"But they didn't capture her, Lord General, and she committed a form of seppuku and so did the others and now, if we don't let everyone go, there'll be more protest deaths and we cannot afford that," Kiyama said.
"I don't agree. Everyone should stay here - at least until Toranaga-sama crosses into our domains."
Ito smiled. "That will be a memorable day."
"You don't think he will?" Zataki asked.
"What I think has no value, Lord Zataki. We'll soon know what he's going to do. Whatever it is makes no difference. Toranaga must die, if the Heir is to inherit." Ito looked at Ishido. "Is the barbarian dead yet, Lord General?"
Ishido shook his head and watched Kiyama. "It would be bad luck for him to die now, or to be maimed - a brave man like that. Neh?"
"I think he's a plague and the sooner he dies the better. Have you forgotten?"
"He could be useful to us. I agree with Lord Zataki - and you - Toranaga's no fool. There's got to be a good reason for Toranaga's cherishing him. Neh?"
"Yes, you're right again," Ito said. "The Anjin-san did well for a barbarian, didn't he? Toranaga was right to make him samurai." He looked at Ochiba. "When he gave you the flower, Lady, I thought that was a poetic gesture worthy of a courtier." There was general agreement.
"What about the poetry competition now, Lady?" Ito asked.
"It should be canceled, so sorry," Ochiba said.
"Yes," Kiyama agreed.
"Had you decided on your entry, Sire?" she asked.
"No," he answered. "But now I could say:
'On a withered branch
The tempest fell....
Dark summer's tears.'"
"Let it be her epitaph. She was samurai," Ito said quietly. "I share this summer's tears."
"For me," Ochiba said, "for me I would have preferred a different ending:
'On a withered branch
The snow listened....
Winter's silence.'
But I agree, Lord Ito. I too think we will all share in this dark summer's tears. " "No, so sorry, Lady, but you're wrong," Ishido said. "There will be tears all right, but Toranaga and his allies will shed them." He began to bring the meeting to a close. "I'll start an inquiry into the ninja attack at once. I doubt if we'll ever discover the truth. Meanwhile, for security and personal safety, all passes will regretfully be canceled and everyone regretfully forbidden to leave until the twenty-second day."
"No," Onoshi the leper, the last of the Regents, said from his lonely place across the room where he lay, unseen, behind the opaque curtains of his litter. "So sorry, but that's exactly what you can't do. Now you must let everyone go. Everyone."
"Why?"
Onoshi's voice was malevolent and unafraid. "If you don't, you dishonor the bravest Lady in the realm, you dishonor the Lady Kiyama Achiko and the Lady Maeda, God have mercy on their souls. When this filthy act is common knowledge, only God the Father knows what damage it will cause the Heir - and all of us, if we're not careful. " Ochiba felt a chill rush through her. A year ago, when Onoshi had come to pay his respects to the dying Taiko, the guards had insisted the litter curtains be opened in case Onoshi had weapons concealed, and she had seen the ravaged half-face-noseless, earless, scabbed - the burning, fanatic eyes, the stump of the left hand and the good right hand grasping the short stabbing sword.
Lady Ochiba prayed that neither she nor Yaemon would ever catch leprosy. She, too, wanted an end to this conference, for she had to decide now what to do - what to do about Toranaga and what to do about Ishido.
"Second," Onoshi was saying, "if you use this filthy attack as an excuse to hold anyone here, you imply you never intended to let them go even though you gave your solemn written undertaking. Third: you-" Ishido interrupted, "The whole Council agreed to issue the safe conducts!"
"So sorry, the whole Council agreed to the wise suggestion of the Lady Ochiba to offer safe conducts, presuming, with her, that few would take advantage of the opportunity to leave, and even if they did delays would occur."
"You suggest Toranaga's women and Toda Mariko wouldn't have left and that others wouldn't have followed?"
"What happened to those women wouldn't swerve Lord Toranaga a jot from his purpose. We've got to worry about our allies! Without the ninja attack and the three seppukus this whole nonsense would have been stillborn!"
"I don't agree."
"Third and last: If you don't let everyone go now, after what Lady Etsu said publicly, you'll be convicted by most daimyos of ordering the attack - though not publicly - and we all risk the same fate, and then there'll be lots of tears."
"I don't need to rely on ninja."
"Of course," Onoshi agreed, his voice poisonous. "Neither do I, nor does anyone here. But I feel it is my duty to remind you that there are two hundred and sixty-four daimyos, that the Heir's strength lies on a coalition of perhaps two hundred, and that the Heir cannot afford to have you, his most loyal standard-bearer and commander-in-chief, presumed guilty of such filthy methods and such monstrous inefficiency as the attack failed."
"You say I ordered that attack?"
"Of course not, so sorry. I merely said you will be convicted by default if you don't let everyone leave."
"Is there anyone here who thinks I ordered it?" No one challenged Ishido openly. There was no proof. Correctly, he had not consulted them and had talked only in vague innuendos, even to Kiyama and Ochiba. But they all knew and all were equally furious that he had had the stupidity to fail - all except Zataki. Even so, Ishido was still master of Osaka, and governor of the Taiko's treasure, so he could not be touched or removed.
"Good," Ishido said with finality. "The ninja were after loot. We'll vote on the safe conducts. I vote they be canceled."
"I disagree," Zataki said.
"So sorry, I oppose also," said Onoshi.
Ito reddened under their scrutiny. "I have to agree with Lord Onoshi, at the same time, well . . . it's all very difficult, neh?"
"Vote," Ishido said grimly.
"I agree with you, Lord General."
Kiyama said, "So sorry, I don't."
"Good," Onoshi said. "That's settled, but I agree with you, Lord General, we've other pressing problems. We have to know what Lord Toranaga will do now. What's your opinion?"
Ishido was staring at Kiyama, his face set. Then he said, "What's your answer to that?"
Kiyama was trying to clear his head of all his hates and fears and worries, to make a final choice - Ishido or Toranaga. This had to be the time. He remembered vividly Mariko talking about Onoshi's supposed treachery, about Ishido's supposed betrayal and Toranaga's supposed proof of that betrayal, about the barbarian and his shipand about what might happen to the Heir and the Church if Toranaga dominated the land and what might happen to their law if the Holy Fathers dominated the land. And overlaying that was the Father-Visitor's anguish about the heretic and his ship, and what would happen if the Black Ship was lost, and the Captain-General's Godsworn conviction that the Anjin-san was Satan spawned, Mariko bewitched as the Rodrigues was bewitched. Poor Mariko, he thought sadly, to die like that after so much suffering, without absolution, without last rites, without a priest, to spend eternity away from God's sweet heavenly grace. Madonna have mercy on her. So many summer's tears.
And what about Achiko? Did the ninja leader single her out or was that just another killing? How brave she was to charge and not to. cringe, poor child. Why is the barbarian still alive? Why didn't the ninja kill him? They should have been ordered to, if this filthy attack was conceived by Ishido, as of course it must have been. Shameful of Ishido to faildisgusting to fail. Ah, but what courage Mariko had, how clever she was to ensnare us in her courageous web! And the barbarian.