James Clavell

by Asian Saga 03 - Shogun (v5)

  “Tomorrow I will shoot against him and we will see, if he likes.”

  “You will lose, Anjin-san, so sorry. May I caution you not to attempt that,” she said.

  Blackthorne saw Buntaro’s eyes flick from Mariko to him and back again. “Thank you, Mariko-san. Say to him that I would like to see him shoot.”

  “He asks, can you use a bow?”

  “Yes, but not as a proper bowman. Bows are pretty much out of date with us. Except the crossbow. I was trained for the sea. There we use only cannon, musket, or cutlass. Sometimes we use fire arrows but only for enemy sails in close quarters.”

  “He asks, how are they used, how do you make them, these fire arrows? Are they different from ours, like the ones used against the galley at Osaka?”

  Blackthorne began to explain and there were the usual tiring interruptions and probing requestionings. By now he was used to their incredibly inquisitive minds about any aspect of war, but found it exhausting to talk through an interpreter. Even though Mariko was excellent, what she actually said was rarely exact. A long reply would always be shortened, some of what was spoken would, of course, be changed slightly, and misunderstandings occurred. So explanations had to be repeated unnecessarily.

  But without Mariko, he knew that he could never have become so valuable. It’s only knowledge that keeps me from the pit, he reminded himself. But that’s no problem, because there’s much to tell yet and a battle to win. A real battle to win. You’re safe till then. You’ve a navy to plan. And then home. Safe.

  He saw Buntaro’s swords and the guard’s swords and he felt his own and the oiled warmth of his pistol and he knew, truthfully, he would never be safe in this land. Neither he nor anyone was safe, not even Toranaga.

  “Anjin-san, Buntaro-sama asks if he sends you men tomorrow, could you show them how to make these arrows?”

  “Where can we get pitch?”

  “I don’t know.” Mariko cross-questioned him on where it was usually found and what it looked like or smelled like, and on possible alternatives. Then she spoke to Buntaro at length. Fujiko had been silent all the while, her eyes and ears trained, missing nothing. The maids, well commanded by a slight motion of Fujiko’s fan to an empty cup, constantly replenished the saké flasks.

  “My husband says he will discuss this with Lord Toranaga. Perhaps pitch exists somewhere in the Kwanto. We’ve never heard of it before. If not pitch, we have thick oils—whale oils—which might substitute. He asks do you sometimes use war rockets, like the Chinese?”

  “Yes. But they’re not considered of much value except in siege. The Turks used them when they came against the Knights of St. John in Malta. Rockets are used mostly to cause fire and panic.”

  “He asks please give him details about this battle.”

  “It was forty years ago, in the greatest—” Blackthorne stopped, his mind racing. This had been the most vital siege in Europe. Sixty thousand Islamic Turks, the cream of the Ottoman Empire, had come against six hundred Christian knights supported by a few thousand Maltese auxiliaries, at bay in their vast castle complex at St. Elmo on the tiny island of Malta in the Mediterranean. The knights had successfully withstood the six-month siege and, incredibly, had forced the enemy to retreat in shame. This victory had saved the whole Mediterranean seaboard, and thus Christendom, from being ravaged at whim by the infidel hordes.

  Blackthorne had suddenly realized that this battle gave him one of the keys to Osaka Castle: how to invest it, how to harry it, how to break through the gates, and how to conquer it.

  “You were saying, senhor?”

  “It was forty years ago, in the greatest inland sea we have in Europe, Mariko-san. The Mediterranean. It was just a siege, like any siege, not worth talking about,” he lied. Such knowledge was priceless, certainly not to be given away lightly and absolutely not now. Mariko had explained many times that Osaka Castle stood inexorably between Toranaga and victory. Blackthorne was certain that the solution to Osaka might well be his passport out of the Empire, with all the riches he would need in this life.

  He noticed that Mariko seemed troubled. “Senhora?”

  “Nothing, senhor.” She began to translate what he had said. But he knew that she knew he was hiding something. The smell of the stew distracted him.

  “Fujiko-san!”

  “Hai, Anjin-san?”

  “Shokuji wa madaka? Kyaku wa … sazo kufuku de oro, neh?” When’s dinner? The guests may be hungry.

  “Ah, gomen nasai, hi ga kurete kara ni itashimasu.”

  Blackthorne saw her point at the sun and realized that she had said “after sunset.” He nodded and grunted, which passed in Japan for a polite “thank you, I understand.”

  Mariko turned again to Blackthorne. “My husband would like you to tell him about a battle you’ve been in.”

  “They’re all in the War Manual, Mariko-san.”

  “He says he’s read it with great interest, but it contains only brief details. Over the next days he wishes to learn everything about all your battles. One now, if it pleases you.”

  “They’re all in the War Manual. Perhaps tomorrow, Mariko-san.” He wanted time to examine his blinding new thought about Osaka Castle and that battle, and he was tired of talking, tired of being cross-questioned, but most of all he wanted to eat.

  “Please, Anjin-san, would you tell it again, just once, for my husband?”

  He heard the careful pleading under her voice so he relented. “Of course. Which do you think he’d like?”

  “The one in the Netherlands. Near ‘Zeeland’—is that how you pronounce it?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  So he began to tell the story of this battle which was like almost every other battle in which men died, most of the time because of the mistakes and stupidity of the officers in command.

  “My husband says it’s not so here, Anjin-san. Here the commanding officers have to be very good or they die very quickly.”

  “Of course, my criticisms applied to European leaders only.”

  “Buntaro-sama says he will tell you about our wars and our leaders, particularly the Lord Taikō, over the days. A fair exchange for your information,” she said noncommittally.

  “Domo.” Blackthorne bowed slightly, feeling Buntaro’s eyes grind into him.

  What do you really want from me, you son of a bitch?

  Dinner was a disaster. For everyone.

  Even before they had left the garden to go to the veranda to eat, the day had become ill-omened.

  “Excuse me, Anjin-san, but what’s that?” Mariko pointed. “Over there. My husband asks, what’s that?”

  “Where? Oh, there! That’s a pheasant,” Blackthorne said. “Lord Toranaga sent it to me, along with a hare. We’re having that for dinner, English-style—at least I am, though there’d be enough for everyone.”

  “Thank you, but … we, my husband and I, we don’t eat meat. But why is the pheasant hanging there? In this heat, shouldn’t it be put away and prepared?”

  “That’s the way you prepare pheasant. You hang it to mature the meat.”

  “What? Just like that? Excuse me, Anjin-san,” she said, flustered, “so sorry. But it’ll go rotten quickly. It still has its feathers and it’s not been … cleaned.”

  “Pheasant meat’s dry, Mariko-san, so you hang it for a few days, perhaps a couple of weeks, depending on the weather. Then you pluck it, clean it, and cook it.”

  “You—you leave it in the air? To rot? Just like—”

  “Nan ja?” Buntaro asked impatiently.

  She spoke to him apologetically and he sucked in his breath, then got up and peered at it and prodded it. A few flies buzzed, then settled back again. Hesitantly Fujiko spoke to Buntaro and he flushed.

  “Your consort said you ordered that no one was to touch it but you?” Mariko asked.

  “Yes. Don’t you hang game here? Not everyone’s Buddhist.”

  “No, Anjin-san. I don’t think so.”

  “Some people beli
eve you should hang a pheasant by the tail feathers until it drops off, but that’s an old wives’ tale,” Blackthorne said. “By the neck’s the right way, then the juices stay where they belong. Some people let it hang until it drops off the neck but personally, I don’t like meat that gamy. We used to—” He stopped for she had gone a slight shade of green.

  “Nan desu ka, Mariko-san?” Fujiko asked quickly.

  Mariko explained. They all laughed nervously and Mariko got up, weakly patting the sheen off her forehead. “I’m sorry, Anjin-san, would you excuse me a moment …”

  Your food’s just as strange, he wanted to say. What about yesterday, the raw squid—white, slimy, almost tasteless chewy meat with nothing but soya sauce to wash it down? Or the chopped octopus tentacles, again raw, with cold rice and seaweed? How about fresh jellyfish with yellow-brown, souped torfu—fermented beancurds—that looked like a bowl of dog puke? Oh yes, served beautifully in a fragile, attractive bowl, but still looking like puke! Yes, by God, enough to make any man sick!

  Eventually they went to the veranda room and, after the usual interminable bowings and small talk and cha and saké, the food began to arrive. Small trays of clear fish soup and rice and raw fish, as always. And then his stew.

  He lifted the lid of the pot. The steam rose and golden globules of fat danced on the shimmering surface. The rich, mouth-watering gravy-soup was heavy with meat juices and tender chunks of flesh. Proudly he offered it but they all shook their heads and begged him to eat.

  “Domo,” he said.

  It was good manners to drink soup directly from the small lacquered bowls and to eat anything solid in the soup with chopsticks. A ladle was on the tray. Hard put to stop his hunger, he filled the bowl and began to eat. Then he saw their eyes.

  They were watching with nauseated fascination which they unsuccessfully tried to hide. His appetite began to slip away. He tried to dismiss them but could not, his stomach growling. Hiding his irritation, he put down the bowl and replaced the lid and told them gruffly it was not to his taste. He ordered Nigatsu to take it away.

  “Should it be thrown away then, Fujiko asks,” Mariko said hopefully.

  “Yes.”

  Fujiko and Buntaro relaxed.

  “Would you like more rice?” Fujiko asked.

  “No, thank you.”

  Mariko waved her fan, smiled encouragingly, and refilled his saké cup. But Blackthorne was not soothed and he resolved in the future to cook in the hills in private, to eat in private, and to hunt openly.

  To hell with them, he thought. If Toranaga can hunt, so can I. When am I going to see him? How long do I have to wait?

  “The pox on waiting and the pox on Toranaga!” he said aloud in English and felt better.

  “What, Anjin-san?” Mariko asked in Portuguese.

  “Nothing,” he replied. “I was just wondering when I’d see Lord Toranaga.”

  “He didn’t tell me. Very soon, I imagine.”

  Buntaro was slurping his saké and soup loudly as was custom. This began to annoy Blackthorne. Mariko talked cheerfully with her husband, who grunted, hardly acknowledging her. She was not eating, and it further irked him that both she and Fujiko were almost fawning on Buntaro and also that he himself had to put up with this unwanted guest.

  “Tell Buntaro-sama that in my country a host toasts the honored guest.” He lifted his cup with a grim smile. “Long life and happiness!” He drank.

  Buntaro listened to Mariko’s explanation. He nodded in agreement, lifted his cup in return, smiled through his teeth, and drained it.

  “Health!” Blackthorne toasted again.

  And again.

  And again.

  “Health!”

  This time Buntaro did not drink. He put down the full cup and looked at Blackthorne out of his small eyes. Then Buntaro called to someone outside. The shoji slid open at once. His guard, ever present, bowed and handed him the immense bow and quiver. Buntaro took it and spoke vehemently and rapidly to Blackthorne.

  “My husband—my husband says you wanted to see him shoot, Anjin-san. He thinks tomorrow is too far away. Now is a good time. The gateway of your house, Anjin-san. He asks which post do you choose?”

  “I don’t understand,” Blackthorne said. The main gate would be forty paces away, somewhere across the garden, but now completely masked by the closed shoji wall to his right.

  “The left or the right post? Please choose.” Her manner was urgent.

  Warned, he looked at Buntaro. The man seemed detached, oblivious of them, a squat ugly troll who sat gazing into the distance.

  “Left,” he said, fascinated.

  “Hidari!” she said.

  At once Buntaro slid an arrow from the quiver and, still sitting, set up the bow, raised it, drew back the bowstring to eye level and released the shaft with savage, almost poetic liquidity. The arrow slashed toward Mariko’s face, touched a strand of her hair in passing, and disappeared through the shoji paper wall. Another arrow was launched almost before the first had vanished, and then another, each one coming within an inch of impaling Mariko. She remained calm and motionless, kneeling as she had always been.

  A fourth arrow and then a last. The silence was filled with the echo of the twanging bowstring. Buntaro sighed and came back slowly. He put the bow across his knees. Mariko and Fujiko sucked in their breaths and smiled and bowed and complimented Buntaro and he nodded and bowed slightly. They looked at Blackthorne. He knew that what he had witnessed was almost magical. All the arrows had gone through the same hole in the shoji.

  Buntaro handed the bow back to his guard and picked up his tiny cup. He stared at it a moment, then raised it to Blackthorne, drained it and spoke harshly, his brutish self again.

  “He—my husband asks, politely, please go and look.”

  Blackthorne thought a moment, trying to still his heart. “There’s no need. Of course he hit the target.”

  “He says he would like you to be sure.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Please, Anjin-san. You would honor him.”

  “I don’t need to honor him.”

  “Yes. But may I please quietly add my request.”

  Again the plea was in her eyes.

  “How do I say, ‘That was marvelous to watch’?”

  She told him. He said the words and bowed. Buntaro bowed perfunctorily in return.

  “Ask him please to come with me to see the arrows.”

  “He says that he would like you to go by yourself. He does not wish to go, Anjin-san.”

  “Why?”

  “If he has been accurate, senhor, you should see that by yourself. If not, you should see that alone too. Then neither you nor he can be embarrassed.”

  “And if he’s missed?”

  “He hasn’t. But by our custom accuracy under such impossible circumstances is unimportant compared to the grace that the archer shows, the nobility of movement, his strength to shoot sitting, or the detachment about the winning or losing.”

  The arrows were within an inch of each other in the middle of the left post. Blackthorne looked back at the house and he could see, forty-odd paces away, the small neat hole in the paper wall that was a spark of light in the darkness.

  It’s almost impossible to be so accurate, he thought. From where Buntaro was sitting he couldn’t see the garden or the gate, and it was black night outside. Blackthorne turned back to the post and raised the lantern higher. With one hand he tried to pull out an arrow. The steel head was buried too deep. He could have snapped the wooden shaft but he did not wish to.

  The guard was watching.

  Blackthorne hesitated. The guard came forward to help but he shook his head, “Iyé, domo,” and went back inside.

  “Mariko-san, please tell my consort that I would like the arrows left in the post forever. All of them. To remind me of a master archer. I’ve never seen such shooting.” He bowed to Buntaro.

  “Thank you, Anjin-san.” She translated and Buntaro bowed and thanked
him for the compliment.

  “Saké!” Blackthorne ordered.

  They drank more. Much more. Buntaro quaffed his carelessly now, the wine taking him. Blackthorne watched him covertly then let his attention wander away as he wondered how the man had managed to line up and fire the arrows with such incredible accuracy. It’s impossible, he thought, yet I saw him do it. Wonder what Vinck and Baccus and the rest are doing right now. Toranaga had told him the crew were now settled in Yedo, near Erasmus. Christ Jesus, I’d like to see them and get back aboard.

  He glanced across at Mariko, who was saying something to her husband. Buntaro listened, then to Blackthorne’s surprise, he saw the samurai’s face become contorted with loathing. Before he could avert his eyes Buntaro had looked at him.

  “Nan desu ka?” Buntaro’s words sounded almost like an accusation.

  “Nani-mo, Buntaro-san.” Nothing. Blackthorne offered everyone saké, hoping to cover his lapse. Again the women accepted, but just sipped their wine sparingly. Buntaro finished his cup at once, his mood ugly. Then he harangued Mariko lengthily.

  In spite of himself, Blackthorne spoke out. “What’s the matter with him? What’s he saying?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Anjin-san. My husband was asking about you, about your wife and consorts. And about your children. And about what happened since we left Osaka. He—” She stopped, changing her mind, and added in a different voice, “He’s most interested in you and your views.”

  “I’m interested in him and his views, Mariko-san. How did you meet, you and he? When were you married? Did—” Buntaro overrode him with a flurry of impatient Japanese.

  At once Mariko translated what had been said. Buntaro reached over and sloshed two teacups full of saké, offered one to Blackthorne and waved at the women to take the others.

  “He—my husband says sometimes saké cups are too small.” Mariko poured the other teacups full. She sipped one, Fujiko the other. There was another, more bellicose harangue and Mariko’s smile froze on her face, Fujiko’s also.

  “Iyé, dozo gomen nasai, Buntaro-sama,” Mariko began.