“My guests,” Mashashige stated. He was the embodiment of calm, standing by his couch, physically insignificant yet imbued with an amazing sense of power.
Gradually the newcomer regained control over himself. He licked his lips nervously as he realized how badly he had behaved in front of his lord.
“Put away the katana ,” Mashashige said, “and sit and become quiet.”
“I could slay them all as easily as a butcher wringing the necks of six feeble little chickens,” Yashimoto insisted. But he sheathed his sword in a whisper of steel.
“Talks cheap,” Ryan said, feeling the sudden throbbing of anger, the pulse that beat in his temple, making his own deep scar burn. “I don’t like being threatened by a cheap little killer like you!” He pointed at the warrior.
“Cool it, lover,” Krysty breathed.
“He speaks the truth about his brother, our dear cousin, Tokimasha Yashimoto. You did kill him, did you not, Ryan Cawdor?”
“Killed him before he killed me. We’d have killed him” he gestured toward Takei Yashimoto, “if we’d had the chance. He got lucky. He wants to try for revenge, then him and me can step outside, across that bridge. Go into the woods for a few minutes and see who comes back.”
“He insulted me to my face in front of you, Lord!” the samurai protested, his voice rising to a squeak in his reborn rage. “I demand satisfaction, Lord.”
“You might ask, cousin. You might not, I think, demand. Unless there has been a change here that I did not realize. Perhaps you are now the lord and I must kneel to obey you. If that has happened, then I am sorry for not having observed it.”
There was a deathly silence in the room at the stinging rebuke, so mildly administered. Ryan noticed a moon-shaped face appear for a moment in the hole in the far wall, where the samurai had thrown his helmet. The face stared at the tableau, then disappeared just as suddenly as it had appeared.
Mashashige sat again and nodded to the newcomer. “Join us, cousin. You and I will talk later of the outlanders and how the situation might most honorably be resolved. But not here and not now.” He clapped his hands. “Bring us sake. Or we have mizuwari , if you prefer.”
“What’s that?” J.B. asked.
“Whiskey and water, Mr. Dix. Perhaps it would be more suitable for your palate.”
There was general agreement among the six friends that it would indeed be a great deal more acceptable to them than the lukewarm sake.
Another line of shuffling maidens in their constricting kimonos brought in the amber liquid, using silver trays and cut-crystal goblets.
Doc sniffed at his drink, tasting it and beaming. “This is more than passingly delicious. I swear that it reminds me of the very best liquor from bonny Scotland that I drank as a young man in Iron Mary’s tavern in Boston.”
“It was made five miles from here, by the sea, in the distillery,” Hideyoshi said, getting his tongue in a tangle over the last word.
Mashashige nodded. “The price we pay is the fumes when the wind is northerly.”
“That the only thing that pollutes?” Mildred asked.
“Sadly not. After the disasters that destroyed our land, as much of your country was laid waste, we have had to use what resources we can. The old skills have been lost, and iron-making and food processing is not efficient? That is the word? There is much smell and waste. And women give birth to monsters.”
“Can’t it be stopped?”
“The wheel has rolled too far.”
“Crap. That’s a poor excuse for not bothering to try to make things better.”
“Many would die if our poor industry was stopped.” The shogun Mashashige seemed to have totally forgotten that he was arguing in his own fortress with a poor, weak woman. A gaijin woman.
“Many are dying as it is. I’m a doctor Well, I was a doctor, but that’s a long story. I can taste the toxins in the airSulfur, carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide and something bitter that could be aluminum or zinc. There’re garbage heaps everywhere you look, and trees blighted with acid rain. I’m amazed that more of you aren’t dead. What’s the life expectancy? Not here in the ville, but outside, by your factories?”