The Queen of Vengeance advanced upon Edo Bay like an iron-clad sovereign descending from a darker world. Her colossal hull — forged not from fragile timber but from steel plates riveted with unapologetic purpose — cleaved through the quiet waters with the authority of an empire that had long ceased to fear refusal. Two towering funnels poured out thick black columns of smoke, a sight wholly alien to a nation that had isolated itself from the world for more than two centuries.
Panic spread across Edo Bay like a fever.
Fishermen abandoned their nets and scrambled onto their tiny boats, rowing frantically for shore, shouting broken phrases that dissolved into terror.
"The Sea Monk! The Sea Monk of legend has come to claim us!"
Along the coast, entire hamlets sealed their doors, knelt before household shrines, and prayed to every deity they could name — as if prayer might shield them from metal and steam.
The ashigaru stationed at the coastal batteries fared no better. Their matchlock guns quivered in trembling hands. They stared at the warship towering above the sea, higher than the walls of Edo Castle itself, her guns glinting in the sun with an unmistakable promise of devastation.
"Captain… shall we fire a warning volley?" a young ashigaru stammered.
The samurai officer beside him slapped him sharply on the back of the head.
"You fool! With what? That rusted matchlock of yours that couldn't frighten a seabird? If you wish to die, do not drag the rest of us with you! Go — run! Inform Lord Bugyō immediately! Tell him…" The samurai swallowed, terrified, "…tell him an envoy from Heaven has descended into Edo Bay!"
Calling the intruder a monster felt too dangerous. Deification was, at the very least, a survival strategy.
Word reached Edo Castle with harrowing speed.
Inside the council chamber of the Senior Councillor — the highest political authority of the Tokugawa Shogunate — chaos reigned.
"A black warship? With no sails? Emitting smoke?"
"It must be barbarian sorcery! We should mobilise at once and drive them out!" shouted a radical wakadoshiyori, his hand on his sword.
Mizuno Tadakuni, the Senior Councillor, remained silent for a long moment. From Nagasaki's fusetsu-gaki, he had caught whispers of a great war between the Qing Empire and the British Empire — whispers that had troubled him deeply. Now, seeing the spectacle in Edo Bay, a dreadful certainty pulled at his chest.
"Silence!" he thundered at last. "Send a small boat immediately. Discover who they are and what they want. Show them respect. Until we understand their intentions, no one is to act rashly!"
It was, perhaps, the only sensible order he had given all day.
On the deck of the Queen of Vengeance
Arthur Lionheart stood with the composed menace of a statesman accustomed to bending nations rather than negotiating with them. A tumbler of whisky rested in his hand as he observed the frantic Japanese along the shore through a naval telescope.
The spectacle amused him — not sentimentally, but strategically.
In his mind, he considered only the arithmetic of empire.
Isolation makes a nation predictable; fear makes it malleable.
He smirked faintly.
Had Commodore Perry been here — still a young officer somewhere across the Pacific — he would have been astonished. A decade before history recorded the "Black Ships," the British Empire was already writing a far less polite version of the event.
Arthur Lionheart set his glass aside. Sentiment was a luxury he did not indulge.
"Signal the Marines," he ordered. "Full honour guard. Presentation formation."
Instantly, the Royal Marines marched into perfect alignment on deck, scarlet coats radiant beneath the sun, bayonets drawn like a row of disciplined fangs.
A massive Union Flag unfurled above them, snapping in the wind — not merely a banner, but a declaration.
Only after the stage was set did Arthur Lionheart allow the approaching skiff to draw near.
The small Tokugawa vessel, plainly terrified, dared not approach closer than a hundred metres. A trembling official cry in wavering Japanese.
Gützlaff translated calmly.
"Your Highness, he asks which deity we serve… or rather, which nation we represent and what business brings us to Japan."
Arthur Lionheart raised the speaking , his tone cold and impeccably aristocratic.
Gützlaff translated his words into sharp, precise Japanese:
**"Hear this, people of Japan.
Before you stands His Royal Highness Prince Consort Arthur Lionheart,
husband to Her Majesty the Queen of the British Empire."**
"We are neither gods nor monsters.
We have come to discuss a matter of friendly commerce with your Shogun."
"You will send a decision-maker to my ship within one hour."
The message struck the men in the skiff like a physical blow.
They exchanged horrified glances.
The British Empire?
And this man was the consort of the Queen herself?
The officials nearly capsized their own boat in their haste to flee.
Arthur Lionheart watched them retreat with an expression bordering on amusement, though entirely devoid of warmth.
"A spring rain softens the earth without noise," he murmured — not sentimentally, but analytically. "Yet its work is unmistakable."
The panic he had seeded would soon grow into capitulation.
Inside Edo Castle
For Mizuno Tadakuni, the hour passed like a century.
Learning that the intruder was not merely a foreigner but the husband of Britain's Queen sent him into a spiral of dread.
To go? To refuse?
Either choice could doom the Shogunate.
Before he could decide, a fresh calamity arrived.
"Report! Senior Councillor! Disaster!"
A samurai burst into the chamber, breathless.
"The young samurai from Satsuma and Chōshū — the radicals — they have taken men to the coastal artillery! They mean to deliver 'Heaven's Punishment' upon the Black Ship!"
"NANI?!"
Mizuno Tadakuni staggered and nearly collapsed.
"Idiots! Reckless fools!" he roared, overturning a tea table in fury.
"Stop them! Immediately! They will drag the entire Shogunate into ruin!"
The radicals, drunk on ideology and blind devotion to sonnō jōi — "Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarians" — were seconds away from provoking an empire with cannons capable of reducing Edo to ash.
And Arthur Lionheart, watching from the deck, would not consider mercy.
Not when the had business to conduct.