"We have agreed that we should not." Ishido's eyes were taunting.
"Formally?"
"Here are our four seals."
Toranaga was seething. Any delay jeopardized him immeasurably. Could he barter Ishido's mother for an immediate. meeting? No, because it would take too much time for the orders to go back and forth and he would have conceded a very great advantage for nothing. "When will the meeting be?"
"I understand Lord Kiyama should be well tomorrow, or perhaps the next day."
"Good. I'll send my personal physician to see him."
"I'm sure he'd appreciate that. But his own has forbidden any visitors. The disease might be contagious, neh?"
"What disease?"
"I don't know, my Lord. That's what I was told."
"Is the doctor a barbarian?"
"Yes. I understand the chief doctor of the Christians. A Christian doctor-priest for a Christian daimyo. Ours are not good enough for so - so important a daimyo, " Ishido said with a sneer.
Toranaga's concern increased. If the doctor were Japanese, there were many things he could do. But with a Christian doctor - inevitably a Jesuit priest - well, to go against one of them, or even to interfere with one of them, might alienate all Christian daimyos, which he could not afford to risk. He knew his friendship with Tsukku-san would not help him against the Christian daimyos Onoshi or Kiyama. It was in Christian interests to present a united front. Soon he would have to approach them, the barbarian priests, to make an arrangement, to find out the price of their cooperation. If Ishido truly has Onoshi and Kiyama with him - and all the Christian daimyos would follow these two if they acted jointly - then I'm isolated, he thought. Then my only way left is Crimson Sky.
"I'll visit Lord Kiyama the day after tomorrow," he said, naming a deadline.
"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 Taiko 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 Taiko's incredibly lavish ceremonial dinners, the Taiko 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 Taiko himself would die in his bed, respected, revered, of old age, leaving a healthy son to follow him. This had so pleased the Taiko, 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 lshido 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 but 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 stepping stones 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.
"It's true. When did we last meet? Two-three years ago? You haven't changed a hair's breadth in twenty years. It must be almost twenty years since we first met. Do you remember? It was at a feast Lord Goroda gave. You were fourteen, just married and rare."
"And frightened."
"No, not you. Not frightened."
"It was sixteen years ago, Kiritsubo-san, not twenty. Yes, I remember it very well." Too well, she thought, heartsick. That was the day my brother whispered that he believed our revered father was going to be revenged on his liege Lord, the Dictator Goroda, that he was going to assassinate him. His liege Lord!
Oh, yes, Kiri-san, I remember that day and that year and that hour. It was the beginning of all the horror. I've never admitted to anyone that I knew what was going to happen before it happened. I never warned my husband, or Hiro-matsu, his father - both faithful vassals of the Dictator - that treachery was planned by one of his greatest generals. Worse, I never warned Goroda my liege Lord. So I failed in my duty to my liege Lord, to my husband, to his family, which because of my marriage is my only family. Oh, Madonna, forgive me my sin, help me to cleanse myself. I kept silent to protect my beloved father, who desecrated the honor of a thousand years. O my God, O Lord Jesus of Nazareth, save this sinner from eternal damnation....
"It was sixteen years ago," Mariko said serenely.
"I was carrying Lord Toranaga's child that year," Kiri said, and she thought, if Lord Goroda had not been foully betrayed and murdered by your father, my Lord Toranaga would never have had to fight the battle of Nagakude, I would never have caught a chill there and my child would never have miscarried. Perhaps, she told herself. And perhaps not. It was just karma, my karma, whatever happened, neh? "Ah, Mariko-san," she said, no malice in her, "that's so long ago, it almost seems like another lifetime. But you're ageless. Why can't I have your figure and beautiful hair, and walk so daintily?" Kiri laughed. "The answer's simple: Because I eat too much!"
"What does it matter? You bask in Lord Toranaga's favor, neh? So you're fulfilled. You're wise and warm and whole and happy in yourself. "
"I'd rather be thin and still able to eat and be in favor," Kiri said. "But you? You're not happy in yourself?"
"I'm only an instrument for my Lord Buntaro to play upon. If the Lord, my husband, is happy, then of course I'm happy. His pleasure's my pleasure. It's the same with you," Mariko said.
"Yes. But not the same." Kiri moved her fan, the golden silk catching the afternoon sun. I'm so glad I'm not you, Mariko, with all your beauty and brilliance and courage and learning. No! I couldn't bear being married to that hateful, ugly, arrogant, violent man for a day, let alone seventeen years. He's so opposite to his father, Lord Hiro-matsu. Now, there's a wonderful man. But Buntaro? How do fathers have such terrible sons? I wish I had a son, oh, how I wish! But you, Mariko, how have you borne such ill treatment all these years? How have you endured your tragedies? It seems impossible that there's no shadow of them on your face or in your soul. "You're an amazing woman, Toda Buntaro Mariko-san."
"Thank you, Kiritsubo Toshiko-san. Oh Kiri-san, it's so good to see you."
"And you. How is your son?"
"Beautiful-beautiful-beautiful. Saruji's fifteen now, can you imagine it? Tall and strong and just like his father, and Lord Hiromatsu has given Saruji his own fief and he's - did you know that he's going to be married?"
"No, to whom?"
"She's a granddaughter of Lord Kiyama's. Lord Toranaga's arranged it so well. A very fine match for our family. I only wish the girl herself was - was more attentive to my son, more worthy. Do you know she..." Mariko laughed; a little shyly. "There, I sound like every mother-in-law that's ever been. But I think you'd agree, she isn't really trained yet."
"You'll have time to do that."
"Oh, I hope so. Yes. I'm lucky I don't have a mother-in-law. I don't know what I'd do."
"You'd enchant her and train her as you train all your household, neh?"
"Eeeee, I wish that was also true." Mariko's hands were motionless in her lap. She watched a dragonfly settle, then dart away. "My husband ordered me here. Lord Toranaga wishes to see me?"