Naturally, Mitsuhide's gaze was captured by this one white point. It was there that Nobunaga's son, Nobutada, was staying. There also was Tokugawa Ieyasu, who had left Azuchi some days before and gone to the capital.

Lord Ieyasu has probably left the capital already, Mitsuhide thought.

Finally he quickly stood up, making all his generals jump.

"Let's go. My horse."

The dismay of his subordinates was like a wave that rippled out from the fitful actions of his isolated mind. For the last few days he had periodically secluded himself from his retainers, and he had behaved more like an orphan than like the leader of a samurai clan.

Although the soldiers who followed Mitsuhide had difficulty finding their way in the dark—surrounding him and yelling warnings back and forth—they gradually descended and approached the outskirts of the capital.

When the line of three thousand men and horses arrived at the Kamo River and paused momentarily, the soldiers all turned and looked to the rear, and Mitsuhide did the same: having observed the red waves on the river, they knew that the morning sun was rising over the ridges behind them.

The officer in charge of the army's provisions came up to Mitsutada and asked him about breakfast. "Shall we make the morning's preparations here or go on to Nishijin?"

Mitsutada was going to ask Mitsuhide what his intentions were, but at that moment Yomoda Masataka had pulled his horse alongside of Mitsuhide's, and the two men seemed to be gazing steadily at the Shirakawa, which they had crossed. Mitsutada held back for a moment.

"Masataka, is that Matabei?"

"I believe it is."

Mitsuhide and Masataka were watching a horseman hurriedly approaching through the morning mist.

"Matabei." While Mitsuhide waited right where he was for the man he had been expecing, he turned and spoke to the commanders around him. "Go ahead and cross the river. I'll follow you momentarily."

The advance guard had already waded across the shallows of the Kamo to the far bank. As the other commanders left Mitsuhide's side, their horses kicked up a white foam in the middle of the clear water. One by one they crossed the stream.

Mitsutada took this opportunity to ask, "Where shall we have our meal? Would it be convenient to have it at Nishijin?"

"Everyone's stomach must be empty, but we shouldn't stop in the city limits. Let's go as far as Kitano," Mitsuhide replied.

At a distance of about twenty yards, the approaching Yomoda Matabei dismounted and wound his horse's reins around a piling in the riverbed.

"Mitsutada and Masataka, the two of you cross the river as well, and wait for me on the other side. I'll follow soon."

After these last two men had gone some distance, Mitsuhide turned in the direction of Matabei for the first time and beckoned him over with a look.

"Yes, my lord!"

"What's going on in Azuchi?"

"The report you heard previously from Amano Genemon seems to be without error."

"The reason I sent you a second time was to get positive information on Lord Nobunaga's departure for the capital on the twenty-ninth, and on what kind of force he was taking with him. To give me some vague response about there being no mistakes in a former report is worthless. Make a clear report: was it reliable information or not?"

"It is certain that he will leave Azuchi on the twenty-ninth. I couldn't get the names of the main generals who will accompany him, and it was announced that forty or fifty pages and close attendants will be with him."

"What about his lodgings in the capital?"

"He'll be at the Honno Temple."

"What! The Honno Temple?

"Yes, my lord."

"Not Nijo Palace?"

"All of the reports said that he would be staying at the Honno Temple," Matabei answered quite clearly, careful to avoid being scolded again.

The Shrine of the Fire God

There was a huge gate at the very center of the compound's mud wall, and each of the sub-temples had its own enclosure and gate. The pine forest seemed to have been swept clean, and itself looked like a Zen garden. Birdsong, and the sunlight streaming through the treetops, added to the peace of the scene.

After tethering their horses, Mitsuhide and his retainers ate the meals they had packed for both breakfast and lunch. Although they had planned on having breakfast near the Kamo River, they had waited to eat until they had arrived at Kitano.

The soldiers carried a day's worth of provisions: a simple meal of uncooked bean paste, pickled plums, and brown rice. They had not eaten since the night before, and they now breakfasted happily.

Three or four monks from the nearby Myoshin Temple, who had recognized the men as members of the Akechi clan, had invited them into the temple compound.

Mitsuhide was sitting on a camp stool in the shadow of the curtain his attendants had set up. He had finished his meal and was dictating a letter to his secretary.

"The priests of the Myoshin Temple… they'd make perfect messengers! Call them back!" he ordered a page. When the priests had returned, Mitsuhide entrusted them with the letter his secretary had just written. "Would you please take this letter quickly to the residence of the poet Shoha?"

Immediately afterward he got up and walked back to his horse, telling the monks, “I’m afraid that we have no spare time on this trip. I'll have to forgo meeting the abbot.  Please give him my regards."

The afternoon grew hot. The road to Saga was extraordinarily dry, and the horses' hooves kicked clouds of dust into the air. Mitsuhide rode in silence, thinking through a plan in his characteristically careful way, weighing its feasibility, the likely public reaction, and the possibility of failure. Like a horsefly that always comes back no matter how often it is brushed away, the scheme had become an obsession that Mitsuhide could not drive from his mind. A nightmare had sneaked into him and filled his entire body with poison. He had already lost his power to reason.

In all of his fifty-four years, Mitsuhide had never relied on his own wisdom the way he was doing now. Although objectively he would have had every reason to doubt his own judgment, subjectively he felt exactly the opposite. I haven't made the smallest mistake, Mitsuhide said to himself. No one could suspect what's on my mind.

While he had been in Sakamoto, he had wavered: Should he go ahead with the plan or scrap it? But this morning, when he heard the second report, his hair had suddenly stood on end. In his heart he had resolved that the time was now, and that heaven had sent him this opportunity. Nobunaga, accompanied by only forty or fifty lightly armed men, was staying at the Honno Temple in Kyoto. The demon that possessed Mitsuhide whispered to him that it was a unique opportunity.

His decision was not a positive act of his own will, but rather a reaction to external circumstances. Men like to believe that they live and act according to their own wills, but the grim truth is that outside events actually stir them to action. So while Mitsuhide believed that heaven was his ally in the present opportunity, part of him was beset by the fear as he rode along the road to Saga that heaven really was judging his every action.

Mitsuhide crossed the Katsura River and arrived at Kameyama Castle in the evening just as the sun dropped below the horizon. Having been informed of their lord's return the townspeople of Kameyama welcomed him home with bonfires that lit up the night sky. He was a popular ruler who had won the affection of the people as a result of his wise administration.

The number of days in a year that Mitsuhide spent with his family could be counted on the fingers of one hand. During long campaigns, he might not come home for two or three years. For that reason, those rare days he could be at home were animated by the delight of seeing his wife and children, and being a husband and father.