“Yes.”
“How long would it take?”
“Two years for me to sail home. Two years to build a ship or ships. Two to sail back. Half the cost would have to be paid in advance, the remainder on delivery.”
Toranaga thoughtfully leaned forward and put some more aromatic wood on the brazier. They all watched him and waited. Then he talked with Yabu at length. Mariko did not translate what was being said and Blackthorne knew better than to ask, as much as he would dearly have liked to be party to the conversation. He studied them all, even the girl Fujiko, who also listened attentively, but he could gather nothing from any of them. He knew this was a brilliant idea that could bring immense profit and guarantee his safe passage back to England.
“Anjin-san, how many ships could you sail out?”
“A flotilla of five ships at a time would be best. You could expect to lose at least one ship through storm, tempest, or Spanish-Portuguese interference—I’m sure they’d try very hard to prevent your having warships. In ten years Lord Toranaga could have a navy of fifteen to twenty ships.” He let her translate that, then he continued, slowly. “The first flotilla could bring you master carpenters, shipwrights, gunners, seamen, and masters. In ten to fifteen years, England could supply Lord Toranaga with thirty modern warships, more than enough to dominate your home waters. And, by that time, if you wanted, you could possibly be building your own replacements here. We’ll—” He was going to say “sell” but changed the word. “My Queen would be honored to help you form your own navy, and yes, if you wish, we’ll train it and provision it.”
Oh yes, he thought exultantly, as the final embellishment to the plan dropped into place, and we’ll officer it and provide the Admiral and the Queen’ll offer you a binding alliance—good for you and good for us—which will be part of the trade, and then together, friend Toranaga, we will harry the Spaniard and Portuguese dog out of these seas and own them forever. This could be the greatest single trading pact any nation has ever made, he thought gleefully. And with an Anglo-Japanese fleet clearing these seas, we English will dominate the Japan-China silk trade. Then it’ll be millions every year!
If I can pull this off I’ll turn the course of history. I’ll have riches and honors beyond my dream. I’ll become an ancestor. And to become an ancestor is just about the best thing a man can try to do, even though he fails in the trying.
“My Master says, it’s a pity you don’t speak our language.”
“Yes, but I’m sure you’re interpreting perfectly.”
“He says that not as a criticism of me, Anjin-san, but as an observation. It’s true. It would be much better for my Lord to talk direct, as I can talk to you.”
“Do you have any dictionaries, Mariko-san? And grammars—Portuguese-Japanese or Latin-Japanese grammars? If Lord Toranaga could help me with books and teachers I’d try to learn your tongue.”
“We have no such books.”
“But the Jesuits have. You said so yourself.”
“Ah!” She spoke to Toranaga, and Blackthorne saw both Yabu’s and Toranaga’s eyes light up, and smiles spread over their faces.
“My Master says you will be helped, Anjin-san.”
At Toranaga’s orders Fujiko gave Blackthorne and Yabu more saké. Toranaga drank only cha, as did Mariko. Unable to contain himself Blackthorne said, “What does he say to my suggestion? What’s his answer?”
“Anjin-san, it would be better to be patient. He will answer in his own time.”
“Please ask him now.”
Reluctantly Mariko turned to Toranaga. “Please excuse me, Sire, but the Anjin-san asks with great deference, what do you think of his plan? He very humbly and most politely requests an answer.”
“He’ll have my answer in good time.”
Mariko said to Blackthorne, “My Master says he will consider your plan and think carefully about what you have said. He asks you to be patient.”
“Domo, Toranaga-sama.”
“I’m going to bed now. We’ll leave at dawn.” Toranaga got up. Everyone followed him below, except Blackthorne. Blackthorne was left with the night.
At first promise of dawn Toranaga released four of the carrier pigeons that had been sent to the ship with the main baggage when the ship was being prepared. The birds circled twice, then broke off, two homing for Osaka, two for Yedo. The cipher message to Kiritsubo was an order to be passed on to Hiro-matsu that they should all attempt to leave peacefully at once. Should they be prevented, they were to lock themselves in. The moment the door was forced they were to set fire to that part of the castle and to commit seppuku.
The cipher to his son Sudara, in Yedo, told that he had escaped, was safe, and ordered him to continue secret preparations for war.
“Get to sea, Captain.”
“Yes, Lord.”
By noon they had crossed the bight between Totomi and Izu provinces and were off Cape Ito, the southernmost point of the Izu peninsula. The wind was fair, the swell modest, and the single mainsail helped their passage.
Then, close by shore in a deep channel between the mainland and some small rock islands, when they had turned north, there was an ominous rumbling ashore.
All oars ceased.
“What in the name of Christ …” Blackthorne’s eyes were riveted shoreward.
Suddenly a huge fissure snaked up the cliffs and a million tons of rock avalanched into the sea. The waters seemed to boil for a moment. A small wave came out to the galley, then passed by. The avalanche ceased. Again the rumbling, deeper now and more growling, but farther off. Rocks dribbled from the cliffs. Everyone listened intently and waited, watching the cliff face. Sounds of gulls, of surf and wind. Then Toranaga motioned to the drum master, who picked up the beat once more. The oars began. Life on the ship became normal.
“What was that?” Blackthorne said.
“Just an earthquake.” Mariko was perplexed. “You don’t have earthquakes?”
“No. Never. I’ve never seen one before.”
“Oh, we have them frequently, Anjin-san. That was nothing, just a small one. The main shock center would be somewhere else, even out to sea. Or perhaps this one was just a little one here, all by itself. You were lucky to witness a small one.”
“It was as though the whole earth was shaking. I could have sworn I saw … I’ve heard about tremors. In the Holy Land and the Ottomans, they have them sometimes. Jesus!” He exhaled, his heart still thumping roughly. “I could have sworn I saw that whole cliff shake.”
“Oh, it did, Anjin-san. When you’re on land, it’s the most terrible feeling in the whole world. There’s no warning, Anjin-san. The tremors come in waves, sometimes sideways, sometimes up and down, sometimes three or four shakes quickly. Sometimes a small one followed by a greater one a day later. There’s no pattern. The worst that I was in was at night, six years ago near Osaka, the third day of the Month of the Falling Leaves. Our house collapsed on us, Anjin-san. We weren’t hurt, my son and I. We dug ourselves out. The shocks went on for a week or more, some bad, some very bad. The Taikō’s great new castle at Fujimi was totally destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of people were lost in that earthquake and in the fires that followed. That’s the greatest danger, Anjin-san—the fires that always follow. Our towns and cities and villages die so easily. Sometimes there is a bad earthquake far out to sea and legend has it that this causes the birth of the Great Waves. They are ten or twenty feet high. There is never a warning and they have no season. A Great Wave just comes out of the sea to our shores and sweeps inland. Cities can vanish. Yedo was half destroyed some years ago by such a wave.”
“This is normal for you? Every year?”
“Oh, yes. Every year in this Land of the Gods we have earth tremors. And fires and flood and Great Waves, and the monster storms—the tai-funs. Nature is very strong with us.” Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes. “Perhaps that is why we love life so much, Anjin-san. You see, we have to. Death is part of our air and sea and earth. You should k
now, Anjin-san, in this Land of Tears, death is our heritage.”
BOOK THREE
CHAPTER 30
“You’re certain everything’s ready, Mura?”
“Yes, Omi-san, yes, I think so. We’ve followed your orders exactly—and Igurashi-san’s.”
“Nothing had better go wrong or there’ll be another headman by sunset,” Igurashi, Yabu’s chief lieutenant, told him with great sourness, his one eye bloodshot from lack of sleep. He had arrived yesterday from Yedo with the first contingent of samurai and with specific instructions.
Mura did not reply, just nodded deferentially and kept his eyes on the ground.
They were standing on the foreshore, near the jetty, in front of the kneeling rows of silent, overawed, and equally exhausted villagers—every man, woman, and child, except for the bed-ridden—waiting for the galley to arrive. All wore their best clothes. Faces were scrubbed, the whole village swept and sparkling and made wholesome as though this were the day before New Year when, by ancient custom, all the Empire was cleaned. Fishing boats were meticulously marshaled, nets tidy, ropes coiled. Even the beach along the bay had been raked.
“Nothing will go wrong, Igurashi-san,” Omi said. He had had little sleep this last week, ever since Yabu’s orders had come from Osaka via one of Toranaga’s carrier pigeons. At once he had mobilized the village and every able-bodied man within twenty ri to prepare Anjiro for the arrival of the samurai and Yabu. And now that Igurashi had whispered the very private secret, for his ears only, that the great daimyo Toranaga was accompanying his uncle and had successfully escaped Ishido’s trap, he was more than pleased he had expended so much money. “There’s no need for you to worry, Igurashi-san. This is my fief and my responsibility.”
“I agree. Yes, it is.” Igurashi waved Mura contemptuously away. And then he added quietly, “You’re responsible. But without offense, I tell you you’ve never seen our Master when something goes wrong. If we’ve forgotten anything, or these dung eaters haven’t done what they’re supposed to, our Master will make your whole fief and those to the north and south into manure heaps before sunset tomorrow.” He strode back to the head of his men.
This morning the final companies of samurai had ridden in from Mishima, Yabu’s capital city to the north. Now they, too, with all the others, were drawn up in packed military formation on the foreshore, in the square, and on the hillside, their banners waving with the slight breeze, upright spears glinting in the sun. Three thousand samurai, the elite of Yabu’s army. Five hundred cavalry.
Omi was not afraid. He had done everything it was possible to do and had personally checked everything that could be checked. If something went wrong, then that was just karma. But nothing is going to go wrong, he thought excitedly. Five hundred koku had been spent or was committed on the preparations—more than his entire year’s income before Yabu had increased his fief. He had been staggered by the amount but Midori, his wife, had said they should spend lavishly, that the cost was minuscule compared to the honor that Lord Yabu was doing him. “And with Lord Toranaga here—who knows what great opportunities you’ll have?” she had whispered.
She’s so right, Omi thought proudly.
He rechecked the shore and the village square. Everything seemed perfect. Midori and his mother were waiting under the awning that had been prepared to receive Yabu and his guest, Toranaga. Omi noticed that his mother’s tongue was wagging and he wished that Midori could be spared its constant lash. He straightened a fold in his already impeccable kimono and adjusted his swords and looked seaward.
“Listen, Mura-san,” Uo, the fisherman, was whispering cautiously. He was one of the five village elders and they were kneeling with Mura in front of the rest. “You know, I’m so frightened, if I pissed I’d piss dust.”
“Then don’t, old friend.” Mura suppressed his smile.
Uo was a broad-shouldered, rocklike man with vast hands and broken nose, and he wore a pained expression. “I won’t. But I think I’m going to fart.” Uo was famous for his humor and for his courage and for the quantity of his wind. Last year when they had had the wind-breaking contest with the village to the north he had been champion of champions and had brought great honor to Anjiro.
“Eeeeee, perhaps you’d better not,” Haru, a short, wizened fisherman, chortled. “One of the shit-heads might get jealous.”
Mura hissed, “You’re ordered not to call samurai that while even one’s near the village.” Oh ko, he was thinking wearily, I hope we’ve not forgotten anything. He glanced up at the mountainside, at the bamboo stockade surrounding the temporary fortress they had constructed with such speed and sweat. Three hundred men, digging and building and carrying. The other new house had been easier. It was on the knoll, just below Omi’s house, and he could see it, smaller than Omi’s but with a tiled roof, a makeshift garden, and a small bath house. I suppose Omi will move there and give Lord Yabu his, Mura thought.
He looked back at the headland where the galley would appear any moment now. Soon Yabu would step ashore and then they were all in the hands of the gods, all kami, God the Father, His Blessed Son, and the Blessed Madonna, oh ko!
Blessed Madonna, protect us! Would it be too much to ask to put Thy great eye on this special village of Anjiro? Just for the next few days? We need special favor to protect us from our Lord and Master, oh yes! I will light fifty candles and my sons will definitely be brought up in the True Faith, Mura promised.
Today Mura was very glad to be a Christian; he could intercede with the One God and that was an added protection for his village. He had become a Christian in his youth because his own liege lord had been converted and had at once ordered all his followers to become Christians. And when, twenty years ago, this lord was killed fighting for Toranaga against the Taikō, Mura had remained Christian to honor his memory. A good soldier has but one master, he thought. One real master.
Ninjin, a round-faced man with very buck teeth, was especially agitated by the presence of so many samurai. “Mura-san, so sorry, but it’s dangerous what you’ve done—terrible, neh? That little earthquake this morning, it was a sign from the gods, an omen. You’ve made a terrible mistake, Mura-san.”
“What is done is done, Ninjin. Forget about it.”
“How can I? It’s in my cellar and—”
“Some of it’s in your cellar. I’ve plenty myself,” Uo said, no longer smiling.
“Nothing’s anywhere. Nothing, old friends,” Mura said cautiously. “Nothing exists.” On his orders, thirty koku of rice had been stolen over the last few days from the samurai commissariat and was now secreted around the village, along with other stores and equipment—and weapons.
“Not weapons,” Uo had protested. “Rice yes, but not weapons!”
“War is coming.”
“It’s against the law to have weapons,” Ninjin had wailed.
Mura snorted. “That’s a new law, barely twelve years old. Before that we could have any weapons we wanted and we weren’t tied to the village. We could go where we wanted, be what we wanted. We could be peasant-soldier, fisherman, merchant, even samurai—some could, you know it’s the truth.”
“Yes, but now it’s different, Mura-san, different. The Taikō ordered it to be different!”
“Soon it’ll be as it’s always been. We’ll be soldiering again.”
“Then let’s wait,” Ninjin had pleaded. “Please. Now it’s against the law. If the law changes that’s karma. The Taikō made the law: no weapons. None. On pain of instant death.”
“Open your eyes, all of you! The Taikō’s dead! And I tell you, soon Omi-san’ll need trained men and most of us have warred, neh? We’ve fished and warred, all in their season. Isn’t that true?”
“Yes, Mura-san,” Uo had agreed through his fear. “Before the Taikō we weren’t tied.”
“They’ll catch us, they have to catch us,” Ninjin had wept. “They’ll have no mercy. They’ll boil us like they boiled the barbarian.”
“Shut up ab
out the barbarian!”
“Listen, friends,” Mura had said. “We’ll never get such a chance again. It’s sent by God. Or by the gods. We must take every knife, arrow, spear, sword, musket, shield, bow we can. The samurai’ll think other samurai’ve stolen them—haven’t the shit-heads come from all over Izu? And what samurai really trusts another? We must take back our right to war, neh? My father was killed in battle—so was his and his! Ninjin, how many battles have you been in—dozens, neh? Uo—what about you? Twenty? Thirty?”
“More. Didn’t I serve with the Taikō, curse his memory? Ah, before he became Taikō, he was a man. That’s the truth! Then something changed him, neh? Ninjin, don’t forget that Mura-san is headman! And we shouldn’t forget his father was headman too! If the headman says weapons, then weapons it has to be.”
Now, kneeling in the sun, Mura was convinced that he had done correctly, that this new war would last forever and their world would be again as it had always been. The village would be here, and the boats and some villagers. Because all men—peasant, daimyo, samurai, even the eta—all men had to eat and the fish were waiting in the sea. So the soldier-villagers would take time out from war from time to time, as always, and they would launch their boats….
“Look!” Uo said and pointed involuntarily in the sudden hush.
The galley was rounding the headland.
Fujiko was kneeling abjectly in front of Toranaga in the main cabin that he had used during the voyage, and they were alone.
“I beg you, Sire,” she pleaded. “Take this sentence off my head.”
“It’s not a sentence, it’s an order.”
“I will obey, of course. But I cannot do—”
“Cannot?” Toranaga flared. “How dare you argue! I tell you you’re to be the pilot’s consort and you have the impertinence to argue?”
“I apologize, Sire, with all my heart,” Fujiko said quickly, the words gushing. “That was not meant as an argument. I only wanted to say that I cannot do this in the way that you wished. I beg you to understand. Forgive me, Sire, but it’s not possible to be happy—or to pretend happiness”. She bowed her head to the futon. “I humbly beseech you to allow me to commit seppuku.”