The samurai lined the gunwales of his ship watching him.
Filled with disquiet, he climbed up the gangway and came on deck. One samurai, more elaborately dressed than the others, came over to him and bowed. Blackthorne had learned well and he bowed back equally and everyone on the deck beamed genially. He still felt the horror of the sudden killing in the street, and their smiles did not allay his foreboding. He went toward the companionway and stopped abruptly. Across the doorway was pasted a wide band of red silk and, beside it, a small sign with queer, squiggled writing. He hesitated, checked the other door, but that too was sealed up with a similar band, and a similar sign was nailed to the bulkhead.
He reached out to remove the silk.
“Hotté oké!” To make the point quite clear the samurai on guard shook his head. He was no longer smiling.
“But this is my ship and I want . . .” Blackthorne bottled his anxiety, eyes on the swords. I’ve got to get below, he thought. I’ve got to get the rutters, mine and the secret one. Christ Jesus, if they’re found and given to the priests or to the Japaners we’re finished. Any court in the world—outside of England and the Netherlands—would convict us as pirates with that evidence. My rutter gives dates, places, and amounts of plunder taken, the number of dead at our three landings in the Americas and the one in Spanish Africa, the number of churches sacked, and how we burned the towns and the shipping. And the Portuguese rutter? That’s our death warrant, for of course it’s stolen. At least it was bought from a Portuguese traitor, and by their law any foreigner caught in possession of any rutter of theirs, let alone one that unlocks the Magellan, is to be put to death at once. And if the rutter is found aboard an enemy ship, the ship is to be burned and all aboard executed without mercy.
“Nan no yoda?” one of the samurai said.
“Do you speak Portuguese?” Blackthorne asked in that language.
The man shrugged. “Wakarimasen.”
Another came forward and deferentially spoke to the leader, who nodded in agreement.
“Portugeezu friend,” this samurai said in heavily accented Portuguese. He opened the top of his kimono and showed the small wooden crucifix that hung from his neck.
“Christ’an!” He pointed at himself and smiled. “Christ’an.” He pointed at Blackthorne. “Christ’an ka?”
Blackthorne hesitated, nodded. “Christian.”
“Portugeezu?”
“English.”
The man chattered with the leader, then both shrugged and looked back at him. “Portugeezu?”
Blackthorne shook his head, not liking to disagree with them on anything. “My friends? Where?”
The samurai pointed to the east end of the village. “Friends.”
“This is my ship. I want to go below.” Blackthorne said it in several ways and with signs and they understood.
“Ah, so desu! Kinjiru,” they said emphatically, indicating the notice, and beamed.
It was quite clear that he was not allowed to go below. Kinjiru must mean forbidden, Blackthorne thought irritably. Well, to hell with that! He snapped the handle of the door down and opened it a fraction.
“KINJIRU!”
He was jerked around to face the samurai. Their swords were half out of the scabbards. Motionlessly the two men waited for him to make up his mind. Others on deck watched impassively.
Blackthorne knew he had no option but to back down, so he shrugged and walked away and checked the hawsers and the ship as best he could. The tattered sails were down and tied in place. But the lashings were different from any he’d ever seen, so he presumed that the Japaners had made the vessel secure. He started down the gangway, and stopped. He felt the cold sweat as he saw them all staring at him malevolently and he thought, Christ Jesus, how could I be so stupid. He bowed politely and at once the hostility vanished and they all bowed and were smiling again. But he could still feel the sweat trickling down his spine and he hated everything about the Japans and wished himself and his crew back aboard, armed, and out to sea.
“By the Lord Jesus, I think you’re wrong, Pilot,” Vinck said. His toothless grin was wide and obscene. “If you can put up with the swill they call food, it’s the best place I’ve been. Ever. I’ve had two women in three days and they’re like rabbits. They’ll do anything if you show ’em how.”
“That’s right. But you can’t do nothing without meat or brandy. Not for long. I’m tired out, and I could only do it once,” Maetsukker said, his narrow face twitching. “The yellow bastards won’t understand that we need meat and beer and bread. And brandy or wine.”
“That’s the worst! Lord Jesus, my kingdom for some grog!” Baccus van Nekk was filled with gloom. He walked over and stood close to Blackthorne and peered up at him. He was very nearsighted and had lost his last pair of spectacles in the storm. But even with them he would always stand as close as possible. He was chief merchant, treasurer, and representative of the Dutch East India Company that had put up the money for the voyage. “We’re ashore and safe and I haven’t had a drink yet. Not a beautiful drop! Terrible. Did you get any, Pilot?”
“No.” Blackthorne disliked having anyone near him, but Baccus was a friend and almost blind so he did not move away. “Just hot water with herbs in it.”
“They simply won’t understand grog. Nothing to drink but hot water and herbs—the good Lord help us! Suppose there’s no liquor in the whole country!” His eyebrows soared. “Do me a huge favor, Pilot. Ask for some liquor, will you?”
Blackthorne had found the house that they had been assigned on the eastern edge of the village. The samurai guard had let him pass, but his men had confirmed that they themselves could not go out of the garden gate. The house was many-roomed like his, but bigger and staffed with many servants of various ages, both men and women.
There were eleven of his men alive. The dead had been taken away by the Japanese. Lavish portions of fresh vegetables had begun to banish the scurvy and all but two of the men were healing rapidly. These two had blood in their bowels and their insides were fluxed. Vinck had bled them but this had not helped. By nightfall he expected them to die. The Captain-General was in another room, still very sick.
Sonk, the cook, a stocky little man, was saying with a laugh, “It’s good here, like Johann says, Pilot, excepting the food and no grog. And it’s all right with the natives so long as you don’t wear your shoes in the house. It sends the little yellow bastards mad if you don’t take off your shoes.”
“Listen,” Blackstone said. “There’s a priest here. A Jesuit.”
“Christ Jesus!” All banter left them as he told them about the priest and about the beheading.
“Why’d he chop the man’s head off, Pilot?”
“I don’t know.”
“We better get back aboard. If Papists catch us ashore . . .”
There was great fear in the room now. Salamon, the mute, watched Blackthorne. His mouth worked, a bubble of phlegm appearing at the corners.
“No, Salamon, there’s no mistake,” Blackthorne said kindly, answering the silent question. “He said he was Jesuit.”
“Christ, Jesuit or Dominican or what-the-hell-ever makes no muck-eating difference,” Vinck said. “We’d better get back aboard. Pilot, you ask that samurai, eh?”
“We’re in God’s hands,” Jan Roper said. He was one of the merchant adventurers, a narrow-eyed young man with a high forehead and thin nose. “He will protect us from the Satan worshipers.”