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“SHOGUN” © 2003. Okihei Enterprise, Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Tribute to Richard Chamberlain |
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| The only light there is filters down through
the boards and beams that make up the walls and low ceilings.
The murky, suffocating room is fifty paces long and ten wide -- and packed with prisoners in loin cloths. A beam runs lengthwise along the earthen floor, partitioning the room into two sections each section with three rows of men, two rows facing each other, their backs to the wall of beam, the other row between them. Blackthorne has to fight to control his terror
and claustrophobia.
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| In nominae Patris et Filii Spiritus Sancti.
Blackthorne turns. not believing what he is hearing. Friar Domingo:"Mother of God, art thou real?" Blackthorne:"Yes. Who are you?" Friar Domingo:"Oh, Blessed Virgin. the senor is real. Who art thou? I'm Friar Domingo of the Sacred Order of St. Francis My prayers have been answered. Thou -- I thought I was seeing another apparition, senor, a ghost.. Yes, an evil spirit. I've seen so. many -- so many. How long is, the senor here? It's hard for a body to see in the gloom and my eyes, they're not good. How long?" Blackthorne:"Yesterday. And you?" Friar Domingo:"I don't know, senor. A long time. I was put here in September it was in the year of our Lord fifteen hundred ninety-eight". Blackthorne:"It's May now. Sixteen hundred". |
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| Friar Domingo:"One of my flock said the senor
is a pilot --
an 'anjin.' Is this so?" Blackthorne:"Yes". Friar Domingo:"Then are there others of the senor's crew here?" Blackthorne:"No, I'm alone". Friar Domingo:"Jesuits put me here, my son Jesuits and cheir filthy lies. The senor said he has never been to Asia before? Blackthorne:"This is my first time". Friar Domingo:"Then the senor will be like a child in the wilderness. Yes, there's so much to tell. Does the senor know that Jesuits are merely traders, gun runners and usurers? Yes and the Black Ship is worth a million in gold to them every year". Blackthorne:"The Black Ship? What is the Black Ship?" Friar Domingo:"Senor, is why the cursed Jesuits are here. They control all the silk trade -- all the trade with China. Selling the silk in Japan alone is worth a fortune to them. And once a year the Black Ship carries their ungodly profits back to Europe to fill their filthy coffers ever more". |
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| Friar Domingo:"Forty years I've been away
from Spain, senor.
Forty years I have been gone and I was on my way home when it happened. Our ship was the great galleon San Felipe. We were carrying a cargo of spices and gold and silver to the value of a million and a half pesos when one of the great storms took us and cast us onto the shores of Shikoku. Our ship broke her back on the sand bar -- on the third day -- by that time we had landed our bullion and mast of our cargo. Then the word came that everything was confiscated, confiscated by the Taiko himself, that we were pirates and... The door swings open and the official steps
into the doorway,
Daiku no Yotaro!
Blackthorne:"What's going to happen to him?"
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