第6节

mplementing the

plan to expand its present boundaries.

Recruiting the D'Troit to do the spade work was part of that plan. The

present fragmented nature of the Plainfolk which led to clans of the

same blood-line fighting each other was pointless and unproductive.

And the trading arrangements under which each clan annually supplied

varying-sized groups of 'volunteer' slave-workers was an inefficient

way of meeting the constant demand for labour.

They killed each other in the same haphazard way.

There was no master plan. Warriors who triumphed in a clash of arms

did not go on to plunder the settlement of the losers. The victorious

clan did not occupy its rival's land or slaughter the survivors. It

did not even attempt to enslave them. The winners simply went home

and composed fire-songs which extolled their prowess!

Part of the problem was the vastness of the territory at their

disposal. There was too much land and too few people. And because the

inhabitants were savages with a simple life-style, they did not need to

exploit the land's resources. There was enough room for everyone, an

abundance of game and more raw material than anyone could possibly

need. There was no need to conquer each other. Mutes fought each

other because they were wedded to the warrior ethic. It was a test of

courage, part of the process of natural selection. Very laudable.

But all that ferocious energy should not be allowed to go to waste. It

should be directed towards a loftier goal, not frittered away on

inconsequential skirmishes.

The Yama-Shita planned to provide that sense of direction by unifying

the disparate clans of the D'Troit and C'Natti bloodlines and creating

two vassal states. Armed and advised by the Yama-Shita, they would

then subjugate their hated rivals, the She-Kargo, and the other lesser

bloodlines. When this had been done, they would levy annual tributes

in the form of raw materials and able-bodied males and females.

Punitive tributes which would force this race of savages to toil from

dawn till dusk instead of idling their days away with smoke-.filled

dreams. Work would be their saviour, not some invisible being called

Talisman.

As patrons and protectors of the D'Troit and C'Natti, the Yama-Shita

family would be the sole conduit for this new flow of materials and

labour. It would generate unimaginable wealth- but only if each move

was carefully planned. The treasonous acts of Lord Hirohito had robbed

the family of its exclusive right to trade with the grass-monkeys.

Licences had been awarded to its southern neighbours, the Ko-Nikka and

Se-Iko but it was YamaShita who controlled the entrances to the Great

Lakes and it was their navigators who knew what course to steer through

the deeps and shallows. They had the know-how and the contacts, and

their fleet of giant wheel-boats dwarfed the vessels owned by the

Ko-Nikka. The Se-Iko, whose domain was land-locked, only possessed

river craft. For this first trip they had been obliged to lease two

boats and their crews from the Yama-Shita at exorbitant rates. Both

families had placed orders for larger vessels but the Ko-Nikka's

shipwrights - who lacked the expertise needed to construct such large

vessels- were still wrestling with the problem of how to lay out the

bilges.

Sakimoto was content to let them stew in their own juice. The family's

former allies had broken ranks in return for a share of the Great Lakes

trade and now they were learning that there was more to it than a

pretty piece of paper with the Shogun's seal on it. The YamaShita

still had the edge on its new partners and they both knew that without

its assistance their own crews might return empty-handed.

From the signals coming into Sara-kusa, it appeared that some of the

wiser heads in both domains were already regretting the hasty leap onto

the Shogun's coattails.

If these veiled contacts were inspired by feelings of guilt then he,

Aishi Sakimoto, intended to exploit such sentiments to gain whatever