Shogun_ A Novel of Japan - James Clavell [49]
That will sail around the village, she thought happily as she bowed, winced again, and went off as though stoically covering an intensity of pain, the folds of her kimonos swaying to perfection, and her sunshade tilted to give her just that most marvelous light. She was very glad that she had worn this outer kimono and this parasol. On a dull day the effect would never have been so dramatic.
“Ah, poor, poor child! She’s so beautiful, neh? What a shame! Terrible!” Mura’s mother said with a heart-rending sigh.
“What’s terrible, Saiko-san?” Mura’s wife asked, coming onto the veranda.
“Didn’t you see the poor girl’s agony? Didn’t you see how bravely she was trying to hide it? Poor child. Only seventeen and to have to go through all that!”
“She’s eighteen,” Mura said dryly.
“All of what, Mistress?” one of the maids said breathlessly, joining them.
The old woman looked around to ensure that everyone was listening and whispered loudly. “I heard”—she dropped her voice—“I heard that she’ll … she’ll be useless … for three months.”
“Oh, no! Poor Kiku-san! Oh! But why?”
“He used his teeth. I have it on the best authority.”
“Oh!”
“Oh!”
“But why does he have the boy as well, Mistress? Surely he doesn’t—”
“Ah! Run along! Back to your work, good-for-nothings! This isn’t for your ears! Go on, off with the lot of you. The Master and I have to talk.”
She shooed them all off the veranda. Even Mura’s wife. And sipped her cha, benign and very content.
Mura broke the silence. “Teeth?”
“Teeth. Rumor has it that the screams make him large because he was frightened by a dragon when he was small,” she said in a rush. “He always has a boy there to remind him of himself when he was a boy and petrified, but actually the boy’s there only to pillow with, to exhaust himself—otherwise he’d bite everything off, poor girl.”
Mura sighed. He went into the small outhouse beside the front gate and farted involuntarily as he began to relieve himself into the bucket. I wonder what really happened, he asked himself, titillated. Why was Kiku-san in pain? Perhaps the daimyo really does use his teeth! How extraordinary!
He walked out, shaking himself to ensure that he did not stain his loincloth, and headed across the square deep in thought. Eeeee, how I would like to have one night with the Lady Kiku! What man wouldn’t? How much did Omi-san have to pay her Mama-san—which we will have to pay eventually? Two koku? They say her Mama-san, Gyoko-san, demanded and got ten times the regular fee. Does she get five koku for one night? Kiku-san would certainly be worth it, neh? Rumor has it she’s as practiced at eighteen as a woman twice her age. She’s supposed to be able to prolong…. Eeeee, the joy of her! If it was me—how would I begin?
Absently he adjusted himself into his loincloth as his feet took him out of the square, up the well-worn path to the funeral ground.
The pyre had been prepared. The deputation of five men from the village was already there.
This was the most delightful place in the village, where the sea breezes were coolest in summer and the view the best. Nearby was the village Shinto shrine, a tiny thatched roof on a pedestal for the kami, the spirit, that lived there, or might wish to live there if it pleased him. A gnarled yew that had seeded before the village was born leaned against the wind.
Later Omi walked up the path. With him were Zukimoto and four guards. He stood apart. When he bowed formally to the pyre and to the shroud-covered, almost disjointed body that lay upon it, they all bowed with him, to honor the barbarian who had died that his comrades might live.
At his signal Zukimoto went forward and lit the pyre. Zukimoto had asked Omi for the privilege and the honor had been granted to him. He bowed a last time. And then, when the fire was well alight, they went away.
Blackthorne dipped into the dregs of the barrel and carefully measured a half cup of water and gave it to Sonk. Sonk tried to sip it to make it last, his hand trembling, but