"That's all right. There's been a dispatch, it seems. Who is it from?"
"I've been told it's from Hasegawa Sojin, my lord."
Asano held out the message case. The red lacquer on the leather shone brighdy in the lamplight.
"A dispatch from Sojin?" Hideyoshi said, taking the case.
Hasegawa Sojin was Nobunaga's companion in tea. He was not on particularly intimate terms with Hideyoshi, so it was strange that the tea master would suddenly be sending an urgent message to his camp. Moreover, according to Nagamasa, the messenger had left Kyoto at noon the previous day and had arrived just now, at the Hour of the Boar.
That meant it had taken him one full day and half a night to travel the seventy leagues from the capital to the camp. That was not an easy pace, even for a courier. There is no doubt that he had neither eaten nor drunk on the way and that he had ridden through the night.
"Hikoemon, bring the lamp a little closer."
Hideyoshi bent down and unrolled Sojin's letter. It was short and had obviously been written in a hurry. But with a single reading, the hair on the back of Hideyoshi's neck stood up in the lamplight.
The other men had been sitting behind Hideyoshi, a little way off, but when his color changed from the nape of his neck to his ears, Kyutaro, Asano, and Hikoemon all leaned forward in spite of themselves.
Asano asked, "My lord… what has happened?"
In the instant he was questioned, Hideyoshi came back to himself. Almost as though he doubted the words contained in the letter, he forced himself to read them once more. Then his tears began to fall onto the letter about whose contents there now could be no doubt.
"My lord, why these tears?" Hikoemon asked.
"This is not like you at all, my lord."
"Is it bad news?"
All three men imagined that the message had something to do with Hideyoshi's mother, whom he had left in Nagahama.
During the campaign, the men seldom spoke about their home provinces; but when they did, Hideyoshi always talked about his mother, so now they imagined that she was either seriously ill or had died.
Hideyoshi finally wiped away his tears and sat a little straighter. As he did so, he assumed a grave look, and his intense grief appeared to be pierced with an acute anger. Such intense rage was not usually felt at the death of a parent.
"I haven't the strength to tell you in words. The three of you come and look at this." He handed them the letter and looked the other way, hiding his tears with his arm.
Upon reading the letter, the three men looked as though they had been hit with a thunderbolt. Nobunaga and Nobutada were dead. Could it be true? Was the world so mysterious? Kyutaro, in particular, had met with Nobunaga just before coming to Mount Ishii. He had come here, after all, on Nobunaga's orders, and now he looked at the letter over and over again, unable to believe what it said. Both Kyutaro and Hikoemon shed tears, and the lamp, submerged in the gloom, could have been extinguished by those tears alone. Hideyoshi flinched impatiently, shifting his weight as he sat. He had come to grips with himself, and his lips were tightly shut.
"Hey! Somebody come here!" he shouted toward the pages' room. It was a shout loud enough to pierce the ceiling, and both Hikoemon and Asano—who were men of great courage—were so surprised that they nearly jumped up from their cushions. After all, Hideyoshi had been so sunk in tears that his spirit seemed to have been completely crushed.
"Yes, my lord!" a page replied. Vigorous footsteps accompanied the response. Hearing those footsteps and Hideyoshi's voice, Kyutaro and Hikoemon's grief was suddenly blown away.
"My lord?"
"Who is that?" Hideyoshi asked.
"Ishida Sakichi, my lord."
The short-statured Sakichi advanced from the shadow of the sliding door to the next room. Coming out to the middle of the tatami, he turned toward the lamp in the conference room and bowed with his hands pressed to the floor.
"Sakichi, run over to Kanbei's camp. Tell him that I need to talk with him right away. Hurry!"
If the situation had permitted, Hideyoshi would have liked to weep out loud. He had served Nobunaga from the age of seventeen. His head had been patted by the man’s hands, and his own hands had carried his master's straw sandals. And now that master was no longer in the world. The relationship between Nobunaga and himself had been in no sense ordinary. It had been a relationship of one blood, one faith, and one life ar death. Unexpectedly, the master had departed first, and Hideyoshi was aware that, from this time forth, he was in charge of his own life.
No one knew me as he did, Hideyoshi thought. In his last moments in the flames of the Honno Temple, he must have called out to me in his heart and left me with a trust. Insignificant as I am, I am not going to turn my back on my lord and his trust in me. Thus Hideyoshi made a pledge to himself. It was not a vain lamentation. His belief was simple: just before Nobunaga had died, he had left Hideyoshi with his dying instructions.
He was able to understand how deep his lord's resentment must have been. Judging by Nobunaga's attitude, Hideyoshi was able to imagine the regret in Nobunaga's breast as he left the world with his work half done. When he considered the matter from this point of view, Hideyoshi was no longer able to grieve. Nor was there time to think about plans for the future. His body was in the west, but his mind was already facing the enerny Akechi Mitsuhide.
But there was also the question of how to deal with the enemy in front of him in Takamatsu Castle. And how was he to handle the thirty-thousand-man army of the Mori? How could he shift his position to Kyoto as quickly as possible from a battlefield in the western provinces? How to crush Mitsuhide; the problems that lay before him stretched out like a range of mountains.
He seemed to have reached a decision. He had one chance in a thousand, and his resolution to stake his life on a single possibility showed on his determined brow.
"Where is the messenger now?" Hideyoshi asked Asano, almost as soon as the page had left.
"I ordered the samurai to have him wait by the main temple," Asano answered.
Hideyoshi signaled at Hikoemon.
"Take him to the kitchen and give him something to eat. But keep him locked up in a room and don't let anyone talk to him," he ordered.
Seeing Hikoemon stand up to go with a knowing nod, Asano asked if he should go as well.
Hideyoshi shook his head. "No, I have another order for you, so wait just a moment,” he said. "Asano, I want you to select some of the samurai under your command who have good ears and quick feet, and station them on all the roads from Kyoto to the Mori domain. I don't want even water to leak through. Arrest everyone who looks suspicious. Even if they don't look suspicious, investigate their identities and examine what they're carrying with them. This is extremely important. Go quickly, and be careful."
Asano left immediately. Now the only ones who remained were Kyutaro and Yuko.
"What time is it now, Yuko?"
"It's the second half of the Hour of the Boar."
"Today was the third of the month, right?"
"That's correct."
"Tomorrow's the fourth," he mumbled to himself. "Then the fifth." His eyes closed halfway, and he moved his fingers on his knee as though he were counting.
"It's difficult for me to just sit here. Won't you give me some orders?" Kyutaro begged.
"No, I want you to stay here a little longer," Hideyoshi said, trying to soothe the man's impatience. "Kanbei should be here soon. I know that Hikoemon went to take care of the courier, but while we have some free moments, why don't you go double-check?"
Kyutaro immediately got up and went off to the temple kitchen. The courier was in a small room next to the kitchen, hungrily eating some food that had been given to him. The man had not drunk or eaten anything since noon the day before, and when he finally finished filling himself, he sat back with a bulging stomach.
When Hikoemon saw that the man had finished, he beckoned him over and accompanied him to a room in the priests' quarters, the storeroom for the sutras. Telling him to sleep well, Hikoemon showed the courier into the room and locked the door securely from the outside. Just then, Kyutaro stepped quietly to Hikoemon's side and whispered in his ear.
"His Lordship is worried that news of the incident in Kyoto might leak out to the men."
Kyutaro's eyes revealed his intention to kill the messenger, but Hikoemon shook his head. After they had walked a few steps, Hikoemon said, "He'll probably die right where he is from overeating. Let's let him die innocently."