“How’d you know I’m English?” Blackthorne asked, knowing his Portuguese was perfect and that nothing he had said could have differentiated him from a Dutchman.
“I’m a soothsayer. Aren’t all pilots?” Rodrigues laughed.
“You talked to the priest? Father Sebastio told you?”
“I don’t talk to priests if I can help it. Once a week’s more than enough for any man.” Rodrigues spat deftly into the scuppers and went to the port gangway that overlooked the jetty. “Toady-sama! Ikimasho ka?”
“Ikimasho, Rodrigu-san. Ima!”
“Ima it is.” Rodrigues looked at Blackthorne thoughtfully. “ ‘Ima’ means ‘now,’ ‘at once.’ We’re to leave at once, Ingeles.”
The sand had already made a small, neat mound in the bottom of the glass.
“Will you ask him, please? If I can go aboard my ship?”
“No, Ingeles. I won’t ask him a poxy thing.”
Blackthorne suddenly felt empty. And very old. He watched Rodrigues go to the railing of the quarterdeck and bellow to a small, distinguished seaman who stood on the raised fore-poop deck at the bow. “Hey, Captain-san. Ikimasho? Get samurai aboard-u, ima! Ima, wakarimasu ka?”
“Hai, Anjin-san.”
Immediately Rodrigues rang the ship’s bell loudly six times and the Captain-san began shouting orders to the seamen and samurai ashore and aboard. Seamen hurried up on deck from below to prepare for departure and, in the disciplined, controlled confusion, Rodrigues quietly took Blackthorne’s arm and shoved him toward the starboard gangway, away from the shore.
“There’s a dinghy below, Ingeles. Don’t move fast, don’t look around, and don’t pay attention to anyone but me. If I tell you to come back, do it quickly.”
Blackthorne walked across the deck, down the gangway, toward the small Japanese skiff. He heard angry voices behind him and he felt the hairs on his neck rising for there were many samurai all over the ship, some armed with bows and arrows, a few with muskets.
“You don’t have to worry about him, Captain-san, I’m responsible. Me, Rodrigu-san, ichi ban Anjin-san, by the Virgin! Wakarimasu ka?” was dominating the other voices, but they were getting angrier every moment.
Blackthorne was almost in the dinghy now and he saw that there were no rowlocks. I can’t scull like they do, he told himself. I can’t use the boat! It’s too far to swim. Or is it?
He hesitated, checking the distance. If he had had his full strength he would not have waited a moment. But now?
Feet clattered down the gangway behind him and he fought the impulse to turn.
“Sit in the stern,” he heard Rodrigues say urgently. “Hurry up!”
He did as he was told and Rodrigues jumped in nimbly, grabbed the oars and, still standing, shoved off with great skill.
A samurai was at the head of the gangway, very perturbed, and two other samurai were beside him, bows ready. The captain samurai called out, unmistakably beckoning them to come back.
A few yards from the vessel Rodrigues turned. “Just go there,” he shouted up at him, pointing at Erasmus. “Get samurai aboard!” He set his back firmly to his ship and continued sculling, pushing against the oars in Japanese fashion, standing amidships. “Tell me if they put arrows in their bows, Ingeles! Watch ’em carefully! What’re they doing now?”
“The captain’s very angry. You won’t get into trouble, will you?”
“If we don’t sail at the turn, Old Toady might have cause for complaint. What’re those bowmen doing?”
“Nothing. They’re listening to him. He seens undecided. No. Now one of them’s drawing out an arrow.”
Rodrigues prepared to stop. “Madonna, they’re too God-cursed accurate to risk anything. Is it in the bow yet?”
“Yes—but wait a moment! The captain’s—someone’s come up to him, a seaman I think. Looks like he’s asking him something about the ship. The captain’s looking at us. He said something to the man with the arrow. Now the man’s putting it away. The seaman’s pointing at something on deck.”
Rodrigues sneaked a quick look to make sure and breathed easier. “That’s one of the mates. It’ll take him all of the half hour to get his oarsmen settled.”
Blackthorne waited, the distance increased. “The captain’s looking at us again. No, we’re all right. He’s gone away. But one of the samurai’s watching us.”
“Let him.” Rodrigues relaxed but he did not slacken the pace of his sculling or look back. “Don’t like my back to samurai, not when they’ve weapons in their hands. Not that I’ve ever seen one of the bastards unarmed. They’re all bastards!”
“Why?”
“They love to kill, Ingeles. It’s their custom even to sleep with their swords. This is a great country, but samurai’re dangerous as vipers and a sight more mean.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know why, Ingeles, but they are,” Rodrigues replied, glad to talk to one of his own kind. “Of course, all Jappos are different from us—they don’t feel pain or cold like us—but samurai are even worse. They fear nothing, least of all death. Why? Only God knows, but it’s the truth. If their superiors say ‘kill,’ they kill, ‘die’ and they’ll fall on their swords or slit their own bellies open. They kill and die as easily as we piss. Women’re samurai too, Ingeles. They’ll kill to protect their masters, that’s what they call their husbands here, or they’ll kill themselves if they’re ordered to. They do it by slitting their throats. Here a samurai can order his wife to kill herself and that’s what she’s got to do, by law. Jesu Madonna, the women are something else though, a different species, Ingeles, nothing on earth like them, but the men. . . . Samurai’re reptiles and the safest thing to do is treat them like poisonous snakes. You all right now?”
“Yes, thank you. A bit weak but all right.”
“How was your voyage?”
“Rough. About them—the samurai—how do they get to be one? Do they just pick up the two swords and get that haircut?”
“You’ve got to be born one. Of course, there are all ranks of samurai from daimyos at the top of the muckheap to what we’d call a foot soldier at the bottom. It’s hereditary mostly, like with us. In the olden days, so I was told, it was the same as in Europe today—peasants could be soldiers and soldiers peasants, with hereditary knights and nobles up to kings. Some peasant soldiers rose to the highest rank. The Taikō was one.”
“Who’s he?”
“The Great Despot, the ruler of all Japan, the Great Murderer of all times—I’ll tell you about him one day. He died a year ago and now he’s burning in hell.” Rodrigues spat overboard. “Nowadays you’ve got to be born samurai to be one. It’s all hereditary, Ingeles. Madonna, you’ve no idea how much store they put on heritage, on family, rank, and the like—you saw how Omi bows to that devil Yabu and they both grovel to old Toady-sama. ‘Samurai’ comes from a Jappo word meaning ‘to serve.’ But while they’ll all bow and scrape to the man above, they’re all samurai equally, with a samurai’s special privileges. What’s happening aboard?”
“The captain’s jabbering away at another samurai and pointing at us. What’s special about them?”
“Here samurai rule everything, own everything. They’ve their own code of honor and sets of rules. Arrogant? Madonna, you’ve no idea! The lowest of them can legally kill any non-samurai, any man, woman, or child, for any reason or for no reason. They can kill, legally, just to test the edge of their piss-cutting swords—I’ve seen ’em do it—and they have the best swords in the world. Better’n Damascus steel. What’s that fornicator doing now?”