Taiko. Part 44

He turned completely around. "Saya, I'm going up Mount Kurihara one more time. You go back before me." With that, he abruptiy turned and went back up the road, piercing the morning mist on the slopes of the mountain, going steadily on. So today, again, he climbed the mountain, and before long he was already halfway up. When he came to the edge of a broad, gra.s.sy swamp that was close to Hanbei's house, he heard a voice addressing him in the distance.

It was Oyu, and with her was Kok.u.ma. She had an herb basket at her elbow and was riding the cow. Kok.u.ma was holding the reins.

"Well, I'm surprised. You're amazing, aren't you, mister? Even my teacher said you'd had enough and probably wouldn't come back today."

Dismounting from the cow's back, Oyu made her salutations as always. But Kok.u.ma beseeched him.

"Mister, please don't go on, just for today. He said he had had a fever in the night because he talked with you for a long time. Even this morning his mood was horrible, and I got scolded."

"Don't be rude," Oyu reprimanded him, and apologized to Hideyos.h.i.+, asking him in a roundabout way not to visit. "It's not that my brother became ill from talking to you, but he seems to have a bit of a cold. He's in bed today, so I'll tell him that you wanted to come. But, please, not today."

"I suppose it would be an annoyance. I'll drop the idea and go back, but..."

He took a brush and an ink case from his kimono, and wrote a poem on a piece of paper.

There is no leisure in a life of indolence.

That should be left to the birds and beasts.

There is seclusion even in a crowd, Tranquillity in the streets of a town.

The mountain clouds are free from worldly attachments, They come and go of themselves.

How can the place to bury one's bones Be limited to the green mountains?

He knew very well that it was a poor poem, but it expressed what he felt. He added one more thing: Where is the destination of the clouds that leave the peaks?

To the west? To the east?

"I'm sure he's going to laugh at me and call me impudent and shameless, but this is the last time I'll bother him. I'll wait here for an answer. And if I see that it will be impossible to complete my lord's order, I'll commit seppuku right here by this swamp. So please go speak to him for me one more time." He was even more earnest today than he had been yesterday. And there was no falseness in his use of the word seppuku. It had slipped out almost unconsciously, from his own zeal.

Rather than despising him, Oyu felt a deep sympathy and returned to her brother's sickbed with the letter. Hanbei read the letter once and said absolutely nothing. He kept his eyes closed for almost half a day. Evening came, and the day turned into a moonlit night.

"Kok.u.ma, fetch the cow," Hanbei said suddenly.

Since he was obviously going to go out, Oyu became alarmed and dressed her brother warmly in padded cotton clothes and a heavy kimono. Then he left, riding on the cow. With Kok.u.ma as his guide, they went down the mountain slope toward the swamp. On a gra.s.sy knoll in the distance, he could see the figure of someone who had had neither food nor drink, sitting cross-legged like a Zen priest under the moon. Had a hunter discovered him from afar, he would have thought that Hideyos.h.i.+ made a perfect target. Hanbei got down from the cow and approached him directly. Then he knelt down in front of Hideyos.h.i.+ and bowed.

"Master guest, I was discourteous today. I'm not sure what promise you've set your heart on, from a person who is nothing more than a worn-out man living in the mountains, but your manners were more than I deserved. It is said that a samurai will die for someone who truly knows him. I don't want you to die in vain, and I will carve this into my heart. And yet, at one time I served the Saito clan. I'm not saying that I will serve n.o.bunaga.1 am going to serve you, and devote this sickly body to your cause. I came here simply to say this. Please forgive my rudeness of the last several days."

There was no fighting for a long time. Both Owari and Mino strengthened their defenses and left the winter to the snow and icy winds. With the unofficial truce, the number of travelers and the packhorse trains between the two provinces increased. The New Year pa.s.sed, and finally the buds of the plum trees became tinted with color. The townspeople of Inabayama thought the world would continue untroubled for another hundred years.

The spring sun struck the white walls of Inabayama Castle and enveloped them in an air of indolence and boredom. On such days, when the townspeople looked up at the castle, they wondered why they had built a fortress on the high mountain peak. They were sensitive to the moods of the castle. When the center of their lives came under stress, they felt it right away; when it was filled with la.s.situde, they, too, became apathetic. No matter how many official notices were posted morning and night, no one ever took hem seriously.

It was midday. White cranes and water birds chattered on the pond. The peach blossoms fell thick and fast. Even though the orchard was enclosed within the castle walls, there were few windless days on the top of lofty Mount Inabayama. Tatsuoki lay in a drunken stupor in a teahouse in the peach orchard.

Saito Kuroemon and Nagai Hayato, two of Tatsuoki's senior retainers, were looking for the lord of Inabayama. Tatsuoki's consorts may not have rivaled "the harem of three thousand beauties" of Chinese legend, but beauty was certainly not lacking here. If the ladies-in-waiting were included, they would have outnumbered the peaches in the orchard. Sitting in groups, they waited, forlorn and bored, for one idle slumberer to awaken.

"Where is His Lords.h.i.+p?" Kuroemon asked.

"His Lords.h.i.+p seems to be tired. He has fallen asleep in the teahouse," the attendant replied.

"You mean he's drunk?" Kuroemon said, and he and Hayato peeked into the tea-house. They spotted Tatsuoki in the middle of a crowd of women, lying stretched out, with a hand drum for a pillow.

"Well, let's come again later," Kuroemon said. The two started to leave.

"Who is it! I can hear men's voices!" Tatsuoki lifted his flushed face, his ears a bright red. "Is that you, Kuroemon? And Hayato? What did you come here for? We're flower-viewing. And you need sake!"

The two seemed to have come for a private conversation, but when he spoke to them in this way, they refrained from informing him about the reports from enemy province.

"Maybe tonight." But night held only another drinking party.

"Perhaps tomorrow." They waited again, but at noon there was an extravagant concert. There was not one day in seven when Tatsuoki looked over the affairs of state. He left that to his chief retainers. Fortunately, many of them were veterans who had served the Saito clan for three generations, and they maintained the power of the clan in the midst of chaos. Leaving Tatsuoki to his own pursuits, the senior retainers never allowed themselves the luxury of sleeping on a fine spring day.

According to the information gathered by Hayato's spies, the Oda clan had learned from the bitter experience of defeat the previous summer, and had realized the futility of trying again. "He's done nothing but lose troops and money in his attacks on Mino, so maybe he's given up completely," Hayato concluded. He gradually came to believe that n.o.bunaga had abandoned his plans of conquest because he had run out of money.

That spring, n.o.bunaga had invited a tea master and a poet to the castle, and was pa.s.sing the days practicing the tea ceremony and holding poetry-writing parties. On the surface, at least, n.o.bunaga was taking advantage of this period of peace to enjoy life, as though he had no other care in the world.

Just after the midsummer Festival of the Dead, messengers carrying urgent dispatches galloped from Mount Komaki to all the districts in Owari. The castle town was stirring. The investigation of travelers crossing the border was becoming stricter. Retainers came and went, and met in frequent late-night conferences in the castle. Horses were being requisitioned. Samurai pressed the armorers for the armor and weapons they had sent for repair.

"What of n.o.bunaga?" Hayato asked his spies.

They answered, though less confidently, "Nothing has changed in the castle. The lamps s.h.i.+ne until the early hours, and the sound of flutes and drums echoes over the waters of the moat."

As summer turned to early fall, the news broke: "n.o.bunaga is heading west with an army of ten thousand men! They've established their base at Sunomata Castle. They're crossing the Kiso River even now!"

Tatsuoki, who normally looked upon the outside world with complete indifference, became hysterical when he was finally forced to take notice. His advisers, too, were dismayed because they had yet to come up with appropriate countermeasures.

"It may be a lie," Tatsuoki repeated to himself. "The Oda clan cannot muster an army of ten thousand men. They haven't been able to put together an army that large for any battle until now."

But when his spies told him that this time the Oda had indeed raised an army of ten thousand men, Tatsuoki was terrified to his very marrow. Now he consulted his chief retainers.

"Well, this attack is a reckless gamble. What are we going to do to repel them?"

At length, just as people call upon the G.o.ds in times of trouble, he sent urgent summonses to the Three Men of Mino, whom he ordinarily regarded as unpleasant old men to be kept at a respectful distance.

"We sent messengers as a matter of course, but not one of them has come yet," his retainers replied.

'Well, order them to come!" Tatsuoki screamed. He himself took up a brush and wrote letters to the Three Men. But even then, not one of them hurried to Inabayama Castle.

"What about the Tiger of Unuma?"

Him? He's been feigning illness and confining himself in his castle for some time. We can't rely on him."

Tatsuoki suddenly recovered his spirits, as though he were laughing at his retainers' foolishness, or had suddenly hit upon some plan of genius. "Did you send a messenger to Mount Kurihara? Call Hanbei! What's the matter? Why don't you do as I command? Don't procrastinate at a time like this! Send a man out right now. Right now!"

"We sent a message a few days ago without waiting for your command, informing Lord Hanbei of the urgency of the situation and urging him to come down from the Mountain, but-"

"He won't come?" Tatsuoki was becoming impatient. "Why is that? Why do you suppose he doesn't come rus.h.i.+ng down at the head of his army? He's supposed to be my loyal retainer."

Tatsuoki seemed to understand the words "loyal retainer" to mean someone who generally spoke in a straightforward manner, offending him with his unpleasant looks, but who, in times of emergency, would be the first one to dash forward no matter how far away he might be. "Let's send a messenger one more time," Tatsuoki insisted.

The chief retainers considered it useless, but sent a fourth messenger to Mount Kurihara. The man returned crestfallen.

"I was finally able to see him, but after he read your order he made no reply. He just shed tears and sighed, saying something about the unhappy rulers of this world," the messenger reported.

Tatsuoki received this news as though he had been made sport of. He turned red with anger and chided his retainers, "You shouldn't depend on sick men!"

The days pa.s.sed busily with such comings and goings. The Oda army had already begun to cross the Kiso River and was beginning to engage the Saito clan's forces in violent fighting. Reports of their army's defeats came to Inabayama hourly.

Tatsuoki could not sleep, and his eyes were glazed. The castle was quickly filled with confusion and melancholy. Tatsuoki had the peach orchard enclosed within a curtain, and there he sat on his camp stool, surrounded by gaudy armor and retainers.

"If our forces are insufficient, keep making more demands on each of our districts. Are there enough troops in the castle town? We won't need to borrow troops from the Asai clan, will we? What do you think?" His voice was shrill and filled with fear, quavering th his own terror and failing spirits. The retainers had to take care that Tatsuoki's state of mind did not influence his own warriors.

By nightfall, fires could be seen from the castle. The advance of the Oda troops continued day and night, from Atsumi and the Kano Plain in the south and extending up the tributaries of the Nagara River toward Goto and Kagamijima in the west. As the Oda advanced, the fires they set became a tide of flame that scorched the sky. By the seventh day of the month, the Oda closed in on Inabayama, the enemy's main castle.

It was the first time n.o.bunaga had been in charge of such a large army. His determination to succeed could be understood from that fact alone. For Owari, this meant the mbilization of the entire province. If they were defeated, both Owari and the Oda would cease to exist.

Once the army had reached Inabayama, its advance halted, and for several days both sides engaged in bitter fighting. The natural stronghold and the Saito's seasoned veterans proved their worth. What was especially damaging to the Oda, however, was the inferiority of their weapons. The wealth of Mino had enabled the Saito clan to buy a considerable number of firearms.

The Saito had a gunners' regiment, which the Oda forces lacked, that fired on the attackers from the mountainside as they approached the castle town. Akechi Mitsuhide, the man who had created the regiment, had long since left Mino and become a ronin. Nevertheless, the young scholar had devoted himself to the study of firearms, and the foundations of the regiment were solid.

In any event, after several days of blistering heat and close fighting, the Oda troops finally began to tire. If the Saito clan had called on Omi or Ise for reinforcements at that moment, ten thousand men would never have seen Owari again.

Most ominous of all were the shapes of Mount Kurihara, Mount Nangu, and Mount Bodai, looming in the distance.

"You really don't have to worry about that direction," Hideyos.h.i.+ rea.s.sured n.o.bunaga.

But n.o.bunaga was anxious. "A siege is not the right strategy, but getting impatient will only injure my own troops. I don't see how we can take the fortress, no matter what we do."

Camp councils were held over and over again, but no one seemed to have a good idea. Finally a plan of Hideyos.h.i.+'s was approved, and one night soon after that he disappeared from the advance guard.

Starting from the crossroads of the Unuma and Hida roads, which was four or five leagues from the end of the mountain range on which Inabayama stood, Hideyos.h.i.+ set off with only nine trusted men. Drenched in sweat, the party scrambled up Mount Zuiryuji, which was far enough from Inabayama that no one would be on watch there. Among the men accompanying Hideyos.h.i.+ were Hikoemon and his younger brother, Matajuro. Acting as their guide was a man who had recently become devoted to Hideyos.h.i.+ and who felt a deep sense of obligation toward him, Osawa Jirozaemon, the Tiger of Unuma.

"Go from the base of that huge crag toward the valley. Cross that little stream yonder and head for the marsh."

Just when they thought they had reached the end of the valley and of the path as well, they saw wisteria vines clinging to a cliff. Rounding a peak, they found a hidden path to the valley that pa.s.sed through a low growth of striped bamboo.

"It's about two leagues along this path to the rear of the castle. If you go that distance following this map of the mountain, you should run into a water sluice that leads inside the castle. Now with your permission, I'll take my leave."

Osawa left the group and turned back alone. He was a man who had a strong sense of loyalty. Although he was devoted to Hideyos.h.i.+ and completely sincere, he had once sworn allegiance to the Saito clan. It must have pained him to lead these men up the secret path that led to the back of the castle of his former lords. Hideyos.h.i.+ had guessed as much and had intentionally told him to turn back before they reached their destination.

Two leagues was no great distance, but there was virtually no path. As they climbed, Hideyos.h.i.+ continually referred to the map, looking for the hidden pathway. The map and the actual terrain of the mountain did not match, however, no matter how long he compared the two.

He could not find the mountain stream that was supposed to be their landmark. They were lost. Meanwhile, the sun started to set, and it turned much cooler. Hideyos.h.i.+ had not given much thought to the possibility of getting lost. His mind was on the troops laying siege to Inabayama Castle. If something went wrong at sunrise the following morning, he would be doing his comrades a great disservice.

"Wait!" one of the men said, so suddenly that they all froze. "I can see a light."

There was no reason for a light to be in the middle of the mountains, especially near a secret path leading to Inabayama Castle. They had probably got quite close to the castle, and this was certain to be an enemy guardhouse.

The men quickly hid. Compared with the ronin, who were extremely agile whether they were scrambling up the mountains or merely walking, Hideyos.h.i.+ felt at a disadvantage.

"Hold onto this," Hikoemon said, extending the shaft of his spear. Hideyos.h.i.+ held on tight, and Hikoemon clambered up the precipice, pulling Hideyos.h.i.+ up behind him. They came out onto a plateau. As the night grew darker, the light they had seen before flickered brightly from a cleft in the mountain to the west of them.

a.s.suming that the light was from a guardhouse, the path certainly would only go in one direction.

"We have no choice," they said, determined to break through.

"Wait." Hideyos.h.i.+ quickly calmed them down. "There are probably only a few men in the guardhouse, not enough to worry us, but we mustn't let them signal Inabayama. If there's a fire beacon, it must be close to the hut, so let's find it and leave two men there first. Then, to stop any guard from getting away to the castle, half of you should go behind the house."

Nodding in a.s.sent, they crawled away like forest animals, crossing a hollow and entering the valley proper. The fragrance of the hemp in the fields was unexpected. And here were plots of millet, leeks, and yams.

Hideyos.h.i.+ c.o.c.ked his head to one side. The hut, surrounded as it was by fields, and of rough construction, did not appear to be a guardhouse. "Don't be hasty. I'm going to take a look."

Hideyos.h.i.+ crawled through the hemp, trying to keep it from rustling. From what he could see inside the hut, it was clearly nothing more than a peasant's house, and terribly run-down at that. He could see two people in the dim light of a lamp. One seemed to be an old woman, sleeping stretched out on a straw mat. The other one looked to be her son, and he was ma.s.saging the old woman's back.

Hideyos.h.i.+ forgot where he was for a moment, and gazed fondly at the scene. The old lady's hair was already white. Her son was quite muscular, although he didn't seem to be more than sixteen or seventeen. Hideyos.h.i.+ was unable to think of this mother and child as strangers. He suddenly felt as though he were seeing his own mother in Nakamura and himself as a boy.

The young man suddenly looked up and said, "Mother, wait just a moment. Something's strange."

"What is it, Mosuke?" The old lady raised herself up a little.

"The crickets have suddenly stopped chirping."

"It's probably some animal trying to get into the storehouse again."

"No." He shook his head strongly. "If it were an animal, it wouldn't come close while the light was still s.h.i.+ning." The young man slid out toward the porch, ready to go outside, and picked up a sword. "Who's out there, sneaking around!" he called.

Hideyos.h.i.+ suddenly stood up in the hemp patch.

Starded, the young man stared at Hideyos.h.i.+. At length he murmured, "What's goin on? I thought someone was out there. Are you a samurai from Kas.h.i.+hara?"

Hideyos.h.i.+ did not answer, but turned around and signaled the men hiding behind him with a wave of his hand. "Surround the hut! If anyone runs out of it, cut them down!" The warriors jumped up from the hemp patch and surrounded the hut in an instant.

"Surrounding my house with all this show," Mosuke said, almost as a challenge to Hideyos.h.i.+, who had now walked up to the house. "My mother and I are the only two people here. There's nothing here worth surrounding with so many people. What's your business here anyway, samurai?"

His att.i.tude, as he stood on the porch, was anything but confused. On the contrary, it was almost too calm. He was obviously looking down on them with contempt.

Hideyos.h.i.+ sat down on the edge of the porch and said, "No, young man, we're just being careful. We didn't mean to frighten you."

"I'm not frightened at all, but my mother was startled. If you're going to apologize you should apologize to my mother." He spoke fearlessly. This boy did not appear to be a simple peasant. Hideyos.h.i.+ looked around inside the hut.

"Come, come now, Mosuke. Why are you being so rude to a samurai?" the old woman said. Then she turned and spoke to Hideyos.h.i.+. "Well, I don't know who you are but my son never mixes with worldly society and is just a willful country boy who doesn't know his manners. Please forgive him, sir."

"Are you this young man's mother?"

"Yes, sir."

"You say he's just a country boy who doesn't know his manners, but judging from your speech and his countenance, I find it hard to believe that you're ordinary farmers."