Gai-Jin (63 page)

Hiraga thought about that, and Ori, very carefully. Icily. Then again he decided: “It-is-forbidden.”

The finality of the words washed over Ori. For the second time in as few days. Both times over
her
.

No sound in the room now. Both impassive. Outside they could hear the wind. It had dropped a little. From time to time it crackled the shoji’s oiled paper. Ori sipped, seething, implacably committed but showing none of it, knowing that if both his arms were as strong as before and he was as agile as before, he would be readying to dive for his sword to fend off the attack that, unless he surrendered, was inevitable.

Never mind. In a direct fight, even if I were totally fit, Hiraga would always beat me to the first cut. Therefore he must be removed from my path in another way.

With a will to match the new enemy who was determined to thwart him, Ori vowed he would not be the first to break the silence and so lose face. Pressure between them soared. In seconds it became unbearable, now cresting …

Running footsteps. The shoji slid back. Raiko was chalky. “Bakufu Enforcer patrols are on the bridge and at the Gate. You must leave. Hurry!”

Both were aghast, all else forgotten. They went for their swords. “Will they come into the Yoshiwara?” Ori asked.

“Yes, in twos and threes, they have before, avoiding gai-jin but not us.” Her voice trembled like her hands.

“Is there a safe way out through the paddy?”

“Everywhere and nowhere, Ori,” Hiraga said for her, having examined that as a possible escape route yesterday. “The land’s flat with no cover for a
ri
. If they’re blocking the Gate and the bridge they’ll be there too.”

“What about the gai-jin area, Raiko?”

“The Settlement? They’ve never gone there. You mus—” She whirled, even more frightened. Both men jerked their swords half out, while a white-faced maid rushed up. “They are in the lane, making a house-to-house search,” she whimpered.

“Warn the others.”

The girl fled. Hiraga tried to get his brain working. “Raiko, where is your safe place, your secret cellar?”

“We have none,” she said, wringing her hands.

“There must be one somewhere.”

Abruptly Ori snaked over to her and she backed off, terrified. “Where’s the secret way into the Settlement? Quick!”

Raiko almost fainted as he shifted his grip on his sword hilt and though not actually menaced, she knew she was near death. “I … into the Settlement? I—I’m not sure but—but years ago I was—was told … I’d forgotten,” she said, trembling. “I’m not sure, but—but please follow quietly.”

They stayed close to her, going deep in the bushes, careless of the branches that fought to prevent their passage, the moon still good and high between scudding clouds, the wind tugging at them. When she reached a hidden part of the fence between her Inn and the next, she pressed a knot in the wood. A section creaked open, the wooden hinges grimed and unused.

Without disturbing the carousers, she crossed this garden to the far side, through a gate into another garden and around the back, past the low, bricked, fireproof structure that served as a safe for valuables, to where the large water tanks, or wells were—the tanks part filled by rainwater, part by daily lines of water coolies.

Panting, she motioned at the wooden cover over a well. “I think … I think it is there.”

Hiraga eased the cover aside. Crude, rusty iron bars as footholds and handholds were hammered into the mud brick walls, no sign of water below. Still frightened she whispered, “I was told it leads to a tunnel…. I am not sure but I was told it goes under the canal but where it comes out I do not know. I had forgotten about it…. I must get back…. ”

“Wait!” Ori stepped in her way, picked up a stone and dropped it into the well. A loud plop as it hit water far below. “Who made this?”

“Bakufu, I was told, when they built the Settlement.”

“Who told you about it?”

“One of the manservants—I forget who, but he had seen them …” They all looked over towards the main street. Angry voices there. “I have to get back …” She vanished the way she had come.

Uneasily they peered below. “If the Bakufu built it, Ori, it could be a trap, for people like us.”

From one of the nearby houses the sound of voices cursing in English: “What the hell d’you want … push off!”

Ori stuck his long sword in his belt. Awkwardly because of his shoulder, he slid over the lip and began to descend. Hiraga followed, replacing the cover.

The blackness seemed ever more black, then Ori’s feet hit earth again. “Careful, I think it is a ledge.” His voice was strangled and echoed eerily.

Hiraga groped down beside him. In his sleeve pocket were some safety matches and he scraped one alight.

“Eeee,” Ori said excitedly, “where did you get that?”

“They have them everywhere in the Legation—those dogs are so rich they just leave them around. Taira said to help myself. Look there!” In the last of the match they saw the mouth of the tunnel. It was dry and the height of a man. Water filled the well ten feet below them. In a niche was an old candle. It took Hiraga three matches to light it. “Come on.”

The tunnel sloped downwards. After fifty paces or so it became wet, the floor puddled and awash in parts. Fetid water seeped down from the roughly shored roof and sides, the wood rotting and unsafe. As they went onwards the air became more rancid, breathing difficult. “We can wait here, Ori.”

“No, go on.”

They were sweating, in part from fear, in part from the closeness. The flame guttered and went out. Cursing, Hiraga lit it and cupped the flame, not much of the wick left or of the candle. He waded onwards, the water level rising. Still the roof sloped downwards, now the water to their hips. Ori slipped but regained his footing. Another twenty or thirty paces. Water still rising. Now to their waists, the roof not far above their heads. On wards. Candle weakening. On again.

Hiraga was watching the candle, cursing. “Better we go back and wait in the dry part.”

“No, go on until the candle goes out.”

Ahead the tunnel curled into the blackness, the roof lowering to not far above the water. Nauseated, Hiraga waded forward again, the bottom slippery. More paces. The roof pressed against his head. More, and now the roof rose slightly. “Water level is going down,” he said, sick with relief, wading faster, the murk stinking. Around the bend, roof higher now. Onwards. Just before the candle spluttered and died they saw dry earth and the tunnel end, a shaft leading up, another down.

Hiraga groped forward, unable to see anything. “Ori, now I am at the edge. Listen, I will toss a stone down into it.” The stone took seconds and seconds ricocheting before it plopped dully. “Eeee, it must go down a hundred feet or more,” he said, his stomach heaving.

“Light another match.”

“I have only three left.” Hiraga lit one. They could see rusty, precarious footholds leading upwards, nothing more. “How did you know Raiko knew about this?”

“It was a sudden thought. There had to be a tunnel—I would have built one if I had been them.” Ori’s voice was hoarse, heavy breathing. “They could be up there, in ambush. They will shove us back, or we will have to jump.”

“Yes.”

“Hurry up, I hate it here. Climb!”

Equally uncomfortable, Hiraga eased his long sword in his belt. Ori
backed nervously, gripping his sword hilt. Abruptly the two men faced each other, near safety perhaps, but nothing solved between them.

The match guttered and went out.

In the blackness they could no longer see each other. Without thinking each had at once retreated against the tunnel wall away from the lip. Hiraga, more battle cunning, dropping to one knee, his hand on his hilt ready to slash the legs from under Ori if he attacked, listening intently for a sword sliding from its sheath.

“Hiraga!” Ori’s voice rasped out of the black, well out of range, further away down the tunnel. “I want her dead. I will go after her—for
sonno-joi
and me. You want to stay. Solve the problem.”

Silently Hiraga stood. “You solve it,” he hissed, and at once, soundlessly, changed positions.

“I cannot. I cannot solve it, I have tried.”

Hiraga hesitated, expecting a trick. “First put your swords down.”

“And then?”

“Next: because she obsesses you above
sonno-joi
, you will not be armed near me in Yokohama, you will leave for Kyōto tomorrow and tell Katsumata, he is your Satsuma leader. When you return we will do it, everything as you said.”

“And if I do not return?”

“Then I will do it—in a time of my choosing.”

The voice grated even more. “But she could leave, escape,
neh?
What if she leaves before I return?”

“I will make sure I hear about any move and will send you word. If you cannot be here in time, I will decide. She—and her husband if by then they’re married—they will only go to Hong Kong. You—or we—can follow her there.” He heard Ori’s heavy breathing and waited, on guard against a sudden rush, knowing he could not trust Ori while she was alive and near but this seemed to be the best plan for the moment. Killing him would be a waste. I need his wisdom. “You agree?”

He waited. And waited. Then, “Yes. What else?”

“Last: the cross, you will throw it down the well.” Hiraga heard a sudden, angry intake of breath. The silence grew.

“I agree, Hiraga-san. Please accept my apologies.”

Then his sharp ears heard the slight sound of cloth being moved, something went past him and then the tiny sound of metal hitting the well wall behind him, almost immediately to vanish below. Sound of swords being grounded.

Hiraga lit a match. Indeed now Ori was standing defenseless. At once Hiraga darted forward, Ori rushed back in panic but Hiraga only collected the swords. Before the match died he had had time to throw the swords
also into the well. “Please obey me, Ori. Then you have nothing to fear. I will go first, wait till I call down to you.”

The rungs were jagged with rust, some loose. The ascent was precarious. Then, far above, thankfully he saw the mouth of the well open to the sky, speckles of stars between clouds. Night sounds, wind and sea. Climbing again but more cautiously. It took all of his strength to ease himself up to the stone balustrade and peer around.

The abandoned well was near the canal fence, in a wasteland of weeds and derelict junk. Seashore not far off. Broken-down houses, deep potholes in the dirt roadways. Snarl of a foraging dog nearby. Raucous voices singing on the wind. Now Hiraga had his bearings. They were in Drunk Town.

FRIDAY, 17TH OCTOBER:

In the morning light in Yedo Castle, Misamoto—the fisherman, fake samurai, and Yoshi’s spy—was trembling on his knees in front of the alarmed Council of Elders, the English version of Sir William’s reply shaking in his hand. Beside him cowered a Bakufu official.

“Speak up, fisherman!” Anjo, the chief Elder repeated, the audience room hushed and tense and chill. “Never mind if you don’t understand all the Ing’erish words, we want to know if the Bakufu official translated the message accurately? Is that what the gai-jin message says? Exactly?”

“It’s, well, yes, more or less, yes, Sire,” Misamoto mumbled, so frightened he could hardly speak. “It’s as the lord Official … more or less, Sire … more … or …”

“Have you seaweed for a tongue, fish offal for brains? Hurry up! Lord Toranaga says you can read Ing’erish—read!” An hour ago Anjo had been awakened by the unnerved Bakufu official who had brought Sir William’s reply in Dutch and English. Hastily Anjo had convened a meeting of the Council where the official had just repeated his translation of the Dutch. “What does the paper say in Ing’erish?”

“Well, Sire, yes, it’s, er …” Again Misamoto’s voice died away, once more choked with panic.

Exasperated Anjo looked at Yoshi. “This fish head is your spy,” he said with just the right amount of ice. “It was your idea to fetch him, please make him speak up.”

“Tell us what the letter says, Misamoto,” Yoshi said kindly, inwardly almost blind with frustration and anger. “No one is going to hurt you. In your own words.
The truth.”

“Well, Sire, it’s more or less as … more or less as the lord Official said, Sire,” Misamoto stuttered, “but this’s, this letter’s, I don’t know all the words, Sire, but some of them…well, well …” His face was twisted with fear.

Yoshi waited a moment. “Go on, Misamoto, don’t be afraid, speak the truth, whatever it is. No one will touch you. We need the truth.”

“Well, Sire, the gai-jin leader.” Misamoto tried not to stammer. “He says he’s going to Osaka in eleven days as the Official said, but not—not to make a—a ‘Ceremonial visit’ …” He quailed under the strength of their eyes, so terrified that now his nose was running and saliva dribbled down his chin, then he blurted out, “He’s not at all happy in fact he’s strongly angry and he’s going … going to Osaka with his fleet, going in force to Kyōto with cannon, sixty-pounders, and cavalry and soldiers to see the Son of Heaven and the Lord Shogun—he’s even named them, Sire, Emperor Komei and the boy Shōgun, Nobusada.”

Everyone gasped, even the guards—normally impassive and not supposed to be listening. Misamoto shoved his head to the tatami and kept it there.

Yoshi pointed at the Bakufu official who blanched as all attention focused on him. “Is that correct?”

“Ceremonial visit, Sire? For your august ears that should be the correct translation … the barbarian wording is rude and uncouth and should, I sincerely believe, be correctly construed as a Ceremonial, State visit, an—”

“Does it say with ‘cannon and cavalry’ and such?”

“In principle, Sire, the lett—”

To everyone’s shock, Yoshi almost shouted, “Yes or no?”

The Official swallowed, aghast that he was ordered to answer so directly, the first time in his life, and appalled that he was being challenged and ordinary rules and manners and the niceties of diplomacy were being disregarded. “I regret to inform you that, in principle, it does mention those but such an impertinence is clearly a mistake and—”

“Why did you not translate accurately?”