Shogun_ A Novel of Japan - James Clavell [433]
“Nothing else?” he asked.
“No.”
There’s no need to be worried, Mariko, and look so solemn, he thought happily. I’ve solved all that. Toranaga will grant all my requests.
At the far side of the flare-lit Ichi-bashi—First Bridge—that led to the city proper, she stopped. “I must leave you now, Anjin-san.”
“When can I see you?”
“Tomorrow. At the Hour of the Goat. I’ll wait in the forecourt for you.”
“I can’t see you tonight? If I’m back early?”
“No, so sorry, please excuse me. Not tonight.” Then she bowed formally. “Konbanwa, Anjin-san.”
He bowed. As a samurai. He watched her going back across the bridge, some of the flare-carriers going with her, insects milling the stationary flares that were stuck in holders on stanchions. Soon she was swallowed up by the crowds and the night.
Then, his excitement increasing, he put his back to the castle and set off after the guide.
CHAPTER 48
“The barbarians live there, Anjin-san.” The samurai motioned ahead.
Ill at ease, Blackthorne squinted into the darkness, the air breathless and sultry. “Where? That house? There?”
“Yes. That’s right, so sorry. You see it?”
Another nest of hovels and alleys was a hundred paces ahead, beyond this bare patch of marshy ground, and dominating them was a large house etched vaguely against the jet sky.
Blackthorne looked around for a moment to get his approximate bearings, using his fan against the encroaching bugs. Very soon, once they had left First Bridge, he had become lost in the maze.
Their way had led through innumerable streets and alleys, initially toward the shore, skirting it eastward for a time, over bridges and lesser bridges, then northward again along the bank of another stream which meandered through the outskirts, the land low-lying and moist. The farther from the castle, the meaner were the roads, the poorer the dwellings. The people were more obsequious, and fewer glimmers of light came from the shojis. Yedo was a sprawling mass which seemed to him to be made up of hamlets separated merely by roads or streams.
Here on the southeastern edge of the city it was quite marshy and the road oozed putridly. For some time the stench had been thickening perceptibly, a miasma of seaweed and feces and mud flats, and overlying these an acrid sweet smell he could not place, but that seemed familiar.
“Stinks like Billingsgate at low tide,” he muttered, killing another night pest that had landed on his cheek. His whole body was clammy with sweat.
Then he heard the faintest snatch of a rollicking sea shanty in Dutch and all discomfort was forgotten. “Is that Vinck?”
Elated, he hurried toward the sound, porters lighting his way carefully, samurai following.
Now, nearer, he saw that the single-story building was part Japanese, part European. It was raised on pilings and surrounded by a high rickety bamboo fence in a plot of its own, and much newer than the hovels that clustered near. There was no gate in the fence, just a hole. The roof was thatch, the front door stout, the walls rough-boarded, and the windows covered with Dutch-style shutters. Here and there were flecks of light from the cracks. The singing and banter increased but he could not recognize any voices yet. Flagstones led straight to the steps of the veranda through an unkempt garden. A short flagpole was roped to the gateway. He stopped and stared up at it. A limp, makeshift Dutch flag hung there listlessly and his pulse quickened at the sight of it.
The front door was thrown open. A shaft of light spilled onto the veranda. Baccus van Nekk stumbled drunkenly to the edge, eyes half shut, pulled his codpiece aside, and urinated in a high, curving jet.
“Ahhhhh,” he murmured with a groaning ecstasy. “Nothing like a piss.”
“Isn’t there?” Blackthorne called out in Dutch from the gateway. “Why don’t you use a bucket?”
“Eh?” Van Nekk blinked myopically into the darkness at Blackthorne,