Gai-Jin (161 page)

“This is to remind you of your oath, my son: that you will carry this blade with honor, that you will use only this blade to commit seppuku, that you will only commit seppuku to avoid capture on a battlefield, or if the Shōgun orders it and the Council of Elders confirms the order unanimously. All other reasons are insufficient while the Shōgunate is in jeopardy.”

A terrible sentence, he thought, and lay back on his bed, safe for the moment in this room high up in his castle quarters where he had had so much pleasure. His eyes went back to the short sword. Today his need was very great. In his imagination he had rehearsed the act so many times that it would be so smooth and kind and releasing. Soon Anjo will send men to arrest me and that will be my excuse …

His sharp ears heard footsteps. Marching feet. His hands took up the short sword and the long sword and he was in defend-attack position.

“Sire?”

He recognized Abeh’s voice. That did not mean safety, Abeh could have a knife at his throat or Abeh could be a traitor—after Koiko everyone was suspect. “What is it?”

“The man Inejin begs to see you.”

“Have you searched him?”

“Seriously.”

Yoshi used the rope he had had rigged, allowing him to slide back the bolt on the reinforced door without moving.

Inejin, Abeh and four samurai waited there. He relaxed. “Come in, Inejin.” Abeh and the others of his personal guard started to follow. “There’s no need, but stay within calling.”

His spymaster came in and closed the door, noticed the bolt arrangement but did not comment, and knelt ten paces away.

“You’ve found Katsumata?”

“He will be in Yedo within three days, Sire. His first place of calling will be the House of Wisteria.”

“That den of scorpions?” Yoshi had not closed the trap on mama-san Meikin to learn the real extent of the plot against him before taking vengeance—vengeance best savored calmly. And he did not yet feel calm. “Could we take him alive?”

Inejin smiled strangely. “I doubt it, but may I tell the story in my own way, Sire?” He settled his aching knee more comfortably. “First about the gai-jin: a development hoped for and encouraged since the beginning has happened. A gai-jin spy has offered their battle plans for money.”

His attention soared. “Not false ones?”

“I do not know, Sire, but it was whispered they contained troop and ship movements. The price was modest, even so the Bakufu official did not buy at once and began to haggle and the seller became frightened. With Anjo at the head …” The cracked leather lips twisted with disgust at the name.
“He’s baka, unworthy!—
if the head is rotten the body is worse.”

“I agree. Stupid.”

Inejin nodded. “They forgot Sun-tzu again, Sire:
To remain in ignorance of the enemy’s condition, begrudging the outlay of a few hundred ounces of silver is the height of inhumanity
. Fortunately an informant whispered about it to me.” Inejin took a scroll from his sleeve and put it on the table. Yoshi sighed, pleased.
“So ka!”

“With the help of my informant, I bought it for you, a gift, Sire. Also at great risk to my informant, I substituted a false scroll the Bakufu eventually will buy cheaply.”

Yoshi did not touch the scroll, only looked at it with anticipation. “Please allow me to reimburse you,” he said. Inejin covered his vast relief, for he had had to pledge their Inn to the Gyokoyama to obtain the money. “See my cashier today. Is the information to be trusted?”

Inejin shrugged. Both knew another of Sun-tzu’s precepts:
An inside spy is the most dangerous, one who sells secrets for money. It takes a man of genius to penetrate such
. “My informant swears that the information is to be trusted and also the spy.”

“And it says?”

“The gai-jin plan is frighteningly simple. On Battle Day, ten days after their ultimatum is delivered—if not complied with—their whole fleet moves against Yedo. The first day the attack area is farthest from the coast, Sire, the extreme range of their heaviest cannon, designed to pulverize all bridges and roads leading out of Yedo—these are pinpointed, more knowledge given them no doubt by the traitor Hiraga. That night, by the light of the fires they have begun, they bombard the castle. The next day the coastal areas are decimated. On the third day they will land a thousand rifle soldiers and drive for the castle gates. There they will mount siege mortars and smash the gates and bridges and as much of the castle as they can. On the fifth day they retreat and sail away.”

“To Yokohama?”

“No, Sire. The plan says they will evacuate all gai-jin the day before Battle Day and retreat to Hong Kong until the spring. Then they will come back in force. The cost of the war—as with their Chinese wars, and is their custom—will be doubled, and demanded as reparations from the Shōgunate and the Emperor
as well as complete access to all Nippon, including Kyōto
and an island ceded in perpetuity, to cease hostilities.”

Yoshi felt a chill. If these barbarians could humble all China, Mother of the World, eventually they would humble us, even us.
Complete access?
“This ultimatum? What further impertinence is this?”

“It’s not in the scroll. Sire, but the spy promised details, as well as the Battle Date and any changes.”

“Whatever the cost, buy them—if true these could make a difference in the outcome.”

“Possibly, Sire. Part of the information is about gai-jin counter-measures. Against our fire ships.”

“But Anjo told me they are secret!”

“It’s not secret to them. The Bakufu is a rice sieve for the interested, as well as corrupt, Sire.”

“Names, Inejin, and I’ll spike them.”

“Begin today, Sire. Begin at the top.”

“That’s treason.”

“But the truth, Sire. You enjoy truths, not lies, unlike any leader I have ever known.” Inejin moved his knees, the ache intolerable. “The matter of this spy is complicated, Sire. It was Meikin who told me about him …” Yoshi grunted. “Yes, I agree. But Meikin told me, Meikin who diverted the intermediary from the Bakufu to me, Meikin who will substitute the false document, at great danger, for she must attest to its truth, Meikin who desperately wishes to prove her loyalty to you.”

“Loyalty? When her House is a sanctuary for shishi, a meeting place for Katsumata, a training bed for traitors?”

“Meikin swears the Lady was never part of a plot against you, never. Nor was she.”

“What else can she say—the maid was, eh?”

“Perhaps she speaks the truth, perhaps not, but perhaps, because of her grief, she now sees the error of her past, Sire. A converted spy can be most valuable.”

“Katsumata’s head would make me more sure. If caught alive, more so.”

Inejin laughed and bent forward and dropped his voice. “I suggested she should quickly provide you with details about the traitor Hiraga before you request his head.”

“And hers.”

“A woman’s head on a spike is not a pretty thing, Sire, old or young.
That is an ancient truth. Better to leave it on her shoulders and use the venom, wisdom, cunning or simple rottenness that such a woman possesses to your advantage.”

“How?”

“First by giving you Katsumata. Hiraga is a more complex problem. She says he is the intimate of an important Ing’erish official close to the Ing’erish Leader, named Taira.”

Yoshi frowned. Another omen? Taira was another Japanese name of significance, an ancient regal family related to the Yoshi Serata line. “So?”

“This Taira is an official, an interpreter-in-training. His Japanese is already very good—the Ing’erish must have a school like the one you proposed and the Bakufu ‘consider.’”

“Consider, eh? Taira? Is he an ugly young man, tall with blue eyes, huge nose and long hair like rice straw?”

“Yes, yes, that would be him.”

“I remember him from the meeting of Elders. Go on.”

“Meikin has heard his grasp of our language improves rapidly, helped by a whore called Fujiko, but more because of this Hiraga, who has cut his hair in gai-jin style, wears gai-jin clothes.” The old man hesitated, loving the telling of secrets. “It seems this Hiraga is the grandson of an important Choshu shoya who was permitted to purchase goshi status for his sons, one of whom, this Hiraga’s father, is now hirazamurai. Hiraga was chosen to join a secret Choshu school where, as an exceptional student, he learned Ing’erish.” He suppressed a smile, seeing his Lord’s face.

“Then the spy is not gai-jin, but this Hiraga?”

“No, Sire, but Hiraga could be a serious secondary source of intelligence. If he could be tapped.”

“A shishi helping us?” Yoshi scoffed. “Impossible.”

“Your meeting yesterday, aboard the Furansu ship. It was profitable, Sire?”

“It was interesting.” Impossible to keep those ventures secret. He was glad Inejin was so well informed so quickly. Abeh and half a dozen of his men had been present at the meeting. Who had spoken in their cups? It didn’t matter. It was to be expected. Nothing compromising was said by him.

“Abeh!” he called out.

“Sire?”

“Send a maid with tea and saké.” He said nothing more until it had been served and accepted gratefully by Inejin, sifting the information, sorting it and coming up with new questions and answers. “What do you propose?”

“It would not be for me to propose what you have already surely decided,
Sire. But it did occur to me, when and if the Ing’erish Leader sends his ultimatum, you alone would be the perfect person to mediate—alone, Sire.”

“Ah! And then?”

“Amongst other things you could ask to see this Hiraga. You could weigh him, perhaps persuade him to be on your side. Turn him to your advantage. The timing could be perfect.”

“That could be possible, Inejin,” he said, already having discarded that for a much better thought, one that fitted the plan he had discussed with Ogama in Kyōto, and his own need to begin the grand design. “Or an example might be made of this Hiraga. Catch Katsumata, he’s the head of the shishi snake—if Meikin is the means to deliver him alive, so much the better for her.”

A few miles away on the Tokaidō Road, at the Hodogaya way station, Katsumata scrutinized the crowds from a Teahouse window. “Be patient, Takeda,” he said, “Hiraga is not due till midmorning. Be patient.”

“I hate this place,” Takeda said. The village was in open country with few places to hide and barely three miles from the Yokohama Settlement. They were in the Teahouse of the First Moon, the same that Katsumata and daimyo Sanjiro had stayed at after Ori and Shorin had attacked the gai-jin on the Tokaidō. “And if he does not arrive?” The youth scratched his head irritably, neither his chin nor his pate shaven since their escape from Kyōto and now covered with stubbled hair.

“He will arrive, if not today, tomorrow. I must see him.”

The two men had been hiding here for a week. Their journey from Kyōto had been arduous, with many narrow escapes. “Sensei, I do not like this place or the change of plan. We should be in Yedo if we’re to carry on the fight, or perhaps we should turn around and go home.”

“If you want to go on, go. If you want to walk back to Choshu, go,” Katsumata said. “The next time you complain you are ordered to leave!”

Takeda apologized at once, adding, “It’s just that we lost so many men in Kyōto, we do not even know how shishi have fared in Yedo. So sorry, yes, but I keep thinking we should have gone home like those who survived, me to Choshu, you to Satsuma, to regroup later.”

“Hodogaya’s perfect for us and this Inn is safe.” Warned that Yoshi had put a heavy price on his head, Katsumata had decided to be prudent and not continue. “Tomorrow or the next day we’ll go on,” he said, glad for the youth’s value as a shield to his back. “First Hiraga.”

It had been difficult and dangerous to contact him. Few people here had access through the Yokohama barriers, or to the gai-jin Yoshiwara. New
passes were continually being issued, new passwords. Enforcer patrols wandered at large. Covert pockets of samurai swarmed around Yokohama, almost cutting it off from the rest of the land.

Then three days ago Katsumata had found a maid whose sister was a midwife who went to the Yoshiwara from time to time. For a golden oban the midwife agreed to carry a message to the mama-san at the House of the Three Carp.

“Takeda, stay here and keep watch. Wait patiently.”

Katsumata went down into the garden and strode through the front gates onto the Tokaidō, bustling with morning travellers, palanquins, porters, soothsayers, scribes, samurai, and some ponies carrying women or ridden by samurai. Talking, shouting, screeching. The morning was cold and everyone wore padded jackets and warm head scarves or hats. A few samurai eyed Katsumata but not rudely. The way he walked, the filthy thatch of hair and beard, the long sword in a back scabbard, another in his belt, shouted caution to the inquisitive. Clearly he was a ronin of some kind and to be avoided.

On the outskirts of the village, inside the well-guarded barrier, where he had a good field of view towards the sea and Yokohama, he sat on a bench at a roadside eating stall.

“Tea, and make it fresh and see that it’s hot.”

The frightened stall owner rushed to obey.

At the Settlement, a group of mounted traders clattered over the bridge, raised their hats politely or saluted the North Gate guards with their riding crops in return for perfunctory bows. Other traders, tradesmen, soldiers, sailors, Drunk Town riffraff were on foot, all of them on a holiday morning outing. Today was New Year’s Day. Horseraces were scheduled for this afternoon and then, later, an interservice football match. It was cold though fine, the wind slight but sufficient to take most of the smell of winter and decaying seaweed and human waste further inland.

One of the riders was Jamie McFay. Close beside him was Hiraga, a scarf covering most of his face, his riding cap down over his eyes, his riding clothes well cut. This outing was not approved or even known to Tyrer or Sir William, the gift in return for interpreting between Jamie and the shoya, and also for providing him with business information.

Yesterday Hiraga had said, “I answer more question during ride, Jami-sama. Need go, to go Hodogaya, meet cousin. P’rease?”