Shōgun

“The gods protect us from that shame!” Fujiko glanced at Blackthorne, who leaned against the gunwale up the deck, staring at the shore. She studied him a moment. “He looks like a golden ape with blue eyes—a creature to frighten children with. Horrid, neh?” Fujiko shivered and dismissed him and looked again at Buntaro. After a moment she said, “I envy your husband, Mariko-san.”

“Yes,” Mariko replied sadly. “But I wish he had a second to help him.” By custom another samurai always assisted at a seppuku, standing slightly behind the kneeling man, to decapitate him with a single stroke before the agony became unbearable and uncontrollable and so shamed the man at the supreme moment of his life. Unseconded, few men could die without shame.

“Karma,” Fujiko said.

“Yes. I pity him. That’s the one thing he feared—not to have a second.”

“We’re luckier than men, neh?” Samurai women committed seppuku by thrusting their knives into their throats and therefore needed no assistance.

“Yes,” Mariko said.

Screams and battle cries came wafting on the wind, distracting them. The breakwater was breached again. A small company of fifty Toranaga ronin-samurai raced out of the north in support, a few horsemen among them. Again the breach was ferociously contained, no quarter sought or given, the attackers thrown back and a few more moments of time gained.

Time for what? Blackthorne was asking bitterly. Toranaga’s safe now. He’s out to sea. He’s betrayed you all.

The drum began again.

Oars bit into the water, the prow dipped and began to cut through the waves, and aft a wake appeared. Signal fires still burned from the castle walls above. The whole city was almost awake.

The main body of Grays hit the breakwater. Blackthorne’s eyes went to Buntaro. “You poor bastard!” he said in English. “You poor, stupid bastard!”

He turned on his heel and walked down the companionway along the main deck toward the bow to watch for shoals ahead. No one except Fujiko and the captain noticed him leaving the quarterdeck.

The oarsmen pulled with fine discipline and the ship was gaining way. The sea was fair, the wind friendly. Blackthorne tasted the salt and welcomed it. Then he detected the ships crowding the harbor mouth half a league ahead. Fishing vessels yes, but they were crammed with samurai.

“We’re trapped,” he said out loud, knowing somehow they were enemy.

A tremor went through the ship. All who watched the battle on shore had shifted in unison.

Blackthorne looked back. Grays were calmly mopping up the breakwater, while others were heading unhurried toward the jetty for Buntaro, but four horsemen—Browns—were galloping across the beaten earth from out of the north, a fifth horse, a spare horse, tethered to the leader. This man clattered up the wide stone steps of the wharf with the spare horse and raced its length while the other three slammed toward the encroaching Grays. Buntaro had also looked around but he remained kneeling and, when the man reined in behind him, he waved him away and picked up the knife in both hands, blade toward himself. Immediately Toranaga cupped his hands and shouted, “Buntaro-san! Go with them now—try to escape!”

The cry swept across the waves and was repeated and then Buntaro heard it clearly. He hesitated, shocked, the knife poised. Again the call, insistent and imperious.

With effort Buntaro drew himself back from death and icily contemplated life and the escape that was ordered. The risk was bad. Better to die here, he told himself. Doesn’t Toranaga know that? Here is an honorable death. There, almost certain capture. Where do you run? Three hundred ri, all the way to Yedo? You’re certain to be captured!

He felt the strength in his arm, saw the firm, unshaking, needle-pointed dagger hovering near his naked abdomen, and he craved for the releasing agony of death at long last. At long last a death to expiate all the shame: the shame of his father’s kneeling to Toranaga’s standard when they should have kept faith with Yaemon, the Taikō’s heir, as they had sworn to do; the shame of killing so many men who honorably served the Taikō’s cause against the usurper, Toranaga; the shame of the woman, Mariko, and of his only son, both forever tainted, the son because of the mother and she because of her father, the monstrous assassin, Akechi Jinsai. And the shame of knowing that because of them, his own name was befouled forever.

How many thousand agonies have I not endured because of her?

His soul cried out for oblivion. Now so near and easy and honorable. The next life will be better; how could it be worse?

Even so, he put down the knife and obeyed, and cast himself back into the abyss of life. His liege lord had ordered the ultimate suffering and had decided to cancel his attempt at peace. What else is there for a samurai but obedience?