Chapter 3

   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 entrepot 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, Yabusama? 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 4

   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 Mactsukker 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,


Beauty
Is not less
For falling
In the breeze.


   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:


“His eyes
Were just the end
Of Hell—
All pain,
Articulate.”


   Shrieks came wafting up, fainter now, the distance seeming to make their cut more cruel.
   Yabu said, after a moment:


“If you allow
Their chill to reach
Into the great, great deep,
You become one with them,
Inarticulate.”


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

Chapter 5

   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 by 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 loin cloth. 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. Blackthorne 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 Sock, 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 6

   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 shah 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 7

   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, Zujimoto?”
   “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 thoughtful. 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.”