More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
The poor fool’s always enjoyed being shafted while he has his nose up another man’s anus. They’ll make good bedfellows.”
Brutal
“You will cook here as you’ve always cooked. I find your cooking excellent, worthy of a master cook in Yedo. I even sent one of your recipes to the Lady Kiritsubo in Osaka.” “Oh? Thank you. You do me too much honor. Which one, Mistress?” “The tiny, fresh eels and jellyfish and sliced oysters, with just the right touch of soya, that you make so well. Excellent! The best I’ve ever tasted.” “Oh, thank you, Mistress,” he groveled. “Of course your soups leave much to be desired.” “Oh, so sorry!”
Omi had told him as a tomodachi, a friend, that she was all right.
Lord Toranaga wants me to assure you that he personally saw that Old Gardener got the quick, painless, and honorable death he merited. He even loaned the samurai his own sword, which is very sharp. And I should tell you that Old Gardener was very proud that in his failing days he was able to help your house, Anjin-san, proud that he helped to establish your samurai status before all. Most of all he was proud of the honor being paid to him. Public executioners were not used, Anjin-san. Lord Toranaga wants me to make that very clear to you.”
Karma is the beginning of knowledge. Next is patience. Patience is very important. The strong are the patient ones, Anjin-san. Patience means holding back your inclination to the seven emotions: hate, adoration, joy, anxiety, anger, grief, fear. If you don’t give way to the seven, you’re patient, then you’ll soon understand all manner of things and be in harmony with Eternity.’ ”
Shinto is a nature cult of myths and legends in which no one believes wholeheartedly, yet everyone venerates totally. A person is Shinto in the same way he is born Japanese.”
Yoriya. Remember, the sword is the soul of the samurai. If he forgets it, or loses it, he will never be excused.”
The barbarian samurai and the Lady samurai, patrician daughter of the assassin Akechi Jinsai, wife of Lord Buntaro! Eeeee! Poor man, poor woman. So sad. Surely this must end in tragedy.
“Please tell her we’re taught to be ashamed of our bodies and pillowing and nakedness and . . . and all sorts of stupidities. It’s only being here that’s made me realize it. Now that I’m a little civilized I know better.”
Autumn is coming, he was suggesting with the flower, talking through the flower, do not weep for the time of fall, the time of dying when the earth begins to sleep; enjoy the time of beginning again and experience the glorious cool of the autumn air on this summer evening . . . soon the tear will vanish and the rose, only the stones will remain—soon you and I will vanish and only the stones will remain.
“But even so, there are times when we need a woman’s cold, cruel, vicious, cunning, practical wisdom. They’re so much cleverer than we are, neh?”
“Look at this rock, Anjin-san. Listen to it growing.” “What?” “Listen to the rock grow, Anjin-san. Put your mind on that, on the harmony of the rock. Listen to the kami of the rock. Listen, my love, for thy life’s sake. And for mine.”
Now alone, Toranaga took out a kerchief and wiped the sweat off his face. His fingers were trembling. He tried to control them but couldn’t. It had taken all his strength to continue acting the stupid dullard, to hide his unbounding excitement over the secrets, which, fantastically, promised the long-hoped-for reprieve.
Sudara’s eyes involuntarily went to Mariko, then back to his father. The Lady Genjiko’s did not waver. Toranaga said roughly, “She’s here, my son, for two reasons: the first is because I want her here and the second because I want her here!”
“Men need to whisper secrets, Lady. That’s what makes them different from us—they need to share secrets, but we women only reveal them to gain an advantage. With a little silver and a ready ear—and I have both—it’s all so easy. Yes. Men need to share secrets. That’s why we’re superior to them and they’ll always be in our power.”
He blessed her, and then he continued her Mass in this imaginary cathedral, under the breaking sky . . . the service more real and more beautiful than it had ever been, for him and for her.
“So sorry, Yabu-sama,” Mariko said, and thought, how tiresome men are, they need everything explained in such detail. They can’t even see the hairs on their own eyelids.
“If the Holy Mother Church conquers and all the land becomes Christian as we pray it will, what then? Will our laws survive? Will bushido survive? Against the Commandments? I suggest it won’t—like elsewhere in the Catholic world—not when the Holy Fathers are supreme, not unless we are prepared.”
God forgive me, I did not go to Mariko-chan to be her second, which was my Christian duty. The heretic helped her and lifted her up as the Christ Jesus helped others and lifted them up, but I, I forsook her. Who’s the Christian?
Very few men are wise—most are sinners and great evil happens on earth in God’s name. But not of God.
“Thank you, Anjin-san,” Toranaga said. He did not allow his triumph to show. He watched Blackthorne obediently walk away—violent, strong, murderous, but controlled now by the will of Toranaga.
I pray your spirit comes into my family. Please. But again as a lady—not as a man. We could not afford to have you as a man. You’re much too special to waste as a man.
“Look what a fine boy he is! Next week I’ll build a shrine in his honor and endow it with . . .” He stopped and halved the figure he’d first thought of and then halved that again. “ . . . with twenty koku a year.”
LOL
comfortable. A fine moon rode the sky and he could see the dark marks on its face and he wondered absently if the dark was land and the rest ice and snow, and why the moon was there, and who lived there. Oh, there are so many things I’d like to know, he thought.
But it still wasn’t an Act of God. It was an Act of Toranaga.
Life is so sad, he told himself, weary of men and Osaka and games that brought so much suffering to the living, however great the stakes.
“Yabu-sama, did you do those things?” Hiro-matsu asked. “Of course not!” Toranaga said, “But I think you did, so all your lands are forfeit. Please slit your belly today. Before noon.” The sentence was final. This was the supreme moment Yabu had prepared for all his life.
Rekt
“‘What are clouds But an excuse for the sky? What is life But an escape from death?’ ”
Mariko had saved the Anjin-san, no one else—not the Christian God or any gods, not the Anjin-san himself, not even Toranaga, no one—only Mariko alone. Toda Mariko-noh-Akechi Jinsai had saved him.
She was with him forever, and he knew he would love her in the good times and in the tragic times, even in the winter of his life. She was always on the edge of his dreams.
The first time I saw you, I said, “There’s no excuse for rebellion,” and you said, “There’s one—if you win!” Ah, Anjin-san, I bound you to me then. I agree. Everything’s right if you win.
and the real prize of the Great Game that began as soon as I could think, which became possible the moment the Taikō died, the real prize will be won: the Shōgunate. That’s what I’ve fought for and planned for all my life. I, alone, am heir to the realm. I will be Shōgun. And I have started a dynasty. It’s all possible now because of Mariko-san and the barbarian stranger who came out of the eastern sea.
