Shogun

Igurashi said, “You could tell Lord Toranaga about Jozen arriving, and about the Council meeting in twenty days, yes. But the other, about assassinating Lord Ito, that’s too dangerous to put in writing even if .?.?. Much too dangerous, neh?”

“I agree. Nothing about Ito. Toranaga should think of that himself. It’s obvious, neh?”

“Yes, Sire. Unthinkable but obvious.”

Omi waited in the silence, his mind frantically seeking a solution. Yabu’s eyes were on him but he was not afraid. His advice had been sound and offered only for the protection of the clan and the family and Yabu, the present leader of the clan. That Omi had decided to remove Yabu and change the leadership had not prevented him from counseling Yabu sagaciously. And he was prepared to die now. If Yabu was so stupid as not to accept the obvious truth of his ideas, then there soon would be no clan to lead anyway. Karma.

Yabu leaned forward, still undecided. “Is there any way to remove Jozen and his men without danger to me, and stay uncommitted for ten days?”

“Naga. Somehow bait a trap with Naga,” Omi said simply.

At dusk, Blackthorne and Mariko rode up to the gate of his house, outriders following. Both were tired. She rode as a man would ride, wearing loose trousers and over them a belted mantle. She had on a wide-brimmed hat and gloves to protect her from the sun. Even peasant women tried to protect their faces and their hands from the rays of the sun. From time immemorial, the darker the skin the more common the person; the whiter, the more prized.

Male servants took the halters and led the horses away. Blackthorne dismissed his outriders in tolerable Japanese and greeted Fujiko, who waited proudly on the veranda as usual.

“May I serve you cha, Anjin-san,” she said ceremoniously, as usual, and “No,” he said as usual. “First I will bathe. Then sake and some food.” And, as usual, he returned her bow and went through the corridor to the back of the house, out into the garden, along the circling path to the mud-wattled bath house. A servant took his clothes and he went in and sat down naked. Another servant scrubbed him and soaped him and shampooed him and poured water over him to wash away the lather and the dirt. Then, completely clean, gradually—because the water was so hot—he stepped into the huge iron-sided bath and lay down.

“Christ Jesus, that’s grand,” he exulted, and let the heat seep into his muscles, his eyes closed, the sweat running down his forehead.

He heard the door open and Suwo’s voice and “Good evening, Master,” followed by many words of Japanese which he did not understand. But tonight he was too tired to try to converse with Suwo. And the bath, as Mariko had explained many times, ‘is not merely for cleaning the skin. The bath is a gift to us from God or the gods, a god-bequeathed pleasure to be enjoyed and treated as such.’

“No talk, Suwo,” he said. “Tonight wish think.”

“Yes, Master. Your pardon, but you should say, ‘Tonight I wish to think.’?”

“Tonight I wish to think.” Blackthorne repeated the correct Japanese, trying to get the almost incomprehensible sounds into his head, glad to be corrected but very weary of it.

“Where’s the dictionary-grammar book?” he had asked Mariko first thing this morning. “Has Yabu-sama sent another request for it?”

“Yes. Please be patient, Anjin-san. It will arrive soon.”

“It was promised with the galley and the troops. It didn’t arrive. Troops and guns but no books. I’m lucky you’re here. It’d be impossible without you.”

“Difficult, but not impossible, Anjin-san.”

“How do I say, ‘No, you’re doing it wrong! You must all run as a team, stop as a team, aim and fire as a team’?”

“To whom are you talking, Anjin-san?” she had asked.

And then again he had felt his frustration rising. “It’s all very difficult, Mariko-san.”

“Oh, no, Anjin-san. Japanese is very simple to speak compared with other languages. There are no articles, no ‘the,’ ‘a,’ or ‘an.’ No verb conjugations or infinitives. All verbs are regular, ending in masu, and you can say almost everything by using the present tense only, if you want. For a question just add ka after the verb. For a negative just change masu to masen. What could be easier? Yukimasu means I go, but equally you, he, she, it, we, they go, or will go, or even could have gone. Even plural and singular nouns are the same. Tsuma means wife, or wives. Very simple.”

“Well, how do you tell the difference between I go, yukimasu, and they went, yukimasu?”

“By inflection, Anjin-san, and tone. Listen: yukimasu—yukimasu.”

“But these both sounded exactly the same.”

“Ah, Anjin-san, that’s because you’re thinking in your own language. To understand Japanese you have to think Japanese. Don’t forget our language is the language of the infinite. It’s all so simple, Anjin-san. Just change your concept of the world. Japanese is just learning a new art, detached from the world.?.?.?. It’s all so simple.”

“It’s all shit,” he had muttered in English, and felt better.

“What? What did you say?”

“Nothing. But what you say doesn’t make sense.”

“Learn the written characters,” Mariko had said.

“I can’t. It’ll take too long. They’re meaningless.”

“Look, they’re really simple pictures, Anjin-san. The Chinese are very clever. We borrowed their writing a thousand years ago. Look, take this character, or symbol, for a pig.”

“It doesn’t look like a pig.”

“Once it did, Anjin-san. Let me show you. Here. Add a ‘roof’ symbol over a ‘pig’ symbol and what do you have?”

“A pig and a roof.”

“But what does that mean? The new character?”

“I don’t know.”

“?‘Home.’ In the olden days the Chinese thought a pig under a roof was home. They’re not Buddhists, they’re meat eaters, so a pig to them, to peasants, represented wealth, hence a good home. Hence the character.”

“But how do you say it?”

“That depends if you’re Chinese or Japanese.”

“Oh ko!”

“Oh ko, indeed,” she had laughed. “Here’s another character. A ‘roof’ symbol and a ‘pig’ symbol and a ‘woman’ symbol. A ‘roof’ with two ‘pigs’ under it means ‘contentment.’ A ‘roof’ with two ‘women’ under it equals ‘discord.’ Neh?”

“Absolutely!”

“Of course, the Chinese are very stupid in many things and their women are not trained as women are here. There’s no discord in your home, is there?”

Blackthorne thought about that now, on the twelfth day of his rebirth. No. There was no discord. But neither was it a home. Fujiko was only like a trustworthy housekeeper and tonight when he went to his bed to sleep, the futons would be turned back and she would be kneeling beside them patiently, expressionlessly. She would be dressed in her sleeping kimono, which was similar to a day kimono but softer and with only a loose sash instead of a stiff obi at the waist.

“Thank you, Lady,” he would say. “Good night.”

She would bow and go silently to the room across the corridor, next to the one Mariko slept in. Then he would get under the fine silk mosquito net. He had never known such nets before. Then he would lie back happily, and in the night, hearing the few insects buzzing outside, he would dwell on the Black Ship, how important the Black Ship was to Japan.

Without the Portuguese, no trade with China. And no silks for clothes or for nets. Even now, with the humidity only just beginning, he knew their value.