James Axler – Keepers of the Sun

“Who told you?” Ryan asked.

“Yashimoto. Sort nasty grin when told. Said to tell all that punishment was soon. We was to watch.”

“When?” Krysty queried.

Jak turned to Issie and repeated the question. The geisha giggled and unfolded a fan, covering her face, whispering something that Jak had to ask her to repeat before he was sure that he’d understood her.

“Tonight. Courtyard in center. Lord Mashashige will do it. Punishing.”

“How? Said he’d fight Mashashita.”

Jak looked again at Issie, who was still giggling. Now she folded the fan and brought it down against the side of her slender swan’s neck with a savage, unmistakable cutting blow.

Chapter Twenty-Four

“How come he’s not allowed to commit suicide?” J.B. asked, sipping at a porcelain beaker of sake.

Hideyoshi had been sent by Lord Mashashige to make sure that the outlanders joined all the surviving members of his household to see the executionor fight. Nobody seemed totally clear which it was to be.

“Call all hands to witness punishment,” Doc said. “Flogging around the fleet.”

“Not flogging, Doctor,” the samurai said.

“Merely a figure of speech, my dear fellow,” Doc replied amiably, a tumbler of the weak local beer in his hand. “Old Western custom.”

“Like tarring and feathering? I have read that is old Western custom.”

Doc was puzzled for a few minutes, working out what it was that the samurai had said. Finally he realized. “Yes. Or rather, no. Or on third thought, perhaps it is better just to let the matter lie where it is.”

RYAN AND J.B. HAD SPOKEN to Mashashige about the danger of a direct and rapid attack by the ronin.

“They know how very weak you are with such devastating losses from the sarin gas,” Ryan warned. “You must use every available man for defense duty.”

The shogun had listened politely, head slightly on one side. He nodded occasionally, listening as both men made their tactical points.

“We could take out a small raiding party of three or four of your best warriors and a dozen of the surviving sec men,” J.B. offered. “Try and locate the camp of the ronin and take a few of them out. Balance up the odds.”

“It is a kind offer, thoughtfully made, Dix-san. But we must not hurry into something that is unwise.”

“Not unwise to get your licks in first,” Ryan argued. “Firstest with mostest.”

“Nathan Bedford Forrest say that.” Mashashige gave them one of the first full, ear-to-ear smiles. “I have studied the war and its men. Marching through Georgia. Shiloh. So many battles and such honor.”

“And it’s right. Get in a preemptive strike against the ronin. Be offensive, not defensive.”

The shogun’s smile disappeared like the dew from a summer meadow as he looked at Ryan. “The code of kokoro combines heart and soul and mind. We will fight from our home.”

“But you have more chance of winning if you accept our advice,” J.B. said. “Killing’s a craft like any other. And we’re good at it.”

” Hai, hai, wakarimashita, wakarimashita .” He spoke crossly. “Yes, I understand what you are saying. It is not a very bad plan. But it will not happen.”

“Cut down your enemy.”

“Yes, Cawdor-san. When you watch after the trial, you will, I think, see me cut an enemy down.”

IT WAS TO TAKE PLACE in one of the number of courtyards that were set in the middle of the fortress, among the endless maze of corridors with their fragile rice-paper walls and sliding panels and shutters.

A skeleton guard was placed on the outer walls, watching from the turrets and battlements among the peaked roofs. Everyone else in the palace lined the courtyard.

Everyone male.

Issie and her fellow geisha were forbidden, as were all of the female servants. It was one of the first things that Krysty had noticed. Neither Mashashige nor any of the senior samurai seemed to have wives or families.

Hideyoshi had tried to explain. “Women are weak and cracked vessels. Useless to men of action and honorable fighting. If we seek release, then we can find it with each other or with boys. That way we do not dilute Is right word? Dilute? We do not dilute our seed and waste it on women.”