"Repaying her I repay you and honor sonno-joi."
They sat in silence, each wondering what the other was thinking, really thinking.
Hiraga smiled suddenly. "Tonight in the Settlement there was a big celebration, vile music and much drinking, it's their custom when a man agrees to marry." He quaffed his cup.
"This sak`e is good. One of the merchants--the gai-jin you cut at the Tokaido--is going to marry that woman."
Ori was dumbfounded. "The woman of the Cross? She's here?"
"I saw her tonight."
"So!" Ori muttered as though to himself, then finished his sak`e and poured for both of them. A little wine spilled unnoticed on the tray. "She's to be married? When?"
Hiraga shrugged. "I don't know. I saw him and her together tonight, he walks with two canes like a cripple--your blow wounded him severely, Ori."
"Good. And the, the woman what was she like?"
Hiraga laughed. "Outlandish, Ori, total buffoonery." He described her crinoline. And her hairstyle. And got up and parodied her gait. Soon both men were almost rolling on the tatamis with laughter. "... breasts out to here, depraved! Just before I came here I peered in a window. Men clutched her openly, she and a man clutched each other, twirling in a sort of dance in front of everyone to these horrid-sounding instruments, you couldn't call it music! kicking up her skirts so you could see halfway up, and frilly white pants to the ankles. I would never have believed it if I hadn't seen it for myself but she went from man to man like a one-sen whore and they all cheered her. The fool who's going to marry her, he just sat in a chair and beamed, imagine that!" He poured but the bottle was empty.
"Sak`e!"
At once the door opened, a maid came in on her knees with two new flasks, poured and scuttled away. He belched, the sak`e getting to him. "They acted like beasts. Without their cannon and ships they are beyond contempt."
Ori glanced out of the window, towards the sea.
"What is it?" Hiraga was suddenly on guard. "Danger?"
"No, no it was nothing."
Hiraga frowned uneasily, remembering how sensitive Ori was to outside emanations. "Do you have swords here?"
"Yes. Raiko guards them for me."
"I hate not having swords in my belt."
"Yes."
For a time they drank in silence and then the food arrived, small dishes of broiled fish, rice, sushi and sashimi, and a Portuguese dish called tempura--fish and vegetables dipped in rice flour and deep fried. Before the Portuguese arrived about A.d. 1550, the first Europeans to appear off their shores, Japanese did not know the frying technique.
When they were replete, they sent for Raiko and complimented her, refused the entertainment services of a geisha, so she bowed and left them. "You can go, Fujiko. Tomorrow, I will be here sometime after sunset."
"Yes, Hiraga-san." Fujiko bowed very low, content to be dismissed without further work as Raiko had already told her her fee was generous.
"Thank you for honoring me."
"Of course nothing that you hear or see will ever be mentioned to the Taira or any gai-jin or anyone."
Her head jerked up shock. "Of course not, Hiraga-sama." When she saw his eyes her heart lurched. "Of course not," she repeated, her voice barely audible, bowed her forehead to the tatami and, deeply frightened, left them.
"Ori, we take a risk with that woman, listening."
"With any of them. But she would never dare, nor the others." Ori used his fan against the night insects. "Before we leave we will agree a price with Raiko to see Fujiko is placed in a low-grade house where she will be too busy to make mischief and be well away from all gai-jin, and Bakufu."
"Good. That is good advice. It may be expensive, Raiko said Fujiko is extremely popular with gai-jin for some reason."
"Fujiko?"
"Yes. Strange, neh? Raiko says their ways are so different from us." Hiraga saw Ori's smile twist. "What?"
"Nothing. We can talk more tomorrow."
Hiraga nodded, drained the last cup then got up, stripped off the starched yukata that all Houses and Inns habitually supplied their clients, and dressed again in the most ordinary kimono of a villager, rough turban and coolie straw hat, then shouldered the empty delivery basket.
"Are you safe like that?"
"Yes, so long as I do not have to uncover, and I've these." Hiraga showed the two passes Tyrer had given him, one for Japanese, one for English. "Guards on the gate and at the bridge are alert, and soldiers patrol the Settlement at night. There's no curfew but Taira warned me to be careful."
Thoughtfully Ori handed the passes back.
He tucked them in his sleeve. "Good night, Ori."
"Yes, good night, Hiraga-san." Ori looked up at him strangely. "I would like to know where the woman lives."
Hiraga's eyes narrowed. "So?"
"Yes. I would like to know where. Exactly."
"I can find out, probably. And then?"
The silence concentrated. Ori was thinking, I'm not sure tonight, I wish I was, but every time I let my mind free I remember that night and my never-ending surge within her. If I had killed her then that would have ended it, but knowing she's alive I'm haunted. She haunts me. It's stupid, stupid but I'm bewitched. She's evil, disgusting, I know it, but still I'm bewitched and I'm sure that as long as she's alive she will always haunt me.
"And then?" Hiraga said again.
Ori had kept all his thoughts off his face.
He looked back at him levelly and shrugged.
Wednesday, 15th October: Andr`e Poncin blinked. "You're pregnant?"
"Yes," she said softly. "You see th--"
"That's wonderful, that makes everything perfect!" he burst out, his shock turning into a huge beam, because Struan, the British gentleman, had wronged an innocent lady, and now could not avoid an early marriage and remain a gentleman. "Madam, may I congratulate y--"
"Hush, Andr`e, no you can't and not so loud, walls have ears, particularly Legations, no?" she whispered, feeling out of herself, astounded that her voice remained so calm and she felt so calm and could tell him so easily. "You see, unfortunately, the father is not Monsieur Struan."
His smile vanished and then came back.