At once the girl pointed at herself. “Söji shimasu.” I will do it.
Hoag frowned. “Tell her it will be very unpleasant, much blood, much stink, and ugly.” He saw her listen intently to the Chinese, then reply with evident pride, “Gomen nasai, Hoh Geh-san, wakarimasen. Watashi samurai desu.”
“She say, ‘Please to excuse, I understand. I am samurai.’”
“I don’t know what that means to you, pretty young lady, and I didn’t know women could be samurai, but let’s begin.”
Hoag found out quickly that one characteristic of samurai was courage. Never once did she falter during the cleaning operation, cutting away the infected tissue, releasing the foul-smelling pus, flushing the wound, blood pulsing from a partially severed vein until he could stanch the flow and repair it, swabbing and swabbing again—the big sleeves of the maid’s kimono into which she had changed rolled up and fastened out of the way, and the scarf with which she had tied back her hair, both soon soiled and reeking.
For an hour he worked away, humming from time to time, ears closed, nostrils closed, every sense engrossed, repeating an operation he had done a thousand times too often. Cutting, sewing, cleaning, bandaging. Then he had finished.
Without haste he stretched to ease his cramped back muscles, washed his hands and took off the now bloody sheet he had used as an apron. Ori was balanced on the edge of the veranda as a makeshift table, he standing in the garden against it: “Can’t operate on my knees easily, Uki,” he had said.
Everything he had wanted done she had done without hesitation. There had been no need to anesthetize the man, whose name, he was told, was Hiro Ichikawa; his coma was so deep. Once or twice Ori cried out, but not from pain, just some devil in his nightmare. And struggled, but without strength.
Ori sighed deeply. Anxiously Hoag felt his pulse. It was almost imperceptible, so was the breathing. “Never mind,” he muttered. “At least he has a pulse.”
“Gomen nasai, Hoh Geh-san,” the soft voice said, “anata kanga-emasu, hai, iyé?”
“She says, ‘Excuse me, Honorable Wise Enlightened, you think yes or no?’” Cheng-sin coughed. He had spent the time well away from the veranda, his back towards them.
Hoag shrugged, watching her, wondering about her, where the strength came from, where she lived and what would happen now. She was quite pale, her features stark but still dominated by an iron will. His eyes crinkled with a smile. “I don’t know. It’s up to God. Uki, you number one. Samurai.”
“Domo … domo arigato gozaimashita.” Thank you. She bowed to the tatami. Her real name was Sumomo Anato, she was Hiraga’s wife-to-be, and Shorin’s sister, not Ori’s.
“She asks what should she do now?”
“For her brother, nothing at the moment. Tell the maid to put cold towels on his forehead and keep bandages soaked with clean water until the fever goes down. If the … once the fever’s gone—I hope before dawn—the youth will live. Perhaps.” And what are the odds, was usually the next question. This time it did not happen. “Well, I’ll go now. Tell her to send a guide for me early tomorrow morning …” If he’s still alive, was in his mind, but he decided not to say it.
As Cheng-sin translated he began to wash his instruments. The girl beckoned the manservant and spoke to him. “Hai,” the man said, and hurried away.
“Medicine Doctor Wise Enlightened, before you go Lady say sure to want bath. Yes?”
Dr. Hoag was on the point of saying no, but found himself nodding yes. And he was glad that he did.
In the gloaming Babcott sat on the Legation veranda enjoying a whisky, exhausted but pleased with his surgery. There was a good smell of the sea on the breeze that touched the garden. As his eyes strayed involuntarily to the shrubbery where the black-clothed assassin had been caught and killed three weeks ago, the temple bell began tolling and the distant deep-throated chant of the monks sounded: “Ommm mahnee padmee hummmmm …” He looked up as Hoag plodded up towards him. “Good God!”
Hoag wore a patterned, belted yukata, white shoe-socks on his feet and Japanese clogs. Hair and beard combed and freshly washed. Under his arm was a large straw-covered cask of saké and he was beaming. “’Evening, George!”
“You look pleased with yourself, where have you been?”
“The best part was the bath.” Hoag put the cask onto a sideboard, poured a stiff whisky. “My God, the best I’ve ever had. Can’t believe how good I feel now.”
“How was she?” Babcott asked dryly.
“No sex, old man, just scrubbed clean and dunked in damn near boiling water, pummelled and massaged and then into this garb. Meanwhile all my clothes were washed and ironed, boots cleaned and socks replaced. Marvelous. She gave me the saké and these …” He fished into his sleeve and showed Babcott two oval-shaped coins and a scroll covered with characters.
“My God, you’ve been well paid, these are gold oban—they’ll keep you in champagne for at least a week! The Sergeant told me you were on a house call.” They both laughed. “Was he a daimyo?”
“Don’t think so, he was a youth, a samurai. Don’t think I helped him much. Can you read the scroll?”
“No, but Lim can. Lim!”
“Yes, Mass’er?”
“Paper what?”
Lim took the scroll. His eyes widened and then he reread it carefully, and said to Hoag in Cantonese: “It says, ‘Medicine Doctor Wise Enlightened has performed a great service. In the name of Satsuma shishi, give him all help he needs.’” Lim pointed at the signature, his finger trembling. “Sorry, Lord, the name I can’t read.”
“Why are you frightened?” Hoag asked, also in Cantonese.
Uneasily Lim said, “Shishi are rebels, bandits hunted by the Bakufu. They’re bad people even though samurai, Lord.”
Impatiently Babcott asked, “What’s it say, Ronald?”
Hoag told him.
“Good God, a bandit? What happened?”
Thirstily Hoag poured another drink and began describing in detail the woman, the youth and wound and how he had cut away the dead tissue. “… seems the poor bugger got shot two or three weeks ago and—”
“Christ Almighty!” Babcott leapt to his feet as everything fell into place, startling Hoag who spilt his drink.
“Are you bonkers?” Hoag spluttered.
“Can you find your way back there?”
“Eh? Well, well yes, I suppose so but what—”
“Come on, hurry.” Babcott rushed out, shouting, “Sergeant of the Guard!”
They were loping down a back alley, Hoag leading, still in his yukata, but now wearing his boots, Babcott close behind, the Sergeant and ten soldiers following, all of them armed. The few pedestrians, some with lanterns, scattered out of the way. Above was a fair moon.
Hurrying faster now. A missed turning. Hoag cursed, then doubled back, got his bearings and found the half-hidden mouth to the correct alley. On again. Another alley. He stopped, pointed. Twenty yards ahead was the door.
At once the Sergeant and soldiers charged past him. Two put their backs to the wall on guard, four slammed their shoulders into the door, bursting it off its hinges and they poured through the gap, Hoag and Babcott after them. Both carried borrowed rifles easily, expert in their use, a common skill and a necessity for European civilians in Asia.
Along the pathway. Up the steps. The Sergeant hauled the shoji open. The room was empty. Without hesitation he led the way into the next room and the next. No sign of anyone in any of the five interconnecting rooms or kitchen or little wooden outhouse. Out again into the garden.
“Spread out, lads, Jones and Berk go that way, you two over there, you two that way and you two guard here, and for Chrissake, keep your ’kin eyes open.” They went deeper into the garden in pairs, one guarding the other, the lesson of the first assassin well learned. Into every nook. Around all the perimeter, safety catches off.
Nothing. When the Sergeant came back he was sweating. “Sweet fanny adams, sir! Not a bloody whisper, nothing.
You sure this is the right place, sir?”
Hoag pointed to a dark patch on the veranda. “That’s where I operated.”
Babcott cursed and looked around. This house was surrounded by others but only roofs showed above the fence and no windows overlooked this way. Nowhere else to hide. “They must have left the moment you did.”
Hoag wiped the sweat off his brow, secretly glad that she had slipped away and was not trapped. After he had left for the bath he had, regretfully, not seen her again. The maid had given him the money and scroll, both neatly wrapped, and the cask and told him her mistress would send a guide for him tomorrow morning and thanked him.
About her brother, now, he was ambivalent. The youth was just a patient, he was a doctor and wanted his work to succeed. “Never occurred to me the youth might have been one of the assassins. It wouldn’t have made any difference, not to the operation. At least now we know his name.”
“A thousand oban to a bent button it was false, we don’t even know if the youth was her brother. If he was shishi as the scroll said, it’s bound to be false and anyway, being devious is an old Japanese custom.” Babcott sighed. “I can’t be certain either it was the Tokaidō devil. Just a hunch. What are his chances?”
“The move wouldn’t have helped.” Hoag thought a moment, so squat and froglike against the immense height of Babcott, neither of them conscious of the difference. “I checked him just before I left. His pulse was weak but steady, I think I got most of the dead tissue away but …” He shrugged. “You know how it is: ‘You pays your money and you takes your chances.’ I wouldn’t bet much money he’ll live. But then, who knows, eh? Now, tell me about the attack, the details.”
On the way back Babcott related all that had happened. And about Malcolm Struan. “He worries me, but Angelique’s just about the best nurse he could have.”
“Jamie said the same. I agree there’s nothing like a beautiful young lady in a sickroom. Malcolm’s lost a devilish lot of weight—and spirit—but he’s young and he’s always been the strong one in the family, after his mother. He should be all right so long as the stitches hold. I’ve every confidence in your work, George, though it’ll be a long haul for him, poor lad. He’s very taken with the girl, isn’t he?”
“Yes. And reciprocated. Lucky fellow.”
They walked in silence a moment. Hoag said hesitantly, “I, well, I presume you know his mother is completely opposed to any form of liaison with the young lady.”
“Yes, I’ve heard that. That creates a problem.”
“Then you think Malcolm’s serious?”
“Head-over-heels serious. She’s quite a girl.”
“You know her?”
“Angelique? Not really, not as a patient, though, as I said, I’ve seen her under terrible stress. You?”
Hoag shook his head. “Just at parties, the races, socially. Since she arrived three or four months ago she’s been the toast of every ball, and rightly so. Never as a patient, there’s a French doctor in Hong Kong now—imagine that! But I agree she’s stunning. Not necessarily an ideal wife for Malcolm, if that’s his bent.”
“Because she’s not English? And not wealthy?”
“Both of those and more. Sorry, but I just can’t trust the French—bad stock—it’s in their makeup. Her father’s a perfect example, charming, gallant on the surface and scallywag just below and through and through. Sorry, but I wouldn’t select his daughter for my son when he’s of age.”
Babcott wondered if Hoag knew that he was aware of the scandal: while young Doctor Hoag was with the East India Company twenty-five-odd years ago in Bengal, he had married an Indian girl, against convention and the open advice of his superiors and had consequently been dismissed and sent home in disgrace. They had had a daughter and a son and then she had died—the London cold and fog and damp almost a death sentence to someone of Indian heritage.
People are so strange, Babcott thought. Here’s a fine, brave, upstanding Englishman, a great surgeon, with children who are half Indian—so socially not acceptable in England—complaining about Angelique’s heritage. How stupid, and even more stupid to hide from the truth.
Yes, but don’t you hide from it either. You’re twenty-eight, lots of time to get married, but will you ever find a more exciting woman than Angelique anywhere, let alone in Asia where you will spend your working life?
I won’t, I know. Fortunately Struan will probably marry her, so that’s that. And I will support him, by God! “Perhaps Mrs. Struan is just being protective, like any mother,” he said, knowing how important Hoag’s influence was with the Struans, “and just opposed to him getting entangled too young. That’s understandable. He’s tai-pan now and that will take all of his energies. But don’t mistake me, I think Angelique is quite a young lady, as courageous and fine a mate as anyone could want—and to do a good job Malcolm will need all the support he can get.”
Hoag heard the underlying passion, docketed it and left the matter there, his mind suddenly back in London where his sister and her husband were bringing up his son and daughter, as always hating himself for leaving India, bowing to convention and so killing her, Arjumand the lovely.
I must have been mad to take my darling into those foul winters, dismissed, broke, with no job and having to start all over again. Christ, I should have stayed and battled the Company, eventually my surgical skills would have forced them, forced them to accept me and would have saved us …
The two sentries left on guard saluted as they passed. In the dining room dinner was laid for two. “Scotch or champagne?” Babcott asked, then called out, “Lun!”
“Champers. Shall I?”
“I’ve got it.” Babcott opened the wine that waited in the Georgian silver ice bucket. “Health! LUN!”
“And happiness!” They clinked glasses. “Perfect! How’s your chef?”
“Fair to awful but the quality of our seafood is good: shrimps, prawns, oysters and dozens of different kinds of fish. Where the devil’s Lun?” Babcott sighed. “That bugger needs stick. Swear at him, will you?”
But the butler’s pantry was empty. Lun was not in the kitchen. Eventually they found him in the garden beside a pathway. He had been decapitated, his head tossed aside. In its place was the head of a monkey.
“No, Lady,” the mama-san said, very afraid. “You cannot leave Ori-san here tomorrow, you must leave at dawn.”
Sumomo said, “So sorry, Ori-san will stay until—”
“So sorry, since the attack on Chief Minister Anjo, the hunt for shishi is intense, rewards for information are to the sky, with death for anyone, anyone in a house harboring them.”
“That order’s for Yedo, not here in Kanagawa,” Sumomo said.
“So sorry, someone has talked,” the mama-san said, lips tight. Her name was Noriko and they were alone in her private quarters in her Inn of the Midnight Blossoms, both kneeling on purple cushions, the room candle-lit, a low table with tea on it between them and she had just returned from an angry meeting with the rice merchant moneylender who had raised the interest rate on her mortgage from thirty to thirty-five percent, pleading the dangerous state of the realm. Motherless dog, she thought, seething, then compartmentalized that problem to deal with the more dangerous one before her. “This morning we heard that Enforcers are—”
“Who?”
“Enforcers? They’re special, interrogating Bakufu patrols, men without mercy. They arrived in the night. I expect to be visited. So sorry, at dawn he must go.”
“So sorry, you will keep him until he is well.”
“I-dare-not! Not after the Inn of the Forty-seven Ronin. Enforcers know no mercy. I don’t want this head spiked.”
“That was in Yedo, this is Kanagawa. This is the Inn of the Midnight Blossoms. So sorry, Hiraga-san would insist.”
“No one insists here, Lady,” Noriko said sharply. “Even Hiraga-san. I have my own son to think of, and my House.”
“Correctly. And I have my brother’s friend and Hiraga?
??s ally to think of. Also the face of my brother to remember. I am empowered to settle his debts.”
Noriko gaped at her. “All Shorin’s debts?”
“Half now, half when sonno-joi rules.”
“Done,” Noriko said, so unbalanced with the windfall she never expected to collect that she failed to bargain. “But no gai-jin doctors, and only a week.”
“Agreed.” At once the girl reached into her sleeve for the purse in a secret pocket. Noriko sucked in her breath seeing the gold coins. “Here are ten oban. You will give me a receipt and his detailed account, the balance of the half we have agreed, when we leave. Where can Ori-san be safe?”
Noriko cursed herself for being so hasty, but having agreed, now it was a matter of face. As she considered what to do she studied the girl in front of her, Sumomo Anato, younger sister of Shorin Anato, the shishi, the Wild One—the boy she had initiated into the world of men so many years ago. Eeee, what lust, what vigor for one so young, she thought with a pleasant though untoward ache. And what a memorable courtesan this girl would make. Together we could earn a fortune, in a year or two she would marry a daimyo, and if she’s still virgin what a pillow price I could get! She’s every bit as beautiful as Shorin had said, classical Satsuma—according to him samurai in every way. Every bit as beautiful. “How old are you, Lady?”
Sumomo was startled. “Sixteen.”
“Do you know how Shorin died?”
“Yes. I will be revenged.”
“Hiraga told you?”
“You ask too many questions,” Sumomo said sharply.
Noriko was amused. “In the game we play, you and I, though you are samurai and me mama-san, we’re sisters.”
“Oh?”
“Oh, yes, so sorry, the very serious game of trying to cover for our men, to shield them from their bravery, or stupidity, depending on which side you are, risking our lives to protect them from themselves merits trust on both sides. Trust of blood sisters. So, Hiraga told you about Shorin?”