"Not much to discuss, is there. I'm wiped out."

"There's lots to discuss, Jamie. We're really very lucky. The Army and Navy..."

Sir William glanced off, and raised his hat.

"'morning Miss Maureen." She was still in the same clothes but clean and fresh and wore a bonnie smile.

"'morning Sir William, glad to see you're safe and that the Legation's safe. 'morning, love." Her smile became even more special.

She put her arm through Jamie's, careful not to be forward and kiss him however much she wanted to--he looked so handsome in his charred clothes, his face unshaven and etched with worry, nothing that hot soup and hot whisky and a good sleep would not cure.

On the way here to find him, many had told her how brave he had been during the night. Most of her night had been spent calming Mrs.Lunkchurch and Mrs. Swann, their spouses and others at the Struan outpost, doling out the demon drink as her mother called all liquor--though not in her father's presence--attending to burns or taking them to Hoag or Babcott who had set up field hospitals as near to the worst areas as possible. "You look fine, Jamie, just tired out."

"No more than others."

Knowing he had been forgotten--and not a little envious--Sir William saluted with his quirt.

"See you later, Jamie. Miss Maureen."

They watched him canter away. Her arm and nearness felt good to Jamie. All at once his unhappiness and apprehension for the future surged and he turned and hugged her with the full measure of his misery. She melted against him, so happy, and waited, and gave him of her strength.

In time he felt his wits revive, his courage returning and his sense of belonging easing back. "Bless you, I can't believe it but you've made me come alive again, bless you." Then he remembered Tess and the five thousand Maureen had wheedled out of her, and Maureen saying, Tomorrow things will no' be so bad, and his joy exploded.

"By God, Sparkles," he said, hugging her again, "you're right. We're alive and lucky and everything's going to be fine and it's all due to you!"

"Now dinna exaggerate, laddie," she said with a little smile, head against his, not letting go of him yet. "Nothing to do with me." It's to do with God, she was thinking, that's His special gift to us women as His gift to men is to do the same for women at special times. "It's just life." She used "life" but she could have said, "love" but did not though totally sure that's what it truly was.

"I'm proud of you, lassie. You were grand last night."

"Och aye, but I did na do a thing at all.

Come along, it's time to nap."

"No time to nap, I've got to see the shoya."

"A nap before the meeting, I'll wake you with a cup of tea. You can use my bed, Albert says it's our room for as long as we want and I'll throw everyone else out."

Smiling through his exhaustion, he said, "What are you going to do?"

She hugged him. "I'll hold your hand and tell you a bedtime story. Come along."

Tyrer opened his eyes and found himself in hell, every bone aching, every breath abrading his chest, eyes burning and skin tormented. In the acrid, smoky black he could see disembodied Japanese faces peering at him, two of them, their mouths twisted with cruel smiles and any moment they would pull up their pitchforks and begin to torture him again. A face moved closer. He backed, and let out a cry of pain. Through the mist he heard Japanese and then in English, "Taira-sama, wake, you safe!"

The fog enveloping his mind dissipated.

"Nakama?"

"Yes. You safe."

Now he perceived the light was from an oil lamp, they seemed to be in a cave and Nakama was smiling at him. So was the other face. Saito!

Nakama's cousin, the one interested in ships...

No, this isn't Nakama, this is Hiraga the assassin!

He jerked up and fell back against the wall of the tunnel, his headache blinding him for a moment, and coughed and coughed, bile and a foul taste of smoke making him heave. When there was no more to come up and the spasm had passed, he felt a cup pressed to his lips. He drank the icy water eagerly, choking a little. "Sorry," he murmured. Again Hiraga wrapped the blanket around his half-burnt sleeping kimono. "Thanks."

In a minute he had caught his breath, mind slowly moving from blank to a kaleidoscope of images, coalescing into more pictures, blazing walls, Hiraga grabbing him out of a blaze and running, falling and being helped up, Teahouses collapsing around him, shrubs exploding in their faces, can't breathe, gagging, can't breathe, Hiraga shouting, "Quick, this way... no, this way, no back, this way..." something missing but picking himself up again, fleeing this way and that, guided through walls of fire in front and behind and to the side, women screaming, smoke, and then at the well head, the fire reaching for them, almost at them, "Down, down there, hurry," ducking into it, fire searing, a light below, an orb in the darkness, Saito's face, and then like a thunderbolt...

Fujiko!

"Where's Fujiko?"' he had screamed.

Gasping for breath, Hiraga shouted above the roaring flames, "Quick, go down, she dead in room, Fujiko dead when find you... quick or you dead!"

He remembered that part clearly now. He had leapt out of the well and began to rush back, the fire worse than before, certain death ahead but he had to reach her to make sure and then he was flat on his face, a blinding pain in his neck, he tried to scramble up, the heat monstrous, and all he remembered seeing was the edge of a rock-hard hand driving for the side of his neck. "You... I was going for her but you stopped me?"

"Yes. No way save. Fujiko dead, so sorry, I saw. She dead, you too if go back so hit and carry here. Fujiko dead in room." Hiraga said it flat, still disgusted with Tyrer for risking both their lives on such a stupidity. He had only just had time to lift Tyrer onto his shoulder and clamber down, almost losing his footing to reach safety, saving his own life by a paper thickness from the flames. And he was thinking, fuming, even the most baka man must have known there no chance to find her, no way to survive with the whole garden, entire Teahouses afire, and even if she hadn't been dead then, she was dead fifteen times now. "If no hit, you dead. Is dead better?"

"No." Tyrer's grief swamped him.

"Sorry. I owe you my life again." He wiped his face to try, unsuccessfully, to stop the anguish. Fujiko dead, oh God oh God.

"Sorry, Nak--sorry Hiraga-sama, where are we?"

"Tunn'er. Near Three Carp. It go to vi'rrage, under fence, moat." Hiraga motioned up the well. "It day now."

Tyrer clambered painfully to his feet.

Once upright he felt a little better. Daylight at the well head was muted by billowing smoke, but he could see that it was about dawn.

"Dozo." With a smile Akimoto handed him a loincloth and a spare kimono.

"Domo," Tyrer said, shocked by the amount his own had been burned. There were some burn patches on his legs, nothing truly bad. Hiraga was climbing the rickety handholds to peer out, to be driven back by the heat.

Once more in the tunnel, Hiraga said, "No good. Too hot. Here." He offered him the water again and it was accepted gratefully.

"Taira-sama, best go that way." He pointed down the tunnel. "You a'we right?"

"Yes. Fujiko, she was dead? You're quite sure."

"Yes."

"What happened? I was asleep and then... was it a bomb? I can remember... I think I was blown the other side of the room from... from Fujiko. It felt as if a bomb went off below the house. Was it and why the fire, everything on fire?"

Akimoto touched Tyrer with a smile and said in Japanese, "Taira-sama, you were lucky.

If it wasn't for Hiraga you'd be dead. Do you understand?"

"Hai, wakarimasen." Tyrer bowed solemnly to Hiraga, adding in Japanese, "Thank you, Hiraga-sama, again in debt.