In time strong hands helped him out and molded fragrant oil into his skin and untwisted his muscles and his neck, then led him to a resting room, and gave him a laundered, sun-fresh cotton kimono. With a long-drawn-out sigh of pleasure, he lay down.
“Dozo gomen nasai—cha, Anjin-san?”
“Hai. Domo.”
The cha arrived. He told the maid he would stay here tonight and not trouble to go to his own quarters. Then, alone and at peace, he sipped the cha, feeling it purify him; ‘… filthy-looking char herbs …’ he thought disgustedly.
“Be patient, don’t let it disturb your harmony,” he said aloud. “They’re just poor ignorant fools who don’t know any better. You were the same once. Never mind, now you can show them, neh?”
He put them out of his mind and reached for his dictionary. But tonight, for the first night since he had possessed the book, he laid it carefully aside and blew out the candle. I’m too tired, he told himself.
But not too tired to answer a simple question, his mind said: Are they really ignorant fools, or is it you who are fooling yourself?
I’ll answer that later, when it’s time. Now the answer’s unimportant. Now I only know I don’t want them near me.
He turned over and put that problem into a compartment and went to sleep.
He awoke refreshed. A clean kimono and loincloth and tabi were laid out. The scabbards of his swords had been polished. He dressed quickly. Outside the house samurai were waiting. They got off their haunches and bowed.
“We’re your guard today, Anjin-san.”
“Thank you. Go ship now?”
“Yes. Here’s your pass.”
“Good. Thank you. May I ask your name please?”
“Musashi Mitsutoki.”
“Thank you, Musashi-san. Go now?”
They went down to the wharves. Erasmus was moored tightly in three fathoms over a sanding bottom. The bilges were sweet. He dived over the side and swam under the keel. Seaweed was minimal and there were only a few barnacles. The rudder was sound. In the magazine, which was dry and spotless, he found a flint and struck a spark to a tiny test mound of gunpowder. It burned instantly, in perfect condition.
Aloft at the foremast peak he looked for telltale cracks. None there or on the climb up, or around any of the spars that he could see. Many of the ropes and halyards and shrouds were joined incorrectly, but that would only take half a watch to change.
Once more on the quarterdeck he allowed himself a great smile. “You’re sound as a … as a what?” He could not think of a sufficiently great ‘what’ so he just laughed and went below again. In his cabin he felt alien. And very alone. His swords were on the bunk. He touched them, then slid Oil Seller out of its scabbard. The workmanship was marvelous and the edge perfect. Looking at the sword gave him pleasure, for it was truly a work of art. But a deadly one, he thought as always, twisting it in the light.
How many deaths have you caused in your life of two hundred years? How many more before you die yourself? Do some swords have a life of their own as Mariko says? Mariko. What about her….
Then he caught sight of his sea chest reflected in the steel and this took him out of his sudden melancholy.
He sheathed Oil Seller, careful to avoid fingering the blade, for custom said that even a single touch might mar such perfection.
As he leaned against the bunk, his eyes went to his empty sea chest.
“What about rutters? And navigation instruments?” he asked his image in the copper sea lamp that had been scrupulously polished like everything else. He saw himself answer, “You buy them at Nagasaki, along with your crew. And you snatch Rodrigues. Yes. You snatch him before the attack. Neh?”
He watched his smile grow. “You’re very sure Toranaga will let you go, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” he answered with complete confidence. “If he goes to Osaka or not, I’ll get what I want. And I’ll get Mariko too.”
Satisfied, he stuck his swords in his sash and walked up on deck and waited until the doors were resealed.
When he got back to the castle it was not yet noon so he went to his own quarters to eat. He had rice and two helpings of fish that had been broiled over charcoal with soya by his own cook as he had taught the man. A small flask of saké, then cha.
“Anjin-san?”
“Hai?”
The shoji opened. Fujiko smiled shyly and bowed.
CHAPTER 49
“I’d forgotten about you,” he said in English. “I was afraid you were dead.”
“Dozo goziemashita, Anjin-san, nan desu ka?”
“Nani mo, Fujiko-san,” he told her, ashamed of himself. “Gomen nasai. Hai. Gomen nasai. Ma-suware odoroita honto ni mata aete ureshi.” Please excuse me … a surprise, neh? Good to see you. Please sit down.
“Domo arigato goziemashita,” she said, and told him in her thin, high voice how pleased she was to see him, how much his Japanese had improved, how well he looked, and how most very glad she was to be here.
He watched her kneel awkwardly on the cushion opposite. “Legs …” He sought the word “burns” but couldn’t remember it, so he said instead, “Legs fire hurt. Bad?”
“No. So sorry. But it still hurts a little to sit,” Fujiko said, concentrating, watching his lips. “Legs hurt, so sorry.”
“Please show me.”
“So sorry, please, Anjin-san, I don’t wish to trouble you. You have other problems. I’m—”
“Don’t understand. Too fast, sorry.”
“Ah, sorry. Legs all right. No trouble,” she pleaded.
“Trouble. You are consort, neh? No shame. Show now!”
Obediently she got up. Clearly she was uncomfortable, but once she was upright, she began to untie the strings of her obi.
“Please call maid,” he ordered.
She obeyed. At once the shoji slid open and a woman he did not recognize rushed to assist her.
First the stiff obi was unwound. The maid put Fujiko’s sheathed dagger and obi to one side.
“What’s your name?” he asked the maid brusquely, as a samurai should.
“Oh, please excuse me, Sire, so very sorry. My name is Hana-ichi.”
He grunted an acknowledgment. Miss First Blossom, now there’s a fine name! All maids, by custom, were called Miss Brush or Crane or Fish or Second Broom or Fourth Moon or Star or Tree or Branch, and so on.
Hana-ichi was middle-aged and very concerned. I’ll bet she’s a family retainer, he told himself. Perhaps a vassal of Fujiko’s late husband. Husband! I’d forgotten about him as well, and the child who was murdered—as the husband was murdered by fiend Toranaga who’s not a fiend but a daimyo and a good, perhaps great leader. Yes. Probably the husband deserved his fate if the real truth were known, neh? But not the child, he thought. There’s no excuse for that.
Fujiko allowed her green patterned outer kimono to fall aside loosely. Her fingers trembled as she untied the thin silken sash of the yellow, under kimono and let that fall aside also. Her skin was light and the part of her breasts he could see within the folds of silk showed that they were flat and small. Hana-ichi knelt and untied the strings of the underskirt that reached from her waist to the floor to enable her mistress to step out of it.
“Iyé,” he ordered. He walked over and lifted the hem. The burns began at the backs of her calves. “Gomen nasai,” he said.
She stood motionless. A tear of sweat trickled down her cheek, spoiling her makeup. He pulled the skirt higher. The skin was burned all up the backs of her legs but it seemed to be healing perfectly. Scar tissue had formed already and there was no infection, and no suppurations, only a little clean blood where the new scar tissue had broken at the backs of her knees as she had knelt.
He moved her kimonos aside and loosed the underskirt waist band. The burns stopped at the top of her legs, bypassed her rump where the beam had pinned her down and protected her, then began again in the small of her back. A swathe of burn, half a hand span, girdled her waist. Scar tissu
e was already settling into permanent crinkles. Unsightly, but healing perfectly.
“Doctor very good. Best I ever see!” He let her kimonos fall back. “Best, Fujiko-san! The scars, what does it matter, neh? Nothing. I see many fire hurts, understand? Want see, then sure good or not good. Doctor very good. Buddha watch Fujiko-san.” He put his hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes.
“No worry now. Shigata ga nai, neh? You understand?”
Her tears spilled. “Please excuse me, Anjin-san. I’m so embarrassed. Please excuse my stupidity for being there, caught there like a half-witted eta. I should have been with you, guarding you—not stuck with servants in the house. There’s nothing for me in the house, nothing, no reason to be in a house….”
He let her talk on though he understood almost nothing of what she said, holding her compassionately. I’ve got to find out what the doctor used, he thought excitedly. That’s the quickest and the best healing I’ve ever seen. Every master of every one of Her Majesty’s ships should know that secret—yes, and truly, every captain of every ship in Europe. Wait a moment, wouldn’t every master pay golden guineas for that secret? You could make a fortune! Yes. But not that way, he told himself, never that. Never out of a sailor’s agony.
She’s lucky though that it was only the backs of her legs and her back and not her face. He looked down at her face. It was still as square and flat as ever, her teeth just as sharp and ferretlike, but the warmth that flowed from her eyes compensated for the ugliness. He gave her another hug. “Now. No weep. Order!”
He sent the maid for fresh cha and saké and many cushions and helped her recline on them, as much as at first it embarrassed her to obey. “How can I ever thank you?” she said.
“No thanks. Give back—” Blackthorne thought a moment but he couldn’t remember the Japanese words for “favor” or “remember,” so he pulled out the dictionary and looked them up. “Favor: o-negai”… “remember: omoi dasu.” “Hai, mondoso o-negai! Omi desu ka?” Give back favor. Remember? He held up his fists mimicking pistols and pointing them. “Omi-san, remember?”
“Oh, of course,” she cried out. Then, in wonder, she asked to look at the book. She had never seen Roman writing before, and the column of Japanese words into Latin and into Portuguese and vice versa were meaningless to her, but she quickly grasped its purpose. “It’s a book of all our … so sorry. Word book, neh?”
“Hai.”
“‘Hombun’?” she asked.
He showed her how to find the word in Latin and in Portuguese. “Hombun: duty.” Then added in Japanese, “I understand duty. Samurai duty, neh?”
“Hai.” She clapped her hands as if she had been shown a magic toy. But it is magic, isn’t it, he told himself, a gift from God. This unlocks her mind and Toranaga’s mind and soon I’ll speak perfectly.
She gave him other words and he told her English or Latin or Portuguese, always understanding the words she chose and always finding them. The dictionary never failed.
He looked up a word. “Majutsu desu, neh?” It’s magic, isn’t it?
“Yes, Anjin-san. The book’s magic.” She sipped her cha. “Now I can talk to you. Really talk to you.”
“Little. Only slow, understand?”
“Yes. Please be patient with me. Please excuse me.”
The huge donjon bell sounded the Hour of the Goat and the temples in Yedo echoed the time change.
“I go now. Go Lord Toranaga.” He put the book into his sleeve.
“I’ll wait here please, if I may.”
“Where stay?”
She pointed. “Oh, there, my room’s next door. Please excuse my abruptness—”
“Slowly. Talk slowly. Talk simply!”
She repeated it slowly, with more apologies. “Good,” he said. “Good. I’ll see you later.”
She began to get up but he shook his head and went into the courtyard. The day was overcast now, the air suffocating. Guards awaited him. Soon he was in the donjon forecourt. Mariko was there, more slender than ever, more ethereal, her face alabaster under her rust-gold parasol. She wore somber brown, edged with green.
“Ohayo, Anjin-san. Ikaga desu ka?” she asked, bowing formally.
He told her that he was fine, happily keeping up their custom of talking in Japanese for as long as he could, turning to Portuguese only when he was tired or when they wished to be more secretive.
“Thou …” he said cautiously as they walked up the stairs of the donjon.
“Thou,” Mariko echoed, and went immediately into Portuguese with the same gravity as last night. “So sorry, please, no Latin today, Anjin-san, today Latin cannot sit well—Latin cannot serve the purpose it was made for, neh?”
“When can I talk to you?”
“That’s very difficult, so sorry. I have duties….”
“There’s nothing wrong, is there?”
“Oh no,” she replied. “Please excuse me, what could be wrong? Nothing’s wrong.”
They climbed another flight in silence. On the next level their passes were checked as always, guards leading and following them. Rain began heavily and this eased the humidity.
“It’ll rain for hours,” he said.
“Yes. But without the rains there’s no rice. Soon the rains will stop altogether, in two or three weeks, then it will be hot and humid until the autumn.” She looked out of the windows at the enveloping cloudburst. “You’ll enjoy the autumn, Anjin-san.”
“Yes.” He was watching Erasmus, far distant, down beside the wharf. Then the rains obscured his ship and he climbed a little way. “After we’ve talked with Lord Toranaga we’ll have to wait till this has passed. Perhaps there’d be somewhere here we could talk?”
“That might be difficult,” she said vaguely, and he found this odd. She was usually decisive and implemented his polite “suggestions” as the orders they would normally be considered. “Please excuse me, Anjin-san, but things are difficult for me at the moment, and there are many things I have to do.” She stopped momentarily and shifted her parasol to her other hand, holding the hem of her skirt. “How was your evening? How were your friends, your crew?”
“Fine. Everything was fine,” he said.
“But not ‘fine’?” she asked.
“Fine—but very strange.” He looked back at her. “You notice everything, don’t you?”
“No, Anjin-san. But you didn’t mention them and you’ve been thinking about them greatly this last week or so. I’m no magician. So sorry.”
After a pause, he said, “You’re sure you’re all right? There’s no problem with Buntaro-san, is there?”
He had never discussed Buntaro with her or mentioned his name since Yokosé. By agreement that specter was never conjured up by either of them since the first moment. “This is my only request, Anjin-san,” she had whispered the first night. “Whatever happens during our journey to Mishima or, Madonna willing, to Yedo, this has nothing to do with anyone but us, neh? Nothing is to be mentioned between us about what really is. Neh? Nothing. Please?”
“I agree. I swear it.”
“And I do likewise. Finally, our journey ends at Yedo’s First Bridge.”
“No.”
“There must be an ending, my darling. At First Bridge our journey ends. Please, or I will die with agony over fear for you and the danger I have put you in….”
Yesterday morning he had stood at the threshold of First Bridge, a sudden weight on his spirit, in spite of his elation over Erasmus.
“We should cross the bridge now, Anjin-san,” she had said.
“Yes. But it is only a bridge. One of many. Come along, Mariko-san. Walk beside me across this bridge. Beside me, please. Let us walk together,” then added in Latin, “and believe that thou art carried and that we go hand in hand into a new beginning.”
She stepped out of her palanquin and walked beside him until they reached the other side. There she got back into the curtained litter and they went up the slight rise. Buntaro was waiting at the
castle gate.
Blackthorne remembered how he had prayed for a lightning bolt to come out of the sky.
“There’s no problem with him, is there?” he asked again as they came to the final landing.
She shook her head.
* * *
Toranaga said, “Ship very ready, Anjin-san? No mistake?”
“No mistake, Sire. Ship perfect.”
“How many extra men—how many more want for ship….” Toranaga glanced at Mariko. “Please ask him how many extra crew he’ll need to sail the ship properly. I want to be quite sure he understands what I want to know.”
“The Anjin-san says, to sail her a minimum of thirty seamen and twenty gunners. His original crew was one hundred and seven, including cooks and merchants. To sail and fight in these waters, the complement of two hundred samurai would be enough.”
“And he believes the other men he needs could be hired in Nagasaki?”
“Yes, Sire.”
Toranaga said distastefully, “I certainly wouldn’t trust mercenaries.”
“Please excuse me, do you wish me to translate that, Sire?”
“What? Oh no, never mind that.”
Toranaga got up, still pretending peevishness, and looked out of the windows at the rain. The whole city was obscured by the downpour. Let it rain for months, he thought. All gods, make the rain last until New Year. When will Buntaro see my brother? “Tell the Anjin-san I’ll give him his vassals tomorrow. Today’s terrible. This rain will go on all day. There’s no point in getting soaked.”
“Yes, Sire,” he heard her say and smiled ironically to himself. Never in his whole life had weather prevented him from doing anything. That should certainly convince her, or any other doubters, that I’ve changed permanently for the worse, he thought, knowing he could not yet diverge from his chosen course. “Tomorrow or the next day, what does it matter? Tell him when I’m ready I’ll send for him. Until then he’s to wait in the castle.”