Shogun

message?”

The gray-haired, dignified old samurai, chief of Zataki’s confidants and well known to Toranaga as an honorable man, felt sickened and ashamed by the blatant display of hatred, as was everyone within hearing. “So sorry, Lord,” he said in a choked whisper, bowing to Toranaga, “but my Master is of course telling the truth. How could this be questioned? And, please excuse me, but it is my duty, with all honor and humility, to point out to both of you that such .?.?. such astonishing and shameful lack of politeness between you is not worthy of your rank or the solemnity of this occasion. If your vassals—if they could have heard—I doubt if either of you could have held them back. You forget your duty as samurai and your duty to your men. Please excuse me”—he bowed to both of them —“but it had to be said.” Then he added, “All messages were the same, Lord Toranaga, and under the official seal of Lord Zataki: ‘Put the Lady, my mother, to death at once.’?”

“How can I prove I’m not trying to overthrow the Heir?” Toranaga asked his brother.

“Immediately abdicate all your titles and power to your son and heir, Lord Sudara, and commit seppuku today. Then I and all my men—to the last man—will support Sudara as Lord of the Kwanto.”

“I’ll consider what you’ve said.”

“Eh?”

“I’ll consider what you’ve said.” Toranaga repeated it more firmly. “We’ll meet tomorrow at this time, if it pleases you.”

Zataki’s face twisted. “Is this another of your tricks? What’s there to meet about?”

“About what you said, and about this.” Toranaga held up the scroll that was in his hand. “I’ll give you my answer tomorrow.”

“Buntaro-san!” Zataki motioned at the second scroll. “Please give this to your master.”

“No!” Toranaga’s voice reverberated around the clearing. Then, with great ceremony, he added loudly, “I am honored formally to accept the Council’s message and will submit my answer to their illustrious ambassador, my brother, the Lord of Shinano, tomorrow at this time.”

Zataki stared at him suspiciously. “What possible ans—”

“Please excuse me, Lord,” the old samurai interrupted quietly with grave dignity, again keeping the conversation private, “so sorry, but Lord Toranaga is perfectly correct to suggest this. It is a solemn choice you have given him, a choice not contained in the scrolls. It is fair and honorable that he should be given the time he requires.”

Zataki picked up the second scroll and shoved it back into his sleeve. “Very well. I agree. Lord Toranaga, please excuse my bad manners. Lastly, please tell me where Kasigi Yabu is? I’ve a scroll for him. Only one in his case.”

“I’ll send him to you.”

The falcon closed her wings and fell a thousand feet out of the evening sky and smashed into the fleeing pigeon with a burst of feathers, then caught it in her talons and carried it earthward, still falling like a stone, and then, a few feet off the ground, she released her now dead prey, braked frantically and landed on it perfectly. “Ek-ek-ek-eeekk!” she shrieked, fluttering her neck feathers in pride, her talons ripping off the pigeon’s head in her ecstasy of conquest.

Toranaga, with Naga as his equerry, galloped up. The daimyo slid off his horse. He called her gently to fist. Obediently she stepped up onto his glove. At once she was rewarded with a morsel of flesh from a previous kill. He slipped on her hood, tightening the thongs with his teeth. Naga picked up the pigeon and put it into the half-full game bag that hung from his father’s saddle, then turned and beckoned to the distant beaters and guards.

Toranaga got back into the saddle, the falcon comfortably on his glove, held by her thin leather jesses. He looked up into the sky, measuring the light still remaining.

In the late afternoon the sun had broken through, and now in the valley, the day dying fast, the sun long since bedded by the western crest, it was cool and pleasant. The clouds were northward, pushed there by the dominant wind, hovering over the mountain peaks and hiding many. At this altitude, land-locked, the air was clean and sweet.

“We should have a good day tomorrow, Naga-san. Cloudless, I’d imagine. I think I’ll hunt with the dawn.”

“Yes, Father.” Naga watched him, perplexed, afraid to ask questions as always, yet wanting to know everything. He could not fathom how his father could be so detached after such a hideous meeting. To bow Zataki away with the due ceremony then, at once, to summon his hawks and beaters and guards and halloo them away to the rolling hills beyond the forest, seemed to Naga to be an unearthly display of self-control. Just the thought of Zataki made Naga’s flesh crawl now, and he knew that the old counselor was right: if one tenth of the conversation had been overheard, samurai would have leapt to defend their lord’s honor. If it weren’t for the threat that hung over his revered grandmother’s head, he would have rushed at Zataki himself. I suppose that’s why my father is what he is, and is where he is, he thought.?.?.?.

His eyes picked out horsemen breaking from the forest below and galloping up toward them over the rolling foothills. Beyond the dark green of the forest, the river was a twisted ribbon of black. The lights in the inns blinked like fireflies. “Father!”

“Eh? Ah yes, I see them now. Who are they?”

“Yabu-san, Omi-san and .?.?. eight guards.”

“Your eyes are better than mine. Ah yes, now I recognize them.”

Naga said without thinking, “I wouldn’t have let Yabu-san go alone to Lord Zataki without—” He stopped and stuttered, “Please excuse me.”

“Why wouldn’t you have sent Yabu-san alone?”

Naga cursed himself for opening his mouth and quailed under Toranaga’s gaze. “Please excuse me, because then I’d never know what secret arrangement they would have made. He could, Father, easily. I would have kept them apart—please excuse me. I don’t trust him.”

“If Yabu-san and Zataki-san plan treachery behind my back, they’ll do it whether I send a witness or not. Sometimes it’s wiser to give a quarry extra line—that’s how to catch a fish, neh?”

“Yes, please excuse me.”

Toranaga realized that his son didn’t understand, would never understand, would always be merely a hawk to hurl at an enemy, swift, sharp, and deadly.

“I’m glad you understand, my son,” he said to encourage him, knowing his good qualities, and valuing them. “You’re a good son,” he added, meaning it.

“Thank you, Father,” Naga said, filled with pride at the rare compliment. “I only hope you’ll forgive my stupidities and teach me to serve you better.”

“You’re not stupid.” Yabu’s stupid, Toranaga almost added. The less people know the better, and it’s not necessary to stretch your mind, Naga. You’re so young—my youngest but for your half brother, Tadateru. How old is he? Ah, seven, yes, he’d be seven.

He watched the approaching horsemen a moment. “How’s your mother, Naga?”

“As always, the happiest lady in the world. She’ll still only let me see her once a year. Can’t you persuade her to change?”

“No,” said Toranaga. “She’ll never change.”

Toranaga always felt a glow when he thought of Chano-Tsubone, his eighth official consort and Naga’s mother. He laughed to himself as he remembered her earthy humor, her dimpled cheeks and saucy bottom, the way she wriggled and the enthusiasm of her pillowing.

She had been the widow of a farmer near Yedo who had attracted him twenty years ago. She had stayed with him three years, then asked to be allowed to return to the land. He had allowed her to go. Now she lived on a good farm near where she was born—fat and content, a dowager Buddhist nun honored by all and beholden to none. Once in a while he would go to see her and they would laugh together, without reason, friends.

“Ah, she’s a good woman,” Toranaga said.

Yabu and Omi rode up and dismounted. Ten paces away they stopped and bowed.

“He gave me a scroll,” Yabu said, enraged, brandishing it. “?‘.?.?.?We invite you to leave Izu at once for Osaka, today, and present yourself at Osaka Castle for an audience, or all your lands are now forfeit and you are hereby