Then, when the ordeal seemed at an end, dell’Aqua had remembered that the guns had gone weeks before, under Father Superior da Cunha’s seal, that they still lay in the Jesuit Nagasaki warehouses.
More weeks of agony ensued until the guns were secretly smuggled back to Macao—yes, under my seal this time, dell’Aqua reminded himself, hopefully the secret buried forever. But those secrets never leave you in peace, however much you wish or pray.
How much does the heretic know?
For more than an hour his Eminence sat motionless in his high-backed leather chair, staring sightlessly at the fire. Alvito waited patiently near the bookcase, his hands in his lap. Shafted sunlight danced off the silver crucifix on the wall behind the Father-Visitor. On one side wall was a small oil by the Venetian painter Titian that dell’Aqua had bought in his youth in Padua, where he had been sent by his father to study law. The other wall was lined with his Bibles and his books, in Latin, Portuguese, Italian, and Spanish. And, from the Society’s own movable-type press at Nagasaki that he had ordered and brought at so much cost from Goa ten years ago, two shelves of Japanese books and pamphlets: devotional books and catechisms of all sorts, translated with painstaking labor into Japanese by Jesuits; works adapted from Japanese into Latin to try to help Japanese acolytes learn that language; and last, two small books that were beyond price, the first Portuguese-Japanese grammar, Father Sancho Alvarez’s life’s work, printed six years ago, and its companion, the incredible Portuguese-Latin-Japanese dictionary printed last year in Roman letters as well as hiragana script. It had been begun at his order twenty years ago, the first dictionary of Japanese words ever compiled.
Father Alvito picked up the book and caressed it lovingly. He knew that it was a unique work of art. For eighteen years he himself had been compiling such a work and it was still nowhere near finished. But his was to be a dictionary with explanatory supplements and far more detailed—almost an introduction to Japan and the Japanese, and he knew without vanity that if he managed to finish it, it would be a masterpiece compared to Father Alvarez’s work, that if his name was ever to be remembered, it would be because of his book and the Father-Visitor, who was the only father he had ever known.
“You want to leave Portugal, my son, and join the service of God?” the giant Jesuit had said the first day he had met him.
“Oh, yes, please, Father,” he had replied, craning up at him with desperate longing.
“How old are you, my son?”
“I don’t know, Father, perhaps ten, perhaps eleven, but I can read and write, the priest taught me, and I’m alone, I’ve no one of my own, I belong to no one. . . .”
Dell’Aqua had taken him to Goa and thence to Nagasaki, where he had joined the seminary of the Society of Jesus, the youngest European in Asia, at long last belonging. Then came the miracle of the gift of tongues and the positions of trust as interpreter and trade adviser, first to Harima Tadao, daimyo of the fief of Hizen in Kyushu where Nagasaki lay, and then in time to the Taikō himself. He was ordained, and later even attained the privilege of the fourth vow. This was the special vow over and above the normal vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, given only to the elite of Jesuits, the vow of obedience to the Pope personally—to be his personal tool for the work of God, to go where the Pope personally ordered and do what he personally wanted; to become, as the founder of the Society, the Basque soldier Loyola, designed, one of the Regimini Militantis Ecclesiae, one of the professed, the special private soldiers of God for His elected general on earth, the Vicar of Christ.
I’ve been so very lucky, Alvito thought. Oh, God, help me to help.
At last dell’Aqua got up and stretched and went to the window. Sun sparkled off the gilded tiles of the soaring central castle donjon, the sheer elegance of the structure belying its massive strength. Tower of evil, he thought. How long will it stand there to remind each one of us? Is it only fifteen—no, it was seventeen years ago that the Taikō put four hundred thousand men to building and excavating, and bled the country to pay for this, his monument, and then, in two short years, Osaka Castle was finished. Incredible man! Incredible people! Yes. And there it stands, indestructible. Except to the Finger of God. He can humble it in an instant, if He wishes. Oh, God, help me to do Thy will.
“Well, Martin, it seems we have work to do.” Dell’Aqua began to walk up and down, his voice now as firm as his step. “About the English pilot: If we don’t protect him he’ll be killed and we risk Toranaga’s disfavor. If we manage to protect him he’ll soon hang himself. But dare we wait? His presence is a threat to us and there is no telling how much further damage he can do before that happy date. Or we can help Toranaga to remove him. Or, last, we can convert him.”
Alvito blinked. “What?”
“He’s intelligent, very knowledgeable about Catholicism. Aren’t most Englishmen really Catholic at heart? The answer is yes if their king or queen is Catholic, and no if he or she is Protestant. The English are careless about religion. They’re fanatic against us at the moment, but isn’t that because of the Armada? Perhaps Blackthorne can be converted. That would be the perfect solution—to the Glory of God, and save his heretic soul from a damnation he’s certainly going to.
“Next, Toranaga: We’ll give him the maps he wants. Explain about ‘spheres of influence.’ Isn’t that really what the lines of demarcation were for, to separate the influence of the Portuguese and our Spanish friends? Sì, è vero! Tell him that on the other important matters I will personally be honored to prepare them for him and will give them to him as soon as possible. Because I’ll have to check the facts in Macao, could he please grant a reasonable delay? And in the same breath say that you are delighted to inform him that the Black Ship will sail three weeks early, with the biggest cargo of silks and gold ever, that all our assignments of goods and our portion of the cargo and . . .” he thought a moment—“and at least thirty percent of the whole cargo will be sold through Toranaga’s personally appointed broker.”
“Eminence, the Captain-General won’t like sailing early and won’t like—”
“It will be your responsibility to get Toranaga’s immediate sailing clearance for Ferriera. Go and see him at once with my reply. Let him be impressed with our efficiency, isn’t that one of the things he admires? With immediate clearances, Ferriera will concede the minor point of arriving early in the season, and as to the broker, what’s the difference to the Captain-General between one native or another? He will still get his percentage.”
“But Lords Onoshi and Kiyama and Harima usually split the brokerage of the cargo between them. I don’t know if they’d agree.”
“Then solve the problem. Toranaga will agree to the delay for a concession. The only concessions he needs are power, influence, and money. What can we give him? We cannot deliver the Christian daimyos to him. We—”
“Yet,” Alvito said.
“Even if we could, I don’t know yet if we should or if we will. Onoshi and Kiyama are bitter enemies, but they’ve joined against Toranaga because they’re sure he’d obliterate the Church—and them—if he ever got control of the Council.”