The bridge at Nihonbashi was considered the first stage of the Tokaido, on the fringe of Yedo, and the Inn of Blue Skies one of dozens, rich and poor, that were scattered in the district. Tonight was black and cold, the sky solid cloud, midnight still hours away. The Blue Skies lay in a dirty little alley, one of the poorer establishments, a nondescript, ramshackle, two-story building with outhouses, kitchens and a few separate one-room bungalows in the garden behind walls. On the veranda of one of these, Katsumata sat meditating, his robe padded against the chill, enjoying the garden that alone had had care lavished on it.
Colorful lanterns amidst choice plantings around a tiny stream, a bridge, the soothing, friendly sound of trickling water and cloppp cloppp of the pivoted, resonant bamboo cup falling against its stone, filling with water and emptying from the miniature waterfall as long as the water fell. His silent shishi bodyguard stopped momentarily, motioned that all was well, and continued on his roving patrol around the Inn.
Katsumata was content, his plans perfected: two shishi were to join him in the morning for Yokohama, this guard and one other. The sacrifice of these two with Hiraga, Takeda and Akimoto would ensure the burning of the Settlement and sinking the warship, and therefore the bombardment and obliteration of Yedo with all its consequent results. At the last minute he would take over the firing of the church as he had always anticipated, allowing Hiraga to lead the assault team against the warship, thus giving himself plenty of opportunity to escape whereas the others would have none.
His fingers fondled the hilt of a long sword in his lap, enjoying the touch of the fine leather, already imagining himself part of these acts of terrorism that would lift sonno-joi from the present apathy that surrounded it, making certain his leadership of the newly formed shishi cadres, from now on to be dominated by himself and Satsuma.
Next, Yoshi and Anjo, however tempting, were not as important as Yokohama, so he had left them to other shishi here. There were not enough men to mount a frontal attack, so he had devised an ambush. An ambush might succeed, probably would not, but its very audacity again would be uplifting. For this he needed to know the exact time of the doctor's return. If Meikin reported it was tomorrow, he would alert men already primed and waiting in a nearby Inn for this suicide mission, still leaving him his two for Yokohama.
It will be enough if the ambush is launched so close to the castle, he told himself, light-headed with anticipation. This, together with Yokohama, will assure sonno-joi and make my future sublime. If only there was more time to prepare!
Ah time! "Time is a thought," he had told his students in their Zen classes, opening and closing his fist for emphasis, "Time exists but does not exist, is permanent and impermanent, fixed and elastic, necessary and unnecessary, to be held in the hand and wondered at: why?"' Solemnly he opened his palm and stared at it.
Then chuckled. What nonsense! But oh how those youths used to rack their brains for meaning when there was none, Ori especially, and Hiraga, my best students, future leaders I had hoped. But Ori is dead and now Hiraga is tainted and treacherous.
The cloppp cloppp of the water mobile was comforting. And the trickling water. His being was filled with vitality and plans and ideas, the future once again balmy, no tiredness tonight, plenty of time for Meikin to send...
A shadow moved in the shrubs, another, slight sound at the back and he was on his feet, sword in hand, racing for the secret door that was hidden in the bushes but three ninja-clad men came out of the shadows and blocked him from it, swords raised.
At once he twisted and charged another way, but more ninja were there, the whole garden filling, some moving at him, others rock still, waiting for him to come to them. At once he launched a berserk attack against an easy target, the four men closing on him from the left, killing one, the others evaporating as quickly as they appeared. A sudden blinding pain in his eyes from acid powder they had flung in his face. In agony he howled with rage, lunging sightlessly at the enemy, his frenzy at being ambushed and tricked, lending him maniacal strength to his arms and wings to his feet.
His sword found flesh, the man cried out, armless, and Katsumata coiled and blindly lashed out again, darted left and right and right again, feinting, trying to wipe his eyes clean. Twisting, hacking, darting this way and that in panic, clawing at his eyes.
His sight cleared momentarily. An open path to safety and the fence lay in front of him.
Berserk, he leapt forward, then an enormous blow on the back of his head sent him reeling. In desperation he reversed his sword to fall on it but another blow smashed it away, breaking his arm.
He shrieked. His consciousness vanished.
The swirling black pit was an eternity of torment with red and green flashes behind his eyes, no sight there, no hearing but for a gigantic hammering, chest afire, heart pulsating, all openings out of control. Icy water drenched him and he gasped.
Another deluge in his face and another. Coughing and heaving he came out of the dark. Agony from his broken arm, the bone splinted and protruding, soared into his head and blew his sight back. He found himself spread-eagled on the ground, helpless, a ninja standing on each wrist and each ankle but they were not ninja. Now their masks were off. He recognized Abeh who stood over him. Then he saw Yoshi nearby, dark clad, but not as the fighters. Twenty or thirty others all around.
Silent as the night and the area.
"So, Katsumata! Katsumata the Raven, Katsumata the shishi and leader of shishi and patron of women," Yoshi said, his voice so kind. "What a shame you are alive. Please, the truth. Koiko, she was part of your plot, neh?"
Katsumata was frantically trying to collect his wits and when he did not answer immediately, the samurai standing on his fractured arm twisted the protruding bone viciously and he screamed, the iron will he always presumed he possessed lost with his freedom. "Please oh please..."
"Koiko, she was part of your plot?"
"Not my plot, Sire, hers and the mama-san, hers, Sire," the broken man babbled, his head on fire like his arm, the pain intolerable, "not... she was... it was her, her and the mama-san not me, Lord, nothing to do with me it was her and Meikin her mama-san, not me, it was them, not me..."
"So ka? And Sumomo, the shishi who escaped with you through the tunnel, the Kyoto tunnel, remember? You remember Sumomo? You blackmailed Koiko and without her knowledge secretly ordered Sumomo to murder me, neh?"
"Sum... momo, Sire? I don't know, who is, is she... nothing to do with me, noth--"
The words trailed into another scream as the man standing on his arm shifted his stance.
Yoshi sighed, his face a mask. He motioned to Meikin who was standing to one side, out of Katsumata's eye line, Inejin beside her. "You heard your accuser, Meikin?"
"Yes Sire." She came forward weakly, her voice small and shuddering. "So sorry, he is a liar. We were never part of any plot against you, never, he is a liar. We are blameless."
She looked down at Katsumata, loathing him, glad she had betrayed him and that she was revenged-- his cowardice and caught alive better than anything she had dared hope for.
"Liar!" she hissed and backed off as he began raving, trying impotently to get at her until another of the men smashed him senseless and he lay back moaning fitfully, not one of them with any sympathy.
Her head was pounding like never before, her mouth tasted vile. "But, Sire, so sorry, it is also true I knew him, so did my treasure but only as an ancient client, only that. He was an ancient client and I did not know then who he was or what this..." She hesitated trying to find a word that fit her loathing. "... this thing really did."
"I believe you, Meikin. Good, at last the truth. Good. And because he is the liar you may have him, as I agreed."
"Thank you, Lord."
"Obey her," he said to Abeh, "then bring her outside."
He strode off. All the men went with him, surrounding him, shielding him, except for Abeh and the men restraining the spread-eagled man, now moaning into consciousness again. She waited, savoring the moment, for herself, for Koiko and all the Floating World, so rare to have revenge, so very rare.
"Please strip him," she said, quite calm. They obeyed her. She knelt and showed Katsumata the knife. It was small but sufficient for her purposes. "Traitor, you won't fornicate in hell, if there is a hell."
When at length the shrieks subsided into unconsciousness, she dealt with him as with a pig.
"That's what you are," she murmured, and wiped the knife clean and slipped it into her obi, blood still on her hands and sleeves.
"I will take that please," Abeh said, nauseated by her vengeance. Silently she gave him the knife and followed to the courtyard, men surrounding her. Yoshi was waiting. She knelt in the dirt. "Thank you, Lord. I believe he regretted he betrayed you, betrayed us before leaving. Thank you."
"And you, Meikin?"
"I never betrayed you, I told the truth, I have told you all I know and gave you the traitor tonight."
"So?"
Unafraid, she looked at him directly, not many eyes so unrelenting as his, and dismissed that, preferring to see him as a man, one of a thousand clients or officials she had had to brave in her lifetime, for money or favors, for herself or her House. "It is time to go onwards, Sire."
She put her hand into her sleeve and brought out the small phial. "I can do it here if you wish, my death poem is written, the Gyokoyama possess the House of Wisteria. But I am of the Floating World," she said proudly. "It is not seemly to depart befouled, with unclean blood speckling me and on my hands. I would like to go onwards clean. I would like to go back to my House. A death wish, Sire: a bath and clean clothes. Please?"
YOKOHAMA Tuesday, 13th January: Angelique was among the riders exercising their ponies in the early morning light at the Yokohama racetrack, cantering alone, by choice, hardly noticing the others. The circuit was busy and all the riders watched her.
A lot of money was riding with her that morning. She was overdue. At least a day.
"Edward, she is, isn't she?" Pallidar asked, riding alongside Gornt on the other side of the field. "Er, overdue?"
"Yes, suh, the figures add up that way."
Gornt looked across at her and pondered what he was going to do. She was mounted on a black pony that Malcolm had given her, and wore a black riding habit, very snug, black boots and hat with a half veil. "Her tailor's good, never seen that outfit before."
"Yes and she's got a good seat too,"