– XXVI –

In which Shiro makes a powerful friend and a violation is foretold

The Duke of Lerma collected Shiro and the Duke of Medina-Sidonia at dawn, and with an escort of forty men, they galloped into the woods north of Madrid. Having decided, despite the King’s infatuation, that the young Japanese man was far beneath him, the Duke of Lerma spent the journey conversing with his fellow nobleman about family matters, court intrigues, and when the Duke of Medina-Sidonia’s annulment might be expected from the Vatican.

Shiro did not mind and was content to admire the scenery. The sky had cleared completely, and a semicircle of mountains shone brightly before them, their worn-down peaks covered with gleaming snow. As they entered the royal grounds, herds of deer and wild boars ran about them. The Palace, hidden in the woods, had an exterior with a pinkish hue that contrasted most pleasingly with the greenery surrounding it. The Samurai was enchanted.

As they approached, the King came at them on horseback on a path from the east and joined them, calling out a hearty welcome. A meal was served in the entrance hall. Shiro ate very little and only drank water.

‘Seeing as how you have expressed such enthusiasm for our painters, young man, I wanted to show you something very special,’ said the King, standing from the table as the meal concluded.

The Duke of Medina-Sidonia gave Shiro a light pat on the back in approbation for the favorable impression he had made.

‘A fire swept through here some years ago,’ the King continued, ‘but the painting I wish to show you was spared, and I have taken it ever since as a good omen.’

They walked through wide hallways lined with portraits and still lifes by Anthonis Mor, his pupil Alonso Sánchez Coello, and the latter’s disciple Juan Pantoja de la Cruz. Taking a turn into a windowless room lined with red velvet, the King walked right past Correggio’s Rape of Ganymede. Shiro, keeping apace with the Monarch and the limping Grandee, could not believe his eyes. The painting depicted the figure of a naked boy-child wrapped in a cloak the color of faded pomegranate who was being lifted off the ground into a Mediterranean blue sky by an enormous bird of prey. An autumnal poplar tree stood to the left, and a startled dog just below was barking at the spectacle, looking up.

They soon arrived at the King’s destination, a room that occupied a far corner of the palace. It was a high-ceilinged chamber that faced the open countryside looking north and west. It had simple furniture and two modestly proportioned windows between which hung a large painting some four meters long and two meters high.

‘This,’ said the King to his guests, ‘is my favorite.’

It was a dark landscape portraying, at an indeterminate time of day—twilight perhaps, or early morning—a clearing in the woods. Moving from left to right, a man blows upon a clarion made from an animal’s horn, a man it seems in service to a hunting party behind him and out of sight. Another man, younger and athletically rendered, with two fine dogs on leashes, is calling out to the unseen hunting party while pointing at a buck by a stream. The buck is seen in the background at the far left of the painting, being set upon by dogs that have been unleashed by yet another colleague. Though handsome, clean shaven, and well put together, the second youth is oblivious to the fact that a young woman seated on the ground next to him, his sister or his sweetheart perhaps, is being spoken to and more than likely propositioned by a heavily bearded, naked Satyr facing her, his back to the viewer, his head adorned with a simple wreath of laurel. But the Satyr is not looking at her directly. He is looking up toward the very center of the painting that is delineated by the slender trunk of a tall tree on whose upper branch can be seen the naked, infantile personage of Eros. This pudgy little god is aiming his bow down toward two other forms that dominate the entire composition; a naked woman partially covered by a shroud, young, blond, somewhat corpulent in the fashion of the time and seemingly asleep, and another Satyr—this one with a more cunning and avaricious appearance than the first. The Satyr is pulling the shroud off the maiden. But his gaze is not affixed upon her appealing flesh yet, but rather at the arrow being pointed at him from above. It seems as if these Satyrs are mainly interested in the figure up in the tree between them, there to facilitate what will happen next, and it is as if the hunting party of ordinary mortals around them with their dogs cannot see them.

‘What do you make of it Shiro San?’ asked the King.

Aware that to a certain extent he was being evaluated, Shiro took his time and answered with caution.

‘Hunting,’ he replied. ‘Hunting of various sorts.’

‘Very good,’ said the King. ‘Go on.’

‘The three men and their dogs are hunting the deer. The other two men, who look to be shaped like animals from the waist down, are after the women.’

‘They are Satyrs, pleasure seekers, sexual predators who are companions of the Greek gods Pan and Dionysus. And what do you make of the little fellow up in the tree?’

‘A baby with a bow and arrow. I confess I have no idea. He seems to be aiming the arrow directly at the Satyr next to the naked woman, but the Satyr looks to be unconcerned.’

‘What do you know of the Greeks?’ asked the King.

‘Very little, Your Majesty. In truth, I have only begun to learn something about the Romans, thanks to the patience of the Duke.’

‘The Greeks predated the Romans by hundreds of years,’ said the King. ‘All that is worthy about the Romans comes from the Greeks, and the Greeks had many gods who sometimes would assume human form in order to mate with humans they fancied, or to tease them, help them, torment them.’

‘I assume this was a manner in which the Greeks chose to explain their troubles, Your Majesty,’ said Shiro. ‘Like your own Jesus, who was a god but who became a man for a time. It is a recourse all societies I know of resort to.’

The Monarch stared at Shiro with some amazement, then at the Duke. ‘Best to keep this young man clear of my Inquisitors, Alonso.”

‘Quite, Your Majesty,’ answered the Duke with a grin.

‘Be that as it may,’ said the King, returning his attention to the Samurai. ‘In this particular case, this Satyr here is Zeus,’ he said, pointing at the Satyr placed in the middle of the composition, ‘the king of the gods, known by the name of Jupiter to the Romans, and he is on the verge of possessing this fetching maiden who was called Antiope, a beautiful princess, daughter to a man called Prince Nykteus. When the Prince later discovered that his daughter was pregnant, she fled from his wrath and set all manner of things into motion.’

‘And was the child born?’ Shiro asked, looking at the sleeping Antiope.

‘Twins were born, Amphion and Zethos.’

‘Princes born out of wedlock,’ said the Duke nodding toward the Samurai.

‘The presence of Eros,’ continued the King, ‘who the Romans called Amor, from which our own word for love derives, is symbolic. Whoever receives an arrow from his quiver falls in love, becomes inflamed with passion. Rather than depict the actual moment of possession, which would have been vulgar and sinful for Titian, for so the painter was called—he did this painting for my father, and it took him thirty-two years to finish it to his satisfaction—the figure of Eros and his bow is there to inform us as to what is about to happen.’

‘I see,’ said Shiro. ‘I understand. And look at the quiver of arrows. I’d give much for one like it. But surely the presence of the hunters and their dogs and the deer being attacked must be symbolic, as well.’

‘I assume they are there for contrast of some sort,’ said the King. ‘Though in both cases a defenseless creature, the deer in one case, the maiden in the other, hover on the brink of violation.’