James Clavell - Gai-Jin

by Gai-Jin(Lit)

  Perhaps, perhaps not. I saw no change in you when

  I said Tajima instead of Watasa, and I was watching very carefully. I wonder. Of course you are suspect, always were suspect, why else should

  I choose you, doesn't this add spice to my bed? It does, and you are everything your reputation promised. Truly I am more than satisfied, so I will wait. But now it is easy to trap you, so sorry, even easier to extract the truth from your maid, from this not-so-clever mama-san and from you, pretty one! Too easy, so sorry, when I close the trap.

  Eeee, that will be a hard decision because now, thanks to Utani, I have a secret and direct line to the shishi, to use to uncover them, destroy them or even to use them against my enemies, at my whim. Why not?

  Tempting!

  Nobusada? Nobusada and.his

  Princess? Very tempting! He began to laugh.

  "I am so happy you're so happy tonight,

  Sire."

  Princess Yazu was in tears. For almost two hours she had used every practice that she had ever read or seen in pillow books to excite him and though she had succeeded in making him strong, before he could achieve the Clouds and the Rain he had failed her. Then, as usual, he had burst into tears, raving in a paroxysm of nervous coughing that it was her fault. As usual the tempest vanished quickly, he begged forgiveness, nestled close to kiss her breasts, falling asleep suckling a breast, curled in her lap.

  "It's not fair," she whimpered, exhausted and unable to sleep. I must have a son or he is as good as dead and so am I, at the very least so shamed that I will have to shave my head and become a

  Buddhist nun... oh ko, oh ko...

  Even her ladies had not been able to help.

  "You're all experienced, most of you married, there must be some way to make my Lord a man," she had shouted at them after weeks of trying, both she and they aghast that she had lost her temper.

  "Find out! It is your duty to find out."

  Over the months her court had consulted herbalists, acupuncturists, doctors, even soothsayers to no avail. This morning she had sent for her chief Matron. "There has to be a way! What do you advise?"'

  "You are only sixteen, Honored

  Princess," the Matron had said on her knees, "and your Lord sixteen an--"'

  "But everyone conceives by that time, far earlier, almost everyone. What's the matter with him, or with me?"'

  "Nothing with thee, Princess, we have told you many times, the doctors assure us that nothing with thee is wr--"'

  "What about this gai-jin doctor, the giant

  I've heard about? One of my maids told me it's rumored he does miracle cures of all kinds of aliments, perhaps he could cure my Lord."

  "Oh so sorry, Highness," the woman had burst out, appalled, "it's unthinkable that he or you would consult a gai-jin! Please have patience, please. Cheng-sin, the marvelous soothsayer told us patience will surely..."

  "It could be done secretly, fool!

  Patience? I've waited months!" she had shrieked. "Months of patience and still my Lord hasn't yet the glimmerings of an heir!" Before she could stop herself she had slapped the woman's face. "Ten months of patience and ill advice is too much, you miserable person, go away! Go! GO AWAY FOREVER!"

  All day she had planned for tonight. Special dishes that he liked were prepared, well seasoned with ginseng. Special sak`e laced with ginseng and powdered rhinoceros horn. Special perfumes, heavily aphrodisiac. Special prayers to the

  Buddha. Special supplications to Ameratsu, the Sun Goddess, grandmother of the god Niniji who came down from Heaven to rule Nippon who was great-grandfather of the first mortal Emperor,

  Jimmu-Tennu, founder of their Imperial

  Dynasty, twenty-five centuries ago--and therefore her direct ancestress.

  But all had failed.

  Now it was in the black time of the night and she wept silently, lying on her set of futons, her husband asleep on his beside her, not happy in sleep, a cough now and then, his limbs jerking, his sleeping face not unpleasing to her. Poor silly boy, she thought anguished, is it your karma to die heirless like so many of your line? Oh ko oh ko oh ko! Why did I allow myself to be talked into this disaster, out of the arms of my beloved prince?

  Four years ago when she was twelve, andwiththe delighted approval of her mother, last and most favorite consort of her father, Emperor Ninko, who had died the year she was born, andwiththe equally delighted and necessary acquiescence of the Emperor

  Komei, her much older stepbrother who had succeeded him, she was happily affianced to a childhood playmate, Prince Sugawara.

  That was the year the Bakufu formally signed the

  Treaties that opened Yokohama and Nagasaki, against Emperor Komei's wishes, the majority of the Court, and the outspoken advice of most daimyos. That was the year sonno-joi became a battle cry. And the same year the then tair@o, Ii, proposed to the Prince

  Advisor that the Princess Yazu marry the

  Sh@ogun Nobusada.

  "So sorry," the Advisor said.

  "Impossible."

  "Very possible and highly necessary to bond the

  Sh@ogunate to the Imperial Dynasty and bring further peace and tranquility to the land," Ii had said. "There are many historical precedents when Toranagas have agreed to marry

  Imperials."

  "So sorry." The Advisor was effete, elaborately dressed and coiffured, his teeth blackened. "As you well know Her Imperial

  Highness is already engaged to be married as soon as she reaches puberty. As you well know, too, the

  Sh@ogun Nobusada is also engaged to the daughter of a Ky@oto noble."

  "So sorry, engagements of such illustrious persons are a matter of state policy, in

  Sh@ogunate control and always has been," Ii said. He was small, portly and inflexible,

  "Sh@ogun Nobusada's engagement, at his own request, has ceased."

  "Ah, so sorry, how sad. I heard it was a good match."

  "Sh@ogun Nobusada and Princess Yazu are the same age, twelve. Please advise the

  Emperor, the tair@o wishes to inform him the

  Sh@ogun will be honored to accept her as wife.

  They can marry when she is fourteen or fifteen."

  "I will consult the Emperor but, so sorry,

  I am afraid your request will not be possible."

  "I certainly hope the Son of Heaven will be guided by Heaven on such an important decision. The gai-jin are at our gates, the

  Sh@ogunate and Dynasty must be strengthened."

  "So sorry, the Imperial Dynasty needs no strengthening. As to the Bakufu, obedience to the wishes of the Emperor would surely improve the peace."

  Ii said harshly, "The Treaties had to be signed. The barbarian fleets and weapons can humble us whatever we say publicly!

  We-are-defenseless! We were forced to sign!"

  "So sorry, that is the problem and fault of the

  Bakufu and Sh@ogunate--Emperor

  Komei did not approve the Treaties and did not wish them signed."

  "Foreign policy, any temporal policy, such as the marriage I so humbly suggest, is the absolute province of the

  Sh@ogunate. The Emperor..." Ii chose his words carefully, "... is preeminent in all other matters."

  ""Other matters"? A few centuries ago, the Emperor ruled as was custom for millennia."

  "So sorry, we do not live a few centuries ago."

  When Ii's proposal, considered by all those opposed to the Bakufu as an insult to the

  Dynasty, became known there was a general outcry.

  Within a few weeks shishi had assassinated him for his arrogance and the matter lapsed.

  Until two years later when she was fourteen.

  Though not yet a woman Imperial Princess

  Yazu was already an accomplished poetess, could read and write classical Chinese, knew all the court rituals necessary to her future, and was still enamored with her prince and he with her.

  Anjo, needing to enhance the prestige of the


  Sh@ogunate, increasingly under threat, again approached the Prince Advisor who repeated what he had already said. Anjo repeated what Ii had already said but added to the astonishment of his adversary, "Thank you for your opinion but, so sorry, Imperial Chancellor Wakura does not agree."

  Wakura was in his forties, a man of high court rank though not of the nobility who, from the beginning, had assumed leadership of the xenophobic movement amongst middle-ranking nobles opposed to the Treaties. As Chancellor, he was one of the few who had Imperial access.

  Within days Wakura sought an interview with the

  Princess. "I am pleased to tell you that the

  Son of Heaven requests you agree to annul your engagement to Prince Sugawara and marry

  Sh@ogun Nobusada instead."

  Princess Yazu almost fainted. Within the

  Court an Imperial request was a command.

  "There must be some mistake! The Son of Heaven opposed this arrogant suggestion two years ago for obvious reasons. You are opposed, so is everyone--I cannot believe the Godhead would ask such a hideous thing."

  "So sorry, but it is not hideous and it is asked."

  "Even so I refuse--I refuse!"

  "You cannot, so sorry. May I explain th--"'

  "No you may not! I refuse, I refuse

  I refuse!"

  The next day another interview requested and refused, then another and another. She was equally inflexible. "No."

  "So sorry, Highness," her Chief

  Matron said, very flustered. "The Imperial

  Chancellor again requests a moment to explain why this is asked of you."

  "I will not see him. Tell him I wish to see my brother!"

  "Oh so sorry, Highness," the Chief

  Matron said, appalled, "please excuse me but it is my duty to remind you the Son of Heaven has no kith or kin once he has ascended."

  "I... of course, please excuse me,

  I know. I'm, I'm overwrought, please excuse me." Even within the Court only the

  Emperor's wife, consorts, mother, children, his brothers and sisters, and two or three

  Councillors, were allowed to look him in the face without permission. Outside of these few intimates it was forbidden. HE was divine.

  Like all Emperors before him, from the very moment

  Komei had completed the rituals that mystically joined his spirit to that of the recently deceased

  Emperor, his father, as his father had joined with his, and he had with his in unbroken line back to Jimmu-Tennu, he had ceased to be mortal and became a Deity, the Keeper of the Sacred

  Symbols--the Orb and Sword and Mirror--the

  Son of Heaven.

  "Please excuse me," Yazu said humbly, appalled at her sacrilege.

  "I'm sorry I... Please ask the Lord

  Chancellor to petition the Son of Heaven to grant me a moment of his time."

  Now, through her tears, Yazu was remembering how, many days later she was on her knees before the

  Emperor and his ever present multitude of courtiers, heads bowed, she hardly recognizing him in his formal swirling robes--the first time she had seen him for months. She had begged and pleaded in a litany of weeping, using the necessary court language hardly understood by outsiders, until she was spent. "Imperial Highness, I do not want to leave home, I do not want to go to this foul place Yedo, the other side of the world, I beg leave to say we are the same blood, we are not Yedo upstart warlords..." And had wanted to screech, We are not descended from peasants who do not speak properly, dress properly, eat properly, act properly, cannot read or write properly and stink of daikon-- but she dared not. Instead she said, "I beg you, leave me be."

  "First: please go and listen carefully and calmly as befits an Imperial Princess to what the Lord Chancellor Wakura has to say."

  "I will obey, Imperial Highness."

  "Second, I will not allow this against your will.

  Third, return on the tenth day, then we will talk again. Go now, Yazu-chan." It was the first time in her life that her brother had called her by the diminutive.

  So she had listened to Wakura.

  "The reasons are complicated, Princess."

  "I am accustomed to complications,

  Chancellor."

  "Very well. In return for the Imperial betrothal, the Bakufu have agreed to the permanent expulsion of all gai-jin and to cancel the

  Treaties."

  "But Nori Anjo has said this is impossible."

  "True. At this time. But he has agreed at once to start modernizing the army and at once to build an invincible navy. In seven, eight, perhaps ten years he promises we will be strong enough to enforce our will."

  "Or in twenty or fifty or a hundred years! The Toranaga Sh@oguns are historic liars and not to be trusted. For centuries they have kept the Emperor confined and usurped his heritage. They are not to be trusted."

  "So sorry, now the Emperor is persuaded to trust them. In truth, Princess, we have no temporal power over them."

  "Then I would be a fool to give myself as hostage."

  "So sorry, but I was going to add that your marriage would lead to a healing between Emperor and

  Sh@ogunate which is essential to the tranquility of the State. The Sh@ogunate would then listen to Imperial advice and obey Imperial wishes."

  "If they became filial. But how would my marriage bring that to pass?"'

  "Would not the Court, through you, be able to intervene, even to control this youthful Sh@ogun and his government?"'

  Her interest had quickened. "Control? On behalf of the Emperor?"'

  "Of course. How could this boy--compared with you, Highness, he a child--how could this boy have any secrets from you? Of course not. Surely the

  Exalted's hope is that you, his sister, would be his go-between. As wife of the Sh@ogun you would know everything, and a remarkable person such as yourself could soon have all the threads of Bakufu power within your hands, through this Sh@ogun. Since the third

  Toranaga Sh@ogun there has never been a strong one. Would you not be perfectly placed to hold the real power?"'

  She had thought about that for a long time. "Anjo and the Sh@ogunate aren't fools. They would have deduced that."

  "They do not know you, Highness. They believe you are only a reed to be twisted and shaped and used at their whim, just like the boy Nobusada, why else did they choose him? They want the marriage, yes, to enhance their prestige, certainly to bring Court and Sh@ogunate closer.

  Of course, you, a girl, would be their pliant puppet, to subvert Imperial will."

  "So sorry, you ask too much of a woman.

  I do not want to leave home, nor give up my

  Prince."

  "The Emperor asks that you do this."

  "Once again the Sh@ogunate is forcing him to barter, when they should just obey," she had said bitterly.

  "The Emperor asks that you assist to make them obey."

  "Please excuse me, I cannot."

  "Two years ago, the bad year,"

  Wakura continued in the same measured way, "the year of famines, the year Ii signed the

  Treaties, certain Bakufu scholars were searching history for examples of deposed Emperors."

  Yazu gasped, "They would never dare--not that!"

  "The Sh@ogunate is the Sh@ogunate, they are all-powerful, at the moment. Why shouldn't they consider removing an obstacle, any obstacle? Did he not, his wa destroyed, even consider abdicating in favor of his son, Prince

  Sachi."

  "Rumor," she burst out, "that cannot be true."

  "I believe it was, Imperial

  Princess," he said gravely. "And now, in truth, He asks, please will you help him?"'

  Beyond herself, she knew whatever she said, it would always return to the "ask." No way out. In the end she would have to comply or become a nun. Her mouth opened for the final refusal but it never happened. Something seemed to sever in her mind and, for the first time, she began thinking by a different process, no longer child
but adult, and this gave her the answer. "Very well," she said, deciding to keep her own counsel. "I will agree, providing I continue to live in Yedo as I have lived in the Imperial Palace..."