Shogun - Clavell James - Страница 33

When the magazine blew, the explosion tore the bottom out of his ship and destroyed part of the corsair galley and, in the confusion, he managed to swim to the longboat and escape with four of the crew. Those who could not swim to him he had had to leave and he still remembered their cries for help in God's name. But God had turned His face from those men that day, so they had perished or gone to the oars. And God had kept His face on Blackthorne and the four men that time, and they had managed to reach Cagliari in Sardinia. And from there they had made it home, penniless.

That was eight years ago, the same year that plague had erupted again in London. Plague and famine and riots of the starving unemployed. His younger brother and family had been wiped out. His own first-born son had perished. But in the winter the plague vanished and he had easily got a new ship and gone to sea to repair his fortune. First for the London Company of Barbary Merchants. Then a voyage to the West Indies hunting Spaniards. After that, a little richer, he navigated for Kees Veerman, the Dutchman, on his second voyage to search for the legendary Northeast Passage to Cathay and the Spice Islands of Asia, that was supposed to exist in the Ice Seas, north of tsarist Russia. They searched for two years, then Kees Veerman died in the Arctic wastes with eighty percent of the crew and Blackthorne turned back and led the rest of the men home. Then, three years ago, he'd been approached by the newly formed Dutch East India Company and asked to pilot their first expedition to the New World. They whispered secretly that they had acquired, at huge cost, a contraband Portuguese rutter that supposedly gave away the secrets of Magellan's Strait, and they wanted to prove it. Of course the Dutch merchants would have preferred to use one of their own pilots, but there was none to compare in quality with Englishmen trained by the monopolistic Trinity House, and the awesome value of this ratter forced them to gamble on Blackthorne. But he was the perfect choice: He was the best Protestant pilot alive, his mother had been Dutch, and he spoke Dutch perfectly. Blackthorne had agreed enthusiastically and accepted the fifteen percent of all profit as his fee and, as was custom, had solemnly, before God, sworn allegiance to the Company and vowed to take their fleet out, and to bring it home again.

By God, I am going to bring Erasmus home, Blackthorne thought. And with as many of the men as He leaves alive.

They were crossing the square now and he took his eyes off the slaver and saw the three samurai guarding the trapdoor. They were eating deftly from bowls with the wooden sticks that Blackthorne had seen them use many times but could not manage himself.

"Omi-san!" With signs he explained that he wanted to go to the trapdoor, just to shout down to his friends. Only for a moment. But Omi shook his head and said something he did not understand and continued across the square, down the foreshore, past the cauldron, and on to the jetty. Blackthorne followed obediently. One thing at a time, he told himself. Be patient.

Once on the jetty, Omi turned and called back to the guards on the trapdoor. Blackthorne saw them open the trapdoor and peer down. One of them beckoned to villagers who fetched the ladder and a full fresh-water barrel and carried it below. The empty one they brought back aloft. And the latrine barrel.

There! If you're patient and play their game with their rules, you can help your crew, he thought with satisfaction.

Groups of samurai were collected near the galley. A tall old man was standing apart. From the deference that the daimyo Yabu showed him, and the way the others jumped at his slightest remark, Blackthorne immediately realized his importance. Is he their king? he wondered.

Omi knelt with humility. The old man half bowed, turned his eyes on him.

Mustering as much grace as he could, Blackthorne knelt and put his hands flat on the sand floor of the jetty, as Omi had done, and bowed as low as Omi.

"Konnichi wa, Sama," he said politely.

He saw the old man half bow again.

Now there was a discussion between Yabu and the old man and Omi. Yabu spoke to Mura.

Mura pointed at the galley. "Anjin-san. Please there."

"Why?"

"Go! Now. Go!"

Blackthorne felt his panic rising. "Why?"

"Isogi!" Omi commanded, waving him toward the galley.

"No, I'm not going to-" There was an immediate order from Omi and four samurai fell on Blackthorne and pinioned his arms. Mura produced the rope and began to bind his hands behind him.

"You sons of bitches!" Blackthorne shouted. "I'm not going to go aboard that God-cursed slave ship!"

"Madonna! Leave him alone! Hey, you piss-eating monkeys, let that bastard alone! Kinjiru, neh? Is he the pilot? The Anjin, ka?"

Blackthorne could scarcely believe his ears. The boisterous abuse in Portuguese had come from the deck of the galley. Then he saw the man start down the gangway. As tall as he and about his age, but black-haired and darkeyed and carelessly dressed in seaman's clothes, rapier by his side, pistols in his belt. A jeweled crucifix hung from his neck. He wore a jaunty cap and a smile split his face.

"Are you the pilot? The pilot of the Dutchman?"

"Yes," Blackthorne heard himself reply.

"Good. Good. I'm Vasco Rodrigues, pilot of this galley!" He turned to the old man and spoke a mixture of Japanese and Portuguese, and called him Monkey-sama and sometimes Toda-sama but the way it sounded it came out "Toadysama." Twice he pulled out his pistol and pointed it emphatically at Blackthorne and stuck it back in his belt, his Japanese heavily laced with sweet vulgarities in gutter Portuguese that only seafarers would understand.

Hiro-matsu spoke briefly and the samurai released Blackthorne and Mura untied him.

"That's better. Listen, Pilot, this man's like a king. I told him I'd be responsible for you, that I'd blow your head off as soon as drink with you!" Rodrigues bowed to Hiro-matsu, then beamed at Blackthorne. "Bow to the Bastard-sama."

Dreamlike, Blackthorne did as he was told.

"You do that like a Japper," Rodrigues said with a grin. "You're really the pilot?"

"Yes."

"What's the latitude of The Lizard?"

"Forty-nine degrees fifty-six minutes North - and watch out for the reefs that bear sou' by sou'west."

"You're the pilot, by God!" Rodrigues shook Blackthorne's hand warmly. "Come aboard. There's food and brandy and wine and grog and all pilots should love all pilots, who're the sperm of the earth. Amen! Right?"

"Yes," Blackthorne said weakly.

"When I heard we were carrying a pilot back with us, good says I. It's years since I had the pleasure of talking to a real pilot. Come aboard. How did you sneak past Malacca? How did you avoid our Indian Ocean patrols, eh? Whose rutter did you steal?"

"Where are you taking me?"

"Osaka. The Great Lord High Executioner himself wants to see you."

Blackthorne felt his panic returning. "Who?"

"Toranaga! Lord of the Eight Provinces, wherever the hell they are! The chief daimyo of Japan - a daimyo's like a king or feudal lord but better. They're all despots."

"What's he want with me?"

"I don't know but that's why we're here, and if Toranaga wants to see you, Pilot, he'll see you. They say he's got a million of these slant-eyed fanatics who'll die for the honor of wiping his arse if that's his pleasure!

'Toranaga wants you to bring back the pilot, Vasco,' his interpreter said. 'Bring back the pilot and the ship's cargo. Take old Toda Hiromatsu there to examine the ship and-' Oh yes, Pilot, it's all confiscated, so I hear, your ship, and everything in it!"

"Confiscated?"

"It may be a rumor. Jappers sometimes confiscate things with one hand, give'em back with the other - or pretend they've never given the order. It's hard to understand the poxy little bastards!"