Shogun_ A Novel of Japan - James Clavell [605]
So don’t worry, Anjin-san, I’m worrying about your future. You’re in good strong hands and, ah, what a future I’ve planned for you.
“I’m to be consort to the barbarian, oh oh oh?” Kiku had wailed aloud.
“Yes, within the month. Fujiko-san has formally agreed.” He had told Kiku and Gyoko the truth once more, patiently giving the distraught girl face. “And a thousand koku a year after the birth of the Anjin-san’s first son.”
“Eh, a thou—what did you say?”
He had repeated the promise and added sweetly, “After all, samurai is samurai and two swords are two swords and his sons will be samurai. He’s hatamoto, one of my most important vassals, Admiral of all my ships, a close personal adviser—even a friend. Neh?”
“So sorry, but Sire—”
“First you’ll be his consort.”
“So sorry, first, Sire?”
“Perhaps you should be his wife. Fujiko-san told me she didn’t wish to marry, ever again, but I think he should be married. Why not you? If you please him enough, and I imagine you could please him enough, and still, dutifully, keep him building his ship… neh? Yes, I think you should be his wife.”
“Oh yes oh yes oh yes!” She had thrown her arms around him and blessed him and apologized for her impulsive bad manners for interrupting and not listening dutifully, and she had left him; walking four paces off the ground where a moment ago she had been ready to throw herself off the nearest cliff.
Ah, ladies, Toranaga thought, bemused and very content. Now she’s got everything she wants, so has Gyoko—if the ship’s built in time and it will be—so have the priests, so have—
“Sire!” One of the hunters was pointing at a clump of bushes beside the road. He reined in and readied Kogo, loosening the jesses that held her to his fist. “Now,” he ordered softly. The dog was sent in.
The hare broke from the brush and raced for cover and at that instant he released Kogo. With immensely powerful thrusts of her wings she hurtled in pursuit, straight as an arrow, overhauling the panicked animal. Ahead, a hundred paces across the rolling land was a brambled copse, and the hare twisted this way and that with frantic speed, making for safety, Kogo closing the gap, cutting corners, knifing ever closer a few feet off the ground. Then she was above her prey and she hacked down and the hare screamed and reared up and darted back, Kogo still in pursuit ek-ek-eking with rage because she had missed. The hare whirled again in a final dash for sanctuary and shrieked as Kogo struck again and got a firm grip with her talons on its neck and head and bound on fearlessly, closing her wings, oblivious of the animal’s frantic contortions and tumblings as, effortlessly, she snapped the neck. A last scream. Kogo let go and leaped into the air for an instant and shook her ruffled feathers into place again with a violent flurry, then settled back onto the warm, twitching body, talons once more in the death grip. Then and only then did she give her shriek of conquest and hiss with pleasure at the kill. Her eyes watched Toranaga.
Toranaga trotted up and dismounted, offering the lure. Obediently the goshawk left her prey and then, as he deftly concealed the lure, she settled on his outstretched gauntlet. His fingers caught her jesses and he could feel her grip through the steel-reinforced leather of the forefinger perch.
“Eeeeee, that was well done, my beauty,” he said, rewarding her with a morsel, part of the hare’s ear that a beater sliced off for him. “There, gorge on that but not too much—you’ve still work to do.”
Grinning, the beater held up the hare. “Master! It must be three, four times her weight. Best we’ve seen for weeks, neh?”
“Yes. Send it to the camp for the Anjin-san.” Toranaga swung into the saddle again and waved the others forward to the hunt once more.
Yes, the kill had been well done, but it had none of the excitement of a peregrine kill. A goshawk’s only what it is, a cook’s bird, a killer, born to kill anything and everything that moves. Like you, Anjin-san, neh?
Yes, you’re a short-winged hawk.