Shōgun

CHAPTER ONE

Blackthorne was suddenly awake. For a moment he thought he was dreaming because he was ashore and the room unbelievable. It was small and very clean and covered with soft mats. He was lying on a thick quilt and another was thrown over him. The ceiling was polished cedar and the walls were lathes of cedar, in squares, covered with an opaque paper that muted the light pleasantly. Beside him was a scarlet tray bearing small bowls. One contained cold cooked vegetables and he wolfed them, hardly noticing the piquant taste. Another contained a fish soup and he drained that. Another was filled with a thick porridge of wheat or barley and he finished it quickly, eating with his fingers. The water in an odd-shaped gourd was warm and tasted curious—slightly bitter but savory.

Then he noticed the crucifix in its niche.

This house is Spanish or Portuguese, he thought, aghast. Is this the Japans? or Cathay?

A panel of the wall slid open. A middle-aged, heavy-set, round-faced woman was on her knees beside the door and she bowed and smiled. Her skin was golden and her eyes black and narrow and her long black hair was piled neatly on her head. She wore a gray silk robe and short white socks with a thick sole and a wide purple band around her waist.

“Goshujinsama, gokibun wa ikaga desu ka?” she said. She waited as he stared at her blankly, then said it again.

“Is this the Japans?” he asked. “Japans? Or Cathay?”

She stared at him uncomprehendingly and said something else he could not understand. Then he realized that he was naked. His clothes were nowhere in sight. With sign language he showed her that he wanted to get dressed. Then he pointed at the food bowls and she knew that he was still hungry.

She smiled and bowed and slid the door shut.

He lay back exhausted, the untoward, nauseating nonmotion of the floor making his head spin. With an effort he tried to collect himself. I remember getting the anchor out, he thought. With Vinck. I think it was Vinck. We were in a bay and the ship had nosed a shoal and stopped. We could hear waves breaking on the beach but everything was safe. There were lights ashore and then I was in my cabin and blackness. I don’t remember anything. Then there were lights through the blackness and strange voices. I was talking English, then Portuguese. One of the natives talked a little Portuguese. Or was he Portuguese? No, I think he was a native. Did I ask him where we were? I don’t remember. Then we were back in the reef again and the big wave came once more and I was carried out to sea and drowning—it was freezing—no, the sea was warm and like a silk bed a fathom thick. They must have carried me ashore and put me here.

“It must have been this bed that felt so soft and warm,” he said aloud. “I’ve never slept on silk before.” His weakness overcame him and he slept dreamlessly.

When he awoke there was more food in earthenware bowls and his clothes were beside him in a neat pile. They had been washed and pressed and mended with tiny, exquisite stitching.

But his knife was gone, and so were his keys.

I’d better get a knife and quickly, he thought. Or a pistol.

His eyes went to the crucifix. In spite of his dread, his excitement quickened. All his life he had heard legends told among pilots and sailormen about the incredible riches of Portugal’s secret empire in the East, how they had by now converted the heathens to Catholicism and so held them in bondage, where gold was as cheap as pig iron, and emeralds, rubies, diamonds, and sapphires as plentiful as pebbles on a beach.

If the Catholic part’s true, he told himself, perhaps the rest is too. About the riches. Yes. But the sooner I’m armed and back aboard Erasmus and behind her cannon, the better.

He consumed the food, dressed, and stood shakily, feeling out of his element as he always did ashore. His boots were missing. He went to the door, reeling slightly, and put out a hand to steady himself but the light, square lathes could not bear his weight and they shattered, the paper ripping apart. He righted himself. The shocked woman in the corridor was staring up at him.

“I’m sorry,” he said, strangely ill at ease with his clumsiness. The purity of the room was somehow defiled.

“Where are my boots?”

The woman stared at him blankly. So, patiently, he asked her again with sign language and she hurried down a passage, knelt and opened another lathe door, and beckoned him. Voices were nearby, and the sound of running water. He went through the doorway and found himself in another room, also almost bare. This opened onto a veranda with steps leading to a small garden surrounded by a high wall. Beside this main entrance were two old women, three children dressed in scarlet robes, and an old man, obviously a gardener, with a rake in his hand. At once they all bowed gravely and kept their heads low.

To his astonishment Blackthorne saw that the old man was naked but for a brief, narrow loincloth, hardly covering his organs.

“Morning,” he said to them, not knowing what to say.

They stayed motionless, still bowing.

Nonplussed, he stared at them, then, awkwardly he bowed back to them. They all straightened and smiled at him. The old man bowed once more and went back to work in the garden. The children stared at him, then, laughing, dashed away. The old women disappeared into the depths of the house. But he could feel their eyes on him.

He saw his boots at the bottom of the steps. Before he could pick them up, the middle-aged woman was there on her knees, to his embarrassment, and she helped him to put them on.

“Thank you,” he said. He thought a moment and then pointed at himself. “Blackthorne,” he said deliberately. “Blackthorne.” Then he pointed at her. “What’s your name?”

She stared at him uncomprehendingly.

“Black-thorne,” he repeated carefully, pointing at himself, and again pointed at her. “What’s your name?”

She frowned, then with a flood of understanding pointed at herself and said, “Onna! Onna!”

“Onna!” he repeated, very proud of himself as she was with herself. “Onna.”

She nodded happily. “Onna!”

The garden was unlike anything he had ever seen: a little waterfall and stream and small bridge and manicured pebbled paths and rocks and flowers and shrubs. It’s so clean, he thought. So neat.

“Incredible,” he said.

“ ’Nkerriberr?” she repeated helpfully.

“Nothing,” he said. Then not knowing what else to do, he waved her away. Obediently she bowed politely and left.

Blackthorne sat in the warm sun, leaning against a post. Feeling very frail, he watched the old man weeding an already weedless garden. I wonder where the others are. Is the Captain-General still alive? How many days have I been asleep? I can remember waking and eating and sleeping again, the eating unsatisfactory like the dreams.

The children flurried past, chasing one another, and he was embarrassed for them at the gardener’s nakedness, for when the man bent over or stooped you could see everything and he was astounded that the children appeared not to notice. He saw tiled and thatched roofs of other buildings over the wall and, far off, high mountains. A crisp wind broomed the sky and kept the cumulus advancing. Bees were foraging and it was a lovely spring day. His body begged for more sleep but he pushed himself erect and went to the garden door. The gardener smiled and bowed and ran to open the door and bowed and closed it after him.

The village was set around the crescent harbor that faced east, perhaps two hundred houses unlike any he’d ever seen nestling at the beginning of the mountain which spilled down to the shore. Above were terraced fields and dirt roads that led north and south. Below, the waterfront was cobbled and a stone launching ramp went from the shore into the sea. A good safe harbor and a stone jetty, and men and women cleaning fish and making nets, a uniquely designed boat being built at the northern side. There were islands far out to sea, to the east and to the south. The reefs would be there or beyond the horizon.

In the harbor were many other quaintly shaped boats, mostly fishing craft, some with one large sail, several being sculled—the oarsmen standing and pushing against the sea, not sitting and pulling as he would have done. A few of the boats were heading out to sea, others were nosing at the wooden dock, and Erasmus was anchored neatly, fifty yards from shore, in good water, with three bow cables. Who did that? he asked himself. There were boats alongside her and he could see native men aboard. But none of his. Where could they be?

He looked around the village and became conscious of the many people watching him. When they saw that he had noticed them they all bowed and, still uncomfortable, he bowed back. Once more there was happy activity and they passed to and fro, stopping, bargaining, bowing to each other, seemingly oblivious of him, like so many multicolored butterflies. But he felt eyes studying him from every window and doorway as he walked toward the shore.

What is it about them that’s so weird? he asked himself. It’s not just their clothes and behavior. It’s—they’ve no weapons, he thought, astounded. No swords or guns! Why is that?

Open shops filled with odd goods and bales lined the small street. The floors of the shops were raised and the sellers and the buyers knelt or squatted on the clean wooden floors. He saw that most had clogs or rush sandals, some with the same white socks with the thick sole that were split between the big toe and the next to hold the thongs, but they left the clogs and sandals outside in the dirt. Those who were barefoot cleansed their feet and slipped on clean, indoor sandals that were waiting for them. That’s very sensible if you think about it, he told himself, awed.

Then he saw the tonsured man approaching and fear swept sickeningly from his testicles into his stomach. The priest was obviously Portuguese or Spanish, and, though his flowing robe was orange, there was no mistaking the rosary and crucifix at his belt, or the cold hostility on his face. His robe was travel stained and his European-style boots besmirched with mud. He was looking out into the harbor at Erasmus, and Blackthorne knew that he must recognize her as Dutch or English, new to most seas, leaner, faster, a merchant fighting ship, patterned and improved on the English privateers that had wreaked so much havoc on the Spanish Main. With the priest were ten natives, black-haired and black-eyed, one dressed like him except that he had thong slippers. The others wore varicolored robes or loose trousers, or simply loincloths. But none was armed.

Blackthorne wanted to run while there was time but he knew he did not have the strength and there was nowhere to hide. His height and size and the color of his eyes made him alien in this world. He put his back against the wall.

“Who are you?” the priest said in Portuguese. He was a thick, dark, well-fed man in his middle twenties, with a long beard.

“Who are you?” Blackthorne stared back at him.

“That’s a Netherlander privateer. You’re a heretic Dutchman. You’re pirates. God have mercy on you!”

“We’re not pirates. We’re peaceful merchants, except to our enemies. I’m pilot of that ship. Who are you?”

“Father Sebastio. How did you get here? How?”

“We were blown ashore. What is this place? Is it the Japans?”

“Yes. Japan. Nippon,” the priest said impatiently. He turned to one of the men, older than the rest, small and lean with strong arms and calloused hands, his pate shaved and his hair drawn into a thin queue as gray as his eyebrows. The priest spoke haltingly to him in Japanese, pointing at Blackthorne. All of them were shocked and one made the sign of the cross protectively.

“Dutchmen are heretics, rebels, and pirates. What’s your name?”

“Is this a Portuguese settlement?”

The priest’s eyes were hard and bloodshot. “The village headman says he’s told the authorities about you. Your sins have caught up with you. Where’s the rest of your crew?”

“We were blown off course. We just need food and water and time to repair our ship. Then we’ll be off. We can pay for every—”

“Where’s the rest of your crew?”

“I don’t know. Aboard. I suppose they’re aboard.”

Again the priest questioned the headman, who replied and motioned to the other end of the village, explaining at length. The priest turned back to Blackthorne. “They crucify criminals here, Pilot. You’re going to die. The daimyo’s coming with his samurai. God have mercy on you.”

“What’s a daimyo?”

“A feudal lord. He owns this whole province. How did you get here?”

“And samurai?”

“Warriors—soldiers—members of the warrior caste,” the priest said with growing irritation. “Where did you come from and who are you?”

“I don’t recognize your accent,” Blackthorne said, to throw him off balance. “You’re a Spaniard?”

“I’m Portuguese,” the priest flared, taking the bait. “I told you, I’m Father Sebastio from Portugal. Where did you learn such good Portuguese. Eh?”

“But Portugal and Spain are the same country now,” Blackthorne said, taunting. “You’ve the same king.”

“We’re a separate country. We’re a different people. We have been forever. We fly our own flag. Our overseas possessions are separate, yes, separate. King Philip agreed when he stole my country.” Father Sebastio controlled his temper with an effort, his fingers trembling. “He took my country by force of arms twenty years ago! His soldiers and that devil-spawned Spaniard tyrant, the Duke of Alva, they crushed our real king. Que va! Now Philip’s son rules but he’s not our real king either. Soon we’ll have our own king back again.” Then he added with venom, “You know it’s the truth. What devil Alva did to your country he did to mine.”

“That’s a lie. Alva was a plague in the Netherlands, but he never conquered them. They’re still free. Always will be. But in Portugal he smashed one small army and the whole country gave in. No courage. You could throw the Spaniard out if you wanted to, but you’ll never do it. No honor. No cojones. Except to burn innocents in the name of God.”

“May God burn you in hellfire for all eternity,” the priest flared. “Satan walks abroad and will be stamped out. Heretics will be stamped out. You’re cursed before God!”

In spite of himself Blackthorne felt the religious terror begin to rise within him. “Priests don’t have the ear of God, or speak with His voice. We’re free of your stinking yoke and we’re going to stay free!”

It was only forty years ago that Bloody Mary Tudor was Queen of England and the Spaniard Philip II, Philip the Cruel, her husband. This deeply religious daughter of Henry VIII had brought back Catholic priests and inquisitors and heresy trials and the dominance of the foreign Pope again to England and had reversed her father’s curbs and historic changes to the Church of Rome in England, against the will of the majority. She had ruled for five years and the realm was torn asunder with hatred and fear and bloodshed. But she had died and Elizabeth became queen at twenty-four.

Blackthorne was filled with wonder, and deep filial love, when he thought of Elizabeth. For forty years she’s battled with the world. She’s outfoxed and outfought Popes, the Holy Roman Empire, France and Spain combined. Excommunicated, spat on, reviled abroad, she’s led us into harbor—safe, strong, separate.

“We’re free,” Blackthorne said to the priest. “You’re broken. We’ve our own schools now, our own books, our own Bible, our own Church. You Spaniards are all the same. Offal! You monks are all the same. Idol worshipers!”

The priest lifted his crucifix and held it between Blackthorne and himself as a shield. “Oh, God, protect us from this evil! I’m not Spanish, I tell you! I’m Portuguese. And I’m not a monk. I’m a brother of the Society of Jesus!”

“Ah, one of them. A Jesuit!”

“Yes. May God have mercy on your soul!” Father Sebastio snapped something in Japanese and the men surged toward Blackthorne. He backed against the wall and hit one man hard but the others swarmed over him and he felt himself choking.

“Nanigoto da?”

Abruptly the melee ceased.

The young man was ten paces away. He wore breeches and clogs and a light kimono and two scabbarded swords were stuck into his belt. One was daggerlike. The other, a two-handed killing sword, was long and slightly curved. His right hand was casually on the hilt.

“Nanigoto da?” he asked harshly and when no one answered instantly, “NANIGOTO DA?”

The Japanese fell to their knees, their heads bowed into the dirt. Only the priest stayed on his feet. He bowed and began to explain haltingly, but the man contemptuously cut him short and pointed at the headman. “Mura!”

Mura, the headman, kept his head bowed and began explaining rapidly. Several times he pointed at Blackthorne, once at the ship, and twice at the priest. Now there was no movement on the street. All who were visible were on their knees and bowing low. The headman finished. The armed man arrogantly questioned him for a moment and he was answered deferentially and quickly. Then the soldier said something to the headman and waved with open contempt at the priest, then at Blackthorne, and the gray-haired man put it more simply to the priest, who flushed.

The man, who was a head shorter and much younger than Blackthorne, his handsome face slightly pockmarked, stared at the stranger. “Onushi ittai doko kara kitanoda? Doko no kuni no monoda?”

The priest said nervously, “Kasigi Omi-san says, ‘Where do you come from and what’s your nationality?’ ”

“Is Mr. Omi-san the daimyo?” Blackthorne asked, afraid of the swords in spite of himself.

“No. He’s a samurai, the samurai in charge of the village. His surname’s Kasigi, Omi’s his given name. Here they always put their surnames first. ‘San’ means ‘honorable,’ and you add it to all names as a politeness. You’d better learn to be polite—and find some manners quickly. Here they don’t tolerate lack of manners.” His voice edged. “Hurry up and answer!”

“Amsterdam. I’m English.”

Father Sebastio’s shock was open. He said, “English. England,” to the samurai and began an explanation but Omi impatiently cut him short and rapped out a flurry of words.

“Omi-san asks if you’re the leader. The headman says there are only a few of you heretics alive and most are sick. Is there a Captain-General?”

“I’m the leader,” Blackthorne answered even though, truly, now that they were ashore, the Captain-General was in command. “I’m in command,” he added, knowing that Captain-General Spillbergen could command nothing, ashore or afloat, even when he was fit and well.

Another spate of words from the samurai. “Omi-san says, because you are the leader you are allowed to walk around the village freely, wherever you want, until his master comes. His master, the daimyo, will decide your fate. Until then, you are permitted to live as a guest in the headman’s house and come and go as you please. But you are not to leave the village. Your crew are confined to their house and are not allowed to leave it. Do you understand?”

“Yes. Where are my crew?”

Father Sebastio pointed vaguely at a cluster of houses near a wharf, obviously distressed by Omi’s decision and impatience. “There! Enjoy your freedom, pirate. Your evil’s caught up with—”

“Wakarimasu ka?” Omi said directly to Blackthorne.

“He says, ‘Do you understand?’ ”

“What’s ‘yes’ in Japanese?”

Father Sebastio said to the samurai, “Wakarimasu.”

Omi disdainfully waved them away. They all bowed low. Except one man who rose deliberately, without bowing.

With blinding speed the killing sword made a hissing silver arc and the man’s head toppled off his shoulders and a fountain of blood sprayed the earth. The body rippled a few times and was still. Involuntarily, the priest had backed off a pace. No one else in the street had moved a muscle. Their heads remained low and motionless. Blackthorne was rigid, in shock.

Omi put his foot carelessly on the corpse.

“Ikinasai!” he said, motioning them away.

The men in front of him bowed again, to the earth. Then they got up and went away impassively. The street began to empty. And the shops.

Father Sebastio looked down at the body. Gravely he made the sign of the cross over him and said, “In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.” He stared back at the samurai without fear now.

“Ikinasai!” The tip of the gleaming sword rested on the body.

After a long moment the priest turned and walked away. With dignity, Omi watched him narrowly, then glanced at Blackthorne. Blackthorne backed away and then, when safely distant, he quickly turned a corner and vanished.

Omi began to laugh uproariously. The street was empty now. When his laughter was exhausted, he grasped his sword with both hands and began to hack the body methodically into small pieces.

Blackthorne was in a small boat, the boatman sculling happily toward Erasmus. He had had no trouble in getting the boat and he could see men on the main deck. All were samurai. Some had steel breastplates but most wore simple kimonos, as the robes were called, and the two swords. All wore their hair the same way: the top of the head shaved and the hair at the back and sides gathered into a queue, oiled, then doubled over the crown and tied neatly. Only samurai were allowed this style and, for them, it was obligatory. Only samurai could wear the two swords—always the long, two-handed killing sword and the short, daggerlike one—and, for them, the swords were obligatory.

The samurai lined the gunwales of his ship watching him.

Filled with disquiet, he climbed up the gangway and came on deck. One samurai, more elaborately dressed than the others, came over to him and bowed. Blackthorne had learned well and he bowed back equally and everyone on the deck beamed genially. He still felt the horror of the sudden killing in the street, and their smiles did not allay his foreboding. He went toward the companionway and stopped abruptly. Across the doorway was pasted a wide band of red silk and, beside it, a small sign with queer, squiggled writing. He hesitated, checked the other door, but that too was sealed up with a similar band, and a similar sign was nailed to the bulkhead.

He reached out to remove the silk.

“Hotté oké!” To make the point quite clear the samurai on guard shook his head. He was no longer smiling.

“But this is my ship and I want . . .” Blackthorne bottled his anxiety, eyes on the swords. I’ve got to get below, he thought. I’ve got to get the rutters, mine and the secret one. Christ Jesus, if they’re found and given to the priests or to the Japaners we’re finished. Any court in the world—outside of England and the Netherlands—would convict us as pirates with that evidence. My rutter gives dates, places, and amounts of plunder taken, the number of dead at our three landings in the Americas and the one in Spanish Africa, the number of churches sacked, and how we burned the towns and the shipping. And the Portuguese rutter? That’s our death warrant, for of course it’s stolen. At least it was bought from a Portuguese traitor, and by their law any foreigner caught in possession of any rutter of theirs, let alone one that unlocks the Magellan, is to be put to death at once. And if the rutter is found aboard an enemy ship, the ship is to be burned and all aboard executed without mercy.

“Nan no yoda?” one of the samurai said.

“Do you speak Portuguese?” Blackthorne asked in that language.

The man shrugged. “Wakarimasen.”

Another came forward and deferentially spoke to the leader, who nodded in agreement.

“Portugeezu friend,” this samurai said in heavily accented Portuguese. He opened the top of his kimono and showed the small wooden crucifix that hung from his neck.

“Christ’an!” He pointed at himself and smiled. “Christ’an.” He pointed at Blackthorne. “Christ’an ka?”

Blackthorne hesitated, nodded. “Christian.”

“Portugeezu?”

“English.”

The man chattered with the leader, then both shrugged and looked back at him. “Portugeezu?”

Blackthorne shook his head, not liking to disagree with them on anything. “My friends? Where?”

The samurai pointed to the east end of the village. “Friends.”

“This is my ship. I want to go below.” Blackthorne said it in several ways and with signs and they understood.

“Ah, so desu! Kinjiru,” they said emphatically, indicating the notice, and beamed.

It was quite clear that he was not allowed to go below. Kinjiru must mean forbidden, Blackthorne thought irritably. Well, to hell with that! He snapped the handle of the door down and opened it a fraction.

“KINJIRU!”

He was jerked around to face the samurai. Their swords were half out of the scabbards. Motionlessly the two men waited for him to make up his mind. Others on deck watched impassively.

Blackthorne knew he had no option but to back down, so he shrugged and walked away and checked the hawsers and the ship as best he could. The tattered sails were down and tied in place. But the lashings were different from any he’d ever seen, so he presumed that the Japaners had made the vessel secure. He started down the gangway, and stopped. He felt the cold sweat as he saw them all staring at him malevolently and he thought, Christ Jesus, how could I be so stupid. He bowed politely and at once the hostility vanished and they all bowed and were smiling again. But he could still feel the sweat trickling down his spine and he hated everything about the Japans and wished himself and his crew back aboard, armed, and out to sea.

“By the Lord Jesus, I think you’re wrong, Pilot,” Vinck said. His toothless grin was wide and obscene. “If you can put up with the swill they call food, it’s the best place I’ve been. Ever. I’ve had two women in three days and they’re like rabbits. They’ll do anything if you show ’em how.”

“That’s right. But you can’t do nothing without meat or brandy. Not for long. I’m tired out, and I could only do it once,” Maetsukker said, his narrow face twitching. “The yellow bastards won’t understand that we need meat and beer and bread. And brandy or wine.”

“That’s the worst! Lord Jesus, my kingdom for some grog!” Baccus van Nekk was filled with gloom. He walked over and stood close to Blackthorne and peered up at him. He was very nearsighted and had lost his last pair of spectacles in the storm. But even with them he would always stand as close as possible. He was chief merchant, treasurer, and representative of the Dutch East India Company that had put up the money for the voyage. “We’re ashore and safe and I haven’t had a drink yet. Not a beautiful drop! Terrible. Did you get any, Pilot?”

“No.” Blackthorne disliked having anyone near him, but Baccus was a friend and almost blind so he did not move away. “Just hot water with herbs in it.”

“They simply won’t understand grog. Nothing to drink but hot water and herbs—the good Lord help us! Suppose there’s no liquor in the whole country!” His eyebrows soared. “Do me a huge favor, Pilot. Ask for some liquor, will you?”

Blackthorne had found the house that they had been assigned on the eastern edge of the village. The samurai guard had let him pass, but his men had confirmed that they themselves could not go out of the garden gate. The house was many-roomed like his, but bigger and staffed with many servants of various ages, both men and women.

There were eleven of his men alive. The dead had been taken away by the Japanese. Lavish portions of fresh vegetables had begun to banish the scurvy and all but two of the men were healing rapidly. These two had blood in their bowels and their insides were fluxed. Vinck had bled them but this had not helped. By nightfall he expected them to die. The Captain-General was in another room, still very sick.

Sonk, the cook, a stocky little man, was saying with a laugh, “It’s good here, like Johann says, Pilot, excepting the food and no grog. And it’s all right with the natives so long as you don’t wear your shoes in the house. It sends the little yellow bastards mad if you don’t take off your shoes.”

“Listen,” Blackstone said. “There’s a priest here. A Jesuit.”

“Christ Jesus!” All banter left them as he told them about the priest and about the beheading.

“Why’d he chop the man’s head off, Pilot?”

“I don’t know.”

“We better get back aboard. If Papists catch us ashore . . .”

There was great fear in the room now. Salamon, the mute, watched Blackthorne. His mouth worked, a bubble of phlegm appearing at the corners.

“No, Salamon, there’s no mistake,” Blackthorne said kindly, answering the silent question. “He said he was Jesuit.”

“Christ, Jesuit or Dominican or what-the-hell-ever makes no muck-eating difference,” Vinck said. “We’d better get back aboard. Pilot, you ask that samurai, eh?”

“We’re in God’s hands,” Jan Roper said. He was one of the merchant adventurers, a narrow-eyed young man with a high forehead and thin nose. “He will protect us from the Satan worshipers.”

Vinck looked back at Blackthorne. “What about Portuguese, Pilot? Did you see any around?”

“No. There were no signs of them in the village.”

“They’ll swarm here soon as they know about us.” Maetsukker said it for all of them and the boy Croocq let out a moan.

“Yes, and if there’s one priest, there’s got to be others.” Ginsel licked dry lips. “And then their God-cursed conquistadores are never far away.”

“That’s right,” Vinck added uneasily. “They’re like lice.”

“Christ Jesus! Papists!” someone muttered. “And conquistadores!”

“But we’re in the Japans, Pilot?” van Nekk asked. “He told you that?”

“Yes. Why?”

Van Nekk moved closer and dropped his voice. “If priests are here, and some of the natives are Catholic, perhaps the other part’s true—about the riches, the gold and silver and precious stones.” A hush fell on them. “Did you see any, Pilot? Any gold? Any gems on the natives, or gold?”

“No. None.” Blackthorne thought a moment. “I don’t remember seeing any. No necklaces or beads or bracelets. Listen, there’s something else to tell you. I went aboard Erasmus but she’s sealed up.” He related what had happened and their anxiety increased.

“Jesus, if we can’t go back aboard and there are priests ashore and Papists . . . We’ve got to get away from here.” Maetsukker’s voice began to tremble. “Pilot, what are we going to do? They’ll burn us! Conquistadores—those bastards’ll shove their swords . . .”

“We’re in God’s hands,” Jan Roper called out confidently. “He will protect us from the anti-Christ. That’s His promise. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

Blackthorne said, “The way the samurai Omi-san snarled at the priest—I’m sure he hated him. That’s good, eh? What I’d like to know is why the priest wasn’t wearing their usual robes. Why the orange one? I’ve never seen that before.”

“Yes, that’s curious,” van Nekk said.

Blackthorne looked up at him. “Maybe their hold here isn’t strong. That could help us greatly.”

“What should we do, Pilot?” Ginsel asked.

“Be patient and wait till their chief, this daimyo, comes. He’ll let us go. Why shouldn’t he? We’ve done them no harm. We’ve goods to trade. We’re not pirates, we’ve nothing to fear.”

“Very true, and don’t forget the Pilot said the savages aren’t all Papists,” van Nekk said, more to encourage himself than the others. “Yes. It’s good the samurai hated the priest. And it’s only the samurai who are armed. That’s not so bad, eh? Just watch out for the samurai and get our weapons back—that’s the idea. We’ll be aboard before you know it.”

“What happens if this daimyo’s Papist?” Jan Roper asked.

No one answered him. Then Ginsel said, “Pilot, the man with the sword? He cut the other wog into pieces, after chopping his head off?”

“Yes.”

“Christ! They’re barbarians! Lunatics!” Ginsel was tall, a good-looking youth with short arms and very bowed legs. The scurvy had taken all his teeth. “After he chopped his head off, the others just walked away? Without saying anything?”

“Yes.”

“Christ Jesus, an unarmed man, murdered, just like that? Why’d he do it? Why’d he kill him?”

“I don’t know, Ginsel. But you’ve never seen such speed. One moment the sword was sheathed, the next the man’s head was rolling.”

“God protect us!”

“Dear Lord Jesus,” van Nekk murmured. “If we can’t get back to the ship . . . God damn that storm, I feel so helpless without my spectacles!”

“How many samurai were aboard, Pilot?” Ginsel asked.

“Twenty-two were on deck. But there were more ashore.”

“The wrath of God will be upon the heathen and on sinners and they’ll burn in hell for all eternity.”

“I’d like to be sure of that, Jan Roper,” Blackthorne said, an edge to his voice, as he felt the fear of God’s vengeance sweep through the room. He was very tired and wanted to sleep.

“You can be sure, Pilot, oh yes, I am. I pray that your eyes are opened to God’s truth. That you come to realize we’re here only because of you—what’s left of us.”

“What?” Blackthorne said dangerously.

“Why did you really persuade the Captain-General to try for the Japans? It wasn’t in our orders. We were to pillage the New World, to carry the war into the enemy’s belly, then go home.”

“There were Spanish ships south and north of us and nowhere else to run. Has your memory gone along with your wits? We had to sail west—it was our only chance.”

“I never saw enemy ships, Pilot. None of us did.”

“Come now, Jan,” van Nekk said wearily. “The Pilot did what he thought best. Of course the Spaniards were there.”

“Aye, that’s the truth, and we was a thousand leagues from friends and in enemy waters, by God!” Vinck spat. “That’s the God’s truth—and the God’s truth was we put it to a vote. We all said yes.”

“I didn’t.”

Sonk said, “No one asked me.”

“Oh, Christ Jesus!”

“Calm down, Johann,” van Nekk said, trying to ease the tension. “We’re the first ones to reach the Japans. Remember all the stories, eh? We’re rich if we keep our wits. We have trade goods and there’s gold here—there must be. Where else could we sell our cargo? Not there in the New World, hunted and harried! They were hunting us and the Spaniards knew we were off Santa Maria. We had to quit Chile and there was no escape back through the Strait—of course they’d be lying in wait for us, of course they would! No, here was our only chance and a good idea. Our cargo exchanged for spices and gold and silver, eh? Think of the profit—a thousandfold, that’s usual. We’re in the Spice Islands. You know the riches of the Japans and Cathay, you’ve heard about them forever. We all have. Why else did we all sign on? We’ll be rich, you’ll see!”

“We’re dead men, like all the others. We’re in the land of Satan.”

Vinck said angrily, “Shut your mouth, Roper! The Pilot did right. Not his fault the others died—not his fault. Men always die on these voyages.”

Jan Roper’s eyes were flecked, the pupils tiny. “Yes, God rest their souls. My brother was one.”

Blackthorne looked into the fanatic eyes, hating Jan Roper. Inside he was asking himself if he had really sailed west to elude the enemy ships. Or was it because he was the first English pilot through the Strait, first in position, ready and able to stab west and therefore first with the chance of circumnavigating?

Jan Roper hissed, “Didn’t the others die through your ambition, Pilot? God will punish you!”

“Now hold your tongue.” Blackthorne’s words were soft and final.

Jan Roper stared back with the same frozen hatchet face, but he kept his mouth shut.

“Good.” Blackthorne sat tiredly on the floor and rested against one of the uprights.

“What should we do, Pilot?”

“Wait and get fit. Their chief is coming soon—then we’ll get everything settled.”

Vinck was looking out into the garden at the samurai who sat motionless on his heels beside the gateway. “Look at that bastard. Been there for hours, never moves, never says anything, doesn’t even pick his nose.”

“He’s been no trouble though, Johann. None at all,” van Nekk said.

“Yes, but all we’ve been doing is sleeping and fornicating and eating the swill.”

“Pilot, he’s only one man. We’re ten,” Ginsel said quietly.

“I’ve thought of that. But we’re not fit enough yet. It’ll take a week for the scurvy to go,” Blackthorne replied, disquieted. “There are too many of them aboard ship. I wouldn’t like to take on even one without a spear or gun. Are you guarded at night?”

“Yes. They change guard three or four times. Has anyone seen a sentry asleep?” van Nekk asked.

They shook their heads.

“We could be aboard tonight,” Jan Roper said. “With the help of God we’ll overpower the heathen and take the ship.”

“Clear the shit out of your ears! The pilot’s just got through telling you! Don’t you listen?” Vinck spat disgustedly.

“That’s right,” Pieterzoon, a gunner, agreed. “Stop hacking at old Vinck!”

Jan Roper’s eyes narrowed even more. “Look to your soul, Johann Vinck. And yours, Hans Pieterzoon. The Day of Judgment approaches.” He walked away and sat on the veranda.

Van Nekk broke the silence. “Everything is going to be all right. You’ll see.”

“Roper’s right. It’s greed that put us here,” the boy Croocq said, his voice quavering. “It’s God’s punishment that—”

“Stop it!”

The boy jerked. “Yes, Pilot. Sorry, but—well . . .” Maximilian Croocq was the youngest of them, just sixteen, and he had signed on for the voyage because his father had been captain of one of the ships and they were going to make their fortune. But he had seen his father die badly when they had sacked the Spanish town of Santa Magdellana in the Argentine. The plunder had been good and he had seen what rape was and he had tried it, hating himself, glutted by the blood smell and the killing. Later he had seen more of his friends die and the five ships became one and now he felt he was the oldest among them. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”

“How long have we been ashore, Baccus?” Blackthorne asked.

“This is the third day.” Van Nekk moved close again, squatting on his haunches. “Don’t remember the arrival too clearly, but when I woke up the savages were all over the ship. Very polite and kind though. Gave us food and hot water. They took the dead away and put the anchors out. Don’t remember much but I think they towed us to a safe mooring. You were delirious when they carried you ashore. We wanted to keep you with us but they wouldn’t let us. One of them spoke a few words of Portuguese. He seemed to be the headman, he had gray hair. He didn’t understand ‘Pilot-Major’ but knew ‘Captain.’ It was quite clear he wanted our ‘Captain’ to have different quarters from us, but he said we shouldn’t worry because you’d be well looked after. Us too. Then he guided us here, they carried us mostly, and said we were to stay inside until his captain came. We didn’t want to let them take you but there was nothing we could do. Will you ask the headman about wine or brandy, Pilot?” Van Nekk licked his lips thirstily, then added, “Now that I think of it, he mentioned ‘daimyo’ too. What’s going to happen when the daimyo arrives?”

“Has anyone got a knife or a pistol?”

“No,” van Nekk said, scratching absently at the lice in his hair.

“They took all our clothes away to clean them and kept the weapons. I didn’t think anything about it at the time. They took my keys too, as well as my pistol. I had all my keys on a ring. The strong room, the strongbox, and the magazine.”

“Everything’s locked tight aboard. No need to worry about that.”

“I don’t like not having my keys. Makes me very nervous. Damn my eyes, I could use a brandy right now. Even a flagon of ale.”

“Lord Jesus! The sameree cut him into pieces, did he?” Sonk said to no one in particular.

“For the love of God, shut your mouth. It’s ‘samurai.’ You’re enough to make a man shit himself,” Ginsel said.

“I hope that bastard priest doesn’t come here,” Vinck said.

“We’re safe in the good Lord’s hands.” Van Nekk was still trying to sound confident. “When the daimyo comes we’ll be released. We’ll get our ship back and our guns. You’ll see. We’ll sell all our goods and we’ll get back to Holland rich and safe having gone round the world—the first Dutchmen ever. The Catholics’ll go to hell and that’s the end of it.”

“No, it isn’t,” Vinck said. “Papists make my skin crawl. I can’t help it. That and the thought of the conquistadores. You think they’ll be here in strength, Pilot?”

“I don’t know. I’d think yes! I wish we had all our squadron here.”

“Poor bastards,” Vinck said. “At least we’re alive.”

Maetsukker said, “Maybe they’re back home. Maybe they turned back at the Magellan when the storms scattered us.”

“I hope you’re right,” Blackthorne said. “But I think they’re lost with all hands.”

Ginsel shuddered. “At least we’re alive.”

“With Papists here, and these heathens with their stinking tempers, I wouldn’t give an old whore’s crack for our lives.”

“Goddamn the day I left Holland,” Pieterzoon said. “Goddamn all grog! If I hadn’t been drunker than a fiddler’s bitch I’d still be heads down in Amsterdam with my old woman.”

“Damn what you like, Pieterzoon. But don’t damn liquor. It’s the stuff of life!”

“I’d say we’re in the sewer, up to our chins, and the tide’s coming in fast.” Vinck rolled his eyes. “Yes, very fast.”

“I never thought we’d reach land,” Maetsukker said. He looked like a ferret, except he had no teeth. “Never. Least of all the Japans. Lousy stinking Papists! We’ll never leave here alive! I wish we had some guns. What a rotten landfall! I didn’t mean anything, Pilot,” he said quickly as Blackthorne looked at him. “Just bad luck, that’s all.”

Later servants brought them food again. Always the same: vegetables—cooked and raw—with a little vinegar, fish soup, and the wheat or barley porridge. They all spurned the small pieces of raw fish and asked for meat and liquor. But they were not understood and then, near sunset, Blackthorne left. He had wearied of their fears and hates and obscenities. He told them that he would return after dawn.

The shops were busy on the narrow streets. He found his street and the gate of his house. The stains on the earth had been swept away and the body had vanished. It’s almost as though I dreamed the whole thing, he thought. The garden gate opened before he could put a hand on it.

The old gardener, still loinclothed although there was a chill on the wind, beamed and bowed. “Konbanwa.”

“Hello,” Blackthorne said without thinking. He walked up the steps, stopped, remembering his boots. He took them off and went barefoot onto the veranda and into the room. He crossed it into a corridor but could not find his room.

“Onna!” he called out.

An old woman appeared. “Hai?”

“Where’s Onna?”

The old woman frowned and pointed to herself. “Onna!”

“Oh, for the love of God,” Blackthorne said irritably. “Where’s my room? Where’s Onna?” He slid open another latticed door. Four Japanese were seated on the floor around a low table, eating. He recognized one of them as the gray-haired man, the village headman, who had been with the priest. They all bowed. “Oh, sorry,” he said, and pulled the door to.

“Onna!” he called out.

The old woman thought a moment, then beckoned. He followed her into another corridor. She slid a door aside. He recognized his room from the crucifix. The quilts were already laid out neatly.

“Thank you,” he said, relieved. “Now fetch Onna!”

The old woman padded away. He sat down, his head and body aching, and wished there was a chair, wondering where they were kept. How to get aboard? How to get some guns? There must be a way. Feet padded back and there were three women now, the old woman, a young round-faced girl, and the middle-aged lady.

The old woman pointed at the girl, who seemed a little frightened. “Onna.”

“No.” Blackthorne got up ill-temperedly and jerked a finger at the middle-aged woman. “This is Onna, for God’s sake! Don’t you know your name? Onna! I’m hungry. Could I have some food?” He rubbed his stomach parodying hunger. They looked at each other. Then the middle-aged woman shrugged, said something that made the others laugh, went over to the bed, and began to undress. The other two squatted, wide-eyed and expectant.

Blackthorne was appalled. “What are you doing?”

“Ishimasho!” she said, setting aside her wide waistband and opening her kimono. Her breasts were flat and dried up and her belly huge.

It was quite clear that she was going to get into the bed. He shook his head and told her to get dressed and took her arm and they all began chattering and gesticulating and the woman was becoming quite angry. She stepped out of her long underskirt and, naked, tried to get back into bed.

Their chattering stopped and they all bowed as the headman came quietly down the corridor. “Nanda? Nanda?” he asked.

The old woman explained what was the matter. “You want this woman?” he asked incredulously in heavily accented, barely understandable Portuguese, motioning at the naked woman.

“No. No, of course not. I just wanted Onna to get me some food.” Blackthorne pointed impatiently at her. “Onna!”

“Onna mean ‘woman.’ ” The Japanese motioned at all of them. “Onna—onna—onna. You want onna?”

Blackthorne wearily shook his head. “No. No, thank you. I made a mistake. Sorry. What’s her name?”

“Please?”

“What’s her name?”

“Ah! Namu is Haku. Haku,” he said.

“Haku?”

“Hai. Haku!”

“I’m sorry, Haku-san. Thought onna your name.”

The man explained to Haku and she was not at all pleased. But he said something and they all looked at Blackthorne and tittered behind their hands and left. Haku walked off naked, her kimono over her arm, with a vast amount of dignity.

“Thank you,” Blackthorne said, enraged at his own stupidity.

“This my house. My namu Mura.”

“Mura-san. Mine’s Blackthorne.”

“Please?”

“My namu. Blackthorne.”

“Ah! Berr—rakk—fon.” Mura tried to say it several times but could not. Eventually he gave up and continued to study the colossus in front of him. This was the first barbarian he had ever seen except for Father Sebastio, and the other priest, so many years ago. But anyway, he thought, the priests are dark-haired and dark-eyed and of normal height. But this man: tall and golden-haired and golden-bearded with blue eyes and a weird pallor to his skin where it is covered and redness where it is exposed. Astonishing! I thought all men had black hair and dark eyes. We all do. The Chinese do, and isn’t China the whole world, except for the land of the southern Portugee barbarians? Astonishing! And why does Father Sebastio hate this man so much? Because he’s a Satan worshiper? I wouldn’t think so, because Father Sebastio could cast out the devil if he wanted. Eeee, I’ve never seen the good Father so angry. Never. Astonishing!

Are blue eyes and golden hair the mark of Satan?

Mura looked up at Blackthorne and remembered how he had tried to question him aboard the ship and then, when this Captain had become unconscious, he had decided to bring him to his own house because he was the leader and should have special consideration. They had laid him on the quilt and undressed him, more than just a little curious.

“His Peerless Parts are certainly impressive, neh?” Mura’s mother, Saiko, had said. “I wonder how large he would be when erect?”

“Large,” he had answered and they had all laughed, his mother and wife and friends and servants, and the doctor.

“I expect their women must be—must be as well endowed,” his wife, Niji, said.

“Nonsense, girl,” said his mother. “Any number of our courtesans could happily make the necessary accommodation.” She shook her head in wonder. “I’ve never seen anything like him in my whole life. Very odd indeed, neh?”

They had washed him and he had not come out of his coma. The doctor had thought it unwise to immerse him in a proper bath until he was awake. “Perhaps we should remember, Mura-san, we don’t know how the barbarian really is,” he had said with careful wisdom. “So sorry, but we might kill him by mistake. Obviously he’s at the limit of his strength. We should exercise patience.”

“But what about the lice in his hair?” Mura had asked.

“They will have to stay for the time being. I understand all barbarians have them. So sorry, I’d advise patience.”

“Don’t you think we could at least shampoo his head?” his wife had said. “We’d be very careful. I’m sure the Mistress would supervise our poor efforts. That should help the barbarian and keep our house clean.”

“I agree. You can shampoo him,” his mother had said with finality. “But I’d certainly like to know how large he is when erect.”

Now Mura glanced down at Blackthorne involuntarily. Then he remembered what the priest had told them about these Satanists and pirates. God the Father protect us from this evil, he thought. If I’d known that he was so terrible I would never have brought him into my house. No, he told himself. You are obliged to treat him as a special guest until Omi-san says otherwise. But you were wise to send word to the priest and send word to Omi-san instantly. Very wise. You’re headman, you’ve protected the village and you, alone, are responsible.

Yes. And Omi-san will hold you responsible for the death this morning and the dead man’s impertinence, and quite rightly.

“Don’t be stupid, Tamazaki! You risk the good name of the village, neh?” he had warned his friend the fisherman a dozen times. “Stop your intolerance. Omi-san has no option but to sneer at Christians. Doesn’t our daimyo detest Christians? What else can Omi-san do?”

“Nothing, I agree, Mura-san, please excuse me.” Tamazaki had always replied as formally. “But Buddhists should have more tolerance, neh? Aren’t they both Zen Buddhists?” Zen Buddhism was self-disciplining; it relied heavily on self-help and meditation to find Enlightenment. Most samurai belonged to the Zen Buddhist sect, since it suited, seemed almost to be designed for, a proud, death-seeking warrior.

“Yes, Buddhism teaches tolerance. But how many times must you be reminded they’re samurai, and this is Izu and not Kyushu, and even if it were Kyushu, you’re still the one that’s wrong. Always. Neh?”

“Yes. Please excuse me, I know I’m wrong. But sometimes I feel I cannot live with my inner shame when Omi-san is so insulting about the True Faith.”

And now, Tamazaki, you are dead of your own choosing because you insulted Omi-san by not bowing simply because he said, “. . . this smelly priest of the foreign religion.” Even though the priest does smell and the True Faith is foreign. My poor friend. That truth will not feed your family now or remove the stain from my village.

Oh, Madonna, bless my old friend and give him the joy of thy Heaven.

Expect a lot of trouble from Omi-san, Mura told himself. And if that isn’t bad enough, now our daimyo is coming.

A pervading anxiety always filled him whenever he thought of his feudal lord, Kasigi Yabu, daimyo of Izu, Omi’s uncle—the man’s cruelty and lack of honor, the way he cheated all the villages of their rightful share of their catch and their crops, and the grinding weight of his rule. When war comes, Mura asked himself, which side will Yabu declare for, Lord Ishido or Lord Toranaga? We’re trapped between the giants and in pawn to both.

Northwards, Toranaga, the greatest general alive, Lord of the Kwanto, the Eight Provinces, the most important daimyo in the land, Chief General of the Armies of the East; to the west the domains of Ishido, Lord of Osaka Castle, conqueror of Korea, Protector of the Heir, Chief General of the Armies of the West. And to the north, the Tokaidō, the Great Coastal Road that links Yedo, Toranaga’s capital city, to Osaka, Ishido’s capital city—three hundred miles westward over which their legions must march.

Who will win the war?

Neither.

Because their war will envelop the empire again, alliances will fall apart, provinces will fight provinces until it is village against village as it ever was. Except for the last ten years. For the last ten years, incredibly, there had been a warlessness called peace throughout the empire, for the first time in history.

I was beginning to like peace, Mura thought.

But the man who made the peace is dead. The peasant soldier who became a samurai and then a general and then the greatest general and finally the Taikō, the absolute Lord Protector of Japan, is dead a year and his seven-year-old son is far too young to inherit supreme power. So the boy, like us, is in pawn. Between the giants. And war inevitable. Now not even the Taikō himself can protect his beloved son, his dynasty, his inheritance, or his empire.

Perhaps this is as it should be. The Taikō subdued the land, made the peace, forced all the daimyos in the land to grovel like peasants before him, rearranged fiefs to suit his whim—promoting some, deposing others—and then he died. He was a giant among pygmies. But perhaps it’s right that all his work and greatness should die with him. Isn’t man but a blossom taken by the wind, and only the mountains and the sea and the stars and this Land of the Gods real and everlasting?

We’re all trapped and that is a fact; war will come soon and that is a fact; Yabu alone will decide which side we are on and that is a fact; the village will always be a village because the paddy fields are rich and the sea abundant and that is a last fact.

Mura brought his mind back firmly to the barbarian pirate in front of him. You’re a devil sent to plague us, he thought, and you’ve caused us nothing but trouble since you arrived. Why couldn’t you have picked another village?

“Captain-san want onna?” he asked helpfully. At his suggestion the village council made physical arrangements for the other barbarians, both as a politeness and as a simple means of keeping them occupied until the authorities came. That the village was entertained by the subsequent stories of the liaisons more than compensated for the money which had had to be invested.

“Onna?” he repeated, naturally presuming that as the pirate was on his feet, he would be equally content to be on his belly, his Heavenly Spear warmly encased before sleeping, and anyway, all the preparations had been made.

“No!” Blackthorne wanted only to sleep. But because he knew that he needed this man on his side he forced a smile, indicated the crucifix. “You’re a Christian?”

Mura nodded. “Christian.”

“I’m Christian.”

“Father say not. Not Christian.”

“I’m a Christian. Not a Catholic. But I’m still Christian.”

But Mura could not understand. Neither was there any way Blackthorne could explain, however much he tried.

“Want onna?”

“The—the dimyo—when come?”

“Dimyo? No understand.”

“Dimyo—ah, I mean daimyo.”

“Ah, daimyo. Hai. Daimyo!” Mura shrugged. “Daimyo come when come. Sleep. First clean. Please.”

“What?”

“Clean. Bath, please.”

“I don’t understand.”

Mura came closer and crinkled his nose distastefully.

“Stinku. Bad. Like all Portugeezu. Bath. This clean house.”

“I’ll bathe when I want and I don’t stink!” Blackthorne fumed. “Everyone knows baths are dangerous. You want me to catch the flux? You think I’m God-cursed stupid? You get the hell out of here and let me sleep!”

“Bath!” Mura ordered, shocked at the barbarian’s open anger—the height of bad manners. And it was not just that the barbarian stank, as indeed he did, but he had not bathed correctly for three days to his knowledge, and the courtesan quite rightly would refuse to pillow with him, however much the fee. These awful foreigners, he thought. Astonishing! How astoundingly filthy their habits are! Never mind. I’m responsible for you. You will be taught manners. You will bathe like a human being, and Mother will know that which she wants to know. “Bath!”

“Now get out before I snap you into pieces!” Blackthorne glowered at him, motioning him away.

There was a moment’s pause and the other three Japanese appeared along with three of the women. Mura explained curtly what was the matter, then said with finality to Blackthorne, “Bath. Please.”

“Out!”

Mura came forward alone into the room. Blackthorne shoved out his arm, not wanting to hurt the man, just to push him away. Suddenly Blackthorne let out a bellow of pain. Somehow Mura had chopped his elbow with the side of his hand and now Blackthorne’s arm hung down, momentarily paralyzed. Enraged, he charged. But the room spun and he was flat on his face and there was another stabbing, paralyzing pain in his back and he could not move. “By God . . .”

He tried to get up but his legs buckled under him. Then Mura calmly put out his small but iron-hard finger and touched a nerve center in Blackthorne’s neck. There was a blinding pain.

“Good sweet Jesus . . .”

“Bath? Please?”

“Yes—yes,” Blackthorne gasped through his agony, astounded that he had been overcome so easily by such a tiny man and now lay helpless as any child, ready to have his throat cut.

Years ago Mura had learned the arts of judo and karate as well as how to fight with sword and spear. This was when he was a warrior and fought for Nakamura, the peasant general, the Taikō long before the Taikō had become the Taikō—when peasants could be samurai and samurai could be peasants, or craftsmen or even lowly merchants, and warriors again. Strange, Mura thought absently, looking down at the fallen giant, that almost the first thing the Taikō did when he became all powerful was to order all peasants to cease being soldiers and at once give up all weapons. The Taikō had forbidden them weapons forever and set up the immutable caste system that now controlled all the lives in all the empire: samurai above all, below them the peasants, next craftsmen, then the merchants followed by actors, outcasts, and bandits, and finally at the bottom of the scale, the eta, the nonhumans, those who dealt with dead bodies, the curing of leather and handling of dead animals, who were also the public executioners, branders, and mutilators. Of course, any barbarian was beneath consideration in this scale.

“Please excuse me, Captain-san,” Mura said, bowing low, ashamed for the barbarian’s loss of face as he lay groaning like a baby still at suck. Yes, I’m very sorry, he thought, but it had to be done. You provoked me beyond all reasonableness, even for a barbarian. You shout like a lunatic, upset my mother, interrupt my house’s tranquillity, disturb the servants, and my wife’s already had to replace one shoji door. I could not possibly permit your obvious lack of manners to go unopposed. Or allow you to go against my wishes in my own house. It’s really for your own good. Then, too, it’s not so bad because you barbarians really have no face to lose. Except the priests—they’re different. They still smell horrible, but they’re the anointed of God the Father so they have great face. But you—you’re a liar as well as a pirate. No honor. How astonishing! Claiming to be a Christian! Unfortunately that won’t help you at all. Our daimyo hates the True Faith and barbarians and tolerates them only because he has to. But you’re not a Portuguese or a Christian, therefore not protected by law, neh? So even though you are a dead man—or at least a mutilated one—it is my duty to see that you go to your fate clean. “Bath very good!”

He helped the other men carry the still dazed Blackthorne through the house, out into the garden, along a roofed-in walk of which he was very proud, and into the bath house. The women followed.

It became one of the great experiences of his life. He knew at the time that he would tell and retell the tale to his incredulous friends over barrels of hot saké, as the national wine of Japan was called; to his fellow elders, fishermen, villagers, to his children who also would not at first believe him. But they, in their turn, would regale their children and the name of Mura the fisherman would live forever in the village of Anjiro, which was in the province of Izu on the southeastern coast of the main island of Honshu. All because he, Mura the fisherman, had the good fortune to be headman in the first year after the death of the Taikō and therefore temporarily responsible for the leader of the strange barbarians who came out of the eastern sea.

CHAPTER TWO

“The daimyo, Kasigi Yabu, Lord of Izu, wants to know who you are, where you come from, how you got here, and what acts of piracy you have committed,” Father Sebastio said.

“I keep telling you we’re not pirates.” The morning was clear and warm and Blackthorne was kneeling in front of the platform in the village square, his head still aching from the blow. Keep calm and get your brain working, he told himself. You’re on trial for your lives. You’re the spokesman and that’s all there is to it. The Jesuit’s hostile and the only interpreter available and you’ll have no way of knowing what he’s saying except you can be sure he’ll not help you. . . . ‘Get your wits about you boy,’ he could almost hear old Alban Caradoc saying. ‘When the storm’s the worst and the sea the most dreadful, that’s when you need your special wits. That’s what keeps you alive and your ship alive—if you’re the pilot. Get your wits about you and take the juice out of every day, however bad. . . .’

The juice of today is bile, Blackthorne thought grimly. Why do I hear Alban’s voice so clearly?

“First tell the daimyo that we’re at war, that we’re enemies,” he said. “Tell him England and the Netherlands are at war with Spain and Portugal.”

“I caution you again to speak simply and not to twist the facts. The Netherlands—or Holland, Zeeland, the United Provinces, whatever you filthy Dutch rebels call it—is a small, rebellious province of the Spanish Empire. You’re leader of traitors who are in a state of insurrection against their lawful king.”

“England’s at war and the Netherlands have been sepa—” Blackthorne did not continue because the priest was no longer listening but interpreting.

The daimyo was on the platform, short, squat, and dominating. He knelt comfortably, his heels tucked neatly under him, flanked by four lieutenants, one of whom was Kasigi Omi, his nephew and vassal. They all wore silk kimonos and, over them, ornate surcoats with wide belts nipping them in at the waist and huge, starched shoulders. And the inevitable swords.

Mura knelt in the dirt of the square. He was the only villager present and the only other onlookers were the fifty samurai who came with the daimyo. They sat in disciplined, silent rows. The rabble of the ship’s crew were behind Blackthorne and, like him, were on their knees, guards nearby. They had had to carry the Captain-General with them when they were sent for, even though he was ailing badly. He had been allowed to lie down in the dirt, still in semicoma. Blackthorne had bowed with all of them when they had come in front of the daimyo, but this was not enough. Samurai had slammed all of them on their knees and pushed their heads into the dust in the manner of peasants. He had tried to resist and shouted to the priest to explain that it was not their custom, that he was the leader and an emissary of their country and should be treated as such. But the haft of a spear had sent him reeling. His men gathered themselves for an impulsive charge, but he shouted at them to stop and to kneel. Fortunately they obeyed. The daimyo had uttered something guttural and the priest interpreted this as a caution to him to tell the truth and tell it quickly. Blackthorne had asked for a chair but the priest said the Japanese did not use chairs and there were none in Japan.

Blackthorne was concentrating on the priest as he spoke to the daimyo, seeking a clue, a way through this reef.

There’s arrogance and cruelty in the daimyo’s face, he thought. I’ll bet he’s a real bastard. The priest’s Japanese isn’t fluent. Ah, see that? Irritation and impatience. Did the daimyo ask for another word, a clearer word? I think so. Why’s the Jesuit wearing orange robes? Is the daimyo a Catholic? Look, the Jesuit’s very deferential and sweating a lot. I’ll bet the daimyo’s not a Catholic. Be accurate! Perhaps he’s not a Catholic. Either way you’ll get no quarter from him. How can you use the evil bastard? How do you talk direct to him? How’re you going to work the priest? How discredit him? What’s the bait? Come on, think! You know enough about Jesuits—

“The daimyo says hurry up and answer his questions.”

“Yes. Of course, I’m sorry. My name’s John Blackthorne. I’m English, Pilot-Major of a Netherlands fleet. Our home port’s Amsterdam.”

“Fleet? What fleet? You’re lying. There’s no fleet. Why is an Englishman pilot of a Dutch ship?”

“All in good time. First please translate what I said.”

“Why are you the pilot of a Dutch privateer? Hurry up!”

Blackthorne decided to gamble. His voice abruptly hardened and it cut through the morning warmth. “Que va! First translate what I said, Spaniard! Now!”

The priest flushed. “I’m Portuguese. I’ve told you before. Answer the question.”

“I’m here to talk to the daimyo, not to you. Translate what I said, you motherless offal!” Blackthorne saw the priest redden even more and felt that this had not gone unnoticed by the daimyo. Be cautious, he warned himself. That yellow bastard will carve you into pieces quicker than a school of sharks if you overreach yourself. “Tell the lord daimyo!” Blackthorne deliberately bowed low to the platform and felt the chill sweat beginning to pearl as he committed himself irrevocably to his course of action.

Father Sebastio knew that his training should make him impervious to the pirate’s insults and the obvious plan to discredit him in front of the daimyo. But, for the first time, it did not and he felt lost. When Mura’s messenger had brought news of the ship to his mission in the neighboring province, he had been rocked by the implications. It can’t be Dutch or English! he had thought. There had never been a heretic ship in the Pacific except those of the archdevil corsair Drake, and never one here in Asia. The routes were secret and guarded. At once he had prepared to leave and had sent an urgent carrier pigeon message to his superior in Osaka, wishing that he could first have consulted with him, knowing that he was young, almost untried and new to Japan, barely two years here, not yet ordained, and not competent to deal with this emergency. He had rushed to Anjiro, hoping and praying that the news was untrue. But the ship was Dutch and the pilot English, and all of his loathing for the satanic heresies of Luther, Calvin, Henry VIII, and the archfiend Elizabeth, his bastard daughter, had overwhelmed him. And still swamped his judgment.

“Priest, translate what the pirate said,” he heard the daimyo say.

O Blessed Mother of God, help me to do thy will. Help me to be strong in front of the daimyo and give me the gift of tongues, and let me convert him to the True Faith.

Father Sebastio gathered his wits and began to speak more confidently.

Blackthorne listened carefully, trying to pick out the words and meanings. The Father used “England” and “Blackthorne” and pointed at the ship, which lay nicely at anchor in the harbor.

“How did you get here?” Father Sebastio said.

“By Magellan’s Pass. This is the one hundred and thirty-sixth day from there. Tell the daimyo—”

“You’re lying. Magellan’s Pass is secret. You came via Africa and India. You’ll have to tell the truth eventually. They use torture here.”

“The Pass was secret. A Portuguese sold us a rutter. One of your own people sold you out for a little Judas gold. You’re all manure! Now all English warships—and Dutch warships—know the way through to the Pacific. There’s a fleet—twenty English ships-of-the-line, sixty-cannon warships—attacking Manila right now. Your empire’s finished.”

“You’re lying!”

Yes, Blackthorne thought, knowing there was no way to prove the lie except to go to Manila. “That fleet will harry your sea lanes and stamp out your colonies. There’s another Dutch fleet due here any week now. The Spanish-Portuguese pig is back in his pigsty and your Jesuit General’s penis is in his anus—where it belongs!” He turned away and bowed low to the daimyo.

“God curse you and your filthy mouth!”

“Ano mono wa nani o moshité oru?” the daimyo snapped impatiently.

The priest spoke more quickly, harder, and said “Magellan” and “Manila” but Blackthorne thought that the daimyo and his lieutenants did not seem to understand too clearly.

Yabu was wearying of this trial. He looked out into the harbor, to the ship that had obsessed him ever since he had received Omi’s secret message, and he wondered again if it was the gift from the gods that he hoped.

“Have you inspected the cargo yet, Omi-san?” he had asked this morning as soon as he had arrived, mud-spattered and very weary.

“No, Lord. I thought it best to seal up the ship until you came personally, but the holds are filled with crates and bales. I hope I did it correctly. Here are all their keys. I confiscated them.”

“Good.” Yabu had come from Yedo, Toranaga’s capital city, more than a hundred miles away, post haste, furtively and at great personal risk, and it was vital that he return as quickly. The journey had taken almost two days over foul roads and spring-filled streams, partly on horseback and partly by palanquin. “I’ll go to the ship at once.”

“You should see the strangers, Lord,” Omi had said with a laugh. “They’re incredible. Most of them have blue eyes—like Siamese cats—and golden hair. But the best news of all is that they’re pirates. . . .”

Omi had told him about the priest and what the priest had related about these corsairs and what the pirate had said and what had happened, and his excitement had tripled. Yabu had conquered his impatience to go aboard the ship and break the seals. Instead he had bathed and changed and ordered the barbarians brought in front of him.

“You, priest,” he said, his voice sharp, hardly able to understand the priest’s bad Japanese. “Why is he so angry with you?”

“He’s evil. Pirate. He worship devil.”

Yabu leaned over to Omi, the man on his left. “Can you understand what he’s saying, nephew? Is he lying? What do you think?”

“I don’t know, Lord. Who knows what barbarians really believe? I imagine the priest thinks the pirate is a devil worshiper. Of course, that’s all nonsense.”

Yabu turned back to the priest, detesting him. He wished that he could crucify him today and obliterate Christianity from his domain once and for all. But he could not. Though he and all other daimyos had total power in their own domains, they were still subject to the overriding authority of the Council of Regents, the military rulling junta to whom the Taikō had legally willed his power during his son’s minority, and subject, too, to edicts the Taikō had issued in his lifetime, which were all still legally in force. One of these, promulgated years ago, dealt with the Portuguese barbarians and ordered that they were all protected persons and, within reason, their religion was to be tolerated and their priests allowed, within reason, to proselytize and convert. “You, priest! What else did the pirate say? What was he saying to you? Hurry up! Have you lost your tongue?”

“Pirate says bad things. Bad. About more pirate war boatings—many.”

“What do you mean, ‘war boatings’?”

“Sorry, Lord, I don’t understand.”

“ ‘War boatings’ doesn’t make sense, neh?”

“Ah! Pirate says other ships war are in Manila, in Philippines.”

“Omi-san, do you understand what he’s talking about?”

“No, Lord. His accent’s appalling, it’s almost gibberish. Is he saying that more pirate ships are east of Japan?”

“You, priest! Are these pirate ships off our coast? East? Eh?”

“Yes, Lord. But I think he’s lying. He says at Manila.”

“I don’t understand you. Where’s Manila?”

“East. Many days’ journey.”

“If any pirate ships come here, we’ll give them a pleasant welcome, wherever Manila is.”

“Please excuse me, I don’t understand.”

“Never mind,” Yabu said, his patience at an end. He had already decided the strangers were to die and he relished the prospect. Obviously these men did not come within the Taikō’s edict that specified “Portuguese barbarians,” and anyway they were pirates. As long as he could remember he had hated barbarians, their stench and filthiness and disgusting meat-eating habits, their stupid religion and arrogance and detestable manners. More than that, he was shamed, as was every daimyo, by their stranglehold over this Land of the Gods. A state of war had existed between China and Japan for centuries. China would allow no trade. Chinese silk cloth was vital to make the long, hot, humid Japanese summer bearable. For generations only a minuscule amount of contraband cloth had slipped through the net and was available, at huge cost, in Japan. Then, sixty-odd years ago, the barbarians had first arrived. The Chinese Emperor in Peking gave them a tiny permanent base at Macao in southern China and agreed to trade silks for silver. Japan had silver in abundance. Soon trade was flourishing. Both countries prospered. The middlemen, the Portuguese, grew rich, and their priests—Jesuits mostly—soon became vital to the trade. Only the priests managed to learn to speak Chinese and Japanese and therefore could act as negotiators and interpreters. As trade blossomed, the priests became more essential. Now the yearly trade was huge and touched the life of every samurai. So the priests had to be tolerated and the spread of their religion tolerated or the barbarians would sail away and trade would cease.

By now there were a number of very important Christian daimyos and many hundreds of thousands of converts, most of whom were in Kyushu, the southern island that was nearest to China and contained the Portuguese port of Nagasaki. Yes, Yabu thought, we must tolerate the priests and the Portuguese, but not these barbarians, the new ones, the unbelievable golden-haired, blue-eyed ones. His excitement filled him. Now at last he could satisfy his curiosity as to how well a barbarian would die when put to torment. And he had eleven men, eleven different tests, to experiment with. He never questioned why the agony of others pleasured him. He only knew that it did and therefore it was something to be sought and enjoyed.

Yabu said, “This ship, alien, non-Portuguese, and pirate, is confiscated with all it contains. All pirates are sentenced to immediate—” His mouth dropped open as he saw the pirate leader suddenly leap at the priest and rip the wooden crucifix from his belt, snap it into pieces and hurl the pieces on the ground, then shout something very loudly. The pirate immediately knelt and bowed low to him as the guards jumped forward, swords raised.

“Stop! Don’t kill him!” Yabu was astounded that anyone could have the impertinence to act with such lack of manners in front of him. “These barbarians are beyond belief!”

“Yes,” Omi said, his mind flooding with the questions that such an action implied.

The priest was still kneeling, staring fixedly at the pieces of the cross. They watched as his hand reached out shakily and picked up the violated wood. He said something to the pirate, his voice low, almost gentle. His eyes closed, he steepled his fingers, and his lips began to move slowly. The pirate leader was looking up at them motionlessly, pale blue eyes unblinking, catlike, in front of his rabble crew.

Yabu said, “Omi-san. First I want to go on the ship. Then we’ll begin.” His voice thickened as he contemplated the pleasure he had promised himself. “I want to begin with that red-haired one on the end of the line, the small man.”

Omi leaned closer and lowered his excited voice. “Please excuse me, but this has never happened before, Sire. Not since the Portuguese barbarians came here. Isn’t the crucifix their sacred symbol? Aren’t they always deferential to their priests? Don’t they always kneel to them openly? Just like our Christians? Haven’t the priests absolute control over them?”

“Come to your point.”

“We all detest the Portuguese, Sire. Except the Christians among us, neh? Perhaps these barbarians are worth more to you alive than dead.”

“How?”

“Because they’re unique. They’re anti-Christian! Perhaps a wise man could find a way to use their hatred—or irreligiousness—to our advantage. They’re your property, to do with as you wish. Neh?”

Yes. And I want them in torment, Yabu thought. Yes, but you can enjoy that at any time. Listen to Omi. He’s a good counselor. But is he to be trusted now? Does he have a secret reason for saying this? Think.

“Ikawa Jikkyu is Christian,” he heard his nephew say, naming his hated enemy—one of Ishido’s kinsmen and allies—who sat on his western borders. “Doesn’t this filthy priest have his home there? Perhaps these barbarians could give you the key to unlock Ikawa’s whole province. Perhaps Ishido’s. Perhaps even Lord Toranaga’s,” Omi added delicately.

Yabu studied Omi’s face, trying to reach what was behind it. Then his eyes went to the ship. He had no doubt now that it had been sent by the gods. Yes. But was it as a gift or a plague?

He put away his own pleasure for the security of his clan. “I agree. But first break these pirates. Teach them manners. Particularly him.”

“Good sweet Jesus’ death!” Vinck muttered.

“We should say a prayer,” van Nekk said.

“We’ve just said one.”

“Perhaps we’d better say another. Lord God in Heaven, I could use a pint of brandy.”

They were crammed into a deep cellar, one of the many that the fishermen used to store sun-dried fish. Samurai had herded them across the square, down a ladder, and now they were locked underground. The cellar was five paces long and five wide and four deep, with an earthen floor and walls. The ceiling was made of planks with a foot of earth above and a single trapdoor set into it.

“Get off my foot, you God-cursed ape!”

“Shut your face, shit picker!” Pieterzoon said genially. “Hey! Vinck, move up a little, you toothless old fart, you’ve got more room than anyone! By God, I could use a cold beer! Move up.”

“I can’t, Pieterzoon. We’re tighter than a virgin’s arse here.”

“It’s the Captain-General. He’s got all the space. Give him a shove. Wake him up!” Maetsukker said.

“Eh? What’s the matter? Leave me alone. What’s going on? I’m sick. I’ve got to lie down. Where are we?”

“Leave him alone. He’s sick. Come on, Maetsukker, get up, for the love of God.” Vinck angrily pulled Maetsukker up and shoved him against the wall. There was not room enough for them all to lie down, or even to sit comfortably, at the same time. The Captain-General, Paulus Spillbergen, was lying full length under the trapdoor where there was the best air, his head propped on his bundled cloak. Blackthorne was leaning against a corner, staring up at the trapdoor. The crew had left him alone and stayed clear of him uneasily, as best they could, recognizing from long experience his mood, and the brooding, explosive violence that always lurked just below his quiet exterior.

Maetsukker lost his temper and smashed his fist into Vinck’s groin. “Leave me alone or I’ll kill you, you bastard.”

Vinck flew at him, but Blackthorne grabbed both of them and rammed their heads against the wall.

“Shut up, all of you,” he said softly. They did as they were ordered. “We’ll split into watches. One watch sleeps, one sits, and one stands. Spillbergen lies down until he’s fit. That corner’s the latrine.” He divided them up. When they had rearranged themselves it was more bearable.

We’ll have to break out of here within a day or we’ll be too weak, Blackthorne thought. When they bring the ladder back to give us food or water. It will have to be tonight or tomorrow night. Why did they put us here? We’re no threat. We could help the daimyo. Will he understand? It was my only way to show him that the priest’s our real enemy. Will he understand? The priest had.

“Perhaps God may forgive your sacrilege but I won’t,” Father Sebastio had said, very quietly. “I will never rest until you and your evil are obliterated.”

The sweat was dribbling down his cheeks and chin. He wiped it away absently, ears tuned to the cellar as they would be when he was aboard and sleeping, or off watch and drifting; just enough to try to hear the danger before it happened.

We’ll have to break out and take the ship. I wonder what Felicity’s doing. And the children. Let’s see, Tudor’s seven years old now and Lisbeth is. . . . We’re one year and eleven months and six days from Amsterdam, add thirty-seven days provisioning and coming from Chatham to there, add lastly, the eleven days that she was alive before the embarkation at Chatham. That’s her age exactly—if all’s well. All should be well. Felicity will be cooking and guarding and cleaning and chattering as the kids grow up, as strong and fearless as their mother. It will be fine to be home again, to walk together along the shore and in the forests and glades and beauty that is England.

Over the years he had trained himself to think about them as characters in a play, people that you loved and bled for, the play never ending. Otherwise the hurt of being away would be too much. He could almost count his days at home in the eleven years of marriage. They’re few, he thought, too few. “It’s a hard life for a woman, Felicity,” he had said before. And she had said, “Any life is hard for a woman.” She was seventeen then and tall and her hair was long and sensu—

His ears told him to beware.

The men were sitting or leaning or trying to sleep. Vinck and Pieterzoon, good friends, were talking quietly. Van Nekk was staring into space with the others. Spillbergen was half awake, and Blackthorne thought the man was stronger than he let everyone believe.

There was a sudden silence as they heard the footsteps overhead. The footsteps stopped. Muted voices in the harsh, strange-sounding language. Blackthorne thought he recognized the samurai’s voice—Omi-san? Yes, that was his name—but he could not be certain. In a moment the voices stopped and the footsteps went away.

“You think they’ll feed us, Pilot?” Sonk said.

“Yes.”

“I could use a drink. Cold beer, by God,” Pieterzoon said.

“Shut up,” Vinck said. “You’re enough to make a man sweat.”

Blackthorne was conscious of his soaking shirt. And the stench. By the Lord God I could use a bath, he thought and abruptly he smiled, remembering.

Mura and the others had carried him into the warm room that day and laid him on a stone bench, his limbs still numb and slow moving. The three women, led by the old crone, had begun to undress him and he had tried to stop them but every time he moved, one of the men would stab a nerve and hold him powerless, and however much he raved and cursed they continued to undress him until he was naked. It was not that he was ashamed of being naked in front of a woman, it was just that undressing was always done in private and that was the custom. And he did not like being undressed by anyone, let alone these uncivilized natives. But to be undressed publicly like a helpless baby and to be washed everywhere like a baby with warm, soapy, scented water while they chattered and smiled as he lay on his back was too much. Then he had become erect and as much as he tried to stop it from happening, the worse it became—at least he thought so, but the women did not. Their eyes became bigger and he began to blush. Jesus Lord God the One and Only, I can’t be blushing, but he was and this seemed to increase his size and the old woman clapped her hands in wonder and said something to which they all nodded and she shook her head awed and said something else to which they nodded even more.

Mura had said with enormous gravity, “Captain-san, Mother-san thank you, the best her life, now die happy!” and he and they had all bowed as one and then he, Blackthorne, had seen how funny it was and he had begun to laugh. They were startled, then they were laughing too, and his laughter took his strength away and the crone was a little sad and said so and this made him laugh more and them also. Then they had laid him gently into the vast heat of the deep water and soon he could bear it no longer, and they laid him gasping on the bench once more. The women had dried him and then an old blind man had come. Blackthorne had never known massage. At first he had tried to resist the probing fingers but then their magic seduced him and soon he was almost purring like a cat as the fingers found the knots and unlocked the blood or elixir that lurked beneath skin and muscle and sinew.

Then he had been helped to bed, strangely weak, half in dream, and the girl was there. She was patient with him, and after sleeping, when he had strength, he took her with care even though it had been so long.

He had not asked her name, and in the morning when Mura, tense and very frightened, had pulled him out of sleep, she was gone.

Blackthorne sighed. Life is marvelous, he thought.

In the cellar, Spillbergen was querulous again, Maetsukker was nursing his head and moaning, not from pain but from fear, the boy Croocq near breaking, and Jan Roper said, “What’s there to smile about, Pilot?”

“Go to hell.”

“With respect, Pilot,” van Nekk said carefully, bringing into the open what was foremost in their minds, “you were most unwise to attack the priest in front of the rotten yellow bastard.”

There was general though carefully expressed agreement.

“If you hadn’t, I don’t think we’d be in this filthy mess.”

Van Nekk did not go near Blackthorne. “All you’ve got to do is put your head in the dust when the Lord Bastard’s around and they’re as meek as lambs.”

He waited for a reply but Blackthorne made none, just turned back to the trapdoor. It was as though nothing had been said. Their unease increased.

Paulus Spillbergen lifted himself on one elbow with difficulty. “What are you talking about, Baccus?”

Van Nekk went over to him and explained about the priest and the cross and what had happened and why they were here, his eyes hurting today worse than ever.

“Yes, that was dangerous, Pilot-Major,” Spillbergen said. “Yes, I’d say quite wrong—pass me some water. Now the Jesuits’ll give us no peace at all.”

“You should have broken his neck, Pilot. Jesuits’ll give us no peace anyway,” Jan Roper said. “They’re filthy lice and we’re here in this stink hole as God’s punishment.”

“That’s nonsense, Roper,” Spillbergen said. “We’re here becau—”

“It is God’s punishment! We should have burned all the churches in Santa Magdellana—not just two. We should have. Cesspits of Satan!”

Spillbergen slapped weakly at a fly. “The Spanish troops were regrouping and we were outnumbered fifteen to one. Give me some water! We’d sacked the town and got the plunder and rubbed their noses in the dust. If we’d stayed we would have been killed. For God’s sake, give me some water; someone. We’d’ve all been killed if we hadn’t retrea—”

“What does it matter if you’re doing the work of God? We failed Him.”

“Perhaps we’re here to do God’s work,” van Nekk said, placatingly, for Roper was a good though zealous man, a clever merchant and his partner’s son. “Perhaps we can show the natives here the error of their Papist ways. Perhaps we could convert them to the True Faith.”

“Quite right,” Spillbergen said. He still felt weak, but his strength was returning. “I think you should have consulted Baccus, Pilot-Major. After all, he’s chief merchant. He’s very good at parleying with savages. Pass the water, I said!”

“There isn’t any, Paulus.” Van Nekk’s gloom increased. “They’ve given us no food or water. We haven’t even got a pot to piss in.”

“Well, ask for one! And some water! God in heaven, I’m thirsty. Ask for water! You!”

“Me?” Vinck asked.

“Yes. You!”

Vinck looked at Blackthorne but Blackthorne just watched the trapdoor obliviously, so Vinck stood under the opening and shouted, “Hey! You up there! Give us God-cursed water! We want food and water!”

There was no answer. He shouted again. No answer. The others gradually took up the shouts. All except Blackthorne. Soon their panic and the nausea of their close confinement crept into their voices and they were howling like wolves.

The trapdoor opened. Omi looked down at them. Beside him was Mura. And the priest.

“Water! And food, by God! Let us out of here!” Soon they were all screaming again.

Omi motioned to Mura, who nodded and left. A moment later Mura returned with another fisherman, carrying a large barrel between them. They emptied the contents, rotting fish offal and seawater, onto the heads of the prisoners.

The men in the cellar scattered and tried to escape, but all of them could not. Spillbergen was choking, almost drowned. Some of the men slipped and were trampled on. Blackthorne had not moved from the corner. He just stared up at Omi, hating him.

Then Omi began talking. There was a cowed silence now, broken only by coughing and Spillbergen’s retching. When Omi had finished, the priest nervously came to the opening.

“These are Kasigi Omi’s orders: You will begin to act like decent human beings. You will make no more noise. If you do, next time five barrels will be poured into the cellar. Then ten, then twenty. You will be given food and water twice a day. When you have learned to behave, you will be allowed up into the world of men. Lord Yabu has graciously spared all your lives, providing you serve him loyally. All except one. One of you is to die. At dusk. You are to choose who it will be. But you”—he pointed at Blackthorne—“you are not to be the one chosen.” Ill at ease, the priest took a deep breath, half bowed to the samurai, and stepped back.

Omi peered down into the pit. He could see Blackthorne’s eyes and he felt the hatred. It will take much to break that man’s spirit, he thought. No matter. There’s time enough.

The trapdoor slammed into place.

CHAPTER THREE

Yabu lay in the hot bath, more content, more confident than he had ever been in his life. The ship had revealed its wealth and this wealth gave him a power that he had never dreamed possible.

“I want everything taken ashore tomorrow,” he had said. “Repack the muskets in their crates. Camouflage everything with nets or sacking.”

Five hundred muskets, he thought exultantly. With more gunpowder and shot than Toranaga has in all the Eight Provinces. And twenty cannon, five thousand cannon balls with an abundance of ammunition. Fire arrows by the crate. All of the best European quality. “Mura, you will provide porters. Igurashi-san, I want all this armament, including the cannon, in my castle at Mishima forthwith, in secret. You will be responsible.”

“Yes, Lord.” They had been in the main hold of the ship and everyone had gaped at him: Igurashi, a tall, lithe, one-eyed man, his chief retainer, Zukimoto his quartermaster, together with ten sweat-stained villagers who had opened the crates under Mura’s supervision, and his personal bodyguard of four samurai. He knew they did not understand his exhilaration or the need to be clandestine. Good, he thought.

When the Portuguese had first discovered Japan in 1542, they had introduced muskets and gunpowder. Within eighteen months the Japanese were manufacturing them. The quality was not nearly as good as the European equivalent but that did not matter because guns were considered merely a novelty and, for a long time, used only for hunting—and even for that bows were far more accurate. Also, more important, Japanese warfare was almost ritual; hand-to-hand individual combat, the sword being the most honorable weapon. The use of guns was considered cowardly and dishonorable and completely against the samurai code, bushido, the Way of the Warrior, which bound samurai to fight with honor, to live with honor, and to die with honor; to have undying, unquestioning loyalty to one’s feudal lord; to be fearless of death—even to seek it in his service; and to be proud of one’s own name and keep it unsullied.

For years Yabu had had a secret theory. At long last, he thought exultantly, you can expand it and put it into effect: Five hundred chosen samurai, armed with muskets but trained as a unit, spearheading your twelve thousand conventional troops, supported by twenty cannon used in a special way by special men, also trained as a unit. A new strategy for a new era! In the coming war, guns could be decisive!

What about bushido? the ghosts of his ancestors had always asked him.

What about bushido? he had always asked them back.

They had never answered.

Never in his wildest dreams had he thought he’d ever be able to afford five hundred guns. But now he had them for nothing and he alone knew how to use them. But whose side to use them for? Toranaga’s or Ishido’s? Or should he wait—and perhaps be the eventual victor?

“Igurashi-san. You’ll travel by night and maintain strict security.”

“Yes, Lord.”

“This is to remain secret, Mura, or the village will be obliterated.”

“Nothing will be said, Lord. I can speak for my village. I cannot speak for the journey, or for other villages. Who knows where there are spies? But nothing will be said by us.”

Next Yabu had gone to the strong room. It contained what he presumed to be pirate plunder: silver and gold plate, cups, candelabra and ornaments, some religious paintings in ornate frames. A chest contained women’s clothes, elaborately embroidered with gold thread and colored stones.

“I’ll have the silver and gold melted into ingots and put in the treasury,” Zukimoto had said. He was a neat, pedantic man in his forties who was not a samurai. Years ago he had been a Buddhist warrior-priest, but the Taikō, the Lord Protector, had stamped out his monastery in a campaign to purge the land of certain Buddhist militant warrior monasteries and sects that would not acknowledge his absolute suzerainty. Zukimoto had bribed his way out of that early death and become a peddler, at length a minor merchant in rice. Ten years ago he had joined Yabu’s commissariat and now he was indispensable. “As to the clothes, perhaps the gold thread and gems have value. With your permission, I’ll have them packed and sent to Nagasaki with anything else I can salvage.” The port of Nagasaki, on the southernmost coast of the south island of Kyushu, was the legal entrepôt and trading market of the Portuguese. “The barbarians might pay well for these odds and ends.”

“Good. What about the bales in the other hold?”

“They all contain a heavy cloth. Quite useless to us, Sire, with no market value at all. But this should please you.” Zukimoto had opened the strongbox.

The box contained twenty thousand minted silver pieces. Spanish doubloons. The best quality.

Yabu stirred in his bath. He wiped the sweat from his face and neck with the small white towel and sank deeper into the hot scented water. If, three days ago, he told himself, a soothsayer had forecast that all this would happen, you would have fed him his tongue for telling impossible lies.

Three days ago he had been in Yedo, Toranaga’s capital. Omi’s message had arrived at dusk. Obviously the ship had to be investigated at once but Toranaga was still away in Osaka for the final confrontation with General Lord Ishido and, in his absence, had invited Yabu and all friendly neighboring daimyos to wait until his return. Such an invitation could not be refused without dire results. Yabu knew that he and the other independent daimyos and their families were merely added protection for Toranaga’s safety and, though of course the word would never be used, they were hostages against Toranaga’s safe return from the impregnable enemy fortress at Osaka where the meeting was being held. Toranaga was President of the Council of Regents which the Taikō had appointed on his deathbed to rule the empire during the minority of his son Yaemon, now seven years old. There were five Regents, all eminent daimyos, but only Toranaga and Ishido had real power.

Yabu had carefully considered all the reasons for going to Anjiro, the risks involved, and the reasons for staying. Then he had sent for his wife and his favorite consort. A consort was a formal, legal mistress. A man could have as many consorts as he wished, but only one wife at one time.

“My nephew Omi has just sent secret word that a barbarian ship came ashore at Anjiro.”

“One of the Black Ships?” his wife had asked excitedly. These were the huge, incredibly rich trading ships that plied annually with the monsoon winds between Nagasaki and the Portuguese colony of Macao that lay almost a thousand miles south on the China mainland.

“No. But it might be rich. I’m leaving immediately. You’re to say that I’ve been taken sick and cannot be disturbed for any reason. I’ll be back in five days.”

“That’s incredibly dangerous,” his wife warned. “Lord Toranaga gave specific orders for us to stay. I’m sure he’ll make another compromise with Ishido and he’s too powerful to offend. Sire, we could never guarantee that someone won’t suspect the truth—there are spies everywhere. If Toranaga returned and found you’d gone, your absence would be misinterpreted. Your enemies would poison his mind against you.”

“Yes,” his consort added. “Please excuse me, but you must listen to the Lady, your wife. She’s right. Lord Toranaga would never believe that you’d disobeyed just to look at a barbarian ship. Please send someone else.”

“But this isn’t an ordinary barbarian ship. It’s not Portuguese. Listen to me. Omi says it’s from a different country. These men talk a different-sounding language among themselves and they have blue eyes and golden hair.”

“Omi-san’s gone mad. Or he’s drunk too much saké,” his wife said.

“This is much too important to joke about, for him and for you.”

His wife had bowed and apologized and said that he was quite right to correct her, but that the remark was not meant in jest. She was a small, thin woman, ten years older than he, who had given him a child a year for eight years until her womb had dried up, and of these, five had been sons. Three had become warriors and died bravely in the war against China. Another had become a Buddhist priest and the last, now nineteen, he despised.

His wife, the Lady Yuriko, was the only woman he had ever been afraid of, the only woman he had ever valued—except his mother, now dead—and she ruled his house with a silken lash.

“Again, please excuse me,” she said. “Does Omi-san detail the cargo?”

“No. He didn’t examine it, Yuriko-san. He says he sealed the ship at once because it was so unusual. There’s never been a non-Portuguese ship before, neh? He says also it’s a fighting ship. With twenty cannon on its decks.”

“Ah! Then someone must go immediately.”

“I’m going myself.”

“Please reconsider. Send Mizuno. Your brother’s clever and wise. I implore you not to go.”

“Mizuno’s weak and not to be trusted.”

“Then order him to commit seppuku and have done with him,” she said harshly. Seppuku, sometimes called hara-kiri, the ritual suicide by disembowelment, was the only way a samurai could expiate a shame, a sin, or a fault with honor, and was the sole prerogative of the samurai caste. All samurai—women as well as men—were prepared from infancy, either for the act itself or to take part in the ceremony as a second. Women committed seppuku only with a knife in the throat.

“Later, not now,” Yabu told his wife.

“Then send Zukimoto. He’s certainly to be trusted.”

“If Toranaga hadn’t ordered all wives and consorts to stay here too, I’d send you. But that would be too risky. I have to go. I have no option. Yuriko-san, you tell me my treasury’s empty. You say I’ve no more credit with the filthy moneylenders. Zukimoto says we’re getting the maximum tax out of my peasants. I have to have more horses, armaments, weapons, and more samurai. Perhaps the ship will supply the means.”

“Lord Toranaga’s orders were quite clear, Sire. If he comes back and finds—”

“Yes. If he comes back, Lady. I still think he’s put himself into a trap. The Lord Ishido has eighty thousand samurai in and around Osaka Castle alone. For Toranaga to go there with a few hundred men was the act of a madman.”

“He’s much too shrewd to risk himself unnecessarily,” she said confidently.

“If I were Ishido and I had him in my grasp I would kill him at once.”

“Yes,” Yuriko said. “But the mother of the Heir is still hostage in Yedo until Toranaga returns. General Lord Ishido dare not touch Toranaga until she’s safely back at Osaka.”

“I’d kill him. If the Lady Ochiba lives or dies, it doesn’t matter. The Heir’s safe in Osaka. With Toranaga dead, the succession is certain. Toranaga’s the only real threat to the Heir, the only one with a chance at using the Council of Regents, usurping the Taikō’s power, and killing the boy.”

“Please excuse me, Sire, but perhaps General Lord Ishido can carry the other three Regents with him and impeach Toranaga, and that’s the end of Toranaga, neh?” his consort said.

“Yes, Lady, if Ishido could he would, but I don’t think he can—yet—nor can Toranaga. The Taikō picked the five Regents too cleverly. They despise each other so much it’s almost impossible for them to agree on anything.” Before taking power, the five great daimyos had publicly sworn eternal allegiance to the dying Taikō and to his son and his line forever. And they had taken public, sacred oaths agreeing to unanimous rule in the Council, and vowed to pass over the realm intact to Yaemon when he came of age on his fifteenth birthday. “Unanimous rule means nothing really can be changed until Yaemon inherits.”

“But some day, Sire, four Regents will join against one—through jealousy, fear or ambition—neh? The four will bend the Taikō’s orders just enough for war, neh?”

“Yes. But it will be a small war, Lady, and the one will always be smashed and his lands divided up by the victors, who will then have to appoint a fifth Regent and, in time, it will be four against one and again the one will be smashed and his lands forfeit—all as the Taikō planned. My only problem is to decide who will be the one this time—Ishido or Toranaga.”

“Toranaga will be the one isolated.”

“Why?”

“The others fear him too much because they all know he secretly wants to be Shōgun, however much he protests he doesn’t.”

Shōgun was the ultimate rank a mortal could achieve in Japan. Shōgun meant Supreme Military Dictator. Only one daimyo at a time could possess the title. And only His Imperial Highness, the reigning Emperor, the Divine Son of Heaven, who lived in seclusion with the Imperial Families at Kyoto, could grant the title.

With the appointment of Shōgun went absolute power: the Emperor’s seal and mandate. The Shōgun ruled in the Emperor’s name. All power was derived from the Emperor because he was directly descended from the gods. Therefore any daimyo who opposed the Shōgun was automatically in rebellion against the throne, and at once outcast and all his lands forfeit.

The reigning Emperor was worshiped as a divinity because he was descended in an unbroken line from the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu Omikami, one of the children of the gods Izanagi and Izanami, who had formed the islands of Japan from the firmament. By divine right the ruling Emperor owned all the land and ruled and was obeyed without question. But in practice, for more than six centuries real power had rested behind the throne.

Six centuries ago there had been a schism when two of the three great rival, semiregal samurai families, the Minowara, Fujimoto and Takashima, backed rival claimants to the throne and plunged the realm into civil war. After sixty years the Minowara prevailed over the Takashima, and the Fujimoto, the family that had stayed neutral, bided its time.

From then on, jealously guarding their rule, the Minowara Shōguns dominated the realm, decreed their Shōgunate hereditary and began to intermarry some of their daughters with the Imperial line. The Emperor and the entire Imperial Court were kept completely isolated in walled palaces and gardens in the small enclave at Kyoto, most times in penury, and their activities perpetually confined to observing the rituals of Shinto, the ancient animistic religion of Japan, and to intellectual pursuits such as calligraphy, painting, philosophy, and poetry.

The Court of the Son of Heaven was easy to dominate because, though it possessed all the land, it had no revenue. Only daimyos, samurai, possessed revenue and the right to tax. And so it was that although all members of the Imperial Court were above all samurai in rank, they still existed on a stipend granted the Court at the whim of the Shōgun, the Kwampaku—the civil Chief Adviser—or the ruling military junta of the day. Few were generous. Some Emperors had even had to barter their signatures for food. Many times there was not enough money for a coronation.

At length the Minowara Shōguns lost their power to others, to Takashima or Fujimoto descendants. And as the civil wars continued unabated over the centuries, the Emperor became more and more the creature of the daimyo who was strong enough to obtain physical possession of Kyoto. The moment the new conqueror of Kyoto had slaughtered the ruling Shōgun and his line, he would—providing he was Minowara, Takashima, or Fujimoto—with humility, swear allegiance to the throne and humbly invite the powerless Emperor to grant him the now vacant rank of Shōgun. Then, like his predecessors, he would try to extend his rule outward from Kyoto until he in his turn was swallowed by another. Emperors married, abdicated, or ascended the throne at the whim of the Shōgunate. But always the reigning Emperor’s bloodline was inviolate and unbroken.

So the Shōgun was all powerful. Until he was overthrown.

Many were unseated over the centuries as the realm splintered into ever smaller factions. For the last hundred years no single daimyo had ever had enough power to become Shōgun. Twelve years ago the peasant General Nakamura had had the power and he had obtained the mandate from the present Emperor, Go-Nijo. But Nakamura could not be granted Shōgun rank however much he desired it, because he was born a peasant. He had to be content with the much lesser civilian title of Kwampaku, Chief Adviser, and later, when he resigned that title to his infant son, Yaemon—though keeping all power, as was quite customary—he had to be content with Taikō. By historic custom only the descendants of the sprawling, ancient, semidivine families of the Minowara, Takashima, and Fujimoto were entitled to the rank of Shōgun.

Toranaga was descended from the Minowara. Yabu could trace his lineage to a vague and minor branch of the Takashima, enough of a connection if ever he could become supreme.

“Eeeee, Lady,” Yabu said, “of course Toranaga wants to be Shōgun, but he’ll never achieve it. The other Regents despise and fear him. They neutralize him, as the Taikō planned.” He leaned forward and studied his wife intently. “You say Toranaga’s going to lose to Ishido?”

“He will be isolated, yes. But in the end I don’t think he’ll lose, Sire. I beg you not to disobey Lord Toranaga, and not to leave Yedo just to examine the barbarian ship, no matter how unusual Omi-san says it is. Please send Zukimoto to Anjiro.”

“What if the ship contains bullion? Silver or gold? Would you trust Zukimoto or any of our officers with it?”

“No,” his wife had said.

So that night he had slipped out of Yedo secretly, with only fifty men, and now he had wealth and power beyond his dreams and unique captives, one of whom was going to die tonight. He had arranged for a courtesan and a boy to be ready later. At dawn tomorrow he would return to Yedo. By sunset tomorrow the guns and the bullion would begin their secret journey.

Eeeee, the guns! he thought exultantly. The guns and the plan together will give me the power to make Ishido win, or Toranaga—whomever I chose. Then I’ll become a Regent in the loser’s place, neh? Then the most powerful Regent. Why not even Shōgun? Yes. It’s all possible now.

He let himself drift pleasantly. How to use the twenty thousand pieces of silver? I can rebuild the castle keep. And buy special horses for the cannon. And expand our espionage web. What about Ikawa Jikkyu? Would a thousand pieces be enough to bribe Ikawa Jikkyu’s cooks to poison him? More than enough! Five hundred, even one hundred in the right hands would be plenty. Whose?

The afternoon sun was slanting through the small window set into the stone walls. The bath water was very hot and heated by a wood fire built into the outside wall. This was Omi’s house and it stood on a small hill overlooking the village and the harbor. The garden within its walls was neat and serene and worthy.

The bathroom door opened. The blind man bowed. “Kasigi Omi-san sent me, Sire. I am Suwo, his masseur.” He was tall and very thin and old, his face wrinkled.

“Good.” Yabu had always had a terror of being blinded. As long as he could remember he had had dreams of waking in blackness, knowing it was sunlight, feeling the warmth but not seeing, opening his mouth to scream, knowing that it was dishonorable to scream, but screaming even so. Then the real awakening and the sweat streaming.

But this horror of blindness seemed to increase his pleasure at being massaged by the sightless.

He could see the jagged scar on the man’s right temple and the deep cleft in the skull below it. That’s a sword cut, he told himself. Did that cause his blindness? Was he a samurai once? For whom? Is he a spy?

Yabu knew that the man would have been searched very carefully by his guards before being allowed to enter, so he had no fear of a concealed weapon. His own prized long sword was within reach, an ancient blade made by the master swordsmith Murasama. He watched the old man take off his cotton kimono and hang it up without seeking the peg. There were more sword scars on his chest. His loincloth was very clean. He knelt, waiting patiently.

Yabu got out of the bath when he was ready and lay on the stone bench. The old man dried Yabu carefully, put fragrant oil on his hands, and began to knead the muscles in the daimyo’s neck and back.

Tension began to vanish as the very strong fingers moved over Yabu, probing deeply with surprising skill. “That’s good. Very good,” he said after a while.

“Thank you, Yabu-sama,” Suwo said. Sama, meaning “Lord,” was an obligatory politeness when addressing a superior.

“Have you served Omi-san long?”

“Three years, Sire. He is very kind to an old man.”

“And before that?”

“I wandered from village to village. A few days here, half a year there, like a butterfly on the summer’s breath.” Suwo’s voice was as soothing as his hands. He had decided that the daimyo wanted him to talk and he waited patiently for the next question and then he would begin. Part of his art was to know what was required and when. Sometimes his ears told him this, but mostly it was his fingers that seemed to unlock the secret of the man or woman’s mind. His fingers were telling him to beware of this man, that he was dangerous and volatile, his age about forty, a good horseman and excellent sword fighter. Also that his liver was bad and that he would die within two years. Saké, and probably aphrodisiacs, would kill him. “You are strong for your age, Yabu-sama.”

“So are you. How old are you, Suwo?”

The old man laughed but his fingers never ceased. “I’m the oldest man in the world—my world. Everyone I’ve ever known is dead long since. It must be more than eighty years—I’m not sure. I served Lord Yoshi Chikitada, Lord Toranaga’s grandfather, when the clan’s fief was no bigger than this village. I was even at the camp the day he was assassinated.”

Yabu deliberately kept his body relaxed with an effort of will but his mind sharpened and he began to listen intently.

“That was a grim day, Yabu-sama. I don’t know how old I was—but my voice hadn’t broken yet. The assassin was Obata Hiro, a son of his most powerful ally. Perhaps you know the story, how the youth struck Lord Chikitada’s head off with a single blow of his sword. It was a Murasama blade and that’s what started the superstition that all Murasama blades are filled with unluck for the Yoshi clan.”

Is he telling me that because of my own Murasama sword? Yabu asked himself. Many people know I possess one. Or is he just an old man who remembers a special day in a long life? “What was Toranaga’s grandfather like?” he asked, feigning lack of interest, testing Suwo.

“Tall, Yabu-sama. Taller than you and much thinner when I knew him. He was twenty-five the day he died.” Suwo’s voice warmed. “Eeeee, Yabu-sama, he was a warrior at twelve and our liege lord at fifteen when his own father was killed in a skirmish. At that time, Lord Chikitada was married and had already sired a son. It was a pity that he had to die. Obata Hiro was his friend as well as vassal, seventeen then, but someone had poisoned young Obata’s mind, saying that Chikitada had planned to kill his father treacherously. Of course it was all lies but that didn’t bring Chikitada back to lead us. Young Obata knelt in front of the body and bowed three times. He said that he had done the deed out of filial respect for his father and now wished to atone for his insult to us and our clan by committing seppuku. He was given permission. First he washed Chikitada’s head with his own hands and set it in a place of reverence. Then he cut himself open and died manfully, with great ceremony, one of our men acting as his second and removing his head with a single stroke. Later his father came to collect his son’s head and the Murasama sword. Things became bad for us. Lord Chikitada’s only son was taken hostage somewhere and our part of the clan fell on evil times. That was—”

“You’re lying, old man. You were never there.” Yabu had turned around and he was staring up at the man, who had frozen instantly. “The sword was broken and destroyed after Obata’s death.”

“No, Yabu-sama. That is the legend. I saw the father come and collect the head and the sword. Who would want to destroy such a piece of art? That would have been sacrilege. His father collected it.”

“What did he do with it?”

“No one knows. Some said he threw it into the sea because he liked and honored our Lord Chikitada as a brother. Others said that he buried it and that it lurks in wait for the grandson, Yoshi Toranaga.”

“What do you think he did with it?”

“Threw it into the sea.”

“Did you see him?”

“No.”

Yabu lay back again and the fingers began their work. The thought that someone else knew that the sword had not been broken thrilled him strangely. You should kill Suwo, he told himself. Why? How could a blind man recognize the blade? It is like any Murasama blade and the handle and scabbard have been changed many times over the years. No one can know that your sword is the sword that has gone from hand to hand with increasing secrecy as the power of Toranaga increased. Why kill Suwo? The fact that he’s alive has added a zest. You’re stimulated. Leave him alive—you can kill him at any time. With the sword.

That thought pleased Yabu as he let himself drift once more, greatly at ease. One day soon, he promised himself, I will be powerful enough to wear my Murasama blade in Toranaga’s presence. One day, perhaps, I will tell him the story of my sword.

“What happened next?” he asked, wishing to be lulled by the old man’s voice.

“We just fell on evil times. That was the year of the great famine, and, now that my master was dead, I became ronin.” Ronin were landless or masterless peasant-soldiers or samurai who, through dishonor or the loss of their masters, were forced to wander the land until some other lord would accept their services. It was difficult for ronin to find new employment. Food was scarce, almost every man was a soldier, and strangers were rarely trusted. Most of the robber bands and corsairs who infested the land and the coast were ronin. “That year was very bad and the next. I fought for anyone—a battle here, a skirmish there. Food was my pay. Then I heard that there was food in plenty in Kyushu so I started to make my way west. That winter I found a sanctuary. I managed to become hired by a Buddhist monastery as a guard. I fought for them for half a year, protecting the monastery and their rice fields from bandits. The monastery was near Osaka and, at that time—long before the Taikō obliterated most of them—the bandits were as plentiful as swamp mosquitoes. One day, we were ambushed and I was left for dead. Some monks found me and healed my wound. But they could not give me back my sight.”

His fingers probed deeper and ever deeper. “They put me with a blind monk who taught me how to massage and to see again with my fingers. Now my fingers tell me more than my eyes used to, I think.

“The last thing I can remember seeing with my eyes was the bandit’s widespread mouth and rotting teeth, the sword a glittering arc and beyond, after the blow, the scent of flowers. I saw perfume in all its colors, Yabu-sama. That was all long ago, long before the barbarians came to our land—fifty, sixty years ago—but I saw the perfume’s colors. I saw nirvana, I think, and for the merest moment, the face of Buddha. Blindness is a small price to pay for such a gift, neh?”

There was no answer. Suwo had expected none. Yabu was sleeping, as was planned. Did you like my story, Yabu-sama? Suwo asked silently, amused as an old man would be. It was all true but for one thing. The monastery was not near Osaka but across your western border. The name of the monk? Su, uncle of your enemy, Ikawa Jikkyu.

I could snap your neck so easily, he thought. It would be a favor to Omi-san. It would be a blessing to the village. And it would repay, in tiny measure, my patron’s gift. Should I do it now? Or later?

Spillbergen held up the bundled stalks of rice straw, his face stretched. “Who wants to pick first?”

No one answered. Blackthorne seemed to be dozing, leaning against the corner from which he had not moved. It was near sunset.

“Someone’s got to pick first,” Spillbergen rasped. “Come on, there’s not much time.”

They had been given food and a barrel of water and another barrel as a latrine. But nothing with which to wash away the stinking offal or to clean themselves. And the flies had come. The air was fetid, the earth mud-mucous. Most of the men were stripped to the waist, sweating from the heat. And from fear.

Spillbergen looked from face to face. He came back to Blackthorne. “Why—why are you eliminated? Eh? Why?”

The eyes opened and they were icy. “For the last time: I—don’t—know.”

“It’s not fair. Not fair.”

Blackthorne returned to his reverie. There must be a way to break out of here. There must be a way to get the ship. That bastard will kill us all eventually, as certain as there’s a north star. There’s not much time, and I was eliminated because they’ve some particular rotten plan for me.

When the trapdoor had closed they had all looked at him, and someone had said, “What’re we going to do?”

“I don’t know,” he had answered.

“Why aren’t you to be picked?”

“I don’t know.”

“Lord Jesus help us,” someone whimpered.

“Get the mess cleared up,” he ordered. “Pile the filth over there!”

“We’ve no mops or—”

“Use your hands!”

They did as he ordered and he helped them and cleaned off the Captain-General as best he could. “You’ll be all right now.”

“How—how are we to choose someone?” Spillbergen asked.

“We don’t. We fight them.”

“With what?”

“You’ll go like a sheep to the butcher? You will?”

“Don’t be ridiculous—they don’t want me—it wouldn’t be right for me to be the one.”

“Why?” Vinck asked.

“I’m the Captain-General.”

“With respect, sir,” Vinck said ironically, “maybe you should volunteer. It’s your place to volunteer.”

“A very good suggestion,” Pieterzoon said. “I’ll second the motion, by God.”

There was general assent and everyone thought, Lord Jesus, anyone but me.

Spillbergen had begun to bluster and order but he saw the pitiless eyes. So he stopped and stared at the ground, filled with nausea. Then he said, “No. It—it wouldn’t be right for someone to volunteer. It—we’ll—we’ll draw lots. Straws, one shorter than the rest. We’ll put our hands—we’ll put ourselves into the hands of God. Pilot, you’ll hold the straws.”

“I won’t. I’ll have nothing to do with it. I say we fight.”

“They’ll kill us all. You heard what the samurai said: Our lives are spared—except one.” Spillbergen wiped the sweat off his face and a cloud of flies rose and then settled again. “Give me some water. It’s better for one to die than all of us.”

Van Nekk dunked the gourd in the barrel and gave it to Spillbergen. “We’re ten. Including you, Paulus,” he said. “The odds are good.”

“Very good—unless you’re the one.” Vinck glanced at Blackthorne. “Can we fight those swords?”

“Can you go meekly to the torturer if you’re the one picked?”

“I don’t know.”

Van Nekk said, “We’ll draw lots. We’ll let God decide.”

“Poor God,” Blackthorne said. “The stupidities He gets blamed for!”

“How else do we choose?” someone shouted.

“We don’t!”

“We’ll do as Paulus says. He’s Captain-General,” said van Nekk. “We’ll draw straws. It’s best for the majority. Let’s vote. Are we all in favor?”

They had all said yes. Except Vinck. “I’m with the Pilot. To hell with sewer-sitting pissmaking witch-festering straws!”

Eventually Vinck had been persuaded. Jan Roper, the Calvinist, had led the prayers. Spillbergen broke the ten pieces of straw with exactitude. Then he halved one of them.

Van Nekk, Pieterzoon, Sonk, Maetsukker, Ginsel, Jan Roper, Salamon, Maximilian Croocq, and Vinck.

Again he said, “Who wants to pick first?”

“How do we know that—that the one who picks the wrong, the short straw’ll go? How do we know that?” Maetsukker’s voice was raw with terror.

“We don’t. Not for certain. We should know for certain,” Croocq, the boy, said.

“That’s easy,” Jan Roper said. “Let’s swear we will do it in the name of God. In His name. To—to die for the others in His name. Then there’s no worry. The anointed Lamb of God will go straight to Everlasting Glory.”

They all agreed.

“Go on, Vinck. Do as Roper says.”

“All right.” Vinck’s lips were parched. “If—if it’s me—I swear by the Lord God that I’ll go with them if—if I pick the wrong straw. In God’s name.”

They all followed. Maetsukker was so frightened he had to be prompted before he sank back into the quagmire of his living nightmare.

Sonk chose first. Pieterzoon was next. Then Jan Roper, and after him Salamon and Croocq. Spillbergen felt himself dying fast because they had agreed he would not choose but his would be the last straw and now the odds were becoming terrible.

Ginsel was safe. Four left.

Maetsukker was weeping openly, but he pushed Vinck aside and took a straw and could not believe that it was not the one.

Spillbergen’s fist was shaking and Croocq helped him steady his arm. Feces ran unnoticed down his legs.

Which one do I take? van Nekk was asking himself desperately. Oh, God help me! He could barely see the straws through the fog of his myopia. If only I could see, perhaps I’d have a clue which to pick. Which one?

He picked and brought the straw close to his eyes to see his sentence clearly. But the straw was not short.

Vinck watched his fingers select the next to last straw and it fell to the ground but everyone saw that it was the shortest thus far. Spillbergen unclenched his knotted hand and everyone saw that the last straw was long. Spillbergen fainted.

They were all staring at Vinck. Helplessly he looked at them, not seeing them. He half shrugged and half smiled and waved absently at the flies. Then he slumped down. They made room for him, kept away from him as though he were a leper.

Blackthorne knelt in the ooze beside Spillbergen.

“Is he dead?” van Nekk asked, his voice almost inaudible.

Vinck shrieked with laughter, which unnerved them all, and ceased as violently as he had begun. “I’m the—the one that’s dead,” he said. “I’m dead!”

“Don’t be afraid. You’re the anointed of God. You’re in God’s hands,” Jan Roper said, his voice confident.

“Yes,” van Nekk said. “Don’t be afraid.”

“That’s easy now, isn’t it?” Vinck’s eyes went from face to face but none could hold his gaze. Only Blackthorne did not look away.

“Get me some water, Vinck,” he said quietly. “Go over to the barrel and get some water. Go on.”

Vinck stared at him. Then he got the gourd and filled it with water and gave it to him. “Lord Jesus God, Pilot,” he muttered, “what am I going to do?”

“First help me with Paulus. Vinck! Do what I say! Is he going to be all right?”

Vinck pushed his agony away, helped by Blackthorne’s calm. Spillbergen’s pulse was weak. Vinck listened to his heart, pulled the eyelids away, and watched for a moment. “I don’t know, Pilot. Lord Jesus, I can’t think properly. His heart’s all right, I think. He needs bleeding but—but I’ve no way—I—I can’t concentrate. . . . Give me . . .” He stopped exhaustedly, sat back against the wall. Shudders began to rack him.

The trapdoor opened.

Omi stood etched against the sky, his kimono blooded by the dying sun.

CHAPTER FOUR

Vinck tried to make his legs move but he could not. He had faced death many times in his life but never like this, meekly. It had been decreed by the straws. Why me? his brain screamed. I’m no worse than the others and better than most. Dear God in Heaven, why me?

A ladder had been lowered. Omi motioned for the one man to come up, and quickly. “Isogi!” Hurry up!

Van Nekk and Jan Roper were praying silently, their eyes closed. Pieterzoon could not watch. Blackthorne was staring up at Omi and his men.

“Isogi!” Omi barked out again.

Once more Vinck tried to stand. “Help me, someone. Help me to get up!”

Pieterzoon, who was nearest, bent down and put his hand under Vinck’s arm and helped him to his feet, then Blackthorne was at the foot of the ladder, both feet planted firmly in the slime.

“Kinjiru!” he shouted, using the word from the ship. A gasp rushed through the cellar. Omi’s hand tightened on his sword and he moved to the ladder. Immediately Blackthorne twisted it, daring Omi to put a foot there.

“Kinjiru!” he said again.

Omi stopped.

“What’s going on?” Spillbergen asked, frightened, as were all of them.

“I told him it’s forbidden! None of my crew is walking to death without a fight.”

“But—but we agreed!”

“I didn’t.”

“Have you gone mad!”

“It’s all right, Pilot,” Vinck whispered. “I—we did agree and it was fair. It’s God’s will. I’m going—it’s . . .” He groped to the foot of the ladder but Blackthorne stood implacably in the way, facing Omi.

“You’re not going without a fight. No one is.”

“Get away from the ladder, Pilot! You’re ordered away!” Spillbergen shakily kept to his corner, as far from the opening as possible. His voice shrilled, “Pilot!”

But Blackthorne was not listening. “Get ready!”

Omi stepped back a pace and snarled orders to his men. At once a samurai, closely followed by two others, started down the steps, swords unsheathed. Blackthorne twisted the ladder and grappled with the lead man, swerving from his violent sword blow, trying to choke the man to death.

“Help me! Come on! For your lives!”

Blackthorne changed his grip to pull the man off the rungs, braced sickeningly as the second man stabbed downward. Vinck came out of his cataleptic state and threw himself at the samurai, berserk. He intercepted the blow that would have sliced Blackthorne’s wrist off, held the shuddering sword arm at bay, and smashed his other fist into the man’s groin. The samurai gasped and kicked viciously. Vinck hardly seemed to notice the blow. He climbed the rungs and tore at the man for possession of the sword, his nails ripping at the man’s eyes. The other two samurai were hampered by the confined space and Blackthorne, but a kick from one of them caught Vinck in the face and he reeled away. The samurai on the ladder hacked at Blackthorne, missed, then the entire crew hurled themselves at the ladder.

Croocq hammered his fist onto the samurai’s instep and felt a small bone give. The man managed to throw his sword out of the pit—not wishing the enemy armed—and tumbled heavily to the mud. Vinck and Pieterzoon fell on him. He fought back ferociously as others rushed for the encroaching samurai. Blackthorne picked up the cornered Japanese’s dagger and started up the ladder, Croocq, Jan Roper, and Salamon following. Both samurai retreated and stood at the entrance, their killing swords viciously ready. Blackthorne knew his dagger was useless against the swords. Even so he charged, the others in close support. The moment his head was above ground one of the swords swung at him, missing him by a fraction of an inch. A violent kick from an unseen samurai drove him underground again.

He turned and jumped back, avoiding the writhing mass of fighting men who tried to subdue the samurai in the stinking ooze. Vinck kicked the man in the back of the neck and he went limp. Vinck pounded him again and again until Blackthorne pulled him off.

“Don’t kill him—we can use him as a hostage!” he shouted and wrenched desperately at the ladder, trying to pull it down into the cellar. But it was too long. Above, Omi’s other samurai waited impassively at the trapdoor’s entrance.

“For God’s sake, Pilot, stop it!” Spillbergen wheezed. “They’ll kill us all—you’ll kill us all! Stop him, someone!”

Omi was shouting more orders and strong hands aloft prevented Blackthorne from jamming the entrance with the ladder.

“Look out!” he shouted.

Three more samurai, carrying knives and wearing only loincloths, leapt nimbly into the cellar. The first two crashed deliberately onto Blackthorne, carrying him helpless to the floor, oblivious of their own danger, then attacked ferociously.

Blackthorne was crushed beneath the strength of the men. He could not use the knife and felt his will to fight subsiding and he wished he had Mura the headman’s skill at unarmed combat. He knew, helplessly, that he could not survive much longer but he made a final effort and jerked one arm free. A cruel blow from a rock-hard hand rattled his head and another exploded colors in his brain but still he fought back.

Vinck was gouging at one of the samurai when the third dropped on him from the sky door, and Maetsukker screamed as a dagger slashed his arm. Van Nekk was blindly striking out and Pieterzoon was saying, “For Christ’s sake, hit them not me,” but the merchant did not hear for he was consumed with terror.

Blackthorne caught one of the samurai by the throat, his grip slipping from the sweat and slime, and he was almost on his feet like a mad bull, trying to shake them off when there was a last blow and he fell into blankness. The three samurai hacked their way up and the crew, now leaderless, retreated from the circling slash of their three daggers, the samurai dominating the cellar now with their whirling daggers, not trying to kill or to maim, but only to force the panting, frightened men to the walls, away from the ladder where Blackthorne and the first samurai lay inert.

Omi came down arrogantly into the pit and grabbed the nearest man, who was Pieterzoon. He jerked him toward the ladder.

Pieterzoon screamed and tried to struggle out of Omi’s grasp, but a knife sliced his wrist and another opened his arm. Relentlessly the shrieking seaman was backed against the ladder.

“Christ help me, it’s not me that’s to go, it’s not me it’s not me—” Pieterzoon had both feet on the rung and he was retreating up and away from the agony of the knives and then, “Help me, for God’s sake,” he screamed a last time, turned and fled raving into the air.

Omi followed without hurrying.

A samurai retreated. Then another. The third picked up the knife that Blackthorne had used. He turned his back contemptuously, stepped over the prostrate body of his unconscious comrade, and climbed away.

The ladder was jerked aloft. Air and sky and light vanished. Bolts crashed into place. Now there was only gloom, and in it heaving chests and rending heartbeats and running sweat and the stench. The flies returned.

For a moment no one moved. Jan Roper had a small cut on his cheek, Maetsukker was bleeding badly, the others were mostly in shock. Except Salamon. He groped his way over to Blackthorne, pulled him off the unconscious samurai. He mouthed gutturally and pointed at the water. Croocq fetched some in a gourd, helped him to prop Blackthorne, still lifeless, against the wall. Together they began to clean the muck off his face.

“When those bastards—when they dropped on him I thought I heard his neck or shoulder go,” the boy said, his chest heaving. “He looks like a corpse, Lord Jesus!”

Sonk forced himself to his feet and picked his way over to them. Carefully he moved Blackthorne’s head from side to side, felt his shoulders. “Seems all right. Have to wait till he comes round to tell.”

“Oh, Jesus God,” Vinck began whimpering. “Poor Pieterzoon—I’m damned—I’m damned . . .”

“You were going. The Pilot stopped you. You were going like you promised, I saw you, by God.” Sonk shook Vinck but he paid no attention. “I saw you, Vinck.” He turned to Spillbergen, waving the flies away. “Wasn’t that right?”

“Yes, he was going. Vinck, stop moaning! It was the Pilot’s fault. Give me some water.”

Jan Roper dipped some water with the gourd and drank and daubed the cut on his cheek. “Vinck should have gone. He was the lamb of God. He was ordained. And now his soul’s forfeit. Oh, Lord God have mercy on him, he’ll burn for all eternity.”

“Give me some water,” the Captain-General whimpered.

Van Nekk took the gourd from Jan Roper and passed it to Spillbergen. “It wasn’t Vinck’s fault,” van Nekk said tiredly. “He couldn’t get up, don’t you remember? He asked someone to help him up. I was so frightened I couldn’t move either, and I didn’t have to go.”

“It wasn’t Vinck’s fault,” Spillbergen said. “No. It was him.” They all looked at Blackthorne. “He’s mad.”

“All the English are mad,” Sonk said. “Have you ever known one that wasn’t? Scratch one of ’em and you find a maniac—and a pirate.”

“Bastards, all of them!” Ginsel said.

“No, not all of them,” van Nekk said. “The pilot was only doing what he felt was right. He’s protected us and brought us ten thousand leagues.”

“Protected us, piss! We were five hundred when we started and five ships. Now there’s nine of us!”

“Wasn’t his fault the fleet split up. Wasn’t his fault that the storms blew us all—”

“Weren’t for him we’d have stayed in the New World, by God. It was him who said we could get to the Japans. And for Jesus Christ’s sweet sake, look where we are now.”

“We agreed to try for the Japans. We all agreed,” van Nekk said wearily. “We all voted.”

“Yes. But it was him that persuaded us.”

“Look out!” Ginsel pointed at the samurai, who was stirring and moaning. Sonk quickly slid over to him, crashed his fist into his jaw. The man went out again.

“Christ’s death! What’d the bastards leave him here for? They could’ve carried him out with them, easy. Nothing we could’ve done.”

“You think they thought he was dead?”

“Don’t know! They must’ve seen him. By the Lord Jesus, I could use a cold beer,” Sonk said.

“Don’t hit him again, Sonk, don’t kill him. He’s a hostage.” Croocq looked at Vinck, who sat huddled against a wall, locked into his whimpering self-hatred. “God help us all. What’ll they do to Pieterzoon? What’ll they do to us?”

“It’s the Pilot’s fault,” Jan Roper said. “Only him.”

Van Nekk peered compassionately at Blackthorne. “It doesn’t matter now. Does it? Whose fault it is or was.”

Maetsukker reeled to his feet, the blood still flowing down his forearm. “I’m hurt, help me someone.”

Salamon made a tourniquet from a piece of shirt and staunched the blood. The slice in Maetsukker’s biceps was deep but no vein or artery had been cut. The flies began to worry the wound.

“God-cursed flies! And God curse the Pilot to hell,” Maetsukker said. “It was agreed. But, oh no! He had to save Vinck! Now Pieterzoon’s blood’s on his hands and we’ll all suffer because of him.”

“Shut your face! He said none of his crew—”

There were footsteps above. The trapdoor opened. Villagers began pouring barrels of fish offal and seawater into the cellar. When the floor was six inches awash, they stopped.

The screams began when the moon was high.

Yabu was kneeling in the inner garden of Omi’s house. Motionless. He watched the moonlight in the blossom tree, the branches jet against the lighter sky, the clustered blooms now barely tinted. A petal spiraled and he thought,

Another petal settled. The wind sighed and took another. The tree was scarcely as tall as a man, kneaded between moss rocks that seemed to have grown from the earth, so cleverly had they been placed.

It took all of Yabu’s will to concentrate on the tree and blossoms and sky and night, to feel the gentle touch of the wind, to smell its sea-sweetness, to think of poems, and yet to keep his ears reaching for the agony. His spine felt limp. Only his will made him graven as the rocks. This awareness gave him a level of sensuality beyond articulation. And tonight it was stronger and more violent than it had ever been.

“Omi-san, how long will our Master stay there?” Omi’s mother asked in a frightened whisper from inside the house.

“I don’t know.”

“The screams are terrible. When will they stop?”

“I don’t know,” Omi said.

They were sitting behind a screen in the second best room. The best room, his mother’s, had been given to Yabu, and both these rooms faced onto the garden that he had constructed with so much effort. They could see Yabu through the lattice, the tree casting stark patterns on his face, moonlight sparking on the handles of his swords. He wore a dark haori, or outer jacket, over his somber kimono.

“I want to go to sleep,” the woman said, trembling. “But I can’t sleep with all this noise. When will it stop?”

“I don’t know. Be patient, Mother,” Omi said softly. “The noise will stop soon. Tomorrow Lord Yabu will go back to Yedo. Please be patient.” But Omi knew that the torture would continue to the dawn. It had been planned that way.

He tried to concentrate. Because his feudal lord meditated, within the screams, he tried again to follow his example. But the next shriek brought him back and he thought, I can’t. I can’t, not yet. I don’t have his control or power.

Or is it power? he asked himself.

He could see Yabu’s face clearly. He tried to read the strange expression on his daimyo’s face: the slight twisting of the slack full lips, a fleck of saliva at the corners, eyes set into dark slits that moved only with the petals. It’s almost as though he’s just climaxed—was almost climaxing—without touching himself. Is that possible?

This was the first time that Omi had been in close contact with his uncle, for he was a very minor link in the clan chain, and his fief of Anjiro and the surrounding area poor and unimportant. Omi was the youngest of three sons and his father, Mizuno, had six brothers. Yabu was the eldest brother and leader of the Kasigi clan, his father second eldest. Omi was twenty-one and had an infant son of his own.

“Where’s your miserable wife,” the old woman whimpered querulously. “I want her to rub my back and shoulders.”

“She had to go to visit her father, don’t you remember? He’s very sick, Mother. Let me do it for you.”

“No. You can send for a maid in a moment. Your wife’s most inconsiderate. She could have waited a few days. I come all the way from Yedo to visit you. It took two weeks of terrible journeying and what happens? I’ve only been here a week and she leaves. She should have waited! Good for nothing, that’s her. Your father made a very bad mistake arranging your marriage to her. You should tell her to stay away permanently—divorce the good-for-nothing once and for all. She can’t even massage my back properly. At the very least you should give her a good beating. Those dreadful screams! Why won’t they stop?”

“They will. Very soon.”

“You should give her a good beating.”

“Yes.” Omi thought about his wife Midori and his heart leapt. She was so beautiful and fine and gentle and clever, her voice so clear, and her music as good as that of any courtesan in Izu.

“Midori-san, you must go at once,” he had said to her privately.

“Omi-san, my father is not so sick and my place is here, serving your mother, neh?” she had responded. “If our lord daimyo arrives, this house has to be prepared. Oh, Omi-san, this is so important, the most important time of your whole service, neh? If the Lord Yabu is impressed, perhaps he’ll give you a better fief, you deserve so much better! If anything happened while I was away, I’d never forgive myself and this is the first time you’ve had an opportunity to excel and it must succeed. He must come. Please, there’s so much to do.”

“Yes, but I would like you to go at once, Midori-san. Stay just two days, then hurry home again.”

She had pleaded but he had insisted and she had gone. He had wanted her away from Anjiro before Yabu arrived and while the man was a guest in his house. Not that the daimyo would dare to touch her without permission—that was unthinkable because he, Omi, would then have the right, the honor, and the duty by law to obliterate the daimyo. But he had noticed Yabu watching her just after they had been married in Yedo and he had wanted to remove a possible source of irritation, anything that could upset or embarrass his lord while he was here. It was so important that he impress Yabu-sama with his filial loyalty, his foresight, and with his counsel. And so far everything had succeeded beyond possibility. The ship had been a treasure trove, the crew another. Everything was perfect.

“I’ve asked our house kami to watch over you,” Midori had said just before she left, referring to the particular Shinto spirit that had their house in his care, “and I’ve sent an offering to the Buddhist temple for prayers. I’ve told Suwo to be his most perfect, and sent a message to Kiku-san. Oh, Omi-san, please let me stay.”

He had smiled and sent her on her way, the tears spoiling her makeup.

Omi was sad to be without her, but glad that she had gone. The screams would have pained her very much.

His mother winced under the torment on the wind, moved slightly to ease the ache in her shoulders, her joints bad tonight. It’s the west sea breeze, she thought. Still, it’s better here than in Yedo. Too marshy there and too many mosquitoes.

She could just see the soft outline of Yabu in the garden. Secretly she hated him and wanted him dead. Once Yabu was dead, Mizuno, her husband, would be daimyo of Izu and would lead the clan. That would be very nice, she thought. Then all the rest of the brothers and their wives and children would be subservient to her and, of course, Mizuno-san would make Omi heir when Yabu was dead and gone.

Another pain in her neck made her move slightly.

“I’ll call Kiku-san,” Omi said, referring to the courtesan who waited patiently for Yabu in the next room, with the boy. “She’s very, very deft.”

“I’m all right, just tired, neh? Oh, very well. She can massage me.”

Omi went into the next room. The bed was ready. It consisted of over- and under-coverlets called futons that were placed on the floor matting. Kiku bowed and tried to smile and murmured she would be honored to try to use her modest skill on the most honorable mother of the household. She was even paler than usual and Omi could see the screams were taking their toll on her too. The boy was trying not to show his fear.

When the screams had begun Omi had had to use all his skill to persuade her to stay. “Oh, Omi-san, I cannot bear it—it’s terrible. So sorry, please let me go—I want to close my ears but the sound comes through my hands. Poor man—it’s terrible,” she had said.

“Please, Kiku-san, please be patient. Yabu-sama has ordered this, neh? There is nothing to be done. It will stop soon.”

“It’s too much, Omi-san. I can’t bear it.”

By inviolate custom, money of itself could not buy a girl if she, or her employer, wished to refuse the client, whoever he was. Kiku was a courtesan of the First Class, the most famous in Izu, and though Omi was convinced she would not compare even to a courtesan of the Second Class of Yedo, Osaka, or Kyoto, here she was at the pinnacle and correctly prideful and exclusive. And even though he had agreed with her employer, the Mama-san Gyoko, to pay five times the usual price, he was still not sure that Kiku would stay.

Now he was watching her nimble fingers on his mother’s neck. She was beautiful, tiny, her skin almost translucent and so soft. Usually she would bubble with zest for life. But how could such a plaything be happy under the weight of the screams, he asked himself. He enjoyed watching her, enjoyed the knowledge of her body and her warmth—

Abruptly the screams stopped.

Omi listened, his mouth half-open, straining to catch the slightest noise, waiting. He noticed Kiku’s fingers had stopped, his mother uncomplaining, listening as intently. He looked through the lattice at Yabu. The daimyo remained statuelike.

“Omi-san!” Yabu called at last.

Omi got up and went onto the polished veranda and bowed. “Yes, Lord.”

“Go and see what has happened.”

Omi bowed again and went through the garden, out onto the tidily pebbled roadway that led down the hill to the village and onto the shore. Far below he could see the fire near one of the wharfs and the men beside it. And, in the square that fronted the sea, the trapdoor to the pit and the four guards.

As he walked toward the village he saw that the barbarian ship was safe at anchor, oil lamps on the decks and on the nestling boats. Villagers—men and women and children—were still unloading the cargo, and fishing boats and dinghies were going back and forth like so many fireflies. Neat mounds of bales and crates were piling up on the beach. Seven cannon were already there and another was being hauled by ropes from a boat onto a ramp, thence onto the sand.

He shuddered though there was no chill on the wind. Normally the villagers would be singing at their labors, as much from happiness as to help them pull in unison. But tonight the village was unusually quiet though every house was awake and every hand employed, even the sickest. People hurried back and forth, bowed and hurried on again. Silent. Even the dogs were hushed.

It’s never been like this before, he thought, his hand unnecessarily tight on his sword. It’s almost as though our village kami have deserted us.

Mura came up from the shore to intercept him, forewarned the moment Omi had opened the garden door. He bowed. “Good evening, Omi-sama. The ship will be unloaded by midday.”

“Is the barbarian dead?”

“I don’t know, Omi-sama. I’ll go and find out at once.”

“You can come with me.”

Obediently Mura followed, half a pace behind. Omi was curiously glad of his company.

“By midday, you said?” Omi asked, not liking the quiet.

“Yes. Everything is going well.”

“What about the camouflage?”

Mura pointed to groups of old women and children near one of the net houses who were platting rough mats, Suwo with them.

“We can dismantle the cannon from their carriages and wrap them up. We’ll need at least ten men to carry one. Igurashi-san has sent for more porters from the next village.”

“Good.”

“I’m concerned that secrecy should be maintained, Sire.”

“Igurashi-san will impress on them the need, neh?”

“Omi-sama, we’ll have to expend all our rice sacks, all our twine, all our nets, all our matting straw.”

“So?”

“How then can we catch fish or bale our harvest?”

“You will find a way.” Omi’s voice sharpened. “Your tax is increased by half again this season. Yabu-san has tonight ordered it.”

“We have already paid this year’s tax and next.”

“That’s a peasant’s privilege, Mura. To fish and to till and to harvest and to pay tax. Isn’t it?”

Mura said calmly, “Yes, Omi-sama.”

“A headman who cannot control his village is a useless object, neh?”

“Yes, Omi-sama.”

“That villager, he was a fool as well as insulting. Are there others like him?”

“None, Omi-sama.”

“I hope so. Bad manners are unforgivable. His family is fined the value of one koku of rice—in fish, rice, grain, or whatever. To be paid within three moons.”

“Yes, Omi-sama.”

Both Mura and Omi the samurai knew that this sum was totally beyond the family’s means. There was only the fishing boat and the single half-hectare rice paddy which the three Tamazaki brothers—now two—shared with their wives, four sons and three daughters, and Tamazaki’s widow and three children. A koku of rice was a measure that approximated the amount of rice it took to keep one family alive for one year. About five bushels. Perhaps three hundred and fifty pounds of rice. All income in the realm was measured by koku. And all taxes.

“Where would this Land of the Gods be if we forgot manners?” Omi asked. “Both to those beneath us and to those above us?”

“Yes, Omi-sama.” Mura was estimating where to gain that one koku of value, because the village would have to pay if the family could not. And where to obtain more rice sacks, twine, and nets. Some could be salvaged from the journey. Money would have to be borrowed. The headman of the next village owed him a favor. Ah! Isn’t Tamazaki’s eldest daughter a beauty at six, and isn’t six the perfect age for a girl to be sold? And isn’t the best child broker in all Izu my mother’s sister’s third cousin?—the money-hungry, hair-rending, detestable old hag. Mura sighed, knowing that he now had a series of furious bargaining sessions ahead. Never mind, he thought. Perhaps the child’ll bring even two koku. She’s certainly worth much more.

“I apologize for Tamazaki’s misconduct and ask your pardon,” he said.

“It was his misconduct—not yours,” Omi replied as politely.

But both knew that it was Mura’s responsibility and there had better be no more Tamazakis. Yet both were satisfied. An apology had been offered and it had been accepted but refused. Thus the honor of both men was satisfied.

They turned the corner of the wharf and stopped. Omi hesitated, then motioned Mura away. The headman bowed, left thankfully.

“Is he dead, Zukimoto?”

“No, Omi-san. He’s just fainted again.”

Omi went to the great iron cauldron that the village used for rendering blubber from the whales they sometimes caught far out to sea in the winter months, or for the rendering of glue from fish, a village industry.

The barbarian was immersed to his shoulders in the steaming water. His face was purple, his lips torn back from his mildewed teeth.

At sunset Omi watched Zukimoto, puffed with vanity, supervising while the barbarian was trussed like a chicken, his arms around his knees, his hands loosely to his feet, and put into cold water. All the time, the little red-headed barbarian that Yabu had wanted to begin with had babbled and laughed and wept, the Christian priest there at first droning his cursed prayers.

Then the stoking of the fire had begun. Yabu had not been at the shore, but his orders had been specific and had been followed diligently. The barbarian had begun shouting and raving, then tried to beat his head to pulp on the iron lip until he was restrained. Then came more praying, weeping, fainting, waking, shrieking in panic before the pain truly began. Omi had tried to watch as you would watch the immolation of a fly, trying not to see the man. But he could not and had gone away as soon as possible. He had discovered that he did not relish torture. There was no dignity in it, he had decided, glad for the opportunity to know the truth, never having seen it before. There was no dignity for either the sufferer or the torturer. It removed the dignity from death, and without that dignity, what was the ultimate point of life? he asked himself.

Zukimoto calmly poked the parboiled flesh of the man’s legs with a stick as one would a simmered fish to see if it was ready. “He’ll come to life again soon. Extraordinary how long he’s lasted. I don’t think they’re made like us. Very interesting, eh?” Zukimoto said.

“No,” Omi said, detesting him.

Zukimoto was instantly on his guard and his unctuousness returned. “I mean nothing, Omi-san,” he said with a deep bow. “Nothing at all.”

“Of course. Lord Yabu is pleased that you have done so well. It must require great skill not to give too much fire, yet to give enough.”

“You’re too kind, Omi-san.”

“You’ve done it before?”

“Not like this. But Lord Yabu honors me with his favors. I just try to please him.”

“He wants to know how long the man will live.”

“Until dawn. With care.”

Omi studied the cauldron thoughtfully. Then he walked up the beach into the square. All the samurai got up and bowed.

“Everything’s quiet down there, Omi-san,” one of them said with a laugh, jerking a thumb at the trapdoor. “At first there was some talk—it sounded angry—and some blows. Later, two of them, perhaps more, were whimpering like frightened children. But there’s been quiet for a long time.”

Omi listened. He could hear water sloshing and distant muttering. An occasional moan. “And Masijiro?” he asked, naming the samurai who, on his orders, had been left below.

“We don’t know, Omi-san. Certainly he hasn’t called out. He’s probably dead.”

How dare Masijiro be so useless, Omi thought. To be overpowered by defenseless men, most of whom are sick! Disgusting! Better he is dead. “No food or water tomorrow. At midday remove any bodies, neh? And I want the leader brought up then. Alone.”

“Yes, Omi-san.”

Omi went back to the fire and waited until the barbarian opened his eyes. Then he returned to the garden and reported what Zukimoto had said, the torment once more keening on the wind.

“You looked into the barbarian’s eyes?”

“Yes, Yabu-sama.”

Omi was kneeling now behind the daimyo, ten paces away. Yabu had remained immobile. Moonlight shadowed his kimono and made a phallus of his sword handle.

“What—what did you see?”

“Madness. The essence of madness. I’ve never seen eyes like that. And limitless terror.”

Three petals fell gently.

“Make up a poem about him.”

Omi tried to force his brain to work. Then, wishing he were more adequate, he said:

Shrieks came wafting up, fainter now, the distance seeming to make their cut more cruel.

Yabu said, after a moment:

Omi thought about that a long time in the beauty of the night.

CHAPTER FIVE

Just before first light, the cries had ceased.

Now Omi’s mother slept. And Yabu.

The village was still restless in the dawn. Four cannon had yet to be brought ashore, fifty more kegs of powder, a thousand more cannon shot.

Kiku was lying under the coverlet watching the shadows on the shoji wall. She had not slept even though she was more exhausted than she had ever been. Wheezing snores from the old woman in the next room drowned the soft deep breathing of the daimyo beside her. The boy slept soundlessly on the other coverlets, one arm thrown over his eyes to shut out the light.

A slight tremor went through Yabu and Kiku held her breath. But he remained in sleep and this pleased her for she knew that very soon she would be able to leave without disturbing him. As she waited patiently, she forced herself to think of pleasant things. ‘Always remember, child,’ her first teacher had impressed on her, ‘that to think bad thoughts is really the easiest thing in the world. If you leave your mind to itself it will spiral you down into ever-increasing unhappiness. To think good thoughts, however, requires effort. This is one of the things that discipline—training—is about. So train your mind to dwell on sweet perfumes, the touch of this silk, tender raindrops against the shoji, the curve of this flower arrangement, the tranquillity of dawn. Then, at length, you won’t have to make such a great effort and you will be of value to yourself, a value to our profession—and bring honor to our world, the Willow World. . . .’

She thought about the sensuous glory of the bath she soon would have that would banish this night, and afterwards the soothing caress of Suwo’s hands. She thought of the laughter she would have with the other girls and with Gyoko-san, the Mama-san, as they swapped gossip and rumors and stories, and of the clean, oh so clean, kimono that she would wear tonight, the golden one with yellow and green flowers and the hair ribbons that matched. After the bath she would have her hair dressed and from the money of last night there would be very much to pay off her debt to her employer, Gyoko-san, some to send to her father who was a peasant farmer, through the money exchanger, and still some for herself. Soon she would see her lover and it would be a perfect evening.

Life is very good, she thought.

Yes. But it’s very difficult to put away the screams. Impossible. The other girls will be just as unhappy, and poor Gyoko-san! But never mind. Tomorrow we will all leave Anjiro and go home to our lovely Tea House in Mishima, the biggest city in Izu, which surrounds the daimyo’s greatest castle in Izu, where life begins and is.

I’m sorry the Lady Midori sent for me.

Be serious, Kiku, she told herself sharply. You shouldn’t be sorry. You are not sorry, neh? It was an honor to serve our Lord. Now that you have been honored, your value to Gyoko-san is greater than ever, neh? It was an experience, and now you will be known as the Lady of the Night of the Screams and, if you are lucky, someone will write a ballad about you and perhaps the ballad will even be sung in Yedo itself. Oh, that would be very good! Then certainly your lover will buy your contract and you will be safe and content and bear sons.

She smiled to herself. Ah, what stories the troubadours will make up about tonight that will be told in every Tea House throughout Izu. About the lord daimyo, who sat motionless in the screams, his sweat streaming. What did he do in the bed? they will all want to know. And why the boy? How was the pillowing? What did the Lady Kiku do and say and what did Lord Yabu do and say? Was his Peerless Pestle insignificant or full? Was it once or twice or never? Did nothing happen?

A thousand questions. But none ever directly asked or ever answered. That’s wise, Kiku thought. The first and last rule of the Willow World was absolute secrecy, never to tell about a client or his habits or what was paid, and thus to be completely trustworthy. If someone else told, well, that was his affair, but with walls of paper and houses so small and people being what they are, stories always sped from the bed to the ballad—never the truth, always exaggerated, because people are people, neh? But nothing from the Lady. An arched eyebrow perhaps or hesitant shrug, a delicate smoothing of a perfect coiffure or fold of the kimono was all that was allowed. And always enough, if the girl had wit.

When the screams stopped, Yabu had remained statuelike in the moonlight for what had seemed a further eternity and then he had got up. At once she had hurried back into the other room, her silk kimono sighing like a midnight sea. The boy was frightened, trying not to show it, and wiped away the tears that the torment had brought. She had smiled at him reassuringly, forcing a calm that she did not feel.

Then Yabu was at the door. He was bathed in sweat, his face taut and his eyes half-closed. Kiku helped him take off his swords, then his soaking kimono and loincloth. She dried him, helped him into a sun-fresh kimono and tied its silken belt. Once she had begun to greet him but he had put a gentle finger on her lips.

Then he had gone over to the window and looked up at the waning moon, trancelike, swaying slightly on his feet. She remained quiescent, without fear, for what was there now to fear? He was a man and she a woman, trained to be a woman, to give pleasure, in whatever way. But not to give or to receive pain. There were other courtesans who specialized in that form of sensuality. A bruise here or there, perhaps a bite, well, that was part of the pleasure-pain of giving and receiving, but always within reason, for honor was involved and she was a Lady of the Willow World of the First Class Rank, never to be treated lightly, always to be honored. But part of her training was to know how to keep a man tamed, within limits. Sometimes a man became untamed and then it became terrible. For the Lady was alone. With no rights.

Her coiffure was impeccable but for the tiny locks of hair so carefully loosed over her ears to suggest erotic disarray, yet, at the same time, to enhance the purity of the whole. The red- and black-checkered outer kimono, bordered with the purest green that increased the whiteness of her skin, was drawn tight to her tiny waist by a wide stiff sash, an obi, of iridescent green. She could hear the surf on the shore now and a light wind rustled the garden.

Finally Yabu had turned and looked at her, then at the boy.

The boy was fifteen, the son of a local fisherman, apprenticed at the nearby monastery to a Buddhist monk who was an artist, a painter and illustrator of books. The boy was one of those who was pleased to earn money from those who enjoyed sex with boys and not with women.

Yabu motioned to him. Obediently the boy, now also over his fear, loosed the sash of his kimono with a studied elegance. He wore no loincloth but a woman’s wrapped underskirt that reached the ground. His body was smooth and curved and almost hairless.

Kiku remembered how still the room had been, the three of them locked together by the stillness and the vanished screams, she and the boy waiting for Yabu to indicate that which was required, Yabu standing there between them, swaying slightly, glancing from one to another.

At length he had signed to her. Gracefully she unknotted the ribbon of her obi, unwound it gently and let it rest. The folds of her three gossamer kimonos sighed open and revealed the misted underskirt that enhanced her loins. He lay on the bedding and at his bidding they lay on either side of him. He put their hands on him and held them equally. He warmed quickly, showing them how to use their nails in his flanks, hurrying, his face a mask, faster, faster and then his shuddering violent cry of utter pain. For a moment, he lay there panting, eyes tightly closed, chest heaving, then turned over and, almost instantly, was asleep.

In the quiet they caught their breaths, trying to hide their surprise. It had been over so quickly.

The boy had arched an eyebrow in wonder. “Were we inept, Kiku-san? I mean, everything was so fast,” he whispered.

“We did everything he wanted,” she said.

“He certainly reached the Clouds and the Rain,” the boy said. “I thought the house was going to fall down.”

She smiled. “Yes.”

“I’m glad. At first I was very frightened. It’s very good to please.”

Together they dried Yabu gently and covered him with the quilt. Then the boy lay back languorously, half propped on one elbow and stifled a yawn.

“Why don’t you sleep, too,” she said.

The boy pulled his kimono closer and shifted his position to kneel opposite her. She was sitting beside Yabu, her right hand gently stroking the daimyo’s arm, gentling his tremored sleep.

“I’ve never been together with a man and a lady at the same time before, Kiku-san,” the boy whispered.

“Neither have I.”

The boy frowned. “I’ve never been with a girl either. I mean I’ve never pillowed with one.”

“Would you like me?” she had asked politely. “If you wait a little, I’m sure our Lord won’t wake up.”

The boy frowned. Then he said, “Yes please,” and afterwards he said, “That was very strange, Lady Kiku.”

She smiled within. “Which do you prefer?”

The boy thought a long time as they lay at peace, in each other’s arms. “This way is rather hard work.”

She buried her head in his shoulder and kissed the nape of his neck to hide her smile. “You are a marvelous lover,” she whispered. “Now you must sleep after so much hard work.” She caressed him to sleep, then left him and went to the other quilts.

The other bed had been cool. She did not want to move into Yabu’s warmth lest she disturb him. Soon her side was warm.

The shadows from the shoji were sharpening. Men are such babies, she thought. So full of foolish pride. All the anguish of this night for something so transitory. For a passion that is in itself but an illusion, neh?

The boy stirred in his sleep. Why did you make the offer to him? she asked herself. For his pleasure—for him and not for me, though it amused me and passed the time and gave him the peace he needed. Why don’t you sleep a little? Later. I’ll sleep later, she told herself.

When it was time she slipped from the soft warmth and stood up. Her kimonos whispered apart and the air chilled her skin. Quickly she folded her robes perfectly and retied her obi. A deft but careful touch to her coiffure. And to her makeup.

She made no sound as she left.

The samurai sentry at the veranda entrance bowed and she bowed back and she was in the dawning sunshine. Her maid was waiting for her.

“Good morning, Kiku-san.”

“Good morning.”

The sun felt very good and washed away the night. It’s very fine to be alive, she thought.

She slipped her feet into her sandals, opened her crimson parasol, and started through the garden, out onto the path that led down to the village, through the square, to the tea house that was her temporary home. Her maid followed.

“Good morning, Kiku-san,” Mura called out, bowing. He was resting momentarily on the veranda of his house, drinking cha, the pale green tea of Japan. His mother was serving him. “Good morning, Kiku-san,” she echoed.

“Good morning, Mura-san. Good morning, Saiko-san, how well you are looking,” Kiku replied.

“How are you?” the mother asked, her old old eyes boring into the girl. “What a terrible night! Please join us for cha. You look pale, child.”

“Thank you, but please excuse me, I must go home now. You do me too much honor. Perhaps later.”

“Of course, Kiku-san. You honor our village by being here.”

Kiku smiled and pretended not to notice their searching stares. To add spice to their day and to hers, she pretended a slight pain in her nether regions.

That will sail around the village, she thought happily as she bowed, winced again, and went off as though stoically covering an intensity of pain, the folds of her kimonos swaying to perfection, and her sunshade tilted to give her just that most marvelous light. She was very glad that she had worn this outer kimono and this parasol. On a dull day the effect would never have been so dramatic.

“Ah, poor, poor child! She’s so beautiful, neh? What a shame! Terrible!” Mura’s mother said with a heart-rending sigh.

“What’s terrible, Saiko-san?” Mura’s wife asked, coming onto the veranda.

“Didn’t you see the poor girl’s agony? Didn’t you see how bravely she was trying to hide it? Poor child. Only seventeen and to have to go through all that!”

“She’s eighteen,” Mura said dryly.

“All of what, Mistress?” one of the maids said breathlessly, joining them.

The old woman looked around to ensure that everyone was listening and whispered loudly. “I heard”—she dropped her voice—“I heard that she’ll . . . she’ll be useless . . . for three months.”

“Oh, no! Poor Kiku-san! Oh! But why?”

“He used his teeth. I have it on the best authority.”

“Oh!”

“Oh!”

“But why does he have the boy as well, Mistress? Surely he doesn’t—”

“Ah! Run along! Back to your work, good-for-nothings! This isn’t for your ears! Go on, off with the lot of you. The Master and I have to talk.”

She shooed them all off the veranda. Even Mura’s wife. And sipped her cha, benign and very content.

Mura broke the silence. “Teeth?”

“Teeth. Rumor has it that the screams make him large because he was frightened by a dragon when he was small,” she said in a rush. “He always has a boy there to remind him of himself when he was a boy and petrified, but actually the boy’s there only to pillow with, to exhaust himself—otherwise he’d bite everything off, poor girl.”

Mura sighed. He went into the small outhouse beside the front gate and farted involuntarily as he began to relieve himself into the bucket. I wonder what really happened, he asked himself, titillated. Why was Kiku-san in pain? Perhaps the daimyo really does use his teeth! How extraordinary!

He walked out, shaking himself to ensure that he did not stain his loincloth, and headed across the square deep in thought. Eeeee, how I would like to have one night with the Lady Kiku! What man wouldn’t? How much did Omi-san have to pay her Mama-san—which we will have to pay eventually? Two koku? They say her Mama-san, Gyoko-san, demanded and got ten times the regular fee. Does she get five koku for one night? Kiku-san would certainly be worth it, neh? Rumor has it she’s as practiced at eighteen as a woman twice her age. She’s supposed to be able to prolong . . . Eeeee, the joy of her! If it was me—how would I begin?

Absently he adjusted himself into his loincloth as his feet took him out of the square, up the well-worn path to the funeral ground.

The pyre had been prepared. The deputation of five men from the village was already there.

This was the most delightful place in the village, where the sea breezes were coolest in summer and the view the best. Nearby was the village Shinto shrine, a tiny thatched roof on a pedestal for the kami, the spirit, that lived there, or might wish to live there if it pleased him. A gnarled yew that had seeded before the village was born leaned against the wind.

Later Omi walked up the path. With him were Zukimoto and four guards. He stood apart. When he bowed formally to the pyre and to the shroud-covered, almost disjointed body that lay upon it, they all bowed with him, to honor the barbarian who had died that his comrades might live.

At his signal Zukimoto went forward and lit the pyre. Zukimoto had asked Omi for the privilege and the honor had been granted to him. He bowed a last time. And then, when the fire was well alight, they went away.

Blackthorne dipped into the dregs of the barrel and carefully measured a half cup of water and gave it to Sonk. Sonk tried to sip it to make it last, his hand trembling, but he could not. He gulped the tepid liquid, regretting that he had done so the moment it had passed his parched throat, groped exhaustedly to his place by the wall, stepping over those whose turn it was to lie down. The floor was now deep ooze, the stench and the flies hideous. Faint sunlight came into the pit through the slats of the trapdoor.

Vinck was next for water and he took his cup and stared at it, sitting near the barrel, Spillbergen on the other side. “Thanks,” he muttered dully.

“Hurry up!” Jan Roper said, the cut on his cheek already festering. He was the last for water and, being so near, his throat was torturing him. “Hurry up, Vinck, for Christ’s sweet sake.”

“Sorry. Here, you take it,” Vinck muttered, handing him the cup, oblivious of the flies that speckled him.

“Drink it, you fool! It’s the last you’ll get till sunset. Drink it!” Jan Roper shoved the cup back into the man’s hands. Vinck did not look up at him but obeyed miserably, and slipped back once more into his private hell.

Jan Roper took his cup of water from Blackthorne. He closed his eyes and said a silent grace. He was one of those standing, his leg muscles aching. The cup gave barely two swallows.

And now that they had all been given their ration, Blackthorne dipped and sipped gratefully. His mouth and tongue were raw and burning and dusty. Flies and sweat and filth covered him. His chest and back were badly bruised.

He watched the samurai who had been left in the cellar. The man was huddled against the wall, between Sonk and Croocq, taking up as little space as possible, and he had not moved for hours. He was staring bleakly into space, naked but for his loincloth, violent bruises all over him, a thick weal around his neck.

When Blackthorne had first come to his senses, the cellar was in complete darkness. The screams were filling the pit and he thought that he was dead and in the choking depths of hell. He felt himself being sucked down into muck that was clammy and flesh-crawling beyond measure, and he had cried out and flailed in panic, unable to breathe, until, after an eternity, he had heard, “It’s all right, Pilot, you’re not dead, it’s all right. Wake up, wake up, for the love of Christ, it’s not hell but it might just as well be. Oh, Blessed Lord Jesus, help us all.”

When he was fully conscious they had told him about Pieterzoon and the barrels of seawater.

“Oh, Lord Jesus, get us out of here!” someone whimpered.

“What’re they doing to poor old Pieterzoon? What’re they doing to him? Oh, God help us. I can’t stand the screams!”

“Oh, Lord, let the poor man die. Let him die.”

“Christ God, stop the screams! Please stop the screams!”

The pit and Pieterzoon’s screams had measured them all, had forced them to look within themselves. And no man had liked what he had seen.

The darkness makes it worse, Blackthorne had thought.

It had been an endless night, in the pit.

With the gloaming the cries had vanished. When dawn trickled down to them they had seen the forgotten samurai.

“What’re we going to do about him?” van Nekk had asked.

“I don’t know. He looks as frightened as we are,” Blackthorne said, his heart pumping.

“He’d better not start anything, by God.”

“Oh, Lord Jesus, get me out of here—” Croocq’s voice started to crescendo. “Helllp!”

Van Nekk, who was near him, shook him and gentled him. “It’s all right, lad. We’re in God’s hands. He’s watching over us.”

“Look at my arm,” Maetsukker moaned. The wound had festered already.

Blackthorne stood shakily. “We’ll all be raving lunatics in a day or two if we don’t get out of here,” he said to no one in particular.

“There’s almost no water,” van Nekk said.

“We’ll ration what there is. Some now—some at noon. With luck, there’ll be enough for three turns. God curse all flies!”

So he had found the cup and had given them a ration, and now he was sipping his, trying to make it last.

“What about him—the Japaner?” Spillbergen said. The Captain-General had fared better than most during the night because he had shut his ears to the screams with a little mud, and, being next to the water barrel, had cautiously slaked his thirst. “What are we going to do about him?”

“He should have some water,” van Nekk said.

“The pox on that,” Sonk said. “I say he gets none.”

They all voted on it and it was agreed he got none.

“I don’t agree,” Blackthorne said.

“You don’t agree to anything we say,” Jan Roper said. “He’s the enemy. He’s a heathen devil and he almost killed you.”

“You’ve almost killed me. Half a dozen times. If your musket had fired at Santa Magdellana, you’d have blown my head off.”

“I wasn’t aiming at you. I was aiming at stinking Satanists.”

“They were unarmed priests. And there was plenty of time.”

“I wasn’t aiming at you.”

“You’ve almost killed me a dozen times, with your God-cursed anger, your God-cursed bigotry, and your God-cursed stupidity.”

“Blasphemy’s a mortal sin. Taking His name in vain is a sin. We’re in His hands, not yours. You’re not a king and this isn’t a ship. You’re not our keep—”

“But you will do what I say!”

Jan Roper looked round the cellar, seeking support in vain. “Do what you want,” he said sullenly.

“I will.”

The samurai was as parched as they, but he shook his head to the offered cup. Blackthorne hesitated, put the cup to the samurai’s swollen lips, but the man smashed the cup away, spilling the water, and said something harshly. Blackthrone readied to parry the following blow. But it never came. The man made no further move, just looked away into space.

“He’s mad. They’re all mad,” Spillbergen said.

“There’s more water for us. Good,” Jan Roper said. “Let him go to the hell he deserves.”

“What’s your name? Namu?” Blackthorne asked. He said it again in different ways but the samurai appeared not to hear.

They left him alone. But they watched him as if he were a scorpion. He did not watch them back. Blackthorne was certain the man was trying to decide on something, but he had no idea what it could be.

What’s on his mind, Blackthorne asked himself. Why should he refuse water? Why was he left here? Was that a mistake by Omi? Unlikely. By plan? Unlikely. Could we use him to get out? Unlikely. The whole world’s unlikely except it’s likely we’re going to stay here until they let us out . . . if they let us out. And if they let us out, what next? What happened to Pieterzoon?

The flies swarmed with the heat of the day.

Oh, God, I wish I could lie down—wish I could get into that bath—they wouldn’t have to carry me there now. I never realized how important a bath is. That old blind man with the steel fingers! I could use him for an hour or two.

What a waste! All our ships and men and effort for this. A total failure. Well, almost. Some of us are still alive.

“Pilot!” Van Nekk was shaking him. “You were asleep. It’s him—he’s been bowing to you for a minute or more.” He motioned to the samurai who knelt, head bowed in front of him.

Blackthorne rubbed the exhaustion out of his eyes. He made an effort and bowed back.

“Hai?” he asked curtly, remembering the Japanese word for “yes.”

The samurai took hold of the sash of his shredded kimono and wrapped it around his neck. Still kneeling, he gave one end to Blackthorne and the other to Sonk, bowed his head, and motioned them to pull it tight.

“He’s afraid we’ll strangle him,” Sonk said.

“Christ Jesus, I think that’s what he wants us to do.” Blackthorne let the sash fall and shook his head. “Kinjiru,” he said, thinking how useful that word was. How do you say to a man who doesn’t speak your language that it’s against your code to commit murder, to kill an unarmed man, that you’re not executioners, that suicide is damned before God?

The samurai asked again, clearly begging him, but again Blackthorne shook his head. “Kinjiru.” The man looked around wildly. Suddenly he was on his feet and he had shoved his head deep into the latrine bucket to try to drown himself. Jan Roper and Sonk immediately pulled him out, choking and struggling.

“Let him go,” Blackthorne ordered. They obeyed. He pointed at the latrine. “Samurai, if that’s what you want, go ahead!”

The man was retching, but he understood. He looked at the foul bucket and knew that he did not have the strength to hold his head there long enough. In abject misery the samurai went back to his place by the wall.

“Jesus,” someone muttered.

Blackthorne dipped half a cup of water from the barrel, got to his feet, his joints stiff, went over to the Japanese and offered it. The samurai looked past the cup.

“I wonder how long he can hold out,” Blackthorne said.

“Forever,” Jan Roper said. “They’re animals. They’re not human.”

“For Christ’s sake, how much longer will they keep us here?” Ginsel asked.

“As long as they want.”

“We’ll have to do anything they want,” van Nekk said. “We’ll have to if we want to stay alive and get out of this hell hole. Won’t we, Pilot?”

“Yes.” Blackthorne thankfully measured the sun’s shadows. “It’s high noon, the watch changes.”

Spillbergen, Maetsukker, and Sonk began to complain but he cursed them to their feet and when all were rearranged he lay down gratefully. The mud was foul and the flies worse than ever, but the joy of being able to stretch out full length was enormous.

What did they do to Pieterzoon? he asked himself, as he felt his fatigue engulfing him. Oh, God help us to get out of here. I’m so frightened.

There were footsteps above. The trapdoor opened. The priest stood there flanked by samurai.

“Pilot. You are to come up. You are to come up alone,” he said.

CHAPTER SIX

All eyes in the pit went to Blackthorne.

“What do they want with me?”

“I don’t know,” Father Sebastio said gravely. “But you must come up at once.”

Blackthorne knew that he had no option, but he did not leave the protective wall, trying to summon more strength.

“What happened to Pieterzoon?”

The priest told him. Blackthorne translated for those who did not speak Portuguese.

“The Lord have mercy on him,” van Nekk whispered over the horrified silence. “Poor man. Poor man.”

“I’m sorry. There was nothing I could do,” the priest said with a great sadness. “I don’t think he knew me or anyone the moment they put him into the water. His mind was gone. I gave him absolution and prayed for him. Perhaps, through God’s mercy . . . In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.” He made the sign of the cross over the cellar. “I beg you all to renounce your heresies and be accepted back into God’s faith. Pilot, you must come up.”

“Don’t leave us, Pilot, for the love of God!” Croocq cried out.

Vinck stumbled to the ladder and started to climb. “They can take me—not the Pilot. Me, not him. Tell him—” He stopped, helplessly, both feet on the rungs. A long spear was an inch away from his heart. He tried to grab the haft but the samurai was ready and if Vinck had not jumped back he would have been impaled.

This samurai pointed at Blackthorne and beckoned him up. Harshly. Still Blackthorne did not move. Another samurai shoved a long barbed staff into the cellar and tried to hook Blackthorne out.

No one moved to help Blackthorne except the samurai in the cellar. He caught the barb fast and said something sharply to the man above, who hesitated; then he looked across at Blackthorne, shrugged and spoke.

“What did he say?”

The priest replied, “It’s a Japanese saying: ‘A man’s fate is a man’s fate and life is but an illusion.’ ”

Blackthorne nodded to the samurai and went to the ladder without looking back and scaled it. When he came into full sunlight, he squinted against the painful brilliance, his knees gave way, and he toppled to the sandy earth.

Omi was to one side. The priest and Mura stood near the four samurai. Some distant villagers watched for a moment and then turned away.

No one helped him.

Oh, God, give me strength, Blackthorne prayed. I’ve got to get on my feet and pretend to be strong. That’s the only thing they respect. Being strong. Showing no fear. Please help me.

He gritted his teeth and pushed against the earth and stood up, swaying slightly. “What the hell do you want with me, you poxy little bastard?” he said directly at Omi, then added to the priest, “Tell the bastard I’m a daimyo in my own country and what sort of treatment is this? Tell him we’ve no quarrel with him. Tell him to let us out or it’ll be the worse for him. Tell him I’m a daimyo, by God. I’m heir to Sir William of Micklehaven, may the bastard be dead long since. Tell him!”

The night had been terrible for Father Sebastio. But during his vigil he had come to feel God’s presence and gained a serenity he had never experienced before. Now he knew that he could be an instrument of God against the heathen, that he was shielded against the heathen, and the pirate’s cunning. He knew, somehow, that this night had been a preparation, a crossroads for him.

“Tell him.”

The priest said in Japanese, “The pirate says he’s a lord in his own country.” He listened to Omi’s reply. “Omi-san says he does not care if you are a king in your own country. Here you live at Lord Yabu’s whim—you and all your men.”

“Tell him he’s a turd.”

“You should beware of insulting him.”

Omi began talking again.

“Omi-san says that you will be given a bath. And food and drink. If you behave, you will not be put back into the pit.”

“What about my men?”

The priest asked Omi.

“They will stay below.”

“Then tell him to go to hell.” Blackthorne walked toward the ladder to go below again. Two of the samurai prevented him, and though he struggled against them, they held him easily.

Omi spoke to the priest, then to his men. They released him and Blackthorne almost fell.

“Omi-san says that unless you behave, another of your men will be taken up. There is plenty of firewood and plenty of water.”

If I agree now, thought Blackthorne, they’ve found the means to control me and I’m in their power forever. But what does it matter, I’m in their power now and, in the end, I will have to do what they want. Van Nekk was right. I’ll have to do anything.

“What does he want me to do? What does it mean to ‘behave’?”

“Omi-san says, it means to obey. To do what you are told. To eat dung if need be.”

“Tell him to go to hell. Tell him I piss on him and his whole country—and his daimyo.”

“I recommend you agree to wh—”

“Tell him what I said, exactly, by God!”

“Very well—but I did warn you, Pilot.”

Omi listened to the priest. The knuckles on his sword hand whitened. All of his men shifted uneasily, their eyes knifing into Blackthorne.

Then Omi gave a quiet order.

Instantly two samurai went down into the pit and brought out Croocq, the boy. They dragged him over to the cauldron, trussed him while others brought firewood and water. They put the petrified boy into the brimming cauldron and ignited the wood.

Blackthorne watched the soundless mouthings of Croocq and the terror that was all of him. Life has no value to these people at all, he thought. God curse them to hell, they’ll boil Croocq as certain as I’m standing on this God-forsaken earth.

Smoke billowed across the sand. Sea gulls were mewing around the fishing boats. A piece of wood fell out of the fire and was kicked back again by a samurai.

“Tell him to stop,” Blackthorne said. “Ask him to stop.”

“Omi-san says, you agree to behave?”

“Yes.”

“He says, you will obey all orders?”

“As far as I can, yes.”

Omi spoke again. Father Sebastio asked a question and Omi nodded.

“He wants you to answer directly to him. The Japanese for ‘yes’ is ‘hai.’ He says, you will obey all orders?”

“As far as I can, hai.”

The fire was beginning to warm the water and a nauseating groan broke from the boy’s mouth. Flames from the wooden fire that was set into the bricks below the iron licked the metal. More wood was piled on.

“Omi-san says, lie down. Immediately.”

Blackthorne did as he was ordered.

“Omi-san says that he had not insulted you personally, neither was there any cause for you to insult him. Because you are a barbarian and know no better yet, you will not be killed. But you will be taught manners. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“He wants you to answer direct to him.”

There was a wailing cry from the boy. It went on and on and then the boy fainted. One of the samurai held his head out of the water.

Blackthorne looked up at Omi. Remember, he ordered himself, remember that the boy is in your hands alone, the lives of all your crew are in your hands. Yes, the devil half of him began, but there’s no guarantee that the bastard’ll honor a bargain.

“Do you understand?”

“Hai.”

He saw Omi hitch up his kimono and ease his penis out of his loincloth. He had expected the man to piss in his face. But Omi did not. He pissed on his back. By the Lord God, Blackthorne swore to himself, I will remember this day and somehow, somewhere, Omi will pay.

“Omi-san says, it is bad manners to say that you will piss on anyone. Very bad. It is bad manners and very stupid to say you will piss on anyone when you are unarmed. It is very bad manners and even more stupid to say you will piss on anyone when you are unarmed, powerless, and not prepared to allow your friends or family or whomever to perish first.”

Blackthorne said nothing. He did not take his eyes off Omi.

“Wakarimasu ka?” Omi said.

“He says, do you understand?”

“Hai.”

“Okiro.”

“He says you will get up.”

Blackthorne got up, pain hammering in his head. His eyes were on Omi and Omi stared back at him.

“You will go with Mura and obey his orders.”

Blackthorne made no reply.

“Wakarimasu ka?” Omi said sharply.

“Hai.” Blackthorne was measuring the distance between himself and Omi. He could feel his fingers on the man’s neck and face already, and he prayed he could be quick and strong enough to take Omi’s eyes out before they tore him off the man. “What about the boy?” he said.

The priest spoke to Omi haltingly.

Omi glanced at the cauldron. The water was hardly tepid yet. The boy had fainted but was unharmed. “Take him out of there,” he ordered. “Get a doctor if he needs one.”

His men obeyed. He saw Blackthorne go over to the boy and listen to his heart.

Omi motioned to the priest. “Tell the leader that the youth can also stay out of the pit today. If the leader behaves and the youth behaves, another of the barbarians may come out of the pit tomorrow. Then another. Perhaps. Or more than one. Perhaps. It depends on how the ones above behave. But you—” he looked directly at Blackthorne—“you are responsible for the smallest infraction of any rule or order. Do you understand?”

After the priest had translated this, Omi heard the barbarian say, “Yes,” and saw part of the blood-chilling anger go out of his eyes. But the hatred remained. How foolish, Omi thought, and how naïve to be so open. I wonder what he would have done if I had played with him further—pretended to go back on what I had promised, or implied that I had promised.

“Priest, what’s his name again? Say it slowly.”

He heard the priest say the name several times but it still sounded like gibberish.

“Can you say it?” he asked one of his men.

“No, Omi-san.”

“Priest, tell him from now on his name is Anjin—Pilot—neh? When he merits it, he will be called Anjin-san. Explain to him that there are no sounds in our tongue for us to say his real name as it is.” Omi added dryly, “Impress upon him that this is not meant to be insulting. Good-by, Anjin, for the moment.”

They all bowed to him. He returned the salutation politely and walked away. When he was well clear of the square and certain that no one was watching, he allowed himself to smile broadly. To have tamed the chief of the barbarians so quickly! To have discerned at once how to dominate him, and them!

How extraordinary those barbarians are, he thought. Eeee, the sooner the Anjin speaks our language the better. Then we’ll know how to smash the Christian barbarians once and for all!

“Why didn’t you piss in his face?” Yabu asked.

“At first I’d intended to, Lord. But the Pilot’s still an untamed animal, totally dangerous. To do it in his face—well, with us, to touch a man’s face is the worst of insults, neh? So I reasoned that I might have insulted him so deeply he would lose control. So I pissed on his back—which I think will be sufficient.”

They were seated on the veranda of his house, on silk cushions. Omi’s mother was serving them cha—tea—with all the ceremony she could command, and she had been well trained in her youth. She offered the cup with a bow to Yabu. He bowed and politely offered it to Omi, who of course refused with a deeper bow; then he accepted it and sipped with enjoyment, feeling complete.

“I’m very impressed with you, Omi-san,” he said. “Your reasoning is exceptional. Your planning and handling of this whole business has been splendid.”

“You are too kind, Sire. My efforts could have been much better, much better.”

“Where did you learn so much about the barbarian mind?”

“When I was fourteen, for a year I had a teacher who was the monk called Jiro. Once he’d been a Christian priest, at least he was an apprentice priest, but fortunately he learned the errors of his stupidity. I’ve always remembered one thing he told me. He said that the Christian religion was vulnerable because they taught that their chief deity, Jesu, said that all people should ‘love’ one another—he taught nothing about honor or duty, only love. And also that life was sacred—‘Thou shalt not kill,’ neh? And other stupidities. These new barbarians claim to be Christian also, even though the priest denies it, so I reasoned that perhaps they’re just a different sect, and that’s the cause of their enmity, just as some of the Buddhist sects hate each other. I thought if they ‘love one another,’ perhaps we could control the leader by taking the life or even threatening to take the life of one of his men.” Omi knew that this conversation was dangerous because of the torture death, the befouled death. He felt his mother’s unspoken warning crossing the space between them.

“Will you have more cha, Yabu-sama?” his mother asked.

“Thank you,” Yabu said. “It’s very, very good.”

“Thank you, Sire. But Omi-san, is the barbarian broken for good?” his mother asked, twisting the conversation. “Perhaps you should tell our Lord if you think it’s temporary or permanent.”

Omi hesitated. “Temporary. But I think he should learn our language as fast as possible. That’s very important to you, Sire. You will probably have to destroy one or two of them to keep him and the rest in control, but by that time he will have learned how to behave. Once you can talk directly to him, Yabu-sama, you can use his knowledge. If what the priest said is true—that he piloted the ship ten thousand ri—he must be more than just a little clever.”

“You’re more than just a little clever.” Yabu laughed. “You’re put in charge of the animals. Omi-san, trainer of men!”

Omi laughed with him. “I’ll try, Lord.”

“Your fief is increased from five hundred koku to three thousand. You will have control within twenty ri.” A ri was a measure of distance that approximated one mile. “As a further token of my affection, when I return to Yedo I will send you two horses, twenty silk kimonos, one suit of armor, two swords, and enough arms to equip a further hundred samurai which you will recruit. When war comes you will immediately join my personal staff as a hatamoto.” Yabu was feeling expansive: A hatamoto was a special personal retainer of a daimyo who had the right of access to his lord and could wear swords in the presence of his lord. He was delighted with Omi and felt rested, even reborn. He had slept exquisitely. When he had awoken he was alone, which was to be expected, because he had not asked either the girl or the boy to stay. He had drunk a little tea and eaten sparingly of rice gruel. Then a bath and Suwo’s massage.

That was a marvelous experience, he thought. Never have I felt so close to nature, to the trees and mountains and earth, to the inestimable sadness of life and its transience. The screams had perfected everything.

“Omi-san, there’s a rock in my garden at Mishima that I’d like you to accept, also to commemorate this happening, and that marvelous night and our good fortune. I’ll send it with the other things,” he said. “The stone comes from Kyushu. I called it ‘The Waiting Stone’ because we were waiting for the Lord Taikō to order an attack when I found it. That was, oh, fifteen years ago. I was part of his army which smashed the rebels and subdued the island.”

“You do me much honor.”

“Why not put it here, in your garden, and rename it? Why not call it ‘The Stone of Barbarian Peace,’ to commemorate the night and his endless waiting for peace.”

“Perhaps I may be allowed to call it ‘The Happiness Stone’ to remind me and my descendants of the honors you do to me, Uncle?”

“No—better just simply name it ‘The Waiting Barbarian.’ Yes, I like that. That joins us further together—him and me. He was waiting as I was waiting. I lived, he died.” Yabu looked at the garden, musing. “Good, ‘The Waiting Barbarian’! I like that. There are curious flecks on one side of the rock that remind me of tears, and veins of blue mixed with a reddish quartz that remind me of flesh—the impermanence of it!” Yabu sighed, enjoying his melancholy. Then he added, “It’s good for a man to plant a stone and name a stone. The barbarian took a long time to die, neh? Perhaps he will be reborn Japanese, to compensate for his suffering. Wouldn’t that be marvelous? Then one day, perhaps, his descendants would see his stone and be content.”

Omi poured out his heartfelt thanks, and protested that he did not deserve such bounty. Yabu knew that the bounty was not more than deserved. He could easily have given more, but he had remembered the old adage that you can always increase a fief, but to reduce one causes enmity. And treachery.

“Oku-san,” he said to the woman, giving her the title of Honorable Mother, “my brother should have told me sooner about the great qualities of his youngest son. Then Omi-san would have been much further advanced today. My brother’s too retiring, too thoughtless.”

“My husband’s too thoughtful for you, my Lord, to worry you,” she replied, aware of the underlying criticism. “I’m glad that my son has had an opportunity of serving you, and that he’s pleased you. My son has only done his duty, neh? It’s our duty—Mizuno-san and all of us—to serve.”

Horses clattered up the rise. Igurashi, Yabu’s chief retainer, strode through the garden. “Everything’s ready, Sire. If you want to get back to Yedo quickly we should leave now.”

“Good. Omi-san, you and your men will go with the convoy and assist Igurashi-san to see it safely into the castle.” Yabu saw a shadow cross Omi’s face. “What?”

“I was just thinking about the barbarians.”

“Leave a few guards for them. Compared to the convoy, they’re unimportant. Do what you want with them—put them back into the pit, do what you like. When and if you obtain anything useful from them, send me word.”

“Yes, Lord,” Omi replied. “I’ll leave ten samurai and specific instructions with Mura—they’ll come to no harm in five or six days. What do you want done with the ship itself?”

“Keep it safe here. You’re responsible for it, of course. Zukimoto has sent letters to a dealer at Nagasaki to offer it for sale to the Portuguese. The Portuguese can come and collect it.”

Omi hesitated. “Perhaps you should keep the ship, Sire, and get the barbarians to train some of our sailors to handle it.”

“What do I need with barbarian ships?” Yabu laughed derisively. “Should I become a filthy merchant?”

“Of course not, Sire,” Omi said quickly. “I just thought Zukimoto might have found a use for such a vessel.”

“What do I need with a trading ship?”

“The priest said this was a warship, Sire. He seemed afraid of it. When war starts, a warship could—”

“Our war will be fought on land. The sea’s for merchants, all of whom are filthy usurers, pirates or fishermen.” Yabu got up and began to walk down the steps toward the garden gate, where a samurai was holding the bridle of his horse. He stopped and stared out to sea. His knees went weak.

Omi followed his glance.

A ship was rounding the headland. She was a large galley with a multitude of oars, the swiftest of the Japanese coastal vessels because she depended neither upon the wind, nor upon the tide. The flag at the masthead carried the Toranaga crest.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Toda Hiro-matsu, overlord of the provinces of Sagami and Kozuké, Toranaga’s most trusted general and adviser, commander-in-chief of all his armies, strode down the gangplank onto the wharf alone. He was tall for a Japanese, just under six feet, a bull-like man with heavy jowls, who carried his sixty-seven years with strength. His military kimono was brown silk, stark but for the five small Toranaga crests—three interlocked bamboo sprays. He wore a burnished breastplate and steel arm protectors. Only the short sword was in his belt. The other, the killing sword, he carried loose in his hand. He was ready to unsheathe it instantly and to kill instantly to protect his liege lord. This had been his custom ever since he was fifteen.

No one, not even the Taikō, had been able to change him.

A year ago, when the Taikō died, Hiro-matsu had become Toranaga’s vassal. Toranaga had given him Sagami and Kozuké, two of his eight provinces, to overlord, five hundred thousand koku yearly, and had also left him to his custom. Hiro-matsu was very good at killing.

Now the shore was lined with all the villagers—men, women, children—on their knees, their heads low. The samurai were in neat, formal rows in front of them. Yabu was at their head with his lieutenants.

If Yabu had been a woman or a weaker man, he knew that he would be beating his breast and wailing and tearing his hair out. This was too much of a coincidence. For the famous Toda Hiro-matsu to be here, on this day, meant that Yabu had been betrayed—either in Yedo by one of his household, or here in Anjiro by Omi, one of Omi’s men, or one of the villagers. He had been trapped in disobedience. An enemy had taken advantage of his interest in the ship.

He knelt and bowed and all his samurai followed him, and he cursed the ship and all who sailed in it.

“Ah, Yabu-sama,” he heard Hiro-matsu say, and saw him kneel on the matting that had been set out for him and return his bow. But the depth of the bow was less than correct and Hiro-matsu did not wait for him to bow again, so he knew, without being told, that he was in vast jeopardy. He saw the general sit back on his heels. “Iron Fist” he was called behind his back. Only Toranaga or one of three counselors would have the privilege of flying the Toranaga flag. Why send so important a general to catch me away from Yedo?

“You honor me by coming to one of my poor villages, Hiro-matsu-sama,” he said.

“My Master ordered me here.” Hiro-matsu was known for his bluntness. He had neither guile nor cunning, only an absolute trustworthiness to his liege lord.

“I’m honored and very glad,” Yabu said. “I rushed here from Yedo because of that barbarian ship.”

“Lord Toranaga invited all friendly daimyos to wait in Yedo until he returned from Osaka.”

“How is our Lord? I hope everything goes well with him?”

“The sooner Lord Toranaga is safe in his own castle at Yedo the better. The sooner the clash with Ishido is open and we marshal our armies and cut a path back to Osaka Castle and burn it to the bricks, the better.” The old man’s jowls reddened as his anxiety for Toranaga increased; he hated being away from him. The Taikō had built Osaka Castle to be invulnerable. It was the greatest in the Empire, with interlocking keeps and moats, lesser castles, towers, and bridges, and space for eighty thousand soldiers within its walls. And around the walls and the huge city were other armies, equally disciplined and equally well armed, all fanatic supporters of Yaemon, the Heir. “I’ve told him a dozen times that he was mad to put himself into Ishido’s power. Lunatic!”

“Lord Toranaga had to go, neh? He had no choice.” The Taikō had ordered that the Council of Regents, who ruled in Yaemon’s name, were to meet for ten days at least twice a year and always within Osaka’s castle keep, bringing with them a maximum of five hundred retainers within the walls. And all other daimyos were equally obliged to visit the castle with their families to pay their respects to the Heir, also twice a year. So all were controlled, all defenseless for part of the year, every year. “The meeting was fixed, neh? If he didn’t go it would be treason, neh?”

“Treason against whom?” Hiro-matsu reddened even more. “Ishido’s trying to isolate our Master. Listen, if I had Ishido in my power like he has Lord Toranaga, I wouldn’t hesitate for a moment—whatever the risks. Ishido’s head would have been off his shoulders long since, and his spirit awaiting rebirth.” The general was involuntarily twisting the well-used sheath of the sword that he carried in his left hand. His right hand, gnarled and calloused, lay ready in his lap. He studied Erasmus. “Where are the cannon?”

“I had them brought ashore. For safety. Will Toranaga-sama make another compromise with Ishido?”

“When I left Osaka, all was quiet. The Council was to meet in three days.”

“Will the clash become open?”

“I’d like it open. But my Lord? If he wants to compromise, he will compromise.” Hiro-matsu looked back at Yabu. “He ordered all allied daimyos to wait for him at Yedo. Until he returned. This is not Yedo.”

“Yes. I felt that the ship was important enough to our cause to investigate it immediately.”

“There was no need, Yabu-san. You should have more confidence. Nothing happens without our Master’s knowledge. He would have sent someone to investigate it. It happens he sent me. How long have you been here?”

“A day and a night.”

“Then you were two days coming from Yedo?”

“Yes.”

“You came very quickly. You are to be complimented.”

To gain time Yabu began telling Hiro-matsu about his forced march. But his mind was on more vital matters. Who was the spy? How had Toranaga got the information about the ship as quickly as he himself? And who had told Toranaga about his departure? How could he maneuver now and deal with Hiro-matsu?

Hiro-matsu heard him out, then said pointedly, “Lord Toranaga has confiscated the ship and all its contents.”

A shocked silence swamped the shore. This was Izu, Yabu’s fief, and Toranaga had no rights here. Neither had Hiro-matsu any rights to order anything. Yabu’s hand tightened on his sword.

Hiro-matsu waited with practiced calmness. He had done exactly as Toranaga had ordered and now he was committed. It was implacably kill or be killed.

Yabu knew also that now he must commit himself. There was no more waiting. If he refused to give up the ship he would have to kill Hiro-matsu Iron Fist, because Hiro-matsu Iron Fist would never leave without it. There were perhaps two hundred elite samurai on the galley that was moored to the dock. They would also have to die. He could invite them ashore and beguile them, and within a few hours he could easily have enough samurai in Anjiro to overwhelm them all, for he was a master at ambush. But that would force Toranaga to send armies against Izu. You will be swallowed up, he told himself, unless Ishido comes to your rescue. And why should Ishido rescue you when your enemy Ikawa Jikkyo is Ishido’s kinsman and wants Izu for himself? Killing Hiro-matsu will open hostilities, because Toranaga will be honor bound to move against you, which would force Ishido’s hand, and Izu would be the first battlefield.

What about my guns? My beautiful guns and my beautiful plan? I’ll lose my immortal chance forever if I have to turn them over to Toranaga.

His hand was on the Murasama sword and he could feel the blood in his sword arm and the blinding urge to begin. He had discarded at once the possibility of not mentioning the muskets. If the news of the ship had been betrayed, certainly the identity of its cargo was equally betrayed. But how did Toranaga get the news so quickly? By carrier pigeon! That’s the only answer. From Yedo or from here? Who possesses carrier pigeons here? Why haven’t I such a service? That’s Zukimoto’s fault—he should have thought of it, neh?

Make up your mind. War or no war?

Yabu called down the ill will of Buddha, of all kami, of all gods that had ever been or were yet to be invented, upon the man or men who had betrayed him, upon their parents and upon their descendants for ten thousand generations. And he conceded.

“Lord Toranaga cannot confiscate the ship because it’s already a gift to him. I’ve dictated a letter to that effect. Isn’t that so, Zukimoto?”

“Yes, Sire.”

“Of course, if Lord Toranaga wishes to consider it confiscated he may. But it was to be a gift.” Yabu was pleased to hear that his voice sounded matter-of-fact. “He will be happy with the booty.”

“Thank you on behalf of my Master.” Hiro-matsu again marveled at Toranaga’s foresight. Toranaga had predicted that this would happen and that there would be no fighting. ‘I don’t believe it,’ Hiro-matsu had said. ‘No daimyo would stand for such usurping of his rights. Yabu won’t. I certainly wouldn’t. Not even to you, Sire.’

‘But you would have obeyed orders and you would have told me about the ship. Yabu must be manipulated, neh? I need his violence and cunning—he neutralizes Ikawa Jikkyu and guards my flank.’

Here on the beach under a good sun Hiro-matsu forced himself into a polite bow, hating his own duplicity. “Lord Toranaga will be delighted with your generosity.”

Yabu was watching him closely. “It’s not a Portuguese ship.”

“Yes. So we heard.”

“And it’s pirate.” He saw the general’s eyes narrow.

“Eh?”

As he told him what the priest had said, Yabu thought, if that’s news to you as it was to me, doesn’t that mean that Toranaga had the same original information as I? But if you know the contents of the ship, then the spy is Omi, one of his samurai, or a villager. “There’s an abundance of cloth. Some treasure. Muskets, powder, and shot.”

Hiro-matsu hesitated. Then he said, “The cloth is Chinese silks?”

“No, Hiro-matsu-san,” he said, using the “san.” They were daimyos equally. But now that he was magnanimously “giving” the ship, he felt safe enough to use the less deferential term. He was pleased to see that the word had not gone unnoticed by the older man. I’m daimyo of Izu, by the sun, the moon, and the stars!

“It’s very unusual, a thick heavy cloth, totally useless to us,” he said. “I’ve had everything worth salvaging brought ashore.”

“Good. Please put all of it aboard my ship.”

“What?” Yabu’s bowels almost burst.

“All of it. At once.”

“Now?”

“Yes. So sorry, but you’ll naturally understand that I want to return to Osaka as soon as possible.”

“Yes but—but will there be space for everything?”

“Put the cannon back on the barbarian ship and seal it up. Boats will be arriving within three days to tow it to Yedo. As to the muskets, powder, and shot, there’s—” Hiro-matsu stopped, avoiding the trap that he suddenly realized had been set for him.

‘There’s just enough space for the five hundred muskets,’ Toranaga had told him. “And all the powder and the twenty thousand silver doubloons aboard the galley. Leave the cannon on the deck of the ship and the cloth in the holds. Let Yabu do the talking and give him orders, don’t let him have time to think. But don’t get irritated or impatient with him. I need him, but I want those guns and that ship. Beware of his trying to trap you into revealing that you know the exactness of the cargo, because he must not uncover our spy.’

Hiro-matsu cursed his inability to play these necessary games. “As to the space needed,” he said shortly, “perhaps you should tell me. And just exactly what is the cargo? How many muskets and shot and so forth? And is the bullion in bar or coins—is it silver or gold?”

“Zukimoto!”

“Yes, Yabu-sama.”

“Get the list of the contents.” I’ll deal with you later, Yabu thought.

Zukimoto hurried away.

“You must be tired, Hiro-matsu-san. Perhaps some cha? Accommodations have been prepared for you, such as they are. The baths are totally inadequate, but perhaps one would refresh you a little.”

“Thank you. You’re very thoughtul. Some cha and a bath would be excellent. Later. First tell me everything that has happened since the ship arrived here.”

Yabu told him the facts, omitting the part about the courtesan and the boy, which was unimportant. On Yabu’s orders, Omi told his story, except for his private conversations with Yabu. And Mura told his, excluding the part about the Anjin’s erection which, Mura reasoned, though interesting, might have offended Hiro-matsu, whose own, at his age, might be few and far between.

Hiro-matsu looked at the plume of smoke that still rose from the pyre. “How many of the pirates are left?”

“Ten, Sire, including the leader,” Omi said.

“Where’s the leader now?”

“In Mura’s house.”

“What did he do? What was the first thing he did there after getting out of the pit?”

“He went straight to the bath house, Sire,” Mura said quickly. “Now he’s asleep, Sire, like a dead man.”

“You didn’t have to carry him this time?”

“No, Sire.”

“He seems to learn quickly.” Hiro-matsu glanced back at Omi. “You think they can be taught to behave?”

“No. Not for certain, Hiro-matsu-sama.”

“Could you clean away an enemy’s urine from your back?”

“No, Lord.”

“Nor could I. Never. Barbarians are very strange.” Hiro-matsu turned his mind back to the ship. “Who will be supervising the loading?”

“My nephew, Omi-san.”

“Good. Omi-san, I want to leave before dusk. My captain will help you be very quick. Within three sticks.” The unit of time was the time it took for a standard stick of incense to smolder away, approximately one hour for one stick.

“Yes, Lord.”

“Why not come with me to Osaka, Yabu-san?” Hiro-matsu said as though it was a sudden thought. “Lord Toranaga would be delighted to receive all these things from your hands. Personally. Please, there’s room enough.” When Yabu began to protest he allowed him to continue for a time, as Toranaga had ordered, and then he said, as Toranaga had ordered, “I insist. In Lord Toranaga’s name, I insist. Your generosity needs to be rewarded.”

With my head and my lands? Yabu asked himself bitterly, knowing that there was nothing he could do now but accept gratefully. “Thank you. I would be honored.”

“Good. Well then, that’s all done,” Iron Fist said with obvious relief. “Now some cha. And a bath.”

Yabu politely led the way up the hill to Omi’s house. The old man was washed and scoured and then he lay gratefully in the steaming heat. Later Suwo’s hands made him new again. A little rice and raw fish and pickled vegetables taken sparingly in private. Cha sipped from good porcelain. A short dreamless nap.

After three sticks the shoji slid open. The personal bodyguard knew better than to go into the room uninvited; Hiro-matsu was already awake and the sword half unsheathed and ready.

“Yabu-sama is waiting outside, Sire. He says the ship is loaded.”

“Excellent.”

Hiro-matsu went onto the veranda and relieved himself into the bucket. “Your men are very efficient, Yabu-san.”

“Your men helped, Hiro-matsu-san. They are more than efficient.”

Yes, and by the sun, they had better be, Hiro-matsu thought, then said genially, “Nothing like a good piss from a full bladder so long as there’s plenty of power behind the stream. Neh? Makes you feel young again. At my age you need to feel young.” He eased his loincloth comfortably, expecting Yabu to make some polite remark in agreement, but none was forthcoming. His irritation began to rise but he curbed it. “Have the pirate leader taken to my ship.”

“What?”

“You were generous enough to make a gift of the ship and the contents. The crew are contents. So I’m taking the pirate leader to Osaka. Lord Toranaga wants to see him. Naturally you do what you like with the rest of them. But during your absence, please make certain that your retainers realize the barbarians are my Master’s property and that there had better be nine in good health, alive, and here when he wants them.”

Yabu hurried away to the jetty where Omi would be.

When, earlier, he had left Hiro-matsu to his bath, he had walked up the track that meandered past the funeral ground. There he had bowed briefly to the pyre and continued on, skirting the terraced fields of wheat and fruit to come out at length on a small plateau high above the village. A tidy kami-shrine guarded this tender place. An ancient tree bequeathed shade and tranquillity. He had gone there to quell his rage and to think. He had not dared to go near the ship or Omi or his men for he knew that he would have ordered most, if not all of them, to commit seppuku, which would have been a waste, and he would have slaughtered the village, which would have been foolish—peasants alone caught the fish and grew the rice that provided the wealth of the samurai.

While he had sat and fumed alone and tried to sharpen his brain, the sun bent down and drove the sea mists away. The clouds that shrouded the distant mountains to the west had parted for an instant and he had seen the beauty of the snow-capped peaks soaring. The sight had settled him and he had begun to relax and think and plan.

Set your spies to find the spy, he told himself. Nothing that Hiro-matsu said indicated whether the betrayal was from here or from Yedo. In Osaka you’ve powerful friends, the Lord Ishido himself among them. Perhaps one of them can smell out the fiend. But send a private message at once to your wife in case the informer is there. What about Omi? Make him responsible for finding the informer here? Is he the informer? That’s not likely, but not impossible. It’s more than probable the betrayal began in Yedo. A matter of timing. If Toranaga in Osaka got the information about the ship when it arrived, then Hiro-matsu would have been here first. You’ve informers in Yedo. Let them prove their worth.

What about the barbarians? Now they’re your only profit from the ship. How can you use them? Wait, didn’t Omi give you the answer? You could use their knowledge of the sea and ships to barter with Toranaga for guns. Neh?

Another possibility: become Toranaga’s vassal completely. Give him your plan. Ask him to allow you to lead the Regiment of the Guns—for his glory. But a vassal should never expect his lord to reward his services or even acknowledge them: To serve is duty, duty is samurai, samurai is immortality. That would be the best way, the very best, Yabu thought. Can I truly be his vassal? Or Ishido’s?

No, that’s unthinkable. Ally yes, vassal no.

Good, so the barbarians are an asset after all. Omi’s right again.

He had felt more composed and then, when the time had come and a messenger had brought the information that the ship was loaded, he had gone to Hiro-matsu and discovered that now he had lost even the barbarians.

He was boiling when he reached the jetty.

“Omi-san!”

“Yes, Yabu-sama?”

“Bring the barbarian leader here. I’m taking him to Osaka. As to the others, see that they’re well cared for while I’m away. I want them fit, and well behaved. Use the pit if you have to.”

Ever since the galley had arrived, Omi’s mind had been in a turmoil and he had been filled with anxiety for Yabu’s safety. “Let me come with you, Lord. Perhaps I can help.”

“No, now I want you to look after the barbarians.”

“Please. Perhaps in some small way I can repay your kindness to me.”

“There’s no need,” Yabu said, more kindly than he wanted to. He remembered that he had increased Omi’s salary to three thousand koku and extended his fief because of the bullion and the guns. Which now had vanished. But he had seen the concern that filled the youth and had felt an involuntary warmth. With vassals like this, I will carve an empire, he promised himself. Omi will lead one of the units when I get back my guns. “When war comes—well, I’ll have a very important job for you, Omi-san. Now go and get the barbarian.”

Omi took four guards with him. And Mura to interpret.

Blackthorne was dragged out of sleep. It took him a minute to clear his head. When the fog lifted Omi was staring down at him.

One of the samurai had pulled the quilt off him, another had shaken him awake, the other two carried thin, vicious-looking bamboo canes. Mura had a short coil of rope.

Mura knelt and bowed. “Konnichi wa”—Good day.

“Konnichi wa.” Blackthorne pulled himself onto his knees and, though he was naked, he bowed with equal politeness.

It’s only a politeness, Blackthorne told himself. It’s their custom and they bow for good manners so there’s no shame to it. And nakedness is ignored and is also their custom, and there’s no shame to nakedness either.

“Anjin. Please to dress,” Mura said.

Anjin? Ah, I remember now. The priest said they can’t pronounce my name so they’ve given me the name “Anjin” which means “pilot” and this is not meant as an insult. And I will be called “Anjin-san”—Mr. Pilot—when I merit it.

Don’t look at Omi, he cautioned himself. Not yet. Don’t remember the village square and Omi and Croocq and Pieterzoon. One thing at a time. That’s what you’re going to do. That’s what you have sworn before God to do: One thing at a time. Vengeance will be mine, by the Lord God.

Blackthorne saw that his clothes had been cleaned again and he blessed whoever had done it. He had crawled out of his clothes in the bath house as though they had been plague-infested. Three times he had made them scour his back. With the roughest sponge and with pumice. But he could still feel the piss-burn.

He took his eyes off Mura and looked at Omi. He derived a twisted pleasure from the knowledge that his enemy was alive and nearby.

He bowed as he had seen equals bow and he held the bow. “Konnichi wa, Omi-san,” he said. There’s no shame in speaking their language, no shame in saying “good day” or in bowing first as is their custom.

Omi bowed back.

Blackthorne noted that it was not quite equal, but it was enough for the moment.

“Konnichi wa, Anjin,” Omi said.

The voice was polite, but not enough.

“Anjin-san!” Blackthorne looked directly at him.

Their wills locked and Omi was called as a man is called at cards or at dice. Do you have manners?

“Konnichi wa, Anjin-san,” Omi said at length, with a brief smile.

Blackthorne dressed quickly.

He wore loose trousers and a codpiece, socks and shirt and coat, his long hair tied into a neat queue and his beard trimmed with scissors the barber had loaned to him.

“Hai, Omi-san?” Blackthorne asked when he was dressed, feeling better but very guarded, wishing he had more words to use.

“Please, hand,” Mura said.

Blackthorne did not understand and said so with signs. Mura held out his own hands and parodied tying them together.

“Hand, please.”

“No.” Blackthorne said it directly to Omi and shook his head. “That’s not necessary,” he said in English, “not necessary at all. I’ve given my word.” He kept his voice gentle and reasonable, then added harshly, copying Omi, “Wakarimasu ka, Omi-san?” Do you understand?

Omi laughed. Then he said, “Hai, Anjin-san. Wakarimasu.” He turned and left.

Mura and the others stared after him, astounded. Blackthorne followed Omi into the sun. His boots had been cleaned. Before he could slip them on, the maid “Onna” was there on her knees and she helped him.

“Thank you, Haku-san,” he said, remembering her real name. What’s the word for “thank you”? he wondered.

He walked through the gate, Omi ahead.

I’m after you, you God-cursed bas—Wait a minute! Remember what you promised yourself? And why swear at him, even to yourself? He hasn’t sworn at you. Swearing’s for the weak, or for fools. Isn’t it?

One thing at a time. It is enough that you are after him. You know it clearly and he knows it clearly. Make no mistake, he knows it very clearly.

The four samurai flanked Blackthorne as he walked down the hill, the harbor still hidden from him, Mura discreetly ten paces back, Omi ahead.

Are they going to put me underground again? he wondered. Why did they want to bind my hands? Didn’t Omi say yesterday—Christ Jesus, was that only yesterday?—‘If you behave you can stay out of the pit. If you behave, tomorrow another man will be taken out of the pit. Perhaps. And more, perhaps.’ Isn’t that what he said? Have I behaved? I wonder how Croocq is. The lad was alive when they carried him off to the house where the crew first stayed.

Blackthorne felt better today. The bath and the sleep and the fresh food had begun to repair him. He knew that if he was careful and could rest and sleep and eat, within a month he would be able to run a mile and swim a mile and command a fighting ship and take her around the earth.

Don’t think about that yet! Just guard your strength this day. A month’s not much to hope for, eh?

The walk down the hill and through the village was tiring him. You’re weaker than you thought. . . . No, you are stronger than you thought, he ordered himself.

The masts of Erasmus jutted over the tiled roofs and his heart quickened. Ahead the street curved with the contour of the hillside, slid down to the square and ended. A curtained palanquin stood in the sun. Four bearers in brief loincloths squatted beside it, absently picking their teeth. The moment they saw Omi they were on their knees, bowing mightily.

Omi barely nodded at them as he strode past, but then a girl came out of the neat gateway to go to the palanquin and he stopped.

Blackthorne caught his breath and stopped also.

A young maid ran out to hold a green parasol to shade the girl. Omi bowed and the girl bowed and they talked happily to each other, the strutting arrogance vanishing from Omi.

The girl wore a peach-colored kimono and a wide sash of gold and gold-thonged slippers. Blackthorne saw her glance at him. Clearly she and Omi were discussing him. He did not know how to react, or what to do, so he did nothing but wait patiently, glorying in the sight of her, the cleanliness and the warmth of her presence. He wondered if she and Omi were lovers, or if she was Omi’s wife, and he thought, Is she truly real?

Omi asked her something and she answered and fluttered her green fan that shimmered and danced in the sunlight, her laugh musical, the delicacy of her exquisite. Omi was smiling too, then he turned on his heel and strode off, samurai once more.

Blackthorne followed. Her eyes were on him as he passed and he said, “Konnichi wa.”

“Konnichi wa, Anjin-san,” she replied, her voice touching him. She was barely five feet tall and perfect. As she bowed slightly the breeze shook the outer silk and showed the beginnings of the scarlet under-kimono, which he found surprisingly erotic.

The girl’s perfume still surrounded him as he turned the corner. He saw the trapdoor and Erasmus. And the galley. The girl vanished from his mind.

Why are our gun ports empty? Where are our cannon and what in the name of Christ is a slave galley doing here and what’s happened in the pit?

One thing at a time.

First Erasmus: the stub of the foremast that the storm had carried away jutted nastily. That doesn’t matter, he thought. We could get her out to sea easily. We could slip the moorings—the night airflow and the tide would take us out silently and we could careen tomorrow on the far side of that speck of island. Half a day to step the spare mast and then all sails ho and away into the far deep. Maybe it’d be better not to anchor but to flee to safer waters. But who’d crew? You can’t take her out by yourself.

Where did that slaver come from? And why is it here?

He could see knots of samurai and sailors down at the wharf. The sixty-oared vessel—thirty oars a side—was neat and trim, the oars stacked with care, ready for instant departure, and he shivered involuntarily. The last time he’d seen a galley was off the Gold Coast two years ago when his fleet was outward bound, all five ships together. She had been a rich coastal trader, a Portuguese, and she was fleeing from him against the wind. Erasmus could not catch her, to capture her or sink her.

Blackthorne knew the North African coast well. He had been a pilot and ship’s master for ten years for the London Company of Barbary Merchants, the joint stock company that fitted out fighting merchantmen to run the Spanish blockade and trade along the Barbary Coast. He had piloted to West and North Africa, south as far as Lagos, north and eastward through the treacherous straits of Gibraltar—ever Spanish patrolled—as far as Salerno in the Kingdom of Naples. The Mediterranean was dangerous to English and Dutch shipping. Spanish and Portuguese enemy were there in strength and, worse, the Ottomans, the infidel Turks, swarmed the seas with slave galleys and with fighting ships.

These voyages had been very profitable for him and he had bought his own ship, a hundred-fifty-ton brig, to trade on his own behalf. But he had had her sunk under him and lost everything. They had been caught alee, windless off Sardinia, when the Turk galley had come out of the sun. The fight was cruel and then, toward sunset, the enemy ram caught their stern and they were boarded fast. He had never forgotten the screaming cry “Allahhhhhhhh!” as the corsairs came over his gunwales. They were armed with swords and with muskets. He had rallied his men and the first attack had been beaten off, but the second overwhelmed them and he ordered the magazine fired. His ship was in flames and he decided that it was better to die than to be put to the oars. He had always had a mortal terror of being taken alive and made a galley slave—not an unusual fate for a captured seaman.

When the magazine blew, the explosion tore the bottom out of his ship and destroyed part of the corsair galley and, in the confusion, he managed to swim to the longboat and escape with four of the crew. Those who could not swim to him he had had to leave and he still remembered their cries for help in God’s name. But God had turned His face from those men that day, so they had perished or gone to the oars. And God had kept His face on Blackthorne and the four men that time, and they had managed to reach Cagliari in Sardinia. And from there they had made it home, penniless.

That was eight years ago, the same year that plague had erupted again in London. Plague and famine and riots of the starving unemployed. His younger brother and family had been wiped out. His own first-born son had perished. But in the winter the plague vanished and he had easily got a new ship and gone to sea to repair his fortune. First for the London Company of Barbary Merchants. Then a voyage to the West Indies hunting Spaniards. After that, a little richer, he navigated for Kees Veerman, the Dutchman, on his second voyage to search for the legendary Northeast Passage to Cathay and the Spice Islands of Asia, that was supposed to exist in the Ice Seas, north of tsarist Russia. They searched for two years, then Kees Veerman died in the Arctic wastes with eighty percent of the crew and Blackthorne turned back and led the rest of the men home. Then, three years ago, he’d been approached by the newly formed Dutch East India Company and asked to pilot their first expedition to the New World. They whispered secretly that they had acquired, at huge cost, a contraband Portuguese rutter that supposedly gave away the secrets of Magellan’s Strait, and they wanted to prove it. Of course the Dutch merchants would have preferred to use one of their own pilots, but there was none to compare in quality with Englishmen trained by the monopolistic Trinity House, and the awesome value of this rutter forced them to gamble on Blackthorne. But he was the perfect choice: He was the best Protestant pilot alive, his mother had been Dutch, and he spoke Dutch perfectly. Blackthorne had agreed enthusiastically and accepted the fifteen percent of all profit as his fee and, as was custom, had solemnly, before God, sworn allegiance to the Company and vowed to take their fleet out, and to bring it home again.

By God, I am going to bring Erasmus home, Blackthorne thought. And with as many of the men as He leaves alive.

They were crossing the square now and he took his eyes off the slaver and saw the three samurai guarding the trapdoor. They were eating deftly from bowls with the wooden sticks that Blackthorne had seen them use many times but could not manage himself.

“Omi-san!” With signs he explained that he wanted to go to the trapdoor, just to shout down to his friends. Only for a moment. But Omi shook his head and said something he did not understand and continued across the square, down the foreshore, past the cauldron, and on to the jetty. Blackthorne followed obediently. One thing at a time, he told himself. Be patient.

Once on the jetty, Omi turned and called back to the guards on the trapdoor. Blackthorne saw them open the trapdoor and peer down. One of them beckoned to villagers who fetched the ladder and a full freshwater barrel and carried it below. The empty one they brought back aloft. And the latrine barrel.

There! If you’re patient and play their game with their rules, you can help your crew, he thought with satisfaction.

Groups of samurai were collected near the galley. A tall old man was standing apart. From the deference that the daimyo Yabu showed him, and the way the others jumped at his slightest remark, Blackthorne immediately realized his importance. Is he their king? he wondered.

Omi knelt with humility. The old man half bowed, turned his eyes on him.

Mustering as much grace as he could, Blackthorne knelt and put his hands flat on the sand floor of the jetty, as Omi had done, and bowed as low as Omi.

“Konnichi wa, Sama,” he said politely.

He saw the old man half bow again.

Now there was a discussion between Yabu and the old man and Omi. Yabu spoke to Mura.

Mura pointed at the galley. “Anjin-san. Please there.”

“Why?”

“Go! Now. Go!”

Blackthorne felt his panic rising. “Why?”

“Isogi!” Omi commanded, waving him toward the galley.

“No, I’m not going to—”

There was an immediate order from Omi and four samurai fell on Blackthorne and pinioned his arms. Mura produced the rope and began to bind his hands behind him.

“You sons of bitches!” Blackthorne shouted. “I’m not going to go aboard that God-cursed slave ship!”

“Madonna! Leave him alone! Hey, you piss-eating monkeys, let that bastard alone! Kinjiru, neh? Is he the pilot? The Anjin, ka?”

Blackthorne could scarcely believe his ears. The boisterous abuse in Portuguese had come from the deck of the galley. Then he saw the man start down the gangway. As tall as he and about his age, but black-haired and dark-eyed and carelessly dressed in seaman’s clothes, rapier by his side, pistols in his belt. A jeweled crucifix hung from his neck. He wore a jaunty cap and a smile split his face.

“Are you the pilot? The pilot of the Dutchman?”

“Yes,” Blackthorne heard himself reply.

“Good. Good. I’m Vaseo Rodrigues, pilot of this galley!” He turned to the old man and spoke a mixture of Japanese and Portuguese, and called him Monkey-sama and sometimes Toda-sama but the way it sounded it came out “Toady-sama.” Twice he pulled out his pistol and pointed it emphatically at Blackthorne and stuck it back in his belt, his Japanese heavily laced with sweet vulgarities in gutter Portuguese that only seafarers would understand.

Hiro-matsu spoke briefly and the samurai released Blackthorne and Mura untied him.

“That’s better. Listen, Pilot, this man’s like a king. I told him I’d be responsible for you, that I’d blow your head off as soon as drink with you!” Rodrigues bowed to Hiro-matsu, then beamed at Blackthorne. “Bow to the Bastard-sama.”

Dreamlike, Blackthorne did as he was told.

“You do that like a Japper,” Rodrigues said with a grin. “You’re really the pilot?”

“Yes.”

“What’s the latitude of The Lizard?”

“Forty-nine degrees fifty-six minutes North—and watch out for the reefs that bear sou’ by sou’west.”

“You’re the pilot, by God!” Rodrigues shook Blackthorne’s hand warmly. “Come aboard. There’s food and brandy and wine and grog and all pilots should love all pilots, who’re the sperm of the earth. Amen! Right?”

“Yes,” Blackthorne said weakly.

“When I heard we were carrying a pilot back with us, good says I. It’s years since I had the pleasure of talking to a real pilot. Come aboard. How did you sneak past Malacca? How did you avoid our Indian Ocean patrols, eh? Whose rutter did you steal?”

“Where are you taking me?”

“Osaka. The Great Lord High Executioner himself wants to see you.”

Blackthorne felt his panic returning. “Who?”

“Toranaga! Lord of the Eight Provinces, wherever the hell they are! The chief daimyo of Japan—a daimyo’s like a king or feudal lord but better. They’re all despots.”

“What’s he want with me?”

“I don’t know but that’s why we’re here, and if Toranaga wants to see you, Pilot, he’ll see you. They say he’s got a million of these slant-eyed fanatics who’ll die for the honor of wiping his arse if that’s his pleasure! ‘Toranaga wants you to bring back the pilot, Vasco,’ his interpreter said. ‘Bring back the pilot and the ship’s cargo. Take old Toda Hiro-matsu there to examine the ship and—’ Oh yes, Pilot, it’s all confiscated, so I hear, your ship, and everything in it!”

“Confiscated?”

“It may be a rumor. Jappers sometimes confiscate things with one hand, give ’em back with the other—or pretend they’ve never given the order. It’s hard to understand the poxy little bastards!”

Blackthorne felt the cold eyes of the Japanese boring into him and he tried to hide his fear. Rodrigues followed his glance. “Yes, they’re getting restless. Time enough to talk. Come aboard.” He turned but Blackthorne stopped him.

“What about my friends, my crew?”

“Eh?”

Blackthorne told him briefly about the pit. Rodrigues questioned Omi in pidgin Japanese. “He says they’ll be all right. Listen, there’s nothing you or me can do now. You’ll have to wait—you can never tell with a Jappo. They’re six-faced and three-hearted.” Rodrigues bowed like a European courtier to Hiro-matsu. “This is the way we do it in Japan. Like we’re at the court of Fornicating Philip II, God take that Spaniard to an early grave.” He led the way on deck. To Blackthorne’s astonishment there were no chains and no slaves.

“What’s the matter? You sick?” Rodrigues asked.

“No. I thought this was a slaver.”

“They don’t have ’em in Japan. Not even in their mines. Lunatic, but there you are. You’ve never seen such lunatics and I’ve traveled the world three times. We’ve samurai rowers. They’re soldiers, the old bugger’s personal soldiers—and you’ve never seen slaves row better, or men fight better.” Rodrigues laughed. “They put their arses into the oars and I push ’em just to watch the buggers bleed. They never quit. We came all the way from Osaka—three-hundred-odd sea miles in forty hours. Come below. We’ll cast off shortly. You sure you’re all right?”

“Yes. Yes, I think so.” Blackthorne was looking at Erasmus. She was moored a hundred yards away. “Pilot, there’s no chance of going aboard, is there? They haven’t let me back aboard, I’ve no clothes and they sealed her up the moment we arrived. Please?”

Rodrigues scrutinized the ship.

“When did you lose the foremast?”

“Just before we made landfall here.”

“There a spare still aboard?”

“Yes.”

“Where’s her home port?”

“Rotterdam.”

“She was built there?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve been there. Bad shoals but a piss-cutter of a harbor. She’s got good lines, your ship. New—haven’t seen one of her class before. Madonna, she’d be fast, very fast. Very rough to deal with.” Rodrigues looked at him. “Can you get your gear quickly?” He turned over the half-hour glass sand timer that was beside the hourglass, both attached to the binnacle.

“Yes.” Blackthorne tried to keep his growing hope off his face.

“There’d be a condition, Pilot. No weapons, up your sleeve or anywhere. Your word as a pilot. I’ve told the monkeys I’d be responsible for you.”

“I agree.” Blackthorne watched the sand falling silently through the neck of the timer.

“I’ll blow your head off, pilot or no, if there’s the merest whiff of trickery, or cut your throat. If I agree.”

“I give you my word, pilot to pilot, by God. And the pox on the Spanish!”

Rodrigues smiled and banged him warmly on the back. “I’m beginning to like you, Ingeles.”

“How’d you know I’m English?” Blackthorne asked, knowing his Portuguese was perfect and that nothing he had said could have differentiated him from a Dutchman.

“I’m a soothsayer. Aren’t all pilots?” Rodrigues laughed.

“You talked to the priest? Father Sebastio told you?”

“I don’t talk to priests if I can help it. Once a week’s more than enough for any man.” Rodrigues spat deftly into the scuppers and went to the port gangway that overlooked the jetty. “Toady-sama! Ikimasho ka?”

“Ikimasho, Rodrigu-san. Ima!”

“Ima it is.” Rodrigues looked at Blackthorne thoughtfully. “ ‘Ima’ means ‘now,’ ‘at once.’ We’re to leave at once, Ingeles.”

The sand had already made a small, neat mound in the bottom of the glass.

“Will you ask him, please? If I can go aboard my ship?”

“No, Ingeles. I won’t ask him a poxy thing.”

Blackthorne suddenly felt empty. And very old. He watched Rodrigues go to the railing of the quarterdeck and bellow to a small, distinguished seaman who stood on the raised fore-poop deck at the bow. “Hey, Captain-san. Ikimasho? Get samurai aboard-u, ima! Ima, wakarimasu ka?”

“Hai, Anjin-san.”

Immediately Rodrigues rang the ship’s bell loudly six times and the Captain-san began shouting orders to the seamen and samurai ashore and aboard. Seamen hurried up on deck from below to prepare for departure and, in the disciplined, controlled confusion, Rodrigues quietly took Blackthorne’s arm and shoved him toward the starboard gangway, away from the shore.

“There’s a dinghy below, Ingeles. Don’t move fast, don’t look around, and don’t pay attention to anyone but me. If I tell you to come back, do it quickly.”

Blackthorne walked across the deck, down the gangway, toward the small Japanese skiff. He heard angry voices behind him and he felt the hairs on his neck rising for there were many samurai all over the ship, some armed with bows and arrows, a few with muskets.

“You don’t have to worry about him, Captain-san, I’m responsible. Me, Rodrigu-san, ichi ban Anjin-san, by the Virgin! Wakarimasu ka?” was dominating the other voices, but they were getting angrier every moment.

Blackthorne was almost in the dinghy now and he saw that there were no rowlocks. I can’t scull like they do, he told himself. I can’t use the boat! It’s too far to swim. Or is it?

He hesitated, checking the distance. If he had had his full strength he would not have waited a moment. But now?

Feet clattered down the gangway behind him and he fought the impulse to turn.

“Sit in the stern,” he heard Rodrigues say urgently. “Hurry up!”

He did as he was told and Rodrigues jumped in nimbly, grabbed the oars and, still standing, shoved off with great skill.

A samurai was at the head of the gangway, very perturbed, and two other samurai were beside him, bows ready. The captain samurai called out, unmistakably beckoning them to come back.

A few yards from the vessel Rodrigues turned. “Just go there,” he shouted up at him, pointing at Erasmus. “Get samurai aboard!” He set his back firmly to his ship and continued sculling, pushing against the oars in Japanese fashion, standing amidships. “Tell me if they put arrows in their bows, Ingeles! Watch ’em carefully! What’re they doing now?”

“The captain’s very angry. You won’t get into trouble, will you?”

“If we don’t sail at the turn, Old Toady might have cause for complaint. What’re those bowmen doing?”

“Nothing. They’re listening to him. He seens undecided. No. Now one of them’s drawing out an arrow.”

Rodrigues prepared to stop. “Madonna, they’re too God-cursed accurate to risk anything. Is it in the bow yet?”

“Yes—but wait a moment! The captain’s—someone’s come up to him, a seaman I think. Looks like he’s asking him something about the ship. The captain’s looking at us. He said something to the man with the arrow. Now the man’s putting it away. The seaman’s pointing at something on deck.”

Rodrigues sneaked a quick look to make sure and breathed easier. “That’s one of the mates. It’ll take him all of the half hour to get his oarsmen settled.”

Blackthorne waited, the distance increased. “The captain’s looking at us again. No, we’re all right. He’s gone away. But one of the samurai’s watching us.”

“Let him.” Rodrigues relaxed but he did not slacken the pace of his sculling or look back. “Don’t like my back to samurai, not when they’ve weapons in their hands. Not that I’ve ever seen one of the bastards unarmed. They’re all bastards!”

“Why?”

“They love to kill, Ingeles. It’s their custom even to sleep with their swords. This is a great country, but samurai’re dangerous as vipers and a sight more mean.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know why, Ingeles, but they are,” Rodrigues replied, glad to talk to one of his own kind. “Of course, all Jappos are different from us—they don’t feel pain or cold like us—but samurai are even worse. They fear nothing, least of all death. Why? Only God knows, but it’s the truth. If their superiors say ‘kill,’ they kill, ‘die’ and they’ll fall on their swords or slit their own bellies open. They kill and die as easily as we piss. Women’re samurai too, Ingeles. They’ll kill to protect their masters, that’s what they call their husbands here, or they’ll kill themselves if they’re ordered to. They do it by slitting their throats. Here a samurai can order his wife to kill herself and that’s what she’s got to do, by law. Jesu Madonna, the women are something else though, a different species, Ingeles, nothing on earth like them, but the men. . . . Samurai’re reptiles and the safest thing to do is treat them like poisonous snakes. You all right now?”

“Yes, thank you. A bit weak but all right.”

“How was your voyage?”

“Rough. About them—the samurai—how do they get to be one? Do they just pick up the two swords and get that haircut?”

“You’ve got to be born one. Of course, there are all ranks of samurai from daimyos at the top of the muckheap to what we’d call a foot soldier at the bottom. It’s hereditary mostly, like with us. In the olden days, so I was told, it was the same as in Europe today—peasants could be soldiers and soldiers peasants, with hereditary knights and nobles up to kings. Some peasant soldiers rose to the highest rank. The Taikō was one.”

“Who’s he?”

“The Great Despot, the ruler of all Japan, the Great Murderer of all times—I’ll tell you about him one day. He died a year ago and now he’s burning in hell.” Rodrigues spat overboard. “Nowadays you’ve got to be born samurai to be one. It’s all hereditary, Ingeles. Madonna, you’ve no idea how much store they put on heritage, on family, rank, and the like—you saw how Omi bows to that devil Yabu and they both grovel to old Toady-sama. ‘Samurai’ comes from a Jappo word meaning ‘to serve.’ But while they’ll all bow and scrape to the man above, they’re all samurai equally, with a samurai’s special privileges. What’s happening aboard?”

“The captain’s jabbering away at another samurai and pointing at us. What’s special about them?”

“Here samurai rule everything, own everything. They’ve their own code of honor and sets of rules. Arrogant? Madonna, you’ve no idea! The lowest of them can legally kill any non-samurai, any man, woman, or child, for any reason or for no reason. They can kill, legally, just to test the edge of their piss-cutting swords—I’ve seen ’em do it—and they have the best swords in the world. Better’n Damascus steel. What’s that fornicator doing now?”

“Just watching us. His bow’s on his back now.” Blackthorne shuddered. “I hate those bastards more than Spaniards.”

Again Rodrigues laughed as he sculled. “If the truth’s known, they curdle my piss too! But if you want to get rich quick you’ve got to work with them because they own everything. You sure you’re all right?”

“Yes. Thanks. You were saying? Samurai own everything?”

“Yes. Whole country’s split up into castes, like in India. Samurai at the top, peasants next important.” Rodrigues spat overboard. “Only peasants can own land. Understand? But samurai own all the produce. They own all the rice and that’s the only important crop, and they give back part to the peasants. Only samurai’re allowed to carry arms. For anyone except a samurai to attack a samurai is rebellion, punishable by instant death. And anyone who sees such an attack and doesn’t report it at once is equally liable, and so are their wives, and even their kids. The whole family’s put to death if one doesn’t report it. By the Madonna, they’re Satan’s whelps, samurai! I’ve seen kids chopped into mincemeat.” Rodrigues hawked and spat. “Even so, if you know a thing or two this place is heaven on earth.” He glanced back at the galley to reassure himself, then he grinned. “Well, Ingeles, nothing like a boat ride around the harbor, eh?”

Blackthorne laughed. The years dropped off him as he reveled in the familiar dip of the waves, the smell of the sea salt, gulls calling and playing overhead, the sense of freedom, the sense of arriving after so very long. “I thought you weren’t going to help me get to Erasmus!”

“That’s the trouble with all Ingeles. No patience. Listen, here you don’t ask Japmen anything—samurai or others, they’re all the same. If you do, they’ll hesitate, then ask the man above for the decision. Here you have to act. Of course”—his hearty laugh ran across the waves—“sometimes you get killed if you act wrong.”

“You scull very well. I was wondering how to use the oars when you came.”

“You don’t think I’d let you go alone, do you? What’s your name?”

“Blackthorne. John Blackthorne.”

“Have you ever been north, Ingeles? Into the far north?”

“I was with Kees Veerman in Der Lifle. Eight years ago. It was his second voyage to find the Northeast Passage. Why?”

“I’d like to hear about that—and all the places you’ve been. Do you think they’ll ever find the way? The northern way to Asia, east or west?”

“Yes. You and the Spanish block both southern routes, so we’ll have to. Yes, we will. Or the Dutch. Why?”

“And you’ve piloted the Barbary Coast, eh?”

“Yes. Why?”

“And you know Tripoli?”

“Most pilots have been there. Why?”

“I thought I’d seen you once. Yes, it was Tripoli. You were pointed out to me. The famous Ingeles pilot. Who went with the Dutch explorer, Kees Veerman, into the Ice Seas—and was once a captain with Drake, eh? At the Armada? How old were you then?”

“Twenty-four. What were you doing in Tripoli?”

“I was piloting an Ingeles privateer. My ship’d got taken in the Indies by this pirate, Morrow—Henry Morrow was his name. He burned my ship to the waterline after he’d sacked her and offered me the pilot’s job—his man was useless, so he said—you know how it is. He wanted to go from there—we were watering off Hispaniola when he caught us—south along the Main, then back across the Atlantic to try to intercept the annual Spanish gold ship near the Canaries, then on through the Straits to Tripoli if we missed her to try for other prizes, then north again to England. He made the usual offer to free my comrades, give them food and boats in return if I joined them. I said, ‘Sure, why not? Providing we don’t take any Portuguese shipping and you put me ashore near Lisbon and don’t steal my rutters.’ We argued back and forth as usual—you know how it is. Then I swore by the Madonna and we both swore on the Cross and that was that. We had a good voyage and some fat Spanish merchantmen fell into our wake. When we were off Lisbon he asked me to stay aboard, gave me the usual message from Good Queen Bess, how she’d pay a princely bounty to any Portuguese pilot who’d join her and teach others the skill at Trinity House, and give five thousand guineas for the rutter of Magellan’s Pass, or the Cape of Good Hope.” His smile was broad, his teeth white and strong, and his dark mustache and beard well groomed. “I didn’t have them. At least that’s what I told him. Morrow kept his word, like all pirates should. He put me ashore with my rutters—of course he’d had them copied though he himself couldn’t read or write, and he even gave me my share of the prize money. You ever sail with him, Ingeles?”

“No. The Queen knighted him a few years ago. I’ve never served on one of his ships. I’m glad he was fair with you.”

They were nearing Erasmus. Samurai were peering down at them quizzically.

“That was the second time I’d piloted for heretics. The first time I wasn’t so lucky.”

“Oh?”

Rodrigues shipped his oars and the boat swerved neatly to the side and he hung on to the boarding ropes. “Go aloft but leave the talking to me.”

Blackthorne began to climb while the other pilot tied the boat safely. Rodrigues was the first on deck. He bowed like a courtier. “Konnichi wa to all sod-eating samas!”

There were four samurai on deck. Blackthorne recognized one of them as a guard of the trapdoor. Nonplussed, they bowed stiffly to the Portuguese. Blackthorne aped him, feeling awkward, and would have preferred to bow correctly.

Rodrigues walked straight for the companionway. The seals were neatly in place. One of the samurai intercepted him.

“Kinjiru, gomen nasai.” It’s forbidden, so sorry.

“Kinjiru, eh?” the Portuguese said, openly unimpressed. “I’m Rodrigu-san, anjin for Toda Hiro-matsu-sama. This seal,” he said, pointing to the red stamp with the odd writing on it, “Toda Hiro-matsu-sama, ka?”

“Iyé,” the samurai said, shaking his head. “Kasigi Yabu-sama!”

“IYÉ?” Rodrigues said. “Kasigi Yabu-sama? I’m from Toda Hiro-matsu-sama, who’s a bigger king than your bugger and Toady-sama’s from Toranaga-sama, who’s the biggest bugger-sama in this whole world. Neh?” He ripped the seal off the door, dropped a hand to one of his pistols. The swords were half out of their scabbards and he said quietly to Blackthorne, “Get ready to abandon ship,” and to the samurai he said gruffly, “Toranaga-sama!” He pointed with his left hand at the flag which fluttered at his own masthead. “Wakarimasu ka?”

The samurai hesitated, their swords ready. Blackthorne prepared to dive over the side.

“Toranaga-sama!” Rodrigues crashed his foot against the door, the latch snapped and the door burst open. “WAKARIMASU KA?”

“Wakarimasu, Anjin-san.” The samurai quickly put their swords away and bowed and apologized and bowed again and Rodrigues said hoarsely, “That’s better,” and led the way below.

“Christ Jesus, Rodrigues,” Blackthorne said when they were on the lower deck. “Do you do this all the time and get away with it?”

“I do it very seldom,” the Portuguese said, wiping the sweat from his brow, “and even then I wish I’d never started it.”

Blackthorne leaned against the bulkhead. “I feel as if someone’s kicked me in the stomach.”

“It’s the only way. You’ve got to act like a king. Even so, you can never tell with a samurai. They’re as dangerous as a pissed priest with a candle in his arse sitting on a half-full powder keg.”

“What did you say to them?”

“Toda Hiro-matsu is Toranaga’s chief adviser—he’s a bigger daimyo than this local one. That’s why they gave in.”

“What’s he like, Toranaga?”

“Long story, Ingeles.” Rodrigues sat on the step, pulled his boot off, and rubbed his ankle. “I nearly broke my foot on your lice-eaten door.”

“It wasn’t locked. You could have just opened it.”

“I know. But that wouldn’t have been as effective. By the Blessed Virgin, you’ve got a lot to learn!”

“Will you teach me?”

Rodrigues pulled his boot back on. “That depends,” he said.

“On what?”

“We’ll have to see, won’t we? I’ve done all the talking so far, which is fair—I’m fit, you’re not. Soon it’ll be your turn. Which is your cabin?”

Blackthorne studied him for a moment. The smell below decks was stiff and weathered. “Thanks for helping me come aboard.”

He led the way aft. His door was unlocked. The cabin had been ransacked and everything removable had been taken. There were no books or clothes or instruments or quills. His sea chest too was unlocked. And empty.

White with rage, he walked into the Great Cabin, Rodrigues watching intently. Even the secret compartment had been found and looted.

“They’ve taken everything. The sons of plague-infested lice!”

“What did you expect?”

“I don’t know. I thought—with the seals—” Blackthorne went to the strong room. It was bare. So was the magazine. The holds contained only the bales of woolen cloth. “God curse all Jappers!” He went back to his cabin and slammed his sea chest closed.

“Where are they?” Rodrigues asked.

“What?”

“Your rutters. Where are your rutters?”

Blackthorne looked at him sharply.

“No pilot’d worry about clothes. You came for the rutters. Didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Why’re you so surprised, Ingeles? Why do you think I came aboard? To help you get more rags? They’re threadbare as it is and you’ll need others. I’ve plenty for you. But where are the rutters?”

“They’ve gone. They were in my sea chest.”

“I’m not going to steal them, Ingeles. I just want to read them. And copy them, if need be. I’ll cherish them like my own, so you’ve no need to worry.” His voice hardened. “Please get them, Ingeles, we’ve little time left.”

“I can’t. They’ve gone. They were in my sea chest.”

“You wouldn’t have left them there—not coming into a foreign port. You wouldn’t forget a pilot’s first rule—to hide them carefully, and leave only false ones unprotected. Hurry up!”

“They’re stolen!”

“I don’t believe you. But I’ll admit you’ve hidden them very well. I searched for two hours and didn’t get a fornicating whiff.”

“What?”

“Why are you so surprised, Ingeles? Is your head up your arse? Naturally I came here from Osaka to investigate your rutters!”

“You’ve already been aboard?”

“Madonna!” Rodrigues said impatiently. “Yes, of course, two or three hours ago with Hiro-matsu, who wanted to look around. He broke the seals and then, when we left, this local daimyo sealed her up again. Hurry up, by God,” he added. “The sand’s running out.”

“They’re stolen!” Blackthorne told him how they had arrived and how he had awakened ashore. Then he kicked his sea chest across the room, infuriated at the men who had looted his ship. “They’re stolen! All my charts! All my rutters! I’ve copies of some in England, but my rutter of this voyage’s gone and the—” He stopped.

“And the Portuguese rutter? Come on, Ingeles, it had to be Portuguese.”

“Yes, and the Portuguese one, it’s gone too.” Get hold of yourself, he thought. They’re gone and that’s the end. Who has them? The Japanese? Or did they give them to the priest? Without the rutters and the charts you can’t pilot your way home. You’ll never get home. . . . That’s not true. You can pilot your way home, with care, and enormous luck. . . . Don’t be ridiculous! You’re halfway around the earth, in enemy land, in enemy hands, and you’ve neither rutter nor charts. “Oh, Lord Jesus, give me strength!”

Rodrigues was watching him intently. At length he said, “I’m sorry for you, Ingeles. I know how you feel—it happened to me once. He was an Ingeles too, the thief, may his ship drown and he burn in hell forever. Come on, let’s go back aboard.”

Omi and the others waited on the jetty until the galley rounded the headland and vanished. To the west layers of night already etched the crimson sky. To the east, night joined the sky and the sea together, horizonless.

“Mura, how long will it take to get all the cannon back on the ship?”

“If we work through the night, by midday tomorrow, Omi-san. If we begin at dawn, we’ll be finished well before sunset. It would be safer to work during the day.”

“Work through the night. Bring the priest to the pit at once.”

Omi glanced at Igurashi, Yabu’s chief lieutenant, who was still looking out toward the headland, his face stretched, the livid scar tissue over his empty eye socket eerily shadowed. “You’d be welcome to stay, Igurashi-san. My house is poor but perhaps we could make you comfortable.”

“Thank you,” the older man said, turning back to him, “but our Master said to return to Yedo at once, so I will return at once.” More of his concern showed. “I wish I was on that galley.”

“Yes.”

“I hate the thought of Yabu-sama being aboard with only two men. I hate it.”

“Yes.”

He pointed at Erasmus. “A devil ship, that’s what it is! So much wealth, then nothing.”

“Surely everything? Won’t Lord Toranaga be pleased, enormously pleased with Lord Yabu’s gift?”

“That money-infected province grabber is so filled with his own importance, he won’t even notice the amount of silver he’ll have stolen from our Master. Where are your brains?”

“I presume only your anxiety over the possible danger to our Lord prompted you to make such a remark.”

“You’re right, Omi-san. No insult was intended. You’ve been very clever and helpful to our Master. Perhaps you’re right about Toranaga too,” Igurashi said, but he was thinking, Enjoy your newfound wealth, you poor fool. I know my Master better than you, and your increased fief will do you no good at all. Your advancement would have been a fair return for the ship, the bullion, and the arms. But now they’ve vanished. And because of you, my Master’s in jeopardy. You sent the message and you said, ‘See the barbarians first,’ tempting him. We should have left yesterday. Yes, then my Master would have been safely away by now, with the money and arms. Are you a traitor? Are you acting for yourself, or your stupid father, or for an enemy? For Toranaga, perhaps? It doesn’t matter. You can believe me, Omi, you dung-eating young fool, you and your branch of the Kasigi clan are not long for this earth. I’d tell you to your face but then I’d have to kill you and I would have spurned my Master’s trust. He’s the one to say when, not me.

“Thank you for your hospitality, Omi-san,” he said. “I’ll look forward to seeing you soon, but I’ll be on my way now.”

“Would you do something for me, please? Give my respects to my father. I’d appreciate it very much.”

“I’d be happy to. He’s a fine man. And I haven’t congratulated you yet on your new fief.”

“You’re too kind.”

“Thank you again, Omi-san.” He raised his hand in friendly salutation, motioned to his men, and led the phalanx of horsemen out of the village.

Omi went to the pit. The priest was there. Omi could see the man was angry and he hoped that he would do something overt, publicly, so he could have him thrashed.

“Priest, tell the barbarians they are to come up, one by one. Tell them Lord Yabu has said they may live again in the world of men.” Omi kept his language deliberately simple. “But the smallest breaking of a rule, and two will be put back into the pit. They are to behave and obey all orders. Is that clear?”

“Yes.”

Omi made the priest repeat it to him as before. When he was sure the man had it all correctly, he made him speak it down into the pit.

The men came up, one by one. All were afraid. Some had to be helped. One man was in great pain and screamed every time someone touched his arm.

“There should be nine.”

“One is dead. His body is down there, in the pit,” the priest said.

Omi thought for a moment. “Mura, burn the corpse and keep the ashes with those of the other barbarian. Put these men in the same house as before. Give them plenty of vegetables and fish. And barley soup and fruit. Have them washed. They stink. Priest, tell them that if they behave and obey, the food will continue.”

Omi watched and listened carefully. He saw them all react gratefully and he thought with contempt, how stupid! I deprive them for only two days, then give them back a pittance and now they’ll eat dung, they really will. “Mura, make them bow properly and take them away.”

Then he turned to the priest. “Well?”

“I go now. Go my home. Leave Anjiro.”

“Better you leave and stay away forever, you and every priest like you. Perhaps the next time one of you comes into my fief it is because some of my Christian peasants or vassals are considering treason,” he said, using the veiled threat and classic ploy that anti-Christian samurai used to control the indiscriminate spread of the foreign dogma in their fiefs, for though foreign priests were protected, their Japanese converts were not.

“Christians good Japanese. Always. Only good vassals. Never had bad thoughts. No.”

“I’m glad to hear it. Don’t forget my fief stretches twenty ri in every direction. Do you understand?”

“I understand. Yes. I understand very well.”

He watched the man bow stiffly—even barbarian priests had to have manners—and walk away.

“Omi-san?” one of his samurai said. He was young and very handsome.

“Yes?”

“Please excuse me, I know you haven’t forgotten but Masijiro-san is still in the pit.” Omi went to the trapdoor and stared down at the samurai. Instantly the man was on his knees, bowing deferentially.

The two days had aged him. Omi weighed his past service and his future worth. Then he took the young samurai’s dagger from his sash and dropped it into the pit.

At the bottom of the ladder Masijiro stared at the knife in disbelief. Tears began coursing his cheeks. “I don’t deserve this honor, Omi-san,” he said abjectly.

“Yes.”

“Thank you.”

The young samurai beside Omi said, “May I please ask that he be allowed to commit seppuku here, on the beach?”

“He failed in the pit. He stays in the pit. Order the villagers to fill it in. Obliterate all traces of it. The barbarians have defiled it.”

Kiku laughed and shook her head. “No, Omi-san, so sorry; please no more saké for me or my hair will fall down, I’ll fall down, and then where would we be?”

“I’d fall down with you and we’d pillow and be in nirvana, outside ourselves,” Omi said happily, his head swimming from the wine.

“Ah, but I’d be snoring and you can’t pillow a snoring, horrid drunken girl and get much pleasure. Certainly not, so sorry. Oh no, Omi-sama of the Huge New Fief, you deserve better than that!” She poured another thimble of the warm wine into the tiny porcelain cup and offered it with both hands, her left forefinger and thumb delicately holding the cup, the forefinger of her right hand touching the underside. “Here, because you are wonderful!”

He accepted it and sipped, enjoying its warmth and mellow tang. “I’m so glad I was able to persuade you to stay an extra day, neh? You are so beautiful, Kiku-san.”

“You are beautiful, and it is my pleasure.” Her eyes were dancing in the light of a candle encased in a paper and bamboo flower that hung from the cedar rafter. This was the best suite of rooms in the Tea House near the Square. She leaned over to help him to some more rice from the simple wooden bowl that was on the low black lacquered table in front of him, but he shook his head.

“No, no, thank you.”

“You should eat more, a strong man like you.”

“I’m full, really.”

He did not offer her any because she had barely touched her small salad—thinly sliced cucumbers and tiny sculptured radishes pickled in sweet vinegar—which was all she would accept of the whole meal. There had been slivers of raw fish on balls of tacky rice, soup, the salad, and some fresh vegetables served with a piquant sauce of soya and ginger. And rice.

She clapped her hands softly and the shoji was opened instantly by her personal maid.

“Yes, Mistress?”

“Suisen, take all these things away and bring more saké and a fresh pot of cha. And fruit. The saké should be warmer than last time. Hurry up, good-for-nothing!” She tried to sound imperious.

Suisen was fourteen, sweet, anxious to please, and an apprentice courtesan. She had been with Kiku for two years and Kiku was responsible for her training.

With an effort, Kiku took her eyes off the pure white rice that she would have loved to have eaten and dismissed her own hunger. You ate before you arrived and you will eat later, she reminded herself. Yes, but even then it was so little. “Ah, but ladies have tiny appetites, very tiny appetites,” her teacher used to say. “Guests eat and drink—the more the better. Ladies don’t, and certainly never with guests. How can ladies talk or entertain or play the samisen or dance if they’re stuffing their mouths? You will eat later, be patient. Concentrate on your guest.”

While she watched Suisen critically, gauging her skill, she told Omi stories to make him laugh and forget the world outside. The young girl knelt beside Omi, tidied the small bowls and chopsticks on the lacquer tray into a pleasing pattern as she had been taught. Then she picked up the empty saké flask, poured to make sure it was empty—it would have been very bad manners to have shaken the flask—then got up with the tray, noiselessly carried it to the shoji door, knelt, put the tray down, opened the shoji, got up, stepped through the door, knelt again, lifted the tray out, put it down again as noiselessly, and closed the door completely.

“I’ll really have to get another maid,” Kiku said, not displeased. That color suits her, she was thinking. I must send to Yedo for some more of that silk. What a shame it’s so expensive! Never mind, with all the money Gyoko-san was given for last night and tonight, there will be more than enough from my share to buy little Suisen twenty kimonos. She’s such a sweet child, and really very graceful. “She makes so much noise—it disturbs the whole room—so sorry.”

“I didn’t notice her. Only you,” Omi said, finishing his wine.

Kiku fluttered her fan, her smile lighting her face. “You make me feel very good, Omi-san. Yes. And beloved.”

Suisen brought the saké quickly. And the cha. Her mistress poured Omi some wine and gave it to him. The young girl unobtrusively filled the cups. She did not spill a drop and she thought the sound that the liquid made going into the cup had the right quiet kind of ring to it, so she sighed inwardly with vast relief, sat back on her heels, and waited.

Kiku was telling an amusing story that she had heard from one of her friends in Mishima and Omi was laughing. As she did so, she took one of the small oranges and, using her long fingernails, opened it as though it were a flower, the sections of the fruit the petals, the divisions of the skin its leaves. She removed a fleck of pith and offered it with both hands as if this were the usual way a lady would serve the fruit to her guest.

“Would you like an orange, Omi-san?”

Omi’s first reaction was to say, I can’t destroy such beauty. But that would be inept, he thought, dazzled by her artistry. How can I compliment her, and her unnamed teacher? How can I return the happiness that she has given me, letting me watch her fingers create something so precious yet so ephemeral?

He held the flower in his hands for a moment then nimbly removed four sections, equidistant from each other, and ate them with enjoyment. This left a new flower. He removed four more sections, creating a third floral design. Next he took one section, and moved a second so that the remaining three made still another blossom.

Then he took two sections and replaced the last in the orange cradle, in the center on its side, as though a crescent moon within a sun.

He ate one very slowly. When he had finished, he put the other in the center of his hand and offered it. “This you must have because it is the second to last. This is my gift to you.”

Suisen could hardly breathe. What was the last one for?

Kiku took the fruit and ate it. It was the best she had ever tasted.

“This, the last one,” Omi said, putting the whole flower gravely into the palm of his right hand, “this is my gift to the gods, whoever they are, wherever they are. I will never eat this fruit again, unless it is from your hands.”

“That is too much, Omi-sama,” Kiku said. “I release you from your vow! That was said under the influence of the kami who lives in all saké bottles!”

“I refuse to be released.”

They were very happy together.

“Suisen,” she said. “Now leave us. And please, child, please try to do it with grace.”

“Yes, Mistress.” The young girl went into the next room and checked that the futons were meticulous, the love instruments and pleasure beads near at hand, and the flowers perfect. An imperceptible crease was smoothed from the already smooth cover. Then, satisfied, Suisen sat down, sighed with relief, fanned the heat out of her face with her lilac fan, and contentedly waited.

In the next room, which was the finest of all the rooms in the tea house, the only one with a garden of its own, Kiku picked up the long-handled samisen. It was three-stringed, guitarlike, and Kiku’s first soaring chord filled the room. Then she began to sing. At first soft, then trilling, soft again then louder, softer and sighing sweetly, ever sweetly, she sang of love and unrequited love and happiness and sadness.

“Mistress?” The whisper would not have awakened the lightest sleeper but Suisen knew that her mistress preferred not to sleep after the Clouds and the Rain, however strong. She preferred to rest, half awake, in tranquillity.

“Yes, Sui-chan?” Kiku whispered as quietly, using “chan” as one would to a favorite child.

“Omi-san’s wife has returned. Her palanquin has just gone up the path to his house.”

Kiku glanced at Omi. His neck rested comfortably on the padded wooden pillow, arms interlocked. His body was strong and unmarked, his skin firm and golden, a sheen there. She caressed him gently, enough to make the touch enter his dream but not enough to awaken him. Then she slid from under the quilt, gathering her kimonos around herself.

It took Kiku very little time to renew her makeup as Suisen combed and brushed her hair and retied it into the shimoda style. Then mistress and maid walked noiselessly along the corridor, out onto the veranda, through the garden to the square. Boats, like fireflies, plied from the barbarian ship to the jetty where seven of the cannon still remained to be loaded. It was still deep night, long before dawn.

The two women slipped along the narrow alley between a cluster of houses and began to climb the path.

Sweat-stained and exhausted bearers were collecting their strength around the palanquin on the hilltop outside Omi’s house. Kiku did not knock on the garden door. Candles were lit in the house and servants were hurrying to and fro. She motioned to Suisen, who immediately went to the veranda near the front door, knocked, and waited. In a moment the door opened. The maid nodded and vanished. Another moment and the maid returned and beckoned Kiku and bowed low as she swept past. Another maid scurried ahead and opened the shoji of the best room.

Omi’s mother’s bed was unslept in. She was sitting, rigidly erect, near the small alcove that held the flower arrangement. A small window shoji was open to the garden. Midori, Omi’s wife, was opposite her.

Kiku knelt. Is it only a night ago that I was here and terrified on the Night of the Screams? She bowed, first to Omi’s mother, then to his wife, feeling the tension between the two women and she asked herself, Why is it there is always such violence between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law? Doesn’t daughter-in-law, in time, become mother-in-law? Why does she then always treat her own daughter-in-law to a lashing tongue and make her life a misery, and why does that girl do the same in her turn? Doesn’t anyone learn?

“I’m sorry to disturb you, Mistress-san.”

“You’re very welcome, Kiku-san,” the old woman replied. “There’s no trouble, I hope?”

“Oh, no, but I didn’t know whether or not you’d want me to awaken your son,” she said to her, already knowing the answer. “I thought I’d better ask you, as you, Midori-san”—she turned and smiled and bowed slightly to Midori, liking her greatly—“as you had returned.”

The old woman said, “You’re very kind, Kiku-san, and very thoughtful. No, leave him in peace.”

“Very well. Please excuse me, disturbing you like this, but I thought it best to ask. Midori-san, I hope your journey was not too bad.”

“So sorry, it was awful,” Midori said. “I’m glad to be back and hated being away. Is my husband well?”

“Yes, very well. He laughed a lot this evening and seemed to be happy. He ate and drank sparingly and he’s sleeping soundly.”

“The Mistress-san was beginning to tell me some of the terrible things that happened while I was away and—”

“You shouldn’t have gone. You were needed here,” the old woman interrupted, venom in her voice. “Or perhaps not. Perhaps you should have stayed away permanently. Perhaps you brought a bad kami into our house along with your bed linen.”

“I’d never do that, Mistress-san,” Midori said patiently. “Please believe I would rather kill myself than bring the slightest stain to your good name. Please forgive my being away and my faults. I’m sorry.”

“Since that devil ship came here we’ve had nothing but trouble. That’s bad kami. Very bad. And where were you when you were needed? Gossiping in Mishima, stuffing yourself and drinking saké.”

“My father died, Mistress-san. The day before I arrived.”

“Huh, you haven’t even got the courtesy or the foresight to be at your own father’s deathbed. The sooner you permanently leave our house, the better for all of us. I want some cha. We have a guest here and you haven’t even remembered your manners enough to offer her refreshment!”

“It was ordered, instantly, the moment she—”

“It hasn’t arrived instantly!”

The shoji opened. A maid nervously brought cha and some sweet cakes. First Midori served the old woman, who cursed the maid roundly and chomped toothlessly on a cake, slurping her drink. “You must excuse the maid, Kiku-san,” the old woman said. “The cha’s tasteless. Tasteless! And scalding. I suppose that’s only to be expected in this house.”

“Here, please have mine.” Midori blew gently on the tea to cool it.

The old woman took it grudgingly. “Why can’t it be correct the first time?” She lapsed into sullen silence.

“What do you think about all this?” Midori asked Kiku. “The ship and Yabu-sama and Toda Hiro-matsu-sama?”

“I don’t know what to think. As to the barbarians, who knows? They’re certainly an extraordinary collection of men. And the great daimyo, Iron Fist? It’s very curious that he arrived almost the same time as Lord Yabu, neh? Well, you must excuse me, no, please, I can see myself out.”

“Oh, no, Kiku-san, I wouldn’t hear of it.”

“There, you see, Midori-san,” the old woman interrupted impatiently. “Our guest’s uncomfortable and the cha awful.”

“Oh, the cha was sufficient for me, Mistress-san, really. No, if you’ll excuse me, I am a little tired. Perhaps before I go tomorrow, I may be allowed to come to see you. It’s always such a pleasure to talk with you.”

The old woman allowed herself to be cajoled and Kiku followed Midori onto the veranda and into the garden.

“Kiku-san, you’re so thoughtful,” Midori said, holding her arm, warmed by her beauty. “It was very kind of you, thank you.”

Kiku glanced back at the house momentarily, and shivered. “Is she always like that?”

“Tonight she was polite, compared to some times. If it wasn’t for Omi and my son I swear I’d shake her dust off my feet, shave my head, and become a nun. But I have Omi and my son and that makes up for everything. I only thank all kami for that. Fortunately Mistress-san prefers Yedo and can’t stay away from there for very long.” Midori smiled sadly. “You train yourself not to listen, you know how it is.” She sighed, so beautiful in the moonlight. “But that’s unimportant. Tell me what’s happened since I left.”

This was why Kiku had come to the house so urgently, for obviously neither the mother nor the wife would wish Omi’s sleep disturbed. She came to tell the lovely Lady Midori everything, so she could help to guard Kasigi Omi as she herself would try to guard him. She told her all that she knew except what had happened in the room with Yabu. She added the rumors she had heard and the stories the other girls had passed on to her or invented. And everything that Omi had told her—his hopes and fears and plans—everything about him, except what had happened in the room tonight. She knew that this was not important to his wife.

“I’m afraid, Kiku-san, afraid for my husband.”

“Everything he advised was wise, Lady. I think everything he did was correct. Lord Yabu doesn’t reward anyone lightly and three thousand koku is a worthy increase.”

“But the ship’s Lord Toranaga’s now, and all that money.”

“Yes, but for Yabu-sama to offer the ship as a gift was an idea of genius. Omi-san gave the idea to Yabu—surely this itself is payment enough, neh? Omi-san must be recognized as a preeminent vassal.” Kiku twisted the truth just a trifle, knowing that Omi was in great danger, and all his house. What is to be will be, she reminded herself. But it does no harm to ease the brow of a nice woman.

“Yes, I can see that,” Midori said. Let it be the truth, she prayed. Please let it be the truth. She embraced the girl, her eyes filling with tears. “Thank you. You’re so kind, Kiku-san, so kind.” She was seventeen.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“What do you think, Ingeles?”

“I think there’ll be a storm.”

“When?”

“Before sunset.”

It was near noon and they were standing on the quarterdeck of the galley under a gray overcast. This was the second day out to sea.

“If this was your ship, what would you do?”

“How far is it to our landfall?” Blackthorne asked.

“After sunset.”

“How far to the nearest land?”

“Four or five hours, Ingeles. But to run for cover will cost us half a day and I can’t afford that. What would you do?”

Blackthorne thought a moment. During the first night the galley had sped southward down the east coast of the Izu peninsula, helped by the large sail on the midships mast. When they had come abreast of the south-most cape, Cape Ito, Rodrigues had set the course West South West and had left the safety of the coast for the open sea, heading for a landfall at Cape Shinto two hundred miles away.

“Normally in one of these galleys we’d hug the coast—for safety,” Rodrigues had said, “but that’d take too much time and time is important. Toranaga asked me to pilot Toady to Anjiro and back. Quickly. There’s a bonus for me if we’re very quick. One of their pilots’d be just as good on a short haul like this, but the poor son of a whore’d be frightened to death carrying so important a daimyo as Toady, particularly out of sight of land. They’re not oceaners, Japmen. Great pirates and fighters and coastal sailors. But the deep frightens them. The old Taikō even made a law that the few ocean ships Japmen possess were always to have Portuguese pilots aboard. It’s still the law of their land today.”

“Why did he do that?”

Rodrigues shrugged. “Perhaps someone suggested it to him.”

“Who?”

“Your stolen rutter, Ingeles, the Portuguese one. Whose was it?”

“I don’t know. There was no name on it, no signature.”

“Where’d you get it?”

“From the chief merchant of the Dutch East India Company.”

“Where’d he get it from?”

Blackthorne shrugged.

Rodrigues’ laugh had no humor in it. “Well, I never expected you to tell me—but whoever stole it and sold it, I hope he burns in hellfire forever!”

“You’re employed by this Toranaga, Rodrigues?”

“No. I was just visiting Osaka, my Captain and I. This was just a favor to Toranaga. My Captain volunteered me. I’m pilot of the—” Rodrigues had stopped. “I keep forgetting you’re the enemy, Ingeles.”

“Portugal and England have been allies for centuries.”

“But we’re not now. Go below, Ingeles. You’re tired and so am I and tired men make mistakes. Come on deck when you’re rested.”

So Blackthorne had gone below to the pilot’s cabin and had lain on the bunk. Rodrigues’ rutter of the voyage was on the sea desk which was pinned to the bulkhead like the pilot’s chair on the quarterdeck. The book was leather-covered and used but Blackthorne did not open it.

“Why leave it there?” he had asked previously.

“If I didn’t, you’d search for it. But you won’t touch it there—or even look at it—uninvited. You’re a pilot—not a pig-bellied whoring thieving merchant or soldier.”

“I’ll read it. You would.”

“Not uninvited, Ingeles. No pilot’d do that. Even I wouldn’t!”

Blackthorne had watched the book for a moment and then he closed his eyes. He slept deeply, all of that day and part of the night. It was just before dawn when he awoke as always. It took time to adjust to the untoward motion of the galley and the throb of the drum that kept the oars moving as one. He lay comfortably on his back in the dark, his arms under his head. He thought about his own ship and put away his worry of what would happen when they reached shore and Osaka. One thing at a time. Think about Felicity and Tudor and home. No, not now. Think that if other Portuguese are like Rodrigues, you’ve a good chance now. You’ll get a ship home. Pilots are not enemies and the pox on other things! But you can’t say that, lad. You’re English, the hated heretic and anti-Christ. Catholics own this world. They owned it. Now we and the Dutch’re going to smash them.

What nonsense it all is! Catholic and Protestant and Calvinist and Lutherist and every other shitist. You should have been born Catholic. It was only fate that took your father to Holland where he met a woman, Anneke van Droste, who became his wife and he saw Spanish Catholics and Spanish priests and the Inquisition for the first time. I’m glad he had his eyes opened, Blackthorne thought. I’m glad mine are open.

Then he had gone on deck. Rodrigues was in his chair, his eyes red-rimmed with sleeplessness, two Japanese sailors on the helm as before.

“Can I take this watch for you?”

“How do you feel, Ingeles?”

“Rested. Can I take the watch for you?” Blackthorne saw Rodrigues measuring him. “I’ll wake you if the wind changes—anything.”

“Thank you, Ingeles. Yes, I’ll sleep a little. Maintain this course. At the turn, go four degrees more westerly and at the next, six more westerly. You’ll have to point the new course on the compass for the helmsman. Wakarimasu ka?”

“Hai!” Blackthorne laughed. “Four points westerly it is. Go below, Pilot, your bunk’s comfortable.”

But Vasco Rodrigues did not go below. He merely pulled his sea cloak closer and settled deeper into the seachair. Just before the turn of the hourglass he awoke momentarily and checked the course change without moving and immediately went back to sleep again. Once when the wind veered he awoke and then, when he had seen there was no danger, again he slept.

Hiro-matsu and Yabu came on deck during the morning. Blackthorne noticed their surprise that he was conning the ship and Rodrigues sleeping. They did not talk to him, but returned to their conversation and, later, they went below again.

Near midday Rodrigues had risen from the seachair to stare northeast, sniffing the wind, all his senses concentrated. Both men studied the sea and the sky and the encroaching clouds.

“What would you do, Ingeles, if this was your ship?” Rodrigues said again.

“I’d run for the coast if I knew where it was—the nearest point. This craft won’t take much water and there’s a storm there all right. About four hours away.”

“Can’t be tai-fun,” Rodrigues muttered.

“What?”

“Tai-fun. They’re huge winds—the worst storms you’ve ever seen. But we’re not in tai-fun season.”

“When’s that?”

“It’s not now, enemy.” Rodrigues laughed. “No, not now. But it could be rotten enough so I’ll take your piss-cutting advice. Steer North by West.”

As Blackthorne pointed the new course and the helmsman turned the ship neatly, Rodrigues went to the rail and shouted at the captain, “Isogi! Captain-san. Wakarimasu ka?”

“Isogi, hai!”

“What’s that? Hurry up?”

The corners of Rodrigues’ eyes crinkled with amusement. “No harm in you knowing a little Japman talk, eh? Sure, Ingeles, ‘isogi’ means to hurry. All you need here’s about ten words and then you can make the buggers shit if you want to. If they’re the right words, of course, and if they’re in the mood. I’ll go below now and get some food.”

“You cook too?”

“In Japland, every civilized man has to cook, or personally has to train one of the monkeys to cook, or you starve to death. All they eat’s raw fish, raw vegetables in sweet pickled vinegar. But life here can be a piss-cutter if you know how.”

“Is ‘piss-cutter’ good or bad?”

“It’s mostly very good but sometimes terribly bad. It all depends how you feel and you ask too many questions.”

Rodrigues went below. He barred his cabin door and carefully checked the lock on his sea chest. The hair that he had placed so delicately was still there. And a similar hair, equally invisible to anyone but him, that he had put on the cover of his rutter was also untouched.

You can’t be too careful in this world, Rodrigues thought. Is there any harm in his knowing that you’re pilot of the Nao del Trato, this year’s great Black Ship from Macao? Perhaps. Because then you’d have to explain that she’s a leviathan, one of the richest, biggest ships in the world, more than sixteen hundred tons. You might be tempted to tell him about her cargo, about trade and about Macao and all sorts of illuminating things that are very, very private and very, very secret. But we are at war, us against the English and Dutch.

He opened the well-oiled lock and took out his private rutter to check some bearings for the nearest haven and his eyes saw the sealed packet the priest, Father Sebastio, had given him just before they had left Anjiro.

Does it contain the Englishman’s rutters? he asked himself again.

He weighed the package and looked at the Jesuit seals, sorely tempted to break them and see for himself. Blackthorne had told him that the Dutch squadron had come by way of Magellan’s Pass and little else. The Ingeles asks lots of questions and volunteers nothing, Rodrigues thought. He’s shrewd, clever, and dangerous.

Are they his rutters or aren’t they? If they are, what good are they to the Holy Fathers?

He shuddered, thinking of Jesuits and Franciscans and Dominicans and all monks and all priests and the Inquisition. There are good priests and bad priests and they’re mostly bad, but they’re still priests. The Church has to have priests and without them to intercede for us we’re lost sheep in a Satanic world. Oh, Madonna, protect me from all evil and bad priests!

Rodrigues had been in his cabin with Blackthorne in Anjiro harbor when the door had opened and Father Sebastio had come in uninvited. They had been eating and drinking and the remains of their food was in the wooden bowls.

“You break bread with heretics?” the priest had asked. “It’s dangerous to eat with them. They’re infectious. Did he tell you he’s a pirate?”

“It’s only Christian to be chivalrous to your enemies, Father. When I was in their hands they were fair to me. I only return their charity.” He had knelt and kissed the priest’s cross. Then he had got up and, offering wine, he said, “How can I help you?”

“I want to go to Osaka. With the ship.”

“I’ll ask them at once.” He had gone and had asked the captain and the request had gradually gone up to Toda Hiro-matsu, who replied that Toranaga had said nothing about bringing a foreign priest from Anjiro so he regretted he could not bring the foreign priest from Anjiro.

Father Sebastio had wanted to talk privately so he had sent the Englishman on deck and then, in the privacy of the cabin, the priest had brought out the sealed package.

“I would like you to deliver this to the Father-Visitor.”

“I don’t know if his Eminence’ll still be at Osaka when I get there.” Rodrigues did not like being a carrier of Jesuit secrets. “I might have to go back to Nagasaki. My Captain-General may have left orders for me.”

“Then give it to Father Alvito. Make absolutely sure you put it only in his hands.”

“Very well,” he had said.

“When were you last at Confession, my son?”

“On Sunday, Father.”

“Would you like me to confess you now?”

“Yes, thank you.” He was grateful that the priest had asked, for you never knew if your life depended on the sea, and, afterwards, he had felt much better as always.

Now in the cabin, Rodrigues put back the package, greatly tempted. Why Father Alvito? Father Martin Alvito was chief trade negotiator and had been personal interpreter for the Taikō for many years and therefore an intimate of most of the influential daimyos. Father Alvito plied between Nagasaki and Osaka and was one of the very few men, and the only European, who had had access to the Taikō at any time—an enormously clever man who spoke perfect Japanese and knew more about them and their way of life than any man in Asia. Now he was the Portuguese’s most influential mediator to the Council of Regents, and to Ishido and Toranaga in particular.

Trust the Jesuits to get one of their men into such a vital position, Rodrigues thought with awe. Certainly if it hadn’t been for the Society of Jesus the flood of heresy would never have been stopped, Portugal and Spain might have gone Protestant, and we’d have lost our immortal souls forever. Madonna!

“Why do you think about priests all the time?” Rodrigues asked himself aloud. “You know it makes you nervous!” Yes. Even so, why Father Alvito? If the package contains the rutters, is the package meant for one of the Christian daimyos, or Ishido or Toranaga, or just for his Eminence, the Father-Visitor himself? Or for my Captain-General? Or will the rutters be sent to Rome, for the Spaniards? Why Father Alvito? Father Sebastio could have easily said to give it to one of the other Jesuits.

And why does Toranaga want the Ingeles?

In my heart I know I should kill Blackthorne. He’s the enemy, he’s a heretic. But there’s something else. I’ve a feeling this Ingeles is a danger to all of us. Why should I think that? He’s a pilot—a great one. Strong. Intelligent. A good man. Nothing there to worry about. So why am I afraid? Is he evil? I like him very much but I feel I should kill him quickly and the sooner the better. Not in anger. Just to protect ourselves. Why?

I am afraid of him.

What to do? Leave it to the hand of God? The storm’s coming and it’ll be a bad one.

“God curse me and my lack of wits! Why don’t I know what to do easily?”

The storm came before sunset and caught them out to sea. Land was ten miles away. The bay they raced for was haven enough and dead ahead when they had crested the horizon. There were no shoals or reefs to navigate between them and safety, but ten miles was ten miles and the sea was rising fast, driven by the rain-soaked wind.

The gale blew from the northeast, on the starboard quarter, and veered badly as gusts swirled easterly or northerly without pattern, the sea grim. Their course was northwest so they were mostly broadside to the swell, rolling badly, now in the trough, now sickeningly on the crest. The galley was shallow draft and built for speed and kind waters, and though the rowers were game and very disciplined, it was hard to keep their oars in the sea and their pull clean.

“You’ll have to ship the oars and run before the wind,” Blackthorne shouted.

“Maybe, but not yet! Where are your cojones, Ingeles?”

“Where they should be, by God, and where I want ’em to stay!”

Both men knew that if they turned into the wind they could never make way against the storm, so the tide and the wind would take them away from sanctuary and out to sea. And if they ran before the wind, the tide and the wind would take them away from sanctuary and out to sea as before, only faster. Southward was the Great Deep. There was no land southward for a thousand miles, or, if you were unlucky, for a thousand leagues.

They wore lifelines that were lashed to the binnacle and they were glad of them as the deck pitched and rolled. They hung on to the gunwales as well, riding her.

As yet, no water had come aboard. She was heavily ladened and rode lower in the water than either would have liked. Rodrigues had prepared properly in the hours of waiting. Everything had been battened down, the men forewarned. Hiro-matsu and Yabu had said that they would stay below for a time and then come on deck. Rodrigues had shrugged and told them clearly that it would be very dangerous. He was sure they did not understand.

“What’ll they do?” Blackthorne had asked.

“Who knows, Ingeles? But they won’t be weeping with fear, you can be sure.”

In the well of the main deck the oarsmen were working hard. Normally there would be two men on each oar but Rodrigues had ordered three for strength and safety and speed. Others were waiting below decks to spell these rowers when he gave the order. On the foredeck the captain oar-master was experienced and his beat was slow, timed to the waves. The galley was still making way, though every moment the roll seemed more pronounced and the recovery slower. Then the squalls became erratic and threw the captain oar-master off stroke.

“Watch out for’ard!” Blackthorne and Rodrigues shouted almost in the same breath. The galley rolled sickeningly, twenty oars pulled at air instead of sea and there was chaos aboard. The first comber had struck and the port gunwale was awash. They were floundering.

“Go for’ard,” Rodrigues ordered. “Get ’em to ship half the oars each side! Madonna, hurry, hurry!”

Blackthorne knew that without his lifeline he could easily be carried overboard. But the oars had to be shipped or they were lost.

He slipped the knot and fought along the heaving, greasy deck, down the short gangway to the main deck. Abruptly the galley swerved and he was carried to the down side, his legs taken away by some of the rowers who had also slipped their safety lines to try to fight order into their oars. The gunwale was under water and one man went overboard. Blackthorne felt himself going too. His hand caught the gunwale, his tendons stretched but his grip held, then his other hand reached the rail and, choking, he pulled himself back. His feet found the deck and he shook himself, thanking God, and thought, there’s your seventh life gone. Alban Caradoc had always said a good pilot had to be like a cat, except that the pilot had to have at least ten lives whereas a cat is satisfied with nine.

A man was at his feet and he dragged him from the grip of the sea, held him until he was safe, then helped him to his place. He looked back at the quarterdeck to curse Rodrigues for letting the helm get away from him. Rodrigues waved and pointed and shouted, the shout swallowed by a squall. Blackthorne saw their course had changed. Now they were almost into the wind, and he knew the swerve had been planned. Wise, he thought. That’ll give us a respite to get organized, but the bastard could have warned me. I don’t like losing lives unnecessarily.

He waved back and hurled himself into the work of re-sorting the rowers. All rowing had stopped except for the two oars most for’ard, which kept them tidily into the wind. With signs and yelling, Blackthorne got the oars shipped, doubled up the men on the working ones, and went aft again. The men were stoic and though some were very sick they stayed and waited for the next order.

The bay was closer but it still seemed a million leagues away. To the northeast the sky was dark. Rain whipped them and the gusts strengthened. In Erasmus Blackthorne would not have been worried. They could have made harbor easily or could have turned back carelessly onto their real course, heading for their proper landfall. His ship was built and rigged for weather. This galley was not.

“What do you think, Ingeles?”

“You’ll do what you want, whatever I think,” he shouted against the wind. “But she won’t take much water and we’ll go down like a stone, and the next time I go for’ard, tell me you’re putting her into wind. Better still, put her to windward while I’ve my line on and then we’ll both reach port.”

“That was the hand of God, Ingeles. A wave slammed her rump around.”

“That nearly put me overboard.”

“I saw.”

Blackthorne was measuring their drift. “If we stay on this course we’ll never make the bay. We’ll be swept past the headland by a mile or more.”

“I’m going to stay into the wind. Then, when the time’s ripe, we’ll stab for the shore. Can you swim?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I never learned. Too dangerous. Better to drown quickly than slow, eh?” Rodrigues shuddered involuntarily. “Blessed Madonna, protect me from a water grave! This sow-bellied whore of a ship’s going to get to harbor tonight. Has to. My nose says if we turn and run we’ll founder. We’re too heavily laden.”

“Lighten her. Throw the cargo overboard.”

“King Toady’d never agree. He has to arrive with it or he might as well not arrive.”

“Ask him.”

“Madonna, are you deaf? I’ve told you! I know he won’t agree!” Rodrigues went closer to the helmsman and made sure they understood they were to keep heading into the wind without fail.

“Watch them, Ingeles! You have the con.” He untied his lifeline and went down the gangway, sure-footed. The rowers watched him intently as he walked to the captain-san on the forepoop deck to explain with signs and with words the plan he had in mind. Hiro-matsu and Yabu came on deck. The captain-san explained the plan to them. Both men were pale but they remained impassive and neither vomited. They looked shoreward through the rain, shrugged and went below again.

Blackthorne stared at the bay to port. He knew the plan was dangerous. They would have to wait until they were just past the near headland, then they would have to fall off from the wind, turn northwest again and pull for their lives. The sail wouldn’t help them. It would have to be their strength alone. The southern side of the bay was rock-fanged and reefed. If they misjudged the timing they would be driven ashore there and wrecked.

“Ingeles, lay for’ard!”

The Portuguese was beckoning him.

He went forward.

“What about the sail?” Rodrigues shouted.

“No. That’ll hurt more than help.”

“You stay here then. If the captain fails with the beat, or we lose him, you take it up. All right?”

“I’ve never sailed one of these before—I’ve never mastered oars. But I’ll try.”

Rodrigues looked landward. The headland appeared and disappeared in the driving rain. Soon he would have to make the stab. The seas were growing and already whitecaps fled from the crests. The race between the headlands looked evil. This one’s going to be filthy, he thought. Then he spat and decided.

“Go aft, Ingeles. Take the helm. When I signal, go West North West for that point. You see it?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t hesitate and hold that course. Watch me closely. This sign means hard aport, this hard astarboard, this steady as she goes.”

“Very well.”

“By the Virgin, you’ll wait for my orders and you’ll obey my orders?”

“You want me to take the helm or not?”

Rodrigues knew he was trapped. “I have to trust you, Ingeles, and I hate trusting you. Go aft,” he said. He saw Blackthorne read what was behind his eyes and walk away. Then he changed his mind and called after him, “Hey, you arrogant pirate! Go with God!”

Blackthorne turned back gratefully. “And you, Spaniard!”

“Piss on all Spaniards and long live Portugal!”

“Steady as she goes!”

They made harbor but without Rodrigues. He was washed overboard when his lifeline snapped.

The ship had been on the brink of safety when the great wave came out of the north and, though they had taken much water previously and had already lost the Japanese captain, now they were awash and driven backward towards the rock-infested shore.

Blackthorne saw Rodrigues go and he watched him, gasping and struggling in the churning sea. The storm and the tide had taken them far to the south side of the bay and they were almost on the rocks, all aboard knowing that the ship was lost.

As Rodrigues was swept alongside, Blackthorne threw him a wooden life ring. The Portuguese flailed for the life ring but the sea swept it out of his reach. An oar crashed into him and he grabbed for it. The rain slashed down and the last Blackthorne saw of Rodrigues was an arm and the broken oar and, just ahead, the surf raging against the tormented shore. He could have dived overboard and swum to him and survived, perhaps, there was time, perhaps, but his first duty was to his ship and his last duty was to his ship and his ship was in danger.

So he turned his back on Rodrigues.

The wave had taken some rowers with it and others were struggling to fill the empty places. A mate had bravely slipped his safety line. He jumped onto the foredeck, secured himself, and restarted the beat. The chant leader also began again, the rowers tried to get order out of chaos.

“Isogiiiiii!” Blackthorne shouted, remembering the word. He bent his weight on the helm to help get the bow more into wind, then went to the rail and beat time, called out One-Two-One-Two, trying to encourage the crew.

“Come on, you bastards, puuull!”

The galley was on the rocks, at least the rocks were just astern and to port and to starboard. The oars dipped and pulled, but still the ship made no way, the wind and the tide winning, dragging her backward perceptibly.

“Come on, pull, you bastards!” Blackthorne shouted again, his hand beating time.

The rowers took strength from him.

First they held their own with the sea. Then they conquered her.

The ship moved away from the rocks. Blackthorne held the course for the lee shore. Soon they were in calmer waters. There was still gale but it was overhead. There was still tempest but it was out to sea.

“Let go the starboard anchor!”

No one understood the words but all seamen knew what was wanted. They rushed to do his bidding. The anchor splashed over the side. He let the ship fall off slightly to test the firmness of the seabed, the mate and rowers understanding his maneuver.

“Let go the port anchor!”

When his ship was safe, he looked aft.

The cruel shore line could hardly be seen through the rain. He gauged the sea and considered possibilities.

The Portuguese’s rutter is below, he thought, drained. I can con the ship to Osaka. I could con it back to Anjiro. But were you right to disobey him? I didn’t disobey Rodrigues. I was on the quarterdeck. Alone.

‘Steer south,’ Rodrigues had screamed when the wind and the tide carried them perilously near the rocks. ‘Turn and run before the wind!’

‘No!’ he had shouted back, believing their only chance was to try for the harbor and that in the open sea they’d flounder. ‘We can make it!’

‘God curse you, you’ll kill us all!’

But I didn’t kill anyone, Blackthorne thought. Rodrigues, you knew and I knew that it was my responsibility to decide—if there was a time of decision. I was right. The ship’s safe. Nothing else matters.

He beckoned to the mate, who hurried from the foredeck. Both helmsmen had collapsed, their arms and legs almost torn from their sockets. The rowers were like corpses, fallen helplessly over their oars. Others weakly came from below to help. Hiro-matsu and Yabu, both badly shaken, were assisted onto the deck, but once on deck both daimyos stood erect.

“Hai, Anjin-san?” the mate asked. He was a middle-aged man with strong white teeth and a broad, weatherbeaten face. A livid bruise marked his cheek where the sea had battered him against the gunwale.

“You did very well,” Blackthorne said, not caring that his words would not be understood. He knew his tone would be clear and his smile. “Yes, very well. You’re Captain-san now. Wakarimasu? You! Captain-san!”

The man stared at him open-mouthed, then he bowed to hide both his astonishment and his pleasure. “Wakarimasu, Anjin-san. Hai. Arigato gozaimashita.”

“Listen, Captain-san,” Blackthorne said. “Get the men food and drink. Hot food. We’ll stay here tonight.” With signs Blackthorne made him comprehend.

Immediately the new captain turned and shouted with new authority. Instantly seamen ran to obey him. Filled with pride, the new captain looked back at the quarterdeck. I wish I could speak your barbarian language, he thought happily. Then I could thank you, Anjin-san, for saving the ship and with the ship the life of our Lord Hiro-matsu. Your magic gave us all new strength. Without your magic we would have floundered. You may be a pirate but you are a great seaman, and while you are pilot I will obey you with my life. I’m not worthy to be captain, but I will try to deserve your trust. “What do you want me to do next?” he asked.

Blackthorne was looking over the side. The seabed was obscured. He took mental bearings and when he was sure that the anchors had not slipped and the sea was safe, he said, “Launch the skiff. And get a good sculler.”

Again with signs and with words Blackthorne made himself understood.

The skiff was launched and manned instantly.

Blackthorne went to the gunwale and would have scaled down the side but a harsh voice stopped him. He looked around. Hiro-matsu was there, Yabu beside him.

The old man was badly bruised about the neck and shoulders but he still carried the long sword. Yabu was bleeding from his nose, his face bruised, his kimono blotched, and he tried to staunch the flow with a small piece of material. Both men were impassive, seemingly unaware of their hurts or the chill of the wind.

Blackthorne bowed politely. “Hai, Toda-sama?”

Again the harsh words and the old man pointed with his sword at the skiff and shook his head.

“Rodrigu-san there!” Blackthorne pointed to the south shore in answer. “I go look!”

“Iyé!” Hiro-matsu shook his head again, and spoke at length, clearly refusing him permission because of the danger.

“I’m Anjin-san of this whore-bitch ship and if I want to go ashore I’m going ashore.” Blackthorne kept his voice very polite but strong and it was equally obvious what he meant. “I know that skiff won’t live in that sea. Hai! But I’m going ashore there—by that point. You see that point, Toda Hiro-matsu-sama? By that small rock. I’m going to work my way around the headland, there. I’m in no hurry to die and I’ve nowhere to run. I want to get Rodrigu-san’s body.” He cocked a leg over the side. The scabbarded sword moved a fraction. So he froze. But his gaze was level, his face set.

Hiro-matsu was in a dilemma. He could understand the pirate wanting to find Rodrigu-san’s body but it was dangerous to go there, even by foot, and Lord Toranaga had said to bring the barbarian back safely, so he was going to be brought safely. It was equally clear that the man intended to go.

He had seen him during the storm, standing on the pitching deck like an evil sea kami, unafraid, in his element and part of the storm, and he had thought grimly at the time, better to get this man and all barbarians like him on the land where we can deal with them. At sea we’re in their power.

He could see the pirate was impatient. How insulting they are, he told himself. Even so I should thank you. Everyone says you alone are responsible for bringing the ship to harbor, that the Rodrigu anjin lost his nerve and waved us away from land, but you held our course. Yes. If we’d gone out to sea we’d have sunk certainly and then I would have failed my Master. Oh, Buddha, protect me from that!

All his joints were aching and his piles inflamed. He was exhausted by the effort it took to remain stoic in front of his men, Yabu, the crew, even this barbarian. Oh, Buddha, I’m so tired. I wish I could lie in a bath and soak and soak and have one day of rest from pain. Just one day. Stop your stupid womanish thoughts! You’ve been in pain for almost sixty years. What is pain to a man? A privilege! Masking pain is the measure of a man. Thank Buddha you are still alive to protect your Master when you should have been dead a hundred times. I do thank Buddha.

But I hate the sea. I hate the cold. And I hate pain.

“Stay where you are, Anjin-san,” he said, pointing with his scabbard for clarity, bleakly amused by the ice-blue fire in the man’s eyes. When he was sure the man understood he glanced at the mate. “Where are we? Whose fief is this?”

“I don’t know, Sire. I think we’re somewhere in Ise Province. We could send someone ashore to the nearest village.”

“Can you pilot us to Osaka?”

“Providing we stay very close to shore, Sire, and go slowly, with great caution. I don’t know these waters and I could never guarantee your safety. I don’t have enough knowledge and there’s no one aboard, Sire, who has. Except this pilot. If it was left to me I would advise you to go by land. We could get you horses or palanquins.”

Hiro-matsu shook his head irascibly. To go overland was out of the question. It would take far too long—the way was mountainous and there were few roads—and they would have to go through many territories controlled by allies of Ishido, the enemy. Added to this danger were also the multitudinous bandit groups that infested the passes. This would mean he would have to take all his men. Certainly he could fight his way through the bandits, but he could never force a passage if Ishido or his allies decided to inhibit him. All this would delay him further, and his orders were to deliver the cargo, the barbarian, and Yabu, quickly and safely.

“If we follow the coast, how long would it take us?”

“I don’t know, Sire. Four or five days, perhaps more. I would feel very unsure of myself—I’m not a captain, so sorry.”

Which means, Hiro-matsu thought, that I have to have the cooperation of this barbarian. To prevent him going ashore I’ll have to tie him up. And who knows if he’ll be cooperative tied up?

“How long will we have to stay here?”

“The pilot said overnight.”

“Will the storm be gone by then?”

“It should, Sire, but one never knows.”

Hiro-matsu studied the mountain coast, then the pilot, hesitating.

“May I offer a suggestion, Hiro-matsu-san?” Yabu said.

“Yes, yes, of course,” he said testily.

“As we seem to need the pirate’s cooperation to get us to Osaka, why not let him go ashore but send men with him to protect him, and order them back before dark. As to going overland, I agree it would be too dangerous for you—I would never forgive myself if anything happened to you. Once the storm has blown itself out you’ll be safer with the ship and you’ll get to Osaka much quicker, neh? Surely by sunset tomorrow.”

Reluctantly Hiro-matsu nodded. “Very well.” He beckoned a samurai. “Takatashi-san! You will take six men and go with the Pilot. Bring the Portuguese’s body back if you can find it. But if even one of this barbarian’s eyelashes is damaged, you and your men will commit seppuku instantly.”

“Yes, Lord.”

“And send two men to the nearest village and find out exactly where we are and in whose fief we are.”

“Yes, Lord.”

“With your permission, Hiro-matsu-san, I will lead the party ashore,” Yabu said. “If we arrived in Osaka without the pirate, I’d be so ashamed that I’d feel obliged to kill myself anyway. I’d like the honor of carrying out your orders.”

Hiro-matsu nodded, inwardly surprised that Yabu would put himself in such jeopardy. He went below.

When Blackthorne realized that Yabu was going ashore with him, his pulse quickened. I haven’t forgotten Pieterzoon or my crew or the pit—or the screams or Omi or any part of it. Look to your life, bastard.

CHAPTER NINE

They were quickly on land. Blackthorne intended to lead but Yabu usurped that position and set a strong pace, which he was hard put to keep up with. The other six samurai were watching him carefully. I’ve nowhere to run, you fools, he thought, misunderstanding their concern, as his eyes automatically quartered the bay, looking for shoals or hidden reefs, measuring bearings, his mind docketing the important things for future transcription.

Their way led first along the pebbled shore, then a short climb over sea-smoothed rocks up onto a path that skirted the cliff and crept precariously around the headland southward. The rain had stopped but the gale had not. The closer they came to the exposed tongue of land, the higher the surf—hurled against the rocks below—sprayed into the air. Soon they were soaked.

Although Blackthorne felt chilled, Yabu and the others, who had their light kimonos carelessly tucked into their belts, did not seem to be affected by the wet or the cold. It must be as Rodrigues had said, he thought, his fear returning. Japmen just aren’t built like us. They don’t feel cold or hunger or privations or wounds as we do. They are more like animals, their nerves dulled, compared to us.

Above them the cliff soared two hundred feet. The shore was fifty feet below. Beyond and all around were mountains and not a house or hut in the whole bay area. This was not surprising for there was no room for fields, the shore pebbles quickly becoming foreshore rocks and then granite mountain with trees on the upper slopes.

The path dipped and rose along the cliff face, very unsafe, the surface loose. Blackthorne plodded along, leaning against the wind, and noticed that Yabu’s legs were strong and muscular. Slip, you whore-bastard, he thought. Slip—splatter yourself on the rocks below. Would that make you scream? What would make you scream?

With an effort he took his eyes off Yabu and went back to searching the foreshore. Each crevice and cleft and gulley. The spume wind was gusting and tore the tears from him. Sea spilled back and forth, swirled and eddied. He knew there was a minimal hope of finding Rodrigues, there would be too many caves and hidden places that could never be investigated. But he had had to come ashore to try. He owed Rodrigues the try. All pilots prayed helplessly for death ashore and burial ashore. All had seen too many sea-bloated corpses and half-eaten corpses and crab-mutilated corpses.

They rounded the headland and stopped gratefully in the lee. There was no need to go further. If the body wasn’t to windward then it was hidden or swallowed up or already carried out to sea, into the deep. Half a mile away a small fishing village nestled on the white-frothed shore. Yabu motioned to two of the samurai. Immediately they bowed and loped off toward it. A last look, then Yabu wiped the rain out of his face, glanced up at Blackthorne, motioning their return. Blackthorne nodded and they set off again, Yabu leading, the other samurai still watching him so carefully, and again he thought how stupid they were.

Then, when they were halfway back, they saw Rodrigues.

The body was caught in a cleft between two great rocks, above the surf but washed by part of it. One arm was sprawled in front. The other was still locked to the broken oar which moved slightly with the ebb and flow. It was this movement that had attracted Blackthorne’s attention as he bent into the wind, trudging in Yabu’s wake.

The only way down was over the short cliff. The climb would only be fifty or sixty feet but it was a sheer drop and there were almost no footholds.

What about the tide? Blackthorne asked himself. It’s flowing, not ebbing. That’ll take him out to sea again. Jesus, it looks foul down there. What’s it to be?

He went closer to the edge and immediately Yabu moved in his way, shaking his head, and the other samurai surrounded him.

“I’m only trying to get a better look, for the love of Christ,” he said. “I’m not trying to escape! Where the hell can I run to?”

He backed off a little and peered down. They followed his look and chatted among themselves, Yabu doing most of the talking.

There’s no chance, he decided. It’s too dangerous. We’ll come back at dawn with ropes. If he’s here, he’s here, and I’ll bury him ashore. Reluctantly he turned and, as he did, the edge of the cliff crumbled and he began to slip. Immediately Yabu and the others grabbed him and pulled him back, and all at once he realized that they were concerned only for his safety. They’re only trying to protect me!

Why should they want me safe? Because of Tora—What was his name? Toranaga? Because of him? Yes, but also perhaps because there’s no one else aboard to pilot us. Is that why they let me come ashore, gave me my way? Yes, it must be. So now I have power over the ship, over the old daimyo, and over this bastard. How can I use it?

He relaxed and thanked them and let his eyes roam below. “We’ve got to get him, Yabu-san. Hai! The only way’s that way. Over the cliff. I’ll bring him up, me, Anjin-san!” Again he moved forward as though he was going to climb down and again they restrained him and he said with feigned anxiety, “We’ve got to get Rodrigu-san. Look! There’s not much time, light’s going.”

“Iyé, Anjin-san,” Yabu said.

He stood towering over Yabu. “If you won’t let me go, Yabu-san, then send one of your men. Or go yourself. You!”

The wind tore around them, whining off the cliff face. He saw Yabu look down, weighing the climb and the falling light, and he knew Yabu was hooked. You’re trapped, bastard, your vanity’s trapped you. If you start down there you’ll get hurt. But don’t kill yourself, please, just shatter your legs or ankles. Then drown.

A samurai began to climb down but Yabu ordered him back.

“Return to the ship. Fetch some ropes immediately,” Yabu said. The man ran off.

Yabu kicked off his thong slippers. He took his swords out of his belt and put them safely under cover. “Watch them and watch the barbarian. If anything happens to either, I’ll sit you on your own swords.”

“Please let me go down there, Yabu-sama,” Takatashi said. “If you’re hurt or lost I’ll—”

“You think that you can succeed where I will fail?”

“No, Sire, of course not.”

“Good.”

“Please wait for the ropes then. I’ll never forgive myself if anything happens to you.” Takatashi was short and stocky with a heavy beard.

Why not wait for the ropes? Yabu asked himself. It would be sensible, yes. But not clever. He glanced up at the barbarian and nodded briefly. He knew that he had been challenged. He had expected it. And hoped for it. That’s why I volunteered for this mission, Anjin-san, he said to himself, silently amused. You’re really very simple. Omi was right.

Yabu took off his soaking kimono and, clad only in his loincloth, went to the cliff edge and tested it through the soles of his cotton tabi—his sock-shoes. Better to keep them on, he thought, his will and his body, forged by a lifetime of training all samurai had to undergo, dominating the cold that cut into him. The tabi will give you a firmer grip—for a time. You’ll need all your strength and skill to get down there alive. Is it worth it?

During the storm and the stab for the bay he had come on deck and, unnoticed by Blackthorne, had taken a place at the oars. Gladly he had used his strength with the rowers, detesting the miasma below and the sickness he had felt. He had decided that it was better to die in the air than suffocate below.

As he worked with the others in the driving cold, he began watching the pilots. He saw very clearly that, at sea, the ship and all aboard were in the power of these two men. The pilots were in their element, riding the pitching decks as carelessly as he himself rode a galloping horse. No Japanese aboard could match them. For skill or courage or knowledge. And gradually this awareness had spawned a majestic concept: modern barbarian ships filled with samurai, piloted by samurai, captained by samurai, sailed by samurai. His samurai.

If I had three barbarian ships initially, I could easily control the sea lanes between Yedo and Osaka. Based in Izu, I could strangle all shipping or let it pass. So nearly all the rice and all the silk. Wouldn’t I then be arbiter between Toranaga and Ishido? At the very least, a balance between them?

No daimyo has ever yet taken to the sea.

No daimyo has ships or pilots.

Except me.

I have a ship—had a ship—and now I might have my ship back—if I’m clever. I have a pilot and therefore a trainer of pilots, if I can get him away from Toranaga. If I can dominate him.

Once he is my vassal of his own accord, he will train my men. And build ships.

But how to make him a true vassal? The pit did not break his spirit.

First get him alone and keep him alone—isn’t that what Omi said? Then this pilot could be persuaded to manners and taught to speak Japanese. Yes. Omi’s very clever. Too clever perhaps—I’ll think about Omi later. Concentrate on the pilot. How to dominate a barbarian—a Christian filth eater?

What was it Omi said? ‘They value life. Their chief deity, Jesus the Christ, teaches them to love one another and to value life.’ Could I give him back his life? Save it, yes, that would be very good. How to bend him?

Yabu had been so swept by his excitement he had hardly noticed the motion of the ship or the seas. A wave cascaded over him. He saw it envelop the pilot. But there was no fear in the man at all. Yabu was astounded. How could someone who had meekly allowed an enemy to piss on his back to save the life of an insignificant vassal, how could this man have the strength to forget such eternal dishonor and stand there on the quarterdeck calling the gods of the sea to battle like any legendary hero—to save the same enemies? And then, when the great wave had taken the Portuguese away and they were floundering, the Anjin-san had miraculously laughed at death and given them the strength to pull away from the rocks.

I’ll never understand them, he thought.

On the cliff edge, Yabu looked back a last time. Ah, Anjin-san, I know you think I go to my death, that you’ve trapped me. I know you wouldn’t go down there yourself. I was watching you closely. But I grew up in the mountains and here in Japan we climb for pride and for pleasure. So I pit myself now on my terms, not on yours. I will try, and if I die it is nothing. But if I succeed then you, as a man, you’ll know I’m better than you, on your terms. You’ll be in my debt, too, if I bring the body back.

You will be my vassal, Anjin-san!

He went down the side of the cliff with great skill. When he was halfway down he slipped. His left hand held on to an outcrop. This stopped his fall, and he swung between life and death. His fingers dug deeply as he felt his grip failing and he ground his toes into a crevice, fighting for another hold. As his left hand ripped away, his toes found a cleft and they held and he hugged the cliff desperately, still off-balance, pressing against it, seeking holds. Then his toehold gave way. Though he managed to catch another outcrop with both hands, ten feet below, and hang on momentarily, this outcrop gave way too. He fell the last twenty feet.

He had prepared as best he could and landed on his feet like a cat, tumbled the sloping rock face to break the shock, and came to rest in a wheezing ball. He clutched his lacerated arms around his head, protecting himself against the stone avalanche that could follow. But none did. He shook his head to clear it and got up. One ankle was twisted. A searing pain shot up his leg into his bowels and the sweat started. His toes and fingernails were bleeding but that was to be expected.

There’s no pain. You will not feel pain. Stand upright. The barbarian is watching.

A column of spray doused him and the cold helped to ease the hurt. With care, he slid over the seaweeded boulders, and eased himself across the crevices and then he was at the body.

Abruptly Yabu realized that the man was still alive. He made sure, then sat back for a moment. Do I want him alive or dead? Which is better?

A crab scuttled from under a rock and plopped into the sea. Waves rushed in. He felt the salt rip his wounds. Which is better, alive or dead?

He got up precariously and shouted, “Takatashi-san! This pilot’s still alive! Go to the ship, bring a stretcher and a doctor, if there’s one on the ship!”

Takatashi’s words came back faintly against the wind, “Yes, Lord,” and to his men as he ran off, “Watch the barbarian, don’t let anything happen to him!”

Yabu peered at the galley, riding her anchors gently. The other samurai he had sent back for ropes was already beside the skiffs. He watched while the man jumped into one and it was launched. He smiled to himself, glanced back. Blackthorne had come to the edge of the cliff and was shouting urgently at him.

What is he trying to say? Yabu asked himself. He saw the pilot pointing to the sea but that didn’t mean anything to him. The sea was rough and strong but it was no different from before.

Eventually Yabu gave up trying to understand and turned his attention to Rodrigues. With difficulty he eased the man up onto the rocks, out of the surf. The Portuguese’s breathing was halting, but his heart seemed strong. There were many bruises. A splintered bone jutted through the skin of the left calf. His right shoulder seemed dislocated. Yabu looked for blood seepage from any openings but there was none. If he’s not hurt inside, then perhaps he will live, he thought.

The daimyo had been wounded too many times and had seen too many dying and wounded not to have gained some measure of diagnostic skill. If Rodrigu can be kept warm, he decided, given saké and strong herbs, plenty of warm baths, he’ll live. He may not walk again but he’ll live. Yes. I want this man to live. If he can’t walk, no matter. Perhaps that would be better. I’ll have a spare pilot—this man certainly owes me his life. If the pirate won’t cooperate, perhaps I can use this man. Would it be worthwhile to pretend to become a Christian? Would that bring them both around to me?

What would Omi do?

That one’s clever—Omi. Yes. Too clever? Omi sees too much too fast. If he can see that far, he must perceive that his father would lead the clan if I vanish—my son’s too inexperienced yet to survive by himself—and after the father, Omi himself. Neh?

What to do about Omi?

Say I gave Omi to the barbarian? As a toy.

What about that?

There were anxious shouts from above. Then he realized what the barbarian had been pointing at. The tide! The tide was coming in fast. Already it was encroaching on this rock. He scrambled up and winced at a shaft of pain from his ankle. All other escape along the shore was blocked by the sea. He saw that the tide mark on the cliff was over a man’s full height above the base.

He looked at the skiff. It was near the ship now. On the foreshore Takatashi was still running well. The ropes won’t arrive in time, he told himself.

His eyes searched the area diligently. There was no way up the cliff. No rocks offered sanctuary. No caves. Out to sea there were outcrops but he could never reach them. He could not swim and there was nothing to use as a raft.

The men above were watching him. The barbarian pointed to the outcrops seaward and made motions of swimming, but he shook his head. He searched carefully again. Nothing.

There’s no escape, he thought. Now you are committed to death. Prepare yourself.

Karma, he told himself, and turned away from them, settling himself more comfortably, enjoying the vast clarity that had come to him. Last day, last sea, last light, last joy, last everything. How beautiful the sea and the sky and the cold and salt. He began to think of the final poem-song that he should now, by custom, compose. He felt fortunate. He had time to think clearly.

Blackthorne was shouting, “Listen, you whore-bastard! Find a ledge—there’s got to be a ledge somewhere!”

The samurai were standing in his way, gazing at him as though he were a madman. It was clear to them there was no escape and that Yabu was simply preparing for a sweet death, as they would be doing if they had been he. And they resented these ravings as they knew Yabu would.

“Look down there, all of you. Maybe there’s a ledge!”

One of them went to the edge and peered down, shrugged, and talked to his comrades and they shrugged too. Each time Blackthorne tried to go closer to the edge to search for an escape they stopped him. He could have easily shoved one of them to his death and he was tempted to. But he understood them and their problems. Think of a way to help that bastard. You’ve got to save him to save Rodrigues.

“Hey, you rotten, no good, piss-cutting, shit-tailed Japman! Hey, Kasigi Yabu! Where are your cojones? Don’t give up! Only cowards give up! Are you a man or a sheep?” But Yabu paid no attention. He was as still as the rock upon which he sat.

Blackthorne picked up a stone and hurled it at him. It fell unnoticed into the water and the samurai shouted at Blackthorne angrily. He knew that at any moment they were going to fall on him and bind him up. But how could they? They’ve no rope—

Rope! Get some rope! Can you make some?

His eyes fell on Yabu’s kimono. He started tearing it into strips, testing them for strength. The silk was very strong. “Come on!” he ordered the samurai, taking off his own shirt. “Make a rope. Hai?”

They understood. Rapidly they untied their sashes, took off their kimonos, and copied him. He began knotting the ends, sashes as well.

While they completed the rope, Blackthorne carefully lay down and inched for the edge, making two of them hold on to his ankles for safety. He didn’t need their help but he wanted to reassure them.

He stuck his head out as far as he dared, conscious of their anxiety. Then he began to search as you would search at sea. Quarter by quarter. Using every part of his vision but mostly the sides.

A complete sweep.

Once more.

Nothing.

Again.

What’s that? Just above the tide line? Is it a crack in the cliff? Or a shadow?

Blackthorne shifted position, keenly aware that the sea had almost covered the rock that Yabu sat on, and almost all of the rocks between him and the base of the cliff. Now he could see better and he pointed.

“There! What’s that?”

One of the samurai was on his hands and knees and he followed Blackthorne’s outstretched finger but saw nothing.

“There! Isn’t that a ledge?”

With his hands he formed the ledge and with two fingers made a man and stood the man on the ledge and, with another finger, made a long bundle over the shoulder of the man, so now a man stood on a ledge—that ledge—with another over his shoulder.

“Quick! Isogi! Make him understand—Kasigi Yabu-sama! Wakarimasu ka?”

The man scrambled up and talked rapidly to the others and they looked too. Now they all saw the ledge. And they began to shout. Still no movement from Yabu. He seemed like a stone. They went on and Blackthorne added his shouts but it was as if they made no sound at all.

One of them spoke to the others briefly and they all nodded and bowed. He bowed back. Then, with a sudden screaming shout of “Bansaiiiiiii!” he cast himself off the cliff and fell to his death. Yabu came violently out of his trance, whirled around and scrambled up.

The other samurai shouted and pointed but Blackthorne heard nothing and saw nothing but the broken corpse that lay below, already being taken by the sea. What kind of men are these? he thought helplessly. Was that courage or just insanity? That man deliberately committed suicide on the off-chance he’d attract the attention of another man who had given up. It doesn’t make sense! They don’t make sense.

He saw Yabu stagger up. He expected him to scramble for safety, leaving Rodrigues. That’s what I would have done. Is it? I don’t know. But Yabu half crawled, half slid, dragging the unconscious man with him through the surf-disturbed shallows to the bottom of the cliff. He found the ledge. It was barely a foot wide. Painfully he shoved Rodrigues onto it, almost losing him once, then hauled himself up.

The rope was twenty feet short. Quickly the samurai added their loincloths. Now, if Yabu stood, he could just reach the end.

They shouted encouragement and began to wait.

In spite of Blackthorne’s hatred he had to admire Yabu’s courage. Half a dozen times waves almost engulfed him. Twice Rodrigues was lost but each time Yabu dragged him back, and held his head out of the grasping sea, long after Blackthorne knew that he himself would have given up. Where do you get the courage, Yabu? Are you just devil-born? All of you?

To climb down in the first place had taken courage. At first Blackthorne had thought that Yabu had acted out of bravado. But soon he had seen that the man was pitting his skill against the cliff and almost winning. Then he had broken his fall as deftly as any tumbler. And he had given up with dignity.

Christ Jesus, I admire that bastard, and detest him.

For almost an hour Yabu set himself against the sea and against his failing body, and then, in the dusk, Takatashi came back with the ropes. They made a cradle and shinned down the cliff with a skill that Blackthorne had never seen ashore.

Quickly Rodrigues was brought aloft. Blackthorne would have tried to succor him but a Japanese with close-cropped hair was already on his knees beside him. He watched as this man, obviously a doctor, examined the broken leg. Then a samurai held Rodrigues’ shoulders as the doctor leaned his weight on the foot and the bone slid back under the flesh. His fingers probed and shoved and reset it and tied it to the splint. He began to wrap noxious-looking herbs around the angry wound and then Yabu was brought up.

The daimyo shook off any help, waved the doctor back to Rodrigues, sat down and began to wait.

Blackthorne looked at him. Yabu felt his eyes. The two men stared at each other.

“Thank you,” Blackthorne said finally, pointing at Rodrigues. “Thank you for saving his life. Thank you, Yabu-san.” Deliberately he bowed. That’s for your courage, you black-eyed son of a shit-festered whore.

Yabu bowed back as stiffly. But inside, he smiled.