“Yes. And about the Holy Church– and the barbarian. And about the barbarian ship. First tell me about him.”
   “He’s a unique man, very strong and very intelligent. At sea he’s … he belongs there. He seems to become part of a ship and the sea, and, out to sea, there’s no man who can approach him in bravery and cunning.”
   “Even the Rodrigues-san?”
   “The Anjin-san overcame him twice. Once here and once on our way to Yedo.” She told him about Rodrigues arriving in the night during their stay near Mishima and about the concealed weapons and all that she had overheard. “If their ships were equal, the Anjin-san would win. Even if they were not, I think he’d win.”
   “Tell me about his ship.”
   She obeyed.
   “Tell me about his vassals.”
   She told him as it had happened.
   “Why would Lord Toranaga give him his ship, money, vassals, and freedom?”
   “My Master never told me, Sire.”
   “Please give me your opinion.”
   “So that he can loose the Anjin-san against his enemies,” Mariko said at once, then added without apology, “Since you ask me, in this case the Anjin-san’s particular enemies are the same as my Lord’s: the Portuguese, the Holy Fathers prompting the Portuguese, and the Lords Harima, Onoshi, and yourself, Sire.”
   “Why should the Anjin-san consider us his special enemies?”
   “Nagasaki, trade, and your coastal control of Kyushu, Sire. And because you are the chief Catholic daimyos.”
   “The Church isn’t Lord Toranaga’s enemy. Nor the Holy Fathers.”
   “So sorry, but I think Lord Toranaga believes the Holy Fathers support the Lord General Ishido, as you do.”
   “I support the Heir. I’m against your Master because he does not and he will ruin our Church.”
   “I’m sorry, but that’s not true. Sire, my Master’s so superior to the Lord General. You’ve fought twenty more times as his ally than against him, you know he can be trusted. Why side with his avowed enemy? Lord Toranaga’s always wanted trade, and he’s simply not anti-Christian like the Lord General and the Lady Ochiba.”
   “Please excuse me, Mariko-san, but before God, I believe Lord Toranaga secretly detests our Christian Faith, secretly loathes our Church, and secretly is committed to destroying the succession and obliterating the Heir and the Lady Ochiba. His lodestone is the Shōgunate—only that! He secretly wants to be Shōgun, is planning to become Shōgun, and everything is pointed to that sole end.”
   “Before God, Sire, I do not believe it.”
   “I know—but that doesn’t make you right.” He watched her a moment, then said, “By your own admission this Anjin-san and his ship are very dangerous to the Church, neh? The Rodrigues agrees with you that if the Anjin-san caught the Black Ship at sea it would be very bad.”
   “Yes, I believe that too, Sire.”
   “That would hurt our Mother Church very much, neh?”
   “Yes.”
   “But you still won’t help the Church against this man?”
   “He is not against the Church, Sire, not really against the Fathers, though he distrusts them. He’s only against the enemies of his Queen. And the Black Ship is his goal—for profit.”
   “But he opposes the True Faith and is therefore a heretic. Neh?”
   “Yes. But I don’t believe everything we’ve been told by the Fathers is true. And much has never been told to us. Tsukku-san admitted many things. My liege Lord ordered me to become the Anjin-san’s confidant and friend, to teach him our language and customs, to learn from him what could be of value to us. And I’ve found—”
   “You mean valuable to Toranaga. Neh?”
   “Sire, obedience to a liege lord is the pinnacle of a samurai’s life. Isn’t obedience what you require from all your vassals?”
   “Yes. But heresy is terrible and it seems you are allied with the barbarian against your Church and infected by him. I pray God will open your eyes, Mariko-san, before you lose your own salvation. Now, last, the Father-Visitor said you have some private information for me.”
   “Sire?” This was completely unexpected.
   “He said there was a message from the Tsukku-san a few days ago. A special messenger from Yedo. You have some information about—about my allies.”
   “I asked to see the Father-Visitor tomorrow morning.”
   “Yes. He told me. Well?”
   “Please excuse me, after I’ve seen him tomorrow, I—”
   “Not tomorrow, now! The Father-Visitor said it had to do with Lord Onoshi and concerned the Church and you were to tell me at once. Before God that’s what he said. Have things come to such a filthy pass that you won’t even trust me?”
   “So sorry. I made an agreement with the Tsukku-san. He asked me to speak openly to the Father-Visitor, that’s all, Sire.”
   “The Father-Visitor said you were to tell me now.”
   Mariko realized she had no alternative. The die was cast. She told him about the plot against his life. All that she knew. He, too, scoffed at the rumor until she told him exactly where the information had come from.
   “His confessor? Him?”
   “Yes. So sorry.”
   “I regret Uraga’s dead,” Kiyama said, even more mortified that the night attack on the Anjin-san had been such a fiasco—as the other ambush had been—and now had killed the one man who could prove his enemy Onoshi was a traitor. “Uraga will burn in hellfire forever for that sacrilege. Terrible what he did. He deserves excommunication and hellfire, but even so, he did me a service by telling it—if it’s true.” Kiyama looked at her, an old man suddenly. “I can’t believe Onoshi would do that. Or that Lord Harima would be a party to it.”
   “Yes. Could you—could you ask Lord Harima if it’s true?”
   “Yes, but he’d never reveal something like that. I wouldn’t, would you? So sad, neh? So terrible are the ways of man.”
   “Yes.”
   “I will not believe it, Mariko-san. Uraga’s dead so we can never get proof. I will take precautions but … but I cannot believe it.”
   “Yes. One thought, Sire. Isn’t it very strange, the Lord General putting a guard on the Anjin-san?”
   “Why strange?”
   “Why protect him? When he detests him? Very strange, neh? Could it be that now the Lord General also sees the Anjin-san as a possible weapon against the Catholic daimyos?”
   “I don’t follow you.”
   “If, God forbid, you died, Sire, Lord Onoshi becomes supreme in Kyushu, neh? What could the Lord General do to curb Onoshi? Nothing—except, perhaps, use the Anjin-san.”
   “It’s possible,” Kiyama said slowly.
   “There’s only one reason to protect the Anjin-san—to use him. Where? Only against the Portuguese—and thus the Kyushu Christian daimyos. Neh?”
   “It’s possible.”
   “I believe the Anjin-san’s as valuable to you as to Onoshi or Ishido or my Master. Alive. His knowledge is enormous. Only knowledge can protect us from barbarians, even Portuguese.”
   Kiyama said scornfully, “We can crush them, expel them any time we like. They’re gnats on a horse, nothing more.”
   “If the Holy Mother Church conquers and all the land becomes Christian as we pray it will, what then? Will our laws survive? Will bushido survive? Against the Commandments? I suggest it won’t—like elsewhere in the Catholic world—not when the Holy Fathers are supreme, not unless we are prepared.”
   He did not answer her.
   Then she said, “Sire, I beg you, ask the Anjin-san what has happened elsewhere in the world.”
   “I will not. I think he’s bewitched you, Mariko-san. I believe the Holy Fathers. I think your Anjin-san is taught by Satan, and I beg you to realize his heresy has already infected you. Three times you used ‘Catholic’ when you meant Christian. Doesn’t that imply you agree with him there are two Faiths, two equally true versions of the True Faith? Isn’t your threat tonight a knife in the belly of the Heir? And against the interests of the Church?” He got up. “Thank you for your information. Go with God.”
   Mariko took a small, thin, sealed scroll of paper from her sleeve. “Lord Toranaga asked me to give you this.”
   Kiyama looked at the unbroken seal. “Do you know what’s in it, Mariko-san?”
   “Yes. I was ordered to destroy it and pass on the message verbally if I was intercepted.”
   Kiyama broke the seal. The message reiterated Toranaga’s wish for peace between them, his complete support of the Heir and the succession, and briefly gave the information about Onoshi. It ended, “I don’t have proof about Lord Onoshi but Uraga-noh-Tadamasa will have that and, deliberately, he has been made available to you in Osaka for questioning if you wish. However I do have proof that Ishido has also betrayed the secret agreement between you and him giving the Kwanto to your descendants, once I am dead. The Kwanto has been secretly promised to my brother, Zataki, in return for betraying me, as he has already done. Please excuse me, old comrade, but you have been betrayed too. Once I am dead, you and your line will be isolated and destroyed, as will the whole Christian Church. I beg you to reconsider. Soon you will have proof of my sincerity.”
   Kiyama reread the message and she watched him as she had been ordered. ‘Watch him so carefully, Mariko-san,’ Toranaga had told her. ‘I’m not sure of his agreement with Ishido about the Kwanto. Spies have reported it but I’m not sure. You’ll know from what he does—or doesn’t do—if you give him the message at the right time.’ She had seen Kiyama react. So that’s also true, she thought.
   The old daimyo looked up and said flatly, “And you are the proof of his sincerity, neh? The burnt offering, the sacrificial lamb?”
   “No, Sire.”
   “I don’t believe you. And I don’t believe him. The Onoshi treason, perhaps. But the rest … Lord Toranaga’s just up to his old tricks of mixing half-truths and honey and poison. I’m afraid it’s you who’ve been betrayed, Mariko-san.”

Chapter 54

   “We’ll leave at noon.”
   “No, Mariko-san.” Lady Sazuko was almost in tears.
   “Yes,” Kiri said. “Yes, we’ll leave as you say.”
   “But they’ll stop us,” the young girl burst out. “It’s all so useless.”
   “No,” Mariko told her, “you’re wrong, Sazuko-chan, it’s very necessary.”
   Kiri said, “Mariko-san’s right. We have orders.” She suggested details of their leaving. “We could easily be ready by dawn if you want.”
   “Noon is when we should leave. That’s what he said, Kiri-chan,” Mariko replied.
   “We’ll need very few things, neh?”
   “Yes.”
   Sazuko said, “Very few! So sorry, but it’s all so silly, they’ll stop us!”
   “Perhaps they won’t, child,” Kiri said. “Mariko says they’ll let us go. Lord Toranaga thinks they’ll let us go. So presume that they will. Go and rest. Go on. I must talk to Mariko-san.”
   The girl went away, greatly troubled.
   Kiri folded her hands. “Yes, Mariko-san?”
   “I’m sending a cipher by carrier pigeon telling Lord Toranaga what happened tonight. It will go at first light. Ishido’s men will certainly try to destroy the rest of my carrier birds tomorrow if there’s trouble and I can’t bring them here. Is there any message you want to send at once?”
   “Yes. I’ll write it now. What do you think’s going to happen?”
   “Lord Toranaga’s sure they’ll let us go, if I’m strong.”
   “I don’t agree. And, please excuse me, I don’t think you put much faith in the attempt either.”
   “You’re wrong. Oh, of course they may stop us tomorrow and if they do there’ll be the most terrible quarrel and threats but they’ll all mean nothing.” Mariko laughed. “Oh, such threats, Kiri-san, and they’ll go on all day and all night. But at noon the next day we’ll be allowed to go.”
   Kiri shook her head. “If we’re allowed to escape, every other hostage in Osaka will leave too. Ishido will be weakened badly and he’ll lose face. He can’t afford that.”
   “Yes.” Mariko was very satisfied. “Even so, he’s trapped.”
   Kiri watched her. “In eighteen days our Master’ll be here, neh? He must be here.”
   “Yes.”
   “So sorry, then why is it so important for us to leave at once?”
   “He thinks it important enough, Kiri-san. Enough to order it.”
   “Ah, then he has a plan?”
   “Doesn’t he always have many plans?”
   “Once the Exalted One agreed to be present, then our Master was trapped, neh?”
   “Yes.”
   Kiri glanced at the shoji door. It was closed. She leaned forward and said softly, “Then why did he ask me secretly to put that thought into the Lady Ochiba’s head?”
   Mariko’s confidence began to fade. “He told you to do that?”
   “Yes. From Yokosé, after he’d seen Lord Zataki for the first time. Why did he spring the trap himself?”
   “I don’t know.”
   Kiri bit her lips. “I wish I knew. We’ll soon know, but I don’t think you’re telling me everything you know, Mariko-chan.”
   Mariko began to bridle but Kiri touched her, again cautioning her to silence, and whispered. “His dispatch to me told me to trust you completely so let’s say no more than that. I do trust you, Mariko-chan, but that doesn’t stop my mind from working. Neh?”
   “Please excuse me.”
   “I’m so proud of you,” Kiri said in a normal voice. “Yes, standing up like that to Ishido and all of them. I wish I had your courage.”
   “It is easy for me. Our Master said we were to leave.”
   “It’s very dangerous, what we do, I think. Even so, how can I help?”
   “Give me your support.”
   “You have that. You’ve always had that.”
   “I’ll stay here with you till dawn, Kiri. But first I have to talk to the Anjin-san.”
   “Yes. I’d better go with you.”
   The two women left Kiri’s apartments, an escort of Browns with them, passing other Browns who bowed, clearly enormously proud of Mariko. Kiri led down corridors, across the expanse of the great audience room, and into the corridor beyond. Browns were on guard here, and Grays. When they saw Mariko, all bowed, Browns and Grays equally honoring her. Both Kiri and Mariko were taken aback to find Grays in their domain. They hid their discomfiture and said nothing.
   Kiri motioned at a door.
   “Anjin-san?” Mariko called out.
   “Hai?” The door opened. Blackthorne stood there. Behind him in the room were two more Grays. “Hello, Mariko-san.”
   “Hello.” Mariko glanced at the Grays. “I have to talk to the Anjin-san privately.”
   “Please talk to him, Lady,” their captain said with great deference. “Unfortunately we are ordered by Lord Ishido personally on pain of immediate death not to leave him alone.”
   Yoshinaka, tonight’s officer-of-the-watch, strode up. “Excuse me, Lady Toda, I had to agree to these twenty guards for the Anjin-san. It was Lord Ishido’s personal request. So sorry.”
   “As Lord Ishido is only concerned with the Anjin-san’s safety, they’re welcome,” she said, not at all pleased inside.
   Yoshinaka said to the captain of the Grays, “I will be responsible for him while the Lady Toda’s with him. You can wait outside.”
   “So sorry,” this samurai said firmly. “I and my men have no alternative but to watch with our own eyes.”
   Kiri said, “I will be glad to stay. Of course someone’s necessary.”
   “So sorry, Kiritsubo-san, we must be present. Please excuse me, Lady Toda,” the captain continued uncomfortably, “but none of us speaks the barbarian.”
   “No one suggests you would be so impolite as to listen,” said Mariko, near anger. “But barbarian customs are different from ours.”
   Yoshinaka said, “Obviously the Grays must obey their lord. You were totally correct tonight that a samurai’s first duty is to his liege lord, Lady Toda, and totally correct to point it out in public.”
   “Perfectly correct, Lady,” the captain of the Grays agreed with the same measure of pride. “There’s no other reason for a samurai’s life, neh?”
   “Thank you,” she said, warmed by their respect.
   “We should also honor the Anjin-san’s customs if we can, Captain,” Yoshinaka said. “Perhaps I have a solution. Please follow me.” He led the way back to the audience room. “Please, Lady, would you take the Anjin-san and sit there.” He pointed to the far dais. “The Anjin-san’s guards can stay by the doors and do their duty to their liege lord, we can do ours, and you may talk as you wish, according to the Anjin-san’s customs. Neh?”
   Mariko explained to Blackthorne what Yoshinaka had said, then continued prudently in Latin, “They will never leave thee tonight. We have no alternative—except I can order them killed at once if that is thy wish.”
   “My wish is to talk to thee privately,” Blackthorne replied. “But not at the cost of lives. I thank thee for asking me.”
   Mariko turned to Yoshinaka. “Very well, thank you, Yoshinaka-san. Would you please send someone for incense braziers to keep away the mosquitoes.”
   “Of course. Please excuse me, Lady, is there any further news of the Lady Yodoko?”
   “No, Yoshinaka-san. We heard she’s still resting easily, without pain.” Mariko smiled at Blackthorne. “Shall we go and sit there, Anjin-san?”
   He followed her. Kiri went back to her own quarters and the Grays stood at the doors of the audience room. The captain of the Grays was near Yoshinaka, a few paces away from the others. “I don’t like this,” he whispered roughly.
   “Is the Lady Toda going to pull out his sword and kill him? No offense, but where are your wits?”
   Yoshinaka limped away to check the other posts. The captain looked at the dais. Mariko and the Anjin-san were seated opposite each other, well lit by flares. He could not hear what they were saying. He focused on their lips but was still no wiser, though his eyes were very good and he could speak Portuguese. I suppose they’re talking the Holy Fathers’ language again, he told himself. Hideous language, impossible to learn.
   Still, what does it matter? Why shouldn’t she talk to the heretic in private if that’s her pleasure? Neither are long for this earth. So very sad. Oh, Blessed Madonna, take her forever into thy keeping for her bravery.


   “Latin is safer, Anjin-san.” Her fan sent a droning mosquito skittering.
   “They can hear us from here?”
   “No, I do not believe so, not if we keep our voices softened and talk as thou hast taught me with so little movement of the mouth.”
   “Good. What occurred with Kiyama?”
   “I love thee.”
   “Thou …”
   “I have missed thee.”
   “And I thee. How can we meet alone?”
   “Tonight it is not possible. Tomorrow night will be possible, my love. I have a plan.”
   “Tomorrow? But what about thy departure?”
   “Tomorrow they may stop me, Anjin-san—please do not worry. The next day we will all be free to leave as we wish. Tomorrow night, if I am stopped, I will be with thee.”
   “How?”
   “Kiri will help me. Do not ask me how or what or why. It will be easy—” She stopped as maids brought the little braziers. Soon the curling threads of smoke repelled the night creatures. When they were safe again they talked about their journey, content just being together, loving without touching, always skirting Toranaga and the importance of tomorrow. Then he said, “Ishido’s my enemy. Why are there so many guards around me?”
   “To protect thee. But also to hold thee tight. I think Ishido might also want to use thee against the Black Ship, and Nagasaki and the Lord Kiyama and Lord Onishi.”
   “Ah, yes, I had thought that too.”
   She saw his eyes searching her. “What is it, Anjin-san?”
   “Contrary to what Yabu believes, I believe thou art not stupid, that everything tonight was said deliberately, planned deliberately—on Toranaga’s orders.”
   She smoothed a crease in her brocade kimono. “He gave me orders. Yes.”
   Blackthorne turned to Portuguese, “He’s betrayed you. You’re a decoy. Do you know that? You’re just bait for one of his traps.”
   “Why do you say that?”
   “You’re the bait. So am I. It’s obvious, isn’t it? Yabu’s bait. Toranaga sent us all here as a sacrifice.”
   “No, you’re wrong, Anjin-san. So sorry, but you’re wrong.”
   In Latin he said, “I tell thee that thou art beautiful and I love thee, but thou art a liar.”
   “No one has ever said that to me before.”
   “Thou hast also said no one ever said ‘I love thee’ before.”
   She looked down at her fan. “Let us talk of other things.”
   “What does Toranaga gain by sacrificing us?”
   She did not answer.
   “Mariko-san, I have the right to ask thee. I’m not afraid. I just want to know what he gains.”
   “I don’t know.”
   “Thou! Swear by thy love and thy God.”
   “Even thee?” She replied bitterly in Latin. “Thou also with thy ‘Swear before God’ and questions and questions and questions?”
   “It is thy life and my life and I cherish both. Again, what does he gain?”
   Her voice became louder. “Listen thou, yes, I chose the time and yes, I am not a stupid woman and—”
   “Be cautious, Mariko-chan, please keep thy voice down or that would be very stupid.”
   “So sorry. Yes, it was done deliberately and in public as Toranaga wished.”
   “Why?”
   “Because Ishido’s a peasant and he must let us go. The challenge had to be before his peers. The Lady Ochiba approves our going to meet Lord Toranaga. I talked to her and she is not opposed. There’s nothing to trouble thyself about.”
   “I do not like to see fire in thee. Or venom. Or crossness. Where is thy tranquillity? And where are thy manners? Perhaps thou should learn to watch the rocks growing. Neh?”
   Mariko’s anger vanished and she laughed. “Ah, thee! Thou art right. Please forgive me.” She felt refreshed, herself again. “Oh, how I love thee, and honor thee, and I was so proud of thee tonight I almost kissed thee, there in front of them as is thy custom.”
   “Madonna, that would have set fire in their tinderboxes, neh?”
   “If I were alone with thee I would kiss thee until thy cries for mercy filled the universe.”
   “I thank thee, Lady, but thou art there and I am here and the world’s between us.”
   “Ah, but there’s no world between us. My life is full because of thee.”
   In a moment he said, “And Yabu’s orders to you—to apologize and stay?”
   “They may not be obeyed, so sorry.”

   “Because of Toranaga’s orders?”
   “Yes. But not his orders truly—it is also my wish. All this was my suggestion to him. It is I who begged to be allowed to come here, my darling. Before God that is the truth.”
   “What will happen tomorrow?”
   She told him what she had told Kiri, adding, “Everything is going to be better than planned. Isn’t Ishido already thy patron? I swear I do not know how Lord Toranaga can be so clever. Before I left he told me that would happen, might happen. He knew that Yabu has no power in Kyushu. Only Ishido or Kiyama could protect thee there. We are not decoys. We are in his protection. We’re quite safe.”
   “What about the nineteen days—eighteen now? Toranaga must be here, neh?”
   “Yes.”
   “Then isn’t this as Ishido says, a waste of time?”
   “Truly I don’t know. I only know that nineteen, eighteen, or even three days can be an eternity.”
   “Or tomorrow?”
   “Tomorrow also. Or the next day.”
   “And if Ishido will not let thee go tomorrow?”
   “This is the only chance we have. All of us. Ishido must be humbled.”
   “Thou art certain?”
   “Yes, before God, Anjin-san.”


   Blackthorne clawed out of a nightmare again but the moment he was truly awake the dream vanished. Grays were staring at him through the mosquito net in the light of early dawn.
   “Good morning,” he said to them, hating to have been watched while he slept.
   He came from under the net and went out into the corridor, down staircases, until he came to the garden toilet. Guards, both Browns and Grays, accompanied him. He hardly noticed them.
   The dawn was smoky. The sky to the east was already burnt clean of the haze. The air smelled salt and wet from the sea. Flies already swarmed. It’ll be hot today, he thought.
   Footsteps approached. Through the door opening he saw Chimmoko. She waited patiently, chatting with the guards, and when he came out she bowed and greeted him.
   “Where Mariko-san?” he asked.
   “With Kiritsubo-san, Anjin-san.”
   “Thank you. When leave?”
   “Soon, Sire.”
   “Say to Mariko-san like say good morning before leave.” He said it again although Mariko had already promised to find him before she went back to her home to collect her belongings.
   “Yes, Anjin-san.”
   He nodded as a samurai should and left her and went to wash and bathe. It was not custom to have a hot bath in the morning. But every morning he would always go there and pour cold water all over himself. “Eeeee, Anjin-san,” his guards or watchers would always say, “that surely is most very good for your health.”
   He dressed and went to the battlements that overlooked the forecourt of this castle wing. He wore a Brown kimono and swords, his pistol concealed under his sash. Browns on sentry duty welcomed him as one of them, though very disquieted by his Grays. Other Grays teemed on the battlements opposite, overlooking them, and outside their gate.
   “Many Grays, many more than usual. Understand, Anjin-san?” Yoshinaka said, coming out onto the balcony.
   “Yes.”
   The captain of the Grays moved up to them. “Please don’t go too near the edge, Anjin-san. So sorry.”
   The sun was on the horizon. Its warmth felt good on Blackthorne’s skin. There were no clouds in the sky and the breeze was dying.
   The captain of the Grays pointed at Blackthorne’s sword. “Is that Oil Seller, Anjin-san?”
   “Yes, Captain.”
   “May I be allowed to see the blade?”
   Blackthorne drew the sword part way from its scabbard. Custom decreed a sword should not be totally drawn unless it was to be used.
   “Eeee, beautiful, neh?” the captain said. The others, Browns and Grays, crowded round, equally impressed.
   Blackthorne shoved the sword back, not displeased. “Honor to wear Oil Seller.”
   “Can you use a sword, Anjin-san?” the captain asked.
   “No, Captain. Not as samurai. But I learn.”
   “Ah, yes. That’s very good.”
   In the forecourt two stories below, Browns were exercising, still in shadow. Blackthorne watched them. “How many samurai here, Yoshinaka-san?”
   “Four hundred and three, Anjin-san, including two hundred that came with me.”
   “And out there?”
   “Grays?” Yoshinaka laughed. “Lots—very many.”
   The Grays’ captain showed his teeth with his grin. “Almost one hundred thousand. You understand, Anjin-san, ‘one hundred thousand’?”
   “Yes. Thank you.”
   They all looked away as a phalanx of porters and pack horses and three palanquins rounded the far corner and approached under guard from the end of the access to this cul-de-sac. The avenue was still deeply shadowed and dark between the tall guarded walls. Flares still burned in wall sockets. Even from this distance they could see the nervousness of the porters. Grays across from them seemed more hushed and attentive, and so did the Browns on guard.
   The tall gates opened to admit the party, their escorting Grays staying outside with their comrades, then closed again. The great iron bar clanged back into the large brackets that were set deep into the granite walls. No portcullis guarded this gateway.
   Yoshinaka said, “Anjin-san, please excuse me. I must see all is well. All ready, neh?”
   “I wait here.”
   “Yes.” Yoshinaka left.
   The Grays’ captain went to the parapet and watched below. Christ Jesus, Blackthorne was thinking, I hope she’s right and Toranaga’s right. Not long now, eh? He measured the sun and muttered vaguely to himself in Portuguese, “Not long to go.”
   Unconsciously the captain grunted his agreement and Blackthorne realized the man understood him clearly in Portuguese, was therefore Catholic and another possible assassin. His mind rushed back to last night, and he remembered that everything he had said to Mariko had been in Latin. Was it all in Latin? Mother of God, what about her saying “ … I can order them killed?” Was that in Latin? Does he speak Latin, too, like that other captain, the one who was killed during the first escape from Osaka?
   The sun was gathering strength now and Blackthorne took his eyes off the captain of Grays. If you didn’t murder me in the night maybe you’ll never do it, he thought, putting this Catholic into a compartment.
   He saw Kiri come out into the forecourt below. She was supervising maids bearing panniers and chests for the pack horses. She looked tiny, standing on the main steps where Sazuko had pretended to slip, initiating Toranaga’s escape. Just to the north was the lovely garden and tiny rustic house where he’d first seen Mariko and Yaemon, the Heir. His mind journeyed with the noon cortege out of the castle, curling through the maze, then safely out, through the woods, and down to the sea. He prayed that she would be safe and everyone safe. Once they were away, Yabu and he would leave and go to the galley and out to sea.
   From here on the battlements the sea seemed so near. The sea beckoned. And the horizon.
   “Konbanwa, Anjin-san.”
   “Mariko-san!” She was as radiant as ever.
   “Konbanwa,” he said, then in Latin, nonchalantly, “Beware of this Gray man—he understands,” continuing instantly in Portuguese to give her time to cover, “yes, I don’t understand how you can be so beautiful after so little sleep.” He took her arm and put her back to the captain, guiding her nearer the parapet. “Look, there’s Kiritsubo-san!”
   “Thank you. Yes—yes, I’m … thank you.”
   “Why don’t you wave to Kiritsubo-san?”
   She did as she was asked and called out her name. Kiri saw them and waved back.
   After a moment, relaxed again and in control, Mariko said, “Thank you, Anjin-san. You’re very clever and very wise.” She greeted the captain casually and wandered to a ledge and sat down, first making sure that the seat was clean. “It’s going to be a fine day, neh?”
   “Yes. How did you sleep?”
   “I didn’t, Anjin-san. Kiri and I chatted the last of the night away and I saw the dawn come. I love dawns. You?”
   “My rest was disturbed but—”
   “Oh, so sorry.”
   “I’m fine now—really. You’re leaving now?”
   “Yes, but I’ll be back at noon to collect Kiri-san and the Lady Sazuko.” She turned her face away from the captain and said in Latin, “Thou. Remember the Inn of the Blossoms?”
   “Assuredly. How could I forget?”
   “If there is a delay … tonight will be thus—as perfect and as peace-filled.”
   “Ah, that that could be possible. But I would prefer thee safely on thy way.”
   Mariko continued in Portuguese. “Now I must go, Anjin-san. You will please excuse me?”
   “I’ll take you to the gate.”
   “No, please. Watch me from here. You and the captain can watch from here, neh?”
   “Of course,” Blackthorne said at once, understanding. “Go with God.”
   “And thee.”
   He stayed on the parapet. While he waited sunlight fell into the forecourt, thrusting the shadows away. Mariko appeared below. He saw her greet Kiri and Yoshinaka and they chatted together, no enemy Grays near them. Then they bowed. She looked up at him, shading her eyes, and waved gaily. He waved back. The gates were pushed aside and, with Chimmoko a few discreet paces behind her, she walked out, accompanied by her escort of ten Browns. The gates swung closed once more. For a moment she was lost from view. When she reappeared, fifty Grays from the swarm outside their walls had surrounded them as a further honor guard. The cortege marched away down the sunless avenue. He watched her until she had turned the far corner. She never looked back.
   “Go eat now, Captain,” he said.
   “Yes, of course, Anjin-san.”
   Blackthorne went to his own quarters and ate rice, pickled vegetables, and broiled chunks of fish, followed by early fruit from Kyushu—crisp small apples, apricots, and hard-fleshed plums. He savored the tart fruit and the cha.
   “More, Anjin-san?” the servant asked.
   “No, thank you.” He offered fruits to his guards and they were accepted gratefully, and when they had finished, he went back to the sunny battlements again. He would have liked to examine the priming of his concealed pistol but he thought it better not to draw attention to it. He had checked it once in the night as best he could under the sheet, under the mosquito net. But without actually seeing, he could not be sure of the tamping or the flint.
   There’s nothing more you can do, he thought. You’re a puppet. Be patient, Anjin-san, your watch ends at noon.
   He gauged the height of the sun. It will be the beginning of the two-hour period of the Snake. After the Snake comes the Horse. In the middle of the Horse is high noon.
   Temple bells throughout the castle and the city tolled the beginning of the Snake and he was pleased with his accuracy. He noticed a small stone on the battlement floor. He went forward and picked up the stone and placed it carefully on a ledge of an embrasure in the sun, then leaned back once more, propping his feet comfortably, and stared at it.
   Grays were watching his every movement. The captain frowned. After a while he said, “Anjin-san, what’s the significance of the stone?”
   “Please?”
   “The stone. Why stone, Anjin-san?”
   “Ah! I watch stone grow.”
   “Oh so sorry, I understand,” the captain replied apologetically. “Please excuse me for disturbing you.”
   Blackthorne laughed to himself, and turned his gaze back to the stone. “Grow, you bastard,” he said. But as much as he cursed it, ordered it, or cajoled it, it would not grow.
   Do you really expect to see a rock growing? he asked himself. No, of course not, but it passes the time and promotes tranquillity. You can’t have enough wa. Neh?
   Eeeeee, where’s the next attack coming from? There’s no defense against an assassin if the assassin is prepared to die. Is there?


   Rodrigues checked the priming of a musket he had taken at random from the rack beside the stern cannon. He found the flint was worn and pitted and therefore dangerous. Without a word he hurled the musket at the gunner. The man just managed to catch it before the stock smashed into his face.
   “Madonna, Senhor Pilot,” the man cried out, “there’s no need—”
   “Listen, you motherless turd, the next time I find anything wrong with a musket or cannon during your watch, you’ll get fifty lashes and lose three months’ pay. Bosun!”
   “Yes, Pilot?” Pesaro, the bosun, heaved his bulk nearer and scowled at the young gunner.
   “Turn out both watches! Check every musket and cannon, everything. Only God knows when we’ll need ‘em.”
   “I’ll see to it, Pilot.” The bosun shoved his face at the gunner. “I’ll piss in your grog tonight, Gomez, for all the extra work an’ you’d better lap it up with a smile. Get to work!”
   There were eight small cannon amidships on the main deck, four port and four starboard and a bowchaser. Enough to beat off any uncannoned pirates but not enough to press home an attack. The small frigate was two-masted, called the Santa Luz.
   Rodrigues waited until the crews were at their tasks, then turned away and leaned on the gunwale. The castle glinted dully in the sun, the color of old pewter, except for the donjon with its blue and white walls and golden roofs. He spat into the water and watched the spittle to see if it would reach the jetty pilings as he hoped or go into the sea. It went into the sea. “Piss,” he muttered to no one, wishing he had his own frigate, the Santa Maria, under him right now. God-cursed bad luck that she’s in Macao just when we need her.

   “What’s amiss, Captain-General?” he had asked a few days ago at Nagasaki when he’d been routed out of his warm bed in his house that overlooked the city and the harbor.
   “I’ve got to get to Osaka at once,” Ferriera had said, plumed and arrogant as any bantam cock, even at this early hour. “An urgent signal’s arrived from dell’Aqua.”
   “What’s the matter now?”
   “He didn’t say—just that it was vital to the future of the Black Ship.”
   “Madonna, what mischief’re they up to now? What’s vital? Our ship’s as sound as any ship afloat, her bottom’s clean and rigging perfect. Trade’s better than we ever imagined and on time, the monkeys’re behaving themselves, pigarse Harima’s confident, and—” He stopped as the thought exploded in his brain. “The Ingeles! He’s put to sea?”
   “I don’t know. But if he has …”
   Rodrigues had stared out of the great harbor mouth, half expecting to see Erasmus already blockading there, showing the hated flag of England, waiting there like a rabid dog against the day they’d have to put to sea for Macao and home. “Jesu, Mother of God and all saints, let that not happen!”
   “What’s our fastest way? Lorcha?”
   “The Santa Luz, Captain-General. We can sail within the hour. Listen, the Ingeles can do nothing without men. Don’t forget—”
   “Madonna, you listen, he can speak their jibberish now, eh? Why can’t he use monkeys, eh? There are enough Jappo pirates to crew him twenty times over.”
   “Yes, but not gunners and not sailors as he’d need ‘em—he’s not got time to train Jappos. By next year maybe, but not against us.”
   “Why in the name of the Madonna and the saints the priests gave him one of their dictionaries I’ll never know. Meddling bastards! They must’ve been possessed by the Devil! It’s almost as though the Ingeles is protected by the Devil!”
   “I tell you he’s just clever!”
   “There are many who’ve been here for twenty years and can’t speak a word of Jappo gibberish, but the Ingeles can, eh? I tell you he’s given his soul to Satan, and in return for the black arts he’s protected. How else do you explain it? How many years’ve you been trying to talk their tongue and you even live with one? Leche, he could easily use Jappo pirates.”
   “No, Captain-General, he’s got to get men from here and we’re waiting for him and you’ve already put anyone suspect in irons.”
   “With twenty thousand cruzados in silver and a promise about the Black Ship, he can buy all the men he needs, including the jailers and the God-cursed jail around them. Cabron! Perhaps he can buy you, too.”
   “Watch your tongue!”
   “You’re the motherless, milkless Spaniard, Rodrigues! It’s your fault he’s alive, you’re responsible. Twice you let him escape!” The Captain-General had squared up to him in rage. “You should have killed him when he was in your power.”
   “Perhaps, but that’s froth on my life’s wake,” Rodrigues had said bitterly. “I went to kill him when I could.”
   “Did you?”
   “I’ve told you twenty times. Have you no ears! Or is Spanish dung as usual in your ears as well as in your mouth!” His hand had reached for his pistol and the Captain-General had drawn his sword, then the frightened Japanese girl was between them. “Prees, Rod-san, no angers—no quarre’, prees! Christian, prees!”
   The blinding rage had fallen off both of them, and Ferriera had said, “I tell you before God, the Ingeles must be Devil-spawned—I almost killed you, and you me, Rodrigues. I see it clearly now. He’s put a spell on all of us—particularly you!”
   Now in the sunshine at Osaka, Rodrigues reached for the crucifix he wore around his neck and he prayed a desperate prayer that he be protected from all warlocks and his immortal soul kept safe from Satan.
   Isn’t the Captain-General right, isn’t that the only answer, he reasoned again, filled with foreboding. The Ingeles’ life is charmed. Now he’s an intimate of the archfiend Toranaga, now he’s got his ship back and the money back and wako, in spite of everything, and he does speak like one of them and that’s impossible so quickly even with the dictionary, but he did get the dictionary and priceless help. Jesus God and Madonna, take the Evil Eye off me!
   “Why’d you give the Ingeles the dictionary, Father?” he had asked Alvito at Mishima. “Surely you should have delayed that?”
   “Yes, Rodrigues,” Father Alvito had told him confidently, “and I needn’t have gone out of my way to help him. But I’m convinced there’s a chance of converting him. I’m so sure. Toranaga’s finished now… It’s just one man and a soul. I have to try to save him.”
   Priests, Rodrigues thought. Leche on all priests. But not on dell’Aqua and Alvito. Oh, Madonna, I apologize for all my evil thoughts about him and the Father Alvito. Forgive me and bury the Ingeles somehow before I have him in my sights. I do not wish to kill him because of my Holy Oath, even though, before Thee, I know he must die quickly…
   The duty helmsman turned the hourglass and rang eight bells. It was high noon.

Chapter 55

   Mariko was walking up the crowded sunlit avenue toward the gates in the cul-de-sac. Behind her was a body guard of ten Browns. She wore a pale green kimono and white gloves and a wide-brimmed dark green traveling hat tied with a golden net scarf under her chin, and she shaded herself with an iridescent sun shade. The gates swung open and stayed open.
   It was very quiet in the avenue. Grays lined both sides and all the battlements. She could see the Anjin-san on their own battlements, Yabu beside him, and in the courtyard the waiting column with Kiri there, and the Lady Sazuko. All the Browns were in full ceremonials in the forecourt under Yoshinaka, except twenty who stood on the battlements with Blackthorne and two to each window overlooking the forecourt.
   Unlike the Grays, none of the Browns had armor or carried bows. Swords were their only weapons.
   Many women, samurai women, were also watching, some from the windows of other fortified houses that lined the avenue, and some from battlements. Others stood in the avenue among the Grays, a few gaily dressed children with them. All of the women carried sunshades though some wore samurai swords, as was their right if they wished.
   Kiyama was near the gate with half a hundred of his own men, not Grays.
   “Good day, Sire,” Mariko said to him, and bowed. He bowed back and she passed through the archway.
   “Hello, Kiri-chan, Sazuko-chan. How pretty you both look! Is everything ready?”
   “Yes,” they replied with false cheeriness.
   “Good.” Mariko got into her open palanquin and sat, stiff-backed. “Yoshinaka-san! Please begin.”
   At once the captain limped forward and shouted the orders. Twenty Browns formed up as a vanguard and moved off. Porters picked up Mariko’s curtainless palanquin and followed the Browns through the gate, Kiri’s and Lady Sazuko’s close behind, the young girl holding her infant in her arms.
   When Mariko’s palanquin came into the sunlight outside their walls, a captain of Grays stepped forward between the vanguard and the palanquin, and stood directly in her way. The vanguard stopped abruptly. So did the porters.
   “Please excuse me,” he said to Yoshinaka, “but may I see your papers?”
   “So sorry, Captain, but we require none,” Yoshinaka replied in the great silence.
   “So sorry, but the Lord General Ishido, Governor of the Castle, Captain of the Heir’s Bodyguard, with the approval of the Regents, has instituted orders throughout the castle which have to be complied with.”
   Mariko said formally, “I am Toda Mariko-noh-Buntaro and I have been ordered by my liege Lord, Lord Toranaga, to escort his ladies to meet him. Kindly let us pass.”
   “I would be glad to, Lady,” the samurai said proudly, planting his feet, “but without papers our liege Lord says no one may leave Osaka Castle. Please excuse me.”
   Mariko said, “Captain, what is your name please?”
   “Sumiyori Danzenji, Lady, Captain of the Fourth Legion, and my line is as ancient as your own.”
   “So sorry, Captain Sumiyori, but if you do not move out of the way I will order you killed.”
   “You will not pass without papers!”
   “Please kill him, Yoshinaka-san.”
   Yoshinaka leaped forward without hesitation, his sword a whirling arc, and he struck at the off-balanced Gray. His blade bit deep into the man’s side and was jerked out instantly, and the second more vicious blow took off the man’s head, which rolled in the dust a little way before stopping.
   Yoshinaka wiped his blade clean and sheathed it. “Lead on!” he ordered the vanguard. “Hurry up!” The vanguard formed up again and, their footsteps echoing, they marched off. Then, out of nowhere, an arrow thwanged into Yoshinaka’s chest. The cortege lurched to a stop. Yoshinaka tore at the shaft silently for a moment, then his eyes glazed and he toppled.
   A small moan broke from Kiri’s lips. A puff of air tugged at the ends of Mariko’s gossamer scarf. Somewhere in the avenue a child’s cries were hushed. Everyone waited breathlessly.
   “Miyai Kazuko-san,” Mariko called out. “Please take charge.”
   Kazuko was young and tall and very proud, clean-shaven, with deepset cheeks, and he came from the grouped Browns near Kiyama who stood beside the gateway. He strode past Kiri’s and Sazuko’s litters to stand beside Mariko’s and bowed formally. “Yes, Lady. Thank you.”
   “You!” He shouted to the men ahead. “Move off!” Taut, some fearful, all frantic, they obeyed and once again the procession began, Kazuko walking beside Mariko’s litter. Then, a hundred paces in front of them, twenty Grays moved out of the massed ranks of samurai and stood silently across the roadway. The twenty Browns closed the gap. Then someone faltered and the vanguard trickled to a stop.
   “Clear them out of the way!” Kazuko shouted.
   Immediately one Brown leaped forward, and the others followed and the killing became swift and cruel. Each time a Gray fell, another would calmly walk out of the waiting pack to join his comrades in the killing. It was always fair, always evenly matched, man to man, now fifteen against fifteen, now eight against eight, a few wounded Grays thrashing in the dirt, now three Browns against two Grays and another Gray strode out, and soon it was one to one, the last Brown, blood-stained and wounded, already victor of four duels. The last Gray dispatched him easily and stood alone among the bodies and looked at Miyai Kazuko.
   All the Browns were dead. Four Grays lay wounded, eighteen dead.
   Kazuko went forward, unsheathing his sword in the enormous hush.
   “Wait,” Mariko said. “Please wait, Kazuko-san.”
   He stopped but kept his eyes on the Gray, spoiling for the fight. Mariko stepped out of the palanquin and went back to Kiyama. “Lord Kiyama, I formally ask you please to order those men out of the way.”
   “So sorry, Toda-sama, the castle orders must be obeyed. The orders are legal. But if you wish, I will call a meeting of the Regents and ask for a ruling.”
   “I am samurai. My orders are clear, in keeping with bushido and sanctified by our code. They must be obeyed and overrule legally any man-made ordinance. The law may upset reason, but reason may not overthrow the law. If I am not permitted to obey, I will not be able to live with that shame.”
   “I will call an immediate meeting.”
   “Please excuse me, Sire, what you do is your own business. I am concerned only with my Lord’s orders and my own shame.” She turned and went quietly back to the head of the column. “Kazuko-san! I order you please to lead us out of the castle!”
   He walked forward. “I am Miyai Kazuko, Captain, from the line Serata, of Lord Toranaga’s Third Army. Please get out of the way.”
   “I am Biwa Jiro, Captain, of Lord General Ishido’s garrison. My life is worthless, even so you will not pass,” the Gray said.
   With the sudden roaring battle cry of “Toranagaaaaaa!” Kazuko rushed to the fray. Their swords shrieked as the blows and counterblows were parried. The two men circled. The Gray was good, very good, and so was Kazuko. Their swords rang out in the clash. No one else moved.
   Kazuko conquered but he was very badly wounded and he stood over his enemy, swaying on his feet, and with his good arm he shook his sword at the sky, bellowing his war cry, gloating in his victory, “Toranagaaaaa!” There was no cheering at his conquest. All knew it would be unseemly in the ritual that enveloped them now.
   Kazuko forced one foot forward, then another, and, stumbling, he ordered, “Follow me!” his voice crumbling.
   No one saw where the arrows came from but they slaughtered him. And the mood of the Browns changed from fatalism to ferocity at this insult to Kazuko’s manhood. He was already dying fast, and would have fallen soon, alone, still doing his duty, still leading them out of the castle. Another officer of the Browns ran forward with twenty men to form a new vanguard and the rest swarmed around Mariko, Kiri, and Lady Sazuko.
   “Forward!” the officer snarled.
   He stepped off and the twenty silent samurai came after him. Like somnambulists, the porters picked up their burdens and stumbled around the bodies. Then ahead, a hundred paces, twenty more Grays with an officer moved silently from the hundreds that waited. The porters stopped. The vanguard quickened their pace.
   “Halt!” The officers bowed curtly to each other and said their lineage.
   “Please get out of the way.”
   “Please show me your papers.”
   This time the Browns hurtled forward at once with cries of “Toranagaaaaaa!” to be answered by “Yaemooooonn!” and the carnage began. And each time a Gray fell, another would walk out coolly until all the Browns were dead.
   The last Gray wiped his blade clean and sheathed it and stood alone barring the path. Another officer came forward with twenty Browns from the company behind the litters.
   “Wait,” Mariko ordered. Ashen, she stepped out of her palanquin and put her sunshade aside and picked up Yoshinaka’s sword, unsheathed it, and walked forward alone.
   “You know who I am. Please get out of my way.”
   “I am Kojima Harutomo, Sixth Legion, Captain. Please excuse me, you may not pass, Lady,” the Gray said with pride.
   She darted forward but her blow was contained. The Gray backed and stayed on the defensive though he could have killed her without effort. He retreated slowly down the avenue, she following, but he made her work for every foot. Hesitantly the column started after her. Again she tried to bring the Gray to battle, cutting, thrusting, always attacking fiercely, but the samurai slid away, avoiding her blows, holding her off, not attacking, allowing her to exhaust herself. But he did this gravely, with dignity, giving her every courtesy, giving her the honor that was her due. She attacked again but he parried the onslaught that would have overcome a lesser swordsman, and backed another pace. The perspiration streamed from her. A Brown started forward to help but his officer quietly ordered him to stop, knowing that no one could interefere. Samurai on both sides waited for the signal, craving the release to kill.
   In the crowd, a child was hiding his eyes in his mother’s skirts. Gently she pried him away and knelt. “Please watch, my son,” she murmured. “You are samurai.”
   Mariko knew she could not last much longer. She was panting now from her exertions and could feel the brooding malevolence surrounding her. Then ahead and all around, Grays began to ease away from the walls and the noose around the column quickly tightened. A few Grays walked out to try to surround her and she stopped advancing, knowing that she could, too easily, be trapped and disarmed and captured, which would destroy everything at once. Now Browns moved up to assist her and the rest took positions around the litters. The mood in the avenue was ominous now, every man committed, the sweet smell of blood in their nostrils. The column was strung out from the gateway and Mariko saw how easy it would be for the Grays to cut them all off if they wished and leave them stranded in the roadway.
   “Wait!” she called out. Everyone stopped. She half-bowed to her assailant, then, head high, turned her back on him and walked back to Kiri. “So … so sorry, but it is not possible to fight through these men, at the moment,” she said, her chest heaving. “We … we must go back for a moment.” Sweat was streaking her face as she went down the line of men. When she came to Kiyama, she stopped and bowed. “Those men have prevented me from doing my duty, from obeying my liege Lord. I cannot live with shame, Sire. I will commit seppuku at sunset. I formally beg you to be my second.”
   “No. You will not do this.”
   Her eyes flashed and her voice rang out fearlessly. “Unless we are allowed to obey our liege Lord, as is our right, I will commit seppuku at sunset!”
   She bowed and walked toward the gateway. Kiyama bowed to her and his men did likewise. Then all in the avenue and on the battlements and at the windows, all bowed to her in homage. She went through the archway, across the forecourt into the garden. Her footsteps took her to the secluded, rustic little cha house. She went inside and, once alone, she wept silently for all the men who had died.

Chapter 56

   “Beautiful, neh?” Yabu pointed below at the dead.
   “Please?” Blackthorne asked.
   “It was a poem. You understand ‘poem’?”
   “I understand word, yes.”
   “It was a poem, Anjin-san. Don’t you see that?”
   If Blackthorne had had the words he would have said, No, Yabu-san. But I did see clearly for the first time what was really in her mind, the moment she gave the first order and Yoshinaka killed the first man. Poem? It was a hideous, courageous, senseless, extraordinary ritual, where death’s as formalized and inevitable as at a Spanish Inquisition, and all the deaths merely a prelude to Mariko’s. Everyone’s committed now, Yabu-san—you, me, the castle, Kiri, Ochiba, Ishido, everyone—all because she decided to do what she decided was necessary. And when did she decide? Long ago, neh? Or, more correctly, Toranaga made the decision for her.
   “So sorry, Yabu-san, not words enough,” he said.
   Yabu hardly heard him. There was quiet on the battlements and in the avenue, everyone as motionless as statues. Then the avenue began to come alive, voices hushed, movements subdued, the sun beating down, as each came out of his trance.
   Yabu sighed, filled with melancholia. “It was a poem, Anjin-san,” he said again, and left the battlements.
   When Mariko had picked up the sword and gone forward alone, Blackthorne had wanted to leap down into the arena and rush at her assailant to protect her, to blow the Gray’s head off before she was slain. But, with everyone, he had done nothing. Not because he was afraid. He was no longer afraid to die. Her courage had shown him the uselessness of that fear and he had come to terms with himself long ago, on that night in the village with the knife.
   I meant to drive the knife into my heart that night.
   Since then my fear of death’s been obliterated, just as she said it would be. ‘Only by living at the edge of death can you understand the indescribable joy of life.’ I don’t remember Omi stopping the thrust, only feeling reborn when I awoke the next dawn.
   His eyes watched the dead, there in the avenue. I could have killed that Gray for her, he thought, and perhaps another and perhaps several, but there would always have been another and my death would not have tipped the scale a fraction. I’m not afraid to die, he told himself. I’m only appalled there’s nothing I can do to protect her.
   Grays were picking up bodies now, Browns and Grays treated with equal dignity. Other Grays were streaming away, Kiyama and his men among them, women and children and maids all leaving, dust in the avenue rising under their feet. He smelled the acrid, slightly fetid death-smell mixed with the salt breeze, his mind eclipsed by her, the courage of her, the indefinable warmth that her fearless courage had given him. He looked up at the sun and measured it. Six hours to sunset.
   He headed for the steps that led below.
   “Anjin-san? Where go please?”
   He turned back, his own Grays forgotten. The captain was staring at him. “Ah, so sorry. Go there!” He pointed to the forecourt.
   The captain of Grays thought a moment, then reluctantly agreed. “All right. Please you follow me.”
   In the forecourt Blackthorne felt the Browns’ hostility towards his Grays. Yabu was standing beside the gates watching the men come back. Kiri and the Lady Sazuko were fanning themselves, a wet nurse feeding the infant. They were sitting on hastily laid out coverlets and cushions that had been placed in the shade on a veranda. Porters were huddled to one side, squatting in a tight, frightened group around the baggage and pack horses. He headed for the garden but the guards shook their heads. “So sorry, this is out of bounds for the moment, Anjin-san.”
   “Yes, of course,” he said, turning away. The avenue was clearing now, though five-hundred-odd Grays still stayed, settling themselves, squatting or sitting cross-legged in a wide semicircle, facing the gates. The last of the Browns stalked back under the arch.
   Yabu called out, “Close the gates and bar them.”
   “Please excuse me, Yabu-san,” the officer said, “but the Lady Toda said they were to be left open. We are to guard them against all men but the gates are to be left open.”
   “You’re sure?”
   The officer bridled. He was a neat, bent-faced man in his thirties with a jutting chin, mustached and bearded. “Please excuse me—of course I am sure.”
   “Thank you. I meant no offense, neh? Are you the senior officer here?”
   “The Lady Toda honored me with her confidence, yes. Of course, you are senior to me.”
   “I am in command but you are in charge.”
   “Thank you, Yabu-san, but the Lady Toda commands here. You are senior officer. I would be honored to be second to you. If you will permit it.”
   Yabu said balefully, “It’s permitted, Captain. I know very well who commands us here. Your name, please?”
   “Sumiyori Tabito.”
   “Wasn’t the first Gray ‘Sumiyori’ also?”
   “Yes, Yabu-san. He was my cousin.”
   “When you are ready, Captain Sumiyori, please call a meeting of all officers.”
   “Certainly, Sire. With her permission.”
   Both men looked away as a lady hobbled into the forecourt. She was elderly and samurai and leaned painfully on a cane. Her hair was white but her back was straight and she went over to Kiritsubo, her maid holding a sunshade over her.
   “Ah, Kiritsubo-san,” she said formally. “I am Maeda Etsu, Lord Maeda’s mother, and I share the Lady Toda’s views. With her permission I would like to have the honor of waiting with her.”
   “Please sit down, you’re welcome,” Kiri said. A maid brought another cushion and both maids helped the old lady to sit.
   “Ah, that’s better—so much better,” Lady Etsu said, biting back a groan of pain. “It’s my joints, they get worse every day. Ah, that’s a relief. Thank you.”
   “Would you like cha?”
   “First cha, then saké, Kiritsubo-san. Lots of saké. Such excitement’s thirsty work, neh?”
   Other samurai women were detaching themselves from the crowds that were leaving and they came back through the ranks of the Grays into the pleasing shade. A few hesitated and three changed their minds, but soon there were fourteen ladies on the veranda and two had brought children with them.
   “Please excuse me, but I am Achiko, Kiyama Nagamasa’s wife, and I want to go home too,” a young girl was saying timidly, holding her little son’s hand. “I want to go home to my husband. May I beg permission to wait too, please?”
   “But Lord Kiyama will be furious with you, Lady, if you stay here.”
   “Oh, so sorry, Kiritsubo-san, but Grandfather hardly knows me. I’m only wife to a very minor grandson. I’m sure he won’t care and I haven’t seen my husband for months and I don’t care either what they say. Our Lady’s right, neh?”
   “Quite right, Achiko-san,” old Lady Etsu said, firmly taking charge. “Of course you’re welcome, child. Come and sit by me. What’s your son’s name? What a fine boy you’ve got.”
   The ladies chorused their agreement and another boy who was four piped up plaintively, “Please, I’m a fine boy too, neh?” Someone laughed and all the ladies joined in.
   “You are indeed,” Lady Etsu said and laughed again.
   Kiri wiped away a tear. “There, that’s better, I was getting far too serious, neh?” She chuckled. “Ah, Ladies, I’m so honored to be allowed to greet you in her name. You must all be starving, and you’re so right, Lady Etsu, this is all thirsty work!” She sent maids for food and drink and introduced those ladies who needed introducing, admiring a fine kimono here or a special parasol there. Soon they were all chattering and happy and fluttering like so many parakeets.
   “How can a man understand women?” Sumiyori said blankly.
   “Impossible!” Yabu agreed.
   “One moment they’re frightened and in tears and the next… When I saw the Lady Mariko pick up Yoshinaka’s sword, I thought I’d die with pride.”
   “Yes. Pity that last Gray was so good. I’d like to have seen her kill. She’d have killed a lesser man.”
   Sumiyori rubbed his beard where the drying sweat irritated him. “What would you have done if you’d been him?”
   “I would have killed her then charged the Browns. Too much blood there. It was all I could do not to slaughter all the Grays near me on the battlement.”
   “It’s good to kill sometimes. Very good. Sometimes it’s very special and then it’s better than a lusting woman.”
   There was a burst of laughter from the ladies as the two little boys started strutting up and down importantly, their scarlet kimonos dancing. “It’s good to have children here again. I thank all gods mine are at Yedo.”
   “Yes.” Yabu was looking at the women speculatively.
   “I was wondering the same,” Sumiyori said quietly.
   “What’s your answer?”
   “There’s only one now. If Ishido lets us go, fine. If Lady Mariko’s seppuku is wasted, then—then we’ll help those ladies into the Void and begin the killing. They won’t want to live.”
   Yabu said, “Some may want to.”
   “You can decide that later, Yabu-san. It would benefit our Master if they all commit seppuku here. And the children.”
   “Yes.”
   “Afterward we’ll man the walls and then open the gates at dawn. We’ll fight till noon. That’ll be enough. Then those who are left will come back inside and set fire to this part of the castle. If I’m alive then I’d be honored if you’d be my second.”
   “Of course.”
   Sumiyori grinned. “This’s going to blow the realm apart, neh? All this killing and her seppuku. It’ll spread like fire—it’ll eat up Osaka, neh? You think that’ll delay the Exalted? Would that be our Master’s plan?”
   “I don’t know. Listen, Sumiyori-san, I’m going back to my house for a moment. Fetch me as soon as the Lady comes back.” He walked over to Blackthorne, who sat musing on the main steps. “Listen, Anjin-san,” Yabu said furtively, “perhaps I have a plan. Secret, neh? ‘Secret,’ you understand?”
   “Yes. Understand.” Bells tolled the hour change. The time rang in all their heads, the beginning of the Hour of the Monkey, six bells of the afternoon watch, three of the clock. Many turned to the sun and, without thinking, measured it.
   “What plan?” Blackthorne asked.
   “Talk later. Stay close by. Say nothing, understand?”
   “Yes.”
   Yabu stalked out of the gateway with ten Browns. Twenty Grays attached themselves and together they went down the avenue. His guest house was not far around the first corner. The Grays stayed outside his gate. Yabu motioned the Browns to wait in the garden and he went inside alone.


   “It’s impossible, Lord General,” Ochiba said. “You can’t let a lady of her rank commit seppuku. So sorry, but you’ve been trapped.”
   “I agree,” Lord Kiyama said forcefully.
   “With due humility, Lady,” Ishido said, “whatever I said or didn’t say, doesn’t matter an eta ’s turd to her. She’d already decided, at least Toranaga had.”
   “Of course he’s behind it,” Kiyama said as Ochiba recoiled at Ishido’s uncouthness. “So sorry, but he’s outsmarted you again. Even so you can’t let her commit seppuku!”
   “Why?”
   “Please, so sorry, Lord General, we must keep our voices down,” Ochiba said. They were waiting in the spacious antechamber of Lady Yodoko’s sick room in the inner quarters of the donjon, on the second floor. “I’m sure it wasn’t your fault and there must be a solution.”
   Kiyama said quietly, “You cannot let her continue her plan, Lord General, because that will inflame every lady in the castle.”
   Ishido glared at him. “You seem to forget a couple were shot by mistake and that didn’t create a ripple among them—except to stop any more escape attempts.”
   “That was a terrible mistake, Lord General,” Ochiba said.
   “I agree. But we are at war, Toranaga’s not yet in our hands, and until he’s dead you and the Heir are in total danger.”
   “So sorry—I’m not worried for myself—only for my son,” Ochiba said. “They’ve all got to be back here in eighteen days. I advise you to let them all go.”
   “That’s an unnecessary risk. So sorry. We’re not certain she means it.”
   “She does,” Kiyama told him contemptuously, despising Ishido’s truculent presence in the opulent, overrich quarters that reminded him so clearly of the Taikō, his friend and revered patron. “She’s samurai.”
   “Yes,” Ochiba said. “So sorry, but I agree with Lord Kiyama. Mariko-san will do what she says. Then there’s that hag Etsu! Those Maedas are a proud lot, neh?”
   Ishido walked over to the window and looked out. “They can all burn as far as I’m concerned. The Toda woman’s Christian, neh? Isn’t suicide against her religion? A special sin?”
   “Yes, but she’ll have a second—so it won’t be suicide.”
   “And if she doesn’t?”
   “What?”
   “Say she’s disarmed and has no second?”
   “How could you do that?”
   “Capture her. Confine her with carefully chosen maids until Toranaga’s across our borders.” Ishido smiled. “Then she can do what she wants. I’d be even delighted to help her.”
   “How could you capture her?” Kiyama asked. “She’d always have time to seppku, or to use her knife.”
   “Perhaps. But say she could be captured and disarmed and held for a few days. Isn’t the ‘few days’ vital? Isn’t that why she’s insisting on going today, before Toranaga crosses over our borders and castrates himself?”
   “Could it be done?” Lady Ochiba asked.
   “Possibly,” Ishido said.
   Kiyama pondered this. “In eighteen days Toranaga must be here. He could delay at the border for at the most another four days. She would have to be held for a week at the most.

   “Or forever,” Ochiba said. “Toranaga’s delayed so much, I sometimes think he’ll never come.”
   “He has to by the twenty-second day,” Ishido said. “Ah, Lady, that was a brilliant, brilliant idea.”
   “Surely that was your idea, Lord General?” Ochiba’s voice was soothing though she was very tired from a sleepless night. “What about Lord Sudara and my sister? Are they with Toranaga now?”
   “No, Lady. Not yet. They will be brought here by sea.”
   “She is not to be touched,” Ochiba said. “Or her child.”
   “Her child is direct heir of Toranaga, who’s heir to the Minowaras. My duty to the Heir, Lady, makes me point this out again.”
   “My sister is not to be touched. Nor is her son.”
   “As you wish.”
   She said to Kiyama, “Sire, how good a Christian is Mariko-san?”
   “Pure,” Kiyama replied at once. “You mean about suicide being a sin? I—I think she would honor that or her eternal soul is forfeit, Lady. But I don’t know if …”
   “Then there’s a simpler solution,” Ishido said without thinking.
   “Command the High Priest of the Christians to order her to stop harassing the legal rulers of the Empire!”
   “He doesn’t have the power,” Kiyama said. Then he added, his voice even more barbed, “That’s political interference—something you’ve always been bitterly against, and rightly.”
   “It seems Christians interfere only when it suits them,” Ishido said. “It was only a suggestion.”
   The inner door opened and a doctor stood there. His face was grave and exhaustion aged him. “So sorry, Lady, she’s asking for you.”
   “Is she dying?” Ishido asked.
   “She’s near death, Lord General, yes, but when, I don’t know.”
   Ochiba hurried across the large room and through the inner door, her blue kimono clinging, the skirts swaying gracefully. Both men watched her. The door closed. For a moment the two men avoided each other’s eyes, then Kiyama said, “You really think Lady Toda could be captured?”
   “Yes,” Ishido told him, watching the door.


   Ochiba crossed this even more opulent room and knelt beside the futons. Maids and doctors surrounded them. Sunlight seeped through the bamboo shutters and skittered off the gold and red inlaid carvings of the beams and posts and doors. Yodoko’s bed was surrounded by decorative inlaid screens. She seemed to be sleeping, her bloodless face settled within the hood of her Buddhist robe, her wrists thin, the veins knotted, and Ochiba thought how sad it was to become old. Age was so unfair to women. Not to men, only to women. Gods protect me from old age, she prayed. Buddha protect my son and put him safely into power and protect me only as long as I’m capable of protecting him and helping him.
   She took Yodoko’s hand, honoring her. “Lady?”
   “O-chan?” Yodoko whispered, using her nickname.
   “Yes, Lady?”
   “Ah, how pretty you are, so pretty, you always were.” The hand went up and caressed the beautiful hair and Ochiba was not offended by the touch but pleased as always, liking her greatly. “So young and beautiful and sweet-smelling. How lucky the Taikō was.”
   “Are you in pain, Lady? Can I get you something?”
   “Nothing—nothing, I just wanted to talk.” The old eyes were sunken but had lost none of their shrewdness. “Send the others away.”
   Ochiba motioned them to leave and when they were alone she said, “Yes, Lady?”
   “Listen, my darling, make the Lord General let her go.”
   “He can’t, Lady, or all the other hostages will leave and we’ll lose strength. The Regents all agree,” Ochiba said.
   “Regents!” Yodoko said with a thread of scorn. “Do you agree?”
   “Yes, Lady, and last night you said she was not to go.”
   “Now you must let her go or others will follow her seppuku and you and our son will be befouled because of Ishido’s mistake.”
   “The Lord General’s loyal, Lady. Toranaga isn’t, so sorry.”
   “You can trust Lord Toranaga—not him.”
   Ochiba shook her head. “So sorry, but I’m convinced Toranaga’s committed to become Shōgun and will destroy our son.”
   “You’re wrong. He’s said it a thousand times. Other daimyos are trying to use him for their own ambitions. They always have. Toranaga was the Taikō’s favorite. Toranaga has always honored the Heir. Toranaga’s Minowara. Don’t be swayed by Ishido, or the Regents. They’ve their own karmas, their own secrets, O-chan. Why not let her go? It’s all so simple. Forbid her the sea, then she can always be delayed somewhere inside our borders. She’s still in your General’s net, and Kiri and all the others, neh? She’ll be surrounded by Grays. Think like the Taikō would or like Toranaga would. You and our son are being pulled into …” The words trailed off and her eyelids began to flutter. The old lady gathered her remaining strength and continued, “Mariko-san could never object to guards. I know she means what she says. Let her go.”
   “Of course that was considered, Lady,” Ochiba said, her voice gentle and patient, “but outside the castle Toranaga has secret bands of samurai, hidden in and around Osaka, we don’t know how many, and he has allies—we’re not sure who. She might escape. Once she goes, all the others would follow her at once and we’d lose a great security. You agreed, Yodoko-chan, don’t you remember? So sorry, but I asked you last night, don’t you remember?”
   “Yes, I remember, child,” Yodoko said, her mind wandering. “Oh, how I wish the Lord Taikō were here again to guide you.” The old lady’s breathing was becoming labored.
   “Can I give you some cha or saké?”
   “Cha, yes please, some cha.”
   She helped the old one to drink. “Thank you, child.” The voice was feebler now, the strain of conversation speeding the dying. “Listen, child, you must trust Toranaga. Marry him, barter with him for the succession.”
   “No—no,” Ochiba said, shocked.
   “Yaemon could rule after him, then the fruit of your new marriage after our son. The sons of our son will honorably swear eternal fidelity to this new Toranaga line.”
   “Toranaga’s always hated the Taikō. You know that, Lady. Toranaga is the source of all the trouble. For years, neh? Him!”
   “And you? What about your pride, child?”
   “He’s the enemy, our enemy.”
   “You’ve two enemies, child. Your pride and the need to have a man to compare to our husband. Please be patient with me, you’re young and beautiful and fruitful and deserve a husband. Toranaga’s worthy of you, you of him. Toranaga is the only chance Yaemon has.”
   “No, he’s the enemy.”
   “He was our husband’s greatest friend and most loyal vassal. Without … without Toranaga … don’t you see … it was Toranaga’s help … don’t you see? You could manage … manage him…”
   “So sorry, but I hate him—he disgusts me, Yodoko-chan.”
   “Many women… What was I saying? Oh yes, many women marry men who disgust them. Praise be to Buddha I never had to suffer that…” The old woman smiled briefly. Then she sighed. It was a long, serious sigh and went on for too long and Ochiba thought the end had come. But the eyes opened a little and a tiny smile appeared again. “Neh?”
   “Yes.”
   “Will you. Please?”
   “I will think about it.”
   The old fingers tried to tighten. “I beg you, promise me you’ll marry Toranaga and I will go to Buddha knowing that the Taikō’s line will live forever, like his name … his name will live for…”
   The tears ran freely down Ochiba’s face as she cradled the listless hand.
   Later the eyes trembled and the old woman whispered, “You must let Akechi Mariko go. Don’t … don’t let her reap vengeance on us for what the Taikō did … did to … to her … to her father…”
   Ochiba was caught unaware. “What?”
   There was no answer. Later Yodoko began mumbling, “… Dear Yaemon, hello, my darling son, how … you’re such a fine boy, but you’ve so many enemies, so foolish so… Aren’t you just an illusion too, isn’t …”
   A spasm racked her. Ochiba held onto the hand and caressed it. “Namu Amida Butsu,” she whispered in homage.
   There was another spasm, then the old woman said clearly, “Forgive me, O-chan.”
   “There is nothing to forgive, Lady.”
   “So much to forgive…” The voice became fainter, and the light began to fade from her face. “Listen … prom—promise about … about Toranaga, Ochiba-sama … important … please … you can trust him…” The old eyes were beseeching her, willing her.
   Ochiba did not want to obey yet knew that she should obey. Her mind was unsettled by what had been said about Akechi Mariko, and still resounded with the Taikō’s words, repeated ten thousand times, “You can trust Yodoko-sama, O-chan. She’s the Wise One—never forget it. She’s right most times and you can always trust her with your life, and my son’s life and mine—”
   Ochiba conceded. “I prom—” She stopped abruptly.
   The light of Yodoko-sama flickered a final time and went out.
   “Namu Amida Butsu.” Ochiba touched the hand to her lips, and she bowed and laid the hand back on the coverlet and closed the eyes, thinking about the Taikō’s death, the only other death she had witnessed so closely. That time Lady Yodoko had closed the eyes as was a wife’s privilege and it had been in this same room, Toranaga waiting outside, as Ishido and Kiyama were now outside, continuing a vigil that had begun the day before.
   “But why send for Toranaga, Lord?” she had asked. “You should rest.”
   “I’ll rest when I’m dead, O-chan,” the Taikō had said. “I must settle the succession. Finally. While I’ve the strength.”
   So Toranaga had arrived, strong, vital, exuding power. The four of them were alone then, Ochiba, Yodoko, Toranaga and Nakamura, the Taikō, the Lord of Japan lying on his deathbed, all of them waiting for the orders that would be obeyed.
   “So, Tora-san,” the Taikō had said, welcoming him with the nickname Goroda had given Toranaga long ago, the deepset eyes peering up out of the tiny, withered simian face that was set on an equally tiny body—a body that had had the strength of steel until a few months ago when the wasting began. “I’m dying. From nothing, into nothing, but you’ll be alive and my son’s helpless.”
   “Not helpless, Sire. All the daimyos will honor your son as they honor you.”
   The Taikō laughed. “Yes, they will. Today. While I’m alive—ah yes! But how do I make sure Yaemon will rule after me?”
   “Appoint a Council of Regents, Sire.”
   “Regents!” the Taikō said scornfully. “Perhaps I should make you my heir and let you judge if Yaemon’s worthy to follow you.”
   “I would not be worthy to do that. Your son should follow you.”
   “Yes, and Goroda’s sons should have followed him.”
   “No. They broke the peace.”
   “And you stamped them out on my orders.”
   “You held the Emperor’s mandate. They rebelled against your lawful mandate, Sire. Give me your orders now, and I will obey them.”
   “That’s why I called you here.”
   Then the Taikō said, “It’s a rare thing to have a son at fifty-seven and a foul thing to die at sixty-three—if he’s an only son and you’ve got no kin and you’re Lord of Japan. Neh?”
   “Yes,” Toranaga said.
   “Perhaps it would’ve been better if I’d never had a son, then I could pass the realm on to you as we agreed. You’ve more sons than a Portugese’s got lice.”
   “Karma.”
   The Taikō had laughed and a string of spittle, flecked with blood, seeped out of his mouth. With great care Yodoko wiped the spittle away and he smiled up at his wife. “Thank you, Yo-chan, thank you.” Then the eyes turned onto Ochiba herself and Ochiba had smiled back but his eyes weren’t smiling now, just probing, wondering, pondering the never-dared-to-be-asked question that she was sure was forever in his mind: Is Yaemon really my son?
   “Karma, O-chan. Neh?” It was gently said but Ochiba’s fear that he would ask her directly racked her and tears glistened in her eyes.
   “No need for tears, O-chan. Life’s only a dream within a dream,” the old man said. He lay for a moment musing, then he peered at Toranaga again, and with a sudden, unexpected warmth for which he was famous, said, “Eeeeee, old friend, what a life we’ve had, neh? All the battles? Fighting side by side—together unbeatable. We did the impossible, neh? Together we humbled the mighty and spat on their upturned arses while they groveled for more. Us—we did it, a peasant and a Minowara!” The old man chuckled. “Listen, a few more years and I’d have smashed the Garlic Eaters properly. Then with Korean legions and our own Japanese legions, a sharp thrust up to Peking and me on the Dragon Throne of China. Then I’d have given you Japan, which you want, and I’d have what I want.” The voice was strong, belying the inner fragility. “A peasant can straddle the Dragon Throne with face and honor—not like here. Neh?”
   “China and Japan are different, yes, Sire.”
   “Yes. They’re wise in China. There the first of a dynasty’s always a peasant or the son of a peasant, and the throne’s always taken by force with bloody hands. No hereditary caste there—isn’t that China’s strength?” Again the laugh. “Force and bloody hands and peasant—that’s me. Neh?”
   “Yes. But you’re also samurai. You changed the rules here. You’re first of a dynasty.”
   “I always liked you, Tora-san.” The old man sipped cha contentedly. “Yes—think of it, me on the Dragon Throne—think of that! Emperor of China, Yodoko Empress, and after her Ochiba the Fair, and after me Yaemon, and China and Japan forever joined together as they should be. Ah, it would have been so easy! Then with our legions and Chinese hordes I’d stab northwest and south and, like tenth-class whores, the empires of all the earth would lie panting in the dirt, their legs spread wide for us to take what we want. We’re unbeatable—you and I were unbeatable—Japanese’re unbeatable, of course we are—we know the whole point of life. Neh?”
   “Yes.”

  The eyes glittered strangely. “What is it?”
   “Duty, discipline, and death,” Toranaga replied.
   Again a chuckle, the old man seemingly tinier than ever, more wizened than ever, and then, with an equal suddenness for which he was also famous, all the warmth left him. “The Regents?” he asked, his voice venomous and firm. “Whom would you pick?”
   “Lords Kiyama, Ishido, Onoshi, Toda Hiro-matsu, and Sugiyama.”
   The Taikō’s face twisted with a malicious grin. “You are the cleverest man in the Empire—after me! Explain to my ladies why you’d pick those five.”
   “Because they all hate each other, but combined, they can rule effectively and stamp out any opposition.”
   “Even you?”
   “No, not me, Sire.” Then Toranaga looked at Ochiba and spoke directly to her. “For Yaemon to inherit power you have to weather another nine years. To do that, above all else, you must maintain the Taikō’s peace. I pick Kiyama because he’s the chief Christian daimyo, a great general, and a most loyal vassal. Next, Sugiyama because he’s the richest daimyo in the land, his family ancient, he heartily detests Christians, and has the most to gain if Yaemon gets power. Onoshi because he detests Kiyama, offsets his power, is also Christian, but a leper who grasps at life, will live for twenty years and hates all the others with a monstrous violence, particularly Ishido. Ishido because he’ll be sniffing out plots—because he’s a peasant, detests hereditary samurai, and is violently opposed to Christians. Toda Hiro-matsu because he’s honest, obedient, and faithful, as constant as the sun and like the sudden best sword of a master swordsmith. He should be president of the Council.”
   “And you?”
   “I will commit seppuku with my eldest son, Noboru. My son Sudara’s married to the Lady Ochiba’s sister, so he’s no threat, could never be a threat. He could inherit the Kwanto, if it pleases you, providing he swears perpetual allegiance to your house.”
   No one was surprised that Toranaga had offered to do what was obviously in the Taikō’s mind, for Toranaga alone among the daimyos was the real threat. Then she had heard her husband say, “O-chan, what is your counsel?”
   “Everything that the Lord Toranaga has said, Sire,” she had answered at once, “except that you should order my sister divorced from Sudara who should commit seppuku. The Lord Noboru should be Lord Toranaga’s heir and should inherit the two provinces of Musashi and Shimoosa, and the rest of the Kwanto should go to your heir, Yaemon. I counsel this to be ordered today.”
   “Yodoko-sama?”
   To her astonishment, Yodoko had said, “Ah, Tokichi, you know I adore you with all my heart and the O-chan, and Yaemon as my own son. I say make Toranaga sole Regent.”
   “What?”
   “If you order him to die, I think you kill our son. Only Lord Toranaga has skill enough, prestige enough, cunning enough to inherit now. Put Yaemon into his keeping until he’s of age. Order Lord Toranaga to adopt our son formally. Let Yaemon be coached by Lord Toranaga and inherit after Toranaga.”
   “No—this must not be done,” Ochiba had protested.
   “What do you say to that, Tora-san?” the Taikō asked.
   “With humility I must refuse, Sire. I cannot accept that and beg to be allowed to commit seppuku and go before you.”
   “You will be sole Regent.”
   “I’ve never refused to obey you since we made our bargain. But this order I refuse.”
   Ochiba remembered how she had tried to will the Taikō to let Toranaga obliterate himself as she knew the Taikō had already decided. But the Taikō had changed his mind and, at length, had accepted part of what Yodoko had advised, and made the compromise that Toranaga would be a Regent and President of the Regents. Toranaga had sworn eternal faith to Yaemon but now he was still spinning the web that embroiled them all, like this crisis Mariko had precipitated. “I know it was on his orders,” Ochiba muttered, and now Lady Yodoko had wanted her to submit to him totally.
   Marry Toranaga? Buddha protect me from that shame, from having to welcome him and feel his weight and his spurting life.
   Shame?
   Ochiba, what is the truth? she asked herself. The truth is that you wanted him once—before the Taikō, neh? Even during, neh? Many times in your secret heart. Neh? The Wise One was right again about pride being your enemy and about needing a man, a husband. Why not accept lshido? He honors you and wants you and he’s going to win. He would be easy to manage. Neh? No, not that uncouth bog trotter! Oh, I know the filthy rumors spread by enemies—filthy impertinence! I swear I’d rather lie with my maids and put my faith in a harigata for another thousand lifetimes than abuse my Lord’s memory with Ishido. Be honest, Ochiba. Consider Toranaga. Don’t you really hate him just because he might have seen you on that dream day?
   It had been more than six years ago in Kyushu when she and her ladies had been out hawking with the Taikō and Toranaga. Their party was spread over a wide area and she had been galloping after one of her falcons, separated from the others. She was in the hills in a wood and she’d suddenly come upon this peasant gathering berries beside the lonely path. Her first weakling son had been dead almost two years and there were no more stirrings in her womb, though she had tried every position or trick or regimen, every superstition or potion or prayer, desperate to satisfy her lord’s obsession for an heir.
   The meeting with the peasant had been so sudden. He gawked up at her as though she were a kami and she at him because he was the image of the Taikō, small and monkeylike, but he had youth.
   Her mind had shouted that here was the gift from the gods she had prayed for, and she had dismounted and taken his hand and together they went a few paces into the wood and she became like a bitch in heat.
   Everything had had a dreamlike quality to it, the frenzy and lust and coarseness, lying on the earth, and even today she could still feel his gushing liquid fire, his sweet breath, his hands clutching her marvelously. Then she had felt his full dead weight and abruptly his breath became putrid and everything about him vile except the wetness, so she had pushed him off. He had wanted more but she had hit him and cursed him and told him to thank the gods she did not turn him into a tree for his insolence, and the poor superstitious fool had cowered on his knees begging her forgiveness—of course she was a kami, why else would such beauty squirm in the dirt for such as him?
   Weakly she had climbed into the saddle and walked the horse away, dazed, the man and the clearing soon lost, half wondering if all had been a dream and the peasant a real kami, praying that he was a kami, his essence god-given, that it would make another son for the glory of her Lord and give him the peace that he deserved. Then, just the other side of the wood, Toranaga had been waiting for her. Had he seen her, she wondered in panic.
   “I was worried about you, Lady,” he had said.
   “I’m—I’m perfectly all right, thank you.”
   “But your kimono’s all torn—there’s bracken down your back and in your hair…”
   “My horse threw me—it’s nothing.” Then she had challenged him to a race home to prove that nothing was wrong, and had set off like the wild wind, her back still smarting from the brambles that sweet oils soon soothed and, the same night, she had pillowed with her Lord and Master and, nine months later, she had birthed Yaemon to his eternal joy. And hers.
   “Of course our husband is Yaemon’s father,” Ochiba said with complete certainty to the husk of Yodoko. “He fathered both my children—the other was a dream.”
   Why delude yourself? It was not a dream, she thought. It happened. That man was not a kami. You rutted with a peasant in the dirt to sire a son you needed as desperately as the Taikō to bind him to you. He would have taken another consort, neh?
   What about your first-born?
   “Karma,” Ochiba said, dismissing that latent agony as well.
   “Drink this, child,” Yodoko had said to her when she was sixteen, a year after she had become the Taikō’s formal consort. And she had drunk the strange, warming herb cha and felt so sleepy and the next evening when she awoke again she remembered only strange erotic dreams and bizarre colors and an eerie timelessness. Yodoko had been there when she awakened, as when she had gone to sleep, so considerate, and as worried over the harmony of their lord as she had been. Nine months later she had birthed, the first of all the Taikō’s women to do so. But the child was sickly and that child died in infancy.
   Karma, she thought.
   Nothing had ever been said between herself and Yodoko. About what had happened, or what might have happened, during that vast deep sleep. Nothing, except “Forgive me…” a few moments ago, and, “There is nothing to forgive.”
   You’re blameless, Yodoko-sama, and nothing occurred, no secret act or anything. And if there did, rest in peace, Old One, now that secret lies buried with you. Her eyes were on the empty face, so frail and pathetic now, just as the Taikō had been so frail and pathetic at his ending, his question also never asked. Karma that he died, she thought dispassionately. If he’d lived another ten years I’d be Empress of China, but now … now I’m alone.
   “Strange that you died before I could promise, Lady,” she said, the smell of incense and the musk of death surrounding her. “I would have promised but you died before I promised. Is that my karma too? Do I obey a request and an unspoken promise? What should I do?”
   My son, my son, I feel so helpless.
   Then she remembered something the Wise One had said: ‘Think like the Taikō would—or Toranaga would.’
   Ochiba felt new strength pour through her. She sat back in the stillness and, coldly, began to obey.


   In a sudden hush, Chimmoko came out of the small gates to the garden and walked over to Blackthorne and bowed. “Anjin-san, please excuse me, my Mistress wishes to see you. If you will wait a moment I will escort you.”
   “All right. Thank you.” Blackthorne got up, still deep in his reverie and his overpowering sense of doom. The shadows were long now. Already part of the forecourt was sunless. The Grays prepared to move with him.
   Chimmoko went over to Sumiyori. “Please excuse me, Captain, but my Lady asks you to please prepare everything.”
   “Where does she want it done?”
   The maid pointed at the space in front of the arch. “There, Sire.”
   Sumiyori was startled. “It’s to be public? Not in private with just a few witnesses? She’s doing it for all to see?”
   “Yes.”
   “But, well … if it’s to be here… Her—her … what about her second?”
   “She believes the Lord Kiyama will honor her.”
   “And if he doesn’t?”
   “I don’t know, Captain. She—she hasn’t told me.” Chimmoko bowed and walked across to the veranda to bow again. “Kiritsubo-san, my Mistress says, so sorry, she’ll return shortly.”
   “Is she all right?”
   “Oh yes,” Chimmoko said proudly.
   Kiri and the others were composed now. When they had heard what had been said to the captain they had been equally perturbed. “Does she know other ladies are waiting to greet her?”
   “Oh yes, Kiritsubo-san. I—I was watching, and I told her. She said that she’s so honored by their presence and she will thank them in person soon. Please excuse me.”
   They all watched her go back to the gates and beckon Blackthorne. The Grays began to follow but Chimmoko shook her head and said her mistress had not bidden them. The captain allowed Blackthorne to leave.
   It was like a different world beyond the garden gates, verdant and serene, the sun on the treetops, birds chattering and insects foraging, the brook falling sweetly into the lily pond. But he could not shake off his gloom.
   Chimmoko stopped and pointed at the little cha-no-yu house. He went forward alone. He slipped his feet out of his thongs and walked up the three steps. He had to stoop, almost to his knees, to go through the tiny screened doorway. Then he was inside.
   “Thou,” she said.
   “Thou,” he said.
   She was kneeling, facing the doorway, freshly made up, lips crimson, immaculately coiffured, wearing a fresh kimono of somber blue edged with green, with a lighter green obi and a thin green ribbon for her hair.
   “Thou art beautiful.”
   “And thou.” A tentative smile. “So sorry it was necessary for thee to watch.”
   “It was my duty.”
   “Not duty,” she said. “I did not expect—or plan for—so much killing.”
   “Karma.” Blackthorne pulled himself out of his trance and stopped talking Latin. “You’ve been planning all this for a long time—your suicide. Neh?”
   “My life’s never been my own, Anjin-san. It’s always belonged to my liege Lord, and, after him, to my Master. That’s our law.”
   “It’s a bad law.”
   “Yes. And no.” She looked up from the mats. “Are we going to quarrel about things that may not be changed?”
   “No. Please excuse me.”
   “I love thee,” she said in Latin.
   “Yes. I know that now. And I love thee. But death is thy aim, Mariko-san.”
   “Thou art wrong, my darling. The life of my Master is my aim. And thy life. And truly, Madonna forgive me, or bless me for it, there are times when thy life is more important.”
   “There’s no escape now. For anyone.”
   “Be patient. The sun has not yet set.”
   “I have no confidence in this sun, Mariko-san.” He reached out and touched her face. “Gomen nasai.”
   “I promised thee tonight would be like the Inn of the Blossoms. Be patient. I know Ishido and Ochiba and the others.”
   “Que va on the others,” he said in Portuguese, his mood changing. “You mean that you’re gambling that Toranaga knows what he’s doing. Neh?”
   “Que va on thy ill humor,” she replied gently. “This day’s too short.”
   “Sorry—you’re right again. Today’s no time for ill humor.” He watched her. Her face was streaked with shadow bars cast by the sun through the bamboo slats. The shadows climbed and vanished as the sun sank behind a battlement.
   “What can I do to help thee?” he asked.

   “Believe there is a tomorrow.”
   For a moment he caught a glimpse of her terror. His arms went out to her and he held her and the waiting was no longer terrible.
   Footsteps approached.
   “Yes, Chimmoko?”
   “It’s time, Mistress.”
   “Is everything ready?”
   “Yes, Mistress.”
   “Wait for me beside the lily pond.” The footsteps went away. Mariko turned back to Blackthorne and kissed him gently.
   “I love thee,” she said.
   “I love thee,” he said.
   She bowed to him and went through the doorway. He followed.
   Mariko stopped by the lily pond and undid her obi and let it fall. Chimmoko helped her out of her blue kimono. Beneath it Mariko wore the most brilliant white kimono and obi Blackthorne had ever seen. It was a formal death kimono. She untied the green ribbon from her hair and cast it aside, then, completely in white, she walked on and did not look at Blackthorne.
   Beyond the garden, all the Browns were drawn up in a formal three-sided square around eight tatamis that had been laid out in the center of the main gateway. Yabu and Kiri and the rest of the ladies were seated in a line in the place of honor, facing south. In the avenue the Grays were also drawn up ceremoniously, and mingling with them were other samurai and samurai women. At a sign from Sumiyori everyone bowed. She bowed to them. Four samurai came forward and spread a crimson coverlet over the tatamis.
   Mariko walked to Kiritsubo and greeted her and Sazuko and all the ladies. They returned her bow and spoke the most formal of greetings. Blackthorne waited at the gates. He watched her leave the ladies and go to the crimson square and kneel in the center, in front of the tiny white cushion. Her right hand brought out her stiletto dagger from her white obi and she placed it on the cushion in front of her. Chimmoko came forward and, kneeling too, offered her a small, pure white blanket and cord. Mariko arranged the skirts of her kimono perfectly, the maid helping her, then tied the blanket around her waist with the cord. Blackthorne knew this was to prevent her skirts being blooded and disarranged by her death throes.
   Then, serene and prepared, Mariko looked up at the castle donjon. Sun still illuminated the upper story, glittering off the golden tiles. Rapidly the flaming light was mounting the spire. Then it disappeared.


   She looked so tiny sitting there motionless, a splash of white on the square of crimson.
   Already the avenue was dark and servants were lighting flares. When they finished, they fled as quickly and as silently as they had arrived.
   She reached forward and touched the knife and straightened it. Then she gazed once more through the gateway to the far end of the avenue but it was as still and as empty as it had ever been. She looked back at the knife.
   “Kasigi Yabu-sama!”
   “Yes, Toda-sama?”
   “It seems Lord Kiyama has declined to assist me. Please, I would be honored if you would be my second.”
   “It is my honor,” Yabu said. He bowed and got to his feet and stood behind her, to her left. His sword sang as it slid from its scabbard. He set his feet firmly and with two hands raised the sword. “I am ready, Lady,” he said.
   “Please wait until I have made the second cut.”
   Her eyes were on the knife. With her right hand she made the sign of the cross over her breast, then leaned forward and took up the knife without trembling and touched it to her lips as though to taste the polished steel. Then she changed her grip and held the knife firmly with her right hand under the left side of her throat. At that moment flares rounded the far end of the avenue. A retinue approached. Ishido was at their head.
   She did not move the knife.
   Yabu was still a coiled spring, concentrated on the mark. “Lady,” he said, “do you wait or are you continuing? I wish to be perfect for you.”
   Mariko forced herself back from the brink. “I—we wait … we … I …” Her hand lowered the knife. It was shaking now. As slowly, Yabu released himself. His sword hissed back into the scabbard and he wiped his hands on his sides.
   Ishido stood at the gateway. “It’s not sunset yet, Lady. The sun’s still on the horizon. Are you so keen to die?”
   “No, Lord General. Just to obey my Lord…” She held her hands together to stop their shaking.
   A rumble of anger went through the Browns at Ishido’s arrogant rudeness and Yabu readied to leap at him, but stopped as Ishido said loudly, “The Lady Ochiba begged the Regents on behalf of the Heir to make an exception in your case. We agreed to her request. Here are permits for you to leave at dawn tomorrow.” He shoved them into the hands of Sumiyori, who was nearby.
   “Sire?” Mariko said, without understanding, her voice threadbare.
   “You are free to leave. At dawn.”
   “And—and Kiritsubo-san and the Lady Sazuko?”
   “Isn’t that also part of your ‘duty?’ Their permits are there also.” Mariko tried to concentrate. “And … and her son?”
   “Him too, Lady,” Ishido’s scornful laugh echoed. “And all your men.”
   Yabu stammered, “Everyone has safe conducts?”
   “Yes, Kasigi Yabu-san, “ Ishido said. “You’re senior officer, neh? Please go at once to my secretary. He is completing all your passes, though why honored guests would wish to leave I don’t know. It’s hardly worth it for seventeen days. Neh?”
   “And me, Lord General?” old Lady Etsu asked weakly, daring to test the totality of Mariko’s victory, her heart racing and painful. “May—may I please leave also?”
   “Of course, Lady Maeda. Why should we keep anyone against her will? Are we jailers? Of course not! If the Heir’s welcome is so offensive that you wish to leave, then leave, though how you intend to travel four hundred ri home and another four hundred ri here in seventeen days I don’t understand.”
   “Please ex—excuse me, the—the Heir’s welcome isn’t offen—”
   Ishido interrupted icily. “If you wish to leave, apply for a permit in the normal way. It’ll take a day or so but we’ll see you safely on your way.” He addressed the others: “Any ladies may apply, any samurai. I’ve said before, it’s stupid to leave for seventeen days, it’s insulting to flout the Heir’s welcome, the Lady Ochiba’s welcome, and the Regents’ welcome … “—his ruthless gaze wept back to Mariko—”or to pressure them with threats of seppuku, which for a lady should be done in private and not as an arrogant public spectacle. Neh? I don’t seek the death of women, only enemies of the Heir, but if women are openly his enemy, then I’ll soon spit on their corpses too.”
   Ishido turned on his heel, shouted an order at the Grays, and walked off. At once captains echoed the order and all the Grays began to form up and move off from the gateway, except for a token few who stayed in honor of the Browns.
   “Lady,” Yabu said huskily, wiping his damp hands again, a bitter vomit taste in his mouth from the lack of fulfillment, “Lady, it’s over now. You’ve … you’ve won. You’ve won.”
   “Yes—yes,” she said. Her strengthless hands sought the knots of the white cord. Chimmoko went forward and undid the knots and took away the white blanket, then stepped away from the crimson square. Everyone watched Mariko, waiting to see if she could walk away.
   Mariko was trying to grope to her feet. She failed. She tried a second time. Again she failed. Impulsively Kiri moved to help her but Yabu shook his head and said, “No, it’s her privilege,” so Kiri sat back, hardly breathing.
   Blackthorne, beside the gates, was still turmoiled by his boundless joy at her reprieve and he remembered how his own will had been stretched that night of his near-seppuku, when he had had to get up as a man and walk home as a man unsupported, and became samurai. And he watched her, despising the need for this courage, yet understanding it, even honoring it.
   He saw her hands go to the crimson again, and again she pushed and this time Mariko forced herself upright. She wavered and almost fell, then her feet moved and slowly she tottered across the crimson and reeled helplessly toward the main door. Blackthorne decided that she had done enough, had endured enough, had proved enough, so he came forward and caught her in his arms and lifted her up just as her mind left her.
   For a moment he stood there in the arena alone, proud that he was alone and that he had decided. She lay like a broken doll in his arms. Then he carried her inside and no one moved or barred his path.

Chapter 57

   The attack on the Browns’ stronghold began in the darkest reaches of the night, two or three hours before dawn. The first wave of ten ninja —the infamous Stealthy Ones—came over the roofs of the battlements opposite, now unguarded by Grays. They threw cloth-covered grappling hooks on ropes over to the other roof and swung across the chasm like so many spiders. They wore tight-fitting clothes of black and black tabi and black masks. Their hands and faces were also blackened. These men were lightly armed with chain knives and shuriken—small, star-shaped, needle-sharp, poison-tipped throwing barbs and discs that were the size of a man’s palm. On their backs were slung haversacks and short thin poles.
   Ninja were mercenaries. They were artists in stealth, specialists in the disreputable—in espionage, infiltration, and sudden death.
   The ten men landed noiselessly. They re-coiled the grapples, and four of them hooked the grapples again onto a projection and immediately swung downward to a veranda twenty feet below. Once they had reached it, as noiselessly, their comrades unhooked the grapples, dropped them down, and moved across the tiles to infiltrate another area.
   A tile cracked under one man’s foot and they all froze. In the forecourt, three stories and sixty feet below, Sumiyori stopped on his rounds and looked up. His eyes squinted into the darkness. He waited without moving, his mouth open a fraction to improve his hearing, his eyes sweeping slowly. The roof with the ninja was in shadow, the moon faint, the stars heavy in the thick humid air. The men stayed absolutely still, even their breathing controlled and imperceptible, seemingly as inanimate as the tiles upon which they stood.
   Sumiyori made another circuit with his eyes and with his ears, and then another, and, still not sure, he walked out into the forecourt to see more clearly. Now the four ninja on the veranda were also within his field of vision but they were as motionless as the others and he did not notice them either.
   “Hey,” he called to the guards on the gateway, the doors tight barred now, “you see anything—hear anything?”
   “No, Captain,” the alert sentries said. “The roof tiles are always chattering, shifting a bit—it’s the damp or the heat, perhaps.”
   Sumiyori said to one of them, “Go up there and have a look. Better still, tell the top-floor guards to make a search just in case.”
   The soldier hurried off. Sumiyori stared up again, then half shrugged and, reassured, continued his patrol. The other samurai went back to their posts, watching outward.
   On the rooftop and on the veranda the ninja waited in their frozen positions. Not even their eyes moved. They were schooled to remain immobile for hours if need be—just one part of their perpetual training. Then the leader motioned to them and at once they again moved to the attack. Their grapples and ropes took them quietly to another veranda where they could slide through the narrow windows in the granite walls. Below this top floor, all other windows—defense positions for bowmen—were so narrow that they could not be entered from outside. At another signal the two groups entered simultaneously.
   Both rooms were in darkness, with ten Browns sleeping in neat lines. They were put to death quickly and almost noiselessly, a single knife thrust in the throat for most, the raiders’ trained senses taking them unerringly to their targets, and in moments the last of the Browns was thrashing desperately, his warning shout garroted just as it had begun. Then, the rooms secured, the doors secured, the leader took out a flint and tinder and lit a candle and carried it, cupped carefully, to the window and signaled three times into the night. Behind him his men were making doubly sure that every Brown was quite dead. The leader repeated the signal, then came away from the window and motioned with his hand, speaking to them in sign language with his fingers.
   At once the raiders undid their haversacks and readied their attack weapons—short, sickle-shaped, double-edged knives with a chain attached to the haft, weighted at the end of the chain, and shuriken and throwing knives. At another order, selected men unsheathed the short poles. These were telescoped spears and blow pipes that sprang into full length with startling speed. And as each man completed his preparations he knelt, settled himself facing the door, and, seemingly without conscious effort, became totally motionless. Now the last man was ready. The leader blew out the candle.
   When the city bells toned the middle of the Hour of the Tiger—four of the clock, an hour before dawn—the second wave of ninja infiltrated. Twenty slid silently out of a large, disused culvert that once had serviced the rivulets of the garden. All these men wore swords. Like so many shadows, they swarmed into position among the shrubs and bushes, became motionless and almost invisible. At the same time another group of twenty came up from the ground by ropes and grapples to attack the battlement that overlooked the forecourt and garden.
   Two Browns were on the battlements, carefully watching the empty roofs across the avenue. Then one of the Browns glanced around and saw the grapples behind them and he began to point in alarm. His comrade opened his mouth to shout a warning when the first ninja made the embrasure and, with a whipping snap of his wrist, sent a barbed shuriken whirling into this samurai’s face and mouth, hideously strangling the shout, and hurled himself forward at the other samurai, his outstretched hand now a lethal weapon, the thumb and forefinger extended, and he stabbed for the jugular. The impact paralyzed the samurai, another vicious blow broke his neck with a dry crack, and the ninja jumped at the first agonized samurai, who was clawing at the barbs embedded deeply in his mouth and face, the poison already working.
   With a final supreme effort, the dying samurai ripped out his short stabbing sword and struck. His blow sliced deep and the ninja gasped but this did not stop the rush and his hand slammed into the Brown’s throat, snapping the man’s head back and dislocating his spine. The samurai was dead on his feet.
   The ninja was bleeding badly but he made no sound and still held onto the dead Brown, lowering him carefully to the stone flags, sinking to his knees beside him. All the ninja had climbed up the ropes now and stood on the battlement. They bypassed their wounded comrade until the battlement was secured. The wounded man was still on his knees beside the dead Browns, holding his side. The leader examined the wound. Blood was spurting in a steady stream. He shook his head and spoke with his fingers and the man nodded and dragged himself painfully to a corner, the blood leaving a wide trail. He made himself comfortable, leaning against the stone, and took out a shuriken. He scratched the back of one hand several times with the poison barbs, then found his stiletto, put the point at the base of his throat and, two-handed, with all his strength, he thrust upward.
   The leader made sure this man was dead then went back to the fortified door that led inside. He opened it cautiously. At that moment they heard footsteps approaching and at once melted back into ambush position.
   In the corridor of this, the west wing, Sumiyori was approaching with ten Browns. He dropped two off near the battlement door and, not stopping, walked on. These two reliefs went out on to the battlement as Sumiyori turned the far corner and went down a flight of circular steps. At the bottom was another checkpoint and the two tired samurai bowed and were replaced.
   “Pick up the others and go back to your quarters. You’ll be wakened at dawn,” Sumiyori said.
   “Yes, Captain.”
   The two samurai walked back up the steps, glad to be off duty. Sumiyori continued on down the next corridor, replacing sentries. At length he stopped outside a door and knocked, the last two guards with him.
   “Yabu-san?”
   “Yes?” The voice was sleepy.
   “So sorry, it’s the change of the guard.”
   “Ah, thank you. Please come in.”
   Sumiyori opened the door but warily stayed on the threshold. Yabu was touseled, propped in the coverlets on one elbow, his other hand on his sword. When he was sure it was Sumiyori he relaxed and yawned. “Anything new, Captain?”
   Sumiyori relaxed also and shook his head, came in and closed the door. The room was large and neat and another bed of futons was laid and turned back invitingly. Arrow slit windows overlooked the avenue and city, a sheer drop of thirty feet below. “Everything’s quiet. She’s sleeping now… At least her maid, Chimmoko, said she was.” He went to the low bureau where an oil lamp spluttered and poured himself cold cha from a pot. Beside it was their pass, formally stamped, that Yabu had brought back from Ishido’s office.
   Yabu yawned again and stretched luxuriously. “The Anjin-san?”
   “He was awake the last time I checked. That was at midnight. He asked me not to check again until just before dawn—something about his customs. I didn’t understand clearly everything he said, but there’s no harm, there’s a very tight security everywhere, neh? Kiritsubo-san and the other ladies are quiet, though she’s been up, Kiritsubo-san, most of the night.”
   Yabu got out of bed. He wore only a loincloth. “Doing what?”
   “Just sitting at a window, staring out. Nothing to see out there. I suggested she’d better get some sleep. She thanked me politely and agreed and stayed where she was. Women, neh?”
   Yabu flexed his shoulders and elbows and scratched vigorously to get his blood flowing. He began to dress. “She should rest. She’s got a long way to go today.”
   Sumiyori set the cup down. “I think it’s all a trick.”
   “What?”
   “I don’t think Ishido means it.”
   “We have signed permits. There they are. Every man’s listed. You checked the names. How can he go back on a public commitment to us or to Lady Toda? Impossible, neh?”
   “I don’t know. Your pardon, Yabu-san, but I still think it’s a trick.”
   Yabu knotted his sash slowly. “What kind of trick?”
   “We’ll be ambushed.”
   “Outside the castle?”
   Sumiyori nodded. “Yes, that’s what I think.”
   “He wouldn’t dare.”
   “He’ll dare. He’ll ambush us or delay us. I can’t see him letting her go, or Lady Kiritsubo, or Lady Sazuko or the babe. Even old Lady Etsu and the others.”
   “No, you’re wrong.”
   Sumiyori shook his head sadly. “I think it would’ve been better if she’d cut deep and you’d struck. This way nothing’s resolved.”
   Yabu picked up his swords and stuck them in his belt. Yes, he was thinking, I agree with you. Nothing’s resolved and she failed in her duty. You know it, I know it, and so does Ishido. Disgraceful! If she’d cut, then we would have all lived forever. As it is now … she came back from the brink and dishonored us and dishonored herself. Shigata ga nai, neh? Stupid woman!
   But to Sumiyori he said, “I think you’re wrong. She conquered Ishido. Lady Toda won. Ishido won’t dare to ambush us. Go to sleep, I’ll wake you at dawn.”
   Again Sumiyori shook his head. “No, thank you, Yabu-san, I think I’ll go the rounds again.” He went to a window and peered out. “Something’s not right.”
   “Everything’s fine. Get some—wait a moment! What was that? Did you hear something?”
   Yabu came up to Sumiyori and pretended to search the darkness, listening intently, and then, without warning, he whipped out his short sword and with the same flashing, spontaneous movement, buried the blade into Sumiyori’s back, clapping his other hand over the man’s mouth to stop the shriek. The captain died instantly. Yabu held him carefully at arm’s length with immense strength so that none of the blood stained him, and carried the body over to the futons, arranging it in a sleeping position. Then he pulled out his sword and began to clean it, furious that Sumiyori’s intuition had forced the unplanned killing. Even so, Yabu thought, I can’t have him prowling around now.
   Earlier, when Yabu was returning from Ishido’s office with their safe conduct pass, he had been waylaid privately by a samurai he had never seen before.
   “Your co-operation’s invited, Yabu-san.”
   “To what and by whom?”
   “By someone you made an offer to yesterday.”
   “What offer?”
   “In return for safe conducts for you and the Anjin-san, you’d see she was disarmed during the ambush on your journey… Please don’t touch your sword, Yabu-san, there are four archers waiting for an invitation!”
   “How dare you challenge me? What ambush?” he had bluffed, feeling weak at the knees, for there was no doubt now that the man was Ishido’s intermediary. Yesterday afternoon he had made the secret offer through his own intermediaries, in a desperate attempt to salvage something from the wreckage Mariko had caused to his plans for the Black Ship and the future. At the time he had known that it was a wild idea. It would have been difficult, if not impossible, to disarm her and stay alive, therefore fraught with danger to both sides, and when Ishido, through intermediaries, had turned it down he was not surprised.
   “I know nothing of any ambush,” he had blustered, wishing that Yuriko were there to help him out of the morass.
   “Even so, you’re invited to one, though not the way you planned it.”
   “Who are you?”
   “In return you get Izu, the barbarian and his ship—the moment the chief enemy’s head is in the dust. Providing, of course, she’s captured alive and you stay in Osaka until the day and swear allegiance.”
   “Whose head?” Yabu had said, trying to get his brain working, realizing only now that Ishido had used the request for him to fetch the safe conducts merely as a ruse so the secret offer could be made safely and negotiated.
   “Is it yes or no?” the samurai asked.
   “Who are you and what are you talking about?” He had held up the scroll. “Here’s Lord Ishido’s safe conduct. Not even the Lord General can cancel these after what’s happened.”
   “That’s what many say. But, so sorry, bullocks will shit gold dust before you or any are allowed to insult the Lord Yaemon… Please take your hand away from your sword!”
   “Then watch your tongue!”
   “Of course, so sorry. You agree?”
   “I’m overlord of Izu now, and promised Totomi and Suruga,” Yabu had said, beginning to bargain. He knew that though he was trapped, as Mariko was trapped, so equally was Ishido trapped, because the dilemma Mariko had precipitated still existed.
   “Yes, so you are,” the samurai had said. “But I’m not permitted to negotiate. Those are the terms. Is it yes or no? …”
   Yabu finished cleaning his sword and arranged the sheet over the seemingly sleeping figure of Sumiyori. Then he toweled the sweat off his face and hands, composed his rage, blew out the candle, and opened the door. The two Browns were waiting some paces down the corridor. They bowed.
   “I’ll wake you at dawn, Sumiyori-san,” Yabu said to the darkness. Then, to one of the samurai, “You stand guard here. No one’s to go in. No one! Make sure the captain’s not disturbed—he needs rest.”
   “Yes, Sire.”
   The samurai took up his new post and Yabu strode off down the corridor with the other guard, went up a flight of steps to the main central section of this floor and crossed it, heading for the audience room and inner apartments that were in the east wing. Soon he came to the cul-de-sac corridor of the audience room. Guards bowed and allowed him to enter. Other samurai opened the door to the corridor and complex of private quarters. He knocked at a door.
   “Anjin-san?” he said quietly.
   There was no answer. He pulled the shoji open. The room was empty, the inner shoji ajar. He frowned, then motioned to his accompanying guard to wait, and hurried across the room into the dimly lit inner corridor. Chimmoko intercepted him, a knife in her hand. Her rumpled bed was in this passageway outside one of the rooms.
   “Oh, so sorry, Sire, I was dozing,” she said apologetically, lowering her knife. But she did not move out of his path.
   “I was looking for the Anjin-san.”
   “He and my Mistress are talking, Sire, with Kiritsubo-san and the Lady Achiko.”
   “Please ask him if I could see him a moment.”
   “Certainly, Sire.” Chimmoko politely motioned Yabu back into the other room, waited until he was there, and pulled the inner shoji closed. The guard in the main corridor watched inquisitively.