James Clavell - Gai-Jin

"Eeee, Ori, it is a good idea and possible," Hiraga said thoughtfully, "if you are patient and choose the perfect moment. Such weapons could be valuable on some operations.

Personally, guns disgust me--garrote, sword or knife please me better--safer, silent, and much more frightening, whoever the target-- daimyo or barbarian. I'll help. I can give you a plan of the grounds and ninja clothes."

Ori and Shorin brightened. "You can get them for us?"' "Of course." Ninja were a highly secret tong of expertly trained assassins who operated almost exclusively at night, their special black clothes helping to fuel the legend of their invisibility. "At one time we were going to burn the Legation building." Hiraga laughed and emptied another flask of sak`e, the warmed wine making his tongue looser than normal. "But we decided not to, that it was more valuable to keep it under observation. Often I've gone there disguised as a gardener or at night as a ninja--it's surprising what you can learn, even with simple English."

"Eeee, Hiraga-san, we never knew you could speak English," Ori said, astounded by the revelation. "Where did you learn it?"' "Where else can you learn gai-jin qualities if not from gai-jin? He was a Dutchman from Deshima, a linguist who spoke Japanese, Dutch and English. My grandfather wrote a petition to our daimyo suggesting that one such man should be allowed to come to Shimonoseki, at their cost, to teach Dutch and English for an experimental one year, trade would come afterwards.

Thank you," Hiraga said as Ori politely refilled his cup. "Gai-jin are all so gullible--but such foul money worshippers. This is the sixth year of the "experiment" and we still only trade for what we want, when we can afford them-- guns, cannon, ammunition, shot and certain books."

"How is your revered grandfather?"' "In very good health. Thank you for asking."

Hiraga bowed in appreciation. Their bow in return was lower.

How wonderful to have such a grandfather, Ori thought, such a protection for all your generations--not like us who have to struggle to survive daily, are hungry daily, and have desperate trouble to pay our taxes. What will father and grandfather think of me now: ronin, and my so-needed one koku forfeit? "I would be honored to meet him," he said. "Our shoya is not like him."

For many years Hiraga's grandfather, an important peasant farmer near Shimonoseki and secret supporter of sonno-joi, had been a shoya. A shoya, the appointed, or hereditary, leader of a village or grouping of villages with great influence and magisterial power and responsibility for tax assessments and collection, was at the same time the only buffer and protector of peasants and farmers against any unfair practices of the samurai overlord within whose fief the village or villages lay.

Farmers and some peasants owned and worked the land but by law could not leave it. Samurai owned all the produce and the sole right to carry weapons, but by law could not own land. So each depended on the other in an inevitable, never-ending spiral of suspicion and distrust--the balance of how much rice or produce to be rendered in tax, year by year, and how much retained, always an incredibly delicate compromise.

The shoya had to keep the balance. The advice of the best was sometimes sought on matters outside the village by his immediate overlord, or higher, even by the daimyo himself. Hiraga's grandfather was one of these.

Some years ago he had been permitted to purchase goshi samurai status for himself and his descendants in one of the daimyo's offerings--a customary ploy of all daimyos, normally debt ridden, to raise extra revenue from acceptable supplicants. The daimyo of Choshu was no exception.

Hiraga laughed, the wine in his head now.

"I was chosen for this Dutchman's school, and many a time I regretted the honor, English is so foul-sounding and difficult."

"Were there many of you at the school?"' Ori asked.

Through the sak`e haze a warning sounded and Hiraga realized he was volunteering far too much private information. How many Choshu students were at the school was Choshu business and secret, and while he liked and admired both Shorin and Ori they were still Satsumas, aliens, who were not always allies, but frequently enemy and always potential enemies.

"Just three of us to learn English," he said softly as though telling a secret, instead of thirty, the real figure. Inwardly alert he added, "Listen, now that you're ronin, like me and most of my comrades, we must work closer together. I am planning something in three days that you can help us with."

"Thank you, but we must wait for word from Katsumata."

"Of course, he is your Satsuma leader." Hiraga added thoughtfully, "But at the same time, Ori, don't forget you're ronin and will be ronin until we win, don't forget we're the spearhead of sonno-joi, we're the doers, Katsumata risks nothing. We must--must-- forget that I am Choshu and you two Satsumas.

We've got to help each other. It's a good idea to follow your Tokaido attack tonight and steal guns. Kill one or two guards inside the Legation, if you can, that will be a huge provocation! If you could do it all silently and leave no trace, even better. Anything to provoke them."

With Hiraga's information it had been easy to infiltrate the temple, to count the dragoons and other soldiers and to find the perfect lair. Then the girl had unexpectedly appeared, and the giant, and then they had gone back inside and ever since both shishi had been staring at the garden door, glazed.

"Ori, now what do we do?" Shorin asked, his voice edged.

"We stick to the plan."

The minutes passed anxiously. When the shutters on the first floor opened and they saw her in the window both knew that a new element had come into their future. Now she was brushing her hair with a silver-handled brush. Listlessly.

Shorin said throatily, "She doesn't look so ugly in moonlight. But with those breasts, eeee, you'd bounce off."

Ori did not reply, his eyes riveted.

Suddenly she hesitated and looked down.

Directly at them. Though there was no chance she could have seen or heard them, their hearts picked up a beat. They waited, hardly breathing. Another exhausted yawn. She continued brushing a moment then put down the brush, seemingly so close that Ori felt he could almost reach out and touch her, seeing in the light from the room details of embroidery on the silk, nipples taut beneath, and the haunted expression he had glimpsed yesterday--was it only yesterday?--that had stopped the blow that would have ended her.

A last strange glance at the moon, another stifled yawn, and she pulled the shutters to. But did not close them completely. Or bar them.

Shorin broke the silence and said what was in both their minds. "It would be easy to climb up there."

"Yes. But we came here for guns and to create havoc. We..." Ori stopped, his mind flowing into the sudden glimmering of a new and wonderful diversion, a second chance, greater than the first.

"Shorin," he whispered, "if you silenced her, took her but didn't kill her, just left her unconscious to tell of the taking, leaving a sign linking us to the Tokaido, then together we kill one or two soldiers and vanish with or without their guns--inside their Legation--wouldn't that make them mad with rage?"

The breath hissed out of Shorin's lips at the beauty of the idea. "Yes, yes it would, but better to slit her throat and write "Tokaido" in her blood. You go, I'll guard here, safer," and when Ori hesitated he said, "Katsumata said we were wrong to hesitate. Last time you hesitated. Why hesitate?"

It was a split-second decision, then Ori was running for the building, a shadow among many shadows. He gained the lee and began to climb.

Outside the guard house, one of the soldiers said softly, "Don't look around, Charlie, but I think I saw someone running for the house."