"That's exactly why I was looking around for you. It's what His Lordship desires as well."

"What! Lord Nagamasa wants me to come?"

"He says that if he's entrusting his wife and children to the Oda clan, you must look after them from now on. Especially his young children."

"He shouldn't worry! And I'd like to tell him that in person. Would you take me to him?"

Hideyoshi followed Mikawa into a large banqueting hall. Every eye in the room turned toward him. The smell of sake filled the air. Naturally, everyone was in full armor, and every man there had resolved to die. They were going to die together; like blossoms taking in the wind, they were ready to fall all at once. But now, as they were having the best time they could, suddenly here was the enemy! Most of them glared at Hideyoshi with bloodshot eyes—eyes that would make most men cower.

"Excuse me," Hideyoshi said to no one in particular. He entered, walking with small steps, and advanced right up to Nagamasa, in front of whom he prostrated himself.

"I have come, grateful that you've commanded that a cup should be extended even to me. Concerning the future of your son and three daughters, I will protect them even at the cost of my own life," Hideyoshi said in one breath. Had he paused or appeared to be in the least bit afraid, the samurai around him might have been driven to some unfortu­nate action through their inebriation and hatred.

"That is my request, General Hideyoshi." Nagamasa took a cup and passed it directly to him.

Hideyoshi took the cup and drank.

Nagamasa seemed satisfied. Hideyoshi had not dared to mention the name of Oichi or Nobunaga. Nagamasa's beautiful young wife was sitting with her children off to the side, hidden by a silver folding screen. They huddled together like irises blooming at the edge of a pond. Hideyoshi looked at the flickering of the silver lantern from the corner of his eye, but did not look at them directly. He returned the cup respectfully to Nagamasa.

"For the time being, we should forget that we are enemies," Hideyoshi said. "Having accepted this sake at your assembly, with your permission, I would like to perform a short dance."

"You want to dance?" Nagamasa said, expressing the surprise of all the men present. They were a little overawed by this little man.

Oichi drew her children to her knee, just as a mother hen might protect her chicks. "Don't be frightened. Mother is here," she whispered.

Having received Nagamasa's permission to dance, Hideyoshi got up and walked to the middle of the room. He was just about to begin when Manju cried out, "It's him!"

Manju and Chacha held fast to their mother's lap. They were looking at the man who earlier had been so frightening. Hideyoshi began to beat the time with his foot. At the same time, he slapped open a fan that showed a red circle on a golden field.

Having so much leisure,

I gaze at the gourd at the gate.

Now and then, a gentle breeze

Unexpectedly there, by chance here;

Unexpectedly, by chance,

The gourd vine, how amusing.

He sang in a loud voice, and danced as though he had not one other thing in his mind. But before his dance had ended, gunfire rang out from one section of the castle wall. Then came the sound of return fire from a shorter distance. It seemed that the forces both inside and outside the castle had started to fire on each other at the same moment.

"Damn it!" Hideyoshi swore, throwing down his fan. It was not yet the Hour of the Boar. The men outside the castle had known nothing about that, however. Hideyoshi had given no second signal. Thinking that they would not make an attack, he had felt more or less secure. But now it seemed that the generals at headquarters had lost patience and decided to press Nobunaga to take immediate action.

Damn it! Hideyoshi's fan fell at the feet of the castle's commanding generals, who had all stood up together, and this brought their attention quite clearly to Hideyoshi, whom until now they had not thought of as an enemy.

"An attack!" shouted one man.

"The coward! He lied to us!"

The crowd of samurai split into two. The larger group dashed outside while the rest of the men surrounded Hideyoshi, ready to hack him to pieces with their swords.

"Who ordered this? Don't strike him! That man is not to be killed!" Nagamasa suddenly yelled at the top of his voice.

His men shouted back as though they were challenging him, "But the enemy has started a general attack!"

Nagamasa ignored their complaints and called, "Ogawa Denshiro, Nakajima Sakon!"

The two men were his children's tutors. When they came forward and prostrated themselves, Nagamasa also called for Fujikake Mikawa. "The three of you are to protect my wife and children and guide Hideyoshi out of the castle. Go now!" he commanded.

Then he looked sternly at Hideyoshi and, calming himself as much as possible, said, “All right, I'm entrusting them to you."

His wife and children threw themselves at his feet, but he shook them off and shouted, "Farewell." With that one word, Nagamasa grasped a halberd and ran off into the howling darkness.

One side of the castle was engulfed in mounting pillars of flame. Nagamasa instinctively shielded his face with one hand as he ran. Splinters of burning wood, like wings of flame, grazed his face. A thick black smoke was winding its way over the ground. The first and second Oda samurai to breach the castle walls had already called out their names.  The flames had reached the mansion in the keep and were running up the gutters faster than the rain had ever gone down them. Nagamasa spied a corps of iron-helmeted men concealed in that area and suddenly lunged to the side.

"The enemy!"

His close retainers and family members stood around him and struck at the invading troops. Above them were the flames, all around them was black smoke. The clanging armor rang out, spear against spear, sword against sword. The ground was soon covered with the bodies of the dead and wounded. The larger part of the soldiers in the castle fol­lowed Nagamasa and fought as long as they could, each achieving a glorious death. Few of them were captured or surrendered. The fall of Odani Castle was nothing like the de­feat of the Asakura in Echizen or of the shogun in Kyoto. So it could be said that Nobunaga's judgment in choosing Nagamasa as a brother-in-law had not been wrong.

The troubles of Hideyoshi, who had saved Oichi and her children from the flames, and those of Fujikake Mikawa, were not concerned with the battle. If the attacking troops had only waited another three hours, Hideyoshi and his charges could have been led out of the castle easily. But only minutes after they had left the keep, the inside of the castle was engulfed in flames and fighting soldiers, so that Hideyoshi was finding it very difficult just to protect the four children and get them out.

Fujikake Mikawa carried the youngest girl on his back, her elder sister, Hatsu, went on the back of Nakajima Sakon, and Manju was strapped on the back of his tutor, Ogawa Denshiro.

"Hop up onto my shoulders," Hideyoshi told Chacha, but the little girl refused to leave her mother's side. Oichi held the girl close as though she would not let her go. Hideyoshi wrenched them apart and scolded them. "It would not do for you to be hurt. I'm begging you, this is what Lord Nagamasa asked me to do."

This was no time to treat them sympathetically, and even though his words were polite, his tone was frightening. Oichi put Chacha on his back.

"Is everybody ready? Stay by me. My lady, please give me your hand." Shouldering Chacha, Hideyoshi pulled Oichi by the hand and started out straight ahead. Oichi stumbled along, barely able to keep from falling. Soon she pulled her hand free from Hideyoshi's grasp without saying a word. She followed as a mother would follow, half-crazed with distraction for the children who were in front of her and behind her in the midst of the fury.