Mitsutada took this opportunity to ask, "Where shall we have our meal? Would it be convenient to have it at Nishijin?"
"Everyone's stomach must be empty, but we shouldn't stop in the city limits. Let's go as far as Kitano," Mitsuhide replied.
At a distance of about twenty yards, the approaching Yomoda Matabei dismounted and wound his horse's reins around a piling in the riverbed.
"Mitsutada and Masataka, the two of you cross the river as well, and wait for me on the other side. I'll follow soon."
After these last two men had gone some distance, Mitsuhide turned in the direction of Matabei for the first time and beckoned him over with a look.
"Yes, my lord!"
"What's going on in Azuchi?"
"The report you heard previously from Amano Genemon seems to be without error."
"The reason I sent you a second time was to get positive information on Lord Nobunaga's departure for the capital on the twenty-ninth, and on what kind of force he was taking with him. To give me some vague response about there being no mistakes in a former report is worthless. Make a clear report: was it reliable information or not?"
"It is certain that he will leave Azuchi on the twenty-ninth. I couldn't get the names of the main generals who will accompany him, and it was announced that forty or fifty pages and close attendants will be with him."
"What about his lodgings in the capital?"
"He'll be at the Honno Temple."
"What! The Honno Temple?
"Yes, my lord."
"Not Nijo Palace?"
"All of the reports said that he would be staying at the Honno Temple," Matabei answered quite clearly, careful to avoid being scolded again.
There was a huge gate at the very center of the compound's mud wall, and each of the sub-temples had its own enclosure and gate. The pine forest seemed to have been swept clean, and itself looked like a Zen garden. Birdsong, and the sunlight streaming through the treetops, added to the peace of the scene.
After tethering their horses, Mitsuhide and his retainers ate the meals they had packed for both breakfast and lunch. Although they had planned on having breakfast near the Kamo River, they had waited to eat until they had arrived at Kitano.
The soldiers carried a day's worth of provisions: a simple meal of uncooked bean paste, pickled plums, and brown rice. They had not eaten since the night before, and they now breakfasted happily.
Three or four monks from the nearby Myoshin Temple, who had recognized the men as members of the Akechi clan, had invited them into the temple compound.
Mitsuhide was sitting on a camp stool in the shadow of the curtain his attendants had set up. He had finished his meal and was dictating a letter to his secretary.
"The priests of the Myoshin Temple… they'd make perfect messengers! Call them back!" he ordered a page. When the priests had returned, Mitsuhide entrusted them with the letter his secretary had just written. "Would you please take this letter quickly to the residence of the poet Shoha?"
Immediately afterward he got up and walked back to his horse, telling the monks, “I’m afraid that we have no spare time on this trip. I'll have to forgo meeting the abbot. Please give him my regards."
The afternoon grew hot. The road to Saga was extraordinarily dry, and the horses' hooves kicked clouds of dust into the air. Mitsuhide rode in silence, thinking through a plan in his characteristically careful way, weighing its feasibility, the likely public reaction, and the possibility of failure. Like a horsefly that always comes back no matter how often it is brushed away, the scheme had become an obsession that Mitsuhide could not drive from his mind. A nightmare had sneaked into him and filled his entire body with poison. He had already lost his power to reason.
In all of his fifty-four years, Mitsuhide had never relied on his own wisdom the way he was doing now. Although objectively he would have had every reason to doubt his own judgment, subjectively he felt exactly the opposite. I haven't made the smallest mistake, Mitsuhide said to himself. No one could suspect what's on my mind.
While he had been in Sakamoto, he had wavered: Should he go ahead with the plan or scrap it? But this morning, when he heard the second report, his hair had suddenly stood on end. In his heart he had resolved that the time was now, and that heaven had sent him this opportunity. Nobunaga, accompanied by only forty or fifty lightly armed men, was staying at the Honno Temple in Kyoto. The demon that possessed Mitsuhide whispered to him that it was a unique opportunity.
His decision was not a positive act of his own will, but rather a reaction to external circumstances. Men like to believe that they live and act according to their own wills, but the grim truth is that outside events actually stir them to action. So while Mitsuhide believed that heaven was his ally in the present opportunity, part of him was beset by the fear as he rode along the road to Saga that heaven really was judging his every action.
Mitsuhide crossed the Katsura River and arrived at Kameyama Castle in the evening just as the sun dropped below the horizon. Having been informed of their lord's return the townspeople of Kameyama welcomed him home with bonfires that lit up the night sky. He was a popular ruler who had won the affection of the people as a result of his wise administration.
The number of days in a year that Mitsuhide spent with his family could be counted on the fingers of one hand. During long campaigns, he might not come home for two or three years. For that reason, those rare days he could be at home were animated by the delight of seeing his wife and children, and being a husband and father.
Mitsuhide had been blessed with an exceptionally large family of seven daughters and twelve sons. Two-thirds of them were married or had been adopted by other families, but several of the younger ones, as well as children of his kinsmen and their grandchildren, were still living at the castle.
His wife, Teruko, always said, "How old will I be when I no longer have to look after children?" She took in the children of clan members who had died in battle and even raised the children her husband had fathered with other women. This gentle, wise woman was contented with her lot, and although she was already fifty, she put up with the children and their mischief.
Since leaving Azuchi, Mitsuhide had not found a comfort equal to being at home, and he slept peacefully that night. Even on the next day, his children's cheerfulness and his faithful wife's smile soothed his heart.
It might be supposed that spending such a night would cause him to change his mind. But he did not waver in the least. On the contrary, he now had the courage to realize an even more secret ambition that lodged in his heart.
Teruko had been with him from the time he had had no lord to serve. Happy with her present estate, she had no other thoughts than to be a mother to her children. Looking at her now, Mitsuhide formed silent words in his breast. Your husband is not going to be like this forever. Everyone will soon be looking up to you as the wife of the next shogun. And as he gazed at the children and other members of his large household, for a moment he was caught up in his own fantasy. I'm going to move you all from this provincial castle to a palace even more elevated than Azuchi. How much happier you will then!
Later that day, Mitsuhide left the castle, accompanied by a few attendants. He was lightly dressed and was not being waited upon by his usual retainers. Though there had been no official announcement, even the soldiers at the castle gate knew that their lord was going to spend the night at Atago Shrine.
Before departing for the west, Mitsuhide was going to the shrine to pray for good luck in battle. Accompanied by a few of his closest friends, he would stay in the shrine to hold a poetry party and would return the following day.
When he said that he was going to a shrine to pray for victory in battle, and that he was inviting some friends from the capital for a party, nobody suspected what was really Mitsuhide's mind.
The twenty servants and half a dozen mounted retainers were dressed more lightly than they would have been had they been going hawking. On the day before, the monks of Itokuin Temple and the priests of Atago Shrine had been informed of the visit, so they were waiting to welcome their lord. As soon as he had dismounted, Mitsuhide asked for a monk by the name of Gyoyu.
"Is Shoha coming?" Mitsuhide asked the monk. When Gyoyu replied that the famous poet was already there waiting for him, Mitsuhide exclaimed, "What? Here already? Well, that's perfect. Has he brought other poets from the capital?"
"It seems that Master Shoha had very little time to prepare himself. He received your invitation yesterday evening, and found that whoever he tried to invite was unable to attend at such short notice. Along with his son, Shinzen, he was only able to bring two others: a disciple by the name of Kennyo, and a relative called Shoshitsu."
"Is that so?" Mitsuhide laughed. "Did he complain? I knew it was an unreasonable request, but after honoring him time and time again by sending palanquins and escorts, this time I thought it would be much more elegant—and more enjoyable—if he was the one who went to some trouble to meet me. That's why I invited him to this place so suddenly. But just as you might expect, Shoha didn't even feign illness. He scurried up the mountain at once."
With the two monks walking ahead and his attendants behind, Mitsuhide climbed a flight of high stone stairs. Just when it seemed as though there would be flat ground to walk on for a while, the stairs would begin again. As they climbed, the dark green of the cypress trees deepened even more, and the dark violet of the summer sky edged into evening. They felt the night approaching quickly. With every step, their skin could feel the sudden drop in temperature; it was considerably colder at the summit than it had been at the foot of the mountain.
"Master Shoha sends his apologies," Gyoyu told Mitsuhide when they had reached the guest room of the temple. "He would have come to meet you, but since he thought
you would probably pray first at the temples and shrines on the way, he said he would greet you after your devotions."
Mitsuhide nodded silently. Then, after drinking a cup of water, he asked for a guide. "Before anything else, I'd like to offer a prayer to the patron deity, and then I'll visit the Atago Shrine while there's still some light."
The shrine priest led the way along a neatly swept path. He climbed the stairs of the outer shrine and lit the sacred candles. Mitsuhide bowed low, and stood in prayer for some time. Three times the priest whisked a branch of the sacred tree over Mitsuhide's head, and then offered him an earthen cup of sacred sake.
"I've heard that this shrine is dedicated to the fire god. Is that true?" Mitsuhide asked afterward.
"That is true, my lord," the priest replied.
"And I've heard that if you pray to this god and abstain from using fire, your prayers will be answered."