Gai-Jin (130 page)

“Perhaps I could bring it down to three koku.”

“Half a koku would perhaps be possible.”

Hiraga cursed himself. He had forgotten the Mukfey Golden Rule One, as he called it: “When negotiating be patient. You can always come down but never go back up, and never be afraid to laugh or cry or scream or pretend to leave.”

“Asking ten, I doubt if Mukfey would reduce below three.”

“A half is already very high.”

If he had had a sword he would have gripped the hilt and snarled, “Three or I will have your dirty head.” Instead he nodded sadly. “Yes, you are right.” He began to get up.

“Perhaps my masters would agree to one.”

Now he was almost at the door. “So sorry, shoya, I would lose face to try to bargain so cheaply an—”

“Three.” The shoya was flushed.

Hiraga sat down again. It took him a little while to adjust to the new world. He said, “I will try to make it three. These are hard times. I have just heard there is famine in my village in Choshu. Terrible,
neh?”

He saw the shoya’s eyes narrow. “Yes, Otami-sama. Soon there will be famine everywhere, even here.”

Hiraga nodded. “Yes,” he said, and waited, allowing the silence to thicken. Mukfey had explained the value of silence in negotiating, that a closed mouth at the right time unnerves your opponent—for negotiation is a fight like any other—and snares concessions you would never dream of asking.

The shoya knew he was trapped but had not decided on the extent of the trap, nor the price he would pay. Thus far the information he had been given was worth ten times that amount. But be cautious … this man is dangerous, this Hiraga Otami-sama learns too fast, he may or may not be telling the truth, may or may not be a liar. Even so, better to have a cunning samurai with you than against you. “In bad times, friends should help friends. It might be that the Gyokoyama could arrange a little credit to help. As I mentioned before, Otami-sama, your father and family are respected and valued clients.”

Hiraga bit back the angry words he would normally have spat out at being so openly patronized. “That would be too much to expect,” he said, feeling his way in this new world of profit and loss—one person’s profit is another’s loss, Mukfey had explained many times. “Anything the great Gyokoyama could do would be appreciated. But speed is very important, could I be assured they would understand? Yes?”

“It would be at once. I will arrange it.”

“Thank you, and perhaps they would consider along with a
substantial
credit, perhaps also an outright grant, a fee, of say one koku …” He saw the eyes flash with anger, which was quickly hidden, and wondered if he had gone too far. “For services rendered by the family.”

Another silence. Then the shoya said, “In the past … and in the future.”

Hiraga’s eyes became as cold as the shoya’s, though, like him, his mouth smiled. And, still in the new world, he did not take out the small revolver he always carried now and blow a hole in him for his rudeness. “Of course.” Then he added sweetly, “Until the day after tomorrow,
neh?”

The shoya nodded and bowed. “Until then, Otami-sama.”

Once more outside and hidden by the night, Hiraga allowed his triumph to soar with his soul. One whole koku and credits and now how to exchange the three koku that the Mukfey gai-jin had not asked for, nor needed, into real rice, or real money, that he also could send to his father?

So much for so little, he thought, elated, and at the same time feeling soiled, in need of a bath.

“Ah, Admiral,” Malcolm Struan said, “a private word?”

“Certainly, sir.” Admiral Ketterer clambered to his feet, one of the twenty guests still at the table in the Struan great room, grouped around their port that Angelique had left them to. Ketterer was in evening uniform, breeches, white silk stockings and silver-buckled shoes, more florid than usual, having enjoyed a mulligatawny soup, barbecued fish, a double helping of the roast beef and Yorkshire pudding with potatoes roasted in the dripping and vegetables imported from California, chicken and pheasant pie, a few fried pork sausages, followed by Californian dried-apple pie with a lavish portion of the now famous Noble House cream, and to top everything off, a Welsh rarebit savory. Champagne, sherry, claret—a Château Lafite 1837, the year Queen Victoria came to the Throne—port and Madeira. “I could use a breath of air,” Ketterer said.

Malcolm led the way to the side French doors, the good food and wine dulling the pain. Outside it was brisk, but after the stuffy inside refreshing. “Cigar?”

“Thank you.”

Number One Boy Chen was hovering in the background with the box. After the cigars were lit he vanished in the smoke.

“You saw my letter in today’s
Guardian
, sir?”

“Yes, yes, I did, much of it well put,” Ketterer said.

Malcolm smiled. “If the hornet’s nest of protests it stirred at the meeting this afternoon is any indication it put your point over rather well.”

“My point? Damn, I do hope it’s yours as well.”

“Yes, of course, of course. Tomorrow—”

Ketterer interrupted sharply, “I was rather hoping, since you share a perfectly correct and moral position, a man of your undoubted power and influence would, at the very least, have formally led the way and outlawed all contraband on all Struan ships, and have done with it.”

“All contraband is already proscribed, Admiral,” Malcolm said. “‘Slowly, slowly catchee monkey’ is the way to go. In a month or two we’ll be in the majority.”

The Admiral just raised his thick eyebrows and puffed his cigar and turned his attention to the sea. The fleet looked grand under riding lights.
“Looks as though there could be a storm tonight, or tomorrow. Not the sort of weather for a joy ride, for a lady, I would think.”

Anxiously Malcolm looked up at the sky and sniffed the wind. No danger signs. As tomorrow’s weather was a major concern he had gone to great lengths to check it. To his joy, as for the last few days the forecast had been for smooth seas and fair wind. Marlowe had confirmed it before dinner, and although he did not yet have final sailing approval—or was party to the real reason for Malcolm’s need to be aboard with Angelique—as far as he was concerned their trip was on.

“Is that your forecast, Admiral?” Malcolm asked.

“My weather expert, Mr. Struan. He advised cancelling any trials tomorrow. Better to spend the time preparing to stand off Yedo. Eh?” Ketterer added with thin joviality.

“I’m against flattening Yedo,” Malcolm said absently, his mind on this new and unexpected problem—the Admiral’s snide refusal to accept his letter that he had been confident would be more than sufficient.

Everything’s perfect except for this bugger, he thought, curbing his anger, trying to think of a way out of the dilemma.
Prancing Cloud
had arrived on schedule and was in the roads off-loading cargo, Captain Strongbow already apprised of the new secret orders for Wednesday’s new departure time, and Edward Gornt equally primed to pass over the Brock information as soon as the duel was over.

“I’m also opposed,” the Admiral was saying. “We’ve no formal orders for war. I’m curious what your reasons are.”

“Using a hammer to kill a hornet is not only foolish but can give you piles.”

Ketterer laughed. “Damn, that’s a good one, Struan. Piles, eh? More of your Chinaman philosophy, eh?”

“No, sir. Dickens.” He eased his back and leaned again on his sticks. “It would please me, sir, and Angelique, to be aboard
Pearl
, with Captain Marlowe, and out of sight of land tomorrow, for a short time.” Heavenly had advised that as the precedent he was using, the marriage of Malcolm’s parents, took place between Macao and Hong Kong out of sight of land, for safety he should do the same. “With your blessing, of course.”

“It would please me to see the Noble House take the lead in the Japans. Clearly you don’t have enough time. I suggest ten days would be enough for practical steps. I believe
Pearl
and Marlowe are needed for fleet matters tomorrow.” Ketterer turned to go.

“Wait,” Malcolm said, panic rising, “say I make an announcement right now, to everyone here, that we’re … that we’re stopping all arms shipments into Japan from now on. Would that satisfy you?”

“The point is would it satisfy you?” the Admiral said, enjoying seeing
the man who represented everything he despised wriggling on the barb. “Would it?”

“What … what is it, sir, that I can do, or say?”

“It’s not up to me to run your ‘business.’” The way Ketterer used the word, laced with scorn, made it a dirty word. “It would seem to me what’s good for the Japans is good for China. If you outlaw guns here, why not do the same in China for all your ships—the same with opium?”

“I can’t do that,” Malcolm said. “It would put us out of business, opium’s not against the law and both are legal—”

“Interesting.” Again the word was heavy with sarcasm. “I really must thank you for a fine dinner, as usual, Mr. Struan. If you’ll excuse me, I have lots to do tomorrow.”

“Wait!” Malcolm said shakily. “Please, please help me, tomorrow’s terribly important to me, I swear I’ll support you in everything, I’ll lead the way but please help me about tomorrow. Please.”

Admiral Ketterer pursed his lips, ready to terminate this pointless conversation. That’s what it is, though there’s no doubt I could use support amongst these rotten bastards, if even a tenth of the slanders rumored at their bloody meeting are true. I suppose this one isn’t so bad, if he could be trusted—compared to the others, compared to that monster Greyforth. “When’s your duel?”

Malcolm was going to answer truthfully but stopped himself. “I’ll answer that if you like, sir, and I remember what you said about duelling, but in matters of honor my family have been very serious for at least two generations and I don’t want to be lacking. It’s a tradition, like the Navy, I suppose. Much of the magic of the Royal Navy has to do with that, tradition and honor, doesn’t it?”

“Without it the Royal Navy would not be the Royal Navy.” Ketterer took another deep puff of the cigar. At least the young bugger understands, by God, though that doesn’t tip the scales. The truth is the poor fool’s mother is quite right to disapprove the marriage—the girl’s pretty enough but hardly the right choice, bad blood line, typically French. I’m doing him a favor.

Are you?

Remember Consuela di Mardos Perez of Cádiz?

He had first met her when he was a midshipman on
Royal Sovereign
during courtesy calls at the port. Ultimately the Admiralty had refused him permission to marry, his father had been equally opposed and when, at length, he had won both their consents and rushed back to claim her, she was already betrothed. She was Catholic too, he thought sadly, still loving her after all this time.

Catholic, that sent everyone mad, like Struan’s mother, I’ll wager. As if it matters, though Consuela’s family was good where this girl’s isn’t. Yes, I
still love her. After her, no one. Never wanted to marry, not after losing her, somehow couldn’t. Still, that let me put everything into the Navy, so life hasn’t been a total sodding loss.

Has it?

“I’m going to have another port,” he said. “That will take ten to fifteen minutes. What can you do to lead the way in ten or fifteen minutes, eh?”

Gornt hurried down the steps of Struan’s into the night, following other guests leaving the party in animated conversation, bundled up and holding their hats against the wind. Servants were waiting with lamps to guide some of them home. After a polite but hasty good night, he went next door to Brock’s. The guard, a tall turbanned Sikh, saluted, stared at him as he rushed up the stairs two at a time to knock on Norbert Greyforth’s door.

“Who is it?”

“Me, suh, Edward. Sorry, it’s important.”

There was a sour grumble. Then the bolt jerked back. Norbert’s hair was tousled. He wore a nightshirt, nightcap and bed socks. “What the hell is it?”

“Struan. He’s just announced from here on he’s committing the Noble House to embargo all guns and all opium in Japan and ordering the same in all Asia and the China trade.”

“What’s this, a joke?”

“No joke, Mr. Greyforth, suh. It was at the party—that’s what he said in front of everyone a moment ago, Sir William, most of the Foreign Ambassadors, the Admiral, Dmitri—Struan’s exact words, suh: ‘I want to make a formal statement. Following my
Guardian
letter today, I’ve decided no guns or opium will be carried by our ships or traded by Struan’s from now on, here or in China.’”

Norbert began to laugh. “Come in, this calls for a celebration. He’s put Struan’s out of business. And made us Noble House.” He stuck his head into the corridor and shouted for his Number One Boy, “Lee! Champagne, chop chop! Come in, Edward, and close the door, it’s drafty and cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey.” He turned up the oil lamp. His bedroom was large with a vast four-poster, the floor carpeted, oils on the walls of Brock clipper ships—their fleet smaller than Struan’s but their steamer fleet almost twice as large. Some of the paintings were fire damaged and the ceiling, too, was not yet completely repaired. Books were piled on the side tables and another opened on the bed.

“The poor bastard’s really gone.” Norbert chuckled. “First thing we do
is to cancel the duel, got to keep him alive. Now this is wh—” His smile vanished. “Wait a minute, what am I talking about? It’s all a storm in a pisspot, he’s no more tai-pan of Struan’s than I am. You’re the fool, whatever he says means nothing and much as his Bible-thumping mother would like to do the same, she’d never agree, couldn’t, it’d ruin them.”

Gornt smiled. “I disagree.”

Norbert glanced at him sharply. “Eh?”

“She’ll agree.”

“Oh? Why?”

“Secret.”

“What sort of secret?” Norbert glanced at the door as it opened. Lee, an elderly Cantonese with a long, thick queue, wearing neat livery—white jacket, black trousers—waddled in with glasses, champagne in an ice bucket, a neat towel over his arm. In moments two glasses were served. When the door had closed, Norbert raised his glass. “Health, and death to all Struans. What secret?”