Hideyoshi rode out, accompanied by his pages and about thirty mounted men. The conch shell might have been blown at that moment, but circumstances prohibited the use of the conch or of torches. Yahei had received the golden fan of command from Hideyoshi and, in his stead, waved it once, twice, and then a third time. With that signal, the seven-hundred-man army began gradually to advance.
The head of the procession then changed direction and, turning on the road, passed by Hideyoshi. The position of corps commander was filled exclusively by trusted retainers. That one saw almost none of the faces of the old and experienced veterans was most likely because many of them had been left at Hideyoshi's castles in Nagahama and Himeji, and at his other estates.
At midnight, Hideyoshi's soldiers left the castle at Kiyosu, looking as though they were the main force accompanying their lord. Taking the Mino road, they started out for Nagahama.
Hideyoshi himself departed immediately afterward with no more than thirty or forty men. He took a completely different route and hurried along the back roads where no one would notice him. He finally arrived in Nagahama the following day at dawn.
* * *
"We slipped up, Genba," Katsuie said.
"No, it was a plan that really had no room for mistakes."
"Do you really think there is such a plan? Somewhere there was an oversight, and that's why the fish slipped out of the net so easily."
"Well, it's not that I didn't say anything about it. If you're going to strike, strike! If we had attacked that scum's quarters, we'd have been able to look at Hideyoshi's head by now. But all you could talk about was doing it in secret. Now all our efforts have come to nothing because you wouldn't listen to me."
"Ah, you're still young. You were asking me to use a flawed plan, and the plan I had devised was superior. The best strategy was to wait until Hideyoshi came up to the castle and force him to disembowel himself. Nothing could have been better than that. But according to the reports last night, Hideyoshi was suddenly striking camp. Now, at first, I thought that was unfortunate, but then I reconsidered. If that bastard was leaving Kiyosu at night, it was a gift from heaven—because he was leaving unannounced, I could have denounced his crimes. I instructed you to lie in ambush and strike him down on the way so that justice might be served."
"That was a careless mistake on your part, Uncle, from the very beginning."
"My mistake? Why?"
"Your first mistake was in thinking Monkey would play into our hands by coming to today's celebration. Then, although you instructed me to go with some soldiers to ambush him, your second mistake was in forgetting to take the precaution of ordering men to guard the backroads."
"Fool! I gave you the orders and had the other generals follow your instructions solely because I had faith that you would not overlook things like that. And you have the impudence to say that hiding soldiers only on the main road and letting Hideyoshi slip through is my fault! You should reflect a little on your own inexperience!"
"Well, I apologize for my error this time, but hereafter, Uncle, please refrain from rattling on with too much artifice. A person who gets carried away with his own clever schemes is going to drown in them someday."
"What are you saying? You think I use too much cunning?"
"It's your constant habit."
"You…you fool!"
"It's not just me, Uncle. Everybody says so. 'Lord Katsuie makes people cautious, because no one can never tell what he is plotting.'" Katsuie was silent, knitting his thick black eyebrows.
For a long time, the relationship of uncle and nephew had been far warmer than that between lord and retainer. But too much familiarity had eroded authority and respect in the relationship, and those qualities were now missing. That morning Katsuie could hardly restrain the sullen look on his face.
It was a complicated sense of displeasure. He had not slept at all the night before. Having ordered Genba to strike down the fleeing Hideyoshi, Katsuie had waited until dawn for the report that would clear the gloom that filled his heart.
When Genba returned, however, he did not make the report Katsuie had been waiting for so tensely.
"The only people who passed by were Hideyoshi's retainers. Hideyoshi himself was nowhere to be seen. I thought it would be disadvantageous to attack them, so I came back with nothing to show for my efforts."
That report, added to Katsuie's fatigue from the night before, put him in a state of despondency.
Then, when even Genba found fault with him, there was little wonder that he was feeling depressed that morning.
He could not remain in such a mood, however. Today was the celebration of the announcement of Samboshi's succession. After his breakfast Katsuie took a nap and had a bath, then he once again arrayed himself in his sweltering ceremonial robes and headgear.
Katsuie was not the kind of man who, once depressed, remained visibly so. Today the sky was filled with clouds and it was even more humid than the day before, but his demeanor on the road to Kiyosu Castle was far more majestic than that of anyone else in castle town, and his face sparkled with sweat.
The fierce men who only the night before had fastened the cords of their helmets, crawled through the grass and bushes with their spears and firearms, and looked to take Hideyoshi's life on the road were now arrayed in court hats and ceremonial kimonos. Their bows were in their cases and their spears and halberds sheathed, and they now meandered in innocent-looking attire up to the castle.
The men who climbed to the castle were not from the Shibata clan alone, of course, but were also from the Niwa, the Takigawa, and other clans. The only men who had been there the day before but who were no longer present were those under the command of Hideyoshi.
Takigawa Kazumasu informed Katsuie that Kumohachi had been waiting in the castle since early morning, as a representative of Hideyoshi.
“He said Hideyoshi would not be able to attend today because of illness and was sening his apologies to Lord Samboshi. He also mentioned that he had hoped for an audience with you, my lord. He's been waiting for a little while."
Katsuie nodded bitterly. While it angered him that Hideyoshi was scrupulously feigning ignorance of the whole affair, he too had to pretend to know nothing, and now
granted an audience to Kumohachi. Katsuie then cantankerously asked one question after another. What kind of illness did Hideyoshi have? If he had decided to return home so suddenly the night before, why hadn't he informed Katsuie? If he had, Katsuie himself would have come to visit and taken care of all the arrangements. But it seemed that old Kumohachi had grown extremely deaf and was only able to hear about half of what Katsuie was saying.
And no matter what was being said, the old man appeared not understand, but repeated the same answer over and over. Feeling that the interview was as useless as beating the air, Katsuie could not help but be vexed at Hideyoshi's ulterior motives in sending such a senile old warrior as a formal envoy. No matter how much he rebuked the old man, nothing came of it. With pent-up anger from his irritation, he asked Kumohachi one more question to finish the conversation.
"Envoy, how old are you, anyway?"
"Exactly… yes, indeed."
"I'm asking you about your age…How old are you?"
"Yes, it's just as you say."
"What?"
Katsuie felt as though he were being made a fool of. Thrusting his angry face next to Kumohachi's ear, he yelled out in a voice loud enough to crack a mirror.
"How old are you this year?"
Thereupon Kumohachi nodded vigorously and answered with exceeding calm.
"Ah, I see. You're asking me my age. I'm ashamed to say that I've done nothing o merit that the world might have heard of, but this year I'll be seventy-five."
Katsuie was dumbfounded.
How ridiculous it was for him to be losing his temper with this old man, with today's pressure of work in front of him and the probability that he would be unable to relax all day. Along with an awareness of self-scorn, Katsuie felt his hostility toward Hideyoshi moving him to make a pledge that the two of them would shortly not exist under the same sky.
"Go on home. That's enough."
Gesturing with his chin, he ordered the old man to leave, but Kumohachi's buttocks seemed to be stuck to the floor with rice paste.
"What? What if there's a reply?" he asked, gazing sedately at Katsuie.
"There is none! No reply at all! Just tell Hideyoshi that we'll meet wherever we chance to meet."