Now rumors crawled across the countryside like a plague of rats. Shichio, of such lowly stock that even a madwoman would not have him. Shichio, whose betrothed cast him out of the marriage bed when she saw his cock was smaller than a newborn’s. Shichio, who challenged a half-dead cripple to single combat, then fled the field the moment the cripple set his hand on his sword.
The mere thought of it flushed Shichio’s ears and cheeks and made them burn. Of course he’d backed away. What choice did he have? Crossing swords with the Bear Cub was suicide. This was the boy who bested Mio Yasumasa—Mount Mio, as some of the men used to call him. Mio was a titan. If even he could not stand before that Inazuma blade, Shichio had no chance.
Embarrassing as they were, the stories of his wedding paled in comparison to the one the whelp had yet to let off the chain. Daigoro knew Shichio’s darkest secret, the one that took place at the Battle of Komaki. That story would cause Shichio not to lose face but to lose his head. And what vexed him most was that not a single word of that rumor had reached his ears. He had no doubt that this plague of wedding gossip was just cover, deliberately released by the Bear Cub in order to mask that fatal shot. Shichio had exhausted his resources deploying additional spies to track down the rumormongers. He would prefer to have had these agents riding at his side, armed and ready to take on the Bear Cub in the event of an ambush. But no. He’d deployed them all, not to quash the wedding stories but to keep that deadliest secret from reaching the wrong ears.
Yet no one had heard a single whisper of that rumor. There were only two explanations: either all of his spies were incompetent, or else the whelp had kept the story to himself. But why would he? He had nothing left to lose. Shichio had dispatched not just spies but also mercenaries—“bear hunters,” as they had come to be called—and Daigoro’s best defense against them was to see Shichio dead. So why hadn’t he loosed the one arrow that would put Shichio in the grave? Or if he had, why had none of Shichio’s agents caught wind of it?
That was a worry for a later time. At the moment, there was Inoue’s comment about Shichio’s “station” to deal with. It was ingratiating and insulting at once. Shichio had no surname, as Inoue well knew. His own daughter had been front and center during Shichio’s wedding fiasco. Shichio remembered her all too well: her smile had been the biggest of all when Shichio backed down. Some day soon, Shichio meant to kill her, preferably with the Bear Cub as his captive audience. But it would not do to tell her father that. Instead Shichio said, “Tell me, why should you want this boy dead? You allowed him to marry your daughter, neh?”
“I did. A damned cripple, and I even gave him my blessing.” Those beady black eyes finally stood still, matching Shichio’s gaze and glowing with a murderous light. “He got her with child, then abandoned her. He even abandoned his own name. What sort of man does that, I ask you? Now my Akiko is an Okuma, not an Inoue. There is nothing I can do about it. And no sooner did she step from my ship onto that one than the Okuma ship started to sink.”
“Oh?”
“Of course! Its lady is a lunatic and its lord needs a wet nurse.”
Shichio hardly needed the reminder. He’d asked his question hoping for something juicier. He’d received a report that the Okumas faced some kind of financial difficulty, but he had yet to confirm it. “How poorly run is this ship? Do you have ears within their walls?”
“Of course.”
“Then I think you know what I’ll ask next. Is the Bear Cub hiding there or is he not?”
“No. But you know that already, General. Your garrison still stands outside the Okuma compound.”
“Yes it does, doesn’t it? But you see, Lord Inoue, this puts you in a difficult position. You are Izu’s greatest spymaster, are you not?”
Inoue’s beady eyes twinkled. “I am.”
“Then you know I have searched Izu from top to bottom. I’ve lost count of how many bear-hunting parties I’ve sent into the wilds. Not one of my men has laid eyes on the whelp, and there is only one place we