"How about enemy shipping? There any hereabouts? What about prizes, Pilot?" Ginsel asked.
"Plenty - beyond your dreams. We're all rich."
Another shout of glee. "It's about time."
"Rich, eh? I'll buy me a castle."
"Lord God Almighty, when I get home..."
"Rich! Hurrah for the Pilot!"
"Plenty of Papists to kill? Good," Jan Roper said softly. "Very good."
"What's the plan, Pilot?" van Nekk asked, and they all stopped talking.
"I'll come to that in a minute. Do you have guards? Can you move around freely, when you want? How often-" Vinck said quickly, "We can move anywheres in the village area, perhaps as much as half a league around here. But we're not allowed in Yedo and not-" "Not across the bridge," Sonk broke in happily. "Tell him about the bridge, Johann!"
"Oh, for the love of God, I was coming to the bridge, Soak. For God's sake, don't keep interrupting. Pilot, there's a bridge about half a mile southwest. There're a lot of signs on it. That's as far as we're allowed. We're not to go over that. 'Kinjiru,' by God, the samurai say. You understand kinjiru, Pilot?"
Blackthorne nodded and said nothing.
"Apart from that we can go where we like. But only up to the barriers. There's barriers all around about half a league away. Lord God . . . can you believe it, home soon!"
"Tell him about the doc, eh, and about the-"
"The samurai send a doctor once in a while, Pilot, and we have to take our clothes off and he looks at us...."
"Yes. Enough to make a man shit to have a bastard heathen monkey look at you naked like that."
"Apart from that, Pilot, they don't bother us except-"
"Hey, don't forget the doc gives us some God-rotting filthy powdered 'char' herbs we're supposed to steep in hot water but we toss 'em out. When we're sick, good old Johann bleeds us and we're fit."
"Yes," Sonk said. "We throw the char out."'
"Apart from that, except for-"
"We're lucky here, Pilot, not like at first."
"That's right. At first-"
"Tell him about the inspection, Baccus!"
"I was coming to that - for God's sake, be patient - give a fellow a chance. How can I tell him anything with you all gabbing. Pour me a drink!" van Nekk said thirstily and continued. "Every ten days a few samurai come here and we line up outside and he counts us. Then they give us sacks of rice and cash, copper cash. It's plenty for everything, Pilot. We swap rice for meat and stuff - fruit or whatever. There's plenty of everything - and the women do whatever we want. At first we-"
"But it wasn't like that at first. Tell him about that, Baccus!"
Van Nekk sat on the floor. "God give me strength!"
"You feeling sick, poor old lad?" Sonk asked solicitously. "Best not drink any more or you'll get the devils back, hey? He gets the devils, Pilot, once a week. We all do."
"Are you going to keep quiet while I tell the Pilot?"
"Who, me? I haven't said a thing. I'm not stopping you. Here, here's your drink!"
"Thanks, Sonk. Well, Pilot, first they put us in a house to the west of the city-"
"Down near the fields it was."
"Damnit, then you tell the story, Johann!"
"All right. Christ, Pilot, it was terrible. No grub or liquor and those God-cursed paper houses're like living in a field - a man can't take a piss or pick his nose; nothing without someone watching, eh? Yes, and the slightest noise'd bring the neighbors down on us, and samurai'd be at the stoop and who wants those bastards around, eh? They'd be shaking their God-cursed swords at us, shouting and hollering, telling us to keep quiet. Well, one night someone knocked over a candle and the monkeys were all pissed off to hell with us! Jesus God, you should've heard them! They came swarming out of the woodwork with buckets of water, God-cursed mad, hissing and bowing and cursing .... It was only one poxy wall that got burned down .... Hundreds of 'em swarmed over the house like cockroaches. Bastards! You've-"
"Get on with it!"
"You want to tell it?"
"Go on, Johann, don't pay any attention to him. He's only a shitfilled 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.