by John Healey
‘What do you make of it Shiro San?’ asked the King.
Aware that to a certain extent he was being evaluated, Shiro took his time and answered with caution.
‘Hunting,’ he replied. ‘Hunting of various sorts.’
‘Very good,’ said the King. ‘Go on.’
‘The three men and their dogs are hunting the deer. The other two men, who look to be shaped like animals from the waist down, are after the women.’
‘They are Satyrs, pleasure seekers, sexual predators who are companions of the Greek gods Pan and Dionysus. And what do you make of the little fellow up in the tree?’
‘A baby with a bow and arrow. I confess I have no idea. He seems to be aiming the arrow directly at the Satyr next to the naked woman, but the Satyr looks to be unconcerned.’
‘What do you know of the Greeks?’ asked the King.
‘Very little, Your Majesty. In truth, I have only begun to learn something about the Romans, thanks to the patience of the Duke.’
‘The Greeks predated the Romans by hundreds of years,’ said the King. ‘All that is worthy about the Romans comes from the Greeks, and the Greeks had many gods who sometimes would assume human form in order to mate with humans they fancied, or to tease them, help them, torment them.’
‘I assume this was a manner in which the Greeks chose to explain their troubles, Your Majesty,’ said Shiro. ‘Like your own Jesus, who was a god but who became a man for a time. It is a recourse all societies I know of resort to.’
The Monarch stared at Shiro with some amazement, then at the Duke. ‘Best to keep this young man clear of my Inquisitors, Alonso.”
‘Quite, Your Majesty,’ answered the Duke with a grin.
‘Be that as it may,’ said the King, returning his attention to the Samurai. ‘In this particular case, this Satyr here is Zeus,’ he said, pointing at the Satyr placed in the middle of the composition, ‘the king of the gods, known by the name of Jupiter to the Romans, and he is on the verge of possessing this fetching maiden who was called Antiope, a beautiful princess, daughter to a man called Prince Nykteus. When the Prince later discovered that his daughter was pregnant, she fled from his wrath and set all manner of things into motion.’
‘And was the child born?’ Shiro asked, looking at the sleeping Antiope.
‘Twins were born, Amphion and Zethos.’
‘Princes born out of wedlock,’ said the Duke nodding toward the Samurai.
‘The presence of Eros,’ continued the King, ‘who the Romans called Amor, from which our own word for love derives, is symbolic. Whoever receives an arrow from his quiver falls in love, becomes inflamed with passion. Rather than depict the actual moment of possession, which would have been vulgar and sinful for Titian, for so the painter was called—he did this painting for my father, and it took him thirty-two years to finish it to his satisfaction—the figure of Eros and his bow is there to inform us as to what is about to happen.’
‘I see,’ said Shiro. ‘I understand. And look at the quiver of arrows. I’d give much for one like it. But surely the presence of the hunters and their dogs and the deer being attacked must be symbolic, as well.’
‘I assume they are there for contrast of some sort,’ said the King. ‘Though in both cases a defenseless creature, the deer in one case, the maiden in the other, hover on the brink of violation.’
– XXVII –
In which a mistress changes her mind
Marta Vélez sent her servants away and prepared the bath herself. She remained beside it as Shiro disrobed and descended into the hot water. Despite his being accustomed to nakedness around the opposite sex back home, something about the intimacy of that evening, the luxurious and foreign setting, the tiles and furnishings, aroused him as he undressed. The beauty of his body combined with his inability to hide his desire convinced the Spanish woman to disrobe as well and join him.
They awakened in her bed the following dawn to the sound of the city’s church bells calling the faithful to Lauds. The unexpected tenderness of his attentions throughout the night and the pleasures it gave her had broken through Marta’s brittle facade. As the light of day crept under thick curtains, she began to regret what she had done with the note.
Bracing herself for his wrath, she confessed to him her encounter with Rocío Sánchez. She revealed the contents of the note and told him what she had done with it. He listened in silence and remained so afterwards until she pled with him to say something.
‘I thank you for telling me,’ he said. ‘I must go.’
She watched him dress in the faint light of the room. For a moment she feared for her life as he picked up his sword and knife. But all he did was bow to her, and then he was gone.
The few madrileños on the street at that hour stared at him and pointed at him. The air was clear and cold. The guards at the Monasterio de San Francisco where the Samurai were lodged made way for him. By noon he was on his way back south, ostensibly accompanying the Duke of Medina-Sidonia, who was returning to Sevilla and then to his ancestral home. The Duke of Lerma saw them off personally and presented Shiro with two books and a gift from the King. The books were a copy of the Jesuit Roberto Bellarmino’s Doctrina Cristiana and Fray Luis de Granada’s Libro de la oración. The gift from the King, toiled on overnight, was an exact replica of the red leather quiver, replete with royal arrows, that Shiro had so admired in Titian’s painting.
Three days into their journey, just north of Merida and at the Duke’s insistence, they rode for a number of hours through a bitter rainstorm, and that evening the Grandee took ill. Shiro and a local physician broke the fever and nursed him back to health, but owing to his weakened state, the Duke decided to recuperate in the more temperate climate provided at his palace in Sanlúcar, the town of his birth. A letter was dispatched to Rosario asking her to join him there. Despite Shiro’s impatience, he remained with the Duke, riding right through Sevilla, and they arrived at Sanlúcar de Barrameda on a clear and mild winter’s evening.
The suite assigned to Shiro, one of the finest in the palace, was the same one Julian and Marta Vélez had occupied when he first met them. Since he had made a point of not revealing to the Duke his true motive for returning south, he had no choice but to gratefully accept the suite, though for the three nights he remained there, he slept upon the floor. As soon as Rosario arrived along with a score of additional servants from Medina-Sidonia, Shiro bid them adieu. The Duke thanked him for his aide and company and hoped that the Baptism ceremony of Hasekura Tsunenaga would not prove to be a bore. He made Shiro promise to come visit them again in the spring before the Delegation left for Rome.
Shiro bowed to the both of them, holding back a swell of emotion that took him by surprise and that the couple noted but remained silent about. The young Samurai was fairly certain they would never see one another again. After avenging the death of Diego Molina, he would be a renegade, a wanted man who, under no circumstances, would ever allow himself to be taken alive.
– XXVIII –
In which the gates of hell are opened
The only good fortune Shiro had that evening upon entering the grand house belonging to Julian and Guada was being grabbed at once by two men who prevented him from drawing his sword. Had he been able to attack them, with what would have been a predictable outcome, the other two men who ran into the entrance patio carrying cocked muskets would have fired and killed him. As it was the first two gripped him by either arm, and the second pair aimed their barrels at his heart. Julian appeared on the balcony above and, seconds later, Guada with him. Before descending the stone stairs, he bade her to return to her chamber, but she refused.
Down below he walked over to Shiro. ‘I’ve been waiting for you.’
‘You murdered my friend,’ said the Samurai. ‘You murdered him like a coward. You did not even have the decency to challenge him and hand him a weapon.’
Julian addressed his men. ‘The monkey speaks.’
The men laughed, nervously.<
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‘I am a nobleman, you mongrel,’ Julian spit back, gathering anger. ‘Your “friend” was a common sailor, or something to that effect. Why on earth would I challenge him? It would have been an insult to my family.’
‘Leave him be,’ called Guada from the balcony.
Her husband turned and screamed at her, ‘Go away!’
He removed Shiro’s bow and the red leather quiver, tossing them to the tiled floor. He took Shiro’s sword and Tanto in hand, admiring them. ‘A fine piece of craftsmanship. Too fine for the likes of you. Perhaps you stole them. Sharp, too, I would imagine.’
He took the Tanto and stabbed it an inch into Shiro’s left shoulder, drawing blood. The Samurai winced but showed no further distress. Then Julian turned the blade, causing more blood to flow. Sweat broke out on Shiro’s forehead. Julian withdrew the blade.
‘Tougher than your friend. I’ll say that for you. He screamed like a pig.’
Guada screamed when she saw her husband stab the Samurai, and she called out again. ‘You mustn’t kill him. I shall never forgive you if you do. I will denounce you, and the Duke will hunt you down.’
Julian turned and looked up at her with pure hatred.
‘Will you not obey me, woman? Return to your chambers.’
‘I will not,’ she cried.
He turned back to his men.
‘Put him on the ground, and you two, break his hands with the butts of your muskets.’
The men did as they were told, and this time Shiro cried out in agony, in shock from the pain and from the humiliation. Guada began to scream and come down the stairs. Julian turned to one of the men holding a musket.
‘Seize her. Do not let her down here.’
Then he got on his knees near Shiro, whose hands were already beginning to swell.
‘So much for the warrior,’ Julian said. ‘But there’s just one more thing.’
Still holding the Tanto, he separated Shiro’s sixth finger out and leaned the blade down upon it. The pain already flooding the Samurai’s system was such that he barely felt it.
‘I’ll spare your life,’ Julian said, ‘but I will not permit a freak in my home.’
He got back on his feet and addressed the three remaining men.
‘Throw him into the street and lock the doors.’
They dragged the Samurai over the pink-and-white tiles that were streaked with blood, and over the wooden lip of the massive front door, tossing him onto the manure-strewn cobblestones in front of the mansion. Then they shut and bolted the doors.
Julian dropped the Tanto and tossed the severed finger away. Nervous, frightened, exhilarated, and incensed, he herded the man with Guada back up the stairs. He told all four of the men to leave them alone and to tell the servants the same thing. He pushed Guada into a sitting room and slammed the door. He began to hit her and tear off her clothing, ignoring her screams and fists and her repeated cries of ‘Murderer.’ And then he raped her.
When he was done and rolled off of her, she ceased to struggle. She looked away, breathing furiously. No matter how much he yelled at her to look at him, she would not do it. He finally left her naked and bruised on the wrinkled rug. The remorse he felt afterward, and the shaking that invaded his system, was nevertheless infused with animal satisfaction. And though Guada, from then on, would refuse to sleep with him or to be alone with him in the same room ever again, in a month’s time she found herself with child.
– XXIX –
In which the Guadalquivir flows to the sea
He dragged himself for a kilometer and found a stable and hid there next to a mule until the middle of the night. He lost consciousness from the pain, and then, upon regaining it, he would shake from the shock to his system. When all was quiet, he forced himself onto his feet, his mangled hands hanging at his sides. He walked to the bridge that spanned the Guadalquivir, the one the Japanese Delegation had crossed so triumphantly a month earlier. Seeing no one about and unable to commit Seppuku, he made his way across to the middle and cast himself over the edge.
He hoped to drown. But no matter how far he dove or how much water he attempted to swallow, his body kept struggling to the surface. The current swept him west, and then south, and by the time the sun rose, he staggered out of the water and collapsed upon a muddy bank next to the village of Coria del Río.
A young woman found him and alerted her father, a sturgeon fisherman who called for the local priest. The priest was an elderly man believed to be a curandero blessed with healing powers. But when he saw the Samurai, he pronounced him to be a river devil come to infect the village with sin. When Shiro managed to say, ‘Soy Catolico,’ it only agitated the cleric further, and as he scurried back to his church, he counseled the fisherman to throw ‘the beast’ back into the river.
Then the fisherman sent his daughter to fetch El Camborio, a Gypsy who was a shrewder sort well schooled in the properties of plants and herbs. He saw in Shiro a kindred spirit, a fellow outcast, and also recognized a figure of some distinction from whom he might receive a handsome compensation.
El Camborio smoked a small pipe held upside down and was the man all of the villagers went to when a goat or sheep required slaughtering. A narrow, entirely decorative cane hung off his right wrist, and no matter how tattered his cloak or trousers, his shirts were always clean. He carried himself like a dandy under a wide-brimmed hat. He smelled of garlic and thyme and kept a family back in the hills, where he often roamed during the early mornings gathering sprigs and blossoms. He cleaned and sewed up the wound in Shiro’s shoulder and set the bones of Shiro’s hands.
The fisherman was called Francisco, and he took the Samurai in to recover with his wife and family. They set aside a corner of their small house for him. It was close to the river and made from bricks of mud and straw that were whitewashed. For many days, El Camborio came to massage Shiro’s hands with Manzanilla, olive oil, and caviar. He insisted the latter ingredient was essential for proper healing but most in the village believed it was only an excuse to savor the precious roe reaped by the fishermen.
The pain in Shiro’s hands was renewed with each day’s treatments, but he did improve. Seven of his now ten fingers went numb. He asked the Gypsy if he might ever wield a sword again, and the man shook his head.
‘You will be fortunate if someday you can hold yourself again when urinating, or use those little twigs of yours for eating.’
When he was well enough, Shiro moved into a hut of his own by the riverbank. Many of the villagers contributed to his want of food and drink. Some had heard of the Delegation that had come to Spain from far away and that had passed nearby on its way north to Sevilla months earlier. They were amazed to hear the foreigner speaking Spanish and felt remorse upon hearing the explanation he gave for his sorry state—one that omitted the names of his allies and enemies.
Two months passed. The Baptism ceremony for Hasekura Tsunenaga was long gone. Shiro wondered how they had appraised his absence. One day he found he was able to hold a cup to drink from and that he was able to tie his robe unaided. Though still numb, many of his damaged fingers now thrummed within, an uncomfortable sensation that came and went. On the evening of the spring equinox, Francisco came to speak with him.
‘My daughter Piedad has taken a fancy to you. If it is true that you have taken the sacraments, I would be inclined to please her by telling her you would agree to marry. We know you have no funds and we know you can no longer work as normal men do, but you could make yourself useful and be safe here and give us grandchildren.’
From the moment she had found him, looking more like a waterlogged, half-dead reptile than a man, Piedad had admired him and dreamed about him. And she had fed him during the first weeks of his recovery. When he moved into his own hut, they took walks together along paths that followed the river. She took to joining him under his blanket late at night.
‘You honor me, too much,’ Shiro replied. ‘I fear I am not the right person to become her husband. The kind
ness she has shown me, that you and the others have bestowed upon me, shall never be forgotten until the day I die. But my own people, the Lord I serve, my own mother await my return. And there is still revenge in my heart for what has been done to me. The code I follow demands that I attend to it.’
Francisco looked out at the flattened earth in front of the hut, at four chickens pecking about its perimeter, at the reeds and the river. Spring was well advanced, and the trees were lush with leaves and blossoms that made a whispering noise in the afternoon breeze.
‘You would do well to stay, young man. It was fate that brought you here to us, fate that Piedad discovered you. You are lucky to be alive. I urge you to reconsider, to abandon your need for revenge, and to embrace instead this gentle place, this simple, good life, and to accept my love-besotted daughter to be your wife.’
The sturgeon fishermen built small rafts used to connect a series of nets together under the water into which the prehistoric fish swam laden with their tasty little eggs. Shiro took one of the rafts that had been put aside for repair and left the village that night. He shoved off into the middle of the current and used a fallen branch he could barely grasp to steer with.