to use, and he earned that right with a tongue more talented than a Gion courtesan’s. Inoue would know nothing of Shichio’s illicit affair with Hashiba, but he had to know Toyotomi Hideyoshi would never stand for the assassination of one of his generals. Train as many arquebuses on me as you like, Shichio thought. Pretend they will protect you. I know the truth.
He had only to clear his throat and his sergeant sprang to his feet. As Shichio stepped out of the sedan chair, the sergeant dashed to the front of the column. In a voice that would shake rain from the clouds, he bellowed, “General Shichio, emissary of the Imperial Regent and Chief Minister, the great Lord General Toyotomi no Hideyoshi, demands to see Inoue Izu-no-kami Shigekazu!”
Immediately bars went into motion inside the gate, and soon enough the heavy gates began to open. How petty, Shichio thought. Inoue had manned the gates well before Shichio’s company arrived. He’d left them barred just to show everyone that he could. Shichio marched with only twenty men—well, twenty armored samurai; the four palanquin bearers hardly counted as men, though they could serve as arrow shields in a pinch. But twenty men posed no threat to a fortified compound, and Lord Inoue wanted to remind him of that.
Shichio entered the compound with his troops in lockstep behind him. Two long rows of Inoue samurai awaited him. They wore black trimmed with silver. Each man wore a banner pole on his back, and each black banner displayed the white sparrow of House Inoue. The sparrows did no flying today; the banners hung limp in the dead air.
Inoue Shigekazu, Lord Protector of Izu, was a tiny man. Like his house colors, his hair was black with thin highlights of silver. If Shichio’s agents heard it true, the eight personal bodyguards at his back were all his sons. But eight bodyguards and a host of samurai were not enough to put Lord Inoue at ease. Even from this distance Shichio could see his eyes darting this way and that, as jumpy as the little sparrows that his forefathers had taken as the symbol of their house.
The nine Inoues stood under the eaves of the largest building in the compound, a sprawling two-story great hall that still seemed like a squat, flat toad compared to the towering gatehouse. Shichio approached them with a swagger, the better to put the silly little lord on his heels. He knew the Inoues outnumbered his men at least three to one, but Shichio’s were battle-hardened veterans, tested by fire and steel. Izu was untouched by the wars, so Inoue’s samurai were stage actors by comparison. Shichio knew that Inoue knew that too.
“General Shichio,” Lord Inoue said, “to what do we owe the honor of your visit?”
“The Bear Cub,” Shichio said. “Daigoro. Formerly Okuma Daigoro. Formerly Lord Protector of Izu.”
“Formerly my daughter’s husband.” Inoue’s face soured. “What of him?”
“I want his head.”
That brought a twinkle to Inoue’s eye. “Then let us sit down to tea. I predict a fast friendship between us.”
* * *
Soon enough Inoue had water boys attending to Shichio’s troops and silk-clad maidservants pouring cold mugi-cha for the lords. “Such a pity that you want the young man’s head,” Inoue said, smoothing his thin mustache. “I had my heart set on the same prize.”
“Keep it, then. I’ll accept that magnificent sword of his as proof of his death.”
Inoue smiled and raised his cup. “A fair compromise. I have no use for swords.”
“Nor of heads, I hope.”
He said it with the slightest hint of sexual innuendo, to see how Inoue would react. A petty lordling might take it as a jape at his own expense. A prude might take it as an accusation of deviant practices with the dead. Shichio wanted to know what sort of man he was dealing with.
Inoue just tittered. “For that head I would find a use. As a chamber pot, perhaps. But speaking of swords, I must warn you, I think you do not travel with enough of your own.”
His eyes flicked toward Shichio’s men, who kneeled in ordered rows on the shaded veranda. They had all received bamboo cups, and skinny boys in finespun cotton moved among them carrying ladles of water. The water was backlit by the westering sun, and it caught the light quite beautifully as it spilled from ladle to cup.
Shichio followed Inoue’s gaze to the gatehouse, also backlit, with more arrow slits and cannoniers facing the courtyard. From this