Year of the Demon

purposes, the abbot is dead to the world. Lord Okuma was not disobedient. He fulfilled the spirit of the regent’s command as fully as anyone could ask of him.”

“No,” said Shichio. “To carry it out fully would be to deliver a bald head in a box.”

“My lord regent,” Daigoro said, his heart pounding; he’d never interrupted commanders of this station before. “The abbot himself offered me just that solution. I turned him down.”

Hideyoshi fixed his overlarge eyes on Daigoro. “Did you? Well, look at the balls on this one.” He laughed and said, “Explain yourself, Lord Okuma.”

“My lord regent, my father told me many times that when we are faced with choosing between taking an easy path and taking a hard one, the path of bushido is almost never the easy path.”

A knowing smile touched Hideyoshi’s lips. “I remember him. I met him only briefly, but I remember thinking, ‘Now this one is a samurai.’”

“He was the best,” said Daigoro.

“You misunderstand me,” said Hideyoshi. “He was an impressive man, your father. The consummate samurai. But this honor of his—this honor of yours—never made the slightest bit of sense to me.”

Daigoro was confused. He was sure his ears had deceived him. He could not have heard the regent, a man the emperor himself had raised to the station of samurai, admit he didn’t believe in honor. It was impossible. Wasn’t it?

Hideyoshi went on. “I’ll grant you, I wasn’t born into all this honor nonsense, but even if I had been, I’m still not sure I would understand it any better. How did it become fashionable to prefer death to disloyalty? Why not praise self-interest? Why not ambition? Aren’t people better suited to pursue their own interests anyhow?”

“I’ve never thought of it that way,” Daigoro said honestly. To him the dictates of honor were as indisputable as the stars in the heavens. They were not something one questioned; they simply were. Those who navigated without them did so at their peril. But Hideyoshi had it right as well: left to their own devices, human beings would surely pursue their own selfish interests, wouldn’t they?

“Think on it,” said Hideyoshi. “I defy you to explain why I should live within the straits of this thing you call honor. Wouldn’t your life be easier without it? Here you are, right in the dragon’s den, and yet if you had killed that monk as I ordered, you and I would never have met. In fact, if you weren’t so damned honor-bound, you could have sent along any old head, neh? You could have lied and saved your skin. Yet here you are. I can kill you at whim. Your honor makes you weaker than me, doesn’t it?”

Daigoro could almost feel the energy bristling from General Mio—and not just from Mio, but from Katsushima too. Both of them were born samurai and both were too incensed to speak. They gave off heat like a pair of volcanoes. Was Hideyoshi goading them? Was he goading Daigoro? Or was he really so ignorant of what it meant to be samurai?

“My lord, I think I am weaker than you,” Daigoro said at last. “But not because of my honor. I am weaker because my influence is smaller. I have a few hundred warriors at my command; you have hundreds of thousands. And yes, I believe you have it right: I think men are naturally inclined not to be honorable but to be selfish. But that is precisely why honor is important; it bids us to transcend ourselves. Without it, we are only clever animals. With it, we can be better than our animal instincts allow us to be.”

“Is that what you think of peasants?” said Hideyoshi. “That we’re animals?”

“No, my lord, I—”

“Let me ask you this: would you agree that the peasants of our country—the clever little animals—would like to see an end to war?”

“Of course, my lord regent.”

“And would you agree that as long as there have been samurai, there has been war?”

“We are born out of war. That is what it means to be a warrior.”

“Don’t you see what that means? As long as there are warriors, war will never end. What we need is an end to it. When every last province is brought under the reign of one man, that man can stop being a warlord. He can simply be a ruler.”

Hideyoshi smiled. It was an ugly thing, his sharp teeth not so different from the sharp rocks jumbled along the coastline. But ugly as it was, there was legitimate kindness in the smile. “Tell me, Lord Okuma, wouldn’t your father have preferred to see the end of all wars?”

“Yes, my lord regent. Without a doubt.”

“Then what good is this honor of yours if it always leads to more fighting? Would it not be better if all samurai abandoned their honor and started thinking more like peasants?”

“Begging your pardon, my lord regent, but I respect my father above all other men. It was his unfailing adherence to bushido that I admired most. If he were still alive, if he were in this room and you commanded me to behead him, I would do it in a heartbeat and I believe he would be proud of me for doing so. To sacrifice family for one’s liege is the hardest path, and it leads to the highest height of honor. But to sacrifice an innocent is the easy path. To sacrifice an innocent to benefit oneself is even worse. And to do so at the expense of one’s liege lord is unforgivable.”

“Who gave you the right to decide what is unforgivable?” said Shichio, his voice loud and sharp, verging on a snarl. His angry outburst was totally at odds with his genteel appearance. “Are you the regent now? Has the emperor given you his blessing?”

Daigoro bowed his forehead to the floor. “My most abject apologies, Shichio-dono. I chose my words poorly.” And you didn’t wait long to capitalize on that, he thought.

Hearing no further objection, Daigoro continued. “My lord regent, you are correct: I could have sent you the head of any bald man. I could have shaved a common criminal. And I could have sent you the head you requested—”

“The imperial regent does not request anything,” Shichio hissed. “He speaks and his underlings obey.”

Again Daigoro’s forehead touched the floor. “As you say, Shichio-dono. A thousand apologies, my lords. A thousand times thousand.”

“Go on,” said Hideyoshi.

“My lord regent, I could have beheaded the abbot as you ordered and all of this business would be over. But to do so would be to kill an innocent for no other reason than to make life easier for my family and myself. Worse yet, I believe it would have been a disservice to you. I believe General Mio is correct, Toyotomi-dono: if I were to kill this abbot, it would strengthen your enemies and drive the northern territories further from your grasp.”

“The regent’s arm extends everywhere,” said Shichio. “Nothing is beyond his grasp. And even if it were, is someone of your station powerful enough to deny him? I think not.”

“And I think you talk more than you should,” said General Mio. “Shut your mouth and let your superior make his own decision in peace.”

Shichio scowled across the dais at Mio but kept his mouth shut. Yet Daigoro noticed a change in Hideyoshi. He sat somewhat taller than before; he’d squared his shoulders and ever so slightly lowered his chin. All this talk of his own power seemed to make him feel more powerful, and in hindsight Daigoro realized that Shichio’s words were aimed not just at Daigoro but at Hideyoshi too. It was as if he’d been inflating the man, puffing him up, stiffening his resolve, yet all the while drawing Hideyoshi’s position closer toward his own, like iron filings shifting their alignment toward a magnet. Daigoro wondered how many others in the room had even noticed. Mio was oblivious, as was Hideyoshi himself. The peacock truly was a master manipulator.

Hideyoshi was quiet for a long time. “Sir,” General Mio said at last, “you must see the logic of the boy’s argument.”

But Daigoro wasn’t so sure. Shichio’s hypnotic song still held sway over him. If the regent were to pass judgment now, it could go either way, and Daigoro was certain that once Hideyoshi made a pronouncement, it would stand as fast as Mount Fuji itself. Shichio had overfed his ego; there was no longer any room for backing down.

Would it be so bad? Suppose the abbot were to die, Daigoro thought. Suppose he died on a Toyotomi sword, or even an Okuma sword at Hideyoshi’s command. One man would go willingly to his death and the Okumas would escape the regent’s wrath. Better still, they would escape the wrath of the regent’s right-hand man,