The Amtrak Wars - Ironmaster Part 82

The alternative was to transport the chest's contents overland but, once again, the carriers could be intercepted by the Toh-Yota. Only the house of Min-Orota, the chief partner in the enterprise which their dead lord had once described to him as 'the spinning and weaving of dreams', could be trusted to guard the chest and its contents until Yamas.h.i.+ta's successor had been chosen.

Min-Orota's choice of words and the emphasis he placed upon them left the two aides in no doubt that he had been fully apprised of Lord Yama-s.h.i.+ta's future plans. After retiring to the far end of the room for a whispered conversation, they returned and knelt before Min-Orota.

He signalled them to sit and speak. They bowed respectfully from the waist and adopted a cross-legged position.

They were grateful, said the senior aide, for his warning about the possible interception of their vessels.

The chest would be left in his care - but was he aware of the dangers he faced in becoming its guardian?

Min-Orota declared himself ready to accept them.

Lord Yama-s.h.i.+ta had made the ultimate sacrifice in his bid to lead Ne-Issan into a new age. He, Kiyo Min-Orota, shared his lofty vision of the future and was happy to risk his own life to help make that vision a reality. It would prove to the man who would soon adopt their dead lord's mantle that he was a worthy ally.

Someone who could be trusted with the deepest and darkest secrets of all.

Once again, Min-Orota's choice of words made it clear that he understood the real nature of the enterprise: the recapture of the Dark Light. A time and place was arranged: noon at a secluded manor house far removed from the palace and the press of the bustling seaport.

The unloading of the chest in broad daylight would not attract the attention of the watch, and an official from the palace would be on hand to ensure it pa.s.sed out of the docks without being subjected to the tiresome attentions of customs officials.

On the appointed day and hour, an ox-cart carrying a driver, the chest and four porters made its way towards the rendezvous. It was preceded by the two aides and four other mounted samurai and followed by a second cart containing twelve soldiers in civilian clothes. The three groups varied their pace and distance between each other, merging at times with other traffic on the road. To the casual observer, the carts and riders had no connection with each other, and this was precisely the impression they wished to create.

When the mounted samurai had reconnoitred the area around the manor house to ensure that there were no forces lying in ambush, the two aides ordered the cart beating the chest to enter the grounds. The second vehicle, carrying the disguised soldiers, whose weapons were concealed beneath the straw on which they lay, stopped on the road outside. To any pa.s.ser-by they were nothing more than a group of patient peasants stretching their legs whilst the driver and ox-boy fed and watered their animals.

The manor-house - a rambling stone and timber structure with a tiled roof dating from the middle of the previous century - was an uninhabited, dusty, echoing sh.e.l.l. Two of Min-Orota's lieutenants, whom the aides had already met, conducted them and the chest into Min-Orota's presence, then retired with the four porters.

This quartet was also disguised soldiers, drawn from the forty or so who had survived the dbcle at the Heron Pool.

Lord Kiyo Min-Orota was seated on a single straw mat, placed in the centre of a dais which ran across the far end of the room. He called upon them to approach and remove the four straw mats covering the section of the main floor in front of where he sat. The aides pulled the mats aside. A trap-door lay beneath. Opening it, they found steps leading down to a deep cellar.

This, explained Lord Min-Orota, was where the chest would be hidden.

Once it was safely below, the trap-door would be replaced by planking which would merge with the surrounding floor, and there it would remain until the Yama-s.h.i.+ta came to recover it. But first, he said, he would like the opportunity to look upon the priceless gift he had come so close to receiving and which had coloured their late master's dreams of the future.

The two aides asked him to recall his two lieutenants.

After removing the rolls of silken cloth, the four men lifted a large, heavy object wrapped in linen from the chest. When Min-Orota's men had left the room, the two aides removed part of the wrappings to reveal the engine from a Skyhawk - the basic aircraft carried aboard the Federation's wagon-trains. The engine, with its laminated wooden-propeller placed alongside it, was seated securely inside a timber frame.

Min-Orota examined the engine at close quarters without touching it.

Was this, he enquired, the strange device that had powered the original flying-horse - and which was believed to have been destroyed?

The aides a.s.sured him that it was.

Min-Orota praised Yama-s.h.i.+ta's cleverness. On top of all his other attributes he was also the master of illusion!

Was it not true that the Shogun's representatives had been present when the device had been consumed by fire? By what cunning means had such worthies been bamboozled?

Little by little, Min-Orota drew out the full story and by conceding his own complicity - persuaded them to reveal that Lord Hiro Yama-s.h.i.+ta had been the prime mover in the plan to recapture the Dark Light.

The two aides did not know that the long-dog who was to help bring the plan to fruition had escaped. None of the Yama-s.h.i.+ta knew. And Lord Min-Orota did not propose to tell them. He did, however, have another proposition.

Let us drink, he said, to the success of your master's plan and to his memory!

He struck a small gong to summon his lieutenants, who entered bearing a tray of refreshments. Cups of sake were poured out and handed to Min-Orota and the two aides.

'To the Yama-s.h.i.+ta,' proposed Min-Orota. 'Lords of the Dark Light!'

'May the enemies of progress peris.h.!.+" chorused the aides.

Since Min-Orota had already drunk from the same flask, the two samurai had no hesitation in joining him.

The rims of the porcelain cups they raised to their lips had been coated with a potent, transparent poison which caused almost instantaneous paralysis of their motor functions, leaving them unable to move their limbs or cry out, but fully conscious and aware of their predicament.

As the cups fell from their fingers, their arms were pinioned by Min-Orota's lieutenants and quickly bound with ropes. The paralysis was only temporary but had been necessary to prevent the two aides from sounding the alarm or killing themselves. For they would have done so without hesitation at the sight that now met their eyes.

The screens behind the dais were drawn aside, revealing the young Shogun seated between six domain-lords and their field-marshals.

Min-Orota knelt to pay homage to Yoritomo. His two lieutenants followed suit, forcing the stricken aides down with them.

It was Ieyasu, the Lord Chamberlain, who had organised this a.s.sembly on a variety of pretexts and in condir tions of unprecedented secrecy.

Seated with the Shogun, as judge and jury, were the domain-lords of the Ko-Nikka, Se-Iko and Mitsu-Bis.h.i.+, whose lands lay along the southern border of Yama-s.h.i.+ta's domain, and their own immediate neighbours, the Dai-Hatsu, Da-Tsuni and SuZuki.

The Ko-Nikka were allied by marriage to the Yamas.h.i.+ta; the Se-Iko were regarded as being predisposed to take their side in any serious dispute with the Shogunate.

The other four were in the Toh-Yota camp. In terms of power, the Ko-Nikka and Se-Iko outweighed the four other members of the jury, but Ieyasu had done some shrewd wheeling and dealing behind the scenes.

The verdict was unanimous. The house of Yamas.h.i.+ta was guilty of high treason and must be called to account.

Lords Ko-Nikka, Se-Iko and Mitsu-Bis.h.i.+ agreed to journey to Sara-kusa to inform the family of the charge and the evidence on which they had been found guilty by a council of peers. They would also take with them a list of those held to be responsible. Those named could either take the appropriate action - suicide - or throw themselves upon the mercy of the Shogun.

It was a stark choice. Either way they Would wind up dead. The only alternative was an armed invasion, seizure of all a.s.sets and the possible break-up of the domain.

Ordinarily, the Shogunate would not have dared to make such a move against the Yama-s.h.i.+ta, but with the Ko-Nikka and Se-Iko now firmly on the fence, resistance to the Shogun's demands was not a viable option.

No.

Yoritomo was confident that those judged guilty of complicity would take their own lives or be quietly disposed of. Any family entering the power game had to be prepared to make sacrifices.

The disguised companions of Yama-s.h.i.+ta's aides, who had been keeping guard outside the manor, had been surprised and overwhelmed when the gong had been struck to summon the sake. Their attackers had also been disguised as peasants, some with women and children, aboard three farm carts which had paused to exchange gossip and offer some of their produce for sale.

All were executed on the spot.

When the two paralysed aides had been hustled away to meet the same fate, Yoritomo warmly congratulated Min-Orota for the part he had played in exposing the treachery of the Yamas.h.i.+ta.

No mention was made of his own involvement, or his complaisant support of the Consul-General's affair with the outlandish wh.o.r.e. Matters such as these could wait.

The rumoured love-match between Min-Orota's second son and one of Yama-s.h.i.+ta's daughters would die a quiet death. As would the daughter in question and the rest of the domain-lord's immediate family.