“Priest, translate what the pirate said,” he heard the daimyo say.
O Blessed Mother of God, help me to do thy will. Help me to be strong in front of the daimyo and give me the gift of tongues, and let me convert him to the True Faith.
Father Sebastio gathered his wits and began to speak more confidently.
Blackthorne listened carefully, trying to pick out the words and meanings. The Father used “England” and “Blackthorne” and pointed at the ship, which lay nicely at anchor in the harbor.
“How did you get here?” Father Sebastio said.
“By Magellan’s Pass. This is the one hundred and thirty-sixth day from there. Tell the daimyo—”
“You’re lying. Magellan’s Pass is secret. You came via Africa and India. You’ll have to tell the truth eventually. They use torture here.”
“The Pass was secret. A Portuguese sold us a rutter. One of your own people sold you out for a little Judas gold. You’re all manure! Now all English warships—and Dutch warships—know the way through to the Pacific. There’s a fleet—twenty English ships-of-the-line, sixty-cannon warships—attacking Manila right now. Your empire’s finished.”
“You’re lying!”
Yes, Blackthorne thought, knowing there was no way to prove the lie except to go to Manila. “That fleet will harry your sea lanes and stamp out your colonies. There’s another Dutch fleet due here any week now. The Spanish-Portuguese pig is back in his pigsty and your Jesuit General’s penis is in his anus—where it belongs!” He turned away and bowed low to the daimyo.
“God curse you and your filthy mouth!”
“Ano mono wa nani o moshité oru?” the daimyo snapped impatiently.
The priest spoke more quickly, harder, and said “Magellan” and “Manila” but Blackthorne thought that the daimyo and his lieutenants did not seem to understand too clearly.
Yabu was wearying of this trial. He looked out into the harbor, to the ship that had obsessed him ever since he had received Omi’s secret message, and he wondered again if it was the gift from the gods that he hoped.
“Have you inspected the cargo yet, Omi-san?” he had asked this morning as soon as he had arrived, mud-spattered and very weary.
“No, Lord. I thought it best to seal up the ship until you came personally, but the holds are filled with crates and bales. I hope I did it correctly. Here are all their keys. I confiscated them.”
“Good.” Yabu had come from Yedo, Toranaga’s capital city, more than a hundred miles away, post haste, furtively and at great personal risk, and it was vital that he return as quickly. The journey had taken almost two days over foul roads and spring-filled streams, partly on horseback and partly by palanquin. “I’ll go to the ship at once.”
“You should see the strangers, Lord,” Omi had said with a laugh. “They’re incredible. Most of them have blue eyes—like Siamese cats—and golden hair. But the best news of all is that they’re pirates. . . .”
Omi had told him about the priest and what the priest had related about these corsairs and what the pirate had said and what had happened, and his excitement had tripled. Yabu had conquered his impatience to go aboard the ship and break the seals. Instead he had bathed and changed and ordered the barbarians brought in front of him.
“You, priest,” he said, his voice sharp, hardly able to understand the priest’s bad Japanese. “Why is he so angry with you?”
“He’s evil. Pirate. He worship devil.”
Yabu leaned over to Omi, the man on his left. “Can you understand what he’s saying, nephew? Is he lying? What do you think?”
“I don’t know, Lord. Who knows what barbarians really believe? I imagine the priest thinks the pirate is a devil worshiper. Of course, that’s all nonsense.”
Yabu turned back to the priest, detesting him. He wished that he could crucify him today and obliterate Christianity from his domain once and for all. But he could not. Though he and all other daimyos had total power in their own domains, they were still subject to the overriding authority of the Council of Regents, the military rulling junta to whom the Taikō had legally willed his power during his son’s minority, and subject, too, to edicts the Taikō had issued in his lifetime, which were all still legally in force. One of these, promulgated years ago, dealt with the Portuguese barbarians and ordered that they were all protected persons and, within reason, their religion was to be tolerated and their priests allowed, within reason, to proselytize and convert. “You, priest! What else did the pirate say? What was he saying to you? Hurry up! Have you lost your tongue?”
“Pirate says bad things. Bad. About more pirate war boatings—many.”
“What do you mean, ‘war boatings’?”
“Sorry, Lord, I don’t understand.”
“ ‘War boatings’ doesn’t make sense, neh?”
“Ah! Pirate says other ships war are in Manila, in Philippines.”
“Omi-san, do you understand what he’s talking about?”
“No, Lord. His accent’s appalling, it’s almost gibberish. Is he saying that more pirate ships are east of Japan?”
“You, priest! Are these pirate ships off our coast? East? Eh?”
“Yes, Lord. But I think he’s lying. He says at Manila.”
“I don’t understand you. Where’s Manila?”
“East. Many days’ journey.”
“If any pirate ships come here, we’ll give them a pleasant welcome, wherever Manila is.”
“Please excuse me, I don’t understand.”
“Never mind,” Yabu said, his patience at an end. He had already decided the strangers were to die and he relished the prospect. Obviously these men did not come within the Taikō’s edict that specified “Portuguese barbarians,” and anyway they were pirates. As long as he could remember he had hated barbarians, their stench and filthiness and disgusting meat-eating habits, their stupid religion and arrogance and detestable manners. More than that, he was shamed, as was every daimyo, by their stranglehold over this Land of the Gods. A state of war had existed between China and Japan for centuries. China would allow no trade. Chinese silk cloth was vital to make the long, hot, humid Japanese summer bearable. For generations only a minuscule amount of contraband cloth had slipped through the net and was available, at huge cost, in Japan. Then, sixty-odd years ago, the barbarians had first arrived. The Chinese Emperor in Peking gave them a tiny permanent base at Macao in southern China and agreed to trade silks for silver. Japan had silver in abundance. Soon trade was flourishing. Both countries prospered. The middlemen, the Portuguese, grew rich, and their priests—Jesuits mostly—soon became vital to the trade. Only the priests managed to learn to speak Chinese and Japanese and therefore could act as negotiators and interpreters. As trade blossomed, the priests became more essential. Now the yearly trade was huge and touched the life of every samurai. So the priests had to be tolerated and the spread of their religion tolerated or the barbarians would sail away and trade would cease.
By now there were a number of very important Christian daimyos and many hundreds of thousands of converts, most of whom were in Kyushu, the southern island that was nearest to China and contained the Portuguese port of Nagasaki. Yes, Yabu thought, we must tolerate the priests and the Portuguese, but not these barbarians, the new ones, the unbelievable golden-haired, blue-eyed ones. His excitement filled him. Now at last he could satisfy his curiosity as to how well a barbarian would die when put to torment. And he had eleven men, eleven different tests, to experiment with. He never questioned why the agony of others pleasured him. He only knew that it did and therefore it was something to be sought and enjoyed.