‘All what’s known of ’em is they ’ave no dealin’s with foreigners.’

‘The English Captain needs us to effect a transition, that’s plain, but…’

‘… but give it a year, Chief de Z.: two trading seasons in the bag…’

‘Nice fat profits; an embassy to Edo; Union Jack fluttering on the pole…’

‘Interpreters learnin’ English: sudd’nwise your Dutch workers… well… “Hang on, these Dutch Butterboys’re Prisoners of War!” Why’d they pay us a shillin’ of our back-wages, eh? I’d not, if I was this Penhaligon, but oh, I’d give the Butterboys their free passage right ’nough…’

‘The officers to a gaol in Penang, and you hands, you’d be pressed.’

‘ “Pressed” bein’ English for “enslaved by His Majesty’s Navy”.’

Jacob tests each joint of the reasoning for weaknesses, but there are none. Van Cleef’s lack of written orders, Jacob understands, was his order. ‘Have you spoken about this matter with the other hands, Mr Grote?’

The cook bends his bald, clever head. ‘All mornin’ long, Chief de Z. If you smell this same stinky rat as we do, our vote’s to fold up this Anglo-Dutch Entente, eh, into pretty little squares for use as privy paper.’

Jacon sees two dolphins out in the bay. ‘What’s my “teller” in the Art of Lips, Mr Grote?’

‘My ma’d never forgive me f’corruptin’ a young gent with card-sharkery…’

‘We could play Backgammon, during future Quiet Seasons.’

‘A proper gentl’man’s game is Gammon. I’ll supply the dice…’

Tea is cool lush green in a smooth pale bowl. ‘I’ll never know,’ says Peter Fischer, ‘how you stomach that spinach-water.’ He flexes and rubs his legs, stiff after twenty minutes of sitting on the floor. ‘I wish these people would get around to inventing proper chairs.’ Jacob has little to say to Fischer, who is here to urge the Magistrate to allow trade with the British behind a Dutch veneer. Fischer refuses to countenance any opposition from the hands and officers on Dejima, so Jacob has not yet declared it. Ouwehand gave Jacob permission to act in his name, and Marinus quoted Greek. Interpreters Yonekizu and Kobayashi are consulting one another across the anteroom in anxious mutters, conscious now that Jacob might understand. Officials and inspectors enter and leave the Hall of Sixty Mats. The place smells of beeswax, paper, sandalwood, and, Jacob inhales, fear?

‘Democracy,’ Fischer speaks up, ‘is a quaint diversion for the hands, de Zoet.’

‘If you’re implying,’ Jacob puts down the tea-bowl, ‘that I somehow-’

‘No, no, I admire your cunning: the easiest way to control others is to give them the illusion of free-will. You shan’t, of course,’ Fischer tests the lining of his hat, ‘upset our Yellow friends with talk of presidents, et cetera? Shiroyama shall be expecting to parley with the Deputy-Chief.’

‘You have made up your mind to recommend Penhaligon’s proposal?’

‘One must be a scoundrel and a fool to do otherwise. We disagree on trivial matters, de Zoet, as friends may. But you, I know, are neither scoundrel nor fool.’

‘The entire matter,’ equivocates Jacob, ‘is in your hands, it appears.’

‘Yes.’ Fischer takes Jacob’s compliance at face value. ‘Of course.’

The two men look out over walls and roofs, down to the bay.

‘When the English are here,’ says Fischer, ‘my influence will rise…’

This is counting chickens, thinks Jacob, before the eggs are even laid.

‘… and I will remember old friends and old enemies.’

Chamberlain Tomine passes, his eyes acknowledging Jacob.

He turns left, through a modest door decorated with a chrysanthemum.

‘A face like his,’ observes Fischer, ‘belongs on cathedral gutters.’

A gruff official appears and talks to Kobayashi and Yonekizu.

‘You can understand,’ Fischer asks, ‘what they are saying, de Zoet?’

The register is formal, but Jacob gathers that the Magistrate is unwell. Deputy Fischer is to consult with his highest advisers in the Hall of Sixty Mats. Moments later, Interpreter Kobayashi confirms the message. Fischer pronounces, ‘This is acceptable,’ and tells Jacob, ‘Oriental satraps are figureheads with no idea of political realities. It is better to speak directly with the marionette masters.’

The gruff official adds that, owing to the confusion created by the British warship, one Dutch voice is deemed to be better than two: the head clerk may wait in a quieter area of the Magistracy.

Fischer is doubly pleased. ‘A logical measure. Head Clerk de Zoet,’ he claps the Dutchman’s shoulder, ‘may drink spinach-water to his heart’s content.’

XXXVI The Room of the Last Chrysanthemum at the Magistracy

Hour of the Ox on the Third Day of the Ninth Month

‘Good afternoon, Magistrate.’ De Zoet kneels, bows and with a nod acknowledges Interpreter Iwase, Chamberlain Tomine and the two scribes in the corner.

‘Good afternoon, Acting-Chief,’ replies the Magistrate. ‘Iwase shall join us.’

‘I will need his talents. Your injury is better, Iwase-san?’

‘It was a crack, not a fracture.’ Iwase pats his torso. ‘Thank you.’

De Zoet notices the Go table, where the game with Enomoto waits.

The Magistrate asks the Dutchman, ‘Is this game known in Holland?’

‘No. Interpreter Ogawa taught me the -’ he consults with Iwase ‘- the “rudiments” during my first weeks on Dejima. We intended to continue playing after the trading season… but unfortunate events occurred…’

Doves trill, a peaceful sound on this frightened afternoon.

A gardener rakes the white stones by the bronze pond.

‘It is irregular,’ Shiroyama turns to business, ‘to hold Council in this room, but when every adviser, sage and geomancer in Nagasaki is crowded into the Hall of Sixty Mats, it becomes the Hall of Six Mats and Six Hundred Voices. One cannot think.’

‘Deputy Fischer will be delighted with his audience.’

Shiroyama notes de Zoet’s courteous distancing. ‘First, then,’ he nods at his scribes to begin, ‘the warship’s name, Fîbasu. No interpreter knows the word.’

‘Phoebus is not a Dutch word but a Greek name, Your Honour. Phoebus was the sun-god. His son was Phaeton.’ De Zoet helps the scribes with the strange word. ‘Phaeton boasted about his famous father, but his friends said, “Your mother just claims your father is the sun-god, because she has no real husband.” This made Phaeton unhappy, so his father promised to help his son prove that he was indeed a son of Heaven. Phaeton asked, “Let me drive the Chariot of the Sun across the sky.” ’

De Zoet pauses for the benefit of the scribes.

‘Phoebus tried to change his son’s mind. “The horses are wild,” he said, “and the chariot flies too high. Ask for something else.” But no: Phaeton insisted, and so Phoebus had to agree: a promise is a promise, even in a myth – especially in a myth. So the following dawn, up, up, up the chariot climbed, from the east, driven by the young man. Too late, he regretted his stubbornness. The horses were wild. First, the chariot drove too high, too far, so all the rivers and waterfalls of Earth turned to ice. So Phaeton drove closer to Earth, but too low, and burnt Africa, and burnt black the skins of the Ethiopians and set alight the cities of the ancient world. So in the end the god Zeus, the King of Heaven, had to act.’

‘Scribes: stop.’ Shiroyama asks, ‘This Zeus is not a Christian?’

‘A Greek, Your Honour,’ says Iwase, ‘akin to Ame-no-Minaka-nushi.’

The Magistrate indicates that de Zoet may continue.

‘Zeus shot lightning at the Chariot of the Sun. The chariot exploded and Phaeton fell to earth. He drowned in the River Eridanos. Phaeton’s sisters, the Heliades, wept so much they became trees – in Dutch we call them “poplars” but I do not know whether they grow in Japan. When the sisters were trees, the Heliades wept -’ De Zoet consults with Iwase ‘- amber. This is the origin of amber and the end of the story. Forgive my poor Japanese.’