Gai-Jin (122 page)

He looked up at Koiko. She was staring into space, lost in dreams he knew he could never share. “Koiko?”

“Oh. Yes, Sire?”

“What were you thinking about?”

“What leaves whisper to leaves.”

Intrigued he said, “It depends on the tree.”

She smiled sweetly. “A maple, a blood-red maple.”

“In what season?”

“Ninth month.”

“If they were watching us they whispered, ‘Soon we fall, never to return, But they are blessed. They grow on the tree of life. Their blood our blood.’”

She clapped her hands, smiling at him. “Perfect. And if it was a pine in spring?”

“Not now, Koiko-chan, later.”

Seeing the sudden seriousness, she became serious too. “Bad news, Sire?”

“No, and yes. I will leave at dawn.”

“For Dragon’s Tooth?”

He hesitated and she wondered if she had made a mistake in asking, but he was wondering what to do about her. Earlier, weighing the need for another forced march, he had decided to leave her and let her follow as quickly as she could. Now, looking at her, he did not want her to be away from him. Her palanquin would hold them back. She could ride though not well enough and such a journey would be arduous.

Either way the plan he had agreed with Akeda would stay the same: “The first party of forty men, with a double wearing a set of my light armor, leaves just before dawn and heads leisurely and obviously for the North Road. Halfway to Yedo they will turn back and return here, my ‘double’ vanished. The second party, mine, with the men I brought from Yedo, will leave shortly after the first and head rapidly for the Tokaidō. Forced march, under the same captain—I will be disguised as an ordinary cavalry samurai and will remain so until I am safely in Yedo Castle.”

“Very dangerous, Sire,” General Akeda said heavily.

“Yes. You will watch Ogama, and hope. It is to his advantage I succeed in curbing Anjo.”

“Yes. But you are an irresistible target outside, an easy one. Look at what happened today. Let me go with you.”

“Impossible. Listen, if Ogama decides to mount his strike he will attack here first—better expect it. You must repel him whatever the cost.”

“I will not fail in that, Sire,” the old general said.

And I will not fail to reach Yedo, Yoshi thought with equal confidence. As to the attack, it only reminds me it was not the first and will not be the last.

He saw Koiko watching him. It is easier to be balanced when she is near me. The lamplight was glinting on her lips and in her eyes, and he saw the curve of her cheekbones and column of her neck, the raven hair, the perfect folds of her kimono and under-kimonos showing slightly from her white skin. Smooth curves, her posture flawless, and her two hands held like flowers in her lap of azure silk.

She would have to travel light. No maids. And make do with whatever was available from Inn to Inn. That would displease her for she likes perfection. Perhaps she would balk at such inconsiderate and, for her, unnecessary haste. He remembered the first time he had suggested that.

It was not so long ago, just after he had decided to obtain her exclusivity and had told the mama-san, Meikin, to leave with her for Dragon’s Tooth to make arrangements with his wife at once—Hosaki had, correctly,
deemed it wise to see the mama-san and Koiko herself as the financial commitment would be huge.

Meikin had told him the journey would take at least a week to plan, Koiko would of course be taking her own hairdresser and masseuse and three maids.

“Ridiculous,” he had said impatiently. “So many staff are not necessary for such a short journey and an unnecessary expense. You will both leave at once.”

They had obeyed at once. Without attendants. It had taken them three days to reach the first way station outside Yedo, three days for the second. Angry, he had easily ridden the same distance from dawn to dusk.

“Lord Yoshi,” Meikin had said, greeting him lavishly, feigning surprise. “How pleasant to see you.”

“What is all the delay for?”

“Delay, Sire? We were ordered to leave at once. We are doing exactly as you ordered.”

“But why are you taking so long?”

“So long, Sire? But you did not order us to make a forced march.”

“You will hurry up,” he snapped, noticing how she belabored “order.” “Tell Koiko I wish to see her.”

The mama-san had bowed and hurried away to Koiko’s quarters, leaving him seething. When at length she returned she said happily, “Koiko-san will be honored to see you, Sire, instantly, Sire, the moment she can arrange a suitable maid to help her with her hair. She regrets it would be impertinent to receive you without the due preparation an honored, revered person such as you would expect, and adds, humbly, ‘Please be kind enough to wait, she will be as quick as she can when the maids arrive…’”

Sourly he had glared at her, knowing that as much as he would insist, he would have to wait. His only recourse was to storm into Koiko’s room and lose total face and destroy any chance that she would ever be available to him again.

Who does she think she is? he had wanted to bellow.

He had not. He had smiled to himself. When you purchase a rare sword, you expect it to be made of the finest steel, with the best cutting edge and a fire of its own. He nodded coolly. “Send for her own maids—and hairdresser and masseuse—from Yedo very quickly indeed. It’s your fault they are not here, you should have told me they were important to the Lady Koiko. She is correct not to see me improperly. I will expect this never to happen again!”

Meikin had flooded him with apologies and bowed him away abjectly, and he laughed all the way back to Yedo, having bested them, making them lose face and giving them both a firm warning:
Do not play games with me again
.

Koiko’s eyes had never left his face, watching and waiting. “When you smile, Sire, it makes me very happy.”

“What am I smiling about?”

“Me, Sire,” she said simply. “I think because I help you laugh at life, and though Man’s span on earth is but a quick hunt for shelter before the rains come down, you allow me to provide, from time to time, a shelter from the rain.”

“Yes, you do,” he said contentedly. If I leave her here I won’t see her for weeks, and life is only a cherry blossom exposed to a vagrant wind that knows no master—my life, hers, all life. “I do not want to leave you here.”

“It will be good to be home again.”

In his secret heart, he thought about Meikin. I have not forgotten she is a shishi informant as your maid was. Stupid of the mama-san to risk you, risk me thinking you were also part of those murdering scum. “Do any of your maids ride, Koiko?”

“I do not know, Sire. I imagine at least one would.”

“If you were to come with me you would have to ride too, with just one maid, and travel light, a palanquin would delay me. I can easily arrange for you to travel leisurely with your household if you prefer.”

“Thank you, but since you would prefer me to be with you your preference is mine, of course. If I become a burden, then it is easy for you to decide. I am honored you asked me.”

“But is there a maid, an acceptable maid who can also ride? If not then you must follow as soon as possible,” he said, again giving her the opportunity to decline gracefully without offense.

“There is one, Sire,” she said on a sudden impulse, “a new
maiko
, not quite a maid, but an apprentice and a little more. Her name is Sumomo Fujahito, daughter of a Satsuma goshi, ward of an old friend, a client who was good to me years ago.”

He listened as she told him about Sumomo, and was too well versed in the customs of the Floating World to ask about the other client. Intrigued, he sent for the girl. “So, Sumomo, your father disapproves of your future marriage?”

“Yes, Lord.”

“It is unforgivable not to obey your parents.”

“Yes, Lord.”

“You will obey them.”

“Yes, Lord.” She looked at him fearlessly. “I have already told them, humbly, that I will obey but that I will die before I marry any other man.”

“Your father should have ordered you into a nunnery for such impertinence.”

After a pause she muttered, “Yes, Lord.”

“Why are you here in Kyōto and not at home?”

“I—I was sent here to be retrained by my guardian.”

“He has done a very poor job, has he not?”

“So sorry, Lord.” She bowed her head to the tatami, politely and with grace, but he was certain not with any penitence. Why do I waste my time? he thought. Perhaps because I am accustomed to absolute obedience from everyone, except Koiko who must be maneuvered like an unstable boat in a high wind, perhaps because it might be diverting to curb this young person, to train her to the fist like the fledgling peregrine she seems to be, to use her beak and claws for my purposes, not for her lord of creation, Oda.

“What will you do when this Oda, this Satsuma goshi, eventually decides to obey his parents as is his duty, and take another woman to wife?”

“If he will accept me as a consort, even without intimacy I will be content. As an occasional woman, I will be content. The moment he tires of me or dismisses me, so sorry, that is the day I will die.”

“You are a stupid young woman.”

“Yes, Lord. Please excuse me, that is my karma.” She dropped her eyes and remained motionless.

Amused, he glanced momentarily at Koiko who waited for him to decide. “Say your liege lord, Sanjiro, orders you to marry another man and orders you not to commit seppuku.”

“I am samurai, I will obey without question,” she said proudly, “as I will obey my guardian and Oda-sama. But on my way to the wedding feast there may be a regrettable accident.”

He grunted. “Do you have sisters?”

She was startled. “Yes, Lord. Three.”

“Are they as stupid and difficult as you are?”

“They … no, Sire.”

“Can you ride?”

“Yes, Sire.”

“Well enough to journey to Yedo?”

“Yes, Sire.”

“Koiko, are you sure she can please you if I agree?”

“I believe so, Sire. I am only afraid I may fail you with my lack of skill.”

“You can never fail me, Koiko-chan. So, Sumomo, you are sure you will be able to please the Lady Koiko?”

“Yes, Sire, and I will protect her with my life.”

“Will you also improve your manners, become less arrogant, more womanly and less like Domu-Gozen?” This was a famous woman samurai, mistress to a Shōgun, a vicious killer, who, centuries ago, rode into battle with her equally violent Shōgun lover.

He saw her eyes widen and she became even younger. “Oh, I’m not like her, Lord, not at all—I would give anything to be even a tiny little bit like the Lady Koiko. Anything.”

He hid his laugh as Sumomo gorged on this first morsel he had tossed to her. “You may go. I’ll decide later.”

When they were alone again he chuckled. “A wager, Koiko? A new kimono that Sumomo will be trained by the time we reach Yedo—if I decide to bring you both with me.”

“Trained in what way, Sire?”

“That she will contentedly agree to return to her parents and obey them and marry without seppuku.”

Koiko shook her head, smiling. “So sorry, whatever the wager I am afraid you would lose, Sire.”

That she could consider him making an error of judgment lost some of his good humor. “A kimono against a favor,” Yoshi said sharply, not meaning to be so sharp.

“I accept,” she said at once with a laugh, “but only on the understanding that with the gift of the kimono, you accept the favor back from me that you would have asked.”

His eyes crinkled with admiration with the way she had twisted his mistake into a pleasantry. It was a mistake to attempt a wager, any wager. And a mistake to be confident over the wiles of a woman—a certain path to disaster.

SATURDAY, 6TH DECEMBER
:

On the Tokaidō Road, some forty miles eastwards from Kyōto, in the mountains, was the Sixth way station, the village of Sakonoshita, and as dusk began to fall, the last of the travellers and porters, bent against a raw wind, were hurrying to pass the barrier before it closed. All were weary and anxious for hot food, hot saké and warmth, even the half-dozen barrier guards who stamped their straw-sandaled feet against the cold, checking identity papers at random. “It’ll snow tonight,” one grumbled. “I hate winter, hate the cold, hate this posting.”

“You hate everything.”

“Not everything. I like eating and fornicating. In the next life I want to be born son to an Osaka moneylending rice merchant. Then I can eat and drink and fornicate only the best, and be warm while my father buys me hirazamurai status, or at least goshi—not just a stinking pissed-on ashigaru.”

“Dreamer! You’ll be reborn a landless peasant, or a bending toy boy in a tenth-rank brothel. Close the barrier.”

“It’s not dark yet.”

“Let any stragglers freeze or pay the usual.”

“If the captain hears you, you will find yourself in the North Island where they say your cock freezes when you try to piss.” The guard looked down the road that curled away to Kyōto, now empty, with a darkening, ominous sky above. A squall tugged at their straw over-mantles. “Hurry up, oaf,” he called out impatiently at the last man, a half-naked porter staggering past with his heavy load. He lowered the first bar, his face chapped by the wind, and then the second bar, making the barrier firm, and turned away for shelter and hot soup.

“Hey, look there!” A phalanx of riders had trotted into view around the far corner. “Open the bars!”

“Let them wait. They’re late.” The guard used the back of his hand to clean away a persistent nose dribble, squinting against the squall. With the other guards he scanned the riders, thirty or forty he estimated, too tired to count. No banners, so unimportant. Travel-stained, their ponies lathered. They rode in a cluster around two women. The women rode astride, and wore heavy clothes and large hats with veils tied under their chins. He laughed to himself. They’ll never get rooms tonight, nor sleep snug, not with the village full. Piss on them.

As they arrived, Captain Abeh in the lead called out, “Hey there, open up!”