The wreck of the Erasmus

Blackthorne stands in the shallows at Yokohama before the charred ribs of the Erasmus. Naga reports a night storm, fifty-eight seppuku and a hundred heads on spears behind the dunes. Vinck, raving that they are marooned "with these piss eaters", waves a pistol, runs down the beach and dies of his own terror; Blackthorne buries him under a driftwood cross. Toranaga rides in with Buntaro, Omi and Alvito, having paid Prince Ogaki to delay the Emperor: "I sacrificed my queen but Ishido's lost two castles." He looses the Anjin-san on Tsukku-san with leave to kill. He tells Buntaro that Mariko was divorced from him at Anjiro, and never lay with the Anjin-san. Privately Toranaga admits the fire was an Act of Toranaga, a gift to Kiyama. At dawn Mariko's Latin letter tells Blackthorne to build another ship. "The Lady will be her name."

The wreck chapter, and the long reveal. Toranaga's interior confession that the fire was an Act of Toranaga is placed deliberately before Mariko's letter, so the reader knows the truth while Blackthorne rebuilds his hope. The divorce told to Buntaro settles the affair as a secret kept.