"Well now, this is not a matter that necessitates armor. I'd like you to do something in the morning. I want you to stay behind."

'In the morning? You mean at the castle?"

'That's right. You've understood well, typical of your years of service. I want you to go with a message to the castle that I fell ill during the night and suddenly had to return to Nagahama. Also say that I deeply regret not being able to attend the ceremony, but that I hope everything will be well. I imagine that Katsuie and Takigawa will dwell on that for a while, so I want you to wait there, appearing to be senile and hard of hearing. Don't react to anything you hear, and then leave as though nothing had happened."

“I understand, my lord."

The old warrior was bent at the waist like a shrimp, but his spear never left his hand.  Bowing once before standing up, he turned his body as though his armor weighed heavily upon him, and shuffled off.

Almost all of the men at the temple had already lined up on the road in front of the gate.  Each corps, which was identified by its banner, was in turn divided into companies.  The commanders readied their horses at the head of each unit.

The fires on the fuse cords flickered back and forth, but not a single torch was lit.

The moon in the sky was only a slender crescent. Along the row of trees, the seven hundred troops swayed silently in the dark, like waves on a shore.

'Hey! Yahei!" Hideyoshi called out as he walked along next to the line of officers and men.  The men were not easily distinguishable in the shadows of the trees, and here was a short man beating a bamboo staff on the ground as he walked along with six or seven men following behind. Most of the soldiers probably thought he was the head of a group packers, but when they realized it was Hideyoshi, they became even more hushed, tig their horses back so they would not get in the way.

“Here I am! Over here!"

Asano Yahei had been at the base of the stone steps giving instructions to a group of men.  When he heard Hideyoshi's voice, he finished up quickly and ran over to him.

“Are you ready?" Hideyoshi spoke to him impatiently, hardly giving him time to kneel.  "If you're all set, move out."

“Yes, my lord, we're ready."

"aking charge of the commander's standard with the golden gourds that had been propped up in a corner of the gate, he carried it out into the middle of the ranks and quickly mounted his own horse to join the troops.

Hideyoshi rode out, accompanied by his pages and about thirty mounted men. The conch shell might have been blown at that moment, but circumstances prohibited the use of the conch or of torches. Yahei had received the golden fan of command from Hideyoshi and, in his stead, waved it once, twice, and then a third time. With that signal, the seven-hundred-man army began gradually to advance.

The head of the procession then changed direction and, turning on the road, passed by Hideyoshi. The position of corps commander was filled exclusively by trusted retain­ers. That one saw almost none of the faces of the old and experienced veterans was most likely because many of them had been left at Hideyoshi's castles in Nagahama and Himeji, and at his other estates.

At midnight, Hideyoshi's soldiers left the castle at Kiyosu, looking as though they were the main force accompanying their lord. Taking the Mino road, they started out for Nagahama.

Hideyoshi himself departed immediately afterward with no more than thirty or forty men. He took a completely different route and hurried along the back roads where no one would notice him. He finally arrived in Nagahama the following day at dawn.

*  *  *

"We slipped up, Genba," Katsuie said.

"No, it was a plan that really had no room for mistakes."

"Do you really think there is such a plan? Somewhere there was an oversight, and that's why the fish slipped out of the net so easily."

"Well, it's not that I didn't say anything about it. If you're going to strike, strike! If we had attacked that scum's quarters, we'd have been able to look at Hideyoshi's head by now. But all you could talk about was doing it in secret. Now all our efforts have come to nothing because you wouldn't listen to me."

"Ah, you're still young. You were asking me to use a flawed plan, and the plan I had devised was superior. The best strategy was to wait until Hideyoshi came up to the castle and force him to disembowel himself. Nothing could have been better than that. But according to the reports last night, Hideyoshi was suddenly striking camp. Now, at first, I thought that was unfortunate, but then I reconsidered. If that bastard was leaving Kiyosu at night, it was a gift from heaven—because he was leaving unannounced, I could have denounced his crimes. I instructed you to lie in ambush and strike him down on the way so that justice might be served."

"That was a careless mistake on your part, Uncle, from the very beginning."

"My mistake? Why?"

"Your first mistake was in thinking Monkey would play into our hands by coming to today's celebration. Then, although you instructed me to go with some soldiers to am­bush him, your second mistake was in forgetting to take the precaution of ordering men to guard the backroads."

"Fool! I gave you the orders and had the other generals follow your instructions solely because I had faith that you would not overlook things like that. And you have the impudence to say that hiding soldiers only on the main road and letting Hideyoshi slip through is my fault! You should reflect a little on your own inexperience!"

"Well, I apologize for my error this time, but hereafter, Uncle, please refrain from rattling on with too much artifice. A person who gets carried away with his own clever schemes is going to drown in them someday."

"What are you saying? You think I use too much cunning?"

"It's your constant habit."

"You…you fool!"

"It's not just me, Uncle. Everybody says so. 'Lord Katsuie makes people cautious, because no one can never tell what he is plotting.'" Katsuie was silent, knitting his thick black eyebrows.

For a long time, the relationship of uncle and nephew had been far warmer than that between lord and retainer. But too much familiarity had eroded authority and respect in the relationship, and those qualities were now missing. That morning Katsuie could hardly restrain the sullen look on his face.

It was a complicated sense of displeasure. He had not slept at all the night before. Having ordered Genba to strike down the fleeing Hideyoshi, Katsuie had waited until dawn for the report that would clear the gloom that filled his heart.

When Genba returned, however, he did not make the report Katsuie had been waiting for so tensely.

"The only people who passed by were Hideyoshi's retainers. Hideyoshi himself was nowhere to be seen. I thought it would be disadvantageous to attack them, so I came back with nothing to show for my efforts."

That report, added to Katsuie's fatigue from the night before, put him in a state of despondency.

Then, when even Genba found fault with him, there was little wonder that he was feeling depressed that morning.

He could not remain in such a mood, however. Today was the celebration of the announcement of Samboshi's succession. After his breakfast Katsuie took a nap and had a bath, then he once again arrayed himself in his sweltering ceremonial robes and headgear.

Katsuie was not the kind of man who, once depressed, remained visibly so. Today the sky was filled with clouds and it was even more humid than the day before, but his demeanor on the road to Kiyosu Castle was far more majestic than that of anyone else in castle town, and his face sparkled with sweat.

The fierce men who only the night before had fastened the cords of their helmets, crawled through the grass and bushes with their spears and firearms, and looked to take Hideyoshi's life on the road were now arrayed in court hats and ceremonial kimonos.  Their bows were in their cases and their spears and halberds sheathed, and they now meandered in innocent-looking attire up to the castle.