Arturo Serrano - To Climates Unknown - An Alternate History of a World Without America

“Your Majesty is right. I have seen the imperial capitals in Spain and Italy. I also traveled twice across Mexico and both of its oceans.”

“How? Japan has no ships capable of such distances.”

“I bought passage on Portuguese ships for my mission.”

The king gave the barest nod. “Why did you go so far?”

“It is the wish of the Shōgun to settle terms of trade with Spain. Following his orders, Lord Masamune of Sendai sent me to speak with their king, whose name is Felipe.”

The king took a mental note of the expert way Tsunenaga had pronounced the name. It could mean that he’d had to learn Spanish to better perform his duties, but the king left that unremarked. “Did you succeed?”

“Unfortunately, my task was fruitless, Your Majesty.”

“Why?”

Tsunenaga was starting to feel a rising apprehension about where Shō Nei was going with his inquiry. His was a weak kingdom, which had been crushingly subdued by the Shōgun. Tsunenaga couldn’t imagine how his information could be of use to a former enemy who by now was all but finished, but as long as he was in his present state of absolute need for that man’s assistance, he saw no other option but to cooperate. “The king of Spain has been sending us priests of the Roman religion. He is not pleased with the fact that most Japanese are not following his wish that they convert.” The rest of the truth was that the Japanese government had begun to mistreat the missionaries in grievous ways, which Spanish spies had faithfully relayed to Madrid. But Tsunenaga would never speak ill of his government, even to someone on whose goodwill his fate hinged. There was, however, one key piece of information he had inadvertently let slip, due to a quirk of Japanese that served to mark the speaker’s allegiance to a group. When referring to those in Japan who had refused to convert, he had employed the verbal form corresponding to an out-group, which meant he didn’t count himself among them.

“You failed your lord. Why are you so eager to meet him? In your place, I would have stayed half a world away from his hand.”

“I have duties as a samurai. I have to recount what I saw and heard during my travels.”

“What you have to say must be more valuable than your titles and lands.”

“It is so, Your Majesty.” Tsunenaga’s insides coiled into a knot as he glimpsed the dangerous question he was in all likelihood going to be forced to answer.

“What news are you bringing to your lord?”

His mouth opened by its own will, rushing to disguise how laboriously he was trying to craft a version of the truth. “Your Majesty would grow weary of an enumeration of cities, officers, castles and ships.”

Ignoring the decoy, Shō Nei pursued. “Such vastness. This king Felipe must be immensely rich.”

“Very much so, Your Majesty.”

“Why does he send priests instead of merchants?”

“He does send merchants, but he cares more for his priests.”

The king grunted. “No one becomes very rich by neglecting trade. Are you sure you learned anything of value in Spain?”

He hurried to save his reputation, “I fulfilled my mission. I obtained an audience with king Felipe, and the message I carry are the words from his very mouth, with his reasons for rejecting our proposal,” and thus did he make his second mistake.

“Oh? Do tell.”

Saying no more would have been a mistake too, but his situation let him see no farther than his own life or death. Trembling at both the gravity of what he was revealing and the overpowering will that demanded to hear it, he gave his report. “The king of Spain demands that his priests be given full freedom to preach before he agrees to discuss any terms of trade. That includes giving up all the temples that the priests of Rome took from the priests of Shintō, and that the Shōgun ordered to seize back.”

“Those demands have no hope of being accepted. You’re foolishly going to the trouble of crossing the sea to bother your lord with empty words.”

Tsunenaga shook his head. “The king of Spain owns half the world. You know he rules over Manila, but the vast continent I had to cross before reaching his capital also belongs to him. In all his possessions I found temples of the Roman church, with countless followers. If Your Majesty has doubts of his intentions, it is only because Your Majesty has not visited the lands under his power. The kingdom of Spain places great importance on the dissemination of their faith, and they have become exceedingly effective at it.”

Shō Nei looked at him with contempt. “You’re letting yourself be played as a piece in Felipe’s game. Surely you remember the executions in Nagasaki.”

Tsunenaga lowered his gaze. He knew well about that incident. A couple of decades earlier, a Spanish galleon bound for Acapulco had shipwrecked in Shikoku, and during his interrogation he had boasted of the prowess of his homeland. In response, the Shōgun had ordered dozens of converts to be crucified. Far from discouraging Christianity in Japan, the sentencing had turned them into revered martyrs.

“I may be but a vassal king, but I still have my informers. I heard what that captain told the lord of Shikoku. It was an imprudent misstep on his part, but it does explain much of what is happening in Japan. He said there is an invasion plan underway. Priests are actually the first line in a meticulous, large-scale offensive. The conquest plan is always the same: wherever the king of Spain has sent priests, he’s not long in sending soldiers. And Japan already has priests.”

“The priests came years ago, Your Majesty. In all this time, Spain has sent no armies to Japan.”

“But when you see your lord, you will give him an enumeration of cities, officers, castles and ships. You may not intend it so, but what he will gather from your report is not mere news, but a warning. And when he reports to the Shōgun, the result will be the banning of Christianity and the expulsion of all priests from Japan.”

Tsunenaga nodded reluctantly. “It is true that he might decide to do that.”

“But you would not be the one to make the suggestion.”

Tsunenaga found no words to say to that, and the king’s eyes showed the satisfaction of a correct conclusion. “You are a loyal emissary of your lord. You don’t wish to see your country enslaved by foreigners. But at some point in your journey, the Spanish religion seduced you. You joined them. And now you’re loyal to their god, too.”

“I am aware of my duties.”

The king considered the troubled man sitting in front of him and said, “In their way from Manila to the larger islands of Japan, a few of those priests have stopped by my realm. They have spoken to my people. I have let them build temples where they gather and worship their Heavenly Lord. I even asked one of them to come to my palace and explain his religion to me. He spoke a pitiful Japanese, but I listened.” That account brought light to Tsunenaga’s eyes, and the king hastened to quench his hopes. “You should not imagine that I became a Christian. The doctrine they bring is a strange and at times heartless one. To be born only once, to be allowed to err only once in all eternity—that is a teaching I cannot accept. I suppose that is why Europeans want to get everything done at once: they fear they shall not have another chance.” Seeing that his guest remained silent, he went on, “I wonder what about that religion lured you.”

The ambassador himself didn’t fully understand the nuances of Catholic theology, and he wished he’d had more time in Europe to learn Latin properly and read the commentaries by the Fathers of the Church, but one thing his confessor had made very clear to him was how the apostles had been fearless in giving witness before the temporal powers, even before the perverted Caesars of Rome. Looking directly at Shō Nei’s eyes for the first time, he said, very calmly, “I have sworn my soul over to the Son of the Heavenly Lord. I don’t pretend to know his mind, but I do trust his all-encompassing forgiveness.”