“Sumiyori Tabito.”
“Wasn’t the first Gray ‘Sumiyori’ also?”
“Yes, Yabu-san. He was my cousin.”
“When you are ready, Captain Sumiyori, please call a meeting of all officers.”
“Certainly, Sire. With her permission.”
Both men looked away as a lady hobbled into the forecourt. She was elderly and samurai and leaned painfully on a cane. Her hair was white but her back was straight and she went over to Kiritsubo, her maid holding a sunshade over her.
“Ah, Kiritsubo-san,” she said formally. “I am Maeda Etsu, Lord Maeda’s mother, and I share the Lady Toda’s views. With her permission I would like to have the honor of waiting with her.”
“Please sit down, you’re welcome,” Kiri said. A maid brought another cushion and both maids helped the old lady to sit.
“Ah, that’s better—so much better,” Lady Etsu said, biting back a groan of pain. “It’s my joints, they get worse every day. Ah, that’s a relief. Thank you.”
“Would you like cha?”
“First cha, then saké, Kiritsubo-san. Lots of saké. Such excitement’s thirsty work, neh?”
Other samurai women were detaching themselves from the crowds that were leaving and they came back through the ranks of the Grays into the pleasing shade. A few hesitated and three changed their minds, but soon there were fourteen ladies on the veranda and two had brought children with them.
“Please excuse me, but I am Achiko, Kiyama Nagamasa’s wife, and I want to go home too,” a young girl was saying timidly, holding her little son’s hand. “I want to go home to my husband. May I beg permission to wai too, please?”
“But Lord Kiyama will be furious with you, Lady, if you stay here.”
“Oh, so sorry, Kiritsubo-san, but Grandfather hardly knows me. I’m only wife to a very minor grandson. I’m sure he won’t care and I haven’t seen my husband for months and I don’t care either what they say. Our Lady’s right, neh?”
“Quite right, Achiko-san,” old Lady Etsu said, firmly taking charge. “Of course you’re welcome, child. Come and sit by me. What’s your son’s name? What a fine boy you’ve got.”
The ladies chorused their agreement and another boy who was four piped up plaintively, “Please, I’m a fine boy too, neh?” Someone laughed and all the ladies joined in.
“You are indeed,” Lady Etsu said and laughed again.
Kiri wiped away a tear. “There, that’s better, I was getting far too serious, neh?” She chuckled. “Ah, Ladies, I’m so honored to be allowed to greet you in her name. You must all be starving, and you’re so right, Lady Etsu, this is all thirsty work!” She sent maids for food and drink and introduced those ladies who needed introducing, admiring a fine kimono here or a special parasol there. Soon they were all chattering and happy and fluttering like so many parakeets.
“How can a man understand women?” Sumiyori said blankly.
“Impossible!” Yabu agreed.
“One moment they’re frightened and in tears and the next…. When I saw the Lady Mariko pick up Yoshinaka’s sword, I thought I’d die with pride.”
“Yes. Pity that last Gray was so good. I’d like to have seen her kill. She’d have killed a lesser man.”
Sumiyori rubbed his beard where the drying sweat irritated him. “What would you have done if you’d been him?”
“I would have killed her then charged the Browns. Too much blood there. It was all I could do not to slaughter all the Grays near me on the battlement.”
“It’s good to kill sometimes. Very good. Sometimes it’s very special and then it’s better than a lusting woman.”
There was a burst of laughter from the ladies as the two little boys started strutting up and down importantly, their scarlet kimonos dancing. “It’s good to have children here again. I thank all gods mine are at Yedo.”
“Yes.” Yabu was looking at the women speculatively.
“I was wondering the same,” Sumiyori said quietly.
“What’s your answer?”
“There’s only one now. If Ishido lets us go, fine. If Lady Mariko’s seppuku is wasted, then … then we’ll help those ladies into the Void and begin the killing. They won’t want to live.”
Yabu said, “Some may want to.”
“You can decide that later, Yabu-san. It would benefit our Master if they all commit seppuku here. And the children.”
“Yes.”
“Afterward we’ll man the walls and then open the gates at dawn. We’ll fight till noon. That’ll be enough. Then those who are left will come back inside and set fire to this part of the castle. If I’m alive then I’d be honored if you’d be my second.”
“Of course.”
Sumiyori grinned. “This’s going to blow the realm apart, neh? All this killing and her seppuku. It’ll spread like fire—it’ll eat up Osaka, neh? You think that’ll delay the Exalted? Would that be our Master’s plan?”
“I don’t know. Listen, Sumiyori-san, I’m going back to my house for a moment. Fetch me as soon as the Lady comes back.” He walked over to Blackthorne, who sat musing on the main steps. “Listen, Anjin-san,” Yabu said furtively, “perhaps I have a plan. Secret, neh? ‘Secret,’ you understand?”
“Yes. Understand.” Bells tolled the hour change. The time rang in all their heads, the beginning of the Hour of the Monkey, six bells of the afternoon watch, three of the clock. Many turned to the sun and, without thinking, measured it.
“What plan?” Blackthorne asked.
“Talk later. Stay close by. Say nothing, understand?”
“Yes.”
Yabu stalked out of the gateway with ten Browns. Twenty Grays attached themselves and together they went down the avenue. His guest house was not far around the first corner. The Grays stayed outside his gate. Yabu motioned the Browns to wait in the garden and he went inside alone.
“It’s impossible, Lord General,” Ochiba said. “You can’t let a lady of her rank commit seppuku. So sorry, but you’ve been trapped.”
“I agree,” Lord Kiyama said forcefully.
“With due humility, Lady,” Ishido said, “whatever I said or didn’t say, doesn’t matter an eta’s turd to her. She’d already decided, at least Toranaga had.”
“Of course he’s behind it,” Kiyama said as Ochiba recoiled at Ishido’s uncouthness. “So sorry, but he’s outsmarted you again. Even so you can’t let her commit seppuku!”
“Why?”
“Please, so sorry, Lord General, we must keep our voices down,” Ochiba said. They were waiting in the spacious antechamber of Lady Yodoko’s sick room in the inner quarters of the donjon, on the second floor. “I’m sure it wasn’t your fault and there must be a solution.”
Kiyama said quietly, “You cannot let her continue her plan, Lord General, because that will inflame every lady in the castle.”
Ishido glared at him. “You seem to forget a couple were shot by mistake and that didn’t create a ripple among them—except to stop any more escape attempts.”
“That was a terrible mistake, Lord General,” Ochiba said.
“I agree. But we are at war, Toranaga’s not yet in our hands, and until he’s dead you and the Heir are in total danger.”
“So sorry—I’m not worried for myself—only for my son,” Ochiba said. “They’ve all got to be back here in eighteen days. I advise you to let them all go.”
“That’s an unnecessary risk. So sorry. We’re not certain she means it.”
“She does,” Kiyama told him contemptuously, despising Ishido’s truculent presence in the opulent, overrich quarters that reminded him so clearly of the Taikō, his friend and revered patron. “She’s samurai.”
“Yes,” Ochiba said. “So sorry, but I agree with Lord Kiyama. Mariko-san will do what she says. Then there’s that hag Etsu! Those Maedas are a proud lot, neh?”
Ishido walked over to the window and looked out. “They can all burn as far as I’m concerned. The Toda woman’s Christian, neh? I
sn’t suicide against her religion? A special sin?”
“Yes, but she’ll have a second—so it won’t be suicide.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
“What?”
“Say she’s disarmed and has no second?”
“How could you do that?”
“Capture her. Confine her with carefully chosen maids until Toranaga’s across our borders.” Ishido smiled. “Then she can do what she wants. I’d be even delighted to help her.”
“How could you capture her?” Kiyama asked. “She’d always have time to seppku, or to use her knife.”
“Perhaps. But say she could be captured and disarmed and held for a few days. Isn’t the ‘few days’ vital? Isn’t that why she’s insisting on going today, before Toranaga crosses over our borders and castrates himself?”
“Could it be done?” Lady Ochiba asked.
“Possibly,” Ishido said.
Kiyama pondered this. “In eighteen days Toranaga must be here. He could delay at the border for at the most another four days. She would have to be held for a week at the most.”
“Or forever,” Ochiba said. “Toranaga’s delayed so much, I sometimes think he’ll never come.”
“He has to by the twenty-second day,” Ishido said. “Ah, Lady, that was a brilliant, brilliant idea.”
“Surely that was your idea, Lord General?” Ochiba’s voice was soothing though she was very tired from a sleepless night. “What about Lord Sudara and my sister? Are they with Toranaga now?”
“No, Lady. Not yet. They will be brought here by sea.”
“She is not to be touched,” Ochiba said. “Or her child.”
“Her child is direct heir of Toranaga, who’s heir to the Minowaras. My duty to the Heir, Lady, makes me point this out again.”
“My sister is not to be touched. Nor is her son.”
“As you wish.”
She said to Kiyama, “Sire, how good a Christian is Mariko-san?”
“Pure,” Kiyama replied at once. “You mean about suicide being a sin? I—I think she would honor that or her eternal soul is forfeit, Lady. But I don’t know if …”
“Then there’s a simpler solution,” Ishido said without thinking. “Command the High Priest of the Christians to order her to stop harassing the legal rulers of the Empire!”
“He doesn’t have the power,” Kiyama said. Then he added, his voice even more barbed, “That’s political interference—something you’ve always been bitterly against, and rightly.”
“It seems Christians interfere only when it suits them,” Ishido said. “It was only a suggestion.”
The inner door opened and a doctor stood there. His face was grave and exhaustion aged him. “So sorry, Lady, she’s asking for you.”
“Is she dying?” Ishido asked.
“She’s near death, Lord General, yes, but when, I don’t know.”
Ochiba hurried across the large room and through the inner door, her blue kimono clinging, the skirts swaying gracefully. Both men watched her. The door closed. For a moment the two men avoided each other’s eyes, then Kiyama said, “You really think Lady Toda could be captured?”
“Yes,” Ishido told him, watching the door.
Ochiba crossed this even more opulent room and knelt beside the futons. Maids and doctors surrounded them. Sunlight seeped through the bamboo shutters and skittered off the gold and red inlaid carvings of the beams and posts and doors. Yodoko’s bed was surrounded by decorative inlaid screens. She seemed to be sleeping, her bloodless face settled within the hood of her Buddhist robe, her wrists thin, the veins knotted, and Ochiba thought how sad it was to become old. Age was so unfair to women. Not to men, only to women. Gods protect me from old age, she prayed. Buddha protect my son and put him safely into power and protect me only as long as I’m capable of protecting him and helping him.
She took Yodoko’s hand, honoring her. “Lady?”
“O-chan?” Yodoko whispered, using her nickname.
“Yes, Lady?”
“Ah, how pretty you are, so pretty, you always were.” The hand went up and caressed the beautiful hair and Ochiba was not offended by the touch but pleased as always, liking her greatly. “So young and beautiful and sweet-smelling. How lucky the Taikō was.”
“Are you in pain, Lady? Can I get you something?”
“Nothing—nothing, I just wanted to talk.” The old eyes were sunken but had lost none of their shrewdness. “Send the others away.”
Ochiba motioned them to leave and when they were alone she said, “Yes, Lady?”
“Listen, my darling, make the Lord General let her go.”
“He can’t, Lady, or all the other hostages will leave and we’ll lose strength. The Regents all agree,” Ochiba said.
“Regents!” Yodoko said with a thread of scorn. “Do you agree?”
“Yes, Lady, and last night you said she was not to go.”
“Now you must let her go or others will follow her seppuku and you and our son will be befouled because of Ishido’s mistake.”
“The Lord General’s loyal, Lady. Toranaga isn’t, so sorry.”
“You can trust Lord Toranaga—not him.”
Ochiba shook her head. “So sorry, but I’m convinced Toranaga’s committed to become Shōgun and will destroy our son.”
“You’re wrong. He’s said it a thousand times. Other daimyos are trying to use him for their own ambitions. They always have. Toranaga was the Taikō’s favorite. Toranaga has always honored the Heir. Toranaga’s Minowara. Don’t be swayed by Ishido, or the Regents. They’ve their own karmas, their own secrets, O-chan. Why not let her go? It’s all so simple. Forbid her the sea, then she can always be delayed somewhere inside our borders. She’s still in your General’s net, and Kiri and all the others, neh? She’ll be surrounded by Grays. Think like the Taikō would or like Toranaga would. You and our son are being pulled into …” The words trailed off and her eyelids began to flutter. The old lady gathered her remaining strength and continued, “Mariko-san could never object to guards. I know she means what she says. Let her go.”
“Of course that was considered, Lady,” Ochiba said, her voice gentle and patient, “but outside the castle Toranaga has secret bands of samurai, hidden in and around Osaka, we don’t know how many, and he has allies—we’re not sure who. She might escape. Once she goes, all the others would follow her at once and we’d lose a great security. You agreed, Yodoko-chan, don’t you remember? So sorry, but I asked you last night, don’t you remember?”
“Yes, I remember, child,” Yodoko said, her mind wandering. “Oh, how I wish the Lord Taikō were here again to guide you.” The old lady’s breathing was becoming labored.
“Can I give you some cha or saké?”
“Cha, yes please, some cha.”
She helped the old one to drink. “Thank you, child.” The voice was feebler now, the strain of conversation speeding the dying. “Listen, child, you must trust Toranaga. Marry him, barter with him for the succession.”
“No—no,” Ochiba said, shocked.
“Yaemon could rule after him, then the fruit of your new marriage after our son. The sons of our son will honorably swear eternal fidelity to this new Toranaga line.”
“Toranaga’s always hated the Taikō. You know that, Lady. Toranaga is the source of all the trouble. For years, neh? Him!”
“And you? What about your pride, child?”
“He’s the enemy, our enemy.”
“You’ve two enemies, child. Your pride and the need to have a man to compare to our husband. Please be patient with me, you’re young and beautiful and fruitful and deserve a husband. Toranaga’s worthy of you, you of him. Toranaga is the only chance Yaemon has.”
“No, he’s the enemy.”
“He was our husband’s greatest friend and most loyal vassal. Without … without Toranaga … don’t you see … it was Toranaga’s help … don’t you see? You could manage … manage him….”
“So sorry, but I hate h
im—he disgusts me, Yodoko-chan.”
“Many women…. What was I saying? Oh yes, many women marry men who disgust them. Praise be to Buddha I never had to suffer that….” The old woman smiled briefly. Then she sighed. It was a long, serious sigh and went on for too long and Ochiba thought the end had come. But the eyes opened a little and a tiny smile appeared again. “Neh?”
“Yes.”
“Will you. Please?”
“I will think about it.”
The old fingers tried to tighten. “I beg you promise me you’ll marry Toranaga and I will go to Buddha knowing that the Taikō’s line will live forever, like his name … his name will live for….”
The tears ran freely down Ochiba’s face as she cradled the listless hand.
Later the eyes trembled and the old woman whispered, “You must let Akechi Mariko go. Don’t … don’t let her reap vengeance on us for what the Taikō did … did to … to her … to her father….”
Ochiba was caught unaware. “What?”
There was no answer. Later Yodoko began mumbling, “… Dear Yaemon, hello, my darling son, how … you’re such a fine boy, but you’ve so many enemies, so foolish so…. Aren’t you just an illusion too, isn’t …”
A spasm racked her. Ochiba held onto the hand and caressed it. “Namu Amida Butsu,” she whispered in homage.
There was another spasm, then the old woman said clearly, “Forgive me, O-chan.”
“There is nothing to forgive, Lady.”
“So much to forgive….” The voice became fainter, and the light began to fade from her face. “Listen … prom—promise about … about Toranaga, Ochiba-sama …important … please … you can trust him….” The old eyes were beseeching her, willing her.
Ochiba did not want to obey yet knew that she should obey. Her mind was unsettled by what had been said about Akechi Mariko, and still resounded with the Taikō’s words, repeated ten thousand times, “You can trust Yodoko-sama, O-chan. She’s the Wise One—never forget it. She’s right most times and you can always trust her with your life, and my son’s life and mine….”
Ochiba conceded. “I prom—” She stopped abruptly.
The light of Yodoko-sama flickered a final time and went out.
James Clavell Page 120