Page 27 of The Lost Future of Pepperharrow

‘You’re from Yorkshire,’ she laughed.

It seemed pedantic to point out that actually it was the next shire down. He’d already found on the ship that he would settle happily for anything in Britain. If someone guessed that he was from near Edinburgh, he said yes, because Lincoln was very near Edinburgh if you were coming at it from Nagasaki. ‘How did you know?’

‘My father was an English diplomat and my governess was from Whitby.’ She nodded again towards the hunt. The wind brought a breath of jasmine perfume to him. ‘He tries it with me all the time, Kuroda. He wants to see if he can make you flinch. He’s like a sumo wrestler; he throws his weight about but all he wants is a good fight. You just say rhinoceros and he laughs and trots off on his merry way.’

‘Rhinoceros?’

‘There’s a rumour he killed his wife,’ she said. She was watching him now, too closely, but perhaps it was only something she had taught herself to do in order to keep big men unsettled. ‘And you know the Marumaru, the cartoon newspaper? They published a sketch of him in bed with a new girl and a rhinoceros ghost looming up out of some sake fumes. You know, rhinoceros is “sai”, wife is “sai” …’

‘That’s funny,’ he said automatically, then pictured it properly and frowned. ‘Did he? Kill her.’

‘Yes. Ow,’ she added. She snatched her hand off the rail and bit her knuckle. ‘Static.’ She left teeth marks in her finger. Thunder snarled to the south and then lightning sparked very high, not a fork but a hanging flicker that looked like the tendrils of a jellyfish.

‘Sorry, what? He did?’

‘Yes, he’s a drunk,’ she said, as if people who killed their wives were normal. She turned her sleeve back, carefully, and winced when the silk nipped at her again. ‘It’s the mountain,’ she said. ‘There’s been odd weather from there lately.’ She tapped the fence to tell him to step up on it and then she did the same, pointing between a gap in some trees. Fuji showed, lunar, through the grey storm haze. While they were looking, light snapped up in the sky again. There was no bang this time, no thunder, and no rain either. But the air had turned crackly. Somewhere through the woods, a horse shrieked.

‘Why is he Prime Minister if—’

‘Because Keita wants him to be,’ she said mildly. She studied Thaniel properly, her forearms still resting on the fence. ‘So how do you two know each other? You and Keita.’

It was horrible hearing her call Mori by his first name. She had introduced herself by her first name in a bid to be modern and Western maybe, but Mori wasn’t modern. First names were only for children and people you wouldn’t be surprised to wake up with. ‘He’s my landlord. I rent his spare room in London.’

‘How well do you know him?’ she said.

‘Well enough. Why?’

She was looking at him hard now. ‘I’m asking if you know what he can do.’

‘Is it polite not to throw coins or dice too near him, yes, I know that.’ He could hear he was being brusque, but more than anything he wanted her to go away. All the questions felt like pressure on a bruise.

Takiko must have been used to a different league of unfriendly men, though, because she didn’t even seem to notice. ‘Then you must also know that people near to him aren’t really people in his eyes. They’re tools. You’re for something. I’m for something, Kuroda is for something, there is nothing I’m more sure of in the world – or maybe it isn’t you, maybe it’s your interesting little girl.’

‘Sorry, what do you want to say?’

‘Why are you here?’ she asked softly. It was urgent, not a threat. ‘You seem like a nice person. Nice people don’t do well around Keita, Mr Steepleton, they end up dead. He is the king of useful deaths.’

Thaniel frowned. It was one way to describe Mori, but he couldn’t help thinking it sounded dramatic. ‘Why are you still married to him then? You could walk out if you wanted.’

‘To warn people like you. I hope you don’t mind my saying, but you’re ill, aren’t you? You sound ill.’

‘Yes. So?’

‘The king of useful deaths,’ she said again, very quietly this time.

‘I’m not here to die, I’m here because I can breathe here. London’s a mess.’

‘Right.’ She sighed. ‘You probably think I’m just trying to get an annoying gaijin off my territory. I’m not. Ask him what happened to Countess Kuroda.’

‘I’m all right, thanks,’ Thaniel said, a touch sharp. It was just one of those things, with Mori; there was a temptation to hold him personally responsible for every evil that happened nearby, given that he could have put a stop to it. But that was a nasty way to think. It didn’t allow for Mori being a person, one who could be tired or ill, or distracted, or upset. Whatever had happened to Kuroda’s wife, Thaniel was inclined to call it Kuroda’s fault.

‘All right. But in case you haven’t noticed, you’ve walked into a war. Kuroda wants him here to help beat the Russians; he forced him to come. Keita doesn’t want to help beat the Russians, but I expect he does want to remind Kuroda who not to annoy. Don’t get caught between them.’

‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ said Thaniel, who couldn’t see how Kuroda would force Mori to do anything. ‘They look like they’re just having a laugh.’

‘They are. But they’re samurai. Their idea of fun is dangerous.’

He nodded. More than anything, she sounded like someone who would have preferred not to have a herd of men in her house thumping around like a bunch of walruses. If he’d been her size, he would have found Kuroda terrifying. Perhaps Mori, too; perhaps he’d have even hated him a bit, for letting Kuroda charge around so much, and particularly if being married to him meant being his legal property. He didn’t know what the Japanese marriage system was like, but given the way Mori thought about women, it couldn’t have been too dignified.