Shogun_ A Novel of Japan - James Clavell [566]
“All of them? All to death?”
“Yes—they failed in their duty.”
“What Lord Toranaga say?”
“Very angry. Very right to be angry, neh? I offer seppuku. Lord Toranaga refuse permission. Eeeeee! Lord Toranaga very angry, Anjin-san.” Naga waved a nervous hand around the foreshore. “Whole regiment in disgrace, Anjin-san. Everyone. All chief officers here in disgrace, Anjin-san. Sent to Mishima. Fifty-eight seppuku already.”
Blackthorne had thought about that number and he wanted to shriek, five thousand or fifty thousand can’t repay the loss of my ship! “Bad,” his mouth was saying. “Yes, very bad.”
“Yes. Better go Yedo. Today. War today, tomorrow, next day. Sorry.”
Then Naga had spoken intently with Yabu for a few moments, and Blackthorne, dull-witted, hating the foul-sounding words, hating Naga and Yabu and all of them, could barely follow him though he saw Yabu’s unease increase. Naga turned again to him with an embarrassed finality. “So sorry, Anjin-san. Nothing more I could do. Honto, neh?”
Blackthorne had forced himself to nod. “Honto. Domo, Naga-san. Shigata ga nai.” He had made some excuse and left them to walk down to his ship, to be alone, no longer trusting himself to contain his insane rage, knowing that there was nothing he could do, that he would never know any more of the truth, that whatever the truth he had lost his ship, that the priests had somehow managed to pay men, or cajole men, or threaten them into this filthy desecration. He had fled from Yabu and Naga, walking slowly and erect, but before he could escape the wharf, Vinck had rushed after him and begged not to be left behind. Seeing the man’s abject cringing fear, he had agreed and allowed him to follow. But he had closed his mind to him.
Then, suddenly, down by the shore, they had come on the grisly remains of the heads. More than a hundred, hidden from the wharf by dunes and stuck on spears. Seabirds rose up in a white shrieking cloud as they approached, and settled back to continue ravaging and quarreling once they had hurried past.
Now he was studying the hulk of his ship, one thought obsessing him: Mariko had seen the truth and had whispered the truth to Kiyama or to the priests: ‘Without his ship the Anjin-san’s helpless against the Church. I ask you to leave him alive, just kill the ship….’
He could hear her saying it. She was right. It was such a simple solution to the Catholics’ problem. Yes. But any one of them could have thought of the same thing. And how did they breach the four thousand men? Whom did they bribe? How?
It doesn’t matter who. Or how. They’ve won.
God help me, without my ship I’m dead. I can’t help Toranaga and his war will swallow us up.
“Poor ship,” he said. “Forgive me—so sad to die so uselessly. After all those leagues.”
“Eh?” Vinck said.
“Nothing,” he said. Poor ship, forgive me. It was never my bargain with her or anyone. Poor Mariko. Forgive her too.
“What did you say, Pilot?”
“Nothing. I was just thinking out loud.”
“You said something. I heard you say something, for Christ’s sake!”
“For Christ’s sake, shut up!”
“Eh? Shut up, is it? We’re marooned with these piss eaters for the rest of our lives! Eh?”
“Yes!”
“We’re to grovel to these God-cursed heathen shit-heads for the rest of our muck-eating lives and how long’ll that be when all they talk about’s war war war? Eh?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, is it?” Vinck’s whole body trembling, and Blackthorne readied. “It’s your fault. You said to come to the Japans and we come and how many died coming here? You’re to blame!”
“Yes. Sorry, but you’re right!”
“Sorry are you, Pilot? How’re we going to get home? That’s your God-cursed job, to get us home! How you going to do that? Eh?”
“I don’t know. Another of our ships’ll get here, Johann. We’ve just got to wait anoth—”
“Wait? How long’re we to wait?