The forest of naked steel stopped a pace away from them. Jozen and his men were laughing nervously from the sudden, unexpected ferocity. "Good, very good," Jozen said. He reached out and touched one of the bayonets. It was extremely sharp. "Perhaps you're right, Yabu-sama. Let's hope it's never put to the test."
"Omi-san!" Yabu called. "Form them up. Vozen-san's going to review them. Then go back to camp. Mariko-san, Anjin-san, you follow me!" He strode down the rise through the ranks, his aides, Blackthorne, and Mariko following.
"Form up at the path. Replace bayonets!"
Half the men obeyed at once, turned about, and walked down the slope again. Naga and his two hundred and fifty samurai remained where they were, bayonets still threatening.
Jozen bristled. "What's going on?"
"I consider your insults intolerable," Naga said venomously.
"That's nonsense. I haven't insulted you, or anyone! Your bayonets insult my position! Yabu-sama!"
Yabu turned back. Now he was on the other side of the Toranaga contingent. "Naga-san," he called out coldly. "What's the meaning of this?"
"I cannot forgive this man's insults to my father - or to me."
"He's protected. You cannot touch him now! He's under the cipher of the Regents!"
"Your pardon, Yabu-sama, but this is between Jozen-san and myself."
"No. You are under my orders. I order you to tell your men to return to camp."
Not a man moved. The rain began.
"Your pardon, Yabu-san, please forgive me, but this is between him and me and whatever happens I absolve you of responsibility for my action and those of my men."
Behind Naga, one of Jozen's men drew his sword and lunged for Naga's unprotected back. A volley of twenty muskets blew off his head at once. These twenty men knelt and began to reload. The second rank readied.
"Who ordered live ammunition?" Yabu demanded.
"I did. I, Yoshi Naga-noh-Toranaga!"
"Naga-san! I order you to let Nebara Jozen and his men go free. You are ordered to your quarters until I can consult Lord Toranaga about your insubordination!"
"Of course you will inform Lord Toranaga and karma is karma. But I regret, Lord Yabu, that first this man must die. All of them must die. Today!"
Jozen shrieked, "I'm protected by the Regents! You'll gain nothing by killing me."
"I regain my honor, neh?" Naga said. "I repay your sneers at my father and your insults to me. But you would have had to die anyway. Neh? I could not have been more clear last night. Now you've seen an attack. I cannot risk Ishido learning all this" - his hand waved at the battlefield-" this horror!"
"He already knows!" Jozen blurted out, blessing his foresight of the previous evening. "He knows already! I sent a message by pigeon secretly at dawn! You gain nothing by killing me, Naga-san!"
Naga motioned to one of his men, an old samurai, who came forward and threw the strangled pigeon at Dozen's feet. Then a man's severed head was also cast upon the ground - the head of the samurai, Masumoto, sent yesterday by Jozen with the scroll. The eyes were still open, the lips drawn back in a hate-filled grimace. The head began to roll. It tumbled through the ranks until it came to rest against a rock.
A moan broke from Jozen's lips. Naga and all his men laughed. Even Yabu smiled. Another of Jozen's samurai leaped for Naga. Twenty muskets blasted him, and the man next to him, who had not moved, also fell in agony, mortally wounded.
The laughter ceased.
Omi said, "Shall I order my men to attack, Sire?" It had been so easy to maneuver Naga.
Yabu wiped the rain off his face. "No, that would achieve nothing. Jozen-san and his men are already dead, whatever I do. That's his karma, as Naga-san has his. Naga-san!" he called out. "For the last time, I order you to let them all go!"
"Please excuse me but I must refuse."
"Very well. When it is finished, report to me."
"Yes. There should be an official witness, Yabu-sama. For Lord Toranaga and for Lord Ishido."
"Omi-san, you will stay. You will sign the death certification and make out the dispatch. Naga-san and I will countersign it."
Naga pointed at Blackthorne. "Let him stay too. Also as witness. He's responsible for their deaths. He should witness them."
"Anjin-san, go up there! To Naga-san! Do you understand?"
"Yes, Yabu-san. I understand, but why, please?"
"To be a witness."
"Sorry, don't understand."
"Mariko-san, explain 'witness' to him, that he's to witness what's going to happen - then you follow me." Hiding his vast satisfaction, Yabu turned and left.
Jozen shrieked, "Yabu-sama! Please! Yabuuuuu-samaaaa!"
Blackthorne watched. When it was finished he went home. There was silence in his house and a pall over the village. A bath did not make him feel clean. Sake did not take away the foulness from his mouth. Incense did not unclog the stench from his nostrils.
Later Yabu sent for him. The attack was dissected, moment by moment. Omi and Naga were there with Mariko - Naga as always cold, listening, rarely commenting, still second-in-command. None of them seemed touched by what had happened.
They worked till after sunset. Yabu ordered the tempo of training stepped up. A second five hundred was to be formed at once. In one week another.
Blackthorne walked home alone, and ate alone, beset by his ghastly discovery: that they had no sense of sin, they were all conscienceless - even Mariko.
That night he couldn't sleep. He left the house, the wind tugging at him. Gusts were frothing the waves. A stronger squall sent debris clattering against a village hovel. Dogs howled at the sky and foraged. The rice-thatched roofs moved like living things. Shutters were banging and men and women, silent wraiths, fought them closed and barred them. The tide came in heavily. All the fishing boats had been hauled to safety much farther up the beach than usual. Everything was battened down.
He walked the shore then returned to his house, leaning against the press of the wind. He had met no one. Rain squalled and he was soon drenched.
Fujiko waited for him on the veranda, the wind ripping at her, guttering the shielded oil lamp. Everyone was awake. Servants carried valuables to the squat adobe and stone storage building in the back of the garden.
The gale was not menacing yet.
A roof tile twisted loose as the wind squeezed under an eave and the whole roof shuddered. The tile fell and shattered loudly. Servants hurried about, some readying buckets of water, others trying to repair the roof. The old gardener, Ueki-ya, helped by children, was lashing the tender bushes and trees to bamboo stakes.
Another gust rocked the house.
"It's going to blow down, Mariko-san."