuse me, you asked me to find them an inn on the other side of the bridge. Did I misunderstand you?”
“The Anjin-san?”
“He’s in his room, Sire. He’s waiting in case you want him.”
Again Toranaga shook his head. “I’ll see him tomorrow.” After a pause, he said in the same faraway voice, “I’m going to take a bath now. Then I don’t wish to be disturbed till dawn except …”
Naga waited uneasily, watching his father stare sightlessly into space, greatly disconcerted by his m
anner. “Are you all right, Father?”
“What? Oh, yes—yes, I’m all right. Why?”
“Nothing—please excuse me. Do you still want to hunt at dawn?”
“Hunt? Ah yes, that’s a good idea. Thank you for suggesting it, yes, that would be very good. See to it. Well, good night … Oh yes, the Tsukku-san has my permission to give a private service tomorrow. All Christians may go. You go also.”
“Sire?”
“On the first day of the New Year you will become a Christian.”
“Me!”
“Yes. Of your own free will. Tell Tsukku-san privately.”
“Sire?”
Toranaga wheeled on him. “Are you deaf? Don’t you understand the simplest thing anymore?”
“Please excuse me. Yes, Father. I understand.”
“Good.” Toranaga fell back into his distracted attitude, then wandered off, his personal bodyguard in tow. All samurai bowed stiffly, but he took no notice of them.
An officer came up to Naga, equally apprehensive. “What’s the matter with our Lord?”
“I don’t know, Yoshinaka-san.” Naga looked back at the clearing. Alvito was just leaving, heading toward the bridge, a single samurai escorting him. “Must be something to do with him.”
“I’ve never seen Lord Toranaga walk so heavily. Never. They say—they say that barbarian priest’s a magician, a wizard. He must be to speak our tongue so well, neh? Could he have put a spell on our Lord?”
“No. Never. Not my father.”
“Barbarians make my spine shake too, Naga-san. Did you hear about the row—Tsukku-san and his band shouting and quarreling like ill-mannered eta?”
“Yes. Disgusting. I’m sure that man must have destroyed my father’s harmony.”
“If you ask me, an arrow in that priest’s throat would save our Master a lot of trouble.”
“Yes.”
“Perhaps we should tell Buntaro-san about Lord Toranaga? He’s our senior officer.”
“I agree—but later. My father said clearly I was not to interrupt the cha-no-yu. I’ll wait till he’s finished.”
* * *
In the peace and quiet of the little house, Buntaro fastidiously opened the small earthenware tea caddy of the T’ang Dynasty and, with equal care, took up the bamboo spoon, beginning the final part of the ceremony. Deftly he spooned up exactly the right amount of green powder and put it into the handleless porcelain cup. An ancient cast-iron kettle was singing over the charcoal. With the same tranquil grace Buntaro poured the bubbling water into the cup, replaced the kettle on its tripod, then gently beat the powder and water with the bamboo whisk to blend it perfectly.
James Clavell Page 89