censer so pitted and rotten that it threatened to fall apart at any moment. If this was how Oda kept up the holiest of possessions, Daigoro could scarcely imagine what his kitchens must look like, or his bedchamber.
Oda himself was in little better shape than his shrine. His face was puffy, his eyes bloodshot. He’d put on weight since Daigoro saw him last. He’d given up care for his clothing and made only desultory efforts at grooming. A mole on his cheek had grown hairs as long as Daigoro’s little finger.
“My lord,” Daigoro said, “may I join you in prayer?”
Oda studied him with red-rimmed eyes. Only his eyes moved, not his head. At last he muttered, “Why not?”
This was not the genteel man Daigoro once knew. When Lord Oda’s son Yoshitomo had come to challenge the Okumas, Ichiro insulted him and Yoshitomo was only too glad to begin the bloodletting. Only Daigoro and Lord Oda showed self-restraint. They sat down to tea, shared polite conversation, then established the terms of the duel. That Lord Oda would never have given such cruel looks out of the corner of his eye. This one was little more than a shadow.
Even so, Daigoro was certain the two of them could find common ground. They had lost so much. According to Katsushima, there was a time when House Oda was renowned for its swordsmanship. It once enjoyed wealth and prestige, but clearly that was lost to them. Daigoro couldn’t understand how they’d fallen this far—it was less than a year ago that Ichiro and Yoshitomo were killed—but if he could tease that story out of Lord Oda, he might find something they shared in common, some foundation on which he could start building sympathy.
To put himself on a level with Oda, he kneeled beside the older man. His bad knee buckled, so Daigoro fell as much as kneeled. The rapid movement made him light-headed. To keep his head from spinning, he fixed his eyes on the grave markers arrayed before the shrine. The newest was a tall wooden stele, painted with the name Mutsu no Mikoto. Daigoro remembered the name; Lady Mutsu was Oda’s wife. “My lord,” he said, “I am sorry for your loss. I remember you speaking of your wife when we first sat down to tea. May I ask when she passed on?”
“She died the day she learned you killed her son.”
Daigoro was stunned. Well-bred people did not speak so bluntly. “I . . . I don’t understand.”
“I suppose I ought to thank you,” Oda said scornfully. “You must have been the one to send a rider, informing us of Yoshitomo’s death.”
“I was.”
“When my wife read your letter, it shattered her spirit. Yoshitomo was more than our dojo’s champion; he was her favorite son. She never admitted as much, but I always knew it.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Are you? Then be sorry for this too. My house is ruined. My dojo has been losing money for years. When word reached us of this braggart in the north, Okuma Ichiro, we knew silencing him might earn us the fame we needed to stay afloat. And indeed it did. But then rumors reached us that the braggart would not die. Why could he not shut his mouth?”
I might ask the same of your son, Daigoro thought. But he could not say that. Neither could he think of any words of comfort.
“I married above my station,” Oda said. “My wife’s family was far wealthier than mine. When the Oda dojo began to crumble, she became despondent. Poverty did not become her. Once Yoshitomo died, our financial fate was sealed. It was more than she could bear. That letter of yours, that’s what broke her.”
Buddhas have mercy, Daigoro thought. He knew what came next, and it made his heart sink.
“She took her own life,” said Oda. “To her credit, she did it properly, the way a samurai’s daughter ought to. Right here. Right in front of this shrine.”
Daigoro looked in horror at the gravel he knelt upon. Had Oda bothered to cart it off and replace it after his wife’s suicide? Or had that been the moment he decided to abandon decorum? Had the last of his servants washed this holy site of her blood, or had he left the rain to perform that task? Was Daigoro kneeling in her lifeblood even now?
“I hope I can die with as much dignity,” Oda said. He spoke with scorn and sorrow in equal measure. “It is the only hope remaining