by Gai-Jin(Lit)
"She could never do it," Ogama said sourly,
"however clever, no daimyo would accept such madness."
"Step one: the visit, step two: the
Sh@ogun takes up permanent residence in the palace. From then on, supported by the
Emperor's requests, her brother's requests, decisions come down through her cronies, one of whom is your Prince Fujitaka."
"I do not believe that!"
"Certainly he will not admit it. I can give you proof in a little while that he is not really working for you but against you." Yoshi kept his voice down and filled with sincerity. "Once Nobusada is permanently inside the walls, she rules. That is why she is a problem."
Ogama sighed and sat back, again weighing what his adversary had been saying, much of which was true, wondering how far he could trust him. Certainly a secret alliance had possibilities, if the price extracted was high enough.
"The answer to her is to break the marriage," he said thinly. "The Emperor was asked to approve it, eh? Perhaps the Emperor would be happy to request the annulment. At once you neutralize her, gain back support from the many who detest the Toranaga connection as a gross impertinence... not my opinion," he added hastily seeing a momentary flush, not wanting an open clash yet, so much yet to hear and to decide.
After a moment, Yoshi nodded. "A good idea,
Ogama-dono. It had not occurred to me."
Indeed it had not. The more he thought about it, the more titillating the offshoots became. "That should have priority. Excellent."
Across the square a horse neighed restlessly and skittered. Both men watched while the soldier holding the bridle gentled her, Ogama wondering in his most secret heart if, when he had eliminated Yoshi--and then, without a hiccup,
Nobusada, the rest of the Toranagas and their allies--and became Sh@ogun, if he should then inherit this Imperial Princess. No woman would ever give me a problem, she would be spawning sons so quickly even gods would smile.
"So what is your proposal?" he asked, his head reeling with the wonderful avenues a temporary alliance might open.
"We make a secret agreement from today to join forces and influence and formulate plans: first to smash the shishi, second to neutralize Anjo and Sanjiro of Satsuma, third a surprise attack on Tosa being a priority. The moment
Anjo is dead or resigns, I will propose you as Elder in his place and guarantee your appointment. Simultaneously Zukumura will resign and a replacement, agreed in advance by both of us, put in his place. Three to two.
Toyama I keep, Adachi is replaced by your appointee. I vote for you to be the Council
Leader."
"With the rank of tair@o."
"To be Chief Minister of the Council, that is enough."
"Perhaps not. In return for what?"
"From today Tosa and Satsuma are considered enemy. You will commit all necessary force for a joint, surprise attack on Tosa the moment it is feasible. We divide his fief."
"As he is an Outside Lord, his lands should go to an Outside Lord."
"Perhaps, perhaps not," Yoshi said easily. "You agree never to ally yourself with Tosa and Satsuma against me, or the Sh@ogunate. If, I should say when Satsuma and Tosa separately or together attack you I bind myself to support you at once with massive force."
"Next?" Ogama asked impassively.
"You agree not to take sides against me, as I agree not to take sides against you."
"Next?"
"From today, quietly, each in our own way, we work to annul the marriage."
"Next?"
"Last: the Gates. You agree that legal, legitimate Sh@ogunate forces take back control from dawn tomorrow."
Ogama's face closed. "I already showed you
I am the legal and legitimate representative of the Deity."
"I already pointed out, though the document is certainly signed correctly, the signature was, regretfully obtained by misrepresentation."
"So sorry, no."
"The Gates must come back into Sh@ogunate control."
"Then we have little left to talk about."
Yoshi sighed. His eyes slitted. "Then, sadly, there will be a new request from the Emperor
--for you to leave the Gates and leave Ky@oto with all your men."
Just as coldly Ogama stared back at him.
"I doubt it."
"I, Toranaga Yoshi, guarantee it. In six or seven days Sh@ogun Nobusada and his wife are within the palace. As Guardian I have immediate access to him--and to her. Both will see the correctness of my argument--about the Gates and much else."
"What much else?"
"The Gates should not be a problem for you,
Ogama-dono. I would give guarantees not to flaunt this in your face, would "gratefully accept your kind invitation to assume control," would not fortify them against you. What is so difficult? The Gates are mostly a symbol.
I advise you formally, to continue the peace and ensure order in the Land until Anjo is onwards, the Sh@ogunate should have their place there."
Ogama hesitated, in a quandary. Yoshi could easily have such another "request" sent to him, that he would have to accept. "I will give you an answer, in a month."
"So sorry, noon on the sixth day from now is the limit."
"Why?"
"In five days Nobusada reaches Otsu.
By the dusk on the sixth day Nobusada will go through the Gates. I require possession, temporary possession, before that." It was said so gently and so politely.
Their eyes locked. Noncommittally, but equally politely, Ogama said, "I will think about all of this, Yoshi-dono." Then he bowed,
Yoshi bowed, both men walked to their palanquins and everyone in the square sighed with relief that their ordeal was over and the expected bloodbath had not happened.
Friday, 21st November:
The way station of Otsu had been bustling all day in a crescendo of excitement, anticipation paired with fear over final preparations for tonight's stop of the impossibly august visitors,
Sh@ogun Nobusada and the Princess Yazu.
For weeks the citizens had been brooming streets, cleaning all dwellings, hovels, outhouses--roofs, walls, wells, gardens manicured--new tiles, shojis, tatamis, verandas, with the Inn of Many Flowers, the best and biggest in the whole of Otsu, still in a state of near panic.
It had begun the moment it was known the Hallowed
Travellers had declined to stay in the nearby
Sh@ogunate castle of Sakamoto that had graced the area since before Sekigahara, selecting the Inn instead: "Everything must be perfect!" the Patron wailed, awed and at the same time petrified. "Anything not perfect will merit beheading or at the very least a whipping, man woman or child! Tales of the honor done to us this one night will be remembered through the ages
--our successes or failures! The Lord High
Sh@ogun himself? In all his glory? His wife, a sister of the Deity? Oh ko...."
Late in the afternoon, veiled, surrounded by guards and counselors and well screened from being observed,
Sh@ogun Nobusada hurried from his palanquin through the gates into the isolated section of the Inn reserved for him, with the Princess and their entourage of personal bodyguards, servants, her ladies-in-waiting and maids. There were forty traditional raised bungalows of four rooms each, surrounding the inner sanctum of the
Sh@ogun's sleeping quarters and bathhouse, many of the covered verandas interlocking in a maze of pleasing walks and bridges over delicate pools and streams that came down from tiny mountains and all self-contained within a high, thick hedge of manicured hemlocks.
The room was warm and spotless, new tatamis and polished charcoal braziers. Nobusada threw his veiled hat and outer clothes aside, tired and querulous. As always the palanquin had been uncomfortable and the ride bumpy. "I hate this place already," he said to their Chamberlain whose head was touching the floor beside those of an echelon of maids. "It's so small and stinks and I ache all over! Is the bath ready?"
"Ah ye
s Sire, everything as you require."
"Otsu at long last, Sire," Princess
Yazu said gaily, sweeping in with several ladies-in-waiting, "tomorrow we arrive home and everything will be marvelous." She dropped her huge, also veiled hat, and outer clothes.
Maids scrambled to gather them up. "Tomorrow we will be home! Home, Sire! Bypassing a few way stations will be well worth it, neh?"
"Oh yes, Yazu-chan if you say so," he said, smiling at her, quickly caught up in her exuberance.
"You will meet all my friends, cousins, aunts, uncles, elder sister and baby sister, my dear stepbrother Sachi, he's nine this year..." she twirled with happiness, "and hundreds of less close relatives and in a few days you'll meet the Emperor and he will greet you as his brother too and solve all our problems and we will live in tranquility ever after. It's cold in here. Why isn't everything ready? Where is the bath?"
Their Chamberlain--a portly, greying man of fifty with few teeth and heavy jowls--had already been here a day with an advance party of special maids and cooks to prepare their quarters, and particular foods and fruits, with an abundance of polished rice, that the Sh@ogun's delicate stomach required and the Princess demanded. Superb flower arrangements by a Master of ikibana abounded. Again he bowed, inwardly cursing her. "Extra charcoal heaters are ready, Imperial Highness. The bath is ready, your light meal just as you and Sh@ogun Nobusada ordered, dinner the same. It will be the most sumptuous..."
"Emiko! Our bath!"
At once her chief lady-in-waiting led her out and down the corridor, cocooned by other ladies and maids like the queen bee she was.
Nobusada glared up at the Chamberlain and stamped his tiny foot. "Am I to be kept waiting? Show me the bath and send for the masseuse,
I want my back rubbed now. And make sure there is no noise--I forbid noise!"
"Yes Sire, the Captain issues the order daily and I will send the masseuse to the bathhouse, Sire. Sako will b--"
"Sako? She's not as good as Meiko--where's
Meiko?"
"So sorry, she's sick, Sire."
"Tell her to get better! Tell her to be better by sunset. No wonder she's sick. I feel sick! This foul journey! Baka! How many days on the road? It should be at least fifty-three and it's less than... why all the haste..."
The Captain of the Escort waited for the
Chamberlain in the garden. He was in his thirties, bearded, highly trained, a renowned Master of
Swords. His adjutant hurried up.
"Everything is secure, sir."
"Good. It should all be routine by now," the
Captain said, his voice weary and edged. Both wore light travelling armor and hats and two swords over Sh@ogunate tunics and pantaloons. "Only one more day--then our problems get worse. I still cannot believe the
Council and Guardian would allow such a dangerous venture."
His adjutant had heard the same thing said every day. "Yes, Captain. At least we will be in our own barracks, with hundreds more men."
"Not enough, never enough, we should have never left.
But we did and karma is karma. Check the rest of the men and make sure the evening roster of guards is correct. And then tell the horse master to look at my mare, to take a look at her left foot, she may have split her hoof..."
Shoeing horses was unknown in Japan at this time.
"She almost shied passing the barrier, then come back and report." The man hurried away.
The Captain was more satisfied than usual.
His tour of the Inn and its grounds within the high, giant perimeter bamboo fences, and particularly this sector, the hedged area with a single gateway, had reassured him that the Sh@ogun's cluster of bungalows was easy to defend, that all other travellers had been forbidden the Inn for this night, that the watch knew the password and were clear on their prime duty: no one was allowed within five metres of the Sh@ogun or his wife uninvited, and no one, ever, with any weapons--except the
Guardian, the Council of Elders and himself, and any guards accompanying him. The law was well known, the punishment for an armed approach death, for both the armed man and the unalert guards--unless pardoned by the Sh@ogun personally.
"Ah, Chamberlain! Is there any change of plans?"
"No, Captain." The old man sighed and mopped his brow, his jowls shaking. "The August
Ones are bathing as usual, then they will rest as usual, take their real bath and massage at sunset as usual, after which they will dine as usual, play Go as usual and so to bed. All is in order?"
"Here, yes." The Captain had a garrison of a hundred and fifty samurai at any one time within the compound that measured about two hundred metres square. A unit of ten men guarded the only entrance, a pleasing bridge over a stream that led to tall decorative beams and equally ornate gates. Around the whole perimeter hedge a samurai was stationed every ten paces. These would be relieved by fresh units from the six hundred samurai lodging in barracks just outside the main gate or nearby in other Inns. Patrols would scour the garden and fence line discreetly as noise and an obvious samurai presence infuriated the
Princess and therefore her husband.
Above them the clouds were thickening, a bleak, misted sun not yet on the horizon, a high wind toying with the clouds. It was cold and promised to be colder. Servants were lighting lanterns amongst the shrubs, their light already reflected in the pools, and glistening off rocks that had been moistened for that effect moments ago.
"It's beautiful," the Captain said.
"Easily the best, though most of the other Inns have been good." This was the first time he had ever made such a journey. All his life he had been within or near Yedo Castle, with or near Nobusada, or the previous Sh@ogun. "Beautiful, yes, but I'd rather have the Lord Sh@ogun and his wife in
Sakamoto Castle than here. You should have insisted."
"I tried, Captain but... but she decided."
"I will be glad when we are in our own barracks, when they are within the palace walls and even gladder when we and they are safe at home in
Yedo Castle."
"Yes," the Chamberlain said, privately weary of his Master and Mistress and the constant fault finding, nagging and petulance. Still, he thought, his back aching, wanting a bath and massage too, and the attentions of his youthful friend, I suppose I would be the same if I was as exalted as them, so mollycoddled from birth, and only sixteen. "May I ask the password,
Captain?"
"Until the middle of the night it is "Blue
Rainbow.""
Two hundred metres away on the eastern outskirts of the village, an old broken-down farmhouse huddled at the end of an alley not far from the Tokaid@o and the Otsu barrier. Inside, the leader of the shishi attack team, a Choshu youth called Saigo glowered at the farmer, his wife, four children, father and mother, brother and a maid who knelt petrified, crowded into a corner. This was the only room and it served for living eating working sleeping. A few scrawny chickens in a rafter cage clucked nervously. "Remember what I told you. You know nothing, have seen nothing."
"Yes Lord, certainly, Lord," the old man whimpered.
"Shut up! Turn your backs, face the corner and close your eyes, all of you. Tie your sashes around your eyes!"
They obeyed. Instantly.
Saigo was eighteen, tall and strongly built, with a rugged handsome face and he wore a short dark tunic and pantaloons similar to the samurai at the Inn and two swords, straw sandals, no armor. When he was satisfied the peasants were blind as well as docile, he sat beside the door and peered out through rips in the window paper and began to wait.
He could see the barrier and guard houses clearly. It was not yet sunset so the barrier was still open to latecomers. It had taken him and his men many days to find this place, ideal for their purposes. The back door led to a maze of alleys and paths, perfect for a sudden retreat.
This afternoon, the moment the Sh@ogun's party had passed through the barrier, he had taken sudden possession.
Foo
tsteps. His hand readied his sword, then relaxed. Another youth came in silently, to be followed by another from a different direction.
Soon seven more were within. Outside one stood guard, another at the corner of the alley that joined with the Tokaid@o, with an eleventh man, hiding in the village, to act as courier to gallop the glad tidings of success to Katsumata in Ky@oto that would signal the attack on Ogama and the