While reading Shogun the other day, I idly thought about how all mail would come into the same pigeon coop, and how it would be distributed. It was but a short step from there to here...
The story so far: Blackthorne has saved Toranaga from an earthquake and given him his sword, to replace the sword that Toranaga lost. A carrier pigeon has just arrived from Osaka. Now read on...
Toranaga hurried to the pigeon handler, who held the bird out to him. Affixed to it were two silver message cylinders on each leg, and three pink ones. "What are these pink cylinders?" he asked the pigeon handler. "I don't know, so sorry, Toranaga-sama" the man replied, fearfully. Toranaga took a pink cylinder from the bird's leg and opened it. A small strip of paper sat inside it. Toranaga took out the paper and unrolled it, all eyes on it. "What's this?" asked Toranaga. "I don't know what language this is written in". Blackthorne, crowded with all the others in the doorway, caught a glimpse of the paper. "Mariko-san" he said urgently to the girl, "please tell Lord Toranaga that I can read that paper." She spoke rapidly to Toranaga, who looked at Blackthorne, then the paper, then passed the paper to Blackthorne.
"Is your penis too small?" said Blackthorne. Mariko translated, and Toranaga's face suffused with rage. The sword that Blackthorne had given him just hours ago was half out of the scabbard, when Mariko cried "Iye, Toranaga-sama!". He stopped and turned to her. "So sorry, the Anjin-san is reading what is on the paper." "Honto?" he asked her. "Honto" she replied, it is the truth. "Tell the Anjin-san to read all of the scripts" he ordered.
As Blackthorne complied, he listened to Mariko's translation, occasionally interrupting. "What is this Viagra? Ah, our courtesans need no assistance to awaken a man's Peerless Pestle, neh?" "What's that, Anjin-san? This one's in kanji? Here, I'll read that ." "Why would this Nigerian daimyo want to share four million koku with me, that he has stolen from his liege lord?"
At length, Blackthorne finished reading the messages and Toranaga sat for a few minutes in contemplation. "Buntaro-san", he ordered, "take fifty men and go to each of the addresses in these messages - not the ones they were sent from, the ones that the orders must go to. Bring each of these traders in impossible dreams here, along with supplies of whatever it is that each sells." The bullet-headed samurai rushed away, shouting to his lieutenants.
Days later, Buntaro returned, dragging a group of dishevelled and wild-eyed prisoners. Among them was a Japanese. Toranaga pointed at him. "Explain yourself!" he ordered curtly. The man stumbled forward, dropped to his knees, and bowed low, forehead touching the ground. "Oh Lord Toranaga, I am so sorry! I saw the barbarians doing this, and started doing it myself. Before long, I became obsessed by it, sending out my advertising not just with Japanese pigeons but also on barbarian ones, without thinking that the barbarians cannot read our language."
Toranaga nodded to the samurai standing behind the prisoner. He drew his sword and swept down in one fluid movement, the prisoner's head falling to the ground, teeth chattering briefly.
The other prisoners looked on aghast. Toranaga pointed them out one by one and ordered their punishments. The seller of cheap cigarettes and tobacco was hauled to a stake, where he was tied and a pyre of his wares piled around him and set ablaze. The merchant with the penis enlargers had his member pulled out and chopped off, and was then given one of his devices with the curt instruction that he was to enlarge his stump to its original size within twenty-four hours or his head would be next.
The seller of Viagra was next. "How does this work?" asked Toranaga. Sweating and trembling, the Viagra seller, a woman, replied "It diverts the blood from other parts of the body into the penis, thus ensuring an erection which will satisfy your woman." Toranaga considered for a minute.
"Take her over there, cut her arms and legs off so there is nowhere to divert the blood to, give her fifty of the pills and see if she grows a penis. If she doesn't, she's selling faulty goods, neh?" "Hai, Toranaga-sama" barked the samurai he had indicated, and dragged the woman away to her fate.
Blackthorne viewed the scene with detachment. These were merchants, the sort of people he had piloted for and traded with, but he realised that they had spoilt the wa, the peace of the pigeon coop. "Karma, neh, Mariko-san?" he said to the girl at his side. "Hai, Anjin-san, karma" she replied.