Sowing Ghosts 2.6

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[Concluding chapter 2]

Two men emerged from the arms master’s gate as Hiroki waited, watching the road for danger. They weren’t the men he’d expected. “I told you nothing useful would come of this, and I was right, wasn’t I?” the wakashū said in the grating voice Hiroki had quickly come to detest. “I wish I understood why,” the wakashū continued, “you continually insist on dragging me to this place when I haven’t had a full night’s sleep. I need my sleep, and you know that.”

The couple passed in front of Hiroki without stopping or even acknowledging his existence. “And all to spend time with that horrible woman, who is twenty-five if she’s a day and has no wit and no conversation.”



“She’s closer to thirty than to twenty-five,” Lord Hosokawa said. “Not that it’s any of your business how old she is.” Looking back over his shoulder he nodded to Hiroki and silently mouthed a “Good evening.” He did not look embarrassed, but there was a wry lift to his eyebrows that suggested to Hiroki he knew precisely how maladroit his companion was. “And I don’t drag you up here,” the lord added. “I come here as I please, and it is no concern of mine if you decide you’d rather not be bothered. Just say the word, Togashi, and I’ll leave you to sleep tomorrow and every day thereafter.”

Hiroki did not hear the wakashū’s response, because at that moment Lords Naitō and Matsukata walked proudly out of the mansion’s gatehouse, shoulders back and heads erect, Shiro and Tetsuo marching protectively beside them. It would be clear to even the most flat-witted peasant that these were men of accomplishment, and that realization sent a blaze of pride working through Hiroki. As it had at the end of yesterday’s meetings, the sun was grazing the tops of the western hills as the embassy turned east. Unlike their behaviour of yesterday, both lords were eager to talk as soon as they reached the road.

“A good day,” Lord Naitō said. “A very, very good day.”

“Is there an agreement then, lord?”
“Not today,” Lord Matsukata said, “but I expect an agreement with the Miyoshi as soon as tomorrow, Hiroki.”

“And that means an agreement with the Hosokawa and through them with the Ashikaga,” Lord Naitō added.

“Does that mean support in war?” Tetsuo asked, passing by them to take the lead as they set out for home.

“Unlikely,” said Lord Naitō. “As far as I can tell from today, the Hosokawa are very nearly a broken reed and could give us no help even if they wished to. As for the Miyoshi, while they now control much of what the Hosokawa were used to command here they have no presence at all in the east. No allies we could use, either.

“But we neither expected that support nor need it. Lord Tanuma is perfectly capable of defeating his enemies and taking full control of Kozuke, if the Ashikaga will just stay neutral and not turn out in support of the Tanakawa clan. And it is precisely this which we are on the verge of obtaining.”

“Yes,” said Lord Matsukata, stepping around a ice-rimmed puddle as they turned from Suzaku onto Itsusuji, “Lord Miyoshi is sure that his cousin will take very seriously an alliance with Lord Tanuma. Even if it is mostly an alliance of convenience.”

“And in return?” Hiroki asked, following him. The embassy went through the improvised gate in the packed-earth wall that hadn’t been here the last time Hiroki was in the capital.

Lord Matsukata waited to reply until they were past the gate and walking east. “Well,” he said, looking a bit uncomfortable, “an alliance does have to work two ways, after all.”

“Which means…?”

“Which means,” said Lord Naitō, “Yanagimoto Kataharu.”

“Who?” asked Tetsuo and Shiro in one voice.

“He has nothing to do with Kozuke,” Hiroki said. “Whatsoever.”

“How can you say that, Hiroki?” Shiro demanded. “We don’t even know who he is.”

“I’ve been asking some questions because of yesterday’s fight,” Hiroki said. “He’s one of the big men fighting for control of the capital. And, as I said, he has nothing to do with us. He comes from somewhere around the capital, I’m told.”

“And he is a powerful threat to the Miyoshi clan, we are told,” Lord Naitō said. “His ambition is, they say, as boundless as it is audacious.”

That describes most warlords, Hiroki thought. It certainly describes our own Lord Tanuma. And is they anyone who isn’t a Miyoshi? Aloud he said, “We are going to have dealings with this Yanagimoto?”

“This has been hinted at most strongly,” Lord Naitō said. “And I am concerned, because I do not know enough about this person and his vassals. I do not like being uninformed, Hiroki. So I have a job for you: tomorrow you will continue the work you began for me last night. You and one of your companions will assemble a complete report about Yanagimoto, so that I am not compelled to promise what I do not fully understand.”

Hiroki kept an outward calm while inwardly he rejoiced: no need to spend another day trapped with that wakashū, at best forced to sit doing nothing while others worked.

“Down!“

Something brushed past him, and then Tetsuo hurtled into Lord Naitō, both men crashing to the frozen street. An instant later Hiroki saw an arrow projecting up from Tetsuo’s shoulder.

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