The Emperor's Men 7: Rising Sun. Dirk van den BoomЧитать онлайн книгу.

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1

      Yumiko Hara tugged at her son’s lapel, though everyone in the room knew that no power in the world could perfect the fit of the uniform’s jacket. However, this didn’t prevent the older woman from trying again and again, and her son Aritomo allowed her to do so. He knew that this activity helped her to hold back the tears that would shortly be released once he stepped out of the small house to begin his trip to Yokosuka. His mother would cry, his two sisters would cry, and the only one who would remain silent was his father, at least as long as everyone watched.

      Aritomo looked out of the corner of his eye to the left and right. In the small living room, on the sofa, directly under the great portrait of the Tenno, his sisters Akemi and Beniko crouched. Akemi’s wedding had been the occasion for his return home. Normally, a young officer of his age hardly got any leave, but his older sister’s wedding had been occasion enough to soften the heart of a supervisor, giving him the necessary permission. Certainly, the upcoming mission was also important. As with all maiden voyages, a lot could go wrong, and this was even more true for …

      His gaze wandered, clinging to the portrait of his grandparents, two fading photographs that barely discerned anything, and then there was the small altar designed to honor his ancestors. The living room was the largest room in the small house, but when the entire family gathered, it was quite full.

      Existence has always been like that. The father’s rigid gaze, full of expectations and observing if everyone followed consistent rules, had determined his life. Full of discipline. The care of the mother, overwhelming when the father was not looking, the only way for her to express anything other than obedience to her husband. Full of love. The sister, intimidated, with her eyes steadily turned to the ground, flinching when the father raised her voice. Or the hand. Full of violence. The old furniture with its smell of wood, the odor of shavings and remnants from the workshop, strangely mixed with the scents of the kitchen, all put together, side by side, with only the father’s chair as the only comfortable seat on which no one except him was allowed to settle. Full of hierarchies.

      The pictures of the Emperor. On each wall one. Almost of it real size, framed.

      Full of respect.

      Maybe it was silly that Aritomo Hara had been able to free himself from this confinement by joining the fleet, a hierarchy as crushing as his father’s rule over his family but promising the prospect of liberation, he hoped. Climbing up the ranks, gaining his own command, and finally able to be his own man, to stretch his neck out of the narrowness and out of submission by shouldering his own responsibility.

      And now his first, the most important mission, was about to begin, and parting from the family was not bitter; he looked at it like a release from jail, warm as he was to his sisters.

      Aritomo urged himself to wipe