a cat, she sliced it free of her dying leader’s body and fled along the nearest game trail. In moments she vanished into the bamboo. Just like that, Daigoro was alone again.
Not for the first time, he wondered what the gods of good fortune meant for him. He was unlucky to encounter these yamabushi, but lucky that Whalebelly hadn’t bled much. Daigoro’s disguise would be useless if it were doused in human blood. He was lucky to have survived the battle, short though it was. On the other hand, was it lucky to send two survivors into the back hills? Sooner or later, tales would spread of the skinny little boy who killed Whalebelly in a single blow. Once Shichio’s hunters heard the stories, they would know Daigoro had been here.
Luck and unluck. He was lucky that Whalebelly’s lot didn’t answer to Shichio, lucky that there were three of them and not six, but supremely unlucky to have to run into them at all. He was sure to run across more yamabushi so long as he traveled the back country, but he could not ride the roads so long as Shichio’s patrols were abroad. Life would have been so much easier if that damned peacock could just choke to death on a piece of sushi. “Give me that,” Daigoro said, looking up to the gods. “Give me bad fortune too if you must, but give me this one good thing.”
He looked himself over once more. Then, satisfied that he wasn’t a bloody mess, he shouldered his burden once again and headed downhill.
When he reached the road, he found himself on the outskirts of the growing city of Yoshiwara. Rice paddies sprawled to his left and right, and before him the little lane sloped down to the checkpoint he and Katsushima had been trying to avoid. They’d met with success, because Daigoro was now west of the checkpoint; to get back to Izu, he’d have to go back through and follow the Tokaido east. That was good. The Yoshiwara checkpoint was the safest one for him to cross, for it lay firmly within Yasuda territory, but that did not mean it was unwatched. Shichio was sure to have spies there. If they were smart, they would be looking east, not west.
Daigoro took shelter under his bulky load and limped for the little castle bearing the white-on-green centipede banners of House Yasuda.
Fuji-no-tenka was no Green Cliff. It did not have to be. The Green Cliff was the last bastion of House Yasuda, while Fuji-no-tenka was its forwardmost observation tower. The Yasuda forefathers knew their Sun Tzu as well as Daigoro did: the linchpin of a strong defense was knowledge of the enemy’s disposition. House Yasuda’s stables were renowned for their fast, hardy, intelligent horses. That reputation was founded in Fuji-no-tenka, where swift-footed messenger mounts were bred for rapid relays. The castle was built as much for horses as for men; its donjon was modest, its keep vast.
Daigoro had come to think of it as a relay station of his own. It was his first safe haven on the way to Kiyosu, which was where he decided to start his hunt for Streaming Dawn. The town of Kiyosu held the only advantage Daigoro had over Nene, whose resources vastly outstripped Daigoro’s in every conceivable respect. He could only assume she’d already gone to great lengths to find Streaming Dawn; beseeching Daigoro for help smacked of desperation. But Nene lacked one thing: the bedtime stories Daigoro had grown up with. How well he remembered his father’s tale of the tanto that cursed the bearer with a ghoulish, twisted form of eternal life. That tale always began in Kiyosu.
But Fuji-no-tenka came first, because with any luck, it would be in Fuji-no-tenka that Daigoro would solve the conundrum of giving Streaming Dawn to two people at once. Yasuda Jinichi, eldest son of Lord Yasuda Jinbei, was lord of Fuji-no-tenka and eldest brother of the miserly, petty-minded Yasuda Kenbei. If Jinichi commanded it, Kenbei would have to end this ridiculous war of coins. There would be no more murdered pigeons, nor any reason for Kenbei to seek Sora Nobushige’s backing. Sora would lose his bargaining position, and Daigoro could give Streaming Dawn to Lady Nene with no fear of jeopardizing his family.
Everything depended on whether Jinichi was more like his father, a noble and honorable man, or more like his brother Kenbei, a spark that had flown a long way from the fire.