Year of the Demon

katana looked as if it had never been touched, to say nothing of having been drawn in battle. His hands were smooth and uncallused. His armor was surely crafted to evoke images of a tiger—orange and black for its stripes, gold for its gleaming, ferocious eyes—but it only called attention to the fact that Hideyoshi was the living antithesis of a tiger. His colors were garish, not subtle, his armor hard, not supple, his movements common, not majestic.

The man behind him was the regal one. He was thin like Hideyoshi, but tall, stately, with handsome features and a graceful air. Even as he stepped out of the palanquin, he preened his hair. He took in his surroundings with the practiced affectation of the highborn, cocking a disdainful eyebrow when his gaze finally fell on Daigoro. In truth he noted Glorious Victory first, studying her as an object of art rather than a weapon. He made a tiny adjustment to his golden kimono before dipping his chin toward Daigoro in an almost imperceptible bow.

He was a peacock, in short, and Daigoro wondered who he was.

The last to emerge from the palanquins was the giant Daigoro had seen in the launch. He was head and shoulders taller than the peacock, and the katana sheathed at his hip was almost as long as Glorious Victory. It seemed like a sword of no great length in comparison to his enormous belly. Despite his age he was not balding; it was clear that he still had to shave his pate. His white topknot and little white point of a beard were both well groomed. His black armor was polished to a gleaming sheen, with horse motifs embossed into the leather. He was the very embodiment of nobility and lordliness.

And yet in the company of the giant and the peacock, it was Hideyoshi that the emperor had named regent, Hideyoshi who had brought a thousand daimyo to heel, Hideyoshi who commanded the attention of everyone in the courtyard. Daigoro could not help it: his eyes followed the man wherever he went. He wondered what Hideyoshi’s secret was. He and Daigoro were both puny. Both fell short of what it meant to be a man. From birth neither of them was cut out to be samurai—Daigoro because of his disfigurement, Hideyoshi because of his parentage—and yet both had to play the role. And while Daigoro had trouble commanding even the loyalty of his own father-in-law, Hideyoshi had the emperor himself at his back.

The imperial regent walked up to Daigoro and bowed. “Good morning. I’m Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Let’s have a seat and chat.”

Soldiers and servants scurried like leaves before a typhoon. Soon enough all the required parties were seated in the Okuma audience chamber: Hideyoshi on the dais, the giant on his left, and the peacock on his right, a dozen Toyotomi samurai on either side of them, still as statues. Daigoro was seated before the regent, Katsushima on his right, his lieutenants in a row behind them, the rest of his officers ranked and filed in the back. Shiramatsu, Tomo, and a few other attendants were kneeling at the door, all of them duly submissive and subdued. Sixty men in the room all told, and of all of them only Hideyoshi was relaxed.

“Shichio here tells me we’ve got a problem,” he said, nodding his head toward the peacock. “Something about a monk.”

So this is Shichio, Daigoro thought. The man put him on edge. Ever since his arrival, his eyes repeatedly drifted to Glorious Victory Unsought. He seemed drawn to it somehow. Daigoro had seen that obsession before, and he knew it never ended well.

But he could not afford to ruminate on that now. The island’s most powerful warlord had asked him a question. “Yes, the abbot of Katto-ji,” Daigoro said. “He is under house arrest. His temple is on the next peak north of here.”

“Is he of the Ikko sect?”

“No, my lord regent. His is a Zen order.”

“Was he ever?”

“Of the Ikko Ikki? No, my lord regent.”

“Does he harbor any Ikko monks? Does he preach insurrection? Does he keep a hidden arsenal in the monastery?”

“No, my lord regent.”

Hideyoshi looked over his shoulder to the peacock—no, Daigoro thought, correcting himself: to General Shichio. He could almost hear Katsushima chiding him. Make the slightest misstep and this man will have your head. Best be careful.

“You see?” the regent told Shichio. “The monk is no threat.”

“We’ve come an awfully long way just to take this boy’s word for it,” Shichio said with a sneer. His voice was so soft that he could barely be heard past the dais, yet Daigoro noticed he used none of the honorifics one would expect in speaking to a man second only to the emperor in rank. Was it because Hideyoshi was so informal that he didn’t require such niceties? Or was it the pride of a preening peacock?

Hideyoshi shrugged. “Lord Okuma,” he said, “I’m sure you understand my concerns. I’ve given an execution order. You haven’t followed it. Even a common platoon sergeant cannot abide disobedience from his troops. In my office insubordination looms larger still.”

“Yes, my lord regent.”

“But I respect your title, your name, and your authority. It does me no good to strip a daimyo’s sovereignty over his fief. I have no use for your anger; what I want is your loyalty. And there’s my problem. The easy solution is to kill you, kill this monk, and sail back home. I’ve killed disobedient daimyo before. So remind me, Lord Okuma, how is it that you show me loyalty by refusing to carry out my will?”

“My lord regent has no desire for enemies in Izu,” Daigoro said, then stopped himself. The abbot’s warning about General Shichio echoed in his mind: this was a man who reshaped words like clay. Daigoro’s answer could already be reinterpreted as a veiled threat; he chose his next words more carefully.

“The abbot is a very popular man. He presides over the funerals of every family within three days’ ride of here. Parents are known to travel twenty ri just to have him bless their babies. Killing him is certain to raise the farmers’ ire, my lord regent; any daimyo who killed him would have a hard time collecting taxes.”

“I see,” said Hideyoshi, but Shichio leaned forward and whispered something in his ear.

“Sir, I agree with Lord Okuma,” said the giant. He shifted to face his liege lord. “It is no secret that you plan to move against the Hojos. Create a disturbance among the northern daimyo and you only create allies for the enemy.”

“And yet disobedience is disobedience,” said Hideyoshi. Shichio gave a little nod. Daigoro wondered whose words had just come from the regent’s mouth.

“Sir,” said the giant, “there is disobedience and then there is obeying the spirit of a command without obeying it to the letter.”

“Why, General Mio,” Shichio said, “I hadn’t expected hairsplitting from you.”

“And I hadn’t expected you to sail the command fleet halfway across the empire to indulge a petty grudge. Someday you’ll have to tell me why this monk is so important to you.”

The peacock glowered. The giant, Mio, shifted again where he sat, rotating to face Daigoro. “Lord Okuma, we have your word that no one outside this Katto-ji will ever see the abbot in question again?”

“On my own life, Mio-dono, you have my word.”

“He will speak with no one outside his monastery?”

“Yes, Mio-dono.”

“And what of visitors to the monastery? Will he speak with them?”

Daigoro bowed low. “My lord regent has only to tell me his preference and I will make it law. Toyotomi- dono, please understand, the abbot had the utmost respect for my departed father. He could have taken the tonsure anywhere, and chose to do it at Katto-ji in order to be close to my father and learn from him. If I command him to a lifetime of silence, he will obey.”

General Mio opened his mouth to ask another question, but Shichio cut him off. Speaking loudly for the first time, he said, “It seems to me that if this man is so beloved by the people, then confining him to his monastery will be no more popular than having him killed. In fact, it may be worse; force him into a vow of silence and he will either violate it or else anger the people further by being present yet refusing to speak to them. So what benefit is it to leave him alive?”

Daigoro’s stomach clenched. He had no answer to that. Outfoxed by a peacock, he thought.

But Mio answered for him. “General Shichio speaks directly to my point,” said the giant. “For all intents and