"Restrain yourself! Whom are you referring to as a vicious dog?"
"Lord Nobunaga, the same man who constantly calls our lord 'Kumquat Head' in front of others. Look at men like Hayashi Sado, or Sakuma Nobumori and his son. For years they helped make Nobunaga as great as he is today. Then, almost immediately after they were rewarded with status and a castle, they were arrested for some trivial crime and either condemned to death or driven into exile. The final act of that vicious lord is always to chase someone away."
"Silence! You are not to speak so disrespectfully of Lord Nobunaga! Get out! Now!"
As Mitsuharu finally became angry and reprimanded the man, something could be faintly heard in the garden. It was difficult to tell whether it was a man approaching, or only the falling of autumn leaves.
Extreme care was taken day and night against the possibility of espionage, even in places where the enemy's presence was highly improbable. Thus even in the teahouse garden, there were samurai standing guard. Now one of the guards had come up to the teahouse and was bowing in front of the door. After handing a letter to Mitsuharu, he drew back a little and waited as motionless as a stone.
Soon Mitsuharu's voice could be heard from inside. "This will require an answer, and I will write one later. Have the monk wait."
The guard bowed politely toward the entrance and walked back to his post. His straw sandals made almost no sound on the path in the manner of someone slinking away.
For a while, Mitsuharu and the other three men sat in complete silence, enveloped in an excruciatingly icy atmosphere. From time to time, a ripe plum fell to the ground with a sound like a wooden hammer striking the earth. That sound was the only thing that relieved the silence. Suddenly a bright ray of sunlight struck the paper panels of the sliding door.
"Well, we should take our leave. You have some urgent business to attend to," Masataka said, taking the opportunity to withdraw, but Mitsuharu, who had unrolled the letter and read it in front of the three men, now rolled the letter up.
"Why don't you stay awhile?" he asked, smiling.
"No, we'll take our leave. We don't want to intrude any further."
After the three men had shut the sliding door tightly behind them, their footsteps disappeared in the direction of the bridged corridor, and they sounded as if they were walking across thin ice.
A few moments later Mitsuharu left as well. He called into the samurai quarters as he walked down the corridor. Mitsuharu immediately asked for writing paper and a brush, and fluidly set the brush to the paper as though he already had in mind what he was going to write.
"Take this to the Abbot of Yokawa's messenger and send him back."
He handed the letter to one of his attendants and, appearing to have no further interest in the matter, asked a page, "Is Lord Mitsuhide still sleeping?"
"When I checked, his room was very quiet," the page replied.
When he heard this, Mitsuharu's eyes brightened as though he too were really at peace for the first time that day.
The days passed. Mitsuhide spent the time in Sakamoto Castle, doing nothing. He had already received Nobunaga's command to depart for the western provinces, and should have returned as quickly as possible to his own castle to mobilize his retainers. Mitsuharu would have liked to tell him that spending such a long time in idleness was not going to be good for his reputation in Azuchi. When he thought about Mitsuhide's feelings, however, he was unable to speak out. The discontent that Dengo and Masataka had expressed so bitterly would naturally be in Mitsuhide's heart as well.
If that was so, Mitsuharu thought, a few days of peace and quiet would be the best preparation for the forthcoming campaign. Mitsuharu had complete faith in his cousin's intelligence and common sense. Wondering how Mitsuhide was passing the time, Mitsuharu visited his room. Mitsuhide was painting, copying from an open book.
"Well, what are you doing?" Mitsuharu stood at his side and watched, pleased at Mitsuhide's composure and happy that they could share something.
"Mitsuharu? Don't look. I still can't paint in front of others."
Mitsuhide put down the brush and displayed a bashfulness not often seen in men over fifty. He was so embarrassed that he hid the sketches he had discarded.
"Am I disturbing you?" Mitsuharu laughed. "Who painted the book you're using as a model?"
"It's one of Yusho's."
"Yusho? What's that fellow doing these days? We don't hear anything at all about him around here."
"He unexpectedly visited my camp one evening in Kai. He left the following morning before dawn."
"He's a strange fellow."
"No, I don't think he can be summed up simply as strange. He's a loyal man, and his heart is as upright as bamboo. He may have given up being a samurai, but he still seems like a warrior to me."
"I've heard he was a retainer of Saito Tatsuoki. Are you praising him because he remains faithful to his former lord even today?"
"During the construction of Azuchi, he was the only one who refused to participate, even though he was invited to do so by Lord Nobunaga himself. He won't bend for either fame or power. It seems that he had more self-respect than to paint for the enemy of his former lord."
Just then, one of Mitsuharu's retainers came in and knelt behind them, and the two men stopped talking. Mitsuharu turned and asked the man what his business was.
The samurai looked embarrassed. In his hand was a letter and what seemed to be a petition written on thick paper. As he spoke, he was obviously worried about Mitsuharu's reaction. "Another messenger from the Abbot of Yokawa has come to the castle gate, and he pressed me to deliver this letter once more to the lord of the castle. I refused, but he said he had come on orders and would not go away. What should I do?"
"What? Again?" Mitsuharu lightly clicked his tongue. "I sent a letter to the Abbot of Yokawa some time ago, carefully explaining to him that I could not possibly agree to the contents of his petition, so that it was useless for him to ask. Still he persisted, sending me letters two or three times after that. He's certainly headstrong. Just refuse to take it and sent him off."
"Yes, my lord."
With that, the messenger hurried off with the petition still in his hand. He looked as though he himself had been reprimanded.
As soon as the man had left, Mitsuhide spoke to his cousin.
"Would that be the Abbot of Yokawa from Mount Hiei?"
"That's right."
"Years ago, I was ordered to take part in the burning of Mount Hiei. We then made war not only on the warrior-monks, but also on the holy men, and on women and children—without distinction—cutting them down and tossing their bodies into the flames. We so utterly destroyed that mountain that trees could not have been expected to thrive there again, much less men. And now it seems that the priests who survived the massacre have gone back and are trying to make the place live again."
"That's right. From what I've heard, the mountaintop is just as desolate and ruined as it was before, but men of profound learning are calling together the scattered remnants of the believers and using every means possible to restore the mountain."
"That will be difficult while Lord Nobunaga is alive."
"And they're well aware of that. They've turned a great deal of their energy toward the Court, trying to get an edict from the Emperor to persuade Lord Nobunaga, but the prospects are dim, so recently they've looked for support from the common people. They're roaming every province, seeking contributions, knocking on every door, and I've heard that they're even constructing temporary shrines on the sites of the old temples."
"Well then, the errand of the messenger who was sent to you two or three times by the Abbot of Yokawa had something to do with that petition?"