brief explanation. Why was he going to the Palace so late? And was it going to take until midnight, like the other night? Who was going with him? She asked innumerable questions.
Sakakibara Heishichi was waiting for his master on the other side of the door, and although he was only a retainer, he was getting a little impatient with all of this. Ieyasu, however, cheerfully comforted his wife and finally took his leave. Lady Tsukiyama, unhecked by Ieyasu's admonition that she might catch cold again, came to the entrance and saw him off.
'Come back quickly,' she begged, putting all her love and fidelity into these parting words.
Ieyasu walked in silence to the main entrance. But as he started out under the stars, cooled by the evening breeze, he tousled his horse's mane, and his mood changed completely—proof that youthful, animated blood coursed through his veins. 'Heishichi, we're a little late, aren't we?' Ieyasu asked.
'No. There was no hour clearly indicated on the note, so how can we be late?'
'That's not it. Even though Sessai is old, he's never been late. It would pain me, as a young man and a hostage, to be late for an appointment when the senior retainers and Sessai were already there. Let's hurry,' he said, spurring his horse. Besides a groom and three servants, Heishichi was the only retainer escorting Ieyasu. As Heishichi hurried along to keep up with the horse, he was moved to tears for his master, whose patient endurance with his wife and his submissive loyalty to the Palace—that is, to Imagawa Yoshimoto—must clearly cause him great anguish. As a retainer, it was his sworn duty to free his lord from his shackles. He must remove him from his subordinate position and restore him to his rightful place as lord of Mikawa. And to Heishichi, every day that went by without attaining his goal was another day of disloyalty.
He ran along, chewing his lip as he made his vow, his eyes moist with tears.
The castle moat came into view. When they crossed the bridge, there were no longer any shops or commoners' houses. Among the pines stood the white walls and imposing gates of the mansions of the Imagawa.
'Isn't that the lord of Mikawa? Lord Ieyasu!' Sessai called from the shadow of the pines.
The broad pine grove that meandered around the castle was a military assembly field during wartime, but its long, broad pathways were used as a riding ground in peacetime.
Ieyasu quickly dismounted, giving Sessai a respectful bow. 'Thank you for taking the time to come here tonight, Your Reverence.'
'These messages are always sudden. It certainly must be troublesome for you.'
'Not at all.' Sessai was alone. He walked along in old straw sandals the size of which matched the huge proportions of body. Ieyasu began to walk along with him and, as courtesy to his teacher, one step behind him, handing the reins of his horse to Heishichi.
Listening to his teacher, Ieyasu suddenly felt a gratitude to this man that he could not express in words. No one could argue that being a hostage in another province was anything but a misfortune, but when he thought about it, he realized that receiving an education from Sessai was more good fortune than bad.
It is difficult to find a good teacher. Had he stayed in Mikawa, he would never have had the opportunity to study under Sessai. So he would not have had the classical and military education he had now—or the training in Zen, which he regarded as the most precious thing he had learned from Sessai.
Why Sessai, a Zen monk, had entered the service of the lord of the Imagawa and become his military adviser was not understood in other provinces, and they considered it rather strange. Thus there were people who called Sessai a 'military monk' or a 'worldly monk,' but if his lineage had been investigated, they would have discovered that Sessai was Yoshimoto's kinsman. Still, Yoshimoto was only Yoshimoto of Suruga, Totomi, and Mikawa. Sessai's fame, however, knew no boundaries; he was Sessai of all the universe.
But Sessai had used his talents for the Imagawa. As soon as he had seen the signs of defeat for the Imagawa in a war against the Hojo, the monk had helped Suruga to negotiate a peace treaty without disadvantage to Yoshimoto. And when he had arranged the marriage of Hojo Ujimasa to a daughter of Takeda Shingen, lord of Kai, the powerful province on their northern border, and the marriage of Yoshimoto's daughter with Shingen’s son, he had demonstrated great political skill by tying the three provinces into a alliance.
He was not the kind of monk who went about in splendid isolation with a staff and atattered hat. He was not a 'pure' Zen monk. It could be said that he was a political monk, a military monk, or even an unmonkish monk. But whatever he was called, it did not affect his greatness.
Sessai spoke sparingly, but something he had told Ieyasu on the veranda of the Rizai Temple had stuck in Ieyasu's mind: 'Hiding in a cave, roaming about alone like the wandering clouds and the flowing water—being a great monk is not in these things alone. A monk's mission changes with the times. In today's world, to think only of my own enlightenment and live like one who 'steals the tranquillity of the mountains and fields,' as if I despised the world, is a self-indulgent kind of Zen.' They crossed the Chinese Bridge and passed through the northwestern gate. It was difficult to believe that they were inside the walls of a castle. It was as though the palace of the shogun had been transported here. Toward Atago and Kiyomizu, the majestic cone of Mount Fuji was darkening in the evening. The lamps were lit in the niches along the corridors that stretched as far as the eye could see. Women so lovely they could have been miitaken for court ladies passed by, cradling
'Who's that in the garden?' Imagawa Yoshimoto held a fan in the shape of a ginkgo leaf over his slightly reddened face. He had crossed over the garden's red half-moon bridge. Even the pages who followed him wore elaborate clothes and swords.
One of the pages went back along the bridged corridor and hurried into the garden. Someone was screaming. It sounded like a woman's voice to Yoshimoto, so, thinking it strange, he had stopped.
'What's happened to the page?' Yoshimoto asked after a few minutes. 'He hasn't come back. Iyo, you go.'
Iyo went down into the garden and ran off. Although the place was called a garden, it was so large that it looked as if it led to the foothills of Mount Fuji. Leaning against the pillar where the bridged corridor angled away from the main walkway, Yoshimoto beat a rythm with his fan and sang to himself.
He was pale enough to be mistaken for a woman, because he used light makeup. He was forty years old and in the prime of manhood. Yoshimoto was enjoying the world and was at the height of his prosperity. He wore his hair in the style of the nobility, his teeth were elegantly blackened, and a mustache sprouted beneath his nose. For the last two years he had put on weight, and, being born with a long trunk and short legs, he now looked a little deformed. But his gilded sword and his richly brocaded clothes mantled him with an aura of dignity. Someone finally came back, and Yoshimoto stopped humming.
'Is it you, Iyo?'
'No, it's Ujizane.'
Ujizane was Yoshimoto's son and heir, and looked like someone who had never known hardship.
'What are you doing out in the garden when it's almost dusk?'
'I was beating Chizu, and when I unsheathed my sword she ran away.'
'Chizu? Who is Chizu?'
'She's the girl who looks after my birds.'
'A servant?'
'Yes.'
'What could she have done that you had to punish her with your own hands?'
'She's hateful. She was feeding a rare bird that had been sent to me all the way from
Kyoto, and she let it escape,' Ujizane said seriously. He was inordinately fond of songbirds. It was well known among the nobility that if someone found a rare bird and sent it to him, Ujizane would be absurdly happy. Thus, without lifting a finger, he had become the owner of a collection of extravagant birds and cages. So here, it was said, a human being could be killed for the sake of a bird. Ujizane was furious, as if the matter had beer an important affair of state.
An indulgent father, Yoshimoto muttered in disappointment at his son's foolish anger. And this was in front of his retainers. Even though Ujizane was his heir, having demonstrated this kind of imbecility, Yoshimoto's retainers were unlikely to think much of him.
'You fool!' Yoshimoto shouted violently, intending to show his great love. 'Ujizane, how old are you? You had your coming-of-age ceremony a long time ago. You're the heir of the Imagawa clan, but you do nothing but amuse yourself by raising birds. Why don't you do a little Zen meditation, or read some military treatises?'
