The Confusion

In a few minutes the Japanese boat advanced into the lee of Minerva and drew up alongside her. Lines were thrown back and forth, and a pilot’s ladder unrolled from the upperdeck. The protocol of what followed had been worked out in such detail that van Hoek had to consult a written list: First, the Cabal gathered near the mainmast and said farewell to Gabriel Goto. Jack, for his part, had never felt especially friendly toward the man, but now he remembered the ronin doing battle against the foe at the needle’s eye in Khan el-Khalili, and his nose ran and tears came to his eyes. Gabriel Goto was recalling the same thing, for he bowed low to Jack and said in Sabir: “I have been a ronin all my life, Jack, which means a Samurai without a master—except for that one day in Cairo when I swore allegiance to you, and for a brief time knew what it was to have a Lord and to fight as part of an Army. Now I go to a place where I will have a new Lord and serve in a different Army. But in my heart I will always owe my first allegiance to you.” And then he removed the two swords, the katana and the wakizashi, from the belt of his garment, and presented them to Jack.

 

Dappa, van Hoek, Monsieur Arlanc, Padraig, and Vrej Esphahnian each stepped forward to exchange bows with the Samurai. Moseh, Surendranath, and the Shaftoe boys had remained behind in Manila and had already said their good-byes on the banks of the Pasig. Finally Gabriel Goto strode over to the top of the ladder and threw one leg over the gunwale and began to descend, rung by rung, vanishing below the teak horizon. For a moment only his head was visible, his face clenched like a fist, a few stray strands of hair whipping around in the wind. Then it was only his top-knot. Then he was gone.

 

Jack sighed. “We are a Cabal no longer,” he said. “What began on the roof of the banyolar in Algiers has dissolved in this Japanese smugglers’-cove.”

 

“We are all business partners now, and not brothers-in-arms,” said Dappa.

 

“There is no difference to me,” said Vrej Esphahnian, moderately annoyed. “Why should the bonds holding a business partnership together be inferior to those joining brothers-in-arms? For me the venture does not end here—it only begins.”

 

Jack laughed. “A great adventure to other men is a routine thing for an Armenian, it seems.”

 

A different top-knot appeared at the gunwale, and a different Samurai came aboard and exchanged bows with van Hoek. It was obvious from the way he looked around that he had never seen a ship of any size before, to say nothing of sailors with red hair, blue eyes, or black skin. But he kept his composure and carried on with the next phase of the protocol: van Hoek presented him with a single egg of wootz, which had been cleverly boxed and wrapped, with great ceremony, by an ancient Japanese lady in Manila. The Samurai made as great a ceremony of unwrapping it, then handed it off to one of his archers, who had to scamper up the ladder to get it.

 

Van Hoek gave the visitor a tour of Minerva‘s hold, where many more eggs of wootz, and diverse other goods besides, were waiting for inspection. Meanwhile Enoch Root caused his black chest to be lowered into the boat. Then he descended the ladder. In a few minutes he was followed by the Samurai, who’d finished his inspection belowdecks. The Japanese boat cast off its lines, raised a sail, and quickly made its way into a pier, where it was tied up next to a much larger vessel, a sort of cargo-barge that looked as if it might be used for ferrying goods between shore and ship. Under the watchful spyglasses of various men on Minerva, everyone disembarked onto the pier. Enoch was escorted to a sort of warehouse on the shore.

 

Half an hour later the alchemist came out by himself and boarded the boat. Immediately it shoved off and began rowing towards Minerva. At the same time a few score boat-men swarmed over the barge and cast off its mooring-lines, and began laboring with oars and push-poles to move it away from shore.

 

Enoch Root ascended the pilot’s ladder like a young man, though when his face appeared above the rail he had a grave look about him. To van Hoek he said, “I performed every test I know of. More tests than the assayers in New Spain will likely do. I submit to you that the stuff is as pure as any from the mines of Europe.” To Jack the only thing he said was, “It is a very strange country.”

 

“How strange?” Jack asked.

 

Enoch shook his head and answered “Enough to make me understand how strange Christendom is.” Then he retired to his cabin.

 

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