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Within a few hundred paces was the castle donjon, the keep. It towered seven stories, protected by a further multiplicity of walls and doors and fortifications. On the fourth story were seven rooms with iron doors. Each was crammed with gold bullion and chests of golden coins. In the story above were the rooms of silver, bursting with ingots and chests of coins. And in the one above that were the rare silks and potteries and swords and armor - the treasure of the Empire.

At our present reckoning, Alvito thought, the value must be at least fifty million ducats, more than one year's worth of revenue from the entire Spanish Empire, the Portuguese Empire, and Europe together. The greatest personal fortune of cash on earth.

Isn't this the great prize? he reasoned. Doesn't whoever controls Osaka Castle control this unbelievable wealth? And doesn't this wealth therefore give him power over the land? Wasn't Osaka made impregnable just to protect the wealth? Wasn't the land bled to build Osaka Castle, to make it inviolate to protect the gold, to hold it in trust against the coming of age of Yaemon?

With a hundredth part we could build a cathedral in every city, a church in every town, a mission in every village throughout the land. If only we could get it, to use it for the glory of God!

The Taiko had loved power. And he had loved gold for the power it gave over men. The treasure was the gleaning of sixteen years of undisputed power, from the immense, obligatory gifts that all daimyos, by custom, were expected to offer yearly, and from his own fiefs. By right of conquest, the Taiko personally owned one fourth of all the land. His personal annual income was in excess of five million koku. And because he was Lord of all Japan with the Emperor's mandate, in theory he owned all revenue of all fiefs. He taxed no one. But all daimyos, all samurai, all peasants, all artisans, all merchants, all robbers, all outcasts, all barbarians, even eta, contributed voluntarily, in great measure. For their own safety.

So long as the fortune is intact and Osaka is intact and Yaemon the de facto custodian, Alvito told himself, Yaemon will rule when he is of age in spite of Toranaga, Ishido, or anyone.

A pity the Taiko's dead. With all his faults, we knew the devil we had to deal with. Pity, in fact, that Goroda was murdered, for he was a real friend to us. But he's dead, and so is the Taiko, and now we have new pagans to bend - Toranaga and Ishido.

Alvito remembered the night that the Taiko had died. He had been invited by the Taiko to keep vigil - he, together with Yodoko-sama, the Taiko's wife, and the Lady Ochiba, his consort and mother of the Heir. They had watched and waited long in the balm of that endless summer's night.

Then the dying began, and came to pass.

"His spirit's gone. He's in the hands of God now," he had said gently when he was sure. He had made the sign of the cross and blessed the body.

"May Buddha take my Lord into his keeping and rebirth him quickly so that he will take back the Empire into his hands once more," Yodoko had said in silent tears. She was a nice woman, a patrician samurai who had been a faithful wife and counselor for forty-four of her fifty-nine years of life. She had closed the eyes and made the corpse dignified, which was her privilege. Sadly she had made an obeisance three times and then she had left him and the Lady Ochiba.

The dying had been easy. For months the Taiko had been sick and tonight the end was expected. A few hours ago he had opened his eyes and smiled at Ochiba and at Yodoko, and had whispered, his voice like a thread: "Listen, this is my death poem:

Like dew I was born

Like dew I vanish

Osaka Castle and all that I have ever done

Is but a dream

Within a dream."

A last smile, so tender, from the Despot to them and to him. "Guard my son, all of you." And then the eyes had opaqued forever.

Father Alvito remembered how moved he had been by the last poem, so typical of the Taiko. He had hoped because he had been invited that, on the threshold, the Lord of Japan would have relented and would have accepted the Faith and the Sacrament that he had toyed with so many times. But it was not to be. "You've lost the Kingdom of God forever, poor man," he had muttered sadly, for he had admired the Taiko as a military and political genius.

"What if your Kingdom of God's up a barbarian's back passage?" Lady Ochiba had said.

"What?" He was not certain he had heard correctly, revolted by her unexpected hissing malevolence. He had known Lady Ochiba for almost twelve years, since she was fifteen, when the Taiko had first taken her to consort, and she had ever been docile and subservient, hardly saying a word, always smiling sweetly and happy. But now...

"I said, 'What if your God's kingdom's in a barbarian's back passage?'"

"May God forgive you! Your Master's dead only a few moments-"