Shogun_ A Novel of Japan - James Clavell [242]
Toranaga smiled, remembering. The night before he was due to enter Osaka, Nakamura, unconventional as ever, had paid him a secret visit, alone and unarmed.
“Well met, Tora-san.”
“Well met, Lord Nakamura.”
“Listen: We’ve fought too many battles together, we know too many secrets, we’ve shit too many times in the same pot to want to piss on our own feet or on each other’s.”
“I agree,” Toranaga had said cautiously.
“Listen then: I’m within a sword’s edge of winning the realm. To get total power I’ve got to have the respect of the ancient clans, the hereditary fief holders, the present heirs of the Fujimoto, the Takashima, and Minowara. Once I’ve got power, any daimyo or any three together can piss blood for all I care.”
“You have my respect—you’ve always had it.”
The little monkey-faced man had laughed richly. “You won at Nagakudé fairly. You’re the best general I’ve ever known, the greatest daimyo in the realm. But now we’re going to stop playing games, you and I. Listen: tomorrow I want you to bow to me before all the daimyos, as a vassal. I want you, Yoshi Toranaga-noh-Minowara a willing vassal. Publicly. Not to tongue my hole, but polite, humble, and respectful. If you’re my vassal, the rest’ll fart in their haste to put their heads in the dust and their tails in the air. And the few that don’t—well, let them beware.”
“That will make you Lord of all Japan. Neh?”
“Yes. The first in history. And you’ll have given it to me. I admit I can’t do it without you. But listen: If you do that for me you’ll have first place after me. Every honor you want. Anything. There’s enough for both of us.”
“Is there?”
“Yes. First I take Japan. Then Korea. Then China. I told Goroda I wanted that and that’s what I’ll have. Then you can have Japan—a province of my China!”
“But now, Lord Nakamura? Now I have to submit, neh? I’m in your power, neh? You’re in overwhelming strength in front of me—and the Beppu threaten my back.”
“I’ll deal with them soon enough,” the peasant warlord had said. “Those sneering carrion refused my invitation to come here tomorrow—they sent my scroll back covered in bird’s shit. You want their lands? The whole Kwanto?”
“I want nothing from them or from anyone,” he had said.
“Liar,” Nakamura had said genially. “Listen, Tora-san: I’m almost fifty. None of my women has ever birthed. I’ve juice in plenty, always have had, and in my life I must have pillowed a hundred, two hundred women, of all types, of all ages, in every way, but none has ever birthed a child, not even stillborn. I’ve everything but I’ve no sons and never will. That’s my karma. You’ve four sons living and who knows how many daughters. You’re forty-three so you can pillow your way to a dozen more sons as easy as horses shit and that’s your karma. Also you’re Minowara and that’s karma. Say I adopt one of your sons and make him my heir?”
“Now?”
“Soon. Say in three years. It was never important to have an heir before but now things’re different. Our late Master Goroda had the stupidity to get himself murdered. Now the land’s mine—could be mine. Well?”
“You’ll make the agreements formal, publicly formal, in two years?”
“Yes. In two years. You can trust me—our interests are the same. Listen: In two years, in public; and we agree, you and I, which son. This way we share everything, eh? Our joint dynasty’s settled into the future, so no problems there and that’s good for you and good for me.