"Thank you, sire, so sorry but..."
"Leave us!"
She stumbled away, glad to be free of them, hating all shishi, wisely hiding the hatred.
Takeda spat in anger. "Yoshi has no honor to let that happen. Katsumata must be avenged!"
Akimoto glanced at Hiraga, sickened too. "What should we do, Cousin? That old crone is right, the search will be stepped up. We should slip away tonight, try to, eh?"
"You are baka! We are surrounded like rats on a carcass." In fact Hiraga, though pretending rage, was weak with relief. With Katsumata dead, now there need be no attack.
Once again he was in charge of his own destiny. "We must not make a mistake."
Takeda said, "I agree we are rats in a trap here. So we attack as the Sensei planned. We've the bombs now.
Sonno-joi!"
"No. We're safe for the moment."
Akimoto said, "Hiraga, if Yoshi gave Katsumata to this Meikin, it was a reward, neh? In return for betraying him? Raiko will do the same to us. Maybe she is the traitor who betrayed both of them to Yoshi in the first place, eh?"
Takeda scrambled up. "Let's kill her and begin."
"Sit down," Hiraga snarled. "We need Raiko. She has proved her worth in the past, and you forget, no mama-san is trusted wholly.
Sit down, Takeda, be logical. She will not betray us--she is only a money-grubbing harridan, like any other mama-san who, if you let her, will charge you for a third-rank whore when the girl's only a streetwalker worth hardly a copper momme. Meikin gave us good information in the past, it was because of her we caught Utani the pedarist. She herself was betrayed. Yoshi and Bakufu have thousands of spies."
"We're not safe here." Akimoto shuddered.
"I hate this place. This gai-jin Yoshiwara is infected with their plague. I vote with Takeda. Attack, escape or die."
"Not yet. Let me think!"
Takeda watched him narrowly. "You knew this Meikin?"
"Many years ago..." Hiraga almost added, and Koiko, tempted to tell them the real reason for the betrayal, but decided not to, relishing the manner of Katsumata's death. Now Sumomo is revenged and so is Koiko. Now their spirits will become kami, or they will be reborn again on the thirty-first day as the gods decide--if there are gods. Now I can forget them though they will all live forever.
The Sensei begging for mercy? All those years idolizing him, listening to him? We were dupes, he thought, disgusted. Never mind, that coward will be derided and spat on in news sheets, and soon bards and plays will orate the story how he betrayed Sumomo and Koiko and the mama-san's revenge--and death wish. Ah, what style she had!
Involuntarily he chuckled nervously and mimicked the high-pitched voice of an onnagata--a male actor who specialized in female roles, only men being allowed on the stage. ""A bath and clean clothes.
Please?"' Kabuki and puppet theatres will fill houses with that for generations!"
"Baka on the kabuki," Takeda said, fuming. "The Sensei will be revenged. Honor will be redeemed. Tonight we attack as planned, you take the ship, I take the church and the other church and kill every gai-jin I meet till I am dead. What do you say Akimoto?" He got up and peered out of the window. Night was not far.
Suddenly he noticed the wind rustling the shrubs.
"Look! It's a sign from the gods! The wind is picking up. It's from the south!"
Akimoto leapt beside him. "It's true, Hiraga!"
For a moment Hiraga was thrown off balance. Was it a sign? "No attack, not tonight. No attack!"
Takeda whirled. "I say attack." He glared at Akimoto. "You agree?
Sonno-joi!"
Akimoto was teetering. Both Takeda's rage and confidence were infectious. "Fire would cover our escape, Hiraga."
"A, a little one, perhaps," Hiraga said irritably, "not an attempt to burn all Yokohama." His brain was oscillating and he had no solution yet other than his final plan, and no way to effect that without Taira's help and purging Yoshi's grasp from around his neck. "Tomorrow or the next day, we cou--"
"Tonight," Takeda said insistently, his anger barely in check. "Tonight's a gift, the gods speak to us!"
"At this time of the year the wind will hold. We need more men to fire the Settlement. One of us should go to Yedo for them. Takeda, you could go."
"How? You said Enforcers are everywhere. How?"
"I don't know, Takeda." Shakily Hiraga got up. "Wait till I get back, then we can decide. I'll see Raiko, tell her we'll leave tomorrow--we won't but that's what I'll say."
"She's not to be trusted anymore."
"I keep telling you, she never was."
Hiraga went and found her.
"All right, Hiraga-sama, you may stay."
Raiko was over the panic, brandy in her stomach, dully allowing fate to be fate.
"Is Taira here tonight?"
"No, nor tomorrow. Furansu-san is. I know he is."
"Send for Taira. You can do that, can't you?"
"Yes, and when he arrives what should I tell him?" she said listlessly, then jerked awake as Hiraga ground the words through his teeth. "You tell him, Raiko, that Fujiko has decided she no longer wishes to sign a contract, that another gai-jin has approached you with a better business arrangement."
"But her contract price is fantastical good, he is no fool, he'll compare prices and I'll lose him to another house, he's already visited some. I'll lose him."
"You will lose your head if the turmoil you're in isn't solved," he said sourly, "and the rest of your well-fed corpse will be feeding fishes."
"Solved?" She became all attention. "There is a chance, Hiraga-sama? I've a chance?
You know of a way?"
"Do as you're told and I may be able to save you. Send for Taira now." Coldly, Hiraga looked at her and went back to the other two. They were on the veranda watching the bushes bent by the wind.