She never came back.
Buntaro was alone now on the wharf and he stood watching the rise and the fall of the battle. More reinforcement Grays, a few cavalry among them, were coming up from the south to join the others and he knew that soon the breakwater would be engulfed by a sea of men. Carefully he examined the north and west and south. Then he turned his back to the battle and went to the far end of the jetty. The galley was safely seventy yards from its tip, at rest, waiting. All fishing boats had long since fled the area and they waited as far away as possible on both sides of the harbor, their riding lights like so many cats’ eyes in the darkness.
When he reached the end of the dock, Buntaro took off his helmet and his bow and quiver and his top body armor and put them beside his scabbards. The naked killing sword and the naked short sword he placed separately. Then, stripped to the waist, he picked up his equipment and cast it into the sea. The killing sword he studied reverently, then tossed it with all his force, far out into the deep. It vanished with hardly a splash.
He bowed formally to the galley, to Toranaga, who went at once to the quarterdeck where he could be seen. He bowed back.
Buntaro knelt and placed the short sword neatly on the stone in front of him, moonlight flashing briefly on the blade, and stayed motionless, almost as though in prayer, facing the galley.
“What the hell’s he waiting for?” Blackthorne muttered, the galley eerily quiet without the drumbeat. “Why doesn’t he jump and swim?”
“He’s preparing to commit seppuku.”
Mariko was standing nearby, propped by a young woman.
“Jesus, Mariko, are you all right?”
“All right,” she said, hardly listening to him, her face haggard but no less beautiful.
He saw the crude bandage on her left arm near the shoulder where the sleeve had been slashed away, her arm resting in a sling of material torn from a kimono. Blood stained the bandage and a dribble ran down her arm.
“I’m so glad—” Then it dawned on him what she had said. “Seppuku? He’s going to kill himself? Why? There’s plenty of time for him to get here! If he can’t swim, look—there’s an oar that’ll hold him easily. There, near the jetty, you see it? Can’t you see it?”
“Yes, but my husband can swim, Anjin-san,” she said. “All of Lord Toranaga’s officers must—must learn—he insists. But he has decided not to swim.”
“For Christ’s sake, why?”
A sudden frenzy broke out shoreward, a few muskets went off, and the wall was breached. Some of the ronin-samurai fell back and ferocious individual combat began again. This time the enemy spearhead was contained, and repelled.
“Tell him to swim, by God!”
“He won’t, Anjin-san. He’s preparing to die.”
“If he wants to die, for Christ’s sake, why doesn’t he go there?” Blackthorne’s finger stabbed toward the fight. “Why doesn’t he help his men? If he wants to die, why doesn’t he die fighting, like a man?”
Mariko did not take her eyes from the wharf, leaning against the young woman. “Because he might be captured, and if he swam he might also be captured, and then the enemy would put him on show before the common people, shame him, do terrible things. A samurai cannot be captured and remain samurai. That’s the worst dishonor—to be captured by an enemy—so my husband is doing what a man, a samurai, must do. A samurai dies with dignity. For what is life to a samurai? Nothing at all. All life is suffering, neh? It is his right and duty to die with honor, before witnesses.”
“What a stupid waste,” Blackthorne said, through his teeth.
“Be patient with us, Anjin-san.”
“Patient for what? For more lies? Why won’t you trust me? Haven’t I earned that? You lied, didn’t you? You pretended to faint and that was the signal. Wasn’t it? I asked you and you lied.”
“I was ordered … it was an order to protect you. Of course I trust you.”
“You lied,” he said, knowing that he was being unreasonable, but he was beyond caring, abhorring the insane disregard for life and starved for sleep and peace, starved for his own food and his own drink and his own ship and his own kind. “You’re all animals,” he said in English, knowing they were not, and moved away.
“What was he saying, Mariko-san?” the young woman asked, hard put to hide her distaste. She was half a head taller than Mariko, bigger-boned and square-faced with little, needle-shaped teeth. She was Usagi Fujiko, Mariko’s niece, and she was nineteen.
Mariko told her.
“What an awful man! What foul manners! Disgusting, neh? How can you bear to be near him?”
“Because he saved our Master’s honor. Without his bravery I’m sure Lord Toranaga would have been captured—we’d all have been captured.” Both women shuddered.
“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 Bunt
aro 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?
He jumped up, hurled himself into the saddle, jammed his heels into the horse’s sides, and, together with the other man, he fled. Other ronin-cavalry galloped out of the night to guard their retreat and cut down the leading Grays. Then they too vanished, a few Gray horsemen in pursuit.
Laughter erupted over the ship.
Toranaga was pounding the gunwale with his fist in glee, Yabu and the samurai were roaring. Even Mariko was laughing.
“One man got away, but what about all the dead?” Blackthorne cried out enraged. “Look ashore—there must be three, four hundred bodies there. Look at them, for Christ’s sake!”
But his shout did not come through the laughter.
Then a cry of alarm from the bow lookout. And the laughter died.
CHAPTER 26
Toranaga said calmly, “Can we break through them, Captain?” He was watching the grouped fishing boats five hundred yards ahead, and the tempting passage they had left between them.
“No, Sire.”
“We’ve no alternative,” Yabu said. “There’s nothing else we can do.” He glared aft at the massed Grays who waited on the shore and the jetty, their faint, jeering insults riding on the wind.
Toranaga and Yabu were on the forepoop now. The drum had been silenced and the galley wallowed in a light sea. All aboard waited to see what would be decided. They knew that they were bottled tight. Ashore disaster, ahead disaster, to wait disaster. The net would come closer and closer and then they would be captured. If need be, Ishido could wait days.
Yabu was seething. If we’d rushed for the harbor mouth directly we’d boarded instead of wasting useless time over Buntaro, we’d be safely out to sea by now, he told himself. Toranaga’s losing his wits. Ishido will believe I betrayed him. There’s nothing I can do—unless we can fight our way out, and even then I’m committed to fight for Toranaga against Ishido. Nothing I can do. Except give Ishido Toranaga’s head. Neh? That would make you a Regent and bring you the Kwanto, neh? And then with six months of time and the musket samurai, why not even President of the Council of Regents? Or why not the big prize! Eliminate Ishido and become Chief General of the Heir, Lord Protector and Governor of Osaka Castle, the controlling general of all the legendary wealth in the donjon, with power over the Empire during Yaemon’s minority, and afterwards power second only to Yaemon. Why not?
Or even the biggest prize of all. Shōgun. Eliminate Yaemon, then you’ll be Shōgun.
All for a single head and some benevolent gods!
Yabu’s knees felt weak as his longing soared. So easy to do, he thought, but no way to take the head and escape—yet.
“Order attack stations!” Toranaga commanded at last.
As Yabu gave the orders and samurai began to prepare, Toranaga turned his attention to the barbarian, who was still near the forepoop, where he had stopped when the alarm was given, leaning against the short mainmast.
I wish I could understand him, Toranaga thought. One moment so brave, the next so weak. One moment so valuable, the next so useless. One moment killer, the next coward. One moment docile, the next dangerous. He’s man and woman, Yang and Yin. He’s nothing but opposites, and unpredictable. Toranaga had studied him carefully during the escape from the castle, during the ambush and after it. He had heard from Mariko and the captain and others what had happened during the fight aboard. He had witnessed the astonishing anger a few moments ago and then, when Buntaro had been sent off, he had heard the shout and had seen through veiled eyes the stretched ugliness on the man’s face, and then, when there should have been laughter, only anger.
Why not laughter when an enemy’s outsmarted? Why not laughter to empty the tragedy from you when karma interrupts the beautiful death of a true samurai, when karma causes the useless death of a pretty girl? Isn’t it only through laughter that we become one with the gods and thus can endure life and can overcome all the horror and waste and suffering here on earth? Like tonight, watching all those brave men meet their fate here, on this shore, on this gentle night, through a karma ordained a thousand lifetimes ago, or perhaps even one.
Isn’t it only through laughter we can stay human?
Why doesn’t the pilot realize he’s governed by karma too, as I am, as we all are, as even this Jesus the Christ was, for, if the truth were known, it was only his karma that made him die dishonored like a common criminal with other common criminals, on the hill the barbarian priests tell about.
All karma.
How barbaric to nail a man to a piece of wood and wait for him to die. They’re worse than the Chinese, who are pleasured by torture.
“Ask him, Yabu-san!” Toranaga said.
“Sire?”
“Ask him what to do. The pilot. Isn’t this a sea battle? Haven’t you told me the pilot’s a genius at sea? Good, let’s see if you’re right. Let him prove it.”
Yabu’s mouth was a tight cruel line and Toranaga could feel the man’s fear and it delighted him.
“Mariko-san,” Yabu barked. “Ask the pilot how to get out—how to break through those ships.”
Obediently Mariko moved away from the gunwale, the girl still supporting her. “No, I’m all right now, Fujiko-san,” she said. “Thank you.” Fujiko let her go and watched Blackthorne distastefully.
Blackthorne’s answer was short.
“He says ‘with cannon,’ Yabu-san,” Mariko said.
“Tell him he’ll have to do better than that if he wants to retain his head!”
“We must be patient with him, Yabu-san,” Toranaga interrupted. “Mariko-san, tell him politely, ‘Regrettably we have no cannon. Isn’t there another way to break out? It’s impossible by land.’ Translate exactly what he replies. Exactly.”
Mariko did so. “I’m sorry, Lord, but he says, no. Just like that. ‘No.’ Not politely.”
Toranaga moved his sash and scratched an itch under his armor. “Well then,” he said genially, “the Anjin-san says cannon and he’s the expert, so cannon it is. Captain, go there!” His blunt, calloused finger pointed viciously at the Portuguese frigate. “Get the men ready, Yabu-san. If the Southern Barbarians won’t lend me their cannon, then you will have to take them. Won’t you?”
“With very great pleasure,” Yabu said softly.
“You were right, he is a genius.”
“But you found the solution, Toranaga-san.”
“It’s easy to find solutions given the answer, neh? What’s the solution to Osaka Castle, Ally?”
“There
isn’t one. In that the Taikō was perfect.”
“Yes. What’s the solution to treachery?”
“Of course, ignominious death. But I don’t understand why you should ask me that.”
“A passing thought—Ally.” Toranaga glanced at Blackthorne. “Yes, he’s a clever man. I have great need of clever men. Mariko-san, will the barbarians give me their cannon?”
“Of course. Why shouldn’t they?” It had never occurred to her that they would not. She was still filled with anxiety over Buntaro. It would have been so much better to allow him to die back there. Why risk his honor? She wondered why Toranaga had ordered Buntaro away by land at the very last moment. Toranaga could just as easily have ordered him to swim to the boat. It would have been much safer and there was plenty of time. He could even have ordered it when Buntaro had first reached the end of the jetty. Why wait? Her most secret self answered that their lord must have had a very good reason to have waited and to have so ordered.
“And if they don’t? Are you prepared to kill Christians, Mariko-san?” Toranaga asked. “Isn’t that their most impossible law? Thou shalt not kill?”
“Yes, it is. But for you, Lord, we will go gladly into hell, my husband and my son and I.”
“Yes. You’re true samurai and I won’t forget that you took up a sword to defend me.”
“Please do not thank me. If I helped, in any minor way, it was my duty. If anyone is to be remembered, please let it be my husband or my son. They are more valuable to you.”
“At the moment you’re more valuable to me. You could be even more valuable.”
“Tell me how, Sire. And it will be done.”
“Put this foreign God away.”
“Sire?” Her face froze.
“Put your God away. You have one too many loyalties.”
“You mean become apostate, Sire? Give up Christianity?”
“Yes, unless you can put this God where He belongs—in the back of your spirit, not in the front.”