Like most of his fellow Japanese, he had no experience of the outside world. He instinctively distrusted and feared foreigners—especially the white barbarians, subject of much hearsay: The Dutch were monstrous giants who stank of the cow’s milk they drank; they had huge, round eyes like a dog’s, and wore high-heeled shoes because the backs of their doglike feet didn’t touch the ground; they worshipped wealth, and would kill for it. None of this had bothered Sano when he’d imagined interrogating a mere two Dutchmen on Deshima, but soon he must face hundreds aboard a merchant ship, with only a small squadron of guards as backup.

“Sōsakan-sama, sōsakan-sama!” Chief Interpreter Iishino hurried up to him. “Why don’t you sit in the cabin? It’s more comfortable in there, much more comfortable.”

“I want fresh air,” Sano said, fighting nausea.

“But the sun, the sun will make you too hot.”

Interpreter Iishino was near Sano’s own age of thirty-one. He had a large head on a scrawny body, his face tapering from a broad brow to a pointed chin. Wide-open eyes gave him a perpetually alert expression, and he wore an ingratiating smile full of big, healthy teeth. Yet his most prominent feature was his restlessness. When he moved, as he did now, seeking a cool place for Sano to stand, he bustled. After he’d ushered Sano into the shadow of the barge’s cabin, his sandaled feet tapped the deck; his fingers fiddled with his swords and drummed the cabin wall. Sano could almost hear a buzz of nervous energy coming from Iishino. Now he desperately missed Hirata’s calming presence.

“There, isn’t this better?” Interpreter Iishino smiled into Sano’s face, anxiously seeking approval.

“Yes, thank you,” Sano said. Ashamed of his irritation, and even more irritated with Iishino for shaming him, he resigned himself to the interpreter’s company. Perhaps Iishino could supplement his knowledge of the Dutch.

From the old scrolls, he knew they came from a small European nation located on marshy lowlands whose barrenness drove them to sea in search of food and supplies. For generations they’d traded with France, Germany, Norway, Poland, the Mediterranean, and the Ottoman Empire, but they hadn’t stopped with the western hemisphere. Merchants had formed the United East India Company, a private concern that held a monopoly on the lucrative spice trade. During the eighty-some years of its existence, the company had made a fortune by selling nutmeg and mace from the Banda Islands, pepper from Java and Sumatra, cinnamon from Ceylon, cloves from the Moluccas. The company maintained a permanent force of twelve thousand men in the East Indies and sent twenty ships there each year. Eighty-nine years ago, the merchants had reached Japan. Because they’d consented to trade without trying to spread Christianity, they’d supplanted the Portuguese. Now they were the only white barbarians allowed in the country.