Shōgun

“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 piss-cutter if you know how.”

“Is ‘piss-cutter’ 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.