Shogun - Clavell James (бесплатные полные книги .TXT) 📗

"Yes?"

"A few minutes ago you'd convinced me that - well, let's say I was convinced. Now I'm not. What's the truth? The honto. I must know."

"Ears are to hear with. Of course it was the maid."

"This maid. Can I ask for her whenever I want?"

"Of course. A wise man would not."

"Because I might be disappointed? Next time?"

"Possibly. "

"I find it difficult to possess a maid and lose a maid, difficult to say nothing...."

"Pillowing is a pleasure. Of the body. Nothing has to be said."

"But how do I tell a maid that she is beautiful? That I love her? That she filled me with ecstasy?"

"It isn't seemly to 'love' a maid this way. Not here, Anjin-san. That passion's not even for a wife or a consort." Her eyes crinkled suddenly. "But only toward someone like Kiku-san, the courtesan, who is so beautiful and merits this."

"Where can I find this girl?"

"In the village. It would be my honor to act as your go-between."

"By Christ, I think you mean it."

"Of course. A man needs passions of all kinds. This Lady is worthy of romance - if you can afford her."

"What does that mean?"

"She would be very expensive."

"You don't buy love. That type's worth nothing. 'Love' is without price. " She smiled. "Pillowing always has its price. Always. Not necessarily money, Anjin-san. But a man pays, always, for pillowing in one way, or in another. True love, we call it duty, is of soul to soul and needs no such expression - no physical expression, except perhaps the gift of death."

"You're wrong. I wish I could show you the world as it is."

"I know the world as it is, and as it will be forever. You want this contemptible maid again?"

"Yes. You know I want..."

Mariko laughed gaily. "Then she will be sent to you. At sunset. We will escort her, Fujiko and I!"

"Goddamn it - I think you would too!" He laughed with her.

"Ah, Anjin-san, it is good to see you laugh. Since you came back to Anjiro you have gone through a great change. A very great change. "

"No. Not so much. But last night I dreamed a dream. That dream was perfection."

"God is perfection. And sometimes so is a sunset or moonrise or the first crocus of the year."

"I don't understand you at all."

She turned back the veil on her hat and looked directly at him. "Once another man said to me, 'I don't understand you at all,' and my husband said, 'Your pardon, Lord, but no man can understand her. Her father doesn't understand her, neither do the gods, nor her barbarian God, not even her mother understands her.'"

"That was Toranaga? Lord Toranaga?"

"Oh, no, Anjin-san. That was the Taiko. Lord Toranaga understands me. He understands everything."

"Even me?"

"Very much you."

"You're sure of that, aren't you?"

"Yes. Oh, very yes."

"Will he win the war?"

"Yes."

"I'm his favored vassal?"

"Yes."

"Will he take my navy?"

"Yes."

"When will I get my ship back?"

"You won't."

"Why?"

Her gravity vanished. "Because you'll have your 'maid' in Anjiro and you'll be pillowing so much you'll have no energy to leave, even on your hands and knees, when she begs you to go aboard your ship, and when Lord Toranaga asks you to go aboard and to leave us all!"

"There you go again! One moment so serious, the next not!"

"That's only to answer you, Anjin-san, and to put certain things in a correct place. Ah, but before you leave us you should see the Lady Kiku. She's worthy of a great passion. She's so beautiful and talented. For her you would have to be extraordinary!"

"I'm tempted to accept that challenge."

"I challenge no one. But if you're prepared to be samurai and not not foreigner - if you're prepared to treat pillowing for what it is, then I would be honored to act as go-between."

"What does that mean?"

"When you're in good humor, when you're ready for very special amusement, ask your consort to ask me."

"Why Fujiko-san?"

"Because it's your consort's duty to see that you are pleasured. It is our custom to make life simple. We admire simplicity, so men and women can take pillowing for what it is: an important part of life, certainly, but between a man and a woman there are more vital things. Humility, for one. Respect. Duty. Even this 'love' of yours. Fujiko 'loves' you."

"No she doesn't!"

"She will give you her life. What more is there to give?"

At length he took his eyes off her and looked at the sea. The waves were cresting the shore as the wind freshened. He turned back to her. "Then nothing is to be said?" he asked. "Between us?"

"Nothing. That is wise."

"And if I don't agree?"

"You must agree. You are here. This is your home."

The attacking five hundred galloped over the lip of the hill in a haphazard pack, down onto the rock-strewn valley floor where the two thousand "defenders" were drawn up in a battle array. Each rider wore a musket slung on his back and a belt with pouches for bullets, flints, and a powder horn. Like most samurai, their clothes were a motley collection of kimonos and rags, but their weapons always the best that each could afford. Only Toranaga and Ishido, copying him, insisted that their troops be uniformed and punctilious in their dress. All other daimyos considered such outward extravagance a foolish squandering of money, an unnecessary innovation. Even Blackthorne had agreed. The armies of Europe were never uniformed - what king could afford that, except for a personal guard?

He was standing on a rise with Yabu and his aides, Jozen and all his men, and Mariko. This was the first full-scale rehearsal of an attack. He waited uneasily, Yabu was uncommonly tense, and Omi and Naga both had been touchy almost to the point of belligerence. Particularly Naga.

"What's the matter with everyone?" he had asked Mariko.

"Perhaps they wish to do well in front of their lord and his guest."

"Is he a daimyo too?"

"No. But important, one of Lord Ishido's generals. It would be good if everything were perfect today."

"I wish I'd been told there was to be a rehearsal."

"What would that have accomplished? Everything you could do, you have done."

Yes, Blackthorne thought, as he watched the five hundred. But they're nowhere near ready yet. Surely Yabu knows that too, everyone does. So if there is a disaster, well, that's karma, he told himself with more confidence, and found consolation in that thought.

The attackers gathered speed and the defenders stood waiting under the banners of their captains, jeering at the "enemy" as they would normally do, strung out in loose formation, three or four men deep. Soon the attackers would dismount out of arrow range. Then the most valiant warriors on both sides would truculently strut to the fore to throw down the gauntlet, proclaiming their own lineage and superiority with the most obvious of insults. Single armed conflicts would begin, gradually increasing in numbers, until one commander would order a general attack and then it was every man for himself. Usually the greater number defeated the smaller, then the reserves would be brought up and committed, and again the melee until the morale of one side broke, and the few cowards that retreated would soon be joined by the many and a rout would ensue. Treachery was not unusual. Sometimes whole regiments, following their master's orders, would switch sides, to be welcomed as allies - always welcomed but never trusted. Sometimes the defeated commanders would flee to regroup to fight again. Sometimes they would stay and fight to the death, sometimes they would commit seppuku with ceremony. Rarely were they captured. Some offered their services to the victors. Sometimes this was accepted but most times refused. Death was the lot of the vanquished, quick for the brave and shame-filled for the cowardly. And this was the historic pattern of all skirmishes in this land, even at great battles, soldiers here the same as everywhere, except that here they were more ferocious and many, many more were prepared to die for their masters than anywhere else on earth.