much trouble. This general is stationed all the way in Kanagawa-juku. But I’m sure he’ll pay handsomely for a sword master of your caliber. Come to think of it”—she lowered her voice conspiratorially again—“my honored husband will pay you too. It shames him to have a general who hardly knows which end of the sword to hold.”
A fleeting twinge passed over Oda’s face. Nene knew why. Her husband was no swordsman either. Like Shichio, he lacked the patience for martial art—though in his defense, Hideyoshi’s impatience was not like Shichio’s. Shichio was like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum. Hideyoshi was more like a randy teenager surrounded by naked women.
“Well, please consider it, Oda-sensei. It would be my honor to recommend you—”
“And your recommendation is all the honor a man like me requires.” Oda bowed deeply. Already he seemed like a younger man. He came up from his bow with his shoulders squared and his chest puffed ever so slightly. “Do you know, my lady, just the other day I told that Okuma boy my warring days are behind me. Perhaps I spoke prematurely. It will be my greatest privilege to support General Toyotomi’s war effort in whatever way I can.”
“I do hope so,” Nene said with a smile. “And please, do not take it amiss if I write you a letter now and again. If I am to blame for sending you into the back of beyond, then the least I can do is keep you abreast of what is afoot at home.”
“It would be my honor and my pleasure.”
“And you’ll write back to me?”
That puffed him up even further. A strong man always wants the attentions of a woman, Nene thought. Even a woman he can never have, and especially a woman who knows she cannot have him.
“Oh, you’ve made me so happy,” she said, speaking again with perfect honesty. “I’m sure there is no better place for you than at General Shichio’s side.”
37
“‘I have it’? That’s all it said? ‘I have it’?”
Nene’s errand boy was holding out on him. Shichio knew it damn well. He misliked the look of this man from the moment he blustered through Shichio’s gate. His name was Nezumi, and he had a cocky swagger unbefitting a common messenger. He wore clean white and darkest black, with a black hachimaki restraining his wild hair. His teeth were brown and broken, and he exposed their hideousness with a ready smile.
“That’s all,” Nezumi said. “But the courier said more than the letter.”
Shichio sighed irritably. “Are you an actor on a stage? Is it your job to keep me in suspense? No. Out with it, or else it’s out with your tongue and I’ll have you write down anything more you need to tell me.”
Nezumi bit his lip when he smiled, exposing those bestial teeth all the more. “Heh heh. That would be unwise.”
“Because you’re unlettered?”
“Because my lady likes me. There could be . . . what’s the word? Reprisals.”
I have no fear of Lady Nene, Shichio wanted to say. Now more than ever he wished it were true. If only she were a wife and not a sister-figure, he could have her killed and deflect Hashiba’s wrath afterward. Perhaps he might even persuade Hashiba to punish him by stripping him of his swords. Once Shichio was demoted back to the peasantry, he could grow his hair back. As it was, he was forever worried about a sunburned scalp. He’d burned it once already and the pain was terrible.
Even now, standing on his veranda with this sweating messenger kneeling in his shadow, he worried about his shaven pate. He eyed Nezumi’s dusty legs with disdain but bade him inside anyway. Once he was inside, Nezumi was a guest, so Shichio had no choice but to feed him. To do otherwise was unbecoming of a hatamoto of the great Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
“The courier,” he said after a maid fetched a little tea. “What did he say?”
“Everything.” There was that brutish smile again. “He vowed never to betray the Bear Cub, and to deliver that letter without saying a word. Then he ran straight to Lady Nene and told her all he knew.”
“I like him already. Who was he?”
“Lord Oda Tomonosuke. A swordsman of some repute.”
“And more than an errand boy, unless I miss my guess. Couriers do not have lordships or surnames. So why should this one be reduced to carrying messages back and forth like a pigeon?”