'I'm up here,' Nobumori called, letting his retainer know he was alive and well. 'My final hour is near. Let me see where you are.' And he looked down from his seat. The retainer looked up through the smoke at the figure of his master.
'Nearly all the men have been killed. Have you made preparations for suicide, my lord?' he asked, panting for breath.
'Come up here to assist me.'
'Yes, my lord.' The man staggered around to the stairway inside the gate, but he never made it up to the balcony. Thick flames lapped at the entrance to the stairway Nobumori pushed in the shutters of another window and peered down. The only soldier: he could see beneath him belonged to the enemy. Then he saw one person fighting hard in the middle of a huge crowd of enemy soldiers. Amazingly, it was a woman, the wife of one of his retainers, and she was brandishing a halberd.
Even though Nobumori was about to die, he struggled to accept the unexpected emotion in which he was suddenly enveloped.
That woman is so shy she usually can't even speak in front of men, much less hold a halberd up to them, he thought. But now he was pressed by something he had to do, and he shouted out to the enemy from the narrow window by which he stood.
'All you men fighting for Nobunaga and Nobutada! Listen to the voice of the Void. Nobunaga is taking pride right now in his one moment of triumph, but every cherry blossom falls and every ruler's castle will burn. I'm going to show you something now that won't fall or burn for all eternity. I, Shingen's fifth son, Nobumori, am going to show you!'
When the Oda soldiers were finally able to climb up, they found a corpse with it stomach cut open in the pattern of a cross. But the head was no longer there. Then, an instant later, the spring night sky was enveloped by red and black pillars of flame and smoke.
The confusion at Nirasaki Castle in the new capital was as great as if people were proclaiming the end of the world.
'Takato Castle has fallen and everyone, including your brother, has been killed.'
As he listened to his retainer, Katsuyori seemed completely unmoved. Still, his expression showed that he clearly perceived that his own strength was no longer sufficient The next report came in.
'The soldiers of Oda Nobutada have already broken into Kai from Suwa, and our men are being killed without mercy, whether they fight or surrender. Their severed heads are exposed on the roadside, and the enemy is flowing in this direction like a tide.'
Another urgent message arrived. 'Shingen's kinsman, the blind priest Ryuho, was captured and butchered by the enemy.'
This time Katsuyori raised his eyes and spoke abusively of the enemy.
'The Oda forces have no compassion. What fault could they find in a blind priest? How could he even have had the power to resist?' But now he was able to think more deeply about his own death. He bit steadily on his lip and repressed the waves roiling at the bottom of his heart. If I give vent to my anger like this, he thought, they may think I've become distracted, and even the retainers around me will feel disgraced. There were many people who saw nothing more than Katsuyori's manly exterior and who considered him bold and even coarse. But the truth was that he was very deliberate in his actions toward his retainers. In addition, he was extremely strict in adhering to his own principles—to his honor as a lord and to self-reflection. He had continued in his father's tradition and had been taught the principles of Zen by Kaisen. But although he had had the same teacher and had studied Zen, he was unable to bring it to life as Shingen had done.
How could Takato Castle have fallen? I was sure it could hold out for another two weeks to a month, Katsuyori thought, which showed that the situation had resulted less from a miscalculation of defensive strategy than from a lack of human maturity. Now, however, regardless of what his natural temperament might be, he had to meet this new tide of fortune.
The sliding partitions had been taken from the wide conference room and even from the outlying rooms of the main citadel; and now the entire clan lived together as though they were refugees from a great cataclysm that continued day and night. Naturally, curtains were set up even in the garden, shields were set up side by side, and soldiers went without sleep, holding large paper lanterns and policing the area at night. Messengers with reports of the situation were taken hourly directly from the entrance through the central gate to the garden, so that Katsuyori listened to the dispatches in person. Everything that had just been part of the construction the year before—the scent of new wood, the gold and silver inlay, the beauty of the furniture and utensils—now seemed only to be in the way.
Accompanied by a maid and binding up the train of her kimono, a lady-in-waiting with a message from Katsuyori's wife stepped out of the confusion of the garden and into the dark hall, and bravely looked through the crowd of men. At that time, the room was full of generals, both young and old, all noisily expressing their opinions about what to do next.
The woman finally came before Katsuyori and appealed to him with the message from his wife. 'The women are all standing around crying in confusion, and won't stop no matter how we console them. Your wife has said that our last moment comes only once, and she thinks that perhaps the women would be a little more easily resolved if they could be here with the samurai. If she has your permission, she will move here immediately. What are my lord's wishes?'
'That's fine,' Katsuyori answered quickly. 'Bring my wife here and the young ones too.'
At that moment his fifteen-year-old heir, Taro Nobukatsu, came forward and tried to dissuade him. 'Father, that wouldn't be very good, would it?'
Katsuyori turned to his son, less with displeasure than with a nervous preoccupation. “Why?'
'Well, if the women come here, they'll just get in the way. And if the men see them crying, even the bravest samurai may become disheartened.' Taro was still a boy, but he inisted on giving his opinion. He continued to argue that Kai had been their ancestral land since the time of Shinra Saburo, and it should be their land to the very end, even if they have to fight and die. To abandon Nirasaki and flee, as one general had just recommnded, would bring the greatest shame to the Takeda clan.
A general argued the opposite position: 'Nevertheless, the enemy is on all four sides, and Kofu is situated in a basin. Once the enemy invades, it will be like water rushing into a lake. Wouldn't it be better to escape to Agatsuma in Joshu? If you got to the Mikuni mountain range, there would be any number of provinces where you might find asylum.
Once you called together your allies, you could certainly reestablish yourself.'
Nagasaka Chokan agreed, and Katsuyori's mind was inclined in that direction. He set his eyes on Taro and was silent for a moment. He then turned toward the lady-in-waiting and said, 'We will go.'
Taro's advice was thus refused by his father. Taro turned away silently and hung his head. The remaining question was whether to flee to Agatsuma or to entrench themselves in the area of Mount Iwadono. But whichever route they chose, abandoning their new capital and fleeing was the unavoidable fate to which both Katsuyori and his generals were resigned.
It was the third day of the Third Month. If it had been any other year, Katsuyori and his retinue would have been enjoying the Doll Festival in the inner citadel. But on this bright day, the entire clan was driven from behind by black smoke as they abandoned Nirasaki. Katsuyori, of course, also left the castle, as did every samurai that served him. But as he turned and looked at his entire force, his expression was one of amazement.
'Is this all?' he asked. At some point, senior retainers and even kinsmen had disappeared. He was told that they had taken advantage of the confusion during the darknes of dawn, and had fled each to his own castle with his retainers.
'Taro?'
'I'm here, Father.' Taro drew his horse up to the solitary figure of his father. With all the retainers, the common samurai, and the foot soldiers combined—there were less than a thousand men. There were large numbers, however, of lacquered palanquins and litters for his wife and her court ladies, and the pathetic figures of veiled women, both walkin and on horseback, filled the road.
'Oh! It's burning!'
'The flames are so high!'
The crowd of women could hardly stand to leave, and when they had traveled only about a league from
