And who’s the fat woman? Toranaga’s wife? Or the boy’s nursemaid? Would the lad be Toranaga’s son? Or grandson, perhaps? Friar Domingo had said that Japanese had only one wife at one time but as many consorts—legal mistresses—as they wished.
Was the interpreter Toranaga’s consort?
What would it be like to have such a woman in bed? I’d be afraid of crushing her. No, she wouldn’t break. There are women in England almost as small. But not like her.
The boy was small and straight and round-eyed, his full black hair tied into a short queue, his pate unshaven. His curiosity seemed enormous.
Without thinking, Blackthorne winked. The boy jumped, then laughed and interrupted Mariko and pointed and spoke out, and they listened indulgently and no one hushed him. When he had finished, Toranaga spoke briefly to Blackthorne.
“Lord Toranaga asks why did you do that, senhor?”
“Oh, just to amuse the lad. He’s a child like any, and children in my country would usually laugh if you did that. My son must be about his age now. My son’s seven.”
“The Heir is seven,” Mariko said after a pause, then translated what he had said.
“Heir? Does that mean the boy’s Lord Toranaga’s only son?” Blackthorne asked.
“Lord Toranaga has instructed me to say that you will please confine yourself to answering questions only, for the moment.” Then she added, “I’m sure, if you are patient, Pilot-Captain B’ackthon, that you’ll be given an opportunity to ask anything you wish later.”
“Very well.”
“As your name is very hard to say, senhor, for we do not have the sounds to pronounce it—may I, for Lord Toranaga, use your Japanese name, Anjin-san?”
“Of course.” Blackthorne was going to ask hers but he remembered what she had said and reminded himself to be patient.
“Thank you. My Lord asks, do you have any other children?”
“A daughter. She was born just before I left my home in England. So she’s about two now.”
“You have one wife or many?”
“One. That’s our custom. Like the Portuguese and Spanish. We don’t have consorts—formal consorts.”
“Is this your first wife, senhor?”
“Yes.”
“Please, how old are you?”
“Thirty-six.”
“Where in England do you live?”
“On the outskirts of Chatham. That’s a small port near London.”
“London is your chief city?”
“Yes.”
“He asks, what languages do you speak?”
“English, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, and of course, Latin.”
“What is ‘Dutch’?”
“It’s a language spoken in Europe, in the Netherlands. It’s very similar to German.”
She frowned. “Dutch is a heathen language? German too?”
“Both are non-Catholic countries,” he said carefully.
“Excuse me, isn’t that the same as heathen?”
“No, senhorita. Christianity is split in two distinct and very separate religions. Catholicism and Protestantism. There are two versions of Christianity. The sect in Japan is Catholic. At the moment both sects are very hostile to each other.” He marked her astonishment and felt Toranaga’s growing impatience at being left out of the conversation. Be careful, he cautioned himself. She’s certainly Catholic. Lead up to things. And be simple. “Perhaps Lord Toranaga doesn’t wish to discuss religion, senhorita, as it was partially covered in our first meeting.”
“You are a Protestant Christian?”
“Yes.”
“And Catholic Christians are your enemies?”
“Most would consider me heretic and their enemy, yes.”
She hesitated, turned to Toranaga and spoke at length.
There were many guards around the perimeter of the garden. All well away, all Browns. Then Blackthorne noticed ten Grays sitting in a neat group in the shade, all eyes on the boy. What significance has that? he wondered.
Toranaga was cross-questioning Mariko, then spoke directly at Blackthorne.
“My Lord wishes to know about you and your family,” Mariko began. “About your country, its queen and previous rulers, habits, customs, and history. Similarly about all other countries, particularly Portugal and Spain. All about the world you live in. About your ships, weapons, foods, trade. About your wars and battles and how to navigate a ship, how you guided your ship and what happened on the voyage. He wants to understand—Excuse me, why do you laugh?”
“Only because, senhorita, that seems to be just about everything I know.”
“That is precisely what my Master wishes. ‘Precisely’ is the correct word?”
“Yes, senhorita. May I compliment you on your Portuguese, which is flawless.”
Her fan fluttered a little. “Thank you, senhor. Yes, my Master wants to learn the truth about everything, what is fact and what would be your opinion.”
“I’d be glad to tell him. It might take a little time.”
“My Master has the time, he says.”
Blackthorne looked at Toranaga. “Wakarimasu.”
“If you will excuse me, senhor, my Master orders me to say your accent is a little wrong.” Mariko showed him how to say it and he repeated it and thanked her. “I am Senhora Mariko Buntaro, not senhorita.”
“Yes, senhora.” Blackthorne glanced at Toranaga. “Where would he like me to begin?”
She asked him. A fleeting smile sped across Toranaga’s strong face. “He says, at the beginning.”
Blackthorne knew that this was another trial. What, out of all the limitless possibilities, should he start with? Whom should he talk to? To Toranaga, the boy, or the woman? Obviously, if only men had been present, to Toranaga. But now? Why were the women and the boy present? That must have significance.
He decided to concentrate on the boy and the women. “In ancient times my country was ruled by a great king who had a magic sword called Excalibur and his queen was the most beautiful woman in the land. His chief counselor was a wizard, Merlin, and the king’s name was Arthur,” he began confidently, telling the legend that his father used to tell so well in the mists of his youth. “King Arthur’s capital was called Camelot and it was a happy time of no wars and good harvests and …” Suddenly he realized the enormity of his mistake. The kernel of the story was about Guinevere and Lancelot, an adulterous queen and a faithless vassal, about Mordred, Arthur’s illegitimate son, who treacherously goes to war against his father, and about a father who kills this son in battle, only to be mortally wounded by him. Oh, Jesus God, how could I be so stupid? Isn’t Toranaga like a great king? Aren’t these his ladies? Isn’t that his son?
“Are you sick, senhor?”
“No—no, I’m sorry—it was just …”
“You were saying, senhor, about this king and the good harvest?”
“Yes. It … like most countries, our past is clouded with myths and legends, most of which are unimportant,” he said lamely, trying to gain time.
She stared at him perplexed. Toranaga’s eyes became more piercing and the boy yawned.
“You were saying, senhor?”
“I—well—” Then he had a flash of inspiration. “Perhaps the best thing I could do is draw a map of the world, senhora, as we know it,” he said in a rush. “Would you like me to do that?”
She translated this and he saw a glimmer of interest from Toranaga, nothing from the boy or the women. How to involve them?
“My Master says yes. I will send for paper—”
“Thank you. But this will do for the moment. Later, if you’ll give me some writing materials I can draw an accurate one.”
Blackthorne got off his cushion and knelt. With his finger he began to draw a crude map in the sand, upside down so that they could see better. “The earth’s round, like an orange, but this map is like its skin, cut off in ovals, north to south, laid flat and stretched a bit at the top and bottom. A Dutchman called Mercator in
vented the way to do this accurately twenty years ago. It’s the first accurate world map. We can even navigate with it—or his globes.” He had sketched the continents boldly. “This is north and this south, east and west. Japan is here, my country’s on the other side of the world—there. This is all unknown and unexplored …” His hand eliminated everything in North America north of a line from Mexico to Newfoundland, everything in South America apart from Peru and a narrow strip of coast land around that continent, then everything north and east of Norway, everything east of Muscovy, all Asia, all inland Africa, everything south of Java and the tip of South America. “We know the coastlines, but little else. The interiors of Africa, the Americas, and Asia are almost entirely mysteries.” He stopped to let her catch up.
She was translating more easily now and he felt their interest growing. The boy stirred and moved a little closer.
“The Heir wishes to know where we are on the map.”
“Here. This is Cathay, China, I think. I don’t know how far we are off the coast. It took me two years to sail from here to here.” Toranaga and the fat woman craned to see better.
“The Heir says but why are we so small on your map?”
“It’s just a scale, senhora. On this continent, from Newfoundland here, to Mexico here, is almost a thousand leagues, each of three miles. From here to Yedo is about a hundred leagues.”
There was a silence, then they talked amongst themselves.
“Lord Toranaga wishes you to show him on the map how you came to Japan.”
“This way. This is Magellan’s Pass—or Strait—here, at the tip of South America. It’s called that after the Portuguese navigator who discovered it, eighty years ago. Since then the Portuguese and Spanish have kept the way secret, for their exclusive use. We were the first outsiders through the Pass. I had one of their secret rutters, a type of map, but even so, I still had to wait six months to get through because the winds were against us.”
She translated what he had said. Toranaga looked up, disbelieving.
“My Master says you are mistaken. All bar—all Portuguese come from the south. That is their route, the only route.”
“Yes. It’s true the Portuguese favor that way—the Cape of Good Hope, we call it—because they have dozens of forts all along these coasts—Africa and India and the Spice Islands—to provision in and winter in. And their galleon-warships patrol and monopolize the sea lanes. However, the Spanish use Magellan’s Pass to get to their Pacific American colonies, and to the Philippines, or they cross here, at the narrow isthmus of Panama, going overland to avoid months of travel. For us it was safer to sail via Magellan’s Strait, otherwise we’d have had to run the gauntlet of all those enemy Portuguese forts. Please tell Lord Toranaga I know the position of many of them now. Most employ Japanese troops, by the way,” he added with emphasis. “The friar who gave me the information in the prison was Spanish and hostile to the Portuguese and hostile to all Jesuits.”
Blackthorne saw an immediate reaction on her face, and when she translated, on Toranaga’s face. Give her time, and keep it simple, he warned himself.
“Japanese troops? You mean samurai?”
“Ronin would describe them, I imagine.”
“You said a ‘secret’ map? My Lord wishes to know how you obtained it.”
“A man named Pieter Suyderhof, from Holland, was the private secretary to the Primate of Goa—that’s the title of the chief Catholic priest and Goa’s the capital of Portuguese India. You know, of course, that the Portuguese are trying to take over that continent by force. As private secretary to this archbishop, who was also the Portuguese Viceroy at the time, all sorts of documents passed through his hands. After many years he obtained some of their rutters—maps—and copied them. These gave the secrets of the way through Magellan’s Pass and also how to get around the Cape of Good Hope, and the shoals and reefs from Goa to Japan via Macao. My rutter was the Magellan one. It was with my papers that I lost from my ship. They are vital to me, and could be of immense value to Lord Toranaga.”
“My Master says that he has sent orders to seek them. Continue please.”
“When Suyderhof returned to Holland, he sold them to the Company of East India Merchants, which was given the monopoly for Far Eastern exploration.”
She was looking at him coldly. “This man was a paid spy?”
“He was paid for his maps, yes. That’s their custom, that’s how they reward a man. Not with a title or land, only money. Holland’s a republic. Of course, senhora, my country and our allies, Holland, are at war with Spain and Portugal and have been for years. You’ll understand, senhora, in war it’s vital to find out your enemies’ secrets.”
Mariko turned and spoke at length.
“My Lord says, why would this archbishop employ an enemy?”
“The story Pieter Suyderhof told was that this archbishop, who was a Jesuit, was interested only in trade. Suyderhof doubled their revenue, so he was ‘cherished.’ He was an extremely clever merchant—Hollanders are usually superior to Portuguese in this—so his credentials weren’t checked very closely. Also many men with blue eyes and fair hair, Germans and other Europeans, are Catholic.” Blackthorne waited till that was translated, then added carefully, “He was chief spy for Holland in Asia, a soldier of the country, and he put some of his people on Portuguese ships. Please tell Lord Toranaga that without Japan’s trade, Portuguese India cannot live for long.”
Toranaga kept his eyes on the map while Mariko talked. There was no reaction to what she had said. Blackthorne wondered if she had translated everything.
Then: “My Master would like a detailed world map, on paper, as soon as possible, with all the Portuguese bases marked, and the numbers of ronin at each. He says please continue.”
Blackthorne knew he had made a giant step forward. But the boy yawned so he decided to change course, still heading for the same harbor. “Our world is not always as it seems. For instance, south of this line, we call it the Equator, the seasons are reversed. When we have summer, they have winter; when we have summer, they’re freezing.”
“Why is that?”
“I don’t know, but it’s true. Now, the way to Japan is through either of these two southern straits. We English, we’re trying to find a northern route, either northeast over the Siberias, or northwest over the Americas. I’ve been as far north as this. The whole land’s perpetual ice and snow here and it’s so cold most of the year that if you don’t wear fur mittens, your fingers’ll freeze in moments. The people who live there are called Laplanders. Their clothes are made out of fur pelts. The men hunt and the women do all the work. Part of the women’s work is to make all the clothes. To do this, most times they have to chew the pelts to soften them before they can stitch them.”
Mariko laughed out loud.
Blackthorne smiled with her, feeling more confident now. “It’s true, senhora. It’s honto.”
“Sorewa honto desu ka?” Toranaga asked impatiently. What’s true?
Through more laughter, she told him what had been said. They also began to laugh.
“I lived among them for almost a year. We were trapped in the ice and had to wait for the thaw. Their food is fish, seals, occasionally polar bears, and whales, which they eat raw. Their greatest delicacy is to eat raw whale blubber.”
“Oh, come now, Anjin-san!”
“It’s true. And they live in small round houses made entirely out of snow and they never bathe.”
“What, never?” she burst out.
He shook his head, and decided not to tell her baths were rare in England, rarer even than in Portugal and Spain, which were warm countries.
She translated this. Toranaga shook his head in disbelief.
“My Master says this is too much of an exaggeration. No one could live without baths. Even uncivilized people.”
“That’s the truth—honto,” he said calmly and raised his hand. “I swear by Jesus of Nazareth and by my soul, I swear it is the truth.”
“Yes. Lord Toranaga wanted the truth. Why should I lie? My life is in his hands. It is easy to prove the truth—no to be honest, it would be very hard to prove what I’ve said—you’d have to go there and see for yourself. Certainly the Portuguese and Spanish, who are my enemies, won’t support me. But Lord Toranaga asked for the truth. He can trust me to tell it to him.”
Mariko thought a moment. Then she scrupulously translated what he had said. At length:
“Lord Toranaga says, it is unbelievable that any human could live without bathing.”
“Yes. But those are the cold lands. Their habits are different from yours, and mine. For instance, in my country, everyone believes baths are dangerous for your health. My grandmother, Granny Jacoba, used to say, ‘A bath when you’re birthed and another when laid out’ll see thee through the Pearly Gates.’”
“That’s very hard to believe.”
“Some of your customs are very hard to believe. But it is true that I’ve had more baths in the short time I’ve been in your country than in as many years before. I admit freely I feel better for them.” He grinned. “I no longer believe baths are dangerous. So I’ve gained by coming here, no?”
After a pause Mariko said, “Yes,” and translated.
Kiri said, “He’s astonishing—astonishing, neh?”
“What’s your judgment of him, Mariko-san?” Toranaga asked.
“I’m convinced he’s telling the truth, or believes he’s telling it. Clearly it would seem that he could, perhaps, have a great value to you, my Lord. We have such a tiny knowledge of the outside world. Is that valuable to you? I don’t know. But it’s almost as though he’s come down from the stars, or up from under the sea. If he’s enemy to the Portuguese and the Spanish, then his information, if it can be trusted, could perhaps be vital to your interests, neh?”
“I agree,” Kiri said.
“What do you think, Yaemon-sama?”
“Me, Uncle? Oh, I think he’s ugly and I don’t like his golden hair and cat’s eyes and he doesn’t look human at all,” the boy said breathlessly. “I’m glad I wasn’t born barbarian like him but samurai like my father, can we go for another swim, please?”
James Clavell Page 31