Year of the Demon

AZUCHI-MOMOYAMA PERIOD, THE YEAR 21

(1588 CE)

32

Daigoro swung his bokken and missed. His target was too damned fast.

“Try again,” said a smiling Tomo, and Daigoro tightened his grip on the haft. Tomo threw the next ball. Daigoro stepped up and snapped at it with his bokken. Another miss.

“I don’t understand it,” he said. “You hit the damnable thing every time and you’ve never so much as picked up a sword.”

“Sir, perhaps all your kenjutsu has been for naught,” Tomo said with a laugh. “At least when it comes to fighting little beanbags. Here, Okuma-sama, switch with me.”

Daigoro handed him the bokken and went to retrieve the little cloth balls. They were filled with dried azuki beans and they were heavier than they appeared. Now they were dirty too, powdered with fine white dust after having been knocked up and down the gravel courtyard for half the morning. Daigoro took the requisite eight paces back and threw the first toss.

Tomo hacked with a big, wide swing. Were it a sword fight, his opponent would have killed him three times over by the time his blow fell. But unlike Daigoro, Tomo actually hit what he aimed for. The little ball flew from the tip of the bokken as swift as an arrow, striking Daigoro squarely in the chest.

“A thousand pardons,” Tomo said, but his boyish laughter betrayed his true feelings.

Daigoro laughed too. “I swear to you, I might actually find some useful sword technique in this game if only I could get the hang of it. Here, let me try again.”

“Not so fast. You owe me two more tosses, sir.”

Tomo hit them both, one in the dirt at Daigoro’s feet, one into Daigoro’s breastbone with a loud smack. He giggled again and they traded weapons, or playthings, or whatever the proper name was for these frustrating contraptions. “What did you say this game was called?”

“Cutting Swallows,” Tomo said. “I can’t believe you’ve never played before. Every boy in the village knows it.”

Yes, but I’m not a villager, Daigoro thought. He did understand the swallow-cutting reference, though. Tsutsui Kosuke, a minor cousin of the Shimojo clan, was renowned for his draw. In addition to his blinding speed, he had a preternatural accuracy the likes of which no one had seen before or since. It was said he’d practiced as a boy by cutting down moths at twilight. By the time he came of age, rumors held that he could cut the wings off a swallow in midflight. That launched him into the firmament. He was a local hero for years, until Tsutsui squared off against Daigoro’s father in the Battle of Mikatagahara. Middle-aged men still sang a drinking song whose refrain ran “Bravely fought the Swallow Cutter, but the Red Bear of Izu was the Swallow Cutter cutter.” Even so, it was Tsutsui who had the children’s game named for him.

Daigoro tried Tomo’s sloppy swinging method, and though he missed the first two balls he clipped the third. “Ha!”

“Well done, sir! You’re getting the knack of it.”

As Daigoro bent to pick up the little bean-filled swallows, he saw Akiko approaching along the shady veranda. “Aki-chan,” he called, “you’ve got to try this.”

“Oh, I don’t know. . . .”

“Come on, you don’t have to be a swordswoman to play—though I must say, anyone who could couple precision like this with proper form would be a dangerous opponent.”

She stood in the shade with her hands folded over her belly. “It’s hot.”

“So we’ll go down for a swim later. Have mercy on me, Aki. For once there isn’t a political crisis on my lap. Let’s have a bit of fun.”

She unfolded her hands and clapped them back down on her belly. “I’d say you’ve had your share of fun already, lover.”

It took a moment for her meaning to sink in. Daigoro looked at her hands, her belly, and then up to her face. Her smile seemed to be held in check, straining to hold back a flashflood of joy. “Do you mean it?” he said.

“Yes.”

“You’re . . . ?”

The smile broadened. “Yes.”

“Tomo!” Daigoro seized him by the shoulders. “I’m going to be a father!”

Tomo giggled and Akiko joined in. Daigoro rushed over and lifted her off the veranda. Miraculously—or because all his sword training had toughened it, or maybe because sheer exhilaration infused it with strength—his lame leg held their weight. Even when he twirled her around, it did not buckle. “Easy, now,” she said, clutching his head to her chest, “easy on your baby’s bedroom.”

“Oh, right. Sorry.”

He set her down but held her close. Somehow it had never occurred to him that with all the time they spent in bed she might get pregnant. Now he wondered which surprised him more, the fact that she was with child or the fact that he was happy about it. By all rights fatherhood should have been terrifying. He had a family to govern, a province to stabilize, and a mortal enemy whispering in the imperial regent’s ear. His life was a maelstrom, no place to bring a child, and yet he was so giddy his face was actually tingling.

Katsushima came running around the corner of the house, sweat on his brow. As he drew near, Daigoro opened his arms wide. “Katsushima, have you heard? She’s with child!”

“You’ve got visitors, Okuma-sama.”

“Don’t sama me. I’m going to be a father!”

“Yes. How nice. You’ve got visitors.”

“Good, good, everything’s good. Show them in. We’ll pass the sake all around.”

“They’re already in your courtyard. Armed.”

Only then did Daigoro notice how stern Katsushima’s face was. His jaw muscles stood out in his cheeks, and a cold light seemed to glow in his eyes. Out of habit his thumb flicked his katana loose in its sheath, drawing it back in only to loosen it once more.

“Armed? Who?”

“Guess.”

Daigoro nodded and picked up his own swords, which had been lying on the veranda while he was playing games. One day of peace, he thought. Is that too much to ask? And to think I’d been planning on swimming later.

As he rounded the corner, Tomo and Katsushima in tow, he saw a horde of dusty, armored men sweating in the hot sun. They looked as though they’d endured many a forced march to come here. Daigoro put them at no less than half a hundred strong, all wearing twin swords and topknots. Every tenth man wore a tall red banner bearing the kiri flower of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. With the sunlight streaming through them, the banners cast a red glow on the faces of the men in their shadows.

The company stood in formation just inside the front gate. It was not lost on Daigoro that he could not leave his own home except by going through them. Nor was it lost on him that there was only one reason why a guest would enter uninvited and armed. The laws of hospitality were clear. Even the most boorish of brutes knew to announce himself at the door if he did not want to be thought an enemy.

“Patience and caution,” Katsushima said quietly. Hideyoshi’s company was still fifty paces offs, but he kept his voice low all the same. “We’re one wrong word away from a bloodbath.”

“I know,” said Daigoro. He took a deep breath and shortened his strides. There was no blood on these men, so either they hadn’t killed his gate guards or there was a second company outside that had done the fighting. Now that he thought on it, he was certain he’d have heard swordplay even if he was wrapped up in Cutting Swallows or rejoicing with Aki. So there had been no fighting. Whatever this was, the situation was not yet so bad that diplomacy was impossible.

Yet.

And he had a baby on the way. It was a fine day to fend off an invasion.

“Commander,” he said, forcing as much cheer into his voice as possible, “to what do we owe the pleasure of your visit?”

The company commander had thick eyebrows and a weak chin. His mouth wore a slight but permanent frown thanks to the chin, and between that and his eyebrows he had a perpetually scowling look. He pulled a roll of paper from a bamboo scroll case tethered to his sword belt, keeping his eyes on Daigoro the whole time. “His Eminence the lord regent Toyotomi no Hideyoshi presents you with an edict, sir.”

Sir, Daigoro thought. That was good. This man held him in some esteem. He wasn’t thinking of Daigoro as a target—or at least not solely as a target. Then again, Daigoro supposed, if these were assassins, he would have known by now. They’d have started the killing already.

He looked over the edict, which was not addressed to him or even to the daimyo of Izu, but rather to all of Japan. It was a new Sword Hunt, and in substance it was not much different than the one declared by Oda Nobunaga some years before. That one had been effective in disarming the peasantry, and like the last one, this one banned pole arms and firearms as well as swords. This one would no doubt be as effective as its predecessor; peasant revolts were much harder to stage if no one but samurai went armed. Hideyoshi’s own success was itself a peasant revolt, a fact he would not soon forget. Evidently he had no desire to be supplanted by some upstart with ambitions similar to his own.

Like the last one, this Sword Hunt applied countrywide too, but this one also specified three mountains by name: Koya, Tonomine, and Soshitake. Though Daigoro had never seen either of them, he knew Mount Koya and Mount Tonomine by reputation. They were monastic havens far off in the Kansai; Koya lay not far from Sakai, and Tonomine was quite close to Nara. Strategically, economically, and politically, Sakai and Nara were nearly as important as Kyoto itself. If the neighboring monks kept arsenals, it was reasonable for the regent to see them as a threat.

But Soshitake was nowhere near the Kansai. Daigoro’s own home sat on it. So did Katto-ji, home to the abbot who inspired such hate and fear in Hideyoshi’s peacock, Shichio.

So that’s what this is about, he thought. A new Sword Hunt as a masquerade for attacking the abbot—and me too, I suppose. He read the rest quickly. Accompanying this hunt was an order for national census, a ban on relocating during the term of the census, an expulsion edict against the southern barbarians, and a promise to melt down all weapons seized in the Sword Hunt into bolts and nails for a massive statue of the Buddha. True to form, Hideyoshi was nothing if not grandiose. But Daigoro saw an easy escape from this extravagant trap.

“Commander,” he said, “I’m sure you’ve noticed that my home sits on Soshitake. But the regent’s Sword Hunt is a ban on peasants owning weapons. You’ll find no armed peasants in this house.”

“My orders were most specific, sir.” The commander’s tone was stiff without being gruff. Daigoro sensed some hesitation in him. “Most specific. We are to disarm all residents on Soshitake.”

Daigoro forced a smile and did his best to include some warmth in it. “Surely the regent can’t have ordered you to disarm samurai. A samurai without his swords is no samurai at all.”

“Understood, sir. But the edict stands.”

“Of course it does. Come, won’t you sit down? You and your men have marched a long way. And I’ve learned just this morning that I’m to be a father. Let us open a few casks of sake for your men and we officers can sit in the shade for a while.”

“No, sir. My orders were most specific. Most specific. We’re to move from here to the next compound as quickly as may be, sir.”

The next compound. So they hadn’t been to Katto-ji yet; they’d marched right past it to come here. And there wasn’t a second company deployed there either; this one was tasked with disarming both compounds. What was Hideyoshi thinking? Or, closer to it, what was Shichio thinking? Daigoro had no doubt it was Shichio whose orders were “most specific.” The man had an ax to grind, plain and simple. But his motivation wasn’t yet clear. These men could easily have overwhelmed the tiny garrison Daigoro had stationed at Katto-ji. They could have been marching back home with the abbot’s head in a sack before Daigoro could ever have marshaled his troops to stop them.

Shichio couldn’t possibly expect Daigoro and all his men to simply hand over their weapons. Better to ask them all to commit suicide; at least there would be some honor in that. So, Daigoro wondered, if he was never really after our swords, what did he want?

Only two answers were possible. One: he hoped Daigoro would resist. He hadn’t sent enough men to overwhelm House Okuma. In fact, Daigoro had no doubt that his own commanders had already reached the same conclusion, and deployed their troops in every room facing the courtyard. Daigoro had only to give the order and scores of samurai would burst out from every building. The company arrayed before him would be dead in minutes—taking some of Daigoro’s own men with them, to be sure, but if Shichio’s goal was Toyotomi blood on Okuma blades, he had certainly set the stage for it. And if Daigoro’s current predicament degenerated into combat, Shichio could convince Hideyoshi to wage war on the Okumas.

Two: he wanted not the Okumas’ swords but Daigoro’s sword. A sudden vision flashed in Daigoro’s mind: Shichio’s demonic mask, its angry scowl cut with deep shadows in the moonlight, and Daigoro’s own shadow running parallel to Shichio’s across the snow-white stones of the Okuma family courtyard. Then came another vision: his brother facedown in the snow, slain in a duel after claiming Glorious Victory for his own. It was Ichiro’s unrelenting desire for the sword that had killed him. Shichio felt the same hunger. He believed it was his sinister mask that made him need the blade; Daigoro thought otherwise, but he supposed the truth didn’t matter. One way or the other, that haughty peacock was willing to destroy House Okuma to acquire Glorious Victory, and Daigoro wasn’t sure how much more punishment his family could take.

Yet there he was with fifty hostile samurai in his own home. They were all trained killers, and no doubt they’d all seen more combat than Daigoro’s own men. These warriors had come up from the west country, where the fighting was hardest. Yes, the Okumas outnumbered these men, and yes, the Okumas would carry the day, but not without bitter losses.

But Daigoro could not give up his sword—the sword his father had bequeathed to him as his last act in life—and he certainly couldn’t disarm his entire clan. He read the edict once more.

“See here,” he told Hideyoshi’s commander, “your orders are to disarm the residents of Soshi-take, not Soshi-san. San means mountain, as in Koya-san. Take means peak. And Mount Soshi has two peaks. You just came up the saddle between them. Katto-ji, that monastery you passed on the way here, sits on Zensoshi-take. My home is on Gososhi-take. So which of the two Soshitakes are you to disarm?”

“My orders were most specific,” the commander said, but now doubt crept into his voice.

“Not specific enough, I’m afraid.” Daigoro motioned toward his sitting room. “Come, let’s have a seat and I’ll have Tomo here fetch us a map. Your men look weary; let’s give them a bit of a rest, shall we?”

As soon as Daigoro saw the commander’s shoulders relax, he knew he’d won. He’d given the man a way to keep his honor, fulfill his orders to the letter, and not disgrace a samurai family by asking them to give up the unthinkable. In short, he’d given the commander a way out. The man wasn’t stupid, and clearly he was uncomfortable with the orders foisted upon him. Did he know of Shichio’s madness? If Daigoro had noticed it, surely an officer under Shichio’s command must have seen it. The commander’s permanent frown had not left his face, but up until a few seconds ago he’d been visibly on edge. Daigoro felt his own muscles loosen too, and a cool wave of relief washed over him. “Tomo,” he said, “send a few girls for sake, and then bring my chest of maps.”

Then a Toyotomi soldier drew his katana and leveled it at Tomo’s throat. “This boy isn’t going to fetch any maps,” the swordsman said. “He’s not going anywhere.”

33

“Sir, we have our orders,” the soldier said, the tip of his sword a handsbreadth from Tomo’s jugular. “We’re to disarm this house.”

Armor clattered like a thousand metal birds taking flight. All the Toyotomi samurai sprang to the ready. None drew swords, but all were tensed, crouching, ready to attack. Their commander rounded on Tomo’s captor, furious. “You’ll sheathe your weapon this instant,” he said. “Stand down or I’ll have your head.”

“No, sir,” said the samurai. He had a lean, quick, runner’s body and a face like a mouse. He was just out of striking range; if the commander drew on him, Tomo would die.

Daigoro’s feeling of relief evaporated instantly. He studied Tomo’s face, which had gone utterly white. He studied the commander and the rest of his troops, their hands on their hilts, knees bent to pounce. No eyes were on Daigoro.

Tomo and his captor were out of reach for the commander, but not for Glorious Victory. “Patience,” Katsushima whispered.

Had he read Daigoro’s mind? Glorious Victory was long and heavy, very slow on the draw. But with no eyes on him yet, he might be able to draw and cut and save Tomo’s life. Maybe.

It was bad enough to draw a weapon in another man’s home. That by itself violated every convention of civility and honor, and Daigoro was well within his rights to kill this boor. But worse yet, the man had threatened one of his own. Daigoro could not let that stand.

Then again, neither could Hideyoshi’s commander. Tomo’s captor had disobeyed a direct order. Under no circumstances would he leave the courtyard alive. His commander would strike him down, and all Daigoro had to do was watch him kill Tomo.

Or he could strike. Save Tomo and take his chances on what happened next.

That was assuming his draw was fast enough. It assumed he’d judged rightly in reading the commander’s intentions. If any of his estimations were even slightly off—of his speed, of his reach, of the commander’s mind—then by trying to save Tomo he would only draw Toyotomi blood, guaranteeing a fight.

All this flashed through Daigoro’s mind in the space of a single breath. His pulse pounded hard and fast. Apart from that the courtyard was deathly quiet.

Daigoro’s mind raced with a thousand calculations. Had he misjudged Glorious Victory’s reach? How long would it take to clear her from her scabbard? It should have been so simple. Daigoro felt a flash of anger at himself: all he had to do to prevent a bloodbath was sacrifice a servant. For other lords this would have been easy. Others would never have befriended a lowborn peasant like Tomo.

But now that he thought about it, he realized he’d have to exact vengeance for Tomo one way or the other. If he let this commander report back that his men had killed an Okuma without reprisal, Shichio would know he could abuse the Okumas however he liked. Daigoro had no choice but to defend his own. And yet if he drew Toyotomi blood, that would invite retaliation from Shichio too.

The best solution was to order Hideyoshi’s commander to kill Tomo’s assailant. But that should have been obvious to the commander already. In fact, the man should already have bloodied his blade. Daigoro could hardly issue orders to an officer from the regent’s own house.

He was trapped, plain and simple. There was no reaction that would not invite further aggression. And yet the right reaction might still save Tomo’s life.

Hideyoshi’s commander shifted his fingers on the grip of his katana. Was he preparing to draw? If so, Tomo was dead. Daigoro needed more time to think.

“Whom do you serve?” he asked the mousy man with the sword to Tomo’s throat.

“Shut up!”

“You’re Shichio’s lackey, neh?”

“I said shut up!” The man started shaking.

“Stand down,” the commander said, saying each word as if it were its own sentence.

Eyes flicked between Daigoro, the commander, and Tomo’s captor. Sand shifted underfoot. Armor plates clacked like bamboo. Daigoro’s heart hammered at his ribs like the hooves of a galloping racehorse.

Tomo’s captor took a deep breath and released it. He stopped shaking. Daigoro knew that look. He’d felt it himself. It was the look of a man who had given himself up for dead—a man who no longer had anything left to lose.

Daigoro pulled hard and fast, clearing Glorious Victory from her scabbard. Tomo recoiled as the blade at his throat drew back to strike. Hideyoshi’s commander drew his blade.

Glorious Victory fell. She took a sword with her, a fist still closed around it. Daigoro still had but one hand on her grip. She was too heavy; he stumbled forward.

The commander whirled, chopping at Daigoro’s extended arm. His stroke went wide; a kick from Katsushima caught him in the kidney and sent him rolling. Fifty Toyotomi swords flashed from their scabbards. Three of them hacked at Daigoro.

Glorious Victory was long enough to parry them all. His left hand finally found Glorious Victory’s grip. He turned the blades aside and cut low. Three men fell in a torrent of blood.

Daigoro couldn’t say how he found his way to the heart of the Toyotomi formation. His mind was reeling; he’d never fought like this before. Single combat was nothing at all like a swirling melee. It was as if his mind had no relation to his arms. He cut, blocked, deflected, counterstruck, all on raw instinct. By the time he figured out what was happening, he and Katsushima were standing back to back in the middle of the courtyard, surrounded by Toyotomi samurai.

The enemy formed an impenetrable hedgerow of red armor, gold plating, and shimmering steel. Surrounding them was another circle, this one russet and black and silver: over a hundred samurai adorned with the Okuma bear paw.

Somehow amid the chaos there came a lull, a standoff, and Daigoro found he could hear and see with amazing clarity. Every sword and spearhead shone as distinctly as stars on a moonless night. Katsushima was breathing heavily; his broad shoulders pressed against Daigoro’s back, hot and heaving and stinking the coppery reek of blood. A wry laugh made Katsushima’s body quake. He said, “What did I tell you about patience?”

Daigoro twisted his fists tighter on Glorious Victory’s cloth-bound grip. The circle of enemies drew tighter.

“It’s been an honor,” said Katsushima.

“Likewise,” said Daigoro, suddenly thinking of Akiko and the baby in her belly. Today of all days, it seemed a terrible shame to leave her.

Again the circle tightened. Daigoro readied himself to strike. Then a voice broke the eerie silence, bellowing “Stand down!” There came a clicking, clanking commotion through the ranks of samurai, and then the Toyotomi commander muscled his way to the center of the circle.

“Hold,” he yelled, sensing his men’s uneasiness. “Lord Okuma! What is the meaning of this?”

“Your man started it,” Daigoro said. As soon as the words left his mouth they sounded childish. It took him a moment to regain his breath before he could speak again, and only because his words failed him did he notice that he was panting hard enough to make his lungs burn.

“Not your man,” he said finally. “General Shichio’s. He was planted in your ranks. I’m sure of it. Shichio wants a fight with me, whatever the cost.”

“And you certainly obliged him, didn’t you?” said the commander. “You tell me how I’m to leave your head on your shoulders.”

Daigoro tried to slow his breath before he answered. “If I die, you die. And your men too. We outnumber you two to one.”

“We’ve been outnumbered a lot worse than that.”

“You’ve been used, Commander. You were sent here on false pretenses.”

“That’s as may be. Orders are orders.”

“Your orders are no more than a screen of fog. They only cloud what hides behind them, and indeed I believe that to be their purpose. What honor is there in dying on orders like these? Spare your men. Let them die a more glorious death, in a battle worthy of their birthright.”

The commander closed his eyes. He returned his katana to his hip, ready to sheathe it—or, if he was a crafty fighter, ready to attack the moment Daigoro let down his guard. His lips moved almost imperceptibly; Daigoro wondered if it might have been a prayer. If so, Glorious Victory’s work was not yet done.

The commander looked at him again, his eyes utterly emotionless. His gaze did not waver; his sword hand did not shake. He had no fear of dying where he stood. “If you grant me leave to go, I can come back in force,” he said. “I can push this whole mountain into the sea.”

“Yes, you can,” said Daigoro. “And I can send riders and ships to the regent, telling him of how your men barged into my home to pick a fight. Do not forget: my family holds a treaty with the regent. When your reinforcements arrive, it might be your head they come for.”

The commander’s right forefinger was tapping his sword’s tsuba. It was a tell, a nervous tic, and Daigoro desperately wished he knew what it meant.

“Bushido demands forbearance,” he said quickly. “Commander, you must see that by now. It was one of your men who instigated the fight. All I did was finish it. How can you start the fighting anew and still retain your honor?”

The two of them met each other’s gaze. A long, tense, electric silence passed between them. Then the commander sheathed his blade.

Just like that, the danger vanished. The storm cloud hanging over the courtyard dispersed on the wind. Swords went back into scabbards; muscles relaxed; Okumas and Toyotomis found their way into two facing formations of ranks and files, taking care not to bump shoulders with each other as they passed. Daigoro found it surreal. Had Hideyoshi’s commander chosen to strike instead, dozens of these samurai would already be dead.

As it was, Daigoro still thought too many had died needlessly. Making his way back to the veranda, he stepped over four corpses and one bleeding samurai who hadn’t yet succumbed but only had strength enough to blink. Daigoro stopped, took a step back, and looked at the dying man again. His face was a sticky red mask, but nevertheless Daigoro made out his mousy features. This was the lean one with the runner’s body, the one who had started it all. Daigoro resisted the urge to cut his throat and hasten his passing.

He looked up from the instigator only to find Tomo sitting with his back against one of the porch posts. He was staring at his feet, his jaw slack. Then Daigoro saw the little cut just above his collarbone. It was no wider than the tip of his thumb, but it was enough.

Daigoro fell to his knees beside him. Tomo’s palms were red with blood, but otherwise the external bleeding was minimal. By clutching his throat he’d probably been able to keep himself from bleeding to death, Daigoro guessed, but unable to keep the blood from gushing inward. More than likely he’d drowned in his own blood.

It was no way for a fifteen-year-old boy to die. Daigoro wanted to order his men to attack. He wanted to start the slaughter all over again. He wanted to chop and hack and slash until there was nobody left to kill.

Instead he took a silent moment for himself over Tomo’s body, then struggled to his feet. His legs were weak, the right one even weaker than usual. “Commander,” he said sullenly, “I see no need to send word of today’s events to General Toyotomi. The only one who conducted himself dishonorably lies dead. Do you agree?”

The Toyotomi commander looked down at the scrawny, mouse-faced corpse. It did not bleed anymore; it only seeped. “I do,” he said.

Daigoro’s thoughts turned inevitably back to Tomo. It took a while to muster enough energy to speak again. Without looking up at the Toyotomi commander he said, “You may tell your troops to sit if you’d like. I’ll see to it that they have something to eat and drink before you take them on the march again.”

“That would be most gracious of you,” said the commander, and his permanent frown seemed to lessen somewhat. “And lest I forget,” he added, “congratulations on your baby.”

Daigoro’s shoulders sank. He’d forgotten all about that. He’d have to hunt down Akiko and he’d have to do it soon. She had never seen bloodshed in her own home before. She would need consoling—and so do I, he realized. He felt like a dying campfire in the rain, as if what little spirit he had left was soon to sputter out, never to return.

Daigoro looked around for Tomo, who would have understood what provisions he wanted prepared with no more than a nod. Then his conscious mind took the reins from instinct; he remembered, and then his gaze found the body. The cherubic face was bloodless now, the ever-present smile erased.

How had it come to this? He’d done the right thing, hadn’t he? How could it have been wrong to try to save Tomo’s life? And yet more bodies lay in his courtyard than he cared to count. It could have been just two: Tomo and Tomo’s killer. Now he and Hideyoshi had both lost men—good, brave men who’d spent their entire lives in servitude, and who had surrendered their lives without hesitation.

Daigoro had been so sure he’d done the right thing. Glorious Victory Unsought agreed with him; had he been seeking glory, she would have seen to it that he too lay among the dead. But he was the one to draw first blood. Not Tomo’s captor; Daigoro himself. He was the one who initiated combat, even if he wasn’t the one who instigated it. And now his friend was dead, and others too.

Why? he wondered. Why is it always so costly for me to do the right thing? And why can I not be the one to bear the brunt of it? It should be me sitting there. I should have been the one to drown in my own blood.

It was no way for a fifteen-year-old servant boy to die. It was no better a death for a sixteen-year-old newlywed expecting his first child. Nonetheless, Daigoro wished he’d been the one to fall.

34

Much later, when the regent’s company was long gone and the stars had blossomed in their millions, Daigoro led Katsushima down to the hot spring tucked away in a grotto on Okuma lands. There was a little house built around the spring, not for privacy so much as protection from assassins’ arrows. The Okumas had held this land for a long time, including days when Izu was not so stable as it was now.

As Daigoro lowered his aching body into the pool, he looked up at the stout wooden rafters, wondering which of his forefathers had ordered them hewn. Perhaps his ancestor had hewn them himself, back in the days when the Okumas did not have flocks of servants and laborers at their command. Those old beams had weathered so much, and still they showed no signs of weakness.

Daigoro thought about that while he stretched, bending his neck this way and that, rolling his stiff shoulders under the waterline. He wondered how many years he had left in him. At sixteen he already felt like an old man.

“You were clever,” Katsushima said. He’d let his topknot down and his long gray hair hung wet and limp on his shoulders.

“Choosing the hot spring?”

“No. Seeing to it that the Toyotomi commander would not tell Hideyoshi what happened today. That was your goal in promising not to send riders of your own, wasn’t it?”

Daigoro nodded. “I can only hope it works.”

“It should. You’ve got him thinking defensively. It was his man who started the fiasco, after all.”

“We’ll know soon enough,” said Daigoro. He could only imagine how bad Hideyoshi’s reaction might be if word ever reached him that Daigoro drew Toyotomi blood after receiving the edict to disarm. The grim-faced commander had threatened to push Soshitake’s twin peaks into the sea, but for an angry Hideyoshi that would be no empty boast. The lord regent was congenial enough in person, but his whims were fickle and his acts of vengeance were well known. Any daimyo could order his generals to commit suicide, but Hideyoshi was known to eliminate even their families. Daigoro thought of Akiko, of how she chose not to join them in the bath lest the water overheat their baby’s little bedroom. As bitter as Tomo’s loss had been, what made his heart race was the thought of how easily Aki might have been slain too.

But what was done was done. Daigoro could not afford to linger on the past. “What now?” he said.

Katsushima shrugged. “Hard to say. Do you think Shichio will move against you again?”

“Yes. He is like Ichiro. He is compelled.”

“I cannot understand him. I don’t wish to cause offense, but he is much too big a fish to be hunting a little minnow like you. If you were down in Kyoto, yes, perhaps you would be of some consequence. Down there the allegiance of every last family has political implications. But as far as Kyoto politics are concerned, House Okuma might as well be on the moon. Why does he even care that you exist?”

Daigoro winced as he rolled his neck. “My father. Shichio has a grudge against him. On top of that, he fancies Glorious Victory.”

“So give it to him.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not? It’s too big for you anyway.”

Daigoro shook his head. “It may not be in the nature of a ronin to understand. My father wrote his will on his deathbed with a musket ball in his spine. In it he made it clear that I was to have his sword. Not his eldest son. Me. I cannot disregard his final wish.”

“If you say so,” said Katsushima, but Daigoro could tell by his flippant tone that he didn’t fully grasp what was at stake. That was the difference, Daigoro supposed—the difference between a samurai with a name to uphold and a ronin who had forsaken all other relationships when he wedded himself to his sword.

“We can be thankful for small mercies, at least,” said Katsushima, who submerged himself until the waterline was just at his lower lip. The very picture of contentment, he said, “At least your mother chose not to fly from her birdcage today.”

“Damn you,” Daigoro said, his anger suddenly spiking. He pounded the rim of the bath with his palm. “Must you speak that way?”

His fatigue was to blame. The entire day had taxed him emotionally, and now his temper was like a willful horse, stronger than him and too hard to control. But like it or not, there he was in the saddle. He did his best to rein his feelings in. “I beg your pardon, Goemon. That was unkind. But it is unseemly to speak of her that way. She is no house pet. She’s my mother.”

Katsushima closed his eyes. “That she is.”

“Is it not bad enough that I have to sedate her day and night? Is it not bad enough that I’m likely to empty the last of my coffers buying all those poppies for Yagyu to milk? You are the only friend I have left. I will not have you berating my own mother. I cannot bear it.”

“How did I berate her? I said she had a good day. She didn’t run off foaming at the mouth.”

Again Daigoro felt that spike of anger. It hit him like a physical thing, stabbing through his veins. He was not certain that the volcano heated the water; his own rage was more than hot enough to make it steam. “First she’s a bird in a cage, and now she’s a rabid animal. What would you have me do, Katsushima? Cull her to spare the rest of the herd?”

“Your words, not mine.” Unlike Daigoro, he kept his voice low and calm.

“Now you’re provoking me on purpose.”

“Am I?” Katsushima gave Daigoro a stern stare. “Or are you finally giving voice to the thoughts you’ve kept to yourself in the darkest of nights? You are not blind, Daigoro: you must see your family would be better off without her.”

“So what do you suggest? That I murder my own mother?”

“I do not suggest anything. I say your family would be better off without her.”

“And what would you have me do? Expel her from her own home? Banish her from the compound? Would that satisfy you?”

“I would be satisfied if you put an end to your temper tantrum and examined your decisions honestly. You are unwilling to sacrifice your sword, unwilling to sacrifice your mother, unwilling to sacrifice your monk, and now you and your family have become quarry. And, as you may have noticed, so have I. I’ve stood by you every step of the way. Have I not earned the right to speak my mind?”

“She is my mother.”

“This has nothing to do with your mother. It’s to do with your refusal to make hard decisions.”

“I drew my blade against the most powerful man in the empire today, and I did it just to save a peasant boy that any other daimyo would sacrifice as easily as he’d part with a piss pot. You tell me that wasn’t a hard decision.”

“You did it because you were afraid of losing your friend. That’s not hard; it’s not even noble. Any common thief would have done the same.”

Daigoro wanted to punch him. He wanted to jump out of the water, grab Glorious Victory, and call him out then and there. And it wasn’t because Katsushima had compared him to a thief; it was because he wasn’t sure Katsushima was wrong.

Until now Daigoro thought of himself as noble for risking his life to save a lowborn servant like Tomo. Now he had his doubts. Katsushima had spoken the truth: even bandits would murder to save their friends. Was defending Tomo a selfless act or a selfish one? Hindsight was never perfect; how could he know for certain?

The fact that he couldn’t be sure of his own motivations made Daigoro even angrier. He slammed his fist down like a hammer on the rim of the pool. The black lava rock was sharp enough to cut the fleshy part of his hand, but Daigoro didn’t care. “Damn it, Katsushima, what need was there for him to die? And why does she have to be pregnant? And why can none of this be easy? Just for one day, why can it not be easy?”

Katsushima rose from the bath. “You’ve never understood me. My choices. How I could stomach the thought of going ronin. I think you’ve just gotten your first glimpse.”

Daigoro dropped his bleeding hand back into the water. As it plopped through the surface it made a little wave—a fleeting phenomenon, a manifestation so ephemeral that it could hardly be said to have happened. It made Daigoro think of the word ronin, “wave man.” A samurai without his liege lord was said to be as free as a wave on the ocean, owing nothing to anyone, dependent on no one. But Daigoro’s classical education had something very different to say about waves.

He remembered discussing the Tao Te Ching with his father when he was very young. He’d been confused by the idea that the wave and the ocean were just two faces of one thing, so his father had taken him down to the beach. “Tell me where the ocean ends and the wave begins,” his father had said. “Which drops belong to the wave but not to the ocean?”

It was impossible to answer, of course. There were no oceanless waves, nor were there waveless oceans. And if no boundary could be found between those two, how could there be a boundary between the wave named Daigoro and the ocean called House Okuma? How could Daigoro be himself without being an Okuma? Son of Tetsuro and Yumiko. Brother to Ichiro, husband to Akiko, father to the next little wave on the Okuma sea. There was no Daigoro except Okuma Daigoro.

Was a ronin any less dependent? If so, then why had Katsushima stood back-to-back with him, with fifty swords pointed at their throats? Wouldn’t he have expressed true independence by simply standing back and observing?

Katsushima began the long, moonlit walk back to the compound, and Daigoro punched the surface of the water again. He almost wished he’d gone through with his attempted seppuku. There was no point in doing it now—as an act of protest, it had to be done in full view of the regent—but if his courage hadn’t failed him then, he could have solved his two greatest problems: how to protect his family and how to fulfill his father’s dying wish. By committing the ultimate sacrifice, he would have convinced the regent of the abbot’s innocence. In addition, once Daigoro was dead there would be no disgrace in parting with Glorious Victory Unsought. His father had bequeathed her to Daigoro, and Daigoro would have kept her until the end. If Shichio wanted her after his death, so be it. If he still wanted to kill the abbot, so be it. No one could say Daigoro hadn’t done his utmost to fulfill his duty.

A chill ran over his body, in spite of the heat of the bath. It came not on the midnight breeze, but with the realization that seppuku was still an option. He had only to ride to Kyoto. Hideyoshi had a palace there. Daigoro could request an audience, carry out his ritual disembowelment, and see his family protected once and for all. Better yet, perhaps he could find a way to make a bid for Shichio’s neck. Suicide was far more honorable than execution, but Daigoro would gladly suffer the shame of a death sentence if he earned it by driving Glorious Victory through Shichio’s heart.

Either way, he had no choice but to ride to Kyoto. The road would be long and hot, and he knew death awaited him at the end. It was inevitable. So long as Okuma Daigoro lived, all of the Okumas would be under threat.

So unless he could conjure some third option before he reached Hideyoshi’s palace, his fate would be to commit seppuku or to be executed for the murder of one of the regent’s top aides. He hoped Katsushima would still be willing to ride with him. If it came to seppuku, Daigoro would need a second, and if it were execution, he would need someone to deliver his head to his family.

Whatever the outcome, he hoped Katsushima would acknowledge his willingness to make the difficult choice.

35

Daigoro had been as far as Hakone before, the last time to disastrous results: Ichiro was killed—brutally, predictably, needlessly—right before his eyes. That had been in the winter, when Hakone was cloaked in heavy snow and there was little of the town to see. The north road had been nothing more than a thin track of mud and slush, but now, in the height of summer, Daigoro found it had become an entirely different entity.

It seemed Hideyoshi’s military exploits had been good for business; the dusty streets around the Mishima checkpoint were bustling with activity. Horse trains and baggage carriers marched in their lines; hawkers proclaimed the virtues of their products while farmers and peddlers sold their wares more quietly; palanquin bearers jogged here and there, slithering between packhorses and jugglers and white-faced geisha.

“There’s a good brothel just up here,” Katsushima said as they reached the heart of town. “It’ll be a good place to bed down for the night.”

“No,” said Daigoro.

“Why not?”

“I have no interest in those women.”

“So ask them to bring you a boy.”

“No!”

Katsushima gave him a quizzical frown. “I did not think you to be a prude in such matters. Perhaps it’s your . . . well, your upbringing in the hinterlands, if you’ll pardon my saying so. Among city folk there is no shame in saying boys and girls both have their uses in a pleasure house.”

“You misunderstand me.” Daigoro reined his mare in closer so he didn’t have to speak up. “Have you no eyes? I’m a cripple.”

“What of it? You got Akiko pregnant, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“So your cock works.”

“Yes.”

“All right, then. Which will it be: a boy or a girl?”

Daigoro kept himself from blushing, from rolling his eyes, from giving Katsushima a good backhand. “Do you still not see? My leg is unsightly. I don’t care to disrobe in the company of others.”

“If it’s a woman with discretion you’re concerned about, believe me, there’s no need to worry—”

“No,” Daigoro said with finality. “I have no taste for consorts. My Akiko is more than enough for me.”

“Spoken like a true newlywed.” Katsushima sighed, sincerely heartbroken. “Very well, then. As you like. I must tell you, though, my chances of finding a sporting woman fall dramatically once we pass beyond city limits. And one of these nights we’ll have to stay at a brothel, even if you only want to pay to sleep there.”

“Why?”

“Are you joking? They’re the traveling man’s greatest asset! Where else can you gather reliable information about the road? Pubs? Inns? No one there is paid to give you small talk.”

Daigoro hadn’t thought of it that way. And Katsushima wasn’t through. “Never forget the value of a whore’s discretion, Daigoro. It’s their livelihood. A good madam will never reveal who stays under her roof. If you’re a hunted man, there’s no better refuge than a high-class whorehouse.”

“Spoken like a hunted man,” said Daigoro.

Katsushima shrugged. “It’s a ronin’s lot. But even those who never run afoul of the law can still acquire enemies—a fact you of all people ought not to forget.”

Daigoro shifted the shoulder straps of his Sora yoroi, which he’d worn ever since leaving the Okuma compound. His father had died at the hands of a paid assassin, and a breastplate like this one might have saved his life. Now that he thought about it, Ichiro had died on the road too. Was that to be Daigoro’s fate as well? Did Okuma men live under a curse?

“All right,” he said with a resigned sigh. “We visit your brothels. But not every night. And not tonight.”

• • •

The next nine days held sights Daigoro had never seen before. Mount Fuji peeking out from its ever-present cloak of clouds. Huge square fields of white along the coast, dotted with salt farmers collecting their crop. A thousand fishing boats on a single beach, arrayed before the sunset like troops standing for inspection. Mountains so sheer and so variegated that they looked like they could exist only in woodblock prints. Rivers wider than any in Izu. Lanterns bobbing on the water like foxfires, suspended from the bowsprits of cormorant boats. Bridges as steeply arched as rainbows; bridges with tollhouses and armed guards; missing bridges whose absence was only told by the line of spindly trestles crossing the water.

He passed rice farmers clutching their broad sugegasa to their heads in a driving rainstorm. He saw towering temples boxed in by tall bamboo frames, with workers clambering about the frames like monkeys as they replaced roof tiles and patched crumbling walls. He watched the wind batter gnarled pine trees, the trees themselves already permanently bowed over like old crones. He rode under tall orange torii, under pines and maples and bamboo and ginkgo, under fog so dense that he could not even see Katsushima beside him. He crossed paths with armed companies from a dozen major houses and was thankful that none of them stopped him, lest one of them have an alliance with Shichio.

At the Arai checkpoint they tethered their horses on a ferry and sailed across the placid waters of Lake Hamana. Once again Daigoro gave thought to the Sora breastplate he’d worn ever since leaving the Okuma compound. It was heavy, and with his mare’s every step its weight had plowed furrows into his flesh, each sore the exact width of a shoulder strap. He did his best not to scratch at them by night in the hopes that the skin would callus, but now the breastplate posed an entirely different threat. What if the ferry should capsize? Daigoro knew how to swim—he’d grown up in Izu, after all—but in the water his breastplate was not armor but an anchor.

But the ferry did not keel over, and once he was on dry land again he found nagging fears still plagued him. When they rode before dawn or after dusk, he imagined how he might fall if his beautiful chestnut mare should falter and break a leg. By night he had horrible dreams of waking to find someone had stolen their horses, or even just their tack and harness. Daigoro’s saddle was one of a kind. Old Yagyu, the Okumas’ healer, had designed it to brace Daigoro’s right leg so he could ride. This was the largest of the saddles, but Daigoro still owned the smallest and all those in between, racked on a shelf in the stable. They charted Daigoro’s growth over the years, as well as Old Yagyu’s growing understanding of Daigoro’s affliction. Apart from his sword, Daigoro’s saddle was the most precious thing in the world. He could not ride without it, and he did not know what he would do if it were stolen.

At length he could contain himself no more, and at the inn in Okazaki he finally asked Katsushima about his fears. “It’s natural,” Katsushima said through a mouthful of grilled squid. “It’s nothing to do with horses and armor. You fear what happens once we get to Kyoto.”

“Do you think so?”

“I know so. You talk about it in your sleep.”

Daigoro frowned. “I don’t talk in my sleep.”

“Oh no? Then how do I know about your plans to become a monk?”

Daigoro’s frown deepened. “What?”

“It took me a few nights to put it together. The greatest threat to House Okuma isn’t Shichio. It’s you, neh? If there were no Okuma Daigoro, there would be no vendetta. If you take on the tonsure, you give up your name and all your worldly possessions. Glorious Victory could go to Shichio. Any duty you ever felt to protect that abbot would be lifted. You could even stay in Katto-ji and watch your child grow up, if only from afar. I congratulate you. It’s an elegant solution.”

Daigoro looked at him in shock. “I said that in my sleep?”

“Not just like that, no. I told you, it took me a few nights to sort it all out.” He chuckled when he saw Daigoro’s jaw drop. “You don’t like it? Just think: if we’d slept in brothels every night, we’d never have shared a room, and then I’d never hear you talk in your sleep.”

Daigoro rolled his eyes. “I wonder if Akiko hears me talking too.”

“Ask her when we get back. Do tell me you’ve put this seppuku nonsense out of your mind. In your heart you know it’s not the right way.”

Or else I wouldn’t be fretting about it in my sleep, Daigoro thought. But there would be no returning home. Even if Daigoro survived Kyoto, the Okuma compound could never be home to him again. He would have abandoned his name and his birthright—and not in the way Katsushima thought, either. Obviously he’d gathered all the clues he needed, but he’d reached the wrong conclusion.

“You’re very clever,” Daigoro said, “but not as clever as you think. I’ve no intention of becoming a monk.”

“Oh no?”

“Have you forgotten? The Buddha may say you erase your past karma when you take on the cloth, but Shichio doesn’t forgive so easily. If he did, he’d have no cause to kill the abbot, and you and I would still be in Izu.”

Katsushima nodded sagely, conceding the point. “Are you going to eat that?”

Daigoro looked down at his dinner, which he’d scarcely touched. “I suppose not.”

Katsushima’s chopsticks snatched a nicely grilled tentacle and a slice of pickled daikon. “There is another way, you know. We’re only a few days’ ride from the Kansai. That’s shinobi country.”

“Are you serious? Magic men?”

“It’s not magic. They don’t pass through walls; they climb over them, or slip through windows. But they do it so invisibly that people start spinning tall tales. They tell stories of masked men dressed head to toe in black, but only because they do not want to believe that death may hide in plain sight.”

“What are you getting at, Goemon?”

“Shichio cannot stay on his guard against every cook and steward and scribe that crosses his path. A good shinobi can become any one of them. Put a few coins in the right hand and we can ride home tomorrow.”

He was right. Daigoro knew it. Given the choice of committing seppuku, facing execution for Shichio’s murder, or placing a hired knife in Shichio’s bedchamber, the easiest road was clear. All Daigoro had to do was compromise his honor and he could ride back home to his wife.

But the easy path was not the path of bushido. “No,” he said. “I cannot pay some unknown mercenary to fight my battles for me. My father would never have done such a thing.”

“Your father died at the hands of ‘some unknown mercenary.’”

Katsushima waited to see whether that hit a sore spot. A pang of grief stabbed Daigoro in the heart, but he did not allow it to show in his face. “The Iga are renowned for their spies and assassins,” Katsushima said. “The greatest houses of Kyoto employ them all the time.”

“All the more reason not to hire them. If a man is willing to sell his sword, what keeps him from selling his secrets?”

“The Wind, then. Have you heard of them?”

“No.”

“Then they’ve done their job well. They make clans like the Iga and the Rokkaku look like amateurs. I used to know people who can find them; we can find them again.”

Daigoro looked down at his rice. The cooks he’d grown up with cooked it better. All he had to do was ride north instead of south and he could have that rice again, in a familiar bowl, under a friendly roof. It was true that to hire an assassin was to abandon his father’s path. But if he strayed from the path just this once, just for a little while, he could keep his father’s name. Protect his father’s house. Raise his father’s grandchild and heir.

And be unworthy of that heritage himself.

“I cannot do it,” he said. “What if my shinobi should fail? Then I’ll have sullied my honor for nothing.”

“It always comes back to that, doesn’t it?” Katsushima stole another piece of octopus from his bowl. “You know I’m proud of you, neh?”

That made Daigoro look up. It was the sort of thing a father would say, and as such, it was the sort of thing Daigoro hadn’t heard in a long time. “Why?” he said. “You thought this was a bad idea from the outset.”

“All the more reason to admire you. You stood up to me—and not just to me. To Hideyoshi, to that idiot Shichio, to the whipping boy he sent to your house, even to that abbot of yours. You haven’t taken so much as a single step from your original position. If I could make your kenjutsu stance as firm as you keep your moral stance, you’d be a fearsome swordsman.”

Daigoro thanked him, but only halfheartedly. He knew he would never be father’s equal in swordsmanship. That much had been fated in the womb, where some curse had emaciated his right leg before he was even born. If he could not match his father’s stature as a warrior, at least he could have done it as a statesman, but he’d botched that too. The only way left to him was to hold fast to his father’s moral principles, but he could not deny that Katsushima had it right from the first: killing the abbot would have spared Daigoro and his family no end of trouble.

Now Daigoro knew of just one solution left to him, and the mere fact that it had entered his mind inspired guilt so strong that he felt it viscerally, like a little sharp-clawed demon crawling around in his gut. His solution would solve all his family’s problems, but he was certain that neither his mother nor his wife would ever forgive him for it.

36

They met the crowds of the big city when they were still thirty ri from the city itself. One afternoon, still three days’ ride from Kyoto, the population of the Tokaido suddenly quintupled. By sunset the following day, the foot traffic was so steady that the road itself resembled a tiger, striped with the long shadows of scores upon scores of peasants. By the time they reached Kusatsu the Tokaido was hardly a road anymore, but rather a long and crowded open-air market. Potters and knife sharpeners, greengrocers and fishmongers, singing clowns surrounded by mobs of giggling children; the travelers lacked for nothing—except, Daigoro thought, the scent of the sea, replaced by dust and wood smoke and the musk of oxen. Patrols of Toyotomi samurai were as ubiquitous as the mangy dogs hovering on the edges of every crowd, though of course the samurai were not so thin that Daigoro could count their ribs, and the dogs carried no spears to announce their presence from a hundred paces away.

Not only were the Toyotomi men not looking for Daigoro; they recognized neither his colors nor even the Okuma bear paw, though both were prominently displayed on his breastplate, his haori, and his horse’s tack and harness. That was good, Daigoro supposed; it proved his earlier fear of Shichio’s roving assassins was unfounded. Now he wondered whether that too was merely symptomatic of a greater fear, just like his worries about drowning in his yoroi.

Never in his life had Daigoro been made to feel so provincial. To be born samurai was to be born into high station—not quite noble born, far short of being born into the Imperial Court, but nevertheless even a newborn samurai inherited a certain aristocracy unknown to the farmers, artisans, and merchants. As such, despite his relief at being unrecognized, Daigoro also felt somewhat insulted. He had always thought of himself as a man of world—or a boy of the world, at the very least. Now, after ten days on the road, he felt like a rube.

And that was before he crossed the bridge into Kyoto itself. He’d always heard Kyoto was cold, and to his embarrassment he’d even packed a quilted jacket among his things. Now he wondered how it could ever get cold here, given the sheer press of human bodies. The Sanjo Ohashi was hardly the longest bridge he and Katsushima had crossed during their ride, but traffic in and out of the city was so dense that Daigoro thought he might just as well make his mare ford the river as wait to cross the bridge like a civilized person. Katsushima only clucked his tongue and said, “Patience.”

Never before had Daigoro seen so many buildings. They were built so close to each other that the monkeys simply hopped from roof to roof. “Can you believe how many temples they have?” said Daigoro. “You could hardly throw a rock without hitting one.”

“Brothels too,” Katsushima said wistfully.

Not ten paces later Daigoro spotted his first southern barbarians. A group of twelve men walked in a block, hands folded and strange round eyes downcast, wearing simple orange robes. Daigoro could not help staring at their sickly pale skin. Their eyes were bizarre, too big, showing too much white. They did not shave their heads properly, but only the pate, like a samurai without his topknot. One of them had hair the same color as Katsushima’s blood bay gelding. Another had curly hair like a sheep.

Fully half the city seemed to be newly built. Homes were packed in cheek by jowl, the shops packed in tighter still. In the space of a single block Daigoro saw three tailors, a cooper, a farrier, a furrier, a cobbler, a carpenter, a papermaker, a signmaker, a cloth dyer, two taverns, two sushi restaurants, four noodle shops, and three inns whose common rooms served food as well. Daigoro wondered what these people did all day to require so much to eat.

There was a whole district for buying produce, still another for buying crabs, lobsters, and other fruit of the sea. Now and then a wheelbarrow would pass, stacked so high with caged poultry or bags of rice that it was impossible to see the man doing the pushing. There were geisha and there were low-class whores. There were leatherworkers, blacksmiths, goldsmiths, silversmiths. There seemed to be no imaginable service Daigoro might ever need that could not be provided for within ten minutes’ walk of where he stood.

At the heart of the commotion was Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s home, the newly built Jurakudai. It wasn’t hard to find; one had only to look for the golden roofs. Daigoro could not begin to guess how many buildings lay within the whitewashed wall that ran the perimeter of the complex. Every one of them was crowned in gold. Even the wall had a little roof of its own, its thousands of curved roof tiles gilded at unthinkable expense. Their circular endcaps shimmered like little suns on the green surface of the moat.

Daigoro had to circumnavigate the complex to find the front door—no short distance, to be sure; the palace was a city quarter unto itself. From every angle he could see the towering three-story keep, whose gabled roofs also shone like solid gold. Daigoro found it garish, but he also found himself second-guessing his every instinct. If riding a hundred-and-some-odd ri on the Tokaido hadn’t done the job thoroughly enough, the clamor and alarum of Kyoto had fully impressed on him the fact that he knew nothing of the world beyond his own front door.

Now, dwarfed by the gleaming golden palace before him, he wondered if he’d taken leave of his senses entirely. Was he really so gullible as to think that gaining an audience with the imperial regent was no harder than paying a visit to a family friend? He blushed at his own naïveté. He’d ridden half the length of the empire and now he hadn’t the slightest inkling of what to do next.

And then, impossibly, Mio Yasumasa came out to greet him.

There was no mistaking him. If his snow-white topknot were not enough to identify him, his glittering black breastplate was so big it could almost serve to bard a horse. Mio’s shadow stretched out broad and long behind him as he lumbered through the visitor’s gate. “Young master Okuma! What a strange day this is. That viper Shichio told me I would find you here, and here you are!”

Daigoro looked to the tower standing high atop the keep. It was a viewing deck, not a defensive structure—the walls were no more than lattice—and so Daigoro should have been able to see any observers. The tower was empty.

“How did he know I was here?”

“Eh? You’ll have to speak up, son. Some northern upstart had the gall to cut my ear off.”

Mio made a flourish of cupping a hand to the scar on the left side of his head, and just as Daigoro was about to apologize, the giant let loose a thunderous laugh. Daigoro smiled with him, but he was not in a joking mood. “Please, General, tell me: does Shichio have spies watching for me? How does he know I’m here?”

“It’s that mask of his. Pure devilry, if you ask me.” Mio sneered and spat. “He says it ‘felt you coming’—no, felt your sword coming, he said, and if you can make any sense of that, I’ll conscript you on the spot and make you my personal soothsayer. By the Buddha, I could use a clearer view of the future.”

“What do you mean?”

“Shichio. He’s changed. Leave him to his maps and numbers and he can do your army some good, but I campaigned with him for years and never saw him draw a blade. He’s got no stomach for it. But all of a sudden he’s taken to wearing swords. Why? Why now?”

Mio led them into the palace as he spoke, and Daigoro made a careful note of every guardpost, every building, every intersection of lanes. When he and Katsushima tethered their horses, Daigoro memorized every door and window facing the hitching posts. If they needed to make a hasty retreat, he’d need an accurate mental map.

Katsushima was equally on edge. “Is that why you go armored?” he said. “Because you can’t foretell what Shichio might do with his swords?”

Mio looked down at Katsushima—he was that tall—and snorted a laugh through his nose. “Say what’s on your mind, ronin.”

“Very well.” Katsushima’s left hand fell to his hip, and with a flick of the thumb he loosened his katana in its sheath. “I think a man dressed for battle usually intends to go to battle. So unless fashions have changed since I was last in Kyoto, you’re prepared for a fight.”

Mio noted Katsushima’s hand but made no move for his own weapon. “Maybe I am,” he said, his tone darker than before. “Maybe I always am.” Then he slapped a big hand on his armored belly. “Or maybe I need it to keep my innards from spilling out. Ever since your little friend put his sword in my gut, it hurts every time I bump it into something—and at my size, that happens quite a lot!”

He slapped his breastplate again, laughing mightily at his own joke, then bade Daigoro and Katsushima to follow him past a teahouse and into the garden on the opposite side.

Hideyoshi sat on a stone bench at the edge of a tranquil little pond. The grass surrounding him was lush and green, punctuated by flat white stepping-stones tracing a winding path to the water. High walls surrounded the garden, largely invisible behind the sprays of bamboo that whispered to each other in the light breeze. Carp swam in the pond, their colors ranging from white to orange to black. Now and then came a sucking sound as one of their gaping round mouths breached the surface.

General Shichio sat by the pond as well, petting the demon mask that rested in his lap as if it were a cat. He wore a katana at his hip, just as Mio had said, but it did not suit him. It was too short for him, and too clean; no sweating hand had ever touched it. He wore it at an awkward angle, like a sandal stuck between the wrong toes. And yet he had an eye for Glorious Victory that bordered on the lascivious. Daigoro had seen murder in the eyes of a rival swordsman before, and this wasn’t it; this was closer to rape.

“Well, now,” said Hideyoshi, “here’s a guest we didn’t expect.”

Somehow Daigoro’s memory hadn’t fully retained how ugly Hideyoshi was. It was a shame; Daigoro found him quite likable, and he thought fate unusually cruel to make such a personable man so simian in appearance. Then again, maybe the regent’s charisma was born from his unfortunate looks; perhaps it was a defense mechanism, born of necessity in a needlessly superficial society. Daigoro wondered why he himself had never thought to practice being charming; perhaps he could have deflected some of the bashing he’d endured all his life thanks to his lame leg.

“Sit, sit,” Hideyoshi said, gesturing to another stone bench on the opposite side of the pond. At the raising of an eyebrow, servants sprang noiselessly into motion. Daigoro had a little cup of sake in his hand from the very moment he sat down, and Katsushima had a little cup of southern barbarian whiskey. To Mio they gave the entire flask of whiskey, along with a cup that all but vanished in his enormous hand. Then, just like that, the servants vanished back into the woodwork. Hideyoshi clapped his hands on his knees. “So, what occasions this visit?”

“Assassins,” said Daigoro. “I just turned fifty of them out of my house.”

Hideyoshi laughed, baring sharp teeth that pointed every which way. “Well done! Fifty, you say. That must have been quite a fight.”

“I tried to avoid fighting, my lord regent. I nearly succeeded too, but my efforts were sabotaged.”

“Were they, now? By whom?”

“By the one who sent the assassins, my lord regent.”

The regent smoothed his wispy mustache. “Ah. Some local trouble, is it? Well, you came to the right place. I like you, Okuma-san. You’ve impressed me. Tell me who the rabble-rouser is and I’ll set him straight.”

The clacking of armor plates reminded Daigoro that Mio sat just to his left, opposite the pond from Hideyoshi and Shichio. Why was Mio sitting with him and not with his own people? Perhaps Katsushima’s earlier suspicions were right on the mark. Had Mio armored himself for a fight? Had he positioned himself to be ready to strike, or was he implicitly siding against Shichio by sitting with Daigoro? It was impossible to tell, and impossible for Daigoro to know how to answer the regent’s question. If Mio had not allied himself with Daigoro but was merely flanking him, accusing Shichio might be the last thing Daigoro ever did.

He steeled himself, gulped down his sake, and said, “General Shichio sent the assassins, my lord.” Then he waited for Mio’s sword to clear its scabbard.

It didn’t. Mio continued to sip his whiskey. For his part, Hideyoshi grinned, as friendly as ever. “I told you before,” he said, “you’ve impressed me, Okuma-san. Would you like to know how you can tell that I like you?”

“Because you said so, my lord regent?”

“Because I didn’t burn your house down.”

All warmth vanished from Hideyoshi’s face. The smile stayed, though, an eerie, empty, hideous mask. “You’ve got some fire in you, kid. Coming all the way here with only this haggard bodyguard as your retinue? Impressive. But impressing me is one thing. Getting me to turn against one of my own top men is something else entirely.”

“Sir,” Mio blurted, “surely he didn’t mean to—”

“Oh yes, he did. Isn’t that so, Okuma-san? You meant to suggest that General Shichio sent assassins against my will. You thought a show of bravery against overwhelming odds would be enough to talk me into killing him. Isn’t that why you rode all the way here? Alone? Right into the dragon’s den?”

“No, my lord regent,” said Daigoro. “I come to make a truce.”

That brought an honest smile back to Hideyoshi’s face—the smile of a bully, to be sure, but no longer a reptilian facade. “Do you, now?” he said. “And why should I treat with a gnat like you?”

“Because you treated with my father. Because honor demands it.”

“Back to honor!” Hideyoshi laughed and slapped his knee. “You never tire of it, do you? Let me ask you something, Okuma. Why haven’t you killed General Shichio?”

“My lord?”

“You’ve had opportunity. You’ve served us food in your home; your cooks could have poisoned him, neh? Or if that offends your sense of honor, why not kill him here and now? You’re armed. You’re a fine swordsman. If this man is such a threat to your house, why haven’t you separated his head from his shoulders?”

“Because he is your man.”

“So what? Honor is honor, neh? What does it matter who offended you? What does it matter who his friends are? You’re bound to defend your honor anyway, neh? So do it. Cut him down.”

“I’m afraid my lord regent may not understand honor the way I do. When you treated with the united lords of Izu, you treated with my father. That means I am to regard you as my ally. Honor forbids me from crossing an ally.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes.”

“Even if the ally sends assassins to your house?”

“They were his, not yours, my lord regent. Dismiss General Shichio and I will cut him down on the spot. Otherwise he is your man and the treaty between our houses remains.”

Hideyoshi laughed. Shichio most pointedly did not. He narrowed his eyes at Daigoro and said, “Did I just hear you threaten to kill me?”

“It was no threat. If your master gives me the order, I will cut you in half. If he does not, then I have no course left but to parley.”

“You? Parley with me?” Shichio sneered. “Do tell! Just what would a worm like you have to offer the likes of me?”

“It was you who wrote Soshitake into the Sword Hunt, neh? Koyasan and Tonomine I understood; the regent has enemies there. But you were the one who slipped a third mountain into the edict, neh? In fact, I should not be surprised if the edict delivered to my family’s compound were the only copy to list Soshitake by name.”

It was a guess, an arrow loosed in the dark, but Daigoro could see from the way Shichio’s jaw hardened that his arrow struck the mark dead center. “Little Bear Cub,” Shichio said stiffly, “you will address me with respect or I’ll have your head.”

“You can claim my head whenever you wish. You have no honor; any pretended slight is warrant enough for you. And since there is nothing I can do to change that, I might as well say my piece. You tried to disarm my family, General. But in truth I think you want less than that. House Okuma owns a sword you want—one sword in particular. Is that not so?”

“What if it is?”

“Then in exchange for a written declaration that neither you nor the lord regent will make war against my clan, House Okuma will surrender its Inazuma blade.”

Over his left shoulder Daigoro heard a gasp from General Mio. “No,” Mio whispered. “That sword was your father’s.”

“Whose side are you on?” snapped Shichio.

Mio ignored him. “Think carefully on this, my boy. There must be another way.”

“I stand by my word.” Daigoro said it quickly, decisively. He could not afford to think it over as Mio advised. He had already taken the plunge; there was no room for hesitation.

A sly smile crept across Shichio’s face. “The sword and the monk.”

“The monk is already dead to the world,” Daigoro said. “He will never leave his monastery again. When he dies, I hope his spirit haunts you for the rest of your days, but in this life he is no threat to anyone. And the Inazuma is a onetime offer. Take it now or show me to the door.”

“You presume a great deal, little cub.”

He was right and Daigoro knew it. Shichio could have him killed with no more than a word. He wouldn’t even have to do it here, where fortune might turn against him long enough to see Glorious Victory’s razor-sharp edge find his throat. Shichio had only to wait until Daigoro and Katsushima were safely outside the palace, then order an entire regiment to run them down.

Daigoro had only two things in his favor. The first was greed. He’d seen it before in his brother, whose lust for the Inazuma had killed him. If Shichio were as mad for the blade as Daigoro suspected he was, his need for it would blind him. Even now Shichio’s eyes were fixated on it; perhaps his thoughts were equally fixed, equally immune to distraction.

The second factor in Daigoro’s favor was no more than a gamble, about a man he’d met only once before. Daigoro studied Hideyoshi, trying to read his thoughts, but the regent’s apelike face revealed nothing.

“Done,” Shichio said, distracting Daigoro from his attempt at reading Hideyoshi’s mind. “Jun! Fetch your writing tools.”

A reedy young man appeared in an instant, a tiny table under one arm and a wooden box under the other. In no time at all he deployed his paper, ink block, inkstone, and brush. The reedy man wore neither topknot nor sword, so he was not military, but the fact that Shichio knew his name told Daigoro that he must have ranked highly among the servants. The thought of such a servant brought Tomo’s smiling face to mind. Daigoro wondered how deep the silt layer was on the bottom of the pond. Was it stable enough to support his weight? If so, he could reach Shichio in two steps and remove his head from his skinny peacock neck.

No. Through force of will he pressed his palms into his lap so he would not draw his sword. “On behalf of the Okuma clan,” Daigoro said, and he proceeded to dictate the terms of the truce. The manservant quickly inscribed two copies.

“There,” Shichio said after signing them and affixing his seal. “Give me the sword.”

“I haven’t signed yet,” said Daigoro. “Nor will I, unless the lord regent and General Mio also sign.”

Shichio’s face soured as if he were suddenly seasick. His dark eyes glared at the imposing form of General Mio. No doubt Shichio had been planning betrayal, but as soon as Mio signed the treaty, Daigoro knew his family was safe. Any treachery on Shichio’s part would now malign Mio as well, and Mio was born to the code. He took his honor seriously, and he was in a position to hold Shichio to his word.

The regent’s signature was necessary too, for it was not enough for Daigoro to shield his family against Shichio’s troops. Shichio wielded a mysterious power over Hideyoshi, and though Daigoro could not explain it, his intuition insisted that it would not be hard for Shichio to orchestrate a Toyotomi attack on any target he chose. With his regal seal and a few brushstrokes, Hideyoshi himself rendered that possibility both illegal and—far more importantly—dishonorable.

“Very well,” Shichio said impatiently, passing the little writing tablet to Hideyoshi, who, having signed, had the manservant pass it to Mio. “Does that satisfy you?” Shichio asked. “Would you like anyone else to sign? The emperor, perhaps? Or would you like to see if the gods are busy this afternoon?”

“No,” Daigoro said, “this is quite enough, General.” He brushed the characters on each page, not Okuma Izu-no-kami Daigoro but simply Daigoro. It was the first time he’d ever signed that way.

He handed Shichio a copy of the signed treaty along with a second scroll. He did not hand over Glorious Victory Unsought.

“What is this?” Shichio snatched both documents from Daigoro like a dog stealing food from a table. Tossing aside the truce he’d just signed, he hunched over the second scroll and read it with a frown that deepened with every passing line.

“Damn you, Okuma, what is the meaning of this?”

“My name isn’t Okuma anymore,” Daigoro said. “I have formally relinquished both name and title.”

“No,” Mio said, aghast. “Okuma-san, what have you done?”

“I could not retain my father’s name and my father’s sword. General Shichio saw to that. As I am honor-bound to protect both, I can only keep his sword by relinquishing his name. And now, thanks to you three noble men, my family is protected too. I thank you all.”

“Pah!” Shichio threw the scroll into the pond. Carp scattered away as if it were a pouncing cat, and the ink from it sent little black snakes swimming through the water. “What do I care what you call yourself? The Inazuma is mine.”

“The Okumas’ Inazuma is yours,” said Daigoro. “I am no longer an Okuma.”

Shichio rose to his feet. “A technicality! Give me your sword!”

“If you care to wet your feet, General, you may yet be able to make out the date on that scroll. I delivered a copy to my family at the same time I signed this one—three days ago. The decree you’ve fed to your master’s carp takes precedence over the treaty you signed with me.”

Shichio was fuming. General Mio gave a little snort. Hideyoshi laughed so hard he nearly fell off his bench.

His laughter only angered Shichio further. His carefully preened hair released a few rogue strands to stray across his face, and when he pushed them away from his sweating forehead he knocked loose even more. “No!” he shrieked. “You signed the truce. Only an Okuma can sign for the Okumas!”

“An Okuma,” Daigoro said, “or their duly appointed representative. You there—Jun, isn’t it?—read the first sentence of our treaty.”

Already on his knees, the gaunt young man scrambled across the grass for the truce. “‘On behalf of the Okuma clan—’”

“There,” said Daigoro, “do you see?”

“Ha!” Hideyoshi’s laugh came with the force of a musket ball. “He’s got you there, Shichio. Clever, isn’t he?”

“Very,” Mio said solemnly. “Daigoro-san, what have you done?”

“He’s outfoxed the fox,” said Hideyoshi, still enjoying himself immensely. “Signing on behalf of his family instead of as one of them! I like this little bastard.”

“He is insolent,” said Shichio, his voice warmer that it should have been—warm as a serpent’s, whispering in Hideyoshi’s ear. “You ought to reprimand him. He disrespects you.”

“Maybe so,” said Hideyoshi, “but he sure is good for a laugh. Okuma-san—or Daigoro, or whatever the hell you’re calling yourself—I swear, if I had a thousand officers like you, I’d have conquered China by now.”

Daigoro bowed deeply. The regent just shook his head and snickered. “I’d offer you room and board for the night, you and your bodyguard too, but even I couldn’t vouch for your safety. Shichio wouldn’t sleep until someone put a knife in you.”

“A knife!” Katsushima said the word with disdain; it was a child’s toy, better suited for whittling than for a fight between grown men. “Let him go and fetch one. I’ll wait.”

“Mind the laws of hospitality,” General Mio said in a warning tone. “If guests provoke a fight in another man’s home, the penalty for the instigator is death.”

“I’m happy to pay the price,” said Katsushima. “If he wants to pretend at wearing a sword, let him draw it. If not, let him go and get his knife.”

“Easy, now,” said Hideyoshi, suddenly as cold as an ice storm. “Don’t go spoiling things now that you’re ahead.”

“My lord regent,” Daigoro said, “the treaty—”

“Yes, yes, the treaty. Don’t worry, boy; it’s as good as my word—and I know you don’t think much of a peasant’s word, but trust me, I’ve no plans to wipe out your family. Hell, just keeping the treaty in force will be enough to entertain me for years. You have no idea what fits of madness I can expect to see from Shichio over this.”

And just like that, Hideyoshi was warm and sunny again. Suddenly Daigoro understood why the man was so dangerous. With a hundred thousand troops at his back, a mind like his could tear down the world—and Hideyoshi could muster a million if he had a mind to.

But capricious as he was, the regent was still a keen judge of character. Just as he’d said, Shichio was apoplectic. The peacock tried to speak, maybe even tried to scream, but his anger choked him. The sight of it made Hideyoshi snort and snigger.

“I daresay it’s best for you to take your leave,” said General Mio. He eyed Shichio as if he were not a peacock but a rabid dog. “Sooner would be better than later.” Rising noisily to his feet, Mio led Daigoro and Katsushima out of the garden.

37

When they reached the stables, Mio said, “Do you have any idea what trouble you’ve caused?”

“General, my most heartfelt apologies,” Daigoro said. “You must understand, I needed one who lives by the code to sign with him—”

“Oh, I understand well enough. But I did not speak of the troubles you’ve caused for me—though you’ve released a flock of them, damn you. I was speaking of the troubles you’ve caused for yourself. You are no longer lord protector of Izu. You’ve no title to protect you anymore.”

Daigoro nodded. The full weight of his decision had not yet settled on him, and now he wasn’t sure he could bear it once it fell. “What other choice was left to me?” he said.

“None,” Mio said with a shrug. “But have no fear; I’ll keep an eye on Shichio for you. Even so, it is in his nature to look for a way out of the treaty. I cannot promise he won’t find one.”

“He won’t. I thought it through.”

Mio laughed his deep, booming laugh. “That you did. The regent wasn’t wrong, you know. With a thousand officers who think like you, we could conquer the world. It’s a shame you surrendered your troops when you surrendered your title.”

“They’re safer without me at their head.”

“And yet there’s not a one of them who wouldn’t die for you. You’re a good leader, son. They won’t forgive you easily for leaving them.”

Daigoro swallowed. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

“Few leaders do. But a commander can abandon his troops just as well as a soldier can abandon his post. They’ll be adrift for a while. Your family will be vulnerable.”

“But Shichio—”

“Yes. Shichio.” A frown soured Mio’s face. “He cannot touch your family. You’ve seen to that, and I will see to the rest. By this time tomorrow, all of the regent’s high command will know your family is untouchable. But have no doubt, Master Bear Cub: he will send people for you. Bounty hunters. Shinobi. You’d best be careful.”

“You too.”

“Me? He doesn’t have the balls to come after me. He never was one for bloodshed. No, our Shichio is no swordsman. He did all his generalship with an ink brush.”

Daigoro nodded. “I’ll take your word for it. You know him better than I do.”

“More’s the pity.”

The three of them exchanged bows and farewells; then Daigoro and Katsushima mounted up and were on their way.

Their horses trotted across the bridge into the light of the setting sun. Behind them the Jurakudai gleamed so brightly that they could see their own shadows cast before them. The noises and smells of the city returned: sweat and horse droppings, hawkers hawking and prostitutes cooing, sandalwood incense from a nearby temple, hoofbeats on cobblestone.

The low angle of the sun cast deep shadows too, these ones pointing in the right direction, pooling behind every barrel and handcart. Daigoro thought of Mio and his warning about shinobi. As a child he’d always imagined black-clad ninja warriors hiding in the shadows, but now that he understood more about tactics, he knew it was better to hide in plain sight. Shichio’s shinobi would not come to Daigoro in black masks; they would come in the guise of an innkeep, a beggar, a farmhand. Daigoro looked down the street that stretched before him and could not tell if he saw a thousand people or five thousand. He had no acquaintance with people in such masses. He knew only that it was impossible to keep an eye on every one of them, and any one of them might be an assassin.

“By the buddhas,” Daigoro said, “Katsushima, what are we going to do?”

“You hadn’t given thought to that already?”

Daigoro realized he hadn’t. He’d thought as far ahead as keeping his family safe and staying alive himself, to protect them if need be. He had no plan for getting back to Izu, nor any idea of where else to go or what he might do when he got there.

He was glad his mother was tucked safely away in some corner of the Okuma compound. He was relieved to know Aki was safe too, though he could not imagine how he could ever earn her forgiveness. The news that he’d renounced his name would reach home before the week was out. He realized now that he’d given too little thought to how his mother and wife would take it. Would they see how much he’d sacrificed, or would they focus only on how he’d abandoned them? Would they understand that he’d saved their lives? Would Akiko think he’d fled as soon as he learned he was to become a father? They hadn’t known each other long; could she guess how sorely he longed to be with her, to meet his child?

He wanted to book passage on the fastest ship bound north and east. He wanted to put his heels to his mare and ride all night. And he knew that Shichio would expect exactly this reaction. He would have people watching the ports, and every entrance to the city as well. Daigoro had already seen him place his own agents within Hideyoshi’s troops, and Hideyoshi’s troops patrolled every road in the Kansai.

There would be covert threats too. Assassins would come. Daigoro did not doubt Mio’s word on that. For the time being, Daigoro had to be unpredictable. He had to vanish—for a while, he told himself. Until Shichio finds someone else to fixate on. Soon enough someone else will anger him, he thought. Soon he will find some other treasure he wants, maybe even another Inazuma blade. Glorious Victory is not the only one. Yes, Daigoro told himself, soon there would be someone else to hate, something else to need, and then Daigoro could go back and reclaim his rightful place at the head of his clan.

He envisioned that day, riding past the kudzu-covered peaks of Izu on his triumphant return home. Then he remembered the abbot of Katto-ji, whose temple sat on one of those peaks—the abbot of Katto-ji, who remained the object of Shichio’s petty, vindictive spite even after all these years. Suddenly Daigoro’s dreams of returning home became nightmares.

There was only one solution. Until he brought it to fruition, he had no choice but to remain hidden. But sooner or later, he would ride back home—right after testing Glorious Victory’s steel on Shichio’s throat.

38

“General Mio! I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you awake.”

Shichio watched the fat man’s eyelids flutter. Mio tried to sit up, but only succeeded in causing the rope across his forehead to pull tighter. His skin went white where his skull pressed against the rough hempen rope, then flushed again when he relaxed.

Shichio watched the arms next, which, with all the coils of rope digging into them, looked like stacked balls of mochi. The fat bulged up between the tight coils, and as Mio’s entire body was enrobed in a layer of fat, the bulges stood out everywhere, like massive worms lying in rows. The candles in their wall sconces cast a hundred dark valleys of shadow across Mio’s body, making the bonds seem tighter and the bulges seem larger. The biggest rolls stood up between the ropes across the belly; the smallest curved across the tops of the feet and the backs of the hands.

The table he lay on was specially constructed for this purpose. It was vaguely human in shape, sloping downward at the head, its armlike protrusions pointing at the molding where the ceiling met the wall. Each hand was bound to the table with a single coil, making the back of the hand look like two puffy loaves of bread.

The eyes rolled wide and white in Mio’s head. Shichio followed their gaze to the stout rafters, the white plaster between them, the elegant golden wood grain of the walls. “Ah,” Shichio said, “wondering where you are, neh? Shall I give you a hint? This is the least beautiful room of the Jurakudai—and I say that even considering Hashiba’s hideous taste in decorating.”

Shichio gently ran his fingertips over Mio’s swollen right hand. “I must confess my ignorance,” he said. “I never knew a man could grow so large that his feet and hands were fat. But then I took another look at the rikishi painting that Hashiba commissioned from Kano Eitoku. Do you know Kano?”

Mio strained against his bonds, causing his skin to go white in a hundred places. “Shichio?”

“At your service.” Shichio smiled, causing the iron mask to push against his cheeks. “You’re slurring your words, General. Best to wait until the sleeping poison wears off, don’t you think?”

Mio’s eyes rolled this way and that, reddening as he strained to turn his head. “What is this?”

“I’ll be asking the questions tonight,” Shichio said, stuffing a wad of silk into Mio’s mouth. “Now, Kano: do you know his work? He’s quite the fashion in the Imperial Court. And do you know what? In Hashiba’s painting, the rikishi’s hands and feet are fat. Isn’t that something? It takes a Kano to devote that much attention to detail, neh? I swear to you, I never noticed it before tonight.”

Mio managed to spit out the silk. “Have you stripped me naked? Damn you, untie me this instant!”

Shichio would not be yelled at like a little boy. He whipped out his knife and sliced off one of the fat rolls on the back of Mio’s hand. The giant roared like a bull.

“Oh, that is a shame,” Shichio said. “And to think all this time I’d planned on making the first cut with your sword.”

The bright red wound on Mio’s hand looked like a mouth. The sight of it made Shichio want to retch, but the mask wanted him to take off another slice. Yet its power was not so complete that it overwhelmed his moral sensibilities. Once a man was tied down and helpless, even to threaten him was morally despicable. Shichio knew that in his bones. That was what made the samurai caste so tyrannical: the peasantry lived in fear of them, every hour of every day, with no hope of defense or reprisal. Shichio had lived his entire life in fear, until Hashiba showed him a higher path. If the Toyotomi flag flew over every last province and territory, if everyone bowed to one man, then there would be no more need for samurai. It was war that necessitated warriors, and it was the existence of the warrior caste—a caste with exclusive rights to arms and armor and vengeance—that made every commoner live in terror.

And yet here he was, behaving like a samurai, exerting his might over a defenseless man.

No. Not a defenseless man. A defenseless samurai. Mio deserved this. All of them did.

“Let me show you the one I’d planned to be the first cut,” Shichio said. He walked away from the table, and from the bleeding, cursing, struggling giant. He took up Mio’s enormous katana, drew it, and tossed the scabbard aside. Mio strained against the ropes, furious. Shichio could not help but laugh. Only a born samurai could be bound to a table, naked and bleeding, and still be angry that someone had disrespected his scabbard.

“Release me! I’m Mio Yasumasa, damn you! I demand that you release me this instant!”

“Oh, you’re not in a position to demand anything, are you? No. No, you’re not.”

Shichio laid the base of the blade gingerly on the roll of flesh just above Mio’s left knee. He drew the blade slowly across, penetrating deeper just a hairsbreadth at a time, so that only when the very tip of the sword passed through did he sever the last ribbon of skin. The roll of flesh flopped to the floor like a butchered fish. Mio roared louder than ever.

“You see?” said Shichio. “That’s what I was looking for.”

The blood streamed toward Mio’s groin, for Shichio’s table sloped downward at a slight angle and Mio’s head was lowermost. “You don’t think much of me as a fighter, do you, Mio? No, I think not. But unlike you, I appreciate martial art as art. Precision. Patience. Exactitude. Hallmarks of my brand of swordsmanship, though not so much of yours, I think.”

Through gritted teeth Mio said, “Cut my bonds and we’ll see who’s the better swordsman.”

This time Shichio laid the blade on Mio’s shoulder, drawing it across the skin slowly and deliberately. Mio growled like a rabid animal. “You would expect more blood from a cut this large, neh? It’s the ropes; they slow the bleeding considerably.”

Shichio lifted the blade and whipped it past Mio’s face. Warm red droplets flew from the steel, spattering the fat man’s cheeks and eyes like rain. “Ah,” Shichio said. “Figured out to stop talking, have you? That’s all right. This was always meant to be a one-sided conversation anyway, wasn’t it? Yes, it was. Yes, it was.”

This time he laid the katana’s razor edge against two rolls of flesh, these on the top of Mio’s left foot. “I suppose you’re wondering now whether you should have sided with the Okuma boy, neh? Maybe you’re also wondering whether Hideyoshi will allow me to kill the boy once you’re no longer at court.”

Mio twitched and cursed and struggled. “Oh, now look what you’ve done,” Shichio said. I nicked the rope, you fat oaf; you’ve gone and spoiled my cut.”

A mighty kick from the fat man freed his left leg, but only from the shin down. Shichio shuddered at the sight of it. “Idiot! You’ll only bleed faster now. It’s a good thing I didn’t tie you with your head upward, neh? You’d lose consciousness in no time. And where would be the justice in that?”

Mio bellowed so loud that it shook the walls. Shichio lost patience with him and stuffed a silken scarf in Mio’s mouth. “You’ve already spoiled my chance to kill the boy,” he said. “You and Hashiba both. And I can’t punish Hashiba, can I? No. But you? You deserve it. All samurai deserve it.” And with that he sliced off a nipple.

The fat man writhed and raged, but he only succeeded in chafing himself on the ropes. “Isn’t it ironic?” Shichio said. “From the very beginning, my mask awakened thoughts of swords in me—but only thoughts. I always found bloodshed repugnant, but then the boy marred my beautiful mask. Now I find it’s not enough merely to think of blades; I must put them to use. Your bleeding still sickens me. Yes, it does. I despise it, and yet the mask awakens this need in me. Do you see the irony? It’s because of the boy that I’m going to kill you, and you were the boy’s last remaining defender.”

At last Mio managed to spit out the silk. “You forget your precious ‘Hashiba,’” he said. “Let him take his cock out of your mouth long enough to think straight and he’ll remember that treaty you signed. Then you’ll be the next one strapped to this table.”

“I am growing tired of that tongue of yours,” he said. “To tell you the truth, I tired of it a long time ago. I had all but convinced Hashiba to push the Okumas into the sea, and you talked him out of it, didn’t you? Yes, you did. Well, how much longer did you think I was going to put up with that?”

“If you kill me, he’ll kill you next.”

“I think not. Oh, but I’ve forgotten to tell you, haven’t I? I’ve made you an enemy of the throne.”

“What?”

“They will find the first evidence of your treason in the morning. You’ve been corresponding with Tokugawa Ieyasu, I’m afraid, conspiring to unseat the lord regent. I don’t know all the details. It’s Jun who wrote the letters on your behalf—at my command, of course, but I allowed him a free hand when it came to their actual content. It wouldn’t do for me to accidentally implicate myself, would it? Not when I’m so close to ridding myself of you and the Bear Cub.”

“You son of a whore! I’m no traitor!” Mio pulled so hard against the ropes that Shichio could hear the fibers stetching. “You’re deranged! I’ll see you burned at the stake for this.”

“Now what did I tell you about that tongue?” Shichio tied another bond, this one across Mio’s lower jaw, pulling Mio’s chin back so he could not bite down. Then Shichio tossed Mio’s huge katana aside, drew his knife, and stuck it in Mio’s mouth.

“You see? Look what good struggling does you. I didn’t mean to cut your lip, did I? I didn’t mean to cut the roof of your mouth. But you won’t take your punishment, will you? No, you won’t.”

The tongue was warm and sticky in his fingers, utterly repulsive. Shichio flicked it on the floor. “Now, how am I going to destroy the Okumas if I can’t attack them? Hm? Answer me that. And how long do I have until Hashiba starts getting serious about the monk? Thus far I’ve been able to distract him, but if he ever presses for the truth in earnest, I am not long for this world. And we can’t have that, can we? No. No, we can’t.”

Shichio ran his hand over his iron brow. “The monk vexes me,” he said. “His very existence makes me want to scream.” Then he laid his knife against the largest roll on Mio’s belly and drew it across with exquisite languor.

“How?” Shichio said, ignoring Mio’s gurgling, wordless moans. “The Okumas are the key to reaching the monk, but how can I put an end to the Okumas? No doubt the boy is already plotting to kill me. And can I kill him? No. Hashiba even denied me the use of his assassins. Can you believe it? He favors the boy over me. He said the little Bear Cub has big bear balls. Those were his exact words. How could he say such a thing?”

He looked back at Mio, who spat up a mouthful of blood. “You agree with me, don’t you? I can hardly let the boy live. No doubt the monk told him my secret. And what of his family? The monk is under their protection. How can I allow them to live? You’d do the same, wouldn’t you? If you were in my position, you’d kill them all. Yes, you would.”

He pushed the knife through one of the fat rolls on Mio’s thigh and left it there. The hilt quivered every time the fat man twitched. “I’m going to finish this with my own sword, I think. It seems the more appropriate choice.” He stood over Mio and drew his blade. “It will be no challenge when I decide to take your head, you know. I’ll just chop it off, won’t I? Yes, I will. But how do I decapitate a clan whose head has simply decided to leave it?”

His sword dropped idly toward Mio’s neck. It was more than sharp enough to kill even with only its own weight behind it, but Shichio’s intent was only to nick Mio’s remaining ear. But that wretched Okuma boy had unsettled him even more than he’d thought, for he missed the ear completely. Instead he cut the rope binding Mio’s neck to the table.

The fat man took a deep gulping breath. He made a strangled, gurgling noise, then a horrid red geyser erupted out of his mouth, followed by a desperate gasp. His sputtering sent flecks of blood everywhere. Shichio didn’t dare think of what a mess it made of his kimono.

“Do you see?” he said. “You samurai are no different from the rest of us. You claim to be fearless of death, but when you’re choking on your own blood, you cough it up just like anyone else, neh? Yes. Yes, you do. Samurai, peasants, nobles, outcasts; we’re all the same. Even the Bear Cub will die the same as anyone else, and to hell with all his vaunted nobility.”

Shichio paced around the table, willfully ignoring the blood on the floor. It reeked. Somehow Mio’s blood overwhelmed even the fetid stink of the slaughterhouse, which was just next door. “How to decapitate a clan that has no head? It’s almost a koan, isn’t it? Beheading the headless.”

He looked at his sword. “Who commands the Okumas now? The cub’s deranged mother, I suppose. The poor creature. She lost her husband and her eldest in the space of a year, didn’t she? Yes, she did, and now her youngest son has forsaken her too.”

Like a bolt of lightning, a plan suddenly flashed before Shichio’s eyes. He only caught a glimpse, but the vision of it lingered in his mind. “That’s it, isn’t it, Mio? Yes, it is. She’s unmarried.”

He sliced off another flopping fish, this one from just under Mio’s armpit. “Do you see the brilliance of it? I needn’t decapitate the Okumas; I need only to give them a new head. If I marry the dowager, I become head of the clan.”

The thought of it sent chills down Shichio’s spine. “But do I dare? If I marry her, I become one of you. Samurai. The caste I want most to extinguish. And yet . . . .”

He laid his blade carefully along the length of Mio’s right thigh, poised to cut not one but three of the bulging rolls of flesh. “If I were to do this thing”—he craned his head to meet Mio’s gaze—“I remove that little cub from his house forever. I earn myself name, station, and land. Oh! And when I take the Okuma estate, I also acquire that old traitor’s monastery, and then I can kill him whenever I like. Even you can see the beauty in that, neh? I win three prizes in one stroke.”

With that he let lashed out with his katana, slicing off three fat gobbets in one blow.

Suddenly the table crashed sideways. A fat foot struck Shichio in the chin. Fragments of rope flew through the air, and ribbons of blood too. The back of Shichio’s head bounced hard off the wall, and when he could see through the stars Mio Yasumasa was gone.

There was a huge, blood-streaked hole where the fat man had crashed through the shoji. Some way off there came a wooden, splintering crash—Mio, probably bashing his way through another sliding wall, far enough now that he posed no immediate threat.

Shichio stood. His gore-stained clothes clung to him, making him want to retch. He stepped outside into the cool night air, seeking respite from the coppery stench of the table. Footprints, elephantine and bloody, described a stomping path toward the slaughterhouse. Fitting, Shichio thought. Let him die with the rest of the swine.

It took him a long moment to sort out what had happened. His final cut must have bitten deeper than he’d intended, slicing through rope as well as flesh. He’d inadvertently freed Mio’s right leg.

It was an understandable mistake. Shichio had never been a practiced hand at torture. Up until tonight he’d never been able to stomach it beyond the first few cuts. Somehow the Bear Cub’s blade had changed that: it released some demonic bloodlust latent in the mask, a thirst so intense that it could overwhelm Shichio’s revulsion. And even if Shichio had been an expert, Mio was so bloated that it was impossible to see all of the ropes. Still, it amazed Shichio to think of how much strength the fat man had. Even after losing all that blood, he still had the strength to tip the table, to aim a kick Shichio’s head, to brace his legs firmly enough to burst his remaining bonds.

Shichio stroked the sharp corner of his mask’s broken fang, the one the Bear Cub had nicked. He wondered what to do next. The fat man wouldn’t make it far. He was naked, unarmed, and bleeding horribly. There was nowhere for him to hide; he was simply too noticeable in his current state.

On the other hand, Shichio had indulged his habit of thinking out loud. The fat man had heard everything. If he somehow managed to reach the Bear Cub . . .

No. He had no tongue.

Shichio laughed out loud. It was unthinkable that Mio would find the boy—for that matter, it was hardly imaginable that he hadn’t collapsed already—but if karma allowed Daigoro to find the fat man before Shichio did, it wouldn’t matter; Mio could relay no secrets.

In any case, Daigoro would certainly have to find him before sunrise. No one—not even a mammoth of Mio’s size—could survive more than a few hours with such hideous wounds. What was more, Daigoro had left the Jurakudai three days ago, and he was mounted while Mio was on foot. And of course Mio would not think to run to Daigoro. He would run to Hashiba, where his wounds would be recognized on sight. Hashiba knew the fruits of his table all too well; he’d sentenced dozens of men to this fate.

And that meant Mio would have recognized the table too. Shichio hadn’t thought of that: unlike anyone else who had ever been lashed down to the table, Mio had seen its results before. He must have known what was coming from the moment he came to, yet all he’d shown Shichio was vitriol and spite. Not the slightest trace of fear.

Shichio could not help but marvel at that. Nor did the poetry of the moment escape him. How many times had the samurai been compared to the cherry blossom, beautiful precisely because it died at the height of its beauty? It was worthy of a song: Mio, the most honored of samurai, and Shichio, gaining his first shred of respect for Mio only after he’d killed him.

Hashiba felt otherwise. He’d honored Mio from the start, and that meant his initial reaction would be harsh. There was no way of guessing whether it would be sharp words or sharper swords; Hashiba was nothing if not capricious. Shichio knew he would have to be swift in presenting the evidence he’d fabricated of Mio’s treason, or else risk facing execution himself. But he was a practiced hand at making others believe what he wanted them to believe, and it was not as if Mio Yasumasa could speak in his own defense.

No, there was little to worry about. “But,” Shichio said, alone in the moonlit garden, “you are nothing if not thorough. It wouldn’t do to leave things to chance, would it?” Shichio cleaned the blood from his blade and sheathed it. “No. No, it wouldn’t.”

He sent for Jun and began composing the orders in his mind. Riders would be sent to every gate and bridge in the city, looking for the fat man. And—why not?—for the now-nameless Bear Cub as well. If the boy hadn’t left the city, and if Mio somehow found him . . .

Shichio smiled. “Why, that would be the best of all, wouldn’t it? Yes, it would. Execute the boy for collaborating with a known traitor.”

Suddenly Shichio wished he’d let Mio go on purpose. He couldn’t have laid a better trap, and he was a little disappointed in himself that he hadn’t planned it that way from the start.

39

The Kamo River gurgled at Daigoro’s feet, though he could hardly see the water. Across the river a fierce red glow loomed over the rolling line of the horizon: the sun’s last light above the hilltops, lingering in spite of the stars that had already begun to multiply. They would overwhelm her soon enough. Here and there a bush warbler whistled its melancholic song. To Daigoro they were singing an elegy for the day.

He’d come down to the riverbank three nights in a row, relishing the relative cool after sweltering days, hoping to find beauty somewhere in the world and finding only emptiness. Katsushima had described him as forlorn. And well I should be, Daigoro thought, watching the sun’s last light die out. I haven’t the faintest clue how to draw Shichio out without angering Hideyoshi. If I kill Shichio without Hideyoshi’s leave, I make myself an enemy of the mightiest, most capricious warlord in the empire—and worse yet, Hideyoshi might well extend his vengeance to Akiko, my mother, and the rest of my family. We made our truce over Glorious Victory Unsought, not over me decapitating the regent’s favorite peacock.

Daigoro knew he could not return home until Shichio was dead, but neither could he stay on the outskirts of Kyoto. Katsushima had been right to suggest that they could burrow themselves in the city—there were so many people to hide behind, so many out-of-the-way places—but that ruse would only last for so long. Shichio had hundreds of men at his command, and even if he did not, he had only to offer a few coins for any word of the crippled boy with the enormous odachi. Sooner or later, news of Daigoro’s whereabouts would reach him, and once that happened, the hunt was on.

Daigoro’s only chance was to draw Shichio out somehow, but sheltered as he was in the regent’s shadow, Shichio might as well have been hiding in an iron fortress. Daigoro could not imagine how he might strike Hideyoshi’s top adviser without striking Hideyoshi himself. Katsushima had suggested calling on the Wind, but Daigoro wasn’t desperate enough to resort to that yet.

Footsteps approached through the tall grass behind him and Daigoro whirled around to see who was coming.

“Good news,” Katsushima said. He held up two large sacks, flat on the bottom with rigid, bowl-shaped lumps inside.

“Our armor?” said Daigoro.

“Yes. He finished early.”

Katsushima set one of the sacks right next to Daigoro, then sat down on the other side of it. “Nice night.”

Daigoro grunted something noncommittal and opened the drawstrings. Inside the sack was his Sora breastplate, its russet Okuma lacing removed and replaced with white, the color of death. In fact, everything replaceable had been replaced in white: the silk cording, the leather straps, the padded damask, all of it. Even the steel plating had been relacquered in white. Daigoro’s helmet was in the sack too, nestled inside the breastplate with the sune-ate, the kote, and the rest of the smaller pieces.

“It hardly feels like mine anymore.”

“It’s yours, Daigoro. And it’s far easier to dye if it’s white. We may need to disguise ourselves again.”

Daigoro started laying the pieces out on the grass. “I know,” he said. “And in the meantime, I guess it’s appropriate enough that we’re dressing ourselves in funeral colors.”

“You need to lighten up. I’m telling you, a good sporting woman will have you in fine fettle in no time at all.”

Daigoro shook his head and began to bind his sune-ate to his shins.

“What are you doing?” said Katsushima.

“Standing by my word. I told you already: as long as Shichio lives, I am at war. I may as well dress for the occasion.”

Katsushima smirked. “Fair enough. But armoring yourself now is overmuch, is it not? Tonight we go only to our beds. Do you intend to sleep in your armor?”

“I would if I could.”

“Daigoro—”

“We’re targets, Katsushima. For us the whole countryside is a battlefield.”

“All right, all right. But we’re only going down the road—”

“My father was killed only riding along the road. And he had no enemy so powerful as Shichio. Going unarmored is a luxury I can no longer afford.”

Daigoro slipped his right arm into its kote and tied it fast, examining it as he did so. The ruddy damask padding that lined the inside had been replaced with white, but where the original had silken bears pacing across its surface, the replacement was a simple, unadorned basket weave. That made sense, he supposed; Kyoto’s weavers might take days just to learn the bear pattern, a pattern that Okuma weavers knew from memory. Even so, Daigoro regretted the change. Even in the waning light he could feel the difference, and the problem was not that this coarse fabric was suited for common stock; rather, it was the thought of his family’s bear crest heaped in the rubbish bin of some Nishijin weaving-house.

He donned the second kote, lamenting the fact that even his Sora armor couldn’t protect him as much as he’d like. Wearing his full oyoroi wouldn’t do—it would only serve to call attention to himself—but he had resolved to wear every piece he could reasonably hide under his clothing. That ruled out all the large pieces save the Sora breastplate. It felt strange to be armored only partially, but then everything about his new situation felt strange. He was Daigoro but not Okuma Daigoro. He was married and yet he might never see his wife again. Some not-so-distant day he would become a father, but in all likelihood he would never know when it happened.

Daigoro slipped between the clamshell pieces of his Sora yoroi and pulled the straps until the heavy steel pressed firmly on his chest and his back. Last came his new haori, the overrobe he’d purchased the day before, right after he and Katsushima had left their yoroi with the armorer. With its wide, white, pointed shoulders, the haori made Daigoro feel as if he had wings, and between the haori and the added girth of his armor, he thought perhaps he no longer looked like a little boy. For the first time in his life he actually looked like a samurai. And it would not last long. He’d scarcely gotten used to shaving the top of his head, and now he would have to stop. It was the samurai’s birthright to maintain the caste’s traditional topknot and shaven pate, but Daigoro had given up his birthright when he’d renounced his name. For a few months Okuma Daigoro had been samurai, a man of age, the lord of his house. Now he did not know what he was.

“What do you think?” he said. “How do I look?”

Katsushima inspected him. “You look like a lordly man who will sleep alone tonight.”

“Be serious.”

Katsushima laughed and said, “By the buddhas, the world is not only shadow; there is sunlight too.” Seeing Daigoro’s reaction, he forced a straight face. “Very well. In all seriousness, you do not appear to be armored, and in all seriousness I think you will go to bed tonight without a woman to play your flute.”

Daigoro slung Glorious Victory over his back, thrust his wakizashi back through his belt, and led Katsushima back to their shelter for the evening.

Three nights earlier, when they’d left the Jurakudai, Daigoro had found himself at a loss. He’d never had to hide from anyone before. In fact, in his whole life thus far he’d always been able to get what he wanted simply by announcing his name. To go abroad without announcing himself was awkward, and to actively deceive people about his identity came as naturally to him as riding horseback came to a fish. He remembered all too well saying, “Goemon, I have no idea what to do or where to go.”

And he remembered all too well the wry smile Katushima had given him in return. “At last,” Katsushima had said, “we come to my territory.”

Hence the brothel.

It embarrassed Daigoro even to cross the threshold. Jasmine perfume and opium smoke had worked their way into the very woodwork, so that Daigoro was overcome by the smell of the place. Girlish giggling was constantly in the background, punctuated now and then by the whistle of a shakuhachi, the humming harmony of a shamisen, or the staccato rhythm of some unseen man grunting like a pig.

Daigoro did not think of himself as a prude. Back when he was at home he’d been well aware that he could have visited any pleasure house in Izu on any night he wished, and the only difference in being married was that as manager of the household finances, Akiko would have been the one who paid the bill. She would have understood as any wife would have understood—and she’d be all the more understanding, Daigoro reminded himself, if he availed himself of the women here, so many ri from home. But the smells and sounds of this house reminded him all too vividly of the pleasure house Ichiro had taken him to visit when they were boys. His cheeks burned as he remembered the embarrassment, the woman’s cold hand slipping down into his hakama, her fingertips finding the wasted tissues of his thigh on their way to what they sought. Her face had been so close to his that he could feel her breath, smell it, taste it. Had she been any farther away, he might not have noticed her wince when her fingers touched his thigh. It was a vanishingly small expression, and she’d recovered instantly, but still he’d noticed. That same embarrassment was reborn in his face even now.

The girls that eyed him now misinterpreted it as boyish hesitation. He was small, and had a young-looking face even for a sixteen-year-old. Two of the girls tittered at him and pranced up on tiptoes. They were wispy and delicate, and when they whispered in his ears their breath made the skin on his forearms tingle. The things they said would have made their own madam blush. He knew his ears and cheeks turned red, because the girls exploded in a fit of giggles and went flitting off like a couple of butterflies.

“Ladies, be polite,” the madam told them. She was stately, statuesque, with a husky voice and sly, knowing eyes. She wore a green brocade kimono with silver threads that matched the silver streak in the middle of her long, flowing hair.

“Gentlemen,” she said, her voice low and smoky, “so pleased to see you again. I’ve got something special in store for you if you’ll follow me.”

“No, thank you,” said Daigoro. “I’ll just need a bath and a bed.”

The madam arched a black eyebrow at him. “You’ll forgive me, my young lord, if I suggest a woman of my maturity knows what you need more than you do. Trust me: come this way and you won’t regret it.”

Daigoro felt his cheeks flush. She held his gaze much longer than she should have, and Daigoro thought it might have been a silent offer to service him herself. Her eyes flashed at him, and he realized what he saw in them was not desire at all. It was fear.

“All right,” he said, and the madam’s eyes flashed again. What was she afraid of? It certainly wasn’t Daigoro. She stood head and shoulders taller than him, but apart from that, she had the air of one who had survived everything a man could imagine. She needed only a glance to know Daigoro had no intention to kill her, and none of his other intentions could threaten her in the least.

He followed her upstairs, where the lanterns burned low and the scent of incense was stronger than ever. Katsushima followed, along with the two butterflies that had whispered in Daigoro’s ear when he’d first come in. “Your man should wait in there,” the madam said, and her graceful hand gestured snakelike at a door. Instantly one of the butterflies knelt beside it and opened it. The other flitted to Katsushima, tucked a finger under his belt, and beckoned him inside.

Katsushima’s hungry eyes appraised her; then he looked back to Daigoro. “I, uh—”

“You won’t be needing him where you’re going,” the madam told Daigoro. The second of the butterflies took Katsushima by the arm, and the two of them tugged him into the room and closed the shoji.

Daigoro studied the madam. She looked back at him coolly, as if she’d contained her earlier fear. Daigoro didn’t know what to expect when she led him to the next door. His best guess was an assassin. Why else would she have been afraid? And why else should she feel relief to have separated Daigoro from his bodyguard?

Whatever her reasons, Daigoro was glad to be wearing his armor. “I’m warning you,” he said, but before he could finish his sentence she slid the door open.

Inside lay General Mio—or what was left of him, at any rate. Huge sores had opened all over his body, every last one festering with maggots. His mouth was swollen and purple, livid with infection. Loops of purple and black bruises coursed around every part of his body, almost as if he’d been tattooed to look like he was wrapped in cords. Despite the efforts of the three girls tending to him, he stank like a corpse. But they were whores, not healers, and the putrid stench of him was enough to make their eyes water. One of them laid a folded wet cloth across his sweating forehead, holding another over her own nose and mouth.

“Get inside,” the madam whispered. “I beg you, quickly.”

Daigoro stepped into the room and the madam hurriedly shut the door behind them. Mio’s head lolled in the direction of the noise, and the folded cloth slipped off. “He was feverish when he barged in this morning,” the madam said, keeping her voice low. “Several times he started shaking, and I was sure he would die. But he just kept moaning your name.”

“I never told you my name.”

“There are only so many boys here, and of them, only one I thought to be a lord.” She unrolled a small scroll and showed it to Daigoro; on it someone had used brown ink and a clumsy hand to scrawl the characters for boy and lord.

Her relief was as obvious as a mask on her face. Now Daigoro understood: Mio terrified her. And why wouldn’t he? The man was a giant, and his wounds should have killed a horse. Judging by the stench, they’d been rotting for days, and yet Mio still mustered the strength to force his way in.

“How did he find me here?”

“How did he even take the first step on that path?” said the madam. “Some demon drives him—or else some higher purpose. Either way, ‘relentless’ does not begin to describe him. He should have been dead days ago.”

“He wanted to see me alone, did he?”

“That’s what he said. Or wrote, rather.”

That explained the rest. Mio doubted Katsushima’s loyalty—a reasonable reaction from one who had just been betrayed by one of his own allies. These wounds could only be Shichio’s work.

Daigoro knelt next to Mio, who groaned something unintelligible. His jaws were locked tight and he sounded drunk—sounded like his tongue was missing, in fact, or like his fever had caused him to forget how to speak.

Mio gestured feebly at the madam and Daigoro saw someone had mutilated the general’s hand. Two oblong wounds gaped like mouths, extending from the knuckles all the way down to the wrist. Similar wounds stood out on his legs, his belly, his chest, as if a wild animal had taken bites out of him.

Daigoro noticed the madam drew a tiny breath through her mouth, as if she needed to brace herself against the stench of decay before approaching. She unrolled the scroll along the tatami next to Mio’s hand, then quickly retreated. For his part, Mio pushed his fingertip into his swollen mouth, and it came away bloody to serve as his writing brush.

The least talented schoolchild had better penmanship. Then again, the least of Mio’s wounds would have killed the child outright. Mio’s finger was slow and sloppy, and it was a triumph of will every time he mustered the strength to raise his finger back to his mouth. As he traced one bright red character after another, Daigoro inspected the rest of the scroll. The first characters he’d traced were boy Daigoro, followed by doctor, lord Daigoro, here, water, fetch boy, and boy danger. Things became less clear after that. A waggling smudge here and there hinted at the moments Mio lost consciousness. The characters followed no uniform lines and no cohesive train of thought. It was clear Mio’s fever was baking his brain.

Wed, Mio wrote. Mother.

“He’s fading away again,” said one of the nursing girls, peering over Daigoro’s shoulder. “His spells last longer and longer each time.”

Mio slapped the paper—a childish and feeble gesture for one so strong. His bloody fingertip stabbed at the scroll, poking tiny crescent-shaped holes and leaving red prints.

“General, I don’t understand,” Daigoro said. “Please, help me.”

Again Mio wetted his finger and traced it on the paper. The first character was nana, seven. The second was illegible.

Wed. Mother. Seven. It made no sense. Daigoro tried again to read the character after seven, but it was just a mess of red. “Seven what?” he said. It could have been anything.

Mio desperately slapped the paper again, his face a red, bunched, pain-stricken grimace. Daigoro looked hopelessly at the scroll once more. There were no more clues now than there had been a moment before, and Mio was fading quickly.

And then it clicked. Nana, the character for seven, could also be read shichi. “Shichio?” he said. “You mean Shichio?”

Mio grunted. It sounded affirmative, but Daigoro could only guess.

Wed. Mother. Shichio. He tried to think of other readings for the characters wed and mother. No insights there. Mio tried to lift his finger to his mouth and failed. Daigoro took his arm gingerly by the wrist and helped him. Together they succeeded in bloodying the finger, but Mio could manage to write no more. Somehow he still clung to consciousness, but his body had failed him. Daigoro knew he would not regain control of himself again; the giant man was dying, and dying quickly.

Desperately, Daigoro scanned the other characters on the page. Water and medicine were of no help. Where was probably an inquiry about Daigoro. Boy and lord were obvious. Dai became shorthand for those two somewhere along the way.

On one line he found mother again, this time paired with dai. Daigoro’s mother. He paired that in his mind with wed and Shichio and came up with the unthinkable.

“Shichio intends to marry my mother?”

Mio moaned through lips so swollen he could no longer part them.

“General Mio, please. One more word. Please. Does he plan to marry my mother?”

A last groan from General Mio. Then the breath leaked out of him.

A burst of noise and splinters exploded behind Daigoro. He turned to see Katsushima, naked, kicking his way through the shoji with sword in hand. The steel held an orange glow in the dim light of the lanterns. “Daigoro!” he said. “Are you—?”

He choked on his words when he saw Mio’s body. “What is this?”

The madam rounded on him, and if she had them she would have bared claws. The smell of incense flooded the room—which, Daigoro thought, could only mean that the reek of the enormous corpse was flooding out of the room. The madam looked angry enough to burst into flame.

Before she could say anything, Daigoro spoke. “Make yourself decent, Katsushima. We need to lay plans.”

40

By the time Daigoro had a minute’s respite to think, he was utterly exhausted. Their only reason for staying at the brothel was that it was supposed to be the sort of place a man could go discreetly. They needed to lie low; smashing through walls and stinking up the place was hardly the way to do that. Every man in the house must have heard the racket; rumors would spread, and Daigoro’s height and limp were distinctive. Word would reach Shichio in no time. Yet he and Katsushima could hardly flee; they needed to help the madam set her rooms back in order, or else it was all but guaranteed that she would betray them to Shichio herself.

So they had a corpulent, putrefying corpse to get rid of, and since it was Mio’s, Daigoro felt obligated to see him laid to rest properly. They could not give the general the stately funeral he deserved, but neither could they simply roll him off a bridge into the Kamo. Then there were repairs to see to, and silence to be paid for, and all the rest. It was sunrise before Daigoro had a moment’s peace.

“We must be away,” Katsushima said, though he too looked as exhausted as Daigoro felt. His unkempt hair seemed grayer than ever. Neither of them was in any condition to ride. Even so, Daigoro managed to sling himself into his saddle, Glorious Victory clattering on his back. Her weight threatened to pull him to the ground. Even at this hour the Kyoto streets were growing crowded, and Daigoro worried about how many eyes lingered on his chestnut mare and Katsushima’s blood bay gelding.

They rode back to the Sanjo Ohashi under Daigoro’s lead. More than once he drifted off in the saddle, and every time the feeling of falling jarred him awake. He never fell off his horse, but each time he gripped his saddle horn tighter and did not easily let go.

It was late into the hour of the dragon by the time the road had cleared enough that they could speak without being overheard. It was hot and Daigoro was sweating in his armor. Exhausted as he was, he knew he had to explain everything Mio had told him.

“It’s damned clever,” Katsushima said when Daigoro had finished. “Assuming it’s true.”

“I cannot make sense of it,” said Daigoro. His eyes felt sandy and he found it difficult to link two thoughts together. “Why should he suddenly want to marry my mother?”

“To weaken you. Think about it. Any Okuma samurai who remained loyal to you would be guilty of treason. Shichio would be the rightful head of the clan.”

“No. Shichio? The next Lord Okuma? He’d be taking on his wife’s name, Goemon. No man could bear the shame.”

“No samurai could bear the shame. But what of a farmer’s son?”

Daigoro hadn’t thought of it that way. Shichio had no name of his own. He had no estate, no station, and no respect at court. Hideyoshi had once been in the same stead, until the emperor himself raised him up. Shichio would never receive such favors. There could only be one regent.

Of course Hideyoshi had the power to give Shichio nearly anything he wanted, but he also owed a great many favors. He was renowned for his battlefield cunning, but known better for his skill at parley. He’d conquered whole territories with nothing more than promises, granting this or that to every daimyo that would oppose him. Rumor had it that he paid his newly conquered enemies better than he paid those who were already close to him—as well he should, if his purpose was to buy allegiance. Hideyoshi had secured everything west of the Nobi plain, but even he could not grant land endlessly.

And there were those things even Hideyoshi could not grant. Glorious Victory Unsought. The esteem of others. A samurai’s birthright. An estate acquired through conquest, not granted as a gift. A surname and a house of his own. Shichio thought himself superior to the likes of Mio Yasumasa, the consummate samurai. It only spoke to his delusion—a peacock was a peacock—but at least he could play make-believe by taking on the name of Okuma and having warriors of his own to order about.

“You may be right,” Daigoro said at last. “He probably thinks even Glorious Victory would be his, as the rightful property of the Okuma clan.”

“He might,” said Katsushima. “But the more pressing question is what you will do to stop him. You’re no longer the head of the Okumas. You have no say in whether your mother marries.”

“And she hardly has a say herself. . . .”

Daigoro could already see it in his mind’s eye. Shichio the honey-tongued. Shichio the pretty, preening songbird. In all likelihood he was already composing a serenade to the fair Lady Yumiko. In her current state she had no defense against him. He would insinuate himself in her mind until she could not help but say yes to him.

And worse yet, Hideyoshi no longer had a sober voice to counsel him. If anyone could have talked Hideyoshi into forbidding the marriage, it was General Mio. He had promised to keep an eye on Shichio—and, now that Daigoro thought of it, he’d also promised that Shichio would find a way to worm his way out of the truce. This was it. Marrying Daigoro’s mother was the most complete victory imaginable. Far worse than simply razing House Okuma to the ground, this would see House Okuma rise to prominence with its worst enemy seated at its head. The Okumas would become Shichio’s slaves. He could even order them to hunt down Daigoro and Katsushima. Daigoro’s family would become a monster, a hideous ghoul of its former self.

“Maybe you were right,” Daigoro said. “Calling on the Wind seemed desperate to me before, but now—”

Katsushima shook his head. “I’ve thought on that too. Shinobi were never the best option. For one thing, I’m no longer sure you can afford them. For another, we cannot be certain they would take your coin. The Wind are the best in the world, but they will not have forgotten what happens when they take aim at people in high office and miss.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oda Nobunaga. Toyotomi’s predecessor. His enemies tried sending shinobi against him. When they failed, Oda did not stop at killing the assassins, nor even the enemies who hired them; he destroyed the conspirators’ families, and the families of the assassins too. Whole clans vanished overnight.”

“But Shichio is just a general—and a lowborn one at that. He’s no Oda Nobunaga.”

Katsushima shrugged. “He doesn’t need to be. Hideyoshi has risen higher than Oda ever did, and Shichio stands in Hideyoshi’s shadow.”

Daigoro hung his head, and with his gaze downcast he saw his hands armored in their white kote. Now that the plates on the backs of the hands had been lacquered white, he could hardly make out the bear paws worked into the steel. “The Wind! I can hardly believe I’ve uttered the thought aloud. Who am I, Goemon? What am I doing?”

“You know perfectly well what you do. You strive to keep to your father’s road.”

“Do I?” Suddenly Daigoro felt weighed down by his armor. Glorious Victory pulled at him more heavily still, threatening to pull him right out of the saddle. “I walked that road once. But do I still? Or have I wandered off onto some other path?”

Katsushima was silent for a while. At length he said, “There was a time when I knew, Daigoro. No longer.”

“I’ve surrendered my name. I’ve surrendered my family. I am an enemy of the throne. I’ve even surrendered the right to wear the topknot. How can I say my life has anything at all to do with bushido?”

“Perhaps you shouldn’t.”

Daigoro had hoped Katsushima would say something like that, but now that he heard it, it made his heart feel colder and heavier than ever. He’d hoped to feel some solace in the thought of giving up. It should have comforted him. At any rate, that’s what the abbot of Katto-ji would have said: give up everything, and when you have nothing more to lose, you will lose all fear of loss. But if I surrender bushido, Daigoro thought, will I even know who I am?

“The life of the ronin is not without riches of its own,” Katsushima said. “Sake, women, freedom; they’re much warmer companions than duty.”

“Is that why you followed me all this way? Hoping to recruit me?”

Katsushima chuckled. “If I wanted to recruit you as a ronin, I wouldn’t have let you get married.”

Daigoro wished he could smile too, but he couldn’t muster the energy. “Tell me the truth, Goemon: why do you still follow me?”

Katsushima swallowed. “We should discuss that another time.”

“I cannot say how much more time we have.”

“We’ll talk after we’ve rested.”

Daigoro shook his head. “I cannot say how much rest we’re likely to get, either. We are quarry. The arrows bound for us are already in flight. And apart from all that, if we do not keep our tongues waggling, I’m apt to doze off and fall out of my saddle. Tell me, Goemon, why do you still ride with me?”

Katsushima’s face grew stern. “You’re drowning, Daigoro. You need someone to help you keep your head above water.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re trying to carry your family and your father’s image and all the rest of it. It’s too much for a drowning man to bear, Daigoro. You need to let them go.”

Exhausted as he was, Daigoro had trouble following the metaphor. He actually felt as if his armor were pulling him off his horse; it was not hard to imagine it dragging him underwater. “Speak plainly,” he said. “I do not understand.”

Katsushima’s face grew sterner still. “I speak in circles because I don’t wish to give offense. We approach a crossroads, you and I. You have a problem in Shichio and a problem in your family. There is a single solution for both problems, one I’ve hinted at before. I can solve both problems for you with one stroke of my sword, but you bar me from doing so. You can solve it too, but you bar even yourself. A man can hold up his drowning friend, Daigoro, but only for so long. Sooner or later he must let him go or drown with him.”

“I’m too tired for this, Goemon. Just tell me what you mean.”

“No. You need to reach this conclusion yourself. Shichio means to marry your mother. In so doing he will destroy your clan forever. You cannot kill him; he is out of your reach. So what do you need to do?”

“I don’t understand—”

“Yes, you do. All it takes is one stroke of your sword to save your family name.”

“Who—?”

“You tell me, Daigoro. Who must die to save your family?”

Daigoro’s pulse pounded in his ears. His breath came short and quick. He had to press against his saddle horn to keep himself upright. “My mother,” he said. “You’re telling me to kill my mother?”

“Of course.”

Daigoro stammered. A hundred objections bubbled up, but the only word he could make intelligible was “Why?”

“Is it not clear? You should have put her out of her misery months ago.” Katsushima scowled, his voice harsh and low. He was losing his patience. Daigoro wished he could think faster, but he was just too tired, and Katsushima’s suggestion was too enormous for him to grasp.

“No. I cannot—”

“She is a constant distraction. Were it not for her, your negotiations with the Soras would have been a success, Inoue Shigekazu would be your ally instead of your father-in-law, Izu would be stable, and your house would be the stronger for it. Now she is the key that will unlock the Okuma clan. You cannot allow Shichio to take that key, Daigoro. If you don’t destroy it, he’ll use it to destroy you.”

“No.” Daigoro’s heart pounded so hard he thought it might burst. He was scared and angry—angry not at Katsushima but at himself. Why could he not think faster? Everything Katsushima had said was true, but still, was there no counterargument?

“There must be another way,” Daigoro said, but even to his own ears his voice sounded feeble.

“Perhaps there is,” said Katsushima, “but that is why we stand at a crossroads. To me the right path is obvious. If you want to look for a different path, then here is where we part company. I cannot watch you destroy yourself, Daigoro. Standing up to Shichio and Hideyoshi was noble. Throwing yourself on Shichio’s sword is stupidity. And that is what you do if you allow him to marry your mother. He’ll turn your own men against you. It is more than foolish; it’s appalling, and I will not stand by and watch you do it.”

“I’m so tired,” Daigoro said. “I can’t think. . . .”

“What need is there for thinking? You need only to act. Ride with me, north and east, as fast as we can. Put your mother out of her misery. Save the rest of your clan.”

“No. I can’t kill her, Goemon. I just can’t. And neither can I allow you to do it.”

Katsushima frowned. “I will not kill her without your permission,” he said, “but I will not watch her sink you either. She is ballast, Daigoro. She will pull you under unless you ship her overboard.”

With that Katsushima put his heels to his horse. Daigoro’s chestnut mare ambled to a halt, bending her head to eat a tussock of grass growing along the edge of the Tokaido. Daigoro was too tired to make her change her mind.

He watched as the white dust settled in Katsushima’s wake. Now more than ever, he felt utterly alone.