LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter 3

      The lanterns were coming alight, one after another, all through the house. Laurence could trace the servants moving in waves as the glow spread behind the walls. The sentry at the door was waking with a snorting start and jerking to his feet, blinking around. Laurence for a moment considered: the man was paunchy and sleep-dazed, armed only with a short blade—a quick struggle might see him through—

      But the dragon was descending from aloft—the dragons, rather, for there were two immense black shadows against the milky wash of the moonless night, coming into the lamp-light. One, the larger, had wide green eyes that glowed like a cat’s: it was not looking at him presently, but if it could see in the dark, like the Fleur-de-Nuit, nothing could be easier than for the beast to hunt him down while he fumbled over unfamiliar ground in the dark.

      Quickly, Laurence turned instead and thrust his small bundle into the ornamental bushes planted against the side of the house, and then went and stood by the door of the house to wait, as though he had been brought there. The sentry looked at him in confusion, but Laurence looked back at him with unmoving face, brazening it out, and the man was in a moment overwhelmed by a sudden flow of servants hurrying out into the garden. Junichiro appeared by Laurence’s elbow.

      “What are you doing out here?” the young man demanded, but preoccupied himself did not wait for an answer; instead he seized Laurence by the arm and drew him along with the flow of people. “They have certainly come on your account,” he said, “so you may as well stay here.”

      Kaneko was coming out of the house himself, dressed in formal robes; he wore two blades at his belt and came past his servants, who had arrayed themselves in a square as neat as any infantry troop. Two last men were hurrying around the perimeter of a great flagstoned courtyard, lighting lamps all around it, and then they all knelt together as the dragons came descending into the square, Kaneko out ahead of the rest of the party.

      The dragons settled themselves neatly upon the ground; the larger, grey in body and something the size of a middle-weight, wore curious pale green silken dressings the color of its eyes wound about its neck and wing-tips and forelegs, which coming loose made graceful arcs about its body like sails spilling their wind. It had not a single man aboard. The smaller dragon, a brilliant yellow beast larger than a Winchester though not up to combat-weight, carried four: of these, the lead gentleman was dressed in elaborate and formal robes bearing signs of some sort of office, and the others were evidently servants who carried boxes and one an armful of scrolls, and preceding him down unfolded a set of steps to enable him to make a more ponderous and imposing descent.

      The grey dragon bent its head towards Kaneko while the men dismounted. It spoke to him in the Japanese tongue, and he bowed more deeply and said something back. Laurence caught the name Arikawa out of it, but he saw no women; perhaps these were Lady Arikawa’s emissaries, and he could see nothing to bode well for his future in their cold faces.

      There was a little more formal exchange between them, which Laurence could not follow: he was all the more conscious of his utter isolation, of himself as a prisoner among strangers, unable even to pick out a word or to conceive their intentions. The servants were dismissed; the guests and Kaneko went inside the house; Junichiro took him by the arm and drew him along after them. They turned immediately from the entryway into a chamber on the side, whose entire outer wall was slid back and left wide open to face upon the courtyard where the dragons had settled themselves.

      The servants brought great kettles of steaming sharp-nosed tea out to bowls laid before the beasts. The official and Kaneko were served afterwards; they drank, making what Laurence assumed from their tone was mere small conversation, until abruptly he was drawn in front of them, and without hesitation or change of demeanor the official addressed him in Chinese and said, “What is your purpose in coming to our nation?”

      “Sir,” Laurence said, “I have no purpose but to be restored to my country-men, and my ship if at all possible.”

      It was the opening salvo of an interrogation which proceeded despite the hour of the night, and was as frustrating to Laurence as it was to his interlocutor. He could not but be conscious of the impossibility of avowing himself unable to remember his purpose. Better to be thought a liar than a lunatic, he was sure, but unable to confess this truth, he felt every other word hung upon a knife-edge of honor. He did not know why he was here, and therefore could not say with honest confidence that he meant them no injury. What if the Japanese sheltered some French ship, which he pursued?

      “I am a shipwreck: I did not choose to be thrown on your shore, and my presence here is the merest accident,” he said again, the best he could do. “And as you have received no declaration of war, from Britain, nor any envoy,” he added, hoping as much was true, “then, sir, I hope you will believe I am not here as your enemy. You surely cannot imagine me intended in any way to be a spy, and His Majesty’s Government does not behave in so underhanded a manner as to attack another nation with no warning or quarrel.”

      The official, who had been addressed by the others as Matsudaira, was an older man, with a narrow beard that framed his face in dark lines salted a little with grey; his mouth was thin and hard. “Indeed,” he said, and put down his teacup. “With your gracious permission, Lady Arikawa, we will take the Englishman to Hakata Bay, and consult him upon the evidence there.”

      Laurence looked in confusion for any new arrival; then the grey dragon answered, in Chinese, “Let it be done,” with some reluctance in her tone. Kaneko, frowning slightly, looked at her: the dragon shook her head at him, setting the arcs of green fabric trembling.

      The sun was rising, little by little, as they went. Kaneko alone went with the grey dragon—who, Laurence somewhat doubtfully supposed, was Lady Arikawa. She bent her foreleg and invited Kaneko upon her back: evidently some sign of great condescension on her part, and one of which Matsudaira did not approve, judged from the tightening of his lips. Laurence himself and the rest of the company went aboard the second, smaller beast.

      Junichiro, left behind to watch the house, had watched them go aboard with his eyes darting anxiously from his master to Matsudaira: he, too, saw the magistrate’s frowns. Yet he maintained his composure, or nearly so: when the dragons leapt aloft, his face turned up to follow them, betraying for a moment a boyish note of longing. Laurence recognized it as kin to the feeling which he had worn himself as a boy hanging on the prow of his uncle’s ship, although he had never thought of attaching such a feeling to dragons.

      Laurence was grateful to find both his stomach and his courage easily equal to the journey; he had been able to make his way up the harness without hesitation or awkwardness, and the wind cool and fragrant and crisp in his face was a pleasure despite the great rushing speed. They were near the ocean: dawn broke over the water brilliantly, sunlight a streaming silver path towards them so that Laurence’s eyes teared with the glare. The green fabric on Lady Arikawa’s back, which she had drawn taut about herself for the flight, was bordered with innumerable small gems which blazed in the new light. She averted her eyes from the sun, however, and dropped back so the smaller dragon’s shadow could land upon her head and give her some relief from the light. Laurence noted it with some small gratitude: she would be no very effective searcher during the daylight, perhaps—if he could somehow still manage his escape.

      The tenor of Matsudaira’s interrogation had left Laurence in no doubt of the increasing urgency of flight. He could curse the ill-fortune that had brought the dragons down at so unexpected an hour, but not berate himself for failure. He had planned his attempt at escape as well as he could, and at least he had avoided giving rise to suspicion—he was neither bound nor chained at present, and Kaneko had not even missed the sword yet.

      As soon as another opportunity afforded, even perhaps during this excursion, Laurence meant to try again. He had kept the gold bars tucked into the sash of his garment, so he was not wholly without resources even without his

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