"Katsumata's head would make me more sure.
If caught alive, more so."
Inejin laughed and bent forward and dropped his voice. "I suggested she should quickly provide you with details about the traitor Hiraga before you request his head."
"And hers."
"A woman's head on a spike is not a pretty thing, Sire, old or young. That is an ancient truth. Better to leave it on her shoulders and use the venom, wisdom, cunning or simple rottenness that any such a woman possesses to your advantage."
"How?"
"First by giving you Katsumata. Hiraga is a more complex problem. She says he is the intimate of an important Ing'erish official close to the Ing'erish Leader, named Taira."
Yoshi frowned. Another omen? Taira was another Japanese name of significance, an ancient regal family related to the Yoshi Serata line. "So?"
"This Taira is an official, an interpreter-in-training. His Japanese is already very good--the Ing'erish must have a school like the one you proposed and the Bakufu "consider."
"Consider, eh? Taira? Is he an ugly young man, tall with blue eyes, huge nose and long hair like rice straw?"
"Yes, yes that would be him."
"I remember him from the meeting of Elders. Go on."
"Meikin has heard his grasp of our language improves rapidly, helped by a whore called Fujiko, but more because of this Hiraga who has cut his hair in gai-jin style, wears gai-jin clothes." The old man hesitated, loving the telling of secrets. "It seems this Hiraga is the grandson of an important Choshu shoya who was permitted to purchase goshi status for his sons, one of whom, this Hiraga's father, is now hirazamurai. Hiraga was chosen to join a secret Choshu school where, as an exceptional student he learned Ing'erish." He suppressed a smile seeing his Lord's face.
"Then the spy is not gai-jin, but this Hiraga?"
"No Sire, but Hiraga could be a serious secondary source of intelligence. If he could be tapped."
"A shishi helping us?" Yoshi scoffed.
"Impossible."
"Your meeting yesterday, aboard the Furansu ship. It was profitable, Sire?"
"It was interesting." Impossible to keep those ventures secret. He was glad Inejin was so well informed so quickly. Abeh and half a dozen of his men had been present at the meeting. Who had spoken in their cups? It didn't matter.
It was to be expected. Nothing compromising was said by him.
"Abeh!" he called out.
"Sire?"
"Send a maid with tea and sak`e." He said nothing more until it had been served and accepted gratefully by Inejin, sifting the information, sorting it and coming up with new questions and answers. "What do you propose?"
"It would not be for me to propose what you have already surely decided, Sire. But it did occur to me, when and if the Ing'erish Leader sends his ultimatum, you alone would be the perfect person to mediate--alone, Sire."
"Ah! And then?"
"Amongst other things you could ask to see this Hiraga. You could weigh him, perhaps persuade him to be on your side. Turn him to your advantage. The timing could be perfect."
"That could be possible, Inejin," he said, already having discarded that for a much better thought, one that fitted the plan he had discussed with Ogama in Kyoto, and his own need to begin the grand design. "Or an example might be made of this Hiraga. Catch Katsumata, he's the head of the shishi snake--if Meikin is the means to deliver him alive, so much the better for her."
A few miles away on the Tokaido Road, at the Hodogaya way station, Katsumata scrutinized the crowds from a Teahouse window. "Be patient, Takeda," he said, "Hiraga is not due till midmorning.
Be patient."
"I hate this place," Takeda said. The village was in open country with few places to hide and barely three miles from the Yokohama Settlement. They were in Teahouse of the First Moon, the same that Katsumata and daimyo Sanjiro had stayed at after Ori and Shorin had attacked the gai-jin on the Tokaido. "And if he does not arrive?" The youth scratched his head irritably, his chin nor his pate not shaven since their escape from Kyoto and now covered with stubbled hair.
"He will arrive, if not today, tomorrow. I must see him."
The two men had been hiding here for a week.
Their journey from Kyoto had been arduous, with many narrow escapes. "Sensei, I do not like this place or the change of plan. We should be in Yedo if we're to carry on the fight, or perhaps we should turn around and go home."
"If you want to go on, go. If you want to walk back to Choshu, go," Katsumata said.
"The next time you complain you are ordered to leave!"
Takeda apologized at once, adding, "It's just that we lost so many men in Kyoto, we do not even know how shishi have fared in Yedo. So sorry, yes, but I keep thinking we should have gone home like those who survived, me to Choshu you to Satsuma to regroup later."
"Hodogaya's perfect for us and this Inn is safe." Warned that Yoshi had put a heavy price on his head, Katsumata had decided to be prudent and not continue. "Tomorrow or the next day we'll go on," he said, glad for the youth's value as a shield to his back. "First Hiraga."
It had been difficult and dangerous to contact him. Few people here had access through the Yokohama barriers, or to the gai-jin Yoshiwara. New passes were continually being issued, new passwords. Enforcer patrols wandered at large. Covert pockets of samurai swarmed around Yokohama, almost cutting it off from the rest of the land.
Then three days ago Katsumata had found a maid whose sister was a midwife who went to the Yoshiwara from time to time. For a golden oban the midwife agreed to carry a message to the mama-san at the House of the Three Carp.
"Takeda, stay here and keep watch. Wait patiently."
Katsumata went down into the garden and strode through the front gates onto the Tokaido, bustling with morning travellers, palanquins, porters, soothsayers, scribes, samurai, and some ponies carrying women or ridden by samurai.
Talking, shouting, screeching. The morning was cold and everyone wore padded jackets and warm head scarves or hats. A few samurai eyed Katsumata but not rudely. The way he walked, the filthy thatch of hair and beard, the long sword in a back scabbard, another in his belt, shouted caution to the inquisitive.
Clearly he was a ronin of some kind and to be avoided.
On the outskirts of the village, inside the well-guarded barrier, where he had a good field of view towards the sea and Yokohama, he sat on a bench at a roadside eating stall.
"Tea and make it fresh and see that it's hot."
The frightened stall owner rushed to obey.
At the Settlement, a group of mounted traders clattered over the bridge, raised their hats politely or saluted the North Gate guards with their riding crops in return for perfunctory bows. Other traders, tradesmen, soldiers, sailors, Drunk Town riffraff were on foot, all of them on a holiday morning outing. Today was New Year's Day.
Horseraces were scheduled for this afternoon and then, later, an interservice football match. It was cold though fine, the wind slight but sufficient to take most of the smell of winter and decaying seaweed and human waste further inland.
One of the riders was Jamie McFay.