Alvito suddenly realized the enormity of the dilemma that Toranaga faced. He's trapped - he has to make an arrangement with us, he thought exultantly. He has to try! Whatever we want, he has to give us - if we want to make an arrangement with him. At long last he openly admits the Christian daimyos hold the balance of power! Whatever we want! What else could we have? Nothing at all. Except...
Deliberately he dropped his eyes to the rutters that he had laid before Toranaga. He watched his hand reach out and put the rutters safely in the sleeve of his kimono.
"Ah, yes, Tsukku-san," Toranaga said, his voice eerie and exhausted. "Then there's the new barbarian - the pirate. The enemy of your country. They will be coming here soon, in numbers, won't they? They can be discouraged - or encouraged. Like this one pirate. Neh?"
Father Alvito knew that now they had everything. Should I ask for Blackthorne's head on a silver platter like the head of St. John the Baptist to seal this bargain? Should I ask for permission to build a cathedral at Yedo, or one within the walls of Osaka Castle? For the first time in his life he felt himself floundering, rudderless in the reach for power.
We want no more than is offered! I wish I could settle the bargain now! If it were up to me alone, I would gamble. I know Toranaga and I would gamble on him. I would agree to try and I'd swear a Holy Oath. Yes, I would excommunicate Onoshi or Kiyama if they would not agree, to gain those concessions for Mother Church. Two souls for tens of thousands, for hundreds of thousands, for millions. That's fair! I would say, Yes, yes, yes, for the Glory of God. But I can settle nothing, as you well know. I'm only a messenger, and part of my message...
"I need help, Tsukku-san. I need it now."
"All that I can do, I will do, Toranaga-sama. You have my promise."
Then Toranaga said with finality, "I will wait forty days. Yes. Forty days."
Alvito bowed. He noticed that Toranaga returned the bow lower and more formally than he had ever done before, almost as though he were bowing to the Taiko himself. The priest got up shakily. Then he was outside the room, walking up the corridor. His step quickened. He began to hurry.
Toranaga watched the Jesuit from the embrasure as he crossed the garden, far below. The shoji edged open again but he cursed his guards away and ordered them, on pain of death, to leave him alone. His eyes followed Alvito intently, through the fortified gate, out into the forecourt, until the priest was lost in the maze of innerworks.
And then, in the lonely silence, Toranaga began to smile. And he tucked up his kimono and began to dance. It was a hornpipe.
Just after dusk Kiri waddled nervously down the steps, two maids in attendance. She headed for her curtained litter that stood beside the garden hut. A voluminous cloak covered her traveling kimono and made her appear even more bulky, and a vast, wide - brimmed hat was tied under her jowls.
The Lady Sazuko was waiting patiently for her on the veranda, heavily pregnant, Mariko nearby. Blackthorne was leaning against the wall near the fortified gate. He wore a belted kimono of the Browns and tabi socks and military thongs. In the forecourt, outside the gate, the escort of sixty heavily armed samurai was drawn up in neat lines, every third man carrying a flare. At the head of these soldiers Yabu talked with Buntaro - Mariko's husband - a short, thickset, almost neckless man. Both were attired in chain mail with bows and quivers over their shoulders, and Buntaro wore a horned steel war helmet. Porters and kaga-men squatted patiently in well-disciplined silence near the multitudinous baggage.
The promise of summer floated on the slight breeze, but no one noticed it except Blackthorne, and even he was conscious of the tension that surrounded them all. And too, he was intensely aware that he alone was unarmed.
Kiri plodded over to the veranda. "You shouldn't be waiting in the cold, Sazuko-san. You'll catch a chill! You must remember the child now. These spring nights are still filled with damp."
"I'm not cold, Kiri-san. It's a lovely night and it's my pleasure."
"Is everything all right?"
"Oh, yes. Everything's perfect."
"I wish I weren't going. Yes. I hate going."
"There's no need to worry," Mariko said reassuringly, joining them. She wore a similar wide-brimmed hat, but hers was bright where Kiri's was somber. "You'll enjoy getting back to Yedo. Our Master will be following in a few days."
"Who knows what tomorrow will bring, Mariko-san?"
"Tomorrow is in the hands of God."
"Tomorrow will be a lovely day, and if it isn't, it isn't!" Sazuko said. "Who cares about tomorrow? Now is good. You're beautiful and we'll all miss you, Kiri-san, and you, Mariko-san!" She glanced at the gateway, distracted, as Buntaro shouted angrily at one of the samurai, who had dropped a flare.
Yabu, senior to Buntaro, was nominally in charge of the party. He had seen Kiri arrive and strutted back through the gate. Buntaro followed.
"Oh, Lord Yabu - Lord Buntaro," Kiri said with a flustered bow. "I'm so sorry to have kept you waiting. Lord Toranaga was going to come down, but in the end, decided not to. You are to leave now, he said. Please accept my apologies."
"None are necessary." Yabu wanted to be quit of the castle as soon as possible, and quit of Osaka, and back in Izu. He still could hardly believe that he was leaving with his head, with the barbarian, with the guns, with everything. He had sent urgent messages by carrier pigeon to his wife in Yedo to make sure that all was prepared at Mishima, his capital, and to Omi at the village of Anjiro. "Are you ready?"
Tears glittered in Kiri's eyes. "Just let me catch my breath and then I'll get into the litter. Oh, I wish I didn't have to go!" She looked around, seeking Blackthorne, finally catching sight of him in the shadows. "Who is responsible for the Anjin-san? Until we get to the ship?"
Buntaro said testily, "I've ordered him to walk beside my wife's litter. If she can't keep him in control, I will."
"Perhaps, Lord Yabu, you'd escort the Lady Sazuko-"
"Guards!"
The warning shout came from the forecourt. Buntaro and Yabu hurried through the fortified door as all the men swirled after them and others poured from the innerworks.
Ishido was approaching down the avenue between the castle walls at the head of two hundred Grays. He stopped in the forecourt outside the gate and, though no man seemed hostile on either side and no man had his hand on his sword or an arrow in his bow, all were ready.
Ishido bowed elaborately. "A fine evening, Lord Yabu."
"Yes, yes indeed."
Ishido nodded perfunctorily to Buntaro, who was equally offhand, returning the minimum politeness allowable. Both had been favorite generals of the Taiko. Buntaro had led one of the regiments in Korea when Ishido had been in overall command. Each had accused the other of treachery. Only the personal intervention and a direct order of the Taiko had prevented bloodshed and a vendetta.
Ishido studied the Browns: Then his eyes found Blackthorne. He saw the man half bow and nodded in return. Through the gateway he could see the three women and the other litter. His eyes came to rest on Yabu again. "You'd think you were all going into battle, Yabu-san, instead of just being a ceremonial escort for the Lady Kiritsubo."
"Hiro-matsu-san issued orders, because of the Amida assassin...."
Yabu stopped as Buntaro stomped pugnaciously forward and planted his huge legs in the center of the gateway. "We're always ready for battle. With or without armor. We can take on ten men for each one of ours, and fifty of the Garlic Eaters. We never turn our backs and run like snot-nosed cowards, leaving our comrades to be overwhelmed!"
Ishido's smile was filled with contempt, his voice a goad. "Oh? Perhaps you'll get an opportunity soon - to stand against real men, not Garlic Eaters!"
"How soon? Why not tonight? Why not here?"
Yabu moved carefully between them. He also had been in Korea and he knew that there was truth on both sides and that neither was to be trusted, Buntaro less than Ishido. "Not tonight because we're among friends, Buntaro-san," he said placatingly, wanting desperately to avoid a clash that would lock them forever within the castle. "We're among friends, Buntaro-san."
"What friends? I know friends - and I know enemies!" Buntaro whirled back to Ishido. "Where's this man - this real man you talked of, Ishido-san? Eh? Or men? Let him - let them all crawl out of their holes and stand in front of me - Toda Buntaro, Lord of Sakura - if any one of them's got the juice!"
Everyone readied.
Ishido stared back malevolently.
Yabu said, "This is not the time, Buntaro-san. Friends or ene-" "Friends? Where? In this manure pile?" Buntaro spat into the dust.
One of the Grays' hands flashed for his sword hilt, ten Browns followed, fifty Grays were a split second behind, and now all were waiting for Ishido's sword to come out to signal the attack.
Then Hiro-matsu walked out of the garden shadows, through the gateway into the forecourt, his killing sword loose in his hands and half out of its scabbard.
"You can find friends in manure, sometimes, my son," he said calmly Hands eased off sword hilts. Samurai on the opposing battlements - Grays and Browns - slackened the tension of their arrow-armed bowstrings. "We have friends all over the castle. All over Osaka. Yes. Our Lord Toranaga keeps telling us so." He stood like a rock in front of his only living son, seeing the blood lust in his eyes. The moment Ishido had been seen approaching, Hiro-matsu had taken up his battle station at the inner doorway. Then, when the first danger had passed, he had moved with catlike quiet into the shadows. He stared down into Buntaro's eyes. "Isn't that so, my son?"
With an enormous effort, Buntaro nodded and stepped back a pace. But he still blocked the way to the garden.