“Well, I only thought if you have to be seasick, you might as well do it while being as comfortable as you can.” Miko left the room then, but returned almost immediately with a number of packages.
He paid her little attention, wallowing in the heat he could feel gathering about him as he added the new blankets to the one already about him.
“I must apologize we did nothing about this earlier. While we had thought of some of your other needs, it has been some time since we’ve had to consider the warmth or coldness of our surroundings.”
As she spoke, Miko stepped to sit behind him. Without asking, she began working on his tangled and disheveled hair.
“Miko-san, if I might ask?” he said shyly. “How long have you and the others, well, been as you are now?”
“How long have we been dead, Toshi-kun? You can say it. We’ve all had a long time to learn to deal with the fact.” He felt his dark hair tumble to his shoulders as Miko released it. She combed it as she answered his question. “Our bad fortune befell us over eight years ago.”
He tried to glance back at her, his face covered with astonished disbelief. Miko gently turned his head until he was facing forward again.
“So long, Miko-san? And you still haven’t completed your journey?”
“We’ve tried and tried, but fate has not been with us. The same lack of knowledge that impeded us in life still works on us in death—and there have been other things. But it wasn’t until recently that a new way opened itself to us, a way to actually find the place we seek.” She hesitated for a moment. “You’re very important to us, Toshi-kun. With you, we hope to do as we must.”
A chill made its way down his spine. It was wrong that they should depend on him, that they might continue to roam the seas for years to come, perhaps eternity, if he couldn’t guide them to where they needed to go. He was just a peasant, a slave, a tool for his master. Such responsibility was never meant to fall on someone like him.
He remained silent as Miko finished combing his hair and then tied it up again. After getting him more tea, she suggested they play some games. Wanting a distraction from both his thoughts and his nausea, he agreed.
They played word games. Then, when his nausea proved too distracting, Miko told him stories new and old. He was amazed by some of the ones she chose to tell, for they were quite recent. Though Miko and the others on the ship were all spirits, were they still somehow keeping in touch with those who were living? Even after all this time? He wasn’t sure if he would do that if he were undead. He didn’t know if he could handle how it would make him feel.
Some time later, he looked up in puzzlement after having added the next two lines to the poem they’d been making for the past half-hour. Something had changed, but he couldn’t name what. After a moment, he realized he felt better.
Miko added her verses, which left him with a dead end to produce a new verse. He didn’t notice he’d lost, still embroiled in trying to figure out what had changed around him.
“That was a good game, Toshi-san. I think you’re taking to it well. If you prove diligent, I might just let you win a game or two.”
He totally missed her playful dare. “Is something different, Miko-san?”
“Different?” Miko stared at him, lifting her head as she tried to figure out what he meant. “Oh, dawn is upon us. The ship has gone underwater.”
As she said it, he realized it was true. The change he felt was the lack of swaying by the vessel.
“Now that the ship is more steady, perhaps you would consider eating before going to sleep?” Miko asked.
He nodded.
“I must go attend Asaka-sama now,” she added. “I will wake you once night is close to falling on us again.” Miko rose as Toshi glanced with distaste at the food still waiting for him across the room. “When you’ve finished with your duties tonight, we can play some more games, if you like.”
“I would very much, Miko-san.”
She bowed to him, bid him good night and then left.
He looked at the food sitting across the room again and grimaced. After several minutes, he forced himself to get up and head toward it.
Chapter 5
“Toshi-kun. Toshi-kun. Wake up. If you don’t hurry, you’ll have no free time before Asaka-sama comes for you. Toshi-kun!”
Barely able to open his eyes, he tried to focus his vision as his body was almost violently rocked back and forth. “Mi—Miko-san?”
“Yes, who else?” she said, her voice sounding annoyed and worried at the same time. “I’ve never had such trouble rousing anyone in my life. Now come on. Asaka-sama will be coming for you soon. You’ll want to be ready.”
With her help, he managed to sit up, yawning all the way. He tried to rub the sleep out of his eyes, even as his numbed mind tried to come awake.
“Did you always give your master this much trouble? I bet he had to take a stick to you just to get you up.” Miko’s tone was light.
His eyes felt heavy even as he tried to comprehend what Miko was talking about. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No, you only just about exhausted my patience is all, sleepyhead,” she told him, shaking her head.
“You have to be presentable and ready by the time Asaka-sama comes for you. He waits for no man, you know, and right now you’re a long way from presentable.”
He didn’t see Miko go to the small table as his eyes closed on their own. He jerked them open, disoriented, as she placed a cup of barely steaming tea in his hands.
“Come on, drink,” she said. “It should help wake you. I’ll help you undress as soon as you’ve finished with it. Though it won’t be as relaxing as a good tub, I’ve brought you some water with which you can clean yourself.” She began digging him out of his cocoon of blankets.
“Take a stick to me?” He saw Miko snap her head up to stare at him. After a moment, her gentle laugh rose softly to his ears.
“You’re not all here this evening, are you?” She laughed as he stared at her blankly. “I had asked you if your old master was in the habit of taking a stick to you to wake you up in the morning. Now, drink your tea.”
Staring at her in a half-daze, he brought the teacup to his lips. As the contents trickled down his throat and warmed his stomach, his mind started to clear. “Master Shun never beat me with a stick. Not to wake me up, anyway.”
Miko cast him a questioning glance as she dug him out of his blankets.
“I’ve never had any trouble waking up.” He yawned in between some of the words. “I always awoke as soon as Master Shun opened my door. He liked it that way. He didn’t believe in wasting time.” He drank more of his tea.
As soon as he had finished, Miko took his cup away and bid him to please finish getting undressed.
“There’s a washcloth for you in one of the buckets. Your towel and clean clothes are by the door.”
Feeling more alert, he waited for the geisha to turn away before stripping down to his loincloth. He put his sandals back on to walk across the glowing floor and hurried over to the waiting buckets. His exposed flesh crawled with goose bumps as the eerie cold radiating in the room caressed him wherever he went. Once he’d found the washcloth, he removed his loincloth and began to wash. While definitely not as enjoyable as a long soak in a tub, the feel of the hot water was luscious.
“Do you think you might like to eat something this evening?” Miko said.
Toshi realized he was hungry, his stomach no longer in the aggravated state it had been yesterday. With a sinking feeling, though, he wondered how long that would last once the ship rose back to the surface.
“I’m not really sure, Miko-san. Maybe just a little?”
“All right.”
He dried off as quickly as he could, the room’s iciness sapping the water’s warmth and leaving him colder than before. In one hurried move, he grabbed his clean clothes and dived to his futon. He dug into his blankets as deeply as he could and then got dressed.
“You need to
hurry, Toshi-san,” Miko warned him. “You haven’t much time left.”
Keeping his covers tightly about him, he got up and sat before the room’s small table. He drank the tea Miko served him eagerly. As she proceeded to refill his cup once more, he reached out for one of the rice cakes filling a plate nearby.
Not daring to have more than one, he made it last as long as he could and followed it down with several more cups of tea. Miko was busy for a few minutes fighting to straighten his mussed hair.
Just as his grumbling stomach had almost convinced him perhaps there would be no harm in having a second rice cake, there was a knock at the door. With a trickle of fear, he stood up, knowing there was no way for him to avoid the inevitable. He let his blankets fall down around him as the samurai opened the door.
Holding his breath, he bowed deeply to Asaka. To his surprise, he found the bow returned. Bowing to Miko in farewell, he followed Asaka as he traveled silently up the hall.
As they waited by the outside door, he heard the faint sounds of receding water. Within moments, his stomach sadly reassured him they had, indeed, surfaced once again. Sending a quick prayer of mercy to the water spirits of the area, he followed the samurai out onto the busy deck.
The sky was clearer than the night before, yet the cooler winds still held the scent of threatening rain.
With some relief, he noticed the ship was steadier.
He followed Asaka as he climbed up the ladder, glancing at the skeletons rowing in the front half of the ship. One of them stared back, and he felt a small chill course down his back as the skeleton’s eyes filled with a red light. Toshi remembered him from his first time on board. He felt uneasy.
He looked away from the cold stare and lipless grin and spotted the bent skeleton already coming toward him carrying his tools. Asaka waved him back. The stooped figure bowed and then retreated.
“Sit,” Asaka said. His cruel demon mask stared at Toshi as his armored fleshless arm pointed to the floor next to the rail. Wondering why Asaka just didn’t let him get his job done so he could go back below and escape, Toshi did as he’d been bid.
The glowing cold from the deck seeped through his clothes into his legs and buttocks. He wished for the warmth of his blankets, but knew it wouldn’t be forthcoming. His stomach swished and knotted but not as bad as the night before. His one rice cake lay heavily inside him, making him glad he’d only had time to have the one.
Turning his head, he stared past the rail at the dark water. With a mixed sense of despair and sadness, he looked away. He remembered the things he would have seen if he’d been looking out a window at home. As the darkness settled, the city would have been filled with spurts of activity, most of it from fishermen returning home after a long day as they made their way to the inns for some well-deserved drinks. Mothers would be calling for their children as they closed the houses’ shutters, preparing for bed.
The cries of the oil sellers and food vendors would have filled the air as they tried to make what money they could before curfew forced them off the streets.
The memories lodged a lump in his throat. There was a chance he might never experience those things again. Bitterly, he glanced at the cause of his torment.
Asaka stood on deck, also staring at the dark waters. The glow from the ship reflected off his lacquered armor, making him appear more demonic than usual. Toshi looked away.
He tried for a moment to guess at the samurai’s thoughts. But what would such a hateful spirit think about? Horrible plans, tortures for the living, surely. And he would be part of those thoughts as well.
With a shiver, he made himself stop, not happy with where his imagination was leading him.
From out of the silence, one of the rowers raised his voice in song. With each line others joined in.
Astounded, he listened carefully as they continued. It was a happy song, one about sake and parties going long into the night, an even bigger surprise. And it was one whose rhythm matched that of the rowing and helped make the sea seem less forbidding.
He stared in disbelief as Asaka did nothing to stop them. He had expected the samurai to shout them into silence, but he didn’t. It was almost as if he didn’t even hear them. Until then, Toshi had thought singing was only something for the living.
“Boy.”
Asaka’s deep voice made him jump. He scrambled to his feet waiting for the samurai’s command. The old retainer walked forward, but Toshi stayed still until Asaka’s green lit stare focused on him. He rushed to stand before him.
Asaka stared at him for a long moment. “It is time.”
“Hai.” Taking the weighted line, he completed a depth reading. He then took a coil of rope with a triangular piece of wood at the end and a small hourglass. Setting the wood upright in the water, he let it go and tipped the hourglass over. When the sands ran out, he took hold of the rope, noting how much of it had played out, and dragged it all back in. He took the compass next and found their bearing before returning it. He entered all the information into the logbook. Feeling nervous, he remembered what had happened the night before, yet his nausea was mild enough for the moment not to distract him too much from his task.
Trying to keep his hands steady, he borrowed the cross-staff. Taking a better look at it than he had the previous night, he felt a cold film of perspiration spread over his face as he realized he’d seen that specific instrument before. With a sense of growing dread, he cast a furtive glance toward Asaka. Seeing the samurai’s attention wasn’t focused on him at all, he turned the cross-staff over to look at the underside of the crosspiece, hoping not to find the gaijin initials he already knew would be there.
He closed his eyes and struggled to take a deep breath as the initials R.V. glared at him from where he’d known they’d be. Ramon Valez—it had been difficult to learn to say the name the way the Spaniards did.
The captain had been most patient, in this and many other things. He’d not fit the mold painted about foreigners. Unlike many of his counterparts, the captain had even been willing to learn about the ways of the people of Nihon. A storm had damaged his ship, but Master Shun’s mapping proposition had helped take the sting out of having to stay in Nihon while they managed repairs.
Though the captain was a foreigner, Toshi thought they understood each other and were friends. And after the many months the foreigners had spent there, the captain had told him the time when they could leave would be arriving soon.
Captain Valez couldn’t possibly afford to lose his instruments. How had the samurai gotten them, anyway? At times the captain had talked of nothing but his strange country and his wish to go back home and perhaps retire. Because Toshi had worked with the foreigner, might this be why it was Valez’s instruments which were taken instead of someone else’s? How long had these people been watching him?
“Boy.”
His head snapped up as he realized he’d stood still for much too long. Trying to hold his growing anger in check, he brought the stolen cross-staff up to his eye so he could take a reading. Mechanically, he went through all the steps, feeling somehow traitorous to his gaijin friend.
He tried to think of nothing but what he had to do. Returning the cross-staff, he then began his calculations.
“Well, boy?”
Hearing Asaka’s impatience, he hurried to him with the open map. Trying not to look at him, lest his stewing anger show, he bowed and showed him their calculated position. They were halfway up the coast of Honshu.
“We are here, sir.”
“Very well,” Asaka said. “Show this to the steersman.”
“Hai.” Still not looking at Asaka, he bowed again and walked over to the skeleton holding the ship’s tiller. Just as he had done for the samurai, he held open the map and showed the steersman their present position.
Toshi suddenly wished the man before him were still made of flesh so he might have a hope of reading his expression, as the steersman stared at him with the never-ceasing skeletal grin.
&n
bsp; “You’ve gotten lucky twice, boy,” the steersman sneered. “You’d better hope you can figure out how to make it last.”
He ignored the other’s unkind tone and said nothing. He calmly rolled up the map.
“We don’t need the help of gaijin-tainted peasants,” the steersman continued.
Toshi looked up, more startled than angered by the steersman’s attitude. Two points of yellow light flared in his dark, empty eyes as if daring him to contradict him. Though the steersman’s opinion was one he had encountered often back home, still, he wondered why this spirit would speak to him like this when, according to Miko, they had true need of him.
“Boy.”
He broke away from the steersman’s stare to glance back at Asaka. Hurrying toward him with downcast eyes, he waited for whatever he would say.
“Estimate our time of arrival to the Shakute Islands.”
He could feel the samurai’s cold stare on him as he began to unroll the map.
He found the chain of small islands and, using the distance they’d traveled over the past day as a gauge, he calculated how long it would take for them to get there. He debated whether he should adjust the estimate due to the bad weather they’d traveled in last night, but decided against it. He really had nothing to base the adjustment on.
“Lord, with what I know, it should take at least three more nights.” He expected a scathing glare at his slight safeguard, but the samurai never even glanced at him.
“You’ll be given the responsibility of caring for the map and the gaijin instruments.” Asaka’s gaze bore down on him. “Also, from now on, I will expect you to arrive no later than five minutes after the ship has risen. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Lord.”
The samurai barely nodded. “You may return to your room.”
Bowing at the dismissal, he headed for the stairs. The bent skeleton met him there and handed him a basket containing the gaijin instruments.
“Thank you,” Toshi said.
The skeleton bowed to him before returning to his master’s side.
Gloria Oliver Page 5