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 Chinese, a few Americans, French, Dutch, Germans, Russians, Australians and one Swiss; and amongst them three women, all matrons, two British, wives of traders, the last a madam in Drunk Town as the low-class quarter was called. No children. Fifty to sixty Chinese servants.

John Canterbury, a good-looking, craggy-faced British trader acted as their guide. The purpose of the excursion was to show Phillip Tyrer the way by land to Kanagawa where meetings with Japanese officials took place from time to time, and well within the agreed Settlement area. Tyrer, just twenty-one, had arrived yesterday from London via Peking and Shanghai, a newly appointed student interpreter to the British Legation.

This morning, overhearing the two of them in the Club, Malcolm Struan had said, "May I come along, Mr. Canterbury, Mr.Tyrer? It's a perfect day for sightseeing, I'd like to ask Miss Richaud to join us--she hasn't seen any of the country yet."

"We'd be honored, Mr. Struan."

Canterbury was blessing his luck. "You're both welcome. The ride's good though there's not much to see--for a lady."

"Eh?"' Tyrer had said.

"Kanagawa's been a busy post village and stopover place for travellers to and from Yedo for centuries, so we're told. It's well stocked with Teahouses, that's what most brothels are called here. Some of them are well worth a visit though we're not always welcome like at our own Yoshiwara across the swamp."

"Whorehouses?"' Tyrer had said.

The other two had laughed at his look. "The very same, Mr. Tyrer," Canterbury had said. "But they're not like the doss houses, or brothels in London, or anywhere else in the world, they're special. You'll soon find out, though here the custom is to have your own doxy, if you can afford it."

"I'll never be able to do that," Tyrer said.

Canterbury laughed. "Maybe you will.

Thank God the rate of exchange favors us, oh my word! That old Yankee Townsend Harris was a canny bastard." He beamed at the thought. Harris was the first American Consul-General appointed two years after Commodore Perry had forced the opening of Japan to the outside world, first in '53, then '56 with his four Black Ships--the first steamers seen in Japanese waters. Four years ago, after years of negotiating, Harris arranged Treaties later ratified by major Powers that granted access to certain ports. The Treaties also fixed a very favorable rate of exchange between silver Mex--Mexican silver dollars, the universal coin of exchange and trade in Asia --and Japanese gold oban, whereby if you changed Mex for oban and later exchanged them for Mex, you could double or triple your money.

"An early lunch then off we go,"

Canterbury said. "We'll be back in good time for supper, Mr. Struan."

"Excellent. Perhaps you'd both join me in our company dining room? I'm giving a small party for Mademoiselle Richaud."

"Thank you kindly. I trust the tai-pan's better?"' "Yes, much better, my father's quite recovered."

That's not what we heard in yesterday's mails, John Canterbury had thought worriedly, for what affected the Noble House--the nickname by which Struan and Company was known the world over--affected them all. Rumor is your Old Man's had another stroke. Joss. Never mind, it's not often a man like me gets the chance to chat to a real tai-pan-to-be, or an angel like her.

This's going to be a great day!

And once en route, he became even more affable. "Oh, Mr. Struan, you... are you staying long?"

"Another week or so, then home to Hong Kong." Struan was the tallest and strongest of the three. Pale blue eyes, long reddy-brown hair tied in a queue, and old for his twenty years. "No reason to stay, we're in such good hands with Jamie McFay. He's done a sterling job for us, opening up Japan."

"He's a nob, Mr. Struan, and that's a fact. Best there is. The lady will leave with you?"

"Ah, Miss Richaud. I do believe she'll return with me--I hope so. Her father asked me to keep an eye on her though, temporarily, she's the French Minister's ward while she's here," he said lightly, pretending not to notice the sudden gleam, or that Tyrer was deep in conversation with Angelique in French that he himself spoke hesitantly, and already under her spell.

Don't blame him, Canterbury, or anyone, he thought amused, then spurred forward to give the others room as the path ahead became a bottleneck.

The terrain was flat but for bamboo thickets, though it was wooded here and there--the trees already autumn tinged. There were many duck and other game fowl. Paddy fields and rice swamps being cultivated intensively, and land reclaimed.

Narrow pathways. Streams everywhere. The stench of human manure, Japan's only fertilizer, ever present. Fastidiously, the girl and Tyrer held scented handkerchiefs to their noses, though a cooling breeze came off the sea to take away most of the stink and the dregs of summer's humidity, mosquitoes, flies and other pests. The far hills, densely forested, were a brocade of reds and golds and browns--beech, scarlet and yellow larch, maples, wild rhododendrons, cedar and pines.

"It's beautiful there, isn't it, Monsieur Tyrer? A shame we can't see Mount Fuji clearer."

"Oui, demain, il est la! Mais mon Dieu, Mademoiselle, quelle senteur," what a smell, Tyrer replied happily in fluent French--an essential language for any diplomat.

Casually Canterbury dropped back alongside her, neatly displacing the younger man.

"Are you all right, Mademoiselle?"

"Oh yes, thank you, but it would be good to gallop a little. I'm so happy to be outside the fence." Since she arrived two weeks ago with Malcolm Struan on the bimonthly Struan steamer she had been closely chaperoned.

And quite right too, Canterbury was thinking, with all the riffraff and scum of Yokohama, and let's be honest, the odd pirate sniffing around.

"On the way back you can take a turn around the racetrack if you like."

"Oh, that would be wonderful, thank you."

"Your English is just wonderful, Miss Angelique, and your accent delightful. You were in school in England?"

"La, Mr. Canterbury," she laughed and a wave of heat went through him, the quality of her skin and beauty exhilarating. "I've never been to your country. My young brother and I were brought up by my aunt Emma and Uncle Michel, she was English, and refused always to learn French. She was more a mother than an aunt." A shadow crossed her. "That was after my mother died birthing my brother and father left for Asia."

"Oh, sorry about that."

"It was a long time ago, Monsieur, and I think of my darling aunt Emma as Mama." Her pony tugged at her reins. She corrected him without thought. "I was very lucky."

"This's your first visit to Asia?" he asked, knowing the answer and much more, wanting to keep her talking. The snippets of information about her, gossip, rumors had sped from smitten man to smitten man.

"Yes it is." Again her smile lit up his being. "My father's a China trader in your Colony of Hong Kong, I'm visiting him for the season. He's a friend of Monsieur Seratard here, and kindly arranged this visit for me. You may know him, Guy Richaud, of Richaud Freres?"

"Of course, a fine gentleman," he answered politely, never having met him, knowing only what others had told him: that Guy Richaud was a philandering, minor foreigner who had been there for a few years, scratching a living.

"We're all honored that you're visiting us here.