Shogun_ A Novel of Japan - James Clavell [554]
Blackthorne saw only her. She seemed to be in prayer and there was not a mark on her. He kept himself rigid, knowing what an honor this public ceremony, with Ishido and Ochiba as chief witnesses, was for her. But that did not lighten his misery.
For more than an hour, the high priest chanted incantations and the drums clamored. Then in a sudden silence, Saruji stepped forward and took an unlit torch and went to each of the four gates, East, North, West, and South, to make sure they were unobstructed.
Blackthorne saw that the boy was trembling, his eyes downcast as he came back to the bier. Then he lifted the white cord attached to it and guided the pallbearers through the south gate. The whole litter was placed carefully on the wood. Another solemn incantation, then Saruji touched the oil-soaked torch to the coals of the brazier. It blazed at once. He hesitated, then went back through the south gate alone and cast the torch into the pyre. The oil-impregnated wood caught. Quickly it became a furnace. Soon the flames were ten feet high. Saruji was forced back by the heat, then he fetched sweet-scented woods and oils and threw them into the fire. The tinder-dry roof exploded. The linen walls caught. Now the whole pit area was a raging, pyrogenic mass—swirling, crackling, unquenchable.
The roof posts collapsed. A sigh went through the onlookers. Priests came forward and put more wood onto the pyre and the flames rose farther, the smoke billowing. Now only the four small gates remained. Blackthorne saw the heat scorching them. Then they too burst into flames.
Then Ishido, the chief witness, got out of his palanquin and walked forward and made the ritual offering of precious wood. He bowed formally and sat again in his litter. At his order, the porters lifted him and he went back to the castle. Ochiba followed him. Others began to leave.
Saruji bowed to the flames a last time. He turned and walked over to Blackthorne. He stood in front of him and bowed. “Thank you, Anjin-san,” he said. Then he went away with Kiri and Lady Sazuko.
“All finished, Anjin-san,” the captain of Grays said with a grin. “Kami safe now. We go castle.”
“Wait. Please.”
“So sorry, orders, neh?” the captain said anxiously, the others guarding closely.
“Please wait.”
Careless of their anxiety, Blackthorne got out of the litter, the pain almost blinding him. The samurai spread out, covering him. He walked to the table and picked up some of the small pieces of camphor wood and threw them into the furnace. He could see nothing through the curtain of flames.
“In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti,” he muttered in benediction and made a small sign of the cross. Then he turned and left the fire.
When he awoke his head was much better but he felt drained, the dull ache still throbbing behind his temples and across the front of his head.
“How feel, Anjin-san?” the doctor said with his toothy smile, the voice still faint. “Sleep long time.”
Blackthorne lifted himself on an elbow and gazed sleepily at the sun’s shadows. Must be almost five of the clock in the afternoon now, he thought. I’ve slept better than six hours. “Sleep all day, neh?”
The doctor smiled. “All yesterday and night and most of today. Understand?”
“Understand. Yes.” Blackthorne lay back, a sheen of sweat on his skin. Good, he thought. The best thing I could have done, no wonder I feel better.
His bed of soft quilts was screened now on three sides with exquisite movable partitions, their panel paintings landscapes and seascapes, and inlaid with ivory. Sunlight