A spasm took him and used him.
After Babcott had cleaned up and Struan was once more drugged asleep, he said quietly, "It really would be better for him there. I've more help, more materials, it's almost impossible to keep everything clean here. He needs... sorry but he needs stronger aid. You do more than you can imagine for him, but certain functions his Chinese servants can do better for him. Sorry to be blunt."
"You don't have to apologize, Doctor.
You're right and I understand." Her mind had been racing. The suite next to Malcolm's will be ideal, and servants and fresh clothes. I'll find a seamstress and have beautiful dresses made, and be correctly chaperoned and in command--of him and of my future. "I only want what's best for him," she said, then added quietly, needing to know, "How long will he be like this?"
"Confined to bed and fairly helpless?"
"Yes, please tell me the truth.
Please."
"I don't know. At least two or three weeks, perhaps more, and he won't be very mobile for a month or two after that." He glanced at the inert man a moment. "I'd prefer you didn't say anything to him. It would worry him unnecessarily."
She nodded to herself, content and at ease now, everything in place. "Don't worry, I won't say a word. I pray he'll get strong quickly and promise to help all I can."
As Dr. Babcott left her he was thinking over and over, My God, what a wonderful woman! If Struan lives or dies, he's a lucky man to be loved so much.
The 21-gun salute from each of the six warships, anchored off Yedo, that had accompanied the flagship echoed and re-echoed, all personnel in the fleet excited and proud of their power and that the time for restitution had come.
"Thus far and no further, Sir William,"
Phillip Tyrer exulted, standing beside him at the gunnel, the smell of cordite heady. The city was vast. Silent. The castle dominant.
"We'll see."
On the bridge of the flagship the Admiral said quietly to the General, "This should convince you that our Wee Willie's just a little popinjay with delusions of grandeur. Royal salute be damned. We'd better watch our backsides."
"You're right, by Jove! Yes. I'll add it to my monthly report to inform the War Office."
On the deck of the French flagship, Henri Seratard was puffing his pipe and laughing with the Russian Minister. "Mon Dieu, my dear Count, this is a happy day! The honor of France will be vindicated by normal English arrogance. Sir William is bound to fail.
Perfidious Albion is more perfidious than ever."
"Yes. Disgusting that it's their fleet and not ours."
"But soon your fleets and ours will have replaced them."
"Yes. Then we're secretly agreed? When the English leave, we take Japan's North Island, plus Sakhalin, the Kuriles and all islands linking it to Russian Alaska--France the rest."
"Agreed. As soon as Paris gets my memorandum it will surely be ratified at the highest level, secretly." He smiled.
"When a vacuum exists, it is our diplomatic duty to fill it..."
With the cannonade a great fear exploded over Yedo. All remaining skeptics joined the masses clogging every road and bridge and lane, fleeing with the few possessions they could carry--of course no wheels anywhere--everyone expecting that bursting shells and rockets they had heard of but had never witnessed would any moment rain fire and their city would burn, burn, burn and them with it.
"Death to gai-jin," was on every lip.
"Hurry... Out of the way... Hurry!" people were shouting, here and there in panic, a few crushed or shoved off bridges or into houses, most stoically plodding onwards--but always away from the sea. "Death to gai-jin!" they said as they fled.
The exodus had begun this morning, the moment the fleet had weighed anchor in Yokohama harbor though, three days earlier the more prudent merchants had quietly hired the best porters and removed themselves, their families and valuables when rumors of the unfortunate incident--and the resulting foreign uproar and demands--had flashed through the city.
Only the samurai in the castle and those manning the outer defenses and strong points were still in place. And, as always and everywhere, the carrion of the streets, animal and human, who slunk and sniffed around the lockless houses, seeking what could be stolen and later sold. Very little was stolen.
Looting was considered a particularly hideous crime and, from time immemorial, perpetrators would be pursued relentlessly until caught and then crucified. Any form of stealing was punished in the same fashion.
Within the castle keep, Shogun Nobusada and Princess Yazu were cowering behind a flimsy screen, their arms around each another, their guards, maids and court ready for instant departure, only awaiting the Guardian's permission to leave. Everywhere in the castle proper, men were preparing defenses in depth, others harnessing horses and packing the most valuable possessions of the Elders for evacuation, with their owners, the moment shelling began or word was brought to the Council that enemy troops were disembarking.
In the Council chamber at the hurriedly convened meeting of the Elders, Yoshi was saying, "I repeat, I don't believe they'll attack us in force, or sh--"
"And I see no reason to wait. To go is prudent, they will start shelling any moment,"
Anjo said. "The first cannonade was their warning."
"I don't think so, I think it was just an arrogant announcement of their presence. There were no shells in the city. The fleet won't shell us and I repeat I believe the meeting tomorrow will take place as planned. At the meet--"
"How can you be so blind? If our positions were reversed and you commanded that fleet and possessed that overwhelming power, would you hesitate for a moment?"
Anjo was stark with rage. "Well, would you?"
"No, of course not! But they are not us and we not them and that's the way to control them."
"You are beyond understanding!" In exasperation Anjo turned to the other three Councillors. "The Shogun must be taken to a safe place, we must go too to carry on the government. That's all I propose, a temporary absence. Except for our personal retainers, all other samurai will stay, the Bakufu stays." Once more he glared at Yoshi. "You stay if you wish. Now we will vote: the temporary absence is approved!"
"Wait! If you do that the Shogunate will lose face forever, we'll never be able to control the daimyos and their opposition--or the Bakufu.
Never!"
"We are just being prudent! The Bakufu remains in place. So do all warriors. As Chief Councillor it's my right to call for a vote, so vote! I vote Yes!"
"I say No!" Yoshi said.
"I agree with Yoshi-san," Utani said.
He was a short, thin man with kind eyes and spare visage. "I agree if we leave we lose face forever."
Yoshi smiled back, liking him--daimyos of the Watasa fief were ancient allies since before Sekigahara. He looked at the other two, both senior members of Toranaga clans.
Neither met his eyes. "Adachi-sama?"
Finally, Adachi, daimyo of Mito, a rotund little man, said nervously, "I agree with Anjo-sama that we should leave, and the Shogun of course. But I also agree with you that then we may lose even though we gain. Respectfully I vote No!"
The last Elder, Toyama, was in his middle fifties, grey-haired with heavy dewlaps and blind in one eye from a hunting accident--an old man as ages went in Japan. He was daimyo of Kii, father of the young Shogun. "It bothers me not at all if we live or die, nor the death of my son, this Shogun--there will always be another.