In the meantime, she’d left herself a dangerous game to play, with a hunted bear and a spiteful cobra as her playmates. In the best of all worlds, the trap would result in a mutual slaying. But the worst case was very bad indeed. If she were caught in league with the boy, Hideyoshi’s wrath would be swift and terrible. Shichio could not be allowed to escape her trap alive. But if she put the Bear Cub in the right position, how could she be certain he would strike true? Could she even trust him to strike at all? There was no telling. She didn’t know his character. And there was only one way to rectify that; she would have to speak with him face-to-face.
She was like her husband that way: a keen judge of character, and loath to rely on hearsay when she could gather her information firsthand. But before she could arrange a meeting, she needed a plausible pretext for them to cross paths at all. It would not be enough for her to simply tell him she wanted Shichio dead. He would have no reason to believe her—and in fact no reason to believe she was not in league with Shichio. She had to need something from him, and then offer Shichio as payment.
But what? She would need some time to think about that. It was time to gather her spies, dozens of whom she’d sent to Izu before ever departing the capital. Nene was not one to act in ignorance; she had long maintained the habit of gathering as much intelligence as possible before making a decision. This evening’s decision required special care. She needed the Bear Cub to believe the two of them were on the same side, and she needed him to believe that he was doing her a service, the payment for which would be Shichio’s head. Only then could she lay the double trap she had in mind.
She mused on the problem over dinner, eating only lightly; her primary duty at table was to nod, smile, and issue the occasional word of praise as the assembled generals told their war stories. What could a rogue ronin offer the Lady in the North? The obvious answer was Glorious Victory, but she knew he would never part with it. Nene had never fully understood men’s fascination with their swords, though she supposed a genuine Inazuma was something special. But if not his sword, what could he offer?
A sudden shout from her husband broke her train of thought. “To General Shichio,” Hideyoshi cried, rising drunkenly to his feet. He thrust a sake flask at the sky. “The best damned quartermaster anyone could ask for.”
That raised a round of cheers. “And he’ll damn well need to be,” Hideyoshi said. Suddenly he was deadly serious. “These islands are not enough for me, gentlemen. Within the year the whole empire will be mine—and what then? Eh? What then?”
His commanders looked at him, all of them sober-faced, some of them a little scared. Only Shichio knew the answer. “The world!” he shouted.
“The world!” Hideyoshi echoed, laughing maniacally. Up went the sake flask, like a sword thrust triumphantly at the moon. “Start learning Chinese, gentlemen, because by this time next year we’ll be marching on the Forbidden City!”
The generals all laughed again, and some started shouting toasts and cheers. “Banzai! Banzai!”
Banzai indeed, Nene thought. The word meant “ten thousand years.” She joined in the cheering, thinking, if only he had a hundred years, he could bring the whole world to heel.
In a flash she had the answer to her riddle: Streaming Dawn. If Glorious Victory was real, then why not Streaming Dawn? It too was said to be an Inazuma blade, and it was said to abide in these parts. How many spies had she sent in search of it over the years? Not one of them had so much as laid eyes on the blade. The best they could manage was to tell her it had been seen in Izu—not by one, but by many. Daigoro will have heard of it, she thought. That is what I can ask of him. If he does not believe in the blade, then let him think me naive, and be happy that I am selling Shichio’s lifeblood for so small a price. If he believes, then he will understand why I want it for my honored husband—and by the buddhas, if the legends of