Shogun - Clavell James - Страница 102
- Предыдущая
- 102/313
- Следующая
"The gods protect us from that shame!" Fujiko glanced at Blackthorne, who leaned against the gunwale up the deck, staring at the shore. She studied him a moment. "He looks like a golden ape with blue eyes - a creature to frighten children with. Horrid, neh?" Fujiko shivered and dismissed him and looked again at Buntaro. After a moment she said, "I envy your husband, Mariko-san. "
"Yes," Mariko replied sadly. "But I wish he had a second to help him." By custom another samurai always assisted at a seppuku, standing slightly behind the kneeling man, to decapitate him with a single stroke before the agony became unbearable and uncontrollable and so shamed the man at the supreme moment of his life. Unseconded, few men could die without shame.
"Karma," Fujiko said.
"Yes. I pity him. That's the one thing he feared - not to have a second."
"We're luckier than men, neh?" Samurai women committed seppuku by thrusting their knives into their throats and therefore needed no assistance.
"Yes," Mariko said.
Screams and battle cries came wafting on the wind, distracting them. The breakwater was breached again. A small company of fifty Toranaga ronin-samurai raced out of the north in support, a few horsemen among them. Again the breach was ferociously contained, no quarter sought or given, the attackers thrown back and a few more moments of time gained.
Time for what, Blackthorne was asking bitterly. Toranaga's safe now. He's out to sea. He's betrayed you all.
The drum began again.
Oars bit into the water, the prow dipped and began to cut through the waves, and aft a wake appeared. Signal fires still burned from the castle walls above. The whole city was almost awake.
The main body of Grays hit the breakwater. Blackthorne's eyes went to Buntaro. "You poor bastard!" he said in English. "You poor, stupid bastard!"
He turned on his heel and walked down the companionway along the main deck toward the bow to watch for shoals ahead. No one except Fujiko and the captain noticed him leaving the quarterdeck.
The oarsmen pulled with fine discipline and the ship was gaining way. The sea was fair, the wind friendly. Blackthorne tasted the salt and welcomed it. Then he detected the ships crowding the harbor mouth half a league ahead. Fishing vessels yes, but they were crammed with samurai.
"We're trapped," he said out loud, knowing somehow they were enemy.
A tremor went through the ship. All who watched the battle on shore had shifted in unison.
Blackthorne looked back. Grays were calmly mopping up the breakwater, while others were heading unhurried toward the jetty for Buntaro, but four horsemen-Browns-were galloping across the beaten earth from out of the north, a fifth horse, a spare horse, tethered to the leader. This man clattered up the wide stone steps of the wharf with the spare horse and raced its length while the other three slammed toward the encroaching Grays. Buntaro had also looked around but he remained kneeling and, when the man reined in behind him, he waved him away and picked up the knife in both hands, blade toward himself. Immediately Toranaga cupped his hands and shouted, "Buntaro-san! Go with them now-try to escape!"
The cry swept across the waves and was repeated and then Buntaro heard it clearly. He hesitated, shocked, the knife poised. Again the call, insistent and imperious.
With effort Buntaro drew himself back from death and icily contemplated life and the escape that was ordered. The risk was bad. Better to die here, he told himself. Doesn't Toranaga know that? Here is an honorable death. There, almost certain capture. Where do you run? Three hundred ri, all the way to Yedo? You're certain to be captured!
He felt the strength in his arm, saw the firm, unshaking, needlepointed dagger hovering near his naked abdomen, and he craved for the releasing agony of death at long last. At long last a death to expiate all the shame: the shame of his father's kneeling to Toranaga's standard when they should have kept faith with Yaemon, the Taiko's heir, as they had sworn to do; the shame of killing so many men who honorably served the Taiko's cause against the usurper, Toranaga; the shame of the woman, Mariko, and of his only son, both forever tainted, the son because of the mother and she because of her father, the monstrous assassin, Akechi Jinsai. And the shame of knowing that because of them, his own name was befouled forever.
How many thousand agonies have I not endured because of her?
His soul cried out for oblivion. Now so near and easy and honorable. The next life will be better; how could it be worse?
Even so, he put down the knife and obeyed, and cast himself back into the abyss of life. His liege lord had ordered the ultimate suffering and had decided to cancel his attempt at peace. What else is there for a samurai but obedience?
He jumped up, hurled himself into the saddle, jammed his heels into the horse's sides, and, together with the other man, he fled. Other ronin-cavalry galloped out of the night to guard their retreat and cut down the leading Grays. Then they too vanished, a few Gray horsemen in pursuit.
Laughter erupted over the ship.
Toranaga was pounding the gunwale with his fist in glee, Yabu and the samurai were roaring. Even Mariko was laughing.
"One man got away, but what about all the dead?" Blackthorne cried out enraged. "Look ashore - there must be. three, four hundred bodies there. Look at them, for Christ's sake!"
But his shout did not come through the laughter.
Then a cry of alarm from the bow lookout. And the laughter died.
Toranaga said calmly, "Can we break through them, Captain?" He was watching the grouped fishing boats five hundred yards ahead, and the tempting passage they had left between them.
"No, Sire."
"We've no alternative," Yabu said. "There's nothing else we can do." He glared aft at the massed Grays who waited on the shore and the jetty, their faint, jeering insults riding on the wind.
Toranaga and Yabu were on the forepoop now. The drum had been silenced and the galley wallowed in a light sea. All aboard waited to see what would be decided. They knew that they were bottled tight. Ashore disaster, ahead disaster, to wait disaster. The net would come closer and closer and then they would be captured. If need be, Ishido could wait days.
Yabu was seething. If we'd rushed for the harbor mouth directly instead of wasting useless time over Buntaro, we'd be safely out to sea by now, he told himself. Toranaga's losing his wits. Ishido will believe I betrayed him. There's nothing I can do - unless we can fight our way out, and even then I'm committed to fight for Toranaga against Ishido. Nothing I can do. Except give Ishido Toranaga's head. Neh? That would make you a Regent and bring you the Kwanto, neh? And then with six months of time and the musket samurai, why not even President of the Council of Regents? Or why not the big prize! Eliminate Ishido and become Chief General of the Heir, Lord Protector and Governor of Osaka Castle, the controlling general of all the legendary wealth in the donjon, with power over the Empire during Yaemon's minority, and afterwards power second only to Yaemon. Why not?
Or even the biggest prize of all. Shogun. Eliminate Yaemon, then you'll be Shogun.
All for a single head and some benevolent gods!
Yabu's knees felt weak as his longing soared. So easy to do, he thought, but no way to take the head and escape - yet.
"Order attack stations!" Toranaga commanded at last.
As Yabu gave the orders and samurai began to prepare, Toranaga turned his attention to the barbarian, who was still near the forepoop, where he had stopped when the alarm was given, leaning against the short mainmast.
I wish I could understand him, Toranaga thought. One moment so brave, the next so weak. One moment so valuable, the next so useless. One moment killer, the next coward. One moment docile, the next dangerous. He's man and woman, Yang and Yin. He's nothing but opposites, and unpredictable. Toranaga had studied him carefully during the escape from the castle, during the ambush and after it. He had heard from Mariko and the captain and others what had happened during the fight aboard. He had witnessed the astonishing anger a few moments ago and then, when Buntaro had been sent off, he had heard the shout and had seen through veiled eyes the stretched ugliness on the man's face, and then, when there should have been laughter, only anger.
- Предыдущая
- 102/313
- Следующая
