Or is one of your "doves" a departure for elsewhere?"
Both knew Yoshi was not answerable for his movements in or out of the castle precincts. "That depends on what I see outside," he said curtly. "I may decide to return to my own domain for a day or so, perhaps not--of course I would keep you closely informed."
"The Council would miss your presence, if only for a few days. There's much to be done, if you're absent, we will have to make the decisions ourselves."
"As we decided this afternoon, there's nothing major to be decided, fortunately without five Elders nothing of major importance can be settled."
"There is the matter of the gai-jin agreement."
"That was also decided this afternoon."
The meeting of the Council after the gai-jin had departed, for once, had been happy and filled with laughter at the enemy's loss of face, that once again the gai-jin had been outsmarted, Anjo, Toyama, and Adachi congratulating him for his expert handling of the confrontation and understanding of gai-jin, Zukumura saying little except muttering feeblemindedly from time to time.
Anjo had chortled, "Agreeing to advance a pittance to get rid of them and their ships from Yedo while we bring Satsuma to heel was very clever, Yoshi-sama. V. At the same time we've indefinitely postponed their threat to go to Kyoto, and they agree that Satsuma is completely to blame."
Toyama said, "Then we declare war on Satsuma? Good!"
"No, not war, there are other ways to curb that dog." Anjo was very confident with his newfound knowledge.
"You were right about the gai-jin, Yoshi-sama. It was vastly interesting to see how enmity between them all is so close to their revolting surfaces." He and Toyama had witnessed the meeting from behind the dais, the wall there deliberately made see-through from the inner side. "Revolting. We could even smell them through the screen. Disgusting.
I've ordered that audience room washed out and the seats they sat in destroyed."
"Excellent," Adachi said. "My skin crawled all the time I was there. Yoshi-sama, may I ask about that monkey Misamoto, did he really tell you what the gai-jin said, everything? I couldn't hear a word?"' "Not all of it," he had told them, "enough to give me some advance clues but only when they were speaking English. Misamoto said much of the time they were speaking another language, he thought French.
This proves another point: we must have trusted interpreters. I propose we start a language school for our brightest sons at once."
"School? What school?"' Zukumura mumbled. No one paid any attention.
"I disagree." Toyama's dewlaps shook. "The closer our sons get to gai-jin, the more infected they'll be."
"No," Anjo said, "we'll personally select the students--we must have trusted barbarian speakers. We will vote: The Bakufu will be ordered to form a language school at once.
Agreed? Good, next, the gai-jin letter: we will continue Yoshi-sama's tactic, the day before it's due we tell them it will arrive "as soon as possible." Agreed?"' "Sorry no," he had said, "we must do the exact opposite. We must deliver the letter on time, exactly, and give them the second blackmail payment on time too."
They stared at him and Zukumura mumbled, "Letter?"' Yoshi said patiently, "The gai-jin must be kept off balance. They will be expecting us to delay, so we don't, and that will make them believe the one hundred and fifty-six days is also firm which of course it isn't. That we certainly delay and delay and hope to send them all mad." They had laughed with him, even Zukumura who did not understand why they were laughing had laughed anyway--and even more when Yoshi told them how many times he had almost guffawed during the meeting, seeing how their impatience was ruining their already illusory bargaining position. ""Without the killer dog the master's as weak as a puppy against a man with a stick."
"What? Man with a stick?"' Zukumura asked, his dead codfish eyes peering stupidly, "What dog?"' Much of Yoshi's good humor had left him, reminded that now he had to endure this feebleminded man forever. Nonetheless, he explained that without muscle to back up their complaints, and the will to use it, the enemy were helpless.
"Muscle? Don't understand, Yoshi-sama.
What muscle?"' "Force," Anjo said impatiently, "Force! Their cannons and their fleets, Zukumura. Oh never mind!"
Toyama, the old man, said fiercely, "While they're without their fleet we should burn them out--they are unspeakably arrogant, with foul manners and as for their spokesman... I'm glad I didn't have to be present, Yoshi-sama, I think I would have burst.
Let's burn them out, now."
"Who? Burn who?"' "Keep quiet, Zukumura," Anjo said wearily, "and just vote when I tell you.
Yoshi-sama, I agree with your reasoning.
We'll send the letter on time and the second part of their blackmail money when agreed. Everyone in favor? Good. Next: now that we've dealt with the gai-jin, and the Shogun and Princess are safely on the North Road there's not much to do for the next week or so."
"Allowing them to go was a misguided decision and will come back to haunt us," Yoshi had said.
"In this you are wrong. Please prepare a plan, your ideas how to bring that dog Sanjiro and Satsuma to heel. I vote we meet in two weeks, unless there is an emergency ..."
Later, going back to his own quarters Yoshi had not been able to think of any potential emergency that would require his presence in Yedo-- even the second covert, whispered invitation to visit the French warship that he neither accepted nor refused but left open for the weeks ahead was not urgent. So he had resolved to put into effect at once the plan he and his wife, Hosaki, had devised. Now Anjo and his bowmen were barring his path.
What to do?
"Good night, Anjo-sama," he said, making the decision. "As always, I will keep you advised." Covering his disquiet and feeling naked he spurred his pony forward, heading for the far archway. None of the archers moved, waiting for orders. His men and the two palanquins followed him, feeling equally defenseless.
Anjo watched them go. Enraged. But for those rifles I would have had him arrested as planned.
On what charge? Treason, plotting against the Shogun! But Yoshi would never have been brought to trial, oh no, so sorry, fools would have killed him as he tried to escape justice.
A sudden shaft of pain in his bowels made him grope for a seat. Baka doctors! There must be a cure, he told himself, then heaped more curses on Yoshi and the men who had disappeared under the far archway.
Yoshi was breathing better now, the fear sweat no longer chilling him. He trotted deeper into fortifications, along poorly lit corridors, passed more stables and harness rooms until he came to the end wall. The wall was sheathed in wood. Men dismounted and lit torches from those in wall brackets.
With his riding whip he pointed at a knob to one side. His aide dismounted and pulled it sharply.
A whole section of the wall swung outwards to reveal a tunnel, tall enough and wide enough for two men to ride along, side by side. At once he heeled his pony into motion. When the palanquins and the last man were through and the door once more closed, he sighed with relief. Only then did he holster the rifle.
But for you, Rifle-san, he thought affectionately, I might be a dead man, at the very least a prisoner. Sometimes I can see a rifle really is better than a sword. You deserve a name--it was ancient Shinto custom to give names to special swords or weapons or even rocks or trees. I shall call you "Nori" which also can mean "seaweed" and is a pun on Nori Anjo, to remind me that you saved me from him and that one of your bullets belongs to him, in his heart or head.
"Eeee, Lord," his Captain said, riding alongside. "Your shooting was a marvelous thing to behold."
"Thank you, but you and all the men were ordered to be silent until I gave you leave to speak. You are demoted. Go to the rear." The crestfallen man hurried away. "You," Yoshi said to his second in command, "you are now Captain." He turned in his saddle and went forward again, leading.