it must be stifling in there, neh? He’s a princess; he’d ride in comfort if he could.”
“He’d lie on silken pillows sucking Hideyoshi’s cock if he could.”
Daigoro gaped, shocked at his wife’s tongue. Katsushima barked a laugh. “Now I see why you like this woman.”
“Well?” Aki’s smile was at once gleeful and guilty, devilish and demure. “What’s a girl to do if her father commands more spies than any clan in Izu? Is it so bad if I harvested a few for myself? Sometimes I hear things.”
Daigoro still gaped. “Things about the regent’s cock?”
“You take what fish swim into your net.” It was almost an apology, almost a boast. She gave him that smile again.
“I suppose you do. . . .” Daigoro wiped a trickle of sweat from his stubbly scalp. It was hot in the sun, far too hot for a preening sophisticate to box himself in a sedan chair. Shichio would not travel that way unless he saw no other choice. So he feared Daigoro enough to shield himself from arrows, but something else scared him more—something greater than a physical attack. Whatever it was, it required dozens of men scattered all over Izu, men who could have served as bodyguards instead. “The wedding stories!” Daigoro said. “He’s more worried about containing them than he is of a chance encounter with me.”
Katsushima gave Aki an appraising look. “I take it back,” he told Daigoro. “Now I see why you like this one. You were right to deploy those rumors, girl. That was well played.”
Akiko answered with a self-satisfied squint and chose not to correct him for calling her girl. Turning to Daigoro, she said, “You see? Statesmanship, not swordsmanship. That’s the only way to win this battle.”
Statesmanship wasn’t the word Daigoro would have chosen to describe Aki’s tactics. Ignoble was the first that came to mind. The only path he understood was his father’s path, the path of bushido. Aki’s father followed the path of skullduggery, and that way ran through unfamiliar territory. Daigoro would never have thought to order the men of his house to spread gossip in taverns and gambling halls. That was exactly what Aki had asked of her many brothers. Katsushima had been only too eager to help. He plotted a circuit from one pleasure house to the next, and in each one he dropped a few silver coins in the hands of the right whore. Through them, the tales of Shichio’s wedding would swell from whispered rumor to common knowledge—and if Katsushima happened to engage in a little pillowing after his scandal-mongering, such were the rewards of a job well done.
Now Aki’s strategy had paid off. It was already known that Shichio had deployed his shinobi far and wide. That much was clear even before Shichio set foot on Izu’s shores. Their original purpose was simple: kill the Bear Cub. But of late they had changed tactics from hunting to trapping: where once they rode abroad, now they lay in wait. Bear traps on every road, in every port, at every checkpoint, if Shichio’s boasts were true. Daigoro was not so foolish as to take him at his word, but this much was clear: the peacock used to ride in force, but now he took shelter in a wooden box and halved his personal guard. Once he dispatched hunting parties of his own, but now he sought to recruit Inoue Shigekazu to do his hunting for him. He was stretched thin.
There was one explanation: his shinobi had reported back to him with whispers of Akiko’s wedding stories. The fact that he’d reacted so swiftly could mean only one thing: he saw them as a threat—a dire threat, one worth the loss of twenty personal guards, if that meant twenty more men stationed in Izu’s taverns and common rooms. Anywhere men talked, Shichio needed ears.
“But why?” Daigoro said, thinking aloud. “What is he afraid of?”
“Losing face,” said Aki. “No man wants his cock compared to an infant’s.”
“This one isn’t a man,” Katsushima said. “He tried to marry Daigoro’s mother so he could take her name. And now you tell us he services Hideyoshi with his mouth? That’s boy’s work. Women’s work. A man gives, he doesn’t receive.”
Akiko harrumphed. “And to think you haven’t found a nice woman to settle down with.”
“I’ve women enough. Even a nice one now and again. It’s the settling down that bothers me.”
Daigoro barely registered the exchange. His thoughts were still wrapped up in Shichio. Katsushima was right: if quashing