Gai-Jin (100 page)

“What would a very particular ally offer?”

Ogama stretched to ease the grinding tension in his neck and shoulders, expecting that question—for all his bravado no fool. Time enough to
vary an offer, he thought, though neither of us would ever deign to lose face by bartering like the despised Osaka rice merchants. “You can garrison the Gates for one month, twenty men only at each of the six Gates, two hundred of my men stationed nearby”—Ogama smiled—“not near enough to embarrass you. Any persons going in or out will receive permits from your officer of the Gates, as is correct—who will have quietly and previously consulted with my … my liaison officer before permits are granted.”

“Consult?”

“Consult, as between privileged allies, so a consensus can easily be arrived at.” The easy smile was gone. “If more than twenty of your men appear, my men take possession and all agreements are ended. Agreed?”

Yoshi’s eyes had flattened. No need to make threats, obviously any trick on either side would end all agreements. “I would prefer forty men at each of the Gates—we can arrange details of how the guard changes without problem—and I garrison the Gates as long as Shōgun Nobusada and the Princess Yazu are inside.”

Ogama had noted the change. “Shogun Nobusada, yes. But not the Princess who … who may stay inside permanently, eh? Forty? Very well, forty at each Gate. Of course, her brother, the Son of Heaven, will not rescind his memorial, his request to me to hold the Gates against his enemies.”

“The Son of Heaven is the Son of Heaven, but I doubt if a cancellation would be forthcoming while Shōgunate forces exercise their historic rights.”

At once Ogama’s expression was naked. “Let you and I forget this polite back and forth and speak plainly: I’ll concede a face-saving device on the Gates in return for Katsumata and all the rest—your men become the honor guard, your banners can be there and I agree with a lot you said, yes, much of it, but I do not concede my opposition to ‘historic rights’ or to the Shōgunate or Bakufu”—he stopped, and because he really wanted what was offered, he made another concession—“to the present Shōgunate and Bakufu, Yoshi-dono. Please excuse my bluntness. It would be good to be allies—I did not expect it would be possible or that I could agree to anything.”

Yoshi nodded, hiding his glee. “I am happy we can agree and I tell you bluntly too we can agree to major changes, and little ones. For example,” he added lightly, “if such a memorial arrived from the Emperor, it would be a forgery.”

Now Ogama’s smile was genuine and he felt he had achieved a perfect compromise. “Good. And now Katsumata.”

The attack on the shishi hideaway began a few hours before dawn. Surprise was perfect. Katsumata, all subleaders, and others were inside. And Sumomo.

The first moment the two lookouts became aware of danger was when, just down the alley, muddy from the rain, one of the hovels burst into flames to muffled cries of alarm from the occupants and close neighbors. At once these men and women—all secret Bakufu plants—began to crowd the alley in pretended panic, the diversion helping to cover the stealthy approach of the attacking force. As the sentries went to investigate, arrows came out of the night and cut them down. One of them howled an alarm before he died.

At once the main force swarmed out of the night to surround this whole section of slum dwellings. Most of the men were Ogama’s, at his request—Yoshi had agreed, saying that he would send a token forty hand-picked men, under Akeda.

In moments many of the assault group had lit torches. These partially illuminated the target hut, back and front, and a fusillade of arrows went into every opening and weak spot. Then, unexpectedly, the four Yoshi riflemen ran into position, two at the back of the huts and two in the front, and fired several volleys through the paper walls.

For an instant there was a stunned silence—samurai, shishi, and all nearby slum dwellers equally shocked—the sound of rapid firing unheard of. Then the silence broke as everyone but the assault group scattered for cover, and screams and shouts came from the wounded within. A hut adjoining the first blaze caught fire and this fire spread rapidly next door and next door and next door until both sides of the far end of the alley became an inferno, trapping many a family inside.

The Ogama captain leading the raid paid no attention to that hazard, which only threatened inhabitants, but ordered the first attack wave in, disregarding Yoshi’s advice to torch the hovels and let his riflemen pick off the shishi as they broke from cover. Four Ogama attackers fell under a vicious shishi sally from the front door and side windows. A general fight erupted both here and in the back alley as another furious foray was contained, men flailing, hampered by the confined space and mud and semi-darkness. Two men breached the cordon to be cut down by others waiting in ambush. Another volley into the hovel was followed by another attempted breakout by a frantic group of shishi, a helpless mission as another circle awaited them beyond and then another. Smoke from the fires began to hinder attackers and the attacked.

An order from Akeda. His men with torches rushed close to the hovel and hurled them onto the roof or through the shojis, swiftly retreating to give a clear field to their comrades with rifles. More firing and more deaths as another cluster of shishi rushed out to join the shouting, screaming melee. The stench of smoke and offal and blood and fire and burning flesh and death began to fill the damp night. The rain turned to drizzle.

Well protected by personal guards, Ogama and Yoshi were watching
from a command position away from the blaze and fighting. Both wore armor and swords and Yoshi had his rifle slung. Beside them were some Bakufu officials. In the raging confusion, they were surprised to see a shishi dart through the cordon and run up the alley, escaping into a side alley obscured from attacking Choshu samurai.

“Is that Katsumata?” Ogama called out, but his words were drowned as, without hesitation, Yoshi had aimed and fired and loaded and fired again. The man went down screaming, Ogama and everyone nearby recoiling at the suddenness, not expecting Yoshi to become personally involved. Taking his time, Yoshi aimed again at the man squirming helplessly in the dirt. The bullet shoved the body backwards. A final tortured howl and it became inert.

“That is not Katsumata,” Yoshi said, disappointedly.

Ogama cursed, his night vision not good. He pulled his eyes off the body and looked at the rifle, loose in Yoshi’s hands, repressing a shudder. “You use that well.”

“It is easy to learn, Ogama-dono, too easy.” With careful nonchalance, Yoshi put another shell into the breech, fairly sure that this would be the first rifle Ogama had seen. He had brought it and his riflemen deliberately to impress him, to keep him off balance, and make him more wary about trying any assassination attempts. “To kill like this is disgusting, cowardly, dishonorable.”

“Yes, yes, it is. May I see the gun, please?”

“Of course.” Yoshi put on the safety catch. “It’s American—the very latest breech-loader. I take delivery of five thousand shortly.” His smile was thin, remembering he had usurped Ogama’s order. “My ancestor was wise to outlaw all guns—anyone can use one of these to kill, close up or from a distance, daimyo, merchant, robber, ronin, peasant, woman, child. My ancestor was very wise. A pity we cannot do the same but gai-jin have made it impossible.”

The rifle felt strange to Ogama, heavier than a sword, oiled and deadly, and this added curiously to the excitement of the raid, the killing and screams and battle and knowing that spies had reported Katsumata was truly inside so, soon now, his hated enemy’s head would be on display. All this filled him with an untoward sick-sweet nausea.

Good to kill like that without danger to yourself, he told himself, his fingers caressing the barrel, but Yoshi is right again. In the wrong hands … all other hands would be wrong. Five thousand? Eeee, that would make him very difficult to fight. I only ordered two hundred and fifty—where is he getting the money, his lands are almost as debt-ridden as mine? Ah yes, I forgot, bartering mining concessions. Clever. I will do the same. What is his secret plan? Does he have a “Crimson Sky” too? If Yoshi gets five thousand I must get ten. Tonight he brought forty men. Why forty? Was that to
remind me I agreed to forty at each Gate? Forty riflemen could easily decimate my two hundred unless equally armed.

“You have more here?” he asked.

Yoshi decided to be open. “Not at the moment.”

Thoughtfully Ogama handed the rifle back and turned his attention to the hovels.

The sounds of the battle were lessening, those of the fires increasing, more and more inhabitants trying to douse them in lines passing water buckets. Roofs of the target hut and those each side were burning now. There was another desperate hand-to-hand combat as more shishi left the burning hovel, many already wounded. Yoshi said, “Katsumata’s not amongst them.”

“Perhaps he tried to break out from the back.”

There, out of their sight, five shishi were already dead in the dirt together with eight Ogama samurai, and six wounded. Another battle between three shishi and ten Ogama samurai was drawing to its inevitable conclusion. A final shout of
“sonno-joi”
and the three men rushed to their deaths. Thirty Choshu samurai were arranged in depth, waiting for the next breakout. Smoke billowed from rips in the shojis. Stench of burning flesh was on the air. No movement from inside. An officer motioned to one of the samurai. “Report to the Captain what occurred here and ask him, Do we wait or go in?”

The man ran off.

In front, the skirmish ended as all the others had done. The three shishi died bravely. Twelve more of them dead here, seventeen Choshu Samurai and one of Yoshi’s men scattered in heaps. Fourteen wounded, three shishi helpless, disarmed and still alive. The Captain listened to the report. “Tell the officer to wait and kill anyone we flush out.” He called out to a group held in reserve. “Empty the huts while there is time. Kill anyone who will not surrender but not the wounded.”

At once the men went for the door. Inside there were brief shouts and countershouts and then silence. One of the men came out again, blood pouring from a vicious cut in his thigh. “Half a dozen wounded, many bodies.”

“Bring them out before the roof falls in!”

The bodies, and wounded, were lined up in front of Yoshi and Ogama, the officials nearby. Torches cast strange shadows. Twenty-nine dead. Eleven helplessly wounded. Katsumata was not amongst them.

“Where is he?” Ogama shouted at the chief official, enraged, Yoshi equally angry, no one knowing exactly how many enemy were within when the battle had begun.

The man went to his knees. “Sire, I swear he was there earlier and he never left.”

Ogama stomped over to the nearest wounded shishi. “Where is he?”

The man glared at him through his pain. “Who?”

“Katsumata!
Katsumata!”

“Who? I know no … no Katsumata.
Sonno-joi
, traitor! Kill me and have done with it.”

“Soon enough,” Ogama said through his teeth.

Each of the wounded was questioned. Ogama had looked into every face—no Katsumata. Or Takeda. “Kill them all.”

“Let them die honorably, as samurai,” Yoshi said.

“Of course.” They both looked back as the roof of the hut fell in and the walls collapsed in a shower of sparks, carrying the adjoining hovels with it. The drizzle turned to rain again. “Captain! Put the fire out. There must be a cellar, a hiding place, if this piece of dung is not an incompetent fool.” Ogama strode off, in total rage, believing somehow he had been cheated.

Nervously the chief official got off his knees and sidled nearer to Yoshi. “Excuse me, Sire,” he whispered, “but the woman’s not here either. There must be a h—”

“What woman?”

“She was young. A Satsuma. She has been with them for some weeks. We believe she was Katsumata’s companion. I am sorry to say Takeda is not there either.”

“Who?”

“A Choshu shishi we have been watching. Perhaps he was Ogama’s spy-he was seen sneaking into Ogama’s headquarters the day before our other attack on Katsumata failed.”

“For certain Katsumata was in there and the other two?”

“Certain, Sire. All three, Sire.”

“Then there is a cellar or secret escape route.”

They found it in the dawn. A trapdoor over a narrow tunnel, just enough to crawl through that ended well away in a weed-covered garden of an empty shack. Furiously Ogama kicked the camouflaged cover.
“Baka!”

“We will put a price on Katsumata’s head. A special price,” Yoshi said. He was as angry. Obviously the failure had bruised the relationship so agonizingly manipulated and begun. But he was too shrewd to mention Takeda, or about the woman—she had no significance. “Katsumata must still be in Kyōto. The Bakufu will be ordered to find him, capture him or bring us his head.”

“My adherents will be ordered the same.” Ogama was a little mollified. He also had been thinking about Takeda, wondering if his escape boded good or bad. He glanced at the Captain who had walked up. “Yes?”

“You wish to view the heads now, Sire?”

“Yes. Yoshi-dono?”

“Yes.”

The wounded shishi were allowed to die honorably without further pain. They were ritually decapitated, their heads washed and were now in a formal row. Forty. Again that number, Ogama thought uneasily. Is that an omen? Nonetheless he hid his disquiet, recognizing none of them.

“I have seen them,” he said formally, the dawn misted with the light rain.

“I have seen them,” Yoshi said equally gravely.

“Put the heads on spikes, twenty outside my gates, and twenty outside Lord Yoshi’s.”

“And the sign, Sire?” the Captain asked.

“Yoshi-dono, what do you suggest?”

After a pause, knowing he was being tried again, Yoshi said, “The two signs could read:
These outlaws, ronin, were punished for crimes against the Emperor. Let all beware misdeeds
. Is that satisfactory?”

“Yes. And the signature?” Both of them knew this was highly important and difficult to solve. If Ogama signed it alone, that implied he was legally master of the Gates; if Yoshi, that would imply Ogama was subservient to him, legally true but out of the question. A Bakufu seal implied the same. A Court seal would be undue meddling in temporal matters.