Shōgun

“Probably.” Kiri’s gaze was level and friendly. “But I’d imagine that this would all be a very private matter. So you would swear by your Christian God not to divulge anything about this meeting. To anyone.”

The day seemed to lose its warmth.

“Of course,” Mariko said uneasily. She understood very clearly that Kiri meant she was to say nothing to her husband or to his father or to her confessor. As her husband had ordered her here, obviously at Lord Toranaga’s request, her duty to her liege Lord Toranaga overcame her duty to her husband, so she could withhold information freely from him. But to her confessor? Could she say nothing to him? And why was she the interpreter and not Father Tsukku-san? She knew that once more, against her will, she was involved in the kind of political intrigue that had bedeviled her life, and wished again that her family was not ancient and Fujimoto, that she had never been born with the gift of tongues that had allowed her to learn the almost incomprehensible Portuguese and Latin languages, and that she had never been born at all. But then, she thought, I would never have seen my son, nor learned about the Christ Child or His Truth, or about the Life Everlasting.

It is your karma, Mariko, she told herself sadly, just karma. “Very well, Kiri-san.” Then she added with foreboding, “I swear by the Lord my God, that I will not divulge anything said here today, or at any time I am interpreting for my liege Lord.”

“I would also imagine that you might have to exclude part of your own feelings to translate exactly what is said. This new barbarian is strange and says peculiar things. I’m sure my Lord picked you above all possibilities for special reasons.”

“I am Lord Toranaga’s to do with as he wishes. He need never have any fear for my loyalty.”

“That was never in question, Lady. I meant no harm.”

A spring rain came and speckled the petals and the mosses and the leaves, and disappeared leaving ever more beauty in its wake.

“I would ask a favor, Mariko-san. Would you please put your crucifix under your kimono?”

Mariko’s fingers darted for it defensively. “Why? Lord Toranaga has never objected to my conversion, nor has Lord Hiro-matsu, the head of my clan! My husband has—my husband allows me to keep it and wear it.”

“Yes. But crucifixes send this barbarian mad and my Lord Toranaga doesn’t want him mad, he wants him soothed.”

Blackthorne had never seen anyone so petite. “Konnichi wa,” he said. “Konnichi, Toranaga-sama.” He bowed as a courtier, nodded to the boy who knelt, wide-eyed, beside Toranaga, and to the fat woman who was behind him. They were all on the veranda that encircled the small hut. The hut contained a single small room with rustic screens and hewn beams and thatched roof, and a kitchen area behind. It was set on pilings of wood and raised a foot or so above a carpet of pure white sand. This was a ceremonial Tea House for the cha-no-yu ceremony and built at vast expense with rare materials for that purpose alone, though sometimes, because these houses were isolated, in glades, they were used for trysts and private conversations.

Blackthorne gathered his kimono around him and sat on the cushion that had been placed on the sand below and in front of them. “Gomen nasai, Toranaga-sama, nihon go ga hanase-masen. Tsuyaku go imasu ka?”

“I am your interpreter, senhor,” Mariko said at once, in almost flawless Portuguese. “But you speak Japanese?”

“No, senhorita, just a few words or phrases,” Blackthorne replied, taken aback. He had been expecting Father Alvito to be the interpreter, and Toranaga to be accompanied by samurai and perhaps the daimyo Yabu. But no samurai were near, though many ringed the garden.

“My Lord Toranaga asks where—First, perhaps I should ask if you prefer to speak Latin?”

“Whichever you wish, senhorita.” Like any educated man, Blackthorne could read, write, and speak Latin, because Latin was the only language of learning throughout the civilized world.

Who is this woman? Where did she learn such perfect Portuguese? And Latin? Where else but from the Jesuits, he thought. In one of their schools. Oh, they’re so clever! The first thing they do is build a school.

It was only seventy years ago that Ignatius Loyola had formed the Society of Jesus and now their schools, the finest in Christendom, were spread across the world and their influence bolstered or destroyed kings. They had the ear of the Pope. They had halted the tide of the Reformation and were now winning back huge territories for their Church.

“We will speak Portuguese then,” she was saying. “My Master wishes to know where you learned your ‘few words and phrases’?”