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

"Then I shall lose," Toranaga said. "You know that, don't you? If they stand allied with Ishido, all the Christian daimyos will side with him. Then I have to lose. Twenty samurai against one of mine. Neh?"

"Yes."

"What's their plan? When will they attack me?"

"I don't know, Sire."

"Would you tell me if you did?"

"Yes - yes I would."

I doubt it, Toranaga thought, and looked away into the night, the burden of his worry almost crushing him. Is it to be Crimson Sky after all, he asked himself helplessly? The stupid, bound-to-fail lunge at Kyoto?

He hated the shameful cage that he was in. Like the Taiko and Goroda before him, he had to tolerate the Christian priests because the priests were as inseparable from the Portuguese traders as flies from a horse, holding absolute temporal and spiritual power over their unruly flock. Without the priests there was no trade. Their good will as negotiators and middle men in the Black Ship operation was vital because they spoke the language and were trusted by both sides, and, if ever the priests were completely forbidden the Empire, all barbarians would obediently sail away, never to return. He remembered the one time the Taiko had tried to get rid of the priests yet still encourage trade. For two years there was no Black Ship. Spies reported how the giant chief of the priests, sitting like a poisonous black spider in Macao, had ordered no more trade in reprisal for the Taiko's Expulsion Edicts, knowing that at length the Taiko must humble himself. In the third year he had bowed to the inevitable and invited the priests back, turning a blind eye to his own Edicts and to the treason and rebellion the priests had advocated.

There's no escape from that reality, Toranaga thought. None. I don't believe what the Anjin-san says - that trade is as essential to barbarians as it is to us, that their greed will make them trade, no matter what we do to the priests. The risk is too great to experiment and there's no time and I don't have the power. We experimented once and failed. Who knows? Perhaps the priests could wait us out ten years; they're ruthless enough. If the priests order no trade, I believe there will be no trade. We could not wait ten years. Even five years. And if we expel all barbarians it must take twenty years for the English barbarian to fill up the gap, if the Anjin-san is telling the whole truth and if - and it is an immense if - if the Chinese would agree to trade with them against the Southern Barbarians. I don't believe the Chinese will change their pattern. They never have. Twenty years is too long. Ten years is too long.

There's no escape from that reality. Or the worst reality of all, the specter that secretly petrified Goroda and the Taiko and is now rearing its foul head again: that the fanatical, fearless Christian priests, if pushed too far, will put all their influence and their trading power and sea power behind one of the great Christian daimyos. Further, they would engineer an invasion force of iron-clad, equally fanatic conquistadores armed with the latest muskets to support this one Christian daimyo - like they almost did the last time. By themselves, any number of invading barbarians and their priests are no threat against our overwhelming joint forces. We smashed the hordes of Kublai Khan and we can deal with any invader. But allied to one of our own, a great Christian daimyo with armies of samurai, and given civil wars throughout the realm, this could, ultimately, give this one daimyo absolute power over all of us.

Kiyama or Onoshi? It's obvious now, that has to be the priest's scheme. The timing's perfect. But which daimyo?

Both, initially, helped by Harima of Nagasaki. But who'll carry the final banner? Kiyama - because Onoshi the leper's not long for this earth and Onoshi's obvious reward for supporting his hated enemy and rival, Kiyama, would be a guaranteed, painless, everlasting life in the Christian heaven with a permanent seat at the right hand of the Christian God.

They've four hundred thousand samurai between them now. Their base is Kyushu and that island's safe from my grasp. Together those two could easily subjugate the whole island, then they have limitless troops, limitless food, all the ships necessary for an invasion, all the silk, and Nagasaki. Throughout the land there are perhaps another five or six hundred thousand Christians. Of these, more than half the Jesuit Christian converts - are samurai, all salted nicely among the forces of all daimyos, a vast pool of potential traitors, spies, or assassins - should the priests order it. And why shouldn't they? They'd get what they want above life itself: absolute power over all our souls, thus over the soul of this Land of the Gods - to inherit our earth and all that it contains just as the Anjin-san has explained has already happened fifty times in this New World of theirs . . . . They convert a king, then use him against his own kind, until all the land is swallowed up.

It's so easy for them to conquer us, this tiny band of barbarian priests. How many are there in all Japan? Fifty or sixty? But they've the power. And they believe. They're prepared to die gladly for their beliefs, with pride and with bravery, with the name of their God on their lips. We saw that at Nagasaki when the Taiko's experiment proved a disastrous mistake. Not one of the priests recanted, tens of thousands witnessed the burnings, tens of thousands were converted, and this "martyrdom" gave the Christian religion immense prestige that Christian priests have fed on ever since.

For me, the priests have failed, but that won't deter them from their relentless course. That's reality, too.

So, it's Kiyama.

Is the plan already settled, with Ishido a dupe and the Lady Ochiba and Yaemon also? Has Harima already thrown in with them secretly? Should I launch the Anjin-san at the Black Ship and Nagasaki immediately?

What shall I do?

Nothing more than usual. Be patient, seek harmony, put aside all worries about I or Thou, Life or Death, Oblivion or Afterlife, Now or Then, and set a new plan into motion. What plan, he wanted to shout in desperation. There isn't one!

"It saddens me that those two stay with the real enemy."

"I swear we tried, Sire." Alvito watched him compassionately, seeing the heaviness of his spirit.

"Yes. I believe that. I believe you and the Father-Visitor kept your solemn promise, so I will keep mine. You may begin to build your temple at Yedo at once. The land has been set aside. I cannot forbid the priests, the other Hairies, entrance to the Empire, but at least I can make them unwelcome in my domain. The new barbarians will be equally unwelcome, if they ever arrive. As to the Anjin-san..." Toranaga shrugged. "But how long all this . . . well, that's karma, neh?"

Alvito was thanking God fervently for His mercy and favor at the unexpected reprieve. "Thank you, Sire," he said, hardly able to talk. "I know you'll not regret it. I pray that your enemies will be scattered like chaff and that you may reap the rewards of Heaven."

"I'm sorry for my harsh words. They were spoken in anger. There's so much..." Toranaga got up ponderously. "You have my permission to say your service tomorrow, old friend."

"Thank you, Sire," Alvito said, bowing low, pitying the normally majestic man. "Thank you with all my heart. May the Divinity bless you and take you into His keeping."

Toranaga trudged into the inn, his guards following. "Naga-san!"

"Yes, Father," the youth said, hurrying up.

"Where's the Lady Mariko?"

"There, Sire, with Buntaro-san." Naga pointed to the small, lantern-lit cha house inside its enclosure in the garden, the shadowed figures within. "Shall I interrupt the cha-no-yu?" A cha-no-yu was a formal, extremely ritualized Tea Ceremony.

"No. That must never be interfered with. Where are Omi and Yabu-san?"