Tyrer asked.
The trader beamed. "They're powerful liars, that's the God's truth, Mr. Tyrer, the best that have ever been, they make the Chinee seem the Angel Gabriel. I don't envy you having to interpret what they say which sure as God made periwinkles won't be what they mean!" Normally he was not so talkative but he was determined to impress her and Malcolm Struan with his knowledge while he had the opportunity. All this talking had given him a vast thirst. In his side pocket was a thin silver flask but he knew, regretfully, that it would be bad manners to swig some of the whisky in front of her.
"Could be we get permission to go there, Malcolm?" she was saying. "To this Yedo?"
"I doubt it. Why not ask Monsieur Seratar'?"
"I shall." She noticed that he had pronounced the name correctly, dropping the d as she had taught him. Good, she thought, her eyes drawn back to the Tokaido. "Where does she end, the road?"
After a curious pause, Canterbury said, "We don't know. The whole country's a mystery and it's clear the Jappers want to keep it that way and don't like us, any of us. They call us gai-jin, foreign persons. Another word is I-jin meaning "different person." Don't know the difference 'cepting I'm told gai-jin's not so polite." He laughed. "Either way, they don't like us. And we are different--or they are."
He lit a cheroot. "After all, they kept Japan closed tighter than a gnat's... closed for nigh on two and a half centuries until Old Mutton Chops Perry bust her open nine years ago," he said with admiration.
"Rumor says the Tokaido ends in a big city, a kind of sacred city called Keeotoh, where their chief priest--called the Mikado-- lives. It's so special, and sacred, we're told the city's off limits to all but a few special Japanners."
"Diplomats are allowed to travel inland,"
Tyrer said sharply. "The Treaty permits it, Mr. Canterbury."
The trader eased off the beaver topper of which he was inordinately proud, mopped his brow and decided that he would not let the young man spoil his air of bonhommie. Cocky young bastard, with your hoity-toity voice, he thought. I could break you in two and not even fart. "It depends how you interpret the Treaty, and if you want to keep your head on your shoulders. I wouldn't advise going outside the agreed safe area, that's a few miles north and south and inland, whatever the Treaty says--not yet, not without a regiment or two."
In spite of his resolve, the swell of the girl's full breasts under the green, formfitting jacket mesmerized him. "We're penned in here but it's not bad. Same at our Settlement at Nagasaki, two hundred leagues westward."
""Leagues"? I don't understand," she said, hiding her amusement and pleasure at the lust surrounding her. "Please?"
Tyrer said importantly, "A league is approximately three miles, Mademoiselle." He was tall and lithe, not long out of university, and besotted by her blue eyes and Parisian elegance. "You, er, you were saying, Mr. Canterbury?"
The trader tore his attention off her bosom.
"Just that it won't be much better when the other ports are opened. Soon, very soon we'll have to break out of them too if we're to really trade, one way or t'other."
Tyrer glanced at him sharply. "You mean war?"
"Why not? What are fleets for? Armies? It works fine in India, China, everywhere else.
We're the British Empire, the biggest and best that's ever been on earth. We're here to trade and meanwhile we can give them proper laws and order and proper civilization."
Canterbury looked back at the road, soured by the animosity there. "Ugly lot, aren't they, Miss?"
"Mon Dieu, I do wish they wouldn't stare so."
"'fraid you just have to get used to it. It's the same everywhere. As Mr. Struan says, Hong Kong's the worst. Even so, Mr. Struan," he said with sudden esteem, "I don't mind telling you what we need here is our own island, our own Colony, not a rotten, smelly mile strip of festering coast that's indefensible, subject to attack and blackmail at any moment if it weren't for our fleet! We should take an island just like your granddad took Hong Kong, bless him."
"Perhaps we will," Malcolm Struan said confidently, warmed by the memory of his famous ancestor, the tai-pan, Dirk Struan, founder of their company and main founder of the Colony twenty-odd years ago in '41.
Without being aware of what he was doing, Canterbury slipped out his small flask, tipped it back and drank, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and slid the flask away.
"Let's go on. Best I lead, single file where necessary, forget the Jappers! Mr. Struan, perhaps you'd ride alongside the young lady and Mr.Tyrer, you keep the rear." Very pleased with himself, he spurred his pony into a brisk walk.
As Angelique came alongside, Struan's eyes crinkled in a smile. He had been openly in love with her from the first moment he had seen her four months ago in Hong Kong, the first day she arrived--to take the island by storm.
Fair hair, perfect skin, deep blue eyes with a pleasing upturned nose in an oval face that was in no way pretty but possessed a strange, breathtaking attractiveness, very Parisian, her innocence and youth overlaid with a perceptible, constant, though unconscious sensuality that begged to be assuaged. And this in a world of men without eligible wives, without much hope of finding one in Asia, certainly never like her.
Many of the men rich, a few of them merchant princes. "Pay no attention to the natives, Angelique," he whispered, "they're just awed by you."
She grinned. Like an Empress, she bowed her head. "Merci, Monsieur, vous etes tr`es aimable."
Struan was very content and now, very sure. Fate, joss, God threw us together, he thought elated, planning when he would ask her father's permission to marry. Why not Christmas?
Christmas will be perfect. We'll marry in the spring and live in the Great House on the Peak in Hong Kong. I know Mother and Father already adore her, my God, I hope he really is better.
We'll give a huge Christmas party.
Once on the road they made good progress, taking care not to impede traffic. But, whether they liked it or not, their unexpected presence and, for the vast majority of incredulous Japanese who had never seen people of this size and shape and coloring, particularly the girl--along with their top hats and frock coats, stovepipe trousers and riding boots, and her boots and riding habit and top hat with its saucy feather, and riding sidesaddle --inevitably created traffic jams.
Both Canterbury and Struan watched those on the road carefully as the oncomers swirled past, around them, though always giving way to their progress.
Neither man sensed or expected any danger.
Angelique kept close, pretending to ignore the guffaws and gaping and the occasional hand that tried to touch her, shocked at the way many men carelessly tucked up their kimonos exposing their skimpy loincloths and ample nakedness: "Dearest Colette, you'll never believe me," she thought, continuing the letter she would complete tonight to her best friend in Paris, "but vast majority of the legions of porters on the public highway wear ONLY these tiny loincloths that hide almost nothing in front and become a thin string between the buttocks behind! I swear it's true, and I can report that many of the natives are quite hairy though most of their parts are small. I wonder if Malcolm..." She felt herself flush. "The capital, Phillip," she said, making conversation, "it is truly forbidden?"
"Not according to the Treaty." Tyrer was vastly pleased. Only a few minutes and she had dropped the Monsieur. "The Treaty arranged for all Legations to be in Yedo, the capital.
I was told we evacuated Yedo last year after the attack on ours. Safer to be at Yokohama under the guns of the fleet."
"Attack? What attack?"
"Oh some madmen called ronin--they're some kind of outlaw, assassins--a dozen of them attacked our Legation in the middle of the night.
The British Legation! Can you imagine the gall!
The devils killed a sergeant and a sentry..."
He stopped as Canterbury swung off the roadway and reined in and pointed with his riding crop. "Look there!"
They halted beside him. Now they could see the tall, thin banners held aloft by the ranks of samurai tramping around a bend towards them, a few hundred yards ahead. All travellers were scattering, bundles and palanquins hastily thrown to the ground, well out of the way, riders dismounting hurriedly, then everyone knelt on the sides of the roadway with heads bowed to the packed earth, men women children, and stayed motionless. Only the few samurai remained standing. As the cortege passed, they bowed deferentially.
"Who is it, Phillip?" Angelique asked excitedly. "Can you read their signs?"
"Sorry, no, not yet, Mademoiselle.
They say it takes years to read and write their script." Tyrer's happiness had evaporated at the thought of so much work ahead.
"It is the Shogun perhaps?"
Canterbury laughed. "No chance of that. If it was him they'd have this whole area cordoned off.