Shogun_ A Novel of Japan - James Clavell [374]
He watched the approaching horsemen a moment. “How’s your mother, Naga?”
“As always, the happiest lady in the world. She’ll still only let me see her once a year. Can’t you persuade her to change?”
“No,” said Toranaga. “She’ll never change.”
Toranaga always felt a glow when he thought of Chano-Tsuboné, his eighth official consort and Naga’s mother. He laughed to himself as he remembered her earthy humor, her dimpled cheeks and saucy bottom, the way she wriggled and the enthusiasm of her pillowing.
She had been the widow of a farmer near Yedo who had attracted him twenty years ago. She had stayed with him three years, then asked to be allowed to return to the land. He had allowed her to go. Now she lived on a good farm near where she was born—fat and content, a dowager Buddhist nun honored by all and beholden to none. Once in a while he would go to see her and they would laugh together, without reason, friends.
“Ah, she’s a good woman,” Toranaga said.
Yabu and Omi rode up and dismounted. Ten paces away they stopped and bowed.
“He gave me a scroll,” Yabu said, enraged, brandishing it. “‘… We invite you to leave Izu at once for Osaka, today, and present yourself at Osaka Castle for an audience, or all your lands are now forfeit and you are hereby declared outlaw.’” He crushed the scroll in his fist and threw it on the ground. “Today!”
“Then you’d better leave at once,” Toranaga said, suddenly in a foul humor at Yabu’s truculence and stupidity.
“Sire, I beg you,” Omi began hastily, dropping abjectly to his knees, “Lord Yabu’s your devoted vassal and I beg you humbly not to taunt him. Forgive me for being so rude, but Lord Zataki … Forgive me for being so rude.”
“Yabu-san, please excuse the remark—it was meant kindly,” Toranaga said, cursing his lapse. “We should all have a sense of humor about such messages, neh?” He called up his falconer, gave him the bird from his fist, dismissed him and the beaters. Then he waved all samurai except Naga out of earshot, squatting on his haunches, and bade them do the same. “Perhaps you’d better tell me what happened.”
Yabu said, “There’s almost nothing to tell. I went to see him. He received me with the barest minimum of courtesy. First there were ‘greetings’ from Lord Ishido and a blunt invitation to ally myself secretly with him, to plan your immediate assassination, and to murder every Toranaga samurai in Izu. Of course I refused to listen, and at once—at once—without any courtesy whatsoever, he handed me that!” His finger stabbed belligerently toward the scroll. “If it hadn’t been for your direct order protecting him I’d have hacked him to pieces at once! I demand you rescind that order. I cannot live with this shame. I must have revenge!”
“Is that everything that happened?”
“Isn’t that enough?”
Toranaga passed over Yabu’s rudeness and scowled at Omi. “You’re to blame, neh? Why didn’t you have the intelligence to protect your Lord better? You’re supposed to be an adviser. You should have been his shield. You should have drawn Lord Zataki into the open, tried to find out what Ishido had in mind, what the bribe was, what plans they had. You’re supposed to be a valued counselor. You’re given a perfect opportunity and you waste it like an unpracticed dullard!”
Omi bent his head. “Please excuse me, Sire.”
“I might, but I don’t see why Lord Yabu should. Now your lord’s accepted the scroll. Now he’s committed. Now he has to act one way or the other.”
“What?” said Yabu.
“Why else do you think I did what I did? To delay—of course, to delay,” said Toranaga.
“But one day? What’s the value of one day?” Yabu asked.
“Who knows? A day for you is one less for the enemy.” Toranaga’s eyes snapped back to Omi. “Was the message from Ishido verbal or in writing?”
Yabu answered instead. “Verbal, of course.”
Toranaga kept his penetrating gaze on Omi. “You’ve failed in your duty to your lord and to me.”
“Please excuse—”
“What exactly did you say?”
Omi did not reply.
“Have you forgotten your manners as well? What did you say?”
“Nothing, Sire. I said nothing.”