Shogun (The Asian Saga Chronology) (64 page)

"In return I will do what I previously promised.  On the forty-first day you may lay the foundation stone for the biggest Christian temple in the Empire."

"Could that land, Sire, be put aside at once?"

"As soon as I arrive at Yedo.  Now.  What about the pirates?  The pirates in the fishing boats?  You will remove them at once?"

"If you had cannon, would you have done that yourself, Sire?"

"Of course, Tsukku-san."

"I apologize for being so devious, Sire, but we have had to formulate a plan.  The cannon do not belong to us.  Please give me one moment."  Alvito turned to dell'Aqua.  "Everything is arranged about the cathedral, Eminence."  Then to Ferriera he added, beginning their agreed plan: "You will be glad you did not sink him, Captain-General.  Lord Toranaga asks if you would carry ten thousand ducats of gold for him when you leave with the Black Ship for Goa, to invest in the gold market in India.  We would be delighted to help in the transaction through our usual sources there, placing the gold for you.  Lord Toranaga says half the profit is yours."  Both Alvito and dell'Aqua had decided that by the time the Black Ship had turned about, in six months, Toranaga either would be reinstated as President of the Regents and therefore more than pleased to permit this most profitable transaction, or he would be dead.  "You should easily clear four thousand ducats profit.  At no risk."

"In return for what concession?  That's more than your annual subsidy from the King of Spain for your whole Society of Jesus in Asia.  In return for what?"

"Lord Toranaga says pirates prevent him leaving the harbor.  He would know better than you if they're pirates."

Ferriera replied in the same matter-of-fact voice that both knew was only for Toranaga's benefit, "It's ill-advised to put your faith in this man.  His enemy holds all the royal cards.  All the Christian kings are against him.  Certainly the main two, I heard them with my own ears.  They said this Jappo's the real enemy.  I believe them and not this motherless cretin."

"I'm sure Lord Toranaga knows better than us who are pirates and who are not," dell'Aqua told him unperturbed, knowing the solution as Alvito knew the solution.  "I suppose you've no objection to Lord Toranaga's dealing with the pirates himself?"

"Of course not."

"You have plenty of spare cannon aboard," the Visitor said.  "Why not give him some privately.  Sell him some, in effect.  You sell arms all the time.  He's buying arms.  Four cannon should be more than enough.  It would be easy to transship them in the longboat, with enough powder and shot, again privately.  Then the matter is solved."

Ferriera sighed.  "Cannon, my dear Eminence, are useless aboard the galley.  There are no gun ports, no gun ropes, no gun stanchions.  They can't use cannon, even if they had the gunners, which they don't."

Both priests were flabbergasted.  "Useless?"

"Totally."

"But surely, Don Ferriera, they can adapt . . ."

"That galley's incapable of using cannon without a refit.  It would take at least a week."

"
Nan ja?
"  Toranaga said suspiciously, aware that something was amiss however much they had tried to hide it.

"What is it, Toranaga asks," Alvito said.

Dell'Aqua knew the sand had run out on them.  "Captain-General, please help us.  Please.  I ask you openly.  We've gained enormous concessions for the Faith.  You must believe me and yes, you must trust us.  You must help Lord Toranaga out of the harbor somehow.  I beg you on behalf of the Church.  The cathedral alone is an enormous concession.  Please."

Ferriera allowed none of the ecstasy of victory to show.  He even added a token gravity to his voice.  "Since you ask help in the Church's name, Eminence, of course I'll do what you ask.  I'll get him out of this trap.  But in return I want the Captain-Generalship of next year's Black Ship whether this year's is successful of not."

"That's the personal gift of the King of Spain, his alone.  That's not mine to bestow."

"Next: I accept the offer of his gold, but I want your guarantee that I'll have no trouble from the Viceroy at Goa, or here, about the gold or about either of the Black Ships."

"You dare to hold me and the Church to ransom?"

"This is merely a business arrangement between you, me, and this monkey."

"He's no monkey, Captain-General.  You'd better remember it."

"Next: Fifteen percent of this year's cargo instead of ten."

"Impossible."

"Next: To keep everything tidy, Eminence, your word before God now—that neither you nor any of the priests under your jurisdiction will ever threaten me with excommunication unless I commit a future act of sacrilege, which none of this is.  And further, your word that you and the Holy Fathers will actively support me and help these two Black Ships—also before God."

"And next, Captain-General?  Surely that's not all?  Surely there's something else?"

"Last: I want the heretic."

Mariko stared down at Blackthorne from the cabin doorway.  He lay in a semicoma on the floor, retching his innards out.  The bosun was leaning against the bunk leering at her, the stumps of his yellow teeth showing.

"Is he poisoned, or is he drunk?" she asked Totomi Kana, the samurai beside her, trying without success to close her nostrils to the stench of the food and the vomit, to the stench of the ugly seaman in front of her, and to the ever present stench from the bilges that pervaded the whole ship.  "It almost looks as though he's been poisoned,
neh?
"

"Perhaps he has, Mariko-san.  Look at that filth!"  The samurai waved distastefully at the table.  It was strewn with wooden platters containing the remains of a mutilated haunch of roast beef, blood rare, half the carcass of a spitted chicken, torn bread and cheese and spilled beer, butter and a dish of cold bacon-fat gravy, and a half emptied bottle of brandy.

Neither of them had ever seen meat on a table before.

"What d'you want?" the bosun asked.  "No monkeys in here,
wakarimasu?
  No monkey-sans this-u room-u!"  He looked at the samurai and waved him away.  "Out!  Piss off!"  His eyes flowed back over Mariko.  "What's your name?  Namu, eh?"

"What's he saying, Mariko-san?" the samurai asked.

The bosun glanced at the samurai for a moment then back to Mariko again.

"What's the barbarian saying, Mariko-san?"

Mariko took her mesmerized eyes off the table and concentrated on the bosun.  "I'm sorry, senhor, I didn't understand you.  What did you say?"

"Eh?"  The bosun's mouth dropped farther open.  He was a big fat man with eyes too close together and large ears, his hair in a ratty tarred pigtail.  A crucifix hung from the rolls of his neck and pistols were loose in his belt.  "Eh?  You can talk Portuguese?  A Jappo who can talk good Portuguese?  Where'd you learn to talk civilized?"

"The—the Christian Father taught me."

"I'll be a God-cursed son of a whore!  Madonna, a flower-san who can talk civilized!"

Blackthorne retched again and tried feebly to get off the deck.

"Can you—please can you put the pilot there?"  She pointed at the bunk.

"Aye.  If this monkey'll help."

"Who?  I'm sorry, what did you say?  Who?"

"Him!  The Jappo.  Him."

The words rocked through her and it took all of her will to remain calm.  She motioned to the samurai.  "Kana-san, will you please help this barbarian.  The Anjin-san should be put there."

"With pleasure, Lady."

Together the two men lifted Blackthorne and he flopped back in the bunk, his head too heavy, mouthing stupidly.

"He should be washed," Mariko said in Japanese, still half stunned by what the bosun had called Kana.

"Yes, Mariko-san.  Order the barbarian to send for servants."

"Yes."  Her disbelieving eyes went inexorably to the table again.  "Do they really eat that?"

The bosun followed her glance.  At once he leaned over and tore off a chicken leg and offered it to her.  "You hungry?  Here, little Flower-san, it's good.  It's fresh today—real Macao capon."

She shook her head.

The bosun's grizzled face split into a grin and he helpfully dipped the chicken leg into the heavy gravy and held it under her nose.  "Gravy makes it even better.  Hey, it's good to be able to talk proper, eh?  Never did that before.  Go on, it'll give you strength—where it counts!  It's Macao capon I tell you."

"No—no, thank you.  To eat meat—to eat meat is forbidden.  It's against the law, and against Buddhism and Shintoism."

"Not in Nagasaki it isn't!"  The bosun laughed.  "Lots of Jappos eat meat all the time.  They all do when they can get it, and swill our grog as well.  You're Christian, eh?  Go on, try, little Donna.  How d'you know till you try?"

"No, no, thank you."

"A man can't live without meat.  That's real food.  Makes you strong so you can jiggle like a stoat.  Here—"  He offered the chicken leg to Kana.  "You want?"

Kana shook his head, equally nauseated.  "
Iyé!
"

The bosun shrugged and threw it carelessly back onto the table.  "
Iyé
it is.  What've you done to your arm?  You hurt in the fight?"

"Yes.  But not badly."  Mariko moved it a little to show him and swallowed the pain.

"Poor little thing!  What d'you want here, Donna Senhorita, eh?"

"To see the An— to see the pilot.  Lord Toranaga sent me.  The pilot's drunk?"

'"Yes, that and the food.  Poor bastard ate too fast'n drank too fast.  Took half the bottle in a gulp.  Ingeles're all the same.  Can't hold their grog and they've no
cojones.
"  His eyes went all over her.  "I've never seen a flower as small as you before.  And never talked to a Jappo who could talk civilized before."

"Do you call all Japanese ladies and samurai Jappos and monkeys?"

The seaman laughed shortly.  "Hey, senhorita, that was a slip of the tongue.  That's for usuals, you know, the pimps and whores in Nagasaki.  No offense meant.  I never did talk to a civilized senhorita before, never knowed there was any, by God."

"Neither have I, senhor.  I've never talked to a civilized Portuguese before, other than a Holy Father.  We're Japanese, not Jappos,
neh?
  And monkeys are animals, aren't they?"

"Sure."  The bosun showed the broken teeth.  "You speak like a Donna.  Yes.  No offense, Donna Senhorita."

Blackthorne began mumbling.  She went to the bunk and shook him gently.  "Anjin-san!  Anjin-san!"

"Yes—yes?"  Blackthorne opened his eyes.  "Oh—hello—I'm sor—I . . ."  But the weight of his pain and the spinning of the room forced him to lie back.

"Please send for a servant, senhor.  He should be washed."

"There's slaves—but not for that, Donna Senhorita.  Leave the Ingeles—what's a little vomit to a heretic?"

"No servants?" she asked, flabbergasted.

"We have slaves—black bastards, but they're lazy—wouldn't trust one to wash him myself," he added with a twisted grin.

Mariko knew she had no alternative.  Lord Toranaga might have need of the Anjin-san at once and it was her duty.  "Then I need some water," she said.  "To wash him with."

"There's a barrel in the stairwell.  In the deck below."

"Please fetch some for me, senhor."

"Send him."  The bosun jerked a finger at Kana.

"No.  You will please fetch it.  Now."

The bosun looked back at Blackthorne.  "You his doxie?"

"What?"

"The Ingeles's doxie?"

"What's a doxie, senhor?"

"His woman.  His mate, you know, senhorita, this pilot's sweetheart, his jigajig.  Doxie."

"No.  No, senhor, I'm not his doxie."

"His, then?  This mon—this samurai's?  Or the king's maybe, him that's just come aboard?  Tora-something?  You one of his?"

"No."

"Nor any aboard's?"

She shook her head.  "Please, would you get some water?"

The bosun nodded and went out.

"That's the ugliest, foulest-smelling man I've ever been near," the samurai said.  "What was he saying?"

"He—the man asked if—if I was one of the pilot's consorts."

The samurai went for the door.

"Kana-san!"

"I demand the right on your husband's behalf to avenge that insult.  At once!  As though you'd cohabit with any barbarian!"

"Kana-san!  Please close the door."

"You're Toda Mariko-san!  How dare he insult you?  The insult must be avenged!"

"It will be, Kana-san, and I thank you.  Yes.  I give you the right.  But we are here at Lord Toranaga's order.  Until he gives his approval it would not be correct for you to do this."

Kana closed the door reluctantly.  "I agree.  But I formally ask that you petition Lord Toranaga before we leave."

"Yes.  Thank you for your concern over my honor."  What would Kana do if he knew all that had been said, she asked herself, appalled.  What would Lord Toranaga do?  Or Hiro-matsu?  Or my husband?  Monkeys?  Oh, Madonna, give me thy help to hold myself still and keep my mind working.  To ease Kana's wrath, she quickly changed the subject.  "The Anjin-san looks so helpless.  Just like a baby.  It seems barbarians can't stomach wine.  Just like some of our men."

"Yes.  But it's not the wine.  Can't be.  It's what he's eaten."

Blackthorne moved uneasily, groping for consciousness.

"They've no servants on the ship, Kana-san, so I'll have to substitute for one of the Anjin-san's ladies."  She began to undress Blackthorne, awkwardly because of her arm.

"Here, let me help you." Kana was very deft.  "I used to do this for my father when the saké took him."

"It's good for a man to get drunk once in a while.  It releases all the evil spirits."

"Yes.  But my father used to suffer badly the next day."

"My husband suffers very badly.  For days."

After a moment, Kana said, "May Buddha grant that Lord Buntaro escapes."

"Yes."  Mariko looked around the cabin.  "I don't understand how they can live in such squalor.  It's worse than the poorest of our people.  I was almost fainting in the other cabin from the stench."

"It's revolting.  I've never been aboard a barbarian ship before."