Silence. Somewhere a sleeper stirred noisily, then returned to sleep. Still no alarms or warning shouts. Gradually the raiders wrenched themselves from the brink, numbed and sweat-stained. Hiraga signalled the retreat.

At once they obeyed except for Joun who ran back into the room to recover Hiraga's sword. He straddled the bodies but with all his strength he could not pull the sword out or ease it out. Hiraga waved him away, tried himself and failed. On a low lacquered sword stand were the weapons of the dead men. He picked one up. At the door he looked back.

In the clean, steady light of the oil lamp the two bodies seemed like a single monstrous, multilegged human-headed dragonfly, the crumpled quilts its gorgeous wings, his sword a giant silver pin. Now he could see the face of the youth--it was quite beautiful.

Yoshi was strolling on the battlements, Koiko beside him, easily a head taller than her. A chill was on the small wind and smell of the sea at low tide. He did not notice it.

Again his eyes flicked from the city below to the moon and he watched it, brooding. Koiko waited patiently. Her kimono was the finest Shan-tung with a scarlet under-kimono and her hair, loosed informally, fell to her waist. His kimono was ordinary, silk but ordinary and swords ordinary, ordinary but sharp.

"What are you thinking about, Sire?" she asked, judging it time to dispel his gloom. Though they were quite alone she kept her voice down, well aware that nowhere within the castle walls was really secure.

"Kyoto," he said simply. As quietly.

"Will you accompany Shogun Nobusada?"

He shook his head though he had already decided to go to Kyoto before the formal party--the deception habitual.

Somehow I must stop that young fool and become the sole channel between Emperor and Shogunate, he had been thinking, his mind assaulted with the difficulties surrounding him: the madness of this state visit, Anjo whose hold over the Council had forced approval, Anjo with his hatred and plotting, the trap I'm in here in the castle, the multitude of enemies throughout the land, the chief of them Sanjiro of Satsuma, Hiro of Tosa and Ogama of Choshu who now holds the Gates that are our birthright. And added to all of those and waiting to pounce like salivating wolves are the gai-jin.

They have to be dealt with, permanently. The boy Nobusada and the Princess have to be neutralized, permanently.

The permanent solution for the gai-jin is clear: in any way we can devise, whatever the sacrifice, we must become richer than them, and better armed. This must be secret national policy, now and forever. How to achieve this? I do not know yet. But as policy we must flatter them to sleep, keep them off balance, using their foolish attitudes against them--and employ our superior abilities to cocoon them.

Nobusada? Equally clear. But he's not the real threat. It's her. I don't have to worry about him but her, Princess Yazu, she's the real power behind him, and in front.

The sudden, mental picture of her with a penis and Nobusada the receiver made him smile. It would make a wonderful shunga, he thought, amused. Shunga were erotic, many-colored woodcuts so popular and prized amongst Yedo's traders and shopkeepers that had been proscribed by the Shogunate for a century or more as too licentious for them, the lowest class, and too easy to be used as lampoons against their betters.

In Nippon's immutable hierarchy, instituted by the tairo, Dictator Nakamura, then made permanent by Shogun Toranaga, first were samurai, second farmers, third artisans of every kind, and last, despised by all, merchants: "leeches on all other labor," the Legacy called them. Despised because all others needed their skills and wealth--most of all their wealth. Particularly samurai.

So rules, certain rules, could be eased.

Thus in Yedo, Osaka and Nagasaki where the really rich merchants lived, shunga, though officially outlawed, were painted, carved and merrily produced by the best artists and printmakers in the land. In every epoch, artists vied with each other for fame and fortune, selling them by the thousands.

Exotic, explicit but always with gargantuan genitalia, hilariously out of all proportion, the best in perfect, moist, and mobile detail.

Equally prized, were ukiyo-every portraits of leading actors, the constant meat of gossip, scandal, and license--actresses were not permitted by law, so specially trained men, onnagata, played female roles--and, above all, prints of the most famous courtesans. "I would like someone to paint you. It's a pity Hiroshige and Hokusai are dead."

She laughed. "How should I pose, Sire?"

"Not in bed," he said, laughing with her, unusual for him to laugh, and she was pleased with the victory. "Just walking along a street, with a sunshade, green and pink, and wearing your pink and green kimono with the carp of woven gold."

"Perhaps, Sire, instead of a street, perhaps in a garden at dusk catching fireflies?"

"Ah, much better!" He smiled, remembering the rare days of his youth on summer evenings when he was released from studies. Then he and his brothers and sisters and friends would go out into the fields and hunt fireflies with gossamer nets and put the tiny insects into tiny cages and watch the light miraculously pulse on and off, composing poems, laughing and larking with no responsibilities, and young. "Like I feel with you now," he muttered.

"Sire?"

"You take me out of myself, Koiko. Everything about you."

For answer she touched his arm, saying nothing and everything, pleased with the compliment, all her mind concentrated on him, wanting to read his thoughts and needs, wanting to be perfect for him.

But this game's tiring, she thought again. This patron is too complex, too farsighted, too unpredictable, too solemn and too difficult to entertain. I wonder how long he will keep me.

I begin to hate the castle, hate confinement, hate the constant testing, hate being away from home and the ribald laughter and chatter of the other ladies, Moonbeam, Springtime, Petal and most of all my darling mama-san, Meikin.

Yes, but I glory being in the center of the world, adore the one koku a day every day, exult that I am who I am, handmaiden to the most noble lord who is really just another man and, like all men, a fractious little boy pretending to be complicated and who can be controlled by sweets and spanking as always, and who, if you are clever, decides to do only what you have already decided he may do--whatever he believes.

Her laughter trilled.

"What?"

"You make me joyous, filled with life, Sire. I shall have to call you Lord Giver of Happiness!"

Warmth pervaded him. "And so to bed?"

"And so to bed."

Arm in arm, they began to leave the moonlight.

"Look there," he said suddenly.

Far below one of the palace mansions had caught fire. Flames began gushing upwards, then more and clouds of smoke. Now, faintly, they could hear fire bells and see ants of people milling around, and soon lines of other ants forming to join the fire to the water tanks: Fire is our greatest hazard, not woman, Shogun Toranaga had written in his Legacy with rare humor. Against fire we can be prepared, never against woman.

All men and all women of marriageable age will be married. All habitations will have tanks of water within easy reach.

"They will never put it out, will they, Sire?"

"No. I suppose some fool has knocked over a lamp or candle," Yoshi said, his lips tight.

"Yes, you are right, Sire, the clumsy fool," she said at once, gentling him, sensing an unexpected anger in him--and not knowing why.

"I am so glad you are in charge of fire precautions in the castle so we can sleep safely. Whoever did it should be talked to severely. I wonder whose palace it is."

"It's the Tajima residence."