“He is my husband. Whatever he decides, that will I do—unless you overrule him, Sire. This is my duty.”
Toranaga looked from man to woman. Then his voice hardened, and for a moment he was like the Toranaga of old. “Mariko-san, you will leave in three days for Osaka. You will prepare that way for me, and wait for me there. Buntaro-san, you will accompany me as commander of my escort when I leave. After you have acted as my second, you or one of your men may do the same with the Anjin-san—with or without his approval.”
Buntaro cleared his throat. “Sire, please order Crim—”
“Hold your tongue! You forget yourself! I’ve told you no three times! The next time you have the impertinence to offer unwanted advice you will slit your belly in a Yedo cesspool!”
Buntaro’s head was on the tatamis. “I apologize, Sire. I apologize for my impertinence.”
Mariko was equally appalled by Toranaga’s ill-mannered, shameful outburst, and she bowed low also, to hide her own embarrassment. In a moment Toranaga said, “Please excuse my temper. Your plea is granted, Buntaro-san, but only after you’ve acted as my second.”
“Thank you, Sire. Please excuse me for offending you.”
“I ordered you both to make peace with one another. Have you done so?”
Buntaro nodded shortly. Mariko too.
“Good. Mariko-san, you will come back with the Anjin-san tonight, in the Hour of the Dog. You may go now.”
She bowed and left them.
Toranaga stared at Buntaro. “Well? Do you accuse her?”
“It . . . it is unthinkable she’d betray me, Sire,” Buntaro answered sullenly.
“I agree.” Toranaga waved a fly away with his fan, seeming very tired. “Well, you may have the Anjin-san’s head soon. I need it on his shoulders a little longer.”
“Thank you, Sire. Again please excuse me for irritating you.”
“These are irritating times. Foul times.” Toranaga leaned forward. “Listen, I want you to go to Mishima at once to relieve your father for a few days. He asks permission to come here to consult with me. I don’t know what . . . Anyway, I must have someone in Mishima I can trust. Would you please leave at dawn—but by way of Takato.”
“Sire?” Buntaro saw that Toranaga was keeping calm only with an enormous effort, and in spite of his will, his voice was trembling.
“I’ve a private message for my mother in Takato. You’re to tell no one you’re going there. But once you’re clear of the city, cut north.”
“I understand.”
“Lord Zataki may prevent you from delivering it—may try to. You are to give it only into her hands. You understand? To her alone. Take twenty men and gallop there. I’ll send a carrier pigeon to ask safe conduct from him.”
“Your message will be verbal or in writing, Lord?”
“In writing.”
“And if I can’t deliver it?”
“You must deliver it, of course you must. That’s why I picked you! But . . . if you’re betrayed like I’ve . . . if you’re betrayed, destroy it before you commit suicide. The moment I hear such evil news, the Anjin-san’s head is off his shoulders. And if . . . what about Mariko-san? What about your wife, if something goes wrong?”
“Please dispatch her, Sire, before you die. I would be honored if . . . She merits a worthy second.”
“She won’t die dishonorably, you have my promise. I’ll see to it. Personally. Now please come back at dawn for the dispatch. Don’t fail me. Only into my mother’s hands.”
Buntaro thanked him again and left, ashamed of Toranaga’s outward show of fear.
Now alone, Toranaga took out a kerchief and wiped the sweat off his face. His fingers were trembling. He tried to control them but couldn’t. It had taken all his strength to continue acting the stupid dullard, to hide his unbounding excitement over the secrets, which, fantastically, promised the long-hoped-for reprieve.
“A possible reprieve, only possible—if they’re true,” he said aloud, hardly able to think, the astoundingly welcome information that Mariko had brought from the Gyoko woman still shrieking in his brain.
Ochiba, he was gloating, . . . so that harpy’s the lure to bring my brother tumbling out of his mountain eyrie. My brother wants Ochiba. But now it’s equally obvious he wants more than her, and more than just the Kwanto. He wants the realm. He detests Ishido, loathes Christians, and is now sick with jealousy over Ishido’s well-known lust for Ochiba. So he’ll fall out with Ishido, Kiyama, and Onoshi. Because what my treacherous brother really wants is to be Shōgun. He’s Minowara, with all the lineage necessary, all the ambition, but not the mandate. Or the Kwanto. First he must get the Kwanto to get the rest.
Toranaga rubbed his hands with glee at all the wonderful new possible ploys this newfound knowledge gave him against his brother.
And Onoshi the leper! A drop of honey in Kiyama’s ear at the right time, he thought, and the guts of the renegade’s treason twisted a little, improved modestly, and Kiyama might gather his legions and go after Onoshi with fire and sword at once. ‘Gyoko’s quite sure, Sire. The acolyte Brother Joseph said Lord Onoshi had whispered in the confessional that he had made a secret treaty with Ishido against a fellow Christian daimyo and wanted absolution. The treaty solemnly agreed that in return for support now, Ishido promised the day you are dead that this fellow Christian would be impeached for treason and invited into the Void, the same day, forcibly if necessary, and Onoshi’s son and heir would inherit all lands. The Christian was not named, Sire.’
Kiyama or Harima of Nagasaki? Toranaga asked himself. It doesn’t matter. For me it must be Kiyama.
He got up shakily, in spite of his jubilation, and groped to one of the windows, leaned heavily on the wooden sill. He peered at the moon, and the sky beyond. The stars were dull. Rain clouds were building.
“Buddha, all gods, any gods, let my brother take the bait—and let that woman’s whisperings be true!”
No shooting star appeared to show the message was acknowledged by the gods. No wind sprang up, no sudden cloud blanketed the crescent moon. Even if there had been a heavenly sign he would have dismissed it as a coincidence.
Be patient. Consider facts only. Sit down and think, he told himself.
He knew the strain was beginning to tell on him but it was vital that none of his intimates or vassals—thus none of the legion of loose-mouthed fools or spies of Yedo—suspect for an instant that he was only feigning capitulation and play-acting the role of a beaten man. At Yokosé he had realized at once that to accept the second scroll from his brother was his death knell. He had decided his only tiny chance of survival was to convince everyone, even himself, that he had absolutely accepted defeat, though in reality it was only a cover to gain time, continuing his lifelong pattern of negotiation, delay, and seeming retreat, always waiting patiently until a chink in the armor appeared over a jugular, then stabbing home viciously, without hesitation.
Since Yokosé he had waited out the lonely watches of the nights and the days, each one harder to bear. No hunting or laughing, no plotting or planning or swimming or banter or dancing and singing in Nōh plays that had delighted him all his life. Only the same lonely role, the most difficult in his life: gloom, surrender, indecision, apparent helplessness, with self-imposed semistarvation.
To help pass the time he had continued to refine the Legacy. This was a series of private secret instructions to his successors that he had formulated over the years on how best to rule after him. Sudara had already sworn to abide by the Legacy, as every heir to the mantle would be required to do. In this way the future of the clan would be assured—may be assured, Toranaga reminded himself as he changed a word or added a sentence or eliminated a paragraph, providing I escape this present trap.