“I’ll be a God-cursed Spaniard if this isn’t the life!”

Blackthorne lay seraphically on his stomach on thick futons, wrapped partially in a cotton kimono, his head propped on his arms. The girl was running her hands over his back, probing his muscles occasionally, soothing his skin and his spirit, making him almost want to purr with pleasure. Another girl was pouring saké into a tiny porcelain cup. A third waited in reserve, holding a lacquer tray with a heaping bamboo basket of deep-fried fish in Portuguese style, another flask of saké, and some chopsticks.

“Nan desu ka, Anjin-san?” What is it, Honorable Pilot—what did you say?

“I can’t say that in Nihon-go, Rako-san.” He smiled at the girl who offered the saké. Instead he pointed at the cup. “What’s this called? Namae ka?”

“Sabazuki.” She said it three times and he repeated it and then the other girl, Asa, offered the fish and he shook his head. “Iyé, domo.” He did not know how to say “I’m full now” so he tried instead “not hungry now.”

“Ah! Ima hara hette wa oranu,” Asa explained, correcting him. He said the phrase several times and they all laughed at his pronunciation, but eventually he made it sound right.

I’ll never learn this language, he thought. There’s nothing to relate the sounds to in English, or even Latin or Portuguese.

“Anjin-san?” Asa offered the tray again.

He shook his head and put his hand on his stomach gravely. But he accepted the saké and drank it down. Sono, the girl who was massaging his back, had stopped, so he took her hand and put it on his neck and pretended to groan with pleasure. She understood at once and continued to massage him.

Each time he finished the little cup it was immediately refilled. Better go easy, he thought, this is the third flask and I can feel the warmth into my toes.

The three girls, Asa, Sono, and Rako, had arrived with the dawn, bringing cha, which Friar Domingo had told him the Chinese sometimes called t’ee, and which was the national drink of China and Japan. His sleep had been fitful after the encounter with the assassin but the hot piquant drink had begun to restore him. They had brought small rolled hot towels, slightly scented. When he did not know what they were used for, Rako, the chief of the girls, showed him how to use them on his face and hands.

Then they had escorted him with his four samurai guards to the steaming baths at the far side of this section of the castle and handed him over to the bath attendants. The four guards sweated stoically while he was bathed, his beard trimmed, his hair shampooed and massaged.

Afterwards, he felt miraculously renewed. They gave him another fresh, knee-length cotton kimono and more fresh tabi and the girls were waiting for him again. They led him to another room where Kiri and Mariko were. Mariko said that Lord Toranaga had decided to send the Anjin-san to one of his provinces in the next few days to recuperate and that Lord Toranaga was very pleased with him and there was no need for him to worry about anything for he was in Lord Toranaga’s personal care now. Would Anjin-san please also begin to prepare the maps with material that she would provide. There would be other meetings with the Master soon, and the Master had promised that she would be made available soon to answer any questions the Anjin-san might have. Lord Toranaga was very anxious that Blackthorne should learn about the Japanese as he himself was anxious to learn about the outside world, and about navigation and ways of the sea. Then Blackthorne had been led to the doctor. Unlike samurai, doctors wore their hair close-cropped without a queue.

Blackthorne hated doctors and feared them. But this doctor was different. This doctor was gentle and unbelievably clean. European doctors were barbers mostly and uncouth, and as louse-ridden and filthy as everyone else. This doctor touched carefully and peered politely and held Blackthorne’s wrist to feel his pulse, looked into his eyes and mouth and ears, and softly tapped his back and his knees and the soles of his feet, his touch and manner soothing. All a European doctor wanted was to look at your tongue and say “Where is the pain?” and bleed you to release the foulnesses from your blood and give you a violent emetic to clean away the foulnesses from your entrails.

Blackthorne hated being bled and purged and every time was worse than before. But this doctor had no scalpels or bleeding bowl nor the foul chemic smell that normally surrounded them, so his heart had begun to slow and he relaxed a little.

The doctor’s fingers touched the scars on his thigh interrogatively. Blackthorne made the sound of a gun because a musket ball had passed through his flesh there many years ago. The doctor said “Ah so desu” and nodded. More probes, deep but not painful, over his loins and stomach. At length, the doctor spoke to Rako, and she nodded and bowed and thanked him.

“Ichi ban?” Blackthorne had asked, wanting to know if he was all right.

“Hai, Anjin-san.”

“Honto ka?”

“Honto.”

What a useful word, honto—‘Is it the truth?’ ‘Yes, the truth,’ Blackthorne thought. “Domo, Doctor-san.”

“Do itashimashité,” the doctor said, bowing. You’re welcome—think nothing of it.

Blackthorne bowed back. The girls had led him away and it was not until he was lying on the futons, his cotton kimono loosed, the girl Sono gentling his back, that he remembered he had been naked at the doctor’s, in front of the girls and the samurai, and that he had not noticed or felt shame.

“Nan desu ka, Anjin-san?” Rako asked. What is it, Honorable Pilot? Why do you laugh? Her white teeth sparkled and her eyebrows were plucked and painted in a crescent. She wore her dark hair piled high and a pink flowered kimono with a gray-green obi.

“Because I’m happy, Rako-san. But how to tell you? How do I tell you I laughed because I’m happy and the weight’s off my head for the first time since I left home. Because my back feels marvelous—all of me feels marvelous. Because I’ve Toranaga-sama’s ear and I’ve put three fat broadsides into the God-cursed Jesuits and another six into the poxy Portuguese!” Then he jumped up, tied his kimono tight, and began dancing a careless hornpipe, singing a sea shanty to keep time.

Rako and the others were agog. The shoji had slid open instantly and now the samurai guards were equally popeyed. Blackthorne danced and sang mightily until he could contain himself no longer, then he burst out laughing and collapsed. The girls clapped and Rako tried to imitate him, failing miserably, her trailing kimono inhibiting her. The others got up and persuaded him to show them how to do it, and he tried, the three girls standing in a line watching his feet, holding up their kimonos. But they could not, and soon they were all chattering and giggling and fanning themselves.

Abruptly the guards were solemn and bowing low. Toranaga stood in the doorway flanked by Mariko and Kiri and his ever present samurai guards. The girls all knelt, put their hands flat on the floor and bowed, but the laughter did not leave their faces, nor was there any fear in them. Blackthorne bowed politely also, not as low as the women.

“Konnichi wa, Toranaga-sama,” Blackthorne said.

“Konnichi wa, Anjin-san,” Toranaga replied. Then he asked a question.

“My Master says, what were you doing, senhor?” Mariko said.

“It was just a dance, Mariko-san,” Blackthorne said, feeling foolish. “It’s called a hornpipe. It’s a sailors’ dance and we sing shanties—songs—at the same time. I was just happy—perhaps it was the saké. I’m sorry, I hope I didn’t disturb Toranaga-sama.”

She translated.

“My Master says he would like to see the dance and hear the song.”

“Now?”

“Of course now.”

At once Toranaga sat cross-legged and his small court spread themselves around the room and they looked at Blackthorne expectantly.

There, you fool, Blackthorne told himself. That’s what comes of letting your guard down. Now you’ve got to perform and you know your voice is off and your dancing clumsy.

Even so, he tied his kimono tight and launched himself with gusto, pivoting, kicking, twirling, bouncing, his voice roaring lustily.

More silence.

“My Master says that he’s never seen anything like that in his whole life.”

“Arigato gozaimashita!” Blackthorne said, sweating partially from his effort and partially from his embarrassment. Then Toranaga put his swords aside, tucked his kimono high into his belt, and stood beside him. “Lord Toranaga will dance your dance,” Mariko said.

“Eh?”

“Please teach him, he says.”

So Blackthorne began. He demonstrated the basic step, then repeated it again and again. Toranaga mastered it quickly. Blackthorne was not a little impressed with the agility of the large-bellied, amply buttocked older man.

Then Blackthorne began to sing and to dance and Toranaga joined in, tentatively at first, to the cheers of the onlookers. Then Toranaga threw off his kimono and folded his arms and began to dance with equal verve alongside Blackthorne, who threw off his kimono and sang louder and picked up the tempo, almost overcome by the grotesqueness of what they were doing, but swept along now by the humor of it. Finally Blackthorne did a sort of hop, skip, and jump and stopped. He clapped and bowed to Toranaga and they all clapped for their master, who was very happy.

Toranaga sat down in the center of the room, breathing easily. Immediately Rako sped forward to fan him and the others ran for his kimono. But Toranaga pushed his own kimono toward Blackthorne and took the simple kimono instead.

Mariko said, “My Master says that he would be pleased for you to accept this as a gift.” She added, “Here it would be considered a great honor to be given even a very old kimono by one’s liege lord.”

“Arigato gozaimashita, Toranaga-sama.” Blackthorne bowed low, then said to Mariko, “Yes, I understand the honor he does to me, Mariko-san. Please thank Lord Toranaga with the correct formal words that I unfortunately do not yet know, and tell him I will treasure it and, even more, the honor that he did me in dancing my dance with me.”

Toranaga was even more pleased.

With reverence, Kiri and the servant girls helped Blackthorne into their master’s kimono and showed Blackthorne how to tie the sash. The kimono was brown silk with the five scarlet crests, the sash white silk.

“Lord Toranaga says he enjoyed the dance. One day he will perhaps show you some of ours. He would like you to learn to speak Japanese as quickly as possible.”

“I’d like that too.” But even more, Blackthorne thought, I’d like to be in my own clothes, eating my own food in my own cabin in my own ship with my cannon primed, pistols in my belt, and the quarterdeck tilted under a press of sails. “Would you ask Lord Toranaga when I can have my ship back?”

“Senhor?”

“My ship, senhora. Please ask him when I can get my ship back. My crew, too. All her cargo’s been removed—there were twenty thousand pieces of eight in the strongbox. I’m sure he’ll understand that we’re merchants, and though we appreciate his hospitality, we’d like to trade—with the goods we brought with us—and move on homeward. It’ll take us almost eighteen months to get home.”

“My Master says you have no need to be concerned. Everything will be done as soon as possible. You must first become strong and healthy. You’re leaving at dusk.”

“Senhora?”

“Lord Toranaga said you were to leave at dusk, senhor. Did I say it wrongly?”

“No, no, not at all, Mariko-san. But an hour or so ago you told me I’d be leaving in a few days.”

“Yes, but now he says you will leave tonight.” She translated all this to Toranaga, who replied again.

“My Master says it’s better and more convenient for you to go tonight. There is no need to worry, Anjin-san, you are in his personal care. He is sending the Lady Kiritsubo to Yedo to prepare for his return. You will go with her.”

“Please thank him for me. Is it possible—may I ask if it would be possible to release Friar Domingo? The man has a great deal of knowledge.”

She translated this.

“My Master says, so sorry, the man is dead. He sent for him immediately you asked yesterday but he was already dead.”

Blackthorne was dismayed. “How did he die?”

“My Master says he died when his name was called out.”

“Oh! Poor man.”

“My Master says, death and life are the same thing. The priest’s soul will wait until the fortieth day and then it will be reborn again. Why be sad? This is the immutable law of nature.” She began to say something but changed her mind, adding only, “Buddhists believe that we have many births or rebirths, Anjin-san. Until at length we become perfect and reach nirvana—heaven.”

Blackthorne put off his sadness for the moment and concentrated on Toranaga and the present. “May I please ask him if my crew—” He stopped as Toranaga glanced away. A young samurai came hurriedly into the room, bowed to Toranaga, and waited.

Toranaga said, “Nan ja?”

Blackthorne understood none of what was said except he thought he caught Father Alvito’s nickname “Tsukku.” He saw Toranaga’s eyes flick across to him and noted the glimmer of a smile, and he wondered if Toranaga had sent for the priest because of what he had told him. I hope so, he thought, and I hope Alvito’s in the muck up to his nostrils. Is he or isn’t he? Blackthorne decided not to ask Toranaga though he was tempted greatly.

“Kare ni matsu yoni,” Toranaga said curtly.

“Gyoi.” The samurai bowed and hurried away. Toranaga turned back to Blackthorne. “Nan ja, Anjin-san?”