'Ah, look over there, my lord. Lord Mitsuharu has come to greet you,' Masataka said to Mitsuhide.
The castle on the lakeshore—Sakamoto Castle—was directly ahead. Mitsuhide nodded slightly, as though he had already noticed. Although Sakamoto was almost close enough to Azuchi for him to be able to turn around and see it, Mitsuhide looked as if he had walked a thousand leagues. As he stood in front of the castle commanded by his cousin, Akechi Mitsuharu, he felt exactly as though he had escaped from the tiger's den.
His attendants, however, were far more worried about Mitsuhide's periodic coughing than they were about what might have been on his mind, and they expressed their concern.
'You've been traveling all night in the rain with this cold, and you must be exhausted. Once you've gone inside the castle, you should waste no time in getting yourself warm and going to bed.'
'Yes, I probably should.'
Mitsuhide was truly a gentle lord. He listened intently to his retainers' advice and understood their anxiety. When they arrived at the pine grove in front of the gate, Dengo took the reins of Mitsuhide's horse and stood next to the saddle, ready to help his master dismount.
On the bridge across the moat, a line of Mitsuharu's retainers had drawn up. One of the retainers opened an umbrella and offered it deferentially. Masataka took the umbrella and held it over Mitsuhide's head.
Mitsuhide walked across the bridge. Looking down through the railing, he could see white water birds swimming around the pilings like scattered flowers over the blue-green water.
Mitsuharu, who had come out to welcome his cousin, now stepped out a few paces from the line of soldiers and bowed respectfully.
“We've been waiting for you since dawn,' he said, leading Mitsuhide through the entrance. The ten or so principal retainers attached to Mitsuhide washed their muddy hands and feet, stacked their wet straw raincoats in a pile, and went into the citadel.
The other retainers stayed outside the moat, washing the horses and taking care of the baggage, while waiting to be told where their lodgings would be. The neighing of horses and the din of human voices could be heard far off in the distance.
Mitsuhide had changed out of his traveling clothes. He felt so relaxed in Mitsuharu's quarters that they could have been his own. He had a view of the lake and Mount Hiei from every room. The inner citadel was situated in an area that had once had the most picturesque scenery, but no one could appreciate that scenery now. Since Nobunaga had given the command for Mount Hiei to be destroyed by fire, the monasteries and temples had become mounds of ashes. The village houses at the foot of the mountain had only recently begun to be rebuilt.
The ruins of the castle at Mount Usa, where Mori Ranmaru's father had met his end, were also close by, as was the battlefield where the soldiers of the Asai and Asakura clans had grappled with the Oda, only to have their corpses piled high. When one thought about these ruins and past battles, one realized that the beauty of the scenery echoed with the wailing of ghosts. Mitsuhide sat listening to the sound of the early summer rains and remembering.
Meanwhile, Mitsuharu was in a small tearoom, watching the fire in the hearth and listening to the genial sound of the water boiling in a teakettle made by the master caster Yojiro. At that moment he was completely immersed in the art of tea.
From the time of Mitsuharu's adolescence, he and Mitsuhide had been brought up as brothers, sharing the suffering of the battlefield and the happiness of home life. And, rather than becoming estranged, as brothers tend to do after they grow up, their relationship continued to be a close one.
Their characters, however, would never be the same. So on this morning the two men quickly went to separate quarters in the castle, each assuming the lifestyle that his own heart dictated.
Well, I imagine he's already changed his clothes, Mitsuharu said to himself. He stood up from his place before the teakettle. Crossing the wet veranda, he went over the bridged corridor into the suite of rooms assigned to his cousin. He could hear Mitsuhide's close attendants in another room, but Mitsuhide was alone, sitting bolt upright and staring out over the lake.
'I'd like to offer you some tea,' Mitsuharu said.
Mitsuhide turned toward his cousin and murmured, 'Tea…' as though he were waking from a dream.
'A piece I had ordered from Yojiro in Kyoto has recently been delivered. It doesn't have the elegant patterns of an Ashiya kettle, but it has a rustic charm that pleases the eye. They say that new teakettles are no good, but as you'd expect of Yojiro, the water that comes from his kettles tastes just as good as the water that comes from the old ones. I had intended to serve you tea with it the next time you were here, and when I was informed this morning that you were suddenly returning from Azuchi, I immediately lit a fire in the hearth.'
'That was kind of you, Mitsuharu, but I don't want any tea.'
'Well, what about after your bath?'
'You won't need to prepare a bath either. Please just let me sleep a little. That's all I want'
Mitsuharu had heard a great many stories recently, so he was not completely blind to Mitsuhide's thoughts. Nevertheless, he did have some particular doubts about why his cousin had returned to Sakamoto so suddenly. It was hardly a secret that Mitsuhide had
been given the responsibility of organizing the banquet Nobunaga was holding to welcome Ieyasu. Why had Mitsuhide been so suddenly dismissed just before the banquet? Ieyasu was certainly in Azuchi. Nevertheless, Mitsuhide's post had been given to someone else, and Mitsuhide himself had been ordered to leave.
Mitsuharu had not yet heard any details, but from the time he had been told of the events in Azuchi to the moment he saw Mitsuhide's face, he had come to understand that something had happened to upset Lord Nobunaga. Mitsuharu secretly grieved for his cousin.
And just as Mitsuharu had feared, ever since he had welcomed him at the castle that morning, Mitsuhide's appearance had not been encouraging. Seeing a grave shadow on his cousin's brow, however, was not such a surprise for Mitsuharu. He believed that there was no one who understood Mitsuhide's character as well as he did, because of their shared past.
'Yes, that makes sense. You spent the entire night coming from Azuchi on horseback. We're now in our fifties, and can't treat our bodies the way we could when we were young. Well, you should sleep for a while. Everything is prepared.'
Mitsuharu did not force the issue or try to oppose his cousin's will. Mitsuhide got up and went inside the mosquito netting while the morning light still played across its threads.
*
Amano Genemon, Fujita Dengo, and Yomoda Masataka were waiting for Mitsuharu as he left Mitsuhide's room. The three men bowed.
'Excuse me, my lord,' Dengo said. 'We're very sorry to disturb you, but we wondered if we might have a word with you. It's a matter of some importance.' Dengo was not speaking in his ordinary tone of voice.
Mitsuharu himself responded as though he had been expecting them. 'Why don't we all go to the teahouse? Lord Mitsuhide has gone to sleep, and I was just thinking it would be a shame to waste the fire under the kettle.'
'If we go to the teahouse, we won't have to keep people at a distance. That's an excellent idea.'
'Let me show you the way.'
'I'm afraid the three of us are provincials, so we don't understand much about tea and we certainly weren't prepared to receive such an honor from you today.'
'Don't think of it that way. I understand a little of what you are worried about, and for that reason alone the teahouse should be a good place to talk.'
They sat down in the thin light coming through the translucent paper doors of the small teahouse. The water in the kettle had been boiling for some time, and now it bubbled with an even more congenial sound than before. Mitsuharu had shown his martial spirit on the battlefield many times, but here, in front of the hearth, he seemed to be a completely different person.
'Well, let's not bother with tea. What's on your minds?'
Thus encouraged, the three men looked resolutely back and forth at each other.
Finally Dengo, the man among them who seemed to have the most courage, said, 'Lord Mitsuharu, this is mortifying…I can hardly bring myself to speak of it….' He raised his right sleeve to hide his tears.
The other two didn't cry, but they could not hide their swollen eyelids.
