Shogun_ A Novel of Japan - James Clavell [233]
The cipher to his son Sudara, in Yedo, told that he had escaped, was safe, and ordered him to continue secret preparations for war.
“Get to sea, Captain.”
“Yes, Lord.”
By noon they had crossed the bight between Totomi and Izu provinces and were off Cape Ito, the southernmost point of the Izu peninsula. The wind was fair, the swell modest, and the single mainsail helped their passage.
Then, close by shore in a deep channel between the mainland and some small rock islands, when they had turned north, there was an ominous rumbling ashore.
All oars ceased.
“What in the name of Christ …” Blackthorne’s eyes were riveted shoreward.
Suddenly a huge fissure snaked up the cliffs and a million tons of rock avalanched into the sea. The waters seemed to boil for a moment. A small wave came out to the galley, then passed by. The avalanche ceased. Again the rumbling, deeper now and more growling, but farther off. Rocks dribbled from the cliffs. Everyone listened intently and waited, watching the cliff face. Sounds of gulls, of surf and wind. Then Toranaga motioned to the drum master, who picked up the beat once more. The oars began. Life on the ship became normal.
“What was that?” Blackthorne said.
“Just an earthquake.” Mariko was perplexed. “You don’t have earthquakes?”
“No. Never. I’ve never seen one before.”
“Oh, we have them frequently, Anjin-san. That was nothing, just a small one. The main shock center would be somewhere else, even out to sea. Or perhaps this one was just a little one here, all by itself. You were lucky to witness a small one.”
“It was as though the whole earth was shaking. I could have sworn I saw … I’ve heard about tremors. In the Holy Land and the Ottomans, they have them sometimes. Jesus!” He exhaled, his heart still thumping roughly. “I could have sworn I saw that whole cliff shake.”
“Oh, it did, Anjin-san. When you’re on land, it’s the most terrible feeling in the whole world. There’s no warning, Anjin-san. The tremors come in waves, sometimes sideways, sometimes up and down, sometimes three or four shakes quickly. Sometimes a small one followed by a greater one a day later. There’s no pattern. The worst that I was in was at night, six years ago near Osaka, the third day of the Month of the Falling Leaves. Our house collapsed on us, Anjin-san. We weren’t hurt, my son and I. We dug ourselves out. The shocks went on for a week or more, some bad, some very bad. The Taikō’s great new castle at Fujimi was totally destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of people were lost in that earthquake and in the fires that followed. That’s the greatest danger, Anjin-san—the fires that always follow. Our towns and cities and villages die so easily. Sometimes there is a bad earthquake far out to sea and legend has it that this causes the birth of the Great Waves. They are ten or twenty feet high. There is never a warning and they have no season. A Great Wave just comes out of the sea to our shores and sweeps inland. Cities can vanish. Yedo was half destroyed some years ago by such a wave.”
“This is normal for you? Every year?”
“Oh, yes. Every year in this Land of the Gods we have earth tremors. And fires and flood and Great Waves, and the monster storms—the tai-funs. Nature is very strong with us.” Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes. “Perhaps that is why we love life so much, Anjin-san. You see, we have to. Death is part of our air and sea and earth. You should know, Anjin-san, in this Land of Tears, death is our heritage.”
BOOK THREE
CHAPTER 30
“You’re certain everything’s ready, Mura?”
“Yes, Omi-san, yes, I think so. We’ve followed your orders exactly—and Igurashi-san’s.”
“Nothing