But it's good to be opposed by a professional, he told himself. Much safer. Then no one makes a foolhardy mistake and no one gets hurt unnecessarily.
"Permission to come aboard?"
"Who, Ingeles?"
"Lord Toranaga, his interpreter, and guards."
Ferriera said quietly, "No guards."
Alvito said, "He must bring some. It's a matter of face."
"The pox on face. No guards."
"I don't want samurai aboard," Rodrigues agreed.
"Would you agree to five?" Alvito asked. "Just his personal guards? You understand the problem, Rodrigues."
Rodrigues thought a moment, then nodded. "Five are all right, Captain-General. We'll detail five men as your 'personal bodyguards' with a brace of pistols apiece. Father, you fix the details now. Better the Father to arrange the details, Captain-General, he knows how. Go on, Father, but tell us what's being said."
Alvito went to the gunwale and shouted, "You gain nothing by your lies! Prepare your souls for hell - you and your bandits. You've ten minutes, then the Captain-General's going to blow you to eternal torment!"
"We're flying Lord Toranaga's flag, by God!'."
"False colors, pirate!" - Ferriera took a step forward. "What are you playing at, Father?"
"Please be patient, Captain-General," Alvito said. "This is only a matter of form. Otherwise Toranaga has to be permanently offended that we've insulted his flag - which we have. That's Toranaga - that's no simple daimyo! Perhaps you'd better remember that he personally has more troops under arms than the King of Spain!"
The wind was sighing in the rigging, the spars clattering nervously. Then flares were lit on the quarterdeck and now they could see Toranaga clearly. His voice came across the waves.
"Tsukku-san! How dare you avoid my galley! There are no pirates here - only in those fishing ships at the harbor mouth. I wish to come alongside instantly!"
Alvito shouted back in Japanese, feigning astonishment, "But Lord Toranaga, so sorry, we had no idea! We thought it was just a trick. The Grays said bandit-ronin had taken the galley by force! We thought bandits, under the English pirate, were sailing under false colors. I will come immediately."
"No. I will come alongside at once."
"I beg you, Lord Toranaga, allow me to come to escort you. My Master, the Father-Visitor, is here and also the Captain-General. They insist we make amends. Please accept our apologies!" Alvito changed to Portuguese again and shouted loudly to the bosun, "Launch a longboat," and back again to Toranaga in Japanese, "The boat is being launched at once, my Lord."
Rodrigues listened to the cloying humility in Alvito's voice and he thought how much more difficult it was to deal with Japanese than with Chinese. The Chinese understood the art of negotiation, of compromise and concession and reward. But the Japanese were pride-filled and when a man's pride was injured - any Japanese, not necessarily just samurai - then death was a small price to repay the insult. Come on, get it over with, he wanted to shout.
"Captain-General, I'll go at once," Father Alvito was saying. "Eminence, if you come as well that compliment will do much to appease him."
"I agree."
"Isn't that dangerous?" Ferriera said. "You two could be used as hostages. " Dell'Aqua said, "The moment there's a sign of treachery, I order you, in God's name, to obliterate that ship and all who sail in her, whether we're aboard or not." He strode off the quarterdeck, down onto the main deck, past the guns, the skirts of his robe swinging majestically. At the head of the gangway he turned and made the sign of the cross. Then he clattered down the gangway into the boat.
The bosun cast off. All the sailors were armed with pistols, and a fused keg of powder was under the bosun's seat.
Ferriera leaned over the gunwale and called down quietly, "Eminence, bring the heretic back with you."
"What? What did you say?'' It amused dell'Aqua to toy with the Captain-General, whose continual insolence had mortally offended him, for of course he had decided long since to acquire Blackthorne, and he could hear perfectly well. Che stupido, he was thinking.
"Bring the heretic back with you, eh?" Ferriera called again.
On the quarterdeck Rodrigues heard the muffled, "Yes, Captain-General," and he thought, what treachery are you about, Ferriera?
He shifted in the chair with difficulty, his face bloodless. The pain in his leg was grinding and it took much of his strength to contain it. The bones were knitting well and, Madonna be praised, the wound was clean. But the fracture was still a fracture and even the slight dip of the ship at rest was troublesome. He took a swallow of grog from the well-used seabag that hung from a peg on the binnacle.
Ferriera was watching him. "Your leg's bad?"
"It's all right." The grog deadened the hurt.
"Will it be all right enough to voyage from here to Macao?"
"Yes. And to fight a sea battle all the way. And to come back in the summer, if that's what you mean."
"Yes, that's what I mean, Pilot." The lips were thin again, drawn into that tight mocking smile. "I need a fit pilot."
"I'm fit. My leg's mending well." Rodrigues shook off the pain. "The Ingeles won't come aboard us willingly. I wouldn't."
"A hundred guineas says you're wrong."
"That's more than I make in a year."
"Payable after we reach Lisbon, from the profits from the Black Ship. " "Done. Nothing'll make him come aboard, not willingly. I'm a hundred guineas richer, by God!"
"Poorer! You forget the Jesuits want him here more than I do."
"Why should they want that?"
Ferriera looked at him levelly and did not answer, wearing the same twisted smile. Then, baiting him, he said, "I'd escort Toranaga out, for possession of the heretic."
"I'm glad I'm your comrade and necessary to you and the Black Ship," Rodrigues said. "I wouldn't want to be your enemy."
"I'm glad we understand one another, Pilot. At long last."
"I require escort out of the harbor. I need it quickly," Toranaga told dell'Aqua through the interpreter Alvito, Mariko nearby, also listening, with Yabu. He stood on the galley's poopdeck, dell'Aqua below on the main deck, Alvito beside him, but even so their eyes were almost level. "Or, if you wish, your warship can remove the fishing boats from out of my way."
"Forgive me, but that would be an unwarranted hostile act that you would not - could not recommend to the frigate, Lord Toranaga," dell'Aqua said, talking directly to him, finding Alvito's simultaneous translation eerie, as always. "That would be impossible - an open act of war."
"Then what do you suggest?"
"Please come back to the frigate. Let us ask the Captain-General. He will have a solution, now that we know what your problem is. He's the military man, we are not."
"Bring him here."
"It would be quicker for you to go there, Sire. Apart, of course, from the honor you would do us."