Читаем Shogun полностью

Gyoko had bowed, but he hardly had eyes for her. This was the first time he had seen Kiku closely. Nearness improved her exquisite features, as yet unmarked by the rigors of her profession. "Please play some music while we talk," he said, surprised that Gyoko was prepared to talk in front of her.

Kiku had obeyed at once, but her music then was nothing like tonight. Last night it was to soothe, an accompaniment to the business at hand. Tonight was to excite, to awe, and to promise.

"Sire," Gyoko had begun formally, "first may I humbly thank you for the honor you do me, my poor house, and Kikusan, the first of my Ladies of the Willow World. The price I have asked for contract is insolent I know, impossible I am sure, not agreed to until dawn tomorrow when both the Lady Kasigi and the Lady Toda in their wisdom will decide. If it were a matter for you, you would have decided long ago, for what is contemptible money to any samurai, let alone to the greatest daimyo in the world?"

Gyoko had paused for effect. He had not taken the bait, but moved his fan slightly, which could be interpreted as irritation at her expansiveness, acceptance of the compliment, or an absolute rejection of the asking price, depending on her inner mood. Both knew very clearly who really approved the amount.

"What is money? Nothing but a means of communication," she continued, "like Kiku-san's music. What in fact do we of the Willow World do but communicate and entertain, to enlighten the soul of man, to lighten his burden..." Toranaga had stifled a caustic response, reminding himself the woman had bought one stick of time for five hundred koku and five hundred koku merited an attentive audience. So he let her continue and listened with one ear, and let the other enjoy the flow of perfect music fhat tugged at his innermost being, gentling him into a sense of euphoria. Then he was rudely yanked back into the world of reality by something Gyoko had just said. "What?"

"I was merely suggesting that you should take the Willow World under your protection and change the course of history."

"How?"

"By doing what you have always done, Sire, by concerning yourself with the future of the whole Empire - before your own."

He let the ludicrous exaggeration pass and told himself to close his ears to the music - that he had fallen into the first trap by telling Gyoko to bring the girl, the second by letting himself feast on her beauty and perfume, and the third by allowing her to play seductively while the mistress talked.

"The Willow World? What about the Willow World?"

"Two things, Sire. First, the Willow World is presently intermingled with the real world to the detraction of both. Second, our ladies cannot truly rise to the perfection all men have the right to expect. "

"Oh?" A thread of Kiku's perfume, one he had never known before, wafted across him. It was perfectly chosen. Involuntarily he looked at her. A half-smile was on her lips for him alone. Languidly she dropped her eyes and her fingers stroked the strings and he felt them on him intimately.

He tried to concentrate. "So sorry, Gyoko-san. You were saying?"

"Please excuse me for not being clear, Sire. First: The Willow World should be separate from the real one. My Tea House in Mishima is on one street in the south, others are scattered over the whole city. It is the same in Kyoto and Nara, and the same throughout all the Empire. Even in Yedo. But I thought that Yedo could set the pattern of the world."

"How?" His heart missed a beat as a perfect chord fell into place.

"All other crafts wisely have streets of their own, areas of their own. We should be allowed our own place, Sire. Yedo is a new city; you might consider setting aside a special section for your Willow World. Bring all Tea Houses within the walls of this area and forbid any Tea Houses, however modest, outside."

Now his mind concentrated totally, for here was a vast idea. It was so good that he berated himself for not thinking of it himself. All Tea Houses and all courtesans within a fence, and therefore remarkably easy to police, to watch, and to tax, and all their customers equally easy to police, to watch, and to spy upon. The simplicity staggered him. He knew also the powerful influence wielded by the Ladies of the First Rank.

But his face betrayed none of his enthusiasm. "What's the advantage in that, Gyoko-san?"

"We would have our own guild, Sire, with all the protection that a guild means, a real guild in one place, not spread out, so to speak, a guild that all would obey...."

"Must obey?"

"Yes, Sire. Must obey, for the good of all. The guild would be responsible that prices were fair and that standards were maintained. Why, in a few years, a Lady of the Second Class in Yedo would equal one in Kyoto and so on. If the scheme was valuable in Yedo why not in every city in your domain?"