Fifty men! Uzaemon is dismayed. We need an army of mercenaries.

‘After Kurozane,’ Shuzai shows no undue concern, ‘the road passes a smart-looking inn, the Harubayashi, as in “spring bamboo”. A short distance on, an uphill track turns off the coast road and leads up to the mouth of Mekura Gorge. The trail up the mountain is well maintained, but it took me half the day. The guards at the checkpoint don’t expect intruders, that much was clear – one well-placed sentinel would have seen me coming – but…’ Shuzai wrinkles his mouth to indicate an easy climb. ‘The gatehouse seals a narrow mouth of the gorge, but you’d not need ten years of ninja training to climb up around it, which was what I did. Higher up, patches of snow and ice appeared, and pine and cedar muscled out the lowland trees. The track climbs a couple more hours to a high bridge over the river; a stone marker names the place Todoroki. Not long after, there’s a long, steep corridor of torî gates where I left the path and climbed up through a pine-forest. I came to the lip of an outcrop midway up Bare Peak, and this drawing,’ Shuzai removes a square of paper hidden in a folded book, ‘is based on the sketches I made on the spot.’

Uzaemon surveys Orito’s prison for the first time.

Shuzai empties dead ash from his pipe. ‘The Shrine sits in this triangular hollow between Bare Peak above, and those two lesser ridges. My guess is that a castle from the Age of Warring States once sat on the site claimed by Enomoto’s ancestor in the amulet pedlar’s tale – note these defensive walls and the dry moat. You’d need twenty men and a battering ram to force those gates, too. But don’t be disheartened: any wall is only as strong as the men defending it, and a child with a grappling hook would be over in a minute. Nor is there any chance of getting lost once we’re inside. Now this’ – Shuzai points his bowstring-calloused forefinger – ‘is the House of Sisters.’

Unguardedly, Uzaemon asks, ‘Did you see her?’

Shuzai shakes his head. ‘I was too far away. The remaining daylight I spent searching for ways down from Bare Peak other than the Mekura Gorge, but there are none: this north-east ridge hides a drop of several hundred feet; and to the north-west, the forest is so dense you’d need four hands and a tail to make any headway. At dusk, I headed back down the gorge and reached the Halfway Gate just as the moon rose. I climbed over a bluff to the lower path, reached the mouth of Mekura Gorge, crossed the rice terraces behind Kurozane, and found a fishing-boat to sleep under on the road to Isahaya. It was damp and cold, but I didn’t want witnesses coming to share a fire. I returned to Nagasaki by the following evening, but let three days pass before contacting you to hide the link between my absence and your visit. It is safest to assume that your servant is in Enomoto’s pay.’

‘Yohei has been my servant since the Ogawa family adopted me.’

‘What better spy,’ Shuzai shrugs, ‘than one above suspicion?’

Uzaemon’s cold feels worse by the minute. ‘Do you have solid reason to doubt Yohei?’

‘None at all, but all daimyo retain informers in neighbouring domains; and these informers acquire understandings with major families’ servants. Your father is one of only four Interpreters of the First Rank on Dejima: the Ogawas are not people of no importance. To spirit away a daimyo’s favourite is to enter a dangerous world, Uzaemon. To survive, you must doubt Yohei, doubt your friends and doubt strangers. Knowing all this, the question is: are you still intent on liberating her?’

‘More than ever, but’ – Uzaemon looks at the map – ‘can it be done?’

‘Given careful planning, given money to hire the right men, yes.’

‘How much money and how many men?’

‘Less than you’d suppose, is the good news: the fifty koku the seaweed gatherers talked about sounds daunting, but a fair portion of that fifty is eaten by Enomoto’s entourage. What’s more, that building’ – Shuzai points to the lower right corner – ‘is the refectory, and when it emptied after dinner, I counted just thirty-three heads. The women I discount. The masters will be past their prime, which leaves at most two dozen able-bodied acolytes. In Chinese legends, monks may shatter rocks with their bare hands, but the goslings of Shiranui are hatched from much frailer eggs. There was no archery range in the shrine, no barracks for lay-guards, and no evidence of martial training. Five excellent swordsmen, in my opinion, could rescue Miss Aibagawa. My policy of double-insurance calls for ten swords, in addition to yours and mine.’

‘What if Lord Enomoto and his men appear before we attack?’

‘We postpone our venture, disperse and hide in Saga until he leaves.’

Smoke from the struggling fire tastes of salt and bitterness.

‘You’ll have considered,’ Shuzai raises a delicate point, ‘that to return to Nagasaki with Miss Aibagawa would be… would be…’

‘Tantamount to suicide. Yes, I have considered little else this last week. I shall -’ Uzaemon sneezes and coughs ‘- I shall abandon my life here, accompany her to wherever she wishes to go and help her until she orders me to leave. A day, or my lifetime, whichever she chooses.’

The swordsman frowns, nods, and watches his friend and student.

Out in the street, dogs run past, barking murderously.

‘I worry,’ admits Uzaemon, ‘about you being linked to this raid.’

‘Oh, I assume the worst. I, too, shall move on.’

‘You are sacrificing your life in Nagasaki in order to help me?’

‘I prefer to blame Nagasaki ’s particularly menacing creditors.’

‘Won’t our hired men also be making fugitives of themselves?’

‘Masterless samurai are used to looking after themselves. Make no mistake: the man with most to lose is Ogawa Uzaemon. You are exchanging a career, a stipend, a bright future…’ the older man casts around for a tactful phrase.

‘… for a woman – in all likelihood a broken, pregnant woman.’

Shuzai’s expression replies, yes.

‘Or thanking my adoptive father by disappearing without a word?’

My suffering wife, at least, Uzaemon foresees, can go back to her family.

‘Confucianists would scream “heresy!” ’ Shuzai’s gaze settles on the urn housing his master’s thumb-bone, ‘but there are times when the less loyal son is the better man.’

‘My “commission”,’ Uzaemon struggles to articulate himself, ‘feels less a matter of righting a wrong and more a matter of – of role, of “This is what I am for.” ’

‘Now it is you who sounds like the believer in Fate.’

‘Please make the arrangements for the raid. Whatever the costs, I will pay.’

Shuzai says ‘Yes,’ as if there is no other conclusion.

‘Raise your elbow that high,’ a sharp-voiced senior disciple in the dojo hall tells a junior, ‘and one well-aimed uekiri stroke will pound it to rice powder…’

‘Where,’ Shuzai changes the subject, ‘is Jiritsu’s scroll now?’

Uzaemon resists an urge to touch the scroll-tube in an inner pocket. ‘It is hidden…’ if we are captured, he thinks, better not to know the truth ‘… under the floor of my father’s library.’

‘Good. Keep it there for now,’ Shuzai rolls up his own drawing of the Shiranui Shrine, ‘but bring it when we leave for Kyôga. If all goes well, you and Miss Aibagawa will vanish like two drops of rain, but if Enomoto ever tracks you down, that manuscript could be your sole means of defence. I said earlier that the monks pose little danger; I cannot say the same for the Lord Abbot’s vengeance.’

‘Thank you,’ Uzaemon rises, ‘for your clear-headed advice.’

Jacob de Zoet empties the hot water into a cup and stirs in a spoonful of honey. ‘I had the same cold last week. Sore throat, headache, and I’m still croaking like a frog. During July and August, my body forgot what cold weather felt like – quite a feat for a Zeelander. But now it’s that blistering summer heat I can’t remember.’