– III –

In which Shiro meets Yokiko and a journey is explained

At the urging of the Lord, Shiro was exposed to barbarians from an early age. He was sent to Edo to apprentice with the seaman and navigator William Adams, an Englishman who, to the great frustration of the Portuguese Jesuits, had been saved from execution by the Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu. When Shiro worked with him, Adams was already adopting Japanese dress and manners. He taught the boy the fundamentals of astronomy, geometry, and cartography, how to sail, and he instructed the young Samurai to speak and read in English. His fellow crewmate from the shipwrecked Liefde, the Dutch carpenter Pieter Janszoon, taught Shiro how to work with wood and how ships were designed. The Franciscan Friar from Sevilla, Luis Sotelo, protected by Lord Date Masamune himself, taught the boy Latin, Greek, and Spanish. Exposure to the cultures and tongues of these English and Spanish tutors, the former reserved, practical, and melancholic, the latter expansive, conniving, and opportunistic, widened Shiro’s world in ways that set him apart from his Samurai brethren.

The Portuguese, and then the Spanish, had attempted to bring their religion to the kingdom. Jesuits made converts in the southern shogunates. Shiro and his fellow Samurai found the foreign faith tiresome, condescending, and strangely complex. But some Japanese listened, and others far wiser, like the Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu and Lord Date Masamune, lent, for a time, a liberal ear to their rant motivated by other interests. A powerful earthquake had devastated areas key to internal commerce, and new markets were needed. After learning about the riches of Spain and Italy, Date Masamune protected Father Sotelo, allowing him to preach in a limited manner. If the price for trading with such powerful barbarians was to allow their religious stories to sink fragile roots into his treasured soil, so be it. He reasoned it was worth the effort, to observe what might come of it. His battles had been fought. His campaigns had been successful. His castle was complete. There was little left to prove.

As Shiro grew into a young man, he reflected much upon these things. He had heard the tale of the twenty-six Christians crucified and pierced to death in 1597, some of whom were Japanese. They had been ridiculed for the stubbornness of their beliefs and driven like errant swine through the streets, taunted and stoned all the way to Nagasaki. After being tied to crosses and run through with spears, the barbarian bodies had been opened and examined. To the consternation of all who were present, it was clear their insides were the same as those of the noblest Samurai.

The Japanese word for anyone born in another land was nanban. But from William Adams and Father Sotelo, he learned the concept was universal. The English word barbarian and the Spanish word bárbaro came from the Latin barbaria meaning foreign country, from the Greek barbaroi meaning ‘all that are not Greek.’ So this was confusing to Shiro, for it seemed other races from other lands shared the same prejudice. Despite certain physical variations of skin tone, hair, and the shape of one’s eyes, everything else appeared to be the same. The greatest differences, he realized, were questions of custom, of relative delicacy, scientific knowledge, of religion. Though the barbarian ships were better adapted for ocean travel and their muskets more fearsome, their swords were infinitely inferior, their eating habits revolting, their aversion to cleanliness a nose-holding scandal. Their religion was intrusive and bizarre.

In the spring of 1612, when Shiro was eighteen years old, after an official exhibition of swordsmanship within the grounds of the Sendai Castle, he approached the Lord and asked him for counsel regarding the treatment of foreigners. The Lord, unsmiling, asked him to elaborate and heard him out, and when Shiro had finished, he said to him, ‘Come with me.’

He followed the Lord into the Arms Chamber where servants removed his battle gear, wrapping each piece in silk before placing it on varnished shelves that stood next to displays of ancient swords, spears, bows, and arrows. Upon the Lord’s command, they did the same for Shiro, and he was honored by it. Then the Lord removed the clothing he wore beneath and stepped into a robe waiting for him. Shiro was told to do the same.

From there they walked through a long and narrow hall that led away from the area where the Lord lived with his wife and family. ‘Your concerns please me,’ he said to the young man. ‘All that you have seen and thought about reflects the clarity of your intellect and confirms the validity of my judgment. My own sons, even those older than you, are still too brash, too impulsive, too shallow, too quick to boast, too quick to draw their swords.’

Shiro was honored again and expressed his gratitude.

They came to an area that Shiro had only heard about by way of rumor, a lush garden protected by tall extensions of the castle walls camouflaged by towering trees and climbing plants. The garden had a wild look to it despite the fact that every tree and shrub had been carefully chosen and planted. A small stream ran through the center. Birds in cages hung from fruit trees. Two large wooden tubs rested in the center, and then, crossing the stream by way of a small wooden bridge, the path divided into two, each one leading to a one-room bungalow located at the garden’s opposite ends.

A beautiful woman he had never seen before, wearing a simple blue kimono, stood by one of the tubs that was already filled with hot water. She bowed to the Lord and then bowed to him. The Lord came up to her and turned around, allowing her to remove his robe. After being scrubbed clean, he immersed himself in the water. With his eyes, he instructed the same be done for Shiro. They soaked for almost half an hour before the Lord beckoned for the woman to approach him. He whispered something into her ear that caused her to back away and disappear. Some minutes later she returned with towels. The Lord left the tub and pointed to one of the bungalows. ‘I am going there. You go to the other one. Later we shall have tea and speak about the future.’ Shiro put his hands together and bowed, watching the Lord walk off. The woman followed some paces behind. He watched them enter the small house and slide the door shut behind them.

When he stepped from the tub, he felt uncomfortable for being naked and dripping wet in an outdoor garden. No towel or robe had been left for him. He wondered if guards posted on the walls could see him. He crossed the small bridge over the stream and walked upon the well-raked path leading to the bungalow assigned to him. The pebbles of the path were smooth and easy to step upon. The air smelled of apple and plum blossoms. He wondered who fed the birds.

He let himself into the bungalow. Its floor was made from boards of polished cedar. A bed was unfurled perpendicular to the entrance. There was no decoration of any sort, but the shapes of the plants and branches outside could be seen as shadows against the paper walls. A small stove steamed over a fire in a pit at the center of the floor. A young girl, no more than sixteen, knelt by the stove, awaiting his arrival, holding a towel and a robe. When he made to cover himself, she turned her head away. Then she stood and approached him and, saying nothing, began to carefully dry him with the towel.

Two hours later, he met the Lord in a tearoom apart from the garden. In this room birds flew freely and perched on the rafters. The monk preparing the tea was old and blind and had served Date Masamune’s father faithfully. The Lord raised his cup toward Shiro.

‘I hear it went well.’

Shiro bowed his head.

‘Your modesty becomes you,’ the Lord continued. ‘You may spend the night here with her and return to your barrack in the morning.’

Shiro blushed.

‘Your concern with barbarians pleases me, for you are to set forth upon a great journey—as my eye and ears. You may have heard how a nobleman in my province called Hasekura Tsunenari has been condemned for corruption and shall be beheaded. I have known him since my early youth and am saddened. He fought with me in many campaigns. In deference to his family’s honor, I have pardoned his son, Hasekura Tsunenaga, from the same fate. The son is twice your age and will lead a delegation for me across the great seas along with twenty-one Samurai including ten from the Shogun and twelve of mine. They will accompany one hundred and twenty merchants, sailors, servants, and assorted barbarians, the most important of which will be the Spaniards Father Sotelo and the seaman Sebastian Vizcaino. Tokugawa Ieyasu and Tokugawa Hidetada have commended this mission to me. The ship is being built by the Shogun’s Admiral, Mukai Shogen Tadakatsu, who constructed a number of frigates with your friend William Adams. The vessel will be ready to sail this autumn.’

Here he paused, took another sip of the tea, and then pointed at Shiro directly. ‘You shall not speak of this meeting of ours to anyone, not even to Hasekura Tsunenaga. You shall comport yourself like the rest of your warrior colleagues, but with your senses open, for I will need to know upon your return that the truth is being spoken to me. Do you understand?’

‘Yes my Lord. For how long shall I be away?’

‘Two years at least.’

That night after the girl, Yokiko, had bathed and fallen asleep beside him, he lay awake and wondered about her. She was the daughter of a prisoner and had been taken as booty and trained to serve the Lord by his mistress. She had been with Date Masamune once and with his sons and was treated well otherwise. She felt she was fortunate because her beauty had spared her from a harsher fate. As she told him these things, he tried to make sense of his emotions. Neither of them mentioned what might occur when she grew older. Looking at her, Shiro pretended she was his. Just before dawn, the birds began to sing from their cages in the nearby trees. He feigned sleep, watching through his eyelashes as she rose and dressed. Then she was gone.