Shogun

“Ah, sorry. Legs all right. No trouble,” she pleaded.

“Trouble. You are consort, neh? No shame. Show now!”

Obediently she got up. Clearly she was uncomfortable, but once she was upright, she began to untie the strings of her obi.

“Please call maid,” he ordered.

She obeyed. At once the shoji slid open and a woman he did not recognize rushed to assist her.

First the stiff obi was unwound. The maid put Fujiko’s sheathed dagger and obi to one side.

“What’s your name?” he asked the maid brusquely, as a samurai should.

“Oh, please excuse me, Sire, so very sorry. My name is Hana-ichi.”

He grunted an acknowledgment. Miss First Blossom, now there’s a fine name! All maids, by custom, were called Miss Brush or Crane or Fish or Second Broom or Fourth Moon or Star or Tree or Branch, and so on.

Hana-ichi was middle-aged and very concerned. I’ll bet she’s a family retainer, he told himself. Perhaps a vassal of Fujiko’s late husband. Husband! I’d forgotten about him as well, and the child who was murdered—as the husband was murdered by fiend Toranaga who’s not a fiend but a daimyo and a good, perhaps great leader. Yes. Probably the husband deserved his fate if the real truth were known, neh? But not the child, he thought. There’s no excuse for that.

Fujiko allowed her green patterned outer kimono to fall aside loosely. Her fingers trembled as she untied the thin silken sash of the yellow under-kimono and let that fall aside also. Her skin was light and the part of her breasts he could see within the folds of silk showed that they were flat and small. Hana-ichi knelt and untied the strings of the underskirt that reached from her waist to the floor to enable her mistress to step out of it.

“Iye,” he ordered. He walked over and lifted the hem. The burns began at the backs of her calves. “Gomen nasai,” he said.

She stood motionless. A tear of sweat trickled down her cheek, spoiling her makeup. He pulled the skirt higher. The skin was burned all up the backs of her legs but it seemed to be healing perfectly. Scar tissue had formed already and there was no infection, and no suppurations, only a little clean blood where the new scar tissue had broken at the backs of her knees as she had knelt.

He moved her kimonos aside and loosed the underskirt waist band. The burns stopped at the top of her legs, bypassed her rump where the beam had pinned her down and protected her, then began again in the small of her back. A swathe of burn, half a hand span, girdled her waist. Scar tissue was already settling into permanent crinkles. Unsightly, but healing perfectly.

“Doctor very good. Best I ever see!” He let her kimonos fall back. “Best, Fujiko-san! The scars, what does it matter, neh? Nothing. I see many fire hurts, understand? Want see, then sure good or not good. Doctor very good. Buddha watch Fujiko-san.” He put his hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes.

“No worry now. Shigata ga nai, neh? You understand?”

Her tears spilled. “Please excuse me, Anjin-san. I’m so embarrassed. Please excuse my stupidity for being there, caught there like a half-witted eta. I should have been with you, guarding you—not stuck with servants in the house. There’s nothing for me in the house, nothing, no reason to be in a house.?.?.?.”

He let her talk on though he understood almost nothing of what she said, holding her compassionately. I’ve got to find out what the doctor used, he thought excitedly. That’s the quickest and the best healing I’ve ever seen. Every master of every one of Her Majesty’s ships should know that secret—yes, and truly, every captain of every ship in Europe. Wait a moment, wouldn’t every master pay golden guineas for that secret? You could make a fortune! Yes. But not that way, he told himself, never that. Never out of a sailor’s agony.

She’s lucky though that it was only the backs of her legs and her back and not her face. He looked down at her face. It was still as square and flat as ever, her teeth just as sharp and ferretlike, but the warmth that flowed from her eyes compensated for the ugliness. He gave her another hug. “Now. No weep. Order!”

He sent the maid for fresh cha and sake and many cushions and helped her recline on them, as much as at first it embarrassed her to obey. “How can I ever thank you?” she said.

“No thanks. Give back—” Blackthorne thought a moment but he couldn’t remember the Japanese words for “favor” or “remember,” so he pulled out the dictionary and looked them up. “Favor: o- negai” .?.?. “remember: omoi dasu.”

“Hai, mondoso o-negai! Omoi dasu ka?” Give back favor. Remember? He held up his fists mimicking pistols and pointing them. “Omi-san, remember?”

“Oh, of course,” she cried out. Then, in wonder, she asked to look at the book. She had never seen Roman writing before, and the column of Japanese words into Latin and into Portuguese and vice versa were meaningless to her, but she quickly grasped its purpose. “It’s a book of all our .?.?. so sorry. Word book, neh?”

“Hai.”

“?‘Hombun’?” she asked.

He showed her how to find the word in Latin and in Portuguese. “Hombun: duty.” Then added in Japanese, “I understand duty. Samurai duty, neh?”

“Hai.” She clapped her hands as if she had been shown a magic toy. But it is magic, isn’t it, he told himself, a gift from God. This unlocks her mind and Toranaga’s mind and soon I’ll speak perfectly.

She gave him other words and he told her English or Latin or Portuguese, always understanding the words she chose and always finding them. The dictionary never failed.

He looked up a word. “Majutsu desu, neh?” It’s magic, isn’t it?

“Yes, Anjin-san. The book’s magic.” She sipped her cha. “Now I can talk to you. Really talk to you.”

“Little. Only slow, understand?”

“Yes. Please be patient with me. Please excuse me.”

The huge donjon bell sounded the Hour of the Goat and the temples in Yedo echoed the time change.

“I go now. Go Lord Toranaga.” He put the book into his sleeve.

“I’ll wait here please, if I may.”

“Where stay?”

She pointed. “Oh, there, my room’s next door. Please excuse my abruptness—”

“Slowly. Talk slowly. Talk simply!”

She repeated it slowly, with more apologies. “Good,” he said. “Good. I’ll see you later.”

She began to get up but he shook his head and went into the courtyard. The day was overcast now, the air suffocating. Guards awaited him. Soon he was in the donjon forecourt. Mariko was there, more slender than ever, more ethereal, her face alabaster under her rust-gold parasol. She wore somber brown, edged with green.

“Ohayo, Anjin-san. Ikaga desu ka?” she asked, bowing formally.

He told her that he was fine, happily keeping up their custom of talking in Japanese for as long as he could, turning to Portuguese only when he was tired or when they wished to be more secretive.

“Thou?.?.?.” he said cautiously as they walked up the stairs of the donjon.

“Thou,” Mariko echoed, and went immediately into Portuguese with the same gravity as last night. “So sorry, please, no Latin today, Anjin-san, today Latin cannot sit well—Latin cannot serve the purpose it was made for, neh?”

“When can I talk to you?”

“That’s very difficult, so sorry. I have duties.?.?.?.”

“There’s nothing wrong, is there?”

“Oh no,” she replied. “Please excuse me, what could be wrong? Nothing’s wrong.”

They climbed another flight in silence. On the next level their passes were checked as always, guards leading and following them. Rain began heavily and this eased the humidity.

“It’ll rain for hours,” he said.

“Yes. But without the rains there’s no rice. Soon the rains will stop altogether, in two or three weeks, then it will be hot and humid until the autumn.” She looked out of the windows at the enveloping cloudburst. “You’ll enjoy the autumn, Anjin-san.”

“Yes.” He was watching Erasmus, far distant, down beside the wharf. Then the