Sire, we considered it is better to have her exclusivity, than a first option on her services, and also safer as you are surrounded by enemies. At your whim the contract is renewable monthly, payment monthly in arrears to ensure that her services are maintained to the very high standard you should expect.

Your Consort and I are pleased that you have decided to have a toy, we were and are continually most concerned for your health and safety. May I compliment you on your choice, it is rumored that Koiko is rare indeed.

Your sons are well and happy, and your daughter and myself. We send our everlasting loyalty and long for your presence. Please keep me closely advised as I must direct our Paymaster to set aside funds ...

Correctly his wife had not mentioned the amount, nor would it concern him for that was a prime wifely function: to manage and guard the family wealth and pay all bills.

Koiko looked up. "Your poem is flawless, Yoshi-chan," she said and clapped her hands, the "chan" an intimate diminutive.

"You're flawless," he said hiding his pleasure at her judgment. Apart from her unique physical attributes, she was renown in Yedo for the quality of her calligraphy, the beauty of her poems, and shrewdness in art and politics.

"I adore the way you write, and the poem, it is superb. I adore the complexity of your mind, particularly why you chose "when" and not perhaps "now," and "twists" when a lesser man could use "moves" or the more blatant "stirs" which would give it sexual overtones. But the placement of your final word, the final "uneasily"--ah Yoshi-chan, how clever to use that word last, an underneath word, perfect.

Your creation is superb and can be read a dozen ways."

"And what do you think I'm saying?"

Her eyes lit. "First tell me if you intend to keep it--to keep it openly, secretly or to destroy it."

"What is my intention?" he asked, enjoying her.

"If you keep it openly, or pretend to hide it, or pretend it's secret, you plan it to be read by others who, one way or another, will inform your enemies, as you want."

"And what will they think?"

"All but the cleverest will presume that your resolve is weakening, your fears are beginning to overrun you."

"And the others?"

Koiko's eyes lost none of their amusement but he saw them pick up an added glint. "Of your chief adversaries," she said delicately, "Shogun Nobusada would interpret it that in your inner mind you agree with him that you are not strong enough to be a real threat, and he'll happily postulate it will become easier and easier to eliminate you the longer he waits. Anjo would be consumed with envy at your prowess as a poet and calligrapher and would sneer at the "uneasily," believing it to be unworthy and ill chosen, but the poem would obsess him, worrying him, particularly if it was reported as a secret document, until he would have eighty-eight inner meanings all of which would increase his implacable opposition to you."

Her openness dazzled him. "And if I kept it, secretly?"

She laughed. "If you wanted to keep it secret, then you would have burnt it at once and never shown it to me. Sad to destroy such beauty, so sad, Yoshi-chan, but necessary to a man in your position."

"Why? It's just a poem."

"I believe this one is special. It is too good. Such art comes from deep wells within. It reveals. Revelation is the purpose of poetry."

"Go on."

Her eyes seemed to change color as she wondered how far she dared go, always testing intellectual limits--to entertain and excite her patron, if that was his interest. He noticed the change but did not discern the reason.

"For example," she said easily, "to the wrong eyes it could be construed that your innermost thought was really saying: "The power of my ancestor namesake, Shogun Toranaga Yoshi, is within my grasp, begs to be used."

He watched her and she could not read his eyes.

Eeee, he was thinking, all his senses shrieking danger. Am I so apparent? Perhaps this lady is too perceptive to keep alive. "And the Princess Yazu? What would she think?"

"She's the cleverest of all, Yoshi-chan. But then you know that. She would realize the meaning instantly--if you have a special meaning." Again her eyes could not be read.

"And if as a present to you?"

"Then this unworthy person would be filled with joy to be given such a treasure--but in a quandary, Yoshi-chan."

"Quandary?"

"It is too special, to give or to receive."

Yoshi took his eyes off her and looked at his work, very carefully. It was everything he desired, he could never duplicate it. Then he considered her, with equal finality. He watched his fingers pick up the paper and hand it to her, closing the trap.

Reverently she received the paper with both hands and bowed low. Intently she scrutinized it, wanting the whole of it to be put indelibly in her memory as the ink on the paper. A deep sigh.

Carefully she held the corner near the oil flame. "With your permission, Yoshi-sama, please?" she said formally, looking at him, eyes steady, hand steady.

"Why?" he asked, astonished.

"Too dangerous for you to leave such thoughts alive."

"And if I refuse?"

"Then, please excuse me, I must decide for you."

"Then decide."

At once she lowered the paper into the flame.

It caught and flared up. Deftly she twisted it until only a tiny scrap was still burning, the ash still in one piece, carefully balanced it on another sheet until the flame died. Her fingers were long and delicate, fingernails perfection. In silence they folded the paper containing the ashes into an ogami and put it back on the table. The paper now resembled a carp.

When Koiko looked up again her eyes were filled with tears and his affection went out to her. "So sorry, please excuse me," she said, her voice breaking, "But too dangerous for you... so sad to have to destroy such beauty, I wanted so very much to keep it. So very sad but too dangerous ..."

Tenderly, he took her in his arms, knowing that what she had done was the only solution, for him, and for her, awed by her insight in discerning his original intent: that he had planned to hide it, designed to be found and passed on to all those she named, particularly the Princess Yazu.

Koiko's right, I can see that now. Yazu would have seen through my ploy and read my real thoughts: that her influence over Nobusada must vanish, or I am a dead man. Isn't that just another way of saying, "Power of my ancestor..." But for her I might have put my head on their spike!

"Don't cry, little one," he murmured, sure now that she could be trusted.

And while she allowed herself to be gentled and then warmed and then to warm him she was thinking within her third heart, her most secret heart--the first for all the world to see, the second only opened to innermost family, the third never never never revealed to anyone--in this secret place she was sighing silently with relief that she had passed another test, for test it surely was.

Too dangerous for him to keep such treason alive, but much more dangerous for me to have it in my possession. Oh yes, my beautiful patron, it is easy to adore you, to laugh and play games with you, to pretend ecstasy when you enter me--and godlike to remember that at the end of each day, every day I have earned one koku. Think of that, Koiko-chan! One koku a day, for every day, for being part of the most exciting game on earth, with the most exalted name on earth, with a young, handsome astonishing man of great culture whose stalk is the best I have ever experienced... and yet at the same time to earn more wealth than any, ever before.

Her hands and lips and body were responding adroitly, closing, opening, opening further, receiving him, guiding him, helping him, an exquisitely fine-tuned instrument for him to play upon, allowing herself to brink, pretending ecstasy perfectly, pretending to plunge again and again but never plunging--too important to retain her energies and wits, for he was a man of many appetites--enjoying the contest, never hurrying but always pressing forward, now teetering him on the crevasse, letting him go and pulling him back, letting him go, pulling back, letting go in a seizure of relief.