Parrot-like he muttered the correct responses, no difficulty in remembering every word and happening, indelibly recorded, and though his voice was erratic, she did not seem to hear it, just continued as before, her eyes slanting and calm.
Nothing changed. "Would you like to eat?" she asked.
"At moment, I, I am not hungry."
Her smile did not change. Nor the sigh.
She got up. But now she turned down the oil lamps and went into the bedroom that he had defiled and doused those lights completely.
When his eyes had adjusted to the dark, he saw that the tiniest glimmer came through the shoji panels from the veranda lamp, barely enough to see her shape.
She was disrobing. In moments the sound of the coverlet being pulled back.
When he could stand he groped to his feet and went into the room and knelt beside the bed, long since realizing she had been trying to save face, his, to blot out that which could never be blotted out.
"From my mind, never," he muttered in misery, wet with tears, "I don't know about you, Hinodeh, but it never will. I'm so sorry, so sorry. Mon Dieu, I wish, oh how I wish..."
"Nan desu ka, Furansu-sama?"
It took him a little time to adjust to use Japanese words, and he said, breaking, "Hinodeh, I say... just thank Hinodeh.
Please excuse me, I so sorry..."
"But there is nothing to be sorry for. Tonight we begin. This is our beginning."
Wednesday, 3rd December: Hiraga caught a passing reflection in the butcher's shop window and did not recognize himself. Passersby on the High Street barely noticed him. He retraced his steps, stared at his shadowed image--and new disguise. Top hat, high collar and cravat, a broad-shouldered, waisted frock coat of dark broadcloth, waistcoat of blue silk, stainless steel chain across it joining the toggle to a fob watch, tight trousers and leather boots. All the gift of H.m. Government, except the watch given him by Tyrer--for services rendered. He took off his hat and looked at himself, this way and that. Now his hair covered his pate and was growing fast, nowhere near as long as Phillip Tyrer's but certainly long enough to be considered European. Clean-shaven.
The quality and cheapness of British razors had impressed him greatly, another stunning example of manufacturing prowess.
He smiled at himself, pleased with his masquerade, then took out his watch, admiring it, noting the time, 11:16. As if sixteen minutes mattered, he thought scornfully, though pleased he had learned gai-jin timekeeping so quickly. I have learned much.
Not enough yet but a beginning.
"Want 'ter buy a nice leg of frozen Aussie mutton, off the mail ship's ice hold, me Lord, or wot'tabout some nice fat bacon, Hong Kong smoked?" The butcher was big-bellied, bald, with arms like cannons and a bloodstained apron.
"Oh!" Then Hiraga noticed the meats and offal and game hanging on the other side of the windows with their swarms of flies. "No, no thanks. I just 'rooking. Good day, sir," he said, hiding his revulsion. With a flourish he replaced his hat at a jaunty Tyrer tilt and continued down High Street towards Drunk Town and the village, politely raising his hat to other pedestrians or riders who replied in kind. This pleased him even more for it signified acceptance, by their standards, so different from Japanese customs--from civilized standards.
Fools. Just because I use their dress and begin to wear like them they think I am changed. They are still enemy, even Taira. Stupid of Taira to change his mind over Fujiko, what is the matter with him? That does not fit into my plan at all.
Hiraga caught sight of Struan hobbling out of his building with Jamie McFay, Ori's woman between them in animated conversation. This reminded him of his meeting with the Noble House Number Two man. His head was still reeling from Western facts and figures, and still limp from all the information McFay had extracted from him about moneylenders and rice merchants like the Gyokoyama. "Jami-san, perhap possib'er you meet one these men, if secret," he had told him in desperation to escape, "I interpret if keep secret."
The shoya was waiting for him. Sensing the man's eagerness to learn what he had learned, Hiraga toyed with him, accepted the offer of a massage.
Then, relaxed in a proper yukata, and over a delicate lunch of rice, dried squid, morning fresh sea bass sliced paper thin with soya, daikon--horseradish--and sak`e, he said he had had talks with important gai-jin and they had answered his questions. He sipped his sak`e and volunteered none of it.
Important information needed encouragement.
Reciprocity. "What news from Kyoto?"
"It is all strange," the shoya said, glad that the opening had been given him. "My Masters informed me the Shogun and the Princess Yazu arrived safely and are inside the Palace.
Three more ambushes by Ogama patrols of shishi ... no so sorry, no details yet of how many killed. Lord Ogama and Lord Yoshi hardly move from behind their walls... But Shogunate samurai now guard the Gates, as in the past."
Hiraga's eyes widened. "They do?"
"Yes, Otami-sama." The shoya was delighted that the bait was taken. "Strangely, a little distance from all Gates, there are secret pickets of Ogama samurai, and, from time to time the opposing captains confer secretly."
Hiraga grunted. "Curious."
The shoya nodded and, like the good fisherman he was, struck hard. "And oh yes, not that it may be of importance to you but my overlords believe the two shishi I mentioned before, Katsumata, and the Choshu shishi, Takeda, escaped capture in Kyoto and are travelling on the Tokaido."
"To Yedo?"
"My Masters did not say. Clearly the news would be of no value." The shoya sipped some sak`e, hiding his amusement at Hiraga's attempt to cover his consuming interest.
"Anything to do with shishi could be of significance."
"Ah, in that case... although it's unwise to relate rumors," the shoya said, pretending embarrassment, judging the time ripe to land this fish, "they report there is a story around the Inns of Kyoto that a third person escaped the first ambush. A woman, a samurai woman skilled in the art of shuriken... what is it Otami-sama?"
"Nothing, nothing." Hiraga struggled for composure, a thousand questions ricocheting in his mind.
Only one woman samurai in Katsumata's school had ever gained that skill. "You were saying, shoya? A woman of samurai lineage escaped?"
"It's only a rumor, Otami-sama.
Foolishness. Sak`e?"
"Thank you. This woman, was there anything else?"
"No. Such a silly rumor is hardly worth reporting."
"Perhaps you could find out if, if such nonsense has any truth to it. I would like to know. Please."
"In that case..." the shoya said, noting the big concession of "please," his voice honeyed with a trace of humility. "Any service to you and your family, valued clients, the Gyokoyama is honored to do."
"Thank you." Hiraga finished his sak`e.
Sumomo had been in Kyoto with Katsumata... Where is she now, why didn't she go on to Shimonoseki as I ordered, what was she doing, if she escaped where is she?
In repayment, and with an effort, he put those and other questions aside for later, and concentrated. He took out a sheaf of notes and began explaining, partially parroting, what "Taira" and "Mukfey" had told him over the hours. The shoya listened intently, thankful that his wife was secretly overhearing them and writing it all down.
When Hiraga had rambled about loans, financing, and banking--unclear on most of what he had been told--the shoya, impressed with Hiraga's memory and grasp of what was so totally alien to him, said seriously, "Remarkable, Otami-sama."
"Another important matter." Hiraga took a deep breath. "Mukfey said gai-jin have a kind of market, shoya, a stoku markit where the only goods bargained for, bought or sold, are small printed papers called stoku or sheru that somehow represent money, huge amounts of money, each stoku being part of a kompeni."
He drank some tea. Seeing the shoya's lack of comprehension, he took another deep breath. "Say daimyo Ogama gave all Choshu, all land and produce of the land to a kompeni, the Choshu Kompeni, and decreed that the kompeni was to be split, by deed, into ten thousand equal parts, ten thousand sheru, understand?"