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

Bells tolled the middle of the Hour of the Goat. The air in the room seemed to thicken. Rain stopped briefly then began again, heavier than before.

Just after the bells tolled the next hour there was a knock.

"Yes?"

The door opened. Naga said, "Please excuse me, Sire, my brother . . . Lord Sudara wants to come up again."

"Let him - then return to your post."

Sudara came in and knelt and bowed. He was soaking, his hair matted from the rain. His shoulders shook slightly. "My - my children are . . . . You've already taken my children, Sire."

Genjiko wavered and almost pitched forward. But she dominated her weakness and stared at her husband. "You - you didn't kill them?"

Sudara shook his head and Toranaga said grimly, "Your children are in my quarters, on the floor below. I ordered Chano-san to fetch them after you'd been ordered here. I needed to be sure of you both. Foul times require foul tests." He rang the hand bell.

"You - you withdraw your or - your order, Sire?" Genjiko asked, desperately trying to maintain a cold dignity.

"Yes. My order's withdrawn. This time. It was necessary to know you. And my heir."

"Thank you, thank you, Sire." Sudara lowered his head abjectly.

The inner door opened. "Chano-san, bring my grandchildren here for a moment," Toranaga said.

Soon three somberly clad foster mothers and the wet nurse brought the children. The girls were four, three, and two, and the infant son, a few weeks old, was asleep in the arms of his wet nurse. All the girls wore scarlet kimonos with scarlet ribbons in their hair. The foster mothers knelt and bowed to Toranaga and their wards copied them importantly and put their heads to the tatamis - except the youngest girl, whose head needed assistance from a gentle though firm hand.

Toranaga bowed back gravely. Then, their duty done, the children rushed into his embrace - except the littlest one, who toddled into her mother's arms.

At midnight Yabu strutted arrogantly across the flare-lit donjon forecourt. Toranaga's elite corps of personal guards were everywhere. The moon was vague and misted and the stars barely visible.

"Ah, Naga-san, what's the reason for all this?"

"I don't know, Lord, but everyone's ordered to the conference chamber. Please excuse me, but you must leave your swords with me."

Yabu flushed at this unheard - of breach of etiquette. "Are you-" He changed his mind, sensing the youth's chilling tenseness and the restless nervousness of the nearby guards. "On whose orders please, Naga-san?"

"My father's, Lord. So sorry, you can please yourself if you don't wish to go to the conference, but I have to advise you that you are ordered there without swords and, so sorry, that is the way you will appear. Please excuse me, but I have no choice."

Yabu saw the pile of swords already in the lee of the guardhouse beside the huge main gate. He weighed the dangers of a refusal and found them formidable. Reluctantly he relinquished his arms. Naga bowed politely, equally embarrassed, as he accepted them. Yabu went inside. The huge room was embrasured, stone floored, and wooden beamed.

Soon the fifty senior generals were gathered, twenty-three counselors, and seven friendly daimyos from minor northern provinces. All were keyed up and fidgeted uncomfortably.

"What's all this about?" Yabu asked as he sourly took his place.

A general shrugged. "It's probably about the trek to Osaka."

Another looked around hopefully. "Perhaps it's a change of plan, neh? He's going to order Crimson-"

"So sorry, but your head's in the clouds. He's decided. Our Lord's decided - it's Osaka and nothing else! Hey, Yabu-sama, when did you get here?"

"Yesterday. I've been stuck at a filthy little fishing village called Yokohama for more than two weeks, south of here, with my troops. The port's fine but the bugs! Stinking mosquitoes and bugs - they were never so bad in Izu."

"You're up to date with all the news?"

"You mean all the bad news? The move's still in six days, neh?"

"Yes, terrible. Shameful!"

"True, but tonight's worse," another general said grimly. "I've never been without swords before. Never."

"It's an insult," Yabu said deliberately. All those nearby looked at him.

"I agree," General Kiyoshio replied, breaking the silence. Serata Kiyoshio was the grizzled, tough Commander of the Seventh Army. "I've never been without swords in public before. Makes me feel like a stinking merchant! I think . . . eeeeee, orders are orders but some orders should not be given."

"That's quite right," someone said. "What would old Iron Fist have done if he'd been here?"

"He'd have slit his belly, before he gave up his swords! He'd have done it tonight in the forecourt!" a young man said. He was Serata Tomo, the general's eldest son, second-in-command of the Fourth Army. "I wish Iron Fist were here! He could get sense . . . he'd have slit his belly first."

"I considered it." General Kiyoshio cleared his throat harshly. "Someone has to be responsible - and do his duty! Someone has to make the point that liege lord means responsibility and duty!"

"So sorry, but you'd better watch your tongue," Yabu advised.

"What's the use of a tongue in a samurai's mouth if he's forbidden to be samurai?"

"None," Isamu, an old counselor, replied. "I agree. Better to be dead."

"So sorry, Isamu-san, but that's our immediate future anyway," the young Serata Tomo said. "We're staked pigeons to a certain dishonored hawk!"

"Please hold your tongues!" Yabu said, hiding his own satisfaction. Then he added carefully, "He's our liege lord and until Lord Sudara or the Council takes open responsibility he stays liege lord and he is to be obeyed. Neh?"

General Kiyoshio studied him, his hand unconsciously feeling for his sword hilt. "What have you heard, Yabu-sama?"

"Nothing. "

"Buntaro-san said that-" the counselor began.

General Kiyoshio interrupted thinly. "Please excuse me, Isamu-san, but what General Buntaro said or what he didn't say is unimportant. What Yabu-sama says is true. A liege lord is a liege lord. Even so, a samurai has rights, a vassal has rights. Even daimyos. Neh?"

Yabu looked back at him, gauging the depth of that invitation. "Izu is Lord Toranaga's province. I'm no longer daimyo of Izu - only overlord for him." He glanced around the huge room. "Everyone's here; neh?"

"Except Lord Noboru," a general said, mentioning Toranaga's eldest son, who was universally loathed.

"Yes. Just as well. Never mind, General, the Chinese sickness'll finish him soon and we'll be done with his foul humor forever," someone said.

"And stench."

"When's he coming back?"

"Who knows? We don't even know why Toranaga-sama sent him north. Better he stays there, neh?"

"If you had that sickness, you'd be as foul-humored as he is, neh?"

"Yes, Yabu-san. Yes, I would. Pity he's poxed, he's a good general - better than the Cold Fish," General Kiyoshio added, using Sudara's private nickname.

"Eeeee," the counselor whistled. "There're devils in the air tonight to make you so careless with your tongue. Or is it sake?"

"Perhaps it's the Chinese sickness," General Kiyoshio replied with a bitter laugh.

"Buddha protect me from that!" Yabu said. "If only Lord Toranaga would change his mind about Osaka!"

"I'd slit my belly now if that'd convince him," the young man said.

"No offense, my son, but your head's in the clouds. He'll never change."

"Yes, Father. But I just don't understand him...."

"We're all to go with him? In the same contingent?" Yabu asked after a moment.

Isamu, the old counselor, said, "Yes. We're to go as an escort. With two thousand men with full ceremonial equipment and trappings. It'll take us thirty days to get there. We've six days left."