Shogun (The Asian Saga Chronology) (24 page)

"Why did he do that?"

Rodrigues shrugged.  "Perhaps someone suggested it to him."

"Who?"

"Your stolen rutter, Ingeles, the Portuguese one.  Whose was it?"

"I don't know.  There was no name on it, no signature."

"Where'd you get it?"

"From the chief merchant of the Dutch East India Company."

"Where'd he get it from?"

Blackthorne shrugged.

Rodrigues' laugh had no humor in it.  "Well, I never expected you to tell me—but whoever stole it and sold it, I hope he burns in hellfire forever!"

"You're employed by this Toranaga, Rodrigues?"

"No.  I was just visiting Osaka, my Captain and I.  This was just a favor to Toranaga.  My Captain volunteered me.  I'm pilot of the—" Rodrigues had stopped.  "I keep forgetting you're the enemy, Ingeles."

"Portugal and England have been allies for centuries."

"But we're not now.  Go below, Ingeles.  You're tired and so am I and tired men make mistakes.  Come on deck when you're rested."

So Blackthorne had gone below to the pilot's cabin and had lain on the bunk.  Rodrigues' rutter of the voyage was on the sea desk which was pinned to the bulkhead like the pilot's chair on the quarterdeck.  The book was leather-covered and used but Blackthorne did not open it.

"Why leave it there?" he had asked previously.

"If I didn't, you'd search for it.  But you won't touch it there—or even look at it—uninvited.  You're a pilot—not a pig-bellied whoring thieving merchant or soldier."

"I'll read it.  You would."

"Not uninvited, Ingeles.  No pilot'd do that.  Even I wouldn't!"

Blackthorne had watched the book for a moment and then he closed his eyes.  He slept deeply, all of that day and part of the night.  It was just before dawn when he awoke as always.  It took time to adjust to the untoward motion of the galley and the throb of the drum that kept the oars moving as one.  He lay comfortably on his back in the dark, his arms under his head.  He thought about his own ship and put away his worry of what would happen when they reached shore and Osaka.  One thing at a time.  Think about Felicity and Tudor and home.  No, not now.  Think that if other Portuguese are like Rodrigues, you've a good chance now.  You'll get a ship home.  Pilots are not enemies and the pox on other things!  But you can't say that, lad.  You're English, the hated heretic and anti-Christ.  Catholics own this world.  They
owned
it.  Now we and the Dutch're going to smash them.

What nonsense it all is!  Catholic and Protestant and Calvinist and Lutherist and every other shitist.  You should have been born Catholic.  It was only fate that took your father to Holland where he met a woman, Anneke van Droste, who became his wife and he saw Spanish Catholics and Spanish priests and the Inquisition for the first time.  I'm glad he had his eyes opened, Blackthorne thought.  I'm glad mine are open.

Then he had gone on deck.  Rodrigues was in his chair, his eyes red-rimmed with sleeplessness, two Japanese sailors on the helm as before.

"Can I take this watch for you?"

"How do you feel, Ingeles?"

"Rested.  Can I take the watch for you?"  Blackthorne saw Rodrigues measuring him.  "I'll wake you if the wind changes—anything."

"Thank you, Ingeles.  Yes, I'll sleep a little.  Maintain this course.  At the turn, go four degrees more westerly and at the next, six more westerly.  You'll have to point the new course on the compass for the helmsman. 
Wakarimasu ka?
"

"
Hai!
" Blackthorne laughed.  "Four points westerly it is.  Go below, Pilot, your bunk's comfortable."

But Vasco Rodrigues did not go below.  He merely pulled his sea cloak closer and settled deeper into the seachair.  Just before the turn of the hourglass he awoke momentarily and checked the course change without moving and immediately went back to sleep again.  Once when the wind veered he awoke and then, when he had seen there was no danger, again he slept.

Hiro-matsu and Yabu came on deck during the morning.  Blackthorne noticed their surprise that he was conning the ship and Rodrigues sleeping.  They did not talk to him, but returned to their conversation and, later, they went below again.

Near midday Rodrigues had risen from the seachair to stare northeast, sniffing the wind, all his senses concentrated.  Both men studied the sea and the sky and the encroaching clouds.

"What would you do, Ingeles, if this was your ship?" Rodrigues said again.

"I'd run for the coast if I knew where it was—the nearest point.  This craft won't take much water and there's a storm there all right.  About four hours away."

"Can't be
tai-fun,
" Rodrigues muttered.

"What?"

"
Tai-fun.
  They're huge winds—the worst storms you've ever seen.  But we're not in
tai-fun
season."

"When's that?"

"It's not now, enemy." Rodrigues laughed.  "No, not now.  But it could be rotten enough so I'll take your piss-cutting advice.  Steer North by West."

As Blackthorne pointed the new course and the helmsman turned the ship neatly, Rodrigues went to the rail and shouted at the captain, "
Isogi!
Captain-san. 
Wakarimasu ka?
"

"
Isogi, hai!
"

"What's that?  Hurry up?"

The corners of Rodrigues' eyes crinkled with amusement.  "No harm in you knowing a little Japman talk, eh?  Sure, Ingeles, '
isogi
' means to hurry.  All you need here's about ten words and then you can make the buggers shit if you want to.  If they're the right words, of course, and if they're in the mood.  I'll go below now and get some food."

"You cook too?"

"In Japland, every civilized man has to cook, or personally has to train one of the monkeys to cook, or you starve to death.  All they eat's raw fish, raw vegetables in sweet pickled vinegar.  But life here can be a pisscutter if you know how."

"Is 'pisscutter' good or bad?"

"It's mostly very good but sometimes terribly bad.  It all depends how you feel and you ask too many questions."

Rodrigues went below.  He barred his cabin door and carefully checked the lock on his sea chest.  The hair that he had placed so delicately was still there.  And a similar hair, equally invisible to anyone but him, that he had put on the cover of his rutter was also untouched.

You can't be too careful in this world, Rodrigues thought.  Is there any harm in his knowing that you're pilot of the
Nao del Trato,
this year's great Black Ship from Macao?  Perhaps.  Because then you'd have to explain that she's a leviathan, one of the richest, biggest ships in the world, more than sixteen hundred tons.  You might be tempted to tell him about her cargo, about trade and about Macao and all sorts of illuminating things that are very, very private and very, very secret.  But we are at war, us against the English and Dutch.

He opened the well-oiled lock and took out his private rutter to check some bearings for the nearest haven and his eyes saw the sealed packet the priest, Father Sebastio, had given him just before they had left Anjiro.

Does it contain the Englishman's rutters? he asked himself again.

He weighed the package and looked at the Jesuit seals, sorely tempted to break them and see for himself.  Blackthorne had told him that the Dutch squadron had come by way of Magellan's Pass and little else.  The Ingeles asks lots of questions and volunteers nothing, Rodrigues thought.  He's shrewd, clever, and dangerous.

Are they his rutters or aren't they?  If they are, what good are they to the Holy Fathers?

He shuddered, thinking of Jesuits and Franciscans and Dominicans and all monks and all priests and the Inquisition.  There are good priests and bad priests and they're mostly bad, but they're still priests.  The Church has to have priests and without them to intercede for us we're lost sheep in a Satanic world.  Oh, Madonna, protect me from all evil and bad priests!

Rodrigues had been in his cabin with Blackthorne in Anjiro harbor when the door had opened and Father Sebastio had come in uninvited.  They had been eating and drinking and the remains of their food was in the wooden bowls.

"You break bread with heretics?" the priest had asked.  "It's dangerous to eat with them.  They're infectious.  Did he tell you he's a pirate?"

"It's only Christian to be chivalrous to your enemies, Father.  When I was in their hands they were fair to me.  I only return their charity."  He had knelt and kissed the priest's cross.  Then he had got up and, offering wine, he said, "How can I help you?"

"I want to go to Osaka.  With the ship."

"I'll ask them at once."  He had gone and had asked the captain and the request had gradually gone up to Toda Hiro-matsu, who replied that Toranaga had said nothing about bringing a foreign priest from Anjiro so he regretted he could not bring the foreign priest from Anjiro.

Father Sebastio had wanted to talk privately so he had sent the Englishman on deck and then, in the privacy of the cabin, the priest had brought out the sealed package.

"I would like you to deliver this to the Father-Visitor."

"I don't know if his Eminence'll still be at Osaka when I get there."  Rodrigues did not like being a carrier of Jesuit secrets.  "I might have to go back to Nagasaki.  My Captain-General may have left orders for me."

"Then give it to Father Alvito.  Make absolutely sure you put it only in his hands."

"Very well," he had said.

"When were you last at Confession, my son?"

"On Sunday, Father."

"Would you like me to confess you now?"

"Yes, thank you."  He was grateful that the priest had asked, for you never knew if your life depended on the sea, and, afterwards, he had felt much better as always.

Now in the cabin, Rodrigues put back the package, greatly tempted.  Why Father Alvito?  Father Martin Alvito was chief trade negotiator and had been personal interpreter for the Taikō for many years and therefore an intimate of most of the influential
daimyos.
  Father Alvito plied between Nagasaki and Osaka and was one of the very few men, and the only European, who had had access to the Taikō at any time—an enormously clever man who spoke perfect Japanese and knew more about them and their way of life than any man in Asia.  Now he was the Portuguese's most influential mediator to the Council of Regents, and to Ishido and Toranaga in particular.

Trust the Jesuits to get one of their men into such a vital position, Rodrigues thought with awe.  Certainly if it hadn't been for the Society of Jesus the flood of heresy would never have been stopped, Portugal and Spain might have gone Protestant, and we'd have lost our immortal souls forever.  Madonna!

"Why do you think about priests all the time?" Rodrigues asked himself aloud.  "You know it makes you nervous!"  Yes. Even so, why Father Alvito?  If the package contains the rutters, is the package meant for one of the Christian
daimyos
, or Ishido or Toranaga, or just for his Eminence, the Father-Visitor himself?  Or for my Captain-General?  Or will the rutters be sent to Rome, for the Spaniards?  Why Father Alvito?  Father Sebastio could have easily said to give it to one of the other Jesuits.

And why does Toranaga want the Ingeles?

In my heart I know I should kill Blackthorne.  He's the enemy, he's a heretic.  But there's something else.  I've a feeling this Ingeles is a danger to all of us.  Why should I think that?  He's a pilot—a great one.  Strong.  Intelligent.  A good man.  Nothing there to worry about.  So why am I afraid?  Is he evil?  I like him very much but I feel I should kill him quickly and the sooner the better.  Not in anger.  Just to protect ourselves.  Why?

I am afraid of him.

What to do?  Leave it to the hand of God?  The storm's coming and it'll be a bad one.

"God curse me and my lack of wits!  Why don't I know what to do easily?"

The storm came before sunset and caught them out to sea.  Land was ten miles away.  The bay they raced for was haven enough and dead ahead when they had crested the horizon.  There were no shoals or reefs to navigate between them and safety, but ten miles was ten miles and the sea was rising fast, driven by the rain-soaked wind.

The gale blew from the northeast, on the starboard quarter, and veered badly as gusts swirled easterly or northerly without pattern, the sea grim.  Their course was northwest so they were mostly broadside to the swell, rolling badly, now in the trough, now sickeningly on the crest.  The galley was shallow draft and built for speed and kind waters, and though the rowers were game and very disciplined, it was hard to keep their oars in the sea and their pull clean.

"You'll have to ship the oars and run before the wind," Blackthorne shouted.

"Maybe, but not yet!  Where are your
cojones,
Ingeles?"

"Where they should be, by God, and where I want 'em to stay!"

Both men knew that if they turned into the wind they could never make way against the storm, so the tide and the wind would take them away from sanctuary and out to sea.  And if they ran before the wind, the tide and the wind would take them away from sanctuary and out to sea as before, only faster.  Southward was the Great Deep.  There was no land southward for a thousand miles, or, if you were unlucky, for a thousand leagues.

They wore lifelines that were lashed to the binnacle and they were glad of them as the deck pitched and rolled.  They hung on to the gunwales as well, riding her.

As yet, no water had come aboard.  She was heavily ladened and rode lower in the water than either would have liked.  Rodrigues had prepared properly in the hours of waiting.  Everything had been battened down, the men forewarned.  Hiro-matsu and Yabu had said that they would stay below for a time and then come on deck.  Rodrigues had shrugged and told them clearly that it would be very dangerous.  He was sure they did not understand.

"What'll they do?" Blackthorne had asked.

"Who knows, Ingeles?  But they won't be weeping with fear, you can be sure."

In the well of the main deck the oarsmen were working hard.  Normally there would be two men on each oar but Rodrigues had ordered three for strength and safety and speed.  Others were waiting below decks to spell these rowers when he gave the order.  On the foredeck the captain oar-master was experienced and his beat was slow, timed to the waves.  The galley was still making way, though every moment the roll seemed more pronounced and the recovery slower.  Then the squalls became erratic and threw the captain oar-master off stroke.