"I've been trying to grow accustomed to 'em," Jack allowed, "but it's all for naught. One-handed is how I learned to fight, and it's all I'll ever know. I wear these to honor Goto-san, but when next I venture into some place where I might need to do some defensing, it's the Janissary-sword I'll be wearing."
"Aw, it ain't that hard, Dad," said Jimmy, coming up to shoulder past his brother. "By the time we reach Acapulco we'll have you swingin' that katana like a Samurai." Jimmy patted the hilt of a Japanese sword, and now Jack noticed that Danny was armed in the same manner.
"Been broadening your horizons?"
"Manila is better than the 'varsity," Danny proclaimed, "as long as you remain a step ahead o' that pesky Spanish Inquisition…"
"From the fact that Moseh is still alive, and has all his fingernails, I'm guessing you succeeded there."
"We fulfilled our obligations," Jimmy said hotly. "We took lodgings on the edge of the barangay of the Japanese Christians—"
"—an orderly place—" Danny offered
"Perhaps a bit too orderly," Jimmy said. "But we were hard up against the wicker walls of the sangley neighborhood, which is a perpetual riot, and so whenever the Inquisitors came after us we withdrew into that place for a while, and kept a sharp eye on one another's backs until such time as Moseh could settle the matter."
"I did not appreciate that Moseh had any such influence with the Sons of Torquemada," Jack said.
"Moseh has let it be known, to a few of the Spaniards, what we are planning," said Danny. "Suddenly those Spaniards are our friends."
"They call off the Inquisitor's dogs whenever Moseh lets out a squawk," Jimmy said airily.
"I wonder what their friendship will cost us," Jack said.
"They'd be more expensive as enemies, Dad," Danny said, and in his voice was a confidence that Jack had not felt about anything in about twenty years.
The teak deck was changing color from a weathered iron-gray to a warmer hue, almost as if a fire had been kindled belowdecks and was trying to burn its way through. Jack looked away toward the exit of the bay, and saw the cause: The sun, now a hand's breath above the horizon, had bored a hole through the miasma of vapor over the bay. Wisps and banks that still lurked in pockets of shade and stagnant coves round the foundations of the arsenal were fleeing from its sudden heat like smoke driven before a gust. For all that, the air was still. But a faint rumble prompted Jack to turn around and look east. Manila stood out in the clear now, her walls and bastions glowing in the sunlight as if they had been hewn out of amber and lit from behind by fire. The mountains behind the city were visible, which was a rare event. By comparison with them, the highest works of the Spaniards were low and flat as paving-stones. But those mountains in turn were humbled by phantasmic interlocking cloud-formations that were incarnating themselves in the limitless skies above, somewhat as if the personages and beasts of the Constellations had become fed up with being depicted in scatterings of faint stars, and had decided to come down out of the cosmos and clothe themselves in the stuff of typhoons. But they seemed to be having a dispute as to which would claim the most gorgeous and brilliant vapors, and the argument showed every sign of becoming a violent one. No lightning had struck the ground yet, and the cataracts of rain shed by some clouds were swallowed by others before they descended to the plane of the mountain-tops.
Jack altered his focus to the yards of Minerva, which compared to all of this were like broom-straws tangled together in a gutter. The men of the current watch were quietly making ready to be hit. Below, the head men of what had formerly been the Cabal had emerged from van Hoek's cabin and were moving forward. Some of them, such as Dappa and Monsieur Arlanc, had gone to the trouble of changing into gentlemanly clothes: breeches, hose, and leather shoes had been broken out of foot-lockers. Vrej Esphahnian and van Hoek were wearing actual periwigs and tri-cornered hats.
Van Hoek stopped just in front of the mainmast, at the edge of the quarterdeck, which loomed above the broadest part of the upperdeck like a balcony over a plaza. Most of the ship's complement had gathered there, and those who couldn't find room, or who were too short to see over their fellows' heads, had ascended to the forecastledeck whence they could look aft and meet van Hoek's eye from the same level. The sailors had grouped themselves according to color so that they could hear translations: the largest two groups were the Malabaris and the Filipinos, but there were Malays, Chinese, several Africans from Mozambique by way of Goa, and a few Gujaratis. Several of the ship's officers were Dutchmen who had come out with Jan Vroom. To look after the cannons they had rounded up a French, a Bavarian, and a Venetian artilleryman from the rabble of mercenaries that hung around Shahjahanabad. Finally there were the surviving members of the Cabal: van Hoek, Dappa, Monsieur Arlanc, Padraig Tallow, Jack Shaftoe, Moseh de la Cruz, Vrej Esphahnian, and Surendranath. When Jimmy and Danny Shaftoe were added, the number came to a hundred and five. Of these, some twenty were active in the rigging, readying the ship for weather.
Jack ascended the stairs to the quarterdeck and took up a position behind van Hoek, among the other share-holders. As he turned round to look out over the upperdeck—facing in the general direction of Manila—one of those constellation-gods in the sky above the city, furious because he had ended up in possession of nothing more than a few shredded rags of dim gray-indigo stuff, flung a thunderbolt horizontally into the mid-section of a rival, who was dressed in incandescent coral and green satin. The distance between them must have been twenty miles. It seemed as if a sudden crack had spanned a quarter of Heaven's vault, allowing infinitely more brilliant light to shine through it, for an instant, from some extremely well-illuminated realm beyond the known universe. It was just as well that the crew were facing the other way—though some of them noticed startled expressions on the faces of the worthies on the quarterdeck, and swiveled their heads to see what was the matter. They saw nothing except a blade of rain sinking into the black jungle beyond Manila.
"It must have been Yevgeny, throwing a cœlestial Harpoon, to remind van Hoek that brevity is a virtue," Jack said, and those who had known Yevgeny chuckled nervously.
"We have lived through another voyage," van Hoek announced, "and if this were a Christian ship I would take my hat off and say a prayer of thanksgiving. But as it is a ship of no one particular faith, I shall keep my hat on until I can say my prayers alone later. Go you all to your temples, pagodas, shrines, and churches in Manila this night and do likewise."
There was a general muttering of assent as this was translated. Minerva had no fewer than three cooks, and three completely different sets of pots. The only group who did not have their own were the Christians, who, when it came to food, would balk at nothing.
"Never again will this group of men be all together in one place," said van Hoek. "Enoch Root has already bid us farewell. Within a fortnight Surendranath and some of you Malabaris will set sail for Queena-Kootah on the brig Kottakkal so that the rightful share of our profits may be conveyed to the Queen of the same name. In time Padraig will join them. He, Surendranath, and Mr. Foot will pursue happiness in the South Seas while the rest of us journey onwards. You sailors will disperse into Manila tonight. Some of you will return to this ship in one month's time to prepare on our great voyage. Others will think better of it."
Van Hoek now yanked out his cutlass and aimed it at the titanic ship that was being finished before the arsenal of Cavite. "Behold!" he proclaimed. All heads turned toward the mountainous galleon, but only for a moment; then attention turned to the weather. A wind had finally been summoned up, and it came from the east but showed signs of swinging round to the north. But the watch had a sail ready on the maintop, and they raised it now and let the wind bite into it, and trimmed it so as to bring Minerva about and convey her toward deeper waters in the center of the bay.