Page 22 of The Lost Future of Pepperharrow

‘I can, I’m spiting the Duke. He wants me to marry some Shirakawa idiot for the family.’ He cut his eyes away, annoyed. She’d never worked out how his family worked, but as far as she could tell, samurai houses were more like big companies than normal families. They had employees and board members and directors. The Duke of Choshu was the director of House Mori. She had no idea what Keita was. Something high up, but still answerable to the Duke, sometimes in vague, obscure ways to do with property deeds and taxation, sometimes in sharp, specific ones. Like marriage. ‘If he doesn’t back off I’ll chop it into holiday apartments for American tourists.’

He didn’t ask if she would take it. Instead he poured them both some more tea and wondered aloud if it was giving in to actual robbery to pay the half yen at the bar downstairs for two biscuits.

‘I’ll take it,’ she said. She swallowed, then ordered herself not to be such a bloody coward. ‘Do you want to get married as well? I can’t repay you for everything you’ve done, but I can save you from the Shirakawa idiot.’

He lifted his eyes slowly. They were southern black mirrors. ‘That’s a lot, Pepper. You … the Duke would never give you full status in the family, he’d treat you like my mistress. It wouldn’t be an upward step for you, more of a side shuffle.’

‘I don’t want advancement, I want to help you. I wouldn’t have the theatre if you hadn’t come when you did; I wouldn’t have anything. I owe you this. I’d be honoured to fight off the Duke for you, if you’ll let me.’ She smiled, because he looked a fraction better persuaded at that, like she’d thought he might. He was among the youngest of that last generation of real samurai. Someone being kind to him was puzzling; someone who wanted to have a good fight was normal.

He looked down, then smiled too. ‘Thank you.’

ELEVEN

Yokohama, 18th December 1888

Beyond the red gate, the way to Yoruji zigzagged up through gardens and gingko groves. All the way up, the house appeared in odd disjointed sections. It had a small tower, like a real temple, and when Thaniel said so, Mori nodded; the place was a deconsecrated monastery. They passed tiny pockets of perfect gardens, all arranged around pools that shone red and yellow with the reflections of the trees, which bent over them curiously. Thaniel just made out a stone bridge. All the pools steamed.

And then suddenly, there was a riot of jasmine. It was brilliant white after the autumn yellow of the gingkos, and there was so much of it that it looked unnatural, sprawling over the trees and eating other shrubs, and clawing right up the front of the house. The scent of it was a bit shocking, a wall of sweetness. Thaniel wanted to get away from it. The bone-white flowers, blooming and falling everywhere, looked waxy and false, like someone had drained them of all their real colour and pumped them full of formaldehyde to make them last.

A full staff had come out to greet them.

There were twenty at least, maids and stewards, and several serious men with plain suits and swords. Thaniel couldn’t take any of it in properly. He felt like he was trying to swallow a piece of glass.

Married. Mori was married. But of course he bloody was. He was forty-four and he was from a major samurai house; it would have been a miracle if he’d managed not to be. And it was hardly a surprise that Mori hadn’t mentioned her. She was official, legal business. Mori had about as much reason to mention a wife as he did to mention property tax or the acreage of the estate. It had nothing whatever to do with Thaniel, and it was none of his business. He still felt like she’d taken a hammer to his ribs.

He was damned if he was going to say a word about it. He came across as a whiny little prick enough of the time as it was.

An expressionless steward in a plain black kimono said a very formal good afternoon and asked them to follow him into the house, up irregular flights of steps and around steep corners. Thaniel walked feeling more and more disjointed.

Yoruji was an unsettling place.

Parts of it were very old, the wood dark with decades of varnish, and parts had plainly just been rebuilt, still bright and smelling of cedar. No corner quite led in the direction it should have, and, because the winter sky was so dim, the lamps were lit. The corridors took you suddenly outside onto gravel paths, even onto stepping stones over pools with water so deep and pristine they shone an eerie turquoise, then plunged back into the gloom again. Occasionally there was an odd mismatched section of wall where there had used to be different doorways, wainscoted around now, but the lintels were still there. The house was hardly more than a shell; the walls were almost all paper and wood, not integral to the structure, and easy to take down and switch about.

And even though the corridors were empty, he had a strong, weird feeling that they were being watched. He could feel eyes on him at every single turn, and all the time they were walking, he could have sworn that unseen people were always vanishing just around the next corner, a split second out of view. He shifted his shoulders. Stupid. It was just an unfamiliar place with an unfamiliar logic. Mori had told him, on the journey, that Japanese buildings would feel strange at first.

Everything smelled of jasmine.

The steward took them to a wing that overlooked the sea and the lighthouse on its crooked rock. There were two neat rooms there side by side, with broad sliding doors that led outside. Thaniel couldn’t see much beyond them but sky, but Six shot out.

The steward managed, despite being completely proper, to emanate disapproval at the idea of having foreigners in the house. If they would kindly not cross about in the corridor too much after ten at night, he said, the ladies upstairs would be grateful to be spared the noise of the floor.

‘It is creaky, isn’t it,’ Thaniel said, to say something that wasn’t to do with Mrs Pepperharrow, or with that scritch over the back of his scalp that insisted there were people peering at them from inside the walls.

The steward gave him an antarctic look. ‘Of course. It is a nightingale floor.’

‘Were you afraid he might get about the house unattended?’ Mori said, a laugh just under his voice.

The steward bowed minutely. ‘I shall return shortly with the Baron’s clothes.’

‘I can just wear a jacket. Suzuki—’

‘I’m certain the foreign gentleman would enjoy taking a photograph of the Baron in proper attire with the Baroness’s clever new apparatus.’

The Baroness. Thaniel tried to smile. ‘The foreign gentleman would enjoy that a great deal.’

‘Excellent,’ said Suzuki. He glided away over the squeaking boards, making no effort whatever to seem gracious in victory. He looked surprisingly young when he passed into a sunbeam, but even so, he left behind an impression of dust.

‘He’s something,’ Thaniel said. English sounded savage after a break.