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Kiku was kneeling motionless in front of him. Her legs were stiff. She would have liked to lie down herself but she did not wish to break his mood by the slightest movement. You are not tired. Your legs do not ache, she told herself. Listen to the rain and think of lovely things. Think of Omi-san and the Tea House in Mishima, and that you're alive and that yesterday's earthquake was just another earthquake. Think of Toranaga-sama and the incredibly extravagant price that Gyoko-san had dared to ask initially for your contract. The soothsayer was right, it is your good fortune to make her rich beyond dreams. And if that part is true, why not all the rest? That one day you will marry a samurai you honor and have a son by him, that you will live and die in old age, part of his household, wealthy and honored, and that, miracle of miracles, your son will grow to equal estate - samurai - as will his sons.

Kiku began to glow at her incredible, wonderful future.

After a time Blackthorne stretched luxuriously, a pleasing weariness upon him. He saw her and smiled.

"Nan desu ka, Anjin-san?"

He shook his head kindly, got up and opened the shoji to the next room. There was no maid kneeling beside the netted futons. He and Kiku were alone in the exquisite little house.

He went into the sleeping room and began to take off his kimono. She hurried to help. He undressed completely, then put on the light silk sleeping kimono she held out for him. She opened the mosquito netting and he lay down.

Then Kiku changed also. He saw her take off the obi and the outer kimono and the scarlet-edged lesser kimono of palest green, and finally the underskirt. She put on her peach-colored sleeping kimono, then removed the elaborate formal wig and loosed her hair. It was blue-black and fine and very long.

She knelt outside the net. "Dozo, Anjin-san?"

"Domo, " he said.

"Domo arigato goziemashita," she whispered.

She slipped under the net and lay beside him. The candles and oil lamps burned brightly. He was glad of the light because she was so beautiful.

His desperate need had vanished, though the ache remained. I don't desire you, Kiku-chan, he thought. Even if you were Mariko it would be the same. Even though you're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen, more beautiful even than Midori-san, who I thought was more beautiful than any goddess. I don't desire you. Later perhaps but not now, so sorry.

Her hand reached out and touched him. "Dozo?"

"lye, " he said gently, shaking his head. He held her hand, then slipped an arm under her shoulders. Obediently she nestled against him, understanding at once. Her perfume mingled with the fragrance of the sheets and futons. So clean, he thought, everything's so incredibly clean.

What was it Rodrigues had said? 'The Japans're heaven on earth, Ingeles, if you know where to look,' or 'This is paradise, Ingeles.' I don't remember. I only know it's not there, across the sea, where I thought it was. It's not there.

Heaven on earth is here.

CHAPTER 41

The courier galloped down the road in darkness toward the sleeping village. The sky was tinged with dawn and the night fishing boats that had been netting near the shoals were just coming in. He had ridden without rest from Mishima over the mountain passes and bad roads, commandeering fresh horses wherever he could.

His horse pounded through the village streets - covert eyes watching him now - across the square and up the road to the fortress. His standard carried Toranaga's cipher and he knew the current password. Nevertheless he was challenged and identified four times before he was allowed entrance and audience with the officer of the watch.

"Urgent dispatches from Mishima, Naga-san, from Lord Hiro-matsu."

Naga took the scroll and hurried inside. At the heavily guarded shoji he stopped. "Father?"

"Yes?"

Naga slid back the door and waited. Toranaga's sword slipped back into its scabbard. One of the guards brought an oil lamp.

Toranaga sat up in his mosquito net and broke the seal. Two weeks ago he had ordered Hiro-matsu with an elite regiment secretly to Mishima, the castle city on the Tokaido Road that guarded the entrance to the pass leading across the mountains to the cities of Atami and Odawara on the east coast of Izu. Atami was the gateway to Odawara to the north. Odawara was the key to the defense of the whole Kwanto.