Shōgun

She came nearer. The bosun’s pistols never wavered off Kana. She had to brush past him and it took an even greater effort not to take out her knife and gut him. At that moment the door opened. The youthful helmsman came into the cabin with a pail of water. He gawked at the pistols and fled.

“Where’s Rodrigues?” Blackthorne said, attempting to get his mind working.

“Aloft, where a good pilot should be,” the bosun said, his voice grating. “This Jappo drew on me, by God!”

“Help me up on deck.” Blackthorne grasped the bunk sides. Mariko took his arm but she could not lift him.

The bosun waved a pistol at Kana. “Tell him to help. And tell him if there’s a God in heaven he’ll be swinging from the yardarm before the turn.”

First Mate Santiago took his ear away from the secret knothole in the wall of the great cabin, the final “Well, that’s all settled then” from dell’Aqua ringing in his brain. Noiselessly he slipped across the darkened cabin, out into the corridor, and closed the door quietly. He was a tall, spare man with a lived-in face, and wore his hair in a tarred pigtail. His clothes were neat, and like most seamen, he was barefoot. In a hurry, he shinned up the companionway, ran across the main deck up onto the quarterdeck where Rodrigues was talking to Mariko. He excused himself and leaned down to put his mouth very close to Rodrigues’ ear and began to pour out all that he had heard, and had been sent to hear, so that no one else on the quarterdeck could be party to it.

Blackthorne was sitting aft on the deck, leaning against the gunwale, his head resting on his bent knees. Mariko sat straight-backed facing Rodrigues, Japanese fashion, and Kana, the samurai, bleakly beside her. Armed seamen swarmed the decks and crow’s nest aloft and two more were at the helm. The ship still pointed into the wind, the air and night clean, the nimbus stronger and rain not far off. A hundred yards away the galley lay broadside, at the mercy of their cannon, oars shipped, except for two each side which kept her in station, the slight tide taking her. The ambushing fishing ships with hostile samurai archers were closer but they were not encroaching as yet.

Mariko was watching Rodrigues and the mate. She could not hear what was being said, and even if she could, her training would have made her prefer to close her ears. Privacy in paper houses was impossible without politeness and consideration; without privacy civilized life could not exist, so all Japanese were trained to hear and not hear. For the good of all.

When she had come on deck with Blackthorne, Rodrigues had listened to the bosun’s explanation and to her halting explanation that it was her fault, that she had mistaken what the bosun had said, and that this had caused Kana to pull out his sword to protect her honor. The bosun had listened, grinning, his pistols still leveled at the samurai’s back.

“I only asked if she was the Ingeles’s doxie, by God, she being so free with washing him and sticking his privates into the cod.”

“Put up your pistols, bosun.”

“He’s dangerous, I tell you. String him up!”

“I’ll watch him. Go for’ard!”

“This monkey’d’ve killed me if I wasn’t faster. Put him on the yardarm. That’s what we’d do in Nagasaki!”

“We’re not in Nagasaki—go for’ard! Now!”

And when the bosun had gone Rodrigues had asked, “What did he say to you, senhora? Actually say?”

“It—nothing, senhor. Please.”

“I apologize for that man’s insolence to you and to the samurai. Please apologize to the samurai for me, ask his pardon. And I ask you both formally to forget the bosun’s insults. It will not help your liege lord or mine to have trouble aboard. I promise you I will deal with him in my own way in my own time.”

She had spoken to Kana and, under her persuasion, at length he had agreed.

“Kana-san says, very well, but if he ever sees the bosun Pesaro on shore he will take his head.”

“That’s fair, by God. Yes. Domo arigato, Kana-san,” Rodrigues said with a smile, “and domo arigato gozaimashita, Mariko-san.”

“You speak Japanese?”

“Oh no, just a word or two. I’ve a wife in Nagasaki.”

“Oh! You have been long in Japan?”

“This is my second tour from Lisbon. I’ve spent seven years in these waters all told—here, and back and forth to Macao and to Goa.” Rodrigues added, “Pay no attention to him—he’s eta. But Buddha said even eta have a right to life. Neh?”

“Of course,” Mariko said, the name and face branded forever into her mind.

“My wife speaks some Portuguese, nowhere near as perfectly as you. You’re Christian, of course?”

“Yes.”

“My wife’s a convert. Her father’s samurai, though a minor one. His liege lord is Lord Kiyama.”

“She is lucky to have such a husband,” Mariko said politely, but she asked herself, staggered, how could one marry and live with a barbarian? In spite of her inherent manners, she asked, “Does the lady, your wife, eat meat, like—like that in the cabin?”