In a moment the shoji opened again and Blackthorne came in. He was dressed and wore a short sword.
   “Good evening, Yabu-san,” he said.
   “So sorry to disturb you, Anjin-san. I just want see—make sure all right, understand?”
   “Yes, thank you. No worry.”
   “Lady Toda all right? Not sick?”
   “Fine now. Very tired but fine. Soon dawn, neh?”
   Yabu nodded. “Yes. Just want make sure all right. Understand?”
   “Yes. This afternoon you say ‘plan,’ Yabu-san. Remember? Please what secret plan?”
   “No secret, Anjin-san,” Yabu said, regretting that he had been so open at that time. “You misunderstood. Say only must have plan … very difficult escape Osaka, neh? Must escape or—” Yabu drew a knife across his throat. “Understand?”
   “Yes. But now have pass, neh? Now safe go out Osaka. Neh?”
   “Yes. Soon leave. On boat very good. Soon get men at Nagasaki. Understand?”
   “Yes.”
   Very friendly, Yabu went away. Blackthorne closed the door after him and walked back to the inner passageway, leaving his inner door ajar. He passed Chimmoko and went into the other room. Mariko was propped in futons, appearing more diminutive than ever, more delicate and more beautiful. Kiri was kneeling on a cushion. Achiko was curled up asleep to one side.
   “What did he want, Anjin-san?” Mariko said.
   “Just to see we were all right.”
   Mariko translated for Kiri.
   “Kiri says, did you ask him about the ‘plan’?”
   “Yes. But he shrugged the question off. Perhaps he changed his mind. I don’t know. Perhaps I was mistaken but I thought this afternoon he had something planned, or was planning something.”
   “To betray us?”
   “Of course. But I don’t know how.”
   Mariko smiled at him. “Perhaps you were mistaken. We’re safe now.”
   The young girl, Achiko, mumbled in her sleep and they glanced at her. She had asked to stay with Mariko, as had old Lady Etsu, who was sleeping soundly in an adjoining room. The other ladies had left at sunset to go to their own homes. All had sent formal requests for permission to depart at once. With the failing light, rumors had rushed through the castle that nearly one hundred and five would also apply tomorrow. Kiyama had sent for Achiko, his granddaughter-in-law, but she refused to leave Mariko. At once the daimyo had disowned her and demanded possession of the child. She had given up her child. Now the girl was in the midst of a nightmare but it passed and she slept peacefully again.
   Mariko looked at Blackthorne. “It’s so wonderful to be at peace, neh?”
   “Yes,” he said. Since she had awakened and found herself alive and not dead, her spirit had clung to his. For the first hour they had been alone, she lying in his arms.
   “I’m so glad thou art alive, Mariko. I saw thee dead.”
   “I thought I was. I still cannot believe Ishido gave in. Never in twenty lifetimes… Oh, how I love thy arms about me, and thy strength.”
   “I was thinking that this afternoon from the first moment of Yoshinaka’s challenge I saw nothing but death—yours, mine, everyone’s. I saw into your plan, so long in the making, neh?”
   “Yes. Since the day of the earthquake, Anjin-san. Please forgive me but I didn’t—I didn’t want to frighten you. I was afraid you wouldn’t understand. Yes, from that day I knew it was my karma to bring the hostages out of Osaka. Only I could do that for Lord Toranaga. And now it’s done. But at what a cost, neh? Madonna forgive me.”
   Then Kiri had arrived and they had had to sit apart but that had not mattered to either of them. A smile or a look or word was enough.
   Kiri went over to the slit windows. Out to sea were flecks of light from the inshore fishing boats. “Dawn soon,” she said.
   “Yes,” Mariko said. “I’ll get up now.”
   “Soon. Not yet, Mariko-sama,” Kiri told her. “Please rest. You need to gather your strength.”
   “I wish Lord Toranaga was here.”
   “Yes.”
   “Have you prepared another message about … about our leaving?”
   “Yes, Mariko-sama, another pigeon will leave with the dawn. Lord Toranaga will hear of your victory today,” Kiri said. “He’ll be so proud of you.”
   “I’m so glad he was right.”
   “Yes,” Kiri said. “Please forgive me for doubting you and doubting him.”
   “In my secret heart I doubted him too. So sorry.”
   Kiri turned back to the window and looked out over the city. Toranaga’s wrong, she wanted to shriek. We’ll never leave Osaka, however much we pretend. It’s our karma to stay—his karma to lose.


   In the west wing Yabu stopped at the guardroom. The replacement sentries were ready. “I’m going to make a snap inspection.”
   “Yes, Sire.”
   “The rest of you wait for me here. You, come with me.”
   He went down the main staircase followed by a single guard. At the foot of the staircase in the main foyer were other guards, and outside was the forecourt and garden. A cursory look showed all in order. Then he came back into the fortress, and after a moment, changed direction. To his guard’s surprise, he went down the steps into the servants’ quarters. The servants dragged themselves out of sleep, hastily putting their heads onto the flagstones. Yabu hardly noticed them. He led the way deeper into the bowels of the fortress, down steps, along little-used arched corridors, the stone sides damp now and mildewed, though well lit. There were no guards here in the cellars for there was nothing to protect. Soon they began to climb again, nearing the outer walls.
   Yabu halted suddenly. “What was that?”
   The Brown samurai stopped, and listened, and died. Yabu cleaned his sword and pulled the crumpled body into a dark corner, then rushed for a hardly noticed, heavily barred, small iron door set into one of the walls that Ishido’s intermediary had told him about. He fought back the rusted bolts. The last one clanged free. The door swung open. A draught of cool air from outside, then a spear stabbed for his throat and stopped just in time. Yabu didn’t move, almost paralyzed. Ninja stared back at him from the inky darkness beyond the door, weapons poised.
   Yabu held up a shaky hand and made a sign as he had been told to do. “I’m Kasigi Yabu,” he said.
   The black-garbed, hooded, almost invisible leader nodded but kept the spear ready for the lunge. He motioned to Yabu. Yabu obediently backed off a pace. Then, very warily, the leader walked into the center of the corridor. He was tall and heavyset, with wide flat eyes behind his mask. He saw the dead Brown and with a flick of his wrist he sent his spear flashing into the corpse, then retrieved it with the light chain attached to the end. Silently he re-coiled the chain, waiting, listening intently for any danger.
   At length satisfied, he motioned at the darkness. Instantly twenty men poured out and rushed for the flight of steps, the long-forgotten back way to the floors above. These men carried assault tools. They were armed with chain knives, swords, and shuriken. And in the center of their black hoods was a red spot.
   The leader did not watch them go, but kept his eyes on Yabu and began a slow finger count with his left hand. “One … two … three …” Yabu felt many men watching him from the passage beyond the door. He could see no one.
   Now the red-spot attackers were going up the stairs two at a time, and at the top of this flight they stopped. A door barred their path. They waited a moment then cautiously tried to open it. It was stuck. A man with an assault tool, a short steel bar, hooked at one end and chiseled at the other, came forward and jimmied it open. Beyond was another mildewed passage and they hurried along it silently. At the next corner they stopped. The first man peered around, then beckoned the others into another corridor. At the far end a sliver of light shone through a spyhole in the heavy wooden paneling that covered this secret door. He put an eye to it. He could see the breadth of the audience chamber, two Browns and two Grays wearily on sentry duty, guarding the door to the complex of quarters. He looked around, nodded to the others. One of the men was still counting with his fingers, timed to the leader’s count two floors below. All their eyes went to the count.
   Below in the cellar, the leader’s fingers still continued in tempo, ticking off the moments, his eyes never wavering from Yabu. Yabu was watching and waiting, the smell of his own fear-sweat dank in his nostrils. The fingers stopped and the leader’s fist closed up sharply. He pointed down the corridor. Yabu nodded and turned and went back the way he had come, walking slowly. Behind him the inexorable count began again. “One … two … three …”
   Yabu knew the terrible risk he was taking but he had had no alternative and he cursed Mariko once more for forcing him onto Ishido’s side. Part of his bargain was that he had to open this secret door.
   “What’s behind the door?” he had asked supiciously.
   “Friends. This is the sign and the password is to say your name.”
   “Then they kill me, neh?”
   “No. You’re too valuable, Yabu-san. You’ve got to make sure the infiltration is covered…”
   He had agreed but he had never bargained for ninja, the hated and feared semilegendary mercenaries who owed allegiance only to their secret, closely knit family units, who handed down their secrets only to blood kin—how to swim vast distances under water and scale almost smooth walls, how to make themselves invisible and stand for a day and a night without moving, and how to kill with their hands or feet or any and all weapons including poison, fire, and explosives. To ninja, violent death for pay was their only purpose in life.
   Yabu managed to keep his pace measured as he walked away from the ninja leader along the corridor, his chest still hurting from the shock that the attack force was ninja and not ronin. Ishido must be mad, he told himself, all his senses teetering, expecting a spear or arrow or garrote any moment. Now he was almost at the corner. Then he turned it and, safe once more, he took to his heels and bounded up the stairs, three at a time. At the top, he raced down the arched corridor, then turned the corner heading toward the servants’ quarters.
   The leader’s fingers still ticked off the moments, then the count stopped. He made a more urgent sign to the darkness, and rushed after Yabu. Twenty ninja followed him from the darkness and another fifteen took up defensive positions at both ends of the corridor to guard this escape route that led through a maze of forgotten cellars and passages honeycombing the castle to one of Ishido’s secret bolt holes under the moat, thence to the city.
   Yabu was running fast now and he stumbled in the passageway, just managing to keep his footing, and burst through the servants’ quarters, scattering pots and pans and gourds and casks.
   “Ninjaaaaaa!” he bellowed, which was not part of his agreement, but his own ruse to protect himself should he be betrayed. Hysterically the men and women scattered and took up the shout and tried to vanish under benches and tables as he raced across and out the other side, up more steps into one of the main corridors to meet the first of the Browns’ guards, who already had out their swords.
   “Sound the alarm!” Yabu shouted. “Ninja —there are ninja among the servants!”
   One samurai fled for the main staircase, the second rushed forward bravely to stand alone at the top of the winding steps that led below, sword raised. Seeing him, the servants came to a halt, then, moaning with terror, blindly huddled into the stones, their arms over their heads. Yabu ran on toward the main doorway and through it to stand on the steps. “Sound the alarm! We’re under attack!” he shouted as he had agreed to do, to signal the diversion outside which would cover the main attack through the secret door into the audience chamber, to kidnap Mariko and hurry her away before anyone was wiser.
   Samurai on the gates and in the forecourt whirled around, not knowing where to guard, and at that moment the raiders in the garden swarmed out of their hiding places and engulfed the Browns outside. Yabu retreated into the foyer as other Browns came rushing down from the guardroom above to support the men outside.
   A captain raced up to him. “What’s going on?”
   “Ninja —outside and among the servants. Where’s Sumiyori?”
   “I don’t know—in his room.”
   Yabu leapt for the stairs as other men poured down. At that moment the first of the ninja from the cellars dashed past the servants to the attack. Barbed shuriken disposed of the lone defender, spears killed the servants. Then this force of raiders was in the main corridor, creating a violent shouting diversion, the milling frantic Browns not knowing where the next attack would spring from.
   On the top floor the waiting ninja had ripped open their doors at the first alarm and rushed the last of the Browns who were hurrying below, killing them. With poison darts and shuriken, the ninja pressed their onslaught. The Browns were quickly overwhelmed, and the attackers jumped over the corpses to reach the main corridor on the floor below. A furious charge of Brown reinforcements was repulsed by the ninja, who whirled their weighted chains and cast them at the samurai, either strangling them or entangling their swords to make it easier to impale them with the double-edged knife. Shuriken flashed through the air and the Browns here were decimated. A few ninja were cut down but they crawled on like rabid animals and stopped attacking only when death took them completely.
   In the garden the first rush of the defending reinforcements was easily thwarted as Browns poured from the main doorway. But another wave of Browns courageously mounted a second charge and swept the invaders back by sheer force of numbers. At a shouted order the raiders retreated, their jet-black clothes making them difficult targets. Exultantly the Browns rushed after them, into ambush, and were slaughtered.
   The red-spot attackers were still lying in wait outside the audience room, their leader’s eye to the spyhole. He could see the anxious Browns and Blackthorne’s Grays, who were guarding the fortified door to the corridor, listening anxiously to the mounting holocaust below. The door opened and other guards, Browns and Grays, crowded the opening and then, no longer able to stand the waiting, officers of both groups ordered all their men out of the audience room to take up defensive positions at the far end of the corridor. Now the way was clear, the door of the inner corridor open, only the captain of Grays beside it, and he also was leaving. The red-spot leader saw a woman hurry up to the threshold, the tall barbarian with her, and he recognized his prey, other women collecting behind them.
   Impatient to complete the mission and so relieve the pressure on his clansmen below, and whipped by his killing lust, the red-spot leader gave the signal and burst through his door an instant too soon.
   Blackthorne saw him coming and automatically drew his pistol from under his kimono and fired. The back of the leader’s head disappeared, momentarily stopping the charge. Simultaneously, the captain of Grays rushed back and attacked with a mindless ferocity and cut down one ninja. Then the pack fell on the Gray and he died but these few seconds gave Blackthorne enough time to pull Mariko to safety and slam the door. Frantically he grabbed the iron bar and slid it into place just as ninja hurled themselves against it and others fanned out to hold the main doorway.
   “Christ Jesus! What’s go—”

   “Ninjaaaaaa!” Mariko shouted as Kiri and Lady Sazuko and Lady Etsu and Chimmoko and Achiko and the other maids poured hysterically from their rooms, blows hammering on the door.
   “Quick, this way!” Kiri screamed over the uproar and fled into the interior.
   The women followed, helter-skelter, two of them helping old Lady Etsu. Blackthorne saw the door rocking under the furious blows of the assault jimmies. Now the wood was splintering. Blackthorne ran back into his room for his powder horn and swords.
   In the audience room the ninja had already disposed of the six Browns and Grays at the main outer door and had overwhelmed the rest in the corridor beyond. But they had lost two dead, and two were wounded before the fight was complete, the outer doors closed and barred, and this whole section secure.
   “Hurry up,” the new red-spot leader snarled. The men with the crowbars needed no urging as they ripped at the door. For a moment the leader stood over the corpse of his brother, then kicked it furiously, knowing his brother’s impatience had destroyed their surprise attack. He rejoined his men, who circled the door.
   In the corridor Blackthorne was reloading rapidly, the door shrieking under the blows. First the powder, tamp it carefully … one of the door panels cracked … next the paper plug to hold the charge tight and next the lead ball and another plug … one of the door hinges snapped and the tip of the jimmy came through … next, blow the dust carefully away from the flint…
   “Anjin-san!” Mariko cried out from somewhere in the inner rooms. “Hurry!”
   But Blackthorne paid no attention. He walked up to the door and put the nozzle to a splintered crack, stomach high, and pulled the trigger. From the other side of the door there was a scream and the assault on the door ceased. He retreated and began to reload. First powder, tamp it carefully … again the whole door shook as men tore at it with shoulders and raging fists and feet and weapons … next the holding paper and next the ball and next another paper … the door bellowed and shuddered and one of the bolts sprang away and clattered to the floor …
   Kiri was hurrying down an inner passageway, gasping for breath, the others half-dragging Lady Etsu with them, Sazuko crying, “What’s the point there’s nowhere to go…” but Kiri ran on, stumbling into another room and across it and she pulled a section of the shoji wall aside. A hidden iron-fortified door was set into the stone wall beyond. She pulled it open. The hinges were well oiled.
   “This … this is my Master’s sec—secret haven,” she panted and started to go inside but stopped. “Where’s Mariko?”
   Chimmoko turned and rushed back.
   In the first corridor Blackthorne blew the dust carefully away from the flint and walked forward again. The door was near collapsing but still offered cover. Again he pulled the trigger. Again a scream and a moment’s respite, then the blows commenced, another bolt flew off and the whole door teetered. He began to reload.
   “Anjin-san!” Mariko was there at the far end beckoning him frantically so he snatched up his weapons and rushed toward her. She turned and fled, guiding him. The door shattered and the ninja tore after them.
   Mariko was running fast, Blackthorne on her heels. She sped across a room, tripped over her skirts and fell. He grabbed her up and together they bolted across another room. Chimmoko ran up to them. “Hurry!” she shrieked, waiting for them to pass. She followed for a moment, then, unnoticed, she turned back and stood in the path, her knife out.
   Ninja came rushing into the room. Chimmoko hurled herself, knife outstretched, at the first man. He parried the blow and flung her aside like a toy, charging after Blackthorne and Mariko. The last man broke Chimmoko’s neck with his foot and rushed on.
   Mariko was running fast but not fast enough, her skirts inhibiting her, Blackthorne trying to help. They crossed a room, then turned right, into another, and he saw the doorway, Kiri and Sazuko waiting there terrified, Achiko and maids succoring the old women in the room behind them. He shoved Mariko to safety. Then he turned at bay, his uncharged pistol in one hand, sword in the other, expecting Chimmoko. When she didn’t appear at once, he began to go back but heard the approaching charge of the ninja. He stopped and leaped backward into the room as the first ninja appeared. He slammed the door, and spears and shuriken screeched off the iron. Again he barely had time to shove the bolts home before the attackers hurtled against it.
   Numbly he thanked God for their escape and then, when he saw the strength of the door and knew that jimmies could not break it easily and that they were safe for the moment, he thanked God again. Trying to catch his breath, he looked around. Mariko was on her knees gulping for air. There were six maids, Achiko, Kiri and Sazuko, and the old lady, who lay gray-faced, almost unconscious. The room was small and stone-walled and another side door let out onto a small battlement veranda. He groped over to a window and looked out. This corner abutment overhung the avenue and forecourt, and he could hear sounds of the battle wafting up from below, screams and shouts and a few hysterical battle cries. Several Grays and unattached samurai were already beginning to collect in the avenue and on the opposite battlements. The gates below were locked against them and held by the ninja.
   “What the hell’s going on?” Blackthorne said, his chest aching.
   No one answered him and he went back and knelt beside Mariko and shook her gently. “What’s going on?” But she could not answer yet.


   Yabu was running down a wide corridor in the west wing toward his sleeping quarters. He turned a corner and skidded to a stop. Ahead a large number of samurai were being pressed back by a ferocious counterattack of raiders who had rushed down from the top floor.
   “What’s going on?” Yabu shouted over the din, for no raiders were supposed to be here, only below.
   “They’re all over us,” a samurai panted. “These came from above…”
   Yabu cursed, realizing he had been duped and not told the whole of the attack plan. “Where’s Sumiyori?”
   “He must be dead. They’ve overwhelmed that section, Sire. You were lucky to escape yourself. They must have struck shortly after you left. What are ninja attacking for?”
   A flurry of shouts distracted them. At the far end, Browns launched another counterattack around a corner, covering samurai who fought with spears. The spearmen drove the ninja back, and the Browns charged in pursuit. But a cloud of shuriken enveloped this wave and soon they were screaming and dying, blocking the passageway, the poison convulsing them. Momentarily the rest of the Browns retreated out of range to regroup.
   Yabu, unendangered, shouted, “Get bowmen!” Men rushed off to obey.
   “What’s the attack all about? Why are they in force?” the samurai asked again, blood streaking his face from a cheek wound. Normally the detested ninja attacked singly or in small groups, to vanish as quickly as they appeared once their mission was accomplished.
   “I don’t know,” Yabu said, this whole section of the castle now in uproar, the Browns still uncoordinated, still off-balance from the terrifying swiftness of the onslaught.
   “If—if Toranaga-sama were here I could understand Ishido ordering a sudden attack but—but why now?” the samurai said. “There’s no one or noth—” He stopped as the realization struck him. “Lady Toda!”
   Yabu tried to override him, but the man bellowed, “They’re after her, Yabu-san! They must be after Lady Toda!” He led a rush for the east wing. Yabu hesitated, then followed.
   To get to the east wing they had to cross the central landing that the ninja now held in strength. Samurai dead were everywhere. Goaded by the knowledge that their revered leader was in danger, the first impetuous charge broke through the cordon. But these men were cut down swiftly. Now more of their comrades had taken up the shouts and the news spread rapidly and the Browns redoubled their efforts. Yabu rushed up to direct the fight, staying in safety as much as he dared. A ninja ripped open his haversack and lit a fused gourd from a wall flare and hurled it over the Browns. It shattered against a wall and exploded, scattering fire and smoke, and at once this ninja led a counterattack that threw the Browns into a burning, disordered rout. Under cover of the smoke ninja reinforcements poured up from the floor below.
   “Retreat and regroup!” Yabu shouted in one of the corridors leading off the main landing, wanting to delay as much as he dared, presuming that Mariko was already captured and being carried to the cellar escape below, expecting at any moment the overdue clarion call that signaled success and ordered all ninja to break off the attack and retreat. Then a force of Browns from above hurtled in a suicidal attack from a staircase and broke the cordon. They died but others also disobeyed Yabu and charged. More bombs were thrown, setting fire to the wall hangings. Flames began to lick the walls, sparks ignited the tatamis. A sudden gush of fire trapped one of the ninja, turning him into a screaming human torch. Then a samurai’s kimono caught and he threw himself onto another ninja and they burned together. A blazing samurai was using his sword like a battle-ax to cut a way through the ambushers. Ten samurai followed and, though two died in their tracks and three fell mortally wounded, the rest broke out and tore for the east wing. Soon another ten followed. Yabu led the next charge safely as the remaining ninja made an orderly retreat to the ground floor and their escape route below. The battle for possession of the cul-de-sac in the east wing began.


   In the small room they were staring at the door. They could hear the attackers scraping at the hinges and at the floor. Then there was a sudden hammering and a harsh, muffled voice from outside.
   Two of the maids began to sob.
   “What did he say?” Blackthorne asked.
   Mariko licked her dry lips. “He—he said, to open the door and surrender or he’d—he’d blow it up.”
   “Can they do that, Mariko-san?”
   “I don’t know. They … they can use gunpowder, of course, and—” Mariko’s hand went to her sash but came out empty. “Where’s my knife?”
   All the women went for their daggers. Kiri had none. Sazuko none. Nor Achiko or Lady Etsu. Blackthorne had armed his pistol and had his long sword. The short sword had fallen during his frantic dash for safety.
   The muffled voice became angrier and more demanding, and all eyes in the room looked at Blackthorne. But Mariko knew she was betrayed and her time had come.
   “He said, if we open the door and surrender, everyone will go free except you.” Mariko brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. “He said they want you as a hostage, Anjin-san. That’s all they want…”
   Blackthorne walked forward to open the door, but Mariko stood pathetically in his way.
   “No, Anjin-san, it’s a trick,” she said. “So sorry, they don’t want you, they want me! Don’t believe them, I don’t believe them.”
   He smiled at her and touched her briefly and reached for one of the bolts.
   “It’s not you, it’s me—it’s a trick! I swear it! Don’t believe them, please,” she said, and grabbed his sword. It was half out of its scabbard before he realized what she was doing and had caught her hand.
   “No!” he ordered. “Stop it!”
   “Don’t give me into their hands! I’ve no knife! Please, Anjin-san!” She tried to fight out of his grasp but he lifted her out of the way and put his hand on the top bolt. “Dozo,” he said to the others as Mariko desperately tried to stop him. Achiko came forward, pleading with her, and Mariko tried to push her away and cried out, “Please, Anjin-san, it’s a trick—for the love of God!”
   His hand jerked the top bolt open.
   “They want me alive,” Mariko shouted wildly. “Don’t you see? To capture me, don’t you see? They want me alive and then it’s all for nothing—tomorrow Toranaga’s got to cross the border—I beg you, it’s a trick, before God…”
   Achiko had her arms around Mariko, pleading with her, pulling her away, and she motioned him to open the door. “Isogi, isogi, Anjin-san…
   Blackthorne opened the central bolt.
   “For the love of God, don’t make all the dying useless! Help me! Remember your vow!”
   Now the reality of what she was saying reached him, and in panic he shoved home the bolts. “Why should—”
   A ferocious pounding on the door interrupted him, iron clanging on iron, then the voice began, a short violent crescendo. All sound outside ceased. The women fled for the far wall and cowered against it.
   “Get away from the door,” Mariko shouted, rushing after them. “He’s going to explode the door!”
   “Delay him, Mariko-san,” Blackthorne said and leaped for the side door that led to the battlements. “Our men’ll be here soon. Work the bolts, say they’re stuck—anything.” He strained at the top bolt on the side door but it was rusted tight. Obediently Mariko ran to the door and pretended feeble attempts to shift the central bolt, pleading with the ninja outside. Then she began to rattle the lower bolt. Again the voice more insistent, and Mariko redoubled her weeping pleas.
   Blackthorne smashed the butt of his hand against the top catch again and again but it would not shift. The women watched helplessly. Finally this bolt clanged open noisily. Mariko tried to cover the sound and Blackthorne attacked the final bolt. His hands were raw and bloody now. The ninja leader outside renewed his fiery warning. In desperation Blackthorne grabbed his sword and used the haft as a cudgel, careless of the noise now. Mariko drowned the sounds as best she could. The bolt seemed welded shut.
   Outside the door, the red-spot leader was almost mad with rage. This secret refuge was totally unexpected. His orders from the clan leader were to capture Toda Mariko alive, make sure she was weaponless, and hand her over to Grays who were waiting at the end of the tunnel from the cellars. He knew that time was running out. He could hear the raging battle in the corridor, outside the audience room, and knew disgustedly that they would have been safe below, their mission accomplished, but for this secret rat hole and his overanxious fool of a brother who had begun the rush prematurely.
   Karma to have such a brother!
   He held a lighted candle in his hand and he had laid a trail of powder to the small kegs they had brought in their haversacks to blow up the secret entrance to the cellars to secure their retreat. But he was in a dilemma. To blow the door was the only way to get through. But the Toda woman was just on the other side of the door and the explosion would surely kill everyone inside and spoil his mission, making all their losses futile.
   Footsteps raced toward him. It was one of his own men. “Be quick!” the man whispered. “We can’t hold them off much longer!” He raced away.
   The red-spot leader decided. He waved his men to cover and shouted a warning through the door. “Get away! I’m blowing the door!” He put the candle to the trail and jumped to safety. The powder spluttered, caught, and snaked for the kegs.
   Blackthorne yanked the side door open. Sweet night air rushed in. The women poured onto the veranda. Old Lady Etsu fell but he caught her and pushed her through, whirled for Mariko, but she had pressed back against the iron and called out firmly, “I, Toda Mariko, protest this shameful attack and by my death—”
   He lunged for her but the explosion blew him aside as the door wrenched loose from its hinges and blasted into the room and shrieked off a far wall. The detonation knocked Kiri and the others off their feet outside on the battlement, but they were mostly unhurt. Smoke gushed into the room, the ninja following instantly. The buckled iron door came to rest in a corner.
   The red-spot leader was on his knees beside Mariko as others fanned out protectively. He saw at once that she was broken and dying fast. Karma, he thought and jumped to his feet again. Blackthorne was lying stunned, a trickle of blood seeping from his ears and nose, trying to grope back into life. His pistol, bent and useless, was in a corner.
   The red-spot leader went forward a pace and stopped. Achiko moved into the doorway.

   The ninja looked at her, recognizing her. Then he stared down at Blackthorne, despising him for the gun and the cowardice in shooting blindly through the door, killing one of his men and wounding another. He looked back at Achiko and reached for his knife. She charged blindly. His knife took her in the left breast. She was dead as she crumpled and he went forward without anger and withdrew his knife from the twitching body, fulfilling the last part of his orders from above—he presumed from Ishido, though it could never be proved– that if they failed and the Lady Toda managed to kill herself, he was to leave her untouched and not take her head; he was to protect the barbarian and leave all the other women unharmed, except for Kiyama Achiko. He did not know why he had been ordered to kill her, but it had been ordered and paid for, so she was dead.
   He signaled the retreat. One of his men put a curved horn to his lips and blew a strident call that echoed through the castle and through the night. The leader made a last check on Mariko. A last check on the girl. And a last check on the barbarian he wanted dead so much. Then he turned on his heel and led the retreat through the rooms and passageways into the audience room. Ninja defending the main door way waited till all the red-spot raiders were through the escape route, then they hurled more smoke and fire bombs into the corridor and rushed for safety. The leader of the red-spots covered them. He waited until all were safe, then scattered handfuls of hardly noticeable deadly caltrops on the floor—small, spiked metal balls tipped with poison. He fled as Browns burst through the smoke into the audience room. Some charged after him and another phalanx hurtled for the corridor. His pursuers screamed as the caltrop needles ripped into the soles of their feet and they began to die.
   In the small room, the only sound was Blackthorne’s lungs struggling for air. On the battlement Kiri lurched to her feet, her kimono torn and her hands and arms raw with abrasions. She stumbled back and saw Achiko and cried out, then reeled for Mariko and sank to her knees beside her. Another explosion somewhere in the castle rocked the dust a fraction, and there were more screams and distant shouts of “Fire.” Smoke billowed into the room. Sazuko and some of the maids got to their feet. Sazuko was bruised about the face and shoulders and her wrist was broken. She saw Achiko, eyes and mouth open in death terror, and she whimpered.
   Numbly, Kiri looked across at her and motioned at Blackthorne. The young girl stumbled toward Kiri and saw Mariko. She began to cry. Then she got control of herself and went back to Blackthorne and tried to help him up. Maids rushed to assist her. He held onto them and fought to his feet, then swayed and fell, coughing and retching, the blood still oozing from his ears. Browns burst into the room. They looked around, aghast.
   Kiri stayed on her knees beside Mariko. A samurai lifted her up. Others crowded around. They parted as Yabu came into the room, his face ashen. When he saw Blackthorne was still alive, much of his anxiety left him.
   “Get a doctor! Quick!” he ordered and knelt beside Mariko. She was still alive, but fading rapidly. Her face was hardly touched but her body was terribly mutilated. Yabu ripped off his kimono and covered her to the neck.
   “Hurry the doctor,” he rasped, then went over to Blackthorne. He helped him sit against the wall.
   “Anjin-san! Anjin-san!”
   Blackthorne was still in shock, his ears ringing, eyes hardly seeing, his face a mass of bruises and powder burns. Then his eyes cleared and he saw Yabu, the image twisting drunkenly, the smell of gunsmoke choking him and he didn’t know where he was or who he was, only that he was aboard ship in battle and his ship was hurt and needed him. Then he saw Mariko and he remembered.
   He lurched up, Yabu helping him, and tottered over to her.
   She seemed at peace, sleeping. He knelt heavily and moved the kimono aside. Then he put it back again. Her pulse was almost imperceptible. Then it ceased.
   He stayed looking at her, swaying, almost falling, then a doctor was there and the doctor shook his head and said something but Blackthorne could not hear or understand. He only knew that death had come to her, and that he too was dead.
   He made the sign of the cross over her and said the sacred Latin words that were necessary to bless her and he prayed for her though no sound came from his mouth. The others watched him. When he had done what he had to do, he fought to his feet again and stood upright. Then his head seemed to burst with red and purple light and he collapsed. Kind hands caught him and helped him to the floor and let him rest.
   “Is he dead?” Yabu asked.
   “Almost. I don’t know about his ears, Yabu-sama,” the doctor said. “He may be bleeding inside.”
   A samurai said nervously, “We’d better hurry, get them out of here. The fire may spread and we’ll be trapped.”
   “Yes,” Yabu said. Another samurai called him urgently from the battlements and he went outside.
   Old Lady Etsu was lying against the battlement, cradled by her maid, her face gray, eyes rheumy. She peered up at Yabu, focusing with difficulty. “Kasigi Yabu-san?”
   “Yes, Lady.”
   “Are you senior officer here?”
   “Yes, Lady.”
   The old woman said to the maid. “Please help me up.”
   “But you should wait, the doc—”
   “Help me up!”
   Samurai on the battlement veranda watched her stand, supported by the maid. “Listen,” she said, her voice hoarse and frail in the silence. “I, Maeda Etsu, wife of Maeda Arinosi, Lord of Nagato, Iwami, and Aki, I attest that Toda Mariko-sama cast away her life to save herself from dishonorable capture by these hideous and shameful men. I attest that … that Kiyama Achiko chose to attack the ninja, casting away her life rather than risk the dishonor of being captured … that but for the barbarian samurai’s bravery Lady Toda would have been captured and dishonored, and all of us, and we who are alive owe him gratitude, and also our Lords owe him gratitude for protecting us from that shame… I accuse the Lord General Ishido of mounting this dishonorable attack … and of betraying the Heir and the Lady Ochiba …” The old lady wavered and almost fell, and the maid sobbed and held her more strongly. “And … and Lord Ishido has betrayed them and the Council of Regents. I ask you all to bear witness that I can no longer live with this shame…”
   “No—no mistress,” the maid wept, “I won’t let you—”
   “Go away! Kasigi Yabu-san, please help me. Go away, woman!”
   Yabu took Lady Etsu’s weight, which was negligible, and ordered the maid away. She obeyed.
   Lady Etsu was in great pain and breathing heavily. “I attest to the truth of this by my own death,” she said in a small voice and looked up at Yabu. “I would be honored if … if you would be my second. Please help me onto the battlements.”
   “No, Lady. There’s no need to die.”
   She turned her face away from the others and whispered to him, “I’m dying already, Yabu-sama. I’m bleeding from inside—something’s broken inside—the explosion… Help me to do my duty… I’m old and useless and pain’s been my bedfellow for twenty years. Let my death also help our Master, neh?” There was a glint in the old eyes. “Neh?”
   Gently he lifted her and stood proudly beside her on the abutment, the forecourt far below. He helped her to stand. Everyone bowed to her.
   “I have told the truth. I attest to it by my death,” she said, standing alone, her voice quavering. Then she closed her eyes thankfully and let herself fall forward to welcome death

Chapter 58

   The Regents were meeting in the Great Room on the second level of the donjon. Ishido, Kiyama, Zataki, Ito, and Onoshi. The dawn sun cast long shadows and the smell of fire still hung heavy in the air. Lady Ochiba was present, also greatly perturbed.
   “So sorry, Lord General, I disagree,” Kiyama was saying in his tight brittle voice. “It’s impossible to dismiss Lady Toda’s seppuku and my granddaughter’s bravery and Lady Maeda’s testimony and formal death—along with one hundred and forty-seven Toranaga dead and that part of the castle almost gutted! It just can’t be dismissed.”
   “I agree,” Zataki said. He had arrived yesterday morning from Takato and when he had the details of Mariko’s confrontation with Ishido he had been secretly delighted. “If she’d been allowed to go yesterday as I advised, we wouldn’t be in this snare now.”
   “It’s not as serious as you think.” Ishido’s mouth was a hard line and Ochiba loathed him at that moment, loathed him for failing and for trapping them all in this crisis. “The ninja were only after loot,” Ishido said.
   “The barbarian is loot?” Kiyama scoffed. “They’d mount such a vast attack for one barbarian?”
   “Why not? He could be ransomed, neh?” Ishido stared back at the daimyo, who was flanked by Ito Teruzumi and Zataki. “Christians in Nagasaki would pay highly for him, dead or alive. Neh?”
   “That’s possible,” Zataki agreed. “That’s the way barbarians fight.”
   Kiyama said tightly, “Are you suggesting, formally, that Christians planned and paid for this foul attack?”
   “I said it was possible. And it is possible.”
   “Yes. But unlikely,” Ishido interposed, not wanting the precarious balance of the Regents wrecked by an open quarrel now. He was still apoplectic that spies had not forewarned him about Toranaga’s secret lair, and still did not understand how it could have been constructed with such secrecy and not a breath of rumor about it. “I suggest ninja were after loot.”
   “That’s very sensible and most correct,” Ito said with a malicious glint in his eyes. He was a small, middle-aged man, resplendently attired with ornamental swords, even though he had been routed out of bed like all of them. He was made up like a woman and his teeth were blackened. “Yes, Lord General. But perhaps the ninja didn’t mean to ransom him in Nagasaki but in Yedo, to Lord Toranaga. Isn’t he still his lackey?”
   Ishido’s brow darkened at the mention of the name. “I agree we should spend our time discussing Lord Toranaga and not ninja. Probably he ordered the attack, neh? He’s treacherous enough to do that.”
   “No, he’d never use ninja,” Zataki said. “Treachery yes, but not those filth. Merchants would do that—or barbarians. Not Lord Toranaga.”
   Kiyama watched Zataki, hating him. “Our Portuguese friends could not, would not, instigate such an interference in our affairs. Never!”
   “Would you believe they and or their priests would conspire with one of the Christian Kyushu daimyos to war on non-Christians—the war supported by a foreign invasion?”
   “Who? Tell me. Do you have proof?”
   “Not yet, Lord Kiyama. But the rumors are still there and one day I’ll get proof.” Zataki turned back to Ishido. “What can we do about this attack? What’s the way out of the dilemma?” he asked, then glanced at Ochiba. She was watching Kiyama, then her eyes moved to Ishido, then back to Kiyama again, and he had never seen her more desirable.
   Kiyama said, “We’re all agreed it’s evident Lord Toranaga plotted that we should be snared by Toda Mariko-sama, however brave she was, however duty bound and honorable, God have mercy on her.”
   Ito adjusted a fold in the skirts of his impeccable kimono. “But don’t you agree this would be a perfect stratagem for Lord Toranaga, to attack his own vassals like that? Oh, Lord Zataki, I know he’d never use ninja, but he is very clever at getting others to take his ideas and believe them as their own. Neh?”
   “Anything’s possible. But ninja wouldn’t be like him. He’s too clever to use them. Or get anyone to do that. They’re not to be trusted. And why force Mariko-sama? Far better to wait and let us make the mistake. We were trapped. Neh?”
   “Yes. We’re still trapped.” Kiyama looked at Ishido. “And whoever ordered the attack was a fool, and did us no service.”
   “Perhaps the Lord General’s correct, that it’s not as serious as we think,” Ito said. “But so sad—not an elegant death for her, poor lady.”
   “That was her karma and we’re not trapped.” Ishido stared back at Kiyama. “It was fortunate she had that bolt hole to run to, otherwise those vermin would have captured her.”
   “But they didn’t capture her, Lord General, and she committed a form of seppuku and so did the others and now, if we don’t let everyone go, there’ll be more protest deaths and we cannot afford that,” Kiyama said.
   “I don’t agree. Everyone should stay here—at least until Toranaga-sama crosses into our domains.”
   Ito smiled. “That will be a memorable day.”
   “You don’t think he will?” Zataki asked.
   “What I think has no value, Lord Zataki. We’ll soon know what he’s going to do. Whatever it is makes no difference. Toranaga must die, if the Heir is to inherit.” Ito looked at Ishido. “Is the barbarian dead yet, Lord General?”
   Ishido shook his head and watched Kiyama. “It would be bad luck for him to die now, or to be maimed—a brave man like that. Neh?”
   “I think he’s a plague and the sooner he dies the better. Have you forgotten?”
   “He could be useful to us. I agree with Lord Zataki—and you—Toranaga’s no fool. There’s got to be a good reason for Toranaga’s cherishing him. Neh?”
   “Yes, you’re right again,” Ito said. “The Anjin-san did well for a barbarian, didn’t he? Toranaga was right to make him samurai.” He looked at Ochiba. “When he gave you the flower, Lady, I thought that was a poetic gesture worthy of a courtier.”
   There was general agreement.
   “What about the poetry competition now, Lady?” Ito asked.
   “It should be canceled, so sorry,” Ochiba said.
   “Yes,” Kiyama agreed.
   “Had you decided on your entry, Sire?” she asked.
   “No,” he answered. “But now I could say:


‘On a withered branch
The tempest fell…
Dark summer’s tears.’”


   “Let it be her epitaph. She was samurai,” Ito said quietly. “I share this summer’s tears.”
   “For me,” Ochiba said, “for me I would have preferred a different ending:


‘On a withered branch
The snow listened…
Winter’s silence.’


   But I agree, Lord Ito. I too think we will all share in this dark summer’s tears.”
   “No, so sorry, Lady, but you’re wrong,” Ishido said. “There will be tears all right, but Toranaga and his allies will shed them.” He began to bring the meeting to a close. “I’ll start an inquiry into the ninja attack at once. I doubt if we’ll ever discover the truth. Meanwhile, for security and personal safety, all passes will regretfully be canceled and everyone regretfully forbidden to leave until the twenty-second day.”
   “No,” Onoshi the leper, the last of the Regents, said from his lonely place across the room where he lay, unseen, behind the opaque curtains of his litter. “So sorry, but that’s exactly what you can’t do. Now you must let everyone go. Everyone.”
   “Why?”
   Onoshi’s voice was malevolent and unafraid. “If you don’t, you dishonor the bravest Lady in the realm, you dishonor the Lady Kiyama Achiko and the Lady Maeda, God have mercy on their souls. When this filthy act is common knowledge, only God the Father knows what damage it will cause the Heir—and all of us, if we’re not careful.”
   Ochiba felt a chill rush through her. A year ago, when Onoshi had come to pay his respects to the dying Taikō, the guards had insisted the litter curtains be opened in case Onoshi had weapons concealed, and she had seen the ravaged half-face—noseless, earless, scabbed—the burning, fanatic eyes, the stump of the left hand and the good right hand grasping the short stabbing sword.
   Lady Ochiba prayed that neither she nor Yaemon would ever catch leprosy. She, too, wanted an end to this conference, for she had to decide now what to do—what to do about Toranaga and what to do about Ishido.
   “Second,” Onoshi was saying, “if you use this filthy attack as an excuse to hold anyone here, you imply you never intended to let them go even though you gave your solemn written undertaking. Third: you—”
   Ishido interrupted, “The whole Council agreed to issue the safe conducts!”
   “So sorry, the whole Council agreed to the wise suggestion of the Lady Ochiba to offer safe conducts, presuming, with her, that few would take advantage of the opportunity to leave, and even if they did delays would occur.”
   “You suggest Toranaga’s women and Toda Mariko wouldn’t have left and that others wouldn’t have followed?”
   “What happened to those women wouldn’t swerve Lord Toranaga a jot from his purpose. We’ve got to worry about our allies! Without the ninja attack and the three seppukus this whole nonsense would have been stillborn!”
   “I don’t agree.”
   “Third and last: If you don’t let everyone go now, after what Lady Etsu said publicly, you’ll be convicted by most daimyos of ordering the attack—though not publicly—and we all risk the same fate, and then there’ll be lots of tears.”
   “I don’t need to rely on ninja.”
   “Of course,” Onoshi agreed, his voice poisonous. “Neither do I, nor does anyone here. But I feel it is my duty to remind you that there are two hundred and sixty-four daimyos, that the Heir’s strength lies on a coalition of perhaps two hundred, and that the Heir cannot afford to have you, his most loyal standard-bearer and commander-in-chief, presumed guilty of such filthy methods and such monstrous inefficiency as the attack failed.”
   “You say I ordered that attack?”
   “Of course not, so sorry. I merely said you will be convicted by default if you don’t let everyone leave.”
   “Is there anyone here who thinks I ordered it?” No one challenged Ishido openly. There was no proof. Correctly, he had not consulted them and had talked only in vague innuendos, even to Kiyama and Ochiba. But they all knew and all were equally furious that he had had the stupidity to fail—all except Zataki. Even so, Ishido was still master of Osaka, and governor of the Taikō’s treasure, so he could not be touched or removed.
   “Good,” Ishido said with finality. “The ninja were after loot. We’ll vote on the safe conducts. I vote they be canceled.”
   “I disagree,” Zataki said.
   “So sorry, I oppose also,” said Onoshi.
   Ito reddened under their scrutiny. “I have to agree with Lord Onoshi, at the same time, well—it’s all very difficult, neh?”
   “Vote,” Ishido said grimly.
   “I agree with you, Lord General.”
   Kiyama said, “So sorry, I don’t.”
   “Good,” Onoshi said. “That’s settled, but I agree with you, Lord General, we’ve other pressing problems. We have to know what Lord Toranaga will do now. What’s your opinion?”
   Ishido was staring at Kiyama, his face set. Then he said, “What’s your answer to that?”
   Kiyama was trying to clear his head of all his hates and fears and worries, to make a final choice—Ishido or Toranaga. This had to be the time. He remembered vividly Mariko talking about Onoshi’s supposed treachery, about Ishido’s supposed betrayal and Toranaga’s supposed proof of that betrayal, about the barbarian and his ship—and about what might happen to the Heir and the Church if Toranaga dominated the land and what might happen to their law if the Holy Fathers dominated the land. And overlaying that was the Father-Visitor’s anguish about the heretic and his ship, and what would happen if the Black Ship was lost, and the Captain-General’s Godsworn conviction that the Anjin-san was Satan spawned, Mariko bewitched as the Rodrigues was bewitched. Poor Mariko, he thought sadly, to die like that after so much suffering, without absolution, without last rites, without a priest, to spend eternity away from God’s sweet heavenly grace. Madonna have mercy on her. So many summer’s tears.
   And what about Achiko? Did the ninja leader single her out or was that just another killing? How brave she was to charge and not to cringe, poor child. Why is the barbarian still alive? Why didn’t the ninja kill him? They should have been ordered to, if this filthy attack was conceived by Ishido, as of course it must have been. Shameful of Ishido to fail—disgusting to fail. Ah, but what courage Mariko had, how clever she was to ensnare us in her courageous web! And the barbarian.
   If I’d been he I would never have been able to delay the ninja with so much courage, or to protect Mariko from the hideous shame of capture—and Kiritsubo and Sazuko and the Lady Etsu, yes, and even Achiko. But for him and the secret sanctuary, Lady Mariko would have been captured. And all of them. It’s my samurai duty to honor the Anjin-san for being samurai. Neh?
   God forgive me, I did not go to Mariko-chan to be her second, which was my Christian duty. The heretic helped her and lifted her up as the Christ Jesus helped others and lifted them up, but I—I forsook her. Who’s the Christian?
   I don’t know. Even so, he has to die.
   “What about Toranaga, Lord Kiyama?” Ishido said again. “What about the enemy?”
   “What about the Kwanto?” Kiyama asked, watching him.
   “When Toranaga’s destroyed I propose that the Kwanto be given to one of the Regents.”
   “Which Regent?”
   “You,” Ishido answered blandly, then added, “or perhaps Zataki, Lord of Shinano.” This Kiyama thought wise, for Zataki was needed very much while Toranaga was alive and Ishido had already told him, a month ago, that Zataki had demanded the Kwanto as payment for opposing Toranaga. Together they had agreed Ishido should promise it to him, both knowing this to be an empty promise. Both were agreed Zataki should forfeit his life and his province for such impertinence, as soon as convenient.
   “Of course I’m hardly the right choice for that honor,” Kiyama said, carefully assessing who in the room were for him and who against.
   Onoshi tried to conceal his disapproval. “That suggestion’s certainly a valuable one, worthy of discussion, neh? But that’s for the future. What’s the present Lord of the Kwanto going to do now?”
   Ishido was still looking at Kiyama. “Well?”
   Kiyama felt Zataki’s hostility though nothing showed on his enemy’s face. Two against me, he thought, and Ochiba, but she has no vote. Ito will always vote with Ishido, so I win—if Ishido means what he says. Does he? he asked himself, studying the hard face in front of him, probing for the truth. Then he decided and he said openly what he had concluded. “Lord Toranaga will never come to Osaka.”
   “Good,” Ishido said. “Then he’s isolated, outlawed, and the Imperial invitation to commit seppuku is already prepared for the Exalted’s signature. And that’s the end of Toranaga and all his line. Forever.”

   “Yes. If the Son of Heaven comes to Osaka.”
   “What?”
   “I agree with Lord Ito,” Kiyama continued, preferring him as an ally and not an enemy. “Lord Toranaga is the wiliest of men. I think he’s even cunning enough to stop the Exalted’s arrival.”
   “Impossible!”
   “What if the visit’s postponed?” Kiyama asked, suddenly enjoying Ishido’s discomfort, detesting him for failing.
   “The Son of Heaven will be here as planned!”
   “And if the Son of Heaven isn’t?”
   “I tell you He will be!”
   “And if He isn’t?”
   Lady Ochiba asked, “How could Lord Toranaga do that?”
   “I don’t know. But if the Exalted wanted his visit delayed for a month … there’s nothing we could do. Isn’t Lord Toranaga a past master at subversion? I’d put nothing past him—even subverting the Son of Heaven.”
   There was dead silence in the room. The enormity of that thought, and its repercussions, enveloped them.
   “Please excuse me but … but what’s the answer then?” Ochiba spoke for them all.
   “War!” Kiyama said. “We mobilize today—secretly. We wait until the visit’s postponed, as it will be. That’s our signal that Toranaga has subverted the Most High. The same day we march against the Kwanto, during the rainy season.”
   Suddenly the floor began to quiver.
   The first earthquake was slight and lasted only for a few moments but it made the timbers cry out.
   Now there was another tremor. Stronger. A fissure ripped up a stone wall and stopped. Dust pattered down from the rafters. Joists and beams and tiles shrieked and tiles scattered off a roof and pitched into the forecourt below.
   Ochiba felt faint and nauseous and she wondered if it was her karma to be buried in the rubble today. She hung onto the trembling floor and waited with everyone in the castle, and with all the city and the ships in the harbor, for the real shock to come.
   But it did not come. The quake ended. Life began again. The joy of living rushed back into them, and their laughter echoed through the castle. Everyone seemed to know that this time—for this hour, for this day—the holocaust would pass them by.
   “Shigata ga nai,” Ishido said, still convulsed. “Neh?”
   “Yes,” Ochiba said gloriously.
   “Let’s vote,” Ishido said, relishing his existence. “I vote for war!”
   “And I!”
   “And I!”
   “And I!”
   “And I!”


   When Blackthorne regained consciousness he knew that Mariko was dead, and he knew how she had died and why she had died. He was lying on futons, Grays guarding him, a raftered ceiling overhead, dazzling sunshine hurting him, the silence weird. A doctor was studying him. The first of his great fears left him.
   I can see.
   The doctor smiled and said something, but Blackthorne could not hear him. He started to get up but a blinding pain set off a violent ringing in his ears. The acrid taste of gunpowder was still in his mouth and his entire body was hurting.
   For a moment he lost consciousness again, then he felt gentle hands lift his head and put a cup to his lips and the bitter-sweet tang of the jasmine-scented herb cha took away the taste of gunpowder. He forced his eyes open. Again the doctor said something and again he could not hear and again terror began to well, but he stopped it, his mind remembering the explosion and seeing her dead and, before she had died, giving her an absolution he was not qualified to give. Deliberately he pushed that memory away and made himself dwell on the other explosion—the time he was blown overboard after old Alban Caradoc had lost his legs. That time he had also had the same ringing in his ears and the same pain and soundlessness, but his hearing had returned after a few days.
   There’s no need to worry, he told himself. Not yet.
   He could see the length of the sun’s shadows and the color of the light. It’s a little after dawn, he thought, and blessed God again that his sight was undamaged.
   He saw the doctor’s lips move but no sound came through the ringing turbulence.
   Carefully he felt his face and mouth and jaws. No pain there and no wounds. Next his throat and arms and chest. No wounds yet. Now he willed his hands lower, over his loins, to his manhood. But he was not mutilated there as Alban Caradoc had been, and he blessed God that he had not been harmed there and left alive to know, as poor Alban Caradoc had known.
   He rested a moment, his head aching abominably. Then he felt his legs and feet. Everything seemed all right. Cautiously he put his hands over his ears and pressed, then half opened his mouth and swallowed and half yawned to try to clear his ears. But this only increased the pain.
   You will wait a day and half a day, he ordered himself, and ten times that time if need be and, until then, you will not be afraid.
   The doctor touched him, his lips moving.
   “Can’t hear, so sorry,” Blackthorne said calmly, hearing his words only in his head.
   The doctor nodded and spoke again. Now Blackthorne read on the man’s lips, I understand. Please sleep now.
   But Blackthorne knew that he would not sleep. He had to plan. He had to get up and leave Osaka and go to Nagasaki—to get gunners and seamen to take the Black Ship. There was nothing more to think about, nothing more to remember. There was no more reason to play at being samurai or Japanese. Now he was released, all debts and friendships were canceled. Because she was gone.
   Again he lifted his head and again the blinding pain. He dominated it and sat up. The room spun and he vaguely remembered that in his dreams he had been back at Anjiro in the earthquake when the earth had twisted and he leaped into it to save Toranaga and her from being swallowed by the earth. He could still feel the cold, clammy wetness and smell the death stench coming from the fissure, Toranaga huge and monstrous and laughing in his dream.
   He forced his eyes to see. The room stopped spinning and the nausea passed. “Cha, dozo,” he said, the taste of gunpowder back again. Hands helped him to drink and then he held out his arms and they helped him to stand. Without them he would have fallen. His body was one great hurt, but now he was sure that nothing was broken inside or out, except his ears, and that rest and massage and time would cure him. He thanked God again that he was not blinded or mutilated and left alive. The Grays helped him to sit again and he lay back a moment. He did not notice that the sun moved a quadrant from the time he lay back to the time he opened his eyes.
   Curious, he thought, measuring the sun’s shadow, not realizing he had slept. I could have sworn it was near dawn. My eyes are playing me tricks. It’s nearer the end of the forenoon watch now. That reminded him of Alban Caradoc and his hands moved over himself once more to make sure he had not dreamed that he was unhurt.
   Someone touched him and he looked up. Yabu was peering down at him and speaking.
   “So sorry,” Blackthorne said slowly. “Can’t hear yet, Yabu-san. Soon all right. Ears hurt, do you understand?”
   He saw Yabu nod and frown. Yabu and the doctor talked together and then, with signs, Yabu made Blackthorne understand that he would return soon and to rest until he did. He left.
   “Bath, please, and massage,” Blackthorne said.
   Hands lifted him and took him there. He slept under the soothing fingers, his body wallowing in the ecstasy of warmth and tenderness and the sweet-smelling oils that were rubbed into his flesh. And all the while his mind planned.
   While he slept Grays came and lifted the litter bed and carried it to the inner quarters of the donjon, but he did not awaken, drugged with fatigue and by the healing, sleep-filled potion.
   “He’ll be safe now, Lady,” Ishido said.
   “From Kiyama?” Ochiba asked.
   “From all Christians.” Ishido motioned to the guards to be very alert and led the way out of the room to the hallway, thence to a garden basking in the sun.
   “Is that why the Lady Achiko was killed? Because she was Christian?”
   Ishido had ordered it in case she was an assassin planted by her grandfather Kiyama to kill Blackthorne. “I’ve no idea,” he said.
   “They hang together like bees in a swarm. How can anyone believe their religious nonsense?”
   “I don’t know. But they’ll all be stamped out soon enough.”
   “How, Lord General? How do you do that when so much depends on their goodwill?”
   “Promises—until Toranaga’s dead. Then they’ll fall on each other. We divide and rule. Isn’t that what Toranaga does, what the Lord Taikō did? Kiyama wants the Kwanto, neh? For the Kwanto he’ll obey. So he’s promised it, in a future time. Onoshi? Who knows what that madman wants … except to spit on Toranaga’s head and Kiyama’s before he dies.”
   “And what if Kiyama finds out about your promise to Onoshi—that all Kiyama lands are his—or that you mean to keep your promise to Zataki and not to him?”
   “Lies, Lady, spread by enemies.” Ishido looked at her. “Onoshi wants Kiyama’s head. Kiyama wants the Kwanto. So does Zataki.”
   “And you, Lord General? What is it you want?”
   “First the Heir safely fifteen, then safely ruler of the realm. And you and him safe and protected until that time. Nothing more.”
   “Nothing?”
   “No, Lady.”
   Liar, Ochiba thought. She broke off a fragrant flower and smelled the perfume, and, pleased by it, offered it to him. “Lovely, neh?”
   “Yes, lovely,” Ishido said, taking it. “Thank you.”
   “Yodoko-sama’s funeral was beautiful. You’re to be congratulated, Lord General.”
   “I’m sorry she’s dead,” Ishido said politely. “Her counsel was always valuable.”
   They strolled a while. “Have they left yet? Kiritsubo-san and the Lady Sazuko and her son?” Ochiba asked.
   “No. They’ll leave tomorrow. After Lady Toda’s funeral. Many will leave tomorrow, which is bad.”
   “So sorry, but does it matter? Now that we all agree Toranaga-sama’s not coming here?”
   “I think so. But it’s not important, not while we hold Osaka Castle. No, Lady, we have to be patient as Kiyama suggested. We wait until the day. Then we march.”
   “Why wait? Can’t you march now?”
   “It will take time to gather our hosts.”
   “How many will oppose Toranaga?”
   “Three hundred thousand men. At least three times Toranaga’s number.”
   “And my garrison?”
   “I’ll leave eighty thousand elite within the walls, another fifty at the passes.”
   “And Zataki?”
   “He’ll betray Toranaga. In the end he’ll betray him.”
   “You don’t find it curious that Lord Sudara, my sister, and all her children are visiting Takato?”
   “No. Of course Zataki’s pretended to make some secret arrangement with his half brother. But it’s only a trick, nothing more. He will betray him.”
   “He should—he has the same rotten bloodline,” she said with distaste. “But I would be most upset if anything happened to my sister and her children.”
   “Nothing will, Lady. I’m sure.”
   “If Zataki was prepared to assassinate his own mother … neh? You’re certain he won’t betray you?”
   “No. Not in the end. Because he hates Toranaga more than he does me, Lady, and he honors you and desires the Kwanto above all else.” Ishido smiled at the floors soaring above them. “As long as the castle’s ours and the Kwanto exists to give away, there’s nothing to fear.”
   “This morning I was afraid,” she said, holding a flower to her nose, enjoying the perfume, wanting it to erase the aftertaste of fear that still lingered. “I wanted to rush away but then I remembered the soothsayer.”
   “Eh? Oh, him. I’d forgotten about him,” Ishido said with grim amusement. This was the soothsayer, the Chinese envoy, who had foretold that the Taikō would die in his bed leaving a healthy son after him, that Toranaga would die by the sword in middle age, that Ishido would die in old age, the most famous general in the realm, his feet firm in the earth. And that the Lady Ochiba would end her days at Osaka Castle, surrounded by the greatest nobles in the Empire.
   “Yes,” Ishido said again, “I’d forgotten about him. Toranaga’s middle-aged, neh?”
   “Yes.” Again Ochiba felt the depth of his look and her loins melted at the thought of a real man on her, in her, surrounding her, taking her, giving her a new life within. This time an honorable birthing, not like the last one, when she had wondered in horror what the child would be like and look like.
   How foolish you are, Ochiba, she told herself, as they walked the shaded, fragrant paths. Put away those silly nightmares—that’s all they ever were. You were thinking about a man.
   Suddenly Ochiba wished that Toranaga was here beside her and not Ishido, that Toranaga was master of Osaka Castle and master of the Taikō’s treasure, Protector of the Heir and Chief General of the Armies of the West, and not Ishido. Then there would be no problems. Together they would possess the realm, all of it, and now, today, at this moment, she would beckon him to bed or to an inviting glade and tomorrow or the next day they would marry, and whatever happened in the future, today she would possess and be possessed and be at peace.
   Her hand reached out and she pulled a branchlet toward her, breathing the sweet, rich gardenia fragrance.
   Put away dreams, Ochiba, she told herself. Be a realist like the Taikō—or Toranaga.
   “What are you going to do with the Anjin-san?” she asked.
   Ishido laughed. “Hold him safe—let him take the Black Ship perhaps, or use him as a threat against Kiyama and Onoshi if need be. They both hate him, neh? Oh yes, he’s a sword at their throats—and at their filthy Church.”
   “In the chess game of the Heir against Toranaga, how would you judge the Anjin-san’s value, Lord General? A pawn? A knight, perhaps?”
   “Ah, Lady, in the Great Game barely a pawn,” Ishido said at once. “But in the game of the Heir against the Christians, a castle, easily a castle, perhaps two.”
   “You don’t think the games are interlocked?”
   “Yes, interlocked, but the Great Game will be settled by daimyo against daimyo, samurai against samurai, and sword against sword. Of course, in both games, you’re the queen.”
   “No, Lord General, please excuse me, not a queen,” she said, glad that he realized it. Then, to be safe, she changed the subject. “Rumor has it that the Anjin-san and Mariko-san pillowed together.”
   “Yes. Yes, I heard that too. You wish to know the truth about it?”
   Ochiba shook her head. “It would be unthinkable that that had happened.”
   Ishido was watching her narrowly. “You think there’d be a value in destroying her honor? Now? And along with her, Buntaro-san?”
   “I meant nothing, Lord General, nothing like that. I was just wondering just a woman’s foolishness. But it’s as Lord Kiyama said this morning—dark summer’s tears, sad, so sad, neh?”

   “I preferred your poem, Lady. I promise you Toranaga’s side will have the tears.”
   “As to Buntaro-san, perhaps neither he nor Lord Hiro-matsu will fight for Lord Toranaga at the battle.”
   “That’s fact?”
   “No, Lord General, not fact, but possible.”
   “But there’s something you can do perhaps?”
   “Nothing, except petition their support for the Heir—and all Toranaga’s generals, once the battle is committed.”
   “It’s committed now, a north-south pincer movement and the final onslaught at Odawara.”
   “Yes, but not actually. Not until army opposes army on the battlefield.” Then she asked, “So sorry, but are you sure it’s wise for the Heir to lead the armies?”
   “I will lead the armies, but the Heir must be present. Then Toranaga cannot win. Even Toranaga will never attack the Heir’s standard.”
   “Wouldn’t it be safer for the Heir to stay here—because of assassins, the Amidas… We can’t risk his life. Toranaga has a long arm, neh?”
   “Yes. But not that long and the Heir’s personal standard makes our side lawful and Toranaga’s unlawful. I know Toranaga. In the end he’ll respect the law. And that alone will put his head on a spike. He’s dead, Lady. Once he’s dead I will stamp out the Christian Church—all of it. Then you and the Heir will be safe.”
   Ochiba looked up at him, an unspoken promise in her eyes. “I will pray for success—and your safe return.”
   His chest tightened. He had waited so long. “Thank you, Lady, thank you,” he said, understanding her. “I will not fail you.”
   She bowed and turned away. What impertinence, she was thinking. As if I’d take a peasant to husband. Now, should I really discard Toranaga?


   Dell’Aqua was kneeling at prayer in front of the altar in the ruins of the little chapel. Most of the roof was caved in and part of one wall, but the earthquake had not damaged the chancel and nothing had touched the lovely stained glass window, or the carved Madonna that was his pride.
   The afternoon sun was slanting through the broken rafters. Outside, workmen were already shifting rubble from the garden, repairing and talking and, mixed with their chattering, dell’Aqua could hear the cries of the gulls coming ashore and he smelled a tang to the breeze, part salt and part smoke, seaweed and mud flats. The scent bore him home to his estate outside Naples where, mixed with sea smells, would be the perfume of lemons and oranges and warm new breads cooking, and pasta and garlic and abbacchio roasting over the coals, and, in the great villa, the voices of his mother and brothers and sisters and their children, all happy and jolly and alive, basking in golden sunshine.
   Oh, Madonna, let me go home soon, he prayed. I’ve been away too long. From home and from the Vatican. Madonna, take thy burden off me. Forgive me but I’m sick to death of Japanese and Ishido and killing and raw fish and Toranaga and Kiyama and rice Christians and trying to keep Thy Church alive. Give me Thy strength.
   And protect us from Spanish bishops. Spaniards do not understand Japan or Japanese. They will destroy what we have begun for Thy glory. And forgive Thy servant, the Lady Maria, and take her into Thy keeping. Watch over…”
   He heard someone come into the nave. When he had finished his prayers, he got up and turned around.
   “So sorry to interrupt you, Eminence,” Father Soldi said, “but you wanted to know at once. There’s an express cipher from Father Alvito. From Mishima. The pigeon’s just arrived.”
   “And?”
   “He just says he’ll see Toranaga today. Last night was impossible because Toranaga was away from Mishima but he’s supposed to return at noon today. The cipher’s dated dawn this morning.”
   Dell’Aqua tried to stifle his disappointment, then looked at the clouds and the weather, seeking reassurance. News of the ninja attack and Mariko’s death had been sent off to Alvito at dawn, the same message by two pigeons for safety.
   “The news will be there by now,” Soldi said.
   “Yes. Yes, I hope so.”
   Del’Aqua led the way out of the chapel, along the cloisters, toward his offices. Soldi, small and birdlike, had to hurry to keep up with the Father-Visitor’s great strides. “There’s something else of extreme importance, Eminence,” Soldi said. “Our informants report that just after dawn the Regents voted for war.”
   Dell’Aqua stopped. “War?”
   “It seems they’re convinced now Toranaga will never come to Osaka, or the Emperor. So they’ve decided jointly to go against the Kwanto.”
   “No mistake?”
   “No, Eminence. It’s war. Kiyama has just sent word through Brother Michael which confirms our other source. Michael’s just come back from the castle. The vote was unanimous.”
   “How soon?”
   “The moment they know for certain that the Emperor’s not coming here.”
   “The war will never stop. God have mercy on us! And bless Mariko—at least Kiyama and Onoshi were forewarned of Toranaga’s perfidy.”
   “What about Onoshi, Eminence? What about his perfidy against Kiyama?”
   “I’ve no proof of that, Soldi. It’s too farfetched. I can’t believe Onoshi would do that.”
   “But if he does, Eminence?”
   “It’s not possible just now, even if it was planned. Now they need each other.”
   “Until the demise of Lord Toranaga…”
   “You don’t have to remind me about the enmity of those two, or the lengths they’ll go to—God forgive both of them.” He walked on again.
   Soldi caught up with him. “Should I send this information to Father Alvito?”
   “No. Not yet. First I have to decide what to do. Toranaga will learn of it soon enough from his own sources. God take this land into His keeping and have mercy on all of us.”
   Soldi opened the door for the Father-Visitor. “The only other matter of importance is that the Council has formally refused to let us have the Lady Maria’s body. She’s to have a state funeral tomorrow and we are not invited.”
   “That’s to be expected, but it’s splendid that they want to honor her like that. Send one of our people to fetch part of her ashes—that will be allowed. The ashes will be buried in hallowed ground at Nagasaki.” He straightened a picture automatically and sat behind his desk. “I’ll say a Requiem for her here—the full Requiem there with all the pomp and ceremony we can muster when her remains are formally interred. She’ll be buried in cathedral grounds as a most blessed daughter of the Church. Arrange a plaque, employ the finest artists, calligrapher—everything must be perfect.”
   “Yes, Eminence.”
   “Her blessed courage and self-sacrifice will be an enormous encouragement to our flock. Very important, Soldi.”
   “And Kiyama’s granddaughter, Sire? The authorities will let us have her body. He insisted.”
   “Good. Then her remains should be sent to Nagasaki at once. I’ll consult Kiyama about how important he wishes to make her funeral.”
   “You will conduct the service, Eminence?”
   “Yes, providing it’s possible for me to leave here.”
   “Lord Kiyama would be very pleased with that honor.”
   “Yes—but we must make sure her service doesn’t detract from the Lady Maria’s. Maria’s is politically very, very important.”
   “Of course, Eminence. I quite understand.”
   Dell’Aqua studied his secretary. “Why don’t you trust Onoshi?”
   “Sorry, Eminence—probably it’s because he’s a leper and petrifies me. I apologize.”
   “Apologize to him, Soldi, he’s not to blame for his disease,” dell’Aqua said. “We’ve no proof about the plot.”
   “The other things the Lady said were true. Why not this?”
   “We have no proof. It’s all surmise.”
   “Yes, surmise.”
   Dell’Aqua moved the glass decanter, watching the refracting light. “At my prayers I smelled the orange blossoms and new breads and, oh, how I wanted to go home.”
   Soldi sighed. “I dream of abbacchio, Eminence, and of meats pizzaiola and a flagon of Lacrima Christi and … God forgive me the hungers of hunger! Soon we can go home, Eminence. Next year. By next year everything will be settled here.”
   “Nothing will be settled by next year. This war will hurt us. It will hurt the Church and the faithful terribly.”
   “No, Eminence. Kyushu will be Christian whoever wins,” Soldi said confidently, wanting to cheer up his superior. “This island can wait for God’s good time. There’s more than enough to do in Kyushu, Eminence, isn’t there? Three million souls to convert, half a million of the faithful to minister to. Then there’s Nagasaki and trade. They must have trade. Ishido and Toranaga will tear themselves to pieces. What does that matter? They’re both anti-Christ, pagans and murderers.”
   “Yes. But unfortunately what happens in Osaka and Yedo controls Kyushu. What to do, what to do?” Dell’Aqua pushed his melancholy away. “What about the Ingeles? Where’s he now?”
   “Still, under guard in the donjon.”
   “Leave me for a while, old friend, I have to think. I have to decide what to do. Finally. The Church is in great danger.” Dell’Aqua looked out the windows into the forecourt. Then he saw Friar Perez approaching.
   Soldi went to the door to intercept the monk. “No,” the FatherVisitor said. “I’ll see him now.”
   “Ah, Eminence, good afternoon,” Friar Perez said, scratching unconsciously. “You wanted to see me?”
   “Yes. Please fetch the letter, Soldi.”
   “I heard your chapel was destroyed,” the monk said.
   “Damaged. Please sit down.” Dell’Aqua sat in his high-backed chair behind the desk, the monk opposite him. “No one was hurt, thanks be to God. Within a few days it’ll be new again. What about your Mission?”
   “Untouched,” the monk said with open satisfaction. “There were fires all around us after the tremors and many died but we weren’t touched. The Eye of God watches over us.” Then he added cryptically, “I hear heathens were murdering heathens in the castle last night.”
   “Yes. One of our most important converts, the Lady Maria, was killed in the melee.”
   “Ah yes, I got reports too. ‘Kill him, Yoshinaka,’ the Lady Maria said, and started the bloodbath. I heard she even tried to kill a few herself, before she committed suicide.”
   Dell’Aqua flushed. “You don’t understand anything about the Japanese after all this time, and you even speak a little of their language.”
   “I understand heresy, stupidity, killing, and political interference, and I speak the pagan tongue very well. I understand a lot about these heathens.”
   “But not about manners.”
   “The Word of God requires none. It is the Word. Oh, yes. I also understand about adultery. What do you think of adultery—and harlots, Eminence?”
   The door opened. Soldi offered dell’Aqua the Pope’s letter, then left them.
   The Father-Visitor gave the paper to the monk, savoring his victory. “This is from His Holiness. It arrived yesterday by special messenger from Macao.”
   The monk took the Papal Order and read it. This commanded, with the formal agreement of the King of Spain, that all priests of all religious orders were in future to travel to Japan only via Lisbon, Goa, and Macao, that all were forbidden on pain of immediate excommunication to go from Manila direct to Japan, and that lastly, all priests, other than Jesuits, were to leave Japan at once for Manila whence they could, if their superiors wished, return to Japan, but only via Lisbon, Goa, and Macao.
   Friar Perez scrutinized the seal and the signature and the date, reread the Order carefully, then laughed derisively and shoved the letter on the desk. “I don’t believe it!”
   “That’s an Order from His Holiness the—”
   “It’s another heresy against the Brethren of God, against us, or any mendicants who carry the Word to the heathen. With this device we’re forbidden Japan forever, because the Portuguese, abetted by certain people, will prevaricate forever and never grant us passage or visas. If this is genuine it only proves what we’ve been saying for years: Jesuits can subvert even the Vicar of Christ in Rome!”
   Dell’Aqua held onto his temper. “You’re ordered to leave. Or you will be excommunicated.”
   “Jesuit threats are meaningless, Eminence. You don’t speak with the Tongue of God, you never have, you never will. You’re not soldiers of Christ. You serve a Pope, Eminence, a man. You’re politicians, men of the earth, men of the fleshpots with your pagan silks and lands and power and riches and influence. The Lord Jesus Christ came to earth in the guise of a simple man who scratched and went barefoot and stank. I will never leave—nor will my Brothers!”
   Dell’Aqua had never been so angry in his life. “You-will-leave-Japan!”
   “Before God, I won’t! But this is the last time I’ll come here. If you want me in future, come to our Holy Mission, come and minister to the poor and the sick and the unwanted, like Christ did. Wash their feet like Christ did, and save your own soul before it’s too late.”
   “You are commanded on pain of excommunication to leave Japan at once.”
   “Come now, Eminence, I’m not excommunicated and never will be. Of course I accept the document, unless it’s out of date. This is dated September 16, 1598, almost two years ago. It must be checked, it’s far too important to accept at once—and that will take four years at least.”
   “Of course it’s not out of date!”
   “You’re wrong. As God is my judge, I believe it is. In a few weeks, at the most a few months, we’ll have an Archbishop of Japan at long last. A Spanish Bishop! The letters I have from Manila report the Royal Warrant’s expected by every mail.”
   “Impossible! This is Portuguese territory and our province!”
   “It was Portuguese. It was Jesuit. But that’s all changed now. With the help of our Brothers and Divine Guidance, the King of Spain has overthrown your General in Rome.”
   “That’s nonsense. Lies and rumors. On your immortal soul, obey the commands of the Vicar of Christ.”
   “I will. I will write to him today, I promise you. Meanwhile, expect a Spanish Bishop, a Spanish Viceroy, and a new Captain of the Black Ship—also a Spaniard! That’s also to be part of the Royal Warrant. We have friends in high places too and, at long last, they have vanquished the Jesuits, once and for all! Go with God, Eminence.” Friar Perez got up, opened the door, and went away.
   In the outer office Soldi watched him leave, then hastily came back into the room. Frightened by dell’Aqua’s color, he hurried to the decanter and poured some brandy. “Eminence?”
   Dell’Aqua shook his head and continued to stare sightlessly into the distance. For the past year there there had been disquieting news from their delegates to the Court of Philip of Spain at Madrid about the growing influence of the enemies of the Society.
   “It’s not true, Eminence. Spaniards can’t come here. It can’t be true.”
   “It can be true, easily. Too easily.” Dell’Aqua touched the Papal Order. “This Pope may be dead, our General dead … even the King of Spain. Meanwhile …” He got to his feet and stood at his full height. “Meanwhile we’ll prepare for the worst and pray for help and do the best we can. Send Brother Michael to fetch Kiyama here at once.”
   “Yes, Eminence. But Kiyama’s never been here before. Surely it’s unlikely he would come now?”
   “Tell Michael to use any words necessary, but he’s to bring Kiyama here before sunset. Next, send the war news to Martin at once, to be passed to Toranaga at once. You write the details but I want to send a private cipher with it. Next, send someone to fetch Ferriera here.”
   “Yes, Eminence. But about Kiyama, surely Michael won’t be able—”
   “Tell Michael to order him here, in God’s name if necessary! We’re Soldiers of Christ, we’re going to war—to God’s war! Hurry up!”

Chapter 59

   “Anjin-san?”
   Blackthorne heard his name in his dream. It came from very far away, echoing forever. “Hai?” he answered.
   Then he heard the name repeated and a hand touched him, his eyes opened and focused in the half-light of dawn, his consciousness flooded back and he sat upright. The doctor was again kneeling beside his bed. Kiritsubo and the Lady Ochiba stood nearby, staring down at him. Grays were all around the large room. Oil lanterns flickered warmly.
   The doctor spoke to him again. The ringing was still in his ears and the voice faint, but there was no mistake now. He could hear once more. Involuntarily his hands went to his ears and he pressed them to clear them. At once pain exploded in his head and set off sparks and colored lights and a violent throbbing.
   “Sorry,” he muttered, waiting for the agony to lessen, willing it to lessen. “Sorry, ears hurt, neh? But I hear now—understand, Doctor-san? Hear now—little. Sorry, what say?” He watched the man’s lips to help himself hear.
   “The Lady Ochiba and Kiritsubo-sama want to know how you are.”
   “Ah!” Blackthorne looked at them. Now he noticed that they were formally dressed. Kiritsubo wore all white, except for a green head scarf. Ochiba’s kimono was dark green, without pattern or adornment, her long shawl white gossamer. “Better, thank you,” he said, his soul disquieted by the white. “Yes, better.” Then he saw the quality of the light outside and realized that it was near dawn and not twilight. “Doctor-san, please I sleep a day and night?”
   “Yes, Anjin-san. A day and a night. Lie back, please.” The doctor took Blackthorne’s wrist with his long fingers and pressed them against the pulse, listening with his fingertips to the nine pulses, three on the surface, three in the middle, and three deep down, as Chinese medicine taught from time immemorial.
   All in the room waited for the diagnosis. Then the doctor nodded, satisfied. “Everything seems good, Anjin-san. No bad hurt, understand? Much head pain, neh?” He turned and explained in more detail to the Lady Ochiba and Kiritsubo.
   “Anjin-san,” Ochiba said. “Today Mariko-sama’s funeral. You understand ‘funeral’?”
   “Yes, Lady.”
   “Good. Her funeral’s just after dawn. It is your privilege to go if you wish. You understand?”
   “Yes. Think so. Yes, please, I go also.”
   “Very well.” Ochiba spoke to the doctor, telling him to look after his patient very carefully. Then, with a polite bow to Kiritsubo and a smile at Blackthorne, she left.
   Kiri waited till she was gone. “All right, Anjin-san?”
   “Head bad, Lady. So sorry.”
   “Please excuse me, I wanted to say thank you. Do you understand?”
   “Duty. Only duty. Fail. Mariko-sama dead, neh?”
   Kiri bowed to him in homage. “Not fail. Oh, no, not fail. Thank you, Anjin-san. For her and me and for the others. Say more later. Thank you.” Then she too went away.
   Blackthorne took hold of himself and got to his feet. The pain in his head was monstrous, making him want to cry out. He forced his lips into a tight line, his chest aching badly, his stomach churning. In a moment the nausea passed but left a filthy taste in his mouth. He eased his feet forward and walked over to the window and held on to the sill, fighting not to retch. He waited, then walked up and down, but this did not take away the pain in his head or the nausea.
   “I all right, thank you,” he said, and sat again gratefully.
   “Here, drink this. Make better. Settle hara.” The doctor had a benign smile. Blackthorne drank and gagged on the brew that smelled like ancient bird droppings and mildewed kelp mixed with fermenting leaves on a hot summer’s day. The taste was worse.
   “Drink. Better soon, so sorry.”
   Blackthorne gagged again but forced it down.
   “Soon better, so sorry.”
   Women servants came and combed and dressed his hair. A barber shaved him. Hot towels were brought for his hands and face, and he felt much better. But the pain in his head remained. Other servants helped him to dress in the formal kimono and winged overmantle. There was a new short stabbing sword. “Gift, Master. Gift from Kiritsubo-sama,” a woman servant said.
   Blackthorne accepted it and stuck it in his belt with his killing sword, the one Toranaga had given him, its haft chipped and almost broken where he had smashed at the bolt. He remembered Mariko standing with her back against the door, then nothing till he was kneeling over her and watching her die. Then nothing until now.
   “So sorry, this is the donjon, neh?” he said to the captain of Grays.
   “Yes, Anjin-san.” The captain bowed deferentially, squat like an ape and just as dangerous.
   “Why am I here, please?”
   The captain smiled and sucked in his breath politely. “The Lord General ordered it.”
   “But why here?”
   The samurai said, “It was the Lord General’s orders. Please excuse me, you understand?”
   “Yes, thank you,” Blackthorne said wearily.
   When he was finally ready he felt dreadful. Some cha helped him for a while, then sickness swept through him and he vomited into the bowl a servant held for him, his chest and head pierced with red hot needles at every spasm.
   “So sorry,” the doctor said patiently. “Here, please drink.”
   He drank more of the brew but it did not help him.
   By now dawn was spreading across the sky. Servants beckoned him and helped him to walk out of the large room, his guards going in front, the remainder following. They went down the staircase and out into the forecourt. A palanquin was waiting with more guards. He got into it thankfully. At an order from his captain of Grays the porters picked up the shafts and, the guards hovering protectively, they joined the procession of litters and samurai and ladies on foot, winding through the maze, out of the castle. All were dressed in their best. Some of the women wore somber kimonos with white head scarves, others wore all white except for a colored scarf.
   Blackthorne was aware that he was being watched. He pretended not to notice and tried to keep his back stiff and his face emotionless, and prayed that the sickness would not return to shame him. His pain increased.
   The cortege wound through the castle strongpoints, past thousands of samurai drawn up in silent ranks. No one was challenged, no papers demanded. The mourners went through checkpoint after checkpoint, under portcullises and across the five moats without stopping. Once through the main gate, outside the main fortifications, he noticed his Grays become more wary, their eyes watching everyone nearby, keeping close to him, guarding him very carefully. This lessened his anxiety. He had not forgotten that he was a marked man. The procession curled across a clear space, went over a bridge, then took up station in the square beside the river bank.
   This space was three hundred paces by five hundred paces. In the center was a pit fifteen paces square and five deep, filled with wood. Over the pit was a high matted roof dressed with white silk and surrounding it were walls of white linen sheets, hung from bamboos, that pointed exactly East, North, West, and South, a small wooden gate in the middle of each wall.
   “The gates are for the soul to go through, Anjin-san, in its flight to heaven,” Mariko had told him at Hakoné.
   “Let’s go for a swim or talk of other things. Happy things.”
   “Yes, of course, but first please may I finish because this is a very happy thing. Our funeral is most very important to us so you should learn about it, Anjin-san, neh? Please?”
   “All right. But why have four gates? Why not just one?”
   “The soul must have a choice. That’s wise—oh, we are very wise, neh? I tell thee today that I love thee?” she had said. “We are a very wise nation to allow the soul a choice. Most souls choose the south gate, Anjin-san. That’s the important one, where there are tables with dried figs and fresh pomegranates and other fruits, radishes and other vegetables, and the sheaves of rice plantlets if the season is correct. And always a bowl of fresh cooked rice, Anjin-san, that’s most important. You see, the soul might want to eat before leaving.”
   “If it’s me, put a roast pheasant or—”
   “So sorry, no flesh—not even fish. We’re serious about that, Anjin-san. Also on the table there’ll be a small brazier with coals burning nicely with precious woods and oils in it to make everything smell sweet…
   Blackthorne felt his eyes fill with tears.
   “I want my funeral to be near dawn,” she had always said so serenely. “I love the dawn most of all. And, if it could also be in the autumn …”
   My poor darling, he thought. You knew all along there’d never be an autumn.
   His litter stopped in a place of honor in the front rank, near the center, and he was close enough to see tears on the water-sprinkled fruits. Everything was there as she had said. Around were hundreds of palanquins and the square was packed with a thousand samurai and their ladies on foot, all silent and motionless. He recognized Ishido and, beside him, Ochiba. Neither looked at him. They sat on their sumptuous litters and stared at the white linen walls that rustled in the gentling breeze. Kiyama was on the other side of Ochiba, Zataki nearby, with Ito. Onoshi’s closed litter was also there. All had echelons of guards. Kiyama’s samurai wore crosses. And Onoshi’s.
   Blackthorne looked around, seeking Yabu, but he could find him nowhere, nor were there any Browns or a friendly face. Now Kiyama was gazing at him stonily and when he saw the look in the eyes he was glad for his guards. Nonetheless he bowed slightly. But Kiyama’s gaze never altered, nor was his politeness acknowledged. After a moment, Kiyama looked away and Blackthorne breathed easier.
   The sound of drums and bells and metal beating on metal tore the air. Discordant. Piercing. All eyes went to the main gateway to the castle. Then, out of the maw came an ornate roofed palanquin, borne by eight Shinto priests, a high priest sitting on it like a graven Buddha. Other priests beat metal drums before and after this litter, and then came two hundred orange-robed Buddhist priests and more white-clad Shinto priests, and then her bier.
   The bier was rich and roofed, all in white, and she was dressed in white and propped sitting, her head slightly forward, her face made up and hair meticulous. Ten Browns were her pallbearers. Before the bier two priestlings strew tiny paper rose petals that the wind took and scattered, signifying that life was as ephemeral as a flower, and after them two priests dragged two spears backwards, indicating that she was samurai and duty strong as the steel blades were strong. After them came four priests with unlit torches. Saruji, her son, followed next, his face as white as his kimono. Then Kiritsubo and the Lady Sazuko, both in white, their hair loosed but draped in gossamer green. The girl’s hair fell below her waist, Kiri’s was longer. Then there was a space, and last was the remainder of the Toranaga garrison. Some of the Browns were wounded and many limped.
   Blackthorne saw only her. She seemed to be in prayer and there was not a mark on her. He kept himself rigid, knowing what an honor this public ceremony, with Ishido and Ochiba as chief witnesses, was for her. But that did not lighten his misery.
   For more than an hour, the high priest chanted incantations and the drums clamored. Then in a sudden silence, Saruji stepped forward and took an unlit torch and went to each of the four gates, East, North, West, and South, to make sure they were unobstructed.
   Blackthorne saw that the boy was trembling, his eyes downcast as he came back to the bier. Then he lifted the white cord attached to it and guided the pallbearers through the south gate. The whole litter was placed carefully on the wood. Another solemn incantation, then Saruji touched the oil-soaked torch to the coals of the brazier. It blazed at once. He hesitated, then went back through the south gate alone and cast the torch into the pyre. The oil-impregnated wood caught. Quickly it became a furnace. Soon the flames were ten feet high. Saruji was forced back by the heat, then he fetched sweet-scented woods and oils and threw them into the fire. The tinder-dry roof exploded. The linen walls caught. Now the whole pit area was a raging, pyrogenic mass—swirling, crackling, unquenchable.
   The roof posts collapsed. A sigh went through the onlookers. Priests came forward and put more wood onto the pyre and the flames rose farther, the smoke billowing. Now only the four small gates remained. Blackthorne saw the heat scorching them. Then they too burst into flames.
   Then Ishido, the chief witness, got out of his palanquin and walked forward and made the ritual offering of precious wood. He bowed formally and sat again in his litter. At his order, the porters lifted him and he went back to the castle. Ochiba followed him. Others began to leave.
   Saruji bowed to the flames a last time. He turned and walked over to Blackthorne. He stood in front of him and bowed. “Thank you, Anjin-san,” he said. Then he went away with Kiri and Lady Sazuko.
   “All finished, Anjin-san,” the captain of Grays said with a grin. “Kami safe now. We go castle.”
   “Wait. Please.”
   “So sorry, orders, neh?” the captain said anxiously, the others guarding closely.
   “Please wait.”
   Careless of their anxiety, Blackthorne got out of the litter, the pain almost blinding him. The samurai spread out, covering him. He walked to the table and picked up some of the small pieces of camphor wood and threw them into the furnace. He could see nothing through the curtain of flames.
   “In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti, “ he muttered in benediction and made a small sign of the cross. Then he turned and left the fire.


   When he awoke his head was much better but he felt drained, the dull ache still throbbing behind his temples and across the front of his head.
   “How feel, Anjin-san?” the doctor said with his toothy smile, the voice still faint. “Sleep long time.”
   Blackthorne lifted himself on an elbow and gazed sleepily at the sun’s shadows. Must be almost five of the clock in the afternoon now, he thought. I’ve slept better than six hours. “Sleep all day, neh?”
   The doctor smiled. “All yesterday and night and most of today. Understand?”
   “Understand. Yes.” Blackthorne lay back, a sheen of sweat on his skin. Good, he thought. The best thing I could have done, no wonder I feel better.
   His bed of soft quilts was screened now on three sides with exquisite movable partitions, their panel paintings landscapes and seascapes, and inlaid with ivory. Sunlight came through windows opposite and flies swarmed, the room vast and pleasant and quiet. Outside were castle sounds, now mixed with horses trotting past, bridles jingling, their hoofs unshod. The slight breeze bore the aroma of smoke. Don’t know if I’d want to be burned, he thought. But wait a minute, isn’t that better than being put in a box and buried and then the worms… Stop it, he ordered himself, feeling himself drifting into a downward spiral. There’s nothing to worry about, karma is karma and when you’re dead, you’re dead, and you never know anything then—and anything’s better than drowning, water filling you, your body becoming foul and blotted, the crabs… Stop it!
   “Drink, please.” The doctor gave him more of the foul brew. He gagged but kept it down.
   “Cha, please.” The woman servant poured it for him and he thanked her. She was a moon-faced woman of middle age, slits for eyes and a fixed empty smile. After three cups his mouth was bearable.
   “Please, Anjin-san, how ears?”
   “Same. Still distance … distance, understand? Very distance.”

   “Understand. Eat, Anjin-san?”
   A small tray was set with rice and soup and charcoaled fish. His stomach was queasy but he remembered that he had hardly eaten for two days so he sat up and forced himself to take some rice and he drank the fish soup. This settled his stomach so he ate more and finished it all, using the chopsticks now as extensions of his fingers, without conscious effort. “Thank you. Hungry.”
   “Yes,” the doctor said. He put a linen bag of herbs on the low table beside the bed. “Make cha with this, Anjin-san. Once every day until all gone. Understand?”
   “Yes. Thank you.”
   “It has been an honor to serve you.” The old man motioned to the servant, who took away the empty tray, and after another bow followed her and left by the same inner door. Now Blackthorne was alone. He lay back on the futons feeling much better.
   “I was just hungry,” he said aloud. He was wearing only a loincloth. His formal clothes were in a careless pile where he had left them and this surprised him, though a clean Brown kimono was beside his swords. He let himself drift, then suddenly he felt an alien presence. Uneasily he sat up and glanced around. Then he got onto his knees and looked over the screens, and before he knew it, he was standing, his head splitting from the sudden panicked movement as he saw the tonsured Japanese Jesuit staring at him, kneeling motionlessly beside the main doorway, a crucifix and rosary in his hand.
   “Who are you?” he asked through his pain.
   “I’m Brother Michael, senhor.” The coal-dark eyes never wavered. Blackthorne moved from the screens and stood over his swords. “What d’you want with me?”
   “I was sent to ask how you are,” Michael said quietly in clear though accented Portuguese.
   “By whom?”
   “By the Lord Kiyama.”
   Suddenly Blackthorne realized they were totally alone. “Where are my guards?”
   “You don’t have any, senhor.”
   “Of course I’ve guards! I’ve twenty Grays. Where are my Grays?”
   “There were none here when I arrived, senhor. So sorry. You were still sleeping then.” Michael motioned gravely outside the door. “Perhaps you should ask those samurai.”
   Blackthorne picked up his sword. “Please get away from the door.”
   “I’m not armed, Anjin-san.”
   “Even so, don’t come near me. Priests make me nervous.”
   Obediently Michael got to his feet and moved away with the same unnerving calm. Outside two Grays lolled against the balustrade of the landing.
   “Afternoon,” Blackthorne said politely, not recognizing either of them.
   Neither bowed. “Afternoon, Anjin-san,” one replied.
   “Please, where my other guards?”
   “All guards taken away Hour of the Hare, this morning. Understand Hour of Hare? We’re not your guards, Anjin-san. This is our ordinary post.”
   Blackthorne felt the cold sweat trickling down his back. “Guards taken away—who order?”
   Both samurai laughed. The tall one said, “Here, inside the donjon, Anjin-san, only the Lord General gives orders—or the Lady Ochiba. How do you feel now?”
   “Better, thank you.”
   The taller samurai called out down the hall. In a few moments an officer came out of a room with four samurai. He was young and taut. When he saw Blackthorne his eyes lit up. “Ah, Anjin-san. How do you feel?”
   “Better, thank you. Please excuse me, but where my guards?”
   “I am ordered to tell you, when you wake up, that you’re to go back to your ship. Here’s your pass.” The captain took the paper from his sleeve and gave it to him and pointed contemptuously at Michael. “This fellow’s to be your guide.”
   Blackthorne tried to get his head working, his brain screeching danger. “Yes. Thank you. But first, please must see Lord Ishido. Very important.”
   “So sorry. Your orders are to go back to the ship as soon as you wake up. Do you understand?”
   “Yes. Please excuse me, but very important I see Lord Ishido. Please tell your captain. Now. Must see Lord Ishido before leave. Very important, so sorry.”
   The samurai scratched at the pockmarks on his chin. “I will ask. Please dress.” He strode off importantly to Blackthorne’s relief. The four samurai remained. Blackthorne went back and dressed quickly. They watched him. The priest waited in the corridor.
   Be patient, he told himself. Don’t think and don’t worry. It’s a mistake. Nothing’s changed. You’ve still the power you always had.
   He put both swords in his sash and drank the rest of the cha. Then he saw the pass. The paper was stamped and covered with characters. There’s no mistake about that, he thought, the fresh kimono already sticking to him.
   “Hey, Anjin-san,” one of the samurai said, “hear you kill five ninja. Very, very good, neh?”
   “So sorry, two only. Perhaps three.” Blackthorne twisted his head from side to side to ease the ache and dizziness.
   “I heard there were fifty-seven ninja dead—one hundred and sixteen Browns. Is that right?”
   “I don’t know. So sorry.”
   The captain came back into the room. “Your orders are to go to your ship, Anjin-san. This priest is your guide.”
   “Yes. Thank you. But first, so sorry, must see Lady Ochiba. Very, very important. Please ask your—”
   The captain spun on Michael and spoke gutturally and very fast. “Neh?” Michael bowed, unperturbed, and turned to Blackthorne. “So sorry, senhor. He says his superior is asking his superior, but meanwhile you are to leave at once and follow me—to the galley.”
   “Ima!” the captain added for emphasis.
   Blackthorne knew he was a dead man. He heard himself say, “Thank you, Captain. Where my guards, please?”
   “You haven’t any guards.”
   “Please send my ship. Please fetch my own vassals from—”
   “Order go ship now! Understand, neh?” The words were impolite and very final. “Go ship!” the captain added with a crooked smile, waiting for Blackthorne to bow first.
   Blackthorne noticed this and it all became a nightmare, everything slowed and fogged, and he desperately wanted to empty himself and wipe the sweat off his face and bow, but he was sure that the captain would hardly bow back, perhaps not even politely and never as an equal, so he would be shamed before all of them. It was clear that he had been betrayed and sold out to the Christian enemy, that Kiyama and Ishido and the priests were part of the betrayal, and for whatever reason, whatever the price, there was nothing now that he could do except wipe off the sweat and bow and leave and they would be waiting for him.
   Then Mariko was with him and he remembered her terror and all that she had meant and all that she had done and all that she had taught him. He forced his hand onto the broken hilt of his sword and set his feet truculently apart, knowing that his fate was decided, his karma fixed, and that if he had to die he preferred to die now with pride than later.
   “I’m John Blackthorne, Anjin-san,” he said, his absolute commitment lending him a strange power and perfect rudeness. “General of Lord Toranaga ship. All ship. Samurai and hatamoto! Who are you?”
   The captain flushed. “Saigo Masakatsu of Kaga, Captain, of Lord Ishido’s garrison.”
   “I’m hatamoto—are you hatamoto?” Blackthorne asked, even more rudely, not even acknowledging the name of his opponent, only seeing him with an enormous, unreal clarity—seeing every pore, every stubbled whisker, every fleck of color in the hostile brown eyes, every hair on the back of the man’s hand gripping the sword hilt.
   “No, not hatamoto.”
   “Are you samurai—or ronin?” The last word hissed out and Blackthorne felt men behind him but he did not care. He was only watching the captain, waiting for the sudden, death-dealing blow that summoned up all hara-gei, all the innermost source of energy, and he readied to return the blow with equal blinding force in a mutual, honorable death, and so defeat his enemy.
   To his astonishment he saw the captain’s eyes change, and the man shriveled and bowed, low and humble. The man held the bow, leaving himself defenseless. “Please—please excuse my bad manners. I—I was ronin but—but the Lord General gave me a second chance. Please excuse my bad manners, Anjin-san.” The voice was laced with shame.
   It was all unreal and Blackthorne was still ready to strike, expecting to strike, expecting death and not a conquest. He looked at the other samurai. As one man they bowed and held the bow with their captain, granting him victory.
   After a moment Blackthorne bowed stiffly. But not as an equal. They held their bow until he turned and walked along the corridor, Michael following, out onto the main steps, down the steps into the forecourt. He could feel no pain now. He was filled only with an enormous glow. Grays were watching him, and the group of samurai that escorted him and Michael to the first checkpoint kept carefully out of his sword range. One man was hurriedly sent ahead.
   At the next checkpoint the new officer bowed politely as an equal and he bowed back. The pass was examined meticulously but correctly. Another escort took them to the next checkpoint where everything was repeated. Thence over the innermost moat, and the next. No one interfered with them. Hardly any samurai paid attention to him.
   Gradually he noticed his head was scarcely aching. His sweat had dried. He unknotted his fingers from his sword hilt and flexed them a moment. He stopped at a fountain which was set in a wall and drank and splashed water on his head.
   The escorting Grays stopped and waited politely, and all the time he was trying to work out why he had lost favor and the protection of Ishido and Lady Ochiba. Nothing’s changed, he thought frantically. He looked up and saw Michael staring at him. “What do you want?”
   “Nothing, senhor,” Michael said politely. Then a smile spread and it was filled with warmth. “Ah, senhor, you did me a great service back there, making that foul-mannered cabron drink his own urine. Oh, that was good to see! Thou,” he added in Latin. “I thank thee.”
   “I did nothing for you,” Blackthorne said in Portuguese, not wanting to talk Latin.
   “Yes. But peace be upon you, senhor. Know that God moves in mysterious ways. It was a service for all men. That ronin was shamed—and he deserved it. It is a filthy thing to abuse bushido.”
   “You’re samurai too?”
   “Yes, senhor, I have that honor,” Michael said. “My father is cousin to Lord Kiyama and my clan is of Hizen Province in Kyushu. How did you know he was ronin?”
   Blackthorne tried to remember. “I’m not sure. Perhaps because he said he was from Kaga and that’s a long way off and Mariko—Lady Toda said Kaga’s far north. I don’t know—I don’t remember really what I said.”
   The officer of the escort came back to them. “Please excuse me, Anjin-san, but is this fellow bothering you?”
   “No. No, thank you.” Blackthorne set off again. The pass was checked again, with courtesy, and they went on.
   The sun was lowering now, still a few hours to sunset, and dust devils whirled in tiny spirals in the heated air currents. They passed many stables, all horses facing out—lances and spears and saddles ready for instant departure, samurai grooming the horses and cleaning equipment. Blackthorne was astounded by their number.
   “How many horse, Captain?” he asked.
   “Thousands, Anjin-san. Ten, twenty, thirty thousand here and elsewhere in the castle.”
   When they were crossing the next to last moat, Blackthorne beckoned Michael. “You’re guiding me to the galley?”
   “Yes. That’s what I was told to do, senhor.”
   “Nowhere else?”
   “No, senhor.”
   “By whom?”
   “Lord Kiyama. And the Father-Visitor, senhor.”
   “Ah, him! I prefer Anjin-san, not senhor—Father.”
   “Please excuse me, Anjin-san, but I’m not a Father. I’m not ordained.”
   “When does that happen?”
   “In God’s time,” Michael said confidently.
   “Where’s Yabu-san?”
   “I don’t know, so sorry.”
   “You’re just taking me to my ship, nowhere else?”
   “Yes, Anjin-san.”
   “And then I’m free? Free to go where I want?”
   “I was told to ask how you were, then to guide you to the ship, nothing more. I’m just a messenger, a guide.”
   “Before God?”
   “I’m just a guide, Anjin-san.”
   “Where did you learn to speak Portuguese so well? And Latin?”
   “I was one of the four … the four acolytes sent by the Father-Visitor to Rome. I was thirteen, Uraga-noh-Tadamasa twelve.”
   “Ah! Now I remember. Uraga-san told me you were one of them. You were his friend. You know he’s dead?”
   “Yes. I was sickened to hear about it.”
   “Christians did that.”
   “Murderers did that, Anjin-san. Assassins. They will be judged, never fear.”
   After a moment, Blackthorne said, “How did you like Rome?”
   “I detested it. We all did. Everything about it—the food and the filth and ugliness. They’re all eta there—unbelievable! It took us eight years to get there and back and oh how I blessed the Madonna when at last I got back.”
   “And the Church? The Fathers?”
   “Detestable. Many of them,” Michael said calmly. “I was shocked with their morals and mistresses and greed and pomp and hypocrisy and lack of manners—and their two standards, one for the flock and one for the shepherds. It was all hateful … and yet I found God among some of them, Anjin-san. So strange. I found the Truth, in the cathedrals and cloisters and among the Fathers.” Michael looked at him guilelessly, a tenderness permeating him. “It was rare, Anjin-san, very rarely that I found a glimmer—that’s true. But I did find the Truth and God and know that Christianity is the only path to life everlasting … please excuse me, Catholic Christianity.”
   “Did you see the auto-da-fé—or Inquisition—or jails—witch trials?”

   “I saw many terrible things. Very few men are wise—most are sinners and great evil happens on earth in God’s name. But not of God. This world is a vale of tears and only a preparation for Everlasting Peace.” He prayed silently for a moment, then, refreshed, he looked up. “Even some heretics can be good, neh?”
   “Maybe,” Blackthorne replied, liking him.
   The last moat and last gate, the main south gate. The last checkpoint, and his paper was taken away. Michael walked under the last portcullis. Blackthorne followed. Outside the castle a hundred samurai were waiting. Kiyama’s men. He saw their crucifixes and their hostility and he stopped. Michael did not. The officer motioned Blackthorne onward. He obeyed. The samurai closed up behind him and around him, locking him in their midst. Porters and tradesmen on this main road scattered and bowed and groveled until they were passed. A few held up pathetic crosses and Michael blessed them, leading the way down the slight slope, past the burial ground where the pit no longer smoked, across a bridge and into the city, heading for the sea. Grays and other samurai were coming up from the city among the pedestrians. When they saw Michael they scowled and would have forced him onto the side if it hadn’t been for the mass of Kiyama samurai.
   Blackthorne followed Michael. He was beyond fear, though not beyond wishing to escape. But there was no place to run, or to hide. On land. His only safety was aboard Erasmus, beating out to sea, a full crew with him, provisioned and armed.
   “What happens at the galley, Brother?”
   “I don’t know, Anjin-san.”


   Now they were in the city streets, nearing the sea. Michael turned a corner and came into an open fish market. Pretty maids and fat maids and old ladies and youths and men and buyers and sellers and children all gaped at him, then began bowing hastily. Blackthorne followed the samurai through the stalls and panniers and bamboo trays of all kinds of fish, sea-sparkling fresh, laid out so cleanly—many swimming in tanks, prawns and shrimps, lobster and crabs and crayfish. Never so clean in London, he thought absently, neither the fish nor those who sold them. Then he saw a row of food stalls to one side, each with a small charcoal brazier, and he caught the full perfume of broiling crayfish.
   “Jesus!” Without thinking, he changed direction. Immediately the samurai barred his way. “Gomen nasai, kinjiru,” one of them said.
   “Iye!” Blackthorne replied as roughly. “Watashi tabetai desu, neh?Watashi Anjin-san, neh?” I’m hungry. I’m the Anjin-san!
   Blackthorne began to push through them. The senior officer hurried to intercept. Quickly Michael stepped back and talked placatingly, though with authority, and asked permission and, reluctantly, it was granted.
   “Please, Anjin-san,” he said, “the officer says eat if you wish. What would you like?”
   “Some of those, please.” Blackthorne pointed at the giant prawns that were headless and split down their length, all pink and white fleshed, the shells crisped to perfection. “Some of those.” He could not tear his eyes off them. “Please tell the officer I haven’t eaten for almost two days and I’m suddenly famished. So sorry.”
   The fish seller was an old man with three teeth and leathery skin and he wore only a loincloth. He was puffed with pride that his stall had been chosen and he picked out the five best prawns with nimble chopsticks and laid them neatly on a bamboo tray and set others to sizzle.
   “Dozo, Anjin-sama!”
   “Domo.” Blackthorne felt his stomach growling. He wanted to gorge. Instead he picked one up with the fresh wooden chopsticks, dipped it in the sauce, and ate with relish. It was delicious.
   “Brother Michael?” he asked, offering the plate. Michael took one, but only for good manners. The officer refused, though he thanked him.
   Blackthorne finished that plate and had two more. He could have eaten another two but decided not to for good manners and also because he didn’t want to strain his stomach.
   “Domo,” he said, setting down the plate with a polite obligatory belch. “Bimi desu!” Delicious.
   The man beamed and bowed and the stallkeepers nearby bowed and then Blackthorne realized to his horror that he had no money. He reddened.
   “What is it?” Michael asked.
   “I, er, I haven’t any money with me—or, er, anything to give the man. I’ve—could you lend me some please?”
   “I haven’t any money, Anjin-san. We don’t carry money.”
   There was an embarrassed silence. The seller grinned, waiting patiently. Then, with equal embarrassment, Michael turned to the officer and quietly asked him for money. The officer was coldly furious with Blackthorne. He spoke brusquely to one of his men who came forward and paid the stallkeeper handsomely, to be thanked profusely, as, pink and sweating, Michael turned and led again. Blackthorne caught up with him. “Sorry about that but it … it never occurred to me! That’s the first time I’ve bought anything here. I’ve never had money, as crazy as it sounds, and I never thought … I’ve never used money…”
   “Please, forget it, Anjin-san. It was nothing.”
   “Please tell the officer I’ll pay him when I get to the ship.”
   Michael did as he was asked. They walked in silence for a while, Blackthorne getting his bearings. At the end of this street was the beach, the sea calm and dullish under the sunset light. Then he saw where they were and pointed left, to a wide street that ran east-west. “Let’s go that way.”
   “This way is quicker, Anjin-san.”
   “Yes, but your way we’ve got to pass the Jesuit Mission and the Portuguese lorcha. I’d rather make a detour and go the long way round.”
   “I was told to go this way.”
   “Let’s go the other way.” Blackthorne stopped. The officer asked what was the matter and Michael explained. The officer waved them onward—Michael’s way.
   Blackthorne weighed the results of refusing. He would be forced, or bound and carried, or dragged. None of these suited him, so he shrugged and strode on.
   They came out onto the wide road that skirted the beach. Half a ri ahead were the Jesuit wharves and warehouses and a hundred paces farther he could see the Portuguese ship. Beyond that, another two hundred paces, was his galley. It was too far away to see men aboard yet.
   Blackthorne picked up a stone and sent it whistling out to sea. “Let’s walk along the beach for a while.”
   “Certainly, Anjin-san.” Michael went down the sand. Blackthorne walked in the shallows, enjoying the cool of the sea, the soughing of the slight surf.
   “It’s a fine time of the day, neh?”
   “Ah, Anjin-san,” Michael said with sudden, open friendliness, “there are many times, Madonna forgive me, I wish I wasn’t a priest but just the son of my father, and this is one of them.”
   “Why?”
   “I’d like to spirit you away, you and your strange ship at Yokohama, to Hizen, to our great harbor of Sasebo. Then I would ask you to barter with me—I’d ask you to show me and our sea captains the ways of your ship and your ways of the sea. In return I’d offer you the best teachers in the realm, teachers of bushido, cha-no-yu, hara-gei, ki, zazen meditation, flower arranging, and all the special unique knowledges that we possess.”
   “I’d like that. Why don’t we do it now?”
   “It’s not possible today. But you already know so much and in such a short time, neh? Mariko-sama was a great teacher. You are a worthy samurai. And you have a quality that’s rare here: unpredictability. The Taikō had it, Toranaga-sama has it too. You see, usually we’re a very predictable people.”
   “Are you?”
   “Yes.”
   “Then predict a way I can escape the trap I’m in.”
   “So sorry, there isn’t one, Anjin-san,” Michael said.
   “I don’t believe that. How did you know my ship is at Yokohama?”
   “That’s common knowledge.”
   “Is it?”
   “Almost everything about you—and your defense of Lord Toranaga, and the Lady Maria, Lady Toda—is well known. And honored.”
   “I don’t believe that either.” Blackthorne picked up another flat stone and sent it skimming over the waves. They went on, Blackthorne humming a sea shanty, liking Michael very much. Soon their way was blocked by a breakwater. They skirted it and came up onto the road once more. The Jesuit warehouse and Mission were tall and brooding now under the reddening sky. He saw the orange-robed Lay Brothers guarding the arched stone gateway and sensed their hostility. But it did not touch him. His head began to ache again.
   As he had expected, Michael headed for the Mission gates. He readied himself, resolved that they would have to beat him into unconsciousness before he went inside and they forced him to give up his weapons.
   “You’re just guiding me to my galley, eh?”
   “Yes, Anjin-san.” To his astonishment Michael motioned him to stop outside the gateway. “Nothing’s changed. I was told to inform the Father-Visitor as we passed. So sorry, but you’ll have to wait a moment.”
   Thrown off guard, Blackthorne watched him enter the gates alone. He had expected that the Mission was to be the end of his journey. First an Inquisition and trial, with torture, then handed over to the Captain-General. He looked at the lorcha a hundred paces away. Ferriera and Rodrigues were on the poop and armed seamen crowded the main deck. Past the ship, the wharf road curled slightly and he could just see his galley. Men were watching from the gunwales and he thought he recognized Yabu and Vinck among them but could not be sure. There seemed to be a few women aboard also but who they were he did not know. Surrounding the galley were Grays. Many Grays.
   His eyes returned to Ferriera and Rodrigues. Both were heavily armed. So were the seamen. Gun crews lounged near the two small shore-side cannon but in reality they were manning them. He recognized the great bulk of Pesaro, the bosun, moving down the companionway with a group of men. His eyes followed them, then his blood chilled. A tall stake was driven into the packed earth on the farside wharf. Wood was piled around the base.
   “Ah, Captain-Pilot, how are you?”
   Dell’Aqua was coming through the gates, dwarfing Michael beside him. Today the Father-Visitor was wearing a Jesuit robe, his great height and luxuriant gray-white beard giving him the ominous regality of a biblical patriarch, every inch an Inquisitor, outwardly benign, Blackthorne thought. He stared up into the brown eyes, finding it strange to look up at any man, and even stranger to see compassion in the eyes. But he knew there would be no pity behind the eyes and he expected none. “Ah, Father-Visitor, how are you?” he replied, the prawns now leaden in his stomach, sickening him.
   “Shall we go on?”
   “Why not?”
   So the Inquisition’s to be aboard, Blackthorne thought, desperately afraid, wishing he had pistols in his belt. You’d be the first to die, Eminence.
   “You stay here, Michael,” dell’Aqua said. Then he glanced toward the Portuguese frigate. His face hardened and he set off.
   Blackthorne hesitated. Michael and the surrounding samurai were watching him oddly.
   “Sayonara, Anjin-san,” Michael said. “Go with God.”
   Blackthorne nodded briefly and started to walk through the samurai, waiting for them to fall on him to take away his swords. But they let him through unmolested. He stopped and looked back, his heart racing.
   For a moment he was tempted to draw his sword and charge. But there was no escape that way. They wouldn’t fight him. Many had spears so they would catch him and disarm him, and bind him and hand him on. I won’t go bound, he promised himself. His only path was forward and there his swords were helpless against guns. He would charge the guns but they would just maim him in the knees and bind him…
   “Captain Blackthorne, come along,” dell’Aqua called out.
   “Yes, just a moment please.” Blackthorne beckoned Michael. “Listen, Brother, down by the beach you said I was a worthy samurai. Did you mean it?”
   “Yes, Anjin-san. That and everything.”
   “Then I beg a favor, as a samurai,” he said quietly but urgently.
   “What favor?”
   “To die as a samurai.”
   “Your death isn’t in my hands. It’s in the Hand of God, Anjin-san.”
   “Yes. But I ask that favor of you.” Blackthorne waved at the distant stake. “That’s no way. That’s filthy.”
   Perplexed, Michael peered toward the lorcha. Then he saw the stake for the first time. “Blessed Mother of God …”
   “Captain Blackthorne, please come along,” dell’Aqua called again.
   Blackthorne said, more urgently, “Explain to the officer. He’s got enough samurai here to insist, neh? Explain to him. You’ve been to Europe. You know how it is there. It’s not much to ask, neh? Please, I’m samurai. One of them could be my second.”
   “I … I will ask.” Michael went back to the officer and began to talk softly and urgently.
   Blackthorne turned and centered his attention on the ship. He walked forward. Dell’Aqua waited till he was alongside and set off again.
   Ahead, Blackthorne saw Ferriera strut off the poop, down along the main deck, pistols in his belt, rapier at his side. Rodrigues was watching him, right hand on the butt of a long-barreled dueling piece. Pesaro and ten seamen were already on the jetty, leaning on bayoneted muskets. And the long shadow of the stake reached out toward him.
   Oh, God, for a brace of pistols and ten jolly Jack Tars and one cannon, he thought, as the gap closed inexorably. Oh, God, let me not be shamed…
   “Good evening, Eminence,” Ferriera said, his eyes seeing only Blackthorne. “So, Inge—”
   “Good evening, Captain-General.” Dell’Aqua pointed angrily at the stake. “Is this your idea?”
   “Yes, Eminence.”
   “Go back aboard your ship!”
   “This is a military decision.”
   “Go aboard your ship!”
   “No! Pesaro!” At once the bosun and the bayoneted shore party came on guard and advanced toward Blackthorne. Ferriera slid out the pistol. “So, Ingeles, we meet again.”
   “That’s something that pleases me not at all.” Blackthorne’s sword came out of its scabbard. He held it awkwardly with two hands, the broken haft hurting him.
   “Tonight you will be pleased in hell,” Ferriera said thickly.
   “If you had any courage you’d fight—man to man. But you’re not a man, you’re a coward, a Spanish coward without balls.”
   “Disarm him!” Ferriera ordered.
   At once the ten men went forward, bayonets leveled. Blackthorne backed away but he was surrounded. Bayonets stabbed for his legs and he slashed at an assailant, but as the man retreated another attacked from behind. Then dell’Aqua came to his senses and shouted, “Put down your guns! Before God, I order you to stop!”
   The seamen were flustered. All muskets were zeroed in on Blackthorne, who stood helplessly at bay, sword high.
   “Get back, all of you,” dell’Aqua called out. “Get back! Before God, get back! Are you animals?”
   Ferriera said, “I want that man!”
   “I know, and I’ve already told you you can’t have him! Yesterday and today! Are you deaf? God give me patience! Order your men aboard!”
   “I order you to turn around and go away!”
   “You order me?”

  “Yes, I order you! I’m Captain-General, Governor of Macao, Chief Officer of Portugal in Asia, and that man’s a threat to the State, the Church, the Black Ship, and Macao!”
   “Before God, I’ll excommunicate you and all your crew if this man’s harmed. You hear?” Dell’Aqua spun on the musketeers, who backed off, frightened. Except Pesaro. Pesaro stood his ground defiantly, his pistol loose in his hand, waiting for Ferriera’s order. “Get on that ship and out of the way!”
   “You’re making a mistake,” Ferriera stormed. “He’s a threat! I’m Military Commander in Asia and I say—”
   “This is a Church matter, not a military de—”
   Blackthorne was dazed, hardly able to think or to see, his head once more exploding with pain. Everything had happened so fast, one moment guarded, the next not, one moment betrayed to the Inquisition, the next escaped, then to be betrayed again and now defended by the Chief Inquisitor. Nothing made sense.
   Ferriera was shouting, “I caution you again! As God’s my judge, you’re making a mistake and I’ll inform Lisbon!”
   “Meanwhile order your men aboard or I’ll remove you as Captain-General of the Black Ship!”
   “You don’t have that power!”
   “Unless you order your men aboard and order the Ingeles unharmed at once, I declare you excommunicated—and any man who serves under you, in any command, excommunicated, and curse you and all who serve you, in the Name of God!”
   “By the Madonna—” Ferriera stopped. He was not afraid for himself but now his Black Ship was jeopardized and he knew most of his crew would desert him unless he obeyed. For a moment he contemplated shooting the priest, but that would not take away the curse. So he conceded. “Very well—back aboard, everyone! Stand down!”
   Obediently the men scattered, glad to be away from the priest’s wrath. Blackthorne was still bewildered, half wondering if his head was tricking him. Then, in the melee, Pesaro’s hatred burst. He aimed. Dell’Aqua saw the covert movement and leaped forward to protect Blackthorne with his own bulk. Pesaro pulled the trigger but at that moment arrows impaled him, the pistol fired harmlessly, and he collapsed screaming.
   Blackthorne spun around and saw six Kiyama archers, fresh arrows already in their bows. Standing near them was Michael. The officer spoke harshly. Pesaro gave a last shriek, his limbs contorted, and he died.
   Michael trembled as he broke the silence. “The officer says, so sorry, but he was afraid for the Father-Visitor’s life.” Michael was begging God to forgive him for giving the signal to fire. But Pesaro had been warned, he reasoned. And it is my duty to see the Father-Visitor’s orders are obeyed, that his life is protected, that assassins are stamped out and no one excommunicated.
   Dell’Aqua was on his knees beside the corpse of Pesaro. He made the sign of the cross and said the sacred words. The Portuguese around him were watching the samurai, craving the order to kill the murderers. The rest of Kiyama’s men were hastening from the Mission gate where they had remained, and a number of Grays were streaming back from the galley area to investigate. Through his almost blinding rage Ferriera knew he could not afford a fight here and now. “Everyone back aboard! Bring Pesaro’s body!” Sullenly the shore party began to obey.
   Blackthorne lowered his sword but did not sheathe it. He waited stupefied, expecting a trick, expecting to be captured and dragged aboard.
   On the quarterdeck Rodrigues said quietly, “Stand by to repel boarders, but carefully, by God!” Instantly men slipped to action stations. “Cover the Captain-General! Prepare the longboat…”
   Dell’Aqua got up and turned on Ferriera, who stood arrogantly at the companionway, prepared to defend his ship. “You’re responsible for that man’s death!” the Father-Visitor hissed. “Your fanatic, vengeful lust and unho—”
   “Before you say something publicly you may regret, Eminence, you’d better think carefully,” Ferriera interrupted. “I bowed to your order even though I knew, before God, you were making a terrible mistake. You heard me order my men back! Pesaro disobeyed you, not me, and the truth is you’re responsible if anyone is. You prevented him and us from doing our duty. That Ingeles is the enemy! It was a military decision, by God! I’ll inform Lisbon.” His eyes checked the battle readiness of his ship and the approaching samurai.
   Rodrigues had moved to the main deck gangway. “Captain-General, I can’t get out to sea with this wind and this tide.”
   “Get a longboat ready to haul us out if need be.”
   “It’s being done.”
   Ferriera shouted at the seamen carrying Pesaro, telling them to hurry. Quickly all were back aboard. The cannon were manned, though discreetly, and everyone had two muskets nearby. Left and right, samurai were massing on the wharf but they made no overt move to interfere.
   Still on the dock Ferriera said peremptorily to Michael, “Tell them all to disperse! There’s no trouble here—nothing for them to do. There was a mistake, a bad one, but they were right to shoot the bosun. Tell them to disperse.” He hated to say it and wanted to kill them all but he could almost smell the peril on the wharf and he had no option now but to retreat.
   Michael did as he was ordered. The officers did not move.
   “You’d better go on, Eminence,” Ferriera said bitterly. “But this is not the last of it—you’ll regret saving him!”
   Dell’Aqua too felt the explosiveness surrounding them. But it did not touch him. He made the sign of the cross and said a small benediction, then he turned away. “Come along, Pilot.”
   “Why are you letting me go?” Blackthorne asked, the pain in his head agonizing, still not daring to believe it.
   “Come along, Pilot!”
   “But why are you letting me go? I don’t understand.”
   “Nor do I,” Ferriera said. “I’d like to know the real reason too, Eminence. Isn’t he still a threat to us and the Church?”
   Dell’Aqua stared at him. “Yes,” he wanted to say, to wipe the arrogance off the popinjay’s face in front of him. “But the bigger threat is the immediate war and how to buy time for you and fifty years of Black Ships, and whom to choose: Toranaga or Ishido. You understand nothing of our problems, Ferriera, or the stakes involved, or the delicacy of our position here or the dangers.”
   “Please Lord Kiyama, reconsider. I suggest you should choose Lord Toranaga,” he had told the daimyo yesterday, through Michael as interpreter, not trusting his own Japanese, which was only fair.
   “This is unwarranted interference in Japanese affairs and outside your jurisdiction. And, too, the barbarian must die.”
   Dell’Aqua had used all his diplomatic skill but Kiyama had been adamant and had refused to commit himself or change his position. Then, this morning, when he had gone to Kiyama to tell him that, through God’s will, the Ingeles was neutralized, there had been a glimmer of hope.
   “I’ve considered what you said,” Kiyama had told him. “I will not ally myself with Toranaga. Between now and the battle I will watch both contenders very carefully. At the correct time I will choose. And now I consent to let the barbarian go … not because of what you’ve told me but because of the Lady Mariko, to honor her … and because the Anjin-san is samurai …”
   Ferriera was still staring back at him. “Isn’t the Ingeles still a threat?”
   “Have a safe journey, Captain-General, and Godspeed. Pilot, I’m taking you to your galley—Are you all right?”
   “It’s … my head it’s … I think the explosion… You’re really letting me go? Why?”
   “Because the Lady Maria, the Lady Mariko, asked us to protect you.” Dell’Aqua started off again.
   “But that’s no reason! You wouldn’t do that just because she asked you.”
   “I agree,” Ferriera said. Then he called out, “Eminence, why not tell him the whole truth?”
   Dell’Aqua did not stop. Blackthorne began to follow but he did not turn his back to the ship, still expecting treachery. “Doesn’t make sense. You know I’m going to destroy you. I’ll take your Black Ship.”
   Ferriera laughed scornfully. “With what, Ingeles? You have no ship!”
   “What do you mean?”
   “You have no ship. She’s dead. If she wasn’t, I’d never let you go, whatever his Eminence threatened.”
   “It’s not true …”
   Through the fog in his head Blackthorne heard Ferriera say it again and laugh louder, and add something about an accident and the Hand of God and your ship’s burned to her spine, so you’ll never harm my ship now, though you’re still heretic and enemy, and still a threat to the Faith. Then he saw Rodrigues clearly, pity on his face, and the lips spelled out, Yes, it’s true, Ingeles.
   “It’s not true, can’t be true.”
   Then the Inquisitor priest was saying from a million leagues away, “I received a message this morning from Father Alvito. It seems an earthquake caused a tidal wave, the wave …”
   But Blackthorne was not listening. His mind was crying out, Your ship’s dead, you’ve let her down, your ship’s dead, you’ve no ship no ship no ship…
   “It’s not true! You’re lying, my ship’s in a safe harbor and guarded by four thousand men. She’s safe!”
   Someone said, “But not from God,” and then the Inquisitor was talking again, “The tidal wave heeled your ship. They say that oil lamps on deck were upset and the fire spread. Your ship’s gutted…”
   “Lies! What about the deck watch? There’s always a deck watch! It’s impossible,” he shouted, but he knew that somehow the price for his life had been his ship.
   “You’re beached, Ingeles,” Ferriera was goading him. “You’re marooned. You’re here forever, you’ll never get passage on one of our ships. You’re beached forever…”
   It went on and on and he was drowning. Then his eyes cleared. He heard the cry of the gulls and smelled the stink of the shore and saw Ferriera, he saw his enemy and knew it was all a lie to drive him mad. He knew it absolutely and that the priests were part of the plot. “God take you to hell!” he shouted and rushed at Ferriera, his sword raised high. But only in his dream was it a rush. Hands caught him easily and took his swords away and set him walking between two Grays, through all the others, until he was at the companionway of the galley and they gave him back his swords and let him go.
   It was difficult for him to see or to hear, his brain hardly working now in the pain, but he was certain it was all a trick to drive him mad and that it would succeed if he did not make a great effort. Help me, he prayed, someone help me, then Yabu was beside him and Vinck and his vassals and he could not distinguish the languages. They guided him aboard, Kiri there somewhere and Sazuko, a child crying in a maid’s arms, the remnants of the Browns’ garrison crowding the deck, rowers and seamen.
   Smell of sweat, fear sweat. Yabu was talking at him. And Vinck. It took a long time to concentrate. “Pilot, why in Christ’s name did they let you go?”
   “I … they …” He could not say the words.
   Then somehow he found himself on the quarterdeck and Yabu was ordering the Captain-san to put to sea before Ishido changed his mind about letting them all leave, and before the Grays on the dock changed their minds about permitting the galley to go, telling the captain full speed for Nagasaki … Kiri saying, so sorry, Yabu-sama, please first Yedo, we must go to Yedo…
   The oars of the shallow draft vessel eased off the wharf, against the tide and against the wind, and went out into the stream, gulls crying in the wake, and Blackthorne pulled himself out of his daze enough to say coherently, “No. So sorry. Go Yokohama. Must Yokohama.”
   “First get men at Nagasaki, Anjin-san, understand? Important. First men! Have plan,” Yabu said.
   “No. Go Yokohama. My ship … my ship danger.”
   “What danger?” Yabu demanded.
   “Christians say … say fire!”
   “What!!”
   “For the love of Christ, Pilot, what’s amiss?” Vinck cried out.
   Blackthorne pointed shakily toward the lorcha. “They told me … they told me Erasmus is lost, Johann. Our ship’s lost … fired.” Then he burst out, “Oh, God, let it all be a lie!”