Year of the Demon

“If I do that, the general doesn’t need to marry her; he’ll just kill her, and the rest of my house too. You don’t know this man, Yasuda-sama. He isn’t bound to the code as we are. He’s mad.”

Yasuda nodded weakly. “Then come at him from a position of strength. Your own position, the position of your birthright. Let a widow mourn the passing of her husband. Let a mother mourn the death of her eldest son. And if death comes, then such is a samurai’s lot. Die in your rightful stead, Okuma-dono.”

“No. I was no good at governance even while I had name and station. Let the other lords protector manage Izu’s affairs while my mother grieves. Surely they owe my family that much.”

Yasuda coughed, snorted, and spat a wad of mucus into a red-lacquered bowl held by a serving girl. “What they owe is one thing,” he said. “How little they can get away with repaying is something else again. Someone has got to mind the difference between the two, and doing that will demand more vigilance than your mother can spare.”

“Yes. I was rather hoping I might ask a Yasuda to hold things together.”

Lord Yasuda had another coughing fit. His face flushed, and the little veins visibly bulged in his temples. Whether it was from the coughing or emotional agitation, Daigoro couldn’t say.

“I told you already,” Yasuda said, “it’s beyond my reach. Too old. Too many other things to worry about. This devil besetting my lungs isn’t the least of my problems, but it isn’t the greatest either.”

“I did not presume to saddle you with this burden, Yasuda-sama. I had your youngest son in mind.”

“Kenbei? He’s responsible enough, I’ll grant you, but none of the other lords will listen to him. Izu looks to House Yasuda for strength and defense, not for fair minds and level heads. And we don’t look to the Inoues or Soras either, that’s for damned certain. We look to House Okuma.”

The devil, as Yasuda called it, possessed his lungs again, and he had to spit five times into the serving girl’s bowl before he could rest his heavy head back on his pillow.

“Izu looks to House Okuma,” Daigoro said, “and now House Okuma looks to the house of Yasuda Kenbei. I have surrendered my title as lord protector; I can only ask you as a friend. Will you help me? Will you speak to your son for me?”

“Nothing would please me more. If my Kenbei were to marry your mother, your enemy would have no recourse but to accept it. But Kenbei is already married, and his wife is at least as dangerous as this madman in Kyoto. They called your father the Red Bear of Izu, but let me tell you, they should have given that nickname to her instead. That woman is a bear if ever there was one.”

Daigoro grinned. “Direct as ever, Yasuda-sama.”

“Wait until you’re my age and then see how much time you have for dithering.” Lord Yasuda hacked and spat. “You’re a clever boy, Okuma-dono. And this fever addles an old man’s brain. You did not have Kenbei in mind, neh? You spoke of his house, not Kenbei himself.”

“Yes, sir. Perhaps someone younger—and someone not married to a bear.”

“Inventive thinking. Just like your father.”

Daigoro felt his face flush. On any other day he would have enjoyed the compliment to his father. On any other day being likened to his father would have filled him with the warm glow of pride. On this night he could enjoy neither. He could only wonder if his father would have condoned his wife’s marriage to another house, or whether he would approve of his son pawning her off as a political ploy.

Daigoro had neither the time nor the inclination to seriously pursue such questions. Shichio’s soldiers were bound to return, and Daigoro had already tarried too long. “I don’t wish to press you,” he said, “but I’m afraid time is of the essence, Lord Yasuda.”

“Then my answer to your request must be no,” said Yasuda. “I would not see your mother wedded to any one of Kenbei’s sons. The eldest got himself killed in a drunken brawl, and the younger ones are bound on the same path. Mountain monkeys, all of them. Would you set them loose in your mother’s bedchamber?”

Daigoro tried to speak, but a spate of coughs and wheezes interrupted him, making him bide his tongue. This time the fit left Lord Yasuda struggling for breath, so his voice came out hoarse and ghostly, like wind rattling through a long, thin slit in a rice-paper window. “I am sorry, Okuma-dono, but House Yasuda has no men of marriageable age to offer you. Kenbei is too old for your mother, even if that she-bear of his were to keel over dead. I have groomed him to take my seat when I die—which will not be tonight, so you can remove that pitying look from your face.”

Daigoro blushed, bowed, and regained his composure. “My apologies, Yasuda-sama.”

Lord Yasuda ignored him. “And Kenbei’s brothers are older still. They are not tigers anymore; they are trees, and their roots have burrowed deep. Their homes are far from here—and well they should be. ‘The sword arm’s strength comes from a strong stance.’ Isn’t that what your father taught you? My house defends Izu from a broad, strong stance, but that means we cannot bend even when we want to—not even to serve our most trusted friends.”

He could not keep the shame from his face. It was enough to make Daigoro want to weep, seeing his family’s strongest ally so vulnerable. Taking Yasuda’s frail, cold hand in his own, he said, “I had not looked to your elder sons. They serve Izu best where they are. Please, indulge me in a flight of fancy, my lord. If your son Kenbei spoke with House Okuma’s voice—if—then he could bring stability to the region, neh?”

The old man conceded the point with a nod. “Do you suggest he take on a concubine? He cannot—not a woman of your mother’s stature.”

“No.”

“Then I’ve told you already: I would not have those wild stallions I call my grandsons see the Lady Okuma as a broodmare.”

“No, Yasuda-sama, but suppose we take a longer view—”

A shout from outside made Daigoro break off in midthought. Daigoro turned to see one of Yasuda’s sentries hit the floor on his back, his armor clacking like a metal hailstorm. Another samurai fell beside the first, struck by something invisible outside the doorway. Daigoro’s first thoughts ran to musket fire, but there was no report. Next he thought of Toyotomi arrows, but neither of the fallen men was pierced. Daigoro had no opportunity to look out into the courtyard to see the attacker, for Yasuda spearmen instantly blockaded the doorway, their myriad spears stabbing out into the darkness.

“Daigoro-sama!” a lupine voice shouted outside. “Come out!”

Daigoro hurried through the door, pushing Yasuda spearmen aside with an armored forearm. The courtyard sprawled before him, its white gravel glowing as if the moon itself had rained down in a million tiny pieces. The shinobi crouched at the base of the stairs leading down from the veranda, his gaze flicking between the main gate and the green-clad samurai jabbing spears at him from the doorway to Lord Yasuda’s chamber.

Daigoro glanced over his shoulder at the two men lying on their backs—door guards, no doubt. His shinobi must have kicked them, punched them, thrown them somehow, and that meant he’d only acted in self-defense. If he’d had a mind to kill them, Daigoro had no doubt both men would be dead.

And if he’d acted in self-defense, then they must have reacted poorly when the shinobi had tried to enter. That meant the shinobi must have come up too quickly for their liking, and Daigoro could think of only one thing that could make him hurry. The Toyotomis were coming back.

“How many?” Daigoro asked, drawing Glorious Victory Unsought.

“Twenty,” said the shinobi. “More on the way.”

Daigoro didn’t know whether to be disappointed with Lord Yasuda’s bodyguard or to be awed by how easily his shinobi companion had felled two of them despite being unarmed and unarmored. In any case, the lord of their house was in no condition to be giving orders. “You there,” Daigoro shouted at one of the spearmen, “rouse every man House Yasuda can put in the Green Cliff’s defense. The rest of you, hold this doorway. No one gets through. And put a line of armored bodies surrounding Lord Yasuda. There will be archers.”

Armor clattered behind him; feet rustled against tatami mats; battle formations took shape. “And now,” Daigoro muttered under his breath, “what in hell do we do?”