"Who sent you? And her? Who?"
"Helpppp me, oh please, it hurts, it hurts, I tried to save... save..." Her words trailed away and she saw herself again with the knife in her hand, him defenseless, heroically doing her duty, rushing forward to protect him, to give him the knife she could not herself use and to prevent the betrayer from wounding him with the flying steel, accepting it in his place, saving his life so he would reward her and forgive her, not that she was guilty of anything, only of serving him pleasing him adoring him...
"What shall we do with her?" Abeh was asking queasily, certain, with all of them that the shuriken was poisoned and she would die, some poisons more cruel than others.
Throw her on a dung heap, was Yoshi's immediate thought, his stomach filled with sick sweet bile, and leave her to her pain and the dogs. He scowled, tormented now, seeing she was still beautiful, even still desirable, only the dribbling moan underscoring his ugly, acid awareness that an era had ended.
Now and forevermore he would be alone. She had destroyed trust. If this woman on whom he had lavished so much affection could betray him, anyone could. Never again could he trust a woman or share so much. Never. She had destroyed that part of him forever. His face closed. "Throw..."
And then he remembered her silly poems and happy poems, all the laughter and pleasures she had given him, the good advice and satisfactions. Abruptly he was consumed with immense sadness at the cruelty of life. His sword was still in his hand. Her neck was so small.
The blow was kind.
"Sonno-joi, eh?" he muttered, blind at her loss.
Cursed shishi, their fault she is dead. Who sent Sumomo? Katsumata! Must be, same sword strokes, same guile. Twice his assassins have almost killed me. No third time.
I will wipe them out. Until I am dead Katsumata is enemy, all shishi are enemy.
Cursed shishi--and cursed gai-jin!
It is really their fault, the gai-jin.
They're a plague. If it wasn't for them none of this would have happened, there would be no stinking Treaties, no shishi, no sonno-joi, and no pussing sore of Yokohama.
Cursed gai-jin. Now they will pay.
YOKOHAMA On the afternoon of the same day, Jamie McFay came out of the office of the Yokohama Guardian seething. He stuffed the latest edition of the newspaper under his arm and hurried along High Street. The breeze was salty and chill, the sea spotted with combers, grey and uninviting. His stride was as angry as his mood.
I wish to God Malcolm had told me, he was thinking. He's off his rocker, crazy.
It's bound to stir up trouble.
"Wot's up?" Lunkchurch asked, seeing the crumpled paper and perturbed by Jamie's unusual haste. He himself had been on the way to collect his own copy before his afternoon siesta and had stopped for a moment to urinate in the gutter.
"Hey, the duel's in the paper, been reported, eh?"
"What duel?" McFay snapped. Rumors were rife that it was due any day now, though, as yet, no one had whispered they knew it was the day after tomorrow, Wednesday. "For Christ's sake stop spreading that chestnut!"
"No offense, old lad." The big, florid man buttoned up, heaving his belt up over his paunch to have it slide down again. "Well wot the eff's up?" He jabbed the paper. "Wot's effing Nettlesmith writ that's put your dingle out of joint?"
"Just more of the same," McFay said, avoiding the real reason. "His editorial claims the fleet's almost up to snuff, Army's sharpening their bayonets, and ten thousand sepoys are on the way from India to help us."
"Eff'ing balls, all of it!"
"Yes. Added to that the bloody Governor doing his usual, sodding up Hong Kong's economy.
Nettlesmith's reprinted an editorial from the Times praising the plan to torch our Bengal opium fields, replanting with tea, a little item that'll cause heart attacks all over Asia--as if taste buds anywhere will be satisfied with Darjeeling muck! Stupid bastards will ruin us and the British economy at the same time. Got to run, see you at the meeting later."
"Eff'ing meetings! Waste of eff'ing time,"
Lunkchurch said. "Eff'ing government! We should go to the eff'ing barricades like the eff'ing Frogs.
And we should be shelling Yedo right now! Wee Willie hasn't the balls, and as for eff'ing Ketterer..." He continued swearing long after Jamie had left. Others on the promenade nearby frowned, then quickened their pace heading for the newspaper office.
Malcolm Struan looked up as Jamie knocked. He saw the paper at once. "Good.
I was going to ask if it was here yet."
"I fetched a copy. A dickybird whispered I should."
"Ah." Malcolm grinned. "My letter's in?
It's there?"
"You might have told me so I could think of a way to lessen the impact."
"Calm down, for God's sake," Malcolm said, good-naturedly, taking the paper and turning to the section where letters were printed. "No harm in taking a moral position. Opium's immoral, and so is gunrunning, and I didn't tell you because I wanted you to be surprised too."
"You've certainly done that! This will incense every trader here and throughout Asia and it'll backfire, we need friends just as much as they need us."
"I agree. But why should my letter backfire?
Ah!" His letter was in the lead position and headlined: NOBLE HOUSE TO TAKE NOBLE STAND!
"Good caption, I like that."
"Sorry but I don't. It's bound to backfire because everyone knows we have to use those trade goods or we're stuffed. You're tai-pan but you can't..." Jamie paused. Malcolm was smiling at him unperturbed. "What about the Choshu rifles for goodness' sake? We've accepted their money though you agreed to pass them over to the other man, Watanabe, for Lord Someone or other--the order you increased to five thousand?"
"All in due time." Malcolm remained calm though reminded that his mother had cancelled the order that he had, promptly, reinstated by the fastest mail possible. Silly of her, she understands nothing about Japan. Never mind, only a few more days and she'll be curbed. "Meanwhile, Jamie, there's no harm in taking a public, moral position," he said airily. "We must bend with the times, don't you think?"
McFay blinked. "You mean it's a ploy?
To confuse the opposition?"
"Bend with the times," Malcolm repeated happily. His letter advocated, at length, the phasing out of opium and guns, just as the Admiral wanted, and put him squarely behind the Admiral's vehement position and the Government's proposed new plan for Asia: Ways must be found at once to put our trading approach on the most perfect footing, for the greater glory of H.m. the Queen, God Bless Her, and our British Empire. The Noble House is proud to lead the way... he had written among other flowery effusions, signing it, The tai-pan, Struan's, as his father and grandfather had done with letters to the press. "I thought it was all put rather well. Don't you?"
"Yes it is," McFay said. "You certainly convinced me. But if it's just a..." He was going to say "sop" but sop to who and why? "But if it's just a ploy, why do it? Couldn't be a worse time. You're bound to be challenged at the meeting."
"Let them."
"They'll think you've gone mad."
"Let them. In a few weeks they'll have forgotten it, and anyway we'll be in Hong Kong." Malcolm beamed, filled with good humor. "Don't worry, I know exactly what I'm doing. Do me a favor, leave a message for the Admiral, I'd like to drop by and see him before dinner, and Marlowe when he comes ashore. They're both dining with us at eight, yes?"
"Yes, both accepted." McFay sighed.