James Clavell - Gai-Jin

"What about your arm?"' "When it's unbearable, I'll commit seppuku," Ori had said, his words slurred from the sak`e he was using to dampen the pain--the three of them, he, Ori and the mama-san, having a final drink together. "Don't worry."

"Isn't there another doctor, a safe one?"' "No, Hiraga-san," the mama-san, Noriko, said. She was a tiny woman of fifty, her voice soft. "I even sent for a Korean acupuncturist and herbalist, both friends, but the poultices have been no value.

There's the giant gai-jin..."

"You're stupid," Ori shouted. "How many times must I tell you? This is a bullet wound, one of their bullets, and they saw me at Kanagawa!"

"Please excuse me," the mama-san said humbly, her head to the tatami, "please excuse this stupid person." She bowed again and left, but in her secret heart she was cursing Ori for failing to be a true shishi and not committing seppuku while Hiraga was here, the most perfect second a man could wish for, and so lessen the awful danger surrounding her and her House. News of the fate of the Inn of the Forty-seven Ronin had rushed fifty ri and beyond --an outrageous retribution to kill all patrons, courtesans and servants and to spike the head of the mama-san.

Monstrous, she thought, inflamed. How can a House forbid any samurai entrance, shishi or not? In olden days samurai killed much more than today, yes, but that was centuries ago and mostly only when it was merited and not women or children. That was when the law of the land was just, Shogun Toranaga just, his son and grandson just, before corruption and dissipation became a way of life for descendant Shoguns, daimyo and samurai alike, who for a century and more have spread their rapacious taxations over us like pus! The shishi are our only hope! Sonno-joi!

"Anjo must die before we die," she said fervently when Hiraga had at length returned safely two days after the attack. "We've been petrified you'd been caught and burnt with the others. It was all done on Anjo's orders, Hiraga-san, on his orders--in fact he was returning from the Inn when you attacked him near the castle gates, he had personally ordered and witnessed the executions, leaving men there in ambush in case all you shishi returned unawares."

"Who betrayed us, Hiraga?"' Ori had asked.

"The Mori samurai."

"But Akimoto said he saw them engulfed and killed."

"It must have been one of them. Did anyone else escape?"' "Akimoto--he hid out in another Inn for a day and a night."

"Where is he now?"' Noriko said, "He's occupied--shall I send for him?"' "No. Tomorrow I will see him."

"Anjo must pay in blood for the Inn--that's against all custom!"

"He will. So will the roju. So will Shogun Nobusada. And so will Yoshi."

In his private quarters high up in the castle keep, Yoshi was composing a poem. He wore a blue silk kimono and sat at a low table, an oil lamp on it and sheets of rice paper, brushes of different thicknesses, water to soften the block of jet ink that now had a tiny, inviting pool in the hollowed-out center.

Twilight was becoming night. From outside the hum of Yedo's million souls ever present. A few houses on fire as usual.

From the castle below the comforting, muted noise of soldiers, hooves on cobblestones, an occasional throaty laugh wafting upwards with the smoke and smells of the cooking fires through the decorative, bowman openings in the vast walls, not yet shuttered against the night chill.

This was his inner sanctum. Spartan.

Tatamis, a takoyama, the shoji door in front of him so positioned and lit that he could see the shape of any figure outside but no one there could look within.

Outside this room was a larger anteroom with corridors leading off it to sleeping quarters, empty at present except for retainers, maids and Koiko, his special favorite. His family--his wife, two sons and a daughter, his consort and her son--were all safe and heavily guarded in his hereditary, fortress castle, Dragon's Tooth, in the mountains some twenty ri northwards. Beyond this antechamber were guards and other rooms with other guards, all sworn to his personal service.

His brush dipped into the ink pool. He poised the point over the delicate rice paper then wrote firmly: Sword of my fathers When in my hands Twists uneasily The writing was in three short, flowing vertical lines of characters, strong where they should be strong and soft where softness would enhance the picture that the characters made--never a second chance to refine or change or correct even the slightest fault, the texture of the rice paper sucking in the ink at once to become indelibly a part of it, varying the black to grey depending how the brush was used and the amount of water therein.

Coldly, he scrutinized what he had done, the placement of the poem and the whole picture that the shades of black calligraphy made within the expanse of white, the shape and the fluid, obscured clearness of his characters.

It's good, he thought without vanity. I cannot do better yet--this is almost to the limit of my capability, if not at the limit. What about the meaning of the poem, how it should be read?

Ah, that's the important question, that's why it is good. But will it achieve what I want?

These questions prompted him to review the shocking state of affairs here and at Kyoto. Word arrived a few days ago that there had been a sudden, bloody but successful coup there by Choshu troops who had thrown out Satsuma and Tosa forces who had, for the last six months, held power there in an uneasy truce. Lord Ogama of Choshu now commanded the Palace Gates.

At the hastily convened meeting of the Council tempers had flared, Anjo almost frothing with fury. "Choshu, Satsuma and Tosa! Always those three. They're dogs who must be crushed!

Without them everything would be in control."

"True," Yoshi had said, "I tell you all again we must order our troops in Kyoto to put down the rebellion at once--whatever the cost!"

"No, we have to wait, we have insufficient forces there."

Toyama, the old man, wiped his grizzled chin and said, "I agree with Yoshi-dono. War is the only way, we must declare Ogama of Choshu outlaw!"

"Impossible!" Adachi had said querulously, for himself and the last Elder. "We agree with Anjo, we cannot risk offending all daimyos, encouraging them to mass against us."

"We must act at once!" he had repeated. "We must order our troops to retake the Gates, put down the rebellion."

"We have insufficient forces," Anjo had said stubbornly. "We will wait. Now is not the time."

"Why won't you listen to my advice?"' By now Yoshi was so angered that it almost surfaced.

He had contained it with an effort, knowing that to rave and lose his temper would be a fatal error and turn them all permanently against him. Wasn't he the youngest, the least experienced but the most qualified, with the most influence amongst daimyos who could, if he wished, alone amongst the Elders, raise his standard and pitch the whole country into civil war as had existed for centuries before the Shogun Toranaga? were they not all jealous and spitting when he was appointed Guardian and an Elder by Imperial "request" without consulting them, by whomever the Son of Heaven was manipulated?

"I know I'm right. Wasn't I right about the gai-jin? I'm right about this."

The plan he had conceived to remove the gai-jin and their fleet from Yedo to gain time to deal with their own internal problems had been a perfect success.

It was so simple: "With great ceremony and feigned humility we give the gai-jin a pittance of a ransom, propose a future meeting with the Council which will be delayed and further delayed or cancelled, or even staged with puppets if need be, implying at the last moment, when their patience is at an end, that a meeting with the Shogun when he returns is to be arranged--which can also be delayed, renegotiated and delayed and will never happen, or even if it does sometime in the future, it will produce nothing we do not wish.