All of them joined in the loud shouts of victory. At which point, mounted men and soldiers arrived from Narumi, having escaped in miserable disorder.

“What happened?" asked a surprised Yamabuchi Samanosuke.

“Nobunaga's army was incredibly fast. Somehow he knew what was happening here, suddenly swooped down on our lightly guarded castle with more than a thousand men. The attack was furious, and we never had a chance!" The wounded man somehow made his report, gasping for breath, and went on to say that not only had the castle been taken but Samanosuke's son, Ukon, who had still not recovered from his wounds, had beencaptured and beheaded.

Samanosuke, who had just now raised the victory song, stood in a silent stupor. The area around Kasadera Castle, which he himself had attacked and taken, was nothing more than an uninhabited, burnt-out ruin.

“This is heaven's will!" With a shout, he took his sword and disembowelled himself on the spot. It was strange, however, that he should cry about it being heaven's will, for his end surely was one made by man and fashioned by himself.

Nobunaga had subjugated Narumi and Kasadera in a single day. Tokichiro had gone off somewhere soon after the construction of the castle wall was completed, and had not been seen for some time. But as soon as he heard that Narumi and Kasadera had come into the possession of Owari, he, too, returned unnoticed.

"Was it you who spread the rumors to both sides and caused dissension among our enemies?" When asked, Tokichiro just shook his head and said nothing.

Yoshimoto's Hostage

The people of Suruga Province did not call their capital Sumpu; to them it was simply the Place of Government, and its castle was the Palace. The citizens, from Yoshimoto and the members of the Imagawa clan down to the townsfolk, believed that Sumpu was the capi­tal of the greatest province along the eastern seaboard. The city was imbued with an aristocratic air, and even commoners followed the fashions of imperial Kyoto.

Compared to Kiyosu, Sumpu was another world. The atmosphere of its streets and the manners of its citizens, even the speed at which the people walked, and the way they looked at one another and talked; the citizens of Sumpu were relaxed and confident. One could tell their rank from the opulence of their clothes, and when they went out, they held fans over their mouths. The arts of music, dance, and poetry flourished. The serenity visible on every face hearkened back to some halcyon spring of ancient times. Sumpu was blessed. If the weather was fine, one could see Mount Fuji; if misty, the peaceful waves of the sea were visible beyond the pine grove of Kiyomidera Temple. The Imagawa soldiers were strong, and Mikawa, the domain of the Tokugawa clan, was little more than a subordinate province.

My veins run with the blood of the Tokugawa, and yet I am here. My retainers in Okazaki somehow maintain my castle; the province of Mikawa continues to exist, but its lord and its retainers are separated  Tokugawa Ieyasu meditated on these things day and night, but he could never speak of them openly. He pitied his retainers. But when he reflected on his own situation, he was thankful to be alive.

Ieyasu was only seventeen, but he was already a father. Two years before, after his coming-of-age ceremony, Imagawa Yoshimoto had arranged his marriage to the daughter of one of his own kinsmen. Ieyasu's son had been born the previous spring, so he was not yet six months old, and he often heard the baby's cries from the room in which he had set up his desk. His wife had not fully recovered from the birth and was still in the delivery room.

When this seventeen-year-old father heard his baby son crying, he was listening to his own flesh and blood. But he rarely went to see his family. He did not understand the feelings of tenderness toward children that other people talked about. When he searched his own heart for this emotion, he found it not just diminished, but totally lacking. Knowing that he was this kind of man and father, he felt sorry for his wife and child. Every time he felt this way, however, his compassion was not for his own family, but rather for his impoverished, humiliated retainers in Okazaki.

When he forced himself to think about his child, he was always sad. Soon he will set out on a journey through this bitter life and suffer the same privations I have.

At the age of five, Ieyasu had been sent as a hostage to the Oda clan. When he looked back over the trials he had suffered, he could not help but sympathize with his newborn son. The sorrow and tragedy of human life were certain to be his, too. Right now, however, on the surface, people saw that he and his family lived in a mansion no less splendid than those of the Imagawa.

What was that? Ieyasu went out onto the veranda. Someone outside had pulled on the vines that grew from the trees in the garden and wound up the mud walls. Recoiling from the torn vines, the twigs trembled faintly.

"Who is it?" Ieyasu called out. If it was a mischief-maker, the man would probably run away. He could hear no footsteps, however. Putting on a pair of sandals, he went out through the back gate in the mud wall. A man had prostrated himself as though waiting for him. A large wicker basket and staff lay by the man's side.

"Jinshichi?"

"It's been a long time, my lord."

Four years before, when he had finally received Yoshimoto's permission, Ieyasu had returned to Okazaki to visit his family graves. Along the way one of his retainers, Udono Jinshichi, had disappeared. Ieyasu was moved to pity when he saw the basket and staff and the changed figure of Jinshichi.

"You've become an itinerant priest."

"Yes, it's a convenient disguise for traveling around the country."

"When did you get here?"

"Just now. I wanted to see you in secret before setting off again."

"It's been four years, hasn't it? I've received your detailed reports, but not having heard from you after you went to Mino, I feared the worse."

"I ran into the civil war in Mino, and security at the border checkpoints and relay stations was tight for a while."

“You were in Mino? It must have been a good time to be there."

“I stayed in Inabayama for a year during the civil war. As you know, Saito Dosan’s castle was destroyed, and Yoshitatsu is now lord of all Mino. When the situation had settled down, I moved on to Kyoto and Echizen, passed through the northern province and went on to Owari."

"Did you go to Kiyosu?"

"Yes, I spent some time there."

"Tell me about it. Even though I am in Sumpu, I can guess what will happen to Mino, but the Oda clan's situation isn't very easily surmised."

"Shall I write a report and bring it to you this evening?"

"No, not in writing." Ieyasu turned to the rear entrance of the mud wall, but he seemed to be having second thoughts about something.

Jinshichi was his eyes and ears to the outside world. From the time he was five, Ieyasu had lived first with the Oda and then with the Imagawa, a wandering exile in enemy provinces. Living as a hostage, he had never known freedom, and this had not changed even now. The eyes, ears, and mind of a hostage are closed, and if he himself made no ef­fort, there was no one to scold or to encourage him. In spite of this, or perhaps because of the restraint that had been imposed on him since childhood, Ieyasu had become ex­tremely ambitious.

Four years before, he had sent Jinshichi to the other provinces so that he would be able to know what was going on—an early sign of Ieyasu's burgeoning ambition. "We'll be seen here, and if we talk in the mansion, my retainers will be suspicious. Let's go over there." Ieyasu walked away from the mansion with long strides.

Ieyasu's residence was in one of the quietest quarters of Sumpu. Walking a little way from the mud wall, they came to the bank of the Abe River. When Ieyasu was a child still carried on the backs of his retainers, it was to the Abe River that he was taken when he said that he wanted to go outside to play. The water in the river seemed to flow on eter­nally, and the riverbank never seemed to change. It brought back memories for Ieyasu.