There was some noise outside in the corridor, and loud voices. Satō hid the paper in her kimono and slid the door panel just enough to peek out.
Two magistrate officials stood before her father, angry and suspicious.
“You know the rules, Takashima-sama,” said one of them. “You have to let us do the search otherwise we’ll have reasons to suspect you of harbouring fugitives.”
Satō stifled a curse.
“Of course, I have nothing to hide,” replied Shūhan, “but you must allow me to welcome you as befits your position. Won’t you sit down for a couple of cups first? I just got a flask of saké from Fushimi.”
“You can afford such treats?” The official eyed the old wizard suspiciously. “We may have to look into the conditions of your arrest.”
“It’s a gift from an old friend that I will gladly share with you. Please, have a seat in the main room. You must be tired; it’s a long way here from the magistrate office.”
“Well…” the official grumbled, “I don’t see how it can hurt. You men,” he turned to his guards, “stay here, keep a lookout.”
Guiding the men to the main hall, Shūhan cast a glance towards Satō’s room. Their eyes met. She nodded reassuringly, letting him know he had nothing to worry about. She knew the routine. While the officials drank their saké, she would quickly run around the house and hide anything that could be deemed strange, suspicious, or simply too extravagant, starting with the old Vasconian globe.
When he woke up, the woman called Ine was sitting beside his bedding, waiting. From the amount of light falling through the paper windows he guessed it was evening or dawn. It had become cold again, but he was now getting used to it.
She bowed and gestured him to rise, helping him to put on the indigo gown. When she had made sure he could stand straight, she went out of the room, nodding at him. Hesitantly, the boy followed. She was just like any Western doctor he knew: her commands simply had to be obeyed.
She led him down a narrow corridor, its floor lined with dark squeaking planks and walls built of the already familiar wood and paper lattice, down the stairs, creaking with every step, until they reached another small room smelling of soap, steam and cleanliness.
“Oyuu,” she said, motioning him inside.
There was a square wooden tub in the corner of the room, small but deep, with steam rising from under the board cover, several low stools and a shallow bucket. Bran rejoiced. Although he had washed himself several times already with a wet towel and bowl of water, the sterility of the house made him shamefully aware of his own dishevelled state. He welcomed the chance of having a hot bath with great enthusiasm.
The boy looked at the woman, but she had no intention of leaving him alone. She indicated him to take off the gown. After a moment’s hesitation, he did what was asked. She’s just a nurse, he told himself, she must have seen naked men before. She had seen him naked, he remembered, when she had put him to bed for the first time.
The nurse gestured him to sit on the stool.
“No bath?” he asked, jokingly, but the woman did not reply.
She disappeared from his sight for a moment, he heard the wooden cover pulled back, something splashed and, with no warning, a stream of hot water poured onto his back from a bucket. He yowled and jumped up from the stool, but her strong arm pushed him back down. For a moment a startling thought raced through his head: he was going to be tortured with boiling water! But then he felt a sponge rubbing lye soap into his back and shoulders with care, and he felt his tense muscles relax.
It was a pleasant feeling, not unlike being washed by his mother when he had been a child. Just as he started to unwind and drift off, another bucket of scalding water woke him up violently. The nurse started massaging his scalp, rubbing a lather smelling of raw egg and ash into his hair. Another splash of hot water made him shudder. His skin was now turning a healthy shade of pink. He forgot all about the cold evening breeze—he was now so hot he wished he could take his skin off if that would make him any cooler.
His head and back clean, the woman laid the sponge and soap container before him on the stones. He scrubbed the rest of his body then poured water from the bucket over his head. It felt great to finally wash. Unlike some of their neighbours, the Prydain prided themselves on their cleanliness. Was it not the Prydain who had invented soap? On Ladon there was always a dearth of clean fresh water. He lived in fear of getting lice in his hair or fleas on his body. Luckily, as the son of an officer, he had priority access to the scarce bathing water. The Factory in Fan Yu was run primarily by the Seaxe who did not pay much attention to matters of hygiene, so he had to make do with bathing in the Pearl River. He was glad to find the Yamato appeared as concerned with the purity of their bodies as his own people.
As his ablutions finished, she removed the cover from the tub completely and helped him climb inside. The water was pleasantly hot and crystal clear. How clever to wash oneself before coming in, he thought, that way everyone could use the clean water instead of the swill of those who came in before.
Soaking himself in silence, Bran saw the woman’s perpetual smile disappear as she drifted off into her thoughts. He wondered what she was thinking. He needed to know more about his situation. That he was not yet dead was good news, but what was his status here? A prisoner of war? The house did not seem like a military establishment and there were youths here, but he knew nothing of the strange customs of these people. Perhaps they were trained to watch the prisoners die, or perhaps he was simply kept here until he was well enough to stand before a court…
There had to be a way to communicate with these people. He knew of only one place in Yamato. It was a long shot, but worth a try.
“De… Dejima?” he ventured.
The woman blinked and nodded enthusiastically. She motioned him to get up. After he had dried and clothed himself, she led him up the stairs to the top floor and up a rickety ladder-like steep staircase to the roof. She opened a hatch leading outside and a waft of fresh cold air almost made him fall over. He looked out and saw a sprawling city of wooden, clay-tiled, white-walled homes. The house he was in had to be on the slope of a hill, for he could see far ahead. The city was vast, neatly organised, spreading in straight lines of streets along a narrow river towards a thin blue line of the sea on the horizon. The bay was attractive, wide, surrounded by tall green hills, sheltered from winds and storms, a perfect harbour. Just like in his grandfather’s diary.
She climbed after him and they sat together on the tiled roof, looking at the city and the harbour below. The setting sun was shining straight at them, and the air was surprisingly warm for the time of day—warmer than inside the house. The woman stretched out her hand, pointing at some area of the shoreline, and said:
“Dejima!”
Bran squinted, wishing he remembered to bring the spyglass from his bag, and saw two islands in the middle of the bay, one square, one fan-shaped, connected by a single bridge to the rest of the land. An unmistakably spiralling tower of wizardry rose above the fan-shaped one, topped with a minuscule dot of an orange flag fluttering in the breeze. So he had guessed correctly. Of all the places in Yamato the Seal brought him almost directly to the only one he knew about. Looking to the horizon it was easy to imagine a ship of the line standing at anchor, its cannons aimed menacingly at the wooden buildings of the city. The vessels he could make out in the harbour were all, as far as he could tell, small and insignificant compared to a full size Western frigate. The arrival of HMS Phaeton must have been a shock to these people.
The island was closer than he had hoped, and so were the Bataavians. He only needed to reach them and explain his situation.
They heard shouting from below, and the woman gestured him to come down. When they reached Bran’s room, the red-haired girl and her friend were already waiting for them, impatient and anxious.
“Sister, what are you doing?” Nagomi asked with a raised voice. “Somebody could see him! We saw him! Do
you forget what would happen if he was reported to the authorities?”
“Quieten down, Nagomi.” Ine raised her hand. “Your yelling will raise more alarm than us sitting on the roof. From a distance, nobody can tell him from a Yamato boy when he’s wearing these clothes.”
“What were you doing there, anyway?” asked Satō. “Is he all right to go outside like that?”
“He’s perfectly fine now. He mentioned Dejima, so I wanted to show it to him. Now at least he knows where he is.”
“He knows of Dejima? So maybe he is from there after all.” Satō sulked.
Ine noticed a rolled-up piece of paper the wizardess held in her left hand.
“What do you have there?”
“I drew the map of the West from my father’s globe. We want to see where Bran-sama is from.”
“All right, you can come in, just don’t be noisy. He still needs to rest.”
“Of course we won’t be noisy, we’re not kids, sister.” Nagomi pouted.
“Can we give him some rice balls?”
Satō pulled out a bamboo box.
“He’s a boy, not a monkey! Besides, I’m not sure if he’ll like them. You know how Westerners are about our food. You’d do better to fetch something from the Qin quarter next time, or one of the bakers at the harbour.”
“Nagomi,” the apprentice introduced herself. “Satō,” she said, pointing at her friend.
“Sāto,” he repeated.
She corrected his accent. He repeated again and she nodded approvingly.
They presented him with a small box made of dark red lacquer. Inside were three balls of sticky rice wrapped in dried seaweed. The boy gobbled them up, nodded and smiled. They smiled back.
Satō unrolled her map. The boy’s eyes lit up with recognition. He studied the drawing for a while, his brow furrowed in deep thought, before pointing to an amorphous blob near where she had tried her best to duplicate the three dragon heads. Satō’s eyes widened.
“Dorako?” she asked to make sure.
“Draigg, hai,” the boy answered, pointing at himself.
Satō’s sat back for a moment, not saying anything, her heart racing. Then, on an impulse, she reached into her sash, producing another bundle of crumbled papers—her notes from the Dragon Book.
The boy looked through them, perplexed. Suddenly he cried something out and started speaking fast, waving the pieces of paper. Satō looked at him not understanding anything he said. He pointed to the paper at the runes and then to himself.
“Dragon Rider,” he read the letters aloud and stretched out his arms imitating a dragon in flight.
“Doragon Raidaa…” the wizardess repeated. It sounded just like the Bataavian word “rijder”.
“What does it mean?” asked Nagomi, silent until now.
“I… I think he means he rides dragons, like in the book. That would certainly explain the sword.”
“But he’s so young!”
“Maybe he’s only training to… wait, he’s saying something else.”
The boy raised his finger. The girls fell silent in anticipation. He reached for his satchel and unbuckled it. Satō watched him take out a small lacquer figurine of a serpentine dragon. There followed a black lacquer box with a crest of four diamonds on the top. The boy opened it and took out a small flat medallion, a golden buckle on a silk ribbon and a golden ring with a strangely cut jagged stone, blue and translucent. Once out of the box, the jewel suddenly sparked with bluish light within, surprising even the boy, who almost dropped it.
“What are all these things?” Nagomi asked quietly.
“I don’t know… That one’s definitely a ryū,” Satō said, giving the figurine a cursory glance, “something you would buy at a souvenir stall in the harbour… The box is from Yamato, too—I wonder what family’s crest this is. And this – this is an obi buckle, isn’t it?”
She traced the scaled coils of the golden dragon with her finger.
“I think so. I’ve never seen one that elaborate before.”
“A very rich lady must have worn it once… That ring is not from here, though, I’m sure—looks Western. My father might know more. What’s this?”
The wizardess picked up the medallion. As she touched its dark surface it glowed, showing a picture of a noblewoman in a red kimono, more vivid and truthful than any painting. A thaumaturgic True Image! She knew about these things—a piece of imbued glass transformed to hold the image forever—but had never held one. A string of characters showed along the side of the image.
Nagomi let out a gasp. “She’s beautiful!”
“My love, Ōmon. Bunka year five,” deciphered Satō. “Hold on, I know that date. That’s the year of the foreign ship incident.”
“What does all this mean?” Nagomi asked. “He is from Dejima after all, or a spy?”
“If he is a spy, he would at least know Bataavian. There is something more going on here…”
Nagomi noticed the boy’s uncomprehending expression. She turned to him, pointing to the figurine.
“Um… Bataave?” she asked.
He nodded. She then picked up the medallion.
“You wouldn’t remember the name of that ship from years ago?” she asked Satō.
“Of course I do, it’s my father’s favourite story. It was Feeton.”
“Feeton?” Nagomi repeated.
The boy thought for a moment then confirmed her guess enthusiastically and spoke a few more words in his strange language.
“What about the ring?” Satō asked, touching the glowing gem.
The boy understood the question, but they could not understand his answer.
“Phaeton,” he repeated at last, shrugging.
The door opened. Ine looked sternly at the girls.
“Are you still interrogating my patient? You’re worse than the magistrate officers!” she scolded them. “He’s still tired. Leave him be.”
“Of course, sister.”
Nagomi stood up, bowed and bid the boy farewell. He tried to repeat her gesture and words—a clumsy effort, but it made her smile.
“We need to find a way to communicate with him,” said Satō. They were walking the cherry tree lined street back to Takashima mansion. “We have to know what all those items in his bag mean.”
“Isn’t there anyone in Kiyō who would understand his speech? What about Bataavians?”
“There aren’t that many of them on Dejima at the moment. All the merchant ships have gone for the winter and won’t be back for at least a month. I’ll ask Father, but it can be difficult. You know the Bataavians can’t just go around visiting random houses as they wish. The gates to the island are shut when there’s no trade. There will be papers to fill out, questions to answer… and the magistrate is already snooping around our house.”
“But we do have to do something about him. I can tell Ine is growing inpatient.” They reached a crossroads. “I need to go to the shrine now. See you tomorrow.”
Nagomi turned towards the shrine mountain. Satō headed home along the wide empty street then she started to run. She stretched out her arms and roared. Tonight, she was a dragon rider.
CHAPTER XIV
He sat leaning against the wall of the infirmary room, eyes closed, meditating. On his left hand he was wearing his ring; the stone radiated a warm blue light. It had been glowing like this ever since Bran had taken it out of the black box. He wondered what unseen currents of magic it was picking up on. He was trying to clear his mind, to establish contact with his dragon, to learn where it was and what had been happening to it. It wasn’t an easy task.
Questions raced through his head. The notes he had been shown were from a book he knew all too well—the Llambed Dracology textbook, first year. Where did they get it, halfway across the globe? That map was badly copied, but definitely from an accurate enough source. From the little he had known about them, he had imagined the Yamato as a backward people, secretive, hiding away,
cut off from any civilisation beyond their sea maze. It seemed they were anything but…
The jewel heated up and Bran’s mind was transported away from the small room. He was inside the dragon’s head now. The beast was very tired and hungry. Bran could feel the dragon’s exhaustion overwhelm his own body. Emrys was resting, lying on some rocks, dormant after a great effort. It could not gather its bearings, having flown over nothing but empty featureless ocean. It was unhurt, as far as Bran could tell, just weak, confused and weary, too weary to respond to the Farlink beacon. Slowly the vision faded as the blue gem cooled down.
Bran was troubled. They had never been so far apart. What if they were separated for so long that the dragon turned feral? He could not bear the thought. He had to leave the strange house and try to get to Dejima on his own. From the roof it did not seem far at all. Days had passed and he still wasn’t contacted by anyone of authority, only those two kids and the nurse woman. There had to be someone else who could help him.
He woke up screaming.
His body was covered in cold sweat. The traces of the nightmare were vanishing fast from his mind, but the feeling of terror still lingered. The cries of the Ladon’s crewmen, dying in the burning ocean, ringed in his ears. He shook his head and took a couple of deep breaths.
He waited for a while to see if anyone would come to check on him but the house was sound asleep. He stood up and snapped his fingers. A flamespark appeared in the air. The familiar flickering light comforted him.
The Shadow of Black Wings (The Year of the Dragon, Book 1) Page 18