Carnifex

15/3/467 AC, Kamakura, Yamato

Yamato had this much difference with the Salafis; whereas the Salafis emigrated to Terra Nova to recreate the seventh century of Old Earth, Yamato had preferred recreating the latter third of the nineteenth and earlier third of the twentieth, with a profound nod of respect to the thirteenth through seventeenth. About the entire Pearl-Harbor-to-the-deck-of-the-USS Missouri fiasco, back on Old Earth, they preferred to forget (though the rebuilt Yasukuni Jinja had some hundreds of thousands of mementos). They were none too interested in delving too deeply into the mistakes of the Great Global War, either.

That meant, in practice, that the Imperial Court still had tremendous power within the country, though the power was almost always expressed subtly. Indeed, it was usually expressed so subtly that no one could really be certain what the Emperor actually meant, most of the time. Some of this was, of course, in the way questions to the Throne were phrased.

"His Highness said what?" asked Mr. Yamagata of his colleague, Mr. Saito. Each was a representative of a major shipping company. Yamagata's brought in oil; Saito's exported finished goods.

"I mentioned to His Highness," answered Saito, "that ships bringing oil to our land endured many dangers. He answered, 'Sometimes we must endure the unendurable.'"

Yamagata took off his bottle-thick glasses and cleaned them with his tie.

"That is a remarkably forthright answer from Him," he observed. "It seems clear enough, then, as clear as it ever is, that the Imperial Navy is not going to help us. What do we do then?"

"I came to the same conclusion. As to what we must do, I asked the Emperor, 'Shall not the sons of the Son of Heaven resist tyranny and robbery?' He answered with the questions, 'Does not the law forbid private persons from bearing arms? Has the land not seen untold misery from uncontrolled violence?'"

"Shit!" exclaimed Yamagata.

"Shit," echoed Saito more softly. "It was a curious audience. Before I left, His Imperial Highness said, 'Sometimes, we must allow ourselves—like Miyamoto Musashi—to be tossed about by the waves of the sea.'"

Yamagata's left eyebrow lifted, subtly. "Wave tossed? Ronin?"

Ronin meant, in Japanese, "wave man," as a masterless samurai was said to be tossed through life on the waves. Many ronin, throughout the history of Japanese culture (which history and culture were largely carried over to Yamato on Terra Nova), became mercenaries. Miyamoto Musashi—old Japan's "sword saint"—had been ronin.

Saito shrugged. "That much of His Highness' words I did not comprehend."

"Perhaps I do," answered Yamagata.