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Blackthorne slit the hare's belly and neatly turned out the stomach sac and entrails. One of the younger maids heaved and fled silently. Fujiko resolved to fine her a month's wages, wishing at the same time that she too could be a peasant and so flee with honor.

They watched, glazed, as he cut off the paws and feet, then pushed the forelegs back into the pelt, easing the skin off the legs. He did the same with the back legs and worked the pelt around to bring the naked back legs out through the belly slit, and then, with a deft jerk, he pulled the pelt over the head like a discarded winter coat. He lay the almost skinned animal on the chopping table and decapitated it, leaving the head with its staring, pathetic eyes still attached to the pelt. He turned the pelt right side out again, and put it aside. A sigh went through the kitchen. He did not hear it as he concentrated on slicing off the legs into joints and quartering the carcass. Another maid fled unnoticed.

"Now I want a pot," Blackthorne said with a hearty grin.

No one answered him. They just stared with the same fixed smiles. He saw a large iron cauldron. It was spotless. He picked it up with bloody hands and filled it with water from a wooden container, then hung the pot over the brazier, which was set into the earthen floor in a pit surrounded by stone. He added the pieces of meat.

"Now some vegetables and spices," he said.

"Dozo?" Fujiko asked throatily.

He did not know the Japanese words so he looked around. There were some carrots, and some roots that looked like turnips in a wooden basket. These he cleaned and cut up and added to the soup with salt and some of the dark soya sauce.

"We should have some onions and garlic and port wine."

"Dozo?" Fujiko asked again helplessly.

"Kotaba shirimasen." I don't know the words.

She did not correct him, just picked up a spoon and offered it. He shook his head. "Saké," he ordered. The assistant cook jerked into life and gave him the small wooden barrel.

"Domo." Blackthorne poured in a cupful, then added another for good measure. He would have drunk some from the barrel but he knew that it would be bad manners, to drink it cold and without ceremony, and certainly not here in the kitchen.

"Christ Jesus, I'd love a beer," he said.

"Dozo goziemashita, Anjin-san?"

"Kotaba shirimasen-but this stew's going to be great. Ichi-ban, neh?" He pointed at the hissing pot.

"Hai," she said without conviction.

"Okuru tsukai arigato Toranaga-sama," Blackthorne said. Send a messenger to thank Lord Toranaga. No one corrected the bad Japanese.

"Hai." Once outside Fujiko rushed for the privy, the little hut that stood in solitary splendor near the front door in the garden. She was very sick.

"Are you all right, Mistress?" her maid, Nigatsu, said. She was middle-aged, roly-poly, and had looked after Fujiko all her life.

"Go away! But first bring me some cha. No-you'll have to go into the kitchen… oh oh oh!"

"I have cha here, Mistress. We thought you'd need some so we boiled the water on another brazier. Here!"

"Oh, you're so clever!" Fujiko pinched Nigatsu's round cheek affectionately as another maid came to fan her. She wiped her mouth on the paper towel and sat gratefully on cushions on the veranda. "Oh, that's better!" And it was better in the open air, in the shade, the good afternoon sun casting dark shadows and butterflies foraging, the sea far below, calm and iridescent.

"What's going on, Mistress? We didn't dare even to peek."

"Never mind. The Master's-the Master's-never mind. His customs are weird but that's our karma."

She glanced away as her chief cook came unctuously through the garden and her heart sank a little more. He bowed formally, a taut, thin little man with large feet and very buck teeth. Before he could utter a word Fujiko said through a flat smile, "Order new knives from the village. A new rice-cooking pot. A new chopping board, new water containers-all utensils you think necessary. Those that the Master used are to be kept for his private purposes. You will set aside a special area, construct another kitchen if you wish, where the Master can cook if he so desires-until you are proficient."

"Thank you, Fujiko-sama," the cook said. "Excuse me for interrupting you, but, so sorry, please excuse me, I know. a fine cook in the next village. He's not a Buddhist and he's even been with the army in Korea so he'd know all about the-how to-how to cook for the Master so much better than I."

"When I want another cook I will tell you. When I consider you inept or malingering I will tell you. Until that time you will be chief cook here. You accepted the post for six months," she said.