On Mare Germanicum there was only one other ship the Lord of the Seven Seas was friendly with: the Jolly Roger. Captain Jas. Hook usually sailed the Jolly Roger in the waters around Albion, Caledonia, and Hibernia, but by no means was that always the case. For his home port the island of Neverland didn’t stick to just one sea, but floated where it pleased. And it has now drifted through the Danish straits, past the island of Fehmarn, to within a day of Bornholm on the glass-like Mare Balticum.
The two ships the Jolly Roger and the Lord of the Seven Seas have made contact, and are now paying and receiving a social visit. Wilhelmina Wang, a princess of Chang’an, is teaching Mr. Smee, a bos’un of Hibernia, how-to-press-the-pressure-points and how-to-make-oneself-light-in-fight, two subtleties of the Cathayan martial arts.
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“Tell me about the Cathayans,” requested Emil Hering of his sailing companion on the Undine.
Janosch A. Prufrock looked at the boy to see just what he wanted to know, and then looked into the spray and the endless waters to think about just what he wanted to tell.
“The Cathayans we know, or Cathayans in general?” asked Janosch A. Prufrock.
“Both. Please.”
“When we were in the kurpark, and intercepted that poor victim with a flying dagger in his throat. Do you remember that strange looking character embossed on the handle of the dagger?”
“Yes.” Emil remembered it very well. There was not much about the night he could forget. It looked like this 忍.
“The word is ren. It is made of two parts. 刃, which means the sharpest part of a weapon, over 心, which means a human heart. Together, it means to bear, to accept, to tolerate, even the worst, most difficult of circumstances and hardships. The word in the related Yaponese language for ninja is one who rens. A ninja is a person who can bear anything, everything. Even when the sharpest part of a weapon is over one’s own heart, one can, one must still bear it.”
Janosch A. Prufrock felt in his hand the balance of his own steel rapier, now drawn from its hidden sheath, his walking stick, and flicked the tip from the flung-up spray to spray, showing astounding control and mastery over his weapon.
He continued, “It is said that the legendary Li House of Flying Daggers has embossed on its dagger handles the character ren 忍. But it is not known for certain, for those who have seen the daggers, are dead. It is said, by those who have not seen it, that the flying daggers of the House of Li do not miss.”
“Do you think the dagger we saw belonged to this house?”
“Anyone can hire a swordsmith to emboss some letters on steel,” spoke Prufrock lightly and uncommittally.
Emil Hering’s forehead furrowed as he thought about this. His thoughts went places he did not want them to go.
“Another concept to understand if you want to understand Cathayans, and their close neighbors other East Asians, besides to bear hardship under any circumstances, is to eat bitterness 吃苦. The two are related. To eat bitterness means to take the hardest things inside. It means to work astoundingly hard, to accept pain, in the service of a goal. There is no entitlement to success in the culture. Herculean, bitter labor is to be expected and borne.”
“To endure, and to eat bitterness,” Emil said softly to himself.
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“Tell me about Emil Hering,” asked Wilhelmina Wang of Mr. Smee once she had found out from the jolly bos’un that Emil is a frequent visitor of the floating island Neverland.
If one could have a pet of a pirate, it would be Mr. Smee, who didn’t have the bloodthirst common in his profession, but only the love of treasure. He’s slayed aplenty, and will aplenty more, but only in the course of his job. He had finally stopped giggling from all the pressure-point pressing Wilhelmina was teaching him. Because he’s so blubbery, the pressure-point demonstration didn’t have quite the effect on him as she had expected. With each giggle and tickled reflex, he retreated and squirmed out of her pressure-pressing, and evaded her meridian-point control with greater effect than a master martial artist even could.
“Well, now, Emil comes around to talk to the meer-maids, of course, same as Peter Pan. The meer-maids are awfully snooty. They won’t talk to us seamen, but they’ll flip their tails and offer their wreathes to the boys. They’ll bat their eyelashes and invite them for swims. Peter Pan claims it is because he is a wonderful boy. Emil’s more serious, and doesn’t declaim that or other, though the Capt’n says he has good form, same as Peter. Peter likes to fly of course, and naturally Emil cannot. But he’ll swim with the meer-maids, and disappear under the water for hours at a time. I don’t know how he breathes, but I suspect he has a trick. And soon as I get that from him, ho ho!”