Shōgun

The roof posts collapsed. A sigh went through the onlookers. Priests came forward and put more wood onto the pyre and the flames rose farther, the smoke billowing. Now only the four small gates remained. Blackthorne saw the heat scorching them. Then they too burst into flames.

Then Ishido, the chief witness, got out of his palanquin and walked forward and made the ritual offering of precious wood. He bowed formally and sat again in his litter. At his order, the porters lifted him and he went back to the castle. Ochiba followed him. Others began to leave.

Saruji bowed to the flames a last time. He turned and walked over to Blackthorne. He stood in front of him and bowed. “Thank you, Anjin-san,” he said. Then he went away with Kiri and Lady Sazuko.

“All finished, Anjin-san,” the captain of Grays said with a grin. “Kami safe now. We go castle.”

“Wait. Please.”

“So sorry, orders, neh?” the captain said anxiously, the others guarding closely.

“Please wait.”

Careless of their anxiety, Blackthorne got out of the litter, the pain almost blinding him. The samurai spread out, covering him. He walked to the table and picked up some of the small pieces of camphor wood and threw them into the furnace. He could see nothing through the curtain of flames.

“In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti,” he muttered in benediction and made a small sign of the cross. Then he turned and left the fire.

When he awoke his head was much better but he felt drained, the dull ache still throbbing behind his temples and across the front of his head.

“How feel, Anjin-san?” the doctor said with his toothy smile, the voice still faint. “Sleep long time.”

Blackthorne lifted himself on an elbow and gazed sleepily at the sun’s shadows. Must be almost five of the clock in the afternoon now, he thought. I’ve slept better than six hours. “Sleep all day, neh?”

The doctor smiled. “All yesterday and night and most of today. Understand?”

“Understand. Yes.” Blackthorne lay back, a sheen of sweat on his skin. Good, he thought. The best thing I could have done, no wonder I feel better.

His bed of soft quilts was screened now on three sides with exquisite movable partitions, their panel paintings landscapes and seascapes, and inlaid with ivory. Sunlight came through windows opposite and flies swarmed, the room vast and pleasant and quiet. Outside were castle sounds, now mixed with horses trotting past, bridles jingling, their hoofs unshod. The slight breeze bore the aroma of smoke. Don’t know if I’d want to be burned, he thought. But wait a minute, isn’t that better than being put in a box and buried and then the worms . . . Stop it, he ordered himself, feeling himself drifting into a downward spiral. There’s nothing to worry about, karma is karma and when you’re dead, you’re dead, and you never know anything then—and anything’s better than drowning, water filling you, your body becoming foul and blotted, the crabs . . . Stop it!

“Drink, please.” The doctor gave him more of the foul brew. He gagged but kept it down.

“Cha, please.” The woman servant poured it for him and he thanked her. She was a moon-faced woman of middle age, slits for eyes and a fixed empty smile. After three cups his mouth was bearable.

“Please, Anjin-san, how ears?”

“Same. Still distance . . . distance, understand? Very distance.”

“Understand. Eat, Anjin-san?”

A small tray was set with rice and soup and charcoaled fish. His stomach was queasy but he remembered that he had hardly eaten for two days so he sat up and forced himself to take some rice and he drank the fish soup. This settled his stomach so he ate more and finished it all, using the chopsticks now as extensions of his fingers, without conscious effort. “Thank you. Hungry.”

“Yes,” the doctor said. He put a linen bag of herbs on the low table beside the bed. “Make cha with this, Anjin-san. Once every day until all gone. Understand?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“It has been an honor to serve you.” The old man motioned to the servant, who took away the empty tray, and after another bow followed her and left by the same inner door. Now Blackthorne was alone. He lay back on the futons feeling much better.

“I was just hungry,” he said aloud. He was wearing only a loincloth. His formal clothes were in a careless pile where he had left them and this surprised him, though a clean Brown kimono was beside his swords. He let himself drift, then suddenly he felt an alien presence. Uneasily he sat up and glanced around. Then he got onto his knees and looked over the screens, and before he knew it, he was standing, his head splitting from the sudden panicked movement as he saw the tonsured Japanese Jesuit staring at him, kneeling motionlessly beside the main doorway, a crucifix and rosary in his hand.

“Who are you?” he asked through his pain.

“I’m Brother Michael, senhor.” The coal-dark eyes never wavered.

Blackthorne moved from the screens and stood over his swords. “What d’you want with me?”