Shike, p.90
Shike, page 90
"If only I could go out in one of our kobaya," Sametono said suddenly, fists clenched.
"Don't even think of it," said Taniko, her eyes frightened. "Your place is back in Kamakura, not here. And certainly not out at sea."
"Excuse me, Mother," said Sametono, staring back at her. "I'm not going back to Kamakura."
"Sametono, we've talked about this before," Taniko said angrily. "You are not needed here. You would simply be one more source of worry for our samurai, another person to protect."
"I'm sorry, Mother, but I am the Shogun," Sametono replied quietly. "Munetoki has shaved my head and knotted my hair. I am a man. I am ready to take my place with the warriors. I would not go against your advice in many things, Mother, but I will in this, because you are speaking from the heart as any mother would, not from the mind of the Ama-Shogun."
"That is not true," said Taniko evenly. "A samurai woman sends her son off to battle with a smile. You are Shogun, as you say. You are needed in Kamakura to govern the country."
"I am inexperienced at governing. Cousin Munetoki can do that better than I can. If I stay here, I can continue to do what you did so beautifully yesterday, Mother. The troops will fight all the harder knowing they are fighting under their Shogun's eye."
"Are you suggesting that I return to Kamakura?" said Munetoki angrily. Jebu suppressed a smile.
"Cousin," said Sametono, "I will never forget when you came back after the last attack on our country and told us the story of how the Mongols were defeated. Please let me have the honour of reporting to you, after this war is over."
Munetoki turned to Taniko with a resigned look. "The boy has to win the respect of the samurai. It will not do for him to be kept in Kamakura like a child-Emperor. Someone of our family is needed here to inspire our men. You and I will go back to Kamakura. Eirst, though, I mean to make one raid on one of our little ships. I insist on that."
"Very well, Munetoki," said Taniko. "Then you will go back to Kamakura. But if Sametono stays here, then so shall I. And if Sametono does anything foolish, he will answer to me."
"Mother," groaned Sametono. "You shame me."
"I will not shame you as long as you keep to your proper place. On shore, observing the battle, letting the samurai see their Supreme Commander, but out of danger. If you dare set foot in one of those little ships you had better be prepared for real shame when you come back. Because I will be standing on the beach waiting for you." Her eyes blazed with a wrath that Jebu found amusing, though he was sure it was terrible to Sametono.
Jebu glanced out the window, saw a sight that transfixed him and called, "Look!" Elames were rippling along the sides of enemy junks, sails were blackening and heavy, dark grey smoke was coiling into the air. A cheer went up from Jebu and the others as they saw Mongol ships start to sink. It was difficult to see the kobaya at this distance, they were so small. But it was clear that they were among the enemy vessels, boarding them and setting them afire. Blazing lights sailed through the air. There were bright flashes and sounds like distant thunderclaps. Hua pao aboard the junks were being brought to bear on the little ships. But more and more of the invading junks were burning.
The battle at the harbour mouth raged for over an hour. Jebu asked himself again and again, where is Moko? Soon the ocean was obscured by smoke, and it was impossible to see the fleet coming over the horizon. At last, though, the smoke began to clear. Jebu could see the low, dark shapes arrowing through the waves back to Hakozaki. He tried to count them. It was difficult at this distance, but it seemed there were no more than thirty. His heart turned to lead. Over a hundred had gone out. The burning junks sank. The Mongol fleet was visible again, filling the ocean as far as the eye could see. Jebu expected the invaders to start sailing into the harbour, but instead the nearer ships were tacking and heading toward Shiga Island.
"They're trying to land on Shiga and get around the wall," said Munetoki.
"I must go," said Jebu. He bowed deeply to Sametono and Taniko.
"The fighting for Shiga Island will be over by the time you get there," Taniko protested.
"It may go on for days, my lady," said Jebu moving towards the stairway. In a lower voice that the others could not overhear he said, "Stop trying to protect the men you love."
"At least trying to protect Sametono gives me an excuse to stay near you," Taniko whispered. "Promise me you will not let Sametono go into combat. And promise me you will come back to me."
"I promise," Jebu whispered. He squeezed her hand and left.
Chapter Seventeen
Red and yellow lights, numerous as the stars, bobbed gently in the darkness ahead. A strong tenor voice floated over the water, singing in Mongolian about a young man who had ridden ninety-nine days and ninety-nine nights to be with his beloved, only to find wild flowers growing over her grave. It was a song Jebu had heard many times around campfires at the edge of the Gobi Desert. It sounded strange to hear it now on Hakata Bay as their thirty-man galley, Flying Feather, glided silent as a crane towards the Mongol fleet. There was no wind tonight, so they rowed without a sail. Jebu stood amidships, one hand resting on the mast, the other holding his naginata.
It was near the end of the month, and the thin, waning moon was just rising, well after midnight. As they drew closer, the junks, each with a yellow lantern at the prow and a red lantern at the stern, loomed over their little galley like castles. They had reached the barrier now, a line of fishing nets strung from ship to ship and hung with bells both to block any attacking vessels and to warn of their approach. Hayama Sakagura, Moko's son, stood in the bow of Flying Feather, both hands gripping the pole of a naginata fitted with a very long, exquisitely sharpened sword blade of the highest quality steel. Sakagura swung the naginata three times as the oarsmen, all armed samurai themselves, held the little galley steady. A great square of the net silently fell away, and Flying Feather slid through. Munetoki, standing just behind Jebu, expelled a long breath of relief.
There was a distant shout. Blazing arrows shot through the air, a long way off. A kobaya along the net to the north burst into flame. They must have set off the bells trying to get through, Jebu thought. Eigures of men, silhouetted by the blaze, toppled from the galley into the water. The distraction would make it easier for all the other raiders to get through.
It was a hot, damp night, and even on the water the air hung thick. Once Flying Feather was in among the Mongol ships the smell was nauseating, a mixture of horses, unwashed bodies, garbage, decaying meat and human sewage. The huge fleet was rapidly poisoning the bay. "Milk drinkers," Munetoki groaned. Their kobaya pulled alongside a two-masted junk. They drifted till they were just at the midpoint of the vessel, where the sides were lowest. Jebu could hear conversations on the deck of the ship in an unfamiliar language that, he guessed, was Korean. He heard horses stamping on the other side of the hull, and one of them whickered. They would have to act quickly now. The horses were likely to smell them and set up a commotion. Jebu made room for two samurai who went to work with practical speed at the base of Flying Feather's mast. They unwrapped a rope and pulled out an arrangement of pegs and splints. With ropes attached to the top of the mast other crewmen guided its fall. It crashed against the junk's railing, and a cry of alarm pierced the humid night.
It was the third night after the Great Khan's fleet arrived at Hakata Bay. Each night the kobaya had been going out. They filtered in among the big enemy ships and used their collapsible masts, an invention of Moko's, to board the junks. After slaughtering as many of the warriors and crew as they could reach, the raiders set fire to the ships and escaped-or tried to. Each night nearly half the ships that went out did not come back.
"We'll have more ships coming back after the warriors who aren't good at this have got themselves killed off," Moko's son Sakagura said carelessly when Jebu was arranging for himself and Munetoki to go raiding on Flying Feather. Jebu though the remark crude but said nothing. Sakagura was reputed to be the best of the kobaya captains and therefore was the most likely to get Munetoki back safely. That was all that mattered.
Jebu had not seen Moko until earlier that day. It turned out that when the Mongol fleet arrived, war junks had pursued Moko's scout ship, driving it on to the rocks a day's journey north of Hakata Bay. Jebu himself had been occupied, until this morning, in the furious battle that ended in driving the Mongols off Shiga Island. Moko saw Flying Feather off from Hakozaki that night, his eyes shining with pride in his son.
Sakagura had promised Jebu and Munetoki the right to be first on the enemy ship. Jebu took a firmer grip on his naginata and set his bare foot on the slanting mast when an unexpected elbow in the ribs knocked him to one side, and Munetoki was clambering up the mast ahead of him. Like the lowliest, youngest samurai, the Regent of the Sunrise Land could not resist the urge to be the first to attack the enemy. Stifling his anger, Jebu scrambled up the mast. It was his responsibility to protect the Regent on this raid.
He glimpsed Munetoki bringing his sword down on the back of a screaming Korean crewman. Swinging his naginata in a huge arc, Jebu dashed for a small lantern beside the door of the stern cabin. He grabbed the lantern, and splashed burning oil on the deck. Mongol soldiers were tumbling up through the hatches now, waving swords, spears and bows and arrows, but the samurai had control of the deck and were cutting them down almost as fast as they appeared. Another fire had started in the bow of the ship. If they're carrying any of the black powder we'll all go up together, Jebu thought.
The Korean crewmen, realizing that their ship was past saving, were diving overboard. The Mongol soldiers were more stubborn-or desperate, since most of them couldn't swim. They had no choice but to stand and fight. About twenty of them managed to form a line across the deck and were steadily shooting arrows into the attackers with well-drilled precision. Jebu jumped to the railing of the ship, took hold of a free line and wrapped it around his left arm. He swung feet first into the bowmen, sending the nearest of them sprawling, killing or scattering the others with his naginata. The samurai rushed the Mongols, their long swords flashing like torches in the firelight. Munetoki was in the lead, and a huge Mongol stood up with his spear pointed at the Regent's chest. Jebu ran at the Mongol, whirling the naginata over his head and bringing it down on the big man's neck. The severed head went sailing off the ship into the blackness. Munetoki took a moment to bow his thanks before decapitating another Mongol with a two-handed swing of his sword.
The Mongols just aren't used to fighting on foot in close quarters, Jebu thought. Sakagura was shouting, "Sparrow! Sparrow!" the signal to abandon the enemy ship. Samurai were jumping into the water or scrambling down Flying Feather's mast. Soon all the surviving raiders were on board the kobaya. Even the mast was saved, pulled back into place by four crewmen. The rowers pushed off, and Flying Feather was racing across the bay to Hakozaki.
Burning ships lit up the vast extent of the invading fleet. In the distance one ship blew up with a roar. There goes another kobaya crew, Jebu thought glumly, as those around him cheered. Hua pao mounted on the decks of the junks boomed, and flaming arrows sizzled through the air. The firelight revealed a distant ship that dwarfed the junks around it. It was bedecked with banners and had so many masts it was difficult to count them. On the foremast sail was painted a huge tiger's head, fangs bared. Erom end to end the ship was Chinese vermilion, vivid as blood. It was Arghun Baghadur's flagship, the Red Tiger. I wonder if he knows I survived his arrows in Oshu, Jebu thought. Red Tiger was surrounded by a ring of smaller war junks. There was no way to break through.
Jebu asked himself, do I hate him? Do I want vengeance for all he has done to me? Searching his heart, he was relieved to find that he felt no hatred. Arghun was like some dangerous beast of prey-like the tiger painted on his sail-whom one might feel a duty to destroy but could not hate the way it was possible to hate a twisted man like
Horigawa. One might even admire Arghun, see beauty in him, as one did in a tiger. Jebu's Zinja insight told him that his enmity with Arghun was part of the necessary pattern of things, the pattern Taitaro had spoken of.
There was an ear-bursting roar and a flash of light from a junk near them. A round, dark object trailing sparks shot through the air. Jebu held his breath, waiting to see if it would fall on Flying Feather. It landed in the water far to their left and blew up, sending up a huge waterspout. A man near Jebu cried out and fell, holding his hand over a bleeding ear. The flying chunks of metal were the deadliest part of the Mongol fire balls, Jebu thought. But the hua pao were not at all accurate when mounted on ships. They might wreak havoc with masses of troops or break down fortifications, but they were nearly useless on the water.
"The one we raided is going down," shouted Munetoki, clapping Jebu on the arm and pointing. Jebu watched as the junk, burning from end to end, rolled over on its side. The poor horses, he thought. Munetoki was wild with glee. Now that they had passed beyond shooting distance of the Mongol ships, everyone was chattering and laughing with the dizzy relief that comes to men when they have been in danger of death and have survived.
Sakagura pushed his way back to them. He held up a severed head by its braided black hair. In the other hand he had a rectangular bronze tablet attached to a gold chain.
"I got a general at least," he laughed. "That is a general's medallion, isn't it?"
"A hundred-commander," said Jebu, studying the tablet. To salvage some of Sakagura's pride he added, "Surely the highest ranking officer aboard that ship."
"I'll get a general yet," said Sakagura excitedly. "I'll get Arghun Baghadur himself one of these days." He grinned and stuffed the chain into his belt, then bowed to Munetoki. "Did your lordship enjoy the raid?"
"I'm only sorry it's over," said Munetoki. "I wish I could go out every night as you do. I'm obliged to you, captain."
Sakagura bowed. "Eorgive my presumption, your lordship, but I hope you won't forget me. I came when called to arms, and I've fought hard, risked my life many times and killed many enemies. I expect to do a lot more fighting."
"Your exploits and your reputation for bravery are well known, captain," said Munetoki with less warmth.
Sakagura did not look in the least abashed. Moko's eldest son had his father's features, but not the crossed eyes and bad teeth, features that without those defects were quite handsome. He had been born the year Yukio and Jebu left for China, taking Moko with them, and was now twenty-three. So he had not met his father until he was about seven years old. Even so, he had Moko's outspokenness and intelligence, it was clear. But he also had some qualities that were, perhaps, peculiar to first-generation samurai-reckless courage, ambition and an air of braggadocio.
"Please forgive me, your lordship," Sakagura said. "We fellows who do go out every night, as you wish you could, are hoping the Bakufu will be generous after this is over, with rice land and offices and rank."
He excused himself as the galley approached the Hakozaki dock. A crowd had gathered along the stone quays and wooden piers. Sakagura stood on the prow of Flying Feather holding up the Mongol head. The crowd cheered him. Munetoki watched him with a worried frown as the ship manoeuvred up to the torchlit dock.
"Erom whom can we take the rice land or the offices or the titles so that we can give them to him and his kind?" he said to Jebu. "Winning this war means driving off the Mongols, not gaining land. It could be dangerous if there are many who think like him."
You'd better start thinking about it now, Jebu thought to himself. After the war it will be too late. Aloud he said, "There won't be that many samurai left to reward after this war, your lordship." He gestured out over the dark waters of the bay, now lit by the distant fires among the Mongol ships and by the waning moon. "Twenty kobaya left this town tonight, and I count only twelve returning. In our boat we lost seven men out of thirty."
"The Mongols are taking terrible losses," Munetoki agreed. "But so are we." The kobaya bumped against the dock, and samurai crewmen jumped out to make fast. The Great Khan has a whole continent full of warriors to send against us, Jebu thought. Most of our fighting men are already gathered here. How long can we hold out?
Chapter Eighteen
Returning after the kobaya raid to the camp north of Hakozaki, Jebu stopped suddenly. He had caught sight of two figures crouching at the entrance to his tent. Using a bamboo grove for cover, he moved noiselessly closer. His Zinja-trained senses told him that the two men were relaxed, motionless and breathing regularly as if in meditation. Probably visiting monks, not assassins, he decided. The camp was carefully guarded against enemy infiltrators. He stepped out of the bamboo grove and called a greeting.
"Good evening to you, Master Jebu." Now Jebu saw that it was the monk Eisen. "Although it is almost morning. I hear you have been sinking Mongol ships."
"Sensei," Jebu said with a bow. "I didn't know you'd left Kamakura." He came closer and smiled at Eisen's round, solid face, now visible in the weak moonlight. Behind Eisen was a gaunt, grey-bearded monk with shaved head, who wore black Zen robes.
"I am only here briefly," said Eisen, "to assist my colleague here, priest Kagyo." Jebu and Kagyo bowed to each other. "I am spending most of my time now supervising the reconstruction of the Todaiji Temple in Nara, since you seem to have abandoned that task." Eisen's eyes twinkled. Jebu had told him of masquerading as a monk seeking contributions for the Todaiji. "May we talk in your tent?" Jebu ushered them into his tent and lit a candle. Kagyo looked familiar, but Jebu could not place him. Probably someone he had seen on a visit to Eisen's temple.
