Gai-Jin (132 page)

When she was gone the silence in the room congealed. Chen peered around the door again. Malcolm said, “Close the bloody door and don’t come back.” It closed with alacrity. Jamie began to talk but he held up his hand. “Don’t say a thing about ships or cannon or opium. Please.”

“Very well.”

“Sit down, Jamie.” Malcolm had thought all around the corners of the Admiral and devised a plan for each of the various possibilities: if the Admiral decided they could make the trip with his blessing, or if they could make the trip but Marlowe was forbidden to perform the ceremony, or if the trip was postponed till sometime in the future. For the moment he put countermeasures aside. “Would you have our steam cutter alongside
Pearl
just before dawn, the Bosun to find out from Marlowe if our trip’s on or not. If it is or if it isn’t, tell the Bosun to report to me here with the answer. All right?”

“Of course.”

“I wrote the letter for Norbert and gave it to Gornt tonight, so that’s done. Have I forgotten anything?”

“About Wednesday?”

“Yes.”

“Nothing I know of. Routes and times you know about, the pistols are standard, no doctors will be present as both Babcott and Hoag are considered unsafe. The letters are your only defense. No witnesses except Gornt and me.”

“Good. You’re ready to leave with
Prancing Cloud?”

“I’ll send a valise aboard with our mails tomorrow, no one should notice. What about your trunks?”

“I’m only taking one. Sneak it aboard tomorrow—if anyone says anything it’s some clothes I’m sending on ahead, pending my move back to Hong Kong for Christmas.”

“Chen will pack for you?”

“He’ll have to. I’ll swear him to secrecy but that’ll only work with our society, not with the Chinese. I’ll have to take him with me. Ah Tok’s a problem but she can stay here pending our ‘real move.’ I’ll have to let Ah Soh into the secret. She’ll come with us to Hong Kong.”

“Angelique?”

“No need to tell her. If we go aboard
Pearl
, Ah Soh can pack a trunk of clothes and send that aboard with the same excuse, after nightfall tomorrow for safety. All right?”

“Yes.”

“Wednesday morning we, you and I, will sneak out the back way as planned. A little later Chen, Ah Soh and Angelique, well cloaked, will go across the road to our wharf where you’ll have the steam cutter waiting to take them to the clipper—”

“Excuse me butting in but if this is the final plan, better to use an oared cutter, less noise. For safety, the steam cutter should be waiting for us at Drunk Town wharf.”

“That’s better, Jamie. Thank you. An oared cutter then. After dealing with Norbert, we get aboard as fast as we can. Tomorrow tell Vargas to organize a meeting with our Japanese silk dealers for Friday, make it look as if we’ve a heavy schedule for the rest of this week and next, all right?”

“Yes.”

“Anything else, Jamie?”

“May I make a suggestion?”

“Of course.”

“After tomorrow’s trip in
Pearl …”
McFay hesitated. “You said there might be a change of plan—because of weather? Weather’s forecast as good, isn’t it?”

“Yes. That was just in case Marlowe has to stay in port,” he said easily. “With all the fleet preparations to savage Yedo, or threaten it, you never know what Ketterer or Sir William might decide. What’s your suggestion, Jamie?”

“Actually I’ve a couple. After you come back tomorrow—Marlowe said you’d be back by sunset—why don’t you and Angelique go aboard
Prancing Cloud
for dinner with Captain Strongbow, even stay aboard overnight. At dawn you and I could come ashore an—”

“That’s a much better plan,” Struan said at once, jumping ahead with a beam, “much better. Then Angelique’s already aboard, so’s her luggage, so we don’t have to worry about her, and after Norbert we can come straight back. Great thinking, Jamie. Our stuff can be sent aboard with Chen and Ah Soh, no reason why they shouldn’t stay aboard too, no one should suspect anything.” His smile was fine and genuine. “You’re very clever to think of that, you’re very clever, which is why I don’t want you to leave Struan’s.”

Jamie smiled ruefully. “We’ll see.”

“By the way, in case there’s an accident,” Malcolm said calmly, eyes level and without fear. “If I’m wounded but mobile enough to get aboard, that’s what I want to do. If there’s a real emergency, well, just fetch either Babcott or Hoag. Plan to bring Hoag aboard anyway, we’ll take him back to Hong Kong.”

“I checked their Kanagawa clinic but that’s on Thursday so they’ll both be here.”

“You think of everything.”

“No. Wish I could, and wish you’d cancel the duel.”

“There won’t be any accident.”

“I pray you’re right. But whatever happens it’s better that I stay here until you get back, or you send for me.”

“But Mother said in her letter th—”

“I know. Let’s be honest, Tai-pan. I’m out, one way or another. It’s best
I’m here to cover your tail, if Norbert’s all right or if he isn’t, and to keep an eye on Gornt. Sorry, I still don’t trust that fellow, My job’s here not in Hong Kong. In the spring I’ll quit. That’s best, and we should agree on it now—but not before your twenty-first.”

The two men looked at each other, eyes locked. Both broke off sharply as coals fell onto the hearth. The coals flickered and died without danger. “You’re a wonderful friend,” Malcolm said quietly. “Truly.”

“No, just trying to keep my oath—to the tai-pan of the Noble House.”

André and Phillip Tyrer were outside the British Legation. “Malcolm’s idea of an embargo, however moral, would be a disaster for every trading company in Asia,” Tyrer said, “including yours, not that you’d follow suit or the Germans or Russians or Yanks.” The wind ruffled his hair but he was not cold, with all the alcohol he had consumed and the excitement. “Sir William doubts if the Governor in Hong Kong will approve, could approve whatever Parliament orders, he’d prevaricate, not that I can officially speak for either of them. Parliament’s a law unto itself,” he added with a yawn. “I’m beat, aren’t you?”

“I have a date.”

“Ah!” Tyrer had seen the flash of expectation. “Lucky man! You’ve certainly seemed a lot happier recently, a very lot happier. We were all quite worried.”

André changed to French and dropped his voice. “I’m fine now, the best I’ve ever been. Can’t tell you how happy I am and the girl, well, she treats me like a king—best I’ve ever had. No more wandering for me. I have an exclusive.”

“Wonderful.”

“Listen, talking of that, what about Fujiko? Raiko’s getting nervous and so is she. I hear the poor girl’s crushed, cries all the time.”

“Oh?” Tyrer felt a shaft in his loins. “Then your advice was right,” he said, hardly noticing that he replied in French—most of the evening he had been speaking to Seratard, Zergeyev and other ministers, English intermingled with French.

“I’d say you’ve been tough enough and it’s time. No point in hurting anyone, they’re nice people. They’re both sorry for irritating you.”

A few nights ago Raiko had intercepted him and again asked if he had his overdue payment. After he had put her off with the promise that he was expecting funds any day—gambling that Angelique would find the money—Raiko had questioned him about Tyrer. “What’s wrong with the man? It would be a service to him, to me, to Fujiko, and to you, old friend, to correct whatever needs to be corrected. Obviously he’s been seduced by the whores
at the Inn of the Lily. In these bad times it would help us, and you, if you would convince him to return. The poor girl is near suicide.”

He had not believed that but Raiko had been ready to twist the knife called Hinodeh.

“Phillip, you’ve played the game perfectly,” he said. “I’ll arrange a rendezvous and we’ll reopen negotiations.”

“Well, André, I don’t know about that,” Tyrer said. “I, er, I must say I did try another girl, once—the Inn you recommended is not bad at all—and I’ve been thinking perhaps having a permanent girl is not a good idea. I mean it’s a large expense and, well, I need a polo pony …”

“There are good points and bad points to having your own girl,” André said, hiding his angst. “Perhaps the best idea would be to shelve contract talks pending ‘an improvement in relations.’”

“You mean have your cake and eat it?”

“Why not? They’re all there for our pleasure, aren’t they—though Fujiko and Raiko are very special.” André was persuasive, not wanting Tyrer off the Fujiko hook any more than he wanted to be on Raiko’s. To be secret partners with her was one thing. To be at her mercy was another. He would make the date, the rest would be up to them to seduce Tyrer back to his previous state of passion. “Leave them to me. How about tomorrow? I can promise your welcome will be enthusiastic.”

“Oh, really? Well, all right.”

“Phillip …” André glanced around again. “Henri is more than anxious to support Sir William in moves to rap this fool
Tairō
Anjo severely—the cretin went too far this time. Could Sir William have a private discussion tomorrow? Henri has a few ideas he would like to pass on, privately.”

“I’m sure he would.” Tyrer was at once attentive and pleasantly surprised, his tiredness leaving him. Usually Seratard would launch a French initiative and they would only hear of it when it was in full force. Like the secret invitation to Lord Yoshi to visit the French flagship that they had just heard about through their own sources—Chinese servants in the French Legation had overheard André and Seratard planning, they had passed it on to Number One Chen, who had told Struan who had told him who had told Sir William. “A council of war? The two of them?”

André said, “I suggest the four of us—they’ll need assistants to put their ideas into motion, but the fewer involved the better. If later they wanted to bring in the Admiral and General, all right. But later, eh?”

“An Entente Cordiale! I’ll take it up with the Old Man first thing in the morning. How about eleven?”

“Could we make it ten? I must keep a noon appointment.” André had already cleared the idea with Seratard the moment he had returned from seeing Raiko: “Henri, this meeting could be very important, the more secret we
keep it from other Ministers the better. This time we’ve got to pretend to be a hundred percent with the British. They have the warships, we haven’t. This time we must encourage them to go to war.”

“Why?”

“I gather from Tyrer who gets it from his tame samurai Nakama—Henri, Tyrer’s Japanese is astonishingly good for the short time he’s been here. He has a remarkable aptitude for it so we should seriously watch him, and befriend him. Tyrer has found out that there’s no love lost between this Anjo and Toranaga Yoshi, who is a patrician like you, whereas Anjo is more of a commoner.”

It had amused him to see Seratard puff up at the flattery—no more a patrician than he was himself. “We secretly encourage the British to smash Anjo while distancing ourselves at the last moment from the actual conflict, while cultivating Yoshi as urgent, secret national policy. We make him an ally, we must, then through him we’ll dump the British back in their sewer and control the foreign presence here.”

“How do we do that, André? Cultivate him?”

“Leave that to me,” he had said, gambling again that, through Raiko and by providing her with first-rate intelligence, and money, he could make the right contacts to get close to Yoshi. “He’s going to be our key to unlock Japan. We’ll have to invest some money, not much. But in the right pocket …” With a little wandering into mine, he had chortled “I’ll guarantee success. He’s going to be our Knight in Shining Armor. We’re going to help him become Sir Galahad to wreck Wee Willie’s King Arthur.”

Why not, he told himself again, standing there on the promenade with Tyrer, another key piece on the chessboard of French dominance in Asia. Phillip will …

My God! He almost burst out as the wild idea jumped into his mind: If Struan gets killed in his duel and Angelique becomes a free card, could she become a Guinevere for this Jappo Yoshi? Why not? He might enjoy a different tidbit. Through Raiko, perhaps Angelique would—for she would be perilously without funds and therefore vulnerable.

He laughed and put the thought aside as too heady to consider seriously tonight. “Phillip,” he said, wanting him to consider him to be his best friend. “If we can help our masters to arrive at a firm solution and put it into effect … eh?”

“That would be marvelous, André!”

“One day you’ll be Ambassador here.”

Tyrer laughed. “Don’t be silly.”

“I’m not.” In spite of the fact they would always be on opposite sides and he needed to be able to influence him, he genuinely liked Tyrer. “In a year you’ll speak and write fluent Japanese, you’re trusted by Wee Willie, you’ve your wild card, Nakama, to assist you. Why not?”

“Why not?” Tyrer said with a grin. “It’s a nice idea to end a night on. Happy dreams, André.”

Almost no one in the Settlement was sleeping as contentedly as Angelique—Struan’s bombshell tonight, coupled with anxiety over the coming war here and in Europe and the resultant hazards for business, kept most awake: “As if there’s not enough to worry about with our own civil war,” Dmitri muttered to his pillow in the deep darkness of his room in the Cooper-Tillman Building. News from home was getting worse and worse, whichever side you supported, and he had family on both sides.

Dreadful numbers of casualties on both sides, looting and burning and atrocities and mutinies and brutalities and corruptions and monstrous tragedies, again on both sides. An uncle had written from Maryland that whole towns were being burned and pillaged by Quantrill’s Raiders for the South and the Jayhawkers for the North, and that, by now, most important men in the North had legally bought themselves and their sons out of the army draft:
The war’s being fought by the poor, the undernourished, the ill-equipped and the half starving. This is the end of our country, Dmitri
…

His father wrote from Richmond the same:
There’ll be nothing left if this goes on another year. Nothing. Terrible to tell you, my darling son, your brother Janny was killed at the second battle at Bull Run, poor lad, our cavalry was decimated, carnage
…