Iron master, p.3
Iron Master, page 3
The two horsemen who had ridden out with Kamakura dismounted and rejoined the guard as Kamakura and Toshiro trotted their ponies through the arches of the outer and inner keeps and went on into the main courtyard of the palace. Civilians – mainly tradesmen of low rank – who found themselves on the bridge fell to their knees and pressed their faces to the close-fitting planks. The iron-shod feet of the ponies sent thunderous echoes through their heads as the riders passed by.
As a member of the house of Hase-Gawa, Toshiro had his family home on the seaward edge of the northern marches. Only two domains were equally remote – the Fu-Ji and the Na-Shuwa, whose lands lay to the north-west and north-east of the Hase-Gawa. Beyond them lay the Fog People. Kamakura, on the other hand, resided on Aron-giren. As a close friend and his swordmaster it was only natural to offer his house to the younger man, even though accommodation was always available for Heralds whenever they arrived and wherever the court happened to be. The Shogun had four other palatial fortresses on the mainland and numerous other residences on the Toh-Yota family estates.
Toshiro thanked Kamakura for the invitation and promised to dine with him at the earliest opportunity. Unfortunately, he could make no plans until he had reported to the Shogun. Only then would he know whether he would have time to sample the delectable joys of family life in the Kamakura household before being dispatched on some new errand. In the meantime, he begged the good captain to convey his respectful yet tender greetings to Yukio, his wife, and her five daughters whose peerless beauty, selfless devotion and pristine decorum reflected nothing but credit upon their parents. Et cetera, et cetera.
Kamakura wheeled away and headed back across the bridge, his honour satisfied. Since his respect and friendship for the young man pre-dated Toshiro’s elevation to the rank of Herald he knew that his offer of hospitality would not be construed as an attempt to curry favour. Nevertheless, as his wife constantly reminded him, any one of their eligible daughters would make an ideal match for Toshiro. And with a Herald for a son-in-law, the marriage prospects for the remaining girls would be immeasurably increased. One noble scion was the least they could expect. Maybe two!
Women! Despite their supposedly submissive, secondary status, it was rare to find one able to resist the lure of social advancement. It was just as well they had a multitude of domestic tasks to attend to: otherwise their days would be filled with all manner of vainglorious dreams. In his years of service with the Shogunate, Kamakura had seen enough to know that, unless governed by an acute and disciplined intellect, bodies freed from the daily grind of physical labour or the demands of soldiering soon became breeding grounds for discontent. Idleness led first to the unbridled pursuit of pleasure, then, when jaded appetites could no longer be whetted by the most deviant perversions, the ladies of the court turned into malicious gossips and schemers. Having destroyed their own sense of moral worth, they set out to destroy those around them. There were men of privilege who fell into this category too – and it had led to the collapse of more than one Shogunate.
Nobility, reflected Kamakura, was not all it was trumped up to be. It was the samurai ethic that was the bulwark against mental and physical corruption, and he was thankful that the new Shogun was the embodiment of all he held dear. Unfortunately, Yukio, his wife who, as a young concubine, had pleasured the present Shogun’s father did not share this jaundiced view of the nobility – even though her lord and master, in a fit of generosity, had presented her to Kamakura in return for services rendered. Yukio, then a slim girl with a flawless, resilient body, had submitted dutifully as her status demanded but, like all women, she had found ways to convey her resentment.
That was in the beginning. Their relationship had improved in the intervening years for, with time, he had proved a reasonable catch, especially when Yoritomo, on his accession to power, had promoted him to the rank of guard-captain and, at the same time, had swept the remaining sybarites out of his father’s ‘pleasure dome’. But the gilded life of the Inner Court leaves an indelible mark. Kamakura knew that, in her heart of hearts, Yukio wished she could have married into the nobility which, for a daughter of a well-to-do merchant family, had not been beyond the bounds of possibility. There were times when even Kamakura wished he could have been born with a silver cup to his lips. But he was old enough and wise enough to know that the fledgling heirs to wealth, power and privilege often found themselves holding a poisoned chalice.
*
Entering the palace, Toshiro presented himself to Ieyasu, the Court Chamberlain, and learned that word of his arrival had already reached the Shogun. The Herald was to join him in the pebble garden as soon as he had cleansed his travel-stained body.
Ieyasu, a tall angular man with a lined, cadaverous face, prided himself on his efficiency. How it was achieved was something of a mystery to Toshiro. Ieyasu never seemed to do anything and on the rare occasions Toshiro had seen him in motion, each gesture, like his speech, was slow, deliberate and precise. He exuded a quality of stillness – and a disquieting degree of menace – like a female spider poised at the centre an invisible web of power.
Toshiro thanked the Chamberlain in the customary manner and exited backwards from his presence.
Ieyasu made his way to the window and watched Toshiro swagger across the small courtyard below followed by the two pages who carried his travelling bags. Such energy! Such muscular dedication! Where would it all end? Under the previous Shogun, Ieyasu had acted as a filter for the information that the Heralds had carried to and from court. But Yoritomo had changed all that. Nowadays, this new band of jumped-up jack-a-knaves reported to the Shogun in person – and in private! An unheard-of and most unwelcome break with ancient tradition which opened the way to a further dilution of the powers held by the office of the Chamberlain.
Ieyasu was one of the ‘old school’. He had held the same post under Yoritomo’s father and, barring some unforeseen disaster, was widely expected to remain in office until he became senile; a state which some of his critics felt he had reached already. On his accession, Yoritomo had pensioned off many of his father’s staff, along with the inhabitants of the ‘pleasure dome’. The sybarites and the obsequious self-serving leeches that somehow always manage to gravitate towards the centre of power had gone. But Ieyasu had remained. A new broom can never sweep entirely clean. And contrary to accepted wisdom, some old dogs are remarkably adept at learning new tricks.
In a nation built upon ancient traditions and held together by the rigid observance of age-old customs and protocols, changes are seen as a threat to the fabric of society – to be resisted at all cost. They can only be introduced gradually, if at all, and when making them, the wise leader does so whilst maintaining a strong sense of continuity with the past. Ieyasu was not the person Yoritomo would have liked as his Chamberlain but he was, without doubt, the best man for the job. The sly old fox knew everything and everybody and Yoritomo – then only twenty-three – was quick to see that he had to ally himself with Ieyasu until he had made his own position more secure. As a result, his cleansing operation had removed the froth and the scum but, when calm returned, the basic mixture was very much as before. Apart from the new status of the Heralds – a point which the old fox had deemed advantageous to concede – Ieyasu’s power and influence remained unchanged, and most of the key positions were still occupied by like-minded place-men.
Yoritomo was aware of the situation, and although there were other means by which Ieyasu could have been removed he was content to leave things as they were. Palace revolutions were destabilising events, which sent shock-waves through the country and gave people ideas. Besides which, he enjoyed pitting his wits against the wily old campaigner. Time was on his side, and it was precisely this – his extreme youthfulness – that was the root of the problem. The Chamberlain, with his wealth of experience, honestly believed that someone as young as Yoritomo should not make any decisions without first seeking his advice and approval. He was, after all, his grand-uncle.
As one of the family, Ieyasu’s loyalty to the Shogunate was beyond question but he was, above all, an influence-pedlar who knew every step of the way along the corridors of power; a man who could dispense sought-after privileges and preferments – and was not averse to enriching himself in the process. In so doing, the Chamberlain embraced an earthier tradition which pre-dated the rise of the samurai ethic by many thousands of years and which, given time, Ieyasu felt that Yoritomo would come to recognise as the only one worth preserving: the exercise and maintenance of power in a world of increasing complexity.
A problem that was as old as Time itself.
It was laudable of the young man to seek a return to the purer forms of conduct as prescribed by bushido: it was right that he should place new emphasis on its central tenet, giri – the sense of duty and obligation. Without it there would be anarchy! But the drive to impose a stricter morality was counter-productive. Human beings were flawed creatures that could never attain the perfection of the higher kami. Their inherent venality always surfaced sooner or later and, deplorable though it might be, it was through their weaknesses that they could be more effectively controlled.
Sinners were easier to do business with. And also much better company. Despite his advanced years, Ieyasu had not forgotten how to enjoy himself. And in his case, it was not only the spirit that was willing.
*
The pebble garden was made up of a subtle arrangement of rocks set amid an undulating sea of fine gravel which had been raked into a seamless pattern of lines and whorls. Each morning at first light, and at various times throughout the day, leaves, twigs and all other extraneous matter were assiduously removed by a team of light-footed gardeners who raked the gravel back into place as they made their exit. When the Shogun came, the garden was always magically restored to pristine condition. It was a landscape frozen in time, an exquisitely harmonious arrangement of line and tone, texture and mass which, like all great masterworks, constantly revealed new depths to the eye of the beholder. It induced serenity and invited profound contemplation, rewarding and restoring those whose minds were able to achieve the necessary degree of stillness.
Yoritomo was one of those who drew strength from the garden – a treasured re-creation of a fragment of a past life in a place known to the chroniclers as The World Before. Yoritomo had fallen under its magic spell at the age of nine, and from then on had made daily visits to the same spot on the top step of the veranda whenever his branch of the family had been in residence at Yedo. His feelings toward it had not changed – only now, no one else was allowed to sit in his chosen place which, upon his accession, had assumed the status of a shrine.
Although austere by nature, Yoritomo was not, and had no wish to become, an ascetic saint-like figure. During his adolescence, his periods of contemplation had been sandwiched in between the normal activities and youthful excesses one would expect a young nobleman to indulge in. Sensual delights, while not encouraged, were not forbidden and although young samurai were taught that the companionship of other warriors was preferable to that of women, they were not always able to resist the lure of a sentimental – and sometimes illicit – relationship. And neither could the new Shogun.
Toshiro, now clad in a broad-shouldered kimono of dark-toned brocaded silk, approached the guard-captain whose men were posted round the perimeter of the pebble garden. Both samurai wore white headbands fastened at the nape of the neck over wigs made of Mute hair, swept upwards to form the traditional top-knot. The guard-captain’s headband bore the usual blood-red disc flanked by two word-signs denoting his rank and function. On Toshiro’s headband, the Shogun’s bird emblem took the place of the red disc. A long and short sword, housed in gently curving scabbards, were thrust through the sash around his waist.
Had he been anyone else, he would have been obliged to remove them but, as a Herald of the Inner Court, he had the right to bear arms in the presence of the Shogun. It was a sign of the extraordinary trust Yoritomo had in this band of young men. It was not entirely by chance that Toshiro happened to be the same age as the Shogun. None of the new Heralds chosen by Yoritomo was over thirty; the youngest was twenty-five.
The guard-captain led Toshiro along the path towards the open-sided summerhouse where Yoritomo sat cross-legged, lost in contemplation of the stone landscape. The five samurai seated behind him in a semicircle sprang silently to their feet, then relaxed their grip on the handles of their long-swords when they saw who it was. These men, like the guard around the garden, had been raised from birth in the Toh-Yota family household and were totally dedicated to the protection of the Shogun. The guard-captain bowed low and backed away as Toshiro mounted the wide lower step of the veranda and knelt down in line with the Shogun’s left shoulder. Yoritomo continued to stare straight ahead at the garden. Toshiro placed his forehead on the straw matting covering the top step and waited.
‘What kept you?’ said the Shogun, in perfect American-English. It was a language he and his Heralds were able to speak fluently – although they were not encouraged to use the same colloquial mode of address. The five guards, now ranged on the far side of Yoritomo, spoke only Japanese.
Toshiro assumed a cross-legged position. ‘There were certain aspects of the situation that needed further investigation, sire. It wasn’t easy. They’re playing the cards close to their chest.’
‘Are they holding many aces?’
‘I’m not sure, but… there’s a joker in the pack.’
Yoritomo dragged his eyes reluctantly from the pebble garden and let them rest briefly on Toshiro. The Shogun also wore a wig made from Mute hair but it was a more imposing arrangement made of coiled plaits combined with a small, flat pill-box hat and lacquered wooden combs – a design exclusive to his rank as the overlord of Ne-Issan. ‘Is this going to be as bad as I think it is?’
Toshiro bowed low. ‘It’s not good.’
Yoritomo sighed and returned to his contemplation of the stone landscape. ‘Okay, let’s have it…’
CHAPTER TWO
During the past six months, Toshiro’s principal task had been to monitor the work being carried out at the Heron Pool – a new craft centre that had been set up to the west of Ba-satana. At the beginning of the previous year Lord Yama-Shita, who held the licence to trade with the Northern Mutes, had persuaded Yoritomo of the need to rediscover the secrets of powered flight. His plan had been to seek the aid of the Mutes in obtaining a flying-horse and its rider. Much could be learned from a close examination of both, saving months, perhaps even years, of fruitless experimentation.
In pressing his case, Yama-Shita had emphasised that there was little time to lose. The desert warriors of the south – called lone-dogs because of their height and their angular, bony features – were poised to move north into the lands of the Plainfolk. In a few short years, their powerful weaponry might be turned against Ne-Issan. Through his contacts with the Mutes, Yama-Shita knew that the flying-horses were an important element in the long-dogs’ military strategy. Ne-Issan must equip itself with its own airborne cavalry in order to meet the threat when it eventually came.
Yoritomo promised to think the matter over. It all made sense, of course. Lord Hiro Yama-Shita – who, with the merger between the Yama-Ha and the Matsu-Shita families, had become the single most powerful domain-lord in Ne-Issan – was a hard-headed realist. Any proposal put forward by him merited serious consideration.
It had been the Yama-Ha and the Matsu-Shita, builders of the first wheelboats, who had opened up the lucrative western trading routes and had tapped into the seemingly exhaustible supply of Mutes – the strangely marked half-humans that made up the bulk of Ne-Issan’s labour force. The licences, which gave them a virtual monopoly on trade with the west, had been granted by Yoritomo’s grandfather. The Yama-Ha and Matsu-Shita had long been allies of the Toh-Yota and had supported them in their bid for the Shogunate. But the unprecedented marriage between the two houses had resulted in an unwelcome concentration of power and, if one looked at the map with the eye of a military commander, their combined domains were poised like a dagger at the heart of the Toh-Yota.
Fortunately, the forty-year-old Yama-Shita seemed to be more interested in trade deals than political alliances, but it was a situation that had to be kept constantly under review. The country had been riven more than once by factional disputes, and despite the era of firm central government instituted by the Toh-Yota, the domain-lords had kept a jealously guarded measure of independence. While all had sworn oaths of fealty to the Shogunate, there were some whose word could not be taken entirely at its face value. As a result, Yoritomo, like the previous holders of high office, kept two lists in his head – one headed fudai, those considered loyal and trustworthy; the other, tozama, unreliable.
Hiro Yama-Shita, despite his family’s links with the Toh-Yota, occupied a grey area in between.
After consulting Ieyasu (the Chamberlain had known Hiro since he was a boy), Yoritomo agreed to the acquisition of a flying-horse and its rider. Through Yama-Shita’s trading activities, a number of long-dogs had fallen into their hands. Their interrogation had enabled the Shogun to build up a partial picture of the strange underground domain known as the Federation. But their testimony was flawed. These captive long-dogs were criminals, renegades – like the small bands of rootless ronin that lurked in dark recesses of the forests blanketing the slopes of the western hills. The pale warriors of this underground world could also be disloyal to their masters. Even so, the threat from the south could not be ignored. Hence the chosen strategy, put into effect through Yama-Shita, to arm the Mutes, who were numerically superior to both sides.
Because of their alien culture and backwardness, the Mutes could never be considered as allies, but their concept of warrior-hood was worthy of respect. The years of trading had brought about a state of friendly neutrality. No pledges had been exchanged, no plans were ever discussed but, over the last few years, Plainfolk territory had become a buffer zone protecting the frontiers of Ne-Issan. The warrior clans were now armed auxiliaries who, if everything went according to plan, would wear the long-dogs down in a slow war of attrition.
