Shogun - Clavell James - Страница 48
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None at all.
"If you think that's a lot," Rodrigues was saying, "wait till you go to China. They're all yellow men there, all with black hair and eyes. Oh, Ingeles, I tell you you've so much new to learn. I was in Canton last year, at the silk sales. Canton's a walled city in south China, on the Pearl River, north of our City of the Name of God at Macao. There's a million of the heathen dog-eaters within those walls alone. China's got more people than all the rest of the world put together. Must have. Think of that!" A spasm of pain went through Rodrigues and his good hand held onto his stomach. "Was there any blood seeping out of me? Anywhere?"
"No. I made sure. It's just your leg and shoulder. You're not hurt inside, Rodrigues - at least, I don't think so."
"How bad is the leg?"
"It was washed by the sea and cleaned by the sea. The break was clean and the skin's clean, at the moment."
"Did you pour brandy over it and fire it?"
"No. They wouldn't let me - they ordered me off. But the doctor seemed to know what he's doing. Will your own people come aboard quickly?"
"Yes. Soon as we dock. That's more than likely."
"Good. You were saying? About China and Canton?"
"I was saying too much, perhaps. Time enough to talk about them. " Blackthorne watched the Portuguese's good hand toy with the sealed package and he wondered again what significance it had. "Your leg will be all right. You'll know within the week."
"Yes, Ingeles."
"I don't think it'll rot - there's no pus - you're thinking clearly so your brain's all right. You'll be fine, Rodrigues."
"I still owe you a life." A shiver ran through the Portuguese. "When I was drowning, all I could think of was the crabs climbing in through my eyes. I could feel them churning inside me, Ingeles. That's the third time I've been overboard and each time it's worse."
"I've been sunk at sea four times. Three times by Spaniards."
The cabin door opened and the captain bowed and beckoned Blackthorne aloft.
"Hai!" Blackthorne got up. "You owe me nothing, Rodrigues," he said kindly. "You gave me life and succor when I was desperate, and I thank you for that. We're even."
"Perhaps, but listen, Ingeles, here's some truth for you, in part payment: Never forget Japmen're six-faced and have three hearts. It's a saying they have, that a man has a false heart in his mouth for all the world to see, another in his breast to show his very special friends and his family, and the real one, the true one, the secret one, which is never known to anyone except himself alone, hidden only God knows where. They're treacherous beyond belief, vice-ridden beyond redemption."
"Why does Toranaga want to see me?"
"I don't know. By the Blessed Virgin! I don't know. Come back to see me, if you can."
"Yes. Good luck, Spaniard!"
"Thy sperm! Even so, go with God."
Blackthorne smiled back, unguarded, and then he was on deck and his mind whirled from the impact of Osaka, its immensity, the teaming anthills of people, and the enormous castle that dominated the city. From within the castle's vastness came the soaring beauty of the donjon - the central keep - seven or eight stories high, pointed gables with curved roofs at each level, the tiles all gilded and the walls blue.
That's where Toranaga will be, he thought, an ice barb suddenly in his bowels.
A closed palanquin took him to a large house. There he was bathed and he ate, inevitably, fish soup, raw and steamed fish, a few pickled vegetables, and the hot herbed water. Instead of wheat gruel, this house provided him with a bowl of rice. He had seen rice once in Naples. It was white and wholesome, but to him tasteless. His stomach cried for meat and bread, new-baked crusty bread heavy with butter, and a haunch of beef and pies and chickens and beer and eggs.
The next day a maid came for him. The clothes that Rodrigues had given him were laundered. She watched while he dressed, and helped him into new tabi sock-shoes. Outside was a new pair of thongs. His boots were missing. She shook her head and pointed at the thongs and then at the curtained palanquin. A phalanx of samurai surrounded it. The leader motioned him to hurry up and get in.
They moved off immediately. The curtains were tight closed. After an age, the palanquin stopped.
"You will not be afraid," he said aloud, and got out.
The gigantic stone gate of the castle was in front of him. It was set into a thirty-foot wall with interlocking battlements, bastions, and outworks. The door was huge and iron plated and open, the forged iron portcullis up. Beyond was a wooden bridge, twenty paces wide and two hundred long, that spanned the moat and ended at an enormous drawbridge, and another gate that was set into the second wall, equally vast.
Hundreds of samurai were everywhere. All wore the same somber gray uniform-belted kimonos, each with five small circular insignias, one on each arm, on each breast, and one in the center of the back. The insignia was blue, seemingly a flower or flowers.
"Anjin-san!"
Hiro-matsu was seated stiffly on an open palanquin carried by four liveried bearers. His kimono was brown and stark, his belt black, the same as the fifty samurai that surrounded him. Their kimonos, too, had five insignias, but these were scarlet, the same that had fluttered at the mast head, Toranaga's cipher. These samurai carried long gleaming spears with tiny flags at their heads.
Blackthorne bowed without thinking, taken by Hiro-matsu's majesty. The old man bowed back formally, his long sword loose in his lap, and signed for him to follow.
The officer at the gate came forward. There was a ceremonial reading of the paper that Hiro-matsu offered and many bows and looks toward Blackthorne and then they were passed on to the bridge, an escort of the Grays falling in beside them.
The surface of the deep moat was fifty feet below and stretched about three hundred paces on either side, then followed the walls as they turned north and Blackthorne thought, Lord God, I'd hate to have to try to mount an attack here. The defenders could let the outerwall garrison perish and burn the bridge, then they're safe inside. Jesus God, the outer wall must be nearly a mile square and look, it must be twenty, thirty feet thick-the inner one, too. And it's made out of huge blocks of stone. Each one must be ten feet by ten feet!
At least! And cut perfectly and set into place without mortar. They must weigh fifty tons at least. Better than any we could make. Siege guns? Certainly they could batter the outer walls, but the guns defending would give as good as they got. It'd be hard to get them up here, and there's no higher point from which to lob fireballs into the castle. If the outer wall was taken, the defenders could still blast the attackers off the battlements. But even if siege guns could be mounted there and they were turned on the next wall and battered it, they wouldn't hurt it. They could damage the far gate, but what would that accomplish? How could the moat be crossed? It's too vast for the normal methods. The castle must be impregnable - with enough soldiers. How many soldiers are here? How many townspeople would have sanctuary inside?
It makes the Tower of London like a pigsty. And the whole of Hampton Court would fit into one corner!
At the next gate there was another ceremonial checking of papers and the road turned left immediately, down a vast avenue lined with heavily fortified houses behind easily defended greater walls and lesser walls, then doubled on itself into a labyrinth of steps and roads. Then there was another gate and more checking, another portcullis and another vast moat and new twistings and turnings until Blackthorne, who was an acute observer with an extraordinary memory and sense of direction, was lost in the deliberate maze. And all the time numberless Grays stared down at them from escarpments and ramparts and battlements and parapets and bastions. And there were more on foot, guarding, marching, training or tending horses in open stables. Soldiers everywhere, by the thousand. All well armed and meticulously clothed.
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