path. “Let me be sure I understand your meaning. When I approached you to arrange Gorobei’s marriage to my mother, I did it to save my family from the depredations of a madman. But when you consented, you did it not to protect an ally, but to usurp my mother in her moment of weakness. Is that what I’m to understand?”
“She is weak, Daigoro-san. Would you honestly say she is in a fit state to rule?”
“We should question your fitness first. Need I remind you that your father is still alive?”
“For now.”
“Then for now you ought to obey him. After that, obey your eldest brother, and when he passes, obey the next one. Have you no loyalty to your own kin?”
“My kin have lingered far too long. I expected more sympathy from you, Daigoro-san. You understand what it is to be the youngest son. Now imagine you were sixty years old and your father still clung to life. Imagine your brothers showed the same vitality. If I mean to rule before my hundredth birthday, I must take action.”
Daigoro clenched a fist, wishing it was holding that horsewhip. “You ask me to imagine if my father and brother were still alive? I would give anything for that. Anything.”
“And live only as a servant to your house?”
“Until my hundredth birthday. Or until tomorrow, if by giving my life I could grant them a hundred years.”
Kenbei’s face grew somber. “I am sorry. I should have thought of that.”
“Yes, you should have. And think on this too: just what do you hope to become once you claim your father’s seat? You will never be anything other than a servant to your house; you will only become the servant with the heaviest duties.”
“So says the boy who abandoned his duties,” said Azami.
“Not abandoned. Sacrificed. To save my house.” And believe me, he thought, there are days when I am glad to be rid of them. The daimyo of Izu reminded him of nothing so much as squabbling hens. Impossible to silence, nearly impossible to govern, they presented the daily temptation to spit them, roast them, and eat them for dinner.
There was a time when Daigoro couldn’t understand why a born samurai like Katsushima would live as a ronin. Now he knew. Part of him wished he was like Katsushima, free as a wave. He would wash right over these two and roll back out to sea.
When the maidservant came with their tea, Daigoro dismissed her. His guests were not worth the price of a pinch of tea leaves. “So is that the way of it?” he asked. “We arranged the marriage of our houses for mutual protection against a common enemy. It served as our armor, but now you would reforge it into a dagger. Is that the message you would like me to deliver to Lord Yasuda? That you betrayed my house at the first opportunity?”
“Listen to you!” Azami snapped. “A tittle-tattle running to a grown-up.”
“One party to a parley, treating with the other. Your husband is the one behaving childishly. Unless . . . well, perhaps he is not the cat, but only the paw. How much of this is your doing?”
“Leave my wife out of this,” Kenbei growled.
“I’ll thank you to show me the same courtesy.”
Kenbei set his teeth on edge. Daigoro could see the veins swelling in his temples. His mouth was a thin, flat line. “You have no wife. By your own word, she is your ex-wife—or perhaps your widow, if Okuma Daigoro is truly dead. In any case, you have no authority to speak for her.”
“Then why talk to me at all?”
As soon as he said it, Daigoro asked himself the same question. Did Kenbei have some ulterior motive for keeping Daigoro away from his family? Daigoro closed his eyes for a moment, the better to focus on what he could hear. Gorobei was crying and women were cooing at him. He heard Akiko’s lilting tones in the chorus. That meant she was safe. Up until this moment, it hadn’t even occurred to him to question her safety. But prior to this moment, his family’s closest ally had never threatened a coup.
If she was safe, then something stayed Yasuda swords in their scabbards. Perhaps Aki was holding Gorobei. Perhaps Katsushima was too near and too feared. Or perhaps, Daigoro hoped most of all, Kenbei had no intention of hurting her. Before today, Daigoro would never have dreamt otherwise. Now he could not get it out of his mind that