Hideyoshi sat facing the lamp. The letter he had entrusted to the messenger to take to Azuchi requested Nobunaga to lead an army into the west.
The fate of the solitary Takamatsu Castle was like that of a fish already in the net. The combined armies of Mori Terumoto, Kobayakawa Takakage, and Kikkawa Motoharu had come. The hour was now! The conquest of the west could be completed with a single blow. Hideyoshi wanted to show this grand spectacle to Nobunaga, and he believed his lord's personal attendance would guarantee a momentous victory.
"Kumquat Head!"
The castle town of Azuchi had become the bustling center of a new culture. Lively, colorfully dressed citizens thronged its streets, and above, the brilliant golds and blues of the castle donjon looked as though they had been embroidered with the green of the new spring leaves.
Conditions could not have been more different from those in the west. In the Fifth Month, while Hideyoshi and his men had been toiling day and night in the mud to accomplish their attack on Takamatsu Castle, the streets of Azuchi were hung with decorations, and the town was so animated that it looked as though its citizens were celebrating the New Year and the Midsummer Festival at the same time.
Nobunaga was preparing to welcome a guest of some importance. But who, people wondered, could be that important? The man who arrived at Azuchi on the fifteenth day of the Fifth Month was none other than Lord Tokugawa Ieyasu of Mikawa.
Less than one month before, Nobunaga had made his triumphal return from Kai through Ieyasu's province of Mikawa, so he might have been doing nothing more than returning the courtesy. But the visit was clearly in Ieyasu's interest; it was an era of sweeping change, and no time to neglect the future. Thus, though it was rare for Ieyasu to make formal visits to other provinces, he was coming to Azuchi, attended by a brilliant retinue of retainers.
The best lodgings in the town were set aside for him, and Akechi Mitsuhide was given responsibility for his reception. In addition, Nobunaga had ordered his son Nobutada, who was about to leave for the western provinces, to help with the preparations for an extravagant three-day banquet.
Some wondered aloud why Nobunaga was giving such a lavish welcome to Ieyasu, who was eight years his junior and the lord of a province that until recently had been small and weak. Others countered that there was nothing strange about it at all. The alliance between the Oda and the Tokugawa had endured for more than twenty years without suspicion, broken agreements, or fighting, which was a miracle in those days of berayals and feudal power struggles.
A third group were of the opinion that the reason for the event was not something as trivial as repaying Ieyasu for his hospitality. They argued that in the future the lord of the Oda was going to accomplish great things. The west was a springboard to Japan's southernmost island of Kyushu, and from there to the rich lands of the Southern Seas. If Nobunaga was to succeed in their conquest, he would have to entrust the north of Japan to an ally he could trust.
For some time now, Nobunaga had planned to go to the western provinces himself to establish his own rule, just as he had done in Kai. Even now he was in the middle of busy preparations to leave for the front. Nevertheless, he put aside that important work to welcome Ieyasu.
Quite naturally, Ieyasu was given the best of what Azuchi could provide in terms of lodgings, furniture, and utensils, sake and food. But what Nobunaga wanted to give Ieyasu most of all were things that could be found in the humble tenements of the people and around the hearths of country folk—his friendship and trust.
It was these two things that had ensured the survival of their alliance. And, for his part, Ieyasu had proved himself a reliable ally time and time again. Ieyasu knew very well that his own interests were strongly tied to those of Nobunaga, despite the latter's occasional selfishness and willfulness. So even if he had drunk from a very bitter cup at times, he supported Nobunaga and had sworn to follow him to the very end.
If a disinterested third party were to look at the twenty-year alliance between the two men and to judge who had gained and who had lost, he would most likely have to say that both men had benefited. Without Ieyasu's friendship when he was young and beginning to set the direction of his life, Nobunaga would not have been in Azuchi. And if Ieyasu had never received Nobunaga's assistance, the weak and small province of Mikawa very likely would not have been able to withstand the pressures from its neighbors.
Aside from having bonds of friendship and self-interest, the two men had characters that were clearly complementary. Nobunaga had ambitions—and the will to realize them—the likes of which a prudent man like Ieyasu could not even imagine. Ieyasu, Nobunaga was the first to admit, had virtues that he himself lacked: patience, modesty, and frugality. Nor did Ieyasu seem to be ambitious for himself. He looked after the interests of his own province but never gave his ally cause for concern. He always stood his ground against their common enemies, a silent fortress at Nobunaga's rear.
In other words, Mikawa was an ideal ally, and Ieyasu a reliable friend. In looking back over the hardships and dangers they had faced over the past twenty years, Nobunaga was moved to call Ieyasu his "good old comrade," and praised him as the man who had done the most to make Azuchi a reality.
During the feast, Ieyasu expressed his heartfelt gratitude for Nobunaga's treatment, but periodically he felt that someone was missing, and finally he asked Nobunaga, "Wasn't Lord Mitsuhide in charge of the banquet? What's happened to him? I haven't seen him at all today, and I didn't see him at the Noh performance yesterday."
"Ah, Mitsuhide," Nobunaga answered. "He returned to Sakamoto Castle. He had to leave so quickly that he had no time to pay his respects." Nobunaga's answer was delivered in a voice that was refreshing and clear, and he showed no particular emotion as he spoke.
But Ieyasu was a little concerned. There were disturbing rumors spreading in the town. Nobunaga's brief and untroubled answer, however, seemed to belie the rumors, and Ieyasu let the matter drop.
Nevertheless, that night Ieyasu returned to his lodgings and listened to the stories that his retainers had heard about Mitsuhide's departure. And he could see that the situation was complicated enough not to be ignored. Listening to the different versions of the story, he pieced together what seemed to be the reason behind Mitsuhide's sudden departure.
It had happened on the day of Ieyasu's arrival. Without previous notice, Nobunaga had made an official inspection of the kitchens. It was the rainy season; Azuchi was hot and muggy. The smell of raw fish and preserved vegetables offended the senses. Not only that, but the foodstuffs that had been collected in great quantities from Sakai and Kyoto had been unpacked and piled up in terrible disarray. Flies swarmed over the food and on Nobunaga's face.
"This place stinks!" he growled angrily. Then, as he walked into the preparation room he continued, speaking to no one in particular, "What is this? All this dirt! All this waste! Are you going to cook for our honored guest in this stinking place? Are you going to serve him rotten fish? Throw all this stuff away!"
Nobunaga's anger was completely unexpected, and the kitchen officials flung themselves at his feet. It was a pitiful scene. Mitsuhide had done his best to purchase the finest ingredients and to have exquisite dishes prepared, going almost without sleep for several days, supervising his retainers and the kitchen workers. Now he could hardly believe his ears. He ran out in surprise and prostrated himself before his lord, explaining that the offensive smell was most certainly not caused by rotten fish.
"Don't give me any excuses!" Nobunaga interrupted. "Throw everything away! Get something else for tonight's banquet!"
Turning a deaf ear, Nobunaga walked away.
Mitsuhide sat silently for a while, almost as though he had lost the power to move his legs. At that point a messenger arrived and handed him a letter ordering him to collect his forces and leave immediately for the western provinces.
The Akechi retainers carried the many delicacies they had prepared for Ieyasu through the back gate and dumped them into the moat, exactly as they might have thrown out trash or a dead dog or cat. Silently, suppressing their tears, they poured their feelings into the black waters.
At night the frogs croaked loudly outside Mitsuhide's lodgings. What are you brooding over? the frogs seemed to ask. Were they crying in sympathy for him, or laughing at his stupidity? It depended on how one listened to them.
Mitsuhide had ordered that no one be let in, and now he sat alone in a large, empty room.
Though it was only the beginning of summer, a cooling, delicate breeze blew silently into the gloom. Mitsuhide was terribly pale. It seemed that the hair of his sidelocks stood straight up each time the candle flickered. His anguish could be seen in the disarray of his hair and in the dreadful color of his face.
Finally he slowly raised what Nobunaga had dubbed his "kumquat head" and looked out into the darkened garden. In the distance he saw a great number of lamps shining between the trees. It was the first night of the banquet in the castle.
Should I go like this, just as I was ordered? Mitsuhide asked himself. Or would it be better to go and pay my respects at the castle once before leaving? Mitsuhide had always been confused by such things. His ordinarily clear head was so tired at that point that he had to think hard in order not to make a mistake.
Having made this question into such a great issue, no matter how he long he considered the matter, he was at a complete loss about what to do. Most of the pain of confronting his difficulties welled up in an unconscious sigh of grief and he wondered: Are there other men in this world so difficult to understand? he wondered. What can a person do to suit my lord's temperament? He's so hard to please.
If he had been able to put aside the absolute nature of the lord-and-retainer relationship and speak honestly, he would have criticized Nobunaga. Mitsuhide had been endowed with critical faculties far beyond the common man's, and it was only because Nobunaga was his lord that he was cautious and, in fact, afraid of his own criticism.
"Tsumaki! Tsumaki!" Mitsuhide called, suddenly looking at the sliding doors on either side of him. "Dengo? Dengo, are you there?"
But the man who finally opened the door and bowed in front of him was neither Dengo nor Tsumaki. It was one of his personal attendants, Yomoda Masataka.
"Both men are busy with the disposal of the material we were going to use for the banquet and with the sudden preparations for our departure."
"Come with me to the castle."
"The castle? You're going to the castle?"
"I think it's proper to pay my respects to Lord Nobunaga once before we depart. Make the preparations."
Mitsuhide quickly got up to dress himself. He seemed to be spurring himself on before his resolution faded.
Masataka looked flustered. "This evening when I asked what you wanted to do, I thought you might want to go up to the castle, for just that reason. But we had no time, with His Lordship's sudden command. And you said then that we would leave without paying our respects to either Lord Nobunaga or Lord Ieyasu. Now, all the attendants and servants are engaged in cleaning up. May I ask you to wait for a little while?"
"No, no. I don't need many attendants. You'll be enough. Bring my horse."
Mitsuhide went out toward the entrance. There was not one retainer in the rooms he passed on his way. Only two or three pages followed behind him. But once he stepped outside, he could see small groups of retainers with their heads together, talking in the shadows of the trees and in the stables. Quite naturally, all the Akechi retainers were concerned about suddenly being dismissed as officials of the banquet and being ordered on the very same day to set out for the west.
Back and forth they expressed their resentment, their eyes filled with tears of grief. Their antagonism and anger toward Nobunaga, which had been intensifying since the Kai campaign, like oil poured on firewood, had been ignited by this latest incident.
At the camp in Suwa during the Kai campaign, Mitsuhide had already met with an unbearable public humiliation, an event that had not been hidden from his retainers. Why had Nobunaga been tormenting their master so much recently?
But today's shock was by far the worst, because the incident would be known to all the guests: Lord Ieyasu and his retainers, the nobility from Kyoto, and Mitsuhide's fellow Oda generals. To have suffered an insult here was the same as having one's shame exposed to the entire nation.
Such public humiliation was unbearable to anyone born a samurai.
"Your horse, my lord," Masataka said.