“Nagasaki is in Hizen Province, on the western side of Kyushu—and Hizen is on the Ariake Sea, like Chikugo, so it will be much easier to get to there,” Junichiro added, and with a finger dipped in river water sketched him a very rough shape on the dry part of the dragon’s back, which shortly evaporated but left Laurence with the comfort, not inconsiderable for a man who was used to knowing his precise latitude and longitude at nearly every moment, of having some approximation of his bearings.
Junichiro said it should require the entire course of the day, to see them to the shore of the inland sea; Laurence settled himself low in his basket and prepared only to wait: the rocking motion of their journey was familiar, and he was ready to yield himself to sleep when cries from the bank started him up. He looked and saw a small crowd of people urgently waving a banner bearing several large-painted characters in red, which they had been in the process of rigging out on the riverbank from a signpost.
“Oh,” Junichiro said, taken aback, and Laurence, looking over, wondered if this were to their account—couriers, he supposed, might have carried around a warning to be posted to try to capture them. But after a brief hesitation, Junichiro reached down into the water and tugged on one of Kiyo’s tendrils.
Her head burst from the surface, rivulets streaming away, and the people on the riverbank renewed all their clamor; she did not hesitate for an instant herself, but immediately shifted her course out of the river’s current towards them, and as they neared Laurence could see the chief of the delegation, as he supposed, bowing deeply before they had even come to shore.
Kiyo climbed out partway onto the shore to speak with this man, balancing herself on forelegs in a pose reminscent of the great sea-dragon which Laurence had seen. The conversation, naturally, proceeded entirely in Japanese. Laurence crouched in his basket and tried as best he could to avoid any notice, which effort met with success only because no-one present showed the least interest in Junichiro or himself; all their attention was fixed on the dragon.
It struck him abruptly that Kiyo also had no captain, no master; as neither had Lady Arikawa nor Lord Jinai, nor even the light-weight who had ferried about the magistrate and his servants. Laurence was startled, and startled even more that he had not even noticed it before this moment; he had thought nothing of it at all.
It ought to have been certain proof of an untamed ferocity. Dragons required a captain, harness, crew, all the forms of control, to be tolerated anywhere near settled country, or they would rampage and destroy; any beast not so restrained could only be penned in breeding grounds and bribed with cattle to remain there. So Laurence had always supposed—so he had always known. But even as he articulated to himself this commonplace understanding, it rang false. Proof to the contrary was before him, of course—but that should have seemed peculiar, disconcerting, and did not.
He had not managed to explain it to himself when the discussion concluded and Kiyo turned her head over towards them and said, “Down you get!”
Junichiro obeyed at once, and leapt to unbuckle the baskets; Laurence had scarcely any alternative but to follow his example, and hide his face from the expectant delegation by keeping it turned towards her side. They at least did not immediately seize him. Unburdened, Kiyo plunged back into the river and opened her jaws: she began at once to swell up into that wide immensity which Laurence had witnessed the previous evening. This time when she had reached her full size she did not bring the water forth again, but swaying and ponderous dragged herself up onto the shore, and in a strangely gargled voice gave direction. The delegation all turned and set out along a track that led away from the river, carrying their banner with them.
“What is happening?” Laurence asked Junichiro quietly, as they trailed in Kiyo’s wake; but he might have reserved his questions. The path turned quickly out of the trees and opened onto a truly splendid wide-open vista: a series of very wide terraces falling away from them down a sloping hillside, each full of water and faintly green with the earliest sprouting of rice plants, though surely the season was too early. There was yet a sharp chill of frost in the air, which Laurence thought must be inimical to any farming, although only to be expected at this time of year.
At the summit stood a great stone basin with a wide irrigation channel running away from it down the hill: peering over, Laurence could see more channels leading to either side into each terrace. The delegation here broke up, and most of the number went running swiftly down narrow pathways along the hillside, calling notice: workers in the fields, who were mostly busy staggering under yokes of water-buckets, raised their heads from beneath wide-brimmed hats and, seeing the dragon, hurried to take themselves out of the terraces until they were lining the hillside paths.