The Samurai of Seville

by John Healey

  I know that Don Alonso would have been touched that you and your mother made the journey to Sanlúcar for his interment. I am sorry I was not there. Please know the rancor I sustain against the man you married is exclusive to him. Even in the midst of what occurred that evening, I did hear your cries against it. I have no quarrel with you and only hope for your happiness. I confess I am relieved to read you have separated from him.

  I am not ready to face you, or anyone. Had I been defeated with less grievous wounds, I would have ended my life as befits the warrior class to which I belong. There are times even now when I consider it. But something drives me to remain alive, to finish what honor demanded of me that night.

  Shiro,

  I write this now from Sevilla, with gratitude for your kind words I fear I do not merit. Though I did protest what happened to you that night, and paid dearly for it afterwards, it happened in my home. And though I am not Julian, I chose to marry him. It means I cannot trust myself, and thus anyone, anymore. I feel as if I no longer know anything with any certainty.

  Yours in Christ, Guada

  ***

  Guada,

  An uncle of mine who was always kind to me tortured a Christian missionary to death. Beasts in the forest lick and suckle their young and then kill their prey with ferocity. You are grateful and kind to me, and yet you saw me behead a man in front of you. Who can explain such things? In your letter you mention a price you paid for my misfortune. If it is not too painful, please tell me what it was.

  ***

  Shiro,

  Had you not befriended your sailor friend, Julian would not have come to murder him, and if he had not murdered him, you would not have come seeking revenge. Your hands would still be as they were, and I would not have been forcibly attacked and left bruised on the floor filled with Julian’s seed that has taken root within my womb. Such is fate. I am so ashamed.

  Yours in Christ, Guada

  ***

  Guada,

  You will have to excuse this perhaps illegible scrawl. But given the content of your last letter I feel I must answer it myself in my own hand without an intermediary.

  Where does the chain of fate begin? With my own conception and birth? With yours? With Father Sotelo, who brought Diego Molina and me together? With Julian’s decision to murder Diego in a cowardly act of erroneous revenge? With your marriage? With my lack of care in defending myself that night? All these factors and many more brought me to your home that evening. But Julian’s act of brutality against you was not fated. Nothing that happened that night forced him to do such a thing. He chose to do it. Regardless, I look at my hands and I think of the child growing within you and I curse “the fates” for having brought me into your life.

  But I must also confess that meeting you has changed me. Of all the Samurai who could have been chosen to deliver Hasekura Tsunenaga’s gift to the Duke, it was I because I speak your language. And there you were at this finca in Medina-Sidonia, where I sit once again. This too must figure into the concept of fate.

  I traveled the same route to return here, rested by the same stream, came upon the house on the hill at the same hour, but with so much changed in so short a time. The Duke dead and buried, my hands destroyed, my weapons taken from me, and you, who once upon a time had been so close, far away and wounded.

  Shiro,

  Forgive my petulance. I had no intention of accusing you for what happened to me. I have only myself to blame. I knew of Julian’s involvement with Marta Vélez before we married. I committed the sin of pride by believing he would do as promised once our union was sanctified. I was warned by my family and chose to ignore them. There is nothing left to say on the matter, so please let us not revisit it.

  As for how one regards fate, I can only rely upon my faith. One is put on Earth as a test to determine whether one’s soul deserves eternal life in heaven, or eternal damnation. And since Adam deigned to accept Eve’s apple plucked from the Forbidden Tree of Wisdom, we have been endowed with free will. On the other hand, God is all-seeing and thereby knows the course each one of us shall take, and looked at from that place our lives indeed are predetermined. In either case, you are not at fault.

  You write that meeting me changed you. I can only pray it has been for the better. But I am ignorant of any influence I may have had upon you.

  Guada,

  Too eager to impress the Duke with my sword on the day I made his acquaintance, I sliced a guard’s weapon in half and then followed the arc of its flight through the air. As the sharpened shard descended, I saw you emerge from the chapel with Rosario. You were all in white, your golden hair tied in a braid with ribbons of pale-green silk. You wore gloves and carried your prayer book. I had never seen anything so beautiful. I was fearful the shard might come to harm you. When we walked together that night by the sea on the ancient streets of Baelo Claudia, I was fearful I might utter something foolish or unforgiveable. I kept imagining you dressed in a kimono of the sort the wealthy damsels of Edo wear, and the thought made me dizzy.

  Did these emotions change me? In your eyes perhaps they may sound paltry. Many years ago when Father Sotelo gave me instruction in the Christian catechism, he often said that “we are creatures of habit.” And I must cede him that point. Upon arriving here I substituted one Lord for another, the Duke for Date Masamune, putting myself at his service, even feeling a similar strength of fealty and devotion. It is, it seems, what I do. But when you appeared I felt an inner expansion, a fragmentation of my discipline I find hard to describe. I can only say that knowing you has revealed paths of autonomy I had never before considered.

  ***

  Shiro,

  You flatter me. No matter how enslaved you may feel to habit, to fealty and service, at least you are a man. Your horizons far surpass any that I, as a woman, even as a privileged woman, will ever get to see. No one in my family, now that the Duke is gone, will prosecute for an annulment of my most unfortunate marriage, especially now that I carry the fiend’s child.

  My aunt encourages me to take a lover, to follow in the footsteps of our illustrious Marta Vélez. She assures me that my wealth and social rank will protect me from slander. But I am still young. To pass from a virginal blushing bride to a hardened mistress in the blink of an eye is not how I envisioned my life. And yet, unlike you, I have little choice in the matter.

  So use your inner expansion well, and for whatever small part I may have played in its appearance I give thanks to God. And I pray to Mary for guidance through my troubles. Were it not for the fact that my brother is already enclosed within a monastery, I would be at the gates of a nunnery in a trice, but it would break the hearts of my parents and my aunt.

  ***

  Guada,

  My mother took a lover and enjoyed it while it lasted, and here I am as a result of it. You must look to your happiness. And I beg of you to cease referring to your unborn child as the issue of a fiend. The fiendishness of Julian is there for all to see. But your child is innocent and deserves a fresh start.

  Rosario arrived from Sanlúcar yesterday along with the rest of the Duke’s household. She wishes to give birth, now in two month’s time, here where her mother lives. She also brings word from Madrid. After a memorial service that was held in the Alcázar for the Duke, the King kindly asked after me. Hasekura Tsunenaga pleaded ignorance of my whereabouts, and the King sent a letter to Rosario, who solved the riddle. I am relieved to say she made no mention of my physical state nor of the circumstances that brought it about.

  The Delegation is to leave for Rome in less than a month’s time, and I debate with myself about whether I should join them. I have been remiss of late in my mission to be the eyes and ears of my Lord in Sendai. But I am still a poor sight and am deprived of my weapons and clothing, and I can barely lift a sword. I fear I might prove to be an embarrassment to my fellow warriors. I spent this morning in meditation within the chapel and then walked up into the hills where the Duke and I used to ride together. I w
onder if you and I shall ever see each other again.

  – XXXIV –

  In which Shiro sets forth once again and peace is made

  Sometimes at night Rosario would massage Shiro’s hands with olive oil and chamomile, and on one evening, holding one of his hands in both of hers, they kissed. They took walks together in the gardens. They told their own stories and retold stories about the Duke. They shared their meals and talked about Guada and Julian and Marta Vélez and Guada’s parents and Soledad Medina, the woman who, once upon a time, had been the love of the Duke’s life. They talked about the babies to be born. Shiro’s feelings for Guada were clear to the both of them. ‘I do not seek to wrest a heart I know to be already taken,’ Rosario said to him. ‘But you and I are alone for now.’

  At night they took comfort in each other until one afternoon four Royal horsemen and four mounted Samurai arrived from Madrid. The Royal guard carried a letter to Shiro from the King. The Samurai handed him a short scroll penned by Hasekura Tsunenaga. Both missives contained the same message, wishing him well and encouraging him to leave Medina-Sidonia with the riders who would escort him to Almería, from where they would sail to Barcelona, where a ship was being prepared for the journey to Rome.

  He left a letter for Guada with Rosario to send on to Sevilla, and they slept for a final time in the Duke’s bed. The following dawn he kissed Rosario’s bare swollen abdomen, dressed, and rode off. To be in one place and grow familiar with a house, its rooms and gardens and the hills above, to be, to exist somewhere specific and then to leave it behind never ceased to impress him. He rode off with his escort on a horse Rosario gave to him, leaning forward in his saddle, doing his best to not look back.

  The nine men passed a night in Antequera as guests of Pedro Espinosa and another in Granada with the Pisa de Osorio family, where, touring the Alhambra, Shiro realized how grand the Moorish Era had been in Spain.

  From there they rode south to Lanjarón and took the waters and followed the course of the Guadalfeo River until it emptied into the sea outside the port of Motril. Following the beach eastward, they reached Almería two days later.

  Shiro was engrossed by the journey, the pine forests they traversed up in the lower Alpujarras, the rolling hills of olive trees for as far as the eye could see, the sweet-scented fig trees growing along the river banks, the coastal plains rife with sugar cane, and then as they reached their destination, the sparse low hills back from the sea that turned into desert.

  Sailing north along the eastern coast of Spain, he commiserated with his Samurai brethren, nine of whom were from Sendai and who had known him since he was a young boy. When the King’s guards queried him about his injuries, he claimed he’d fallen from a horse and had his hands run over by the wheel of a passing carriage. Upon docking in Barcelona, the group proceeded directly to the ship that would take them to Italy.

  Two hours after weighing anchor, Father Sotelo sought him out. The priest had put on weight and acquired a more prosperous look during the extended stay in Madrid. Shiro wondered if the cleric still had the necessary fervor to return to Japan.

  ‘I gave thanks to God upon learning you were still with us here upon the Earth,’ said the priest, clutching a large wooden crucifix that hung about his neck.

  ‘Father,’ Shiro said, bowing.

  ‘Is it true you have received a letter from the King?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘As I said to you in Aranjuez, you will be most helpful to us, Shiro-San.’

  The Samurai decided to say nothing, opting instead to bow once again. It was then that he saw Hasekura Tsunenaga appear on the aftcastle. They nodded to each other.

  ‘You will have to excuse me, father. I must speak with the Ambassador.’

  ‘Vaya con Dios,’ said the friar, making the sign of the cross in the air in front of Shiro’s face.

  Shiro mounted the stairs and bowed to Hasekura and to the Christian captain at the helm. Hasekura took him aside to the balustrade at the very end of the vessel. The skies were low with clouds, and the sea was gray and thick. The two of them stood in silence for a moment contemplating the frothy wake stretching back to the west.

  ‘I owe you an apology, Shiro-San,’ said Hasekura.

  ‘And I one to you,’ Shiro replied, ‘for disappearing.’

  Hasekura brushed the offense away.

  ‘You were correct,’ he said, ‘from the very beginning Shiro-San, when you complained to me about the intermingling between ourselves and the barbarians. I suspect we have committed a blunder. I will of course continue to do all I must to achieve success, but I’ve grown weary of them and miss the homeland.’

  Shiro could tell the man was speaking in confidence and sensed there was no trickery behind the words.

  ‘I may have been correct back then, Hasekura-San, but look at what I have done since, associating with the Christians more than anyone.’

  ‘Precisely, Shiro-San. And see what it has brought you. From the moment you shook the hand of that sailor, you condemned your own hands to ruin.’

  ‘That may be so, Hasekura-San, but in truth I do not regret it. He was a good man, and many of the barbarians I have befriended are good men, too.’

  ‘I do not deny it. I only say we are too different from them, or I am. The distances are too great. The chasm between our beliefs and theirs too vast.’

  ‘I am surprised to hear you say these things, Hasekura-San.’

  ‘I have thought long and hard about it. I believe that over time you shall come to see it, too. I have treated you improperly, Shiro-San. I would like for us to be friends. You have talents I do not possess. And it is true you carry the blood of Date Masamune and Katakura Kojuro. But you still have the impetuousness of youth. Let us try and work together. I have tired of the priest, but I dare not dismiss him. I no longer trust him. He has become inebriated with power and with the entrées his association with us have gained for him in this part of the world. I wish for you to be present when we speak with this Pope, to keep the translations clear for me.’

  Shiro bowed.

  ‘It will be an honor.’

  ‘I will give you one of my swords,’ Hasekura continued, ‘and see you have some proper raiment.’

  Shiro looked out at the water and remembered his disgrace.

  ‘I can barely grip a sword, Hasekura-San.’

  ‘But you will again.’

  – XXXV –

  In which there is trouble at home with great consequences

  Tokugawa Ieyasu was the Shogun of Japan. Known for his astuteness on and off the battlefield, he also cultivated a keen interest in the world outside the Kingdom. He had long tolerated foreign visitors in exchange for the intellectual stimulation their presence provoked.

  The Portuguese and the Spanish were the first to catch his attention, and he permitted their proselytizing out of pure curiosity. He was amused at first to see how little progress the Catholics made until one of their leaders, a Jesuit, Alessandro Valignano, who arrived in 1579, realized that in order to make more headway, the order would have to adopt Japanese customs: their manner of dress, their shunning of meat, bathing, not eating with their fingers. Tokugawa Ieyasu marveled at how this small, superficial stratagem bore fruit, converting thousands of his subjects.

  He was further intrigued to see, when a moribund, undernourished crew of English merchants washed up on his shores in 1600 aboard a Dutch ship, how vociferously the Jesuits, despite their Christian values, wished to have the half-drowned men put to death.

  He granted an audience to the most articulate among the Englishmen, one William Adams, and discovered that, contrary to what the Jesuits had been telling him for years, the European nations were divided into different sects of Christianity that were often at each other’s throats. What impressed him more was the discovery that William Adams, a man of exceptional charm, possessed great knowledge in the arts of navigation, something of practical and tactical use. The man’s globes and charts, his maps and compass
es, his astronomical explanations based on geometry, proved more engrossing than the Jesuits harping on about immaculate conceptions.

  Subsequent to Adams’s success with the Shogun, the Catholics saw their influence wane. They made themselves even more of a nuisance by escalating their demands, a disastrous ploy that only alienated the Shogun further. While they insisted on their exceptionalism, Adams seemed to understand and appreciate the Japanese way of life. He had no religion to sell. His only interests were trade and science. The Catholic position eroded further still when in 1611 a Spanish Admiral appeared in court, one Sebastián Vizcaíno, who refused to bow down before the Shogun and his son, on the grounds that his own sovereign, Philip the Third, ruled an empire a hundred times grander than Japan’s.

  William Adams went on to become a trusted counselor of the Shogun and to the Shogun’s son afterwards and was granted the rank of Samurai. He took a Japanese wife and had children and gave instruction to Japanese shipbuilders as to how to improve their ocean-faring vessels. He tutored Shiro and taught him English. And when the Shogun desired to rid himself of Sebastián Vizcaíno, Adams supervised the construction of the Date Maru that took the dour conquistador back home along with Hasekura Tsunenaga and the Delegation organized at the Shogun’s request by Date Masamune.

  On the very day that Hasekura Tsunenaga’s baptism took place in Spain, the Shogun learned of a flagrant betrayal in his own court. A local Lord converted to Catholicism was looking to increase the size of his fiefdom. The method he chose was to appeal in secret to one of the Shogun’s councilors who had also become a Catholic. When the Shogun was appraised of the affair and realized that the religious bond between the two men superseded their traditional loyalties, he lost all patience with the sect. The councilor was hacked to pieces and the defiant Lord driven into exile.