When he got back to the castle it was not yet noon so he went to his own quarters to eat. He had rice and two helpings of fish that had been broiled over charcoal with soya by his own cook as he had taught the man. A small flask of sake, then cha.
"Anjin-san?"
"Hai?"
The shoji opened. Fujiko smiled shyly and bowed.
"I'd forgotten about you," he said in English. "I was afraid you were dead."
"Dozo goziemashita, Anjin-san, nan desu ka?"
"Nani mo, Fujiko-san," he told her, ashamed of himself. "Gomen nasai. Hai. Gomen nasai. Ma-suware odoroita honto ni mata aete ureshi." Please excuse me . . . a surprise, neh? Good to see you. Please sit down.
"Domo arigato goziemashita," she said, and told him in her thin, high voice how pleased she was to see him, how much his Japanese had improved, how well he looked, and how most very glad she was to be here.
He watched her kneel awkwardly on the cushion opposite. "Legs . . ." He sought the word "burns" but couldn't remember it, so he said instead, "Legs fire hurt. Bad?"
"No. So sorry. But it still hurts a little to sit," Fujiko said, concentrating, watching his lips. "Legs hurt, so sorry."
"Please show me."
"So sorry, please, Anjin-san, I don't wish to trouble you. You have other problems. I'm-"
"Don't understand. Too fast, sorry."
"Ah, sorry. Legs all right. No trouble," she pleaded.
"Trouble. You are consort, neh? No shame. Show now!"
Obediently she got up. Clearly she was uncomfortable, but once she was upright, she began to untie the strings of her obi.
"Please call maid," he ordered.
She obeyed. At once the shoji slid open and a woman he did not recognize rushed to assist her.
First the stiff obi was unwound. The maid put Fujiko's sheathed dagger and obi to one side.
"What's your name?" he asked the maid brusquely, as a samurai should.
"Oh, please excuse me, Sire, so very sorry. My name is Hana-ichi." He grunted an acknowledgment. Miss First Blossom, now there's a fine name! All maids, by custom, were called Miss Brush or Crane or Fish or Second Broom or Fourth Moon or Star or Tree or Branch, and so on.
Hana-ichi was middle-aged and very concerned. I'll bet she's a family retainer, he told himself. Perhaps a vassal of Fujiko's late husband. Husband! I'd forgotten about him as well, and the child who was murdered - as the husband was murdered by fiend Toranaga who's not a fiend but a daimyo and a good, perhaps great leader. Yes. Probably the husband deserved his fate if the real truth were known, neh? But not the child, he thought. There's no excuse for that.
Fujiko allowed her green patterned outer kimono to fall aside loosely. Her fingers trembled as she untied the thin silken sash of the yellow, under kimono and let that fall aside also. Her skin was light and the part of her breasts he could see within the folds of silk showed that they were flat and small. Hana-ichi knelt and untied the strings of the underskirt that reached from her waist to the floor to enable her mistress to step out of it.
"Iye, " he ordered. He walked over and lifted the hem. The burns began at the backs of her calves. "Gomen nasai," he said.
She stood motionless. A tear of sweat trickled down her cheek, spoiling her makeup. He pulled the skirt higher. The skin was burned all up the backs of her legs but it seemed to be healing perfectly. Scar tissue had formed already and there was no infection, and no suppurations, only a little clean blood where the new scar tissue had broken at the backs of her knees as she had knelt.
He moved her kimonos aside and loosed the underskirt waist band. The burns stopped at the top of her legs, bypassed her rump where the beam had pinned her down and protected her, then began again in the small of her back. A swathe of burn, half a hand span, girdled her waist. Scar tissue was already settling into permanent crinkles. Unsightly, but healing perfectly.
"Doctor very good. Best I ever see!" He let her kimonos fall back. "Best, Fujiko-san! The scars, what does it matter, neh? Nothing. I see many fire hurts, understand? Want see, then sure good or not good. Doctor very good. Buddha watch Fujiko-san." He put his hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes.
"No worry now. Shigata ga nai, neh? You understand?"
Her tears spilled. "Please excuse me, Anjin-san. I'm so embarrassed. Please excuse my stupidity for being there, caught there like a half-witted eta. I should have been with you, guarding you - not stuck with servants in the house. There's nothing for me in the house, nothing, no reason to be in a house...."
He let her talk on though he understood almost nothing of what she said, holding her compassionately. I've got to find out what the doctor used, he thought excitedly. That's the quickest and the best healing I've ever seen. Every master of every one of Her Majesty's ships should know that secret yes, and truly, every captain of every ship in Europe. Wait a moment, wouldn't every master pay golden guineas for that secret? You could make a fortune! Yes. But not that way, he told himself, never that. Never out of a sailor's agony.
She's lucky though that it was only the backs of her legs and her back and not her face. He looked down at her face. It was still as square and flat as ever, her teeth just as sharp and ferretlike, but the warmth that flowed from her eyes compensated for the ugliness. He gave her another hug. "Now. No weep. Order!"
He sent the maid for fresh cha and sake and many cushions and helped her recline on them, as much as at first it embarrassed her to obey. "How can I ever thank you?" she said.
"No thanks. Give back-" Blackthorne thought a moment but he couldn't remember the Japanese words for "favor" or "remember," so he pulled out the dictionary and looked them up. "Favor: onegai" . . . "remember: omoi dasu. "
"Hai, mondoso o-negai! Omi desu ka?" Give back favor. Remember? He held up his fists mimicking pistols and pointing them. "Omi-san, remember?"
"Oh, of course," she cried out. Then, in wonder, she asked to look at the book. She had never seen Roman writing before, and the column of Japanese words into Latin and into Portuguese and vice versa were meaningless to her, but she quickly grasped its purpose. "It's a book of all our . . . so sorry. Word book, neh?"
"Hai."
"'Hombun'?" she asked.
He showed her how to find the word in Latin and in Portuguese. "Hombun: duty." Then added in Japanese, "I understand duty. Samurai duty, neh?"
"Hai." She clapped her hands as if she had been shown a magic toy. But it is magic, isn't it, he told himself, a gift from God. This unlocks her mind and Toranaga's mind and soon I'll speak perfectly.
She gave him other words and he told her English or Latin or Portuguese, always understanding the words she chose and always finding them. The dictionary never failed.
He looked up a word. "Majutsu desu, neh?" It's magic, isn't it?
"Yes, Anjin-san. The book's magic." She sipped her cha. "Now I can talk to you. Really talk to you."
"Little. Only slow, understand?"
"Yes. Please be patient with me. Please excuse me."
The huge donjon bell sounded the Hour of the Goat and the temples in Yedo echoed the time change.
"I go now. Go Lord Toranaga." He put the book into his sleeve.
"I'll wait here please, if I may."
"Where stay?"
She pointed. "Oh, there, my room's next door. Please excuse my abruptness-"