They were on the sixth floor of the tall fortified donjon and the windows overlooked the whole city on three quarters of the compass. Sunset was dark tonight, the thread of moon low on the horizon, the dank air stifling, though here, almost a hundred feet above the floor of the castle battlements, the room gathered every breath of wind. The room was low and fortified and took up half the whole floor, other rooms beyond.
Toranaga picked up the dispatch that Hiro-matsu had sent with Mariko and read it again. She noticed his hand tremble.
"What's he want to come to Yedo for?" Impatiently Toranaga tossed the scroll aside.
"I don't know, Sire, so sorry. He just asked me to give you this dispatch."
"Did you talk to the Christian renegade?"
"No, Sire. Yoshinaka-san said you'd given orders against anyone doing that."
"How was Yoshinaka on the journey?"
"Very capable, Sire," she said, patiently answering the question for a second time. "Very efficient. He guarded us very well and delivered us on time exactly."
"Why didn't the priest Tsukku-san come back with you all the way?"
"On the road from Mishima, Sire, he and the Anjin-san quarreled," Mariko told him, not knowing what Father Alvito might have already told Toranaga, if in fact Toranaga had sent for him yet. "The Father decided to travel on alone."
"What was the quarrel about?"
"Partially over me, my soul, Sire. Mostly because of their religious enmity and because of the war between their rulers."
"Who started it?"
"They were equally to blame. It began over a flask of liquor." Mariko told him what had passed with Rodrigues, then continued, "The Tsukku-san had brought a second flask as a gift, wanting, so he said, to intercede for Rodrigues-san, but the Anjin-san said, shockingly bluntly, that he didn't want any 'Papist liquor,' preferred sake, and he didn't trust priests. The - the Holy Father flared up, was equally shockingly blunt, saying he had never dealt in poison, never would, and could never condone such a thing."
"Ah, poison? Do they use poison as a weapon?"
"The Anjin-san told me some of them do, Sire. This led to more violent words and then they were hacking at each other over religion, my soul, about Catholics and Protestants . . . I left to fetch Yoshinaka-san as soon as I could and he stopped the quarrel."
"Barbarians cause nothing but trouble. Christians cause nothing but trouble. Neh?"
She did not answer him. His petulance unsettled her. It was so unlike him and there seemed to be no reason for such a breakdown in his legendary self-control. Perhaps the shock of being beaten is too much for him, she thought. Without him we're all finished, my son's finished, and the Kwanto will soon be in other hands. His gloom was infecting her. She had noticed in the streets and in the castle the pall that seemed to hang over the whole city - a city that was famous for its gaiety, brash good humor, and delight with life.
"I was born the year the first Christians arrived and they've bedeviled the land ever since," Toranaga said. "For fiftyeight years nothing but trouble. Neh?"
"I'm sorry they offend you, Sire. Was there anything else? With your permi-"
"Sit down. I haven't finished yet." Toranaga rang the bell again. The door opened. "Send Buntaro-san in."
Buntaro walked in. Grim-faced, he knelt and bowed. She bowed to him, numb, but he did not acknowledge her.
A while ago Buntaro had met their cortege at the castle gate. After a brief greeting, he had told her she was to go at once to Lord Toranaga. The Anjin-san would be sent for later.
"Buntaro-san, you asked to see me in your wife's presence as soon as possible?"
"Yes, Sire."
"What is it you want?"
"I humbly beg permission to take the Anjin-san's head," Buntaro said.
"Why?"
"Please excuse me but I . . . I don't like the way he looks at my wife. I wanted . . . I wanted to say it in front of her, the first time, before you. Also, he insulted me at Anjiro and I can no longer live with this shame."
Toranaga glanced at Mariko, who seemed to be frozen in time. "You accuse her of encouraging him?"
"I . . . I ask permission to take his head."
"You accuse her of encouraging him? Answer the question!"
"Please excuse me, Sire, but if I thought that I'd be duty bound to take her head the same instant," Buntaro replied stonily, his eyes on the tatamis. "The barbarian's a constant irritation to my harmony. I believe he's a harassment to you. Let me remove his head, I beg you." He looked up, his heavy jowls unshaven, eyes deeply shadowed. "Or let me take my wife now and tonight we'll go before you - to prepare the way."
"What do you say to that, Mariko-san?"
"He is my husband. Whatever he decides, that will I do - unless you overrule him, Sire. This is my duty."
