“Stop!” Hiraga hissed, face chalky, no longer disguised as a kitchen skivvy. He was wearing an ordinary kimono and was ready to rush for his tunnel sanctuary, the lookouts reliable now on pain of death. Akimoto and Takeda were also devastated. That Katsumata could die a coward was inconceivable.
I cannot believe the Sensei would allow himself to be caught alive, Hiraga thought. And for Yoshi to allow Meikin to do that to him was disgusting, however merited. Baka to be caught alive! “Leave us, Raiko. I will see you later.”
“Thank you, Sire, so sorry but—”
“Leave us!”
She stumbled away, glad to be free of them, hating all shishi, wisely hiding the hatred.
Takeda spat in anger. “Yoshi has no honor to let that happen. Katsumata must be avenged!”
Akimoto glanced at Hiraga, sickened too. “What should we do, Cousin? That old crone is right, the search will be stepped up. We should slip away tonight, try to, eh?”
“You are bakal! We are surrounded like rats on a carcass.” In fact Hiraga, though pretending rage, was weak with relief. With Katsumata dead, now there need be no attack. Once again he was in charge of his own destiny. “We must not make a mistake.”
Takeda said, “I agree we are rats in a trap here. So we attack as the Sensei planned. We’ve the bombs now. Sonno-joi!”
“No. We’re safe for the moment.”
Akimoto said, “Hiraga, if Yoshi gave Katsumata to this Meikin, it was a reward, neh? In return for betraying him? Raiko will do the same to us. Maybe she is the traitor who betrayed both of them to Yoshi in the first place, eh?”
Takeda scrambled up. “Let’s kill her and begin.”
“Sit down,” Hiraga snarled. “We need Raiko. She has proved her worth in the past, and you forget, no mama-san is trusted wholly. Sit down, Takeda, be logical. She will not betray us—she is only a money-grubbing harridan, like any other mama-san who, if you let her, will charge you for a third-rank whore when the girl’s only a streetwalker worth hardly a copper momme. Meikin gave us good information in the past, it was because of her we caught Utani the pederast. She herself was betrayed. Yoshi and Bakufu have thousands of spies.”
“We’re not safe here.” Akimoto shuddered. “I hate this place. This gai-jin Yoshiwara is infected with their plague. I vote with Takeda. Attack, escape or die.”
“Not yet. Let me think!”
Takeda watched him narrowly. “You knew this Meikin?”
“Many years ago …” Hiraga almost added, and Koiko, tempted to tell them the real reason for the betrayal, but decided not to, relishing the manner of Katsumata’s death. Now Sumomo is revenged and so is Koiko. Now their spirits will become kami, or they will be reborn again on the thirty-first day as the gods decide—if there are gods. Now I can forget them though they will all live forever.
The Sensei begging for mercy? All those years idolizing him, listening to him? We were dupes, he thought, disgusted. Never mind, that coward will be derided and spat on in news sheets, and soon bards and plays will orate the story of how he betrayed Sumomo and Koiko and the mama-san’s revenge—and death wish. Ah, what style she had!
Involuntarily he chuckled nervously and mimicked the high-pitched voice of an onnagata—a. male actor who specialized in female roles, only men being allowed on the stage. “‘A bath and clean clothes. Please?’ Kabuki and puppet theatres will fill houses with that for generations!”
“Baka on the Kabuki,” Takeda said, fuming. “The Sensei will be revenged. Honor will be redeemed. Tonight we attack as planned, you take the ship, I take the church and the other church and kill every gai-jin I meet till I am dead. What do you say, Akimoto?” He got up and peered out of the window. Night was not far. Suddenly he noticed the wind rustling the shrubs. “Look! It’s a sign from the gods! The wind is picking up. It’s from the south!”
Akimoto leapt beside him. “It’s true, Hiraga!”
For a moment Hiraga was thrown off balance. Was it a sign? “No attack, not tonight. No attack!”
Takeda whirled. “I say attack.” He glared at Akimoto. “You agree? Sonno-joi!”
Akimoto was teetering. Both Takeda’s rage and confidence were infectious. “Fire would cover our escape, Hiraga.”
“A—a little one, perhaps,” Hiraga said irritably, “not an attempt to burn all Yokohama.” His brain was oscillating and he had no solution yet other than his final plan, and no way to effect that without Taira’s help and purging Yoshi’s grasp from around his neck. “Tomorrow or the next day, we cou—”
“Tonight,” Takeda said insistently, his anger barely in check. “Tonight’s a gift, the gods speak to us!”
“At this time of the year the wind will hold. We need more men to fire the Settlement. One of us should go to Yedo for them. Takeda, you could go.”
“How? You said Enforcers are everywhere. How?”
“I don’t know, Takeda.” Shakily Hiraga got up. “Wait till I get back, then we can decide. I’ll see Raiko, tell her we’ll leave tomorrow—we won’t but that’s what I’ll say.”
“She’s not to be trusted anymore.”
“I keep telling you, she never was.” Hiraga went and found her.
“All right, Hiraga-sama, you may stay.” Raiko was over the panic, brandy in her stomach, dully allowing fate to be fate.
“Is Taira here tonight?”
“No, nor tomorrow. Furansu-san is. I know he is.”
“Send for Taira. You can do that, can’t you?”
“Yes, and when he arrives what should I tell him?” she said listlessly, then jerked awake as Hiraga ground the words through his teeth. “You tell him, Raiko, that Fujiko has decided she no longer wishes to sign a contract, that another gai-jin has approached you with a better business arrangement.”
“But her contract price is fantastical good. He is no fool, he’ll compare prices and I’ll lose him to another House—he’s already visited some. I’ll lose him.”
“You will lose your head if the turmoil you’re in isn’t solved,” he said sourly, “and the rest of your well-fed corpse will be feeding fishes.”
“Solved?” She became all attention. “There is a chance, Hiraga-sama? I’ve a chance? You know of a way?”
“Do as you’re told and I may be able to save you. Send for Taira now.” Coldly, Hiraga looked at her and went back to the other two. They were on the veranda watching the bushes bent by the wind. “We’re safe for a day or two.”
Takeda said with a sneer, “Little does she know she’s dead, and tonight Yokohama will be dead, cleaned of vermin.”
“We will delay one day. Tomorrow night is best.”
Takeda’s anger began to return. “Why?”
“Do you want a chance of escape? To deal the death blow but live to enjoy it? All of us? I agree with you it is time. You are right, Takeda. But tomorrow gives me time to plan.”
After a moment, Takeda said, “Akimoto?”
“Let us agree to delay. To escape as well … Hiraga’s wise, Takeda, neh?”
The silence grew immense. “Delay. One day. I agree.” Takeda got up and left for his hideaway in the next Teahouse.
After a moment, Hiraga said, “Akimoto, in a little while, go and sit with him, reassure him.”
“He’s Satsuma, Cousin. Katsumata was Satsuma.”
Hiraga glanced at the shrubs bent by the south wind. “Sit with him. Reassure him.”
Tyrer was appalled. “No contract, Raiko-san?”
“No, so sorry, Fujiko has changed her mind and has a much better offer, so sorry, but she’s adamant.”
“Please?” he asked, missing most of her Japanese.
She repeated it, adding, “That’s why I asked to see you urgently. So sorry, she won’t see you, tonight or ever.”
All of Tyrer’s being plunged into a pit. He questioned her in his most polite and best Japanese but she shook her head. “So sorry,” she said with finality, bowing a dismissal. “Good night, Taira-sama.”
As if a
drunkard, Tyrer went out onto the veranda. The shoji slid shut. He stumbled onto the garden path, cursed as he realized he had forgotten his shoes. In a daze he sat on the veranda and slipped them on. “What the hell’s happened?”
Three days ago, when he had returned with Babcott from Yedo, all had been perfect, the contract agreed but for one minor point, payment was to be made within the week. His previous bill had been settled to smiles and bows, with Fujiko that night more loving and sweeter than ever before. This evening, when Raiko had sent a servant to the house he shared with Babcott, asking him to see her urgently, he had presumed, amused, it was just to sign the paper. He had left a message earlier that probably he could not come tonight nor would he be available tomorrow—he was due to go to Kanagawa.
And now this. “I don’t understand.” Gusts swirling more leaves around his feet. Miserably, he pulled his coat closer around him. The night seemed blacker than before. With a great sigh he got up and plodded down the meandering path, stopped abruptly as a samurai almost bumped into him.
“Christ Almighty, Nakama!” he burst out.
Hiraga went for his sword and Tyrer thought he was a dead man. But the sword stayed half in the scabbard and he saw the eyes staring at him on a hair trigger … “Don’t,” Tyrer said, his voice choked at the sudden apparition. “I’m … I’m not armed.” He raised his arms in surrender, froze, cursing himself for his stupidity, almost died again as Hiraga slammed the sword back into its scabbard.
“Taira-sama, I not hurt you, I thought you enemy. You are friend.” Hiraga smiled and stuck out his hand.
Blankly Tyrer shook it, then erupted, “What are you doing, we thought you’d fled to Yedo, what’s this about being ronin? We have to turn you over to him, to Yoshi—you know Yoshi is after you, Lord Yoshi?”
“Not here!” Hiraga cautioned, and took his arm and Tyrer felt the iron grip. “Come with me.” Motioning him to silence, he guided him down another path, into another in the maze of little pathways well screened from each other by hedges, until Tyrer had lost all sense of direction. Then this path ended at a bungalow. Wind tugged at the thatch, whining in the rafters.
Hiraga motioned him onto the veranda, kicked off his own shoes and waited until Tyrer had done the same then pushed him forward. “Inside, p’rease.”
Wet with fear and powerless, Tyrer obeyed. There was no chance to run. He saw Hiraga look carefully to see if they had been followed. The shoji slid to. A shaded candle dimly lit the interior of the usual one-room house, a tiny bathroom adjoining. The flame guttered and almost went out in the draft.
“Sit! P’rease. Now, say again but not fast, keep voice down.” Ominously Hiraga took his short sword out of his belt and laid it on the tatami beside him. “So?”
Trying to contain the shaking that mixed nauseatingly with his distress, Tyrer related about Yoshi and Abeh and the murder of Utani and how they all thought Hiraga had fled elsewhere. “We’ve got to turn you over to Yoshi, to guards at the gate—Captain Abeh went back to Yedo, Nakama, and … what should I call you, Nakama or Hiraga?”
“As you wish, Taira-sama.”
“Hiraga then, that’s your real name, isn’t it?”
“I am caw’red that. But Japanese have many names, one at birth, another when age seven, another at manhood, and take another if want. I am Nakama, or Hiraga, your friend.”
“Friend?” Tyrer said bitterly, forgetting his fear. “Why didn’t you tell me you were an assassin? You killed Utani—you killed him, didn’t you?”
“Yes, he a target, very bad man. Yoshi another. This not Ing’rand, Taira-sama, not Ing’rand. These bad men, the Bakufu, they thief power from the Emperor, they tyrants.”
Solemnly, Hiraga explained as best he could about the shishi and their struggle to eliminate the despotic government—his sincerity obvious—explaining the greed of Utani and his rapacious taxes, how the Toranaga clans and daimyos possessed all the wealth of the land, the Toranagas most of all, about the corrupt Bakufu, and that the people were starved and powerless. “We want give Nippon back to Emperor, make govern fair for a’wre people.”
By “all people” Hiraga meant all samurai though Tyrer took it to mean all Japanese. And as he questioned Hiraga, fascinated with this unique window into the inner workings of Nippon—and Japanese mentality—he was more and more convinced there was merit on Hiraga’s side. He had only to consider English history and the people’s struggle to cast off the “divine right of Kings” and the rule of tyrants, to become more and more sympathetic. Not hard to recall the huge cost in lives to create Parliament and the rule of the people for the people: a king’s head, others humbled, revolution, riots, deaths before the British Raj and Pax Britannica had blossomed.
Remembering also the debt he owed this man, he said gloomily, “Even so, I don’t see any hope for you. The moment you’re seen you’ll be captured, by your people or mine. There’s nothing I can do to prevent that.”
Hiraga took a deep breath and launched himself into the void: “One thing, yes, you can do to he’rp me. He’rp me onto ship—ship for Ing’rand.”
Tyrer gaped at him. “Eh? You’re mad!”
“P’rease, keep soft, many enemy here,” Hiraga said quietly, passionately excited with this stunning, radical idea that had swooped out of the air at him, as if down from the Sun Goddess herself. “P’rease ’risten. Many times you say me ’rearn about gai-jin, your country best, neh? I go there with my cousin. We ’rearn best way to make govern, your Par’iment. We ’rearn your way. Yoshi right about navy and army, but I think more best to ’rearn banking and business and trading. We need knowing best way, neh? Your way, Ing’rish way, neh?”
Eloquently Hiraga continued to spin his web, his anxiety lending him extra words and soft cadences. This was his final plan, his only possible escape from Yoshi’s trap. He was certain that a year or two spent with gai-jin, with the right introductions and help, would be of enormous value to sonno-joi.
It is the perfect answer to inevitable death if I stay, he had reasoned exuberantly. In a year or two we will return, perfect Ing’rish speakers, bursting with their secrets about produk’shun and stoku markit, rifles, cannon, tactics, strategy, the methods they used to conquer the outside world, even to humble China!
This is the Land of the Gods! China should be ours, not the gai-jin’s. Before I leave I’ll tell our Choshu shishi leaders of my plan, and somehow keep in touch through letters. “It’s simp’re, Taira-sama. You speak to Captain, we sneak aboard. No one need know.”
“Sir William would never agree.”
“Perhaps no need speak him.” Hiraga leaned closer, giving him the option, unsure of himself. “Or if speak, I speak too, think he agree, neh? Very important for Ing’rish have Japan friend. I good friend. Jami-sama, he he’rp too if ask.”
“Who?”
“Jami, big beard man, bigger as you. Jami.”
“Jamie? Jamie McFay?”
“Yes, Jami Mukfey.”
Now that the idea had sunk into him, Tyrer’s mind began working better. There were tremendous long-term possibilities in doing what Hiraga suggested. It had ever been British policy to educate—re-educate—selected foreign students, the more important or princely the better. Many were radicals, or revolutionaries in their own country, India notably. Hiraga was very intelligent and if an enemy of Yoshi, important. Judge a man by his enemies, his father had said.
And while he chewed over Hiraga’s suggestion he also wondered how his father and mother were, and his friends, sad that he could not see them or be in London soon—no home leave for two years. At the same time he was proud to be part of the Diplomatic Service and a cog, albeit very small, in the vastness of British empire building.
Hiraga’s idea is good. It would work. But how to get him out and how to get Sir William to assist—Willie’s the key.
The more he thought about it, the more his hopes sank, the more he had to admit he was stupid to even consider it, becoming more and more certain th
at Sir William would not, could not countenance such a ploy-not with this man, an admitted killer, not Hiraga who was a pawn in the far greater contest for Yoshi. There was no quid pro quo for Sir William—no compensation, no reason to risk Yoshi’s enmity, the power of the future, whatever Hiraga claimed.
“I’ll try,” he said, purporting to be confident, not forgetting he was still Hiraga’s prisoner, the sword too near. “Can’t guarantee anything but I’ll try. Where will you be?”
Hiraga was satisfied, his gamble immense though with room left to maneuver. He had convinced Taira, now again on his side. The gai-jin leader would be an ally. “You keep sekret?”
“Of course.”
“Send word to Raiko. I can meet in vi’rage or here. You say where, Taira-sama. Think sooner is better, for ship, neh?”
“Yes. I’ll send you a message tomorrow, or come myself.” Cautiously Tyrer began to stand.
Hiraga beamed. “You go Fujiko?”
Gloom descended instantly. “There’s no Fujiko anymore.”
“What? What you mean, p’rease?”
Tyrer told him and he saw Hiraga’s face flush.
“But you have promise, Taira-sama. Me, I t’awk, arrange with Raiko, neh?”
“Yes, but now the contract’s off. Raiko says …” Tyrer stopped, frightened by the look on Hiraga’s face.
“Wait, p’rease!” Hiraga stormed out. Tyrer peered out of a side window. No one in sight, only waving branches and the smell of sea salt in the air—run while you’ve the chance, he told himself but then, suddenly, desperately, he wanted to urinate. He used the bucket in the bathroom and felt better. Now he was hungry. And thirsty. He looked around. No teapot, no water jug. His hunger and thirst were grinding—like Hiraga’s idea was grinding. No way to satisfy either. Without Sir William’s benevolence Hiraga would be a child in the wilderness. Even Jamie couldn’t help much, now that he was out of Struan’s. Why should he or anyone help? There was no quid pro quo. Again he peered out of the little window.
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