He was not angry, Taniko saw, just sad and tired. “What is wrong, Kiyosi-san?”

“I have come to realize that I will never know peace. All my life I’ve been fighting my father’s battles, and still there are more battles to fight, and there will never be any end to it as long as I live.”

“Give Motofusa a chance to apologize. When he realizes what his people have done, he will probably regret it.” Actually, remembering the smug face at the window of the carriage of state, she could not imagine Motofusa apologizing for anything.

Kiyosi shook his head. “My father would accept no apology from Motofusa. And it’s not just he. Yukio, the youngest son of Muratomo no Domei, has reappeared. He is raising an army in Kyushu. Our spies say he wants to sail across the sea to fight for the Emperor of China. My father is sure Yukio wants to raise another Muratomo rebellion. So I must go to Kyushu and crush Yukio at once.”

Still shaken by the carriage brawl, still stunned by the realization that she had killed a man, Taniko felt a new fear clutch at her heart. “Must you go?”

“I am commander-in-chief of the army. I have advised my father to let Yukio go. All the malcontents in the Sacred Islands would flock to his banner, and we’d be rid of them once and for all. We wouldn’t have to lose a man. But my father will not be satisfied unless blood is shed. No victory is real to him unless men die for it.” The anger in his face faded and was replaced by a deep weariness.

“Oh, Taniko, I remember Yukio so well—that bright-eyed boy who used to play in the gardens of the Rokuhara. Every time I looked at him I felt a pang, knowing it was I who beheaded his father. I wondered if he knew it, and I wondered what he thought of me. He wasn’t much older than our Atsue is now, the first time I saw him. And now my father commands me to bring Yukio’s head back to Heian Kyo.”

Taniko held his hand while the carriage trundled along and he, in turn, patted Atsue’s head. “I’m so tired, Taniko. So tired of it all. How terrible it is that the fighting cannot stop.”

From the pillow book of Shima Taniko:

Last night my lord Kiyosi came to me and told me, with no great satisfaction, that the carriage of the Regent Motofusa was attacked by a troop of samurai as his procession was on its way to the Special Festival at Iwashimizu. The samurai killed eight of Motofusa’s retainers, cut the oxen loose from his carriage and drove them off.

Motofusa’s carriage was too heavy for his remaining men to pull. He could have waited for more oxen or a palanquin to be brought, but he was afraid for his life, and so he walked home through the streets like any commoner and missed the ceremony. He has thus been publicly shamed.

Since Iwashimizu is one of Hachiman’s shrines, and Hachiman is the Muratomo patron, Sogamori thinks that in some obscure way he is hurting the Muratomo. By offending the god of war? This seems to me a dangerous way to get at one’s enemies.

Kiyosi brought a new flute for Atsue, a family heirloom called Little Branch, which has been his own favourite flute until now. At least, Kiyosi says, the Regent has paid many times over for the death of our bannerman and the fright he gave our little Atsue. Even the Regent, formerly the most feared official in the land, who once controlled the words and actions of the Emperor, can be chastised by the Takashi.

Each night before I fall asleep, even when I lie in Kiyosi’s arms, the face of the man I killed appears in my mind. His dead eyes seem to look at me and not to look at me. And in the darkness and silence of my bedchamber I feel a horror in the pit of my stomach. I have done a dreadful thing. Killed a man. There is blood on my hands and they will never be clean.

More than that, every night I see the look that was in the eyes of my little Atsue after he had seen me stab the bannerman to death. He knows now that his mother can kill. A nine-year-old boy should not have to live with such a memory. I see my own horror at what I have done reflected in his eyes. It is as Jebu told me. We are all part of one Self.

If that is so, the bannerman was I, and I was killing myself. Indeed, he asked me for death. The samurai often kill themselves or ask others to kill them, to avoid capture, mutilation and shame. What I did was not horrible. It was a mercy. Yet, the fact that I have killed another human being fills me with terror, because it is such a vast thing, such a final thing. Whether I have done it for right reasons or for wrong ones, it is taking for myself the powers of a kami. Such an act should be approached with fear, as one approaches a very holy place.

My Jebu—is he still mine after all these years?—has killed and killed again. By now he must have lost count of the numbers he has killed. I was there the first time Jebu killed a man. I remember how he stood looking down at the bodies of those he had killed for a long time after the fight was over. What was he thinking? I wish I could talk to him now.

I’ve asked Kiyosi how he feels about killing, but he doesn’t want to talk about it. He says the part of his mind that thinks about killing is sealed off when he is with me.

How lonely I will be when Kiyosi is gone campaigning in Kyushu.

-Third Month, twelfth day

YEAR OF THE HORSE

“Don’t distress yourself, my lady,” the bannerman said. “Don’t spoil your pretty cloak with an old man’s blood.”

The man had survived two great rebellions, a hero, only to die in the mud after a sordid little carriage brawl. “I’m sorry,” said Taniko. “I’m so sorry.” She pillowed his head on her lap.

“Don’t feel bad about me, my lady,” the old man said, trying to smile. “I’ve got the same sort of wound I’d give myself if I’d tried to kill myself in the samurai way.”

Taniko raised her head at the rumble of wooden wheels. Far above her the Regent’s state carriage lumbered past, a rolling palace. When it went by, she saw Motofusa himself looking out the rear window at her. With his thin, small face and sparse moustache he looked very much like Horigawa. He wore the tall black hat of office. He looked at her with a faint, superior smile.

Defiantly, Taniko met his gaze. By your courtiers’ standards it is shameful for me to look you in the eyes, Motofusa, she tried to say with her gaze. But I want you to see the hatred in my eyes, and to show you that your courtiers’ world is passing away.

In response to her stare Motofusa’s grin broadened, showing teeth dyed black after the fashion of the Court. He closed the curtains of his carriage.

Many of the Takashi samurai lay on the ground, badly beaten. A few appeared to be unconscious. Those on their feet looked angry, frustrated and ashamed, all at once.

Taniko turned to one of them. “Go to Lord Kiyosi. Tell him what has happened, and tell him we will wait for him here.”

She looked down at the old samurai whose grizzled head lay in her lap. “Are you in great pain?”

He gave her a smile that was really a grimace. “Of course not, my lady. But I shall not live. You could do me a great service.”

“Anything.”

“None of the men is armed. Except you.”

“I? I’m not armed.” Then she looked down at her hand that was still holding the dagger she had taken from the courtier. “I’ll give this to one of the men and he can help you.”

The deep-set eyes looked into Taniko’s. “I would like you to do it, my lady, if you can bring yourself to. My lord Kiyosi is not here. You stand in his place. It is much to ask, I know.”

Taniko hesitated. I must do it well. He must not suffer. I cannot say no. “Yes. You must tell me what to do.”

His fingers feebly tapped a spot below his rib cage. “Strike here. As hard as you can. Drive upwards towards the heart.”

Taniko raised the gold-hilted ceremonial knife high, gripping it with both hands. Slowly she lowered it till the point touched the place he had indicated. Then she raised the knife again. Am I strong enough?

She said, “Say with me, ‘Homage to Amida Buddha.’”

“Homage to Amida Buddha,” the old man whispered.

With all her might, not thinking, letting the Self do it, as Jebu would say, she brought the dagger down. She felt it meet flesh, but the force of her thrust and the sharpness of the blade pierced the flesh, and her fists struck against his chest.

She looked down. Please be dead. His eyes were open, and they did not blink. She had done it. She had given him what he asked for. She had stopped his heart. She said again, “Homage to Amida Buddha.” Gently, with the index finger of her right hand, she pulled each of his eyelids down. Slowly she eased the grey head to the ground and stood up.

She looked around. A small group of Takashi samurai were standing around her in a circle. When she looked at them, they bowed deeply from the waist. She handed the dagger to one of them and looked around for Atsue.

He was standing beside one of the samurai, clinging to the man’s leg. When she turned to him, he took a step back. She held out her arms, but he did not move. She started to go to him.

Terror filled his eyes. “You killed him. There’s blood all over you.”

She looked down. Her bright yellow cloak was speckled with blood. She hadn’t realized the old samurai had bled so much. She felt that she must wash the fear of her from Atsue’s eyes, or it would remain there for ever. Determinedly, she strode over to him, took the whimpering boy in her arms and lifted him up.

Kiyosi himself came soon in one of the Takashi’s finest Chinese-style carriages. It was surrounded by a hundred Takashi samurai in full armour. Kiyosi gave orders that the body of the bannerman was to be borne in state on a cart to the Rokuhara. He helped Taniko and Atsue into the carriage, climbed in himself, and sat Atsue on his lap. He patted Taniko’s hand.

“You and the boy suffer because my father must have more and more power,” Kiyosi said sadly. “Motofusa is our enemy because he wants Prince Mochihito, rather than my sister’s husband, Prince Takakura, to succeed to the throne. Now we must avenge Motofusa’s insult to our family. So it goes on and on.”

He was not angry, Taniko saw, just sad and tired. “What is wrong, Kiyosi-san?”

“I have come to realize that I will never know peace. All my life I’ve been fighting my father’s battles, and still there are more battles to fight, and there will never be any end to it as long as I live.”

“Give Motofusa a chance to apologize. When he realizes what his people have done, he will probably regret it.” Actually, remembering the smug face at the window of the carriage of state, she could not imagine Motofusa apologizing for anything.

“They’re going to fight us, my lady, no matter what we say.”

“Then the disgrace will be upon them. Remember, the honour of the house of Takashi is involved.”

The bannerman went back to the Fujiwara chamberlain and repeated the message.

“Nonsense!” the chamberlain retorted. He turned to the men holding the oxen. “Push the carriage out of the gateway.”

The four men in black were now joined by others carrying naginatas. At the sight of the deadly blades a chill went through Taniko. The police who had been guarding the gate had long since disappeared. Taniko looked over at Motofusa’s carriage, which was still slowly advancing. There were at least fifty men in Motofusa’s entourage. They were not samurai, but armed courtiers, the remnants of the old army of aristocrats and conscripts that had policed the empire before the rise of the samurai. They didn’t really know how to fight, but they knew how to hate, and the small band of Takashi men they faced was unarmed.

The courtiers pushed against the head of the ox, while the banner-man and the Takashi samurai tried to hold the animal where it was. A shoving match broke out. One of the courtiers fell. He rose up shouting curses, his black robe spattered with brown mud. Now the men with naginatas moved forward, holding the long poles with the blade ends sheathed and towards themselves, like fighting sticks. Taniko felt a little relief at this. At least they were not prepared to kill, though it might later come to that.

One courtier swung his pole and caught a samurai on the side of the head. Taniko winced at the thud of the pole against the man’s skull. The samurai slowly sank to the ground.

“Kill them! Kill them!” Young Atsue had stuck his head out through the curtains and was cheering the Takashi samurai. Taniko pulled him back. The child had never seen bloodshed, but he was full of stories of glorious Takashi victories over pirates and the Muratomo, and he was wild with the excitement of his first battle.

But the courtiers’ naginata poles rose and fell furiously, doing brutal work on the samurai. Several of the samurai were wrestling with the courtiers, trying to get the naginatas away from them. If they did, they would surely start to use the blades.

Then stark terror seized Taniko as, with a sudden rush, the courtiers attacked the carriage itself. A pale face, distorted with rage, shoved itself through the window curtains.

“You will make way for Prince Motofusa, Takashi garbage!”

Atsue struck at the man with the only weapon he had handy, his flute. The man jumped back as the flute thumped against the bridge of his nose.

The carriage began to rock and topple. Taniko screamed and took the boy in her arms as she felt the world giving way around her. She had never known such panic since Horigawa had snatched her newborn daughter from her arms and run off to kill her. Now another child of hers was in danger. She and the boy and all the rich furnishings of the carriage were falling, falling. With a crash that knocked the breath out of her, she landed on a side of the carriage that had now become its bottom. The wooden frame creaked and broke in several places. She looked at Atsue to see if his arms and legs were all right. The boy stared back at her, terrified. He was no longer enjoying the adventure.

The carriage shook under heavy blows. Taniko screamed as she saw a naginata blade bite through the wood. Scrambling to her feet and pulling Atsue with her, she made a dive for the door of the carriage.

She found herself in the centre of the melée. The courtiers were hysterical with rage now, and one seized her and tore at her clothes.

“Here is the bitch who cuckolds Horigawa and whores for Kiyosi,” he screamed. The courtier flung Taniko from him so that she fell into the mud. Others were flailing at the carriage with their naginatas. Feet trampled her. Wildly she tried to find Atsue.

The boy was struggling with a black-robed courtier, the same man he had struck with his flute. The man was tearing the flute out of Atsue’s hands. Getting it away from the screaming child, he broke it over his knee.

“Look!” he shouted to the other courtiers, holding Atsue by the shoulder. “Dress the little rustic bastard in fine clothes and give him lessons on the flute and he thinks he lives above the clouds. Go back to the rice paddies, you vermin!” And he kicked the sobbing Atsue into a mud puddle.

Taniko sprang at the man. She saw a little ceremonial dagger dangling from his black sash by a gold chain. She pulled it loose and drew her arm back to stab the courtier.

Someone seized her from behind and pushed her to one side, firmly but gently. It was the bannerman.

“Don’t dirty your hands, my lady.” Still unarmed, he gave the courtier who had kicked Atsue a chop against the side of the neck that send him rolling in the dirt, unconscious.

Taniko pulled Atsue into her arms, grabbing him up as she saw a naginata blade slice into the veteran’s belly. The old man gave a grunt of pain and fell into the dirt, his blood pooling the ground.

The violet-robed chamberlain who had stopped them stepped forward with a grim smile. “Get out of the way, the rest of you bumpkins, or you’ll share his fate.”

The overturned carriage was a heap of kindling now. Even its wheels had been chopped to bits. The ox had run off. Contemptuously the courtiers pushed the wreckage to one side of the gateway as the carriage of Regent Motofusa continued its lordly advance.

Taniko knelt in the dirt beside the bannerman. She gagged when she saw his wound. Through his rose-coloured tunic his stomach had been slashed across. There was blood everywhere.

“Don’t distress yourself, my lady,” the bannerman said. “Don’t spoil your pretty cloak with an old man’s blood.”

The man had survived two great rebellions, a hero, only to die in the mud after a sordid little carriage brawl. “I’m sorry,” said Taniko. “I’m so sorry.” She pillowed his head on her lap.

That night, when Moko was through working on the granary, Jebu told him of Yukio’s decision. Moko smiled broadly.

“Long ago, shiké, when we first met, I told you I would go to China with you if need be. Now, even though I have found the joys of love here in Hakata, I am ready to prove that I mean what I promised.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

The ox-drawn carriage rumbled down the rocky road from Mount Hiei. Before it walked ten unarmed samurai, while six more brought up the rear. In the front of the procession walked an ageing banner-man, an honoured veteran of the rebellions of past years, many times wounded. He carried a red Takashi banner. The dragon portrayed on the banner was at rest, indicating that this was not a war flag, but one to be displayed peacefully on family occasions.

In the carriage Atsue, aged nine, blew idle notes on his flute. He and Taniko were returning from his regular music lesson at the temple on Mount Hiei.

“I wish the koto was small enough to carry with us so I could practise on it now,” he said.

“Some of the country folk play a little stringed instrument called the samisen,” said Taniko. “I could get one of those for you.”

“I don’t want anything from country people,” said the boy. “Country people are stupid and ugly and rude. I don’t want to be anything like them.”

“I’m from the country.”

“No one would know it if you didn’t tell them, Mother. You’re a fine lady.”

Smiling, Taniko peered through the curtained window of the palm-leaf carriage. The procession had already entered the great gateway in the north wall of the city. The small group of Imperial police officers guarding the gate saluted the Takashi banner as the veteran carried it through. Now the carriage passed into the shadow of the gateway.

Suddenly, someone shouted at them to stop. The voice was angry, peremptory.

“Remove this carriage from the gate. Make way for the Imperial Regent, His Highness Fujiwara no Motofusa.” The carriage came to a halt.

Taniko looked through the front curtains. The shouting man was wearing rich, orchid-coloured chamberlain’s robes. Four other men in black silk robes, wearing the long, slender swords of the Court in black and gold scabbards, had seized the head of the ox and halted its slow forward pace.

The bannerman, holding his staff as if there were a naginata blade at the end of it instead of a square of red cloth, cried, “This carriage carries Shima no Atsue, son of the esteemed Takashi no Kiyosi, commander-in-chief of the Imperial army, and grandson of the noble Takashi no Sogamori, Imperial chancellor and victor over the Emperor’s rebellious enemies.” The bannerman made it sound as if all those august personages were riding in the carriage with the child Atsue, Taniko thought.

More armed men in black silk surrounded the bannerman. The unarmed Takashi samurai moved closer to the carriage. Looking out the other window, Taniko saw that another carriage, this one three times the height of a man, ornamented with elaborate scrollwork and magnificent black and gold lacquer panelling, and drawn by two white oxen, was moving majestically towards the gate. Taniko’s carriage was right in its path, and one or the other would have to give way.

She knew what was going to happen. It was inevitable. A carriage brawl. Heian Kyo had been notorious for these incidents for hundreds of years. Some of them even took place on the palace grounds.

“The family claims of the occupant of this carriage are ridiculous,” said the chamberlain who had stopped them. “Prince Motofusa is the Regent and a Fujiwara.”

The Fujiwara. So civilized and so old. And now so envious of the rising, vigorous Takashi who were shouldering them aside, who had cut off the heads of two Fujiwara princes during the rebellions and who even had adopted the old Fujiwara tactic of marrying into the Imperial family. The two most powerful men in Heian Kyo these days were Fujiwara no Motofusa, the Regent, with his high office, his wealth and his ancient family, and Takashi no Sogamori, the chancellor, with his high office and tens of thousands of samurai at his back. Perhaps Motofusa had chosen this moment for a test of strength.

“Come here,” Taniko called to the bannerman in the strongest voice she could muster.

The old samurai limped over to Taniko’s carriage. The Regent’s chamberlain squinted at the curtains to see who else was in the carriage with Sogamori’s grandson.

“Under no circumstances are you to back down,” said Taniko firmly. “The Regent holds a higher office than this boy, but we are already in the gateway, and it would be unseemly and dishonourable for Lord Sogamori’s grandson to back out of the gate. Tell the chamberlain that we would yield place if we had arrived at the gate at the same time as His Highness, but under the circumstances we respectfully beg leave to continue through. Tell him that.”

“They’re going to fight us, my lady, no matter what we say.”

“Then the disgrace will be upon them. Remember, the honour of the house of Takashi is involved.”

The bannerman went back to the Fujiwara chamberlain and repeated the message.

“Nonsense!” the chamberlain retorted. He turned to the men holding the oxen. “Push the carriage out of the gateway.”

The four men in black were now joined by others carrying naginatas. At the sight of the deadly blades a chill went through Taniko. The police who had been guarding the gate had long since disappeared. Taniko looked over at Motofusa’s carriage, which was still slowly advancing. There were at least fifty men in Motofusa’s entourage. They were not samurai, but armed courtiers, the remnants of the old army of aristocrats and conscripts that had policed the empire before the rise of the samurai. They didn’t really know how to fight, but they knew how to hate, and the small band of Takashi men they faced was unarmed.

Eisen said, “Long ago men whose names we no longer know went into the forests and up to the tops of mountains and thought about why people are not happy. And they came to the same conclusion: we should seek happiness in nothing at all. The Brahmans of India learned from those original sages. The Buddha and Lao Tzu both restated their teachings. The same wisdom is the heart of the lore of Zinja and Zen monks. I find there is much similarity between our two paths. Only, if you will forgive my saying so, we part company on the matter of warfare. We students of Zen believe that violence is an obstacle to enlightenment. The Zinja do not hesitate to kill or injure others.”

“Like you, we seek enlightenment,” Jebu said, “but we do it through the practice of the arts of warfare. We learn to be forgetful of the conscious mind. We learn to love our opponents and not to fear death. Even the samurai, if they learned the Zinja principles of fighting, could aspire to the same sort of enlightenment you teach, sensei.”

“Perhaps I am wrong about the military arts,” said Eisen. “If any samurai should come to me for teaching, I will not turn him away.”

He sat down before the entrance to the hut, facing out to sea. Jebu and Yukio sat with him.

Yukio said, “Tell us about China, sensei. I hear the Emperor of China is fighting barbarians. I am thinking of taking fighting men over the water to serve the Chinese Emperor. There are many of us whose lives are forfeit if we stay here, many who have lost everything to the Takashi. Perhaps we will find better fortune in China.”

“Too bad you are not going, as I did, to learn from the Chinese. But if the Central Kingdom, as they call it, is not saved from the barbarians, there will be nothing left to learn.”

“Who are these barbarians?” Yukio asked. Jebu knew these barbarians were his father’s people, but he wondered what Eisen would say about them.

Eisen said, “There are many peoples who live in the grasslands north of the borders of China. They are called Cathayans, Kin, Manchus, Tartars—and Mongols. They spend their lives on horseback, herding cattle and other animals. They live in tents and have no fixed abode. From time to time they make war on the farming people to the south. Ages ago a Chinese Emperor built a Great Wall to keep them out, but as with all walls its promise of security was false. A hundred years ago people called Cathayans crossed the Wall and took the northern half of China for their own. Then a people called the Kin conquered the Cathayans. They seized all the riches, settled in the cities and learned Chinese ways. Now the Mongols have come. They have utterly destroyed the Kin. They threaten the native rulers of China, the Sung dynasty, who still hold the southern half of the country.”

Yukio said, “I have heard of these Mongols. I have heard that they have no human law and are more ferocious than tigers or bears.”

Eisen shrugged. “You know how men will exaggerate when describing their enemy. Actually, their laws are very strict, and among them many transgressions are punished by death. They are a fearless, energetic, intelligent people. They are capable of enduring incredible hardships. What they have achieved in recent years they owe to a leader called Genghis Khan. In their language his name means Mightiest Ruler. He wrote their code of laws, which is called the Yassa.”

He was the ruler who sent Arghun to kill my father and me, thought Jebu. He who commanded the obliteration of whole families, of whole cities.

“This Genghis Khan was a master of warfare,” Eisen went on. “Other barbarian horsemen from the grasslands simply swarmed like locusts, overwhelming the civilized peoples with their numbers and ferocity. But Genghis Khan shaped the Mongols into a well-organized, well-drilled army. That is why their conquests extend beyond all others. Even though Genghis Khan died many years ago, long before I went to China, his successors have continued to use his methods of making war to extend the Mongol territories even further. Genghis Khan was a ruler more awesome and brilliant than any Emperor of China or Japan has been in the last thousand years.”

Yukio looked shocked. “You would compare a barbarian warlord to our Emperor?”

Eisen raised a placating hand. “Not at all. Our Emperor is a manifest kami. He is the child of the sun goddess. But there are times when clouds obscure his light. At present, I think, the clouds are thick and numerous in this Sunrise Land.”

Yukio nodded. “For many of us the clouds are too thick. That is why we are willing to seek service with the Emperor of the Land of Sunset.”

“I wish you a safe journey, and may you return some day to a happier country.” Eisen pulled himself into a more rigid sitting position, crossing his legs and hooking his feet over his thighs, then folding his hands in his lap.

He said, “I know the Zinja do not use any special position when they meditate. But I have found that once you have assumed this position, it is impossible to lose your balance and fall over, even if you drop off to sleep.” And he rolled from side to side like a doll with a weighted bottom that cannot be tipped over. Jebu and Yukio laughed as they bade him goodbye.

“My mind is made up,” Yukio said at the bottom of the hill. “I am going to China. Come with me only if you want to. I don’t care that your Order says you must accompany me. I don’t want you with me unless you want to come.”

“Please let me come with you. I want to go to China for many reasons.”

“Fine. I intend to send out a message secretly to our friends in all the provinces — Muratomo no Yukio is going to China and calls for every samurai who supports the Muratomo cause to come with him. Normally it would not be proper for me to issue such a call without the permission of my brother Hideyori, our clan chieftain. But Hideyori is a prisoner in exile in Kamakura and cannot speak freely. His captors might even force him to denounce me for doing this. But I know that in his heart he will be cheering me on.”

Somehow, Jebu could not picture the grim, controlled Hideyori cheering for anything that did not benefit him directly.

Yukio went on, “There is nothing left for us now in these islands. The Takashi rule everywhere. Those who have been loyal to the Muratomo have been stripped of their lands, many of them hunted as outlaws. All the wealth of the world is in China. We can help save the greatest civilization in the world from the barbarians. And the day will come when the Takashi will be weaker than they are now, and we may perhaps return when fortune favours us, and take back what is rightfully ours. Meanwhile, we will gather men and hire ships, and we will present ourselves to the Emperor of the Sung as a fighting force. You and I will lead.”

That night, when Moko was through working on the granary, Jebu told him of Yukio’s decision. Moko smiled broadly.

“Long ago, shiké, when we first met, I told you I would go to China with you if need be. Now, even though I have found the joys of love here in Hakata, I am ready to prove that I mean what I promised.”