Thirty Choshu samurai were arranged in depth waiting for the next breakout. Smoke billowed from rips in the shojis. Stench of burning flesh was on the air. No movement from inside. An officer motioned to one of the samurai. "Report to the Captain what occurred here and ask him, do we wait or go in?"

The man ran off.

In front, the skirmish ended as all the others had done. The three shishi died bravely.

Twelve more of them dead here, seventeen Choshu Samurai and one of Yoshi's men scattered in heaps. Fourteen wounded, three shishi helpless, disarmed and still alive. The Captain listened to the report. "Tell the officer to wait and kill anyone we flush out." He called out to a group held in reserve. "Empty the huts while there is time. Kill anyone who will not surrender but not the wounded."

At once the men went for the door. Inside there were brief shouts and countershouts and then silence.

One of the men came out again, blood pouring from a vicious cut in his thigh. "Half a dozen wounded, many bodies."

"Bring them out before the roof falls in!"

The bodies, and wounded, were lined up in front of Yoshi and Ogama, the officials nearby.

Torches cast strange shadows.

Twenty-nine dead. Eleven helplessly wounded.

Katsumata was not amongst them.

"Where is he?" Ogama shouted at the chief official, enraged, Yoshi equally angry, no one knowing exactly how many enemy were within when the battle had begun.

The man went to his knees. "Sire, I swear he was there earlier and he never left."

Ogama stomped over to the nearest wounded shishi.

"Where is he?"

The man glared at him through his pain. "Who?"

"Katsumata! Katsumata!"

"Who? I know no... no Katsumata.

Sonno-joi, traitor! Kill me and have done with it."

"Soon enough," Ogama said through his teeth.

Each of the wounded was questioned. Ogama had looked into every face--no Katsumata. Or Takeda.

"Kill them all."

"Let them die honorably, as samurai,"

Yoshi said.

"Of course." They both looked back as the roof of the hut fell in and the walls collapsed in a shower of sparks, carrying the adjoining hovels with it. The drizzle turned to rain again. "Captain!

Put the fire out. There must be a cellar, a hiding place, if this piece of dung is not an incompetent fool." Ogama strode off, in total rage, believing somehow he had been cheated.

Nervously the chief official got off his knees and sidled nearer to Yoshi. "Excuse me, Sire," he whispered, "but the woman's not here either. There must be a h--"

"What woman?"

"She was young. A Satsuma. She has been with them for some weeks. We believe she was Katsumata's companion. I am sorry to say Takeda is not there either."

"Who?"

"A Choshu shishi we have been watching. Perhaps he was Ogama's spy--he was seen sneaking into Ogama's headquarters the day before our other attack on Katsumata failed."

"For certain Katsumata was in there and the other two?"

"Certain, Sire. All three, Sire."

"Then there is a cellar or secret escape route."

They found it in the dawn. A trapdoor over a narrow tunnel, just enough to crawl through that ended well away in a weed-covered garden of an empty shack. Furiously Ogama kicked the camouflaged cover. "Baka!"

"We will put a price on Katsumata's head. A special price," Yoshi said. He was as angry. Obviously the failure had bruised the relationship so agonizingly manipulated and begun. But he was too shrewd to mention Takeda, or about the woman--she had no significance. "Katsumata must still be in Kyoto. The Bakufu will be ordered to find him, capture him or bring us his head."

"My adherents will be ordered the same."

Ogama was a little mollified. He also had been thinking about Takeda, wondering if his escape boded good or bad. He glanced at the Captain who had walked up. "Yes?"

"You wish to view the heads now, sire?"

"Yes. Yoshi-dono?"

"Yes."

The wounded shishi were allowed to die honorably without further pain. They were ritually decapitated, their heads washed and were now in a formal row. Forty. Again that number, Ogama thought uneasily. Is that an omen? Nonetheless he hid his disquiet, recognizing none of them.

"I have seen them," he said formally, the dawn misted with the light rain.

"I have seen them," Yoshi said equally gravely.

"Put the heads on spikes, twenty outside my gates, and twenty outside Lord Yoshi's."

"And the sign, Sire?" the Captain asked.

"Yoshi-dono, what do you suggest?"

After a pause, knowing he was being tried again, Yoshi said, "The two signs could read: These outlaws, ronin, were punished for crimes against the Emperor. Let all beware misdeeds. Is that satisfactory?"

"Yes. And the signature?" Both of them knew this was highly important and difficult to solve. If Ogama signed it alone, that implied he was legally master of the Gates; if Yoshi, that would imply Ogama was subservient to him, legally true but out of the question. A Bakufu seal implied the same. A Court seal would be undue meddling in temporal matters.

"Perhaps we give these fools too much importance," Yoshi said, pretending contempt. His eyes narrowed as, over Ogama's shoulder he saw Basuhiro and some guards come around the far corner of the mean, puddled alley at a run. He looked back at Ogama. "Why not just put their heads on spikes here? Why give them the honor of a sign? Those who we want to know will know soon enough--and be chastened. Neh?"

Ogama was pleased with the diplomatic solution.

"Excellent. I agree. Let us meet at dusk an--" He stopped as he noticed Basuhiro hurrying up to them, sweating and out of breath. He went to meet him.

"Courier from Shimonoseki, Sire,"

Basuhiro panted.

Ogama's face became a mask. He took the scroll and moved nearer to one of the torches.

All eyes were on him as he opened it--Basuhiro politely holding an umbrella over him.

The message was from the Captain commanding the Straits and dated eight days ago, couriered express, day and night, as highest priority: Sire, yesterday the returning enemy fleet consisting of the flagship and seven other warships, all steamers, some towing coaling barges, entered the Straits. Following your instructions that we should not engage enemy warships without your written orders we let them pass. We could have sunk all of them. Our Dutch advisors confirm this.

When the armada had passed, a steamer frigate flying a French flag arrogantly returned and fired broadside after broadside into four emplacements on the east end of the Straits destroying them and their cannon, then steamed away. Again I refrained from retaliating in accordance with your orders. If attacked in future I request permission to sink the attacker.

Death to all gai-jin, Ogama wanted to scream, blind with rage that a whole fleet had been within his grasp, like Katsumata, but had escaped vengeance--like Katsumata. Flecks of foam collected at the corners of his lips.

"Prepare new instructions: Engage and destroy any and all enemy warships."

Basuhiro, still trying to catch his breath, said, "May I suggest, Sire, you consider "if more than four at any one time." You have always wanted to maintain surprise."

Ogama wiped his mouth and nodded, his heart pumping at the thought of so many ships he could have destroyed. The rain had increased and was drumming on the umbrella. Beyond Basuhiro he saw Yoshi and the other officers waiting, watching him, and he weighed whether to treat Yoshi as enemy or ally, the implications of the fleet, the arrogance, and his own impotence swamping him.

"Yoshi-dono!" He beckoned him and, with Basuhiro, moved further into private. "Read it, please."

Yoshi read rapidly. In spite of his control the color left his face. "Is the fleet heading up the inland sea for Osaka? Or will they turn south for Yokohama?"