“It must have been hard for you, sitting down to tea with the man who killed your son,” she said.
“More boy than man,” said Oda. “And we didn’t sit down to tea. I gave him a clean bed and had my steward round up the healers, that’s all.”
“Healers? Oh, I do hope it’s nothing serious.”
Oda winced. “Damn my flapping tongue. And damn the pact I made with that murderous devil. My lady, I promised I would not betray Daigoro to his enemies. I’ll not name you an enemy, but . . . well, you understand. I was to bring you the letter, nothing more.”
Ah, but you’ve told me so much, Nene thought. The ride from Oda’s home in Ayuchi to Nene’s manor in the Jurakudai was about forty ri—a day’s ride for a messenger on a fleet horse, at least two days’ ride for a man of Oda’s years. Judging by his unkempt appearance, he was no longer a man with the energy and initiative to make the ride in two days. Call it three, she thought, and immediately she imagined how far the Bear Cub might have traveled from Ayuchi in that time. By sea, he could have returned to Izu, or sailed as far south as Shikoku. By the Tokaido, it was hard to guess. There were too many variables.
“Well, never mind your healers; let’s pretend I didn’t hear that.” She smiled at him sweetly. “I heard only that you are a noble and generous man, to go to great expense to shelter a boy who has done your family such harm. Why, just providing him horse fodder is no mean expense in times of war.”
“Too true—as Daigoro knows damn well. He didn’t even offer to pay.”
So the Bear Cub travels on horseback, she thought. It made sense; she remembered the boy walked with a limp. Her map changed shape in her mind. The Tokaido was well maintained and patrolled; riders could travel with little fear of bandits, yamabushi, or sudden holes where their horses might break a leg. Her own messages could travel nearly a hundred ri in a single day, but that was because Toyotomi couriers had relay stations all along the Tokaido. No horse could cover that distance so swiftly on its own.
A lone boy, recently injured, on a well-fed horse. How far could he ride in three days? Would he risk the Tokaido, or did he still fear spies on the great roads? If he still rode with that woolly-haired ronin of his, the two of them might simply slaughter Shichio’s bear hunters wherever they found them. On the other hand, Daigoro was not one to walk into a trap and then figure out how to cut his way free of it. The safer path was to ride the back roads.
Again the map changed its contours in Nene’s mind. If he held to the great roads, he might be anywhere within, say, sixty ri of Lord Oda’s compound—including just outside my door, she realized with a start. Why was he not here already, and why had he not come with Streaming Dawn? That would have made matters so easy.
But there were no unwatched roads to Kyoto. Daigoro probably feared Shichio still had spies here. Nene shared the same worry herself; she could never be sure she’d rooted out every last one. No, the Bear Cub would not make himself seen if he did not have to. He would not come to her; she would have to find him, and that would not be easy. In all likelihood he traveled overland.
That would be slow going—and as the thought occurred to her, it dawned on her that she had no idea just how slow. Those pathways were entirely outside her ken. She knew how far her palanquin could bear her in a day, encumbered as it was by her entourage. She had a rough idea of how far her husband’s troops could range on a march, and on a forced march. But how far a ronin could cross the wilds? Nene could not even hazard a guess.
She needed more information, and poor Oda had no defenses against her. “Didn’t it frighten you to have this boy under your roof? I hear he’s a ferocious warrior.”
“Ferocious? He was half dead. No, his man Katsushima is the one to fear.”
So Daigoro and Katsushima still ride together, Nene thought. And they are probably penniless, since Daigoro—a polite boy—did not offer to pay for horse