"You said that to her?" Angelique's head reeled.
"Yes, Ma'am, but that's what Tyler said-- he really did. And he's the engine to send her mad so thought I should report it accurately and when I did, Lordy Lordy, Ma'am, her head was shaking so much her eyeballs had a hard time catching up and I thought the Medusa was coming back.
But it didn't, not this time. This time the fiend's fire was confined, it was still there, oh yes Ma'am, yes indeed. But she corked it, she kept it inside, even so I sure as hell... sorry, I sure as shooting sweated. Not proper for a woman to have that amount of rage but after Tyler and Morgan easy to see where she gets it from.
"When she'd cooled down a bitty, I told her Tyler had eventually agreed to Morgan's suggestion I should come back here as manager, on trial for a year, with plenty of dire threats for nonperformance. She asked my salary.
"Excellent. Publicly we will be enemies, secretly we will be close allies, and if Brock and Sons goes under forever which I pray God happens, your Rothwell-Gornt will take their place."
That's about it, Angelique, except she had decided to send Hoag back here and was writing you a letter."
He sipped his bourbon, the taste turned smooth. "I didn't ask what was in it or make any defense of you other than continuing to say in various ways, if my scheme helped her destroy Brock's, she had you to thank too.
What was in her letter?"
She had given it to him.
"A lot of dung with the bales of cotton," he had said, handing it back. "It's her first bargaining position--and clear from this I kept my bargain: she's convinced she has to thank you as well. You'll win."
"Win what? No legal harassment?"
"That and a stipend. She admits she's in your debt."
"Yes, but nothing more, just threats."
"We hold a few trumps."
"What?" They heard voices outside.
"Time, among others, Angelique. Tonight I'll invite you to a casual supper, we can talk safely there an--"
"Not in Brock's, and not alone. We must be careful," she said hastily. "Please invite Dmitri and Marlowe. We must be very careful, Edward, must pretend not to be too close--that would make that woman suspicious and she's bound to hear, Albert is totally on her side. If we can't talk tonight I'll promenade tomorrow at ten and we can continue...." To forestall the embrace she had felt imminent she had kissed him quickly on the cheek and offered her hand, thanking him effusively.
When alone once more in the privacy of her boudoir, she let her mind roam. What trumps? What aces? And why that strange smile? And what had he really agreed with Tess? Is he hiding something from me? It's true from her letter he convinced her of my help and that's important. Or am I just being over-suspicious? If only I could have been there!
Then the Am-I-or-am-I-not took possession of her, racking her. Once, frightened, she had mentioned it to Babcott who said, "Be patient, don't worry." For a moment she wondered if Babcott and Phillip Tyrer would return from Yedo out of the enemy net they had gone into willingly, sent by Sir William.
Men with their stupidities of patience and mendacity and wrong priorities, what do they know?
In Yedo Castle, Yoshi was anxious and irritable. It was midmorning, he was in his quarters and still had no word how the gai-jin doctor's examination of the tairo had gone.
When he came back to Yedo from Kanagawa yesterday with Babcott and Tyrer, he had installed them in one of the daimyo's palaces outside the castle walls that he had carefully chosen, staffed and ringed with trusted guards for further security, and at once invited Anjo for the examination.
The tairo arrived in a nondescript closed palanquin, protected by his own bodyguard--the assassination attempt on him had happened barely a hundred yards away. This, together with the mass shishi attack on Shogun Nobusada and the various attempts on Yoshi had increased the Elders' sensitivity and security needs.
Yoshi, with Babcott and Phillip Tyrer beside him, met the clandestine palanquin in the courtyard. They bowed, Yoshi making the lowest bow, laughing to himself as, painfully, Anjo was helped out. "Tairo, this is the gai-jin doctor, B'bc'tt, and interpreter Firrup Tiara."
Anjo gawked up at Babcott. "Eeee, the man really is as big as a tree! So big, eeee, a monster! Would his penis be in proportion?"' Then he looked at Phillip Tyrer and guffawed: "Straw hair, a face like a monkey, a pig's blue eyes and a Japanese name--that is one of your family names, Yoshi-dono, neh?"' "The name has almost the same sound," Yoshi said curtly, then to Tyrer, "When the examination is completed, send these two men for me." He pointed at Misamoto, the fisherman, his spy and false samurai, and Misamoto's constant guard, the samurai whose orders were never to leave him alone with any gai-jin. "Anjo-dono, I believe your health is in good hands."
"Thank you for arranging this. The Doctor will be sent to you when it pleases me, no need to leave these men here, or any of your men ..."
That was yesterday. All night he had worried and this morning, worrying and hoping. His room was changed. It was even more austere. All traces of Koiko had been removed. Two guards stood behind him and two at the door. Irritably he got up from his writing table and went to the window and leaned on the lintel. Far below he could see the daimyo's palace in the inner circle. The tairo's men were standing guard there. No other signs of activity. Over the rooftops of Yedo he could see the ocean, and smoke trails of some merchantmen and a warship out at sea inbound for Yokohama.
What do they carry, he asked himself. Guns?
Troops, cannon? What mischief are they planning?
To settle his nerves he sat back at his table and continued practicing calligraphy.
Ordinarily the exercise soothed. Today it brought no peace. Koiko's exquisite brushstrokes kept forming on the paper and, try as he could, he could not stop her face rising to the forefront of his mind.
"Baka!" he said, making a false stroke, spoiling an hour of work. He threw the brush down, splattering ink on the tatami. His guards shifted uneasily and he cursed himself for the lapse. You must control your memory. You must.
Since that evil day she had beset him. The smallness of her neck, hardly feeling the blow, then rushing away instead of lighting her pyre, the nights worst of all. Lonely in bed, and cold, but no wish for a female body or for succor, all illusions gone. After her betrayal, her treason introducing the dragon woman Sumomo into his inner chambers--no excuse was acceptable for that, none, he told himself again, none. She must have known about her. No excuse, no forgiveness, not even as he now believed, for her sacrificial charge to receive the shuriken that would have impaled him.
No woman could be trusted again. Except his wife, perhaps, and consort perhaps. He had not sent for either of them, only written, telling them to wait, to guard their sons and keep their castle safe.
He felt no real joy even in his victory over the gai-jin though he was certain it was a superb step forward, and sure that when he told the Elders, they would be ecstatic. Even Anjo. How sick is that dog? Unto death I hope. Will the giant do his magic and cure him?
Or is the Chinese doctor to be believed, he who Inejin says has never been wrong and whispered an early death.
Never mind. Anjo, sick or not, will listen to me now, the others will listen at last, and agree to my proposals. Why not? The gai-jin are boxed, no threat now from the fleet, Sanjiro almost done to death by gai-jin, Ogama satisfied in Kyoto. Shogun Nobusada will be ordered back to Yedo where he belongs, once he explained the part the boy should play in the great plan. And not only returning, but returning alone, leaving his hostile wife, the Princess Yazu, to "follow in a few days," never to follow if Yoshi had his way--no need for the others to be in his confidence. Only Ogama.