Shogun_ A Novel of Japan - James Clavell [42]
“I want to go to sleep,” the woman said, trembling. “But I can’t sleep with all this noise. When will it stop?”
“I don’t know. Be patient, Mother,” Omi said softly. “The noise will stop soon. Tomorrow Lord Yabu will go back to Yedo. Please be patient.” But Omi knew that the torture would continue to the dawn. It had been planned that way.
He tried to concentrate. Because his feudal lord meditated within the screams, he tried again to follow his example. But the next shriek brought him back and he thought, I can’t. I can’t, not yet. I don’t have his control or power.
Or is it power? he asked himself.
He could see Yabu’s face clearly. He tried to read the strange expression on his daimyo’s face: the slight twisting of the slack full lips, a fleck of saliva at the corners, eyes set into dark slits that moved only with the petals. It’s almost as though he’s just climaxed—was almost climaxing—without touching himself. Is that possible?
This was the first time that Omi had been in close contact with his uncle, for he was a very minor link in the clan chain, and his fief of Anjiro and the surrounding area poor and unimportant. Omi was the youngest of three sons and his father, Mizuno, had six brothers. Yabu was the eldest brother and leader of the Kasigi clan, his father second eldest. Omi was twenty-one and had an infant son of his own.
“Where’s your miserable wife,” the old woman whimpered querulously. “I want her to rub my back and shoulders.”
“She had to go to visit her father, don’t you remember? He’s very sick, Mother. Let me do it for you.”
“No. You can send for a maid in a moment. Your wife’s most inconsiderate. She could have waited a few days. I come all the way from Yedo to visit you. It took two weeks of terrible journeying and what happens? I’ve only been here a week and she leaves. She should have waited! Good for nothing, that’s her. Your father made a very bad mistake arranging your marriage to her. You should tell her to stay away permanently—divorce the good-for-nothing once and for all. She can’t even massage my back properly. At the very least you should give her a good beating. Those dreadful screams! Why won’t they stop?”
“They will. Very soon.”
“You should give her a good beating.”
“Yes.” Omi thought about his wife Midori and his heart leapt. She was so beautiful and fine and gentle and clever, her voice so clear, and her music as good as that of any courtesan in Izu.
“Midori-san, you must go at once,” he had said to her privately.
“Omi-san, my father is not so sick and my place is here, serving your mother, neh?” she had responded. “If our lord daimyo arrives, this house has to be prepared. Oh, Omi-san, this is so important, the most important time of your whole service, neh? If the Lord Yabu is impressed, perhaps he’ll give you a better fief, you deserve so much better! If anything happened while I was away, I’d never forgive myself and this is the first time you’ve had an opportunity to excel and it must succeed. He must come. Please, there’s so much to do.”
“Yes, but I would like you to go at once, Midori-san. Stay just two days, then hurry home again.”
She had pleaded but he had insisted and she had gone. He had wanted her away from Anjiro before Yabu arrived and while the man was a guest in his house. Not that the daimyo would dare to touch her without permission—that was unthinkable because he, Omi, would then have the right, the honor, and the duty by law, to obliterate the daimyo. But he had noticed Yabu watching her just after they had been married in Yedo and he had wanted to remove a possible source of irritation, anything that could upset or embarrass his lord while he was here. It was so important that he impress Yabu-sama with his filial loyalty, his foresight, and with his counsel. And so far everything had succeeded beyond possibility. The ship had been a treasure