Tonight's a rare opportunity." He smiled.

"When Anjo and the Elders cancelled sankin-kotai, they dug the Shogunate's grave."

"We fire the palace, Cousin?"' Akimoto asked happily.

"After the kill."

"And he is?"' "He's old, grey hair and little of it, thin and small, Utani, the roju Elder."

They all gasped. "Daimyo of Watasa?"' "Yes. Unfortunately I've never seen him. Anyone?"' "I think I'd recognize him," the eighteen-year-old youth said, a bad scar running down the side of his face. "He's scrawny, like a diseased chicken. I saw him once in Kyoto. So tonight we send an Elder onwards, eh, a daimyo, eh? Good!" He grinned and scratched at the scar, a legacy from the unsuccessful Choshu attempt to seize the Palace Gates in Kyoto last spring.

"Utani won't be running anywhere after tonight.

He's mad to sleep outside the walls and let it be known! And without guards? Stupid!"

Joun, a seventeen-year-old, always the cautious one, said, "Excuse me, Hiraga-san, but are you sure this isn't a trap baited with false information? Yoshi is called the Fox, Anjo worse. We've heavy prices on our heads, eh? I agree with my brother, how could Utani be so stupid?"' "Because he has a secret assignation. He's a pederast."

They stared at him blankly. "Why should he want to keep that secret?"' "The youth is one of Anjo's intimates."

"So ka!" Joun's eyes glittered.

"Then I think I would keep that secret too.

But why should a pretty boy give himself to someone like Utani when he already has a powerful patron?"' Hiraga shrugged. "Pay, what else?

Nori's a miser, Utani lavish--aren't his peasants the most taxed in all Nippon?

Aren't his debts to the sky? Isn't he known for consuming gold oban like grains of rice? Soon, one way or another, Anjo will leave this earth.

Perhaps this pretty boy thinks Utani will survive and the risk is worth it--Utani has influence at Court, eh? Koku! Why not, his family's probably destitute and drowning in debt--aren't almost all samurai, below hirazamurai rank, at poverty level?"' "True," they all agreed.

"That's been true since the fourth Shogun," the eighteen-year-old said bitterly, "almost two hundred years. Daimyos take all the taxes, sell samurai status to stinking merchants, more and more every year, and still they cut our pay. Daimyos have betrayed us, their loyal retainers!"

"You're right," Akimoto said angrily.

"My father has to hire himself out as a farm laborer to feed the rest of my brothers and sisters ..."

"Ours has only his swords left, no house, just a hut," Joun said. "We're so deep in debt from great-grandfather's time we can never repay the loans. Never."

"I know how to settle those filthy money worshippers, cancel their debts or kill them," another said. "If daimyos sometimes pay off their debts like that, why not us?"' "A fine idea," Akimoto agreed, "but it would cost you your head. Lord Ogama would make an example of you, in case his own lenders stopped advancing money against--what is it now, against four years taxes ahead."

Another said, "My family stipend hasn't changed since Sekigahara, and the cost of rice up a hundred times since then. We should become merchants or sak`e brewers. Two uncles and Elder Brother have given up their swords and done that."

"Terrible, yes, but I've thought of it too."

"Daimyos betrayed all of us."

"Most have," Hiraga said. "Not all."

"True," Akimoto said. "Never mind, we'll choose our own daimyo when we've expelled the barbarians and broken the Toranaga Shogunate. The new Shogun will give us enough to eat, us and our families, and better weapons, even some of the gai-jin rifles."

"He'll keep them for his own men, whoever he is."

"Why should he, Hiraga? There'll be enough for everyone. Don't the Toranagas hoard five to ten million koku yearly? That's more than enough to arm us properly. Listen, if we're split up in the dark, where do we regroup?"' "The House of Green Willows, south of Fourth Bridge, not here. If that's too difficult, hide somewhere and make your way back to Kanagawa..."

Now on the veranda, listening carefully for danger, enjoying the sensation, Hiraga smiled, his heart beating well, feeling the joy of life and approaching death, every day nearer. In a few moments we move again. Action at long last...

For days he had been in the temple beside the English Legation, waiting impatiently for an opportunity to fire it but always too many enemy troops, foreign and samurai. Each day acting the gardener, spying, listening, planning--so easy to kill the tall barbarian there who escaped the Tokaido attack. Astonishing that only one barbarian was killed out of the easy target of three men and a woman.

Ah, Tokaido! Tokaido means Ori and Ori means Shorin, and they mean Sumomo who is seventeen next month and I will not consider my father's letter. I will not! I will not accept Ogama's pardon if I have to recant sonno-joi. I will follow its lodestone to whatever death it steers.

Just me alive now. Ori is dead or will die tomorrow. Shorin gone. And Sumomo?

Last night tears had wet his cheeks, tears from the dream that she was in, her bushido and fire and perfume and body and beckoning and lost to him forever.

Impossible to sleep so sitting in the Lotus seat, the Buddha position, using Zen to fly his mind to peace.

Then this morning, a gift of the gods, the furtive, coded message from Koiko's mama-san about Utani who had heard it, equally secretly, from Koiko's maid. Eeee, he thought gleefully, I wonder what Yoshi would do if he knew our tentacles reached out even to his bed, even around his balls?

Confident now they were still undetected, he jumped up and went to the door, used his knife, sliding the bar back. Inside quickly. Akimoto stayed on guard in the sentry's uniform. The others followed Hiraga noiselessly up the stairs towards the women's quarters, the route already given to him. Everything was lavish, best woods, finest tatamis, purest oiled paper for shoji and most fragrant oils for lamps and candles. Turning a corner. The unsuspecting guard stared at him blankly. His mouth opened but no sound came out. Hiraga's knife had stopped it.

He stepped over the body, went to the end of this corridor, hesitated a moment to get his bearings. Now a cul-de-sac. Either side were walls of sliding shoji, rooms behind them. At the end just one, bigger and more ornate than all the others. An oil lamp burned within, also in some of the other rooms. A few snores and heavy breathing. Silently he motioned for Todo and Joun to follow and the others to guard, then went forward again like a night-hunting beast. The sound of heavy breathing increased.

A nod to Joun. At once the youth slipped past him, crouched at the far door then, at another sign from Hiraga, slid the shoji open.

Hiraga leapt into the room, then Todo.

Two men were prone on the exquisite silk quilts and futons, naked and joined, the youth spread, the older over him, clutching him and thrusting, panting and oblivious. Hiraga stood over them, reared his sword on high and with two hands gripping the hilt drove the point through the back of both bodies just above the heart, burying it into the tatami floor, impaling them.

The old man gasped and died instantly, his limbs quivering beyond death. The youth clawed impotently, unable to turn, unable to move his trunk, only his arms and legs and head but, even so, he still could not twist enough to see what had happened nor could he understand what had happened, only that his life was somehow seeping away as all his body opened. A howl of terror gathered in his throat as Todo leapt forward and twined the garrote to choke it back--just too late. Part of the cry hung in the now fetid air.

Instantly he with Hiraga whirled for the door, all senses frenzied. Hiraga with knife poised. Todo, Joun and those in the corridor swords raised, hearts pounding, all ready to charge, flee, fight, rush, die, but battle and die proudly. Behind Hiraga the delicate hands of the youth tore at his neck, his long, perfect and painted nails gouging the flesh around the wire. The fingers shuddered and stopped and fluttered and stopped and fluttered. And were still.