Shōgun

“Konnichi wa, Anjin-san,” Omi said at length, with a brief smile.

Blackthorne dressed quickly.

He wore loose trousers and a codpiece, socks and shirt and coat, his long hair tied into a neat queue and his beard trimmed with scissors the barber had loaned to him.

“Hai, Omi-san?” Blackthorne asked when he was dressed, feeling better but very guarded, wishing he had more words to use.

“Please, hand,” Mura said.

Blackthorne did not understand and said so with signs. Mura held out his own hands and parodied tying them together.

“Hand, please.”

“No.” Blackthorne said it directly to Omi and shook his head. “That’s not necessary,” he said in English, “not necessary at all. I’ve given my word.” He kept his voice gentle and reasonable, then added harshly, copying Omi, “Wakarimasu ka, Omi-san?” Do you understand?

Omi laughed. Then he said, “Hai, Anjin-san. Wakarimasu.” He turned and left.

Mura and the others stared after him, astounded. Blackthorne followed Omi into the sun. His boots had been cleaned. Before he could slip them on, the maid “Onna” was there on her knees and she helped him.

“Thank you, Haku-san,” he said, remembering her real name. What’s the word for “thank you”? he wondered.

He walked through the gate, Omi ahead.

I’m after you, you God-cursed bas—Wait a minute! Remember what you promised yourself? And why swear at him, even to yourself? He hasn’t sworn at you. Swearing’s for the weak, or for fools. Isn’t it?

One thing at a time. It is enough that you are after him. You know it clearly and he knows it clearly. Make no mistake, he knows it very clearly.

The four samurai flanked Blackthorne as he walked down the hill, the harbor still hidden from him, Mura discreetly ten paces back, Omi ahead.

Are they going to put me underground again? he wondered. Why did they want to bind my hands? Didn’t Omi say yesterday—Christ Jesus, was that only yesterday?—‘If you behave you can stay out of the pit. If you behave, tomorrow another man will be taken out of the pit. Perhaps. And more, perhaps.’ Isn’t that what he said? Have I behaved? I wonder how Croocq is. The lad was alive when they carried him off to the house where the crew first stayed.

Blackthorne felt better today. The bath and the sleep and the fresh food had begun to repair him. He knew that if he was careful and could rest and sleep and eat, within a month he would be able to run a mile and swim a mile and command a fighting ship and take her around the earth.

Don’t think about that yet! Just guard your strength this day. A month’s not much to hope for, eh?

The walk down the hill and through the village was tiring him. You’re weaker than you thought. . . . No, you are stronger than you thought, he ordered himself.

The masts of Erasmus jutted over the tiled roofs and his heart quickened. Ahead the street curved with the contour of the hillside, slid down to the square and ended. A curtained palanquin stood in the sun. Four bearers in brief loincloths squatted beside it, absently picking their teeth. The moment they saw Omi they were on their knees, bowing mightily.

Omi barely nodded at them as he strode past, but then a girl came out of the neat gateway to go to the palanquin and he stopped.

Blackthorne caught his breath and stopped also.

A young maid ran out to hold a green parasol to shade the girl. Omi bowed and the girl bowed and they talked happily to each other, the strutting arrogance vanishing from Omi.

The girl wore a peach-colored kimono and a wide sash of gold and gold-thonged slippers. Blackthorne saw her glance at him. Clearly she and Omi were discussing him. He did not know how to react, or what to do, so he did nothing but wait patiently, glorying in the sight of her, the cleanliness and the warmth of her presence. He wondered if she and Omi were lovers, or if she was Omi’s wife, and he thought, Is she truly real?

Omi asked her something and she answered and fluttered her green fan that shimmered and danced in the sunlight, her laugh musical, the delicacy of her exquisite. Omi was smiling too, then he turned on his heel and strode off, samurai once more.

Blackthorne followed. Her eyes were on him as he passed and he said, “Konnichi wa.”

“Konnichi wa, Anjin-san,” she replied, her voice touching him. She was barely five feet tall and perfect. As she bowed slightly the breeze shook the outer silk and showed the beginnings of the scarlet under-kimono, which he found surprisingly erotic.

The girl’s perfume still surrounded him as he turned the corner. He saw the trapdoor and Erasmus. And the galley. The girl vanished from his mind.

Why are our gun ports empty? Where are our cannon and what in the name of Christ is a slave galley doing here and what’s happened in the pit?

One thing at a time.