Gai-Jin (124 page)

Now, sitting there, he felt the odd fly on his back and face. They did not offend him.

Quickly he was done. The rice paper was of good quality. Feeling very alive and well, he held out his hands for the servant to pour water over
them. When his hands were clean, he doused water from another container onto his face, shivered, accepted a small towel and dried himself, stepped back onto the veranda and consciously opened his senses.

Around him the Inn was stirring, the few ponies being saddled and groomed, men, women, children, porters already eating and chatting noisily, or leaving for the next stage of their journey, to or from Kyōto. In the common area near the entrance gate, Abeh was checking men and equipment. When he saw Yoshi he joined him.

Because people were about he did not bow, finding that very hard. His uniform was smart and he was refreshed. “Good morning.” He just managed to bite back the “sir.” “We are ready to leave whenever it pleases you.”

“After breakfast. Arrange a palanquin for Lady Koiko.”

“At once. For ponies, or porters?”

“Ponies.” Yoshi strolled back to his quarters and told Koiko she would not be riding today, that he would see how much progress they made and then, tonight, he would decide. Sumomo would ride as usual.

By evening they barely made two stations.

Yoshi chose the Inn of the Cranes for the night, neither the best nor the worst in the village of Hamamatsu—a pleasing collection of houses and Inns straddling the Tokaidō, renowned for its saké, where the road curled down towards the sea.

After eating alone as usual, Yoshi went to join Koiko—if they ate together invariably, by custom, she would take almost nothing, having intentionally eaten beforehand so she could concentrate on his needs. Tonight it was his pleasure to play a game of
Go
. This was a complex game of strategy, played with counters and similar to draughts.

Both of them were good players, but Koiko was a virtuoso, so much so that she could, almost always, win or lose at whim. This made the game doubly difficult for her. He had ordered her never to lose deliberately, but he himself was a bad loser. If she won on a wrong day he would sulk. A win for him on one of his bad days would get him out of any ill humor.

Tonight he won. Narrowly. “Oh, Sire, you’ve destroyed me!” she said. “And I thought I had you beaten!” They were in her inner room, sitting with their legs in the small pit under the low table with a tiny charcoal brazier in it, and a thick padded cloth over the table tucked around them to keep drafts out and the heat in. “Are you warm enough?”

“Yes, thank you, Koiko. How are your aches and pains?”

“Oh, I have none. The masseuse was very good tonight.” She called out, “Sumomo, saké and tea, please.”

In the outer room Sumomo fetched the flask and teapot from another
brazier, opened the shoji, and brought them in. She served both well and Koiko nodded with satisfaction.

He said, “Have you learned the tea ceremony, Sumomo?”

“Yes, Sire,” Sumomo said, “but—but I am afraid I am sadly lacking in skill.”

“Lord Yoshi is a master,” Koiko said, and sipped the saké, glad for it. Her rump and back ached from the day’s jolting in the palanquin, her thighs from the two days of riding, and her head from the effort of losing while appearing to covet victory. All of which she hid, and the fact that her spirits were down over the lack of progress today. Clearly this had disappointed him. But then, she thought, we both knew another forced march was not possible. He must go on and I will follow. It will be good to be without him for a while. This life is wearing, however wonderful he is.

They drank peacefully. Then he said, “Tomorrow, early, I will go on with thirty men, leaving ten with you, Abeh in charge. You will follow me to Yedo leisurely.”

“Of course. With your permission, may I follow as quickly as possible?”

He smiled. “That would please me, but only as long as you arrive not aching, either in body or in spirit.”

“Even if I was, your smile would instantly cure me. Another game?”

“Yes, but not
Go!”

She laughed. “Then I must make some preparations.” She got up and went to the outer room, closing the shoji after her. He heard her talking to Sumomo but paid them no attention, his mind occupied with tomorrow, Yedo and gai-jin.

Their voices died away as they went out. He finished his saké, enjoying it, then walked into the innermost room where the futons and padded coverlets were spread over impeccable tatami. Winter landscapes and colors were the dominant decorations. He took off his padded yukata, shivered, and slipped under the eiderdown.

When Koiko returned he heard her pottering in the outer room, then she came in and she went straight to the bathroom where there were containers for the night, should they be needed, jugs of water to drink, and others for washing. “I sent Sumomo to sleep in another room tonight,” she called out to him, “and asked Abeh to post a guard outside with orders not to disturb you till dawn.”

“Why did you do that?”

She came back into the room. “This is our last night for a time—I mentioned to him I would not be travelling with you tomorrow—and I wanted you totally to myself.” Leisurely she stepped out of her kimono and snuggled beside him.

Though he had seen her naked many times, and felt her touch many
times, and slept with her many times, tonight was many times better than it had ever been.

In the palace in Kyōto, one of the Lord Chancellor’s spies knocked on his bedroom door, waking him, and handed him the carrier pigeon message container. “This has just been intercepted, Lord.”

The tiny cylinder was addressed to Chief Bakufu Palace Advisor, Saito, and bore the personal seal
of Tairō
Nori Anjo. He hesitated, then broke the seal with a manicured nail.

Anjo had sent the message at dawn:

The Lord Chancellor thought a while, smugly decided Saito would be overruled and the Emperor advised never to sign a mobilization order. With great care he replaced the message and resealed the tube with his secret duplicate seal.

“Put it back, make sure it is delivered,” he said, and when alone, he chuckled. War! Good. Anjo was the perfect choice for
tairō
. They will all drown in their own urine, along with all gai-jin, and Yoshi, all of them.

Except the Princess. She will stay, to become a widow—the sooner the better.

MONDAY, 8TH DECEMBER
:

Sumomo awoke well before first light. Her dreams had been bad. She was no longer on the Tokaidō with Koiko and Lord Yoshi but back in Kyōto, chased by Bakufu soldiers led by Abeh into the trap of the burning shishi house, screams everywhere, blood everywhere, guns firing, in panic squeezing down into the narrow tunnel after Takeda and Katsumata, the
hole barely big enough, crawling after them, the sides encroaching, scraping her and becoming narrower. Not enough air to breathe, filled with dust. Takeda’s feet ahead as he wriggled onward, gasping, someone or something just behind her, then Takeda becoming Yoshi, kicking at her, stopping her then vanishing—with nothing up ahead but an earth coffin.

When her heart slowed and eyes could focus in the shaded light of the oil flame, she saw one of the guards watching her from his futons next to hers. Last night she had accompanied Koiko to talk to Abeh and he had told her to sleep in this communal room, plenty of space for her to one side—a perfectly satisfactory arrangement. Four guards were using it, two sleeping and two on duty. There she had made a bed, not easily to sleep, her mind in turmoil for she had overheard Yoshi telling Koiko they would not travel onward with him, and overheard Koiko saying to Abeh, “Lord Yoshi has decided from tomorrow I, and my party, will follow leisurely.”

“What arrangements does he want made, Lady?”

“I believe he said he wants to leave you and ten men to guide me to Yedo, so sorry to be a problem.”

“It is no problem for me, Lady, so long as he is safe.”

Safe, and out of reach, Sumomo had thought, dismayed by the change in plan. So much could go wrong between now and Yedo.

Eventually she had slept. To dream. Normally she did not dream. Last thing at night and in the morning she would always say a prayer,
Namu Amida Butsu
, just the name of the Buddha Amida, which was enough if there was a god to pray to. Last night she had forgotten. Now, silently, she said the words, and closed her eyes.

In moments she was again in the shishi hut.

That had been the worst experience of her life, the attack without warning, gunfire through the walls and in the same instant the head of the youth beside her exploded, no time for the lad even to shout but others did, partly in panic, partly in agony as random bullets poured at them, Katsumata paralyzed for a moment, then directing the defense, ordering some to charge out the front, others the back. Both charges driven back, she not knowing where to hide, knowing all was lost, fire beginning and more screams and more blood and this the end,
Namu Amida Butsu, Namu Amida Butsu
, then hands grabbing her roughly, shoving her down into the hole after the escaping Takeda—who, raving, had dragged another man out of the way, as Katsumata had torn someone else away—as her savior shishi, whose face she never saw, was murdered in his turn and a fight ensued that blocked the escape until it was too late.

Somehow out of that hate-filled darkness into the open air. Fleeing, their panic run going on and on until, chests bursting, Katsumata led them tortuously to his haven of last resort. Iwakura’s back door.

Immediately a council of war with the shishi there. “I suggest we scatter for the time being,” Katsumata had said. “We’ll regroup and meet in the spring, third or fourth month. In the spring we will start a new offensive.”

“Why wait?” someone asked.

“Because we’re betrayed, because there’s a spy in our midst, or amongst our patrons.
We are betrayed
. We must conserve and scatter.”

And so they had. “Sumomo, you’ll go to Koiko …”

But before that her disorientation had been vast, unaccountable tears, rushing heartbeat, too easily in panic. “It will pass, Sumomo,” Katsumata had said.

Again he had been right. He had given her a draft that had made her sleep, and calmed her. By the time she saw Koiko she was like before, almost but not quite. “When you feel the fear returning, just take a little sip of the medicine,” he had said. “In a week or two you will be perfect again. Always remember,
sonno-joi
needs you perfect…. ”

She came out of her reverie, sweating again, the fear coming on again. It was still night. Her fingers reached for her bundle beside her head that held the small bottle. But the bundle was not there. She had not brought it with her when she had changed rooms. Never mind, she thought, I do not need it, I can do without it.

She repeated that several times, twisting in her bed, the quilts damp and clammy around her. Then she noticed the guard still watching her.

“Bad dreams,
neh?”
he whispered, his voice kind.

She nodded silently.

“I could give you good dreams.” He moved his quilt aside, invitingly. She shook her head. He shrugged and turned over and forgot her, considering her stupid to reject such pleasure. Not offended she turned her back too, just a little amused. Her hand moved to her obi knife in its sheath at her waist. Its touch gave her the peace she needed. A last
Namu Amida Butsu
.

She closed her eyes and slept without dreams.

Koiko was pleasantly awake. It was not quite dawn. Yoshi slept peacefully beside her. It was nice to lie there, drifting, knowing she would not have to endure another day’s discomfort in a palanquin, being bumped from side to side, because of unseemly haste. And also because her night had been tranquil. Yoshi had slept solidly. Occasionally a small snoring snuffle would tweak him but that did not disturb her. “Train your ears, Ladies,” the retired courtesan would cackle toothlessly and endlessly to all
maiko
in the school, “your working life will be spent with old men. All men snore, but old men really snore, but old men really pay—the young ones take your flowers and snore anyway.”

Of all the men she had slept with, Yoshi was the most serene while
asleep. Awake he was the most difficult. To stay ahead of. To satisfy. Not physically. Physically he was strong and practiced and as much as she was trained to be uninvolved within an embrace, he would guide her so she too, most evenings, would gain the sheen of pleasure.

Katsumata was more of a magician. He caressed her imagination and thoughts, stimulating her beyond anything she could have imagined. He was delighted when she mastered a new skill—like training her ears to hear underspoken words: “That is where the golden knowledge is, the important parts, signs of danger, of safety, of what is within the secret heart within the secret heart. Remember, all of us here, men and women, have three hearts, one for all the world to see, one for their family, and one for themselves alone. Certain men have six hearts. Yoshi is one of these. He is your goal, the one for whom you must be the foil.”

She chuckled to herself, remembering how she had said that Lord Yoshi was completely beyond reach and Katsumata had smiled that smile of his and told her to be patient, “You have time enough. You are eighteen, there is not much more I can teach you. You must begin to expand yourself. Like every serious student, follow the most important law for all students: repay your teacher by making it your duty to surpass him! Be patient, Koiko, at the correct time your mama-san and I will ensure the Lord Yoshi becomes aware of you …”