Mitsuharu looked up to the ceiling and let out a long sigh. "What can I say now that you've told them?"

Mitsuhide suddenly moved forward and grabbed his cousin's collar with his left hand. "Is it no?" he asked. His right hand gripped the haft of his dagger, while his left shook Mitsuharu with terrifying strength. "Or is it yes?"

Every time Mitsuhide shook Mitsuharu, his head moved back and forth as though his neck contained no bones. Tears were streaming down his face.

"At this point it's no longer a matter of yes or no. But I don't know what it would have been if you had told me before you informed the others, my lord."

"Then you agree? You'll act with me?"

"You and I, my lord, are two men, but we are the same as one. If you were to die, I wouldn't want to live. Technically, we are lord and retainer, but we have the same roots and the same birth. We have lived our lives together until now, and I am naturally resolved to share whatever fate lies ahead."

"Don't worry, Mitsuharu. It's going to be all or nothing, but I feel our victory is certain. If we are successful, you won't be in charge of a minor castle like Sakamoto. I

promise you that. At the very least, you'll have the title next to mine and will be the lord of a great number of provinces!"

"What! That is not the issue." Casting off the hand that held his collar, Mitsuharu pushed Mitsuhide back. "I'd like to cry… my lord, please allow me to cry."

"What are you sad about, you fool?"

"You're the fool!"

"Fool!"

The two called each other names back and forth and then embraced, tears rolling down their cheeks.

*  *  *

It certainly felt like summer; the first day of the Sixth Month was hotter than it had been for many years. In the afternoon, columns of cloud covered a section of the sky in the north, but the slowly setting sun continued to scorch the mountains and rivers of Tamba until dusk.

The town of Kameyama was now totally deserted. The soldiers and wagons that had packed its streets were gone. Soldiers, carrying firearms, banners, and spears, were marching out of the town in a long line, their heads baking in iron helmets. The townspeople crowded by the roadside to watch the army depart. Searching out the benefactors who had patronized their shops in the past, they wished them luck as loudly as they could and urged them on to great deeds.

But neither the marching soldiers nor the cheering crowds knew that this setting out was not the beginning of a campaign in the west, but the first step toward Kyoto. Except for Mitsuhide and a dozen men on his field staff, not one single person knew.

It would soon be the Hour of the Monkey. Booming through the blood-red western sun, conch shells resounded high and low, one after another. The soldiers, who had been doing little more than crowding around various encampments, got up immediately to get into their proper columns. Dividing into three lines, they formed ranks, banners aloft.

The greenery of the surrounding mountains and the pale green foliage nearby rustled with fragrance as the slight evening breeze wafted across the innumerable faces. Once again the conch sounded—this time from the distant forest.

From the grounds of the shrine of the war god Hachiman, Mitsuhide and his generals moved forward in brilliant array through the slanting rays of the western sun. Mitsuhide reviewed his troops, who massed together resembled a wall of iron. Every soldier looked up as Mitsuhide passed by, and even the rank and file felt proud to be under the command of such a great general.

Mitsuhide wore black armor with light green threading under a white and silver brocade coat. His long sword and saddle were of exceptional workmanship. Today he appeared much younger than usual, but this was not true of Mitsuhide alone. When a man put on his armor, he was ageless. Even alongside a warrior of sixteen on his first campaign, an old man did not show or feel his age.

Today, Mitsuhide's prayers had been more beseeching than those of any other man in his army. And for that reason, as he passed each soldier, his eyes looked strained by his resolve. The countenance of the commander-in-chief did not go unreflected in the martial spirit of his men. The Akechi had gone to war twenty-seven times. Today, however, the men were feverish with tension, as if they had intuited that the battle they were heading for was out of the ordinary.

Every man felt that he was setting out never to return. That mass intuition filled the place like a bleak mist, so that the nine banners emblazoned with blue bellflowers fluttering above each division seemed to be beating against a bank of cloud.

Mitsuhide reigned in his horse, turned to Saito Toshimitsu who was riding by his side, and asked, "How many men do we have altogether?"

"Ten thousand. If we include the various carriers and packers, there must be more than thirteen thousand men."

Mitsuhide nodded then said after a pause, "Ask the corps commanders to come here.

When the commanders had assembled in front of Mitsuhide's horse, he pulled back momentarily, and in his place his cousin Mitsutada came forward, flanked by generals to his left and right.

"This is a letter that arrived last night from Mori Ranmaru, who is now in Kyoto.  I am going to read it to you so that it will be understood by everyone."

He opened the letter and read: '"By command of Lord Oda Nobunaga you are to come to the capital, so that His Lordship may review the troops before their departure for the west."'

"We will leave at the Hour of the Rooster. Until then have your soldiers prepare their provisions, feed their horses, and rest."

If the sight of thirteen thousand men preparing their provisions in the field was quite a spectacle, it was a congenial one. In the meantime, the corps commanders who had been summoned were called once again—this time into the forest of the Hachiman shrine. There, enhanced by the shadows of dusk and the cries of the cicadas, the cool air felt almost like water.

A moment before, the sound of hands clapping in prayer could be heard from the shrine. It seemed as though Mitsuhide and his generals had been praying before the gods. Mitsuhide had persuaded himself that he was not acting purely out of the enmity and resentment he felt toward Nobunaga. The fear that he might end up like Araki or Sakuma had allowed him the rationalization that it was a matter of self-defense; he was like a cornered animal forced to strike first in order to stay alive.

From the shrine it was only five leagues to the Honno Temple, where his lightly protected enemy was staying. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Conscious that his treachery looked like opportunism, he could not concentrate on his prayer. But he had no trouble in justifying his actions: he enumerated Nobunaga's crimes over the past two decades. In the end, although he had served Nobunaga for many years, Mitsuhide was nostalgic for the old shogunate, with all of its stagnation.

The commanders waited, crowding together. Mitsuhide's stool was still unoccupied. His pages said that he was still praying at the shrine and would soon return. Not long thereafter, the curtain parted. Greeting the men who had gathered there, Mitsuhide's close retainers entered one by one. Mitsuhide, Toshimitsu, Mitsuharu, Mitsutada, and Mitsuaki were the last to appear.

"Are these all of the corps commanders?" Mitsuhide asked.

With alarming speed, the immediate area was completely surrounded by soldiers.  Caution could be read on Mitsuhide's face, and a wordless warning was very clearly concentrated in the eyes of the generals.

Mitsuhide said, "You may think it rather cold of me to take these kinds of precautions when talking to my retainers, and especially to retainers on whom I rely. Don't take this measure in the wrong way; it's only in order to disclose to you a great, long-awaited event—an event that will affect the entire nation and that will mean either our rise or our fall."