Shogun_ A Novel of Japan - James Clavell [439]
“Three cheers for the Pilot …”
In the happy uproar van Nekk clapped Blackthorne on the shoulders. “You’re home, old friend. Now you’re back, our prayers ’re answered and all’s well in the world. You’re home, old friend. Listen, take my bunk. I insist….”
Cheerily Blackthorne waved a last time. There was an answering shout from the darkness the far side of the little bridge. Then he turned away, his forced heartiness evaporated, and he walked around the corner, the samurai guard of ten men surrounding him.
On the way back to the castle his mind was locked in confusion. Nothing was wrong with eta and everything was wrong with eta, those are my crew there, my own people, and these are heathen and foreign and enemy….
Streets and alleys and bridges passed in a blur. Then he noticed that his own hand was inside his kimono and he was scratching and he stopped in his tracks.
“Those goddamned filthy …” He undid his sash and ripped off his sopping kimono and, as though it were defiled, hurled it in a ditch.
“Dozo, nan desu ka, Anjin-san?” one of the samurai asked.
“Nani mo!” Nothing, by God! Blackthorne walked on, carrying his swords.
“Ah! Eta! Wakarimasu! Gomen nasai!” The samurai chatted among themselves but he paid them no attention.
That’s better, he was thinking with utter relief, not noticing that he was almost naked, only that his skin had stopped crawling now that the flea-infested kimono was off.
Jesus God, I’d love a bath right now!
He had told the crew about his adventures, but not that he was samurai and hatamoto, or that he was one of Toranaga’s protégés, or about Fujiko. Or Mariko. And he had not told them that they were going to land in force at Nagasaki and take the Black Ship by storm, or that he would be at the head of the samurai. That can come later, he thought wearily. And all the rest.
Could I ever tell them about Mariko-san?
His wooden clogs clattered on the wooden slats of First Bridge. Samurai sentries, also half-naked, lolled until they saw him, then they bowed politely as he passed, watching him intently, because this was the incredible barbarian who was astonishingly favored by Lord Toranaga, to whom Toranaga had, unbelievably, granted the never-given-before-to-a-barbarian honor of hatamoto and samurai.
At the main south gate of the castle another guide waited for him. He was escorted to his quarters within the inner ring. He had been allocated a room in one of the fortified though attractive guest houses, but he politely refused to go back there at once. “First bath please,” he told the samurai.
“Ah, I understand. That’s very considerate of you. The bath house is this way, Anjin-san. Yes, it’s a hot night, neh? And I hear you’ve been down to the Filthy Ones. The other guests in the house will appreciate your thoughtfulness. I thank you on their behalf.”
Blackthorne did not understand all the words but he gathered the meaning. ‘Filthy Ones.’ That describes my people and me—us, not them, poor people.
“Good evening, Anjin-san,” the chief bath attendant said. He was a vast, middle-aged man with immense belly and biceps. A maid had just awakened him to announce another late customer was arriving. He clapped his hands. Bath maids arrived. Blackthorne followed them into the scrubbing room and they cleansed him and shampooed him and he made them do it a second time. Then he walked through to the sunken bath, stepped into the piping-hot water and fought the heat, then gave himself to its mind-consuming embrace.
In time strong hands helped him out and molded fragrant oil into his skin and untwisted his muscles and his neck, then led him to a resting room, and gave him a laundered, sun-fresh cotton kimono. With a long-drawn-out sigh of pleasure, he lay down.
“Dozo gomen nasai—cha, Anjin-san?”
“Hai. Domo.”
The cha arrived. He told the maid he would stay here tonight and not trouble to go to his own quarters. Then, alone and at peace, he sipped the cha, feeling it purify him; ‘… filthy-looking char herbs …’ he thought disgustedly.
“Be patient, don’t let it disturb your harmony,” he said aloud.