Blackthorne stared at her, then at Fujiko and back to her again. “Does that mean I’m samurai? That Lord Toranaga made me samurai?”
   “I don’t know, Anjin-san. But there’s never been a hatamoto who wasn’t samurai. Never.” Mariko turned and questioned Omi. Impatiently he shook his head and answered. “Omi-san doesn’t know either. Certainly it’s the special privilege of a hatamoto to wear swords at all times, even in the presence of Lord Toranaga. It is his duty because he’s a completely trustworthy bodyguard. Also only a hatamoto has the right of immediate audience with a lord.”
   Blackthorne took the short sword and stuck it in his belt, then the other, the long one, the killing one, exactly as Omi was wearing his. Armed, he did feel better. “Arigato goziemashita, Fujiko-san,” he said quietly.
   She lowered her eyes and replied softly. Mariko translated.
   “Fujiko-san says, with permission, Lord, because you must learn our language correctly and quickly, she humbly wishes to point out that ‘domo ’ is more than sufficient for a man to say. ‘Arigato, ’ with or without ‘goziemashita, ’ is an unnecessary politeness, an expression that only women use.”
   “Hai. Domo. Wakarimasu, Fujiko-san.” Blackthorne looked at her clearly for the first time with his newfound knowledge. He saw the sweat on her forehead and the sheen on her hands. The narrow eyes and square face and ferret teeth. “Please tell my consort, in this one case I do not consider ‘arigato goziemashita ’ an unnecessary politeness to her.”


   Yabu glanced at the swords again. Blackthorne was sitting crosslegged on a cushion in front of him in the place of honor, Mariko to one side, Igurashi beside him. They were in the main room of the fortress.
   Omi finished talking.
   Yabu shrugged. “You handled it badly, nephew. Of course it’s the consort’s duty to protect the Anjin-san and his property. Of course he has the right to wear swords now. Yes, you handled it badly. I made it clear the Anjin-san’s my honored guest here. Apologize to him.”
   Immediately Omi got up and knelt in front of Blackthorne and bowed. “I apologize for my error, Anjin-san.” He heard Mariko say that the barbarian accepted the apology. He bowed again and calmly went back to his place and sat down again. But he was not calm inside. He was now totally consumed by one idea: the killing of Yabu.
   He had decided to do the unthinkable: kill his liege lord and the head of his clan.
   But not because he had been made to apologize publicly to the barbarian. In this Yabu had been right. Omi knew he had been unnecessarily inept, for although Yabu had stupidly ordered him to take the pistols away at once tonight, he knew they should have been manipulated away and left in the house, to be stolen later or broken later.
   And the Anjin-san had been perfectly correct to give the pistols to his consort, he told himself, just as she was equally correct to do what she did. And she would certainly have pulled the trigger, her aim true. It was no secret that Usagi Fujiko sought death, or why. Omi knew, too, that if it hadn’t been for his earlier decision this morning to kill Yabu, he would have stepped forward into death and then his men would have taken the pistols away from her. He would have died nobly as she would be ordered into death nobly and men and women would have told the tragic tale for generations. Songs and poems and even a Nōh play, all so inspiring and tragic and brave, about the three of them: the faithful consort and faithful samurai who both died dutifully because of the incredible barbarian who came from the eastern sea.
   No, Omi’s decision had nothing to do with this public apology, although the unfairness added to the hatred that now obsessed him. The main reason was that today Yabu had publicly insulted Omi’s mother and wife in front of peasants by keeping them waiting for hours in the sun like peasants, and had then dismissed them without acknowledgment like peasants.
   “It doesn’t matter, my son,” his mother had said. “It’s his privilege.”
   “He’s our liege Lord,” Midori, his wife, had said, the tears of shame running down her cheeks. “Please excuse him.”
   “And he didn’t invite either of you to greet him and his officers at the fortress,” Omi had continued. “At the meal you arranged! The food and saké alone cost one koku!”
   “It’s our duty, my son. It’s our duty to do whatever Lord Yabu wants.”
   “And the order about Father?”
   “It’s not an order yet. It’s a rumor.”
   “The message from Father said he’d heard that Yabu’s going to order him to shave his head and become a priest, or slit his belly open. Yabu’s wife privately boasts it!”
   “That was whispered to your father by a spy. You cannot always trust spies. So sorry, but your father, my son, isn’t always wise.”
   “What happens to you, Mother, if it isn’t a rumor?”
   “Whatever happens is karma. You must accept karma.”
   “No, these insults are unendurable.”
   “Please, my son, accept them.”
   “I gave Yabu the key to the ship, the key to the Anjin-san and the new barbarians, and the way out of Toranaga’s trap. My help has brought him immense prestige. With the symbolic gift of the sword he’s now second to Toranaga in the armies of the East. And what have we got in return? Filthy insults.”
   “Accept your karma.”
   “You must, husband, I beg you, listen to the Lady, your mother.”
   “I can’t live with this shame. I will have vengeance and then I will kill myself and these shames will pass from me.”
   “For the last time, my son, accept your karma, I beg you.”
   “My karma is to destroy Yabu.”
   The old lady had sighed. “Very well. You’re a man. You have the right to decide. What is to be is to be. But the killing of Yabu by itself is nothing. We must plan. His son must also be removed, and also Igurashi. Particularly Igurashi. Then your father will lead the clan as is his right.”
   “How do we do that, Mother?”
   “We will plan, you and I. And be patient, neh? Then we must consult with your father. Midori, even you may give counsel, but try not to make it valueless, neh?”
   “What about Lord Toranaga? He gave Yabu his sword.”
   “I think Lord Toranaga only wants Izu strong and a vassal state. Not as an ally. He doesn’t want allies any more than the Taikō did. Yabu thinks he’s an ally. I think Toranaga detests allies. Our clan will prosper as Toranaga vassals. Or as Ishido vassals! Who to choose, eh? And how to do the killing?”
   Omi remembered the surge of joy that had possessed him once the decision had been made final.
   He felt it now. But none of it showed on his face as cha and wine were offered by carefully selected maids imported from Mishima for Yabu. He watched Yabu and the Anjin-san and Mariko and Igurashi. They were all waiting for Yabu to begin.
   The room was large and airy, big enough for thirty officers to dine and wine and talk. There were many other rooms and kitchens for bodyguards and servants, and a skirting garden, and though all were makeshift and temporary, they had been excellently constructed in the time at his disposal and easily defendable. That the cost had come out of Omi’s increased fief bothered him not at all. This had been his duty.
   He looked through the open shoji. Many sentries in the forecourt. A stable. The fortress was guarded by a ditch. The stockade was constructed of giant bamboos lashed tightly. Big central pillars supported the tiled roof. Walls were light sliding shoji screens, some shuttered, most of them covered with oiled paper as was usual. Good planks for the flooring were set on pilings raised off beaten earth below and these were covered with tatamis.
   At Yabu’s command, Omi had ransacked four villages for materials to construct this and the other house and Igurashi had brought quality tatamis and futons and things unobtainable in the village.
   Omi was proud of his work, and the bivouac camp for three thousand samurai had been made ready on the plateau over the hill that guarded the roads that led to the village and to the shore. Now the village was locked tight and safe by land. From the sea there would always be plenty of warning for a liege lord to escape.
   But I have no liege lord. Whom shall I serve now, Omi was asking himself. Ikawa Jukkyu? Or Toranaga directly? Would Toranaga give me what I want in return? Or Ishido? Ishido’s so difficult to get to, neh? But much to tell him now…
   This afternoon Yabu had summoned Igurashi, Omi, and the four chief captains and had set into motion his clandestine training plan for the five hundred gun-samurai. Igurashi was to be commander, Omi was to lead one of the hundreds. They had arranged how to induct Toranaga’s men into the units when they arrived, and how these outlanders were to be neutralized if they proved treacherous.
   Omi had suggested that another highly secret cadre of three more units of one hundred samurai each should be trained surreptitiously on the other side of the peninsula as replacements, as a reserve, and as a precaution against a treacherous move by Toranaga.
   “Who’ll command Toranaga’s men? Who’ll he send as second in command?” Igurashi had asked.
   “It makes no difference,” Yabu had said. “I’ll appoint his five assistant officers, who’ll be given the responsibility of slitting his throat, should it be necessary. The code for killing him and all the outlanders will be ‘Plum Tree.’ Tomorrow, Igurashi-san, you will choose the men. I will approve each personally and none of them is to know, yet, my overall strategy of the musket regiment.”
   Now as Omi was watching Yabu, he savored the newfound ecstasy of vengeance. To kill Yabu would be easy, but the killing must be coordinated. Only then would his father or his elder brother be able to assume control of the clan, and Izu.
   Yabu came to the point. “Mariko-san, please tell the Anjin-san, tomorrow I want him to start training my men to shoot like barbarians and I want to learn everything there is to know about the way that barbarians war.”
   “But, so sorry, the guns won’t arrive for six days, Yabu-san,” Mariko reminded him.
   “I’ve enough among my men to begin with,” Yabu replied. “I want him to start tomorrow.”
   Mariko spoke to Blackthorne.
   “What does he want to know about war?” he asked.
   “He said everything.”
   “What particularly?’’
   Mariko asked Yabu.
   “Yabu-san says, have you been part of any battles on land?”
   “Yes. In the Netherlands. One in France.”
   “Yabu-san says, excellent. He wants to know European strategy. He wants to know how battles are fought in your lands. In detail.”
   Blackthorne thought a moment. Then he said, “Tell Yabu-san I can train any number of men for him and I know exactly what he wants to know.” He had learned a great deal about the way the Japanese warred from Friar Domingo. The friar had been an expert and vitally concerned. ‘After all, señor,’ the old man had said, ‘that knowledge is essential, isn’t it to know how the heathen war? Every Father must protect his flock. And are not our glorious conquistadores the blessed spearhead of Mother Church? And haven’t I been with them in the front of the fighting in the New World and the Philippines and studied them for more than twenty years? I know war, señor, I know war. It has been my duty—God’s will to know war. Perhaps God has sent you to me to teach you, in case I die. Listen, my flock here in this jail have been my teachers about Japan warfare, señor. So now I know how their armies fight and how to beat them. How they could beat us. Remember, señor, I tell thee a secret on thy soul: Never join Japanese ferocity with modern weapons and modern methods. Or on land they will destroy us.’
   Blackthorne committed himself to God. And began. “Tell Lord Yabu I can help him very much. And Lord Toranaga. I can make their armies unbeatable.”
   “Lord Yabu says, if your information proves useful, Anjin-san, he will increase your salary from Lord Toranaga’s two hundred and forty koku to five hundred koku after one month.”
   “Thank him. But say, if I do all that for him, I request a favor in return: I want him to rescind his decree about the village and I want my ship and crew back in five months.”
   Mariko said, “Anjin-san, you cannot bargain with him, like a trader.”
   “Please ask him. As a humble favor. From an honored guest and grateful vassal-to-be.”
   Yabu frowned and replied at length.
   “Yabu-san says that the village is unimportant. The villagers need a fire under their rumps to make them do anything. You are not to concern yourself with them. As to the ship, it’s in Lord Toranaga’s care. He’s sure you’ll get it back soon. He asked me to put your request to Lord Toranaga the moment I arrive in Yedo. I’ll do this, Anjin-san.”
   “Please apologize to Lord Yabu, but I must ask him to rescind the decree. Tonight.”
   “He’s just said no, Anjin-san. It would not be good manners.”
   “Yes, I understand. But please ask him again. It’s very important to me … a petition.”
   “He says you must be patient. Don’t concern yourself with villagers.”
   Blackthorne nodded. Then he decided. “Thank you. I understand. Yes. Please thank Yabu-san but tell him I cannot live with this shame.”
   Mariko blanched. “What?”
   “I cannot live with the shame of having the village on my conscience. I’m dishonored. I cannot endure this. It’s against my Christian belief. I will have to commit suicide at once.”
   “Suicide?”
   “Yes. That’s what I’ve decided to do.”
   Yabu interrupted. “Nan ja, Mariko-san?”
   Haltingly she translated what Blackthorne had said. Yabu questioned her and she answered. Then Yabu said, “If it wasn’t for your reaction this would be a joke, Mariko-san. Why are you so concerned? Why do you think he means it?”
   “I don’t know, Sire. He seems … I don’t know…” Her voice trailed off.
   “Omi-san?”
   “Suicide’s against all Christian beliefs, Sire. They never suicide as we do. As a samurai would.”
   “Mariko-san, you’re Christian. Is that true?”
   “Yes, Sire. Suicide’s a mortal sin, against the word of God.”
   “Igurashi-san? What do you think?”
   “It’s a bluff. He’s no Christian. Remember the first day, Sire? Remember what he did to the priest? And what he allowed Omi-san to do to him to save the boy?”
   Yabu smiled, recollecting that day and the night that had followed. “Yes. I agree. He’s no Christian, Mariko-san.”
   “So sorry, but I don’t understand, Sire. What about the priest?”
   Yabu told her what had happened the first day between Blackthorne and the priest.
   “He desecrated a cross?” she said, openly shocked.
   “And threw the pieces into the dust,” Igurashi added. “It’s all a bluff, Sire. If this thing with the village dishonors him, how can he stay here when Omi-san so dishonored him by pissing on him?”

   “What? I’m sorry, Sire,” Mariko said, “but again I don’t understand.”
   Yabu said to Omi, “Explain that to her.”
   Omi obeyed. She was disgusted by what he told her but kept it off her face.
   “Afterwards the Anjin-san was completely cowed, Mariko-san.” Omi finished, “Without weapons he’ll always be cowed.”
   Yabu sipped some saké. “Say this to him, Mariko-san: suicide’s not a barbarian custom. It’s against his Christian God. So how can he suicide?”
   Mariko translated. Yabu was watching carefully as Blackthorne replied.
   “The Anjin-san apologizes with great humility, but he says, custom or not, God or not, this shame of the village is too great to bear. He says that … that he’s in Japan, he’s hatamoto and has the right to live according to our laws.” Her hands were trembling. “That’s what he said, Yabu-san. The right to live according to our customs—our law.”
   “Barbarians have no rights.”
   She said, “Lord Toranaga made him hatamoto. That gives him the right, neh?”
   A breeze touched the shojis, rattling them.
   “How could he commit suicide? Eh? Ask him.”
   Blackthorne took out the short, needle-sharp sword and placed it gently on the tatami, point facing him.
   Igurashi said simply, “It’s a bluff! Who ever heard of a barbarian acting like a civilized person?”
   Yabu frowned, his heartbeat slowed by the excitement. “He’s a brave man, Igurashi-san. No doubt about that. And strange. But this?” Yabu wanted to see the act, to witness the barbarian’s measure, to see how he went into death, to experience with him the ecstasy of the going. With an effort he stopped the rising tide of his own pleasure. “What’s your counsel, Omi-san?” he asked throatily.
   “You said to the village, Sire, ‘If the Anjin-san did not learn satisfactorily. ’ I counsel you to make a slight concession. Say to him that whatever he learns within the five months will be ‘satisfactory,’ but he must, in return, swear by his God never to reveal this to the village.”
   “But he’s not Christian. How will that oath bind him?”
   “I believe he’s a type of Christian, Sire. He’s against the Black Robes and that’s what is important. I believe swearing by his own God will be binding. And he should also swear, in this God’s name, that he’ll apply his mind totally to learning and totally to your service. Because he’s clever he will have learned very much in five months. Thus, your honor is saved, his—if it exists or not—is also saved. You lose nothing, gain everything. Very important, you gain his allegiance of his own free will.”
   “You believe he’ll kill himself?”
   “Yes.”
   “Mariko-san?”
   “I don’t know, Yabu-san. I’m sorry, I cannot advise you. A few hours ago I would have said, no, he will not commit suicide. Now I don’t know. He’s … since Omi-san came for him tonight, he’s been … different.”
   “Igurashi-san?”
   “If you give in to him now and it’s bluff he’ll use the same trick all the time. He’s cunning as a fox-kami —we’ve all seen how cunning, neh? You’ll have to say ‘no’ one day, Sire. I counsel you to say it now—it’s a bluff.”
   Omi leaned forward and shook his head. “Sire, please excuse me, but I must repeat, if you say no you risk a great loss. If it is a bluff—and it may well be—then as a proud man he will become hate-filled at his further humiliation and he won’t help you to the limit of his being, which you need. He’s asked for something as a hatamoto which he’s entitled to, he says he wants to live according to our customs of his own free will. Isn’t that an enormous step forward, Sire? That’s marvelous for you, and for him. I counsel caution. Use him to your advantage.”
   “I intend to,” Yabu said thickly.
   Igurashi said, “Yes, he’s valuable and yes, I want his knowledge. But he’s got to be controlled—you’ve said that many times, Omi-san. He’s barbarian. That’s all he is. Oh, I know he’s hatamoto today and yes, he can wear the two swords from today. But that doesn’t make him samurai. He’s not samurai and never will be.”
   Mariko knew that of all of them she should be able to read the Anjin-san the most clearly. But she could not. One moment she understood him, the next, he was incomprehensible again. One moment she liked him, the next she hated him. Why?
   Blackthorne’s haunted eyes looked into the distance. But now there were beads of sweat on his forehead. Is that from fear? thought Yabu. Fear that the bluff will be called? Is he bluffing?
   “Mariko-san?”
   “Yes, Lord?”
   “Tell him …” Yabu’s mouth was suddenly dry, his chest aching. “Tell the Anjin-san the sentence stays.”
   “Sire, please excuse me, but I urge you to accept Omi-san’s advice.”
   Yabu did not look at her, only at Blackthorne. The vein in his forehead pulsed. “The Anjin-san says he’s decided. So be it. Let’s see if he’s barbarian or hatamoto.”
   Mariko’s voice was almost imperceptible. “Anjin-san, Yabu-san says the sentence stays. I’m sorry.”
   Blackthorne heard the words but they did not disturb him. He felt stronger and more at peace than he had ever been, with a greater awareness of life than he had ever had.
   While he was waiting he had not been listening to them or watching them. The commitment had been made. The rest he had left to God. He had been locked in his own head, hearing the same words over and over, the same that had given him the clue to life here, the words that surely had been sent from God, through Mariko as medium: ‘There is an easy solution—die. To survive here you must live according to our customs…’
   “… the sentence stays.”
   So now I must die.
   I should be afraid. But I’m not.
   Why?
   I don’t know. I know only that once I truly decided that the sole way to live here as a man is to do so according to their customs, to risk death, to die—perhaps to die—that suddenly the fear of death was gone. ‘Life and death are the same … Leave karma to karma. ’
   I am not afraid to die.
   Beyond the shoji, a gentle rain had begun to fall. He looked down at the knife.
   I’ve had a good life, he thought.
   His eyes came back to Yabu. “Wakarimasu,” he said clearly and though he knew his lips had formed the word it was as though someone else had spoken.
   No one moved.
   He watched his right hand pick up the knife. Then his left also grasped the hilt, the blade steady and pointing at his heart. Now there was only the sound of his life, building and building, soaring louder and louder until he could listen no more. His soul cried out for eternal silence.
   The cry triggered his reflexes. His hands drove the knife unerringly toward its target.
   Omi had been ready to stop him but he was unprepared for the suddenness and ferocity of Blackthorne’s thrust, and as Omi’s left hand caught the blade and his right the haft, pain bit into him and blood spilled from his left hand. He fought the power of the thrust with all his strength. He was losing. Then Igurashi helped. Together they halted the blow. The knife was taken away. A thin trickle of blood ran from the skin over Blackthorne’s heart where the point of the knife had entered.
   Mariko and Yabu had not moved.
   Yabu said, “Say to him, say to him whatever he learns is enough, Mariko-san. Order him—no, ask him, ask the Anjin-san to swear as Omi-san said. Everything as Omi-san said.”


   Blackthorne came back from death slowly. He stared at them and the knife from an immense distance, without understanding. Then the torrent of his life rushed back but he could not grasp its significance, believing himself dead and not alive.
   “Anjin-san? Anjin-san?”
   He saw her lips move and heard her words but all his senses were concentrated on the rain and the breeze.
   “Yes?” His own voice was still far off but he smelled the rain and heard the droplets and tasted the sea salt upon the air.
   I’m alive, he told himself in wonder. I’m alive and that’s real rain outside and the wind’s real and from the north. There’s a real brazier with real coals and if I pick up the cup it will have real liquid in it and it will have taste. I’m not dead. I’m alive!
   The others sat in silence, waiting patiently, gentle with him to honor his bravery. No man in Japan had ever seen what they had seen. Each was asking silently, what’s the Anjin-san going to do now? Will he be able to stand by himself and walk away or will his spirit leave him? How would I act if I were he?
   Silently a servant brought a bandage and bound Omi’s hand where the blade had cut deeply, staunching the flow of blood. Everything was very still. From time to time Mariko would say his name quietly as they sipped cha or saké, but very sparingly, savoring the waiting, the watching, and the remembering.
   For Blackthorne this no life seemed to last forever. Then his eyes saw. His ears heard.
   “Anjin-san?”
   “Hai?” he answered through the greatest weariness he had ever known.
   Mariko repeated what Omi had said as though it came from Yabu. She had to say it several times before she was sure that he understood clearly.
   Blackthorne collected the last of his strength, victory sweet to him. “My word is enough, as his is enough. Even so, I’ll swear by God as he wants. Yes. As Yabu-san will swear by his god in equal honor to keep his side of the bargain.”
   “Lord Yabu says yes, he swears by the Lord Buddha.”
   So Blackthorne swore as Yabu wished him to swear. He accepted some cha. Never had it tasted so good. The cup seemed very heavy and he could not hold it for long.
   “The rain is fine, isn’t it?” he said, watching the raindrops breaking and vanishing, astonished by the untoward clarity of his vision.
   “Yes,” she told him gently, knowing that his senses were on a plane never to be reached by one who had not gone freely out to meet death, and, through an unknowing karma, miraculously come back again.
   “Why not rest now, Anjin-san? Lord Yabu thanks you and says he will talk more with you tomorrow. You should rest now.”
   “Yes. Thank you. That would be fine.”
   “Do you think you can stand?”
   “Yes. I think so.”
   “Yabu-san asks if you would like a palanquin?”
   Blackthorne thought about that. At length he decided that a samurai would walk—would try to walk.
   “No, thank you,” he said, as much as he would have liked to lie down, to be carried back, to close his eyes and to sleep instantly. At the same time he knew he would be afraid to sleep yet, in case this was the dream of after-death and the knife not there on the futon but still buried in the real him, and this hell, or the beginning of hell.
   Slowly he took up the knife and studied it, glorying in the real feel. Then he put it in its scabbard, everything taking so much time.
   “Sorry I’m so slow,” he murmured.
   “You mustn’t be sorry, Anjin-san. Tonight you’re reborn. This is another life, a new life,” Mariko said proudly, filled with honor for him. “It’s given to few to return. Do not be sorry. We know it takes great fortitude. Most men do not have enough strength left afterwards even to stand. May I help you?”
   “No. No, thank you.”
   “It is no dishonor to be helped. I would be honored to be allowed to help you.”
   “Thank you. But I—I wish to try. First.”
   But he could not stand at once. He had to use his hands to get to his knees and then he had to pause to get more strength. Later he lurched up and almost fell. He swayed but did not fall.
   Yabu bowed. And Mariko, Omi, and Igurashi.
   Blackthorne walked like a drunk for the first few paces. He clutched a pillar and held on for a moment. Then he began again. He faltered, but he was walking away, alone. As a man. He kept one hand on the long sword in his belt and his head was high.


   Yabu exhaled and drank deeply of the saké. When he could speak he said to Mariko, “Please follow him. See that he gets home safely.”
   “Yes, Sire.”
   When she had gone, Yabu turned on Igurashi. “You-manure-pile fool!”
   Instantly Igurashi bowed his head to the mat in penitence.
   “Bluff you said, neh? Your stupidity almost cost me a priceless treasure.”
   “Yes, Sire, you’re right, Sire. I beg leave to end my life at once.”
   “That would be too good for you! Go and live in the stables until I send for you! Sleep with the stupid horses. You’re a horse-headed fool!”
   “Yes, Sire. I apologize, Sire.”
   “Get out! Omi-san will command the guns now. Get out!”
   The candles flickered and spluttered. One of the maids spilled the tiniest drop of saké on the small lacquered table in front of Yabu and he cursed her eloquently. The others apologized at once. He allowed them to placate him, and accepted more wine. “Bluff? Bluff, he said. Fool! Why do I have fools around me?”
   Omi said nothing, screaming with laughter inside.
   “But you’re no fool, Omi-san. Your counsel’s valuable. Your fief’s doubled from today. Six thousand koku. For next year. Take thirty ri around Anjiro as your fief.”
   Omi bowed to the futon. Yabu deserves to die, he thought scornfully, he’s so easy to manipulate. “I deserve nothing, Sire. I was just doing my duty.”
   “Yes. But a liege lord should reward faithfulness and duty.” Yabu was wearing the Yoshitomo sword tonight. It gave him great pleasure to touch it. “Suzu,” he called to one of the maids. “Send Zukimoto here!”

  “How soon will war begin?” Omi asked.
   “This year. Maybe you have six months, perhaps not. Why?”
   “Perhaps the Lady Mariko should stay more than three days. To protect you.”
   “Eh? Why?”
   “She’s the mouth of the Anjin-san. In half a month—with her—he can train twenty men who can train a hundred who can train the rest. Then whether he lives or dies doesn’t matter.”
   “Why should he die?”
   “You’re going to call the Anjin-san again, his next challenge or the one after, Sire. The result may be different next time, who knows? You may want him to die.” Both men knew, as Mariko and Igurashi had known, that for Yabu to swear by any god was meaningless and, of course, he had no intention of keeping any promise. “You may want to put pressure on him. Once you have the information, what good is the carcass?”
   “None.”
   “You need to learn barbarian war strategy but you must do it very quickly. Lord Toranaga may send for him, so you must have the woman as long as you can. Half a month should be enough to squeeze his head dry of what he knows, now that you have his complete attention. You’ll have to experiment, to adapt their methods to our ways. Yes, it would take at least half a month. Neh?”
   “And Toranaga-san?”
   “He will agree, if it’s put correctly to him, Sire. He must. The guns are his as well as yours. And her continuing presence here is valuable in other ways.”
   “Yes,” Yabu said with satisfaction, for the thought of holding her as hostage had also entered his mind on the ship when he had planned to offer Toranaga as a sacrifice to Ishido. “Toda Mariko should be protected, certainly. It would be bad if she fell into evil hands.”
   “Yes. And perhaps she could be the means of controlling Hiro-matsu, Buntaro, and all their clan, even Toranaga.”
   “You draft the message about her.”
   Omi said, offhand, “My mother heard from Yedo today, Sire. She asked me to tell you that the Lady Genjiko has presented Toranaga with his first grandson.”
   Yabu was at once attentive. Toranaga’s grandson! Could Toranaga be controlled through this infant? The grandson assures Toranaga’s dynasty, neh? How can I get the infant as hostage? “And Ochiba, the Lady Ochiba?” he asked.
   “She’s left Yedo with all her entourage. Three days ago. By now she’s safe in Lord Ishido’s territory.”
   Yabu thought about Ochiba and her sister, Genjiko. So different! Ochiba, vital, beautiful, cunning, relentless, the most desirable woman in the Empire and mother of the Heir. Genjiko, her younger sister, quiet, brooding, flat-faced and plain, with a pitilessness that was legend, even now, that had come down to her from their mother, who was one of Goroda’s sisters. The two sisters loved each other, but Ochiba hated Toranaga and his brood, as Genjiko detested the Taikō and Yaemon, his son. Did the Taikō really father Ochiba’s son, Yabu asked himself again, as all daimyos had done secretly for years. What wouldn’t I give to know the answer to that. What wouldn’t I give to possess that woman.
   “Now that Lady Ochiba’s no longer hostage in Yedo … that could be good and bad,” Yabu said tentatively. “Neh?”
   “Good, only good. Now Ishido and Toranaga must begin very soon.” Omi deliberately omitted the “sama” from those two names. “The Lady Mariko should stay, for your protection.”
   “See to it. Draft the message to send to Toranaga.”
   Suzu, the maid, knocked discreetly and opened the door. Zukimoto came into the room. “Sire?”
   “Where are all the gifts I ordered brought from Mishima for Omi-san?”
   “They’re all in the storehouse, Lord. Here’s the list. The two horses can be selected from the stables. Do you want me to do that now?”
   “No. Omi-san will choose them tomorrow.” Yabu glanced at the carefully written list: “Twenty kimonos (second quality); two swords; one suit of armor (repaired but in good condition); two horses; arms for one hundred samurai—one sword, helmet, breastplate, bow, twenty arrows and spear for each man (best quality). Total value: four hundred and twenty-six koku. Also the rock called ‘The Waiting Stone’—value: priceless.”
   “Ah yes,” he said in better humor, remembering that night. “The rock I found in Kyushu. You were going to rename it ‘The Waiting Barbarian,’ weren’t you?”
   “Yes, Sire, if it still pleases you,” Omi said. “But would you honor me tomorrow by deciding where it should go in the garden? I don’t think there’s a place good enough.”
   “Tomorrow I’ll decide. Yes.” Yabu let his mind rest on the rock, and on those far-off days with his revered master, the Taikō, and last on the Night of the Screams. Melancholy seeped into him. Life is so short and sad and cruel, he thought. He eyed Suzu. The maid smiled back hesitantly, oval-faced, slender, and very delicate like the other two. The three had been brought by palanquin from his household in Mishima. Tonight they were all barefoot, their kimonos the very best silk, their skins very white. Curious that boys can be so graceful, he pondered, in many ways more feminine, more sensuous than girls are. Then he noticed Zukimoto. “What’re you waiting for? Eh? Get out!”
   “Yes, Sire. You asked me to remind you about taxes, Sire.” Zukimoto heaved up his sweating bulk and gratefully hurried away.
   “Omi-san, you will double all taxes at once,” Yabu said.
   “Yes, Sire.”
   “Filthy peasants! They don’t work hard enough. They’re lazy – all of them! I keep the roads safe from bandits, the seas safe, give them good government, and what do they do? They spend the days drinking cha and sake and eating rice. It’s time my peasants lived up to their responsibility!”
   “Yes, Sire,” Omi said.
   Next, Yabu turned to the subject that possessed his mind. “The Anjin-san astonished me tonight. But not you?”
   “Oh yes he did, Sire. More than you. But you were wise to make him commit himself.”
   “You say Igurashi was right?”
   “I merely admired your wisdom, Sire. You would have had to say ‘no’ to him some time. I think you were very wise to say it now, tonight.”
   “I thought he’d killed himself. Yes. I’m glad you were ready. I planned on you being ready. The Anjin-san’s an extraordinary man, for a barbarian, neh? A pity he’s barbarian and so naive.”
   “Yes.”
   Yabu yawned. He accepted saké from Suzu. “Half a month, you say? Mariko-san should stay at least that, Omi-san. Then I’ll decide about her, and about him. He’ll need to be taught another lesson soon.” He laughed, showing his bad teeth. “If the Anjin-san teaches us, we should teach him, neh? He should be taught how to commit seppuku correctly. That’d be something to watch, neh? See to it! Yes, I agree the barbarian’s days are numbered.”

Chapter 32

   Twelve days later, in the afternoon, the courier from Osaka arrived. An escort of ten samurai rode in with him. Their horses were lathered and near death. The flags at their spearheads carried the cipher of the all-powerful Council of Regents. It was hot, overcast, and humid.
   The courier was a lean, hard samurai of senior rank, one of Ishido’s chief lieutenants. His name was Nebara Jozen and he was known for his ruthlessness. His Gray uniform kimono was tattered and mud-stained, his eyes red with fatigue. He refused food or drink and impolitely demanded an immediate audience with Yabu.
   “Forgive my appearance, Yabu-san, but my business is urgent,” he said. “Yes, I ask your pardon. My Master says first, why do you train Toranaga’s soldiers along with your own and, second, why do they drill with so many guns?”
   Yabu had flushed at the rudeness but he kept his temper, knowing that Jozen would have had specific instructions and that such lack of manners bespoke an untoward position of power. And too, he was greatly unsettled that there had been another leak in his security.
   “You’re very welcome, Jozen-san. You may assure your master that I always have his interests at heart,” he said with a courteousness that fooled no one present.
   They were on the veranda of the fortress. Omi sat just behind Yabu. Igurashi, who had been forgiven a few days before, was nearer to Jozen and surrounding them were intimate guards. “What else does your master say?”
   Jozen replied, “My Master will be glad that your interests are his. Now, about the guns and the training: my Master would like to know why Toranaga’s son, Naga, is second-in-command. Second-in-command of what? What’s so important that a Toranaga son should be here, the Lord General Ishido asks with politeness. That’s of interest to him. Yes. Everything his allies do interests him. Why is it, for instance, the barbarian seems to be in charge of training? Training of what? Yes, Yabu-sama, that’s very interesting also.” Jozen shifted his swords more comfortably, glad that his back was protected by his own men. “Next: The Council of Regents meets again on the first day of the new moon. In twenty days. You are formally invited to Osaka to renew your oath of fidelity.”
   Yabu’s stomach twisted. “I understood Toranaga-sama had resigned?”
   “He has, Yabu-san, indeed he has. But Lord Ito Teruzumi’s taking his place. My Master will be the new President of the Regents.”
   Yabu was panic-stricken. Toranaga had said that the four Regents could never agree on a fifth. Ito Teruzumi was a minor daimyo of Negato Province in western Honshu but his family was ancient, descended from Fujimoto lineage, so he would be acceptable as a Regent, though he was an ineffectual man, effeminate and a puppet. “I would be honored to receive their invitation,” Yabu said defensively, trying to buy time to think.
   “My Master thought you might wish to leave at once. Then you would be in Osaka for the formal meeting. He orders me to tell you all the daimyos are getting the same invitation. Now. So all will have an opportunity to be there in good time on the twenty-first day. A Flower-Viewing Ceremony has been authorized by His Imperial Highness, Emperor Go-Nijo, to honor the occasion.” Jozen offered an official scroll.
   “This isn’t under the seal of the Council of Regents.”
   “My Master has issued the invitation now, knowing that, as a loyal vassal of the late Taikō, as a loyal vassal of Yaemon, his son and heir and the rightful ruler of the Empire when he becomes of age, you will understand that the new Council will, of course, approve his action. Neh?”
   “It would certainly be a privilege to witness the formal meeting.” Yabu struggled to control his face.
   “Good,” Jozen said. He pulled out another scroll, opened it, and held it up. “This is a copy of Lord Ito’s letter of appointment, accepted and signed and authorized by the other Regents, Lords Ishido, Kiyama, Onoshi, and the Lord Sugiyama.” Jozen did not bother to conceal a triumphant look, knowing that this totally closed the trap on Toranaga and any of his allies, and that equally the scroll made him and his men invulnerable.
   Yabu took the scroll. His fingers trembled. There was no doubt of its authenticity. It had been countersigned by the Lady Yodoko, the wife of the Taikō, who affirmed that the document was true and signed in her presence, one of six copies that were being sent throughout the Empire, and that this particular copy was for the Lords of Iwari, Mikawa, Totomi, Sugura, Izu, and the Kwanto. It was dated eleven days ago.
   “The Lords of Iwari, Mikawa, Suruga and Totomi have already accepted. Here are their seals. You’re the last but one on my list. Last is the Lord Toranaga.”
   “Please thank your master and tell him I look forward to greeting him and congratulating him,” Yabu said.
   “Good. I’ll require it in writing. Now would be satisfactory.”
   “This evening, Jozen-san. After the evening meal.”
   “Very well. And now we can go and see the training.”
   “There is none today. All my men are on forced marches,” Yabu said. The moment Jozen and his men had entered Izu, word had been rushed to Yabu, who had at once ordered his men to cease all firing and to continue only silent weapon training well away from Anjiro. “Tomorrow you can come with me—at noon, if you wish.”
   Jozen looked at the sky. It was late afternoon now. “Good. I could use a little sleep. But I’ll come back at dusk, with your permission. Then you and your commander, Omi-san, and the second commander, Naga-san, will tell me, for my Master’s interest, about the training, the guns, and everything. And about the barbarian.”
   “He’s—yes. Of course.” Yabu motioned to Igurashi. “Arrange quarters for our honored guest and his men.”
   “Thank you, but that’s not necessary,” Jozen said at once. “The ground’s futon enough for a samurai, my saddle’s pillow enough. Just a bath, if you please … this humidity, neh? I’ll camp on the crest—of course, with your permission.”
   “As you wish.”
   Jozen bowed stiffly and walked away, surrounded by his men. All were heavily armed. Two bowmen had been left holding their horses.
   Once they were well away, Yabu’s face contorted with rage. “Who betrayed me? Who? Where’s the spy?”
   Equally ashen, Igurashi waved the guards out of earshot. “Yedo, Sire,” he said. “Must be. Security’s perfect here.”
   “Oh ko!” Yabu said, almost rending his clothes. “I’m betrayed. We’re isolated. Izu and the Kwanto are isolated. Ishido’s won. He’s won.”
   Omi said quickly, “Not for twenty days, Sire. Send a message at once to Lord Toranaga. Inform him that—”
   “Fool!” Yabu hissed. “Of course Toranaga already knows. Where I’ve one spy he has fifty. He’s left me in the trap.”
   “I don’t think so, Sire,” Omi said, unafraid. “Iwari, Mikawa, Totomi, and Sugura are all hostile to him, neh? And to anyone who’s allied to him. They’d never warn him, so perhaps he doesn’t know yet. Inform him and suggest—”
   “Didn’t you hear?” Yabu shouted. “All four Regents agree to Ito’s appointment, so the Council’s legal again and the Council meets in twenty days!”
   “The answer to that is simple, Sire. Suggest to Toranaga that he have Ito Teruzumi or one of the other Regents assassinated at once.”
   Yabu’s mouth dropped open. “What?”
   “If you don’t wish to do that, send me, let me try. Or Igurashi-san. With Lord Ito dead, Ishido’s helpless again.”
   “I don’t know whether you’ve gone mad; or what,” Yabu said helplessly. “Do you understand what you’ve just said?”
   “Sire, I beg you, please, to be patient with me. The Anjin-san’s given you priceless knowledge, neh? More than we ever dreamed possible. Now Toranaga knows this also, through your reports, and probably from Naga-san’s private reports. If we can win enough time, our five hundred guns and the other three hundred will give you absolute battle power, but only once. When the enemy, whoever he is, sees the way you use men and firepower they’ll learn quickly. But they’ll have lost that first battle. One battle—if it’s the right battle—will give Toranaga total victory.”
   “Ishido doesn’t need any battle. In twenty days he has the Emperor’s mandate.”
   “Ishido’s a peasant. He’s the son of a peasant, a liar, and he runs away from his comrades in battle.”
   Yabu stared at Omi, his face mottled. “You—do you know what you’re saying?”
   “That’s what he did in Korea. I was there. I saw it, my father saw it. Ishido did leave Buntaro-san and us to fight our own way out. He’s just a treacherous peasant—the Taikō’s dog, certainly. You can’t trust peasants. But Toranaga’s Minowara. You can trust him. I advise you to consider only Toranaga’s interests.”
   Yabu shook his head in disbelief. “Are you deaf? Didn’t you hear Nebara Jozen? Ishido’s won. The Council is in power in twenty days.”
   “May be in power.”
   “Even if Ito… How could you? It’s not possible.”
   “Certainly I could try but I could never do it in time. None of us could, not in twenty days. But Toranaga could.” Omi knew he had put himself into the jaws of the dragon. “I beg you to consider it.”
   Yabu wiped his face with his hands, his body wet. “After this summons, if the Council is convened and I’m not present, I and all my clan are dead, you included. I need two months, at least, to train the regiment. Even if we had them trained now, Toranaga and I could never win against all the others. No, you’re wrong, I have to support Ishido.”
   Omi said, “You don’t have to leave for Osaka for ten days—fourteen, if you go by forced march. Tell Toranaga about Nebara Jozen at once. You’ll save Izu and the Kasigi house. I beg you. Ishido will betray you and eat you up. Ikawa Jikkyu is his kinsman, neh?”
   “But what about Jozen?” Igurashi exclaimed. “Eh? And the guns? The grand strategy? He wants to know about everything tonight.”
   “Tell him. In detail. What is he but a lackey,” Omi said, beginning to maneuver them. He knew he was risking everything, but he had to try to protect Yabu from siding with Ishido and ruining any chance they had. “Open your plans to him.”
   Igurashi disagreed heatedly. “The moment Jozen learns what we’re doing, he’ll send a message back to Lord Ishido. It’s too important not to. Ishido’ll steal the plans, then we’re finished.”
   “We trail the messenger and kill him at our convenience.”
   Yabu flushed. “That scroll was signed by the highest authority in the land! They all travel under the Regents’ protection! You must be mad to suggest such a thing! That would make me an outlaw!”
   Omi shook his head, keeping confidence on his face. “I believe Yodoko-sama and the others have been duped, as His Imperial Highness has been duped, by the traitor Ishido. We must protect the guns, Sire. We must stop any messenger—”
   “Silence! Your advice is madness!”
   Omi bowed under the tongue-lash. But he looked up and said calmly, “Then please allow me to commit seppuku, Sire. But first, please allow me to finish. I would fail in my duty if I didn’t try to protect you. I beg this last favor as a faithful vassal.”
   “Finish!”
   “There’s no Council of Regents now, so there is no legal protection now for that insulting, foul-mannered Jozen and his men, unless you honor an illegal document through”—Omi was going to say “weakness” but he changed the word and kept his voice quietly authoritative—”through being duped like the others, Sire. There is no Council. They cannot ‘order’ you to do anything, or anyone. Once it’s convened, yes, they can, and then you will have to obey. But now, how many daimyos will obey before legal orders can be issued? Only Ishido’s allies, neh? Aren’t Iwari, Mikawa, Totomi, and Sugura all ruled by his kinsmen and allied to him openly? That document absolutely means war, yes, but I beg you to wage it on your terms and not Ishido’s. Treat this threat with the contempt it deserves! Toranaga’s never been beaten in battle. Ishido has. Toranaga avoided being part of the Taikō’s ruinous attack on Korea. Ishido didn’t. Toranaga’s in favor of ships and trade. Ishido isn’t. Toranaga will want the barbarian’s navy—didn’t you advocate it to him? Ishido won’t. Ishido will close the Empire. Toranaga will keep it open. Ishido will give Ikawa Jikkyu your hereditary fief of Izu if he wins. Toranaga will give you all Jikkyu’s province. You’re Toranaga’s chief ally. Didn’t he give you his sword? Hasn’t he given you control of the guns? Don’t the guns guarantee one victory, with surprise? What does the peasant Ishido give in return? He sends a ronin -samurai with no manners, with deliberate orders to shame you in your own province! I say Toranaga Minowara is your only choice. You must go with him.” He bowed and waited in silence.
   Yabu glanced at Igurashi. “Well?”
   “I agree with Omi-san, Sire.” Igurashi’s face mirrored his worry. “As to killing a messenger—that would be dangerous, no turning back then, Sire. Jozen will certainly send one or two tomorrow. Perhaps they could vanish, killed by bandits—” He stopped in midsentence. “Carrier pigeons! There were two panniers of them on Jozen’s pack horses!”
   “We’ll have to poison them tonight,” Omi said.
   “How? They’ll be guarded.”
   “I don’t know. But they’ve got to be removed or maimed before dawn.”
   Yabu said, “Igurashi, send men to watch Jozen at once. See if he sends one of his pigeons now—today.”
   “I suggest you send all our falcons and falconers to the east, also at once,” Omi added quickly.
   Igurashi said, “He’ll suspect treachery if he sees his bird downed, or his birds tampered with.”
   Omi shrugged. “It must be stopped.”
   Igurashi looked at Yabu.
   Yabu nodded resignedly. “Do it.”
   When Igurashi came back he said, “Omi-san, one thing occurred to me. A lot of what you said was right, about Jikkyu and Lord Ishido. But if you advise making the messengers ‘vanish,’ why toy with Jozen at all? Why tell him anything? Why not just kill them all at once?”
   “Why not indeed? Unless it might amuse Yabu-sama. I agree your plan’s better, Igurashi-san,” Omi said.
   Both men were looking at Yabu now. “How can I keep the guns secret?” he asked them.
   “Kill Jozen and his men,” Omi replied.
   “No other way?”
   Omi shook his head. Igurashi shook his head.
   “Maybe I could barter with Ishido,” Yabu said, shaken, trying to think of a way out of the trap. “You’re correct about the time. I’ve ten days, fourteen at the most. How to deal with Jozen and still leave time to maneuver?”
   “It would be wise to pretend that you’re going to Osaka,” Omi said. “But there’s no harm in informing Toranaga at once, neh? One of our pigeons could get to Yedo before dusk. Perhaps. No harm in that.”
   Igurashi said, “You could tell Lord Toranaga about Jozen arriving, and about the Council meeting in twenty days, yes. But the other, about assassinating Lord Ito, that’s too dangerous to put in writing even if … Much too dangerous, neh?”
   “I agree. Nothing about Ito. Toranaga should think of that himself. It’s obvious, neh?”
   “Yes, Sire. Unthinkable but obvious.”
   Omi waited in the silence, his mind frantically seeking a solution. Yabu’s eyes were on him but he was not afraid. His advice had been sound and offered only for the protection of the clan and the family and Yabu, the present leader of the clan. That Omi had decided to remove Yabu and change the leadership had not prevented him from counseling Yabu sagaciously. And he was prepared to die now. If Yabu was so stupid as not to accept the obvious truth of his ideas, then there soon would be no clan to lead anyway. Karma.
   Yabu leaned forward, still undecided. “Is there any way to remove Jozen and his men without danger to me, and stay uncommitted for ten days?”
   “Naga. Somehow bait a trap with Naga,” Omi said simply.

   At dusk, Blackthorne and Mariko rode up to the gate of his house, outriders following. Both were tired. She rode as a man would ride, wearing loose trousers and over them a belted mantle. She had on a wide-brimmed hat and gloves to protect her from the sun. Even peasant women tried to protect their faces and their hands from the rays of the sun. From time immemorial, the darker the skin the more common the person; the whiter, the more prized.
   Male servants took the halters and led the horses away. Blackthorne dismissed his outriders in tolerable Japanese and greeted Fujiko, who waited proudly on the veranda as usual.
   “May I serve you cha, Anjin-san,” she said ceremoniously, as usual, and “No,” he said as usual. “First I will bathe. Then saké and some food. “ And, as usual, he returned her bow and went through the corridor to the back of the house, out into the garden, along the circling path to the mud-wattled bath house. A servant took his clothes and he went in and sat down naked. Another servant scrubbed him and soaped him and shampooed him and poured water over him to wash away the lather and the dirt. Then, completely clean, gradually—because the water was so hot—he stepped into the huge iron-sided bath and lay down.
   “Christ Jesus, that’s grand,” he exulted, and let the heat seep into his muscles, his eyes closed, the sweat running down his forehead.
   He heard the door open and Suwo’s voice and “Good evening, Master,” followed by many words of Japanese which he did not understand. But tonight he was too tired to try to converse with Suwo. And the bath, as Mariko had explained many times, ‘is not merely for cleaning the skin. The bath is a gift to us from God or the gods, a god-bequeathed pleasure to be enjoyed and treated as such.”
   “No talk, Suwo,” he said. “Tonight wish think.”
   “Yes, Master. Your pardon, but you should say, `Tonight I wish to think.’”
   “Tonight I wish to think.” Blackthorne repeated the correct Japanese, trying to get the almost incomprehensible sounds into his head, glad to be corrected but very weary of it.
   “Where’s the dictionary-grammar book?” he had asked Mariko first thing this morning. “Has Yabu-sama sent another request for it?”
   “Yes. Please be patient, Anjin-san. It will arrive soon.”
   “It was promised with the galley and the troops. It didn’t arrive. Troops and guns but no books. I’m lucky you’re here. It’d be impossible without you.”
   “Difficult, but not impossible, Anjin-san.”
   “How do I say, ‘No, you’re doing it wrong! You must all run as a team, stop as a team, aim and fire as a team’?”
   “To whom are you talking, Anjin-san?” she had asked.
   And then again he had felt his frustration rising. “It’s all very difficult, Mariko-san.”
   “Oh, no, Anjin-san. Japanese is very simple to speak compared with other languages. There are no articles, no ‘the,’ ‘a,’ or ‘an.’ No verb conjugations or infinitives. All verbs are regular, ending in masu, and you can say almost everything by using the present tense only, if you want. For a question just add ka after the verb. For a negative just change masu to masen. What could be easier? Yukimasu means I go, but equally you, he, she, it, we, they go, or will go, or even could have gone. Even plural and singular nouns are the same. Tsuma means wife, or wives. Very simple.”
   “Well, how do you tell the difference between I go, yukimasu, and they went, yukimasu?”
   “By inflection, Anjin-san, and tone. Listen: yukimasu —yukimasu.”
   “But these both sounded exactly the same.”
   “Ah, Anjin-san, that’s because you’re thinking in your own language. To understand Japanese you have to think Japanese. Don’t forget our language is the language of the infinite. It’s all so simple, Anjin-san. Just change your concept of the world. Japanese is just learning a new art, detached from the world… It’s all so simple.”
   “It’s all shit,” he had muttered in English, and felt better.
   “What? What did you say?”
   “Nothing. But what you say doesn’t make sense.”
   “Learn the written characters,” Mariko had said.
   “I can’t. It’ll take too long. They’re meaningless.”
   “Look, they’re really simple pictures, Anjin-san. The Chinese are very clever. We borrowed their writing a thousand years ago. Look, take this character, or symbol, for a pig.”
   “It doesn’t look like a pig.”
   “Once it did, Anjin-san. Let me show you. Here. Add a ‘roof’ symbol over a ‘pig’ symbol and what do you have?”
   “A pig and a roof.”
   “But what does that mean? The new character?”
   “I don’t know.”
   “‘Home.’ In the olden days the Chinese thought a pig under a roof was home. They’re not Buddhists, they’re meat eaters, so a pig to them, to peasants, represented wealth, hence a good home. Hence the character.”
   “But how do you say it?”
   “That depends if you’re Chinese or Japanese.”
   “Oh ko!”
   “Oh ko, indeed,” she had laughed. “Here’s another character. A ‘roof’ symbol and a ‘pig’ symbol and a ‘woman’ symbol. A ‘roof’ with two ‘pigs’ under it means ‘contentment.’ A ‘roof’ with two ‘women’ under it equals ‘discord.’ Neh?”
   “Absolutely!”
   “Of course, the Chinese are very stupid in many things and their women are not trained as women are here. There’s no discord in your home, is there?”
   Blackthorne thought about that now, on the twelfth day of his rebirth. No. There was no discord. But neither was it a home. Fujiko was only like a trustworthy housekeeper and tonight when he went to his bed to sleep, the futons would be turned back and she would be kneeling beside them patiently, expressionlessly. She would be dressed in her sleeping kimono, which was similar to a day kimono but softer and with only a loose sash instead of a stiff obi at the waist.
   “Thank you, Lady,” he would say. “Good night.”
   She would bow and go silently to the room across the corridor, next to the one Mariko slept in. Then he would get under the fine silk mosquito net. He had never known such nets before. Then he would lie back happily, and in the night, hearing the few insects buzzing outside, he would dwell on the Black Ship, how important the Black Ship was to Japan.
   Without the Portuguese, no trade with China. And no silks for clothes or for nets. Even now, with the humidity only just beginning, he knew their value.
   If he stirred in the night a maid would open the door almost instantly to ask if there was anything he wanted. Once he had not understood. He motioned the maid away and went to the garden and sat on the steps, looking at the moon. Within a few minutes Fujiko, tousled and bleary, came and sat silently behind him.
   “Can I get you anything, Lord?”
   “No, thank you. Please go to bed.”
   She had said something he did not understand. Again he had motioned her away so she spoke sharply to the maid, who attended her like a shadow. Soon Mariko came.
   “Are you all right, Anjin-san?”
   “Yes. I don’t know why you were disturbed. Christ Jesus—I’m just looking at the moon. I couldn’t sleep. I just wanted some air.”
   Fujiko spoke to her haltingly, ill at ease, hurt by the irritation in his voice. “She says you told her to go back to sleep. She just wanted you to know that it’s not our custom for a wife or consort to sleep while her master’s awake, that’s all, Anjin-san.”
   “Then she’ll have to change her custom. I’m often up at night. By myself. It’s a habit from being at sea—I sleep very lightly ashore.”
   “Yes, Anjin-san.”
   Mariko had explained and the two women had gone away. But Blackthorne knew that Fujiko had not gone back to sleep and would not, until he slept. She was always up and waiting whatever time he came back to the house. Some nights he walked the shore alone. Even though he insisted on being alone, he knew that he was followed and watched. Not because they were afraid he was trying to escape. Only because it was their custom for important people always to be attended. In Anjiro he was important.
   In time he accepted her presence. It was as Mariko had first said, ‘Think of her as a rock or a shoji or a wall. It is her duty to serve you.’
   It was different with Mariko.
   He was glad that she had stayed. Without her presence he could never have begun the training, let alone explained the intricacies of strategy. He blessed her and Father Domingo and Alban Caradoc and his other teachers.
   I never thought the battles would ever be put to good use, he thought again. Once when his ship was carrying a cargo of English wools to Antwerp, a Spanish army had swooped down upon the city and every man had gone to the barricades and to the dikes. The sneak attack had been beaten off and the Spanish infantry outgunned and outmaneuvered. That was the first time he had seen William, Duke of Orange, using regiments like chess pieces. Advancing, retreating in pretended panic to regroup again, charging back again, guns blazing in packed, gut-hurting, ear-pounding salvos, breaking through the Invincibles to leave them dying and screaming, the stench of blood and powder and urine and horses and dung filling you, and a wild frantic joy of killing possessing you and the strength of twenty in your arms.
   “Christ Jesus, it’s grand to be victorious,” he said aloud in the tub.
   “Master?” Suwo said.
   “Nothing,” he replied in Japanese. “I talking—I was just think—just thinking aloud.”
   “I understand, Master. Yes. Your pardon.”
   Blackthorne let himself drift away.
   Mariko. Yes, she’s been invaluable.
   After that first night of his almost suicide, nothing had ever been said again. What was there to say?
   I’m glad there’s so much to do, he thought. No time to think except here in the bath for these few minutes. Never enough time to do everything. Ordered to concentrate on training and teaching and not on learning, but wanting to learn, trying to learn, needing to learn to fulfill the promise to Yabu. Never enough hours. Always exhausted and drained by bedtime, sleeping instantly, to be up at dawn and riding fast to the plateau. Training all morning, then a sparse meal, never satisfying and never meat. Then every afternoon until nightfall—sometimes till very late at night—with Yabu and Omi and Igurashi and Naga and Zukimoto and a few of the other officers, talking about war, answering questions about war. How to wage war. How barbarians war and how Japanese war. On land and at sea. Scribes always taking notes. Many, many notes.
   Sometimes with Yabu alone.
   But always Mariko there—part of him—talking for him. And for Yabu. Mariko different now toward him, he no longer a stranger.
   Other days the scribes reading back the notes, always checking, being meticulous, revising and checking again until now, after twelve days and a hundred hours or so of detailed exhaustive explanation, a war manual was forming. Exact. And lethal.
   Lethal to whom? Not to us English or Hollanders, who will come here peacefully and only as traders. Lethal to Yabu’s enemies and to Toranaga’s enemies, and to our Portuguese and Spanish enemies when they try to conquer Japan. Like they’ve done everywhere else. In every newly discovered territory. First the priests arrive. Then the conquistadores.
   But not here, he thought with great contentment. Never here—now. The manual’s lethal and proof against that. No conquest here, given a few years for the knowledge to spread.
   “Anjin-san?”
   “Hai, Mariko-san?”
   She was bowing to him. “Yabu-ko wa kiden no goshusseki o konya wa hitsuyo to senu to oserareru, Anjin-san.”
   The words formed slowly in his head: ‘Lord Yabu does not require to see you tonight.’
   “Ichi-ban,” he said blissfully. “Domo.”
   “Gomen nasai, Anjin-san. Anatawa —”
   Yes, Mariko-san,” he interrupted her, the heat of the water sapping his energy. “I know I should have said it differently but I don’t want to speak any more Japanese now. Not tonight. Now I feel like a schoolboy who’s been let out of school for the Christmas holiday. Do you realize these’ll be the first free hours I’ve had since I arrived?”
   “Yes, yes I do.” She smiled wryly. “And do you realize, Senhor Captain-Pilot B’rack’fon, these will be the first free hours I’ve had since I arrived?”
   He laughed. She was wearing a thick cotton bathing robe tied loosely, and a towel around her head to protect her hair. Every evening as soon as his massage began, she would take the bath, sometimes alone, sometimes with Fujiko.
   “Here, you have it now,” he said, beginning to get out.
   “Oh, please, no, I don’t wish to disturb you.”
   “Then share it. It’s wonderful.”
   “Thank you. I can hardly wait to soak the sweat and dust away.” She took off her robe and sat on the tiny seat. A servant began to lather her, Suwo waiting patiently near the massage table.
   “It is rather like a school holiday,” she said, as happily.
   The first time Blackthorne had seen her naked on the day that they swam he had been greatly affected. Now her nakedness, of itself, did not touch him physically. Living closely in Japanese style in a Japanese house where the walls were paper and the rooms multipurpose, he had seen her unclothed and partially clothed many times. He had even seen her relieving herself.
   “What’s more normal, Anjin-san? Bodies are normal, and differences between men and women are normal, neh?”
   “Yes, but it’s, er, just that we’re trained differently.”
   “But now you’re here and our customs are your customs and normal is normal. Neh?”
   Normal was urinating or defecating in the open if there were no latrines or buckets, just lifting your kimono or parting it and squatting or standing, everyone else politely waiting and not watching, rarely screens for privacy. Why should one require privacy? And soon one of the peasants would gather the feces and mix it with water to fertilize crops. Human manure and urine were the only substantial source of fertilizer in the Empire. There were few horses and bullocks, and no other animal sources at all. So every human particle was harbored and sold to the farmers throughout the land.
   And after you’ve seen the highborn and the lowborn parting or lifting and standing or squatting, there’s not much left to be embarrassed about.
   “Is there, Anjin-san?”
   “No.”
   “Good,” she had said, very satisfied. “Soon you will like raw fish and fresh seaweed and then you’ll really be hatamoto.”
   The maid poured water over her. Then, cleansed, Mariko stepped into the bath and lay down opposite him with a longdrawn sigh of ecstasy, the little crucifix dangling between her breasts.
   “How do you do that?” he said.
   “What?”

   “Get in so quickly. It’s so hot.”
   “I don’t know, Anjin-san, but I asked them to put more firewood on and to heat up the water. For you, Fujiko always makes sure it’s—we would call it tepid.”
   “If this is tepid, then I’m a Dutchman’s uncle!”
   “What?”
   “Nothing.”
   The water’s heat made them drowsy and they lolled a while, not saying a word.
   Later she said, “What would you like to do this evening, Anjin-san?”
   “If we were up in London we’d—” Blackthorne stopped. I won’t think about them, he told himself. Or London. That’s gone. That doesn’t exist. Only here exists
   “If?” She was watching him, aware of the change.
   “We’d go to a theater and see a play,” he said, dominating himself. “Do you have plays here?”
   “Oh, yes, Anjin-san. Plays are very popular with us. The Taikō liked to perform in them for the entertainment of his guests, even Lord Toranaga likes to. And of course there are many touring companies for the common people. But our plays are not quite like yours, so I believe. Here our actors and actresses wear masks. We call the plays ‘Nōh.’ They’re part music, partially danced and mostly very sad, very tragic, historical plays. Some are comedies. Would we see a comedy, or perhaps a religious play?”
   “No, we’d go to the Globe Theater and see something by a playwright called Shakespeare. I like him better than Ben Jonson or Marlowe. Perhaps we’d see The Taming of the Shrew or A Midsummer Night’s Dream or Romeo and Juliet. I took my wife to Romeo and Juliet and she liked it very much.” He explained the plots to her.
   Mostly Mariko found them incomprehensible. “It would be unthinkable here for a girl to disobey her father like that. But so sad, neh? Sad for a young girl and sad for the boy. She was only thirteen? Do all your ladies marry so young?”
   “No. Fifteen or sixteen’s usual. My wife was seventeen when we were married. How old were you?”
   “Just fifteen, Anjin-san.” A shadow crossed her brow which he did not notice. “And after the play, what would we do?”
   “I would take you to eat. We’d go to Stone’s Chop House in Fetter Lane, or the Cheshire Cheese in Fleet Street. They are inns where the food’s special.”
   “What would you eat?”
   “I’d rather not remember,” he said with a lazy smile, turning his mind back to the present. “I can’t remember. Here is where we are and here is where we’ll eat, and I enjoy raw fish and karma is karma.” He sank deeper into the tub. “A great word ‘karma. ’ And a great idea. Your help’s been enormous to me, Mariko-san.”
   “It’s my pleasure to be of a little service to you.” Mariko relaxed into the warmth. “Fujiko has some special food for you tonight.”
   “Oh?”
   “She bought a—I think you call it a pheasant. It’s a large bird. One of the falconers caught it for her.”
   “A pheasant? You really mean it? Honto?”
   “Honto,” she replied. “Fujiko asked them to hunt for you. She asked me to tell you.”
   “How is it being cooked?”
   “One of the soldiers had seen the Portuguese preparing them and he told Fujiko-san. She asks you to be patient if it’s not cooked properly.”
   “But how is she doing it—how’re the cooks doing it?” He corrected himself, for servants alone did the cooking and cleaning.
   “She was told that first someone pulls out all the feathers, then—then takes out the entrails.” Mariko controlled her squeamishness. “Then the bird’s either cut into small pieces and fried with oil, or boiled with salt and spices.” Her nose wrinkled. “Sometimes they cover it with mud and put it into the coals of a fire and bake it. We have no ovens, Anjin-san. So it will be fried. I hope that’s all right.”
   “I’m sure it’ll be perfect,” he said, certain it would be inedible.
   She laughed. “You’re so transparent, Anjin-san, sometimes.”
   “You don’t understand how important food is!” In spite of himself he smiled. “You’re right. I shouldn’t be interested in food. But I can’t control hunger.”
   “You’ll soon be able to do that. You’ll even learn how to drink cha from an empty cup.”
   “What?”
   “This is not the place to explain that, Anjin-san, or the time. For that you must be very awake and very alert. A quiet sunset, or dawning, is necessary. I will show you how, one day, because of what you did. Oh, it is so good to lie here, isn’t it? A bath is truly the gift of God.”
   He heard the servants outside the wall, stoking the fire. He bore the intensifying heat as long as he could, then emerged from the water, half helped by Suwo, and lay back gasping on the thick towel cloth. The old man’s fingers probed. Blackthorne could have cried out with pleasure. “That’s so good.”
   “You’ve changed so much in the last few days, Anjin-san.”
   “Have I?”
   “Oh yes, since your rebirth—yes, very much.”
   He tried to recall the first night but could remember little. Somehow he had made it back on his own legs. Fujiko and the servants had helped him to bed. After a dreamless sleep, he woke at dawn and went for a swim. Then, drying in the sun, he had thanked God for the strength and the clue that Mariko had given him. Later, walking home, he greeted the villagers, knowing secretly that they were freed of Yabu’s curse, as he was freed.
   Then, when Mariko had arrived, he had sent for Mura.
   “Mariko-san, please tell Mura this: ‘We have a problem, you and I. We will solve it together. I want to join the village school. To learn to speak with children.’”
   “They haven’t a school, Anjin-san.”
   “None?”
   “No. Mura says there’s a monastery a few ri to the west and the monks could teach you reading and writing if you wish. But this is a village, Anjin-san. The children here need to learn the ways of fish, the sea, making nets, planting and growing rice and crops. There’s little time for anything else, except reading and writing. And, too, parents and grandparents teach their own, as always.”
   “Then how can I learn when you’ve gone?”
   “Lord Toranaga will send the books.”
   “I’ll need more than books.”
   “Everything will be satisfactory, Anjin-san.”
   “Yes. Perhaps. But tell the headman that whenever I make a mistake, everyone—everyone, even a child—is to correct me. At once. I order it.”
   “He says thank you, Anjin-san.”
   “Does anyone here speak Portuguese?”
   “He says no.”
   “Anyone nearby?”
   “Iyé, Anjin-san.”
   “Mariko-san, I’ve got to have someone when you leave.”
   “I’ll tell Yabu-san what you’ve said.”

   “Mura-san, you—”
   “He says you must not use ‘san’ to him or to any villagers. They are beneath you. It’s not correct for you to say ‘san’ to them or anyone beneath you.”
   Fujiko had also bowed to the ground that first day. “Fujiko-san welcomes you home, Anjin-san. She says you have done her great honor and she begs your forgiveness for being rude on the ship. She is honored to be consort and head of your house. She asks if you will keep the swords as it would please her greatly. They belonged to her father, who is dead. She had not given them to her husband because he had swords of his own.”
   “Thank her and say I’m honored she’s consort,” he had said.
   Mariko had bowed too. Formally. “You are in a new life now, Anjin-san. We look at you with new eyes. It is our custom to be formal sometimes, with great seriousness. You have opened my eyes. Very much. Once you were just a barbarian to me. Please excuse my stupidity. What you did proves you’re samurai. Now you are samurai. Please forgive my previous bad manners.”
   He had felt very tall that day. But his self-inflicted near-death had changed him more than he realized and scarred him forever, more than the sum of all his other near-deaths.
   Did you rely on Omi? he asked himself. That Omi would catch the blow? Didn’t you give him plenty of warning?
   I don’t know. I only know I’m glad he was ready, Blackthorne answered himself truthfully. That’s another life gone!
   “That’s my ninth life. The last!” he said aloud. Suwo’s fingers ceased at once.
   “What?” Mariko asked. “What did you say, Anjin-san?”
   “Nothing. It was nothing,” he replied, ill at ease.
   “I hurt you, Master?” Suwo said.
   “No.” Suwo said something more that he did not understand.
   “Dozo?”
   Mariko said distantly, “He wants to massage your back now.”
   Blackthorne turned on his stomach and repeated the Japanese and forgot it at once. He could see her through the steam. She was breathing deeply, her head tilted back slightly, her skin pink.
   How does she stand the heat, he asked himself. Training, I suppose, from childhood.
   Suwo’s fingers pleasured him, and he drowsed momentarily.
   What was I thinking about?
   You were thinking about your ninth life, your last life, and you were frightened, remembering the superstition. But it is foolish here in this Land of the Gods to be superstitious. Things are different here and this is forever. Today is forever.
   Tomorrow many things can happen.
   Today I’ll abide by their rules.
   I will.


   The maid brought in the covered dish. She held it high above her head as was custom, so that her breath would not defile the food. Anxiously she knelt and placed it carefully on the tray table in front of Blackthorne. On each little table were bowls and chopsticks, saké cups and napkins, and a tiny flower arrangement. Fujiko and Mariko were sitting opposite him. They wore flowers and silver combs in their hair. Fujiko’s kimono was a pale green pattern of fish on a white background, her obi gold. Mariko wore black and red with a thin silver overlay of chrysanthemums and a red and silver check obi. Both wore perfume, as always. Incense burned to keep the night bugs away.
   Blackthorne had long since composed himself. He knew that any displeasure from him would destroy their evening. If pheasants could be caught there would be other game, he thought. He had a horse and guns and he could hunt himself, if only he could get the time.
   Fujiko leaned over and took the lid off the dish. The small pieces of fried meat were browned and seemed perfect. He began to salivate at the aroma.
   Slowly he took a piece of meat in his chopsticks, willing it not to fall, and chewed the flesh. It was tough and dry, but he had been meatless for so long it was delicious. Another piece. He sighed with pleasure. “Ichi-ban, ichi-ban, by God!”
   Fujiko blushed and poured him saké to hide her face. Mariko fanned herself, the crimson fan a dragonfly. Blackthorne quaffed the wine and ate another piece and poured more wine and ritualistically offered his brimming cup to Fujiko. She refused, as was custom, but tonight he insisted, so she drained the cup, choking slightly. Mariko also refused and was also made to drink. Then he attacked the pheasant with as little gusto as he could manage. The women hardly touched their small portions of vegetables and fish. This didn’t bother him because it was a female custom to eat before or afterward so that all their attention could be devoted to the master.
   He ate all the pheasant and three bowls of rice and slurped his saké, which was also good manners. He felt replete for the first time in months. During the meal he had finished six flasks of the hot wine, Mariko and Fujiko two between them. Now they were flushed and giggling and at the silly stage.
   Mariko chuckled and put her hand in front of her mouth. “I wish I could drink saké like you, Anjin-san. You drink saké better than any man I’ve ever known. I wager you’d be the best in Izu! I could win a lot of money on you!”
   “I thought samurai disapproved of gambling.”
   “Oh they do, absolutely they do, they’re not merchants and peasants. But not all samurai are as strong as others and many—how do you say—many’ll bet like the Southern Bar—like the Portuguese bet.”
   “Do women bet?”
   “Oh, yes. Very much. But only with other ladies and in careful amounts and always so their husbands never find out!” She gaily translated for Fujiko, who was more flushed than she.
   “Your consort asks do Englishmen bet? Do you like to wager?”
   “It’s our national pastime.” And he told them about horse racing and skittles and bull baiting and coursing and whippets and hawking and bowls and the new stock companies and letters of marque and shooting and darts and lotteries and boxing and cards and wrestling and dice and checkers and dominoes and the time at the fairs when you put farthings on numbers and bet against the wheels of chance.
   “But how do you find time to live, to war, and to pillow, Fujiko asks?”
   “There’s always time for those.” Their eyes met for a moment but he could not read anything in hers, only happiness and maybe too much wine.
   Mariko begged him to sing the hornpipe song for Fujiko, and he did and they congratulated him and said it was the best they had ever heard.
   “Have some more saké!”
   “Oh, you mustn’t pour, Anjin-san, that’s woman’s duty. Didn’t I tell you?”
   “Yes. Have some more, dozo.”
   “I’d better not. I think I’ll fall over.” Mariko fluttered her fan furiously and the draft stirred the threads of hair that had escaped from her immaculate coiffure.
   “You have nice ears,” he said.
   “So have you. We, Fujiko-san and I, we think your nose is perfect too, worthy of a daimyo.”
   He grinned and bowed elaborately to them. They bowed back. The folds of Mariko’s kimono fell away from her neck slightly, revealing the edge of her scarlet under-kimono and the swell of her breasts, and it stirred him considerably.
   “Saké, Anjin-san?”
   He held out the cup, his fingers steady. She poured, watching the cup, the tip of her tongue touching her lips as she concentrated.
   Fujiko reluctantly accepted some too, though she said that she couldn’t feel her legs anymore. Her quiet melancholia had gone tonight and she seemed young again. Blackthorne noticed that she was not as ugly as he had once thought.


   Jozen’s head was buzzing. Not from saké but from the incredible war strategy that Yabu, Omi, and Igurashi had described so openly. Only Naga, the second-in-command, son of the arch-enemy, had said nothing, and had remained throughout the evening cold, arrogant, stiff-backed, with the characteristic large Toranaga nose on a taut face.
   “Astonishing, Yabu-sama,” Jozen said. “Now I can understand the reason for secrecy. My Master will understand it also. Wise, very wise. And you, Naga-san, you’ve been silent all evening. I’d like your opinion. How do you like this new mobility—this new strategy?”
   “My father believes that all war possibilities should be considered, Jozen-san,” the young man replied.
   “But you, what’s your opinion?”
   “I was sent here only to obey, to observe to listen, to learn, and to test. Not to give opinions.”
   “Of coarse. But as second-in-command—I should say, as an illustrious second-in-command—do you consider the experiment a success?”
   “Yabu-sama or Omi-san should answer that. Or my father.”
   “But Yabu-sama said that everyone tonight was to talk freely. What’s there to hide? We are all friends, neh? So famous a son of so famous a father must have an opinion. Neh?”
   Naga’s eyes narrowed under the taunt but he did not reply.
   “Everyone can speak freely, Naga-san,” Yabu said. “What do you think?”
   “I think that, with surprise, this idea would win one skirmish or possibly one battle. With surprise, yes. But then?” Naga’s voice swept on icily. “Then all sides would use the same plan and vast numbers of men would die unnecessarily, slain without honor by an assailant who won’t even know who he has killed. I doubt if my father will actually authorize its use in a real battle.”
   “He’s said that?” Yabu put the question incisively, careless of Jozen.
   “No, Yabu-sama. I’m giving my own opinion. Of course.”
   “But the Musket Regiment—you don’t approve of it? It disgusts you?” Yabu asked darkly.
   Naga looked at him with flat, reptilian eyes. “With great deference, since you ask my opinion, yes, I find it disgusting. Our forefathers have always known whom they killed or who defeated them. That’s bushido, our way, the Way of the Warrior, the way of a true samurai. The better man victorious, neh? But now this? How do you prove your valor to your lord? How can he reward courage? To charge bullets is brave, yes, but also stupid. Where’s the valor in that? Guns are against our samurai code. Barbarians fight this way, peasants fight this way. Do you realize filthy merchants and peasants, even eta, could fight this way?” Jozen laughed and Naga continued even more menacingly. “A few fanatic peasants could easily kill any number of samurai with enough guns! Yes, peasants could kill any one of us, even the Lord Ishido, who wants to sit in my father’s place.”
   Jozen bridled. “Lord Ishido doesn’t covet your father’s lands. He only seeks to protect the Empire for its rightful heir.”
   “My father’s no threat to the Lord Yaemon, or to the Realm.”
   “Of course, but you were talking about peasants. The Lord Taikō was once a peasant. My Lord Ishido was once a peasant. I was once a peasant. And a ronin!”
   Naga wanted no quarrel. He knew he was no match for Jozen, whose prowess with sword and ax was renowned. “I wasn’t trying to insult your master or you or anyone, Jozen-san. I was merely saying that we samurai must all make very certain that peasants never have guns or none of us will be safe.”
   “Merchants and peasants’ll never worry us,” Jozen said.
   “I agree,” Yabu added, “and Naga-san, I agree with part of what you say. Yes. But guns are modern. Soon all battles will be fought with guns. I agree it’s distasteful. But it’s the way of modern war. And then it’ll be as it always was—the bravest samurai will always conquer.”
   “No, so sorry, but you’re wrong, Yabu-sama! What did this cursed barbarian tell us—the essence of their war strategy? He freely admits that all their armies are conscript and mercenary. Neh? Mercenary! No sense of duty to their lords. The soldiers only fight for pay and loot, to rape and to gorge. Didn’t he say their armies are peasant armies? That’s what guns have brought to their world and that’s what guns will bring to ours. If I had power, I’d take this barbarian’s head tonight and outlaw all guns permanently.”
   “Is that what your father thinks?” Jozen asked too quickly.
   “My father doesn’t tell me or anyone what he thinks, as you surely know. I don’t speak for my father, no one speaks for him,” Naga replied, angry at allowing himself to be trapped into talking at all. “I was sent here to obey, to listen and not to talk. I apologize for talking. I would not have spoken unless you asked me. If I have offended you, or you, Yabu-sama, or you, Omi-san, I apologize.”
   “There’s no need to apologize. I asked your views,” Yabu said. “Why should anyone be offended? This is a discussion, neh? Among leaders. You’d outlaw guns?”
   “Yes. I think you’d be wise to keep a very close check on every gun in your domain.”
   “All peasants are forbidden weapons of any kind. My peasants and my people are very well controlled.”
   Jozen smirked at the slim youth, loathing him. “Interesting ideas you have, Naga-san. But you’re mistaken about the peasants. They’re nothing to samurai but providers. They’re no more threat than a pile of dung.”
   “At the moment!” Naga said, his pride commanding him. “That’s why I’d outlaw guns now. You’re right, Yabu-san, that a new era requires new methods. But because of what this Anjin-san, this one barbarian, has said, I’d go much further than our present laws. I would issue Edicts that anyone other than a samurai found with a gun or caught trading in guns would immediately forfeit his life and that of every member of his family of every generation. Further, I would prohibit the making or importing of guns. I’d prohibit barbarians from wearing them or from bringing them to our shores. Yes, if I had power—which I do not seek and never will—I’d keep barbarians out of our country totally, except for a few priests and one port for trade, which I’d surround with a high fence and trusted warriors. Last, I’d put this foul-minded barbarian, the Anjin-san, to death at once so that his filthy knowledge will not spread. He’s a disease.”
   Jozen said, “Ah, Naga-san, it must be good to be so young. You know, my Master agrees with much of what you said about the barbarians. I’ve heard him say many times, ‘Keep them out—kick them out—kick their arses away to Nagasaki and keep them bottled there!’ You’d kill the Anjin-san, eh? Interesting. My Master doesn’t like the Anjin-san either. But for him—” He stopped. “Ah, yes, you’ve a good thought about guns. I can see that clearly. May I tell that to my Master? Your idea about new laws?”
   “Of course.” Naga was mollified, and calmer now that he had spoken what had been bottled up from the first day.
   “You’ve given this opinion to Lord Toranaga?” Yabu asked.
   “Lord Toranaga has not asked my opinion. I hope one day he will honor me by asking as you have done,” Naga replied at once with sincerity, and wondered if any of them detected the lie.
   Omi said, “As this is a free discussion, Sire, I say this barbarian is a treasure. I believe we must learn from the barbarian. We must know about guns and fighting ships because they know about them. We must know everything they know as soon as they know it, and even now, some of us must begin to learn to think like they do so that soon we can surpass them.”
   Naga said confidently, “What could they possibly know, Omi-san? Yes, guns and ships. But what else? How could they destroy us? There’s not a samurai among them. Doesn’t this Anjin admit openly that even their kings are murderers and religious fanatics? We’re millions, they’re a handful. We could swamp them with our hands alone.”
   “This Anjin-san opened my eyes, Naga-san. I’ve discovered that our land, and China, isn’t the whole world, it’s only a very small part. At first I thought the barbarian was just a curiosity. Now I don’t. I thank the gods for him. I think he’s saved us and I know we can learn from him. Already he’s given us power over the Southern Barbarians—and over China.”
   “What?”

  “The Taikō failed because their numbers are too great for us, man to man, arrow to arrow, neh? With guns and barbarian skill we could take Peking.”
   “With barbarian treachery, Omi-san!”
   “With barbarian knowledge, Naga-san, we could take Peking. Whoever takes Peking eventually controls China. And whoever controls China can control the world. We must learn not to be ashamed of taking knowledge from wherever it comes.”
   “I say we need nothing from outside.”
   “Without offense, Naga-san, I say we must protect this Land of the Gods by any means. It’s our prime duty to protect the unique, divine position we have on earth. Only this is the Land of the Gods, neh? Only our Emperor is divine. I agree this barbarian should be gagged. But not by death. By permanent isolation here in Anjiro, until we have learned everything he knows.”
   Jozen scratched thoughtfully. “My Master will be told of your views. I agree the barbarian should be isolated. Also that training should cease at once.”
   Yabu took a scroll from his sleeve. “Here is a full report on the experiment for Lord Ishido. When Lord Ishido wishes the training to cease, of course, the training will cease.”
   Jozen accepted the scroll. “And Lord Toranaga? What about him?” His eyes went to Naga. Naga said nothing but stared at the scroll.
   Yabu said, “You will be able to ask his opinion directly. He has a similar report. I presume you’ll be leaving for Yedo tomorrow? Or would you like to witness the training? I hardly need tell you the men are not yet proficient.”
   “I would like to see one ‘attack.’”
   “Omi-san, arrange it. You lead it.”
   “Yes, Sire.”
   Jozen turned to his second-in-command and gave him the scroll. “Masumoto, take this to Lord Ishido. You will leave at once.”
   “Yes, Jozen-san.”
   Yabu said to Igurashi, “Provide him with guides to the border and fresh horses.”
   Igurashi left with the samurai immediately.
   Jozen stretched and yawned. “Please excuse me,” he said, “but it’s all the riding I’ve done in the last few days. I must thank you for an extraordinary evening, Yabu-sama. Your ideas are far-reaching. And yours, Omi-san. And yours, Naga-san. I’ll compliment you to the Lord Toranaga and to my Master. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m very tired and Osaka is a long way off.”
   “Of course,” Yabu said. “How was Osaka?”
   “Very good. Remember those bandits, the ones that attacked you by land and sea?”
   “Of course.”
   “We took four hundred and fifty heads that night. Many were wearing Toranaga uniforms.”
   “Ronin have no honor. None.”
   “Some ronin have,” Jozen said, smarting from the insult. He lived always with the shame of having once been ronin. “Some were even wearing our Grays. Not one escaped. They all died.”
   “And Buntaro-san?”
   “No. He—” Jozen stopped. The “no” had slipped out but now that he had said it he did not mind. “No. We don’t know for certain—no one collected his head. You’ve heard nothing about him?”
   “No,” Naga said.
   “Perhaps he was captured. Perhaps they just cut him into pieces and scattered him. My Master would like to know when you have news. All’s very good now at Osaka. Preparations for the meeting go forward. There’ll be lavish entertainments to celebrate the new era, and of course, to honor all the daimyos.”
   “And Lord Toda Hiro-matsu?” Naga asked politely.
   “Old Iron Fist’s as strong and gruff as ever.”
   “He’s still there?”
   “No. He left with all your father’s men a few days before I did.”
   “And my father’s household?”
   “I heard that the Lady Kiritsubo and the Lady Sazuko asked to stay with my Master. A doctor advised the Lady to rest for a month—her health, you know. He thought the journey would not be good for the expected child.” To Yabu he added, “She fell down the night you left, didn’t she?”
   “Yes.”
   “There’s nothing serious, I hope,” Naga asked, very concerned. “No, Naga-san, nothing serious,” Jozen said, then again to Yabu, “You’ve informed Lord Toranaga of my arrival?”
   “Of course.”
   “Good.”
   “The news you brought us would interest him greatly.”
   “Yes. I saw a carrier pigeon circle and fly north.”
   “I have that service now.” Yabu did not add that Jozen’s pigeon had also been observed, or that falcons had intercepted it near the mountains, or that the message had been decoded: “At Anjiro. All true as reported. Yabu, Naga, Omi, and barbarian here.”
   “I will leave tomorrow, with your permission, after the ‘attack.’ You’ll give me fresh horses? I must not keep Lord Toranaga waiting. I look forward to seeing him. So does my Master. At Osaka. I hope you’ll accompany him, Naga-san.”
   “If I’m ordered there, I will be there.” Naga kept his eyes lowered but he was burning with suppressed fury.
   Jozen left and walked with his guards up the hill to his camp. He rearranged the sentries and ordered his men to sleep and got into his small brush lean-to that they had constructed against the coming rain. By candlelight, under a mosquito net, he rewrote the previous message on a thin piece of rice paper and added: “The five hundred guns are lethal. Massed surprise gun attacks planned—full report already sent with Masumoto.” Then he dated it and doused the candle. In the darkness he slipped out of his net, removed one of the pigeons from the panniers and placed the message in the tiny container on its foot. Then he stealthily made his way to one of his men and handed him the bird.
   “Take it out into the brush,” he whispered. “Hide it somewhere where it can roost safely until dawn. As far away as you can. But be careful, there are eyes all around. If you’re intercepted say I told you to patrol, but hide the pigeon first.”
   The man slid away as silently as a cockroach.
   Pleased with himself, Jozen looked toward the village below. There were lights on in the fortress and on the opposite slope, in the house that he knew to be Omi’s. There were a few also in the house just below, the one presently occupied by the barbarian.
   That whelp Naga’s right, Jozen thought, waving his hand at a mosquito. The barbarian’s a filthy plague.


   “Good night, Fujiko-san.”
   “Good night, Anjin-san.”
   The shoji closed behind her. Blackthorne took off his kimono and loincloth and put on the lighter sleeping kimono, got under the mosquito net, and lay down.
   He blew out the candle. Deep darkness enveloped him. The house was quiet now. The small shutters were closed and he could hear the surf. Clouds obscured the moon.
   The wine and laughter had made him drowsy and euphoric and he listened to the surf and felt himself drifting with it, his mind fogged. Occasionally, a dog barked in the village below. I should get a dog, he thought, remembering his own bull terrier at home. Wonder if he’s still alive? Grog was his name but Tudor, his son, always called him “Og-Og.”
   Ah, Tudor, laddie. It’s been such a long time.
   Wish I could see you all—even write a letter and send it home. Let’s see, he thought. How would I begin?
   “My darlings: This is the first letter I’ve been able to send home since we made landfall in Japan. Things are well now that I know how to live according to their ways. The food is terrible but tonight I had pheasant and soon I’ll get my ship back again. Where to start my story? Today I’m like a feudal lord in this strange country. I have a house, a horse, eight servants, a housekeeper, my own barber, and my own interpreter. I’m clean-shaven now and shave every day—the steel razors they have here must certainly be the best in the world. My salary’s huge—enough to feed two hundred and fifty Japan families for one year. In England that’d be the equivalent of almost a thousand golden guineas a year! Ten times my salary from the Dutch company…
   The shoji began to open. His hand sought his pistol under the pillow and he readied, dragging himself back. Then he caught the almost imperceptible rustle of silk and a waft of perfume.
   “Anjin-san?” A thread of whisper, filled with promise.
   “Hai?” he asked as softly, peering into the darkness, unable to see clearly.
   Footsteps came closer. There was the sound of her kneeling and the net was pulled aside and she joined him inside the enclosing net. She took his hand and lifted it to her breast, then to her lips.
   “Mariko-san?”
   At once fingers reached up in the darkness and touched his lips, cautioning silence. He nodded, understanding the awful risk they were taking. He held her tiny wrist and brushed it with his lips. In the pitch black his other hand sought and caressed her face. She kissed his fingers one by one. Her hair was loose and waist length now. His hands traveled her. The lovely feel of silk, nothing beneath.
   Her taste was sweet. His tongue touched her teeth, then rimmed her ears, discovering her. She loosened his robe and let hers fall aside, her breathing more languorous now. She pushed closer, nestling, and pulled the covering over their heads. Then she began to love him, with hands and with lips. With more tenderness and seeking and knowledge than he had ever known.

Chapter 33

   Blackthorne awoke at dawn. Alone. At first he was sure he had been dreaming, but her perfume still lingered and he knew that it had not been a dream.
   A discreet knock.
   “Hai?”
   “Ohayo, Anjin-san, gomen nasai.” A maid opened the shoji for Fujiko, then carried in the tray with cha and a bowl of rice gruel and sweet rice cakes.
   “Ohayo, Fujiko-san, domo,” he said, thanking her. She always came with his first meal personally, opened the net and waited while he ate, and the maid laid out a fresh kimono and tabi and loincloth.
   He sipped the cha, wondering if Fujiko knew about last night. Her face gave nothing away.
   “Ikaga desu ka?” How are you, Blackthorne asked.
   “Okagasama de genki desu, Anjin-san. Anata wa?” Very well, thank you. And you?
   The maid took out his fresh clothes from the concealed cupboard that melted neatly into the rest of the paper-latticed room, then left them alone.
   “Anata wa yoku nemutta ka?” Did you sleep well?
   “Hai, Anjin-san, arigato goziemashita!” She smiled, put her hand to her head pretending pain, mimed being drunk and sleeping like a stone. “Anata wa?”
   “Watashi wa yoku nemuru.” I slept very well.
   She corrected him, “Watashi wa yoku nemutta.”
   “Domo. Watashi wa yoku nemutta.”
   “Yoi! Taihenyoi!” Good. Very good.
   Then from the corridor he heard Mariko call out, “Fujiko-san?”
   “Hai, Mariko-san?” Fujiko went to the shoji and opened it a crack. He could not see Mariko. And he did not understand what they were saying.
   I hope no one knows, he thought. I pray it is secret, just between us. Perhaps it would be better if it had been a dream.
   He began to dress. Fujiko came back and knelt to do up the catches on the tabi.
   “Mariko-san? Nan ja?”
   “Nane mo, Anjin-san,” she replied. It was nothing important.
   She went to the takonama, the alcove with its hanging scroll and flower arrangement, where his swords were always put. She gave them to him. He stuck them in his belt. The swords no longer felt ridiculous to him, though he wished that he could wear them less self-consciously.
   She had told him that her father had been granted the swords for bravery after a particularly bloody battle in the far north of Korea, seven years ago during the first invasion. The Japanese armies had ripped through the kingdom, victorious, slashing north. Then, when they were near the Yalu River, the Chinese hordes had abruptly poured across the border to join battle with the Japanese armies and, through the weight of their incredible numbers, had routed them. Fujiko’s father had been part of the rearguard that had covered the retreat back to the mountains north of Seoul, where they had turned and fought the battle to a stalemate. This and the second campaign had been the costliest military expedition ever undertaken. When the Taikō had died last year, Toranaga, on behalf of the Council of Regents, had at once ordered the remnants of their armies home, to the great relief of the vast majority of daimyos, who detested the Korean campaign.
   Blackthorne walked out to the veranda. He stepped into his thongs and nodded to his servants, who had been assembled in a neat line to bow him off, as was custom.
   It was a drab day. The sky was overcast and a warm wet wind came off the sea. The steppingstones that were set into the gravel of the path were wet with the rain that had fallen in the night.
   Beyond the gate were the horses and his ten samurai outriders. And Mariko.
   She was already mounted and wore a pale yellow mantle over pale green silk trousers, a wide-brimmed hat and veil held with yellow ribbons, and gloves. A rain parasol was ready in its saddle-sheath.
   “Ohayo,” he said formally. “Ohayo, Mariko-san.”
   “Ohayo, Anjin-san. Ikaga desu ka?”
   “Okagesama de genki desu. Anata wa?”
   She smiled. “Yoi, arigato goziemashita.”
   She gave not the faintest hint that anything was different between them. But he expected none, not in public, knowing how dangerous the situation was. Her perfume came over him and he would have liked to kiss her here, in front of everyone.
   “Ikimasho!” he said and swung into the saddle, motioning the samurai to ride off ahead. He walked his horse leisurely and Mariko fell into place beside him. When they were alone, he relaxed.
   “Mariko.”
   “Hai?”
   Then he said in Latin, “Thou art beautiful and I love thee.”
   “I thank thee, but so much wine last night makes my head to feel not beautiful today, not in truth, and love is a Christian word.”
   “Thou art beautiful and Christian, and wine could not touch thee.”
   “Thank thee for the lie, Anjin-san, yes, thank thee.”
   “No. I should thank thee.”
   “Oh? Why?”
   “Never ‘why,’ no ‘why.’ I thank thee sincerely.”
   “If wine and meat make thee so warm and fine and gallant,” she said, “then I must tell thy consort to move the heaven and the earth to obtain them for thee every evening.”
   “Yes. I would have everything the same, always.”
   “Thou art untoward happy today,” she said. “Good, very good. But why? Why truly?”
   “Because of thee. Thou knowest why.”
   “I know nothing, Anjin-san.”
   “Nothing?” he teased.
   “Nothing.”
   He was taken aback. They were quite alone, and safe.
   “Why doth ‘nothing’ take the heart out of thy smile?” she asked.
   “Stupidity! Absolute stupidity! I forgot that it is most wise to be cautious. It was only that we were alone and I wanted to speak of it. And, in truth, to say more.”
   “Thou speakest in riddles. I do not understand thee.”
   He was nonplussed again. “Thou dost not wish to talk about it? At all?”
   “About what, Anjin-san?”
   “What passed in the night then?”
   “I passed thy door in the night when my maid, Koi, was with thee.”
   “What?”
   “We, your consort and I, we thought she would be a pleasing gift for thee. She pleased thee, did she not?”
   Blackthorne was trying to recover. Mariko’s maid was her size but younger and never so fair and never so pretty, and yes, it was pitch dark and yes, his head was fogged with wine but no, it was not the maid.
   “That’s not possible,” he said in Portuguese.
   “What’s not possible, senhor?” she asked in the same language.
   He reverted to Latin again, as the outriders were not far away, the wind blowing in their direction. “Please do not joke with me. No one can hear. I know a presence and a perfume.”
   “Thou thinkest it was me? Oh, it was not, Anjin-san. I would be honored but I could never possibly … however much I might want—oh no, Anjin-san. It was not me but Koi, my maid. I would be honored, but I belong to another even though he’s dead.”
   “Yes, but it wasn’t your maid.” He bit back his anger. “But leave it as thou desirest.”
   “It was my maid, Anjin-san,” she said placatingly. “We anointed her with my perfume and instructed her: no words, only touch. We never thought for a moment thou wouldst consider her to be me! This was not to trick thee but for thine ease, knowing that discussing things of the pillow still embarrasses thee.” She was looking at him with wide, innocent eyes. “She pleasured thee, Anjin-san? Thou pleasured her.”
   “A joke concerning things of great importance is sometimes without humor.”
   “Things of great import will always be treated with great import. But a maid in the night with a man is without import.”
   “I do not consider thee without import.”
   “I thank thee. I say that equally. But a maid in the night with a man is private and without import. It is a gift from her to him and, sometimes, from him to her. Nothing more.”
   “Never?”
   “Sometimes. But this private pillow matter does not have this vast seriousness of thine.”
   “Never?”
   “Only when the woman and man join together against the law. In this land.”
   He reined in, finally comprehending the reason for her denial. “I apologize,” he said. “Yes, thou art right and I most very wrong. I should never have spoken. I apologize.”
   “Why apologize? For what? Tell me, Anjin-san, was this girl wearing a crucifix?”
   “No.
   “I always wear it. Always.”
   “A crucifix can be taken off,” he said automatically in Portuguese. “That proves nothing. It could be loaned, like a perfume.”
   “Tell me a last truth: Did you really see the girl? Really see her?”
   “Of course. Please let us forget I ever—”
   “The night was very dark, the moon overcast. Please, the truth, Anjin-san. Think! Did you really see the girl?”
   Of course I saw her, he thought indignantly.
   God damn it, think truly. You didn’t see her. Your head was fogged. She could have been the maid but you knew it was Mariko because you wanted Mariko and saw only Mariko in your head, believing that Mariko would want you equally. You’re a fool. A God damned fool.
   “In truth, no. In truth I should really apologize,” he said. “How do I apologize?”
   “There’s no need to apologize, Anjin-san,” she replied calmly. “I’ve told you many times a man never apologizes, even when he’s wrong. You were not wrong.” Her eyes teased him now. “My maid needs no apology.”
   “Thank you,” he said, laughing. “You make me feel less of a fool.”
   “The years flee from you when you laugh. The so-serious Anjin-san becomes a boy again.”
   “My father told me I was born old.”
   “Were you?”
   “He thought so.”
   “What’s he like?”
   “He was a fine man. A shipowner, a captain. The Spanish killed him at a place called Antwerp when they put that city to the sword. They burned his ship. I was six, but I remember him as a big, tall, good-natured man with golden hair. My older brother, Arthur, he was just eight—We had bad times then, Mariko-san.”
   “Why? Please tell me. Please!”
   “It’s all very ordinary. Every penny of money was tied into the ship and that was lost … and, well, not long after that, my sister died. She starved to death really. There was famine in ‘71 and plague again.”
   “We have plague sometimes. The smallpox. You were many in your family?”
   “Three of us,” he said, glad to talk to take away the other hurt. “Willia, my sister, she was nine when she died. Arthur, he was next—he wanted to be an artist, a sculptor, but he had to become an apprentice stonemason to help support us. He was killed in the Armada. He was twenty-five, poor fool, he just joined a ship, untrained, such a waste. I’m the last of the Blackthornes. Arthur’s wife and daughter live with my wife and kids now. My mother’s still alive and so’s old Granny Jacoba—she’s seventy-five and hard as a piece of English oak though she was Irish. At least they were alive when I left more than two years ago.”
   The ache was coming back. I’ll think about them when I start for home, he promised himself, but not until then.
   “There’ll be a storm tomorrow,” he said, watching the sea. “A strong one, Mariko-san. Then in three days we’ll have fair weather.”
   “This is the season of squalls. Mostly it’s overcast and rainfilled. When the rains stop it becomes very humid. Then begin the tai-funs.”
   I wish I were at sea again, he was thinking. Was I ever at sea? Was the ship real? What’s reality? Mariko or the maid?
   “You don’t laugh very much, do you, Anjin-san?”
   “I’ve been seafaring too long. Seamen’re always serious. We’ve learned to watch the sea. We’re always watching and waiting for disaster. Take your eyes off the sea for a second and she’ll grasp your ship and make her matchwood.”
   “I’m afraid of the sea,” she said.
   “So am I. An old fisherman told me once, ‘The man who’s not afraid of the sea’ll soon be drownded for he’ll go out on a day he shouldn’t. But we be afraid of the sea so we be only drownded now and again.’” He looked at her. “Mariko-san …”
   “Yes?”

   “A few minutes ago you’d convinced me that—well, let’s say I was convinced. Now I’m not. What’s the truth? The honto. I must know.”
   “Ears are to hear with. Of course it was the maid.”
   “This maid. Can I ask for her whenever I want?”
   “Of course. A wise man would not.”
   “Because I might be disappointed? Next time?”
   “Possibly.”
   “I find it difficult to possess a maid and lose a maid, difficult to say nothing…”
   “Pillowing is a pleasure. Of the body. Nothing has to be said.”
   “But how do I tell a maid that she is beautiful? That I love her? That she filled me with ecstasy?”
   “It isn’t seemly to ‘love’ a maid this way. Not here, Anjin-san. That passion’s not even for a wife or a consort.” Her eyes crinkled suddenly. “But only toward someone like Kiku-san, the courtesan, who is so beautiful and merits this.”
   “Where can I find this girl?”
   “In the village. It would be my honor to act as your go-between.”
   “By Christ, I think you mean it.”
   “Of course. A man needs passions of all kinds. This Lady is worthy of romance—if you can afford her.”
   “What does that mean?”
   “She would be very expensive.”
   “You don’t buy love. That type’s worth nothing. ‘Love’ is without price.”
   She smiled. “Pillowing always has its price. Always. Not necessarily money, Anjin-san. But a man pays, always, for pillowing in one way, or in another. True love, we call it duty, is of soul to soul and needs no such expression—no physical expression, except perhaps the gift of death.”
   “You’re wrong. I wish I could show you the world as it is.”
   “I know the world as it is, and as it will be forever. You want this contemptible maid again?”
   “Yes. You know I want …”
   Mariko laughed gaily. “Then she will be sent to you. At sunset. We will escort her, Fujiko and I!”
   “Goddamn it—I think you would too!” He laughed with her.
   “Ah, Anjin-san, it is good to see you laugh. Since you came back to Anjiro you have gone through a great change. A very great change.”
   “No. Not so much. But last night I dreamed a dream. That dream was perfection.”
   “God is perfection. And sometimes so is a sunset or moonrise or the first crocus of the year.”
   “I don’t understand you at all.”
   She turned back the veil on her hat and looked directly at him. “Once another man said to me, ‘I don’t understand you at all,’ and my husband said, ‘Your pardon, Lord, but no man can understand her. Her father doesn’t understand her, neither do the gods, nor her barbarian God, not even her mother understands her.’”
   “That was Toranaga? Lord Toranaga?”
   “Oh, no, Anjin-san. That was the Taikō. Lord Toranaga understands me. He understands everything.”
   “Even me?”
   “Very much you.”
   “You’re sure of that, aren’t you?”
   “Yes. Oh, very yes.”
   “Will he win the war?”
   “Yes.”
   “I’m his favored vassal?”
   “Yes.”
   “Will he take my navy?”
   “Yes.”
   “When will I get my ship back?”
   “You won’t.”
   “Why?”
   Her gravity vanished. “Because you’ll have your ‘maid’ in Anjiro and you’ll be pillowing so much you’ll have no energy to leave, even on your hands and knees, when she begs you to go aboard your ship, and when Lord Toranaga asks you to go aboard and to leave us all!”
   “There you go again! One moment so serious, the next not!”
   “That’s only to answer you, Anjin-san, and to put certain things in a correct place. Ah, but before you leave us you should see the Lady Kiku. She’s worthy of a great passion. She’s so beautiful and talented. For her you would have to be extraordinary!”
   “I’m tempted to accept that challenge.”
   “I challenge no one. But if you’re prepared to be samurai and not—not foreigner—if you’re prepared to treat pillowing for what it is, then I would be honored to act as go-between.”
   “What does that mean?”
   “When you’re in good humor, when you’re ready for very special amusement, ask your consort to ask me.”
   “Why Fujiko-san?”
   “Because it’s your consort’s duty to see that you are pleasured. It is our custom to make life simple. We admire simplicity, so men and women can take pillowing for what it is: an important part of life, certainly, but between a man and a woman there are more vital things. Humility, for one. Respect. Duty. Even this ‘love’ of yours. Fujiko ‘loves’ you.”
   “No she doesn’t!”
   “She will give you her life. What more is there to give?”
   At length he took his eyes off her and looked at the sea. The waves were cresting the shore as the wind freshened. He turned back to her. “Then nothing is to be said?” he asked. “Between us?”
   “Nothing. That is wise.”
   “And if I don’t agree?”
   “You must agree. You are here. This is your home.”


   The attacking five hundred galloped over the lip of the hill in a haphazard pack, down onto the rock-strewn valley floor where the two thousand “defenders” were drawn up in a battle array. Each rider wore a musket slung on his back and a belt with pouches for bullets, flints, and a powder horn. Like most samurai, their clothes were a motley collection of kimonos and rags, but their weapons always the best that each could afford. Only Toranaga and Ishido, copying him, insisted that their troops be uniformed and punctilious in their dress. All other daimyos considered such outward extravagance a foolish squandering of money, an unnecessary innovation. Even Blackthorne had agreed. The armies of Europe were never uniformed—what king could afford that, except for a personal guard?
   He was standing on a rise with Yabu and his aides, Jozen and all his men, and Mariko. This was the first full-scale rehearsal of an attack. He waited uneasily. Yabu was uncommonly tense, and Omi and Naga both had been touchy almost to the point of belligerence. Particularly Naga.
   “What’s the matter with everyone?” he had asked Mariko.
   “Perhaps they wish to do well in front of their lord and his guest.”
   “Is he a daimyo too?”
   “No. But important, one of Lord Ishido’s generals. It would be good if everything were perfect today.”
   “I wish I’d been told there was to be a rehearsal.”
   “What would that have accomplished? Everything you could do, you have done.”
   Yes, Blackthorne thought, as he watched the five hundred. But they’re nowhere near ready yet. Surely Yabu knows that too, everyone does. So if there is a disaster, well, that’s karma, he told himself with more confidence, and found consolation in that thought.
   The attackers gathered speed and the defenders stood waiting under the banners of their captains, jeering at the “enemy” as they would normally do, strung out in loose formation, three or four men deep. Soon the attackers would dismount out of arrow range. Then the most valiant warriors on both sides would truculently strut to the fore to throw down the gauntlet, proclaiming their own lineage and superiority with the most obvious of insults. Single armed conflicts would begin, gradually increasing in numbers, until one commander would order a general attack and then it was every man for himself. Usually the greater number defeated the smaller, then the reserves would be brought up and committed, and again the melee until the morale of one side broke, and the few cowards that retreated would soon be joined by the many and a rout would ensue. Treachery was not unusual. Sometimes whole regiments, following their master’s orders, would switch sides, to be welcomed as allies—always welcomed but never trusted. Sometimes the defeated commanders would flee to regroup to fight again. Sometimes they would stay and fight to the death, sometimes they would commit seppuku with ceremony. Rarely were they captured. Some offered their services to the victors. Sometimes this was accepted but most times refused. Death was the lot of the vanquished, quick for the brave and shame-filled for the cowardly. And this was the historic pattern of all skirmishes in this land, even at great battles, soldiers here the same as everywhere, except that here they were more ferocious and many, many more were prepared to die for their masters than anywhere else on earth.
   The thunder of the hoofs echoed in the valley.
   “Where’s the attack commander? Where’s Omi-san?” Jozen asked.
   “Among the men, be patient,” Yabu replied.
   “But where’s his standard? And why isn’t he wearing battle armor and plumes? Where’s the commander’s standard? They’re just like a bunch of filthy no-good bandits!”
   “Be patient! All officers are ordered to remain nondescript. I told you. And please don’t forget we’re pretending a battle is raging, that this is part of a big battle, with reserves and arm—”
   Jozen burst out, “Where are their swords? None of them are wearing swords! Samurai without swords? They’d be massacred!”
   “Be patient!”
   Now the attackers were dismounting. The first warriors strode out from the defending ranks to show their valor. An equal number began to measure up against them. Then, suddenly, the ungainly mass of attackers rushed into five tight-disciplined phalanxes, each with four ranks of twenty-five men, three phalanxes ahead and two in reserve, forty paces back. As one, they charged the enemy. In range they shuddered to a stop on command and the front ranks fired an earshattering salvo in unison. Screams and men dying. Jozen and his men ducked reflexively, then watched appalled as the front ranks knelt and began to reload and the second ranks fired over them, with the third and fourth ranks following the same pattern. At each salvo more defenders fell, and the valley was filled with shouts and screams and confusion.
   “You’re killing your own men!” Jozen shouted above the uproar.
   “It’s blank ammunition, not real. They’re all acting, but imagine it’s a real attack with real bullets! Watch!”
   Now the defenders “recovered” from the initial shock. They regrouped and whirled back to a frontal attack. But by this time the front ranks had reloaded and, on command, fired another salvo from a kneeling position, then the second rank fired standing, immediately kneeling to reload, then the third and the fourth, as before, and though many musketeers were slow and the ranks ragged, it was easy to imagine the awful decimation trained men would cause. The counterattack faltered, then broke apart, and the defenders retreated in pretended confusion, back up the rise to stop just below the observers. Many “dead” littered the ground.
   Jozen and his men were shaken. “Those guns would break any line!”
   “Wait. The battle’s not over!”
   Again the defenders re-formed and now their commanders exhorted them to victory, committed the reserves, and ordered the final general attack. The samurai rushed down the hill, emitting their terrible battle cries, to fall on the enemy.
   “Now they’ll be stamped into the ground,” Jozen said, caught up like all of them in the realism of this mock battle.
   And he was right. The phalanxes did not hold their ground. They broke and fled before the battle cries of the true samurai with their swords and spears, and Jozen and his men added their shouts of scorn as the regiments hurtled to the kill. The musketeers were fleeing like the Garlic Eaters, a hundred paces, two hundred paces, three hundred, then suddenly, on command, the phalanxes regrouped, this time in a V formation. Again the shattering salvos began. The attack faltered. Then stopped. But the guns continued. Then they, too, stopped. The game ceased. But all on the rise knew that under actual conditions the two thousand would have been slaughtered.
   Now, in the silence, defenders and attackers began to sort themselves out. The “bodies” got up, weapons were collected. There was laughter and groaning. Many men limped and a few were badly hurt.
   “I congratulate you, Yabu-sama,” Jozen said with great sincerity. “Now I understand what all of you meant.”
   “The firing was ragged,” Yabu said, inwardly delighted. “It will take months to train them.”
   Jozen shook his head. “I wouldn’t like to attack them now. Not if they had real ammunition. No army could withstand that punch—no line. The ranks could never stay closed. And then you’d pour ordinary troops and cavalry through the gap and roll up the sides like an old scroll.” He thanked all kami that he’d had the sense to see one attack. “It was terrible to watch. For a moment I thought the battle was real.”
   “They were ordered to make it look real. And now you may review my musketeers, if you wish.”
   “Thank you. That would be an honor.”
   The defenders were streaming off to their camps that sat on the far hillside. The five hundred musketeers waited below, near the path that went over the rise and slid down to the village. They were forming into their companies, Omi and Naga in front of them, both wearing swords again.
   “Yabu-sama?”
   “Yes, Anjin-san?”