“Get on with it!”
“You want to tell it?”
“Go on, Johann, don’t pay any attention to him. He’s only a shit-filled cook.”
“What!”
“Oh, shut up! For God’s sake!” Van Nekk hurriedly took up the tale once more. “The next day, Pilot, they marched us out of there and put us into another house in the wharf area. That was just as bad. Then some weeks later, Johann stumbled onto this place. He was the only one of us allowed out, because of the ship, at that time. They’d collect him daily and bring him back at sunset. He was out fishing—we’re only a few hundred yards upstream from the sea. . . . Best you tell it, Johann.”
Blackthorne felt an itch on his bare leg and he rubbed it without thinking. The irritation got worse. Then he saw the mottled lump of a flea bite as Vinck continued proudly, “It’s like Baccus said, Pilot. I asked Sato-sama if we could move and he said, yes, why not. They’d usually let me fish from one of their little skiffs to pass the time. It was my nose that led me here, Pilot. The old nose led me: blood!”
Blackthorne said, “A slaughterhouse! A slaughterhouse and tanning! That’s . . .” He stopped and blanched.
“What’s up? What is it?”
“This is an eta village? Jesus Christ, these people’re eta?”
“What’s wrong with eters?” van Nekk asked. “Of course they’re eters.”
Blackthorne waved at the mosquitoes that infested the air, his skin crawling. “Damn bugs. They’re—they’re rotten, aren’t they? There’s a tannery here, isn’t there?”
“Yes. A few streets up, why?”
“Nothing. I didn’t recognize the smell, that’s all.”
“What about eters?”
“I . . . I didn’t realize, stupid of me. If I’d seen one of the men I’d’ve known from their short hairstyle. With the women you’d never know. Sorry. Go on with the story, Vinck.”
“Well, then they said—”
Jan Roper interrupted, “Wait a minute, Vinck! What’s wrong, Pilot? What about eters?”
“It’s just that Japanese think of them as different. They’re the executioners, and work the hides and handle corpses.” He felt their eyes, Jan Roper’s particularly. “Eta work hides,” he said, trying to keep his voice careless, “and kill all the old horses and oxen and handle dead bodies.”
“But what’s wrong with that, Pilot? You’ve buried a dozen yourself, put ’em in shrouds, washed ’em—we all have, eh? We butcher our own meat, always have. Ginsel here’s been hangman. . . . What’s wrong with all that?”
“Nothing,” Blackthorne said, knowing it to be true yet feeling befouled even so.
Vinck snorted. “Eters’re the best heathen we’ve seen here. More like us than the other bastards. We’re God-cursed lucky to be here, Pilot, fresh meat’s no problem, or tallow—they give us no trouble.”
“That’s right. If you’ve lived with eters, Pilot . . .”
“Jesus Christ, the Pilot’s had to live with the other bastards all the time! He doesn’t know any better. How about fetching Big-Arse Mary, Sonk?”
“Or Twicklebum?”
“Shit, not her, not that old whore. The Pilot’ll want a special. Let’s ask mama-san. . . .”
“I bet he’s starving for real grub! Hey, Sonk, cut him a slice of meat.”
“Have some more grog . . .”
“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.