Hideyoshi had been sitting by himself from the very beginning, and since everyone seemed to be ignoring him, he looked a little morose.

"Nene, I suppose it would be all right if I had a cup too," he said.

"Do you think you should?"

"Do you think I'm not going to drink? Why do you think I came to your room?"

"Well, your mother said, 'That boy will be heading for Mount Komaki again the day after tomorrow,' and she strictly ordered me to apply the usual moxa to your shins and hips before you leave for the front."

"What! She said to apply moxa ?"

"She worries that the lingering heat of autumn will still be over the battlefield, and if you drink bad water, your liable to fall ill. I'll apply the moxa and give you a cup of sake after that."

"That's ridiculous. I don't like moxa!'

"Whether you like it or not, those are your mother's orders."

"Well, just for that I'm staying away from your room. Of all the people watching my performance this afternoon, you were the only one who didn't laugh. You looked so serious."

"That's my nature. Even if you tell me to behave like the pretty girls, I can't." Nene showed a little anger. Then, suddenly, tears welled up in her eyes as she recalled the old days when she herself was Chacha's age and Hideyoshi was the twenty-five-year-old Tokichiro.

Hideyoshi looked curiously at his wife and asked, "Why are you crying?"

"I don't know," Nene said, looking away, and Hideyoshi turned to face her directly.

"Are you saying that it's going to be lonely when I go to the front again?"

"Since the beginning of our married life, how many days have you spent at home?"

"There's nothing to be done until we put the world at peace, even if you don't like war," Hideyoshi replied. "And if the unforeseen hadn't happened to Lord Nobunaga, I'd probably be in charge of some countryside castle, sitting out my life and forced to be at your side exactly the way you like it."

"People are going to hear the nasty things you're saying. I understand exactly what's in a man's heart."

"And I understand a woman's heart too!"

"You always make fun of me. I'm not speaking out of jealousy, like some ordinary woman."

"Any wife would say that."

"Will you listen to me without making this into a joke?"

"All right. I'm listening with great respect."

"I resigned myself a long time ago. So I'm hardly going to tell you that I'm lonely taking care of your castie when you're on a campaign."

"A virtuous woman, a faithful wife! This is why the Tokichiro of so long ago put his mark on you."

"Don't carry your joking too far! That is why your mother spoke to me."

"What did my mother say?"

"She said I was so submissive that you were going to get carried away and become dissipated. She told me I should speak up to you from time to time."

"Is that the reason for the moxa?" Hideyoshi laughed.

"You don't have a thought about her worries. Your self-indulgent intemperance has led you to be unfilial."

"When was I intemperate?"

"Weren't you making a lot of noise about something in Lady Sanjo's room right up until dawn two nights ago?"

The attendants and actors drinking in the next room pretended not to listen to this rare—well, perhaps not so rare—argument between husband and wife. Just at that point however, Hideyoshi raised his voice and yelled, "Hey, now! What does the audience think of this couple's performance?"

One of the actors answered, "Yes indeed, it looks to me like a game of kickball between blind people."

"Even a dog wouldn't nibble at that," Hideyoshi laughed.

"Come on. There's no end to such winning and losing."

"You there, the flutist, what did you think?"

"Well, I was watching it as I might my own business. Who's to blame, who's to fault Blame! Fault! Blam! Foom! Blam! Foom!"

Hideyoshi suddenly snatched Nene's over-kimono and threw it out as a prize.

On the following day Hideyoshi's family was unable to get even a glimpse of him, even though they were in the same castle. Throughout the day Hideyoshi was pressed with the work of giving instructions to his retainers and generals.

On the twenty-sixth day of the Eighth Month, Ieyasu received an urgent report that Hideyoshi was coming. He hastened from Kiyosu to Iwakura with Nobuo, and set up a position opposing Hideyoshi. Ieyasu again took up a totally defensive position and warned his men not to initiate any movement or challenge on their own.

"This is a man who doesn't know the meaning of enough."

Hideyoshi had already found Ieyasu's patience difficult to deal with, but he was not completely without such resources himself. He knew that it was impossible to open the wreath shell's cap, even with a hammer, but if the tail end of its shell was roasted, however, the meat could be taken out easily. It was this sort of ordinary reasoning that now occupied his thinking. Quietly sending Niwa Nagahide to see about concluding a peace agreement was like heating the wreath shell's tail.

Niwa was the most senior among the Oda clan's retainers and was a dependable and popular character. Now that Katsuie was dead and Takigawa Kazumasu was in reduced circumstances, Hideyoshi did not forget the necessity of winning over that warm, good man as his own "chessman in reserve" before the hostilities at Mount Komaki began.

Niwa was in the north with Inuchiyo, but Niwa's generals, Kanamori Kingo and Hachiya Yoritaka, were participating in the war on Hideyoshi's side. Before anyone even knew it, those two generals had gone back and forth a number of times between Hideyoshi and their home province of Echizen.

The content of the letters that were being sent was unknown even to the envoys, but finally Niwa himself made a secret journey to Kiyosu and had an interview with Ieyasu.

Such talks, however, were conducted in extreme secrecy. The only men who knew about them on Hideyoshi's side were Niwa and his two generals. At Hideyoshi’s suggestion, Ishikawa Kazumasa became his go-between.

Eventually, however, someone within the Tokugawa clan leaked a rumor that secret peace talks had been initiated. That set off great agitation in Ieyasu's defenses centered at Mount Komaki.

When rumors leak out, they are always accompanied by malicious gossip. In this case the name that surfaced was one that was already held in suspicion by his fellow retainers—that of Ishikawa Kazumasa.

“It's being said that Kazumasa is the mediator. Somehow there's always something that smells funny between Hideyoshi and Kazumasa."

There were some people who spoke about it directly to Ieyasu, but he rebuked whoever spoke to him and never doubted Kazumasa in the least.

But once that kind of doubt had arisen among the retainers, the morale of the whole clan began to suffer.

Ieyasu, of course, was in favor of holding peace talks, but when he saw the internal condition of his forces, he suddenly rejected Niwa's messenger.

“I have no desire for peace," Ieyasu said. "I have no hopes for a settlement with Hideyoshi, no matter what conditions he offers. We're going to fight a decisive battle here, I'm going to take Hideyoshi's head, and we'll let the nation know what true duty is."

When this was announced officially throughout Ieyasu's camp, the soldiers were d, and the dark rumors about Kazumasa were swept away.

“Hideyoshi's started to break down!"

Their spirits revitalized, they became all the more aggressive.

Hideyoshi received the bitter cup with resignation. To him, the result seemed not altogether bad. So he did not venture to use military strength that time either, but ordered his forces to occupy strategic areas. Toward the middle of the Ninth Month, he sent his soldiers back once more and entered the castle at Ogaki.