Shogun_ A Novel of Japan - James Clavell [413]
“What is it, Rodrigues?”
“Thought I felt the tide change. Just want to check our sea room.” He opened the cover further and leaned out, but still couldn’t see the bow anchor. “Excuse me a moment, Father.”
He went on deck. Water lapped the anchor chain that angled into the muddy water. No movement. Then a thread of wake appeared and the ship began to ease off safely, to take up her new station with the ebb. He checked her lie, then the lookouts. Everything was perfect. No other boats were near. The afternoon was fine, the mist long since gone. They were a cable or so offshore, far enough out to preclude a sudden boarding, and well away from the sea lanes that fed the wharves.
His ship was a lorcha, a Japanese hull adapted to modern Portuguese sails and rigging: swift, two-masted, and sloop-rigged. It had four cannon amidships, two small bow chasers and two stern chasers. Her name was the Santa Filipa and she carried a crew of thirty.
His eyes went to the city, and to the hills beyond. “Pesaro!”
“Yes, senhor?”
“Get the longboat ready. I’m going ashore before dusk.”
“Good. She’ll be ready. When’re you back?”
“Dawn.”
“Even better! I’ll lead the shore party—ten men.”
“No shore leave, Pesaro. It’s kinjiru! Madonna, is your brain addled?” Rodrigues straddled the quarterdeck and leaned against the gunwale.
“Not right that all should suffer,” said the bosun, Pesaro, his great calloused hands flexing. “I’ll lead the party and promise there’ll be no trouble. We’ve been cooped up for two weeks now.”
“The port authorities here said kinjiru, so sorry, but still goddamned kinjiru! Remember? This isn’t Nagasaki!”
“Yes, by the blood of Christ Jesus, and more’s the pity!” The heavy-set man scowled. “It was only one Jappo that got chopped.”
“One chopped dead, two knifed badly, a lot of wounded, and a girl hurt before the samurai stopped the riot. I warned you all before you went ashore: ‘Nimazu’s not Nagasaki—so behave yourselves!’ Madonna! We were lucky to get away with just one of our seamen dead. They’d have been within the law to chop all five of you.”
“Their law, Pilot, not ours. God-cursed monkeys! It was only a whorehouse brawl.”
“Yes, but your men started it, the authorities have quarantined my ship, and you’re all benched. You included!” Rodrigues moved his leg to ease the pain. “Be patient, Pesaro. Now that the Father’s back we’ll be off.”
“On the tide? At dawn? Is that an order?”
“No, not yet. Just get the longboat ready. Gomez will come with me.”
“Let me come as well, eh? Per favor, Pilot. I’m sick to death of being stuck in this pox-cursed bucket.”
“No. And you’d better not go ashore tonight. You or any.”
“And if you’re not back by dawn?”
“You rot here at anchor till I do. Clear?”
The bosun’s scowl deepened. He hesitated, then backed down. “Yes, yes, that’s clear, by God.”
“Good.” Rodrigues went below.
Alvito was asleep but he awoke the moment the pilot opened the cabin door. “Ah, all’s well?” he asked, replete now in mind and body.
“Yes. It was just the turn.” Rodrigues gulped some wine to take the foul taste out of his mouth. It was always like that after a near mutiny. If Pesaro had not yielded instantly, once again Rodrigues would have had to blow a hole in a man’s face or put him in irons or order fifty lashes or keelhaul the man or perform any one of a hundred obscenities essential by sea law to maintain discipline. Without discipline any ship was lost. “What’s the plan now, Father? We sail at dawn?”
“How are the carrier pigeons?”
“In good health. We’ve still six—four Nagasakis, two Osakas.”
The priest checked the angle of the sun. Four or five hours to sunset. Plenty of time to launch the birds with the first coded message long since planned: “Toranaga surrenders to Regents’ order. I’m going first to Yedo, then Osaka. I will accompany Toranaga to Osaka. He says we can still build the cathedral at Yedo. Detailed dispatch with Rodrigues.”
“Would you please ask the handler to prepare two Nagasakis and one Osaka immediately,” Alvito said. “Then we’ll talk. I won’t be sailing back