第4节
istance against the government was out of the question. The
judgment against the family had been rendered by its peers; a committee
of powerful domain-lords including several of its closest allies whose
neutrality had been purchased by giving them valuable pieces of the
Yama-Shita trading empire.
All this had been done yet it had not brought the Yama-Shita to heel.
They wanted revenge. Not against the Toh-Yota. Without its two main
allies, the Ko-Nikka and the Se-Iko - the beneficaries of the Shogun's
largesse - the shogunate and the traditionalists now held the balance
of power. It would take years to win back its former supporters and
longer still before they were ready to even the 'score. No . . . the
family's thirst for revenge was directed against the five assassins the
outlanders who had killed their domain-lord and brought the house of
Yama-Shita to its knees. They could not have done their bloody work
without highly-placed friends inside Ne-Issan. If this murderous gang
could be captured alive, they would soon reveal the identity of their
masters...
Ieyasu did not need the bug planted inside the council chamber of the
Yama-Shita's palace at Sara-kusa to tell him how they had reasoned. He
merely had to put himself in their place. The last-minute decision by
the Shogun not to attend the flying display at the Heron Pool pointed
to his complicity in the murderous onslaught unleased by the
assassins.
An onslaught which - in the minds of the Yama-Shita family - had been
stage-managed by Ieyasu.
Not exactly true, but close enough. Ieyasu had not known in detail
what the saboteurs intended to do; he had merely allowed the operation
to go ahead. Had he known more, he might have acted otherwise. Using
communication devices and 'hired' agents was one thing; allowing those
same agents and Mute witches to murder highborn japanese citizens with
impunity was something else entirely.
The events which had led to this indiscriminate killing were, arguably,
an example of a delicate political problem that could not have been
solved in any other way, and with such brutal swiftness. But there
were limits beyond which Ieyasu was reluctant to go in his desire to
preserve the shogunate. The Heron Pool incident marked the top of a
slippery slope he had no wish to descend. And now, in the spring of
2991, the long-dogs had attacked again.
Only this time, they had struck first and told him afterwards.
A wheel-boat of the Yama-Shita family, carrying a large number of
samurai and foot-soldiers towards the western shore of Lake Mi-shiga
had been sunk with the loss of all hands Karlstrom, in sending his
apologies, had explained that there had been no time to seek his
approval. At the very last minute, AMEXICO had received news that the
Yama-Shita intended to launch a military operation against a clan of
Mutes that was sheltering the agents who had sabotaged the Heron
Pool.
No one could condemn the Yama-Shita family's desire for revenge, said
Karlstrom, but it was, under the laws of Ne-Issan, an illegal act of
war.
True. But even so, regardless of the circumstances, the loss of 250
samurai, 300 red-stripes and 150 officers and crew was an act of
violence that was difficult to condone: an affront to the pride of the
entire nations. Had the attack gone ahead, it would have been a
criminal act for which the Yama-Shita would have been duly punished.
But it was equally reprehensible for the long-dogs to take the law into
their own hands. To engineer the death of over seven hundred soldiers
of Ne-Issan in order to save five of their agents and a clan of
grass-monkeys was a totally disproportionate response. Secret agents
were treasured assets but their duties also included a readiness to
die. AMEXICO's action against the wheel-boat had seriously damaged the
existing relationship to the point where Ieyasu was beset with grave
doubts about its future.
There was also another problem. Should he tell the Shogun about the
illegal expedition mounted by the Yama-Shita? Or should he remain
silent about the whole affair and accept the announcement from the