Shogun (The Asian Saga Chronology) (131 page)

"Not across the bridge," Sonk broke in happily.  "Tell him about the bridge, Johann!"

"Oh, for the love of God, I was coming to the bridge, Sonk.  For God's sake, don't keep interrupting.  Pilot, there's a bridge about half a mile southwest.  There're a lot of signs on it.  That's as far as we're allowed.  We're not to go over that. '
Kinjiru,
' by God, the samurai say.  You understand
kinjiru,
Pilot?"

Blackthorne nodded and said nothing.

"Apart from that we can go where we like.  But only up to the barriers.  There's barriers all around about half a league away.  Lord God . . . can you believe it, home soon!"

"Tell him about the doc, eh, and about the—"

"The samurai send a doctor once in a while, Pilot, and we have to take our clothes off and he looks at us. . . ."

"Yes.  Enough to make a man shit to have a bastard heathen monkey look at you naked like that."

"Apart from that, Pilot, they don't bother us except—"

"Hey, don't forget the doc gives us some God-rotting filthy powdered 'char' herbs we're supposed to steep in hot water but we toss 'em out.  When we're sick, good old Johann bleeds us and we're fit."

"Yes," Sonk said.  "We throw the char out."'

"Apart from that, except for—"

"We're lucky here, Pilot, not like at first."

"That's right.  At first—"

"Tell him about the inspection, Baccus!"

"I was coming to that—for God's sake, be patient—give a fellow a chance.  How can I tell him anything with you all gabbing.  Pour me a drink!" van Nekk said thirstily and continued.  "Every ten days a few samurai come here and we line up outside and he counts us.  Then they give us sacks of rice and cash, copper cash.  It's plenty for everything, Pilot.  We swap rice for meat and stuff—fruit or whatever.  There's plenty of everything—and the women do whatever we want.  At first we—"

"But it wasn't like that at first.  Tell him about that, Baccus!"

Van Nekk sat on the floor.  "God give me strength!"

"You feeling sick, poor old lad?" Sonk asked solicitously.  "Best not drink any more or you'll get the devils back, hey?  He gets the devils, Pilot, once a week.  We all do."

"Are you going to keep quiet while I tell the Pilot?"

"Who, me?  I haven't said a thing.  I'm not stopping you.  Here, here's your drink!"

"Thanks, Sonk.  Well, Pilot, first they put us in a house to the west of the city—"

"Down near the fields it was."

"Damnit, then you tell the story, Johann!"

"All right.  Christ, Pilot, it was terrible.  No grub or liquor and those God-cursed paper houses're like living in a field—a man can't take a piss or pick his nose; nothing without someone watching, eh?  Yes, and the slightest noise'd bring the neighbors down on us, and samurai'd be at the stoop and who wants those bastards around, eh?  They'd be shaking their God-cursed swords at us, shouting and hollering, telling us to keep quiet.  Well, one night someone knocked over a candle and the monkeys were all pissed off to hell with us!  Jesus God, you should've heard them!  They came swarming out of the woodwork with buckets of water, God-cursed mad, hissing and bowing and cursing. . . . It was only one poxy wall that got burned down. . . . Hundreds of 'em swarmed over the house like cockroaches.  Bastards!  You've—"

"Get on with it!"

"You want to tell it?"

"Go on, Johann, don't pay any attention to him.  He's only a shit-filled cook."

"What!"

"Oh, shut up!  For God's sake!"  Van Nekk hurriedly took up the tale once more.  "The next day, Pilot, they marched us out of there and put us into another house in the wharf area.  That was just as bad.  Then some weeks later, Johann stumbled onto this place.  He was the only one of us allowed out, because of the ship, at that time.  They'd collect him daily and bring him back at sunset.  He was out fishing—we're only a few hundred yards upstream from the sea. . . . Best you tell it, Johann."

Blackthorne felt an itch on his bare leg and he rubbed it without thinking.  The irritation got worse.  Then he saw the mottled lump of a flea bite as Vinck continued proudly, "It's like Baccus said, Pilot.  I asked Sato-sama if we could move and he said, yes, why not.  They'd usually let me fish from one of their little skiffs to pass the time.  It was my nose that led me here, Pilot.  The old nose led me:  blood!"

Blackthorne said, "A slaughterhouse!  A slaughterhouse and tanning!  That's . . ."  He stopped and blanched.

"What's up?  What is it?"

"This is an
eta
village?  Jesus Christ, these people're
eta?
"

"What's wrong with eters?" van Nekk asked.  "Of course they're eters."

Blackthorne waved at the mosquitoes that infested the air, his skin crawling.  "Damn bugs.  They're— they're rotten, aren't they?  There's a tannery here, isn't there?"

"Yes.  A few streets up, why?"

"Nothing.  I didn't recognize the smell, that's all."

"What about eters?"

"I . . . I didn't realize, stupid of me.  If I'd seen one of the men I'd've known from their short hairstyle.  With the women you'd never know.  Sorry.  Go on with the story, Vinck."

"Well, then they said—"

Jan Roper interrupted, "Wait a minute, Vinck!  What's wrong, Pilot?  What about eters?"

"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."