"No, Buntaro-sama, so sorry, she was ordered to the fortress where-"
"Ordered? By whom? By Kasigi Yabu?"
"Oh, no, by Lord Toranaga, Sire, when he came back from hunting this afternoon."
"Oh, Lord Toranaga?" Buntaro simmered down and scowled across the bay at the fortress. Toranaga's standard flew beside Yabu's.
"Would you like me to send someone for her?"
He shook his head. "There's time enough for her." He exhaled, looked across at his niece, daughter of his youngest sister. "I'm fortunate to have such an accomplished wife,
"Yes, Sire. Yes you are. She's been enormously valuable to interpret the Anjin-san's knowledge."
Buntaro stared at the fortress, then sniffed the wind as the smell of the cooking wafted up again. "It's like being at Nagasaki, or back in Korea. They cook meat all the time there, boil it or roast it. Stink-you've never smelled anything like it. Koreans're animals, like cannibals. The garlic stench even gets into your clothes and hair."
"It must have been terrible."
"The war was good. We could have won easily. And smashed through to China. And civilized both countries." Buntaro flushed and his voice rasped. "But we didn't. We failed and had to come back with our shame because we were betrayed. Betrayed by filthy traitors in high places."
"Yes, that's so sad, but you're right. Very right, Buntaro-sama," she said soothingly, telling the lie easily, knowing no nation on earth could conquer China, and no one could civilize China, which had been civilized since ancient times.
The vein on Buntaro's forehead was throbbing and he was talking almost to himself. "They'll pay. All of them. The traitors. It's only a matter of waiting beside a river long enough for the bodies of your enemies to float by,
"Yes, I agree. You're so right, Buntaro-sama," she said, chilled, knowing there was no limit to his ferocity. When Buntaro was sixteen he had executed his own mother, one of Hiro-matsu's lesser consorts, for her supposed infidelity while his father, Hiro-matsu, was at war fighting for the Dictator, Lord Goroda. Then, years later, he had killed his own eldest son by his first wife for supposed insults and sent her back to her family, where she died by her own hand, unable to bear the shame. He had done terrible things to his consorts and to Mariko. And he had quarreled violently with Fujiko's father and had accused him of cowardice in Korea, discrediting him to the Taikō, who had at once ordered him to shave his head and become a monk, to die debauched, so soon, eaten up by his own shame.
It took all of Fujiko's will to appear tranquil. "We were so proud to hear that you had escaped the enemy," she said.
The saké arrived. Buntaro began to drink heavily.
When there had been the correct amount of waiting Fujiko got up. "Please excuse me for a moment." She went to the kitchen to warn Blackthorne, to ask his permission for Buntaro to be quartered in the house, and to tell him and the servants what had to be done.
"Why here?" Blackthorne asked irritably. "Why to stay here? Is necessary?"
Fujiko apologized and tried to explain that, of course, Buntaro could not be refused. Blackthorne returned moodily to his cooking and she came back to Buntaro, her chest aching.
"My Master says he's honored to have you here. His house is your house."
"What's it like being consort to a barbarian?"
"I would imagine horrible. But to the Anjin-san, who is hatamoto and therefore samurai? I suppose like to other men. This is the first time I've been consort. I prefer to be a wife. The Anjin-san's like other men, though yes, some of his ways are very strange."
"Who'd have thought one of our house would be consort to a barbarian-even a hatamoto."
"I had no choice. I merely obeyed Lord Toranaga, and grandfather, the leader of our clan. It's a woman's place to obey."
"Yes." Buntaro finished his cup of saké and she refilled it. "Obedience's important for a woman. And Mariko-san's obedient, isn't she?"
"Yes, Lord." She looked into his ugly, apelike face. "She's brought you nothing but honor, Sire. Without the Lady, your wife, Lord Toranaga could never have got the Anjin-san's knowledge."
He smiled crookedly. "I hear you stuck pistols in Omi-san's face."
"I was only doing my duty, Sire."
"Where did you learn to use guns?"
"I had never handled a gun until then. I didn't know if the pistols were loaded. But I would have pulled the triggers."
Buntaro laughed. "Omi-san thought that too."
She refilled his cup. "I never understood why Omi-san didn't try to take them away from me. His lord had ordered him to take them, but he didn't."
"I would have."
"Yes, Uncle. I know. Please excuse me, I would still have pulled the triggers."
"Yes. But you would have missed!"
"Yes, probably. Since then I've learned how to shoot."
"He taught you?"
"No. One of Lord Naga's officers."
"Why?"
