NaNoWriMo Chapter 1
NaNoWriMo Prologue. 3,461 words. 45,713 to go.
To Prologue
There are those who say that the world changed when the black ships of Commodore Perry sailed up to Uraga. After powerful cannon of his ships opened, and exploding shells destroyed many buildings of that sleepy village 200 years of peace came to an end and brought us fifteen years of war.
For me the world has always been this way. I was born the daughter of samurai in Kaei 3 during the reign of Emperor Komei. My birth took place in the house of my father, which rested in the shadow of Hiroshima Castle. It was in this home that my mother and brothers of one of the many diseases the Barbarians had brought with them, a disease I barely survived myself.
No, for me the world changed the day my father brought a Babbage Engine home to Hiroshima Castle. I was thirteen years old.
On that day I was with many of the other girls of the Asano clan. We had been called out to practice with the naginato. I had been practicing with it since I was old enough to hold one.
“Hiroko-hime!”
My head turned. Asano Satoshi was the arms master of the castle, tasked with training everyone of noble birth in bushido. He was a hard man who demanded the best of everyone learning the way of the samurai, whether man or girl. His hard eyes bored into me as I bowed to him.
“Yes, Sensei.”
“Your father has returned to the castle. Show him what you have learned.”
Trying not to show my excitement, my eyes shifted from staring at Satoshi shoes to glance over towards the gate. My father was standing there, wearing his navy uniform. The crisp blue Western style jacket and gold epaulets looked strange to the older generations, but to me it was how my father always looked. I let a small smile escape my control.
The sudden sharp pain in my ear caused by Satoshi’s open palmed slap recaptured my ear. I made no move to show any acknowledgement of the pain. Instead I simply backed away from him to a safe distance and put on my protective mask.
Satoshi lowered his naginata, aiming it towards my middle. I retrieved my naganata and responded in kind, the tip of my blade just barely past his. There would be no ceremony, no judges. This was fighting, not sport.
The other girls stopped their training and gathered around to watch. I could hear them quietly placing bets as to how many moves it would take for Satoshi to defeat me. I resolved to disappoint all of their bets.
A sudden spiral and downward strike pushed my naginata downward. I immediately backed away, bringing my blade up to counter the follow up strike. The back step was necessary. Satoshi was bigger than I was and his blade was moving upward before mine. The extra space would be needed to give me time to push his thrust aside just before it struck.
Satoshi did not acknowledge my success, but simply settled into a stance, naganata returned to the ready.
Cautiously I began circling. I had been taught from the start that my smaller size and weaker arms would leave me at a disadvantage in a straightforward fight. Charging in and battering your opponent’s blade aside to create openings was a man’s way of fighting. For a woman the way to fight was to evade, to go around, to circle, and find the unguarded spots through sudden movement.
My moves were matched as Satoshi slowly turned in place to match me. Warily I watched him, ready for another lunge toward me. No such attack came. Older and more skilled, Satoshi was content to wait me out.
My blade rose to point straight up in the air, readiness for a downward strike. Satoshi immediately lunged forward, lowering his own blade towards my leg. His blade had less distance to go, and so I could not strike before his blow would land. Fortunately for me I had expected his response. I leaped upward, curling my leg up and out of the way, then landed to the side of the strike. I could hear cries of pleasure from the watching girls as they admired my move. I let this go past me, not wanting it to leave me feeling overconfident.
My blade came down to point towards the ground. His blade lowered as well, and we found ourselves close together, little more than an arms length between us. The hafts of our naginata pushed and strained against one another, each of us trying to push the other blade far enough aside that there could be no avoiding a sudden attack.
This was a struggle Satoshi would eventually win. My arms would tire quickly and his leverage would force my blade too far aside. This close, I would have no chance to step aside.
This close he would have little chance either. I waited until he threw a forceful slap towards my blade with his. Rather than fight it, I moved my blade with his, causing his blade to go much further out of line than he had expected. I spiraled mine upward and then back down, striking at his unguarded side. Now it was his turn to jump back, buying time to get his blade back to where it needed to be to block. I heard more cheers. The girls of the castle, at least, were being entertained. I tried not to think about what my father must have thought.
The distance had opened again. I began sidestepping again as Satoshi warily made a few half-hearted thrusts toward my mask. I brushed these aside with ease and continued watching for an opening.
Satoshi launched another strike, this time at my leg. I threw myself sideways, though this time I was not trying to get out of the way. This time Satoshi had not even tried to knock my blade aside first. My sudden step into the attack gave my blade greater strength and my block forced Satoshi’s attack far outside.
I did not give him time to withdraw his blade, but instead began almost running a circle around him, turning speed into strength and keeping his blade outside of where it needed to be. Satoshi stepped back to get out of the spiral and reclaim his blade.
Feeling his movement, I followed inward, trying not to let him recover. In doing so I was not able to continue my sideways run, and in that I made the mistake.
The lessening of pressure on his blade was all Satoshi needed. He suddenly reversed his arms. The swing cause his blade to point behind him, and the butt of the weapon towards me. He haulted his backward movement with a sudden leap forward, slamming the butt hard into my chest. I heard gasps from the watchers, but my attention was not on it.
The pain of the blow made me cry out and I nearly dropped my blade. This brief lapse was enough. Satoshi reversed the weapon again, whipping it around in a sweep as the wooden practice blade struck the side of my mask.
I found myself on the ground, my head pounding and my vision filled with fireflies. My chest where he had struck me was throbbing. On top of these things, in my fall I had landed on my naganata, and the shaft was now being painfully forced down upon the fingers of the hand that still gripped it.
In the silence that followed as all the girls looked at me Satoshi lowered his gard and straightened. “Stand up, oujo-sama.”
I slowly complied, my body uncertain it understood the instructions. I removed my mask, ignoring the undignified sweat and pain-caused tears running down my face, then turned toward Satoshi.
Satoshi gave a quick nod of approval. “Good. Now go attend your father.”
I bowed, wobbling the slightest bit. I set down the mask and naginata with the other training equipment along side of the wall. Behind me girls were settling their bets with cheerful dismay for the losers and equally cheerful gloating for the winners. I could hear their scuttling as Satoshi shouted at them to continue practicing.
My father had remained standing by the gate during the fight. I walked over to him, wanting to impress him with how mature I had become. Only a year ago I might still have run to him as though I were just a child, tripping over the hem of my hakama.
“Hiroko.” I would have heard the smile in my father’s voice even if I had not been able to see it on his beardless face. “How are you, daughter?”
I stopped and bowed low before him. “This one’s head hurts, honored father.”
“So formal?” Father asked me.
“This one is a grown woman,” I replied, straightening. “Proper behavior is expected now.”
“I suppose that means I need to find you a husband now.” Father shrugged. “I guess it can’t be helped.”
“I’m not ready for that yet!” I objected.
My father laughed. “Then we shall have to delay a year or two, I think. Though we should not delay too long. You are already fifteen. Come with me. I have something I want to show you.” Father turned and began walking towards the keep. I hurried to his side.
“Is it true that Tokugawa Iemochi is preparing another expedition against Choshu?” I asked. While I had remained isolated in the castle my father had been away. Nagamichi Asano, the Daimyo of Aki and Bingo had been sending my father to Choshu for several years. After American, French, and English steamships had destroyed several Japanese warships as well as the port of Kagoshima, the Choshu clan had become deeply interested in modernization. Nagamichi was very interested in this himself, and my father, Asano Ieyasu was one of the men he’d sent to observe and learn. Who better to ask about the rumors I’d been hearing?
My father grunted. “It is true. Tokugawa has returned to Kyoto to raise and train an army. He has purchased weapons from the French to arm them, and has French advisors to train that army.”
“Barbarians,” I replied. “Ever since they helped Satsuma put down the last uprising…”
“Satsuma is no longer the enemy of Choshu,” Father interrupted. “They have privately agreed to help Choshu gain arms and training. I have just returned from Nagasaki, where Choshu has bought weapons to face this Tokugawa army.”
“But that means Tokugawa cannot win. He only defeated the last rebellion because Satsuma was on his side.”
Father turned to look at me and smiled. “You have always been an intelligent child. You are right. The next revolt may be the last. That is why I am here.”
I flushed under Father’s approval. “Does this have anything to do with why you wanted to show me something?”
Father laughed. “Enough about that. Tell me what has been happening in your life since I have been gone.”
My curiosity frustrated I complied with Father’s instructions. I knew he would not tell me until he was ready, and I did not wish to show disrespect that would reflect poorly on him. I quietly spoke of my studies of courtly poetry and calligraphy, of naginata and yumi, and about my desire to learn gunnery.
Through this recital, my father listened quietly. As I slowed, not sure what else to speak of, my father grunted. “What about learning to speak and read English?”
I tried very hard to remain demure and proper. “Father. This one does not wish to learn that barbaric tongue.”
“You will learn it,” Father replied sternly. “Do you not wish to revere the Emperor?”
I wilted a little inside. “Yes. But this one also wishes to expel the barbarians.”
“So do I. It is what the Emperor called for two years ago, and I am Samurai. But a Samurai knows that to defeat one’s enemy, one must know the enemy. If we are going to expel these barbarians we must learn from them. That is the way of Bushido. That is what it means to be Samurai.” He looked at me out of the corner of his eye as we entered the keep. “Are you Samurai?”
“Yes father.” I hid a sigh. “I will keep studying it.”
“Good. In that case I will ask Nagamichi if he will allow you to study gunnery as well.”
My heart gave a leap. “Thank you for your honoring this one so.”
Father shook his head. “We will need gunners in the time to come. Even girls. Here, what I want to show you is this way.”
We climbed a set of stairs, and then a second, winding our way up into the keep. There on the third floor I was led to a room whose broad windows had been opened. I could see Hiroshima stretching out on the plains surrounding the castle.
Completely filling one side of the room I could see a thing made of brass. It looked like a strange collection of prayer wheels that had been made too short and then married to a loom. I could see gears, wheels, cranks and rods laid out in a pattern that was half design and half madness.
So enraptured was I by the sight I didn’t even see the man standing next to it. His presence only registered when he stepped forward and addressed my father in the English I had been learning in spite of my objections. I listened closely after hearing him call my father’s name, but was only able to understand about half of it. Whatever the full meaning was, I knew his pleasure had something to do with this machine.
“Mr. Toliver,” my father replied with a slight bow. Then he switched to Japanese. “I must report to the Daimyo. This is my only daughter, Hiroko. She will be taking care of you for now.”
I studied the man before me. He had the overly built features of the foreign barbarians. A massive nose dominated the center of his sharp, angular face. Strangely open eyes sat to either side, a peculiar blue color showing between simple eyelids. His yellow hair was combed and cut in a way that was longer than those of Japanese men. It looked strange and unkempt to me.
His body was almost as tall as the tallest man in the castle. The top of my head would barely have reached his shoulder. The clothing he covered that frame could not hide his thinness though, even though he was wearing far more layers of the West’s strange clothing than I thought the weather made wise.
I could not guess his age, he looked so strange. Not knowing what to say I did what I had always been taught was proper. I bowed and said nothing.
Mr. Toliver gave me a fast, strained smile, then looked back at my father. In a very slow and difficult tongue he replied in Japanese. “Thank you. When will the samurai come to learn?”
My father gestured towards me. “That is her. She is your assistant and your student.”
I could see Mr. Toliver’s face grow angry even as I felt my own start to twist into confusion. His voice crackled, this time in the English he had first used. This time I understood every word. “You told me I would have a samurai.”
My father glanced at me, then back to Mr. Toliver. “She is Samurai.” With that he turned and left the room, leaving me alone with an angry English Barbarian.
We stood there for more than a minute in silence, I staring at the floor, he staring at the doorway. Eventually he turned towards me. Again he spoke in English, sounding annoyed, though I could not understand what he meant. Then he spoke in his rough Japanese.
“Remind me again what your name was?”
“This one is named Hiroko, Toliver-sama.”
“Hiroko-san, can you learn to use this?” He gestured at the machine.
I bristled at his rudeness. I was not some common peasant woman, and should not be addressed like one. Still, my father had made his intentions clear enough, and I would not disgrace him by disobeying before this brute. “What is it, Toliver-sama?”
The man slipped once more into English. “This, my dear, is a Babbage Engine.”
That evening my father came to me as I sat in the garden, watching the koi swimming in a pond. He settled down next to me and tossed the koi a little bread. Unaware of the turmoil of the world around them, the koi rushed to the surface and gobbled down the bread before returning to their leisurely swimming.
“Toliver’s Japanese is as bad as your English.”
I frowned into the pool as my father spoke. “He is rude.”
“He is a barbarian. I have talked with many of them. They do not understand polite society. You will have to teach him better Japanese so that he is less rude.”
“Why have you asked me to do this?”
Father contemplated the pool a moment before answering. “The Americans ended their four year long war with themselves a year ago. While they were fighting, they invented many machines of war, and new ways to use the old ones. Hundreds of thousands of men were killed this way. Tell me, do you know how to fire a cannon at something you cannot see and hit it accurately?”
I shook my head. The idea was ridiculous. But my father asking made me feel uncertain with my assessment.
“The Americans can. Can you make a ship of iron that will bounce every cannon shot away, but will not sink under its own weight?”
Again I shook my head.
“The Americans can. So can Toliver’s English navy. And so can Tokugawa’s French allies. Can you make a ship fly as though it were nothing more than a paper lantern?
I turned and looked at my father. “The Americans can?”
“As the armies of their President Lincoln closed on the capital of their Virginia Han, giant ships flew over that capital and dropped fire and death from the sky. The city was destroyed, many thousands were killed, and their confederate army could do nothing to stop it. I think the Americans could invade Takagamahara if they wanted to.”
I turned back to the pond, not wanting to believe such a thing was possible.
“Do you know how they did these things?”
“With this Babbage Engine,” I whispered.
“Tokugawa has already purchased one of the American iron ships to use against the Choshu fleet. Satsuma and Choshu have purchased cannon and American gunners to teach them how to shoot at castles from behind hills. But the Americans will not sell us these air ships of theirs, and the British and French are too busy building their own to build any for us. We will have to learn to use these babbage engines to design air ships, and to learn to aim entire batteries of cannon at things we can’t see. We will have to design and build iron ships that can strike other iron ships at vulnerable points with every shot because babbage engines are telling the guns where to shoot. Do you understand?”
“Yes father. I understand why we need these things. But I still do not understand why it has to be me.”
Father turned to look at me. “It has to be you because you are the smartest of your generation I know. It has to be you because the young men of Asano are too eager to expel the barbarians to learn how to beat them with their own weapons. And it has to be you because you are samurai.”
I bowed my head, saying nothing.
“I spoke with Nagamichi. You will start learning to be a gunner tomorrow. As you learn to be a gunner and to use the babbage engine, I want you to think of how to use them together. Toliver tells me he thinks it can be done, but he does not know how.”
Father rose and looked up into the sky for a moment. “There is one more thing.” He bent down and set a few books beside me.
“What are these?”
“English books about machines and medicine.”
“I cannot read them.”
“Learn. Learn so that you will be able to design the ships we will use to drive these barbarians from our shores. And so that you will find ways to keep these barbarian’s diseases from killing wives and sons.”
I understood then. I rose, picking up the books and tucking them away in the obi of my kimono. “Yes father. I understand.”
To Chapter 2
To Prologue
There are those who say that the world changed when the black ships of Commodore Perry sailed up to Uraga. After powerful cannon of his ships opened, and exploding shells destroyed many buildings of that sleepy village 200 years of peace came to an end and brought us fifteen years of war.
For me the world has always been this way. I was born the daughter of samurai in Kaei 3 during the reign of Emperor Komei. My birth took place in the house of my father, which rested in the shadow of Hiroshima Castle. It was in this home that my mother and brothers of one of the many diseases the Barbarians had brought with them, a disease I barely survived myself.
No, for me the world changed the day my father brought a Babbage Engine home to Hiroshima Castle. I was thirteen years old.
On that day I was with many of the other girls of the Asano clan. We had been called out to practice with the naginato. I had been practicing with it since I was old enough to hold one.
“Hiroko-hime!”
My head turned. Asano Satoshi was the arms master of the castle, tasked with training everyone of noble birth in bushido. He was a hard man who demanded the best of everyone learning the way of the samurai, whether man or girl. His hard eyes bored into me as I bowed to him.
“Yes, Sensei.”
“Your father has returned to the castle. Show him what you have learned.”
Trying not to show my excitement, my eyes shifted from staring at Satoshi shoes to glance over towards the gate. My father was standing there, wearing his navy uniform. The crisp blue Western style jacket and gold epaulets looked strange to the older generations, but to me it was how my father always looked. I let a small smile escape my control.
The sudden sharp pain in my ear caused by Satoshi’s open palmed slap recaptured my ear. I made no move to show any acknowledgement of the pain. Instead I simply backed away from him to a safe distance and put on my protective mask.
Satoshi lowered his naginata, aiming it towards my middle. I retrieved my naganata and responded in kind, the tip of my blade just barely past his. There would be no ceremony, no judges. This was fighting, not sport.
The other girls stopped their training and gathered around to watch. I could hear them quietly placing bets as to how many moves it would take for Satoshi to defeat me. I resolved to disappoint all of their bets.
A sudden spiral and downward strike pushed my naginata downward. I immediately backed away, bringing my blade up to counter the follow up strike. The back step was necessary. Satoshi was bigger than I was and his blade was moving upward before mine. The extra space would be needed to give me time to push his thrust aside just before it struck.
Satoshi did not acknowledge my success, but simply settled into a stance, naganata returned to the ready.
Cautiously I began circling. I had been taught from the start that my smaller size and weaker arms would leave me at a disadvantage in a straightforward fight. Charging in and battering your opponent’s blade aside to create openings was a man’s way of fighting. For a woman the way to fight was to evade, to go around, to circle, and find the unguarded spots through sudden movement.
My moves were matched as Satoshi slowly turned in place to match me. Warily I watched him, ready for another lunge toward me. No such attack came. Older and more skilled, Satoshi was content to wait me out.
My blade rose to point straight up in the air, readiness for a downward strike. Satoshi immediately lunged forward, lowering his own blade towards my leg. His blade had less distance to go, and so I could not strike before his blow would land. Fortunately for me I had expected his response. I leaped upward, curling my leg up and out of the way, then landed to the side of the strike. I could hear cries of pleasure from the watching girls as they admired my move. I let this go past me, not wanting it to leave me feeling overconfident.
My blade came down to point towards the ground. His blade lowered as well, and we found ourselves close together, little more than an arms length between us. The hafts of our naginata pushed and strained against one another, each of us trying to push the other blade far enough aside that there could be no avoiding a sudden attack.
This was a struggle Satoshi would eventually win. My arms would tire quickly and his leverage would force my blade too far aside. This close, I would have no chance to step aside.
This close he would have little chance either. I waited until he threw a forceful slap towards my blade with his. Rather than fight it, I moved my blade with his, causing his blade to go much further out of line than he had expected. I spiraled mine upward and then back down, striking at his unguarded side. Now it was his turn to jump back, buying time to get his blade back to where it needed to be to block. I heard more cheers. The girls of the castle, at least, were being entertained. I tried not to think about what my father must have thought.
The distance had opened again. I began sidestepping again as Satoshi warily made a few half-hearted thrusts toward my mask. I brushed these aside with ease and continued watching for an opening.
Satoshi launched another strike, this time at my leg. I threw myself sideways, though this time I was not trying to get out of the way. This time Satoshi had not even tried to knock my blade aside first. My sudden step into the attack gave my blade greater strength and my block forced Satoshi’s attack far outside.
I did not give him time to withdraw his blade, but instead began almost running a circle around him, turning speed into strength and keeping his blade outside of where it needed to be. Satoshi stepped back to get out of the spiral and reclaim his blade.
Feeling his movement, I followed inward, trying not to let him recover. In doing so I was not able to continue my sideways run, and in that I made the mistake.
The lessening of pressure on his blade was all Satoshi needed. He suddenly reversed his arms. The swing cause his blade to point behind him, and the butt of the weapon towards me. He haulted his backward movement with a sudden leap forward, slamming the butt hard into my chest. I heard gasps from the watchers, but my attention was not on it.
The pain of the blow made me cry out and I nearly dropped my blade. This brief lapse was enough. Satoshi reversed the weapon again, whipping it around in a sweep as the wooden practice blade struck the side of my mask.
I found myself on the ground, my head pounding and my vision filled with fireflies. My chest where he had struck me was throbbing. On top of these things, in my fall I had landed on my naganata, and the shaft was now being painfully forced down upon the fingers of the hand that still gripped it.
In the silence that followed as all the girls looked at me Satoshi lowered his gard and straightened. “Stand up, oujo-sama.”
I slowly complied, my body uncertain it understood the instructions. I removed my mask, ignoring the undignified sweat and pain-caused tears running down my face, then turned toward Satoshi.
Satoshi gave a quick nod of approval. “Good. Now go attend your father.”
I bowed, wobbling the slightest bit. I set down the mask and naginata with the other training equipment along side of the wall. Behind me girls were settling their bets with cheerful dismay for the losers and equally cheerful gloating for the winners. I could hear their scuttling as Satoshi shouted at them to continue practicing.
My father had remained standing by the gate during the fight. I walked over to him, wanting to impress him with how mature I had become. Only a year ago I might still have run to him as though I were just a child, tripping over the hem of my hakama.
“Hiroko.” I would have heard the smile in my father’s voice even if I had not been able to see it on his beardless face. “How are you, daughter?”
I stopped and bowed low before him. “This one’s head hurts, honored father.”
“So formal?” Father asked me.
“This one is a grown woman,” I replied, straightening. “Proper behavior is expected now.”
“I suppose that means I need to find you a husband now.” Father shrugged. “I guess it can’t be helped.”
“I’m not ready for that yet!” I objected.
My father laughed. “Then we shall have to delay a year or two, I think. Though we should not delay too long. You are already fifteen. Come with me. I have something I want to show you.” Father turned and began walking towards the keep. I hurried to his side.
“Is it true that Tokugawa Iemochi is preparing another expedition against Choshu?” I asked. While I had remained isolated in the castle my father had been away. Nagamichi Asano, the Daimyo of Aki and Bingo had been sending my father to Choshu for several years. After American, French, and English steamships had destroyed several Japanese warships as well as the port of Kagoshima, the Choshu clan had become deeply interested in modernization. Nagamichi was very interested in this himself, and my father, Asano Ieyasu was one of the men he’d sent to observe and learn. Who better to ask about the rumors I’d been hearing?
My father grunted. “It is true. Tokugawa has returned to Kyoto to raise and train an army. He has purchased weapons from the French to arm them, and has French advisors to train that army.”
“Barbarians,” I replied. “Ever since they helped Satsuma put down the last uprising…”
“Satsuma is no longer the enemy of Choshu,” Father interrupted. “They have privately agreed to help Choshu gain arms and training. I have just returned from Nagasaki, where Choshu has bought weapons to face this Tokugawa army.”
“But that means Tokugawa cannot win. He only defeated the last rebellion because Satsuma was on his side.”
Father turned to look at me and smiled. “You have always been an intelligent child. You are right. The next revolt may be the last. That is why I am here.”
I flushed under Father’s approval. “Does this have anything to do with why you wanted to show me something?”
Father laughed. “Enough about that. Tell me what has been happening in your life since I have been gone.”
My curiosity frustrated I complied with Father’s instructions. I knew he would not tell me until he was ready, and I did not wish to show disrespect that would reflect poorly on him. I quietly spoke of my studies of courtly poetry and calligraphy, of naginata and yumi, and about my desire to learn gunnery.
Through this recital, my father listened quietly. As I slowed, not sure what else to speak of, my father grunted. “What about learning to speak and read English?”
I tried very hard to remain demure and proper. “Father. This one does not wish to learn that barbaric tongue.”
“You will learn it,” Father replied sternly. “Do you not wish to revere the Emperor?”
I wilted a little inside. “Yes. But this one also wishes to expel the barbarians.”
“So do I. It is what the Emperor called for two years ago, and I am Samurai. But a Samurai knows that to defeat one’s enemy, one must know the enemy. If we are going to expel these barbarians we must learn from them. That is the way of Bushido. That is what it means to be Samurai.” He looked at me out of the corner of his eye as we entered the keep. “Are you Samurai?”
“Yes father.” I hid a sigh. “I will keep studying it.”
“Good. In that case I will ask Nagamichi if he will allow you to study gunnery as well.”
My heart gave a leap. “Thank you for your honoring this one so.”
Father shook his head. “We will need gunners in the time to come. Even girls. Here, what I want to show you is this way.”
We climbed a set of stairs, and then a second, winding our way up into the keep. There on the third floor I was led to a room whose broad windows had been opened. I could see Hiroshima stretching out on the plains surrounding the castle.
Completely filling one side of the room I could see a thing made of brass. It looked like a strange collection of prayer wheels that had been made too short and then married to a loom. I could see gears, wheels, cranks and rods laid out in a pattern that was half design and half madness.
So enraptured was I by the sight I didn’t even see the man standing next to it. His presence only registered when he stepped forward and addressed my father in the English I had been learning in spite of my objections. I listened closely after hearing him call my father’s name, but was only able to understand about half of it. Whatever the full meaning was, I knew his pleasure had something to do with this machine.
“Mr. Toliver,” my father replied with a slight bow. Then he switched to Japanese. “I must report to the Daimyo. This is my only daughter, Hiroko. She will be taking care of you for now.”
I studied the man before me. He had the overly built features of the foreign barbarians. A massive nose dominated the center of his sharp, angular face. Strangely open eyes sat to either side, a peculiar blue color showing between simple eyelids. His yellow hair was combed and cut in a way that was longer than those of Japanese men. It looked strange and unkempt to me.
His body was almost as tall as the tallest man in the castle. The top of my head would barely have reached his shoulder. The clothing he covered that frame could not hide his thinness though, even though he was wearing far more layers of the West’s strange clothing than I thought the weather made wise.
I could not guess his age, he looked so strange. Not knowing what to say I did what I had always been taught was proper. I bowed and said nothing.
Mr. Toliver gave me a fast, strained smile, then looked back at my father. In a very slow and difficult tongue he replied in Japanese. “Thank you. When will the samurai come to learn?”
My father gestured towards me. “That is her. She is your assistant and your student.”
I could see Mr. Toliver’s face grow angry even as I felt my own start to twist into confusion. His voice crackled, this time in the English he had first used. This time I understood every word. “You told me I would have a samurai.”
My father glanced at me, then back to Mr. Toliver. “She is Samurai.” With that he turned and left the room, leaving me alone with an angry English Barbarian.
We stood there for more than a minute in silence, I staring at the floor, he staring at the doorway. Eventually he turned towards me. Again he spoke in English, sounding annoyed, though I could not understand what he meant. Then he spoke in his rough Japanese.
“Remind me again what your name was?”
“This one is named Hiroko, Toliver-sama.”
“Hiroko-san, can you learn to use this?” He gestured at the machine.
I bristled at his rudeness. I was not some common peasant woman, and should not be addressed like one. Still, my father had made his intentions clear enough, and I would not disgrace him by disobeying before this brute. “What is it, Toliver-sama?”
The man slipped once more into English. “This, my dear, is a Babbage Engine.”
That evening my father came to me as I sat in the garden, watching the koi swimming in a pond. He settled down next to me and tossed the koi a little bread. Unaware of the turmoil of the world around them, the koi rushed to the surface and gobbled down the bread before returning to their leisurely swimming.
“Toliver’s Japanese is as bad as your English.”
I frowned into the pool as my father spoke. “He is rude.”
“He is a barbarian. I have talked with many of them. They do not understand polite society. You will have to teach him better Japanese so that he is less rude.”
“Why have you asked me to do this?”
Father contemplated the pool a moment before answering. “The Americans ended their four year long war with themselves a year ago. While they were fighting, they invented many machines of war, and new ways to use the old ones. Hundreds of thousands of men were killed this way. Tell me, do you know how to fire a cannon at something you cannot see and hit it accurately?”
I shook my head. The idea was ridiculous. But my father asking made me feel uncertain with my assessment.
“The Americans can. Can you make a ship of iron that will bounce every cannon shot away, but will not sink under its own weight?”
Again I shook my head.
“The Americans can. So can Toliver’s English navy. And so can Tokugawa’s French allies. Can you make a ship fly as though it were nothing more than a paper lantern?
I turned and looked at my father. “The Americans can?”
“As the armies of their President Lincoln closed on the capital of their Virginia Han, giant ships flew over that capital and dropped fire and death from the sky. The city was destroyed, many thousands were killed, and their confederate army could do nothing to stop it. I think the Americans could invade Takagamahara if they wanted to.”
I turned back to the pond, not wanting to believe such a thing was possible.
“Do you know how they did these things?”
“With this Babbage Engine,” I whispered.
“Tokugawa has already purchased one of the American iron ships to use against the Choshu fleet. Satsuma and Choshu have purchased cannon and American gunners to teach them how to shoot at castles from behind hills. But the Americans will not sell us these air ships of theirs, and the British and French are too busy building their own to build any for us. We will have to learn to use these babbage engines to design air ships, and to learn to aim entire batteries of cannon at things we can’t see. We will have to design and build iron ships that can strike other iron ships at vulnerable points with every shot because babbage engines are telling the guns where to shoot. Do you understand?”
“Yes father. I understand why we need these things. But I still do not understand why it has to be me.”
Father turned to look at me. “It has to be you because you are the smartest of your generation I know. It has to be you because the young men of Asano are too eager to expel the barbarians to learn how to beat them with their own weapons. And it has to be you because you are samurai.”
I bowed my head, saying nothing.
“I spoke with Nagamichi. You will start learning to be a gunner tomorrow. As you learn to be a gunner and to use the babbage engine, I want you to think of how to use them together. Toliver tells me he thinks it can be done, but he does not know how.”
Father rose and looked up into the sky for a moment. “There is one more thing.” He bent down and set a few books beside me.
“What are these?”
“English books about machines and medicine.”
“I cannot read them.”
“Learn. Learn so that you will be able to design the ships we will use to drive these barbarians from our shores. And so that you will find ways to keep these barbarian’s diseases from killing wives and sons.”
I understood then. I rose, picking up the books and tucking them away in the obi of my kimono. “Yes father. I understand.”
To Chapter 2