“You met him at Uraga—against my counsel, but you did all the same,” the Chief Councillor remarks tiredly, massaging his temples. “Tell me what he was like then, this young prince, won’t you, my lord?” A tall blonde boy, the elderly magistrate of Uraga had written in his letter, arrogant and impudent, with four great ships. None of his men seem to know what he really is, save for the Commodore; he looks no older than my youngest son who is but twenty-one. Then, the Councillor’s mind drifts to the stories that had flowed to the inner circles of the shogunate years earlier, from the Dutch ships bringing news of the fate of the once-great Qing Empire. Of the massive procession of steamships sailing up the Yangtze river, of humiliation and firepower beyond all they could dream of. “Are his eyes perhaps green, like his father’s?”
“No. They’re blue,” the kami replies, a hint of grim humour now in his gaze. “Like a Siamese cat—he certainly looked as smug and satisfied as one that had snatched a platter of fresh fish.” His lips thin. “I am a frog in the well, he says, wrongfully secluding myself from international commerce and what he calls the family of nations.” Then, a considered pause. “He could speak Dutch, and even some basic Canton dialect, from his time trading fur and ginseng in China. Rude and arrogant he may be, but he is not at all simple-minded. He is restless—and hungry to grow out of his father’s shadow.”
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