Taiko. Part 59

"So what should we do?"

"Of course, it's clear that the very best strategy would be to send a messenger to the Asai, explain the advantages and disadvantages of the situation clearly, and take possession of both the castle and Oichi without incident."

"You should know that I've already tried that twice. I sent a messenger to the castle and informed them that if they surrendered, I would allow them to keep their domains. I made sure that they knew that Echizen had been conquered, but neither Nagamasa nor his father is going to budge. They're only going to show off how tough they are, just like before. Their 'toughness,' of course, is nothing more than using Oichi's life as a shield. They think that I'll never make a reckless attack as long as they have my own sister in the castle."

"But it's not just that. For the two years I've been at Yokoyama, I've been watching Nagamasa carefully, and he does have some talent and willpower. Well, I've been trying to think of a plan to capture this castle for a long time, to figure out the best strategy in case we ever had to attack it. I have captured the Kyogoku enclosure without losing a single man."

"What? What are you saying?" n.o.bunaga doubted his own ears. "The second enclosure you see over there. Our men are already in control of it," Hideyoshi repeated, "so I'm saying you don't have to worry anymore."

"Is this true?"

"Would I lie to you at a time like this, my lord?"

"But... I can't believe it."

"That's understandable, but you'll be able to hear it with your own ears soon, from two men I've summoned. Would you meet with them?"

"Who are they?"

"One is a monk called Miyabe Zensho. The other is Onogi Tosa, the commander of the enclosure."

n.o.bunaga could not rid himself of his surprised expression. He believed Hideyoshi, but he could not help wondering how he had persuaded a senior retainer of the Asai clan come over to their side.

Hideyoshi explained the situation as though there were nothing unusual about it at all. "Shortly after Your Lordship awarded me the castle at Yokoyama..." he started.

n.o.bunaga was a little startled. He was unable to look without blinking at the man who was speaking. Yokoyama Castle was situated on the front line of this strategic area, and Hideyoshi's troops were there to check the Asai and Asakura. He remembered the order posting Hideyoshi there temporarily, but he had no memory of a promise to give him the castle. But here was Hideyoshi saying that he had been given the castle. n.o.bunaga, however, put this in the back of his mind for the moment.

"Wasn't that the year right after the attack on Mount Hiei, when you came to Gifu to make a New Year's call?" n.o.bunaga asked.

"That's right. On the way back, Takenaka Hanbei fell ill and we were delayed. By the time we arrived at Yokoyama Castle, it was after dark."

"I don't feel like listening to a long story. Get to the point."

"The enemy had found out that I was away from the castle and was making a night attack. We repulsed them, of course, and at the time we captured the monk Miyabe Zensho."

"You took him alive?"

"Yes. Rather than cutting off his head we treated him kindly, and later, when I had a moment, I counseled him about the coming times and instructed him in the true significance of being a samurai. He, in turn, talked to his former master, Onogi Tosa, and persuaded him to surrender to us."

"Really?"

"The battlefield is no place for jokes," Hideyoshi said.

Lost in admiration, even n.o.bunaga was amazed at Hideyoshi's cunning. The battlefield is no place for jokes! And, just as he had bragged, Miyabe Zensho and Onogi Tosa were led in by Hideyoshi's retainer for an audience with n.o.bunaga. He questioned Tosa closely to confirm Hideyoshi's story.

The general responded clearly. "This surrender is not at my own discretion. The other two senior retainers stationed in the Kyogoku have realized that opposing you is not only foolish, but it would also hasten the fall of the clan and impose needless suffering on the people of the province."

Nagamasa was under thirty, but he already had four children by the Lady Oichi, who herself was twenty-three. He occupied the third enclosure of Odani Castle, which was really three castles in one.

Gunfire could be heard from the ravine to the south until the evening. The report of cannon sounded periodically, and each time the fretwork ceiling shook as if it were going to come loose.

Oichi looked up instinctively with frightened eyes, and held a baby more tightly against her breast. The child was as yet unweaned. There was no wind, but soot was blowing everywhere, and the light of the lamp flickered wildly.

"Mother! I'm scared!" Her second daughter, Hatsu, clung to her right sleeve while her eldest daughter, Chacha, silently held fast to her left knee. Her son, however, did not come to his mother's lap even though he was still small. He was brandishing an arrow shaft at a lady-in-waiting. This was Nagamasa's heir, Manjumaru, "Let me see! Let me see the battle!" Manju cried petulantly, striking the lady-in-waiting with the headless arrow.

"Manju," his mother reproved him, "why are you hitting her? Your father is fighting. Have you already forgotten that he told you to behave during the fighting? If you're laughed at by the retainers, you won't become a good general even when you grow up."

Manju was old enough to understand a little of his mother's reasoning. He listened to her silently for a moment, but then suddenly began to cry out loud fretfully.

"I wanna see the battle! I wanna see!" The child's tutor did not know what to do either, and simply stood there watching. Just then there was a lull in the fighting, but gunfire could still be heard. The eldest girl, Chacha, was already seven years old, and she somehow understood the difficult circ.u.mstances her father was in, her mother's sorrow, and even the feelings of the warriors in the castle.

She said precociously, "Manju! Don't say things that upset Mother! Don't you think this is horrible for her? Father's out there fighting the enemy. Isn't that right, Mother?"

Taken to task, Manju looked at his sister and jumped on her, still brandishing the arrow shaft. "You stupid Chacha!" he shouted.

Chacha put her sleeve over her head and hid behind her mother.

"Be good now!" Trying to humor him, Oichi took the arrow shaft and talked to him quietly.

Suddenly there was the sound of violent footsteps in the entrance hall outside.

"What's that? To the likes of the Oda? They're nothing but little samurai who have pushed their way from the backwoods of Owari. Do you think I'm going to surrender to a man like n.o.bunaga? The Asai clan is in a different cla.s.s from them!" Asai Nagamasa entered unannounced, followed by two or three generals.

When he saw that his wife was out of harm's way in this cavernous, poorly lit room, he was relieved. "I'm a little tired," he said, sitting down and loosening the cords on a section of his armor. Then he said to the generals behind him, "With the way things are going this evening, the enemy may well make an all-out attack around midnight. We'd better rest now."

When the commanders got up to leave, Nagamasa heaved a sigh of relief. Even in the midst of battle, he was able to remember that he was both a father and a husband.

"Was the sound of the guns this evening frightening, my dear?" he asked his wife.

Surrounded by her children, Oichi replied, "No, we were in here, so it was all right."

"Didn't Manju or Chacha get scared and cry?"

You should be proud of them. They acted like adults."

Really?" he said, forcing a smile. Then he continued, "Don't worry. The Oda made a fierce attack, but we pushed them back with a volley from the castle. Even if they continue attacking us for twenty or thirty, or even one hundred days, we'll never surrender. We are the Asai clan! We're not going to yield to someone like n.o.bunaga." He railed against the oda almost as though he could spit, but then suddenly fell silent.

With the light of the lamp behind her, Oichi's face was buried in the child suckling at her breast. This was n.o.bunaga's little sister! Nagamasa shook with emotion. She even looked like him. She had her brothers' delicate complexion and his profile.

"Are you crying?"

"The baby sometimes gets fretful and chews my nipple when the milk doesn't come out."

"The milk isn't coming out?"

"No, not now."

"That's because you have some unseen sorrow and you're getting too thin. But you are a mother, and this is a mother's true battle."

"I know."

"I suspect you think I'm a hard husband."

She edged up to her husband's side, still holding the child to her breast. "No, I don't! Why should I bear a grudge? I look at it all as fate."

People can't be reconciled just by saying that it's fate. The life of a samurai's wife is more painful than swallowing swords. If you are not completely resolved, it won't be a resolution at all."

"I'm trying to come to that kind of an understanding, but all I can think of is that I'm a mother."

"My dear, even on the day I married you, I didn't think that you would be mine forever. Neither did my father give his permission for you to become a true bride of the Asai."

"What! What are you saying?"

"At a time like this, a man has to tell the truth. This moment will never come again, so I'm going to open my heart to you. When n.o.bunaga sent you to marry me, it was really nothing more than a political strategem. I could see through to what was in his heart from the very first." He paused. "But even while I knew that, a love grew between us that nothing could ever stop. Then we had four children. At this point you are no longer n.o.buaga's sister. You're my wife and the mother of my children. I won't allow you to shed tears for our enemy. So why are you growing so thin and holding back the milk you should be giving to our child?"

Now she could see. Everything that had been a result of "fate" had been conceived as political strategem. She was a bride of political strategy: from the very first Nagamasa had seen n.o.bunaga as someone to watch. But n.o.bunaga had sincerely loved his brother-in-law.

n.o.bunaga believed that the heir of the Asai clan had a future, and he had trusted him. He had pushed for the marriage enthusiastically. But the match had been in doubt from the very beginning, because of the much older alliance between the Asai and the Asakura of Echizen. Their pact was not simply one of mutual defense, but a complex relationship based on friendship and mutual favors. The Asakura and Oda had been enemies for years. When n.o.bunaga had attacked the Saito in Gifu, how much had they hindered him and come to the aid of the Saito?

n.o.bunaga overcame this obstacle to the match by sending a written pledge to the Asakura, promising not to invade their domain.

Soon after the wedding, both Nagamasa's father and the Asakura clan-to which he owed so many favors-began to pressure Nagamasa to regard his wife with suspicion. In the meantime, the Asai had joined the Asakura, the shogun, Takeda Shingen of Kai, and the warrior-monks of Mount Hiei in an anti-n.o.bunaga alliance.

The following year n.o.bunaga had invaded Echizen. Suddenly he was struck from behind. Cutting off n.o.bunaga's path of retreat and acting in concert with the Asakura clan, Nagamasa had plotted the man's utter annihilation. At the time, Nagamasa made it clear to n.o.bunaga that he was not going to let his judgment be affected by his wife, but n.o.bunaga would not believe it. The forces of the Asai and the martial valor of the man whom n.o.bunaga had trusted had become a fire at his very feet. Indeed, they had become chains. After the destruction of Echizen, however, Odani Castle was no longer either a fire or constricting chains.

Nevertheless, at this time n.o.bunaga was still hopeful that he would not have to kill Nagamasa. Of course, he respected Nagamasa's courage, but more than that, he was troubled with his affection for Oichi. People thought this strange, remembering that, when he had destroyed Mount Hiei with fire, this lord had thought nothing of being called "the king of the demons."

Autumn deepened day by day. At dawn, the dew on the gra.s.s around the castle was wet and cold.

"My lord, something terrible has happened." Fujikake Mikawa's voice was unusually perturbed. Nagamasa had slept that night near the mosquito netting that protected his wife and children, but he had not taken off his armor.

"What is it, Mikawa?" He quickly left the bedroom, breathing heavily. A dawn attack! That was his first thought. But the disaster that Mikawa was reporting was worse than that.

"The Kyogoku enclosure was taken by the Oda during the night."

"What!"

"There's no doubt. You can see it from the keep, my lord."

"It can't be." He climbed quickly to the watchtower, stumbling many times on the dark stairs. Although the Kyogoku was far away from the watchtower, the enclosure looked as if it were just below him. There, fluttering at the top of the castle in the distance, were a great number of banners, but not one of them belonged to the Asai. One of the commanders' standards, flying brilliantly and proudly in the wind, quite clearly evidenced the presence of Hideyoshi.

"We've been betrayed! Fine! I'll show them. I'll show n.o.bunaga and all the samurai in this country," he said, forcing a smile. "I'll show them how Asai Nagamasa dies!"

Nagamasa descended the darkened stairway of the watchtower. For the retainers who followed him, it was like accompanying their lord deep beneath the surface of the earth. "What-what's going on?" lamented one of the generals, halfway down the staircase. "Onogi Tosa, Asai Genba, and Mitamura Uemon have gone over to the enemy," one general answered.

Another man said bitterly, "Even though they were senior retainers, they betrayed the trust placed in them when they were put in charge of the Kyogoku."

"They're inhuman!"

Nagamasa turned around and said, "Stop complaining!"

They stood in the wide, wooden-floored room at the bottom of the stairs, which was brightened by a faint light. The fortified room resembled a huge cage or jail cell. Many of the wounded had been brought here, and they lay on straw mats, groaning. When Nagamasa pa.s.sed through, even the samurai who were lying down made an effort to kneel.

"I won't let them die in vain! I won't let them die in vain!" Nagamasa said with tears in his eyes as he pa.s.sed through. Yet he turned again to his generals and strictly forbade them to complain.

"There is no use in insulting others. Each of you must pick your own course- whether you surrender to the enemy or die with me. There's moral duty on both sides, n.o.bunaga is fighting to rebuild the nation; I'm fighting for the name and honor of the samurai cla.s.s. If you think you had better submit to n.o.bunaga, then go to him. I'm certainly not going to stop you!" So saying, he walked out to check the defenses of the castle, but he had not taken a hundred paces when something much more serious than losing Kyogoku was reported to him.

"My lord! My lord! Terrible news!" One of his officers, drenched in blood, came running toward him and dropped to his knees. "What is it, Kyutaro?"

A premonition that something was very wrong settled quickly in Nagamasa's breast. Wakui Kyutaro was not a samurai stationed in the third enclosure; he was a retainer of Nagamasa's father.

"Your honored father, Lord Hisamasa, has just committed seppuku. I cut my way here through the enemy to bring you this." Kyutaro dropped to his knees. Gasping, he took out Hisamasa's topknot and the silk kimono it was wrapped in and put them into Nagamasa's hand.

"What! The first enclosure has also fallen?"

"Just before dawn, a corps of soldiers took the secret path from Kyogoku to just outside the castle gate, flying Onogi's standard, saying that Onogi urgently needed to see Lord Hisamasa. a.s.suming that Onogi was leading his own men, the guards opened the the gate. As soon as that happened, a large force of soldiers rushed in and cut their way through to the inner citadel."

"The enemy?"

"The greater part of them were Lord Hideyoshi's retainers, but the men who showed him the way were undoubtedly the retainers of that traitor Onogi."

"Well, what about my father?"

"He fought gallantly to the very end. He himself set fire to the inner citadel and then committed suicide, but the enemy put out the fire and occupied the castle."

"Ah! So that's why we didn't see any flames or smoke."

"If flames had been rising from the first enclosure, then you would have sent reinforcements, or you might have set fire to this castle and committed suicide with your wife and children when your father perished. I think this is what the enemy feared and planned against."

Suddenly, Kyutaro dug his nails into the ground and said, "My lord... I am dying..." With his palms pressed down in obeisance, his head dropped to the floor. He had fought and won a far more bitter battle than on the field.

"Another brave soul gone," someone lamented behind Nagamasa, and then softly intoned a prayer.

The sound of prayer beads clicked in the silence. When Nagamasa turned, he saw that it was the head priest, Yuzan-another refugee from the war.

"I was sorry to hear that Lord Hisamasa met his end early this morning," Yuzan said.

"Your Reverence, I have a request," Nagamasa said in a steady voice. His words were calm, but there was no concealing their plaintive tone. "It will be my turn next. I would like to gather all of my retainers together and hold a funeral service, at least in form, while I am still alive. In the valley behind Odani, there is a memorial stone carved with the Buddhist death name you yourself gave me. Would you please have the stone moved inside the castle? You're a priest, and surely the enemy would let you through."

"Of course."

Yuzan left immediately. As he did so, one of Nagamasa's generals nearly ran into him as he hurried in.

"Fuwa Mitsuharu has come to the castle gate."

"Who is he?"

"A retainer of Lord n.o.bunaga."