To their right were the main kitchens with great steaming cauldrons and massed staff--more guards there.
Left and all around the compound were a scattering of guest cottages, in other gardens with streams and bridges, each with a well-tended entrance path curling through the shrubs. Silence there and no lights within, just one lantern at the front veranda. More anguish, they had expected them to be occupied and to serve as cover and a necessary diversion.
Karma, Saigo thought. Even so our positions are as we predicted, so are those of the enemy, the plan is good and we know the password. During the previous two weeks, disguised as an ordinary samurai traveller, he had found the correct courtesan and inveigled his way into her emotions so that soon he had been taken on a secret guided tour of the grounds--even to the places where the Hallowed Travellers were to rest.
"Why not?"' he had whispered, "Who will know?
They're not due here for days--ah you are so beautiful. Let us join where a Shogun and a sister of the Son of Heaven will join--that will be something to whisper to our grandchildren, eh? I think I shall never leave you..."
It had been equally easy to find a bathhouse maid who was secretly fanatic for shishi, and to persuade her there was no risk to listen and whisper a few words into the night.
He felt Tora touch his arm. Anxiously the youth pointed. A patrol had come through the far gates. It began to circle the grounds. Small pools of light were beneath the lanterns.
Inevitably the patrol would come this way and be very close. His signal, the call of a night bird, gave the order.
At once they sank deeper into the foliage and kept their heads lowered, hardly breathing. The patrol approached, and then passed without seeing them--just as Katsumata had forecast when he had suggested their attack plan: "Initially it will be easy to be missed in the dark. Never forget surprise is with you. Your infiltration will be totally unexpected. Who would dare to attack the Shogun when he is surrounded by so many men? At a way station? Impossible! Remember, with stealth, surprise and ferocious speed two or three of you will reach the kernel--and one is enough."
Saigo watched the enemy marching away. A marvelous glow pervaded him and all his confidence returned. Another short wait until the enemy patrol had turned the corner, then he motioned for the attack teams to move into their predetermined positions. Protected from view by the shrubbery, four men slithered away to his right, two to his left. When all were in position, he took a deep breath to help slow his heartbeat. His signal, again the call of a night bird, gave the order to begin.
At once the pair on his far right eased out of the shrubs onto the path, adjusting the ties on their pantaloons, and began strolling away, their arms around each other as lovers will. Within moments they had been noticed by the guards at the nearest hedge.
"You two halt!"
The two youths obeyed and one called out, "Blue Rainbow, Blue Rainbow, Lord Sergeant" and both laughed, pretending to be shy at being seen, then continued to stroll away, hand in hand.
"Halt! Who are you?"
"Ah, so sorry, just friends on a nightly stroll," the youth said in his softest, most gentle voice, "Blue Rainbow, have you forgotten our password?"
One of the samurai laughed and said, "If the Captain catches you "strolling" in the bushes around here you'll get more than a Blue Rainbow and both pairs of cheeks will know another type of beating!"
Again both youths pretended to laugh.
Unhurried, they walked away, ignoring more strident calls to stop. Finally the Sergeant shouted, "You two. Come here, at once!" They faced him a moment, calling out plaintively there was no harm in what they were doing. Saigo and the others, covered by the diversion had been crawling into final positions. Taut with excitement that they had not been noticed, they rested a second, knowing this diversion was almost over. The sound of the night bird Saigo made this time was loud enough to reach the two youths.
Without hesitation, they pretended to laugh and ran off gaily, hand in hand, directly away from the guards as though playing a game. Their path carelessly took them through a pool of light and allowed them to be seen clearly for the first time. With a shout of rage the Sergeant and four men charged in pursuit. Sentries at the far main gate peered into the darkness to see what was happening, and those guards at the hedge who could see beckoned others nearby, all of them alert.
The two shishi were quickly surrounded. Back to back, swords ready, they stood silently at bay under a barrage of questions, nothing effeminate now in their stance or the way their lips were drawn back from the teeth.
Enraged, the Sergeant stepped forward a pace.
The youth opposing him readied. His right hand darted into his sleeve and came out with a shuriken and before the Sergeant could duck or move aside the five-pointed circle of steel was embedded in his throat and he fell burbling, choking in his own blood. Both shishi leapt to the attack but neither could break out of the net and though they fought bravely, wounding three of the samurai, they were no match for the others who, though wanting to disarm them and capture them alive, could not do so.
One of the youths took a sword thrust through the lower part of his back and cried out, severely wounded but not enough to kill him immediately. The other whirled to his aid and in that instant was mortally wounded and crumpled, dying. "Sonno-joi," he gasped.
Aghast the other heard him, made one last impotent attempt to close with an attacker, then abruptly turned his sword on himself and fell on it.
"Find the Captain," a samurai panted, blood streaming from a sword slash in his arm. One of the others ran off as the rest collected around the bodies, the Sergeant still gurgling though dying fast. "Nothing we can do for him. Never seen a shuriken so fast." Someone turned the two dead men over. "Look, death poems! Shishi all right--eeee, both Satsumas! They must have gone mad."
"Sonno-joi!" another muttered, "that's not mad."
"It's mad to say that aloud," a hard-faced ashigaru warned him. "If an officer hears you..."
"Listen, these motherless dogs had the password, there's a traitor here!" More nervously they looked at each other.
Over on the right the kitchen staff were transfixed, not knowing what was going on. Many samurai had been drawn away from the hedge and stood gaping at the bodies, creating the opening Katsumata and Saigo had planned.
Again Saigo signalled. His two strongest fighters broke out of the bushes on his extreme right and ran for the far southeast corner. Almost at once they were spotted. Cursing, the two nearest samurai rushed to intercept as others ran to their aid. Violent hand-to-hand combat began again, darkness helping the attackers immeasurably.
One defender screamed and went down clawing his half-severed arm. More samurai were drawn away from the hedge immediately in front of Saigo and just before the samurai overwhelmed the two fighters, in a coordinated maneuver the two shishi broke off the battle and pretended to flee pell-mell for the fence near the kitchens, well away from Saigo and the three final teams. As they fled they unwound ropes from their waists with small grapples on the end. Nearing the fence they threw them deftly, caught the top, and began to climb, their pursuers redoubling their efforts.
By now all attention was on these two. Guards near the entrance and the far side of the Shogun's complex, still not knowing exactly what was happening other than that two ronin were loose in the compound and were now trying to escape over the fence, hurried to intercept them. Others ran out and down the perimeter fence to catch them on that side.