CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

Clearwater's revenge upon Lord Yama-s.h.i.ta and his companions was, in a sense, a hollow victory. Despite being buried in the wreckage, Lord Kiyo Min-Orota was found to be alive when his body was uncovered. His escape, with only minor injuries, was viewed by his rescuers as miraculous. Shigamitsu, the Heron Pool commander, who was only inches away when the freak earthquake had hit the stand, had been crushed to death.

The samurai was fortunate to have been granted so swift a demise; had he lived, Lord Min-Orota would have had him cruelly tortured. Despite his rank, he would not have been allowed to commit seppuku. He would, instead, have been treated like a common criminal, forced to endure in public the grossest indignities that could have been devised.

Even in death he did not escape Min-Orota's vengeful wrath. His mangled body was beheaded and then quartered. The pieces were hung from the tiled lintel above the gates to the Heron Pool and his head impaled on a wooden pole by the entrance, with a placard denouncing his criminal incompetence. His wife, whose sole crime was her marital status, was ordered to kill their two children and then herself, and their bodies were hung alongside his.

In Min-Orota's eyes, the blame for what had happened lay entirely with the staff of the Heron Pool.

Had they been more vigilant, the long-dogs and their Mute accomplice could not have staged this unprecedented revolt. He preferred to ignore his own involvement in the affair, and refused to face the implications of the terrifying display of demonic powers that had climaxed the long-dogs' a.s.sault.

All surviving members of the Heron Pool staff, the Tracker renegades who had spent the day confined to their quarters, and the Mute slaves who had done their cleaning and cooking, were a.s.sembled in the compound under heavy guard. Lined up with them were the soldiers from the parade detachment. In Min-Orota's eyes they were as guilty as the rest. It was their cowardly behaviour which had allowed the perpetrators of this outrage to escape.

When their wrists and feet had been shackled, they were marched out on to the road by their whip-toting escort and led in single file towards Bo-sona. Ahead of them, several parties of Mutes were digging post-holes by the roadside. The holes were set 100 paces apart.

Each time a hole was reached, the column was halted.

The leading man or woman was then forced to take a post from the loaded cart ahead of them and help plant it firmly in the ground before being tied to it and left to die an agonising death.

The process, which Lord Min-Orota watched from the comfort of his carriage, was doubly s.a.d.i.s.tic, for the remainder of the column was obliged to march on past the succession of tortured victims - leaving them in no illusion as to their eventual fate.

This macabre procession continued all the way to Ba-satana, and when the original column was exhausted, Mute slaves working on the lands north and south of the road were rounded up and put to death, followed by those who had laboured to dig the post-holes.

By the time Min-Orota reached his palace, his immediate thirst for blood had been satisfied but, when he sat down to a sombre dinner with the chief members of his own family and the princ.i.p.al survivors of Yama-s.h.i.ta's party, he had little to feel happy about.

His friend's body had been conveyed in a hastily prepared coffin from the Heron Pool to his ship in the harbour but the issues raised by his death were not so easily disposed of. Although it was Lord Yamas.h.i.ta who had brought the flying-horse and its two riders to Masa-chusa, and persuaded the Shogun to allow more to be built, it was already clear that he, Kiyo Min-Orota, was going to be held responsible for the domain-lord's death.

The charge was patently unfair, but with a powerful family like the Yama-s.h.i.ta, justice lay in the eye of the beholder. They would demand reparations: goods, money - and perhaps blood. It could place a crippling burden on his domain, but if he were to reject their claims, the alternative could be even more unpleasant.

Lord Min-Orota also faced the prospect of trouble from another quarter.

The Consul-General had been killed whilst flying in one of the machines for whose manufacture he, Min-Orota, was once again ultimately responsible. Worse still, the revolt - due entirely to lack of proper surveillance of the slave-workers - had not been a simple escape attempt. There had been a murderous attack on those of high rank and n.o.ble birth.

The grandstand had been totally destroyed, including the viewing box that had been built to house the Shogun!

If he had been present and had suffered insult and injury to his person . . . Min-Orota put the thought from his mind. The consequences were too awful to contemplate.

When he retired to his private quarters - now guarded by three times the usual number of samurai - the domain-lord found a sealed letter by his bedside. It informed him that a courier from the Lord Chamberlain's office had arrived in Ba-satana with a verbal dispatch of the utmost importance. The letter urged Min-Orota to receive the courier without delay. The meeting was to take place in the greatest secrecy, the provenance of the courier was not to be disclosed to anyone, and no aides were to be present when he presented his dispatch.

Min-Orota had not the faintest idea what the man had to tell him, but the temptation to find out was irresistible. Any approach by Ieyasu could not be lightly dismissed. After destroying the letter as instructed, he dispatched his most trusted servant to the address given, with orders to bring the courier into the palace by the secret stairways that led directly to his own private quarters.

Ieyasu's courier appeared before him shortly after midnight and, after exchanging the arranged pa.s.swords, presented his seals of office. The man's face, when revealed, was like a living skull. It was Steve's diminutive interrogator. The name he gave was Fuji-Wara, but it was probably not his own.

Lord Chamberlain Ieyasu's message was essentially this: news of the catastrophic events at the Heron Pool had reached his office and had also been conveyed directly to the Shogun. His Exalted Highness was as Min-Orota might imagine - deeply concerned by his narrow escape from what could have been a serious threat upon his life.

The Shogun had also been stricken by the loss of his brother-in-law, the highly regarded Consul-General Nakane Toh-Shiba. His death had not only caused him personal anguish; it had disturbed him in his official capacity as ruler of Ne-Issan. It was as Min-Orota had feared: an attack upon the Consul-General - and the Herald Toshiro Hase-Gawa - was an attack upon the Shogunate itself. If he, as a domain-lord, could not suppress dissident elements and ensure the personal safety and unmolested pa.s.sage of government appointees, then the Shogunate would have to protect its rights by all lawful means.

The courier, Fuji-Wara, did not need to spell out what that meant.

Compensation would have to be paid to the Consul-General's widow, of course. An official of his rank didn't come cheap - and since his wife was the Shogun's sister, the going rate would probably be multiplied by ten. The wider consequences of the Heron Pool incident could also prove expensive. Extra taxes could be imposed, commercial licences could be withdrawn, a.s.sets could be seized. The lives of senior aides who were involved with the Heron Pool project but had gone unpunished could be forfeit, and there could also be a dramatic increase in the number of government officials and troop garrisons - to whose upkeep he would be obliged to contribute.

If a domain-lord chose to resist such measures his lands could be proclaimed a 'dissident fief'. That gave the Shogunate the right to place his domain under military occupation. His own family could, if the situation worsened, be deposed, or subjected to much harsher terms of va.s.salage. Not a pleasant prospect - especially when he was already under threat of unspecified reprisals by the Yama-s.h.i.ta family.

Fuji-Wara, a man clearly experienced in delicate, high-level negotiations of this kind, revealed that his master was aware of the precarious nature of the relationship between the Min-Orota and the Yama-s.h.i.ta following the death of their domain-lord. The Lord Chamberlain wished to come to the aid of the house of Min-Orota who were, after all, friends and allies of the TohYota.

Both houses were, in their different ways, threatened by the Yama-s.h.i.ta. If some way could be found for them to act together to eliminate or reduce that threat then, said the courier, he was sure that Ieyasu could persuade the Shogun to take a more lenient view of what had occurred and to demand only nominal reparation for the death of the Consul-General.

It was, basically, an offer he couldn't refuse.

Min-Orota was in need of help, but even though he was backed into a corner he was shrewd enough to realise that the courier's visit was merely the tip of a political iceberg.

That sly old fox, Ieyasu, had been up to his tricks again, just when his critics and enemies were confidently expecting to be called upon to sit through his funeral oration. The domain-lord considered the options and then a.s.sured his visitor that he was, as might be expected, constantly ready to be of service to the Shogun - but what action was he being called upon to perform?

Skull-Face, a.k.a. Fuji-Wara, proceeded to tell him.

The three ocean-going junks which had brought Lord Yama-s.h.i.ta, his armed entourage and his escort to Ba-satana were still moored in the harbour, and the survivors - including those who had dined with Lord MinoOrota - had spent the night on board. The ships' crews, who had not ventured beyond the docks counted themselves fortunate to have been spared the terrible ordeal their compatriots had undergone.

When captains and crews awoke, they saw that another large junk, flying the house-flags of the Hase-(3awa, had arrived during the night and now lay at anchor to starboard, on the north side of the harbour.

Over breakfast, the temporary heads of the delegation discussed their next move. Should they set sail immediately - or should they wait until additional men mainly soldiers - arrived via the overland route to make up their depleted numbers?

News of Yama-s.h.i.ta's death had been dispatched by horse to the palace at Sara-kusa, but its speedy arrival was not guaranteed, since the rider was obliged to traverse the Toh-Yota's northern domain.

The carrier pigeons used to convey top-secret messages from the domain-lord to the palace had gone with him to the Heron Pool. It was customary for several baskets to accompany Yama-s.h.i.ta on any journey he undertook so that urgent dispatches could be 'sent at a moment's notice. Unfortunately, the earthquake had overturned and wrecked the cart. The driver and pigeon-keeper had been found with their skulls crushed - presumably by flying stones - and those birds who had not been killed had escaped when their baskets had broken open.

Whilst they were in the middle of these deliberations, a boat-man brought a message from Lord Min-Orota.

The domain-lord, who had descended from his palace to the quayside, requested permission to come aboard with four shinto priests in order to pay his last respects to his friend and ally. Two senior members of the delegation went ash.o.r.e to escort him back to the vessel.

Lord Yama-s.h.i.ta's open coffin lay atop a catafalque draped in white silk. When the traditional mourning rites had been performed, Min-Orota spent an hour in silent contemplation of his colleague's body, then asked to speak privately with the closest of the dead man's aides.

Only two were still on their feet. Four had been badly injured, another was expected to die before reaching home, and the corpses of several more lay in the hold.

When he had a.s.sured himself that they could not be overheard, Min-Orota broached the subject of a 'chestful of rich silk cloth' that Lord Yama-s.h.i.ta had brought with him as an intended gift to the princ.i.p.al ladies of the house of Min-Orota. The domain-lord had stressed the uniquely special nature of the materials and workmanship involved but, alas, he had not lived long enough to make the presentation himself.

Did the aides, asked Min-Orota, know of their lord's intentions in this matter and, if so, where was the chest?

Min-Orota was fortunate that the two men facing him were among the four people, outside of himself and the dead domain-lord, who knew the precise nature of the object concealed beneath the bolts of cloth.

After exchanging thoughtful glances, the senior of the two aides replied. Yes, they were aware of the intended gift, but since their lord had not lived long enough to offer it himself, they did not feel they had the necessary authority to make the gift on his behalf. That decision could only be made by his successor.

Min-Orota praised their infinite tact and caution. They had misunderstood him. He did not wish to receive that which could not be freely given. What he had come to suggest was that the chest and its contents be placed in his safekeeping until its eventual fate could be decided. He was suggesting this because his spies in the late Consul-General's residence had, that very morning, hastened to bring him some most disquieting news. The Shogun had learned of the junk's sensitive cargo and planned to intercept the flotilla during their return journey on the pretext of according the honours due to the dead domain-lord.

This revelation caused the two aides to exchange wary glances.

Min-Orota expressed his concern. The Shogun's men could easily find some excuse to seize the chest's valuable contents on behalf of their master. If faced with this danger, they could always save themselves by having the chest thrown overboard - but would that not be a woeful betrayal of their dead master's wishes?