Taiko. Part 94

Ranmaru leaned heavily against the cedar door leading to the room he was guarding and then quietly stood up. With a bloodied spear in hand, he looked to the right and then to the left. Hearing footsteps, he readied his spear.

Focusing his entire being on his sense of hearing, he listened for some sign from the room. The white figure that had rushed inside just now had been that of the General of he Right, Oda n.o.bunaga. He had fought until the very end, when he saw that flames were engulfing the temple and that all of the men around him had been struck down and killed. He had fought hand-to-hand with the common soldiers as if he had been one himself. Yet he had made the decision to commit seppuku not simply because he had conidered his reputation and found it regrettable to leave his head to a nonent.i.ty. A man's death was predetermined, so he did not even regret the loss of his life. What he did regret losing was the great work of his life.

The Myokaku Temple was nearby. The mansion of the governor was also in the neighborhood. And there were samurai who were lodged inside the city. If by some chance contact was made with the outside, escape might be possible, n.o.bunaga thought. On the other hand, this inspiration, or rather this conspiracy, had been planned by that k.u.mquat head, Mitsuhide. Mitsuhide's character was such that if he decided to take an action like this, he would carry it out with such care that not even water might leak through. Well then, it was time to be resolved.

Those two thoughts struggled with each other in n.o.bunaga's mind.

Looking on the corpses of the attendants who had died together in battle, he knew that his final moments were at hand. Quitting the battle, he withdrew into a room and placed Ranmaru outside to guard the door, saying, "If you hear my voice inside, you can take it that I am committing suicide. Put my body under some sliding panels and set them on fire. Until then, do not let the enemy make their way in." As n.o.bunaga gave these instructions, he looked steadily into Ranmaru's eyes.

The wooden door was secure. n.o.bunaga gazed for a moment at the yet unmarred gilded paintings on the walls. A thin wisp of smoke began to flow through from somewhere, but it seemed that it would be a little while before the flames would spread inside.

This is a matter of departure. I don't have to hurry.

He felt as though someone were speaking to him. As soon as he had entered the room, he had felt-even more than the heat that surrounded him on four sides-a burning thirst. He almost collapsed as he sat down in the center of the room, but quickly reconsidered and moved to the slightly elevated alcove. The area beneath him was ordinarily reserved for his retainers, after all. He imagined a cupful of water running down his throat, and for a moment he made an effort to settle his spirit securely just below his navel. To this purpose, he knelt formally with his legs tucked underneath him, straightened his posture and his clothes, and tried to behave as though his retainers were sitting before him just as they did in ordinary times.

It was a moment before his heavy breathing became peaceful.

Is this what it is to die?

He felt so peaceful that he doubted it himself. He was even aware of a desire to laugh.

So I slipped up too.

Even when he imagined Mitsuhide's shiny bald head, he felt no resentment at all. He is human, too, and had done this out of anger, n.o.bunaga supposed. His own negligence was the blunder of a lifetime, and he felt sorry that Mitsuhide's anger had been transformed into nothing more than foolish violence. Ah, Mitsuhide, will you not be following me in a few days? he asked.

His left hand held the scabbard of his short sword. His right hand extricated the blade.

There is no need to hurry.

Thus n.o.bunaga instructed himself. The flames had started to spread to this room. He closed his eyes. As he did so, everything he could recall from his earliest youth right up to the present day flashed through his mind as though he were riding a galloping horse. When he opened his eyes, the gold dust and ill.u.s.trations on the four walls radiated a bright red. The paintings of the peonies on the coffered ceiling proliferated in flames. It truly took no longer than a single breath for him to die. At the moment of death, some extraordinary function inside his body seemed to be saying farewell to the ordinary reminiscences of the life he had led.

"No regrets!" n.o.bunaga said out loud.

Ranmaru heard n.o.bunaga's shout, and ran in. His master, wearing a white silk kimono, already lay facedown on the floor, embracing a flow of fresh blood. Ranmaru pulled the doors from the low closet and placed them over n.o.bunaga's corpse as though he were making a coffin. Closing the door peacefully once again, he stood back from the alcove. He grasped the short sword with which he, too, might commit seppuku, but his shining eyes settled on n.o.bunaga's corpse until the room was consumed in flames.

On the first three days of the Sixth Month, the sky over Kyoto was clear and the sun beat down. The weather in the mountainous western provinces, however, alternated between clear skies and clouds. Heavy rainfall had continued until the end of the Fifth Month. Then, for two or three days at the beginning of the Sixth Month, a violent south-west wind blew the ragged clouds from south to north, and the sky continued to change back and forth from bright and clear to cloudy.

Most people, tired of the rain and mildew, hoped for an early end to the rainy season but Hideyoshi's army, which was conducting the long siege of Takamatsu Castle, prayed to the Eight Dragon Kings to send rain and more rain, which was their main weapon on that battlefield. The solitary castle was still completely isolated in the middle of the marshy lake. Sticking out here and there, like hair on someone with a scalp disease, were the trees of a few submerged forests and groves.

In the castle town, only the roofs of the common people's homes remained above the water; the farmhouses in the low-lying areas had already disappeared. Innumerable pieces of decomposing lumber swirled through the muddy current, or floated on the edges of the lake.

At a glance, the ripples of the muddy yellow water appeared to be standing still, but as the soldiers watched the edge of the sh.o.r.e, they could see that the water was invading the dry land inch by inch.

"There are some carefree fellows today! Look over there. They're as happy-go-lucky as you are."

Hideyoshi sat mounted on his horse, speaking to the pages behind him.

"Where?"

The pages all looked with inquisitive faces in the direction in which their master was pointing. Sure enough, playing on top of the driftwood, a number of snowy herons could be seen. The pages, still adolescents, shrugged their shoulders and chuckled. Listening to their childish talk, Hideyoshi lightly whipped his horse and returned to camp.

That was during the evening of the third day of the Sixth Month. There was still no way Hideyoshi could know about what had happened in Kyoto.

Hideyoshi rarely missed his daily rounds of the camp with a retinue of fifty to one hundred attendants. Occasionally pages accompanied the entourage. They carried a large, long-handled umbrella and paraded around with the brilliantly colored commander's standard. The soldiers who witnessed this "royal pa.s.sage" looked up and thought, That's our Master going by. On the days they didn't see him, they somehow felt that something was missing.

As he rode by, Hideyoshi looked at the soldiers to the right and left, the sweaty and mud-caked troops who found great flavor in food that was barely edible, the soldiers who always had a laugh and hardly knew what boredom was.

Hideyoshi missed the days when he had been part of that exuberant cl.u.s.ter of youth. He had been given the command of the campaign a long five years ago. The battles and bitter fighting that had occurred at Kozuki Castle, Miki Castle, and other places had been gruelling beyond words. But beyond the hardship of battle, as a general he had also met with spiritual crises any number of times.

n.o.bunaga was a hard man to please, and it had not been easy to serve him at a distance and to keep his mind at ease. And of course, the generals surrounding n.o.bunaga were not exactly pleased with Hideyoshi's rise. Still, Hideyoshi was grateful, and in the mornings, when he prayed to the sun G.o.ddess, he gave thanks with an open heart for all the trials he had gone through in those five years.

A man would not have gone out in search of such ordeals. He himself thought that, no matter what heaven's intentions for him actually were, it had continued to send him difficulty after difficulty. There were days when he felt thankful for the hardships and reversals of his youth, because they had given him the will to survive his own physical weakness.

By this time the strategy for the water attack on Takamatsu Castle had been carried out, and Hideyoshi only waited for n.o.bunaga to come from the east. On Mount Hizashi, the thirty thousand Mori troops under the commands of Kikkawa and Kobayakawa waited to rescue the isolated castle. During periods of clear weather, Hideyoshi's umbrella and commanders' standard could be clearly seen by the enemy.

Just as Hideyoshi was returning to his quarters that evening, a messenger arrived by the Okayama Road and was immediately surrounded by guards. The road led to Hideyoshi's camp on Mount Ishii, but the traveler could also cross through Hibata and go on to Kobayakawa Takakage's camp at Mount Hizashi by the same route. Naturally, the road as heavily guarded.

The messenger, whipping his horse all the way, had been riding since the day before without stopping to eat or drink. By the time the guards got him back to the camp, he had lost consciousness.

It was the Hour of the Boar. Hideyoshi was still up. When Hikoemon returned, he, Hideyoshi, and Hori Kyutaro went to the building that served as Hideyoshi's private quarters. There the three men sat together for a long time.

This conference was so secret even the pages had withdrawn. Only the poet Yuko was allowed to remain, and he sat behind the paper screen doors, whisking tea.

Just then, footsteps could be heard hurrying toward the buildings. A strict order had been given to keep the area clear of people, so when the footsteps approached the cedar door, they were met and intercepted with a quick reproach from the pages standing guard.

The pages sounded extremely excited, while the person they had challenged seermed to be impertinent and hot-blooded.

"Yuko, what's going on?" Hideyoshi asked.

"I'm not sure. Maybe it's a page and one of the men on guard duty."

"Take a look."

"Of course."

Yuko stood up and went out, leaving the tea utensils exactly as they were.

Looking outside, he found that-rather than the guard he expected-it was Asai Nagamasa who had been challenged by the pages.

The young pages, however, were not going to announce anyone while their orders were to keep everyone out. It didn't make any difference who it was-Asano or anyone else. Asano had responded that if they would not carry the message, he was going to push his way through. The pages replied that if he wanted to go through, he was welcome try. They may have been nothing more than pages, but they had been given a post, and they were going to demonstrate that they were not there just for decoration.

Yuko first calmed the stubborn young guards, then asked, "Lord Asano, what's the matter?"

Asano showed him the letter case he held in his hand and told him about the messenger who had just arrived from Kyoto. He had heard that the meeting was private, but thought the message was not some trivial matter and so he wanted to talk to his lord for a moment.

"Wait just a moment, please." Yuko went back inside but quickly returned and invited Asano to come in.

Asano stepped in with a sidelong glance at the next room. The pages inside were silent. Looking the other way, they completely ignored him.

Moving aside a short standing lamp, Hideyoshi turned toward Asano, who had entered the room.

"I'm sorry to disturb you during a conference."

"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 n.o.bunaga'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 a.s.sumed 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. n.o.bunaga and n.o.butada were dead. Could it be true? Was the world so mysterious? Kyutaro, in particular, had met with n.o.bunaga just before coming to Mount Ishii. He had come here, after all, on n.o.bunaga'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 n.o.bunaga 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 n.o.bunaga 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 n.o.bunaga 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 n.o.bunaga's att.i.tude, Hideyoshi was able to imagine the regret in n.o.bunaga'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 ident.i.ties 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.