There was no fighting for a long time. Both Owari and Mino strengthened their defenses and left the winter to the snow and icy winds. With the unofficial truce, the number of travelers and the packhorse trains between the two provinces increased. The New Year passed, and finally the buds of the plum trees became tinted with color. The townspeople of Inabayama thought the world would continue untroubled for another hundred years.
The spring sun struck the white walls of Inabayama Castle and enveloped them in an air of indolence and boredom. On such days, when the townspeople looked up at the castle, they wondered why they had built a fortress on the high mountain peak. They were sensitive to the moods of the castle. When the center of their lives came under stress, they felt it right away; when it was filled with lassitude, they, too, became apathetic. No matter how many official notices were posted morning and night, no one ever took hem seriously.
It was midday. White cranes and water birds chattered on the pond. The peach blossoms fell thick and fast. Even though the orchard was enclosed within the castle walls, there were few windless days on the top of lofty Mount Inabayama. Tatsuoki lay in a drunken stupor in a teahouse in the peach orchard.
Saito Kuroemon and Nagai Hayato, two of Tatsuoki's senior retainers, were looking for the lord of Inabayama. Tatsuoki's consorts may not have rivaled "the harem of three thousand beauties" of Chinese legend, but beauty was certainly not lacking here. If the ladies-in-waiting were included, they would have outnumbered the peaches in the orchard. Sitting in groups, they waited, forlorn and bored, for one idle slumberer to awaken.
"Where is His Lordship?" Kuroemon asked.
"His Lordship seems to be tired. He has fallen asleep in the teahouse," the attendant replied.
"You mean he's drunk?" Kuroemon said, and he and Hayato peeked into the tea-house. They spotted Tatsuoki in the middle of a crowd of women, lying stretched out, with a hand drum for a pillow.
"Well, let's come again later," Kuroemon said. The two started to leave.
"Who is it! I can hear men's voices!" Tatsuoki lifted his flushed face, his ears a bright red. "Is that you, Kuroemon? And Hayato? What did you come here for? We're flower-viewing. And you need sake!"
The two seemed to have come for a private conversation, but when he spoke to them in this way, they refrained from informing him about the reports from enemy province.
"Maybe tonight." But night held only another drinking party.
"Perhaps tomorrow." They waited again, but at noon there was an extravagant concert. There was not one day in seven when Tatsuoki looked over the affairs of state. He left that to his chief retainers. Fortunately, many of them were veterans who had served the Saito clan for three generations, and they maintained the power of the clan in the midst of chaos. Leaving Tatsuoki to his own pursuits, the senior retainers never allowed themselves the luxury of sleeping on a fine spring day.
According to the information gathered by Hayato's spies, the Oda clan had learned from the bitter experience of defeat the previous summer, and had realized the futility of trying again. "He's done nothing but lose troops and money in his attacks on Mino, so maybe he's given up completely," Hayato concluded. He gradually came to believe that Nobunaga had abandoned his plans of conquest because he had run out of money.
That spring, Nobunaga had invited a tea master and a poet to the castle, and was passing the days practicing the tea ceremony and holding poetry-writing parties. On the surface, at least, Nobunaga was taking advantage of this period of peace to enjoy life, as though he had no other care in the world.
Just after the midsummer Festival of the Dead, messengers carrying urgent dispatches galloped from Mount Komaki to all the districts in Owari. The castle town was stirring. The investigation of travelers crossing the border was becoming stricter. Retainers came and went, and met in frequent late-night conferences in the castle. Horses were being requisitioned. Samurai pressed the armorers for the armor and weapons they had sent for repair.
"What of Nobunaga?" Hayato asked his spies.
They answered, though less confidently, "Nothing has changed in the castle. The lamps shine until the early hours, and the sound of flutes and drums echoes over the waters of the moat."
As summer turned to early fall, the news broke: "Nobunaga is heading west with an army of ten thousand men! They've established their base at Sunomata Castle. They're crossing the Kiso River even now!"
Tatsuoki, who normally looked upon the outside world with complete indifference, became hysterical when he was finally forced to take notice. His advisers, too, were dismayed because they had yet to come up with appropriate countermeasures.
"It may be a lie," Tatsuoki repeated to himself. "The Oda clan cannot muster an army of ten thousand men. They haven't been able to put together an army that large for any battle until now."
But when his spies told him that this time the Oda had indeed raised an army of ten thousand men, Tatsuoki was terrified to his very marrow. Now he consulted his chief retainers.
"Well, this attack is a reckless gamble. What are we going to do to repel them?"
At length, just as people call upon the gods in times of trouble, he sent urgent summonses to the Three Men of Mino, whom he ordinarily regarded as unpleasant old men to be kept at a respectful distance.
"We sent messengers as a matter of course, but not one of them has come yet," his retainers replied.
'Well, order them to come!" Tatsuoki screamed. He himself took up a brush and wrote letters to the Three Men. But even then, not one of them hurried to Inabayama Castle.
"What about the Tiger of Unuma?"
Him? He's been feigning illness and confining himself in his castle for some time. We can't rely on him."
Tatsuoki suddenly recovered his spirits, as though he were laughing at his retainers' foolishness, or had suddenly hit upon some plan of genius. "Did you send a messenger to Mount Kurihara? Call Hanbei! What's the matter? Why don't you do as I command? Don't procrastinate at a time like this! Send a man out right now. Right now!"
"We sent a message a few days ago without waiting for your command, informing Lord Hanbei of the urgency of the situation and urging him to come down from the Mountain, but—"
"He won't come?" Tatsuoki was becoming impatient. "Why is that? Why do you suppose he doesn't come rushing down at the head of his army? He's supposed to be my loyal retainer."
Tatsuoki seemed to understand the words "loyal retainer" to mean someone who generally spoke in a straightforward manner, offending him with his unpleasant looks, but who, in times of emergency, would be the first one to dash forward no matter how far away he might be. "Let's send a messenger one more time," Tatsuoki insisted.
The chief retainers considered it useless, but sent a fourth messenger to Mount Kurihara. The man returned crestfallen.
"I was finally able to see him, but after he read your order he made no reply. He just shed tears and sighed, saying something about the unhappy rulers of this world," the messenger reported.
Tatsuoki received this news as though he had been made sport of. He turned red with anger and chided his retainers, "You shouldn't depend on sick men!"
The days passed busily with such comings and goings. The Oda army had already begun to cross the Kiso River and was beginning to engage the Saito clan's forces in violent fighting. Reports of their army's defeats came to Inabayama hourly.
Tatsuoki could not sleep, and his eyes were glazed. The castle was quickly filled with confusion and melancholy. Tatsuoki had the peach orchard enclosed within a curtain, and there he sat on his camp stool, surrounded by gaudy armor and retainers.