Chapter 24

   They were hurrying through deserted back streets, circling for the wharf and the galley. There were ten of them—Toranaga leading, Yabu, Mariko, Blackthorne, and six samurai. The rest, under Buntaro, had been sent with the litters and baggage train by the planned route, with instructions to head leisurely for the galley. The body of Asa the maid was in one of the litters. During a lull in the fighting, Blackthorne had pulled the barbed shaft out of her. Toranaga had seen the dark blood that gushed in its wake and had watched, puzzled, as the pilot had cradled her instead of allowing her to die quietly in private dignity, and then, when the fighting had ceased entirely, how gently the pilot had put her into the litter. The girl was brave and had whimpered not at all, just looked up at him until death had come. Toranaga had left her in the curtained litter as a decoy and one of the wounded had been put in the second litter, also as a decoy.
   Of the fifty Browns that had formed the escort, fifteen had been killed and eleven mortally wounded. The eleven had been quickly and honorably committed to the Great Void, three by their own hands, eight assisted by Buntaro at their request. Then Buntaro had assembled the remainder around the closed litters and had left. Forty-eight Grays lay in the dust.
   Toranaga knew that he was dangerously unprotected but he was content. Everything has gone well, he thought, considering the vicissitudes of chance. How interesting life is! At first I was sure it was a bad omen that the pilot had seen me change places with Kiri. Then the pilot saved me and acted the madman perfectly, and because of him we escaped Ishido. I hadn’t planned for Ishido to be at the main gate, only at the forecourt. That was careless. Why was Ishido there? It isn’t like Ishido to be so careful. Who advised him? Kiyama? Onoshi? Or Yodoko? A woman, ever practical would—could suspect such a subterfuge.
   It had been a good plan—the secret escape dash—and established for weeks, for it was obvious that Ishido would try to keep him in the castle, would turn the other Regents against him by promising them anything, would willingly sacrifice his hostage at Yedo, the Lady Ochiba, and would use any means to keep him under guard until the final meeting of the Regents, where he would be cornered, impeached, and dispatched.
   “But they’ll still impeach you!” Hiro-matsu had said when Toranaga had sent for him just after dusk last night to explain what was to be attempted and why he, Toranaga, had been vacillating. “Even if you escape, the Regents will impeach you behind your back as easily as they’ll do it to your face. So you’re bound to commit seppuku when they order it, as they will order it.”
   “Yes,” Toranaga had said. “As President of the Regents I am bound to do that if the four vote against me. But here”—he had taken a rolled parchment out of his sleeve—”here is my formal resignation from the Council of Regents. You will give it to Ishido when my escape is known.”
   “What?”
   “If I resign I’m no longer bound by my Regent’s oath. Neh? The Taikō never forbade me to resign, neh? Give Ishido this, too.” He had handed Hiro-matsu the chop, the official seal of his office as President.
   “But now you’re totally isolated. You’re doomed!”
   “You’re wrong. Listen, the Taikō’s testament implanted a council of five Regents on the realm. Now there are four. To be legal, before they can exercise the Emperor’s mandate, the four have to elect or appoint a new member, a fifth, neh? Ishido, Kiyama, Onoshi, and Sugiyama have to agree, neh? Doesn’t the new Regent have to be acceptable to all of them? Of course! Now, old comrade, who in all the world will those enemies agree to share ultimate power with? Eh? And while they’re arguing, no decisions and—”
   “We’re preparing for war and you’re no longer bound and you can drop a little honey here and bile there and those pile-infested dungmakers will eat themselves up!” Hiro-matsu had said with a rush. “Ah, Yoshi Toranaga-noh-Minowara, you’re a man among men. I’ll eat my arse if you’re not the wisest man in the land!”
   Yes, it was a good plan, Toranaga thought, and they all played their parts well: Hiro-matsu, Kiri, and my lovely Sazuko. And now they’re locked up tight and they will stay that way or they will be allowed to leave. I think they will never be allowed to leave.
   I will be sorry to lose them.
   He was leading the party unerringly, his pace fast but measured, the pace he hunted at, the pace he could keep up continuously for two days and one night if need be. He still wore the traveling cloak and Kiri’s kimono, but the skirts were hitched up out of the way, his military leggings incongruous.
   They crossed another deserted street and headed down an alleyway. He knew the alarm would soon reach Ishido and then the hunt would be on in earnest. There’s time enough, he told himself.
   Yes, it was a good plan. But I didn’t anticipate the ambush. That’s cost me three days of safety. Kiri was sure she could keep the deception a secret for at least three days. But the secret’s out now and I won’t be able to slip aboard and out to sea. Who was the ambush for? Me or the pilot? Of course the pilot. But didn’t the arrows bracket both litters? Yes, but the archers were quite far away and it would be hard to see, and it would be wiser and safer to kill both, just in case.
   Who ordered the attack, Kiyama or Onoshi? or the Portuguese? or the Christian Fathers?
   Toranaga turned around to check the pilot. He saw that he was not flagging, nor was the woman who walked beside him, though both were tired. On the skyline he could see the vast squat bulk of the castle and the phallus of the donjon. Tonight was the second time I’ve almost died there, he thought. Is that castle really going to be my nemesis? The Taikō told me often enough: ‘While Osaka Castle lives my line will never die and you, Toranaga Minowara, your epitaph will be written on its walls. Osaka will cause your death, my faithful vassal!’ And always the hissing, baiting laugh that set his soul on edge.
   Does the Taikō live within Yaemon? Whether he does or not, Yaemon is his legal heir.
   With an effort Toranaga tore his eyes away from the castle and turned another corner and fled into a maze of alleys. At length he stopped outside a battered gate. A fish was etched into its timbers. He knocked in code. The door opened at once. Instantly the ill-kempt samurai bowed. “Sire?”
   “Bring your men and follow me,” Toranaga said and set off again.
   “Gladly.” This samurai did not wear the Brown uniform kimono, only motley rags of a ronin, but he was one of the special elite secret troops that Toranaga had smuggled into Osaka against such an emergency. Fifteen men, similarly clothed, and equally well armed, followed him and quickly fell into place as advance and rear guard, while another ran off to spread the alarm to other secret cadres. Soon Toranaga had fifty troops with him. Another hundred covered his flanks. Another thousand would be ready at dawn should he need them. He relaxed and slackened his pace, sensing that the pilot and the woman were tiring too fast. He needed them strong.


   Toranaga stood in the shadows of the warehouse and studied the galley and the wharf and the foreshore. Yabu and a samurai were beside him. The others had been left in a tight knot a hundred paces back down the alley.
   A detachment of a hundred Grays waited near the gangway of the galley a few hundred paces away, across a wide expanse of beaten earth that precluded any surprise attack. The galley itself was alongside, moored to stanchions fixed into the stone wharf that extended a hundred yards out into the sea. The oars were shipped neatly, and he could see indistinctly many seamen and warriors on deck.
   “Are they ours or theirs?” he asked quietly.
   “It’s too far to be sure,” Yabu replied.
   The tide was high. Beyond the galley, night fishing boats were coming in and going out, lanterns serving as their riding and fishing lights. North, along the shore, were rows of beached fishing craft of many sizes, tended by a few fishermen. Five hundred paces south, alongside another stone wharf, was the Portuguese frigate, the Santa Theresa. Under the light of flares, clusters of porters were busily loading barrels and bales. Another large group of Grays lolled nearby. This was usual because all Portuguese and all foreign ships in port were, by law, under perpetual surveillance. It was only at Nagasaki that Portuguese shipping moved in and out freely.
   If security could be tightened there, the safer we’d all sleep at night, Toranaga told himself. Yes, but could we lock them up and still have trade with China in ever increasing amounts? That’s one trap the Southern Barbarians have us in from which there’s no escape, not while the Christian daimyos dominate Kyushu and the priests are needed. The best we can do is what the Taikō did. Give the barbarians a little, pretend to take it away, try to bluff, knowing that without the China trade, life would be impossible.
   “With your permission, Lord, I will attack at once,” the samurai whispered.
   “I advise against it,” Yabu said. “We don’t know if our men are aboard. And there could be a thousand men hidden all around here. Those men”—he pointed at the Grays near the Portuguese ship—”those’ll raise the alarm. We could never take the ship and get it out to sea before they’d bottled us up. We need ten times the men we’ve got now.”
   “General Lord Ishido will know soon,” the samurai said. “Then all Osaka’ll be swarming with more hostiles than there are flies on a new battlefield. I’ve a hundred and fifty men with those on our flanks. That’ll be enough.”
   “Not for safety. Not if our sailors aren’t ready on the oars. Better to create a diversion, one that’d draw off the Grays—and any that are in hiding. Those, too.” Yabu pointed again at the men near the frigate.
   “What kind of diversion?” Toranaga said.
   “Fire the street.”
   “That’s impossible!” the samurai protested, aghast. Arson was a crime punishable by the public burning of all the family of the guilty person, of every generation of the family. The penalty was the most severe by law because fire was the greatest hazard to any village or town or city in the Empire. Wood and paper were their only building materials, except for tiles on some roofs. Every home, every warehouse, every hovel, and every palace was a tinderbox. “We can’t fire the street!”
   “What’s more important,” Yabu asked him, “the destruction of a few streets, or the death of our Master?”
   “The fire’d spread, Yabu-san. We can’t burn Osaka. There are a million people here—more.”
   “Is that your answer to my question?”
   Ashen, the samurai turned to Toranaga. “Sire, I’ll do anything you ask. Is that what you want me to do?”
   Toranaga merely looked at Yabu.
   The daimyo jerked his thumb contemptuously at the city. “Two years ago half of it burned down and look at it now. Five years ago was the Great Fire. How many hundred thousand were lost then? What does it matter? They’re only shopkeepers, merchants, craftsmen, and eta. It’s not as though Osaka’s a village filled with peasants.”
   Toranaga had long since gauged the wind. It was slight and would not fan the blaze. Perhaps. But a blaze could easily become a holocaust that would eat up all the city. Except the castle. Ah, if it would only consume the castle I wouldn’t hesitate for a moment.
   He turned on his heel and went back to the others. “Mariko-san, take the pilot and our six samurai and go to the galley. Pretend to be almost in panic. Tell the Grays that there’s been an ambush—by bandits or ronin, you’re not sure which. Tell them where it happened, that you were sent ahead urgently by the captain of our escorting Grays to get the Grays here to help, that the battle’s still raging, that you think Kiritsubo’s been killed or wounded—to please hurry. If you’re convincing, this will draw most of them off.”
   “I understand perfectly, Sire.”
   “Then, no matter what the Grays do, go on board with the pilot. If our sailors are there and the ship’s safe and secure, come back to the gangway and pretend to faint. That’s our signal. Do it exactly at the head of the gangway.” Toranaga let his eyes rest on Blackthorne. “Tell him what you’re going to do, but not that you’re going to faint.” He turned away to give orders to the rest of his men and special private instructions to the six samurai.
   When Toranaga had finished, Yabu drew him aside. “Why send the barbarian? Wouldn’t it be safer to leave him here? Safer for you?”
   “Safer for him, Yabu-san, but not for me. He’s a useful decoy.”
   “Firing the street would be even safer.”
   “Yes.” Toranaga thought that it was better to have Yabu on his side than on Ishido’s. I’m glad I did not make him jump off the tower yesterday.
   “Sire?”
   “Yes, Mariko-san?”
   “I’m sorry, but the Anjin-san asks what happens if the ship’s held by the enemy?”
   “Tell him there’s no need to go with you if he’s not strong enough.”
   Blackthorne kept his temper when she told him what Toranaga had said. “Tell Lord Toranaga that his plan is no good for you, that you should stay here. If all’s well I can signal.”
   “I can’t do that, Anjin-san, that’s not what our Master has ordered,” Mariko told him firmly. “Any plan he makes is bound to be very wise.”
   Blackthorne realized there was no point in arguing. God curse their bloody-minded, muleheaded arrogance, he thought. But, by the Lord God, what courage they’ve got! The men and this woman.
   He had watched her, standing at the ambush, in her hands the long killing sword that was almost as tall as herself, ready to fight to the death for Toranaga. He had seen her use the sword once, expertly, and though Buntaro had killed the attacker, she had made it easier by forcing the man to back off. There was still blood on her kimono now and it was torn in places and her face was dirty.
   “Where did you learn to use a sword?” he had asked while they rushed for the docks.
   “You should know that all samurai ladies are taught very early to use a knife to defend their honor and that of their lords,” she had said matter-of-factly, and showed him how the stiletto was kept safe in the obi, ready for instant use. “But some of us, a few, are also taught about sword and spear, Anjin-san. Some fathers feel daughters as well as sons must be prepared to do battle for their lords. Of course, some women are more warlike than others and enjoy going into battle with their husbands or fathers. My mother was one of these. My father and mother decided I should know the sword and the spear.”
   “If it hadn’t been for the captain of the Grays being in the way, the first arrow would have gone right through you,” he had said.
   “Through you, Anjin-san,” she corrected him, very sure. “But you did save my life by pulling me to safety.”
   Now, looking at her, he knew that he would not like anything to happen to her. “Let me go with the samurai, Mariko-san. You stay here. Please.”
   “That’s not possible, Anjin-san.”
   “Then I want a knife. Better, give me two.”
   She passed this request to Toranaga, who agreed. Blackthorne slid one under the sash, inside his kimono. The other he tied, haft downwards, to the inside of his forearm with a strip of silk he tore off the hem of his kimono.
   “My Master asks do all Englishmen carry knives secretly in their sleeves like that?”
   “No. But most seamen do.”
   “That’s not usual here—or with the Portuguese,” she said.
   “The best place for a spare knife’s in your boot. Then you can do wicked damage, very fast. If need be.”
   She translated this and Blackthorne noticed the attentive eyes of Toranaga and Yabu, and he sensed that they did not like him armed. Good, he thought. Perhaps I can stay armed

   He wondered again about Toranaga. After the ambush had been beaten off and the Grays killed, Toranaga had, through Mariko, thanked him before all the Browns for his “loyalty.” Nothing more, no promises, no agreements, no rewards. But Blackthorne knew that those would come later. The old monk had told him that loyalty was the only thing they rewarded. ‘Loyalty and duty, señ or,’ he had said. ‘It is their cult, this bushido. Where we give our lives to God and His Blessed Son Jesus, and Mary the Mother of God, these animals give themselves to their masters and die like dogs. Remember, señor, for thy soul’s sake, they’re animals.’ They’re not animals, Blackthorne thought. And much of what you said, Father, is wrong and a fanatic’s exaggeration.
   He said to Mariko, “We need a signal—if the ship’s safe or if it isn’t.”
   Again she translated, innocently this time. “Lord Toranaga says that one of our soldiers will do that.”
   “I don’t consider it brave to send a woman to do a man’s job.”
   “Please be patient with us, Anjin-san. There’s no difference between men and women. Women are equal as samurai. In this plan a woman would be so much better than a man.”
   Toranaga spoke to her shortly.
   “Are you ready, Anjin-san? We’re to go now.”
   “The plan’s rotten and dangerous and I’m tired of being a goddamned sacrificial plucked duck, but I’m ready.”
   She laughed, bowed once to Toranaga, and ran off. Blackthorne and the six samurai raced after her.
   She was very fleet and he did not catch up with her as they rounded the corner and headed across the open space. He had never felt so naked. The moment they appeared, the Grays spotted them and surged forward. Soon they were surrounded, Mariko jabbering feverishly with the samurai and the Grays. Then he too added to the babel in a panting mixture of Portuguese, English, and Dutch, motioning them to hurry, and groped for the gangway to lean against it, not needing to pretend that he was badly winded. He tried to see inside the ship but could make out nothing distinctly, only many heads appearing at the gunwale. He could see the shaven pates of many samurai and many seamen. He could not discern the color of the kimonos.
   From behind, one of the Grays was talking rapidly to him, and he turned around, telling him that he didn’t understand—to go there, quickly, back up the street where the God-cursed battle was going on. “Wakarimasu ka? Get your scuttle-tailed arse to hell out of here! Wakarimasu ka? The fight’s there!”
   Mariko was frantically haranguing the senior officer of the Grays. The officer came back toward the ship and shouted orders. Immediately more than a hundred samurai, all Grays, began pouring off the ship. He sent a few north along the shore to intercept the wounded and help them if necessary. One was sent scurrying off to get help from the Grays near the Portuguese galley. Leaving ten men behind to guard the gangway, he led the remainder in a rush for the street which curled away from the dock, up to the city proper.
   Mariko came up to Blackthorne. “Does the ship seem all right to you?” she asked.
   “She’s floating.” With a great effort Blackthorne grasped the gangway ropes and pulled himself on deck. Mariko followed. Two Browns came after her.
   The seamen packing the port gunwale gave way. Four Grays were guarding the quarterdeck and two more were on the forepoop. All were armed with bows and arrows as well as swords.
   Mariko questioned one of the sailors. The man answered her obligingly. “They’re all sailors hired to take Kiritsubo-san to Yedo,” she told Blackthorne.
   “Ask him …” Blackthorne stopped as he recognized the short, squat mate he had made captain of the galley after the storm. “Konbanwa, Captain-san!” —Good evening.
   “Konbanwa, Anjin-san. Watashi iyé Captain-san ima,” the mate replied with a grin, shaking his head. He pointed at a lithe sailor with an iron-gray stubbly queue who stood alone on the quarterdeck. “Imasu Captain-san!”
   “Ah, so desu? Halloa, Captain-san!” Blackthorne called out and bowed, and lowered his voice. “Mariko-san, find out if there are any Grays below.”
   Before she could say anything the captain had bowed back and shouted to the mate. The mate nodded and replied at length. Some of the sailors also voiced their agreement. The captain and all aboard were very impressed.
   “Ah, so desu, Anjin-san!” Then the captain cried out, “Keirei!”—Salute! All aboard, except the samurai, bowed to Blackthorne in salute.
   Mariko said, “This mate told the captain that you saved the ship during the storm, Anjin-san. You did not tell us about the storm or your voyage.”
   “There’s little to tell. It was just another storm. Please thank the captain and say I’m happy to be aboard again. Ask him if we’re ready to leave when the others arrive.” And added quietly, “Find out if there are any more Grays below.”
   She did as she was ordered.
   The captain came over and she asked for more information and then, picking up the captain’s cue concerning the importance of Blackthorne aboard, she bowed to Blackthorne. “Anjin-san, he thanks you for the life of his ship and says they’re ready,” adding softly, “About the other, he doesn’t know.”
   Blackthorne glanced ashore. There was no sign of Buntaro or the column to the north. The samurai sent running southward toward the Santa Theresa was still a hundred yards from his destination, unnoticed as yet. “What now?” he said, when he could stand the waiting no longer.
   She was asking herself, Is the ship safe? Decide.
   “That man’ll get there any moment,” he said, looking at the frigate.
   “What?”
   He pointed. “That one—the samurai!”
   “What samurai? I’m sorry, I can’t see that far, Anjin-san. I can see everything on the ship, though the Grays to the front of the ship are misted. What man?”
   He told her, adding in Latin, “Now he is barely fifty paces away. Now he is seen. We need assistance gravely. Who giveth the sign? With importance it should be given quickly.”
   “My husband, is there any sign of him?” she asked in Portuguese.
   He shook his head.
   Sixteen Grays stand between my Master and his safety, she told herself. Oh Madonna, protect him!
   Then, committing her soul to God, frightened that she was making the wrong decision, she went weakly to the head of the gangway and pretended to faint.
   Blackthorne was taken unawares. He saw her head crash nastily against the wooden slats. Seamen began to crowd, Grays converged from the dock and from the decks as he rushed over. He picked her up and carried her back, through the men, toward the quarterdeck.
   “Get some water—water, hai?”
   The seamen stared at him without comprehension. Desperately he searched his mind for the Japanese word. The old monk had told it to him fifty times. Christ God, what is it? “Oh—mizu, mizu, hai?”
   “Ah, mizu! Hai, Anjin-san.” A man began to hurry away. There was a sudden cry of alarm.
   Ashore, thirty of Toranaga’s ronin -disguised samurai were loping out of the alleyway. The Grays that had begun to leave the dock spun around on the gangway. Those on the quarterdeck and forepoop craned to see better. Abruptly one shouted orders. The archers armed their bows. All samurai, Browns and Grays below, tore out their swords, and most rushed back to the wharf.
   “Bandits!” one of the Browns screamed on cue. At once the two Browns on deck split up, one going forward, one aft. The four on land fanned out, intermingling with the waiting Grays.
   “Halt!”
   Toranaga’s ronin -samurai charged. An arrow smashed a man in the chest and he fell heavily. Instantly the Brown on the forepoop killed the Gray archer and tried for the other but this samurai was too quick and they locked swords, the Gray shouting a warning of treachery to the others. The Brown on the aft quarterdeck had maimed one of the Grays but the other three dispatched him quickly and they raced for the head of the gangway, seamen scattering. The samurai on the dock below were fighting to the death, the Grays overwhelming the four Browns, knowing that they had been betrayed and that, at any moment, they too would be engulfed by the attackers. The leader of the Grays on deck, a large tough grizzle-bearded man, confronted Blackthorne and Mariko.
   “Kill the traitors!” he bellowed, and with a battle cry, he charged.
   Blackthorne had seen them all look down at Mariko, still lying in her faint, murder in their eyes, and he knew that if he did not get help soon they were both dead, and that help would not be forthcoming from the seamen. He remembered that only samurai may fight samurai.
   He slid his knife into his hand and hurled it in an arc. It took the samurai in the throat. The other two Grays lunged for Blackthorne, killing swords high. He held the second knife and stood his ground over Mariko, knowing that he dare not leave her unprotected. From the corner of his eye he saw the battle for the gangway was almost won. Only three Grays still held the bridge below, only these three kept help from flooding aboard. If he could stay alive for less than a minute he was safe and she was safe. Kill ‘em, kill the bastards!
   He felt, more than saw, the sword slashing for his throat and leaped backward out of its way. One Gray stabbed after him, the other halted over Mariko, sword raised. At that instant Blackthorne saw Mariko come to life. She threw herself into the unsuspecting samurai’s legs, crashing him to the deck. Then, scrambling across to the dead Gray, she grabbed the sword out of his still twitching hand and leaped on the guard with a cry. The Gray had regained his feet, and, howling with rage, he came at her. She backed and slashed bravely but Blackthorne knew she was lost, the man too strong. Somehow Blackthorne avoided another death thrust from his own foe and kicked him away and threw his knife at Mariko’s assailant. It struck the man in the back, causing his blow to go wild, and then Blackthorne found himself on the quarterdeck, helplessly at bay, one Gray bounding up the steps after him, the other, who had just won the forepoop fight, racing toward him along the deck. He jumped for the gunwale and the safety of the sea but slipped on the blood-wet deck.
   Mariko was staring up, white-faced, at the huge samurai who still had her cornered, swaying on his feet, his life ebbing fast but not fast enough. She hacked at him with all her force but he parried the blow, held her sword, and tore it out of her grasp. He gathered his ultimate strength, and lunged as the ronin -samurai burst up the gangway, over the dead Grays. One pounced on Mariko’s assailant, another fired an arrow at the quarterdeck.
   The arrow ripped into the Gray’s back, smashing him off balance, and his sword sliced past Blackthorne into the gunwale. Blackthorne tried to scramble away but the man caught him, brought him crashing to the deck, and clawed for his eyes. Another arrow hit the second Gray in the shoulder and he dropped his sword, screaming with pain and rage, tearing futilely at the shaft. A third arrow twisted him around. Blood surged out of his mouth, and, choking, his eyes staring, he groped for Blackthorne and fell on him as the last Gray arrived for the kill, a short stabbing knife in his hands. He hacked downward, Blackthorne helpless, but a friendly hand caught the knife arm, then the enemy head had vanished from the neck, a fountain of blood spraying upwards. Both corpses were pulled off Blackthorne and he was hauled to his feet. Wiping the blood off his face, he dimly saw that Mariko was stretched out on the deck, ronin -samurai milling around her. He shook off his helpers and stumbled toward her, but his knees gave out and he collapsed.

Chapter 25

   It took Blackthorne a good ten minutes to regain enough strength to stand unaided. In that time the ronin -samurai had dispatched the badly wounded and had cast all corpses into the sea. The six Browns had perished, and all the Grays. They had cleansed the ship and made her ready for instant departure, sent seamen to their oars and stationed others by the stanchions, waiting to slip the mooring ropes. All flares had been doused. A few samurai had been sent to scout north along the shore to intercept Buntaro. The bulk of Toranaga’s men hurried southward to a stone breakwater about two hundred paces away, where they took up a strong defensive position against the hundred Grays from the frigate who, having seen the attack, were approaching fast.
   When all aboard had been checked and double-checked, the leader cupped his hands around his lips and hallooed shoreward. At once more ronin -disguised samurai under Yabu came out of the night, and fanned into protective shields, north and south. Then Toranaga appeared and began to walk slowly toward the gangway alone. He had discarded the woman’s kimono and the dark traveling cloak and removed the makeup. Now he wore his armor, and over it a simple brown kimono, swords in his sash. The gap behind him was closed by the last of his guards and the phalanx moved with measured tread toward the wharf.
   Bastard, Blackthorne thought. You’re a cruel, cold-gutted, heartless bastard but you’ve got majesty, no doubt about that.
   Earlier, he had seen Mariko carried below, helped by a young woman, and he had presumed that she was wounded but not badly, because all badly wounded samurai are murdered at once if they won’t or can’t kill themselves, and she’s samurai.
   His hands were very weak but he grasped the helm and pulled himself upright, helped by the seaman, and felt better, the slight breeze taking away the dregs of nausea. Swaying on his feet, still dulled, he watched Toranaga.
   There was a sudden flash from the donjon and the faint echoing of alarm bells. Then, from the castle walls, fires began to reach for the stars. Signal fires.
   Christ Jesus, they must’ve got the news, they must’ve heard about Toranaga’s escape!
   In the great silence he saw Toranaga looking back and upward. Lights began to flicker all over the city. Without haste Toranaga turned and came aboard.
   From the north distant cries came down on the wind. Buntaro! It must be, with the rest of the column. Blackthorne searched the far darkness but could see nothing. Southward the gap between attacking Grays and defending Browns was closing rapidly. He estimated numbers. About equal at the moment. But for how long?
   “Keirei!” All aboard knelt and bowed low as Toranaga came on deck. Toranaga motioned to Yabu, who followed him. Instantly Yabu took command, giving orders to cast off. Fifty samurai from the phalanx ran up the gangway to take defensive positions, facing shoreward, arming their bows.
   Blackthorne felt someone tugging at his sleeve.
   “Anjin-san!”
   “Hai?” He stared down into the captain’s face. The man uttered a spate of words, pointing at the helm. Blackthorne realized that the captain presumed he held the con and was asking permission to cast off.
   “Hai, Captain-san,” he replied. “Cast off! Isogi!” Yes, very quick, he told himself, wondering how he remembered the word so easily.
   The galley eased away from the jetty, helped by the wind, the oarsmen deft. Then Blackthorne saw the Grays hit the breakwater away up the shore and the tumultuous assault began. At that moment, out of the darkness from behind a nearby line of beached boats charged three men and a girl embroiled in a running fight with nine Grays. Blackthorne recognized Buntaro and the girl Sono.
   Buntaro led the hacking retreat to the jetty, his sword bloody, arrows sticking into the armor on his chest and back. The girl was armed with a spear but she was stumbling, her wind gone. One of the Browns stopped courageously to cover the retreat. The Grays swamped him. Buntaro raced up the steps, the girl beside him with the last Brown, then he turned and hit the Grays like a mad bull. The first two went crashing off the ten-foot wharf; one broke his back on the stones below and the other fell howling, his right arm gone. The Grays hesitated momentarily, giving the girl time to aim her spear, but all aboard knew it was only a gesture. The last Brown rushed past his master and flung himself headlong at the enemy. The Grays cut him down, then charged en masse.
   Archers from the ship fired volley after volley, killing or maiming all but two of the attacking Grays. A sword ricocheted off Buntaro’s helmet onto his shoulder armor. Buntaro smashed the Gray under the chin with his mailed forearm, breaking his neck, and hurled himself at the last.
   This man died too.
   The girl was on her knees now, trying to catch her breath. Buntaro did not waste time making sure the Grays were dead. He simply hacked off their heads with single, perfect blows, and then, when the jetty was completely secure, he turned seaward, waved at Toranaga exhausted but happy. Toranaga called back, equally pleased.
   The ship was twenty yards from the jetty, the gap still widening.
   “Captain-san,” Blackthorne called out, gesturing urgently. “Go back to the wharf! Isogi!”
   Obediently the captain shouted the orders. All oars ceased and began to back water. At once Yabu came hurtling across to the quarterdeck and spoke heatedly to the captain. The order was clear. The ship was not to return.
   “There’s plenty of time, for Christ’s sake. Look!” Blackthorne pointed at the empty beaten earth and at the breakwater where the ronin were holding the Grays at bay.
   But Yabu shook his head.
   The gap was thirty yards now and Blackthorne’s mind was shouting, What’s the matter with you, that’s Buntaro, her husband.
   “You can’t let him die, he’s one of ours,” he shouted at Yabu and at the ship. “Him! Buntaro!” He spun round on the captain. “Back there! Isogi!” But this time the seaman shook his head helplessly and held the escape course and the oarsmaster continued the beat on the great drum.
   Blackthorne rushed for Toranaga, who had his back to him, studying the shore and wharf. At once four bodyguard samurai stepped in the pilot’s way, swords on high. He called out, “Toranaga-sama! Dozo! Order the ship back! There! Dozo —please! Go back!”
   “Iyé Anjin-san.” Toranaga pointed once at the castle signal flares and once at the breakwater, and turned his back again with finality.
   “Why, you shitless coward …” Blackthorne began, but stopped. Then he rushed for the gunwale and leaned over it. “Swiiiiimm!” he hollered, making the motions. “Swim, for Christ’s sake!”
   Buntaro understood. He raised the girl to her feet and spoke to her and half-shoved her toward the wharf edge but she cried out and fell on her knees in front of him. Obviously she could not swim.
   Desperately Blackthorne searched the deck. No time to launch a small boat. Much too far to throw a rope. Not enough strength to swim there and back. No life jackets. As a last resort he ran over to the nearest oarsmen, two to each great sweep, and stopped their pull. All oars on the portside were momentarily thrown off tempo, oar crashing into oar. The galley slewed awkwardly, the beat stopped, and Blackthorne showed the oarsmen what he wanted.
   Two samurai went forward to restrain him but Toranaga ordered them away.
   Together, Blackthorne and four seamen launched the oar like a dart over the side. It sailed for some way then hit the water cleanly, and its momentum carried it to the wharf.
   At that moment there was a victory shout from the breakwater. Reinforcements of Grays were streaming down from the city and, though the ronin -samurai were holding off the present attackers, it was only a matter of time before the wall was breached.
   “Come on,” Blackthorne shouted. “Isogiiii!”
   Buntaro pulled the girl up, pointed at the oar and then out to the ship. She bowed weakly. He dismissed her and turned his full attention to battle, his vast legs set firm on the jetty.
   The girl called out once to the ship. A woman’s voice answered and she jumped. Her head broke the surface. She flailed for the oar and grabbed it. It bore her weight easily and she kicked for the ship. A small wave caught her and she rode it safely and came closer to the galley. Then her fear caused her to loosen her grip and the oar slipped away from her. She thrashed for an endless moment, then vanished below the surface.
   She never came back.
   Buntaro was alone now on the wharf and he stood watching the rise and the fall of the battle. More reinforcement Grays, a few cavalry among them, were coming up from the south to join the others and he knew that soon the breakwater would be engulfed by a sea of men. Carefully he examined the north and west and south. Then he turned his back to the battle and went to the far end of the jetty. The galley was safely seventy yards from its tip, at rest, waiting. All fishing boats had long since fled the area and they waited as far away as possible on both sides of the harbor, their riding lights like so many cats’ eyes in the darkness.
   When he reached the end of the dock, Buntaro took off his helmet and his bow and quiver and his top body armor and put them beside his scabbards. The naked killing sword and the naked short sword he placed separately. Then, stripped to the waist, he picked up his equipment and cast it into the sea. The killing sword he studied reverently, then tossed it with all his force, far out into the deep. It vanished with hardly a splash.
   He bowed formally to the galley, to Toranaga, who went at once to the quarterdeck where he could be seen. He bowed back.
   Buntaro knelt and placed the short sword neatly on the stone in front of him, moonlight flashing briefly on the blade, and stayed motionless, almost as though in prayer, facing the galley.
   “What the hell’s he waiting for?” Blackthorne muttered, the galley eerily quiet without the drumbeat. “Why doesn’t he jump and swim?”
   “He’s preparing to commit seppuku.”
   Mariko was standing nearby, propped by a young woman.
   “Jesus, Mariko, are you all right?”
   “All right,” she said, hardly listening to him, her face haggard but no less beautiful.
   He saw the crude bandage on her left arm near the shoulder where the sleeve had been slashed away, her arm resting in a sling of material torn from a kimono. Blood stained the bandage and a dribble ran down her arm.
   “I’m so glad—” Then it dawned on him what she had said. “Seppuku? He’s going to kill himself? Why? There’s plenty of time for him to get here! If he can’t swim, look—there’s an oar that’ll hold him easily. There, near the jetty, you see it? Can’t you see it?”
   “Yes, but my husband can swim, Anjin-san,” she said. “All of Lord Toranaga’s officers must—must learn—he insists. But he has decided not to swim.”
   “For Christ’s sake, why?”
   A sudden frenzy broke out shoreward, a few muskets went off, and the wall was breached. Some of the ronin -samurai fell back and ferocious individual combat began again. This time the enemy spearhead was contained, and repelled.
   “Tell him to swim, by God!”
   “He won’t, Anjin-san. He’s preparing to die.”
   “If he wants to die, for Christ’s sake, why doesn’t he go there?” Blackthorne’s finger stabbed toward the fight. “Why doesn’t he help his men? If he wants to die, why doesn’t he die fighting, like a man?”
   Mariko did not take her eyes from the wharf, leaning against the young woman. “Because he might be captured, and if he swam he might also be captured, and then the enemy would put him on show before the common people, shame him, do terrible things. A samurai cannot be captured and remain samurai. That’s the worst dishonor—to be captured by an enemy—so my husband is doing what a man, a samurai, must do. A samurai dies with dignity. For what is life to a samurai? Nothing at all. All life is suffering, neh? It is his right and duty to die with honor, before witnesses.”
   “What a stupid waste,” Blackthorne said, through his teeth.
   “Be patient with us, Anjin-san.”
   “Patient for what? For more lies? Why won’t you trust me? Haven’t I earned that? You lied, didn’t you? You pretended to faint and that was the signal. Wasn’t it? I asked you and you lied.”
   “I was ordered … it was an order to protect you. Of course I trust you.”
   “You lied,” he said, knowing that he was being unreasonable, but he was beyond caring, abhorring the insane disregard for life and starved for sleep and peace, starved for his own food and his own drink and his own ship and his own kind. “You’re all animals,” he said in English, knowing they were not, and moved away.
   “What was he saying, Mariko-san?” the young woman asked, hard put to hide her distaste. She was half a head taller than Mariko, bigger-boned and square-faced with little, needle-shaped teeth. She was Usagi Fujiko, Mariko’s niece, and she was nineteen.
   Mariko told her.
   “What an awful man! What foul manners! Disgusting, neh? How can you bear to be near him?”
   “Because he saved our Master’s honor. Without his bravery I’m sure Lord Toranaga would have been captured—we’d all have been captured.” Both women shuddered.
   “The gods protect us from that shame!” Fujiko glanced at Blackthorne, who leaned against the gunwale up the deck, staring at the shore. She studied him a moment. “He looks like a golden ape with blue eyes—a creature to frighten children with. Horrid, neh?” Fujiko shivered and dismissed him and looked again at Buntaro. After a moment she said, “I envy your husband, Mariko-san.”
   “Yes,” Mariko replied sadly. “But I wish he had a second to help him.” By custom another samurai always assisted at a seppuku, standing slightly behind the kneeling man, to decapitate him with a single stroke before the agony became unbearable and uncontrollable and so shamed the man at the supreme moment of his life. Unseconded, few men could die without shame.
   “Karma,” Fujiko said.
   “Yes. I pity him. That’s the one thing he feared—not to have a second.”
   “We’re luckier than men, neh?” Samurai women committed seppuku by thrusting their knives into their throats and therefore needed no assistance.
   “Yes,” Mariko said.
   Screams and battle cries came wafting on the wind, distracting them. The breakwater was breached again. A small company of fifty Toranaga ronin -samurai raced out of the north in support, a few horsemen among them. Again the breach was ferociously contained, no quarter sought or given, the attackers thrown back and a few more moments of time gained.
   Time for what, Blackthorne was asking bitterly. Toranaga’s safe now. He’s out to sea. He’s betrayed you all.
   The drum began again.
   Oars bit into the water, the prow dipped and began to cut through the waves, and aft a wake appeared. Signal fires still burned from the castle walls above. The whole city was almost awake.
   The main body of Grays hit the breakwater. Blackthorne’s eyes went to Buntaro. “You poor bastard!” he said in English. “You poor, stupid bastard!”
   He turned on his heel and walked down the companionway along the main deck toward the bow to watch for shoals ahead. No one except Fujiko and the captain noticed him leaving the quarterdeck.
   The oarsmen pulled with fine discipline and the ship was gaining way. The sea was fair, the wind friendly. Blackthorne tasted the salt and welcomed it. Then he detected the ships crowding the harbor mouth half a league ahead. Fishing vessels yes, but they were crammed with samurai.
   “We’re trapped,” he said out loud, knowing somehow they were enemy.
   A tremor went through the ship. All who watched the battle on shore had shifted in unison.
   Blackthorne looked back. Grays were calmly mopping up the breakwater, while others were heading unhurried toward the jetty for Buntaro, but four horsemen—Browns—were galloping across the beaten earth from out of the north, a fifth horse, a spare horse, tethered to the leader. This man clattered up the wide stone steps of the wharf with the spare horse and raced its length while the other three slammed toward the encroaching Grays. Buntaro had also looked around but he remained kneeling and, when the man reined in behind him, he waved him away and picked up the knife in both hands, blade toward himself. Immediately Toranaga cupped his hands and shouted, “Buntaro-san! Go with them now—try to escape!”
   The cry swept across the waves and was repeated and then Buntaro heard it clearly. He hesitated, shocked, the knife poised. Again the call, insistent and imperious.
   With effort Buntaro drew himself back from death and icily contemplated life and the escape that was ordered. The risk was bad. Better to die here, he told himself. Doesn’t Toranaga know that? Here is an honorable death. There, almost certain capture. Where do you run? Three hundred ri, all the way to Yedo? You’re certain to be captured!
   He felt the strength in his arm, saw the firm, unshaking, needle-pointed dagger hovering near his naked abdomen, and he craved for the releasing agony of death at long last. At long last a death to expiate all the shame: the shame of his father’s kneeling to Toranaga’s standard when they should have kept faith with Yaemon, the Taikō’s heir, as they had sworn to do; the shame of killing so many men who honorably served the Taikō’s cause against the usurper, Toranaga; the shame of the woman, Mariko, and of his only son, both forever tainted, the son because of the mother and she because of her father, the monstrous assassin, Akechi Jinsai. And the shame of knowing that because of them, his own name was befouled forever.
   How many thousand agonies have I not endured because of her?
   His soul cried out for oblivion. Now so near and easy and honorable. The next life will be better; how could it be worse?
   Even so, he put down the knife and obeyed, and cast himself back into the abyss of life. His liege lord had ordered the ultimate suffering and had decided to cancel his attempt at peace. What else is there for a samurai but obedience?
   He jumped up, hurled himself into the saddle, jammed his heels into the horse’s sides, and, together with the other man, he fled. Other ronin -cavalry galloped out of the night to guard their retreat and cut down the leading Grays. Then they too vanished, a few Gray horsemen in pursuit.
   Laughter erupted over the ship.
   Toranaga was pounding the gunwale with his fist in glee, Yabu and the samurai were roaring. Even Mariko was laughing.
   “One man got away, but what about all the dead?” Blackthorne cried out enraged. “Look ashore—there must be three, four hundred bodies there. Look at them, for Christ’s sake!”
   But his shout did not come through the laughter.
   Then a cry of alarm from the bow lookout. And the laughter died.

Chapter 26

   Toranaga said calmly, “Can we break through them, Captain?” He was watching the grouped fishing boats five hundred yards ahead, and the tempting passage they had left between them.
   “No, Sire.”
   “We’ve no alternative,” Yabu said. “There’s nothing else we can do.” He glared aft at the massed Grays who waited on the shore and the jetty, their faint, jeering insults riding on the wind.
   Toranaga and Yabu were on the forepoop now. The drum had been silenced and the galley wallowed in a light sea. All aboard waited to see what would be decided. They knew that they were bottled tight. Ashore disaster, ahead disaster, to wait disaster. The net would come closer and closer and then they would be captured. If need be, Ishido could wait days.
   Yabu was seething. If we’d rushed for the harbor mouth directly instead of wasting useless time over Buntaro, we’d be safely out to sea by now, he told himself. Toranaga’s losing his wits. Ishido will believe I betrayed him. There’s nothing I can do—unless we can fight our way out, and even then I’m committed to fight for Toranaga against Ishido. Nothing I can do. Except give Ishido Toranaga’s head. Neh? That would make you a Regent and bring you the Kwanto, neh? And then with six months of time and the musket samurai, why not even President of the Council of Regents? Or why not the big prize! Eliminate Ishido and become Chief General of the Heir, Lord Protector and Governor of Osaka Castle, the controlling general of all the legendary wealth in the donjon, with power over the Empire during Yaemon’s minority, and afterwards power second only to Yaemon. Why not?
   Or even the biggest prize of all. Shōgun. Eliminate Yaemon, then you’ll be Shōgun.
   All for a single head and some benevolent gods!
   Yabu’s knees felt weak as his longing soared. So easy to do, he thought, but no way to take the head and escape—yet.
   “Order attack stations!” Toranaga commanded at last.
   As Yabu gave the orders and samurai began to prepare, Toranaga turned his attention to the barbarian, who was still near the forepoop, where he had stopped when the alarm was given, leaning against the short mainmast.
   I wish I could understand him, Toranaga thought. One moment so brave, the next so weak. One moment so valuable, the next so useless. One moment killer, the next coward. One moment docile, the next dangerous. He’s man and woman, Yang and Yin. He’s nothing but opposites, and unpredictable.
   Toranaga had studied him carefully during the escape from the castle, during the ambush and after it. He had heard from Mariko and the captain and others what had happened during the fight aboard. He had witnessed the astonishing anger a few moments ago and then, when Buntaro had been sent off, he had heard the shout and had seen through veiled eyes the stretched ugliness on the man’s face, and then, when there should have been laughter, only anger.
   Why not laughter when an enemy’s outsmarted? Why not laughter to empty the tragedy from you when karma interrupts the beautiful death of a true samurai, when karma causes the useless death of a pretty girl? Isn’t it only through laughter that we become one with the gods and thus can endure life and can overcome all the horror and waste and suffering here on earth? Like tonight, watching all those brave men meet their fate here, on this shore, on this gentle night, through a karma ordained a thousand lifetimes ago, or perhaps even one.
   Isn’t it only through laughter we can stay human?
   Why doesn’t the pilot realize he’s governed by karma too, as I am, as we all are, as even this Jesus the Christ was, for, if the truth were known, it was only his karma that made him die dishonored like a common criminal with other common criminals, on the hill the barbarian priests tell about.
   All karma.
   How barbaric to nail a man to a piece of wood and wait for him to die. They’re worse than the Chinese, who are pleasured by torture.
   “Ask him, Yabu-san!” Toranaga said.
   “Sire?”
   “Ask him what to do. The pilot. Isn’t this a sea battle? Haven’t you told me the pilot’s a genius at sea? Good, let’s see if you’re right. Let him prove it.”
   Yabu’s mouth was a tight cruel line and Toranaga could feel the man’s fear and it delighted him.
   “Mariko-san,” Yabu barked. “Ask the pilot how to get out—how to break through those ships.”
   Obediently Mariko moved away from the gunwale, the girl still supporting her. “No, I’m all right now, Fujiko-san,” she said. “Thank you.” Fujiko let her go and watched Blackthorne distastefully.
   Blackthorne’s answer was short.
   “He says ‘with cannon,’ Yabu-san,” Mariko said.
   “Tell him he’ll have to do better than that if he wants to retain his head!”
   “We must be patient with him, Yabu-san,” Toranaga interrupted. “Mariko-san, tell him politely, ‘Regrettably we have no cannon. Isn’t there another way to break out? It’s impossible by land.’ Translate exactly what he replies. Exactly.”
   Mariko did so. “I’m sorry, Lord, but he says, no. Just like that. ‘No.’ Not politely.”
   Toranaga moved his sash and scratched an itch under his armor. “Well then,” he said genially, “the Anjin-san says cannon and he’s the expert, so cannon it is. Captain, go there!” His blunt, calloused finger pointed viciously at the Portuguese frigate. “Get the men ready, Yabu-san. If the Southern Barbarians won’t lend me their cannon, then you will have to take them. Won’t you?”
   “With very great pleasure,” Yabu said softly.
   “You were right, he is a genius.”
   “But you found the solution, Toranaga-san.”
   “It’s easy to find solutions given the answer, neh? What’s the solution to Osaka Castle, Ally?”
   “There isn’t one. In that the Taikō was perfect.”
   “Yes. What’s the solution to treachery?”
   “Of course, ignominious death. But I don’t understand why you should ask me that.”
   “A passing thought—Ally.” Toranaga glanced at Blackthorne. “Yes, he’s a clever man. I have great need of clever men. Mariko-san, will the barbarians give me their cannon?”
   “Of course. Why shouldn’t they?” It had never occurred to her that they would not. She was still filled with anxiety over Buntaro. It would have been so much better to allow him to die back there. Why risk his honor? She wondered why Toranaga had ordered Buntaro away by land at the very last moment. Toranaga could just as easily have ordered him to swim to the boat. It would have been much safer and there was plenty of time. He could even have ordered it when Buntaro had first reached the end of the jetty. Why wait? Her most secret self answered that their lord must have had a very good reason to have waited and to have so ordered.
   “And if they don’t? Are you prepared to kill Christians, Mariko-san?” Toranaga asked. “Isn’t that their most impossible law? Thou shalt not kill?”
   “Yes, it is. But for you, Lord, we will go gladly into hell, my husband and my son and I.”
   “Yes. You’re true samurai and I won’t forget that you took up a sword to defend me.”
   “Please do not thank me. If I helped, in any minor way, it was my duty. If anyone is to be remembered, please let it be my husband or my son. They are more valuable to you.”
   “At the moment you’re more valuable to me. You could be even more valuable.”
   “Tell me how, Sire. And it will be done.”
   “Put this foreign God away.”
   “Sire?” Her face froze.
   “Put your God away. You have one too many loyalties.”
   “You mean become apostate, Sire? Give up Christianity?”
   “Yes, unless you can put this God where He belongs—in the back of your spirit, not in the front.”
   “Please excuse me, Sire,” she said shakily, “but my religion has never interfered with my loyalty to you. I’ve always kept my religion a private matter, all the time. How have I failed you?”
   “You haven’t yet. But you will.”
   “Tell me what I must do to please you.”
   “The Christians may become my enemies, neh?”
   “Your enemies are mine, Lord.”
   “The priests oppose me now. They may order all Christians to war on me.”
   “They can’t, Sire. They’re men of peace.”
   “And if they continue to oppose me? If Christians war on me?”
   “You will never have to fear my loyalty. Never.”
   “This Anjin-san may speak the truth and your priests with false tongues.”
   “There are good priests and bad priests, Sire. But you are my liege lord.”
   “Very well, Mariko-san,” Toranaga said. “I’ll accept that. You’re ordered to become friends with this barbarian, to learn all he knows, to report everything he says, to learn to think like him, to ‘confess’ nothing about what you’re doing, to treat all priests with suspicion, to report everything the priests ask you or say to you. Your God must fit in between, elsewhere—or not at all.”
   Mariko pushed a thread of hair out of her eyes. “I can do all that, Sire, and still remain Christian. I swear it.”
   “Good. Swear it by this Christian God.”
   “Before God I swear it.”
   “Good.” Toranaga turned and called out, “Fujiko-san!”
   “Yes, Sire?”
   “Did you bring maids with you?”
   “Yes, Sire. Two.”
   “Give one to Mariko-san. Send the other for cha.”
   “There’s saké if you wish.”
   “Cha. Yabu-san, would you like cha or saké?”
   “Cha, please.”
   “Bring saké for the Anjin-san.”
   Light caught the little golden crucifix that hung from Mariko’s neck. She saw Toranaga stare at it. “You … you wish me not to wear it, Sire? To throw it away?”
   “No,” he said. “Wear it as a reminder of your oath.”
   They all watched the frigate. Toranaga felt someone looking at him and glanced around. He saw the hard face and cold blue eyes and felt the hate—no, not hate, the suspicion. How dare the barbarian be suspicious of me, he thought.
   “Ask the Anjin-san why didn’t he just say there’re plenty of cannon on the barbarian ship? Get them to escort us out of the trap?”
   Mariko translated. Blackthorne answered.
   “He says …” Mariko hesitated, then continued in a rush, “Please excuse me, he said, ‘It’s good for him to use his own head.’”
   Toranaga laughed. “Thank him for his. It’s been most useful. I hope it stays on his shoulders. Tell him that now we’re equal.”
   “He says, ‘No, we’re not equal, Toranaga-sama. But give me my ship and a crew and I’ll wipe the seas clean. Of any enemy.’”
   “Mariko-san, do you think he meant me as well as the others—the Spanish and the Southern Barbarians?” The question was put lightly.
   The breeze wafted strands of hair into her eyes. She pushed them away tiredly. “I don’t know, so sorry. Perhaps, perhaps not. Do you want me to ask him? I’m sorry, but he’s a … he’s very strange. I’m afraid I don’t understand him. Not at all.”
   “We’ve plenty of time. Yes. In time he’ll explain himself to us.”


   Blackthorne had seen the frigate quietly slip her moorings the moment her escort of Grays had hurried away, had watched her launch her longboat, which had quickly warped the ship away from her berth at the jetty, well out into the stream. Now she lay a few cables offshore in deep water, safe, a light bow anchor holding her gently, broadside to the shore. This was the normal maneuver of all European ships in alien or hostile harbors when a shore danger threatened. He knew, too, that though there was—and had been—no untoward movement on deck, by now all cannon would be primed, muskets issued, grape, cannonball, and chainshot ready in abundance, cutlasses waiting in their racks—and armed men aloft in the shrouds. Eyes would be searching all points of the compass. The galley would have been marked the moment it had changed course. The two stern chasers, thirty pounders, which were pointing directly at them, would be trained on them. Portuguese gunners were the best in the world, after the English.
   And they’ll know about Toranaga, he told himself with great bitterness, because they’re clever and they’d have asked their porters or the Grays what all the trouble was about. Or by now the God-cursed Jesuits who know everything would have sent word about Toranaga’s escape, and about me.
   He could feel his short hairs curling. Any one of those guns can blow us to hell. Yes, but we’re safe because Toranaga’s aboard. Thank God for Toranaga.
   Mariko was saying, “My Master asks what is your custom when you want to approach a warship?”
   “If you had cannon you’d fire a salute. Or you can signal with flags, asking permission to come alongside.”
   “My Master says, and if you have no flags?”
   Though they were still outside cannon range it was almost, to Blackthorne, as if he were already climbing down one of the barrels, though the gunports were still closed. The ship carried eight cannon a side on her main deck, two at the stern and two at the bow. Erasmus could take her, he told himself, without a doubt, providing the crew was right. I’d like to take her. Wake up, stop daydreaming, we’re not aboard Erasmus but this sow-gutted galley and that Portuguese ship’s the only hope we have. Under her guns we’re safe. Bless your luck for Toranaga.

   “Tell the captain to break out Toranaga’s flag at the masthead. That’ll be enough, senhora. That’ll make it formal and tell them who’s aboard, but I’d bet they know already.”
   This was done quickly. Everyone in the galley seemed to be more confident now. Blackthorne marked the change. Even he felt better under the flag.
   “My Master says, but how do we tell them we wish to go alongside?”
   “Tell him without signal flags he has two choices: he waits outside cannon range and sends a deputation aboard her in a small boat, or we go directly within hailing distance.”
   “My Master says, which do you advise?”
   “Go straight alongside. There’s no reason for caution. Lord Toranaga’s aboard. He’s the most important daimyo in the Empire. Of course she’ll help us and—Oh Jesu God!”
   “Senhor?”
   But he did not reply, so she quickly translated what had been said and listened to Toranaga’s next question. “My Master asks, the frigate will what? Please explain your thought and the reason you stopped.”
   “I suddenly realized, he’s at war with Ishido now. Isn’t he? So the frigate may not be inclined to help him.”
   “Of course they’ll help him.”
   “No. Which side benefits the Portuguese more, Lord Toranaga or Ishido? If they believe Ishido will, they’ll blow us to hell out of the water.”
   “It’s unthinkable that the Portuguese would fire on any Japanese ship,” Mariko said at once.
   “Believe me, they will, senhora. And I’ll bet that frigate won’t let us alongside. I wouldn’t if I were her pilot. Christ Jesus!” Blackthorne stared ashore.
   The taunting Grays had left the jetty now and were spreading out parallel to the shore. No chance there, he thought. The fishing boats still lay malevolently clogging the harbor’s neck. No chance there either. “Tell Toranaga there’s only one other way to get out of the harbor. That’s to hope for a storm. Maybe we could ride it out, where the fishing boats can’t. Then we could slip past the net.”
   Toranaga questioned the captain, who answered at length, then Mariko said to Blackthorne, “My Master asks, do you think there’ll be a storm?”
   “My nose says yes. But not for days. Two or three. Can we wait that long?”
   “Your nose tells you? There is a smell to a storm?”
   “No, senhora. It’s just an expression.”
   Toranaga pondered. Then he gave an order.
   “We are going to within hailing distance, Anjin-san.”
   “Then tell him to go directly astern of her. That way we’re the smallest target. Tell him they’re treacherous—I know how seriously treacherous they are when their interests are threatened. They’re worse than the Dutch! If that ship helps Toranaga escape, Ishido will take it out on all Portuguese and they won’t risk that.”
   “My Master says we’ll soon have that answer.”
   “We’re naked, senhora. We’ve no chance against those cannon. If the ship’s hostile—even if it’s simply neutral—we’re sunk.”
   “My Master says, yes, but it will be your duty to persuade them to be benevolent.”
   “How can I do that? I’m their enemy.”
   “My Master says, in war and in peace, a good enemy can be more valuable than a good ally. He says you will know their minds—you will think of a way to persuade them.”
   “The only sure way’s by force.”
   “Good. I agree, my Master says. Please tell me how you would pirate that ship.”
   “What?”
   “He said, good, I agree. How would you pirate the ship, how would you conquer it? I require the use of their cannon. So sorry, isn’t that clear, Anjin-san?”


   “And again I say I’m going to blow her out of the water,” Ferriera, the Captain-General, declared.
   “No,” dell’Aqua replied, watching the galley from the quarterdeck.
   “Gunner, is she in range yet?”
   “No, Don Ferriera,” the chief gunner replied. “Not yet.”
   “Why else is she coming at us if not for hostile reasons, Eminence? Why doesn’t she just escape? The way’s clear.” The frigate was too far from the harbor mouth for anyone aboard to see the encroaching fishing boats crowding in ambush.
   “We risk nothing, Eminence, and gain everything,” Ferriera said. “We pretend we didn’t know Toranaga was aboard. We thought the bandits—bandits led by the pirate heretic—were going to attack us. Don’t worry, it will be easy to provoke them once they’re in range.”
   “No,” dell’Aqua ordered.
   Father Alvito turned back from the gunwale. “The galley’s flying Toranaga’s flag, Captain-General.”
   “False colors!” Ferriera added sardonically, “That’s the oldest sea trick in the world. We haven’t seen Toranaga. Perhaps he isn’t aboard.”
   “No.”
   “God’s death, war would be a catastrophe! It’ll hurt, if not ruin, the Black Ship’s voyage this year. I can’t afford that! I won’t have anything interfere with that!”
   “Our finances are in a worse position than yours, Captain-General,” dell’Aqua rapped. “If we don’t trade this year, the Church is bankrupt, is that clear? We’ve had no funds from Goa or Lisbon for three years and the loss of last year’s profit… God give me patience! I know better than you what’s at stake. The answer is no!”
   Rodrigues was sitting painfully in his seachair, his leg in a splint resting on a padded stool that was lashed safe near the binnacle. “The Captain-General’s right, Eminence. Why should she come at us, if not to try something? Why not escape, eh? Eminence, we’ve a pisscutting opportunity here.”
   “Yes, and it is a military decision,” Ferriera said.
   Alvito turned on him sharply. “No, his Eminence is arbiter in this, Captain-General. We must not hurt Toranaga. We must help him.”
   Rodrigues said, “You’ve told me a dozen times that once war starts it’ll go on forever. War’s started, hasn’t it? We’ve seen it start. That’s got to hurt trade. With Toranaga dead the war’s over and all our interests are safe. I say blow the ship to hell.”
   “We even get rid of the heretic,” Ferriera added, watching Rodrigues. “You prevent a war for the glory of God, and another heretic goes to torment.”
   “It would be unwarranted interference in their politics,” dell’Aqua replied, avoiding the real reason.
   “We interfere all the time. The Society of Jesus is famous for it. We’re not simple, thick-headed peasants!”
   “I’m not suggesting you are. But while I’m aboard you will not sink that ship.”
   “Then kindly go ashore.”
   “The sooner the archmurderer is dead, the better, Eminence,” Rodrigues suggested. “Him or Ishido, what’s the difference? They’re both heathen, and you can’t trust either of them. The Captain-General’s right, we’ll never get an opportunity like this again. And what about our Black Ship?” Rodrigues was pilot with a fifteenth part of all the profit. The real pilot of the Black Ship had died of the pox in Macao three months ago and Rodrigues had been taken off his own ship, the Santa Theresa, and given the new post, to his everlasting joy. Pox was the official reason, Rodrigues reminded himself grimly, though many said the other pilot was knifed in the back by a ronin in a whorehouse brawl. By God, this is my great chance. Nothing’s going to interfere with that!
   “I will accept full responsibility,” Ferriera was saying. “It’s a military decision. We’re involved in a native war. My ship’s in danger.” He turned again to the chief gunner. “Are they in range yet?”
   “Well, Don Ferriera, that depends what you wish.” The chief gunner blew on the end of the taper, which made it glow and spark. “I could take off her bow now, or her stern, or hit her amidships, whichever you prefer. But if you want a man dead, a particular man, then a moment or two would bring them into killing range.”
   “I want Toranaga dead. And the heretic.”
   “You mean the Ingeles, the pilot?”
   “Yes.”
   “Someone will have to point the Jappo out. The pilot I’ll recognize, doubtless.”
   Rodrigues said, “If the pilot’s got to die to kill Toranaga and stop the war then I’m for it, Captain-General. Otherwise he should be spared.”
   “He’s a heretic, an enemy of our country, an abomination, and he’s already caused us more trouble than a nest of vipers.”
   “I’ve already pointed out that first the Ingeles is a pilot and last he’s a pilot, one of the best in the world.”
   “Pilots should have special privileges? Even heretics?”
   “Yes, by God. We should use him like they use us. It’d be a Godcursed waste to kill such experience. Without pilots there’s no pisscutting Empire and no trade and no nothing. Without me, by God, there’s no Black Ship and no profit and no way home, so my opinion’s God-cursed important.”
   There was a cry from the masthead, “Ho on the quarterdeck, the galley’s changing her course!” The galley had been heading straight for them but now she had swung a few points to port, out into the harbor.
   Immediately Rodrigues shouted, “Action stations! Starboard watch aloft—all sails ho! Up anchor!” At once men rushed to obey.
   “What’s amiss, Rodrigues?”
   “I don’t know, Captain-General, but we’re getting out into open sea. That fat-gutted whore’s going to windward.”
   “What does that matter? We can sink them at any time,” Ferriera said. “We’ve stores still to bring aboard and the Fathers have to go back to Osaka.”
   “Aye. But no hostile’s getting to windward of my ship. That whore doesn’t depend on the wind, she can go against it. She might be coming round to hack at us from our bow where we’ve only one cannon and board us!”
   Ferriera laughed contemptuously. “We’ve twenty cannon aboard! They’ve none! You think that filthy heathen pig boat would dare to try to attack us? You’re simple in the head!”
   “Yes, Captain-General, that’s why I’ve still got one. The Santa Theresa ’s ordered to sea!”
   The sails were crackling out of their ropes and the wind took them, the spars grinding. Both watches were on deck at battle stations. The frigate began to make way but her going was slow. “Come on, you bitch,” Rodrigues urged.
   “We’re ready, Don Ferriera,” the chief gunner said. “I’ve got her in my sights. I can’t hold her for long. Which is this Toranaga? Point him out!”
   There were no flares aboard the galley; the only illumination came from the moonlight. The galley was still astern, a hundred yards off, but turned to port now and headed for the far shore, the oars dipping and falling in unbroken rhythm. “Is that the pilot? The tall man on the quarterdeck?”
   “Yes,” Rodrigues said.
   “Manuel and Perdito! Take him and the quarterdeck!” The cannon nearest made slight adjustments. “Which is this Toranaga? Quickly! Helmsmen, two points to starboard!”
   “Two points to starboard it is, Gunner!”
   Conscious of the sanding bottom and the shoals nearby, Rodrigues was watching the shrouds, ready at any second to override the chief gunner, who by custom had the con on a stern cannonade. “Ho, port maindeck cannon!” the gunner shouted. “Once we’ve fired we’ll let her fall off the wind. Drop all gun ports, prepare for a broadside!” The gun crews obeyed, their eyes going to the officers on the quarterdeck. And the priests. “For the love of God, Don Ferriera, which is this Toranaga?”
   “Which is he, Father?” Ferriera had never seen him before.
   Rodrigues had recognized Toranaga clearly on the foredeck in a ring of samurai, but he did not want to be the one to put the mark on him. Let the priests do that, he thought. Go on, Father, play the Judas. Why should we always do all the pox-foul work, not that I care a chipped doubloon for that heathen son of a whore.
   Both priests were silent.
   “Quick, which would Toranaga be?” the gunner asked again.
   Impatiently Rodrigues pointed him out. “There, on the poop. The short, thickset bastard in the middle of those other heathen bastards.”
   “I see him, Senhor Pilot.”
   The gun crews made last slight adjustments.
   Ferriera took the taper out of the gunner’s mate’s hand.
   “Are you trained on the heretic?”
   “Yes, Captain-General, are you ready? I’ll drop my hand. That’s the signal!”
   “Good.”
   “Thou shalt not kill!” It was dell’Aqua.
   Ferriera whirled on him. “They’re heathens and heretics!”
   “There are Christians among them and even if there weren’t—”
   “Pay no attention to him, Gunner!” the Captain-General snarled. “We fire when you’re ready!”
   Dell’Aqua went forward to the muzzle of the cannon and stood in the way. His bulk dominated the quarterdeck and the armed sailors that lay in ambush. His hand was on the crucifix. “I say, Thou shalt not kill!”
   “We kill all the time, Father,” Ferriera said.
   “I know, and I’m ashamed of it and I beg God’s forgiveness for it.” Dell’Aqua had never before been on the quarterdeck of a fighting ship with primed guns, and muskets, and fingers on triggers, readying for death. “While I’m here there’ll be no killing and I’ll not condone killing from ambush!”
   “And if they attack us? Try to take the ship?”
   “I will beg God to assist us against them!”
   “What’s the difference, now or later?”
   Dell’Aqua did not answer. Thou shalt not kill, he thought, and Toranaga has promised everything, Ishido nothing.
   “What’s it to be, Captain-General? Now’s the time!” the master gunner cried. “Now!”
   Ferriera bitterly turned his back on the priests, threw down the taper and went to the rail. “Get ready to repel an attack,” he shouted. “If she comes within fifty yards uninvited, you’re all ordered to blow her to hell whatever the priests say!”
   Rodrigues was equally enraged but he knew that he was as helpless as the Captain-General against the priest. Thou shalt not kill? By the blessed Lord Jesus, what about you? he wanted to shout. What about the auto da fé? What about the Inquisition? What about you priests who pronounce the sentence “guilty” or “witch” or “satanist” or “heretic”? Remember the two thousand witches burned in Portugal alone, the year I sailed for Asia? What about almost every village and town in Portugal and Spain, and the dominions visited and investigated by the Scourges of God, as the cowled Inquisitors proudly called themselves, the smell of burning flesh in their wake? Oh, Lord Jesus Christ, protect us!
   He pushed his fear and loathing away and concentrated on the galley. He could just see Blackthorne and he thought, ah Ingeles, it’s good to see you, standing there holding the con, so tall and cocky. I was afraid you’d gone to the execution ground. I’m glad you escaped, but even so it’s lucky you don’t have a single little cannon aboard, for then I’d blow you out of the water, and to hell with what the priests would say.
   Oh, Madonna, protect me from a bad priest.

 
   “Ahoy, Santa Theresa!”
   “Ahoy, Ingeles!”
   “Is that you, Rodrigues?”
   “Aye!”
   “Thy leg?”
   “Thy mother!”
   Rodrigues was greatly pleased by the bantering laugh that came across the sea that separated them.
   For half an hour the two ships had maneuvered for position, chasing, tacking, and falling away, the galley trying to get windward and bottle the frigate on a lee shore, the frigate to gain sea room to sail out of harbor if she desired. But neither had been able to gain an advantage, and it was during this chase that those aboard the frigate had seen the fishing boats crowding the mouth of the harbor for the first time and realized their significance.
   “That’s why he’s coming at us! For protection!”
   “Even more reason for us to sink him now he’s trapped. Ishido will thank us forever,” Ferriera had said.
   Dell’Aqua had remained obdurate. “Toranaga’s much too important. I insist first we must talk to Toranaga. You can always sink him. He doesn’t have cannon. Even I know that only cannon can fight cannon.”
   So Rodrigues had allowed a stalemate to develop to give them breathing time. Both ships were in the center of the harbor, safe from fishing ships and safe from each other, the frigate trembling into the wind, ready to fall off instantly, and the galley, oars shipped, drifting broadside to just within calling distance. It was only when Rodrigues had seen the galley ship all oars and turn broadside to his guns that he had turned into the wind to allow her to approach within shouting range and had prepared for the next series of moves. Thank God, the blessed Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, we’ve cannon and that bastard has none, Rodrigues thought again. The Ingeles is too smart.
   But it’s good to be opposed by a professional, he told himself. Much safer. Then no one makes a foolhardy mistake and no one gets hurt unnecessarily.
   “Permission to come aboard?”
   “Who, Ingeles?”
   “Lord Toranaga, his interpreter, and guards.”
   Ferriera said quietly, “No guards.”
   Alvito said, “He must bring some. It’s a matter of face.”
   “The pox on face. No guards.”
   “I don’t want samurai aboard,” Rodrigues agreed.
   “Would you agree to five?” Alvito asked. “Just his personal guards? You understand the problem, Rodrigues.”
   Rodrigues thought a moment, then nodded. “Five are all right, Captain-General. We’ll detail five men as your ‘personal bodyguards’ with a brace of pistols apiece. Father, you fix the details now. Better the Father to arrange the details, Captain-General, he knows how. Go on, Father, but tell us what’s being said.”
   Alvito went to the gunwale and shouted, “You gain nothing by your lies! Prepare your souls for hell—you and your bandits. You’ve ten minutes, then the Captain-General’s going to blow you to eternal torment!”
   “We’re flying Lord Toranaga’s flag, by God!”
   “False colors, pirate!”
   Ferriera took a step forward. “What are you playing at, Father?”
   “Please be patient, Captain-General,” Alvito said. “This is only a matter of form. Otherwise Toranaga has to be permanently offended that we’ve insulted his flag—which we have. That’s Toranaga—that’s no simple daimyo! Perhaps you’d better remember that he personally has more troops under arms than the King of Spain!”
   The wind was sighing in the rigging, the spars clattering nervously. Then flares were lit on the quarterdeck and now they could see Toranaga clearly. His voice came across the waves.
   “Tsukku-san! How dare you avoid my galley! There are no pirates here—only in those fishing ships at the harbor mouth. I wish to come alongside instantly!”
   Alvito shouted back in Japanese, feigning astonishment, “But Lord Toranaga, so sorry, we had no idea! We thought it was just a trick. The Grays said bandit-ronin had taken the galley by force! We thought bandits, under the English pirate, were sailing under false colors. I will come immediately.”
   “No. I will come alongside at once.”
   “I beg you, Lord Toranaga, allow me to come to escort you. My Master, the Father-Visitor, is here and also the Captain-General. They insist we make amends. Please accept our apologies!” Alvito changed to Portuguese again and shouted loudly to the bosun, “Launch a longboat,” and back again to Toranaga in Japanese, “The boat is being launched at once, my Lord.”
   Rodrigues listened to the cloying humility in Alvito’s voice and he thought how much more difficult it was to deal with Japanese than with Chinese. The Chinese understood the art of negotiation, of compromise and concession and reward. But the Japanese were pride-filled and when a man’s pride was injured—any Japanese, not necessarily just samurai—then death was a small price to repay the insult. Come on, get it over with, he wanted to shout.
   “Captain-General, I’ll go at once,” Father Alvito was saying. “Eminence, if you come as well that compliment will do much to appease him.”
   “I agree.”
   “Isn’t that dangerous?” Ferriera said. “You two could be used as hostages.”
   Dell’Aqua said, “The moment there’s a sign of treachery, I order you, in God’s name, to obliterate that ship and all who sail in her, whether we’re aboard or not.” He strode off the quarterdeck, down onto the main deck, past the guns, the skirts of his robe swinging majestically. At the head of the gangway he turned and made the sign of the cross. Then he clattered down the gangway into the boat.
   The bosun cast off. All the sailors were armed with pistols, and a fused keg of powder was under the bosun’s seat.
   Ferriera leaned over the gunwale and called down quietly, “Eminence, bring the heretic back with you.”
   “What? What did you say?’’ It amused dell’Aqua to toy with the Captain-General, whose continual insolence had mortally offended him, for of course he had decided long since to acquire Blackthorne, and he could hear perfectly well. Che stupido, he was thinking.
   “Bring the heretic back with you, eh?” Ferriera called again.
   On the quarterdeck Rodrigues heard the muffled, “Yes, Captain-General,” and he thought, what treachery are you about, Ferriera?
   He shifted in the chair with difficulty, his face bloodless. The pain in his leg was grinding and it took much of his strength to contain it. The bones were knitting well and, Madonna be praised, the wound was clean. But the fracture was still a fracture and even the slight dip of the ship at rest was troublesome. He took a swallow of grog from the well-used seabag that hung from a peg on the binnacle.
   Ferriera was watching him. “Your leg’s bad?”
   “It’s all right.” The grog deadened the hurt.
   “Will it be all right enough to voyage from here to Macao?”
   “Yes. And to fight a sea battle all the way. And to come back in the summer, if that’s what you mean.”
   “Yes, that’s what I mean, Pilot.” The lips were thin again, drawn into that tight mocking smile. “I need a fit pilot.”
   “I’m fit. My leg’s mending well.” Rodrigues shook off the pain. “The Ingeles won’t come aboard us willingly. I wouldn’t.”
   “A hundred guineas says you’re wrong.”
   “That’s more than I make in a year.”
   “Payable after we reach Lisbon, from the profits from the Black Ship.”
   “Done. Nothing’ll make him come aboard, not willingly. I’m a hundred guineas richer, by God!”
   “Poorer! You forget the Jesuits want him here more than I do.”
   “Why should they want that?”
   Ferriera looked at him levelly and did not answer, wearing the same twisted smile. Then, baiting him, he said, “I’d escort Toranaga out, for possession of the heretic.”
   “I’m glad I’m your comrade and necessary to you and the Black Ship,” Rodrigues said. “I wouldn’t want to be your enemy.”
   “I’m glad we understand one another, Pilot. At long last.”


   “I require escort out of the harbor. I need it quickly,” Toranaga told dell’Aqua through the interpreter Alvito, Mariko nearby, also listening, with Yabu. He stood on the galley’s poopdeck, dell’Aqua below on the main deck, Alvito beside him, but even so their eyes were almost level. “Or, if you wish, your warship can remove the fishing boats from out of my way.”
   “Forgive me, but that would be an unwarranted hostile act that you would not—could not recommend to the frigate, Lord Toranaga,” dell’Aqua said, talking directly to him, finding Alvito’s simultaneous translation eerie, as always. “That would be impossible—an open act of war.”
   “Then what do you suggest?”
   “Please come back to the frigate. Let us ask the Captain-General. He will have a solution, now that we know what your problem is. He’s the military man, we are not.”
   “Bring him here.”
   “It would be quicker for you to go there, Sire. Apart, of course, from the honor you would do us.”
   Toranaga knew the truth of this. Only moments before they had seen more fishing boats loaded with archers launched from the southem shore and, though they were safe at the moment, it was clear that within the hour the neck of the harbor would be choked with hostiles.
   And he knew he had no choice.
   “Sorry, Sire,” the Anjin-san had explained earlier, during the abortive chase, “I can’t get near the frigate. Rodrigues is too clever. I can stop him escaping if the wind holds but I can’t trap him, unless he makes a mistake. We’ll have to parley.”
   “Will he make a mistake and will the wind hold?” he had asked through Mariko.
   She had replied, “The Anjin-san says, a wise man never bets on the wind, unless it’s a trade wind and you’re out to sea. Here we’re in a harbor where the mountains cause the wind to eddy and flow. The pilot, Rodrigues, won’t make a mistake.”
   Toranaga had watched the two pilots pit their wits against each other and he knew, beyond doubt, that both were masters. And he had come to realize also that neither he nor his lands nor the Empire would ever be safe without possessing modern barbarian ships, and through these ships, control of their own seas. The thought had shattered him.
   “But how can I negotiate with them? What possible excuse could they use for such open hostility against me? Now it’s my duty to bury them for their insults to my honor.”
   Then the Anjin-san had explained the ploy of false colors: how all ships used the device to get close to the enemy, or to attempt to avoid an enemy, and Toranaga had been greatly relieved that there might be an acceptable face-saving solution to that problem.
   Now Alvito was saying, “I think we should go at once, Sire.”
   “Very well,” Toranaga agreed. “Yabu-san, take command of the ship. Mariko-san, tell the Anjin-san he is to stay on the quarterdeck and to keep the helm, then you come with me.”
   “Yes, Lord.”
   It had been clear to Toranaga from the size of the longboat that he could take only five guards with him. But this, too, had been anticipated and the final plan was simple: if he could not persuade the frigate to help, then he and his guards would kill the Captain-General, their pilot, and the priests and barricade themselves in one of the cabins. Simultaneously the galley would be flung at the frigate from her bow as the Anjin-san had suggested and, together, they would try to take the frigate by storm. They would take her or they would not take her, but either way there would be a quick solution.
   “It is a good plan, Yabu-san,” he had said.
   “Please allow me to go in your place to negotiate.”
   “They would not agree.”
   “Very well, but once we’re out of the trap expel all barbarians from our realm. If you do, you’ll gain more daimyos than you lose.”
   “I’ll consider it,” Toranaga had said, knowing it was nonsense, that he must have the Christian daimyos Onoshi and Kiyama on his side, and therefore the other Christian daimyos, or by default he would be eaten up. Why would Yabu wish to go to the frigate? What treachery did he plan if there was no help?
   “Sire,” Alvito was saying for dell’Aqua, “may I invite the Anjin-san to accompany us?”
   “Why?”
   “It occurred to me that he might like to greet his colleague the anjin Rodrigues. The man has a broken leg and cannot come here. Rodrigues would like to see him again, thank him for saving his life, if you don’t mind.”
   Toranaga could not think of any reason why the Anjin-san should not go. The man was under his protection, therefore inviolate. “If he wishes to do so, very well. Mariko-san, accompany Tsukku-san.”
   Mariko bowed. She knew her job was to listen and to report and to ensure that everything that was said was reported correctly, without omission. She felt better now, her coiffure and face once more perfect, a fresh kimono borrowed from Lady Fujiko, her left arm in a neat sling. One of the mates, an apprentice doctor, had dressed her wound. The slice into her upper arm had not cut a tendon and the wound itself was clean. A bath would have made her whole, but there were no facilities on the galley.
   Together she and Alvito walked back to the quarterdeck. He saw the knife in Blackthorne’s sash and the way the soiled-kimono seemed to fit. How far has he leeched his way into Toranaga’s confidence, he asked himself. “Well met, Captain-Pilot Blackthorne.”
   “Rot in hell, Father!” Blackthorne replied affably.
   “Perhaps we’ll meet there, Anjin-san. Perhaps we will. Toranaga said you can come aboard the frigate.”
   “His orders?”
   “‘If you wish,’ he said.”
   “I don’t wish.”
   “Rodrigues would like to thank you again and to see you.”
   “Give him my respects and say I’ll see him in hell. Or here.”
   “His leg prevents that.”

   “How is his leg?”
   “Healing. Through your help and the grace of God, in a few weeks, God willing, he will walk, though he will limp forever.”
   “Tell him I wish him well. You’d better be going, Father, time’s a-wasting.”
   “Rodrigues would like to see you. There’s grog on the table and a fine roast capon with fresh greens and gravy and new fresh bread, butter hot. It’d be sad, Pilot, to waste such food.”
   “What?”
   “There’s new golden bread, Captain-Pilot, fresh hardtack, butter, and a side of beef. Fresh oranges from Goa and even a gallon of Madeira wine to wash it down with, or brandy if you’d prefer. There’s beer, too. Then there’s Macao capon, hot and juicy. The Captain-General’s an epicure.”
   “God damn you to hell!”
   “He will, when it pleases Him. I only tell you what exists.”
   “What does ‘epicure’ mean?” Mariko asked.
   “It’s one who enjoys food and sets a fine table, Senhora Maria,” Alvito said, using her baptismal name. He had marked the sudden change on Blackthorne’s face. He could almost see the saliva glands working and feel the stomach-churning agony. Tonight when he had seen the repast set out in the great cabin, the gleaming silver and white tablecloth and chairs, real leather-cushioned chairs, and smelt the new breads and butter and rich meats, he himself had been weak with hunger, and he wasn’t starved for food or unaccustomed to Japanese cuisine.
   It is so simple to catch a man, he told himself. All you need to know is the right bait. “Good-by, Captain-Pilot!” Alvito turned and walked for the gangway. Blackthorne followed.


   “What’s amiss, Ingeles?” Rodrigues asked.
   “Where’s the food? Then we can talk. First the food you promised.” Blackthorne stood shakily on the main deck.
   “Please follow me,” Alvito said.
   “Where are you taking him, Father?”
   “Of course to the great cabin. Blackthorne can eat while Lord Toranaga and the Captain-General talk.”
   “No. He can eat in my cabin.”
   “It’s easier, surely, to go where the food is.”
   “Bosun! See that the pilot’s fed at once—all that he needs, in my cabin, anything from the table. Ingeles, do you want grog, or wine or beer?”
   “Beer first, then grog.”
   “Bosun, see to it, take him below. And listen, Pesaro, give him some clothes out of my locker, and boots, everything. And stay with him till I call you.”
   Wordlessly Blackthorne followed Pesaro the bosun, a large burly man, down the companionway. Alvito began to go back to dell’Aqua and Toranaga, who were talking through Mariko near the companionway, but Rodrigues stopped him.
   “Father! Just a moment. What did you say to him?”
   “Only that you would like to see him and that we had food aboard.”
   “But I was offering him the food?”
   “No, Rodrigues, I didn’t say that. But wouldn’t you want to offer food to a fellow pilot who was hungry?”
   “That poor bastard’s not hungry, he’s starving. If he eats in that state he’ll gorge like a ravenous wolf, then he’ll vomit it up as fast as a drunk-gluttoned whore. Now, we wouldn’t want one of us, even a heretic, to eat like an animal and vomit like an animal in front of Toranaga, would we, Father? Not in front of a piss-cutting sonofabitch—particularly one as clean-minded as a pox-mucked whore’s cleft!”
   “You must learn to control the filth of your tongue, my son,” Alvito said. “It will send you to hell. You’d better say a thousand Ave Marias and go without food for two days. Bread and water only. A penance to God’s Grace to remind you of His Mercy.”
   “Thank you, Father, I will. Gladly. And if I could kneel I would, and I’d kiss your cross. Yes, Father, this poor sinner thanks you for your God-given patience. I must guard my tongue.”
   Ferriera called out from the companionway, “Rodrigues, are you coming below?”
   “I’ll stay on deck while that bitch galley’s there, Captain-General. If you need me I’m here.” Alvito began to leave. Rodrigues noticed Mariko. “Just a minute, Father. Who’s the woman?”
   “Donna Maria Toda. One of Toranaga’s interpreters.”
   Rodrigues whistled tonelessly. “Is she good?”
   “Very good.”
   “Stupid to allow her aboard. Why did you say ‘Toda’? She’s one of old Toda Hiro-matsu’s consorts?”
   “No. She’s the wife of his son.”
   “Stupid to bring her aboard.” Rodrigues beckoned one of the seamen. “Spread the word the woman speaks Portuguese.”
   “Yes, senhor.” The man hurried away and Rodrigues turned back to Father Alvito.
   The priest was not in the least intimidated by the obvious anger. “The Lady Maria speaks Latin too—and just as perfectly. Was there anything else, Pilot?”
   “No, thank you. Perhaps I’d better get on with my Hail Marys.”
   “Yes, you should.” The priest made the sign of the cross and left. Rodrigues spat into the scuppers and one of the helmsmen winced and crossed himself.
   “Go nail yourself to the mast by your green-addled foreskin!” Rodrigues hissed.
   “Yes, Captain-Pilot, sorry, senhor. But I get nervous near the good Father. I meant no harm.” The youth saw the last grains of sand fall through the neck of the hourglass and he turned it.
   “At the half, go below, and take a God-cursed pail and water and a scrubbing brush with you, and clean up the mess in my cabin. Tell the bosun to bring the Ingeles aloft and you make my cabin clean. And it’d better be very clean, or I’ll have your guts for garters. And while you’re doing it, say Ave Marias for your God-cursed soul.”
   “Yes, Senhor Pilot,” the youth said weakly. Rodrigues was a fanatic, a madman, about cleanliness, and his own cabin was like the ship’s Holy Grail. Everything had to be spotless, no matter what the weather.

Chapter 27

   “There must be a solution, Captain-General,” dell’Aqua said patiently.
   “Do you want an overt act of war against a friendly nation?”
   “Of course not.”
   Everyone in the great cabin knew that they were all in the same trap. Any overt act put them squarely with Toranaga against Ishido, which they should absolutely avoid in case Ishido was the eventual victor. Presently Ishido controlled Osaka, and the capital, Kyoto, and the majority of the Regents. And now, through the daimyos Onoshi and Kiyama, Ishido controlled most of the southern island of Kyushu, and with Kyushu, the port of Nagasaki, the main center of all trading, and thus all trade and the Black Ship this year.
   Toranaga said through Father Alvito, “What’s so difficult? I just want you to blow the pirates out of the harbor mouth, neh?”
   Toranaga sat uncomfortably in the place of honor, in the highbacked chair at the great table. Alvito sat next to him, the Captain-General opposite, dell’Aqua beside the Captain-General. Mariko stood behind Toranaga and the samurai guards waited near the door, facing the armed seamen. And all the Europeans were conscious that though Alvito translated for Toranaga everything that was said in the room, Mariko was there to ensure that nothing was said openly between them against her Master’s interests and that the translation was complete and accurate.
   Dell’Aqua leaned forward. “Perhaps, Sire, you could send messengers ashore to Lord Ishido. Perhaps the solution lies in negotiation. We could offer this ship as a neutral place for the negotiations. Perhaps in this way you could settle the war.”
   Toranaga laughed scornfully. “What war? We’re not at war, Ishido and I.”
   “But, Sire, we saw the battle on the shore.”
   “Don’t be naïve! Who were killed? A few worthless ronin. Who attacked whom? Only ronin, bandits or mistaken zealots.”
   “And at the ambush? We understand that Browns fought Grays.”
   “Bandits were attacking all of us, Browns and Grays. My men merely fought to protect me. In night skirmishes mistakes often happen. If Browns killed Grays or Grays Browns that’s a regrettable error. What are a few men to either of us? Nothing. We’re not at war.”
   Toranaga read their disbelief so he added, “Tell them, Tsukku-san, that armies fight wars in Japan. These ridiculous skirmishes and assassination attempts are mere probes, to be dismissed when they fail. War didn’t begin tonight. It began when the Taikō died. Even before that, when he died without leaving a grown son to follow him. Perhaps even before that, when Goroda, the Lord Protector, was murdered. Tonight has no lasting significance. None of you understands our realm, or our politics. How could you? Of course Ishido’s trying to kill me. So are many other daimyos. They’ve done so in the past and they’ll do so in the future. Kiyama and Onoshi have been both friend and enemy. Listen, if I’m killed that would simplify things for Ishido, the real enemy, but only for a moment. I’m in his trap now and if his trap’s successful he merely has a momentary advantage. If I escape, there never was a trap. But understand clearly, all of you, that my death will not remove the cause of war nor will it prevent further conflict. Only if Ishido dies will there be no conflict. So there’s no open war now. None.” He shifted in the chair, detesting the odor in the cabin from the oily foods and unwashed bodies. “But we do have an immediate problem. I want your cannon. I want them now. Pirates beset me at the harbor mouth. I said earlier, Tsukku-san, that soon everyone must choose sides. Now, where do you and your leader and the whole Christian Church stand? And are my Portuguese friends with me or against me?”
   Dell’Aqua said, “You may be assured, Lord Toranaga, we all support your interests.”
   “Good. Then remove the pirates at once.”
   “That’d be an act of war and there’s no profit in it. Perhaps we can make a trade, eh?” Ferriera said.
   Alvito did not translate this but said instead, “The Captain-General says, we’re only trying to avoid meddling in your politics, Lord Toranaga. We’re traders.”
   Mariko said in Japanese to Toranaga, “So sorry, Sire, that’s not correct. That’s not what was said.”
   Alvito sighed. “I merely transposed some of his words, Sire. The Captain-General is not aware of certain politenesses as he is a stranger. He has no understanding of Japan.”
   “But you do have, Tsukku-san?” Toranaga asked.
   “I try, Sire.”
   “What did he actually say?”
   Alvito told him.
   After a pause Toranaga said, “The Anjin-san told me the Portuguese were very interested in trade, and in trade they have no manners, or humor. I understand and will accept your explanation, Tsukku-san. But from now on please translate everything exactly as it is said.”
   “Yes, Lord.”
   “Tell the Captain-General this: When the conflict is resolved I will expand trade. I am in favor of trade. Ishido is not.”
   Dell’Aqua had marked the exchange and hoped that Alvito had covered Ferriera’s stupidity. “We’re not politicians, Sire, we’re religious and we represent the Faith and the Faithful. We do support your interests. Yes.”
   “I agree. I was considering—” Alvito stopped interpreting and his face lit up and he let Toranaga’s Japanese get away from him for a moment. “I’m sorry, Eminence, but Lord Toranaga said, ‘I was considering asking you to build a temple, a large temple in Yedo, as a measure of my confidence in your interests.’”
   For years, ever since Toranaga had become Lord of the Eight Provinces, dell’Aqua had been maneuvering for that concession. And to get it from him now, in the third greatest city in the Empire, was a priceless concession. The Visitor knew the time had come to resolve the problem of the cannon. “Thank him, Martin Tsukku-san,” he said, using the code phrase that he had previously agreed upon with Alvito, committing their course of action, with Alvito the standardbearer, “and say we will try always to be at his service. Oh yes, and ask him what he had in mind about the cathedral,” he added for the Captain-General’s benefit.
   “Perhaps I may speak directly, Sire, for a moment,” Alvito began to Toranaga. “My Master thanks you and says what you previously asked is perhaps possible. He will endeavor always to assist you.”
   “Endeavor is an abstract word, and unsatisfactory.”
   “Yes, Sire.” Alvito glanced at the guards, who, of course, listened without appearing to. “But I remember you saying earlier that it is sometimes wise to be abstract.”
   Toranaga understood at once. He waved his hand in dismissal to his men. “Wait outside, all of you.”
   Uneasily they obeyed. Alvito turned to Ferriera. “We don’t need your guards now, Captain-General.”
   When the samurai had gone Ferriera dismissed his men and glanced at Mariko. He wore pistols in his belt and had another in his boot.
   Alvito said to Toranaga, “Perhaps, Sire, you would like the Lady Mariko to sit?”
   Again Toranaga understood. He thought for a moment, then half nodded and said, without turning around, “Mariko-san, take one of my guards and find the Anjin-san. Stay with him until I send for you.”
   “Yes, Lord.”
   The door closed behind her.
   Now they were alone. The four of them.
   Ferriera said, “What’s the offer? What’s he offering?”
   “Be patient, Captain-General,” dell’Aqua replied, his fingers drumming on his cross, praying for success.
   “Sire,” Alvito began to Toranaga, “the Lord my Master says that everything you asked he will try to do. Within the forty days. He will send you word privately about progress. I will be the courier, with your permission.”
   “And if he’s not successful?”
   “It will not be through want of trying, or persuasion, or through want of thought. He gives you his word.”
   “Before the Christian God?”
   “Yes. Before God.”
   “Good. I will have it in writing. Under his seal.”
   “Sometimes full agreements, delicate agreements, should not be reduced to writing, Sire.”
   “You’re saying unless I put my agreement in writing, you won’t?”
   “I merely remembered one of your own sayings that a samurai’s honor is certainly more important than a piece of paper. The Visitor gives you his word before God, his word of honor, as a samurai would. Your honor is totally sufficient for the Visitor. I just thought he would be saddened to be so untrusted. Do you wish me to ask for a signature?”
   At length Toranaga said, “Very well. His word before the God Jesus, neh? His word before his God?”
   “I give it on his behalf. He has sworn by the Blessed Cross to try.”
   “You as well, Tsukku-san?”
   “You have equally my word, before my God, by the Blessed Cross, that I will do everything I can to help him persuade the Lords Onoshi and Kiyama to be your allies.”
   “In return I will do what I previously promised. On the forty-first day you may lay the foundation stone for the biggest Christian temple in the Empire.”
   “Could that land, Sire, be put aside at once?”
   “As soon as I arrive at Yedo. Now. What about the pirates? The pirates in the fishing boats? You will remove them at once?”
   “If you had cannon, would you have done that yourself, Sire?”
   “Of course, Tsukku-san.”
   “I apologize for being so devious, Sire, but we have had to formulate a plan. The cannon do not belong to us. Please give me one moment.” Alvito turned to dell’Aqua. “Everything is arranged about the cathedral, Eminence.” Then to Ferriera he added, beginning their agreed plan: “You will be glad you did not sink him, Captain-General. Lord Toranaga asks if you would carry ten thousand ducats of gold for him when you leave with the Black Ship for Goa, to invest in the gold market in India. We would be delighted to help in the transaction through our usual sources there, placing the gold for you. Lord Toranaga says half the profit is yours.” Both Alvito and dell’Aqua had decided that by the time the Black Ship had turned about, in six months, Toranaga either would be reinstated as President of the Regents and therefore more than pleased to permit this most profitable transaction, or he would be dead. “You should easily clear four thousand ducats profit. At no risk.”
   “In return for what concession? That’s more than your annual subsidy from the King of Spain for your whole Society of Jesus in Asia. In return for what?”
   “Lord Toranaga says pirates prevent him leaving the harbor. He would know better than you if they’re pirates.”
   Ferriera replied in the same matter-of-fact voice that both knew was only for Toranaga’s benefit, “It’s ill-advised to put your faith in this man. His enemy holds all the royal cards. All the Christian kings are against him. Certainly the main two, I heard them with my own ears. They said this Jappo’s the real enemy. I believe them and not this motherless cretin.”
   “I’m sure Lord Toranaga knows better than us who are pirates and who are not,” dell’Aqua told him unperturbed, knowing the solution as Alvito knew the solution. “I suppose you’ve no objection to Lord Toranaga’s dealing with the pirates himself?”
   “Of course not.”
   “You have plenty of spare cannon aboard,” the Visitor said. “Why not give him some privately. Sell him some, in effect. You sell arms all the time. He’s buying arms. Four cannon should be more than enough. It would be easy to transship them in the longboat, with enough powder and shot, again privately. Then the matter is solved.”
   Ferriera sighed. “Cannon, my dear Eminence, are useless aboard the galley. There are no gun ports, no gun ropes, no gun stanchions. They can’t use cannon, even if they had the gunners, which they don’t.”
   Both priests were flabbergasted. “Useless?”
   “Totally.”
   “But surely, Don Ferriera, they can adapt …”
   “That galley’s incapable of using cannon without a refit. It would take at least a week.”
   “Nan ja?” Toranaga said suspiciously, aware that something was amiss however much they had tried to hide it.
   “What is it, Toranaga asks,” Alvito said.
   Dell’Aqua knew the sand had run out on them. “Captain-General, please help us. Please. I ask you openly. We’ve gained enormous concessions for the Faith. You must believe me and yes, you must trust us. You must help Lord Toranaga out of the harbor somehow. I beg you on behalf of the Church. The cathedral alone is an enormous concession. Please.”
   Ferriera allowed none of the ecstasy of victory to show. He even added a token gravity to his voice. “Since you ask help in the Church’s name, Eminence, of course I’ll do what you ask. I’ll get him out of this trap. But in return I want the Captain-Generalship of next year’s Black Ship whether this year’s is successful of not.”
   “That’s the personal gift of the King of Spain, his alone. That’s not mine to bestow.”
   “Next: I accept the offer of his gold, but I want your guarantee that I’ll have no trouble from the Viceroy at Goa, or here, about the gold or about either of the Black Ships.”
   “You dare to hold me and the Church to ransom?”
   “This is merely a business arrangement between you, me, and this monkey.”
   “He’s no monkey, Captain-General. You’d better remember it.”
   “Next: Fifteen percent of this year’s cargo instead of ten.”
   “Impossible.”
   “Next: To keep everything tidy, Eminence, your word before God now—that neither you nor any of the priests under your jurisdiction will ever threaten me with excommunication unless I commit a future act of sacrilege, which none of this is. And further, your word that you and the Holy Fathers will actively support me and help these two Black Ships—also before God.”
   “And next, Captain-General? Surely that’s not all? Surely there’s something else?”
   “Last: I want the heretic.”

   Mariko stared down at Blackthorne from the cabin doorway. He lay in a semicoma on the floor, retching his innards out. The bosun was leaning against the bunk leering at her, the stumps of his yellow teeth showing.
   “Is he poisoned, or is he drunk?” she asked Totomi Kana, the samurai beside her, trying without success to close her nostrils to the stench of the food and the vomit, to the stench of the ugly seaman in front of her, and to the ever present stench from the bilges that pervaded the whole ship. “It almost looks as though he’s been poisoned, neh?”
   “Perhaps he has, Mariko-san. Look at that filth!” The samurai waved distastefully at the table. It was strewn with wooden platters containing the remains of a mutilated haunch of roast beef, blood rare, half the carcass of a spitted chicken, torn bread and cheese and spilled beer, butter and a dish of cold bacon-fat gravy, and a half emptied bottle of brandy.
   Neither of them had ever seen meat on a table before.
   “What d’you want?” the bosun asked. “No monkeys in here, wakarimasu? No monkey-sans this-u room-u!” He looked at the samurai and waved him away. “Out! Piss off!” His eyes flowed back over Mariko. “What’s your name? Namu, eh?”
   “What’s he saying, Mariko-san?” the samurai asked.
   The bosun glanced at the samurai for a moment then back to Mariko again.
   “What’s the barbarian saying, Mariko-san?”
   Mariko took her mesmerized eyes off the table and concentrated on the bosun. “I’m sorry, senhor, I didn’t understand you. What did you say?”
   “Eh?” The bosun’s mouth dropped farther open. He was a big fat man with eyes too close together and large ears, his hair in a ratty tarred pigtail. A crucifix hung from the rolls of his neck and pistols were loose in his belt. “Eh? You can talk Portuguese? A Jappo who can talk good Portuguese? Where’d you learn to talk civilized?”
   “The—the Christian Father taught me.”
   “I’ll be a God-cursed son of a whore! Madonna, a flower-san who can talk civilized!”
   Blackthorne retched again and tried feebly to get off the deck.
   “Can you—please can you put the pilot there?” She pointed at the bunk.
   “Aye. If this monkey’ll help.”
   “Who? I’m sorry, what did you say? Who?”
   “Him! The Jappo. Him.”
   The words rocked through her and it took all of her will to remain calm. She motioned to the samurai. “Kana-san, will you please help this barbarian. The Anjin-san should be put there.”
   “With pleasure, Lady.”
   Together the two men lifted Blackthorne and he flopped back in the bunk, his head too heavy, mouthing stupidly.
   “He should be washed,” Mariko said in Japanese, still half stunned by what the bosun had called Kana.
   “Yes, Mariko-san. Order the barbarian to send for servants.”
   “Yes.” Her disbelieving eyes went inexorably to the table again. “Do they really eat that?”
   The bosun followed her glance. At once he leaned over and tore off a chicken leg and offered it to her. “You hungry? Here, little Flower-san, it’s good. It’s fresh today—real Macao capon.”
   She shook her head.
   The bosun’s grizzled face split into a grin and he helpfully dipped the chicken leg into the heavy gravy and held it under her nose. “Gravy makes it even better. Hey, it’s good to be able to talk proper, eh? Never did that before. Go on, it’ll give you strength—where it counts! It’s Macao capon I tell you.”
   “No—no, thank you. To eat meat—to eat meat is forbidden. It’s against the law, and against Buddhism and Shintoism.”
   “Not in Nagasaki it isn’t!” The bosun laughed. “Lots of Jappos eat meat all the time. They all do when they can get it, and swill our grog as well. You’re Christian, eh? Go on, try, little Donna. How d’you know till you try?”
   “No, no, thank you.”
   “A man can’t live without meat. That’s real food. Makes you strong so you can jiggle like a stoat. Here—” He offered the chicken leg to Kana. “You want?”
   Kana shook his head, equally nauseated. “Iyé!”
   The bosun shrugged and threw it carelessly back onto the table. “Iyé it is. What’ve you done to your arm? You hurt in the fight?”
   “Yes. But not badly.” Mariko moved it a little to show him and swallowed the pain.
   “Poor little thing! What d’you want here, Donna Senhorita, eh?”
   “To see the An– to see the pilot. Lord Toranaga sent me. The pilot’s drunk?”
   ‘“Yes, that and the food. Poor bastard ate too fast’n drank too fast. Took half the bottle in a gulp. Ingeles’re all the same. Can’t hold their grog and they’ve no cojones.” His eyes went all over her. “I’ve never seen a flower as small as you before. And never talked to a Jappo who could talk civilized before.”
   “Do you call all Japanese ladies and samurai Jappos and monkeys?”
   The seaman laughed shortly. “Hey, senhorita, that was a slip of the tongue. That’s for usuals, you know, the pimps and whores in Nagasaki. No offense meant. I never did talk to a civilized senhorita before, never knowed there was any, by God.”
   “Neither have I, senhor. I’ve never talked to a civilized Portuguese before, other than a Holy Father. We’re Japanese, not Jappos, neh? And monkeys are animals, aren’t they?”
   “Sure.” The bosun showed the broken teeth. “You speak like a Donna. Yes. No offense, Donna Senhorita.”
   Blackthorne began mumbling. She went to the bunk and shook him gently. “Anjin-san! Anjin-san!”
   “Yes—yes?” Blackthorne opened his eyes. “Oh—hello—I’m sor—I …” But the weight of his pain and the spinning of the room forced him to lie back.
   “Please send for a servant, senhor. He should be washed.”
   “There’s slaves—but not for that, Donna Senhorita. Leave the Ingeles—what’s a little vomit to a heretic?”
   “No servants?” she asked, flabbergasted.
   “We have slaves—black bastards, but they’re lazy—wouldn’t trust one to wash him myself,” he added with a twisted grin.
   Mariko knew she had no alternative. Lord Toranaga might have need of the Anjin-san at once and it was her duty. “Then I need some water,” she said. “To wash him with.”
   “There’s a barrel in the stairwell. In the deck below.”
   “Please fetch some for me, senhor.”
   “Send him.” The bosun jerked a finger at Kana.
   “No. You will please fetch it. Now.”
   The bosun looked back at Blackthorne. “You his doxie?”
   “What?”
   “The Ingeles’s doxie?”
   “What’s a doxie, senhor?”
   “His woman. His mate, you know, senhorita, this pilot’s sweetheart, his jigajig. Doxie.”
   “No. No, senhor, I’m not his doxie.”
   “His, then? This mon—this samurai’s? Or the king’s maybe, him that’s just come aboard? Tora-something? You one of his?”
   “No.”
   “Nor any aboard’s?”
   She shook her head. “Please, would you get some water?”
   The bosun nodded and went out.
   “That’s the ugliest, foulest-smelling man I’ve ever been near,” the samurai said. “What was he saying?”
   “He—the man asked if—if I was one of the pilot’s consorts.”
   The samurai went for the door.
   “Kana-san!”
   “I demand the right on your husband’s behalf to avenge that insult. At once! As though you’d cohabit with any barbarian!”
   “Kana-san! Please close the door.”
   “You’re Toda Mariko-san! How dare he insult you? The insult must be avenged!”
   “It will be, Kana-san, and I thank you. Yes. I give you the right. But we are here at Lord Toranaga’s order. Until he gives his approval it would not be correct for you to do this.”
   Kana closed the door reluctantly. “I agree. But I formally ask that you petition Lord Toranaga before we leave.”
   “Yes. Thank you for your concern over my honor.” What would Kana do if he knew all that had been said, she asked herself, appalled. What would Lord Toranaga do? Or Hiro-matsu? Or my husband? Monkeys? Oh, Madonna, give me thy help to hold myself still and keep my mind working. To ease Kana’s wrath, she quickly changed the subject. “The Anjin-san looks so helpless. Just like a baby. It seems barbarians can’t stomach wine. Just like some of our men.”
   “Yes. But it’s not the wine. Can’t be. It’s what he’s eaten.”
   Blackthorne moved uneasily, groping for consciousness.
   “They’ve no servants on the ship, Kana-san, so I’ll have to substitute for one of the Anjin-san’s ladies.” She began to undress Blackthorne, awkwardly because of her arm.
   “Here, let me help you.” Kana was very deft. “I used to do this for my father when the saké took him.”
   “It’s good for a man to get drunk once in a while. It releases all the evil spirits.”
   “Yes. But my father used to suffer badly the next day.”
   “My husband suffers very badly. For days.”
   After a moment, Kana said, “May Buddha grant that Lord Buntaro escapes.”
   “Yes.” Mariko looked around the cabin. “I don’t understand how they can live in such squalor. It’s worse than the poorest of our people. I was almost fainting in the other cabin from the stench.”
   “It’s revolting. I’ve never been aboard a barbarian ship before.”
   “I’ve never been on the sea before.”
   The door opened and the bosun set down the pail. He was shocked at Blackthorne’s nudity and jerked out a blanket from under the bunk and covered him. “He’ll catch his death. Apart from that—shameful to do that to a man, even him.”
   “What?”
   “Nothing. What’s your name, Donna Senhorita?” His eyes glittered.
   She did not answer. She pushed the blanket aside and washed Blackthorne clean, glad for something to do, hating the cabin and the foul presence of the bosun, wondering what they were talking about in the other cabin. Is our Master safe?
   When she had finished she bundled the kimono and soiled loincloth. “Can this be laundered, senhor?”
   “Eh?”
   “These should be cleaned at once. Could you send for a slave, please?”
   “They’re a lazy bunch of black bastards, I told you. That’d take a week or more. Throw’em away, Donna Senhorita, they’re not worth breath. Our Pilot—Captain Rodrigues said to give him proper clothes. Here.” He opened a sea locker. “He said to give him any from here.”
   “I don’t know how to dress a man in those.”
   “He needs a shirt’n trousers’n codpiece’n socks and boots’n sea jacket.” The bosun took them out and showed her. Then, together, she and the samurai began to dress Blackthorne, still in his half-conscious stupor.
   “How does he wear this?” She held up the triangular, baglike codpiece with its attached strings.
   “Madonna, he wears it in front, like this,” the bosun said, embarrassed, fingering his own. “You tie it in place over his trousers, like I told. Over his cod.”
   She looked at the bosun’s, studying it. He felt her look and stirred.
   She put the codpiece on Blackthorne and settled him carefully in place, and together she and the samurai put the back strings between his legs and tied the strings around his waist. To the samurai she said quietly, “This is the most ridiculous way of dressing I’ve ever seen.”
   “It must be very uncomfortable,” Kana replied. “Do priests wear them, Mariko-san? Under their robes?”
   “I don’t know.”
   She brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. “Senhor. Is the Anjin-san dressed correctly now?”
   “Aye. Except for his boots. They’re there. They can wait.” The bosun came over to her and her nostrils clogged. He dropped his voice, keeping his back to the samurai. “You want a quickie?”
   “What?”
   “I fancy you, senhorita, eh? What’d you say? There’s a bunk in the next cabin. Send your friend aloft. The Ingeles’s out for an hour yet. I’ll pay the usual.”
   “What?”
   “You’ll earn a piece of copper—even three if you’re like a stoat, and you’ll straddle the best cock between here and Lisbon, eh? What d’you say?”
   The samurai saw her horror. “What is it, Mariko-san?”
   Mariko pushed past the bosun, away from the bunk. Her words stumbled. “He … he said …”
   Kana drew out his sword instantly but found himself staring into the barrels of two cocked pistols. Nevertheless he began to lunge.
   “Stop, Kana-san!” Mariko gasped. “Lord Toranaga forbade any attack until he ordered it!”
   “Go on, monkey, come at me, you stink-pissed shithead! You! Tell this monkey to put up his sword or he’ll be a headless sonofabitch before he can fart!”
   Mariko was standing within a foot of the bosun. Her right hand was still in her obi, the haft of the stiletto knife still in her palm. But she remembered her duty and took her hand away. “Kana-san, replace your sword. Please. We must obey Lord Toranaga. We must obey him.”

   With a supreme effort, Kana did as he was told.
   “I’ve a mind to send you to hell, Jappo!”
   “Please excuse him, senhor, and me,” Mariko said, trying to sound polite. “There was a mistake, a mis—”
   “That monkey-faced bastard pulled a sword. That wasn’t a mistake, by Jesus!”
   “Please excuse it, senhor, so sorry.”
   The bosun wet his lips. “I’ll forget it if you’re friendly, Little Flower. Into the next cabin with you, and tell this monk—tell him to stay here and I’ll forget about it.”
   “What—what’s your name, senhor?”
   “Pesaro. Manuel Pesaro, why?”
   “Nothing. Please excuse the misunderstanding, Senhor Pesaro.”
   “Get in the next cabin. Now.”
   “What’s going on? What’s …” Blackthorne did not know if he was awake or still in a nightmare, but he felt the danger. “What’s going on, by God!”
   “This stinking Jappo drew on me!”
   “It was a—a mistake, Anjin-san,” Mariko said. “I—I’ve apologized to the Senhor Pesaro.”
   “Mariko? Is that you—Mariko-san?”
   “Hai, Anjin-san. Honto. Honto.”
   She came nearer. The bosun’s pistols never wavered off Kana. She had to brush past him and it took an even greater effort not to take out her knife and gut him. At that moment the door opened. The youthful helmsman came into the cabin with a pail of water. He gawked at the pistols and fled.
   “Where’s Rodrigues?” Blackthorne said, attempting to get his mind working.
   “Aloft, where a good pilot should be,” the bosun said, his voice grating. “This Jappo drew on me, by God!”
   “Help me up on deck.” Blackthorne grasped the bunk sides. Mariko took his arm but she could not lift him.
   The bosun waved a pistol at Kana. “Tell him to help. And tell him if there’s a God in heaven he’ll be swinging from the yardarm before the turn.”


   First Mate Santiago took his ear away from the secret knothole in the wall of the great cabin, the final “Well, that’s all settled then” from dell’Aqua ringing in his brain. Noiselessly he slipped across the darkened cabin, out into the corridor, and closed the door quietly. He was a tall, spare man with a lived-in face, and wore his hair in a tarred pigtail. His clothes were neat, and like most seamen, he was barefoot. In a hurry, he shinned up the companionway, ran across the main deck up onto the quarterdeck where Rodrigues was talking to Mariko. He excused himself and leaned down to put his mouth very close to Rodrigues’ ear and began to pour out all that he had heard, and had been sent to hear, so that no one else on the quarterdeck could be party to it.
   Blackthorne was sitting aft on the deck, leaning against the gunwale, his head resting on his bent knees. Mariko sat straight-backed facing Rodrigues, Japanese fashion, and Kana, the samurai, bleakly beside her. Armed seamen swarmed the decks and crow’s nest aloft and two more were at the helm. The ship still pointed into the wind, the air and night clean, the nimbus stronger and rain not far off. A hundred yards away the galley lay broadside, at the mercy of their cannon, oars shipped, except for two each side which kept her in station, the slight tide taking her. The ambushing fishing ships with hostile samurai archers were closer but they were not encroaching as yet.
   Mariko was watching Rodrigues and the mate. She could not hear what was being said, and even if she could, her training would have made her prefer to close her ears. Privacy in paper houses was impossible without politeness and consideration; without privacy civilized life could not exist, so all Japanese were trained to hear and not hear. For the good of all.
   When she had come on deck with Blackthorne, Rodrigues had listened to the bosun’s explanation and to her halting explanation that it was her fault, that she had mistaken what the bosun had said, and that this had caused Kana to pull out his sword to protect her honor. The bosun had listened, grinning, his pistols still leveled at the samurai’s back.
   “I only asked if she was the Ingeles’s doxie, by God, she being so free with washing him and sticking his privates into the cod.”
   “Put up your pistols, bosun.”
   “He’s dangerous, I tell you. String him up!”
   “I’ll watch him. Go for’ard!”
   “This monkey’d’ve killed me if I wasn’t faster. Put him on the yardarm. That’s what we’d do in Nagasaki!”
   “We’re not in Nagasaki—go for’ard! Now!”
   And when the bosun had gone Rodrigues had asked, “What did he say to you, senhora? Actually say?”
   “It—nothing, senhor. Please.”
   “I apologize for that man’s insolence to you and to the samurai. Please apologize to the samurai for me, ask his pardon. And I ask you both formally to forget the bosun’s insults. It will not help your liege lord or mine to have trouble aboard. I promise you I will deal with him in my own way in my own time.”
   She had spoken to Kana and, under her persuasion, at length he had agreed.
   “Kana-san says, very well, but if he ever sees the bosun Pesaro on shore he will take his head.”
   “That’s fair, by God. Yes. Domo arigato, Kana-san,” Rodrigues said with a smile, “and domo arigato goziemashita, Mariko-san.”
   “You speak Japanese?”
   “Oh no, just a word or two. I’ve a wife in Nagasaki.”
   “Oh! You have been long in Japan?”
   “This is my second tour from Lisbon. I’ve spent seven years in these waters all told—here, and back and forth to Macao and to Goa. “ Rodrigues added, “Pay no attention to him—he’s eta. But Buddha said even eta have a right to life. Neh?”
   “Of course,” Mariko said, the name and face branded forever into her mind.
   “My wife speaks some Portuguese, nowhere near as perfectly as you. You’re Christian, of course?”
   “Yes.”
   “My wife’s a convert. Her father’s samurai, though a minor one. His liege lord is Lord Kiyama.”
   “She is lucky to have such a husband,” Mariko said politely, but she asked herself, staggered, how could one marry and live with a barbarian? In spite of her inherent manners, she asked, “Does the lady, your wife, eat meat, like—like that in the cabin?”
   “No,” Rodrigues replied with a laugh, his teeth white and fine and strong. “And in my house at Nagasaki I don’t eat meat either. At sea I do and in Europe. It’s our custom. A thousand years ago before the Buddha came it was your custom too, neh? Before Buddha lived to point the Tao, the Way, all people ate meat. Even here, senhora. Even here. Now of course, we know better, some of us, neh?”
   Mariko thought about that. Then she said, “Do all Portuguese call us monkeys? And Jappos? Behind our backs?”
   Rodrigues pulled at the earring he wore. “Don’t you call us barbarians? Even to our face? We’re civilized, at least we think so, senhora. In India, the land of Buddha, they call Japanese ‘Eastern Devils’ and won’t allow any to land if they’re armed. You call Indians ‘Blacks’ and nonhuman. What do the Chinese call Japanese? What do you call the Chinese? What do you call the Koreans? Garlic Eaters, neh?”
   “I don’t think Lord Toranaga would be pleased. Or Lord Hiro-Matsu, or even the father of your wife.”
   “The Blessed Jesus said, ‘First cast the mote out of your own eye before you cast the beam out of mine.’” She thought about that again now as she watched the first mate whispering urgently to the Portuguese pilot. It’s true: we sneer at other people. But then, we’re citizens of the Land of the Gods, and therefore especially chosen by the gods. We alone, of all peoples, are protected by a divine Emperor. Aren’t we, therefore, completely unique and superior to all others? And if you are Japanese and Christian? I don’t know. Oh, Madonna, give me thy understanding. This Rodrigues pilot is as strange as the English pilot. Why are they very special? Is it their training? It’s unbelievable what they do, neh? How can they sail around the earth and walk the sea as easily as we do the land? Would Rodrigues’ wife know the answer? I’d like to meet her, and talk to her.
   The mate lowered his voice even more.
   “He said what?” Rodrigues exclaimed with an involuntary curse and in spite of herself Mariko tried to listen. But she could not hear what the mate repeated. Then she saw them both look at Blackthorne and she followed their glance, perturbed by their concern.
   “What else happened, Santiago?” Rodrigues asked guardedly, conscious of Mariko.
   The mate told him in a whisper behind a cupped mouth. “How long’ll they stay below?”
   “They were toasting each other. And the bargain.”
   “Bastards!” Rodrigues caught the mate’s shirt. “No word of this, by God. On your life!”
   “No need to say that, Pilot.”
   “There’s always a need to say it.” Rodrigues glanced across at Blackthorne. “Wake him up!”
   The mate went over and shook him roughly.
   “Whatsamatter, eh?”
   “Hit him!”
   Santiago slapped him.
   “Jesus Christ, I’ll …” Blackthorne was on his feet, his face on fire, but he swayed and fell.
   “God damn you, wake up, Ingeles!” Furiously Rodrigues stabbed a finger at the two helmsmen. “Throw him overboard!”
   “Eh?”
   “Now, by God!”
   As the two men hurriedly picked him up, Mariko said, “Pilot Rodrigues, you mustn’t—” but before she or Kana could interfere the two men had hurled Blackthorne over the side. He fell the twenty feet and belly-flopped in a cloud of spray and disappeared. In a moment he surfaced, choking and spluttering, flailing at the water, the ice-cold clearing his head.
   Rodrigues was struggling out of his seachair. “Madonna, give me a hand!”
   One of the helmsmen ran to help as the first mate got a hand under his armpit. “Christ Jesus, be careful, mind my foot, you clumsy dunghead!”
   They helped him to the side. Blackthorne was still coughing and spluttering, but now as he swam for the side of the ship he was shouting curses at those who had cast him overboard.
   “Two points starboard!” Rodrigues ordered. The ship fell off the wind slightly and eased away from Blackthorne. He shouted down, “Stay to hell off my ship!” Then urgently to his first mate, “Take the longboat, pick up the Ingeles, and put him aboard the galley. Fast. Tell him …” He dropped his voice.
   Mariko was grateful that Blackthorne was not drowning. “Pilot! The Anjin-san’s under Lord Toranaga’s protection. I demand he be picked up at once!”
   “Just a moment, Mariko-san!” Rodrigues continued to whisper to Santiago, who nodded, then scampered away. “I’m sorry, Mariko-san, gomen kudasai, but it was urgent. The Ingeles had to be woken up. I knew he could swim. He has to be alert and fast!”
   “Why?”
   “I’m his friend. Did he ever tell you that?”
   “Yes. But England and Portugal are at war. Also Spain.”
   “Yes. But pilots should be above war.”
   “Then to whom do you owe duty?”
   “To the flag.”
   “Isn’t that to your king?”
   “Yes and no, senhora. I owed the Ingeles a life.” Rodrigues was watching the longboat. “Steady as she goes—now put her into the wind,” he ordered the helmsman.
   “Yes, senhor.”
   He waited, checking and rechecking the wind and the shoals and the far shore. The leadsman called out the fathoms. “Sorry, senhora, you were saying?” Rodrigues looked at her momentarily, then went back once more to check the lie of his ship and the longboat. She watched the longboat too. The men had hauled Blackthorne out of the sea and were pulling hard for the galley, sitting instead of standing and pushing the oars. She could no longer see their faces clearly. Now the Anjin-san was blurred with the other man close beside him, the man that Rodrigues had whispered to. “What did you say to him, senhor?”
   “Who?”
   “Him. The senhor you sent after the Anjin-san.”
   “Just to wish the Ingeles well and Godspeed.” The reply was flat and noncommittal.
   She translated to Kana what had been said.
   When Rodrigues saw the longboat alongside the galley he began to breathe again. “Hail Mary, Mother of God …”
   The Captain-General and the Jesuits came up from below. Toranaga and his guards followed.
   “Rodrigues! Launch the longboat! The Fathers are going ashore,” Ferriera said.
   “And then?”
   “And then we put to sea. For Yedo.”
   “Why there? We were sailing for Macao,” Rodrigues replied, the picture of innocence.
   “We’re taking Toranaga home to Yedo. First.”
   “We’re what? But what about the galley?”
   “She stays or she fights her way out.”
   Rodrigues seemed to be even more surprised and looked at the galley, then at Mariko. He saw the accusation written in her eyes.
   “Matsu,” the pilot told her quietly.
   “What?” Father Alvito asked. “Patience? Why patience, Rodrigues?”
   “Saying Hail Marys, Father. I was saying to the lady it teaches you patience.”
   Ferriera was staring at the galley. “What’s our longboat doing there?”
   “I sent the heretic back aboard.”