Anjo had flushed, driven almost mad by the sneering malevolence and baiting that had gone on for months and he would have gone for his sword if Sanjiro had not been protected by Imperial mandate. "If tairo Ii hadn't negotiated the Treaties and had them signed, gai-jin would have bombarded their way ashore and by now we would be humbled like China."

"Surmise--nonsense!"

"Have you forgotten Peking's Summer Palace was burned and looted, Sanjiro-dono? Now China is practically dismembered and government out of Chinese control. Have you forgotten the British, the main enemy, were ceded one of their islands, Hong Kong, twenty years ago and now it's an impregnable bastion? Tientsin, Shanghai, Swatow now are permanent, self-contained gai-jin dominated and owned Treaty Ports?

Say they took one of our islands in the same way."

"We would prevent them--we're not Chinese."

"How? So sorry but you're blind and deaf, and your head's in the heavens. A year ago, the moment the latest China war was over, if we'd provoked them they would have sent all those fleets and armies against us and overrun us as well. Only Bakufu cleverness stopped them. We could not have stood against those armadas--or their cannon and guns."

"I agree that it's Shogunate responsibility we're unprepared, Toranaga responsibility. We should have had modern cannon and warships years ago, we have had knowledge of them for years, didn't the Dutch advise us dozens of times about their new inventions, but you put our heads in the night buckets! You failed the Emperor. At most you could have settled for one port, Deshima--why give the American fiend Townsend Harris, Yokohama, Hirodate, Nagasaki, Kanagawa and allow them access to Yedo for their impertinent Legations!

Resign and let others more qualified save the Land of the Gods..."

Remembering the clash made Anjo sweat, that and the knowledge that much of what Sanjiro said was right. He took a paper handkerchief from his voluminous sleeve and wiped the sweat off his brow and shaved pate and looked back at Yoshi, jealous of his bearing and good looks but mostly of his youth and legendary virility.

Not so long ago it was so easy to be satisfied, normal to be potent, he thought in sudden misery, the ever present ache in his loins reminding him. Not so long ago, easy to become erect without effort and be abundantly charged--now no longer possible even with the most desirable person, their most clever skills, or rarest salves and medicines.

"Sanjiro may consider himself beyond reach, but he's not," he said with finality. "Put your mind on it too, Yoshi-dono, our young but oh so wise Councillor, how to remove him, or your own head may be on a spike all too soon."

Yoshi decided not to take offense, and smiled.

"What do the other Elders advise?"

Anjo laughed crookedly. "They will vote as I say."

"If you weren't kinsman, I would suggest you resign or commit seppuku."

"What a pity you are not your illustrious namesake and you could actually order it, eh?"

Anjo got up heavily. "I'll send reply now, to delay. Tomorrow we take a formal vote to humble Sanjiro..." Angrily he spun on guard as the door was jerked open. Yoshi already had his sword half out of its scabbard. "I gave orders..."

The flustered sentry mumbled, "So sorry, Anjo-sama..."

Anjo's fury vanished as a youth brushed the sentry aside and hurried into the room, closely followed by a girl, barely five feet tall, both elaborately dressed and bubbling, four armed samurai in their wake and, after them, a matron and lady-in-waiting. At once Anjo and Yoshi knelt and bowed their heads to the tatami.

The entourage bowed back. The youth, Shogun Nobusada, did not. Nor did the girl, Imperial Princess Yazu, his wife.

Both were the same age, sixteen.

"That quake, it knocked over my favorite vase," the youth said excitedly, pointedly ignoring Yoshi. "My favorite vase!" He waved the door closed. His guards stayed, and his wife's ladies. "I wanted to tell you I've a wonderful idea."

"So sorry about the vase, Sire." Anjo's voice was kind. "You had an idea?"

"We... I've decided we, my wife and I, we, I've decided we'll go to Kyoto to see the Emperor and ask him what to do about the gai-jin and how to throw them out!" The youth beamed at his wife and she nodded in happy agreement.

"We'll go next month--a State Visit!"

Anjo and Yoshi felt their minds explode, both wanting to leap forward and strangle the boy for his lack of brains. But both kept their tempers, both used to his petulant stupidity and tantrums, and for the thousandth time, both cursed the day the marriage of these two had been proposed and consummated. "An interesting idea, Sire,"

Anjo said carefully, watching the girl without watching, noting her concentration centered on him now and that, as usual, though her lips smiled her eyes did not. "I will put the suggestion before the Council of Elders and we will give it our full attention."

"Good," Nobusada said importantly. He was a small, thin young man, just five and a half feet, who always wore thick geta, sandals, to increase his height. His teeth were dyed fashionably black as Court custom in Kyoto decreed, though not here in Shogunate circles. "Three or four weeks should be time to prepare everything." Ingenuously he smiled at his wife. "Did I forget anything, Yazu-chan?"

"No, Sire," she said prettily, "how could you forget anything?" Her face was delicate and made up in classic Kyoto Court style: eyebrows plucked and, in their place, high arching eyebrows painted on the whiteness of her makeup, her teeth dyed black, thick raven hair piled high and held in place with ornate pins.

Purple kimono decorated with sprays of autumn leaves, her obi, the intricate sash, golden. Imperial Princess Yazu, stepsister of the Son of Heaven, Nobusada's bride of six months, sought for him since she was twelve, betrothed at fourteen and married at sixteen. "Of course a decision by you is a decision and not a suggestion."

"Of course, Honored Princess," Yoshi said quickly. "But so sorry, Sire, such important arrangements could not possibly be made in four weeks. May I advise you to consider the implications for such a visit might be misinterpreted."

Nobusada's smile vanished.

"Implication? Advise? What implications?

Misinterpreted by whom? By you?" he said rudely.

"No, Sire, not by me. I just wanted to point out that no Shogun has ever gone to Kyoto to ask the Emperor's advice and such a precedent would be disastrous to your rule."

"Why?" Nobusada said angrily. "I don't understand."

"Because, as you remember, the Shogun has the sole hereditary duty to make decisions for the Emperor, together with his Council of Elders and Shogunate." Yoshi kept his voice gentle.

"This allows the Son of Heaven to spend his time interceding with the gods for all of us, and for the Shogunate to keep mundane and common happenings from disturbing his wa."

Princess Yazu said sweetly, "What Toranaga Yoshi-sama says is true, husband. Unfortunately the gai-jin have already disturbed his wa as we all know, so to ask my brother, the Exalted, for advice would surely be both polite and filial and not interfere with historic rights."

"Yes." The youth puffed up his chest. "It's decided!"

"The Council will at once consider your wishes," Yoshi said.

Nobusada's face contorted and he shouted, "Wishes? It's a decision! Put it to them if you wish, but I have decided! I'm Shogun, you're not! I am! I've decided! I was chosen and they rejected you--all loyal daimyos did.

I'm Shogun, Cousin!"

Everyone was aghast at the outburst. Except the girl. She smiled to herself and kept her eyes downcast and thought: at last my revenge begins.

"True, Sire," Yoshi was saying, voice level though the color was out of his face.