“Yes, Lord. Understand. Only secret you, I. Secret. Thank you. Please excuse my rudeness and thank you for your patience.” Blackthorne bowed perfectly and, almost in a dream, he walked out. The door closed behind him. On the landing everyone was watching him quizzically.
He wanted to share his victory with Mariko. But he was inhibited by her distracted serenity and the presence of the guards. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting” was all he said.
“It was my pleasure,” she answered, as noncommittal.
They started down the staircase again. Then, after a flight of stairs, she said, “Your simple way of talking is strange though quite understandable, Anjin-san.”
“I was lost too many times. Knowing you were there helped me tremendously.”
“I did nothing.”
In the silence they walked on, Mariko behind him slightly as was correct custom. At each level they passed through a samurai cordon, then, rounding a bend in the stairs, the trailing hem of her kimono caught in the railings and she stumbled. He caught her, steadying her, and the sudden close touch pleased both of them. “Thank you,” she said, flustered, as he put her down again.
They continued on, much closer than they had been tonight.
Outside in the torchlit forecourt, samurai were everywhere. Once more their passes were checked and now they were escorted with their flare-carrying porters through the donjon main gate, along a passage that meandered, mazelike, between high, battlemented stone walls to the next gate that led to the moat and the innermost wooden bridge. In all, there were seven rings of moats within the castle complex. Some were man-made, some adapted from the streams and rivers that abounded. While they headed for the main gate, the south gate, Mariko told him that, when the fortress was completed the year after next, it would house a hundred thousand samurai and twenty thousand horses, with all necessary provisions for one year.
“Then it will be the biggest in the world,” Blackthorne said.
“That was Lord Toranaga’s plan.” Her voice was grave. “
“Nothing else?” he asked.
“No.”
There’s no need to be worried, Mariko, and look so solemn, he thought happily. I’ve solved all that. Toranaga will grant all my requests.
At the far side of the flare-lit Ichi-bashi—First Bridge—that led to the city proper, she stopped. “I must leave you now, Anjin-san.”
“When can I see you?”
“Tomorrow. At the Hour of the Goat. I’ll wait in the forecourt for you.”
“I can’t see you tonight? If I’m back early?”
“No, so sorry, please excuse me. Not tonight.” Then she bowed formally. “
He bowed. As a samurai. He watched her going back across the bridge, some of the flare-carriers going with her, insects milling the stationary flares that were stuck in holders on stanchions. Soon she was swallowed up by the crowds and the night.
Then, his excitement increasing, he put his back to the castle and set off after the guide.
“The barbarians live there, Anjin-san.” The samurai motioned ahead.
Ill at ease, Blackthorne squinted into the darkness, the air breathless and sultry. “Where? That house? There?”
“Yes. That’s right, so sorry. You see it?”
Another nest of hovels and alleys was a hundred paces ahead, beyond this bare patch of marshy ground, and dominating them was a large house etched vaguely against the jet sky.
Blackthorne looked around for a moment to get his approximate bearings, using his fan against the encroaching bugs. Very soon, once they had left First Bridge, he had become lost in the maze.
Their way had led through innumerable streets and alleys, initially toward the shore, skirting it eastward for a time, over bridges and lesser bridges, then northward again along the bank of another stream which meandered through the outskirts, the land low-lying and moist. The farther from the castle, the meaner were the roads, the poorer the dwellings. The people were more obsequious, and fewer glimmers of light came from the shojis. Yedo was a sprawling mass which seemed to him to be made up of hamlets separated merely by roads or streams.
Here on the southeastern edge of the city it was quite marshy and the road oozed putridly. For some time the stench had been thickening perceptibly, a miasma of seaweed and feces and mud flats, and overlying these an acrid sweet smell he could not place, but that seemed familiar.
“Stinks like Billingsgate at low tide,” he muttered, killing another night pest that had landed on his cheek. His whole body was clammy with sweat.
