“Sensei would say, ‘So don’t make a mistake.’ But all right. If Father doesn’t forbid it. Remember, all I can teach you on shipboard is the hold and the draw. There isn’t room for an archery range, even on this monster of a ship.
“And, let me see, what should your part of the wager be? I know—you must personally embroider a kimono for me. With a design of my choosing.” He knew that Chiyo hated embroidering anything. “Still want that wager, Chyio-chan?”
“Yes!”
They both bowed, and then began circling each other. Occasionally, one or the other would attack, but these were mere testing moves, without full commitment, and each was sidestepped or parried. Gradually, the attacks increased in frequency and intensity. Victory would go to whoever had come closest to mastering the principles of Budo: distance, awareness, balance and focus.
“I am going to become a Christian,” she commented.
He parried her attack anyway, and gave her a quick grin. “I always thought you were a Christian sympathizer.”
They exchanged a few more blows.
“Will they still baptize me if I’m pregnant?”
He jerked involuntarily.
“Hiai!” She struck him in the shin, and he tottered. Her next blow took him down.
She looked down at him. “So when’s my first archery lesson?”
He looked back up at her. “You aren’t really pregnant, are you? Because if you are—”
“I didn’t say I was. I simply asked a question. And you made a completely unwarranted assumption. I would be offended, but of course you have already prostrated yourself before me, and so I must accept your apology.”
Near Vancouver Island
The sky had been overcast for a week. Worse, Ieyasu Maru now had to inch its way through a fog bank, its leadsman calling out the depths every few minutes. Fortunately, they were clearly still in deep water, but Haruno had no desire to be wrecked in the middle of nowhere. Or anywhere else, for that matter.
Suddenly, the ship emerged into full sunlight, its crew blinking their eyes in reaction. As they continued heading east, by the compass, they became aware of changes in their environment. The water had changed color, becoming greener. And they were seeing birds they had never seen before.
Haruno and Tokubei conferred. Could they be nearing the North American coast at long last? Haruno announced a prize for whoever spotted land first.
Before long, land was indeed sighted. At least, there was a long smudge, which the lookout insisted must be the mainland, ahead of them in the east. But more importantly, there appeared to be an island perhaps ten miles away, off the starboard bow.
The wind remained steady, coming from west-northwest. As they continued on their course, the island rose above the horizon. The scenery ahead, however, didn’t change noticeably; if there was land in that direction, it was still very far away.
At noon, both Haruno and Tokubei shot the sun. It appeared that they were farther north than they had intended to be, perhaps fifty-one degrees north. If so, then instead of striking the middle of Vancouver Island, they were north of it, in Queen Charlotte Sound. And that suggested that the island they had spotted was one of a small chain of islands, northwest of and leading toward Vancouver Island, that had gone unnamed on their map of British Columbia.
They decided to make for the island, and then use the chain as a guideline. Their map had only shown two islands, but in fact there were five. As they passed to the south of the last little island, they could clearly see Vancouver Island, stretching southeast as far as they could see. Their map referred to the near tip as Cape Scott; they could see that this was one end of a short north-south ridge. This ridge was connected to the rest of Vancouver Island by a rather low-lying isthmus.
Their first destination was Quatsino Sound. The Japanese, when they seized the Portuguese “Japan Fleet” in Nagasaki Harbor, had found a Portuguese copy of the up-time Hammond Citation World Atlas. If the captured copy was correct, there was an iron deposit somewhere on the south shore of the inlet.
The kirishitan on board the Ieyasu Maru came from many places in Japan, but they had one thing in common: prospecting or mining experience. The Ieyasu Maru even had on board a mining engineer, Iwakashu. And iron was an ore that was in short supply in Nippon.
But they were not fated to reach the Quatsino Sound that day.
“Captain, a wreck!” yelled a crewman. “And it looks like a junk!” He was pointed to the isthmus; the wreck was lying amid sand dunes. The mast was missing, but the ship had a distinctive hull shape that was decidedly non-European.
There was a mass movement to the starboard rail. No one could see any people, Japanese or native, besides the wreckage or nearby.