Shōgun

“But the contagion? I’d never forgive myself if anything happened to you while you’re here in Osaka, my Lord. You are our guest, in my care. I must insist you do not.”

“You may rest comfortably, my Lord Ishido, the contagion that will topple me has not yet been born, neh? You forget the soothsayer’s prediction.” When the Chinese embassy had come to the Taikō six years ago to try to settle the Japanese-Korean-Chinese war, a famous astrologer had been among them. This Chinese had forecast many things that had since come true. At one of the Taikō’s incredibly lavish ceremonial dinners, the Taikō had asked the soothsayer to predict the deaths of certain of his counselors. The astrologer had said that Toranaga would die by the sword when he was middle-aged. Ishido, the famous conqueror of Korea—or Chosen as Chinese called that land—would die undiseased, an old man, his feet firm in the earth, the most famous man of his day. But the Taikō himself would die in his bed, respected, revered, of old age, leaving a healthy son to follow him. This had so pleased the Taikō, who was still childless, that he had decided to let the embassy return to China and not kill them as he had planned for their previous insolences. Instead of negotiating for peace as he had expected, the Chinese Emperor, through this embassy, had merely offered to “invest him as King of the Country of Wa,” as the Chinese called Japan. So he had sent them home alive and not in the very small boxes that had already been prepared for them, and renewed the war against Korea and China.

“No, Lord Toranaga, I haven’t forgotten,” Ishido said, remembering very well. “But contagion can be uncomfortable. Why be uncomfortable? You could catch the pox like your son Noboru, so sorry—or become a leper like Lord Onoshi. He’s still young, but he suffers. Oh, yes, he suffers.”

Momentarily Toranaga was thrown off balance. He knew the ravages of both diseases too well. Noboru, his eldest living son, had caught the Chinese pox when he was seventeen—ten years ago—and all the cures of the doctors, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Christian, had not managed to allay the disease which had already defaced him but would not kill him. If I become all powerful, Toranaga promised himself, perhaps I can stamp out that disease. Does it really come from women? How do women get it? How can it be cured? Poor Noboru, Toranaga thought. Except for the pox you’d be my heir, because you’re a brilliant soldier, a better administrator than Sudara, and very cunning. You must have done many bad things in a previous life to have had to carry so many burdens in this one.

“By the Lord Buddha, I’d not wish either of those on anyone,” he said.

“I agree,” Ishido said, believing Toranaga would wish them both on him if he could. He bowed again and left.

Toranaga broke the silence. “Well?”

Hiro-matsu said, “If you stay or leave now, it’s the same—disaster, because now you’ve been betrayed and you are isolated, Sire. If you stay for the meeting—you won’t get a meeting for a week—Ishido will have mobilized his legions around Osaka and you’ll never escape, whatever happens to the Lady Ochiba in Yedo, and clearly Ishido’s decided to risk her to get you. It’s obvious you’re betrayed and the four Regents will make a decision against you. A four against one vote in Council impeaches you. If you leave, they’ll still issue whatever orders Ishido wishes. You’re bound to uphold a four-to-one decision. You swore to do it. You cannot go against your solemn word as a Regent.”

“I agree.”

The silence held.

Hiro-matsu waited, with growing anxiety. “What are you going to do?”

“First I’m going to have my swim,” Toranaga said with surprising joviality. “Then I’ll see the barbarian.”

The woman walked quietly through Toranaga’s private garden in the castle toward the little thatched hut that was set so prettily in a glade of maples. Her silk kimono and obi were the most simple yet the most elegant that the most famous craftsmen in China could make. She wore her hair in the latest Kyoto fashion, piled high and held in place with long silver pins. A colorful sunshade protected her very fair skin. She was tiny, just five feet, but perfectly proportioned. Around her neck was a thin golden chain, and hanging from it, a small golden crucifix.

Kiri was waiting on the veranda of the hut. She sat heavily in the shade, her buttocks overflowing her cushion, and she watched the woman approach along the steppingstones which had been set so carefully into the moss that they seemed to have grown there.

“You’re more beautiful than ever, younger than ever, Toda Mariko-san,” Kiri said without jealousy, returning her bow.

“I wish that were true, Kiritsubo-san,” Mariko replied, smiling. She knelt on a cushion, unconsciously arranging her skirts into a delicate pattern.