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[Continuing chapter 1]
Tetsuo breathed out loudly and slowly. “I have never seen so many buildings in one place in my life,” he said, awe in his voice. Tetsuo was so broad across the shoulders, and his neck so massively muscled, that he looked shorter than he really was. His physicality made him the ideal person to lead their procession this morning; nobody would want to get in his way.
“And they’re huge,” Shiro added from his position at the rear. The second of Hiroki’s subordinates—and companions—Shiro was young, slender, and considered himself the epitome of elegance. In Kozuke, at least; Hiroki doubted his self-esteem would long survive their arrival in the capital. “Nobody in Kozuke has a house like these,” Shiro added, the envy impossible to ignore.
“Perhaps a proper warrior does not need something so big.” Lord Naitō, who led the embassy, affected to be unimpressed with the size of the capital or of its mansions. “Nobody in Kozuke needs a house like these. I doubt anyone in the capital does, either.”
This, thought Hiroki, did not bode well for Lord Naitō’s response to the mansion they were approaching. He hoped it would not affect Lord Naitō’s response to the man they were to visit. Miyoshi Takahashi was the arms-master to one of the two competing shōgun, the one living in Sakai. As the most senior representative of the government in Kyoto, the arms master performed the role of envoy to the capital for this shōgun. It was with the arms master that Lord Naitō and his companion, Lord Matsukata, were about to begin negotiations.
The arms master's mansion lay at the foot of the hills at the north-west edge of the capital, in a neighbourhood of expensive magnificence that generated sounds of awed respect from Tetsuo and Shiro. Even Hiroki was impressed, though he reminded himself that the mansion was too new and so lacked the subtle beauty that only time and weather could provide. The grounds enclosed by the substantial walls were nearly as great as those of the temple in which the embassy was staying—all this space for a single family. Lord Tanumi's mansion in Kozuke was a hovel when set against this place.
The guards, impressively more efficient than the men Hiroki had seen at the city gates yesterday, were obviously expecting them, and only the most cursory attention was paid to their credentials before they were relieved of their weapons and taken through the gate and along the covered walkway to the south-facing central wing of the mansion. Here they waited, the guards eyeing them with practised wariness.
The quiet hum of conversation from within the building flared into audibility for a moment: “I have lost all patience with Yanagimoto Kataharu,” a voice said, all sharp edges and anger. “And I am beginning to be concerned with you, cousin.”
Any reply was too quiet to be heard, and before anyone could say anything else they were approached by a page, a boy still wearing a child's hair-cut, who took them from the guards, beyond the central wing to a smaller building behind it. The boy couldn’t have been more than eight years old, yet already he carried himself with the proud swagger of the samurai he was training to be. No doubt his father was a favoured client of the Miyoshi.
The building into which the page led them, though it had a much less formal aspect than the main building, was still larger than any building Hiroki had ever been in; it was power with four walls and a roof. “Please wait here,” the boy told them, after which he scurried across the veranda and through a sliding door.
A short time later the page reappeared. “If you gentlemen would please come this way,” he said, “the Arms Master Lord Miyoshi will see you shortly.”
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