The Golden Princess, page 42
“You can handle her with as few as ten if you’re not in a hurry—schooners are economical that way.”
Ishikawa shrugged agreement. Gaff-rigged fore-and-aft sails like those on the lower parts of the Tarshish Queen’s three masts could be raised, lowered and reefed from on deck, with most of the muscle-work done by winches, and they had them. For maximum speed the square topsails on the main and fore would need hands to go up the ratlines and out the spars. Plus there was little point in having catapults without crews.
“For foreign work . . . forty-five at least. That allows eight-hour watches with one on and two off in good weather, plenty of reserve for storms, and enough to help with loading and unloading if there aren’t good harbors. And to fight, of course.”
“Prentry vorunteers?” he asked.
The ones who definitely were sailors looked capable and they didn’t have to be driven to work. They also looked as if they knew what they were doing. At first glance half seemed to be women, but when he counted it was more like one in three or four. He would have thought mixed crews could cause disciplinary problems, especially on long voyages, but presumably the locals knew their business.
I will have to tell General Egawa to caution his men about making assumptions; we want no problems there.
Women in Japan also did things now that hadn’t been customary in the old days—the really old days, not the otherworldly-strange period between Meiji and the Change—because there simply wasn’t any alternative. They helped crew family fishing boats, for instance, if usually not on bigger craft. And ladies of the upper classes did much of the Empire’s routine administrative work.
Feldman nodded. “There are plenty who’ll ship out to do one watch on and two off with a strong chance of a fight, rather than one on and one off, and there’s no run without some chance of pirates anyway, even along the coast. And my crew works for a share in the voyage as well as a wage. That can double or triple straight pay rates, if we’re lucky. I get my pick; no first-voyage runaways fresh from the farm for the Tarshish Queen. First-rate hands prefer to work with their own kind, too, not spend half their time cuffing and shoving and cursing at plowboys. I could ship half again the number I do without taking anyone I wouldn’t want.”
“Why not more hands?” Ishikawa asked.
“I’m not a government—I can’t pay wages out of taxes.”
“Tradeoff again.”
“Yes. Speaking of which, just exactly how many . . . soldiers . . . am I supposed to pick up? The . . . Sir Guilliame said that wasn’t certain yet, just that there would be a fair number.”
Ishikawa’s face remained impassive. His heart suddenly ached for the crew he’d lost. And which he’d recruited, trained, led and fought beside—fisherman’s sons, mostly. He’d known every one of them, their names and natures and families. He took a deep breath and went on stolidly:
“I have eight sailor and self. Besides that, Heika . . . Her Majesty . . . blings . . . brings thirty-two samurai Imperial Guard, herself, General Egawa, and party of Crown Princess—same number. Pick up twenty-eight more place you know. And six horses.”
He thought Feldman winced slightly, and he sympathized; carrying large animals on a ship was nothing but trouble, and the farther you had to go the worse it was. He’d done it himself, mainly bringing breeding stock to new settlements or remounts to garrisons, and the memory was not a fond one. Pigs were bad enough, but oxen and horses . . . The man nodded stolidly and replied:
“For a voyage of this length, quite doable. The winds are from the northwest consistently this time of year, and the longshore current runs south most of the way.”
“That herp . . . that will help, hai,” Ishikawa said. “If not storm.”
Feldman laughed. “Oh, storms, of course. It’s summer, but . . .”
Ishikawa had been grave, as was fitting. For a moment they shared a sailor’s smile at the vagaries of the weather kami.
The merchant slapped the mizzenmast they stood beside. “We’ve weathered some storms together, this old girl and I.”
Old? he thought, and remembered the smell of the bilges. He asked: “When built?”
“She’s six years old this spring.”
Ishikawa thought for a moment, then bowed. “This is a fine ship, Feldman-san. Must see sailing, but still . . . fine ship. I will inform the Jotei.”
And Egawa, he thought.
Trusting the Empress to a foreign ship, and a foreign merchantman with a civilian crew at that, had understandably put the general on edge. The voyage here had been bad enough, and that was with an Imperial Navy vessel and picked professional crew. Under an impassive face, the commander of the Imperial Guard was as jumpy as a cat on a salvage-metal roof in summertime.
Feldman returned the gesture, rather clumsily. Ishikawa didn’t think the Montivallans were any better shipwrights than his people, but they had access to some materials that would give them an advantage. Some other things they did differently, though that mostly seemed simply different, not substantially better or worse, like the catapults. They definitely had more in the way of ships even though they were mostly concerned with the land and the interior of this huge continent. Newport alone had as many slipways as the Imperial Navy base at Ryotsu on Sado-ga-shima, and from what he understood there were bigger ports and shipbuilding yards.
“We’re building another to the same draught and plan right now; she’s just about ready to have her sticks mounted and standing rigging put up.”
Feldman pointed to a hull in the fitting-out basin a mile away, under the big A-frame cranes that would slide the masts in.
“From what I’m given to understand, if she’s ready when we get back, a certain sovereign-to-be plans to buy her and transfer her to another sovereign we both know so she can get home when she wants to go. By then you should be familiar with her elder sister here, Ishikawa-san, and ready to take command and sail her.”
Ishikawa came to keenest attention, and felt a cold chill run through his belly. To have a ship again!
“Ichiban,” he said softly. “Sank . . . thank you very much, Feldman-san.”
“I’m not the one giving you the ship, Captain Ishikawa,” Feldman said, chuckling. “My family will be getting her full price, enough to replace her and make up the loss of a season’s trade. But I would like to think she’s in good hands.”
Ishikawa didn’t say aloud that he felt like a cripple without a deck of his own to command, but he thought that the merchant understood it.
“We load tonight,” Ishikawa said instead. “Leave morning tide.”
• • •
Droyn and Sir Aleaume settled their contingent in to the ship, more than a score of men-at-arms and spearmen and crossbowmen, all in plain civil garb now. Their equipment was bundled or bagged, the weapons in long canvas sacks, the half-armor for each man wrapped in padding and stuffed into big duffels, even the unmistakable four-foot teardrop shapes of the shields disguised by stacking them pointing in alternate directions and tying them up in sailcloth. The troops were visibly unhappy without their weapons to hand; it would be as bad as walking down the street in your drawers for them.
Órlaith stood at the gangplank and greeted each one by name, a brief word and a nod. When they were all by their gear and sleeping bags below, she stood and caught their eyes. The long low space of the hold was like a shadowed cave, only the glimmer of lights off the water coming through the open portholes. The lashed-down, tarpaulin-covered supplies rose like hillocks behind them, and the light stalls of canvas-covered wicker for the horses they’d pick up later. The air had the inevitable smells of troops in transit, slightly rancid canola oil on leather and metal, old sweat soaked into armor-padding so that it never quite came out, as well as the brackish water and tar and spoiled fish of a working port.
“You were with me when my father the High King fell,” she said, not abruptly but without prologue.
Silence. That had been when he fell . . . and these men hadn’t saved him. They’d won the brief savage battle handily and he’d actually been murdered by a prisoner, but many would still be smarting from the greater failure, and savagely determined to redeem their names.
Even if it wasn’t their fault. Hearts have reasons that heads know not. I feel the same way and I know there’s nothing I could have done.
“Now we have a chance to begin to avenge him,” she said. “And as well to deal a heavy blow to the whole realm that sent the men who killed him.”
A low grim mutter ran through them. She nodded. “Yes, comrades, I know exactly how you feel. We’re going through the greatest and least known of the dead cities, and then into the wild lands. Those who fall will win honor, and I will not forget them or their kin. Those who return with me . . .”
A smile: “I’m assuming that I will return, of course; maybe that’s unreasonable optimism.”
That was a joke between warriors. The tension broke a little in a chuckle, and she went on:
“Those who return with me will stand with pride before the whole of the north-realm. And the whole of the High Kingdom of Montival. This enterprise is of high importance, and of great peril. I will share its hardships and dangers with you, for you are men I trust with my life.”
Another growl, and then a barking cheer: “Órlaith! Órlaith! Órlaith and Montival!”
She raised her hand in salute, but swallowed and blinked as she turned away, thanking the darkness. The shout had always been Artos and Montival . . . until now.
The Japanese came aboard in the predawn hush, their weapons and gear in shapeless bundles on their backs. Órlaith had spaced out the movements from the Feldman and Sons warehouse; she wasn’t exactly trying to be completely secret. . . .
But then, I’m not trying not to be, either, she thought, standing on the poop deck and watching them come up the gangplank. I would really prefer that some curious, officious twit not burn up the signal net with reports heading for Mom until we’re safely on our way. Better to seek forgiveness . . .
The Japanese sailors and samurai—she knew enough to tell them apart at a glance now—stowed their gear under the direction of the ship’s crew and found where they’d sling their hammocks. When they came on deck again they lined up neatly facing the poop-deck, knelt and bowed their foreheads to the planks of the deck as Reiko stood above them. She was wearing her torso-armor of lacquered steel and silk cord, and the broad flared helmet with the chrysanthemum mon on its brow, looming above them like some kami of war.
The night was nearly over, with the cool slightly stale smell you got just before the eastern sky started to go pale, and the tide would be making soon. The stern lanterns cast unquiet yellow light on their faces, turning them into things of bronze in the night. Reiko stepped up to the rail and looked down at them, with her left hand on the hilt of her katana.
After a moment she spoke.
“We have come a very long way together, my warriors,” she said; it was a conversational tone, but it carried. “Come through storms and ice and battle, through suffering and thirst and hunger, wounds and death. We have lost dear comrades and friends. We lost . . . Saisei Tenno. But we have never turned back, and we have also found much. We have found strong allies against the enemy we have fought all our lives. Now they will help us find the thing that the Saisei Tenno sought, the great lost treasure of our people. That the enemy has put forth all their strength to prevent us shows how right Saisei Tenno was to seek it, how important it is that it be in our hands.”
The bronze masks were immobile, but Órlaith could see a few eyes flicker in her direction. The wry smile was entirely in her mind, but it was definitely there behind her grave face.
Sure, and the words magic sword become more than a story once you’ve seen one!
Reiko went on, after she’d given them an instant to think of that:
“Please listen carefully. I know that every one of you is ready to die, for the Chrysanthemum Throne and for our homeland. I know that you of the Imperial Guard and the Imperial Navy feel a burning shame that my father fell and you survived him. Many of us already have died, half of those who began this journey with him. Their names will live forever just as those of the Seventy Loyal Men do, they who preserved the dynasty and the hope of our people . . . provided we win.”
A long silence; evidently that last phrase turned a platitude into something with impact. She continued.
“If we do not, no names will live. There will be no Obun festival at which to recite them or people who speak our tongue and follow our customs to burn incense and make offerings. It will be as if our ancestors died again, died without issue. All that we of Nihon have ever been, all that we might ever be, depend upon us now.”
The silence stretched again, echoing. “So remember this: the reason we fight is not to show our courage or to win honor. Nor may you seek an honorable death because you feel shame that you survived. Worthy as those things may be in ordinary times, even to think of them now is selfishness. We on this expedition fight for our people; we fight that there may be uncounted generations to come. That they may plant their rice and raise their children and sing their songs without dreading that a sail on the horizon may bring death and horror. To protect them against the terror from the sea, to give them a future, we must win.”
She let silence fall for a moment before she went on: “This is our inescapable duty. I will need more than your deaths; I need your swords and the living hands that wield them; Japan will need them. They belong to me and through me to the nation, not to you, and you may not sacrifice them without dire need.”
A whipcrack: “Is that clear!”
“Hai! Hai, Heika!” came the chorus, in unison from the samurai and ragged but sincere from the sailors.
“Show the same loyalty and discipline now that you have in the past, and no hardship, no enemy, no desert, no fortress can stand against us!”
“Tennoheika banzai!” crashed out from all of them as they flung their arms upward. “Tennoheika banzai! Banzai! Banzai!”
The Sword let Órlaith feel the wave of belief behind it, the bronze ring of truth.
“To the Heavenly Sovereign One, ten thousand years! Banzai!”
Captain Ishikawa came up to Reiko afterwards, along with Egawa, as the rank and file went below to the crowded hold.
“Majesty?” he said. “You summoned?”
“Captain, the Imperial Guard were helping a good deal with the Red Dragon, towards the end, weren’t they?”
“Hai, Majesty. Mostly hauling on ropes and similar basic tasks.”
“Our voyage south should take between one and two weeks. During that time, I want you to have both your sailors and the Guard helping with the work—familiarizing themselves with this ship and drilling on her armament as much as they possibly can without interfering badly. This is to be your primary task until we make landfall. General Egawa, see that your men cooperate fully. Captain Ishikawa, arrange the details with Captain Feldman on my authority.”
Egawa ducked his head. “My men were already cross-trained on catapults, Majesty, but these are an unfamiliar model. They will learn them quickly, I will see to that.”
She nodded. “Captain, you will have heard that we may be getting another ship, one very much like this?”
“Hai, Majesty!” the seaman said enthusiastically. “I would rather have the Red Dragon back in good condition, but if I cannot, that would be a very acceptable substitute. And once we get her back to the yards on Sado, there are a number of features we can study to see if they are suitable and practical for adoption, given our available materials.”
Egawa looked less happy, but resigned. “A foreign ship is better than no ship, Majesty, and if Captain Ishikawa says it is suitable, I accept his judgment.”
“Then training the Guardsmen to help sail this ship will be essential if we are to use that one.”
Then Ishikawa cleared his throat: “So sorry, Majesty, but while General Egawa’s men are strong and I am sure willing enough—”
“They had better be,” Egawa said flatly.
“Ah so, gozaimasu-ka,” Ishikawa said politely, obviously pitying any Guardsman who didn’t show willing. “But that is a very short time to learn anything useful.”
“They can learn routine tasks,” Reiko said. Dryly, flexing her hands: “Besides pumping.”
They had all pumped, the last two weeks before they made landfall; pumped day and night until they staggered away numb with fatigue and hunger to shiver themselves to sleep in bedding that was never dry or warm.
“And so free really skilled men,” she went on. “There are not enough of your sailors left to manage a ship of this size on their own on the journey home, are there?”
“Not with any safety and not on such a long voyage, no, Majesty. With the assistance of the Guardsmen, we should be able to sail home, and even fight the ship, after a fashion, and of course they will improve with experience. I will split my sailors so that each watch would be commanded by a fully trained man . . . the Guardsmen will have to be ready to obey common sailors, of course.”
“Then see to it,” she said; Egawa’s slight grim nod said there would be no discipline problems.
For a moment the Crown Princess and the Jotei were alone on the poop-deck, standing somber and silent; Órlaith thought they both felt the weight of the expectations on their shoulders.
Then the ship’s captain came out on the pier; he shook hands with some sort of municipal port official, handed over a sheaf of papers, and came up the gangplank. Feldman was in a brass-buttoned jacket of dark blue and a nautical cap, with his cutlass on his belt; he gave the streaming colors at the jack a salute, and then another to Órlaith and Reiko as he came up to the poop-deck. They both nodded to him without speaking, knowing better than to interrupt a professional in the middle of a task.
