The Samurai of Seville

by John Healey

  He regretted his friend’s company. Diego had spoken too much since leaving Sanlúcar, going on about Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Moors, and Visigoths, all of the different peoples who had lived in those hills and valleys with the sea so close by. None of it really interested the Samurai, and all of it had interfered with the experience of simply being there. Diego was the sort, he realized, who had to speak, who required distraction from what, for Shiro, was the best part of being.

  Early the next morning while the Spaniard slept, Shiro stripped and immersed himself in the stream. As the frigid water rushed over him, he decided there were advantages to being an outcast. Had his mother been married to his father, he would never have left Japan. The Lord would have recognized him, but only as he did the other heirs. Had he a real father, his spirit would have been overly molded. Being a bastard had set him free. Being a bastard had placed him there in that stream on the other side of the world. As one of his favorite monks always said to him whenever he complained of being slighted, ‘Who knows what is good and what is bad?’ This, it seemed, was one of the great divides between his Zen Confucianism and the beliefs espoused by the Christians, who professed to know in every instance what was correct and what was sinful.

  When they arrived at the Duke’s grand finca, he and Diego were told to wait at the gate. An hour passed before a secretary appeared to collect the letters. Two hours after that, the same man returned to say the letters had been read and that their presence was no longer necessary. Diego was angry for how it made his countrymen look, and angry at the nobility the way he had always been since youth, but he had no desire to quarrel with so powerful a house and prepared to remount his horse. Shiro remained calm and told the secretary he still had a gift to give the Duke and that he would only present it in person. He then added that in his own land he was considered a Prince and that if the Duke knew this, surely he would receive him.

  When the secretary went away, Diego asked, ‘Are you a prince?’

  ‘My Lord Date Masamune has called me thus, for his blood runs through my veins.’

  Diego nodded in admiration as if he understood, but the hierarchies and royal stations of the Japanese had never been clear to him. He thought to inquire further, but a steely gaze behind the young Samurai’s aura of calm gave him pause. When the secretary returned, Shiro was admitted into the palace.

  He admired the white walls and the dark wooden furniture and the tiled floors. The palace in Sanlúcar, though plain on the outside—someone had explained to him this feature derived from an Islamic ideal he found pleasing—was ornate and extravagant within. But here, where the owner felt most at home, the style was almost Japanese in that it was simple and austere within and without. Shiro liked the stark religious paintings and somber portraits, the austere suits of armor, the potted ferns and faded tapestries. It was the house of someone who felt no need to prove anything.

  He was shown to the Duke’s study, where the noble sat at a wide and heavy desk on which were piled papers and manuscripts. Putting down a magnifying glass and using his cane for support, he stood. Shiro bowed as the Duke studied the young man before him. In all of his travels and misadventures and with all of the foreign dignitaries he had met at court, never before had he seen anyone who looked like this.

  ‘There is no mention of your royal status in either of the letters brought with you,’ he said, speaking slowly for the other’s benefit. ‘And you’ve come accompanied by a man who looks like a stable hand.’

  ‘I am Shiro-San, Prince of Sendai, my lord.’

  The Duke smiled, impressed by the young man’s pluck, and he took an immediate interest in the curious, long hilt of the oddly shaped sword protruding from Shiro’s sash.

  ‘In my country, this country, the term ‘Prince’ is reserved exclusively for legitimate heirs of the King, a King who rules all of Spain and Portugal, the Two Sicilies, the Low Countries, and all of New Spain and the Philippines across the ocean. What does it mean in your land?’

  ‘There is no mention of my royalty in the letters I have brought with me because I am an illegitimate heir. The legitimate ones would never have traveled so far from their castles and armies. But I am related to and close to the Lord Date Masamune, who has sent me here to your country.’

  The Duke was shocked and then amused by the young man’s forthright admission and amused as well by the sevillano intonation with which he spoke.

  ‘The man who wrote one of the letters, your countryman, is he a legitimate Prince?’ asked the Duke.

  ‘He is legitimate and of noble blood and has been entrusted by Lord Masamune to lead the Embassy mission, but he is not a prince.’

  ‘And does he recognize you as such?’

  ‘No, or rather, yes, which is why I suspect I am such a disturbance to him. He has sent me here with the letters to be rid of me.’

  The Duke realized he was in the presence of a princely boy regardless of the details and was glad for the interruption. He motioned for Shiro to sit before returning to the chair at his desk.

  ‘It tires me to stand.’

  He tapped the tabletop with the unclipped nails of his right hand. ‘Let me see if I understand what you are telling me,’ he said. ‘The King of your country who has sent the Embassy mission has chosen a member of the nobility to lead it. But you, even though you are illegitimate, and I will come to that in a minute, are closer to this King and thus resented by the noble ambassador.’

  ‘Yes, my lord. That is an accurate assessment, except that the Lord Date Masamune would never refer to himself as a King.’

  ‘And why is that?’

  ‘He prefers to describe himself as a warrior.’

  ‘Is he one?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘I and my fellow Samurai, we are all warriors who follow the Warrior’s Way. From what I have learned thus far, the Warrior’s Way is similar to what here is called chivalry.’

  ‘You don’t much look like a warrior.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘Warriors are rougher and tougher looking as a rule.’

  ‘When one’s sword is swift and sharp, there is no need for roughness. And a tough appearance is often deceptive.’

  The Duke smiled.

  ‘Is it true you have all been baptized? You and your fellow warriors?’

  ‘Yes. All of us except for Hasekura Tsunenaga, who wishes to be baptized in the presence of your King.’

  ‘And are you really believers in the tenets of the Church?’

  ‘We are believers in diplomacy.’

  The Duke laughed aloud. ‘I am beginning to see why your ambassador might wish to keep you far away.’

  Shiro did not react to this and instead remembered something.

  ‘I bring you a gift from him.’

  He reached into his tunic and took out a long dagger wrapped in soft leather. He stood and approached the desk and, bowing, presented it to the Duke, who took it from him.

  ‘This is a treasured Tanto,’ usually kept at one’s side with the ‘Katana,’ he said touching the hilt of his sword. ‘The combination of the two, and here is my own kept close to my heart, is known as the “Daisho.” Only a Samurai may carry them.’

  The Duke unwrapped the knife and took it in hand.

  ‘It is very beautiful. It is a pleasing gift.’

  ‘And sharp.’

  ‘I am most honored.’

  ‘The honor is mine, sir. You have received us, after our long journey, far better than we once received your sailors who, blown off course, came to our shores. We have much to learn from you in this regard.’

  The Duke thought for a moment about his son and his daughter-in-law, and then focused on the odd young man come to his study in the hills from a land he would never visit, and he felt the weight of his years.

  ‘I suggest you make no great haste to be pleased with us just yet, sir. Do you know why I did not receive you right away this morning?’

  ‘
No.’

  ‘Because of the second letter, written by my countryman, the husband in fact of my very own niece. Shall I read it to you?’

  Shiro simply nodded his head.

  ‘I shall skip the flowery salutations that, between you and me, should have told me all I needed to know about this boy, and proceed to the pith of the matter.’

  He cleared his throat and then held the letter in both his hands up close to his watery eyes.

  ‘Rather than taking the effort to come himself, the ambassador has entrusted his greetings and message of gratitude to, from what I can deduce, the lowest of the low, the young man who was ordered to stay on board their ship as a guard last night along with some common sailor from La Triana who can barely read. The insult, or worse, the ignorance thus revealed, astonishes me. Needless to say, you must not even acknowledge their presence when and if they arrive.’

  He placed the letter back down upon the desk.

  ‘What do you make of that?’

  Listening to the contents of the letter, Shiro decided to make the author pay for his slander, but he kept it to himself.

  ‘When Hasekura Tsunenaga came off the ship,’ he said to the Duke in a tone of equanimity, ‘neither Don Julian nor his two comrades deigned to dismount their horses to meet our ambassador face-to-face. Then the other evening, when my friend and I went to obtain from him this letter of presentation, he did not speak a word to me but only addressed my friend Diego, to whom he gave some money in exchange for silence regarding a certain woman who was there with him. And I was never ordered to stay aboard the ship. I volunteered to do so.’

  The Duke raised his eyebrows with true fascination. What had started out as an ordinary morning dulled by paperwork and the tedium of old age was redeemed.

  ‘A woman, you say.’

  ‘A woman he called his aunt but who clearly was not.’

  This was not a topic of great interest to the Duke.

  ‘And who is this Diego fellow everyone thinks so little of?’

  ‘He is from Sevilla, an adventurer. A fine man.’

  ‘But why is he with you?’

  ‘We became friends during the journey from Japan, making fun of Father Sotelo. And then I saved his life. So he is grateful.’

  ‘Father Sotelo.’

  ‘The Spanish priest who taught me your language in Japan, also from Sevilla, and the man behind our entire mission, for I believe it was his idea that the Lord agreed to.’

  ‘And how did you come to save the sailor’s life?’

  ‘He made the mistake of drawing a knife on a Samurai, who then sliced off his hand and was about to behead him when I intervened.’

  ‘Behead the man, you say, on the deck of the ship?’

  ‘Beheading is a common practice, where it takes place is secondary. As it was, the Samurai performed seppuku in front of everyone.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘We open the abdomen with the tanto, like the one you have now. It is a sign of respect for one’s adversary.’

  ‘Good lord. How revolting.’

  ‘No more so than when one hunts and then guts an antelope.’

  ‘Speaking of innards, mine are getting stirred. We must eat something. But I have just one more question. Why did you volunteer to stand guard on the ship? Why would a Prince, even an illegitimate one, wish to do such a thing?’

  ‘We had come so far sir, so far from where I am from, from who I am, and suddenly, entering the channel at Sanlúcar de Barrameda, I felt too strangely at home, and such was my state of consternation I needed time alone before stepping ashore. Being alone, after so many months of forced comradeship, was the great luxury. In truth, I only conceded to have Diego accompany me here to your house because he wished to. The idea of being alone in your countryside with a horse and my bow was what I wanted.’

  Down in the garden next to the chapel, the two men took Málaga wine and a selection of pastries made by nuns cloistered in the village convent. Pomegranates and mottled quince hung from trees, late roses flourished, low-clipped hedges of acrid-smelling boxwood neatened the perimeters. Though a pallet of greens predominated, fallen leaves decorated the gravel paths and a telltale autumn damp competed with the sunlight.

  The Duke held Shiro’s Katana in both his bony hands, noting its balance, shape and craftsmanship. Shiro held a Spanish fencing sword that had been brought with the refreshments.

  ‘I am a strong defender of what we call La Verdadera Destreza,’ said the Duke, ‘the true art of swordsmanship, as opposed to the esgrima vulgar. I’ve paid for a book to be published on the topic, and among our nobility there is much lively discussion between the Carrancistas and the Pachequistas with regard to what constitutes proper footwork and such. But as you can see, we only employ one hand. Do you think you might give me a short demonstration of how it is you Samurai wield your swords?’

  One of the guards was summoned, and in a small clearing by a fountain Shiro and the man squared off. Shiro bowed to the guard before assuming his first position, and this impressed the Duke. But nothing could have prepared him for what came next, the acrobatics of the Samurai sword swirling above Shiro’s head, behind him, and then dramatically surging forward at a precise angle with respect to Shiro’s elbows. The guard did his best to represent the Duke’s enthusiasm for the verdadera destreza, but within half a minute, enough time in which to show his host some of the basic moves, Shiro went at his opponent’s sword and cut it in half, breaking through its blade as if the barbarian steel were a dried twig.

  The severed blade flew up into the limpid air, shimmering in the sun. The three men followed it with their eyes. It went the length of the garden, spinning between oleander blossoms and palm fronds. Missing her delicate foot by less than an inch, it finally came to rest sticking firmly into the earthen path where Guada tred, her head covered and her heart contrite after mass in the chapel.

  – PART TWO –

  – XIII –

  In which Shiro and Guada walk among the ruins

  In a corner of the large room assigned to him, a taper projected tentacles of amber light upon the whitewashed wall. The bed was broad and hard. Shiro lay beneath a sheet of bleached muslin graced with a band of embroidery stitched along the top that intertwined the Duke’s initials with astrological themes. Over the sheet was draped a heavy coverlet made from the skins of lynxes hunted in the Sierra of Grazalema. It was finished with a border of frayed burgundy velvet. The coverlet’s warmth compensated for the gelid air entering through the open shutters, air that carried scents of pine and rosemary.

  His head ached. It was just before dawn, and he listened to the clip-clop and occasional slipping of mule hooves navigating the rocky surface of a nearby street. He imagined it was being lead out of the village into the countryside. Though he felt far from home, once again there was something familiar here.

  He thought about the wondrous girl. At supper the previous evening, he would have sworn her eyes rose at the ends into a slight slant. The elegance of her bearing, the subtlety of her, had overwhelmed him. When he caught her staring at the extra finger on his right hand, an extravagance the Duke had yet to notice, it tied his tongue. The thought she was married to the rude barbarian, the one called Julian who had paid Diego not to mention the woman they found him with in Sanlúcar, was puzzling. At first he assumed the marriage had been arranged, but each time Julian’s name arose in conversation, she reacted favorably. He could see she cared for her husband, and it had taken all the control he could muster to stifle an urge to reveal what he knew.

  It was not hard for him to imagine that had he been able to spend more time with Yokiko, love might have followed, love for a girl enslaved to other men. He’d been told his own mother had passionately loved her first husband, a handsome Samurai not known for his kindness, but then she’d found love again with Katakura Kojuro, a rotund and ungainly sort married to someone else.

  He knew he would have to resign himself to the fact that even if Guada had
not already been claimed, anything beyond the exchange of pleasantries would be impossible. Neither her tribe of privileged Christians nor his Samurai code would sanction anything but a most politic and constrained friendship. It was in fact her condition as a married woman—and his as an exotic foreign guest—that permitted them a measure of freedom. Had she been unattached, she would never have been unaccompanied, even under the protection of her uncle’s vaulted ceilings. As it was, her mother was due to arrive in a few days’ time to “relieve” the Duke from having to devote so large a fraction of his diminishing energies toward the entertainment of his niece.

  Bits of goat braised over a fire had been served with potatoes grown from plantings brought from the New World. The meat was garnished as well with apples and pears. The wine, something he had never tasted, came from the north of Spain, something the Duke seemed quite pleased about. As he kept drinking it, he found his tongue loosened, and it was the discussion about maguro that finally provoked Shiro to shake his shyness altogether. A small village along the coast nearby within the Duke’s domain was known for its families of vigorous tuna fishermen. When the Duke mentioned how the season had begun, Shiro told them what a great a delicacy the fish was in the land he came from. The Duke then insisted they make the excursion that would get underway that morning within the next few hours.

  By noon, from high in the hills they spied the sea. With the Duke, Shiro, Guada, and Rosario, and then the Duke’s guards and servants, it was a colorful caravan that wound its way through the green grasses of the gentle slopes and their almond trees. The Duke was dressed in cream and crimson, Shiro in black and white, Guada mounted sidesaddle wearing a billowing ivory-hued skirt and a waistcoat of teal blue with yellow buttons fashioned from Venetian glass. Rosario wore black. The guards wore gray and blue, the servants, muslin tunics. The chaplain had been left behind. One guard riding ahead carried the Duke’s standard fastened to a long, varnished pole. A string of pack mules carrying tents and provisions trailed behind.