His words slashed around the room. They all stared at him transfixed. Mariko bowed abjectly, kept her head to the floor. "Please forgive me, I've made a terrible error. Oh, I've offended where I was only trying to please. I've never talked to a - to a foreigner other than one of the Holy Fathers before, so I've no way of knowing your - your intimate customs. I was never taught about them, Anjin-san the Fathers did not discuss them. Here some men want boys sometimes - priests have boys from time to time, ours and some of yours - I foolishly presumed that your customs were the same as ours."
"I'm not a priest and it's not our general custom."
The samurai leader, Kazu Oan, was watching angrily. He was charged with the barbarian's safety and with the barbarian's health and he had seen, with his own eyes, the incredible favor that Lord Toranaga had shown to the Anjin-san, and now the Anjin-san was furious. "What's the matter with him?" he asked challengingly, for obviously the stupid woman had said something to offend his very important prisoner.
Mariko explained what had been said and what the Anjin-san had replied. "I really don't understand what he's irritated about, Oan-san," she told him.
Oan scratched his head in disbelief. "He's like a mad ox just because you offered him a boy?"
"Yes."
"So sorry, but were you polite? Did you use a wrong word, perhaps?"
"Oh, no, Oan-san, I'm quite sure. I feel terrible. I'm obviously responsible."
"It must be something else. What?"
"No, Oan-san. It was just that."
"I'll never understand these barbarians," Oan said exasperatedly. "For all our sakes, please calm him down, Mariko-san. It must be because he hasn't pillowed for such a long time. "You," he ordered Sono, "you get more sake, hot sake, and hot towels! You, Rako, rub the devil's neck." The maids fled to obey. A sudden thought: "I wonder if it's because he's impotent. His story about pillowing in the village was vague enough, neh? Perhaps the poor fellow's enraged because he can't pillow at all and you brought the subject up?"
"So sorry, I don't think so. The doctor said he's very well endowed. "
"If he was impotent - that would explain it, neh? It'd be enough to make me shout too. Yes! Ask him."
Mariko immediately did as she was ordered, and Oan was horrified as the blood rushed into the barbarian's face again and a spate of foul-sounding barbarian filled the room.
"He - he said 'no.'" Mariko's voice was barely a whisper.
"All that just meant 'no'?"
"They - they use many descriptive curse words when they get excited."
Oan was beginning to sweat with anxiety for he was responsible. "Calm him down!"
One of the other samurai, an older soldier, said helpfully, "Oan-san, perhaps he's one of those that likes dogs, neh? We heard some strange stories in Korea about the Garlic Eaters. Yes, they like dogs and . . . I remember now, yes, dogs and ducks. Perhaps these golden heads are like the Garlic Eaters, they stink like them, hey? Maybe he wants a duck."
Oan said, "Mariko-san, ask him! No, perhaps you'd better not. Just calm-" He stopped short. Hiro-matsu was approaching from the far corner. "Salute," he said crisply, trying to keep his voice from quaking because old Iron Fist, in the best of circumstances a disciplinarian, had been like a tiger with boils on his arse for the last week and today he had been even worse. Ten men had been demoted for untidiness, the entire night watch paraded in ignominy throughout the castle, two samurai ordered to commit seppuku because they were late for their watch, and four nightsoil collectors thrown off the battlements for spilling part of a container in the castle garden.
"Is he behaving himself, Mariko-san?" Oan heard Iron Fist ask irritably. He was certain the stupid woman who had caused all this trouble was going to blurt out the truth, which would have surely lifted their heads, rightfully, off their shoulders.
To his relief he heard her say, "Yes, Lord. Everything is fine, thank you."
"You're ordered to leave with Kiritsubo-san."
"Yes, Lord." As Hiro-matsu continued with his patrol, Mariko brooded over why she was being sent away. Was it merely to interpret for Kiri with the barbarian on the voyage? Surely that's not so important? Were Toranaga's other ladies going? The Lady Sazuko? Isn't it dangerous for Sazuko to go by sea now? Am I to go alone with Kiri, or is my husband going also? If he stays - and it would be his duty to stay with his lord - who will look after his house? Why do we have to go by ship? Surely the Tokaido Road is still safe? Surely Ishido won't harm us? Yes, he would - think of our value as hostages, the Lady Sazuko, Kiritsubo, and the others. Is that why we're to be sent by sea?
Mariko had always hated the sea. Even the sight of it almost made her sick. But if I am to go, I am to go, and there's the end of it. Karma. She turned her mind off the inevitable to the immediate problem of the baffling foreign barbarian who was causing her nothing but grief.
