by Clint Dohmen
Simon studied the silent, stern-looking group. Their plain clothing in subdued earthen colors did not differentiate them from the villagers they had already come across, but nonetheless, it was obvious from the set of their jaw and their unflinching gaze that they were a different sort. “Why do I get the feeling these are not peasants?” he asked Aldo.
“Because you are not a monkey. Though, perhaps, even a monkey could tell that these men are not peasants.”
“Who are these men?” Simon asked Kojiro (annoyingly through Aldo’s translation).
“Samurai,” Kojiro responded, as if that explained everything.
Simon and Aldo were both pleased to see that the tables were practically sprouting small ceramic bottles. There seemed to be something missing from the room, though Simon couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He was still puzzling it out when Inotogo Arai walked into the room and all the foreigners, including Kojiro, bowed deeply to him. Inotogo walked to the head of the tables and returned the bow to his followers. He then pointedly turned toward Simon, Kojiro, and the Venetians and bowed slowly at the waist. He held himself in the bowed position longer than he had for his countrymen.
Inotogo was dressed in a spotless gray yukata, and he was neatly groomed with the ponytail style of haircut common to the men of this land. He was thin and shorter than both Kojiro and his own son, but he moved with a grace and balance that told Simon he was not a man to be underestimated.
Aldo, realizing they had been shown respect by Inotogo Arai’s long bow, returned the bow, this time in the same simple manner. Then Aldo politely requested his crew also bow.
They hesitated, so Aldo smiled and said bluntly, “If you whore-mongering bastards don’t bow nicely to the man, you will wish your mothers never opened their legs to the degenerate, drunken, illiterate thugs you all have for fathers.” This statement, followed by a quick menacing glance at the crew by Neno, caused an eruption of ludicrous bowing that seemed to both puzzle and amuse their hosts. The crew of the Tigre, while brave and loyal to a man, were not the cream of Venetian society. Most of them had never been formally taught to bow, and some of them took it as a matter of pride that they had never bowed to anyone. Arms flew everywhere. One crewman bowed on his left side and bumped heads with the crewman next to him bowing on his right. Some of the men tried to cross their legs and nearly ended up falling onto the tables in front of them.
When the uncomfortable spectacle finally ended, Inotogo sat down and indicated that all of his guests should do the same. “Minasan, suwatte kudasai.”
Aldo informed his crew that they were being told to sit down.
That was when it registered with Simon.
“Aldo, there are no chairs.”
“I don’t need another Neno,” Aldo responded. “I can see that there are no chairs. Just sit like they are sitting.”
Simon glanced at Inotogo and Kojiro and saw that they were sitting cross-legged, with backs straighter than a Welsh arrow. He saw that the samurai were all kneeling and facing the table, also with noticeably straight backs. Simon attempted to sit like Kojiro and Inotogo, but his legs were not flexible enough to cross and lay flat, so he crossed his ankles and sat with his knees straight up. Simon was pleased to see that Aldo had not had much more luck in assuming that particular stance either, and had reverted to kneeling like the samurai across from them.
Simon initially held his back as straight as possible for king and country, which lasted all of about five minutes. Then the pain in his back forced him to wrap the crook of his arms around his knees as he began slouching. What the hell, my king wants me dead anyway, I don’t owe him anything, Simon thought. He suffered some pangs of inadequacy when he saw that the samurai did not budge from their rigid composure.
When everyone was seated, in one fashion or another, Kojiro took up a sake bottle in two hands and proffered it to Inotogo. Inotogo held his cup out with both hands, and Kojiro filled it. Then, in the same manner, Inotogo poured for Kojiro. After Inotogo and Kojiro were done, all of the samurai poured sake for each other in the same way.
“Do you know what Saint Ambrose, the patron saint of Milan, said in the Year of Our Lord 387?” Aldo asked.
“Is there anything I could say that would prevent you from telling me?” Simon responded.
“‘When in Rome, do what the Romans do,’” Aldo said, pouring sake into Simon’s glass with two hands. The other Venetians followed the same ritual, until everyone had a full cup. Inotogo then raised his cup. All of the samurai followed, and with an indication from Aldo, so did the Venetians.
Inotogo shouted, “Kampai!”
All the Japanese echoed: “Kampai.”
Aldo perfectly mimicked: “Kampai.”
Simon, happy to begin consuming the sake yet less confident in his pronunciation, gave this toasting expression another try, mumbling it so as not to stand out: “Can pie.” This caused Aldo to cough out loud in order to hide his mirth.
Then everybody drank, and the slow, two-handed ritual of pouring someone else’s sake began again.
“Awfully inconvenient having to wait for someone else to pour. Do you think they’d be terribly offended if we started pouring our own?” Simon asked Aldo.
“We are unarmed and outnumbered. I believe it would be prudent to follow their customs as closely as possible until further notice.”
Simon thought about the rower who lost his head for standing up and speaking to Kojiro. “Care for a refill?” he asked Aldo as he held out a bottle with both hands.
The drinking continued as food arrived from the kitchen. This is when Simon noticed another problem: no forks, no spoons, and no knives – just two long, thin, wooden sticks. The entire crew of the Tigre was mystified. They all watched as the locals deftly manipulated the sticks and attempted to replicate their maneuvering, but the results were comical. Eventually most of the Venetians were holding one stick in each hand and trapping the food between them. Some began eating with their hands, which visibly put off their hosts, so Aldo ordered a stop to it. Only Aldo was able to master the technique of the small eating sticks.
One dish came in a beautiful, small, covered porcelain box. When Simon opened it, he found a large, live shrimp crawling around inside. He looked over at Kojiro and saw that Kojiro had ripped the creature’s head off, removed its shell, dipped it in sauce, and consumed it in one bite. Simon was not the squeamish type, as in fact he killed much of the food he ate, but he generally liked it to arrive at his table completely dead. Nevertheless, not wanting to offend his host, he followed Kojiro’s example and devoured the poor little creature. It was the sweetest shrimp he had ever tasted. In England, they would have boiled the creature for twenty minutes to make sure it was dead and free of all flavor before eating it. Simon wondered if any other boiled foods he ate in England would taste better if they were cooked less. But, then again, since England was the center of the world and at the forefront of modernity, he concluded it was not likely and didn’t give it much further consideration.
After the live shrimp, they were treated to raw fish. Fish that, although dead, were still flopping on the plates in front of them, having just had their heads removed and lives extinguished. This caused the crew some consternation, and most of the men would not initially eat it. When Aldo looked at their host and saw that he was proud to be able to present this food to them, he made another pronouncement.
“Any gentleman who does not eat the fish in front of him will be disposed of in a manner very similar to the fish he is refusing to eat.” When Neno reinforced this statement by glaring up and down the table, all of the fish were pronounced delicious and consumed.
Following the dilemma of the overly fresh fish, the spirits of the crew soared as the wonderful, savory smell of grilled beef came wafting into the room. After what seemed an eternity inhaling the aromatic smoke that only a grilled cow could produce, large platters of thinly sliced, fire-grilled beef emerged in the hands of the servants.
“Christ on th
e cross, this is the best beef I’ve ever tasted,” exclaimed Simon after he wolfed down five slices.
“Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto. Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.” Aldo recited “Glory Be” for Simon’s soul, and then said, “I do believe that may be one of the few things you’ve been right about since I met you.”
The meat was so tender, it melted in Aldo’s mouth. There was no need to cut it, as it was brought to the table in edible sizes as every dish had been. “It’s interesting that they don’t cut anything at the table but bring it all out in manageable sizes. There aren’t even any knives at the table. It could be that they prefer to keep weapons away from their dinner table.”
“That might be a bloody wise thing to do,” smirked Simon, as he remembered an experience from his youth. “As a young lad, I often snuck out of the castle and spent time in some of the seedier taverns in Exeter, the most wretched of all was called the Pig and Whistle. More often than not, the characters in this establishment ended the night in a drunken brawl. Table knives were the first weapons grabbed, but once I saw a wooden spoon used to scoop out an eyeball. The victim was a foul-mouthed bosun named Ben Bygporte. Before that unfortunate fracas, he had been known to his few friends, his very few friends, as ‘Ben the Bosun.’ To everybody else, he had been known as ‘Ben the Belligerent Bastard.’ The morning after, he became ‘One-Eyed Ben.’”
Aldo was not the least bit surprised by this story. “No doubt a constant reminder of the danger in allowing English peasants access to dining utensils.”
Simon laughed. “Indeed.”
While the rest of the Tigre’s crew continued to ravage the perfect slices of beef, Simon grew distracted. Out of the corner of his eye, he had spotted a grasshopper that had gained entry to the room and was cautiously sitting in the shadows near the sliding front door. “I believe I’ll stretch my legs,” Simon said - a completely justified excuse as the case was.
He then walked to the door and scooped up the grasshopper. Catching a servant on her way from the kitchen with another tray of plates, he made a show of removing the lids and investigating the dishes. With a quick sleight of hand, he put the grasshopper into one of them. He then returned to the half-kneeling, half-sitting position that he had settled on, and looked around for someone to pour him more sake.
Since Aldo was deeply immersed in a multilingual conversation with Kojiro, Simon was forced to kick Giovanni under the table to get more sake. By this time he observed that the samurai were pouring bottles and holding their cups with one hand, although everybody who poured for Inotogo used two. His kick having served its purpose, he presented his cup to Giovanni with one hand, who, being one of the quicker studies amongst the crew, obliged him by also pouring with one.
As Simon drank and watched Aldo consume his dishes with perfect use of the two wooden sticks – “ohashi,” as he learned they were called – he waited. Finally, Aldo opened the dish with the live grasshopper. Having been cooped up in a small box did not sit well with the creature, and the second that Aldo uncovered it, it leapt onto the table.
Inotogo was perplexed and very discomfited. How did his servants make such an embarrassing mistake? Kojiro too was astounded and wondered how a grasshopper had come to invade the dishes. Simon was immensely pleased with himself as he watched Aldo attempt to grab the grasshopper with his ohashi.
Aldo, consumed with fitting in with this new culture, did not take the time to consider that someone might be having fun at his expense. He assumed that, much like the shrimp, he was supposed to eat this live grasshopper. The roughly eight bottles of sake that he had drunk did not aid in his grasp of the situation, nor help in his efforts to catch the insect.
Inotogo, while initially mortified by the thought that his kitchen staff had made an incredible mistake, soon picked up on the true nature of the situation by observing Simon’s behavior. The tall white man started with several snorting sounds that eventually transitioned into fits of uncontrollable laughter as he watched the shorter, darker white man chase the grasshopper. Inotogo smiled, and soon his samurai were also smiling as they came to understand the joke. The Venetians took a little longer to laugh because they lived in fear of Aldo’s first mate. But when Neno himself laughed, the dam burst open.
Aldo finally realized that no one else had grasshoppers in their dishes. He turned immediately to the man he knew to be his tormentor and shot him the only look he could possibly give in such a situation. He smiled broadly at Simon and nodded in appreciation of his fine joke. If he were to react angrily, he knew it would only add to Simon’s enjoyment and encourage him in the future. His revenge would have to come later, and it would be visited upon the Englishman Venetian style: with interest.
When Simon thought he could drink no more and knew he could eat no more, he downed what he thought would be his last cup of sake. Next to him, Aldo did the same. Kojiro, with a full cup in front of him that he had not touched recently, refilled their cups and ordered more bottles. Aldo and Simon, not wanting to waste alcohol, especially not one as smooth and flavorful as this one, downed their cups again. Kojiro and another of the samurai refilled them. Simon and Aldo drank them again. Now Simon really thought he had had enough, which was a feeling he rarely got. When Kojiro refilled their cups, he drank it again and turned his cup upside down on the table. Aldo did the same.
Kojiro was puzzled. The two barbarians could certainly hold their alcohol, and they apparently wanted more since they continued to drain their cups. Kojiro grabbed their cups, turned them right side up, and poured more sake.
“I can’t refuse alcohol given freely, it’s against my very nature,” Simon slurred to Aldo. “But what do you think their plan is in all this?” It had taken Aldo some time to understand what was happening. He had not been modest in his sake consumption either.
“All the foreigners who stopped drinking have full cups.”
“What?”
“They indicate that they are done drinking by leaving their cup full.”
“You mean they waste it?”
“Perhaps that is why the cups are so small.”
Contrary to the very nature of their beings, Simon and Aldo left full cups of alcohol in front of them. That is when they heard a rapid exchange of dialogue between Inotogo and a tall, slender woman who had entered the room unnoticed.
“What did they say?” Simon asked Aldo.
“I don’t know, it was too quick for me,” Aldo replied as he turned towards Kojiro. Kojiro told Aldo, who in turn, translated to Simon, that the woman was the wife of Inotogo and that they had a disagreement over sleeping arrangements for the night. Kojiro then explained the disagreement honestly to Aldo.
“Inotogo-sama told his wife that he planned for you and your crew to spend the night either on your ship, or under guard in a village household. The Lady Arai then suggested that since you saved the life of their son, you two should spend the night in this house, and your crew should be quartered in the village, all without guard.”
After Kojiro’s explanation and Aldo’s translation, Simon and Aldo focused on Inotogo and his wife again. They observed Lady Arai kneel and bow to her husband as she made a final remark. She then rose and gracefully strode from the room without having been introduced.
“What did she say?” Simon quickly inquired.
“She said that as always, her husband is wise and correct.”
“Ah, just like England, a woman knows her place, though it would appear unfortunate for us in this case.”
Kojiro spoke to Aldo, who continued translating for Simon. “What she meant was, ‘This decision is far too important to be decided by a man, and you will follow my directions.’”
Simon looked bewildered. “How can you possibly interpret her remarks to have the complete opposite meaning?”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Aldo answered. When he translated for Kojiro, the samurai could not understand how Simon could have missed the true
meaning of the exchange. Maybe he’s not as smart as I thought.
Simon frowned. “Well, it’s not obvious to me. She said he was wise and correct.”
“In front of others,” Aldo translated, “she would not disagree with her husband. Who would? But the steel in her voice and the direct eye contact she made before walking out leave no question.”
“Well, I’ll tell you what, back in England we don’t let our women make our decisions for us.”
Kojiro responded evenly, through Aldo: “That would lead me to believe that in Japan, both the man and the woman know the nature of their relationships, whereas perhaps in England, only the women do?”
“That’s absurd,” Simon said without as much conviction as he would have wished.
Simon and Aldo spent that night and many more to come in the main house, unguarded.
Chapter 5
Three Months Later
The Hills above Kannoura
SIMON HAD NOT had any intention of staying on the far side of the world for so long, despite his comfortable surroundings. Memories of his mother’s head dropping into the mud of Exeter Castle haunted his dreams every night, and he awoke every morning with a desire to return to England and exact revenge. She had been a woman who never missed an opportunity to say “I love you” to Simon, despite his father’s complaints that it would make him soft. He had loved her back just as fiercely, and he regretted not having had the courage to risk his father’s disapproval by returning those simple three words.