James Clavell - Gai-Jin Read online

  James Clavell - Gai-Jin

  Copyright 1993

  BOOK JACKET INFORMATION

  Grand in scope and scale, filled with the richness and passion of two great histories coming together,

  Gai-jin is the long-awaited sixth novel in

  James Clavell's magnificent Asian Saga. Sweeping us back to the enigmatic and elusive land of his best-selling Shogun, he weaves an extraordinary tale of Japan, now newly open to gai-jin--foreigners--and teeming with contradictions as the ancient and the modern meet in a clash of cultures, of nations, of generations.

  It is 1862, and in Japan's Foreign

  Settlement of Yokohama, reverberations from an explosive act of violence will forever alter--and connect--the lives of the major characters. Malcolm Struan, at twenty, is heir to the title of tai-pan of the most powerful and bitterly contested English trading company in the Orient, the Noble House. Malcolm's fate, and that of his family's legacy, become inextricably intertwined with that of a beautiful young French woman, Angelique Richaud. Desired by many, loved purely and passionately by Malcolm, Angelique will hold the future of the Noble House in her hands.

  Intricately interwoven into the story of the struggle for control of the Noble House is a powerful parallel story of the Land of the Gods,

  Japan, a country ripped apart by greed, idealism, and terrorism as groups of young xenophobic revolutionaries, ronin, attempt to seize the Shogunate and expel the hated gai-jin from Japan. One man, Lord

  Toranaga Yoshi, a direct descendant of the first Toranaga Shogun, attempts not only to protect the Shogunate, but to usher it, and Japan, into the modern age.

  Amid the brutality and heroism, the betrayals and the stunning romance, a multilayered, complex story unfolds. Here the dark and erotic world of the pleasure houses--the Ladies of the

  Willow World, spies, and terrorists--meets the world of pageantry and power--monarchs and diplomats. And here East meets West in an inevitable collision of two equally powerful cultures as James Clavell creates a vibrant and authentic portrait of a time that is gone forever... but of a world not unlike our own.

  JAMES CLAVELL is the internationally acclaimed author of the best-selling Asian Saga, which has a remarkable seventeen million copies in print. He divides his time between Europe and America.

  Delacorte Press

  THE ASIAN SAGA so far consists of:

  1600: Shogun

  1841: Tai-Pan

  1862: Gai-Jin

  1945: King Rat

  1962: Noble House

  1979: Whirlwind

  This novel is for you, whoever you are with deep appreciation--for without you, the writer part of me would not exist....

  Gai-Jin, meaning foreigner, is set in Japan, in 1862.

  It is not history but fiction. Many of the happenings did occur according to historians and to books of history which, of themselves, do not necessarily always relate what truly happened. Nor is it about any real person who lived or is supposed to have lived, nor about any real company. Kings and queens and emperors are correctly named, as are a few generals and other exalted persons. Apart from these I have played with history--the where and how and who and why and when of it--to suit my own reality and, perhaps, to tell the real history of what came to pass.

  GAI-JIN

  BOOK ONE

  YOKOHAMA

  14th September 1862:

  The panic-stricken girl was galloping full speed back towards the coast, half a mile ahead, along footpaths that led precariously through the rice swamps and paddy fields. The afternoon sun bore down. She rode sidesaddle and though normally expert, today she could hardly keep her balance. Her hat had vanished and her green riding habit, the height of Parisian fashion, was ripped by brambles and speckled with blood, tawny fair hair streaming in the wind.

  She whipped the pony faster. Now she could see the tiny hovels of the Yokohama fishing village clustering the high fence and canals that enclosed the

  Foreign Settlement and spires of the two small churches within and knew, thankfully, in the bay beyond were British, French, American and Russian merchantmen and a dozen warships, both steam and sail.

  Faster. Over narrow wooden bridges and canals and irrigation ditches that crisscrossed the paddy and swamps. Her pony was lathered with sweat, a deep wound on his shoulder and tiring rapidly. He shied. A bad moment but she recovered and now she swerved onto the path that led through the village to the bridge over the encircling canal and to the main gate and the samurai guard house, and Japanese Customs House.

  The two-sworded samurai sentries saw her coming and moved to intercept but she charged through them into the wide main street of the Settlement proper on the seafront. One of the samurai guards rushed for an officer.

  She reined in, panting. "Au secours... a l'aide, help!"

  The promenade was almost deserted, most of the inhabitants at siesta or yawning in their countinghouses, or dallying in the Pleasure Houses outside the fence.

  "Help!" she called out again and again and the few men spread along its length, British traders and off-duty soldiers and sailors mostly, some

  Chinese servants, looked up startled.

  "God Almighty, look there! It's the

  French girl..."

  "What's amiss? Christ, look at her clothes..."

  "Cor, it's her, the smasher, Angel

  Tits, arrived couple of weeks ago..."

  "That's right, Angelique... Angelique

  Beecho or Reecho, some Frog name like that.

  ..."

  "My God, look at the blood!"

  Everyone began converging on her, except the

  Chinese who, wise after millennia of sudden trouble, vanished. Faces began to appear in windows.

  "Charlie, fetch Sir William on the double!"

  "Christ Almighty, look at her pony, poor bugger will bleed to death, get the vet," a corpulent trader called out. "And you, soldier, quick, get the General, and the Frog, she's his ward

  --oh for God's sake the French Minister, hurry!" Impatiently he pointed at a single-story house flying the French flag.

  "Hurry!" he bellowed, the soldier rushed off, and he trundled for her as fast as he could. Like all traders he wore a top hat and woolen frock coat, tight pants, boots, and sweated in the sun. "What on earth happened, Miss

  Angelique?" he said, grabbing her bridle, aghast at the dirt and blood that speckled her face and clothes and hair. "Are you hurt?"

  "Moi, non... no, I think not but we were attacked... Japanners attacked us." She was trying to catch her breath and stop shaking, still in terror, and pushed the hair out of her face.

  Urgently she pointed inland westwards, Mount

  Fuji vaguely on the horizon. "Back there, quick, they need, need help!"

  Those nearby were appalled and noisily began relaying the half news to others and asking questions:

  Who? Who was attacked? Are they French or

  British? Attacked? Where? Two-sword bastards again! Where the hell did this happen...

  Questions overlaid other questions and gave her no time to answer, nor could she yet, coherently, her chest heaving, everyone pressing closer, crowding her. More and more men poured into the street putting on coats and hats, many already armed with pistols and muskets, a few with the latest American breech-loading rifles. One of these men, a big-shouldered, bearded Scot, ran down the steps of an imposing two-story building. Over the portal was "Struan and Company." He shoved his way through to her in the uproar.

  "Quiet for God's sake!" he shouted, and in the sudden lull, "Quick, tell us what happened.

  Where's young Mr. Struan?"

  "Oh Jamie, je... I, I..." The girl made a desperate effort to collect herself, disoriented. "Oh mon Dieu!
"

  He reached up and patted her shoulder like a child, to gentle her, adoring her, like all of them.

  "Don't worry, you're safe now, Miss

  Angelique. Take your time. Give her some room for God's sake!" Jamie McFay was thirty-nine, chief manager of Struan's in

  Japan. "Now, tell us what happened."

  She brushed away the tears, her tawny hair askew. "We... we were attacked, attacked by samurai," she said, her voice tiny and accent pleasing. Everyone craned to hear better. "We were

  ... we were on the, on the big road..." Again she pointed inland, "It was there."

  "The Tokaido?"

  "Yes, that's it, the Tokaido..." This great coastal trunk toll road, a little over a mile west of the Settlement, joined the

  Shogun's forbidden capital, Yedo, twenty miles northwards, to the rest of Japan, also forbidden to all foreigners. "We were... riding.

  ..." She stopped and then the words poured out:

  "Mr. Canterbury, and Phillip Tyrer and

  Malcolm--Mr. Struan--and me, we were riding along the road and then there were some... a long line of samurai with banners and we wait to let them pass then we... then two of them rush us, they wound Monsieur Mr. Canterbury, charge

  Malcolm--Mr. Struan--who had his pistol out and Phillip who shout me to run away, to get help." The shaking began again. "Quick, they need help!"

  Already men were rushing for mounts, and more guns.

  Angry shouts began: "Someone get the troops

  ..."

  "Samurai got John Canterbury,

  Struan, and that young chap Tyrer, they've been chopped on the Tokaido."

  "Christ, she says samurai have killed some of our lads!"

  "Where did this happen?" Jamie

  McFay called out above the noise, curbing his frantic impatience. "Can you describe the place where this happened, exactly where?"

  "By the roadside, before Kana... Kana something."

  "Kanagawa?" he asked, naming a small way station and fishing village on the Tokaido, a mile across the bay, three odd miles by coastal road.

  "Oui--yes. Kanagawa! Hurry!"

  Horses were being led out of the Struan stables, saddled and ready. Jamie slung a rifle over his shoulder. "Don't worry, we'll find them quickly. But Mr. Struan? Did you see if he got away--if he was hurt?"

  "Non. I saw nothing, just the beginning, poor

  Mr. Canterbury, he... I was riding beside him when they..." The tears flooded. "I did not look back, I obeyed without... and came to get help."

  Her name was Angelique Richaud. She was just eighteen. This was the first time she had been outside the fence.

  McFay jumped into the saddle and whirled away. Christ Almighty, he thought in anguish, we haven't had any trouble for a year or more, otherwise I'd never have let them go. I'm responsible, Malcolm's heir apparent and

  I'm responsible! In the Name of God, what the hell happened?

  Without delay, McFay, a dozen or so traders, a Dragoon officer with three of his lancers found John Canterbury on the side of the Tokaido but viewing him was more difficult.

  He was decapitated and parts of his limbs scattered nearby. Ferocious sword cuts were patterned all over his body, almost any one of which would have been a death blow. There was no sign of

  Tyrer and Struan, or the column of samurai.

  None of the passers knew anything about the murder, who had done it, or when or why.

  "Would the other two have been kidnapped,

  Jamie?" an American asked queasily.

  "I don't know, Dmitri." McFay tried to get his brain working. "Someone better go back and tell Sir William and get... and bring a shroud or coffin." White-faced he studied the passing crowds who carefully did not look in his direction but observed everything.

  The well-kept, beaten earth roadway was massed with disciplined streams of travellers to and from

  Yedo that one day would be called Tokyo. Men, women and children of all ages, rich and poor, all

  Japanese but for an occasional long-gowned

  Chinese. Predominately men, all wearing kimonos of various styles and modesty, and many different hats of cloth and straw. Merchants, half-naked porters, orange-robed Buddhist priests, farmers going to or coming from market, itinerant soothsayers, scribes, teachers and poets. Many litters and palanquins of all kinds for people or goods with two, four, six or eight bearers. The few strutting samurai amongst the crowds stared at them balefully as they passed.

  "They know who did it, all of them," McFay said.

  "Sure. Matyeryebitz!" Dmitri

  Syborodin, the American, a heavyset, brown-haired man of thirty-eight, roughly clothed and a friend of Canterbury, was seething.

  "It'd be goddam easy to force one of them." Then they noticed a dozen or so samurai standing in a group down the road, watching them. Many had bows and all Westerners knew what adept archers samurai were.

  "Not so easy, Dmitri," McFay said.

  Pallidar, the young Dragoon officer said crisply, "Very easy to deal with them, Mr.

  McFay, but ill-advised without permission-- unless of course they attack us. You're quite safe." Settry Pallidar detailed a dragoon to fetch a detachment from the camp, with a coffin, the American visibly irritated by his imperiousness. "You'd better search the nearby countryside. When my men arrive they'll assist. More than likely the other two are wounded somewhere."

  McFay shuddered, motioned at the corpse.

  "Or like him?"

  "Possibly, but let's hope for the best. You three take that side, the rest of you spread out and--"

  "Hey, Jamie," Dmitri interrupted deliberately, hating officers and uniforms and soldiers, particularly British ones. "How about you and me going on to Kanagawa--maybe someone in our Legation knows something."

  Pallidar disregarded the hostility, understanding it, well acquainted with the American's fine service record. Dmitri was an

  American of Cossack extraction, an ex cavalry officer of the U.s. Army, whose grandfather had been killed fighting the British in the

  American War of 1812. "Kanagawa is a good idea, Mr. McFay," he said. "They should certainly know what big procession of samurai passed through and the sooner we find out who the culprit is the better. The attack must have been ordered by one of their kings or princes. This time we can peg the bastard and God help him."

  "God rot all bastards," Dmitri said pointedly.

  Again the resplendently uniformed Captain did not provoke but did not let it pass. "Quite right,

  Mr. Syborodin," he said easily. "And any man who calls me a bastard better quickly get himself a second, a pistol or sword, a shroud and someone to bury him. Mr. McFay, you'll have plenty of time before sunset. I'll stay here until my men return, then we'll join the search. If you hear anything in Kanagawa, please send me word." He was twenty-four and worshipped his regiment. With barely concealed disdain he looked at the motley group of traders.

  "I suggest the rest of you... gentlemen... begin the search, spread out but stay in visual contact. Brown, you go with that group and search those woods. Sergeant, you're in charge."

  "Yessir. Come on, you lot."

  McFay took off his coat and spread it over the body, then remounted. With his American friend he hurried northwards toward Kanagawa, a mile away.

  Now the dragoon was alone. Coldly he sat on his horse near the corpse and watched the samurai. They stared back. One moved his bow, perhaps a threat, perhaps not. Pallidar remained motionless, his sabre loose in its scabbard.

  Sunlight sparked off his gold braid.

  Pedestrians on the Tokaido hurried by silently, afraid. His horse pawed the ground nervously, jingling the harness.

  This isn't like the other attacks, the lone attacks, he thought with growing anger. There's going to be hell to pay, attacking those four, a woman amongst them, and killing an Englishman so foully. This means war.

  A few hours ago the four of them had ridden out of the main gate, past the Customs House, cas
ually saluted the samurai guards who bowed perfunctorily, and trotted leisurely inland along meandering paths, heading for the Tokaido.

  All were expert riders, their ponies nimble.

  In Angelique's honor, they wore their best top hats and riding clothes, and were the envy of every man in the Settlement: one hundred and seventeen resident Europeans, diplomats, traders, butchers, shopkeepers, blacksmiths, shipwrights, armorers, adventurers, gamblers and many ne'er-do-wells and remittance men, most of them British, the clerks Eurasian or