Shōgun полностью

“And your mother-in-law?”

“Ah, she’s dead, Anjin-san. She died many years ago. I never knew her. Lord Hiro-matsu, in his wisdom, never took another wife.”

“Buntaro-san’s his only son?”

“Yes. My husband has five living sisters, but no brothers.” She had joked, “In a way we’re related now, Anjin-san. Fujiko’s my husband’s niece. What’s the matter?”

“I’m surprised you never told me, that’s all.”

“Well, it’s complicated, Anjin-san.” Then Mariko had explained that Fujiko was actually an adopted daughter of Numata Akinori, who had married Buntaro’s youngest sister, and that Fujiko’s real father was a grandson of the Dictator Goroda by his eighth consort, that Fujiko had been adopted by Numata when an infant at the Taikō’s orders because the Taikō wanted closer ties between the descendants of Hiro-matsu and Goroda. . . .

“What?”

Mariko had laughed, telling him that, yes, Japanese family relationships were very complicated because adoption was normal, that families exchanged sons and daughters often, and divorced and remarried and intermarried all the time. With so many legal consorts and the ease of divorce—particularly if at the order of a liege lord—all families soon become incredibly tangled.

“To unravel Lord Toranaga’s family links accurately would take days, Anjin-san. Just think of the complications: Presently he has seven official consorts living, who have given him five sons and three daughters. Some of the consorts were widows or previously married with other sons and daughters—some of these Toranaga adopted, some he did not. In Japan you don’t ask if a person is adopted or natural. Truly, what does it matter? Inheritance is always at the whim of the head of the house, so adopted or not it is the same, neh? Even Toranaga’s mother was divorced. Later she remarried and had three more sons and two daughters by her second husband, all of whom are also now married! Her eldest son from her second marriage is Zataki, Lord of Shinano.”

Blackthorne had mulled that. Then he had said, “Divorce isn’t possible for us. Not possible.”

“So the Holy Fathers tell us. So sorry, but that’s not very sensible, Anjin-san. Mistakes happen, people change, that’s karma, neh? Why should a man have to bear a foul wife, or a wife a foul man? Foolish to be stuck forever, man or woman, neh?”

“Yes.”

“In this we are very wise and the Holy Fathers unwise. This was one of the two great reasons the Taikō would not embrace Christianity, this foolishness about divorce—and the sixth Commandment, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ The Father-Visitor sent all the way to Rome begging dispensation for Japanese about divorce. But His Holiness the Pope, in his wisdom, said no. If His Holiness had said yes, I believe the Taikō would have converted, the daimyos would be following the True Faith now, and the land would be Christian. The matter of ‘killing’ would have been unimportant because no one pays any attention to that really, Christians least of all. Such a little concession, for so much, neh?”

“Yes,” Blackthorne had said. How sensible divorce seemed here. Why was it a mortal sin at home, opposed by every priest in Christendom, Catholic or Protestant, in the name of God?

“What’s Toranaga’s wife like?” he had asked, wanting to keep her talking. Most of the time she avoided the subject of Toranaga and his family history and it was important for Blackthorne to know everything.

A shadow had crossed Mariko’s face. “She’s dead. She was his second wife and she died ten or eleven years ago. She was the Taikō’s stepsister. Lord Toranaga was never successful with his wives, Anjin-san.”

“Why?”

“Oh, the second was old and tired and grasping, worshiping gold, though pretending not to, like her brother, the Taikō himself. Barren and bad-tempered. It was a political marriage, of course. I had to be one of her ladies-in-waiting for a time. Nothing would please her and none of the youths or men could unwind the knot in her Golden Pavilion.”

“What?”

“Her Jade Gate, Anjin-san. With their Turtle Heads—their Steaming Shafts. Don’t you understand? Her . . . thing.”

“Oh! I understand. Yes.”

“No one could unwind her knot . . . could satisfy her.”

“Not even Toranaga?”

“He never pillowed her, Anjin-san,” she had said, quite shocked. “Of course, after the marriage he had nothing to do with her, other than give her a castle and retainers and the keys to his treasure house—why should he? She was quite old, she’d been married twice before, but her brother, the Taikō, had dissolved the marriages. A most unpleasant woman—everyone was most relieved when she went into the Great Void, even the Taikō, and all her stepdaughters-in-law and all of Toranaga’s consorts secretly burnt incense with great joy.”

“And Toranaga’s first wife?”