"Is your father at home?" he asked.
"No, he's out."
Rather than inviting him in, she stepped back a little.
"Well, if Master Mataemon is out…" Tokichiro quickly realized how she might be embarrassed. "Then I'd better leave."
Nene nodded as though this was what she wanted, too.
"I just came to ask if Inuchiyo had dropped by."
"No, he hasn't." Nene shook her head, but the blood rushed to her face.
"He came, didn't he?"
"No."
"Really?"
Watching the red dragonflies flit about, Tokichiro was lost in thought for a moment. "He didn't show up at your house at all?" Nene hung her head, her eyes filled with tears. "Inuchiyo has displeased His Lordship and left Owari. Did you hear?"
"Yes."
"Did you hear this from your father?"
"No."
"Well, whom did you hear it from? No, there's no need to hide it. He and I are sworn friends. It doesn't make any difference, whatever he might have said to you. He came here, didn't he?"
"No. I found out about it just now—by letter."
"A letter?"
"Just a moment ago, someone threw something into the garden outside my room. When I came down to see, I found a letter wrapped around a small stone. It was from Master Inuchiyo." As she spoke, her voice faltered. She began to cry, and turned her back on Tokichiro. He had thought of her only as a wise, intelligent woman, but she was, all, a girl.
Tokichiro had discovered yet another level of beauty and appeal in what he had seen of this woman until now. "Would you let me see the letter? Or is it something that shouldn't be shown to anyone?" When he asked this, Nene took the letter from her kimono and meekly handed it to him.
Tokichiro opened it slowly. It was unmistakably Inuchiyo's hand. Its contents were simple. But to Tokichiro, the letter conveyed far more than was written in it.
I have cut down a person of consequence and must leave Lord Nobunaga's blessed province today. At one time I had dedicated both my life and my fate to love, talking it over honorably and man to man, we determined that you would be be off with Kinoshita, who is the better man. I leave, entrusting you to him. Please show this letter to Master Mataemon, too, and please, please put your mind at peace. I am not sure we will ever be able to meet again.
Here and there, the characters were wet with tears. Were they Nene’s or Inuchiyo's? No, he realized, they were his own.
* *
Narumi was prepared for war, and watched the movements at Kiyosu. But as the year came to an end, there was no sign of an attack by Nobunaga.
Doubt and suspicion troubled the Yamabuchi, father and son. Their distress was augmented by yet something else. Not only had they deserted Nobunaga, but they were also being viewed with hostility by their former allies, the Imagawa of Suruga.
At this juncture, a rumor was spread around Narumi to the effect that the lord of the neighboring Kasadera Castle was in collusion with Nobunaga, and was going to attack Narumi from the rear.
Kasadera was a branch castle of the Imagawa. Whether by command of the Imagawa or by collusion with Nobunaga, an attack was certainly possible.
As the day passed, the rumor grew. Among the Yamabuchi clan and their retainers signs of panic were finally becoming apparent. The prevailing opinion was that they should mount a surprise attack on Kasadera. The father and son, who had taken such precautions shutting themselves up in an empty shell, finally took the initiative. Moving their army in the middle of the night, they set out for a morning attack on Kasadera Castle.
The same kind of rumors had been circulating at Kasadera, too, however, and had caused the same kind of nervousness. The garrison was quick to take countermeasures and was now on the alert.
The Yamabuchi attacked and the tide of battle quickly turned against the defenders, who, unable to wait for reinforcements from Suruga, set fire to the castle and perished fighting desperately in the midst of the flames.
The Narumi army that rushed into the charred castle was reduced to less than half strenght, owing to heavy losses. But they drove on with their gathered momentum and stormed the smoldering ruins, waving their swords, spears, and guns.
All of them joined in the loud shouts of victory. At which point, mounted men and soldiers arrived from Narumi, having escaped in miserable disorder.
“What happened?" asked a surprised Yamabuchi Samanosuke.
“Nobunaga's army was incredibly fast. Somehow he knew what was happening here, suddenly swooped down on our lightly guarded castle with more than a thousand men. The attack was furious, and we never had a chance!" The wounded man somehow made his report, gasping for breath, and went on to say that not only had the castle been taken but Samanosuke's son, Ukon, who had still not recovered from his wounds, had beencaptured and beheaded.
Samanosuke, who had just now raised the victory song, stood in a silent stupor. The area around Kasadera Castle, which he himself had attacked and taken, was nothing more than an uninhabited, burnt-out ruin.
“This is heaven's will!" With a shout, he took his sword and disembowelled himself on the spot. It was strange, however, that he should cry about it being heaven's will, for his end surely was one made by man and fashioned by himself.
Nobunaga had subjugated Narumi and Kasadera in a single day. Tokichiro had gone off somewhere soon after the construction of the castle wall was completed, and had not been seen for some time. But as soon as he heard that Narumi and Kasadera had come into the possession of Owari, he, too, returned unnoticed.
"Was it you who spread the rumors to both sides and caused dissension among our enemies?" When asked, Tokichiro just shook his head and said nothing.
The people of Suruga Province did not call their capital Sumpu; to them it was simply the Place of Government, and its castle was the Palace. The citizens, from Yoshimoto and the members of the Imagawa clan down to the townsfolk, believed that Sumpu was the capital of the greatest province along the eastern seaboard. The city was imbued with an aristocratic air, and even commoners followed the fashions of imperial Kyoto.
Compared to Kiyosu, Sumpu was another world. The atmosphere of its streets and the manners of its citizens, even the speed at which the people walked, and the way they looked at one another and talked; the citizens of Sumpu were relaxed and confident. One could tell their rank from the opulence of their clothes, and when they went out, they held fans over their mouths. The arts of music, dance, and poetry flourished. The serenity visible on every face hearkened back to some halcyon spring of ancient times. Sumpu was blessed. If the weather was fine, one could see Mount Fuji; if misty, the peaceful waves of the sea were visible beyond the pine grove of Kiyomidera Temple. The Imagawa soldiers were strong, and Mikawa, the domain of the Tokugawa clan, was little more than a subordinate province.
My veins run with the blood of the Tokugawa, and yet I am here. My retainers in Okazaki somehow maintain my castle; the province of Mikawa continues to exist, but its lord and its retainers are separated Tokugawa Ieyasu meditated on these things day and night, but he could never speak of them openly. He pitied his retainers. But when he reflected on his own situation, he was thankful to be alive.
Ieyasu was only seventeen, but he was already a father. Two years before, after his coming-of-age ceremony, Imagawa Yoshimoto had arranged his marriage to the daughter of one of his own kinsmen. Ieyasu's son had been born the previous spring, so he was not yet six months old, and he often heard the baby's cries from the room in which he had set up his desk. His wife had not fully recovered from the birth and was still in the delivery room.
When this seventeen-year-old father heard his baby son crying, he was listening to his own flesh and blood. But he rarely went to see his family. He did not understand the feelings of tenderness toward children that other people talked about. When he searched his own heart for this emotion, he found it not just diminished, but totally lacking. Knowing that he was this kind of man and father, he felt sorry for his wife and child. Every time he felt this way, however, his compassion was not for his own family, but rather for his impoverished, humiliated retainers in Okazaki.
When he forced himself to think about his child, he was always sad. Soon he will set out on a journey through this bitter life and suffer the same privations I have.
At the age of five, Ieyasu had been sent as a hostage to the Oda clan. When he looked back over the trials he had suffered, he could not help but sympathize with his newborn son. The sorrow and tragedy of human life were certain to be his, too. Right now, however, on the surface, people saw that he and his family lived in a mansion no less splendid than those of the Imagawa.
What was that? Ieyasu went out onto the veranda. Someone outside had pulled on the vines that grew from the trees in the garden and wound up the mud walls. Recoiling from the torn vines, the twigs trembled faintly.
"Who is it?" Ieyasu called out. If it was a mischief-maker, the man would probably run away. He could hear no footsteps, however. Putting on a pair of sandals, he went out through the back gate in the mud wall. A man had prostrated himself as though waiting for him. A large wicker basket and staff lay by the man's side.
"Jinshichi?"
"It's been a long time, my lord."