This request provoked another controversy. Captain Oss shook his head violently. The merchants threw up their hands. Barbarian protests deafened Sano; the ship shuddered under hundreds of stamping feet. The captain shouted above his men’s voices.

“He asks you to reconsider,” Iishino said. “They’ve already been attacked by pirates three times this journey, three times. If you confiscate their weapons while they’re outside the harbor and unprotected, you could be sentencing them to death. Let them keep the weapons, and he promises not to use them against Japan.”

Sano’s nausea turned into the even more sickening feeling he knew all too well. In the past, someone had always suffered as a result of his investigations. Guilt welled up inside Sano as he recalled Aoi, in particular. He didn’t like the foxy gleam in Captain Oss’s eyes, or his arrogant posture. This man seemed the quintessential Dutch trader of Japanese myth: rashly adventurous, willing to exploit any situation to increase his own wealth. Sano didn’t trust him. However, he couldn’t endanger innocent human lives, alien though the barbarians seemed.

“You may keep your weapons,” he said.

Iishino reluctantly translated these words, and Sano’s farewells. They climbed down the ladder onto their own pitifully small, inadequately armed barge. As the oarsmen rowed them away, Sano leaned against the cabin. His lungs still thick with the reek of barbarian, he breathed deeply, praying that he wouldn’t be sick and thus betray weakness. He watched the receding Dutch ship and contemplated the enormity of what he’d just done.

Opposite him, Interpreter Iishino drummed his fingers on the railing. “You were very brave out there, sōsakan-sama, very brave. But for your own good, I must tell you that you weren’t firm enough with the barbarians. You shouldn’t have let them keep their guns, and you shouldn’t give them anything. People might get the wrong idea.”

Sano could see the ugly aura of treason tainting his actions. Although he didn’t know how he could have done otherwise, he already regretted the decision. By trying to protect the Dutch, he’d endangered his people by leaving an armed ship full of unruly barbarians off the Nagasaki coast.

To avert the potential threat of attack, he must find Trade Director Jan Spaen, soon.

4

四

The mansion that Governor Nagai had provided for Sano stood at the lower edge of the official district. Hirata, arriving with porters and the two guards who’d escorted him, said, “Leave the baggage at the gate. I’ll take it inside.” Although he was a trained detective with six years’ experience as a police officer, he had nothing else to do. To the guards, he said, “You can go now.”

“Our orders were to stay with you,” the tall, thin one said, opening the gate.