Shogun (129 page)

“It’s just that Japanese think of them as different. They’re the executioners, and work the hides and handle corpses.” He felt their eyes, Jan Roper’s particularly. “
Eta
work hides,” he said, trying to keep his voice careless, “and kill all the old horses and oxen and handle dead bodies.”

“But what’s wrong with that, Pilot? You’ve buried a dozen yourself, put ’em in shrouds, washed ’em—we all have, eh? We butcher our own meat, always have. Ginsel here’s been hangman…. What’s wrong with all that?”

“Nothing,” Blackthorne said, knowing it to be true yet feeling befouled even so.

Vinck snorted. “Eters’re the best heathen we’ve seen here. More like us than the other bastards. We’re God-cursed lucky to be here, Pilot, fresh meat’s no problem, or tallow—they give us no trouble.”

“That’s right. If you’ve lived with eters, Pilot …”

“Jesus Christ, the Pilot’s had to live with the other bastards all the time! He doesn’t know any better. How about fetching Big-Arse Mary, Sonk?”

“Or Twicklebum?”

“Shit, not her, not that old whore. The Pilot’ll want a special. Let’s ask mama-san….”

“I bet he’s starving for real grub! Hey, Sonk, cut him a slice of meat.”

“Have some more grog …”

“Three cheers for the Pilot …”

In the happy uproar van Nekk clapped Blackthorne on the shoulders. “You’re home, old friend. Now you’re back, our prayers ’re answered and all’s well in the world. You’re home, old friend. Listen, take my bunk. I insist….”

Cheerily Blackthorne waved a last time. There was an answering shout from the darkness the far side of the little bridge. Then he turned away, his forced heartiness evaporated, and he walked around the corner, the samurai guard of ten men surrounding him.

On the way back to the castle his mind was locked in confusion. Nothing was wrong with
eta
and everything was wrong with
eta
, those are my crew there, my own people, and these are heathen and foreign and enemy….

Streets and alleys and bridges passed in a blur. Then he noticed that his own hand was inside his kimono and he was scratching and he stopped in his tracks.

“Those goddamned filthy …” He undid his sash and ripped off his sopping kimono and, as though it were defiled, hurled it in a ditch.

“
Dozo, nan desu ka
, Anjin-san?” one of the samurai asked.

“
Nani mo!”
Nothing, by God! Blackthorne walked on, carrying his swords.

“
Ah! Eta! Wakarimasu! Gomen nasai!”
The samurai chatted among themselves but he paid them no attention.

That’s better, he was thinking with utter relief, not noticing that he was almost naked, only that his skin had stopped crawling now that the flea-infested kimono was off.

Jesus God, I’d love a bath right now!

He had told the crew about his adventures, but not that he was samurai and hatamoto, or that he was one of Toranaga’s protégés, or about Fujiko. Or Mariko. And he had not told them that they were going to land in force at Nagasaki and take the Black Ship by storm, or that he would be at the head of the samurai. That can come later, he thought wearily. And all the rest.

Could I ever tell them about Mariko-san?

His wooden clogs clattered on the wooden slats of First Bridge. Samurai sentries, also half-naked, lolled until they saw him, then they bowed politely as he passed, watching him intently, because this was the incredible barbarian who was astonishingly favored by Lord Toranaga, to whom Toranaga had, unbelievably, granted the never-given-before-to-a-barbarian honor of hatamoto and samurai.

At the main south gate of the castle another guide waited for him. He was escorted to his quarters within the inner ring. He had been allocated a room in one of the fortified though attractive guest houses, but he politely refused to go back there at once. “First bath please,” he told the samurai.

“Ah, I understand. That’s very considerate of you. The bath house is this way, Anjin-san. Yes, it’s a hot night,
neh?
And I hear you’ve been down to the Filthy Ones. The other guests in the house will appreciate your thoughtfulness. I thank you on their behalf.”

Blackthorne did not understand all the words but he gathered the meaning. ‘Filthy Ones.’ That describes my people and me—us, not them, poor people.

“Good evening, Anjin-san,” the chief bath attendant said. He was a vast, middle-aged man with immense belly and biceps. A maid had just awakened him to announce another late customer was arriving. He clapped his hands. Bath maids arrived. Blackthorne followed them into the scrubbing room and they cleansed him and shampooed him and he made them do it a second time. Then he walked through to the sunken bath, stepped into the piping-hot water and fought the heat, then gave himself to its mind-consuming embrace.

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.

“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 tissue 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.