""Honto," Nakama-san? The truth?
What's true?"
"Just think about what you say. So much truth.
P'rease, you say ear'rier... Kampai!" "Kampai! It time visit Yoshiwara, neh?" Tyrer stifled a contented yawn, weary of questions, but feeling grand.
"I not forget, Taira-san." Hiraga hid a smile. He had already arranged that Fujiko would not be available this evening. "Finish sak`e, last question, then go. P'rease, you say ear'rier about machines making machines? How is possib're?"
Tyrer launched into another enthusiastic answer, saying the British were leaders in what was nicknamed the Industrial Revolution: "The steam engine, railways, steel and iron ships, spinning Jenny, seed planters, mass production, harvesters, are all our inventions, sixty-pounders, submersibles, anesthetics, new medicines, navigation--four years ago we laid the first telegraph wire across the Atlantic, a thousand leagues or more," he said grandly, deciding not to mention the cable had burnt out within a month and, soon, another had to be laid in its place.
"We've invented electric generators, gas lighting..."
Soon Hiraga was giddy from the effort of concentration, and his desperate wish to understand everything when he understood almost nothing, but also because he could not comprehend why an official as important as Taira would answer any question an enemy would ask, forof course we are enemies.
I must learn English more quickly, I must. I will.
A gentle tap on the door and the shoji slid back. "Please excuse me, Otami-san," the maid said, "but the shoya begs a moment of your time."
Hiraga nodded briefly, told Tyrer he would return in a moment and followed the maid out into the alley that was empty and then into the busy street. The few pedestrians who appeared to notice him, bowed politely as to a merchant and not to a samurai as the shoya had ordered. Good.
The shoya was waiting in an inner room, kneeling behind the table, his arm resting comfortably on an armrest. A cat was curled beside him. He bowed. "So sorry to disturb you, Otami-san, but in case this gai-jin understands our language better than he pretends, I thought it best to speak here."
Hiraga frowned, sat on his heels and bowed back, all attention. "Yes, Ryoshi-san?"
"There are several matters you should know, Otami-sama." The strong-faced man poured green tea into little cups from the miniature iron teapot. The tea was superb, as rare as the eggshell cups, aromatic and delicate.
Hiraga's foreboding increased. The shoya sipped again then took a scroll from his sleeve and spread it out. It was another copy of the woodcut poster: The Bakufu offers two koku reward for this murdering revolutionary of many aliases one of which is Hiraga...
Hiraga picked it up, pretending this was the first time he had seen it. Noncommittally he grunted and handed it back.
The older man put the edge to the candle flame.
Both watched as the paper curled and became ash, both knowing that with his new haircut and rapidly thickening stubble Hiraga's disguise was very good.
"The Bakufu become fiends in pursuit of our brave shishi."
Hiraga nodded but said nothing, waiting.
Absently the shoya stroked the cat and it purred softly. "It is said Lord Yoshi is sending an emissary to negotiate with the chief gai-jin for guns. No doubt a Lord of his high rank would offer higher prices than, than Choshu emissaries." He added delicately, "Gai-jin will sell to the highest bidder."
Hiraga had heard about the Choshu samurai visiting the Noble House from Raiko--almost everyone in the Yoshiwara was aware of the negotiations --and he was sure if he knew their real names he would certainly know the men personally or their families. Only a year or so ago a stepbrother, who also had gone to the same English school in Shimonoseki, had been one of the team sent to buy the first hundred guns. Curious, Hiraga thought, that it should be to the same company owned by this tai-pan who will soon be dead, both he and his woman and this whole cesspit of evil.
"Gai-jin have no honor."
"Disgusting." Another sip of tea. "In Yedo Castle there is much activity. They say the Shogun and the Imperial Princess plan to leave for Kyoto in a week or two."
"Why should they do that?" Hiraga asked, pretending uninterest that fooled neither of them.
The older man chuckled. "I do not know, Otami-san, but it is very curious that the Shogun should leave his lair now to travel many dangerous miles to visit the lair of many enemies when, since the beginning, he has always sent a flunky." The cat stretched and he tickled her stomach, adding thoughtfully, "The roju are increasing taxes in all Toranaga lands to pay for any amounts of cannon and weapons that can be bought--except by Satsuma, Tosa and Choshu."
Hiraga sensed the shoya's underlying anger, though none showed, or his own amusement: What are peasants and merchants for if not to pay taxes? "Unless the Son of Heaven can use his Heaven-granted power, the Bakufu will plunge Nippon into eternal civil war again."
"I agree."
Hiraga was thinking, I wonder how much you really agree, old man. He put that aside to ponder how to push the Bakufu and Toranaga Yoshi from their course. Akimoto should go at once to Yedo and the House of Wisteria, we haven't heard from Koiko or her mama-san for days--perhaps we should go togeth-- "Last, it seems your shishi friend, Ori-san, did not leave for Kyoto as planned," the shoya said conversationally.
Hiraga's eyes went flat, almost reptilian. The shoya suppressed a shudder.
Instantly aware, the cat was erect in one smooth movement, watching warily. Hiraga broke the silence. "Where is he?"
"In that part of the Settlement where the low-class gai-jin live, drink and fornicate."
Near midnight Andr`e Poncin knocked on the door of the House of the Three Carp. At once the doorkeeper admitted him. Raiko welcomed him and soon they were drinking sak`e, discussing the latest news of the Yoshiwara and Settlement--she was a source of much intelligence for him as he was for her--in their usual mixture of Japanese and English.
"... and the Enforcer Patrol searched every house, Furansu-san! As though we would hide criminals! It is against Yoshiwara rules.
We know how to keep our rice bowls full: by promoting peace and avoiding trouble. Enforcers are still at the main gate, glowering at every passerby."
Raiko fanned herself remembering her narrow escape and wished that she had never invited shishi to favor her house. It's time they all went elsewhere, she thought, Enforcers and shishi, however much I like Hiraga. "I wish they would go away."
"What criminals look for?" Andr`e asked.
"Traitors, ronin usually. But anyone who is against them is a traitor. Ronin, they are their usual prey."
"Bakufu? Can Bakufu be throw out?
Revolution?"
She laughed softly and emptied the flask and began another. "The Bakufu are like lice in a prison--you destroy a thousand and only make room for a hundred thousand more. No, the Bakufu and Shogunate are Nippon and with us forever."
"Tonight Taira-san here?"
She shook her head. "The girl he wanted was not available, I offered another but he refused and left. Curious, neh? A curious young man in many ways, though possibly a good customer.
Thank you for introducing him to my poor House."
"This Japanese Sensei, teacher, samurai Taira has find--who is he, Raiko?"
"I don't know, so sorry, but I've heard he's a Yedo-man and lives in the Settlement, in the village."
"Taira-san, he talk Fujiko about him?"
"She never mentioned it, but then I did not ask her. Next time, perhaps by next time I will know, Furansu-san."
Andr`e did not believe her, but never mind, he thought, when she's ready she'll tell me. "The medicine. It arranged?"