"Wait! If you do that the Shogunate will lose face forever, we'll never be able to control the daimyos and their opposition--or the Bakufu.

Never!"

"We are just being prudent! The Bakufu remains in place. So do all warriors. As Chief Councillor it's my right to call for a vote, so vote! I vote Yes!"

"I say No!" Yoshi said.

"I agree with Yoshi-san," Utani said.

He was a short, thin man with kind eyes and spare visage. "I agree if we leave we lose face forever."

Yoshi smiled back, liking him--daimyos of the Watasa fief were ancient allies since before Sekigahara. He looked at the other two, both senior members of Toranaga clans.

Neither met his eyes. "Adachi-sama?"

Finally, Adachi, daimyo of Mito, a rotund little man, said nervously, "I agree with Anjo-sama that we should leave, and the Shogun of course. But I also agree with you that then we may lose even though we gain. Respectfully I vote No!"

The last Elder, Toyama, was in his middle fifties, grey-haired with heavy dewlaps and blind in one eye from a hunting accident--an old man as ages went in Japan. He was daimyo of Kii, father of the young Shogun. "It bothers me not at all if we live or die, nor the death of my son, this Shogun--there will always be another.

But it bothers me very much to retreat just because gai-jin have anchored off our shore. I vote against retreat and for attack, I vote we go to the coast and if the jackals land we kill them all, their ships, cannon, rifles notwithstanding!"

"We don't have enough troops here," Anjo said, sick of the old man and his militancy that had never been proved. "How many times do I have to say it: we do not have enough troops to hold the castle and stop them landing in strength. How many times do I have to repeat our spies say they have two thousand soldiers with rifles in the ships and at the Settlement, and ten times that number in Hong Kong an--"

Yoshi interrupted angrily, "We would have had more than enough samurai and their daimyos here if you hadn't cancelled sankin-kotai!" "That was at the Emperor's request, given in writing and presented by a Prince of his Court.

We had no option but to obey. You would also have obeyed."

"Yes--if I'd taken delivery of the document! But I would never have accepted it, I would have been away, or would have delayed the Prince, any one of a hundred ploys, or bartered with Sanjiro who instigated the "requests," or told one of our Court supporters to petition the Emperor to withdraw the requests,"

Yoshi's voice snapped. "Any petition from the Shogunate must be approved--that's historic law. We still control the Court's stipend! You betrayed our heritage."

"You call me a traitor?" To everyone's shock Anjo's hand tightened on his sword hilt.

"I say you allowed Sanjiro to puppet you,"

Yoshi replied without moving, calm on the surface of his skin, hoping that Anjo would make the first move and then he could kill him and have done with his stupidity forever. "There is no precedent to go against the Legacy. It was a betrayal." "All daimyos other than immediate Toranaga families wanted it! The consensus of Bakufu agreed, the roju agreed, better to agree than to force all daimyos into the camp of the outside lords to challenge us at once as Sanjiro, the Tosas and Choshus would have done. We would have been totally isolated. Isn't that true?" he said to the others. "Well, isn't it?"

Utani said quietly, "It's certainly true I agreed--but now I think it was a mistake."

"The mistake we made was not to intercept Sanjiro and kill him," Toyama said.

"He was protected by Imperial Mandate,"

Anjo said.

His old man's lips curled from his yellow teeth. "So?"

"All Satsuma would have risen up against us, rightly, the Tosa and Choshu would join in and we'd have a general civil war we cannot win. Vote!

Yes or no?"

"I vote for attack, only attack," the old man said stubbornly, "today on any landing, tomorrow at Yokohama."

From far off came the skirl of bagpipes.

Four more cutters were heading for the wharf, three packed with Highland Infantry to join others already formed up there, drums beating and bagpipes wailing impatiently. Kilts, busbies, scarlet tunics, rifles. Sir William, Tyrer, Lun and three of his staff were in the last boat.

As they came ashore, the captain in charge of the detachment saluted. "Everything's ready sir.

We've patrols guarding this warf and the surrounding areas. Marines will take over from us within the hour."

"Good. Then let's proceed to the Legation."

Sir William and his party got into the carriage that had been ferried and manhandled ashore with so much effort. Twenty sailors picked up the traces. The captain gave the order to advance and the cortege marched off, flags waving, soldiers surrounding them, a resplendent, six-feet-eight drum major to the fore, Chinese coolies from Yokohama nervously dragging baggage carts in the rear.

The narrow streets between the low, one-story shops and buildings were eerily empty. So was the inevitable guard post at the first wooden bridge over a festering canal. And the next. A dog charged out of an alley, barking and snarling, then picked itself up and scuttled away howling after a kick lifted it into the air and sent it sprawling ten yards. More empty streets and bridges, yet their way to the Legation was tortuous because of the carriage and because all streets were only for foot traffic. Again the carriage stuck.

"Perhaps we should walk, sir?" Tyrer asked.

"No, by God, I arrive by carriage!"

Sir William was furious with himself. He had forgotten the narrowness of the streets. At Yokohama he had privately decided on the carriage just because wheels were forbidden, to further ram home his displeasure to the Bakufu. He called out, "Captain, if you have to knock down a few houses, so be it."

But that did not become necessary. The sailors, used to handling cannon in tight places below decks, good-naturedly shoved and pushed and cursed and half carried the carriage around the bottlenecks.

The Legation was on a slight rise in the suburb of Gotenyama, beside a Buddhist temple. It was a two-story, still uncompleted structure of British style and design inside a high fence and gates. Within three months of the Treaty's signing, work had begun.

Building had been agonizingly slow, partially because of British insistence on using their plans and their normal building materials such as glass for windows and bricks for bearing walls--that had to be brought from London, Hong Kong or Shanghai --constructing foundations and the like which Japanese houses did not normally possess, being of wood, deliberately light and easy to erect and repair because of earthquakes and raised off the ground. Most of the delays, however, were due to Bakufu reluctance to have any foreign edifices whatsoever outside Yokohama.

Even though not fully finished, the Legation was occupied and the British flag raised daily on the dominant flagpole which further incensed the Bakufu and local citizens. Last year occupation was temporarily abandoned by Sir William's predecessor when ronin, at night, killed two guards outside his bedroom door to British fury and Japanese rejoicing.

"Oh so sorry..." the Bakufu said.

But the site, leased in perpetuity by the Bakufu--mistakenly, it had been claimed ever since--had been wisely chosen. The view from the forecourt was the best in the neighborhood and they could see the fleet drawn up in battle order, safely offshore, safely at anchor.

The cortege arrived in martial style to take possession again. Sir William had decided to spend the night in the Legation to prepare for tomorrow's meeting and he bustled about, stopped as the Captain saluted. "Yes?"

"Raise the flag, sir? Secure the Legation?"

"At once. Keep to the plan, lots of noise, drums, pipes and so on. Pipe the retreat at sunset, and have the band march up and down."