Even Yabu bowed, overcome by the strength of the moment.
Before Yabu could straighten, Toranaga had set off down the hill once more at a fast pace. "Go with him, Omi-san," Yabu ordered. It would have been unseemly for him to run after Toranaga himself.
"Yes, Lord."
When Omi had gone, Yabu said to Igurashi, "What's the news from Yedo?"
"The Lady Yuriko, your wife, said first to tell you there's a tremendous amount of mobilization over the whole Kwanto. Nothing much on the surface but underneath everything's boiling. She believes Toranaga's preparing for war-a sudden attack, perhaps against Osaka itself."
"What about Ishido?"
"Nothing before we left. That was five days ago. Nor anything about Toranaga's escape. I only heard about that yesterday when your Lady sent a carrier pigeon from Yedo."
"Ali, Zukimoto's already set up that courier service?"
"Yes, Sire."
"Good. "
"Her message read: 'Toranaga has successfully escaped from Osaka with our Master in a galley. Make preparations to welcome them at Anjiro.' I thought it best to keep this secret except from Omi-san, but we're all prepared."
"How?"
"I've ordered a war 'exercise,' Sire, throughout Izu. Within three days every road and pass into Izu will be blocked, if that's what you want. There's a mock pirate fleet to the north that could swamp any unescorted ship by day or by night, if that's what you want. And there's space here for you and a guest, however important, if that's what you want."
"Good. Anything else? Any other news?"
Igurashi was reluctant to pass along news the implications of which he did not understand. "We're prepared for anything here. But this morning a cipher came from Osaka: 'Toranaga has resigned from the Council of Regents.'"
"Impossible! Why should he do that?"
"I don't know. I can't think this one out. But it must be true, Sire. We've never had wrong information from this source before."
"The Lady Sazuko?" Yabu asked cautiously, naming Toranaga's youngest consort whose maid was a spy in his employ.
Igurashi nodded. "Yes. But I don't understand it at all. Now the Regents will impeach him, won't they? They'll order his death. It'd be madness to resign, neh?"
"Ishido must have forced him to do it. But how? There wasn't a breath of rumor. Toranaga would never resign on his own! You're right, that'd be the act of a madman. He's lost if he has. It must be false."
Yabu walked down the hill in turmoil and watched Toranaga cross the square toward Mariko and the barbarian, with Fujiko nearby. Now Mariko was walking beside Toranaga, the others waiting in the square. Toranaga was talking quickly and urgently. And then Yabu saw him give her a small parchment scroll and he wondered what it contained and what was being said. What new trickery is Toranaga planning, he asked himself, wishing he had his wife Yuriko here to help him with her wise counsel.
At the dock Toranaga stopped. He did not go onto the ship and into the protection of his men. He knew that it was on the shore that the final decision would be made. He could not escape. Nothing was yet resolved. He watched Yabu and Igurashi approaching. Yabu's untoward impassivity told him very much.
"So, Yabu-san?"
"You will stay for a few days, Lord Toranaga?"
"It would be better for me to leave at once."
Yabu ordered everyone out of hearing. In a moment the two men were alone on the shore.
"I've had disquieting news from Osaka. You've resigned from the Council of Regents?"
"Yes. I've resigned."
"Then you've killed yourself, destroyed your cause, all your vassals, all your allies, all your friends! You've buried Izu and you've murdered me!"
"The Council of Regents can certainly take away your fief, and your life if they want. Yes."
"By all gods, living and dead and yet to be born...." Yabu fought to dominate his temper. "I apologize for my bad manners but youryour incredible attitude . . . yes, I apologize." There was no real purpose to be gained in a show of emotion which all knew was unseemly and defacing. "Yes, it is better for you to stay here then, Lord Toranaga. "
"I think I would prefer to leave at once."
"Here or Yedo, what's the difference? The Regents' order will come immediately. I imagine you'd want to commit seppuku at once. With dignity. In peace. I would be honored to act as your second."
"Thank you. But no legal order's yet arrived so my head will stay where it is."
"What does a day or two matter? It's inevitable that the order will come. I will make all arrangements, yes, and they will be perfect. You may rely on me."
"Thank you. Yes, I can understand why you would want my head. "
"My own head will be forfeit too. If I send yours to Ishido, or take it and ask his pardon, that might persuade him, but I doubt it, neh ?"
"If I were in your position I might ask for your head. Unfortunately my head will help you not at all."
"I'm inclined to agree. But it's worth trying." Yabu spat violently in the dust. "I deserve to die for being so stupid as to put myself in that dunghead's power."
"Ishido will never hesitate to take your head. But first he'll take Izu. Oh yes, Izu's lost with him in power."
"Don't bait me! I know that's going to happen!"
"I'm not baiting you, my friend," Toranaga told him, enjoying Yabu's loss of face. "I merely said, with Ishido in power you're lost and Izu's lost, because his kinsman Ikawa Jikkyu covets Izu, neh? But, Yabu-san, Ishido doesn't have the power. Yet." And he told him, friend to friend, why he had resigned.
"The Council's hamstrung!" Yabu couldn't believe it.
"There isn't any Council. There won't be until there are five members again." Toranaga smiled. "Think about it, Yabu-san. Now I'm stronger than ever, neh? Ishido's neutralized - so is Jikkyu. Now you've got all the time you need to train your guns. Now you own Suruga and Totomi. Now you own Jikkyu's head. In a few months you'll see his head on a spike and the heads of all his kin, and you'll ride in state into your new domains." Abruptly he spun and shouted, "Igurashi-san!" and five hundred men heard the command.
Igurashi came running but before the samurai had gone three paces, Toranaga called out, "Bring an honor guard with you. Fifty men! At once!" He did not dare to give Yabu a moment's respite to detect the enormous flaw in his argument: that if Ishido was hamstrung now and did not have power, then Toranaga's head on a wooden platter would be of enormous value to Ishido and thus to Yabu. Or even better, Toranaga bound like a common felon and delivered alive at the gates of Osaka Castle would bring Yabu immortality and the keys to the Kwanto.
While the honor guard was forming in front of him, Toranaga said loudly, "In honor of this occasion, Yabu-sama, perhaps you would accept this as a token of friendship. " Then he took out his long sword, held it flat on both hands, and offered it.
Yabu took the sword as though in a dream. It was priceless. It was a Minowara heirloom and famous throughout the land. Toranaga had possessed this sword for fifteen years. It had been presented to him by Nakamura in front of the assembled majesty of all the important daimyos in the Empire, except Beppu Genzaemon, as part payment for a secret agreement.
This had happened shortly after the battle of Nagakude, long before the Lady Ochiba. Toranaga had just defeated General Nakamura, the Taiko-to-be, when Nakamura was still just an upstart without mandate or formal power or formal title and his reach for absolute power still in the balance. Instead of gathering an overwhelming host and burying Toranaga, which was his usual policy, Nakamura had decided to be conciliatory. He had offered Toranaga a treaty of friendship and a binding alliance, and to cement them, his half sister as wife. That the woman was already married and middle-aged bothered neither Nakamura nor Toranaga at all. Toranaga agreed to the pact. At once the woman's husband, one of Nakamura's vassals - thanking the gods that the invitation to divorce her had not been accompanied by an invitation to commit seppuku - had gratefully sent her back to her half brother. Immediately Toranaga married her with all the pomp and ceremony he could muster, and the same day concluded a secret friendship pact with the immensely powerful Beppu clan, the open enemies of Nakamura, who, at this time, still sat disdainfully in the Kwanto on Toranaga's very unprotected back door.
Then Toranaga had flown his falcons and waited for Nakamura's inevitable attack. But none had come. Instead, astoundingly, Nakamura had sent his revered and beloved mother into Toranaga's camp as a hostage, ostensibly to visit her stepdaughter, Toranaga's new wife, but still hostage nonetheless, and had, in return, invited Toranaga to the vast meeting of all the daimyos that he had arranged at Osaka. Toranaga had thought hard and long. Then he had accepted the invitation, suggesting to his ally Beppu Genzaemon that it would be unwise for them both to go. Next, he had set sixty thousand samurai secretly into motion toward Osaka against Nakamura's expected treachery, and had left his eldest son, Noboru, in charge of his new wife and her mother. Noboru had at once piled tinder-dry brushwood to the eaves of their residence and had told them bluntly he would fire it if anything happened to his father.