Shogun_ A Novel of Japan Part 50

"Help me up on deck." Blackthorne grasped the bunk sides. Mariko took his arm but she could not lift him.

The bosun waved a pistol at Kana. "Tell him to help. And tell him if there's a G.o.d in heaven he'll be swinging from the yardarm before the turn."

First Mate Santiago took his ear away from the secret knothole in the wall of the great cabin, the final "Well, that's all settled then" from dell'Aqua ringing in his brain. Noiselessly he slipped across the darkened cabin, out into the corridor, and closed the door quietly. He was a tall, spare man with a lived-in face, and wore his hair in a tarred pigtail. His clothes were neat, and like most seamen, he was barefoot. In a hurry, he shinned up the companionway, ran across the main deck up onto the quarterdeck where Rodrigues was talking to Mariko. He excused himself and leaned down to put his mouth very close to Rodrigues' ear and began to pour out all that he had heard, and had been sent to hear, so that no one else on the quarterdeck could be party to it.

Blackthorne was sitting aft on the deck, leaning against the gunwale, his head resting on his bent knees. Mariko sat straight-backed facing Rodrigues, j.a.panese fashion, and Kana, the samurai, bleakly beside her. Armed seamen swarmed the decks and crow's nest aloft and two more were at the helm. The ship still pointed into the wind, the air and night clean, the nimbus stronger and rain not far off. A hundred yards away the galley lay broadside, at the mercy of their cannon, oars shipped, except for two each side which kept her in station, the slight tide taking her. The ambushing fishing ships with hostile samurai archers were closer but they were not encroaching as yet.

Mariko was watching Rodrigues and the mate. She could not hear what was being said, and even if she could, her training would have made her prefer to close her ears. Privacy in paper houses was impossible without politeness and consideration; without privacy civilized life could not exist, so all j.a.panese were trained to hear and not hear. For the good of all.

When she had come on deck with Blackthorne, Rodrigues had listened to the bosun's explanation and to her halting explanation that it was her fault, that she had mistaken what the bosun had said, and that this had caused Kana to pull out his sword to protect her honor. The bosun had listened, grinning, his pistols still leveled at the samurai's back.

"I only asked if she was the Ingeles's doxie, by G.o.d, she being so free with washing him and sticking his privates into the cod."

"Put up your pistols, bosun."

"He's dangerous, I tell you. String him up!"

"I'll watch him. Go for'ard!"

"This monkey'd've killed me if I wasn't faster. Put him on the yardarm. That's what we'd do in Nagasaki!"

"We're not in Nagasaki-go for'ard! Now!"

And when the bosun had gone Rodrigues had asked, "What did he say to you, senhora? Actually say?"

"It-nothing, senhor. Please."

"I apologize for that man's insolence to you and to the samurai. Please apologize to the samurai for me, ask his pardon. And I ask you both formally to forget the bosun's insults. It will not help your liege lord or mine to have trouble aboard. I promise you I will deal with him in my own way in my own time."

She had spoken to Kana and, under her persuasion, at length he had agreed.

"Kana-san says, very well, but if he ever sees the bosun Pesaro on sh.o.r.e he will take his head."

"That's fair, by G.o.d. Yes. Domo arigato Domo arigato, Kana-san," Rodrigues said with a smile, "and domo arigato goziemas.h.i.ta domo arigato goziemas.h.i.ta, Mariko-san."

"You speak j.a.panese?"

"Oh no, just a word or two. I've a wife in Nagasaki."

"Oh! You have been long in j.a.pan?"

"This is my second tour from Lisbon. I've spent seven years in these waters all told-here, and back and forth to Macao and to Goa." Rodrigues added, "Pay no attention to him-he's eta eta. But Buddha said even eta eta have a right to life. have a right to life. Neh?" Neh?"

"Of course," Mariko said, the name and face branded forever into her mind.

"My wife speaks some Portuguese, nowhere near as perfectly as you. You're Christian, of course?"

"Yes."

"My wife's a convert. Her father's samurai, though a minor one. His liege lord is Lord Kiyama."

"She is lucky to have such a husband," Mariko said politely, but she asked herself, staggered, how could one marry and live with a barbarian? In spite of her inherent manners, she asked, "Does the lady, your wife, eat meat, like-like that in the cabin?"

"No," Rodrigues replied with a laugh, his teeth white and fine and strong. "And in my house at Nagasaki I don't eat meat either. At sea I do and in Europe. It's our custom. A thousand years ago before the Buddha came it was your custom too, neh? neh? Before Buddha lived to point the Before Buddha lived to point the Tao Tao, the Way, all people ate meat. Even here, senhora. Even here. Now of course, we know better, some of us, neh?" neh?"

Mariko thought about that. Then she said, "Do all Portuguese call us monkeys? And j.a.ppos? Behind our backs?"

Rodrigues pulled at the earring he wore. "Don't you call us barbarians? Even to our face? We're civilized, at least we think so, senhora. In India, the land of Buddha, they call j.a.panese 'Eastern Devils' and won't allow any to land if they're armed. You call Indians 'Blacks' and nonhuman. What do the Chinese call j.a.panese? What do you call the Chinese? What do you call the Koreans? Garlic Eaters, neh?" neh?"

"I don't think Lord Toranaga would be pleased. Or Lord Hiro-matsu, or even the father of your wife."

"The Blessed Jesus said, 'First cast the mote out of your own eye before you cast the beam out of mine.'"

She thought about that again now as she watched the first mate whispering urgently to the Portuguese pilot. It's true: we sneer at other people. But then, we're citizens of the Land of the G.o.ds, and therefore especially chosen by the G.o.ds. We alone, of all peoples, are protected by a divine Emperor. Aren't we, therefore, completely unique and superior to all others? And if you are j.a.panese and and Christian? I don't know. Oh, Madonna, give me thy understanding. This Rodrigues pilot is as strange as the English pilot. Why are they very special? Is it their training? It's unbelievable what they do, Christian? I don't know. Oh, Madonna, give me thy understanding. This Rodrigues pilot is as strange as the English pilot. Why are they very special? Is it their training? It's unbelievable what they do, neh? neh? How can they sail around the earth and walk the sea as easily as we do the land? Would Rodrigues' wife know the answer? I'd like to meet her, and talk to her. How can they sail around the earth and walk the sea as easily as we do the land? Would Rodrigues' wife know the answer? I'd like to meet her, and talk to her.

The mate lowered his voice even more.

"He said what?" Rodrigues exclaimed with an involuntary curse and in spite of herself Mariko tried to listen. But she could not hear what the mate repeated. Then she saw them both look at Blackthorne and she followed their glance, perturbed by their concern.

"What else happened, Santiago?" Rodrigues asked guardedly, conscious of Mariko.

The mate told him in a whisper behind a cupped mouth. "How long'll they stay below?"

"They were toasting each other. And the bargain."

"b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!" Rodrigues caught the mate's shirt. "No word of this, by G.o.d. On your life!"

"No need to say that, Pilot."

"There's always a need to say it." Rodrigues glanced across at Blackthorne. "Wake him up!"

The mate went over and shook him roughly.

"Whatsamatter, eh?"

"Hit him!"

Santiago slapped him.

"Jesus Christ, I'll ..." Blackthorne was on his feet, his face on fire, but he swayed and fell.

"G.o.d d.a.m.n you, wake up, Ingeles!" Furiously Rodrigues stabbed a finger at the two helmsmen. "Throw him overboard!"

"Eh?"

"Now, by G.o.d!"

As the two men hurriedly picked him up, Mariko said, "Pilot Rodrigues, you mustn't-" but before she or Kana could interfere the two men had hurled Blackthorne over the side. He fell the twenty feet and belly-flopped in a cloud of spray and disappeared. In a moment he surfaced, choking and spluttering, flailing at the water, the ice-cold clearing his head.

Rodrigues was struggling out of his seachair. "Madonna, give me a hand!"

One of the helmsmen rah to help as the first mate got a hand under his armpit. "Christ Jesus, be careful, mind my foot, you clumsy dunghead!"

They helped him to the side. Blackthorne was still coughing and spluttering, but now as he swam for the side of the ship he was shouting curses at those who had cast him overboard.

"Two points starboard!" Rodrigues ordered. The ship fell off the wind slightly and eased away from Blackthorne. He shouted down, "Stay to h.e.l.l off my ship!" Then urgently to his first mate, "Take the longboat, pick up the Ingeles, and put him aboard the galley. Fast. Tell him ..." He dropped his voice.

Mariko was grateful that Blackthorne was not drowning. "Pilot! The Anjin-san's under Lord Toranaga's protection. I demand he be picked up at once!"

"Just a moment, Mariko-san!" Rodrigues continued to whisper to Santiago, who nodded, then scampered away. "I'm sorry, Mariko-san, gomen kudasai gomen kudasai, but it was urgent. The Ingeles had to be woken up. I knew he could swim. He has to be alert and fast!"

"Why?"

"I'm his friend. Did he ever tell you that?"

"Yes. But England and Portugal are at war. Also Spain."

"Yes. But pilots should be above war."

"Then to whom do you owe duty?"

"To the flag."

"Isn't that to your king?"

"Yes and no, senhora. I owed the Ingeles a life." Rodrigues was watching the longboat. "Steady as she goes-now put her into the wind," he ordered the helmsman.

"Yes, senhor."

He waited, checking and rechecking the wind and the shoals and the far sh.o.r.e. The leadsman called out the fathoms. "Sorry, senhora, you were saying?" Rodrigues looked at her momentarily, then went back once more to check the lie of his ship and the longboat. She watched the longboat too. The men had hauled Blackthorne out of the sea and were pulling hard for the galley, sitting instead of standing and pushing the oars. She could no longer see their faces clearly. Now the Anjin-san was blurred with the other man close beside him, the man that Rodrigues had whispered to. "What did you say to him, senhor?"

"Who?"

"Him. The senhor you sent after the Anjin-san."

"Just to wish the Ingeles well and G.o.dspeed." The reply was flat and noncommittal.

She translated to Kana what had been said.

When Rodrigues saw the longboat alongside the galley he began to breathe again. "Hail Mary, Mother of G.o.d ..."

The Captain-General and the Jesuits came up from below. Toranaga and his guards followed.

"Rodrigues! Launch the longboat! The Fathers are going ash.o.r.e," Ferriera said.

"And then?"

"And then we put to sea. For Yedo."

"Why there? We were sailing for Macao," Rodrigues replied, the picture of innocence.

"We're taking Toranaga home to Yedo. First."

"We're what? But what about the galley?"

"She stays or she fights her way out."

Rodrigues seemed to be even more surprised and looked at the galley, then at Mariko. He saw the accusation written in her eyes.

"Matsu," the pilot told her quietly. the pilot told her quietly.

"What?" Father Alvito asked. "Patience? Why patience, Rodrigues?"

"Saying Hail Marys, Father. I was saying to the lady it teaches you patience."

Ferriera was staring at the galley. "What's our longboat doing there?"

"I sent the heretic back aboard."

"You what?"

"I sent the Ingeles back aboard. What's the problem, Captain-General? The Ingeles offended me so I threw the b.u.g.g.e.r overboard. I'd have let him drown but he could swim so I sent the mate to pick him up and put him back aboard his ship as he seemed to be in Lord Toranaga's favor. What's wrong?"

"Fetch him back aboard."

"I'll have to send an armed boarding party, Captain-General. Is that what you want? He was cursing and heaping h.e.l.lfire on us. He won't come back willingly this time."

"I want him back aboard."

"What's the problem? Didn't you say the galley's to stay and fight or whatever? So what? So the Ingeles is hip-deep in s.h.i.t. Good. Who needs the b.u.g.g.e.r, anyway? Surely the Fathers'd prefer him out of their sight. Eh, Father?"

Dell'Aqua did not reply. Nor did Alvito. This disrupted the plan that Ferriera had formulated and had been accepted by them and by Toranaga: that the priests would go ash.o.r.e at once to smooth over Ishido, Kiyama, and Onoshi, professing that they had believed Toranaga's story about the pirates and did not know that he had "escaped" from the castle. Meanwhile the frigate would charge for the harbor mouth, leaving the galley to draw off the fishing boats. If there was an overt attack on the frigate, it would be beaten off with cannon, and the die cast.

"But the boats shouldn't attack us," Ferriera had reasoned. "They have the galley to catch. It will be your responsibility, Eminence, to persuade Ishido that we had no other choice. After all, Toranaga is President of the Regents. Finally, the heretic stays aboard."

Neither of the priests had asked why. Nor had Ferriera volunteered his reason.

The Visitor put a gentle hand on the Captain-General and turned his back on the galley. "Perhaps it's just as well the heretic's there," he said, and he thought, how strange are the ways of G.o.d.

No, Ferriera wanted to scream. I wanted to see him drown. A man overboard in the early dawn at sea-no trace, no witnesses, so easy. Toranaga would never be the wiser; a tragic accident, as far as he was concerned. And it was the fate Blackthorne deserved. The Captain-General also knew the horror of sea death to a pilot.

"Nan ja?" Toranaga asked. Toranaga asked.

Father Alvito explained that the pilot was on the galley and why. Toranaga turned to Mariko, who nodded and added what Rodrigues had said previously.

Toranaga went to the side of the ship and gazed into the darkness. More fishing boats were being launched from the north sh.o.r.e and the others would soon be in place. He knew that the Anjin-san was a political embarra.s.sment and this was a simple way the G.o.ds had given him if he desired to be rid of the Anjin-san. Do I want that? Certainly the Christian priests will be vastly happier if the Anjin-san vanishes, he thought. And also Onoshi and Kiyama, who feared the man so much that either or both had mounted the a.s.sa.s.sination attempts. Why such fear?

It's karma karma that the Anjin-san is on the galley now and not safely here. that the Anjin-san is on the galley now and not safely here. Neh? Neh? So the Anjin-san will drown with the ship, along with Yabu and the others and the guns, and that is also So the Anjin-san will drown with the ship, along with Yabu and the others and the guns, and that is also karma karma. The guns I can lose, Yabu I can lose. But the Anjin-san?