Shōgun

Then, close by shore in a deep channel between the mainland and some small rock islands, when they had turned north, there was an ominous rumbling ashore.

All oars ceased.

“What in the name of Christ . . .” Blackthorne’s eyes were riveted shoreward.

Suddenly a huge fissure snaked up the cliffs and a million tons of rock avalanched into the sea. The waters seemed to boil for a moment. A small wave came out to the galley, then passed by. The avalanche ceased. Again the rumbling, deeper now and more growling, but farther off. Rocks dribbled from the cliffs. Everyone listened intently and waited, watching the cliff face. Sounds of gulls, of surf and wind. Then Toranaga motioned to the drum master, who picked up the beat once more. The oars began. Life on the ship became normal.

“What was that?” Blackthorne said.

“Just an earthquake.” Mariko was perplexed. “You don’t have earthquakes?”

“No. Never. I’ve never seen one before.”

“Oh, we have them frequently, Anjin-san. That was nothing, just a small one. The main shock center would be somewhere else, even out to sea. Or perhaps this one was just a little one here, all by itself. You were lucky to witness a small one.”

“It was as though the whole earth was shaking. I could have sworn I saw . . . I’ve heard about tremors. In the Holy Land and the Ottomans, they have them sometimes. Jesus!” He exhaled, his heart still thumping roughly. “I could have sworn I saw that whole cliff shake.”

“Oh, it did, Anjin-san. When you’re on land, it’s the most terrible feeling in the whole world. There’s no warning, Anjin-san. The tremors come in waves, sometimes sideways, sometimes up and down, sometimes three or four shakes quickly. Sometimes a small one followed by a greater one a day later. There’s no pattern. The worst that I was in was at night, six years ago near Osaka, the third day of the Month of the Falling Leaves. Our house collapsed on us, Anjin-san. We weren’t hurt, my son and I. We dug ourselves out. The shocks went on for a week or more, some bad, some very bad. The Taikō’s great new castle at Fujimi was totally destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of people were lost in that earthquake and in the fires that followed. That’s the greatest danger, Anjin-san—the fires that always follow. Our towns and cities and villages die so easily. Sometimes there is a bad earthquake far out to sea and legend has it that this causes the birth of the Great Waves. They are ten or twenty feet high. There is never a warning and they have no season. A Great Wave just comes out of the sea to our shores and sweeps inland. Cities can vanish. Yedo was half destroyed some years ago by such a wave.”

“This is normal for you? Every year?”

“Oh, yes. Every year in this Land of the Gods we have earth tremors. And fires and flood and Great Waves, and the monster storms—the tai-funs. Nature is very strong with us.” Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes. “Perhaps that is why we love life so much, Anjin-san. You see, we have to. Death is part of our air and sea and earth. You should know, Anjin-san, in this Land of Tears, death is our heritage.”

Three

CHAPTER THIRTY

“You’re certain everything’s ready, Mura?”

“Yes, Omi-san, yes, I think so. We’ve followed your orders exactly—and Igurashi-san’s.”

“Nothing had better go wrong or there’ll be another headman by sunset,” Igurashi, Yabu’s chief lieutenant, told him with great sourness, his one eye bloodshot from lack of sleep. He had arrived yesterday from Yedo with the first contingent of samurai and with specific instructions.

Mura did not reply, just nodded deferentially and kept his eyes on the ground.

They were standing on the foreshore, near the jetty, in front of the kneeling rows of silent, overawed, and equally exhausted villagers—every man, woman, and child, except for the bed-ridden—waiting for the galley to arrive. All wore their best clothes. Faces were scrubbed, the whole village swept and sparkling and made wholesome as though this were the day before New Year when, by ancient custom, all the Empire was cleaned. Fishing boats were meticulously marshaled, nets tidy, ropes coiled. Even the beach along the bay had been raked.

“Nothing will go wrong, Igurashi-san,” Omi said. He had had little sleep this last week, ever since Yabu’s orders had come from Osaka via one of Toranaga’s carrier pigeons. At once he had mobilized the village and every able-bodied man within twenty ri to prepare Anjiro for the arrival of the samurai and Yabu. And now that Igurashi had whispered the very private secret, for his ears only, that the great daimyo Toranaga was accompanying his uncle and had successfully escaped Ishido’s trap, he was more than pleased he had expended so much money. “There’s no need for you to worry, Igurashi-san. This is my fief and my responsibility.”