"How long has this been going on, what does the doctor say?"
"Say? He..." Again Anjo sipped some of the bitter extract of herbs. The medicine allayed his pain hardly at all. The pains had been getting worse, with this new Chinese doctor useless like the others, so much so he was even considering a clandestine examination by the famous gai-jin doctor giant of Kanagawa. "Never mind my pain. I know you."
Yoshi saw Anjo's hatred, knowing the hatred was because of his own youth and strength--little does the fool know how tired of life I am. "Can I ..."
"You can do nothing. We will attack when I order the attack and that is the end of it! The meeting is over." Anjo stormed out.
Now that he was tairo, Anjo ruled imperiously and treated all others with olympian disdain.
In a fury Yoshi prowled the castle like a caged tiger. After that first awful day he had compartmentalized Koiko and locked it tight. Even so from time to time she would peep out smiling.
Angrily he would thrust her back--no way to find out now if she had really rushed forward to save his life as Abeh assured him, no way to find out why she had employed a shishi assassin, Sumomo Fujahito, of course a false name but certainly one of Katsumata's acolytes.
And where is Katsumata now?
He had already issued orders to find him, wherever he was, and had put a large reward on his head, and orders to hunt down and destroy all shishi and their protectors. Then he had sent for Inejin, his spymaster.
The old man had limped in and bowed. "It seems, Sire, the gods guarded you like one of their own."
"By allowing a shishi assassin, shuriken-armed, to be in the inner sanctum of my courtesan," he exploded, "allowing my courtesan to be a traitor and part of the plot?"
Inejin shook his head, and said easily, "Perhaps not a traitor, Sire, nor part of a plot, merely a woman. As to the shishi, Sumomo, she simply exercised your fighting ability which proved to be perfect--for which you were trained."
The singular strength of his old retainer sent his rage to China. "Not perfect," he said, ruefully, "the cat clawed me, but the wound healed."
"Shall I drag Meikin, the mama-san, here, Sire?"
"Ah, the pivot. I have not forgotten her.
Soon, not yet. You still watch her?"
"Like her second skin. You sent for me, Sire?"
"I want you to find Katsumata, alive if you can," he had said. "Did you remove the traitor ronin working for the gai-jin as I ordered?
What was his name? Ori Ryoma, a Satsuma, yes that's it."
"That man is dead, Sire, but it seems he was not the traitor. Gai-jin killed Ori some weeks ago. They shot him trying to break into one of their houses. The man supplying them with information, still, is a Choshu ronin named Hiraga."
Yoshi was startled. "He of the poster? The shishi who led those who murdered Utani?"
"Yes Sire. For the moment I cannot remove him, he is under the protection of the Chief Ing'erish and stays close to their building. I have a spy in the village and can tell you more in a few days."
"Good. What else? All this talk of war?"
"I hope to have more news in a few days."
"Make it fewer than more," he said curtly, dismissing him. "When you have serious news come back."
Inejin won't fail me, he thought, sorry that he had been short-tempered. Spies must be cherished like no others... on them depends your ability to move... Ah, Sun-tzu what a genius you were--but even my intimate knowledge of your precepts do not tell me what to do about the gai-jin, about that stupid boy and my arch enemy, the Princess Yazu--both still gorging on the honeyed gruel served by Court sycophants obeying that dog, the Lord Chancellor. What would you do to destroy the enemies that surround me? Anjo, the Elders, the Court, Ogama, Sanjiro--the list endless. And impossible. And atop them all, the gai-jin.
Then he had remembered the invitation to go aboard the Furansu--French--warship. The coaling venture that his wife, Hosaki, had positioned in conjunction with the Gyokoyamas and the gai-jin prospector, made it easy for him to send Misamoto, his make-believe samurai, the fisherman interpreter, to make the arrangements.
This had taken place yesterday.
He had slipped away from Yedo by oared galley to a sea rendezvous without fanfare, just beyond sight of land--with Abeh, twenty guards and Misamoto. The experience had been awesome. The size and power of the ship's engines, and cannon, the amount of powder and shot and coal carried, and the stories they told, lies or truths he could not yet tell about the extent of their Furansu Empire, its wealth and power, the leagues of travel such a ship could cover, numbers of warships and cannon, and size of their armies as they stated them, were beyond belief.
Misamoto interpreted, with the interpreter who called himself Andreh Furansu-san. Though they had their own language this meeting was conducted mostly in English.
A lot of what he was told, Yoshi had not understood. The words used were strange and much time was spent explaining miles and yards and powder and pitch and pistons, paddle steamers against screw power, breech blocks and flintlocks, factories and firepower.
Yet all of it was illuminating and certain pieces of information of major importance: the vital necessity of coaling facilities and safe harbors, without which steamer warships were so many hulks--unable to carry all the coal needed for the voyage out, for naval operations, and then the voyage back. And second, as he had witnessed at the Council meeting with gai-jin in Yedo Castle and found it difficult to believe the true extent, any mention of Ing'erish gai-jin brought sneers to Furansu gai-jin faces who had no hesitation in showing the extent of their hatred.
This delighted him and enhanced what Misamoto had said earlier, that Ing'erish were hated by nearly every other nation on earth because they had the biggest Empire, they were the strongest and wealthiest nation, with the greatest, most modern fleets, the most powerful, disciplined and best-equipped armies, as well as enjoying their gains by producing more than half of the world's goods. With, best of all, an impregnable island redoubt to guard it all.
Of course they are hated. Like we Toranagas are hated. And therefore, he thought with an ache in his bowels for his past mistake, these Ing'erish gai-jin are the ones to be fawned on, to befriend, and handle with the most exquisite care.
Best fleets? And arms? How could I tempt them into building me a fleet? Providing me with one? Would coal pay for it?
"Misamoto, say to them that I would like to learn more about these marvelous Furansu devices," he said blandly, "and yes, I would like friends amongst gai-jin. I am not opposed to trade--perhaps I could arrange my coal concession to go to the Furansu and not the Ing'erish."
This caught their immediate interest. At this time they were below decks in the largest cabin in the stern, that he found cramped and foul-smelling, with odors of oil and coal smoke and human waste, with a fine coating of coal dust everywhere. They sat around a long table, half a dozen officers in gold-braided uniforms and their leader, Seratard--Serata as it was correctly pronounced--in the center. Abeh and half his guards were at his back, the rest on deck.
The moment he had seen Seratard and heard his name he liked him immediately--totally different from the tall, sour-faced Ing'erish High Leader with the unpronounceable name. Serata, like Furansu-san Andreh, were easily pronounceable. In fact the names were Japanese.
Serata was a miraculous omen.
Serata was the name of his family's ancestral village in which their ancestor, Yoshi-shigeh Serata-noh Minowara had settled in the twelfth century. In the thirteenth, the warrior daimyo Yoshi-sada Serata, raised an army against his overlords, the Hojo, obliterated them and captured their capital Kamakura and made it his own. Since then his direct descendants, the Yoshi noh Toranaga noh Serata still ruled Kamakura--Shogun Yoshi Toranaga being buried there in his great mausoleum.