Gai-Jin (180 page)

When he was partially satisfied he stalked naked to his house, to bathe again, this time in hot water, certain he would never feel clean again. Raiko intercepted him on the veranda, not fully recovered from her alarm.

“So sorry, Hiraga-sama, the lookout failed to warn us, but the samurai in that garden … Hot water and a bath maid is waiting for you inside, but now, so sorry, perhaps you should go, it’s too dangerou—”

“I am waiting for Katsumata, then I shall leave. He has paid you well.”

“Yes, but the Enforc—”

“Baka!
You are responsible for the warning system. If there is another mistake, your head goes in the bucket!”

Grim-visaged, he stalked into the bathhouse where the maid knelt and bowed so fast she banged her head.
“Baka!”
he snarled, not yet over his utter fright, the foul taste of fear still with him. He squatted on the tiny stool, ready for the maid to begin scrubbing. “Hurry up!”

Baka
, he thought, enraged. Everyone is
baka
, Raiko is
baka
, but not Katsumata—he is not
baka
, he was right again: without the shit I would be dead, or worse, captured alive.

Dusk was a busy time for the inhabitants of Yedo’s Yoshiwara, the biggest and finest in all Nippon, a maze of tiny streets and pleasant places
on the edge of the city, covering almost two hundred acres, where Katsumata and other shishi, or ronin, could hide in safety—if acceptable.

Katsumata was particularly acceptable. Money was not a problem for him. He paid the waitress for his soup and noodles and strolled unhurried towards the House of Wisteria, still disguised as a bonze though now he wore a false mustache and was clad differently, his shoulders made wider with pads, his robe richer.

Colorful lanterns were being lit everywhere, gardens and paths given their last brushing, fresh flower arrangements finished. Inside the Teahouses and Inns of greater or lesser importance, geisha and courtesans and mama-sans were being bathed and dressed, chattering and preparing for tonight’s entertainment. Kitchens abuzz, men chopping and dicing and preparing sauces and sweetmeats and decorations and cauldrons of the choicest rice, cleaning fish and caressing marinades into them.

Lots of friendly laughter. Misery here and there, some in tears thinking of clients allocated or strangers who must be received and welcomed with smiles and laughter, and satisfied—and not the young lovers many hearts yearned for, the yearning to be left alone and allowed to sleep. As always, mama-sans and older, more experienced courtesans gentled them, repeating the same dogma that Meikin was saying to Teko, Koiko’s
maiko
, now in tears, who was to make her debut as a courtesan this night, “Dry your tears, Moonbeam, accept without thinking the sad impermanence of life, accept what lies ahead, laugh with your sisters, enjoy wine and song and your pretty clothes, gaze at the moon or at a flower and drift with the current of life like a gourd drifting downstream. Run along now.”

I will not accept that Katsumata betrayed my Koiko with just cause, Meikin thought, her heart aching. He had no need or justification to compromise my precious with that woman shishi, however brave! Worse, he was
baka
to end such a marvelous source of influence and private information from Yoshi’s shadow: stupid, stupid, stupid! But it is done. Finished. Take your own advice, Meikin: Drift, what does it matter, truly?

I accept that it matters. Koiko mattered to all of us, not the least to Yoshi, now pitilessly against all shishi.

Again the mama-san sat at her mirror. The reflection stared back at her. Her makeup, heavier than usual, no longer hid the shadows and sagging care lines.

I accept, too, that I have aged horribly since the shoya interrupted us, Raiko and me—Eleventh Day of Twelfth Month, Last Month, the last day of my life. Just thirty-three days ago. Only thirty-three days and I look like a crone, long past the normal span of fifty years. Thirty-three days of tears, a lake of tears when I thought I was safely beyond tears, sure that I had used up all my tears long ago, over lovers I can hardly remember, over one I can
still feel and smell and taste and yearn for, my penniless young samurai who left without warning, without a word or letter, for another Teahouse and another woman, taking the little money I had saved and the broken pieces of my spirit that he cast into the gutter. And later then more tears over my baby son, dead in the house fire of his foster parents, his rich old merchant father wandering off like the other, my suicide unsuccessful.

Too many Floating years. Thirty-three years drifting, one for each of the harrowing days. Now I have forty-three years, forty-three years today I was born. What should I do now? Soon the Lord Yoshi will demand payment. Karma.

I accept that I trained Koiko, offered her, guaranteed her. What more can I offer in supplication? What can I do?

Her reflection did not answer.

A knock. “Mistress, Katsumata-sama is here, he is early.”

Her stomach felt hollow. “I will be there instantly.”

To calm herself Meikin drank some of the gai-jin brandy that Raiko had given her. When she was easier, she went out and along the exquisite corridor towards a guest reception room, all woods and tatami and shoji the most expensive. In wonderful taste. Bought and paid for with so much effort and heartache and cajoling but, because of Koiko the Flower, her House was immensely profitable and a pleasure for her bankers. Today she had a meeting. “We notice, so sorry, your receipts are considerably down compared to last month.”

“It is the season, a poor time of the year for all Teahouses, and unseasonably cold. Business will pick up with the spring. We are in huge profit for the year, there’s no need to worry.” But she knew, and knew the Gyokoyama knew, that most of her profit was because of Koiko, that now a gossamer curtain hung between her and ruin. If Yoshi decided.

Then why increase your risk, allowing shishi here, she asked herself. Particularly Katsumata—he’s the first of Yoshi’s enemies now. What does it matter? There must be bad with the good, the bad can be dealt with and the good enjoyed. Exciting to be part of the shishi, their bravery and sonno-joi, their fight for freedom from the yoke of centuries, laying down their lives for the Emperor in their tragic and hopeless quest, all of them so young and valiant, born to fail, so sad. And if they were to win, would those who next rule, would they free us from our yoke of ages?

No. Never. Not us, not women. We will be where we are now, in thrall to the yang.

Her eyes caught a glimpse of the moon breaking out of a sunset-reddened cloud, for an instant peerless, to be swallowed again, the red becoming more brown and then gold and into darkening flames—one moment alive, the next dead.

“Beautiful,
neh
?”

“Yes, Katsumata-sama, so sad and so beautiful, yes. Ah, they have brought tea, so sorry you are leaving us.”

“I shall be back in a few days. Have you anything more from Raiko? Anything further about the gai-jin, their plans?”

Meikin poured tea for him, pausing a moment to admire the superb design of the cups. “It seems the Lord Yoshi has had a meeting with the gai-jin leader to make friends with them.” She related Furansu-san’s information that Raiko’s envoy had whispered to her a few nights before, but had kept from him until now. “Also the gai-jin Kanagawa doctor secretly examined the tairō here the same day, giving him gai-jin medicines—I hear he is improved.”

“Baka,”
he said disgustedly.

“Yes. This doctor should be stopped. Raiko’s source says he returns tomorrow or the next day to see the tairō again.”

“So ka?”
His interest doubled. “Where? In the castle?”

She shook her head. “No. This is the best part, outside the walls, in the palace of Zukumura the Idiot, as last time.”

His face twisted. “So many choices, Meikin, rare choices. Just like Utani,
rieh?
So much temptation. Utani’s killing still resounds around all Nippon! Hiraga? Is he caught yet?”

“No, the chief gai-jin let Akimoto go and Takeda is still also safe.” She watched him and wondered what he was thinking, then added softly, “Two last facts you should know. Lord Yoshi was at the meeting of doctor and tairō, also with only a few guards. I hear he will be there again.” She saw his eyes glitter in the light that permeated the room and felt a sudden fear, sensing his restrained violence.

“Yoshi and Anjo together, those dogs outside the walls together? Eeee, Meikin, how rare!” Katsumata trembled with excitement. “Can you find out exactly when the doctor arrives?”

She leaned forward, almost sick with hope, and whispered, “Another courier is due this evening. I will know then. Raiko would understand what a vital chance it could be for us, for all of us, for all of us to settle many scores.”

In truth it was a never-before opportunity, if it came to pass. He scowled. “I cannot wait here, or come back tonight. When was the other meeting, what part of the day?”

“Early.”

The scowl deepened, then dissolved. “Meikin, all shishi will thank you. If the meeting’s tomorrow, send me the time at once, the Inn of Blue Skies, near the bridge at Nihonbashi.”

He bowed and she bowed, both satisfied, for now.

* * *

The bridge at Nihonbashi was considered the first stage of the Tokaidō, on the fringe of Yedo, and the Inn of Blue Skies one of dozens, rich and poor, that were scattered in the district. Tonight was black and cold, the sky solid cloud, midnight still hours away. The Blue Skies lay in a dirty little alley, one of the poorer establishments, a nondescript, ramshackle, two-story building with outhouses, kitchens and a few separate one-room bungalows in the garden behind the walls. On the veranda of one of these, Katsumata sat meditating, his robe padded against the chill, enjoying the garden that alone had had care lavished on it.

Colorful lanterns amidst choice plantings around a tiny stream, a bridge, the soothing, friendly sound of trickling water and
cloppp cloppp
of the pivoted, resonant bamboo cup falling against its stone, filling with water and emptying from the miniature waterfall as long as the water fell. His silent shishi bodyguard stopped momentarily, motioned that all was well, and continued on his roving patrol around the Inn.

Katsumata was content, his plans perfected: two shishi were to join him in the morning for Yokohama, this guard and one other. The sacrifice of these two with Hiraga, Takeda and Akimoto would ensure the burning of the Settlement and sinking the warship, and therefore the bombardment and obliteration of Yedo with all its consequent results. At the last minute he would take over the firing of the church as he had always anticipated, allowing Hiraga to lead the assault team against the warship, thus giving himself plenty of opportunity to escape whereas the others would have none.

His fingers fondled the hilt of a long sword in his lap, enjoying the touch of the fine leather, already imagining himself part of these acts of terrorism that would lift
sonno-joi
from the present apathy that surrounded it, making certain his leadership of the newly formed shishi cadres, from now on to be dominated by himself and Satsuma.

Next, Yoshi and Anjo, however tempting, were not as important as Yokohama, so he had left them to other shishi here. There were not enough men to mount a frontal attack, so he had devised an ambush. An ambush might succeed, probably would not, but its very audacity again would be uplifting. For this he needed to know the exact time of the doctor’s return. If Meikin reported it was tomorrow, he would alert men already primed and waiting in a nearby Inn for this suicide mission, still leaving him his two for Yokohama.

It will be enough if the ambush is launched so close to the castle, he told himself, light-headed with anticipation. This, together with Yokohama, will assure
sonno-joi
and make my future sublime. If only there
was more time to prepare! Ah, time! “Time is a thought,” he had told his students in their Zen classes, opening and closing his fist for emphasis. “Time exists but does not exist, is permanent and impermanent, fixed and elastic, necessary and unnecessary, to be held in the hand and wondered at: why?”

Solemnly he opened his palm and stared at it. Then chuckled. What nonsense! But, oh, how those youths used to rack their brains for meaning when there was none, Ori especially, and Hiraga, my best students, future leaders I had hoped. But Ori is dead and now Hiraga is tainted and treacherous.

The
cloppp cloppp
of the water mobile was comforting. And the trickling water. His being was filled with vitality and plans and ideas, the future once again balmy, no tiredness tonight, plenty of time for Meikin to send …

A shadow moved in the shrubs, another, slight sound at the back and he was on his feet, sword in hand, racing for the secret door that was hidden in the bushes but three ninja-clad men came out of the shadows and blocked him from it, swords raised. At once he twisted and charged another way, but more ninja were there, the whole garden filling, some moving at him, others rock-still, waiting for him to come to them. At once he launched a berserk attack against an easy target, the four men closing on him from the left, killing one, the others evaporating as quickly as they appeared. A sudden blinding pain in his eyes from acid powder they had flung in his face. In agony he howled with rage, lunging sightlessly at the enemy, his frenzy at being ambushed and tricked lending him maniacal strength to his arms and wings to his feet.

His sword found flesh, the man cried out, armless, and Katsumata coiled and blindly lashed out again, darted left and right and right again, feinting, trying to wipe his eyes clean. Twisting, hacking, darting this way and that in panic, clawing at his eyes.

His sight cleared momentarily. An open path to safety and the fence lay in front of him. Berserk, he leapt forward, then an enormous blow on the back of his head sent him reeling. In desperation he reversed his sword to fall on it but another blow smashed it away, breaking his arm. He shrieked. His consciousness vanished.