“It is the largest city in Creation, and no place for Christians.”
They had gained the top of the stairs now, and were crowding into a chamber that opened onto a balcony. From the rail of this balcony—the highest part of the palace—they could look down the vine-and flower-covered cliff below and out across the inlet where most of the Queen’s pirate-fleet rode at anchor. The ships seemed to float in mid-air, such was the transparency of the water, and underneath them schools of bright fish maneuvered through coral formations.
“Behold!” said the Queen, sweeping out one bangle-covered arm. Actually she said something in Malabari, but obviously it meant “Behold” and Dappa did not bother with a translation.
A peculiar sort of cargo-handling operation was under way down below: two pairs of small boats, each pair lashed together abeam of each other with logs spanning the gap between them. One of these makeshift catamarans was following several lengths behind the other, and the distance between them was bridged by a colossal tree-trunk, spoke-shaved smooth, and painted barn-red.
Jack heard Dappa speaking in English to Enoch Root: “Normally I would not be so presumptuous as to proffer advice to you on any subject, least of all manners and protocol—but I urge you, sir, not to ask the Queen where she obtained that mast.”
“I accept your counsel with gratitude,” said Enoch Root.
It was obvious that the mast had just been brought in by one of the Queen’s fleet: a frigate of European design. She was the largest ship in the harbor, but much smaller than the one being built on the beach in Dalicot, and so the mast dwarfed her—it was longer than the frigate’s deck, and must have projected forward and aft before it had been unlashed and let down onto those boats.
The boat-crews were paddling toward the shore as gamely as they could, though half the men were laboring with bails; gouts of water flew from the boats in all directions and slapped the surface of the harbor, only to rush back in over the gunwales during the next swell. Jack wondered whether he was about to witness a disaster, until he heard men in the boats, and on the shore, laughing.
Then he turned his attention back to Gabriel Goto. “But if your family are reduced to Vagabonds, how comes it they know so much of currency devaluations—and how do they write you letters on fair-looking rice-paper?”
“The short answer is that they remain bound to the same ancient Wheel, which has not ceased to turn.”
“The shogun wants metal to come from the ground—and in order to make it so, the House of Mitsui needs your cousins and nephews.”
“That is not the only thing on the shogun’s mind. In the far north, the Russians are on the move. Mostly it has been adventurers and fur-traders, ranging from outposts in Kamchatka, the Kurils, and the isles of the Aleuts. But there is a new Tsar in Russia named Peter, a man with a formidable reputation, who has even traveled to Holland to learn the art of shipbuilding—”
“I know all about this Peter,” said Jack. “Jan Vroom worked by his side, and Peter wanted him to come to Russia and build ships there. But Vroom saw the prospect of more profit, and warmer climes, in the offer of van Hoek.”
“In any event,” said Gabriel Goto, “Peter’s fame has reached the court of the shogun. Obviously Russia will one day threaten Nippon from the north. When that day arrives, Nippon will be defenseless against Peter’s Dutch-style ships and al-jebrtrained gunners, unless we are well established in northern Honshu and on the vast island to the north-a wilderness full of blue-eyed savages, called Ezo, or Hokkaido.”
“So your family may be doubly useful to the shogun. You can mine copper, and you have an interest in moving northwards.”
Gabriel Goto said nothing, which Jack took to mean yes.
“Tell me—has the shogun’s concern about this military threat led him to relax his ban on firearms?”
“He imports books of rangaku, which means ‘Dutch learning,’ so as to keep abreast of developments in fortifications and artillery. But the ban on guns will never be lifted,” said Gabriel Goto firmly. “The sword is the symbol of nobility—it is what marks a man as a Samurai.”
“How many Samurai are there in Japan?”
Gabriel Goto shrugged. “Their proportion to the entire population is somewhere between one in ten, and one in twenty.”
“And there are a million souls in Edo alone?”
“That is what I am told.”
“So, between fifty and a hundred thousand Samurai in that one city—each of whom must possess a sword?”
“Two—the long and the short. Many have more than one set, of course.”
“Of course. And is watered steel as desirable there as it is everywhere else?”
“We may be isolated, but we are not ignorant.”