What about the agony of the tonsured virgin priest who, naked and on his knees, prayed first to his bigot Christian God, begging forgiveness for the sin he was about to commit with the girl, and the other sin, a real one, that he had done in Osaka—strange secret things of the “confessional” that were whispered to him by a leper, then treacherously passed on by him to Lord Harima. What would Toranaga make of that? Endlessly pouring out what was whispered and passed onward, and then the praying with tight-closed eyes—before the poor demented fool spread the girl wide with no finesse and, later, slunk off like a foul night creature. So much hatred and agony and twisted shame.
   What about Omi’s second cook, who whispered to a maid who whispered to her paramour who whispered to Akiko that he’d overheard Omi and his mother plotting the death of Kasigi Yabu, their liege lord? Ha! That knowledge made public would set a cat among all the Kasigi pigeons! So would Omi’s and Yabu’s secret offer to Zataki if whispered into Toranaga’s ear—or the words Zataki muttered in his sleep that his pillow partner memorized and sold to me the next day for a whole silver chojin, words that implied General Ishido and Lady Ochiba ate together, slept together, and that Zataki himself had heard them grunting and groaning and crying out as Yang pierced Yin even up to the Far Field! Gyoko smiled to herself smugly. Shocking, neh, people in such high places!
   What about the other strange fact that at the moment of the Clouds and the Rain, and a few times before, the Lord Zataki had unconsciously called his pillow partner “Ochiba.” Curious, neh?
   Would the oh-so-necessary-to-both-sides Zataki change his song if Toranaga offered him Ochiba as bait? Gyoko chuckled, warmed by all the lovely secrets, all so valuable in the right ears, that men had spilled out with their Joyful Juice. “He’d change,” she murmured confidently. “Oh, very yes.”
   “What?”
   “Nothing, nothing Inari-chan. Did you sleep well?”
   “What?”
   She smiled and let him slide back into sleep. Then, when he was ready, she put her hands and lips on him for his pleasure. And for hers.


   “Where’s the Ingeles now, Father?”
   “I don’t know exactly, Rodrigues. Yet. It would be one of the inns south of Mishima. I left a servant to find out which.” Alvito gathered up the last of the gravy with a crust of new bread.
   “When will you know?”
   “Tomorrow, without fail.”
   “Que va, I’d like to see him again. Is he fit?” Rodrigues asked levelly.
   “Yes.” The ship’s bell sounded six times. Three o’clock in the afternoon.
   “Did he tell you what happened to him since he left Osaka?”
   “I know parts of it. From him and others. It’s a long story and there’s much to tell. First I’ll deal with my dispatches, then we’ll talk.”
   Rodrigues leaned back in his chair in the small stern cabin. “Good. That’d be very good.” He saw the sharp features of the Jesuit, the sharp brown eyes flecked with yellow. Cat’s eyes. “Listen, Father,” he said, “the Ingeles saved my ship and my life. Sure he’s enemy, sure he’s heretic, but he’s a pilot, one of the best that’s ever been. It’s not wrong to respect an enemy, even to like one.”
   “The Lord Jesus forgave his enemies but they still crucified Him.” Calmly Alvito returned the pilot’s gaze. “But I like him too. At least, I understand him better. Let’s leave him for the moment.”
   Rodrigues nodded agreeably. He noticed the priest’s plate was empty so he reached across the table and moved the platter closer. “Here, Father, have some more capon. Bread?”
   “Thank you. Yes, I will. I didn’t realize how hungry I was.” The priest gratefully tore off another leg and took more sage and onion and bread stuffing, then poured the last of the rich gravy over it.
   “Wine?”
   “Yes, thank you.”
   “Where are the rest of your people, Father?”
   “I left them at an inn near the wharf.”
   Rodrigues glanced out of the stern bay windows that overlooked Nimazu, the wharfs and the port and, just to starboard, the mouth of the Kano, where the water was darker than the rest of the sea. Many fishing boats were plying back and forth. “This servant you left, Father—you can trust him? You’re sure he’ll find us?”
   “Oh, yes. They’ll certainly not move for two days at least.” Alvito had already decided not to mention what he, or more truthfully he reminded himself, what Brother Michael suspected, so he just added, “Don’t forget they’re traveling in state. With Toda Mariko’s rank, and Toranaga’s banners, they’re very much in state. Everyone within four leagues would know about them and where they’re staying.”
   Rodrigues laughed. “The Ingeles in state? Who’d have believed that? Like a poxy daimyo!”
   “That’s not the half of it, Pilot. Toranaga’s made him samurai and hatamoto.”
   “What?”
   “Now Pilot-Major Blackthorne wears the two swords. With his pistols. And now he’s Toranaga’s confidant, to a certain extent, and protége.”
   “The Ingeles?”
   “Yes.” Alvito let the silence hang in the cabin and went back to eating.
   “Do you know the why of it?” Rodrigues asked.
   “Yes, in part. All in good time, Pilot.”
   “Just tell me the why. Briefly. Details later, please.”
   “The Anjin-san saved Toranaga’s life for the third time. Twice during the escape from Osaka, the last in Izu during an earthquake.” Alvito chomped lustily on the thigh meat. A thread of juice ran into his black beard.
   Rodrigues waited but the priest said no more. Thoughtfully his eyes dropped to the goblet cradled in his hands. The surface of the deep red wine caught the light. After a long pause, he said, “It wouldn’t be good for us, that piss-cutting Ingeles close to Toranaga. Not at all. Not him. Eh?”
   “I agree.”
   “Even so, I’d like to see him.” The priest said nothing. Rodrigues let him clean his plate in silence, then offered more, the joy gone out of him. The last of the carcass and the final wing were accepted, and another goblet of wine. Then, to finish, some fine French cognac that Father Alvito got from a cupboard.
   “Rodrigues? Would you care for a glass?”
   “Thank you.” The seaman watched Alvito pour the nut-brown liquor into the crystal glass. All the wine and cognac had come from the Father-Visitor’s private stock as a parting gift to his Jesuit friend.
   “Of course, Rodrigues, you’re welcome to share it with the Father,” dell’Aqua had said. “Go with God, may He watch over you and bring you safely to port and home again.”
   “Thank you, Eminence.”
   Yes, thank you, Eminence, but no God-cursed thanks, Rodrigues told himself bitterly, no thanks for getting my Captain-General to order me aboard this pigboat under this Jesuit’s command and out of my Gracia’s arms, poor darling. Madonna, life’s so short, too short and too treacherous to waste being chaperone to gut-stinking priests, even Alvito who’s more of a man than any and, because of that, more dangerous. Madonna, give me some help!
   “Oh! You reave, Rod-san? Reave so soon? Oh, so sorry…”
   “Soon come back, my darling.”
   “Oh, so sorry … we miss, ritt’e one and I.”
   For a moment he had considered taking her aboard the Santa Filipa, but instantly dismissed the thought, knowing it to be perilous for her and for him and for the ship. “So sorry, back soon.”
   “We wait, Rod-san. Please excuse my sad, so sorry.”
   Always the hesitant, heavily accented Portuguese she tried so hard to speak, insisting that she be called by her baptismal name Gracia and not by the lovely-sounding Nyan-nyan, which meant Kitten and suited her so well and pleased him better.
   He had sailed away from Nagasaki, hating to leave, cursing all priests and captain-generals, wanting an end to summer and autumn so he could up-anchor the Black Ship, her holds weighed now with bullion, to head for home at long last, rich and independent. But then what? The perpetual question swamped him. What about her —and the child? Madonna, help me to answer that with peace.
   “An excellent meal, Rodrigues,” Alvito said, toying with a crumb on the table. “Thank you.”
   “Good.” Rodrigues was serious now. “What’s your plan, Father? We should—” He stopped in mid-sentence and glanced out of the windows. Then, dissatisfied, he got up from the table and limped painfully over to a land side porthole and peered out.
   “What is it, Rodrigues?”
   “Thought I felt the tide change. Just want to check our sea room.” He opened the cover further and leaned out, but still couldn’t see the bow anchor. “Excuse me a moment, Father.”
   He went on deck. Water lapped the anchor chain that angled into the muddy water. No movement. Then a thread of wake appeared and the ship began to ease off safely, to take up her new station with the ebb. He checked her lie, then the lookouts. Everything was perfect. No other boats were near. The afternoon was fine, the mist long since gone. They were a cable or so offshore, far enough out to preclude a sudden boarding, and well away from the sea lanes that fed the wharves.
   His ship was a lorcha, a Japanese hull adapted to modern Portuguese sails and rigging: swift, two-masted, and slooprigged. It had four cannon amidships, two small bow chasers and two stern chasers. Her name was the Santa Filipa and she carried a crew of thirty.
   His eyes went to the city, and to the hills beyond. “Pesaro!”
   “Yes, senhor?”
   “Get the longboat ready. I’m going ashore before dusk.”
   “Good. She’ll be ready. When’re you back?”
   “Dawn.”
   “Even better! I’ll lead the shore party—ten men.”
   “No shore leave, Pesaro. It’s kinjiru! Madonna, is your brain addled?” Rodrigues straddled the quarterdeck and leaned against the gunwale.
   “Not right that all should suffer,” said the bosun, Pesaro, his great calloused hands flexing. “I’ll lead the party and promise there’ll be no trouble. We’ve been cooped up for two weeks now.”
   “The port authorities here said kinjiru, so sorry, but still goddamned kinjiru! Remember? This isn’t Nagasaki!”
   “Yes, by the blood of Christ Jesus, and more’s the pity!” The heavy-set man scowled. “It was only one Jappo that got chopped.”
   “One chopped dead, two knifed badly, a lot of wounded, and a girl hurt before the samurai stopped the riot. I warned you all before you went ashore: ‘Nimazu’s not Nagasaki—so behave yourselves!’ Madonna! We were lucky to get away with just one of our seamen dead. They’d have been within the law to chop all five of you.”
   “Their law, Pilot, not ours. God-cursed monkeys! It was only a whorehouse brawl.”
   “Yes, but your men started it, the authorities have quarantined my ship, and you’re all benched. You included!” Rodrigues moved his leg to ease the pain. “Be patient, Pesaro. Now that the Father’s back we’ll be off.”
   “On the tide? At dawn? Is that an order?”
   “No, not yet. Just get the longboat ready. Gomez will come with me.”
   “Let me come as well, eh? Per favor, Pilot. I’m sick to death of being stuck in this pox-cursed bucket.”
   “No. And you’d better not go ashore tonight. You or any.”
   “And if you’re not back by dawn?”
   “You rot here at anchor till I do. Clear?”
   The bosun’s scowl deepened. He hesitated, then backed down. “Yes, yes, that’s clear, by God.”
   “Good.” Rodrigues went below.
   Alvito was asleep but he awoke the moment the pilot opened the cabin door. “Ah, all’s well?” he asked, replete now in mind and body.
   “Yes. It was just the turn.” Rodrigues gulped some wine to take the foul taste out of his mouth. It was always like that after a near mutiny. If Pesaro had not yielded instantly, once again Rodrigues would have had to blow a hole in a man’s face or put him in irons or order fifty lashes or keelhaul the man or perform any one of a hundred obscenities essential by sea law to maintain discipline. Without discipline any ship was lost. “What’s the plan now, Father? We sail at dawn?”
   “How are the carrier pigeons?”
   “In good health. We’ve still six—four Nagasakis, two Osakas.”
   The priest checked the angle of the sun. Four or five hours to sunset. Plenty of time to launch the birds with the first coded message long since planned: “Toranaga surrenders to Regents’ order. I’m going first to Yedo, then Osaka. I will accompany Toranaga to Osaka. He says we can still build the cathedral at Yedo. Detailed dispatch with Rodrigues.”
   “Would you please ask the handler to prepare two Nagasakis and one Osaka immediately,” Alvito said. “Then we’ll talk. I won’t be sailing back with you. I’m going on to Yedo by road. It’ll take me most of the night and tomorrow to write a detailed dispatch which you’ll carry to the Father-Visitor, for his hands only. Will you sail as soon as I’ve finished?”
   “All right. If it’s too near dusk I’ll wait till dawn. There are shoals and shifting sands for ten leagues.”
   Alvito assented. The twelve extra hours would make no difference. He knew it would have been far better if he’d been able to send off the news from Yokosé, God curse the heathen devil who destroyed my birds there! Be patient, he told himself. What’s the hurry? Isn’t that a vital rule of our Order? Patience. All comes to him who waits—and works. What does twelve hours matter, or even eight days? Those won’t change the course of history. The die was cast in Yokosé.
   “You’ll travel with the Ingeles?” Rodrigues was asking. “Like before?”
   “Yes. From Yedo I’ll make my own way back to Osaka. I’ll accompany Toranaga. I’d like you to stop at Osaka with a copy of my dispatch, in case the Father-Visitor’s there, or has left Nagasaki before you arrive and is on the way there. You can give it to Father Soldi, his secretary—only him.”
   “All right. I’ll be glad to leave. We’re hated here.”
   “With God’s mercy we can change all that, Rodrigues. With God’s good grace we’ll convert all the heathens here.”
   “Amen to that. Yes.” The tall man eased his leg with the throb lessened momentarily. He stared out of the windows. Then he got up impatiently. “I’ll fetch the pigeons myself. Write your message, then we’ll talk. About the Ingeles.” He went to the deck and selected the birds from the panniers. When he returned the priest had already used the special needle-sharp quill and ink to inscribe the same coded message on the tiny slivers of paper. Alvito armed the tiny cylinders, sealed them, and launched the birds. The three circled once, then headed westward in convoy into the afternoon sun.
   “Shall we talk here or below?”

   “Here. It’s cooler.” Rodrigues motioned the quarterdeck watch amidships out of earshot.
   Alvito sat on the seachair. “First about Toranaga.”
   He told the Pilot briefly what had happened in Yokosé, omitting the incident with Brother Joseph and his suspicions about Mariko and Blackthorne. Rodrigues was as stunned by the surrender as he had been. “No war? It’s a miracle! Now we’re truly safe, our Black Ship’s safe, the Church is rich, we’re rich … thanks be to God, the saints, and the Madonna! That’s the best news you could’ve brought, Father. We’re safe!”
   “If God wills it. One thing Toranaga said disturbed me. He put it this way: ‘I can order my Christian freed—the Anjin-san. With his ship, and with his cannon.’”
   Rodrigues’ vast good humor left him. “Erasmus is still in Yedo? She’s still in Toranaga’s control?”
   “Yes. Would it be serious if the Ingeles were loosed?”
   “Serious? That ship would blast hell out of us if she caught our Black Ship twixt here and Macao with him aboard, armed, with a half-decent crew. We’ve only the small frigate to run interference and she’s no match for Erasmus! Nor are we. She could dance around us and we’d have to strike our colors.”
   “Are you certain?”
   “Yes. Before God—she’d be a killer.” Angrily Rodrigues bunched a fist. “But wait a moment—the Ingeles said he’d arrived here with no more than twelve men, and not all seamen, many of them merchants and most sick. That few couldn’t handle her. The only place he could get a crew would be at Nagasaki—or Macao. He might get enough at Nagasaki! There’re those who’d … he’d better be kept away from there, and Macao!”
   “Say he had a native crew?”
   “You mean some of Toranaga’s cutthroats? Or wako? You mean if Toranaga’s surrendered, all his men become ronin, neh? If the Ingeles had enough time he could train ‘em. Easy. Christ Jesus … please excuse me, Father, but if the Ingeles got samurai or wako … Can’t risk that—he’s too good. We all saw that in Osaka! Him loose in that pisscutter in Asia with a samurai crew…”
   Alvito watched him, even more concerned now. “I think I’d better send another message to the Father-Visitor. He should be informed if it’s this urgent. He’ll know what to do.”
   “I know what to do!” Rodrigues’ fist smashed down on the gunwale. He got to his feet and turned his back. “Listen, Father, hear my confession: The first night—the very first time he stood alongside me on the galley out to sea, when we were going from Anjiro—my heart told me to kill him, then again during the storm. The Lord Jesus help me, that was the time I sent him for’ard and deliberately swerved into the wind without warning, him without a lifeline, to murder him, but the Ingeles didn’t go overboard like anyone else would’ve done. I thought that was the Hand of God, and knew it for certain when later he overruled me and saved my ship, and then when my ship was safe and the wave took me and I was drowning, my last thought was that that also was God’s punishment on me for an attempted murder. You don’t do that to a pilot—he’d never do that to me! I deserved it that time and then, when I found myself alive and him bending over me, helping me drink, I was so ashamed and again I begged God’s forgiveness and swore a Holy oath to try to make it up to him. Madonna!” he burst out in torment, “that man saved me though he knew I tried to murder him. I saw it in his eyes. He saved me and helped me live and now I’ve got to kill him.”
   “Why?”
   “The Captain-General was right: God help us all if the Ingeles puts to sea in Erasmus, armed, with a half-decent crew.”


   Blackthorne and Mariko were sleeping in the nocturnal peace of their little house, one of a cluster that made up the Inn of the Camellias, which was on 9th Street South. There were three rooms in each. Mariko had taken one room for herself and Chimmoko, Blackthorne another, and the third that let onto the front door and veranda had been left empty for living and eating and talking.
   “You think this is safe?” Blackthorne had asked anxiously. “Not to have Yoshinaka, or more maids or guards sleeping there?”
   “No, Anjin-san. Nothing’s truly safe. But it will be pleasant to be alone. This inn’s thought to be the prettiest and most famous in Izu. It is pretty, neh?”
   And it was. Each tiny house was set on elegant pilings with circling verandas and four steps up, made from the finest woods, everything polished and gleaming. Each was separate, fifty paces from its neighbors and surrounded by manicured gardens within the greater garden within the high bamboo wall. There were streamlets, and lily ponds and waterfalls and blossom trees in abundance with day perfumes and night perfumes, sweet smelling and luxurious. Clean stone footpaths, delicately roofed, led to the central baths, cold and hot and very hot, fed by natural springs. Multicolored lanterns and happy servants and maids and never a cross word to disturb the tree bells and bubbling water and singing birds in their aviaries.
   “Of course I did ask for two houses, Anjin-san, one for you and one for me. Unfortunately, only one was available, so sorry. But Yoshinaka-san isn’t displeased. On the contrary, he was relieved as he wouldn’t have to split his men. He has posted sentries on every path so we are quite safe and can’t be disturbed as in other places. Why should we be disturbed? What could possibly be wrong with a room here and a room there and Chimmoko to share my bed?”
   “Nothing. I’ve never seen such a beautiful place. How clever you are, and how beautiful.”
   “Ah, how kind you are to me, Anjin-san. First bathe, then the evening food and lots of saké.”
   “Good. Very good.”
   “Put down your dictionary, Anjin-san, please.”
   “But you’re always encouraging me.”
   “If you put your book down I—I’ll tell you a secret.”
   “What?”
   “I’ve invited Yoshinaka-san to eat with us. And some ladies. To entertain us.”
   “Ah!”
   “Yes. After I leave you, you will select one, neh?”
   “But that might disturb your sleep, so sorry.”
   “I promise I will sleep very heavily, my love. Seriously, a change. might be good for thee.”
   “Yes, but next year, not now.”
   “Be serious.”
   “I am.”
   “Ah, then in that case, if by chance you politely changed your mind and sent her away soon—after Yoshinaka-san has left with his partner—ah, who knows what the night kami might find for thee then?”
   “What?”
   “I went shopping today.”
   “Oh? And what did you buy?”
   “Ah!”
   She had bought an assortment of the pillow devices that Kiku had shown them, and much later, when Yoshinaka had left and Chimmoko was guarding on the veranda, she offered them to him with a deep bow. Half in jest. he accepted with equal formality, and together they selected a pleasure ring.
   “That looks very prickly, Anjin-san, neh? Are you sure you don’t mind?”
   “No, not if you don’t, but stop laughing or you’ll ruin everything. Put out the candles.”
   “Oh no, please, I want to watch.”
   “For the love of God, stop laughing, Mariko!”
   “But you’re laughing too.”
   “Never mind, put the light out or… There, now look what you’ve done.”
   “Oh!”
   “Stop laughing! It’s no good putting your head in the futons…”
   Then later, trouble.
   “Mariko …
   “Yes, my love?”
   “I can’t find it.”
   “Oh! Let me help you.”
   “Ah, it’s all right. I’ve got it. I was lying on it.”
   “Oh. You’re—you’re sure you don’t mind?”
   “No, but it’s a bit, well, not exactly uplifting, all this talking about it and having to wait. Is it?”
   “Oh, I don’t mind. It was my fault for laughing. Oh, Anjin-san, I love you so, please excuse me.”
   “You’re excused.”
   “I love to touch thee.”
   “I’ve never known anything like your touch.”
   “What are you doing, Anjin-san?”
   “I’m putting it on.”
   “Is it difficult?”
   “Yes. Stop laughing!”
   “Oh, I’m so sorry, perhaps you—”
   “Stop laughing!”
   “Please forgive me…”
   Afterwards she went to sleep instantly, totally spent. He did not. For him it had been fine, but not perfect. He’d been too worried about her. He’d decided this time was for her pleasure, and not his.
   Yes, that was for her, he thought, loving her. But one thing was perfect: I know I’ve truly satisfied her. For once I’m absolutely sure.
   He slept. Later the sound of voices and quarreling, and, mixed with it, Portuguese, began to filter through his slumber. For a moment he thought he was dreaming, then he recognized the voice. “Rodrigues!”
   Mariko murmured, still locked in sleep.
   At the sound of footsteps on the path he lurched to his knees in controlled panic. He lifted her as if she were a doll, went for the shoji, and stopped just as it was opened from the outside. It was Chimmoko. The maid’s head was lowered and her eyes discreetly closed. He rushed past her with Mariko in his arms and laid her gently in her own quilts, still half asleep, and ran silently for his own room again, the sweat chill on him though the night was warm. He groped into a kimono and hurried out again to the veranda. Yoshinaka had reached the second step.
   “Nan desu ka, Yoshinaka-san?”
   “Gomen nasai, Anjin-san,” Yoshinaka said. He pointed to the flares at the far gate of the inn, adding many words that Blackthorne did not understand. But the gist of it was that that man there, the barbarian, he wants to see you and I told him to wait and he said he wouldn’t wait, acting like a daimyo which he isn’t, and tried to push past, which I stopped. He said he was your friend. Is he?
   “Heya, Ingeles! It’s me, Vasco Rodrigues!”
   “Hey, Rodrigues!” Blackthorne shouted back happily. “Be right with you. Hai, Yoshinaka-san. Kare wa watashi no ichi yujin desu.” He’s my friend.
   “Ah so desu!”
   “Hai. Domo.”
   Blackthorne ran down the steps to go to the gateway. Behind him he heard Mariko’s voice, “Nan ja, Chimmoko?” and a whisper back and then she called out with authority, “Yoshinaka-san!”
   “Hai, Toda-sama!”
   Blackthorne glanced around. The samurai walked up the steps and crossed toward Mariko’s room. Her door was closed. Chimmoko stood outside it. Now her own crumpled bedding was near the door where she would always sleep, correctly, should her mistress not wish her to be in the room with her. Yoshinaka bowed to the door and began to report. Blackthorne walked along the path with growing elation, barefoot, his eyes on the Portuguese, the width of the welcoming smile, the light from the flares dancing off his earrings and the buckle of his jaunty hat.
   “Hey, Rodrigues! It’s great to see you. How’s your leg? How’d you find me?”
   “Madonna, you’ve grown, Ingeles, filled out! Yes, fit and healthy and acting like a piss-cutting daimyo!” Rodrigues gave him a bear hug and he returned it.
   “How’s your leg?”
   “Hurts like shit but it works and I found you by asking where the great Anjin-san was—the big barbarian bandit bastard with the blue eyes!”
   They laughed together, swapping obscenities, careless of the samurai and servants that surrounded them. In a moment Blackthorne sent a servant for saké and led the way back. Both strolled with their sailor’s gait, Rodrigues’ right hand, by habit, on his rapier’s hilt, the other thumb hooked into his wide belt near his pistol. Blackthorne was a few inches taller but the Portuguese had even wider shoulders and a barrel-chested power to him.
   Yoshinaka was waiting on the veranda.
   “Domo arigato, Yoshinaka-san,” Blackthorne said, thanking the samurai again, and motioned Rodrigues to one of the cushions. “Let’s talk here.”
   Rodrigues put a foot on the steps but stopped as Yoshinaka moved in front of him, pointed at the rapier and the pistol, then held out his left hand, palm upwards. “Dozo!”
   The Portuguese frowned up at him. “Iyé samurai-sama, domo ari —”
   “Dozo!”

   “Iyé samurai-sama, iyé!” Rodrigues repeated more sharply. “Watashi yujin Anjin-san, neh?”
   Blackthorne moved forward a step, still amazed at the suddenness of the confrontation. “Yoshinaka-san, shigata ga nai, neh?” he said with a smile. “Rodrigues yujin, wata —”
   “Gomen nasai, Anjin-san. Kinjiru!” Yoshinaka rapped an order. Instantly samurai leapt forward, surrounding Rodrigues threateningly, and again he held out his hand. “Dozo!”
   “These shit-filled whores’re touchy, Ingeles,” Rodrigues said through a toothy smile. “Call’em off, eh? I’ve never had to give up my arms before.”
   “Don’t, Rodrigues! “ he said quickly, sensing his friend’s imminent decision, then to Yoshinaka, “Domo, gomen nasai, Rodrigues yujin, watash —”
   “Gomen nasai, Anjin-san. Kinjiru.” Then roughly to the Portuguese, “Ima!”
   Rodrigues snarled back, “Iyé! Wakarimasu ka?”
   Blackthorne hastily stepped between them. “Hey, Rodrigues, what does it matter, neh? Let Yoshinaka-san have them. It’s nothing to do with you or me. It’s because of the lady, Toda Mariko-sama. She’s in there. You know how touchy they are about weapons near daimyos or their wives. We’ll argue all night, you know how they are, eh? What’s the difference?”
   The Portuguese forced a smile back on his face. “Sure. Why not? Hai. Shigata ga nai, samurai-sama. So desu!”
   He bowed like a courtier without sincerity, slid his rapier and scabbard from its clasp and took out his pistol, and offered them. Yoshinaka motioned to a samurai, who took the weapons and ran off to the gateway, where he put them down and stood guard over them. Rodrigues started to mount the steps, but again Yoshinaka politely and firmly asked him to stop. Other samurai came forward to search him. Furious, Rodrigues leaped back. “IYé! Kinjiru, by God! What the—”
   The samurai fell on him, pinned his arms tight, and searched him thoroughly. They found two knives in the tops of his boots, another strapped to his left forearm, two small pistols—one concealed in the lining of his coat, one under his shirt—and a small pewter hip flask.
   Blackthorne examined the pistols. Both were primed. “Was the other primed too?”
   “Yes. Of course. This land’s hostile, haven’t you noticed, Ingeles? Tell them to let go of me!”
   “This isn’t the usual way to visit a friend by night. Neh?”
   “I tell you this land’s hostile. I’m always armed like this. Aren’t you normally? Madonna, tell these bastards to let me go.”
   “Is that the lot? Everything?”
   “Of course—tell ‘em to let me go, Ingeles!”
   Blackthorne gave the pistols to a samurai and stepped forward. His fingers felt carefully around the inside of Rodrigues’ wide leather belt. A stiletto slid from its secret sheath, very thin, very springy, made of the best Damascus steel. Yoshinaka swore at the samurai who had made the search. They apologized but Blackthorne only watched Rodrigues.
   “Any more?” he asked, the stiletto loose in his hand.
   Rodrigues stared back at him stonily.
   “I’ll tell ‘em where to look—and how to look, Rodrigues. How a Spaniard would—some of them. Eh?”
   “Me cago en la leche, the cabron!”
   “Que va, leche! Hurry up!” Still no answer. Blackthorne went forward with the knife. “Dozo, Yoshinaka-san. Watash —”
   Rodrigues said hoarsely, “In my hat band,” and Blackthorne stopped.
   “Good,” he said and reached for the wide-brimmed hat.
   “You would, wouldn’t you—teach them?”
   “Wouldn’t you?”
   “Be careful of the feather, Ingeles, I cherish that.”
   The band was wide and stiff, the feather jaunty like the hat. Inside the band was a thin stiletto, smaller, specially designed, the fine steel easily molding the curve. Yoshinaka barked out another vicious reprimand to the samurai.
   “Before God, that’s all, Rodrigues?”
   “Madonna—I told you.”
   “Swear it.”
   Rodrigues complied.
   “Yoshinaka-san, ima ichi-ban. Domo,” Blackthorne said. He’s all right now. Thank you.
   Yoshinaka gave the order. His men released the Portuguese. Rodrigues rubbed his limbs to ease the pain. “Is it all right to sit down, Ingeles?”
   “Yes.”
   Rodrigues wiped off the sweat with a red kerchief, then picked up the pewter flask and sat cross-legged on one of the cushions. Yoshinaka remained nearby on the veranda. All but four samurai went back to their posts. “Why are they so touchy? Why are you so touchy, Ingeles? I’ve never had to give up my weapons before. Am I an assassin?”
   “I asked you if that was all your weapons and you lied.”
   “I wasn’t listening. Madonna! Would you—held like a common criminal?” Rodrigues added sourly, “Eh, what’s it matter, Ingeles, what’s anything matter? The night’s spoiled… Hey, but wait, Ingeles! Why should anything be allowed to spoil a great evening? I forgive them. And I forgive you, Ingeles. You were right and I was wrong. I apologize. It’s good to see you.” He unscrewed the stopper and offered the flask. “Here—here’s some fine brandy.”
   “You first.”
   Rodrigues’ face became ashen. “Madonna—do you think I bring poison?”
   “No. You drink first.”
   Rodrigues drank.
   “Again!”
   The Portuguese obeyed, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Blackthorne accepted the flask. “Salud!” He tipped it back and pretended to swallow, secretly keeping his tongue over the opening to prevent the liquor from going into his mouth, much as he wanted the drink. “Ah!” he said. “That was good. Here!”
   “Keep it, Ingeles. It’s a present.”
   “From the good Father? Or from you?”
   “From me.”
   “Before God?”
   “God and the Virgin, thou and thy ‘before God’!” Rodrigues said. “It was a gift from me and the Father! He owns all the liquor aboard the Santa Filipa but the Eminence said I could share it and the flask’s one of a dozen aboard. It’s a gift. Where are your manners?”
   Blackthorne pretended to drink again and offered it back. “Here, have another.”
   Rodrigues felt the liquor all the way to his toes and was glad that, after accepting the full flask from Alvito, he had privately emptied it and washed it out carefully and refilled it with brandy from his own bottle. Madonna, forgive me, he prayed, forgive me for doubting the Holy Father. Oh, Madonna, God, and Lord Jesus, for the love of God, come to earth again and change this world where sometimes we dare not even trust priests.
   “What’s the matter?”
   “Nothing, Ingeles. I was just thinking that this world’s a foul pisscutter when you can’t trust anyone nowadays. I came in friendship and now there’s a hole in the world.”
   “Did you?”
   “Yes.”
   “Armed like that?”
   “I’m always armed like that. That’s why I’m alive. Salud!” The big man raised the flask gloomily and sipped again. “Piss on the world, piss on everything.”
   “Are you saying, piss on me?”
   “Ingeles, this is me, Vasco Rodrigues, Pilot of the Portuguese Navy, not a flyblown samurai. I’ve exchanged many insults with you, all in friendship. Tonight I came to see my friend and now I have no friend. So sad.”
   “Yes.”
   “I shouldn’t be sad but I am. Being friends with thee complicated my life extraordinarily.” Rodrigues got up and eased his back, then sat down again. “I hate sitting on these God-cursed cushions! Chairs are for me. Aboard. Well, salud, Ingeles.”
   “When you swerved into wind and I was amidships, that was to put me overboard. Wasn’t it?”
   “Yes,” Rodrigues answered at once. He got to his feet. “Yes, I’m glad you asked me for that is on my conscience terribly. I’m glad to apologize to you in life for I could not bring myself to confess it to you. Yes, Ingeles. I don’t ask forgiveness or understanding or anything. But I am glad to confess that shame to your face.”
   “You think I’d do that to you?”
   “No. But then if the time came… You never know till your own time of trial.”
   “You came here to kill me?”
   “No. I don’t think so. I don’t think that was first in my mind, though for my people and my country we both know it would be better for you to be dead. So sad, but so true. How foolish is life, eh, Ingeles?”
   “I don’t want you dead, Pilot. Just your Black Ship.”
   “Listen, Ingeles,” said Rodrigues without anger. “If we meet at sea, you in your ship, armed, me in mine, look to your life. That’s all I came to promise you—only that. I thought it would be possible to tell you that as a friend and still remain your friend. Except for a sea meeting, I am forever in your debt. Salud!”
   “I hope to catch your Black Ship at sea. Salud, Pilot.”
   Rodrigues stalked off. Yoshinaka and the samurai followed him. At the gateway the Portuguese collected his arms. Soon he was swallowed by the night.
   Yoshinaka waited until the sentries sorted themselves out. When he was satisfied that all was secure he limped off to his own quarters. Blackthorne sat back on one of the cushions and in a moment the maid that he had sent for saké happily padded up with the tray. She poured one cup and would have stayed to serve him but he dismissed her. Now he was alone. The night sounds surrounded him again, the rustling and the waterfall and the movements of the night birds. Everything was as before, but everything had changed.
   Sadly he reached out to refill his cup but there was a sibilance of silk and Mariko’s hand held the flask. She poured for him, the other cup for herself.
   “Domo, Mariko-san.”
   “Do itashimashité, Anjin-san.” She settled herself on the other cushion. They sipped the hot wine.
   “He was going to kill you, neh?”
   “I don’t know, not for sure.”
   “What did it mean—to search like a Spaniard?”
   “Some of them strip their prisoners then probe in private places. And not gently. They call it to search con significa, with significance. Sometimes they use knives.”
   “Oh.” She sipped and listened to the water among the stones. “It’s the same here, Anjin-san. Sometimes. That’s why it’s never wise to be captured. If you’re captured you’ve dishonored yourself so completely that anything the captor does… It’s best not to be captured. Neh?”
   He stared at the lanterns moving in the cool sweet breeze. “Yoshinaka was right—I was wrong. The search was necessary. It was your idea, neh? You told Yoshinaka to search him?”
   “Please excuse me, Anjin-san, I hope that didn’t create an embarrassment for you. It was just that I was afraid for you.”
   “I thank thee,” he said, using Latin again, though he was sorry there had been a search. Without the search he would still have a friend. Perhaps, he cautioned himself.
   “Thou art welcome,” she said. “But it was only my duty.”
   Mariko was wearing a night kimono and overkimono of blue, her hair braided loosely, falling to her waist. She looked back at the far gateway which could be seen through the trees. “You were very clever about the liquor, Anjin-san. I almost pinched myself with anger at forgetting to warn Yoshinaka about that. You were most shrewd to make him drink twice. Do you use poison a lot in your countries?”
   “Sometimes. Some people do. It’s a filthy way.”
   “Yes, but very effective. It happens here too.”
   “Terrible, isn’t it, not being able to trust anyone.”
   “Oh, no, Anjin-san, so sorry,” she answered. “That’s just one of life’s most important rules—no more, no less.”

Book Four

Chapter 47

   Erasmus glittered in the high noon sun beside the Yedo wharf, resplendent.
   “Jesus God in Heaven, Mariko, look at her! Have you ever seen anything like her? Look at her lines!”
   His ship was beyond the closed, encircling barriers a hundred paces away, moored to the dock with new ropes. The whole area was heavily guarded, more samurai were on deck, and signs everywhere said this was a forbidden area except with Lord Toranaga’s personal permission.
   Erasmus had been freshly painted and tarred, her decks were spotless, her hull caulked and her rigging repaired. Even the foremast that had been carried away in the storm had been replaced with the last of the spares she carried in her hold, and stepped to a perfect angle. All rope ends were neatly coiled, all cannon gleaming under a protective sheen of oil behind their gun ports. And the ragged Lion of England fluttered proudly over all.
   “Ahoy!” he shouted joyfully from outside the barriers, but there was no answering call. One of the sentries told him there were no barbarians aboard today.
   “Shigata ga nai,” Blackthorne said. “Domo.” He curbed his soaring impatience to go aboard at once and beamed at Mariko. “It’s as if she’s just come out of a refit at Portsmouth dockyard, Mariko-san. Look at her cannon—the lads must’ve worked like dogs. She’s beautiful, neh? Can’t wait to see Baccus and Vinck and the others. Never thought I’d find her like that. Christ Jesus, she looks so pretty, neh?”
   Mariko was watching him and not the ship. She knew she was forgotten now. And replaced.
   Never mind, she told herself. Our journey’s over.
   This morning they had arrived at the last of the turnpikes on the outskirts of Yedo. Once more their travel papers were checked. Once more they were passed through with politeness, but this time a new honor guard was waiting for them.
   “They’re to take us to the castle, Anjin-san. You’ll stay there, and this evening we’re to meet Lord Toranaga.”
   “Good, then there’s plenty of time. Look, Mariko-san, the docks aren’t more than a mile off, neh? My ship’s there somewhere. Would you ask the Captain Yoshinaka if we can go there, please?”
   “He says, so sorry, but he has no instructions to do that, Anjin-san. He is to take us to the castle.”
   “Please tell him … perhaps I’d better try. Taicho-san! Okashira, sukoshi no aida watakushi wa ikitai no desu. Watakushi no funega asoko ni arimasu.” Captain, I want to go there now for a little while. My ship’s there.
   “Iyé, Anjin-san, gomen nasai. Ima …”
   Mariko had listened approvingly and with amusement as Blackthorne had argued courteously and insisted firmly, and then, reluctantly, Yoshinaka had allowed them to detour, but just for a moment, neh? and only because the Anjin-san claimed hatamoto status, which gave certain inalienable rights, and had pointed out that a quick examination was important to Lord Toranaga, that it would certainly save their lord’s immensely valuable time and was vital to his meeting tonight. Yes, the Anjin-san may look for a moment, but so sorry, it is of course forbidden to go on the ship without papers signed personally by Lord Toranaga, and it must only be for a moment because we are expected, so sorry.
   “Domo, Taicho-san,” Blackthorne had said expansively, more than a little pleased with his increased understanding of the correct ways to persuade and his growing command of the language.
   Last night and most of yesterday they had spent at an inn barely two ri southward down the road, Yoshinaka allowing them to dawdle as before.
   Oh, that was such a lovely night, she thought.
   There had been so many lovely days and nights. All perfect except the first day after leaving Mishima, when Father Tsukku-san caught up with them again and the precarious truce between the two men was ripped asunder. Their quarrel had been sudden, vicious, fueled by the Rodrigues incident and too much brandy. Threat and counterthreat and curses and then Father Alvito had spurred on ahead for Yedo, leaving disaster in his wake, the joy of the journey ruined.
   “We must not let this happen, Anjin-san.”
   “But that man had no right—”
   “Oh yes, I agree. And of course you’re correct. But please, if you let this incident destroy your harmony, you will be lost and so will I. Please, I implore you to be Japanese. Put this incident away—that’s all it is, one incident in ten thousand. You must not allow it to wreck your harmony. Put it away into a compartment.”
   “How? How can I do that? Look at my hands! I’m so God-cursed angry I can’t stop them shaking!”
   “Look at this rock, Anjin-san. Listen to it growing.”
   “What?”
   “Listen to the rock grow, Anjin-san. Put your mind on that, on the harmony of the rock. Listen to the kami of the rock. Listen my love, for thy life’s sake. And for mine.”
   So he had tried and had succeeded just a little and the next day, friends again, lovers again, at peace again, she continued to teach, trying to mold him—without his knowing he was being molded—to the Eightfold Fence, building inner walls and defenses that were his only path to harmony. And to survival.
   “I’m so glad the priest has gone and won’t come back, Anjin-san.”
   “Yes.”
   “It would have been better if there had been no quarrel. I’m afraid for you.”
   “Nothing’s different—he always was my enemy, always will be. Karma is karma. But don’t forget nothing exists outside us. Not yet. Not him or anyone. Not until Yedo. Neh?”
   “Yes. You are so wise. And right again. I’m so happy to be with thee…
   Their road from Mishima left the flat lands quickly and wound up the mountain to Hakoné Pass. They rested there two days atop the mountain, joyous and content, Mount Fuji glorious at sunrise and sunset, her peak obscured by a wreath of clouds.
   “Is the mountain always like that?”
   “Yes, Anjin-san, most always shrouded. But that makes the sight of Fuji-san, clear and clean, so much more exquisite, neh? You can climb all the way to the top if you wish.”
   “Let’s do that now!”
   “Not now, Anjin-san. One day we will. We must leave something to the future, neh? We’ll climb Fuji-san in autumn…”
   Always there were pretty, private inns down to the Kwanto plains. And always rivers and streams and rivulets to cross, the sea on the right now. Their party had meandered northward along the busy, bustling Tokaidō, across the greatest rice bowl in the Empire. The flat alluvial plains were rich with water, every inch cultivated. The air was hot and humid now, heavy with the stench of human manure that the farmers moistened with water and ladled onto the plants with loving care.
   “Rice gives us food to eat, Anjin-san, tatamis to sleep on, sandals to walk with, clothes to shut out the rain and the cold, thatch to keep our houses warm, paper for writing. Without rice we cannot exist.”
   “But the stink, Mariko-san!”
   “That’s a small price to pay for so much bounty, neh? Just do as we do, open your eyes and ears and mind. Hear the wind and the rain, the insects and the birds, listen to the plants growing, and in your mind, see your generations following unto the end of time. If you do that, Anjin-san, soon you smell only the loveliness of life. It requires practice … but you become very Japanese, neh?”
   “Ah, thank you, m’lady! But I do confess I’m beginning to like rice. Yes. I certainly prefer it to potatoes, and you know another thing—I don’t miss meat as much as I did. Isn’t that strange? And I’m not as hungry as I was.”
   “I am more hungry than I’ve ever been.”
   “Ah, I was talking about food.”
   “Ah, so was I…”
   Three days away from Hakoné Pass her monthly time began and she had asked him to take one of the maids of the inn. “It would be wise, Anjin-san.”
   “I’d prefer not to, so sorry.”
   “Please, I ask thee. It is a safeguard. A discretion.”
   “Because you ask, then yes. But tomorrow, not tonight. Tonight let us sleep in peace.”
   Yes, Mariko thought, that night we slept peacefully and the next dawn was so lovely that I left his warmth and sat on the veranda with Chimmoko and watched the birth of another day.
   “Ah, good morning, Lady Toda.” Gyoko had been standing at the garden entrance, bowing to her. “A gorgeous dawn, neh?”
   “Yes, beautiful.”
   “Please may I interrupt you? Could I speak to you privately—alone? About a business matter.”
   “Of course.” Mariko had left the veranda, not wishing to disturb the Anjin-san’s sleep. She sent Chimmoko for cha and ordered blankets to be put on the grass, near the little waterfall.
   When it was correct to begin and they were alone, Gyoko said, “I was considering how I could be of the most help to Toranaga-sama.”
   “The thousand koku would be more than generous.”
   “Three secrets might be more generous.”
   “One might be, Gyoko-san, if it was the right one.”
   “The Anjin-san is a good man, neh? His future must be helped too, neh?”
   “The Anjin-san has his own karma,” she replied, knowing that the time of bargaining had come, wondering what she must concede, if she dared to concede anything. “We were talking about Lord Toranaga, neh? Or is one of the secrets about the Anjin-san?”
   “Oh no, Lady. It’s as you say. The Anjin-san has his own karma, as I’m sure he has his own secrets. It’s just occurred to me that the Anjin-san is one of Lord Toranaga’s favored vassals, so any protection our Lord has in a way helps his vassals, neh?”
   “I agree. Of course, it’s the duty of vassals to pass on any information that could help their lord.”
   “True, Lady, very true. Ah, it’s such an honor for me to serve you. Honto. May I tell you how honored I am to have been allowed to travel with you, to talk with you, and eat and laugh with you, and occasionally to act as a modest counselor, however ill-equipped I am, for which I apologize. And finally to say that your wisdom is as great as your beauty, and your bravery as vast as your rank.”
   “Ah, Gyoko-san, please excuse me, you’re too kind, too thoughtful. I am just a wife of one of my Lord’s generals. You were saying? Four secrets?”
   “Three, Lady. I was wondering if you’d intercede with Lord Toranaga for me. It would be unthinkable for me to whisper directly to him what I know to be true. That would be very bad manners because I wouldn’t know the right words to choose, or how to put the information before him, and in any event, in a matter of any importance, our custom to use a go-between is so much better, neh?”
   “Surely Kiku-san would be a better choice? I’ve no way of knowing when I’ll be sent for or how long it would be before I’ll have an audience with him, or even if he’d be interested in listening to anything I might have to tell him.”
   “Please excuse me, Lady, but you would be extraordinarily better. You could judge the value of the information, she couldn’t. You possess his ear, she other things.”
   “I’m not a counselor, Gyoko-san. Nor a valuer.”
   “I’d say they’re worth a thousand koku.”
   “So desu ka?”
   Gyoko made perfectly sure no one was listening, then told Mariko what the renegade Christian priest had muttered aloud that the Lord Onoshi had whispered to him in the confessional that he had related to his uncle, Lord Harima; then what Omi’s second cook had overheard of Omi’s and his mother’s plot against Yabu; and lastly, all she knew about Zataki, his apparent lust for the Lady Ochiba, and about Ishido and Lady Ochiba.
   Mariko had listened intently without comment—although breaking the secrecy of the confessional shocked her greatly—her mind hopping at the swarm of possibilities this information unlocked. Then she cross-questioned Gyoko carefully, to make sure she understood clearly what she was being told and to etch it completely in her own memory.
   When she was satisfied that she knew everything that Gyoko was prepared to divulge at the moment—for, obviously, so shrewd a bargainer would always hold much in reserve—she sent for fresh cha.
   She poured Gyoko’s cup herself, and they sipped demurely. Both wary, both confident.
   “I’ve no way of knowing how valuable this information is, Gyoko-san.”
   “Of course, Mariko-sama.”
   “I imagine this information—and the thousand koku—would please Lord Toranaga greatly.”
   Gyoko bit back the obscenity that flared behind her lips. She had expected a substantial reduction in the beginning bid. “So sorry, but money has no significance to such a daimyo, though it is a heritage to a peasant like myself—a thousand koku makes me an ancestress, neh? One must always know what one is, Lady Toda. Neh?” Her tone was barbed.
   “Yes. It’s good to know what you are, and who you are, Gyoko-san. That is one of the rare gifts a woman has over a man. A woman always knows. Fortunately I know what I am. Oh very yes. Please come to the point.”
   Gyoko did not flinch under the threat but slammed back into attack with corresponding impolite brevity. “The point is we both know life and understand death—and both believe treatment in hell and everywhere else depends on money.”
   “Do we?”
   “Yes. So sorry, I believe a thousand koku is too much.”
   “Death is preferable?”
   “I’ve already written my death poem, Lady:


When I die,
don’t burn me,
don’t bury me,
just throw my body on a field to fatten some empty-bellied dog.”


   “That could be arranged. Easily.”
   “Yes. But I’ve long ears and a safe tongue, which could be more important.”
   Mariko poured more cha. For herself. “So sorry, have you?”
   “Oh yes, oh very yes. Please excuse me but it’s no boast that I was trained well, Lady, in that and many other things. I’m not afraid to die. I’ve written my will, and detailed instructions to my kin in case of a sudden death. I’ve made my peace with the gods long since and forty days after I’m dead I know I’ll be reborn. And if I’m not”—the woman shrugged—”then I’m a kami.” Her fan was stationary. “So I can afford to reach for the moon, neh? Please excuse me for mentioning it but I’m like you: I fear nothing. But unlike you in this life—I’ve nothing to lose.”

  “So much talk of evil things, Gyoko-san, on such a pleasant morning. It is pleasant, neh?” Mariko readied to bury her fangs. “I’d much prefer to see you alive, living into honored old age, one of the pillars of your new guild. Ah, that was a very tender idea. A good one, Gyoko-san.”
   “Thank you, Lady. Equally I’d like you safe and happy and prospering in the way that you’d wish. With all the toys and honors you’d require.”
   “Toys?” Mariko repeated, dangerous now.
   Gyoko was like a trained dog on the scent near the kill. “I’m only a peasant, Lady, so I wouldn’t know what honors you wish, what toys would please you. Or your son.”
   Unnoticed by either of them the slim wooden haft of Mariko’s fan snapped between her fingers. The breeze had died. Now the hot wet air hung in the garden that looked out on a waveless sea. Flies swarmed and settled and swarmed again.
   “What—what honors or toys would you wish? For yourself?” Mariko stared with malevolent fascination at the older woman, clearly aware now that she must destroy this woman or her son would perish.
   “Nothing for myself. Lord Toranaga’s given me honors and riches beyond my dreams. But for my son? Ah yes, he could be given a helping hand.”
   “What help?”
   “Two swords.”
   “Impossible.”
   “I know, Lady. So sorry. So easy to grant, yet so impossible. War’s coming. Many will be needed to fight.”
   “There’ll be no war now. Lord Toranaga’s going to Osaka.”
   “Two swords. That’s not much to ask.”
   “That’s impossible. So sorry, that’s not mine to give.”
   “So sorry, but I haven’t asked you for anything. But that’s the only thing that would please me. Yes. Nothing else.” A dribble of sweat fell from Gyoko’s face onto her lap. “I’d like to offer Lord Toranaga five hundred koku from the contract price, as a token of my esteem in these hard times. The other five hundred will go to my son. A samurai needs a heritage, neh?”
   “You sentence your son to death. All Toranaga samurai will die or become ronin very soon.”
   “Karma. My son already has sons, Lady. They will tell their sons that once we were samurai. That’s all that matters, neh?”
   “It’s not mine to give.”
   “True. So sorry. But that’s all that would satisfy me.”


   Irritably, Toranaga shook his head. “Her information’s interesting—perhaps—but not worth making her son samurai.”
   Mariko replied, “She seems to be a loyal vassal, Sire. She said she’d be honored if you’d deduct a further five hundred koku from the contract fee for some needy samurai.”
   “That’s not generosity. No, not at all. That’s merely guilt over the original usurious asking price.”
   “Perhaps it’s worth considering, Sire. Her idea about the guild, about gei-sha and the new classes of courtesans, will have far-reaching effects, neh? It would do no harm, perhaps.”
   “I don’t agree. No. Why should she be rewarded? There’s no reason for granting her that honor. Ridiculous! She surely didn’t ask you for it, did she?”
   “It would have been more than a little impertinent for her to do that, Sire. I have made the suggestion because I believe she could be very valuable to you.”
   “She’d better be more valuable. Her secrets are probably lies too. These days I get nothing but lies.” Toranaga rang a small bell and an equerry appeared instantly at the far door.
   “Sire?”
   “Where’s the courtesan Kiku?”
   “In your quarters, Sire.”
   “Is the Gyoko woman with her?”
   “Yes, Sire.”
   “Send them both out of the castle. At once! Send them back to… No, lodge them at an inn—a third-class inn—and tell them to wait there until I send for them.” Toranaga said testily, as the man vanished, “Disgusting! Pimps wanting to be samurai? Filthy peasants don’t know their place anymore!”
   Mariko watched him sitting on his cushion, his fan waving desultorily. She was jarred by the change in him. Gloom, irritation, and petulance, where before there had always been only buoyant confidence. He had listened to the secrets with interest, but not with the excitement she had expected. Poor man, she thought with pity, he’s given up. What’s the good of any information to him? Perhaps he’s wise to cast things of the world aside and prepare for the unknown. Better you should do that yourself too, she thought, dying inside a bit more. Yes, but you can’t, not yet, somehow you’ve got to protect your son.
   They were on the sixth floor of the tall fortified donjon and the windows overlooked the whole city on three quarters of the compass. Sunset was dark tonight, the thread of moon low on the horizon, the dank air stifling, though here, almost a hundred feet above the floor of the castle battlements, the room gathered every breath of wind. The room was low and fortified and took up half the whole floor, other rooms beyond.
   Toranaga picked up the dispatch that Hiro-matsu had sent with Mariko and read it again. She noticed his hand tremble.
   “What’s he want to come to Yedo for?” Impatiently Toranaga tossed the scroll aside.
   “I don’t know, Sire, so sorry. He just asked me to give you this dispatch.”
   “Did you talk to the Christian renegade?”
   “No, Sire. Yoshinaka-san said you’d given orders against anyone doing that.”
   “How was Yoshinaka on the journey?”
   “Very capable, Sire,” she said, patiently answering the question for a second time. “Very efficient. He guarded us very well and delivered us on time exactly.”
   “Why didn’t the priest Tsukku-san come back with you all the way?”
   “On the road from Mishima, Sire, he and the Anjin-san quarreled,” Mariko told him, not knowing what Father Alvito might have already told Toranaga, if in fact Toranaga had sent for him yet. “The Father decided to travel on alone.”
   “What was the quarrel about?”
   “Partially over me, my soul, Sire. Mostly because of their religious enmity and because of the war between their rulers.”
   “Who started it?”
   “They were equally to blame. It began over a flask of liquor.” Mariko told him what had passed with Rodrigues, then continued, “The Tsukku-san had brought a second flask as a gift, wanting, so he said, to intercede for Rodrigues-san, but the Anjin-san said, shockingly bluntly, that he didn’t want any ‘Papist liquor,’ preferred saké, and he didn’t trust priests. The—the Holy Father flared up, was equally shockingly blunt, saying he had never dealt in poison, never would, and could never condone such a thing.”
   “Ah, poison? Do they use poison as a weapon?”
   “The Anjin-san told me some of them do, Sire. This led to more violent words and then they were hacking at each other over religion, my soul, about Catholics and Protestants … I left to fetch Yoshinaka-san as soon as I could and he stopped the quarrel.”
   “Barbarians cause nothing but trouble. Christians cause nothing but trouble. Neh?”
   She did not answer him. His petulance unsettled her. It was so unlike him and there seemed to be no reason for such a breakdown in his legendary self-control. Perhaps the shock of being beaten is too much for him, she thought. Without him we’re all finished, my son’s finished, and the Kwanto will soon be in other hands. His gloom was infecting her. She had noticed in the streets and in the castle the pall that seemed to hang over the whole city—a city that was famous for its gaiety, brash good humor, and delight with life.
   “I was born the year the first Christians arrived and they’ve bedeviled the land ever since,” Toranaga said. “For fifty-eight years nothing but trouble. Neh?”
   “I’m sorry they offend you, Sire. Was there anything else? With your permi—”
   “Sit down. I haven’t finished yet.” Toranaga rang the bell again. The door opened. “Send Buntaro-san in.”
   Buntaro walked in. Grim-faced, he knelt and bowed. She bowed to him, numb, but he did not acknowledge her.
   A while ago Buntaro had met their cortege at the castle gate. After a brief greeting, he had told her she was to go at once to Lord Toranaga. The Anjin-san would be sent for later.
   “Buntaro-san, you asked to see me in your wife’s presence as soon as possible?”
   “Yes, Sire.”
   “What is it you want?”
   “I humbly beg permission to take the Anjin-san’s head,” Buntaro said.
   “Why?”
   “Please excuse me but I … I don’t like the way he looks at my wife. I wanted … I wanted to say it in front of her, the first time, before you. Also, he insulted me at Anjiro and I can no longer live with this shame.”
   Toranaga glanced at Mariko, who seemed to be frozen in time. “You accuse her of encouraging him?”
   “I … I ask permission to take his head.”
   “You accuse her of encouraging him? Answer the question!”
   “Please excuse me, Sire, but if I thought that I’d be duty bound to take her head the same instant,” Buntaro replied stonily, his eyes on the tatamis. “The barbarian’s a constant irritation to my harmony. I believe he’s a harassment to you. Let me remove his head, I beg you.” He looked up, his heavy jowls unshaven, eyes deeply shadowed. “Or let me take my wife now and tonight we’ll go before you—to prepare the way.”
   “What do you say to that, Mariko-san?”
   “He is my husband. Whatever he decides, that will I do—unless you overrule him, Sire. This is my duty.”
   Toranaga looked from man to woman. Then his voice hardened, and for a moment he was like the Toranaga of old. “Mariko-san, you will leave in three days for Osaka. You will prepare that way for me, and wait for me there. Buntaro-san, you will accompany me as commander of my escort when I leave. After you have acted as my second, you or one of your men may do the same with the Anjin-san—with or without his approval.”
   Buntaro cleared his throat. “Sire, please order Crim—”
   “Hold your tongue! You forget yourself! I’ve told you no three times! The next time you have the impertinence to offer unwanted advice you will slit your belly in a Yedo cesspool!”
   Buntaro’s head was on the tatamis. “I apologize, Sire. I apologize for my impertinence.”
   Mariko was equally appalled by Toranaga’s ill-mannered, shameful outburst, and she bowed low also, to hide her own embarrassment. In a moment Toranaga said, “Please excuse my temper. Your plea is granted, Buntaro-san, but only after you’ve acted as my second.”
   “Thank you, Sire. Please excuse me for offending you.”
   “I ordered you both to make peace with one another. Have you done so?”
   Buntaro nodded shortly. Mariko too.
   “Good. Mariko-san, you will come back with the Anjin-san tonight, in the Hour of the Dog. You may go now.”
   She bowed and left them.
   Toranaga stared at Buntaro. “Well? Do you accuse her?”
   “It … it is unthinkable she’d betray me, Sire,” Buntaro answered sullenly.
   “I agree.” Toranaga waved a fly away with his fan, seeming very tired. “Well, you may have the Anjin-san’s head soon. I need it on his shoulders a little longer.”
   “Thank you, Sire. Again please excuse me for irritating you.”
   “These are irritating times. Foul times.” Toranaga leaned forward. “Listen, I want you to go to Mishima at once to relieve your father for a few days. He asks permission to come here to consult with me. I don’t know what… Anyway, I must have someone in Mishima I can trust. Would you please leave at dawn—but by way of Takato.”
   “Sire?” Buntaro saw that Toranaga was keeping calm only with an enormous effort, and in spite of his will, his voice was trembling.
   “I’ve a private message for my mother in Takato. You’re to tell no one you’re going there. But once you’re clear of the city, cut north.”
   “I understand.”
   “Lord Zataki may prevent you from delivering it—may try to. You are to give it only into her hands. You understand? To her alone. Take twenty men and gallop there. I’ll send a carrier pigeon to ask safe conduct from him.”
   “Your message will be verbal or in writing, Lord?”
   “In writing.”
   “And if I can’t deliver it?”
   “You must deliver it, of course you must. That’s why I picked you! But … if you’re betrayed like I’ve … if you’re betrayed, destroy it before you commit suicide. The moment I hear such evil news, the Anjin-san’s head is off his shoulders. And if … what about Mariko-san? What about your wife, if something goes wrong?”
   “Please dispatch her, Sire, before you die. I would be honored if… She merits a worthy second.”
   “She won’t die dishonorably, you have my promise. I’ll see to it. Personally. Now please come back at dawn for the dispatch. Don’t fail me. Only into my mother’s hands.”
   Buntaro thanked him again and left, ashamed of Toranaga’s outward show of fear.
   Now alone, Toranaga took out a kerchief and wiped the sweat off his face. His fingers were trembling. He tried to control them but couldn’t. It had taken all his strength to continue acting the stupid dullard, to hide his unbounding excitement over the secrets, which, fantastically, promised the long-hoped-for reprieve.
   “A possible reprieve, only possible—if they’re true,” he said aloud, hardly able to think, the astoundingly welcome information that Mariko had brought from the Gyoko woman still shrieking in his brain.
   Ochiba, he was gloating, … so that harpy’s the lure to bring my brother tumbling out of his mountain eyrie. My brother wants Ochiba. But now it’s equally obvious he wants more than her, and more than just the Kwanto. He wants the realm. He detests Ishido, loathes Christians, and is now sick with jealousy over Ishido’s well-known lust for Ochiba. So he’ll fall out with Ishido, Kiyama, and Onoshi. Because what my treacherous brother really wants is to be Shōgun. He’s Minowara, with all the lineage necessary, all the ambition, but not the mandate. Or the Kwanto. First he must get the Kwanto to get the rest.

  “So much talk of evil things, Gyoko-san, on such a pleasant morning. It is pleasant, neh?” Mariko readied to bury her fangs. “I’d much prefer to see you alive, living into honored old age, one of the pillars of your new guild. Ah, that was a very tender idea. A good one, Gyoko-san.”
   “Thank you, Lady. Equally I’d like you safe and happy and prospering in the way that you’d wish. With all the toys and honors you’d require.”
   “Toys?” Mariko repeated, dangerous now.
   Gyoko was like a trained dog on the scent near the kill. “I’m only a peasant, Lady, so I wouldn’t know what honors you wish, what toys would please you. Or your son.”
   Unnoticed by either of them the slim wooden haft of Mariko’s fan snapped between her fingers. The breeze had died. Now the hot wet air hung in the garden that looked out on a waveless sea. Flies swarmed and settled and swarmed again.
   “What—what honors or toys would you wish? For yourself?” Mariko stared with malevolent fascination at the older woman, clearly aware now that she must destroy this woman or her son would perish.
   “Nothing for myself. Lord Toranaga’s given me honors and riches beyond my dreams. But for my son? Ah yes, he could be given a helping hand.”
   “What help?”
   “Two swords.”
   “Impossible.”
   “I know, Lady. So sorry. So easy to grant, yet so impossible. War’s coming. Many will be needed to fight.”
   “There’ll be no war now. Lord Toranaga’s going to Osaka.”
   “Two swords. That’s not much to ask.”
   “That’s impossible. So sorry, that’s not mine to give.”
   “So sorry, but I haven’t asked you for anything. But that’s the only thing that would please me. Yes. Nothing else.” A dribble of sweat fell from Gyoko’s face onto her lap. “I’d like to offer Lord Toranaga five hundred koku from the contract price, as a token of my esteem in these hard times. The other five hundred will go to my son. A samurai needs a heritage, neh?”
   “You sentence your son to death. All Toranaga samurai will die or become ronin very soon.”
   “Karma. My son already has sons, Lady. They will tell their sons that once we were samurai. That’s all that matters, neh?”
   “It’s not mine to give.”
   “True. So sorry. But that’s all that would satisfy me.”


   Irritably, Toranaga shook his head. “Her information’s interesting—perhaps—but not worth making her son samurai.”
   Mariko replied, “She seems to be a loyal vassal, Sire. She said she’d be honored if you’d deduct a further five hundred koku from the contract fee for some needy samurai.”
   “That’s not generosity. No, not at all. That’s merely guilt over the original usurious asking price.”
   “Perhaps it’s worth considering, Sire. Her idea about the guild, about gei-sha and the new classes of courtesans, will have far-reaching effects, neh? It would do no harm, perhaps.”
   “I don’t agree. No. Why should she be rewarded? There’s no reason for granting her that honor. Ridiculous! She surely didn’t ask you for it, did she?”
   “It would have been more than a little impertinent for her to do that, Sire. I have made the suggestion because I believe she could be very valuable to you.”
   “She’d better be more valuable. Her secrets are probably lies too. These days I get nothing but lies.” Toranaga rang a small bell and an equerry appeared instantly at the far door.
   “Sire?”
   “Where’s the courtesan Kiku?”
   “In your quarters, Sire.”
   “Is the Gyoko woman with her?”
   “Yes, Sire.”
   “Send them both out of the castle. At once! Send them back to… No, lodge them at an inn—a third-class inn—and tell them to wait there until I send for them.” Toranaga said testily, as the man vanished, “Disgusting! Pimps wanting to be samurai? Filthy peasants don’t know their place anymore!”
   Mariko watched him sitting on his cushion, his fan waving desultorily. She was jarred by the change in him. Gloom, irritation, and petulance, where before there had always been only buoyant confidence. He had listened to the secrets with interest, but not with the excitement she had expected. Poor man, she thought with pity, he’s given up. What’s the good of any information to him? Perhaps he’s wise to cast things of the world aside and prepare for the unknown. Better you should do that yourself too, she thought, dying inside a bit more. Yes, but you can’t, not yet, somehow you’ve got to protect your son.
   They were on the sixth floor of the tall fortified donjon and the windows overlooked the whole city on three quarters of the compass. Sunset was dark tonight, the thread of moon low on the horizon, the dank air stifling, though here, almost a hundred feet above the floor of the castle battlements, the room gathered every breath of wind. The room was low and fortified and took up half the whole floor, other rooms beyond.
   Toranaga picked up the dispatch that Hiro-matsu had sent with Mariko and read it again. She noticed his hand tremble.
   “What’s he want to come to Yedo for?” Impatiently Toranaga tossed the scroll aside.
   “I don’t know, Sire, so sorry. He just asked me to give you this dispatch.”
   “Did you talk to the Christian renegade?”
   “No, Sire. Yoshinaka-san said you’d given orders against anyone doing that.”
   “How was Yoshinaka on the journey?”
   “Very capable, Sire,” she said, patiently answering the question for a second time. “Very efficient. He guarded us very well and delivered us on time exactly.”
   “Why didn’t the priest Tsukku-san come back with you all the way?”
   “On the road from Mishima, Sire, he and the Anjin-san quarreled,” Mariko told him, not knowing what Father Alvito might have already told Toranaga, if in fact Toranaga had sent for him yet. “The Father decided to travel on alone.”
   “What was the quarrel about?”
   “Partially over me, my soul, Sire. Mostly because of their religious enmity and because of the war between their rulers.”
   “Who started it?”
   “They were equally to blame. It began over a flask of liquor.” Mariko told him what had passed with Rodrigues, then continued, “The Tsukku-san had brought a second flask as a gift, wanting, so he said, to intercede for Rodrigues-san, but the Anjin-san said, shockingly bluntly, that he didn’t want any ‘Papist liquor,’ preferred saké, and he didn’t trust priests. The—the Holy Father flared up, was equally shockingly blunt, saying he had never dealt in poison, never would, and could never condone such a thing.”
   “Ah, poison? Do they use poison as a weapon?”
   “The Anjin-san told me some of them do, Sire. This led to more violent words and then they were hacking at each other over religion, my soul, about Catholics and Protestants … I left to fetch Yoshinaka-san as soon as I could and he stopped the quarrel.”
   “Barbarians cause nothing but trouble. Christians cause nothing but trouble. Neh?”
   She did not answer him. His petulance unsettled her. It was so unlike him and there seemed to be no reason for such a breakdown in his legendary self-control. Perhaps the shock of being beaten is too much for him, she thought. Without him we’re all finished, my son’s finished, and the Kwanto will soon be in other hands. His gloom was infecting her. She had noticed in the streets and in the castle the pall that seemed to hang over the whole city—a city that was famous for its gaiety, brash good humor, and delight with life.
   “I was born the year the first Christians arrived and they’ve bedeviled the land ever since,” Toranaga said. “For fifty-eight years nothing but trouble. Neh?”
   “I’m sorry they offend you, Sire. Was there anything else? With your permi—”
   “Sit down. I haven’t finished yet.” Toranaga rang the bell again. The door opened. “Send Buntaro-san in.”
   Buntaro walked in. Grim-faced, he knelt and bowed. She bowed to him, numb, but he did not acknowledge her.
   A while ago Buntaro had met their cortege at the castle gate. After a brief greeting, he had told her she was to go at once to Lord Toranaga. The Anjin-san would be sent for later.
   “Buntaro-san, you asked to see me in your wife’s presence as soon as possible?”
   “Yes, Sire.”
   “What is it you want?”
   “I humbly beg permission to take the Anjin-san’s head,” Buntaro said.
   “Why?”
   “Please excuse me but I … I don’t like the way he looks at my wife. I wanted … I wanted to say it in front of her, the first time, before you. Also, he insulted me at Anjiro and I can no longer live with this shame.”
   Toranaga glanced at Mariko, who seemed to be frozen in time. “You accuse her of encouraging him?”
   “I … I ask permission to take his head.”
   “You accuse her of encouraging him? Answer the question!”
   “Please excuse me, Sire, but if I thought that I’d be duty bound to take her head the same instant,” Buntaro replied stonily, his eyes on the tatamis. “The barbarian’s a constant irritation to my harmony. I believe he’s a harassment to you. Let me remove his head, I beg you.” He looked up, his heavy jowls unshaven, eyes deeply shadowed. “Or let me take my wife now and tonight we’ll go before you—to prepare the way.”
   “What do you say to that, Mariko-san?”
   “He is my husband. Whatever he decides, that will I do—unless you overrule him, Sire. This is my duty.”
   Toranaga looked from man to woman. Then his voice hardened, and for a moment he was like the Toranaga of old. “Mariko-san, you will leave in three days for Osaka. You will prepare that way for me, and wait for me there. Buntaro-san, you will accompany me as commander of my escort when I leave. After you have acted as my second, you or one of your men may do the same with the Anjin-san—with or without his approval.”
   Buntaro cleared his throat. “Sire, please order Crim—”
   “Hold your tongue! You forget yourself! I’ve told you no three times! The next time you have the impertinence to offer unwanted advice you will slit your belly in a Yedo cesspool!”
   Buntaro’s head was on the tatamis. “I apologize, Sire. I apologize for my impertinence.”
   Mariko was equally appalled by Toranaga’s ill-mannered, shameful outburst, and she bowed low also, to hide her own embarrassment. In a moment Toranaga said, “Please excuse my temper. Your plea is granted, Buntaro-san, but only after you’ve acted as my second.”
   “Thank you, Sire. Please excuse me for offending you.”
   “I ordered you both to make peace with one another. Have you done so?”
   Buntaro nodded shortly. Mariko too.
   “Good. Mariko-san, you will come back with the Anjin-san tonight, in the Hour of the Dog. You may go now.”
   She bowed and left them.
   Toranaga stared at Buntaro. “Well? Do you accuse her?”
   “It … it is unthinkable she’d betray me, Sire,” Buntaro answered sullenly.
   “I agree.” Toranaga waved a fly away with his fan, seeming very tired. “Well, you may have the Anjin-san’s head soon. I need it on his shoulders a little longer.”
   “Thank you, Sire. Again please excuse me for irritating you.”
   “These are irritating times. Foul times.” Toranaga leaned forward. “Listen, I want you to go to Mishima at once to relieve your father for a few days. He asks permission to come here to consult with me. I don’t know what… Anyway, I must have someone in Mishima I can trust. Would you please leave at dawn—but by way of Takato.”
   “Sire?” Buntaro saw that Toranaga was keeping calm only with an enormous effort, and in spite of his will, his voice was trembling.
   “I’ve a private message for my mother in Takato. You’re to tell no one you’re going there. But once you’re clear of the city, cut north.”
   “I understand.”
   “Lord Zataki may prevent you from delivering it—may try to. You are to give it only into her hands. You understand? To her alone. Take twenty men and gallop there. I’ll send a carrier pigeon to ask safe conduct from him.”
   “Your message will be verbal or in writing, Lord?”
   “In writing.”
   “And if I can’t deliver it?”
   “You must deliver it, of course you must. That’s why I picked you! But … if you’re betrayed like I’ve … if you’re betrayed, destroy it before you commit suicide. The moment I hear such evil news, the Anjin-san’s head is off his shoulders. And if … what about Mariko-san? What about your wife, if something goes wrong?”
   “Please dispatch her, Sire, before you die. I would be honored if… She merits a worthy second.”
   “She won’t die dishonorably, you have my promise. I’ll see to it. Personally. Now please come back at dawn for the dispatch. Don’t fail me. Only into my mother’s hands.”
   Buntaro thanked him again and left, ashamed of Toranaga’s outward show of fear.
   Now alone, Toranaga took out a kerchief and wiped the sweat off his face. His fingers were trembling. He tried to control them but couldn’t. It had taken all his strength to continue acting the stupid dullard, to hide his unbounding excitement over the secrets, which, fantastically, promised the long-hoped-for reprieve.
   “A possible reprieve, only possible—if they’re true,” he said aloud, hardly able to think, the astoundingly welcome information that Mariko had brought from the Gyoko woman still shrieking in his brain.
   Ochiba, he was gloating, … so that harpy’s the lure to bring my brother tumbling out of his mountain eyrie. My brother wants Ochiba. But now it’s equally obvious he wants more than her, and more than just the Kwanto. He wants the realm. He detests Ishido, loathes Christians, and is now sick with jealousy over Ishido’s well-known lust for Ochiba. So he’ll fall out with Ishido, Kiyama, and Onoshi. Because what my treacherous brother really wants is to be Shōgun. He’s Minowara, with all the lineage necessary, all the ambition, but not the mandate. Or the Kwanto. First he must get the Kwanto to get the rest.

   Toranaga rubbed his hands with glee at all the wonderful new possible ploys this newfound knowledge gave him against his brother.
   And Onoshi the leper! A drop of honey in Kiyama’s ear at the right time, he thought, and the guts of the renegade’s treason twisted a little, improved modestly, and Kiyama might gather his legions and go after Onoshi with fire and sword at once. ‘Gyoko’s quite sure, Sire. The acolyte Brother Joseph said Lord Onoshi had whispered in the confessional that he had made a secret treaty with Ishido against a fellow Christian daimyo and wanted absolution. The treaty solemnly agreed that in return for support now, Ishido promised the day you are dead that this fellow Christian would be impeached for treason and invited into the Void, the same day, forcibly if necessary, and Onoshi’s son and heir would inherit all lands. The Christian was not named, Sire.’
   Kiyama or Harima of Nagasaki? Toranaga asked himself. It doesn’t matter. For me it must be Kiyama.
   He got up shakily, in spite of his jubilation, and groped to one of the windows, leaned heavily on the wooden sill. He peered at the moon, and the sky beyond. The stars were dull. Rain clouds were building.
   “Buddha, all gods, any gods, let my brother take the bait—and let that woman’s whisperings be true!”
   No shooting star appeared to show the message was acknowledged by the gods. No wind sprang up, no sudden cloud blanketed the crescent moon. Even if there had been a heavenly sign he would have dismissed it as a coincidence.
   Be patient. Consider facts only. Sit down and think, he told himself.
   He knew the strain was beginning to tell on him but it was vital that none of his intimates or vassals—thus none of the legion of loose-mouthed fools or spies of Yedo—suspect for an instant that he was only feigning capitulation and play-acting the role of a beaten man. At Yokosé he had realized at once that to accept the second scroll from his brother was his death knell. He had decided his only tiny chance of survival was to convince everyone, even himself, that he had absolutely accepted defeat, though in reality it was only a cover to gain time, continuing his lifelong pattern of negotiation, delay, and seeming retreat, always waiting patiently until a chink in the armor appeared over a jugular, then stabbing home viciously, without hesitation.
   Since Yokosé he had waited out the lonely watches of the nights and the days, each one harder to bear. No hunting or laughing, no plotting or planning or swimming or banter or dancing and singing in Nōh plays that had delighted him all his life. Only the same lonely role, the most difficult in his life: gloom, surrender, indecision, apparent helplessness, with self-imposed semistarvation.
   To help pass the time he had continued to refine the Legacy. This was a series of private secret instructions to his successors that he had formulated over the years on how best to rule after him. Sudara had already sworn to abide by the Legacy, as every heir to the mantle would be required to do. In this way the future of the clan would be assured—may be assured, Toranaga reminded himself as he changed a word or added a sentence or eliminated a paragraph, providing I escape this present trap.
   The Legacy began: “The duty of a lord of a province is to give peace and security to the people and does not consist of shedding luster on his ancestors or working for the prosperity of his descendants…
   One of the maxims was: “Remember that fortune and misfortune should be left to heaven and natural law. They are not to be bought by prayer or any cunning device to be thought of by any man or self-styled saint.”
   Toranaga eliminated “… or self-styled saint,” and changed the sentence to end “… by any man whatsoever.”
   Normally he would enjoy stretching his mind to write clearly and succinctly, but during the long days and nights it had taken all of his self-discipline to continue playing such an alien role.
   That he had succeeded so well pleased him yet dismayed him. How could people be so gullible?
   Thank the gods they are, he answered himself for the millionth time. By accepting “defeat” you have twice avoided war. You’re still trapped, but now, at long last, your patience has brought its reward and you have a new chance.
   Perhaps you’ve got a chance, he corrected himself. Unless the secrets are false and given by an enemy to enmesh you further.
   His chest began to ache, he became weak and dizzy, so he sat down and breathed deeply as the Zen teachers had taught him years ago. ‘Ten deep, ten slow, ten deep, ten slow, send your mind into the Void. There is no past or future, hot or cold, pain or—from nothing, into nothing…
   Soon he started to think clearly again. Then he went to his desk and began to write. He asked his mother to act as intermediary between himself and his half-brother and to present an offer for the future of their clan. First, he petitioned his brother to consider a marriage with the Lady Ochiba: “… of course it would be unthinkable for me to do this, brother. Too many daimyos would be enraged at my ‘vaulting ambition.’ But such a liaison with you would cement the peace of the realm, and confirm the succession of Yaemon—no one doubting your loyalty, though some in error doubt mine. You could certainly get a more eligible wife, but she could hardly get a better husband. Once the traitors to His Imperial Highness are removed, and I resume my rightful place as President of the Council of Regents, I will invite the Son of Heaven to request the marriage if you will agree to take on such a burden. I sincerely feel this sacrifice is the only way we can both secure the succession and do our sworn duty to the Taikō. Second, you’re offered all the domains of the Christian traitors Kiyama and Onoshi, who are presently plotting, with the barbarian priests, a treasonous war against all non-Christian daimyos, supported by a musket-armed invasion of barbarians as they did before against our liege lord, the Taikō. Further, you’re offered all the lands of any other Kyushu Christians who side with the traitor Ishido against me in the final battle. (Did you know that upstart peasant has had the impertinence to let it be known that once I am dead and he rules the Regents, he plans to dissolve the Council and marry the mother of the Heir himself?)
   “And in return for the above, just this, brother: a secret treaty of alliance now, guaranteed safe passage for my armies through the Shinano mountains, a joint attack under my generalship against Ishido at a time and manner of my choosing. Last, as a measure of my trust I will at once send my son Sudara, his wife the Lady Genjiko, and their children, including my only grandson, to you in Takato…”
   This isn’t the work of a defeated man, Toranaga told himself as he sealed the scroll. Zataki will know that instantly. Yes, but now the trap’s baited. Shinano’s athwart my only road, and Zataki’s the initial key to the Osaka plains.
   Is it true that Zataki wants Ochiba? I risk so much over the supposed whispers of a straddled maid and grunting man. Could Gyoko be lying for her own advantage, that impertinent bloodsucker! Samurai? So that’s the real key to unlock all her secrets.
   She must have proof about Mariko and the Anjin-san. Why else would Mariko put such a request to me? Toda Mariko and the barbarian! The barbarian and Buntaro! Eeeee, life is strange.
   Another twinge over his heart wracked him. After a moment he wrote the message for a carrier pigeon and plodded up the stairs to the loft above. Carefully he selected a Takato pigeon from one of the many panniers and slid the tiny cylinder home. Then he put the pigeon on the perch, in the open box that would allow her to fly off at first light.
   The message asked his mother to request safe passage for Buntaro, who had an important dispatch for her and his brother. And he had signed it like the offer, Yoshi Toranaga-noh-Minowara, claiming that mantle for the first time in his life.
   “Fly safe and true, little bird,” he said, caressing her with a fallen feather. “You carry a heritage of ten thousand years.”
   Once more his eyes went to the city below. The smallest bar of light appeared on the west horizon. Down by the docks he could see the pinpricks of flares that surrounded the barbarian ship.
   There’s another key, he thought, and he began to rethink the three secrets. He knew he had missed something.
   “I wish Kiri were here,” he said to the night.


   Mariko was kneeling in front of her polished metal mirror. She looked away from her face. In her hands was the dagger, catching the flickering oil light.
   “I should use thee,” she said, filled with grief. Her eyes sought the Madonna and Child in the niche beside the lovely spray of flowers, and filled with tears. “I know suicide’s a mortal sin, but what can I do? How can I live with this shame? It’s better for me to do it before I’m betrayed.”
   The room was quiet like the house. This was their family house, built within the innermost ring of defenses and the wide moat around the castle, where only the most favored and trusted hatamoto were allowed to live. Circling the house was a bamboo-walled garden and a tiny stream ran through it, tapped from the abundance of waters surrounding the castle.
   She heard footsteps. The front gate creaked open and there was the sound of servants rushing to greet the master. Quickly she put the knife away in her obi and dried her tears. Soon there were footsteps and she opened her door, bowing politely.
   In ill humor, Buntaro told her Toranaga had changed his mind again, that now he was ordered to Mishima temporarily. “I’ll leave at dawn. I wanted to wish you a safe journey—” He stopped and peered at her. “Why are you crying?”
   “Please excuse me, Sire. It’s just because I’m a woman and life seems so difficult for me. And because of Toranaga-sama.”
   “He’s a broken reed. I’m ashamed to say it. Terrible, but that’s what he’s become. We should go to war. Far better to go to war than to know the only future I’ve got is to see Ishido’s filthy face laughing at my karma!”
   “Yes, so sorry. I wish there was something I could do to help. Would you like saké or cha?”
   Buntaro turned and bellowed at a servant who was waiting in the passageway. “Get saké! Hurry up!”
   Buntaro walked into her room. Mariko closed the door. Now he stood at the window looking up at the castle walls and the donjon beyond.
   “Please don’t worry, Sire,” she said placatingly. “The bath’s ready and I’ve sent for your favorite.”
   He kept his eyes on the donjon, seething. Then he said, “He should resign in Lord Sudara’s favor if he’s not got the stomach for leadership anymore. Lord Sudara’s his son and legal heir, neh?Neh?”
   “Yes, Sire.”
   “Yes. Or even better, he should do as Zataki suggested. Commit seppuku. Then we’d have Zataki and his armies fighting with us. With them and the muskets we could smash through to Kyoto, I know we could. Even if we failed, better that than give up like filthy, cowardly Garlic Eaters! Our Master’s forfeited all rights. Neh? NEH?” He whirled on her.
   “Please excuse me—it’s not for me to say. He’s our liege lord.”
   Buntaro turned back again, brooding, to stare at the donjon. Lights flickered on all levels. Particularly the sixth. “My advice to his Council is to invite him to depart, and if he won’t—to help him. There’s precedent enough! There are many who share my opinion, but not Lord Sudara, not yet. Maybe he does secretly, who knows about him, what he’s really thinking? When you meet his wife, when you meet Lady Genjiko, talk to her, persuade her. Then she’ll persuade him—she leads him by the nose, neh? You’re friends, she’ll listen to you. Persuade her.”
   “I think that would be very bad to do, Sire. That’s treason.”
   “I order you to talk to her!”
   “I will obey you.”
   “Yes, you’ll obey an order, won’t you?” he snarled. “Obey? Why are you always so cold and bitter? Eh?” He picked up her mirror and shoved it up to her face. “Look at yourself!”
   “Please excuse me if I displease you, Sire.” Her voice was level and she stared past the mirror to his face. “I don’t wish to anger you.”
   He watched her for a moment then sullenly tossed the mirror back onto the lacquered table. “I didn’t accuse you. If I thought that I’d … I wouldn’t hesitate.”
   Mariko heard herself spit back, unforgivably, “Wouldn’t hesitate to do what? Kill me, Sire? Or leave me alive to shame me more?”
   “I didn’t accuse you, only him!” Buntaro bellowed.
   “But I accuse you!” she shrieked in return. “And you did accuse me!”
   “Hold your tongue!”
   “You shamed me in front of our lord! You accused me and you won’t do your duty! You’re afraid! You’re a coward! A filthy, garlic-eating coward!”
   His sword came out of its scabbard, and she gloried in the fact that at least she had dared to push him over the brink.
   But the sword remained poised in the air. “I … I have your … I have your promise before your … your God, in Osaka. Before we … we go into death … I have your promise and I … I hold you to that!”
   Her baiting laugh was shrill and vicious. “Oh yes, mighty Lord. I’ll be your cushion just once more, but your welcome will be dry, bitter, and rancid!”
   He hacked blindly with all his two-handed strength at a corner post and the blade sliced almost totally through the foot-thick seasoned beam. He tugged but the sword held fast. Almost berserk, he twisted it and fought it and then the blade snapped. With a final curse he hurled the broken haft through the flimsy wall and staggered drunkenly for the door. The quavering servant stood there with the tray and saké. Buntaro smashed it out of his hands. Instantly the servant knelt, put his head on the floor, and froze.
   Buntaro leaned on the shattered door frame. “Wait … wait till Osaka.”
   He groped out of the house.
   For a time, Mariko remained immobile, seemingly in a trance. Then the color began to return to her cheeks. Her eyes focused. Silently she returned to her mirror. She studied her reflection for a moment. Then, quite calmly, she finished applying her makeup.


   Blackthorne ran up the stairs two at a time, his guard with him. They were on the main staircase within the donjon and he was glad to be unencumbered by his swords. He had formally surrendered them in the courtyard to the first guards, who had also searched him politely but thoroughly. Torches lit the staircase and the landings. On the fourth landing he stopped, almost bursting with pent-up excitement, and called back, “Mariko-san, are you all right?”
   “Yes—yes. I’m fine, thank you, Anjin-san.”
   He began to climb again, feeling light and very strong, until he reached the final landing on the sixth floor. This level was heavily guarded like all the others. His escorting samurai went over to those clustering at the final iron-fortified door and bowed. They bowed back and motioned Blackthorne to wait.
   The ironwork and woodwork in the entire castle were excellent. Here in the donjon all the windows, though delicate and soaring, doubled as stations for bowmen, and there were heavy, iron-covered shutters ready to swing into place for further protection.
   Mariko rounded the last angle of the easily defensible staircase and reached him.
   “You all right?” he asked.
   “Oh yes, thank you,” she answered, slightly out of breath. But she still possessed the same curious serenity and detachment that he had at once noticed when he had met her in the courtyard but had never seen before.
   Never mind, he thought confidently, it’s just the castle and Toranaga and Buntaro and being here in Yedo. I know what to do now.
   Ever since he had seen Erasmus he had been filled with an immense joy. He had truly never expected to find his ship so perfect, so clean and cared for, and ready. There’s hardly reason to stay in Yedo now, he had thought. I’ll just take a quick look below to test the bilges, an easy dive over the side to check the keel, then guns, powder room, ammunition and shot and sails. During the journey to Yedo he’d planned how to use heavy silk or cotton cloth for sails; Mariko had told him that canvas did not exist in Japan. Just get the sails commissioned, he chortled, and any other spares we need, then off to Nagasaki like a lightning bolt.
   “Anjin-san!” The samurai was back.
   “Hai?”
   “Dozo.”

   The fortified door swung open silently. Toranaga was seated at the far end of the square room on a section of raised tatamis. Alone.
   Blackthorne knelt and bowed low, his hands flat. “Konbanwa, Toranaga-sama. Ikaga desu ka?”
   “Okagesana de genki desu. Anata wa?”
   Toranaga seemed older and lackluster, and much thinner than before. Shigata ga nai, Blackthorne told himself. Toranaga’s karma won’t touch Erasmus —she’s going to be his savior, by God.
   He answered Toranaga’s standard inquiries in simple but well-accented Japanese, using a simplified technique he had developed with Alvito’s help. Toranaga complimented him on the improvement and began to speak faster.
   Blackthorne used one of the stock phrases he had worked out with Alvito and Mariko: “Please excuse me, Lord, as my Japanese is not good, would you please speak slower and use simple words, as I have to use simple words—please excuse me for putting you to so much trouble.”
   “All right. Yes, certainly. Tell me, how did you like Yokosé?”
   Blackthorne replied, keeping up with Toranaga, his answers halting, his vocabulary still very limited, until Toranaga asked a question, the key words of which he missed entirely. “Dozo? Gomen nasai, Toranaga-sama,” he said apologetically. “Wakarimasen.” I don’t understand.
   Toranaga repeated what he had said, in simpler language. Blackthorne glanced at Mariko. “So sorry, Mariko-san, what’s ‘sonkei su beki umi’?”
   “‘Seaworthy,’ Anjin-san.”
   “Ah! Domo.” Blackthorne turned back. The daimyo had asked if he could quickly make sure whether his ship was completely seaworthy, and how long that would take. He replied, “Yes, easy. Half day, Lord.”
   Toranaga thought a moment, then told him to do that tomorrow and report back in the afternoon, during the Hour of the Goat. “Wakarimasu?”
   “Hai.”
   “Then you can see your men,” Toranaga added.
   “Sire?”
   “Your vassals. I sent for you to tell you tomorrow you’ll have your vassals.”
   “Ah, so sorry. I understand. Samurai vassals. Two hundred men.”
   “Yes. Good night, Anjin-san. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
   “Please excuse me, Lord, may I respectfully ask three things?”
   “What?”
   “First: Possible see my crew now please? Save time, neh? Please.” Toranaga agreed and gave a curt order to one of the samurai to guide Blackthorne. “Take a ten-man guard with you. Take the Anjin-san there and bring him back to the castle.”
   “Yes, Lord.”
   “Next, Anjin-san?”
   “Please possible talk alone? Little time. Please excuse my rudeness.” Blackthorne tried not to show his anxiety as Toranaga asked Mariko what this was all about. She replied truthfully that she only knew the Anjin-san had something private to say but she had not asked him what it was.
   “You’re certain it’ll be all right for me to ask him, Mariko-san?” Blackthorne had said as they began to climb the stairs.
   “Oh yes. Providing you wait till he’s finished. But be sure you know exactly what you’re going to say, Anjin-san. He’s … he’s not as patient as he is normally.” She had not asked him what he had wanted to ask, and he had not volunteered anything.
   “Very well, Anjin-san,” Toranaga was saying. “Please wait outside, Mariko-san.” She bowed and left. “Yes?”
   “So sorry, hear Lord Harima of Nagasaki now enemy.”
   Toranaga was startled for he had heard about Harima’s public commitment to Ishido’s standard only when he himself had reached Yedo. “Where did you get that information?”
   “Please?”
   Toranaga repeated the question slower.
   “Ah! Understand. Hear about Lord Harima at Hakoné. Gyoko-san tell us. Gyoko-san hear in Mishima.”
   “That woman’s well informed. Perhaps too well informed.”
   “Sire?”
   “Nothing. Go on. What about Lord Harima?”
   “Sire, may I respectfully say: my ship, big weapon over Black Ship, neh? If I take Black Ship very quick—priests very anger because no money Christian work here—no money also Portuguese other lands. Last year no Black Ship here, so no money, neh? If now take Black Ship quick, very quick, and also next year, all priest has great fear. That’s the truth, Sire. Think priests must bend if threatens. Priests like this for Toranaga-sama!” Blackthorne snapped his hand shut to make his point.
   Toranaga had listened intently, watching his lips as he was doing the same. “I follow you, but to what end, Anjin-san?”
   “Sire?”
   Toranaga fell into the same pattern of using few words. “To obtain what? To catch what? To get what?”
   “Lord Onoshi, Lord Kiyama, and Lord Harima.”
   “So you want to interfere in our politics like the priests? You think you know how to rule us as well, Anjin-san?”
   “So sorry, please excuse me, I don’t understand.”
   “It doesn’t matter.” Toranaga thought for a long time, then said, “Priests say they’ve no power to order Christian daimyos.”
   “No true, Sire, please excuse me. Money big power over priests. It’s the truth, Sire. If no Black Ship this year, and also next year no Black Ship, ruin. Very, very bad for priests. It’s the truth, Sire. Money is power. Please consider: If Crimson Sky at same time or before, I attack Nagasaki. Nagasaki enemy now, neh? I take Black Ship and attack sea roads between Kyushu and Honshu. Maybe threat enough to make enemy into friend?”
   “No. The priests will stop trade. I am not at war with the priests or Nagasaki. Or anyone. I am going to Osaka. There will be no Crimson Sky. Wakarimasu?”
   “Hai.” Blackthorne was not perturbed. He knew that now Toranaga clearly understood that this possible tactic would certainly draw off a large proportion of Kiyama-Onoshi-Harima forces, all of whom were Kyushu-based. And Erasmus could certainly wreck any large-scale seaborne transfer of troops from that island to the main one. Be patient, he cautioned himself. Let Toranaga consider it. Maybe it’ll be as Mariko says: There is a long time between now and Osaka, and who knows what might happen? Prepare for the best but do not fear the worst.
   “Anjin-san, why not say this in front of Mariko-san? She will tell priests? You think that?”
   “No, Sire. Only want to try talk direct. Not woman’s business to war. One last ask, Toranaga-sama.” Blackthorne launched himself on a chosen course. “Custom hatamoto ask favor, sometimes. Please excuse me, Sire, may I respectfully say now possible ask?”
   Toranaga’s fan stopped waving. “What favor?”
   “Know divorce easy if lord say. Ask Toda Mariko-sama wife.” Toranaga was dumbstruck and Blackthorne was afraid he’d gone too far. “Please excuse me for my rudeness,” he added.
   Toranaga recovered quickly. “Mariko-san agrees?”
   “No, Toranaga-sama. Secret my. Never say to her, anyone. Secret my only. Not say to Toda Mariko-san. Never. Kinjiru, neh? But know angers between husband wife. Divorce easy in Japan. This my secret only. Ask Lord Toranaga only. Very secret. Never Mariko-san. Please excuse me if I’ve offended you.”
   “That’s a presumptuous request for a stranger. Unheard of! Because you’re hatamoto I’m duty bound to consider it, though you’re forbidden to mention it to her under any circumstances, either to her or to her husband. Is that clear?”
   “Please?” Blackthorne asked, not understanding at all, hardly able to think.
   “Very bad ask and thought, Anjin-san. Understand?”
   “Yes Sire, so sor—”
   “Because Anjin-san hatamoto I’m not angry. Will consider. Understand?”
   “Yes, I think so. Thank you. Please excuse my bad Japanese, so sorry.”
   “No talk to her, Anjin-san, about divorce. Mariko-san or Buntaro-san. Kinjiru, wakarimasu?”
   “Yes, Lord. Understand. Only secret you, I. Secret. Thank you. Please excuse my rudeness and thank you for your patience.” Blackthorne bowed perfectly and, almost in a dream, he walked out. The door closed behind him. On the landing everyone was watching him quizzically.
   He wanted to share his victory with Mariko. But he was inhibited by her distracted serenity and the presence of the guards. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting” was all he said.
   “It was my pleasure,” she answered, as noncommittal.
   They started down the staircase again. Then, after a flight of stairs, she said, “Your simple way of talking is strange though quite understandable, Anjin-san.”
   “I was lost too many times. Knowing you were there helped me tremendously.”
   “I did nothing.”
   In the silence they walked on, Mariko behind him slightly as was correct custom. At each level they passed through a samurai cordon, then, rounding a bend in the stairs, the trailing hem of her kimono caught in the railings and she stumbled. He caught her, steadying her, and the sudden close touch pleased both of them. “Thank you,” she said, flustered, as he put her down again.
   They continued on, much closer than they had been tonight.
   Outside in the torchlit forecourt, samurai were everywhere. Once more their passes were checked and now they were escorted with their flare-carrying porters through the donjon main gate, along a passage that meandered, mazelike, between high, battlemented stone walls to the next gate that led to the moat and the innermost wooden bridge. In all, there were seven rings of moats within the castle complex. Some were man-made, some adapted from the streams and rivers that abounded. While they headed for the main gate, the south gate, Mariko told him that, when the fortress was completed the year after next, it would house a hundred thousand samurai and twenty thousand horses, with all necessary provisions for one year.
   “Then it will be the biggest in the world,” Blackthorne said.
   “That was Lord Toranaga’s plan.” Her voice was grave. “Shigata ga nai, neh?” At last they came to the final bridge. “There, Anjin-san, you can see the castle’s the hub of Yedo, neh? The center of a web of streets that angle out to become the city. Ten years ago there was only a little fishing village here. Now, who knows? Three hundred thousand? Two? Four? Lord Toranaga hasn’t counted his people yet. But they’re all here for one purpose only: to serve the castle that protects the port and the plains that feed the armies.”
   “Nothing else?” he asked.
   “No.”
   There’s no need to be worried, Mariko, and look so solemn, he thought happily. I’ve solved all that. Toranaga will grant all my requests.
   At the far side of the flare-lit Ichi-bashi—First Bridge—that led to the city proper, she stopped. “I must leave you now, Anjin-san.”
   “When can I see you?”
   “Tomorrow. At the Hour of the Goat. I’ll wait in the forecourt for you.”
   “I can’t see you tonight? If I’m back early?”
   “No, so sorry, please excuse me. Not tonight.” Then she bowed formally. “Konbanwa, Anjin-san.”
   He bowed. As a samurai. He watched her going back across the bridge, some of the flare-carriers going with her, insects milling the stationary flares that were stuck in holders on stanchions. Soon she was swallowed up by the crowds and the night.
   Then, his excitement increasing, he put his back to the castle and set off after the guide.

Chapter 48

   “The barbarians live there, Anjin-san.” The samurai motioned ahead.
   Ill at ease, Blackthorne squinted into the darkness, the air breathless and sultry. “Where? That house? There?”
   “Yes. That’s right, so sorry. You see it?”
   Another nest of hovels and alleys was a hundred paces ahead, beyond this bare patch of marshy ground, and dominating them was a large house etched vaguely against the jet sky.
   Blackthorne looked around for a moment to get his approximate bearings, using his fan against the encroaching bugs. Very soon, once they had left First Bridge, he had become lost in the maze.
   Their way had led through innumerable streets and alleys, initially toward the shore, skirting it eastward for a time, over bridges and lesser bridges, then northward again along the bank of another stream which meandered through the outskirts, the land low-lying and moist. The farther from the castle, the meaner were the roads, the poorer the dwellings. The people were more obsequious, and fewer glimmers of light came from the shojis. Yedo was a sprawling mass which seemed to him to be made up of hamlets separated merely by roads or streams.
   Here on the southeastern edge of the city it was quite marshy and the road oozed putridly. For some time the stench had been thickening perceptibly, a miasma of seaweed and feces and mud flats, and overlying these an acrid sweet smell he could not place, but that seemed familiar.
   “Stinks like Billingsgate at low tide,” he muttered, killing another night pest that had landed on his cheek. His whole body was clammy with sweat.
   Then he heard the faintest snatch of a rollicking sea shanty in Dutch and all discomfort was forgotten. “Is that Vinck?”
   Elated, he hurried toward the sound, porters lighting his way carefully, samurai following.
   Now, nearer, he saw that the single-story building was part Japanese, part European. It was raised on pilings and surrounded by a high rickety bamboo fence in a plot of its own, and much newer than the hovels that clustered near. There was no gate in the fence, just a hole. The roof was thatch, the front door stout, the walls rough-boarded, and the windows covered with Dutch-style shutters. Here and there were flecks of light from the cracks. The singing and banter increased but he could not recognize any voices yet. Flagstones led straight to the steps of the veranda through an unkempt garden. A short flagpole was roped to the gateway. He stopped and stared up at it. A limp, makeshift Dutch flag hung there listlessly and his pulse quickened at the sight of it.
   The front door was thrown open. A shaft of light spilled onto the veranda. Baccus van Nekk stumbled drunkenly to the edge, eyes half shut, pulled his codpiece aside, and urinated in a high, curving jet.
   “Ahhhhh,” he murmured with a groaning ecstasy. “Nothing like a piss.”
   “Isn’t there?” Blackthorne called out in Dutch from the gateway. “Why don’t you use a bucket?”
   “Eh?” Van Nekk blinked myopically into the darkness at Blackthorne, who stood with the samurai under the flares. “JesusGodinheavensamurai!” He gathered himself with a grunt and bowed awkwardly from the waist. “Gomen nasai, samurai-sama. Ichibon gomen nasai to all monkey-samas.” He straightened, forced a painful smile, and muttered half to himself, “I’m drunker’n I thought. Thought the bastard sonofawhore spoke Dutch! Gomen nasai, neh?” he called out again, reeling off toward the back of the house, scratching and groping at the codpiece.
   “Hey, Baccus, don’t you know better than to foul your own nest?”
   “What?” Van Nekk jerked around and stared blindly toward the flares, desperately trying to see clearly. “Pilot?” he choked out. “Is that you, Pilot? God damn my eyes, I can’t see. Pilot, for the love of God, is that you?”
   Blackthorne laughed. His old friend looked so naked there, so foolish, his penis hanging out. “Yes, it’s me!” Then to the samurai who watched with thinly covered contempt, “Matte kurasai.” Wait for me, please.
   “Hai, Anjin-san.”
   Blackthorne came forward and now in the shaft of light he could see the litter of garbage everywhere in the garden. Distastefully he stepped out of the clogs and ran up the steps. “Hello, Baccus, you’re fatter than when we left Rotterdam, neh?” He clapped him warmly on the shoulders.
   “Lord Jesus Christ, is that truly you?”
   “Yes, of course it’s me.”
   “We’d given you up for dead, long ago.” Van Nekk reached out and touched Blackthorne to make sure he was not dreaming. “Lord Jesus, my prayers are answered. Pilot, what happened to you, where’ve you come from? It’s a miracle! Is it truly you?”
   “Yes. Now please put your cod in place and let’s go inside,” Blackthorne told him, conscious of his samurai.
   “What? Oh! Oh sorry, I …” Van Nekk hastily complied and tears began to run down his cheeks. “Oh Jesus, Pilot … I thought the gin devils were playing me tricks again. Come on, but let me announce you, hey?”
   He led the way back, weaving a little, much of his drunkenness evaporated with his joy. Blackthorne followed. Van Nekk held the door open for him, then shouted over the raucous singing, “Lads! Look what Father Christmas’s brought us!” He slammed the door shut after Blackthorne for added effect.
   Silence was instantaneous.
   It took a moment for Blackthorne’s eyes to adjust to the light. The fetid air was almost choking him. He saw them all gaping at him as though he were a devil-wraith. Then the spell broke and there were shouts of welcome and joy and everyone was squeezing and punching him on the back, all talking at the same time. “Pilot, where’ve you come from—Have a drink—Christ, is it possible—Piss in my hat, it’s great to see you—We’d given you up for dead—No, we’re all right at least mostly all right—Get out of the chair, you whore, the Pilot-sama’s to sit in the best sodding chair—Hey, grog, neh, quick—Godcursed quick! Goddamn my eyes get out of the way I want to shake his hand…”
   Finally Vinck hollered, “One at a time, lads! Give him a chance! Give the Pilot the chair and a drink, for God’s sake! Yes, I thought he was samurai too…
   Someone shoved a wooden goblet into Blackthorne’s hand. He sat in the rickety chair and they all raised their cups and the flood of questions began again.
   Blackthorne looked around. The room was furnished with benches and a few crude chairs and tables and illuminated by candles and oil lamps. A huge saké keg stood on the filthy floor. One of the tables was covered with dirty plates and a haunch of half-roasted meat, crusted with flies.
   Six bedraggled women cowered on their knees, bowing to him, backed against a wall.
   His men, all beaming, waited for him to start: Sonk the cook, Johann Vinck bosun’s mate and chief gunner, Salamon the mute, Croocq the boy, Ginsel sailmaker, Baccus van Nekk chief merchant and treasurer, and last Jan Roper, the other merchant, who sat apart as always, with the same sour smile on his thin, taut face.
   “Where’s the Captain-General?” Blackthorne asked.
   “Dead, Pilot, he’s dead…” Six voices answered and overrode each other, jumbling the tale until Blackthorne held up his hand. “Baccus?”
   “He’s dead, Pilot. He never came out of the pit. Remember he was sick, eh? After they took you away, well, that night we heard him choking in the darkness. Isn’t that right, lads?”
   A chorus of yesses, and van Nekk added, “I was sitting beside him, Pilot. He was trying to get the water but there wasn’t any and he was choking and moaning. I’m not too clear about the time—we were all frightened to death—but eventually he choked and then, well, the death rattle. It was bad, Pilot.”
   Jan Roper added, “It was terrible, yes. But it was God’s punishment.”
   Blackthorne looked from face to face. “Anybody hit him? To quieten him?”
   “No—no, oh no,” van Nekk answered. “He just croaked. He was left in the pit with the other one—the Japper, you remember him, the one who tried to drown himself in the bucket of piss? Then the Lord Omi had them bring Spillbergen’s body out and they burned it. But that other poor bugger got left below. Lord Omi just gave him a knife and he slit his own God-cursed belly and they filled in the pit. You remember him, Pilot?”
   “Yes. What about Maetsukker?”
   “Best you tell that, Vinck.”
   “Little Rat Face rotted, Pilot,” Vinck began, and the others started shouting details and telling the tale until Vinck bellowed, “Baccus asked me, for Chrissake! You’ll all get your turn!”
   The voices died down and Sonk said helpfully, “You tell it, Johann.”
   “Pilot, it was his arm started rotting. He got nicked in the fight—you remember the fight when you got knocked out? Christ Jesus, that seems so long ago! Anyway, his arm festered. I bled him the next day and the next, then it started going black. I told him I’d better lance it or the whole arm’d have to come off—told him a dozen times, we all did, but he wouldn’t. On the fifth day the wound was stinking. We held him down and I sliced off most of the rot but it weren’t no good. I knew it wasn’t no good but some of us thought it worth a try. The yellow bastard doctor came a few times but he couldn’t do nothing either. Rat Face lasted a day or two, but the rot was too deep and he raved a lot. We had to tie him up toward the end.”
   “That’s right, Pilot,” Sonk said, scratching comfortably. “We had to tie him up.”
   “What happened to his body?” Blackthorne asked.
   “They took it up the hill and burned it, too. We wanted to give him and the Captain-General a proper Christian burial but they wouldn’t let us. They just burned them.”
   A silence gathered. “You haven’t touched your drink, Pilot!”
   Blackthorne raised it to his lips and tasted. The cup was filthy and he almost retched. The raw spirit seared his throat. The stench of unbathed bodies and rancid, unwashed clothing almost overpowered him.
   “How’s the grog, Pilot?” van Nekk asked.
   “Fine, fine.”
   “Tell him about it, Baccus, go on!”
   “Hey! I made a still, Pilot.” Van Nekk was very proud and the others were beaming too. “We make it by the barrel now. Rice and fruit and water and let it ferment, wait a week or so and then, with the help of a little magic…” The rotund man laughed and scratched happily. “‘Course it’d be better to keep it a year or so to mellow, but we drink it faster than …” His words trailed off. “You don’t like it?”
   “Oh, sorry, it’s fine—fine.” Blackthorne saw lice in van Nekk’s sparse hair.
   Jan Roper said challengingly, “And you, Pilot? You’re fine, aren’t you? What about you?”
   Another flood of questions which died as Vinck shouted, “Give him a chance!” Then the leathery-faced man burst out happily, “Christ, when I saw you standing at the door I thought you was one of the monkeys, honest—honest!”
   Another chorus of agreement and van Nekk broke in, “That’s right. Damned silly kimonos—you look like a woman, Pilot—or one of those half-men! God-cursed fags, eh! Lot of Jappers are fags, by God! One was after Croocq…” There was much shouting and obscene banter, then van Nekk continued, “You’ll want your proper clothes, Pilot. Listen, we’ve got yours here. We came to Yedo with Erasmus. They towed her here and we were allowed to bring our clothes ashore with us, nothing else. We brought yours—they allowed us to do that, to keep for you. We brought a kit bag—all your sea clothes. Sonk, fetch ‘em, hey?”
   “Sure I’ll fetch them, but later, eh, Baccus? I don’t want to miss nothing.”
   “All right.”
   Jan Roper’s thin smile was taunting. “Swords and kimonos—like a real heathen! Perhaps you prefer heathen ways now, Pilot?”
   “The clothes are cool, better than ours,” Blackthorne replied uneasily. “I’d forgotten I was dressed differently. So much has happened. These were all I had so I got used to wearing them. I never thought much about it. They’re certainly more comfortable.”
   “Are those real swords?”
   “Yes, of course, why?”
   “We’re not allowed weapons. Any weapons!” Jan Roper scowled. “Why do they allow you to have ‘em? Just like any heathen samurai?”
   Blackthorne laughed shortly. “You haven’t changed, Jan Roper, have you? Still holier than thou? Well, all in good time about my swords, but first the best news of all. Listen, in a month or so we’ll be on the high seas again.”
   “Jesus God, you mean it, Pilot?” Vinck said.
   “Yes.”
   There was a great roaring cheer and another welter of questions and answers. “I told you we’d get away—I told you God was on our side! Let him talk—let the Pilot talk …” Finally Blackthorne held up his hand.
   He motioned at the women, who still knelt motionless, more abject now under his attention. “Who’re they?”
   Sonk laughed. “Them’s our doxies, Pilot. Our whores, and cheap, Christ Jesus, they hardly cost a button a week. We got a whole house of ‘em next door—and there’s plenty more in the village—”
   “They rattle like stoats,” Croocq butted in, and Sonk said, “That’s right, Pilot. ‘Course they’re squat and bandy but they’ve lots of vigor and no pox. You want one, Pilot? We’ve our own bunks, we’re not like the monkeys, we’ve all our own bunks and rooms—”
   “You try Big-Arse Mary, Pilot, she’s the one for you,” Croocq said.
   Jan Roper’s voice overrode them. “The Pilot doesn’t want one of our harlots. He’s got his own. Eh, Pilot?”
   Their faces glowed. “Is that true, Pilot? You got women? Hey, tell us, eh? These monkeys’re the best that’s ever been, eh?”
   “Tell us about your doxies, Pilot!” Sonk scratched at his lice again.
   “There’s a lot to tell,” Blackthorne said. “But it should be private. Less ears the better, neh? Send the women away, then we can talk privately.”
   Vinck jerked a thumb at them. “Piss off, hai?”
   The women bowed and mumbled thanks and apologies and fled, closing the door quietly.
   “First about the ship. It’s unbelievable. I want to thank you and congratulate you—all the work. When we get home I’m going to insist you get triple shares of all the prize money for all that work and there’s going to be a prize beyond …” He saw the men look at each other, embarrassed. “What’s the matter?”
   Van Nekk said uncomfortably, “It wasn’t us, Pilot. It was King Toranaga’s men. They did it. Vinck showed ‘em how, but we didn’t do anything.”
   “What?”
   “We weren’t allowed back aboard after the first time. None of us has been aboard except Vinck, and he goes once every ten days or so. We did nothing.”
   “He’s the only one,” Sonk said. “Johann showed ‘em.”
   “But how’d you talk to them, Johann?”

   “There’s one of the samurai who talks Portuguese and we talk in that—enough to understand each other. This samurai, his name’s Sato-sama, he was put in charge when we came here. He asked who were officers or seamen among us. We said that’d be Ginsel, but he’s a gunner mostly, me and Sonk who—”
   “Who’s the worst pissing cook that—”
   “Shut your God-cursed mouth, Croocq!”
   “Shit, you can’t cook ashore let alone afloat, by God!”
   “Please be quiet, you two!” Blackthorne said. “Go on, Johann.”
   Vinck continued. “Sato-sama asked me what was wrong with the ship and I told him she had to be careened and scraped and repaired all over. Well, I told him all I knew and they got on with it. They careened her good and cleaned the bilges, scrubbed them like a prince’s shit house—at least, samurai were bosses and other monkeys worked like demons, hundreds of the buggers. Shit, Pilot, you’ve never seen workers like ‘em!”
   “That’s true,” Sonk said. “Like demons!”
   “I did everything the best I could against the day… Jesus, Pilot, you really think we can get away?”
   “Yes, if we’re patient and if we—”
   “If God wills it, Pilot. Only then.”
   “Yes. Perhaps you’re right,” Blackthorne replied, thinking, what’s it matter that Roper’s a fanatic? I need him—all of them. And the help of God. “Yes. We need the help of God,” he said and turned back to Vinck. “How’s her keel?”
   “Clean and sound, Pilot. They’ve done her better’n I’d’ve thought possible. Those bastards are as clever as any carpenters, shipwrights, and ropemakers in all Holland. Rigging’s perfect—everything.”
   “Sails?”
   “They made a set out of silk—tough as canvas. With a spare set. They took ours down and copied ‘em exact, Pilot. Cannon are perfect as possible—all back aboard and there’s powder and shot a-plenty. She’s ready to sail on the tide, tonight if need be. ‘Course she hasn’t been to sea so we won’t know about the sails till we’re in a gale, but I’ll bet my life her seams’re as tight as when she was first slipped into the Zuider Zee—better ‘cause the timbers’re seasoned now, thanks be to God!” Vinck paused for breath. “When are we off?”
   “A month. About.”
   They nudged each other, brimming with elation, and loudly toasted the Pilot and the ship.
   “How about enemy shipping? There any hereabouts? What about prizes, Pilot?” Ginsel asked.
   “Plenty—beyond your dreams. We’re all rich.”
   Another shout of glee. “It’s about time.”
   “Rich, eh? I’ll buy me a castle.”
   “Lord God Almighty, when I get home …”
   “Rich! Hurrah for the Pilot!”
   “Plenty of Papists to kill? Good,” Jan Roper said softly. “Very good.”
   “What’s the plan, Pilot?” van Nekk asked, and they all stopped talking.
   “I’ll come to that in a minute. Do you have guards? Can you move around freely, when you want? How often—”
   Vinck said quickly, “We can move anywheres in the village area, perhaps as much as half a league around here. But we’re not allowed in Yedo and not—”
   “Not across the bridge,” Sonk broke in happily. “Tell him about the bridge, Johann!”
   “Oh, for the love of God, I was coming to the bridge, Sonk. For God’s sake, don’t keep interrupting. Pilot, there’s a bridge about half a mile southwest. There’re a lot of signs on it. That’s as far as we’re allowed. We’re not to go over that. ‘Kinjiru, ’ by God, the samurai say. You understand kinjiru, Pilot?”
   Blackthorne nodded and said nothing.
   “Apart from that we can go where we like. But only up to the barriers. There’s barriers all around about half a league away. Lord God … can you believe it, home soon!”
   “Tell him about the doc, eh, and about the—”
   “The samurai send a doctor once in a while, Pilot, and we have to take our clothes off and he looks at us…”
   “Yes. Enough to make a man shit to have a bastard heathen monkey look at you naked like that.”
   “Apart from that, Pilot, they don’t bother us except—”
   “Hey, don’t forget the doc gives us some God-rotting filthy powdered ‘char’ herbs we’re supposed to steep in hot water but we toss ‘em out. When we’re sick, good old Johann bleeds us and we’re fit.”
   “Yes,” Sonk said. “We throw the char out.”‘
   “Apart from that, except for—”
   “We’re lucky here, Pilot, not like at first.”
   “That’s right. At first—”
   “Tell him about the inspection, Baccus!”
   “I was coming to that—for God’s sake, be patient—give a fellow a chance. How can I tell him anything with you all gabbing. Pour me a drink!” van Nekk said thirstily and continued. “Every ten days a few samurai come here and we line up outside and he counts us. Then they give us sacks of rice and cash, copper cash. It’s plenty for everything, Pilot. We swap rice for meat and stuff—fruit or whatever. There’s plenty of everything—and the women do whatever we want. At first we—”
   “But it wasn’t like that at first. Tell him about that, Baccus!”
   Van Nekk sat on the floor. “God give me strength!”
   “You feeling sick, poor old lad?” Sonk asked solicitously. “Best not drink any more or you’ll get the devils back, hey? He gets the devils, Pilot, once a week. We all do.”
   “Are you going to keep quiet while I tell the Pilot?”
   “Who, me? I haven’t said a thing. I’m not stopping you. Here, here’s your drink!”
   “Thanks, Sonk. Well, Pilot, first they put us in a house to the west of the city—”
   “Down near the fields it was.”
   “Damnit, then you tell the story, Johann!”
   “All right. Christ, Pilot, it was terrible. No grub or liquor and those God-cursed paper houses’re like living in a field—a man can’t take a piss or pick his nose; nothing without someone watching, eh? Yes, and the slightest noise’d bring the neighbors down on us, and samurai’d be at the stoop and who wants those bastards around, eh? They’d be shaking their God-cursed swords at us, shouting and hollering, telling us to keep quiet. Well, one night someone knocked over a candle and the monkeys were all pissed off to hell with us! Jesus God, you should’ve heard them! They came swarming out of the woodwork with buckets of water, God-cursed mad, hissing and bowing and cursing… It was only one poxy wall that got burned down… Hundreds of ‘em swarmed over the house like cockroaches. Bastards! You’ve—”
   “Get on with it!”
   “You want to tell it?”
   “Go on, Johann, don’t pay any attention to him. He’s only a shit-filled cook.”
   “What!”
   “Oh, shut up! For God’s sake!” Van Nekk hurriedly took up the tale once more. “The next day, Pilot, they marched us out of there and put us into another house in the wharf area. That was just as bad. Then some weeks later, Johann stumbled onto this place. He was the only one of us allowed out, because of the ship, at that time. They’d collect him daily and bring him back at sunset. He was out fishing—we’re only a few hundred yards upstream from the sea… Best you tell it, Johann.”
   Blackthorne felt an itch on his bare leg and he rubbed it without thinking. The irritation got worse. Then he saw the mottled lump of a flea bite as Vinck continued proudly, “It’s like Baccus said, Pilot. I asked Sato-sama if we could move and he said, yes, why not. They’d usually let me fish from one of their little skiffs to pass the time. It was my nose that led me here, Pilot. The old nose led me: blood!”
   Blackthorne said, “A slaughterhouse! A slaughterhouse and tanning! That’s …” He stopped and blanched.
   “What’s up? What is it?”
   “This is an eta village? Jesus Christ, these people’re eta?”
   “What’s wrong with eters?” van Nekk asked. “Of course they’re eters.”
   Blackthorne waved at the mosquitoes that infested the air, his skin crawling. “Damn bugs. They’re– they’re rotten, aren’t they? There’s a tannery here, isn’t there?”
   “Yes. A few streets up, why?”
   “Nothing. I didn’t recognize the smell, that’s all.”
   “What about eters?”
   “I … I didn’t realize, stupid of me. If I’d seen one of the men I’d’ve known from their short hairstyle. With the women you’d never know. Sorry. Go on with the story, Vinck.”
   “Well, then they said—”
   Jan Roper interrupted, “Wait a minute, Vinck! What’s wrong, Pilot? What about eters?”
   “It’s just that Japanese think of them as different. They’re the executioners, and work the hides and handle corpses.” He felt their eyes, Jan Roper’s particularly. “Eta work hides,” he said, trying to keep his voice careless, “and kill all the old horses and oxen and handle dead bodies.”
   “But what’s wrong with that, Pilot? You’ve buried a dozen yourself, put ‘em in shrouds, washed ‘em—we all have, eh? We butcher our own meat, always have. Ginsel here’s been hangman… What’s wrong with all that?”
   “Nothing,” Blackthorne said, knowing it to be true yet feeling befouled even so.
   Vinck snorted. “Eters’re the best heathen we’ve seen here. More like us than the other bastards. We’re God-cursed lucky to be here, Pilot, fresh meat’s no problem, or tallow—they give us no trouble.”
   “That’s right. If you’ve lived with eters, Pilot …”
   “Jesus Christ, the Pilot’s had to live with the other bastards all the time! He doesn’t know any better. How about fetching Big-Arse Mary, Sonk?”
   “Or Twicklebum?”
   “Shit, not her, not that old whore. The Pilot’ll want a special. Let’s ask mama-san…”
   “I bet he’s starving for real grub! Hey, Sonk, cut him a slice of meat.”
   “Have some more grog …”
   “Three cheers for the Pilot …” In the happy uproar van Nekk clapped Blackthorne on the shoulders. “You’re home, old friend. Now you’re back, our prayers ‘re answered and all’s well in the world. You’re home, old friend. Listen, take my bunk. I insist…”


   Cheerily Blackthorne waved a last time. There was an answering shout from the darkness the far side of the little bridge. Then he turned away, his forced heartiness evaporated, and he walked around the corner, the samurai guard of ten men surrounding him.
   On the way back to the castle his mind was locked in confusion. Nothing was wrong with eta and everything was wrong with eta, those are my crew there, my own people, and these are heathen and foreign and enemy…
   Streets and alleys and bridges passed in a blur. Then he noticed that his own hand was inside his kimono and he was scratching and he stopped in his tracks.
   “Those goddamned filthy …” He undid his sash and ripped off his sopping kimono and, as though it were defiled, hurled it in a ditch.
   “Dozo, nan desu ka, Anjin-san?” one of the samurai asked.
   “Nani mo!” Nothing, by God! Blackthorne walked on, carrying his swords.
   “Ah! Eta! Wakarimasu! Gomen nasai!” The samurai chatted among themselves but he paid them no attention.
   That’s better, he was thinking with utter relief, not noticing that he was almost naked, only that his skin had stopped crawling now that the flea-infested kimono was off.
   Jesus God, I’d love a bath right now!
   He had told the crew about his adventures, but not that he was samurai and hatamoto, or that he was one of Toranaga’s protégés, or about Fujiko. Or Mariko. And he had not told them that they were going to land in force at Nagasaki and take the Black Ship by storm, or that he would be at the head of the samurai. That can come later, he thought wearily. And all the rest.
   Could I ever tell them about Mariko-san?
   His wooden clogs clattered on the wooden slats of First Bridge. Samurai sentries, also half-naked, lolled until they saw him, then they bowed politely as he passed, watching him intently, because this was the incredible barbarian who was astonishingly favored by Lord Toranaga, to whom Toranaga had, unbelievably, granted the never-given-before-to-a-barbarian honor of hatamoto and samurai.
   At the main south gate of the castle another guide waited for him. He was escorted to his quarters within the inner ring. He had been allocated a room in one of the fortified though attractive guest houses, but he politely refused to go back there at once. “First bath please,” he told the samurai.
   “Ah, I understand. That’s very considerate of you. The bath house is this way, Anjin-san. Yes, it’s a hot night, neh? And I hear you’ve been down to the Filthy Ones. The other guests in the house will appreciate your thoughtfulness. I thank you on their behalf.”
   Blackthorne did not understand all the words but he gathered the meaning. ‘Filthy Ones.’ That describes my people and me—us, not them, poor people.
   “Good evening, Anjin-san,” the chief bath attendant said. He was a vast, middle-aged man with immense belly and biceps. A maid had just awakened him to announce another late customer was arriving. He clapped his hands. Bath maids arrived. Blackthorne followed them into the scrubbing room and they cleansed him and shampooed him and he made them do it a second time. Then he walked through to the sunken bath, stepped into the piping-hot water and fought the heat, then gave himself to its mind-consuming embrace.
   In time strong hands helped him out and molded fragrant oil into his skin and untwisted his muscles and his neck, then led him to a resting room, and gave him a laundered, sun-fresh cotton kimono. With a long-drawn-out sigh of pleasure, he lay down.
   “Dozo gomen nasai —cha, Anjin-san?”
   “Hai. Domo.”
   The cha arrived. He told the maid he would stay here tonight and not trouble to go to his own quarters. Then, alone and at peace, he sipped the cha, feeling it purify him; ‘… filthy-looking char herbs …’ he thought disgustedly.
   “Be patient, don’t let it disturb your harmony,” he said aloud. “They’re just poor ignorant fools who don’t know any better. You were the same once. Never mind, now you can show them, neh?”
   He put them out of his mind and reached for his dictionary. But tonight, for the first night since he had possessed the book, he laid it carefully aside and blew out the candle. I’m too tired, he told himself.
   But not too tired to answer a simple question, his mind said: Are they really ignorant fools, or is it you who are fooling yourself?
   I’ll answer that later, when it’s time. Now the answer’s unimportant. Now I only know I don’t want them near me.
   He turned over and put that problem into a compartment and went to sleep.