Mary Gentle

by A Sundial in a Grave-1610

  Cecil lifted his chin, looking me in the face. “No, monsieur. The young woman has not been put to the question. I talked with her, this morning, and judged her then innocent of all knowledge of this.”

  The undertones in his voice warned me.

  And it is of this you will speak, I thought. “Tell me.”

  He paused, as if he waited for the respect that is due a Secretary of State, and then quietly spoke. “She could not help but learn through our speech, as you have, that Doctor Fludd had sailed on the Santa Juana. That was this morning. I sent my men to call her again, a short time ago, and…she is gone, Master Rochefort.”

  I stared.

  “I had a last hope that she might have come here, to you. No man can find her.”

  “She’s followed him!”

  I spun around, slammed my hand flat against the stonework of the cell, and let the pain searing through me take away the words I would have said.

  “She’s followed Fludd. What ship? She will be on a ship, milord!”

  “If so, she’s behind the Santa Juana by one tide. More than one ship will have left, even with trade so reduced. The young ‘man’ is not easily distinguishable; I have no agents who saw her leave. It may take more time to discover the name of her vessel.”

  Cecil heaved a sigh that moved his crooked shoulder, and cast a longing glance at the straw, as if he would have sat down to ease his body, were that not incongruent with the dignity of an English lord.

  “I fear Doctor Fludd has gone to begin his mathematical calculations over again,” Cecil said softly. “Leave aside that there are state secrets he now might tell. I think Doctor Fludd will hide, these ten or fifteen years, and then all this must be faced again—what time Prince Henry is older, stronger, and more keen of intelligence. And he will have built up a much stronger faction.”

  If Fludd makes his recalculations, England may have nothing to do with the matter . I kept my mouth shut on the thought. I will say nothing to discourage this man from assisting me.

  “Monsieur, I will find and take them,” I said quietly. “I know, from travelling with Tanaka Saburo—and Mademoiselle Dariole—what manner of attention it is that they have a way of drawing to them. I’ll re-take Fludd.”

  Cecil’s long face warmed, very slightly. “If I consent to this—”

  “Give me money, a man or two stout with a sword, information.” I turned about on the straw, a pace or two, and faced him again. “If I catch her at Dover, or the Channel ports, I will not be gone long. If she, and the samurai and Fludd, escape further—it might be a matter of weeks or months. Master Secretary, there is something else I need.”

  I had no way to disguise my urgency. He shifted his hands on his ebony stick.

  “This would be a great service you do for us, Monsieur de Rochefort. I think I take your meaning.”

  Hard on the heels of his thought, I nodded. “Make her sign a preliminary consent. Make her, monsieur! I need you to force Marie de Medici to agree the clause that makes the treaty dependent on Sully’s welfare, and sign it. If she says Fludd is not yet recaptured—tell her, if she has not signed before I leave on the next tide, then I go to put a sword clean through Robert Fludd’s gut, not bring him back. She’ll get no use of him. I’ll kill him happily. Her only hope that I won’t do that is that M. de Sully is not hanged, understand me?”

  Robert Cecil switched his cane to his left hand, and held out his right. “What debt I owe you, Monsieur de Rochefort, I will attempt to pay with this coin.”

  I took his small hand in mine, gripping hard.

  “Come.” He turned towards the door. “I will ask this much—is it possible to catch a man who may know every action that you take, before you take it? As we have seen in this his escape?”

  “I don’t know, monsieur,” I said grimly, as we left the cell, “but I intend to try. We don’t know whether it’s Fludd’s foretelling which allowed him his escape, or merely an impromptu conspiracy with Tanaka Saburo.”

  Fludd. Saburo.

  Dariole.

  It’s nothing to me now that I have put James on his throne. Except that I have, by it, enough of Cecil’s confidence that I may decide and act.

  In the dark of the spiral stone stairwell, I asked more questions.

  “I need two things, Mr Secretary. The location of the Spanish Ambassador’s Jesuit priests—and the name of the ship most likely to sail on the morning tide for Lisbon.”

  At Greenwich, the gates were locked by reason of darkness, but I prevailed on them to let me in. There was a guard outside the room where the Spanish Ambassador’s Jesuit fathers were reported to be keeping Gabriel Santon.

  Walking down the long, chill corridor, I saw that, in fact, the guard now wore Cecil’s livery.

  I unhooked the suspensor strap of my Saxony rapier and unbuckled the belt, and bundled both sword and dagger in my hand together as they slipped from my body.

  “Hold these.” I nodded to the warder. “Let me in; don’t follow yourself.”

  The man looked as though he would have said something, but Cecil’s signed pass, coupled with my expression that I dare say was impatient, led him to clutch my weapons in one hand and turn the door’s key with the other.

  I pushed past him into the room, swinging the door back so that it should shut behind me.

  The door closed with a bang.

  Something hit me, hard, behind the right knee.

  My knee buckled and I jerked backwards, over-balancing. I recognised it for a man’s boot.

  An arm went around my throat from behind, and a fist drove hard into my back—into my kidneys, with the force of a swung hammer. Gabriel Santon, still with the tough strength of an infantry sergeant.

  I could not keep in the grunt of pain; it burst out of me. Not loud enough to be heard by the warder—the door didn’t open.

  I reached up and grabbed the arm, pulled it away from the choke-hold on my throat, and turned; seizing his other fist before he could punch me in the face. I shoved Gabriel around, slammed him face-first into the wall, and pinned him against the stone with the weight of my body.

  “Three things!” I leaned hard against his back as he wrenched every muscle, trying to get free of my grip. I tightened my hold on his wrists, my lips close to his ear as he swore and gasped under his breath.

  “One,” I said. “In six hours I shall be leaving here, on a ship bound out of England for Portugal. Two. I shall be pissing brown for a week. Three,” I finished, “I deserved that.”

  Gabriel’s body stayed tense for a few seconds. I wondered if he heard.

  His muscles relaxed, together; I loosed him and stepped back.

  He turned, his expression all suspicion, ill-temper, and surprise.

  He had the strength of a younger man still, as I knew from the pain stabbing in my lower back. He glared at me. Finally, he wiped his wrist across his mouth.

  “A master don’t apologise to a servant, sieur.”

  I held his gaze. “Monsieur Santon, I do. And I ask if you will consent to go with me as my man again.”

  He bristled like a boar, suddenly spat on the floor, and snorted at me. “‘Monsieur Santon!’ What, do you think you can buy me, boy? Go fuck your lying black arse!”

  He seemed as brutal as any man who has served in the army; I, having known him these fifteen years, might see something else under that. How hard can it be to say the words? I thought. What is it that makes it so difficult?

  Birth, Mademoiselle Dariole would have said; I could all but hear her voice. The pain of her absence scoured me.

  And she’s right. Forty years, and in the teeth of all the evidence: I still think I am a different kind of human being to this man.

  As awkwardly as may be imagined, and feeling plainly embarrassed, I dropped to my knees on the floor. Not even the court salutation, on one knee, but down on both, in that position that is undeniable submission, or sometimes undeniable remorse.

  “I beg your pardon, Gabriel. I should hav
e trusted you enough to tell you what was going on. I apologise.”

  His face seemed wiped blank of all expression. He stared down at me. A sudden conviction heated my ears red: He won’t take this—he’ll laugh at me.

  His features altered; I could not have said precisely how. I went hot and cold. I stayed down, looking up at him.

  “Fifteen fucking years.” Gabriel Santon sighed. “Fifteen fucking years, and you couldn’t trust me.”

  “I’m sorry.” Words have never been so hard to get out. My desire to do it only just overcame my embarrassment, that I thought I would choke on. “If you have no desire to accompany me, I accept that. But, please, forgive me.”

  Gabriel stared down; stocky, coarse, and with the pallor of the Chatelet still on him.

  He gave a short grunt, and smiled, and looked embarrassed himself. “You’re still the same wet-legged lieutenant I got stuck with in Breda.”

  I am afraid that he saw my relief very plain; I was not able to conceal it.

  “Get up!” He grinned at me. “Sieur.”

  It was embarrassing to get to my feet with him watching me, but the relief of having him there—and, I will privately confess, the relief of having his forgiveness—wiped out my mortification.

  I resolved as soon as possible to get us drunk together, that this might never be spoken of again.

  “I was attempting to keep you safe.” I brushed dust from my trunk-hose. “I ought of course to have given you a choice about your involvement.”

  “You always did think you knew best.” His grin made him momentarily look Dariole’s age. “Well…is it six hours to the tide, you said? That’s time for me to shave you. To be frank—sieur—you don’t exactly do us any credit at the moment.”

  I gave him a very sardonic look, which he countered with one of his own.

  “I dare say I don’t,” I admitted. “Well. Shave me. That may give me time enough to at least begin explaining why you’ve been in jail, and I’m going to be yelling every time I take a piss, and we’re about to board a ship for Lisbon…and, if we’re unlucky, a little further.”

  Part 5

  Excerpt from the Report of the Samurai Tanaka Saburo to Shogun Tokugawa Hidetada, Third Son of Great Tokugawa Ieyasu

  Translator’s Note

  This report of the samurai Tanaka Saburo is addressed to Tokugawa Hidetada, Shogun of Japan in 1610. Hidetada was the son of the recently retired Shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu, who at the time lived at Sanpo.

  Again, we have no Japanese original; this is presumably an accurate copy, in Early Modern French. The document has been placed with Rochefort’s Memoirs, at some point, but the handwriting is not his.

  A few lines are too fire-damaged to be read. Where the reconstruction is conjectural, I’ve marked it in bold type .

  G reetings, great lord. This code is one that a humble captain of ashigaru knows Lord Hidetada will find familiar. It comes from those past days when I served as confidential messenger between your father Ieyasu and my late lord Kobayakawa Hideaki. No living man now knows it but we three.

  Therefore, I dare to write openly, and send you this letter, sama—which I’ll copy at this port, Lon-donnu, and have brought to you by as many ship’s captains as I can discover who’ll take my word for my credit in Nihon.

  […] my lord, it was plain to me from the first that the kami of these western caverns are great—both the one at Wō-ki, and at the greater gorge to the north. If these gaijin were a civilised people, they would put a rope about these two places, and treat them both as shrines.

  To a poor samurai, it sometimes seems that, here and there, a man or woman of the gaijin is so civilised. The yamabushi Katarii-na was plainly the correct priest to guard this shrine of the caves. Yet, when I questioned him, Roshifua-san informs me she was not considered a real priest by the men of her own religion. This is strange, her qualities being such that, in our land, she would be greatly honoured.

  (Some lines of text missing, leaving one possible reading of a phrase: “By her art of figures, to truly foresee the future.”)

  […] a matter of giri. I don’t like to deceive Roshifua-san, with the debt I owe him for my life. But, as is my duty, I made enquiries privately of this Katarii-na, without his knowledge. So as not to lie dishonourably, I informed the gaijin Roshifua and Darioru that my questions were asked with regard to the fortunes of your honoured parent Ieyasu, great father of our country.

  This is partly true, and is also a matter that can be safely told to them. They have no knowledge of the politics of our home, and are wrapped in their own concerns. Roshifua-san in particular has no care for any land except that “Franz” on which my ship struck. The samurai-daughter Darioru is a wandering ronin at heart; her life is given to her sword.

  For the part of my excuse which is true—my lord Hidetada, you seek to preserve Lord Ieyasu’s life, as all sons do in filial piety, and this humble samurai has the great honour to bring you an opportunity.

  According to the calculations of the yamabushi Katarii-na: in four years time, Lord Hideyori, the heir of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, will revolt against the Tokugawa.

  In the two years after that, a siege of the great castle at Osaka will come about. This is not something to be avoided. However, great lord, you must take care that your honoured father is not in the besieging trenches during that Summer campaign. Fate has for him there a teppo bullet, and death. You may help him to evade it, and this will bring about his further long life thereafter.

  Because this thing is of importance to all men of Nihon, I have written cipher messages also to Lord Ieyasu himself. If Fate destroys one letter, or two, or ten, I may still hope that one, at least, will arrive safely.

  I come now to things I have chosen not to speak of to Lord Ieyasu, nor to any man but yourself, my lord Hidetada. (Your aged father should be able to compose himself spiritually for re-birth, as men do in their last age. I leave it to you, my lord, whether you trouble him with this matter or not.)

  I spoke with Katarii-na about the later ages of Nihon, and what she has foreseen for us.

  She talked not only of your father’s lifetime, great Shogun, and your own, and your sons’, but of the lifetime of the sons of those sons, and their sons after them. The yamabushi Katarii-na has told me of things that will happen through close on four hundred years of our future.

  At first I was glad.

  She spoke of a number of conquests—that we will return to make war in Korea (where my lord Kobayakawa Hideaki shone), and this time be victorious. After that, Chin will fall to us, province by province; then Hind. And then our new empire will spread to take in lands the gaijin speak of: “Persia,” “Africa.”

  What Chin will bring us is the knowledge to make ships. Great junks crewed by three thousand men; ships that will make the journey from here to the gaijin lands as simple as riding the great Tokaido Road. Ships will be the cord that binds our empire, and trade the blood that allows it to grow. Everywhere we go, in the centuries to come, we bring first trade, then the Emperor’s rule. Small divided lands do not stand against our armies: we have teppo, and we are samurai. The day will come when the sun cannot rise and set without passing continuously over lands ruled by the Emperor of the Sun, and administered by his Shoguns.

  You see, great lord, how even a humble captain of ashigaru must be dazzled by this vision of future greatness. The Europeans will be left to welter in their filth; the children of Amateratsu will bring enlightened rule to the world.

  I said this, to the yamabushi. She looked very sad.

  “True,” she said to me, “but not all of the truth, signore samurai. The day will come when you and yours will regret all this, bitterly; and pray that it had never happened.”

  I asked her how this could be. How can a man regret such glory for his nation?

  “Yours will not be the only great empire,” Katarii-na told me. “There will be another power in the Americas. It cannot be avoided. This New World empire, powerful as it is, will i
n four centuries’ time go to war with your people. This empire will be of such strength that it creates a ‘fire-rain’ weapon, which destroys land in a manner as if the sun had put down Her hand and touched the earth…. On that day of war it will leave all Honshuand Hokkaido, all Kyushu and Shikoku, blackened, burned, poisoned. So ends Nihon: every island, every man.”

  Forgive me, great Hidetada, for my stupidity; I doubtless have not asked her all the questions I should.

  I asked if we could not have this same “fire-rain” weapon, ourselves, to destroy this other empire?

  She told me such weapons do not arise from us, but from gaijin of the Old World. However, if this knowledge I send you is left to each Emperor and Shogun as a prophecy, then we can gain that knowledge ourselves, and from it build such weapons.

  But then, my lord, nothing results, except the “fire-rain” touching the earth of this New World empire at the same time as it destroys us. Both our lands and people die in the same moment.

  Our cities, and theirs, will burn until they leave not a shadow on the earth. This is not honour, or glory, or vengeance. Great lord, pardon me. A samurai dies happy if his enemy dies also, but where is the honour in a war that kills the farmers? If the land is all burned away, where is Nihon? Who is left for us to serve?

  We samurai may lay down our lives, but this “fire-rain” will take not only we ourselves into death. It will take all: farmers and merchants and eta; leave the world so black with poison behind it that, if children are born afterwards, they are born improperly made.

  “How can we avoid this?” I asked the yamabushi Katarii-na. “Can it be avoided?”

  I thought then as you, great lord, will think now: that there must be some other choice. I questioned the yamabushi. I threatened her.

  If a gaijin may be a samurai, this Katarii-na proved herself one. She displayed no fear of death. She states that the choice lies between two roads alone.

  “Between earthly power, leading to destruction of this world,” she said, “when the provocation to such war will spread in panic from one nation to the next, and so in spasm onward to all…. Or, you may choose to be a nation that shall be wisely advised by one who can calculate how men’s acts affect the future, and thus avoid the ‘fire-rain.’”