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Igurashi came running but before the samurai had gone three paces, Toranaga called out, "Bring an honor guard with you. Fifty men! At once!" He did not dare to give Yabu a moment's respite to detect the enormous flaw in his argument: that if Ishido was hamstrung now and did not have power, then Toranaga's head on a wooden platter would be of enormous value to Ishido and thus to Yabu. Or even better, Toranaga bound like a common felon and delivered alive at the gates of Osaka Castle would bring Yabu immortality and the keys to the Kwanto.

While the honor guard was forming in front of him, Toranaga said loudly, "In honor of this occasion, Yabu-sama, perhaps you would accept this as a token of friendship. " Then he took out his long sword, held it flat on both hands, and offered it.

Yabu took the sword as though in a dream. It was priceless. It was a Minowara heirloom and famous throughout the land. Toranaga had possessed this sword for fifteen years. It had been presented to him by Nakamura in front of the assembled majesty of all the important daimyos in the Empire, except Beppu Genzaemon, as part payment for a secret agreement.

This had happened shortly after the battle of Nagakude, long before the Lady Ochiba. Toranaga had just defeated General Nakamura, the Taiko-to-be, when Nakamura was still just an upstart without mandate or formal power or formal title and his reach for absolute power still in the balance. Instead of gathering an overwhelming host and burying Toranaga, which was his usual policy, Nakamura had decided to be conciliatory. He had offered Toranaga a treaty of friendship and a binding alliance, and to cement them, his half sister as wife. That the woman was already married and middle-aged bothered neither Nakamura nor Toranaga at all. Toranaga agreed to the pact. At once the woman's husband, one of Nakamura's vassals - thanking the gods that the invitation to divorce her had not been accompanied by an invitation to commit seppuku - had gratefully sent her back to her half brother. Immediately Toranaga married her with all the pomp and ceremony he could muster, and the same day concluded a secret friendship pact with the immensely powerful Beppu clan, the open enemies of Nakamura, who, at this time, still sat disdainfully in the Kwanto on Toranaga's very unprotected back door.

Then Toranaga had flown his falcons and waited for Nakamura's inevitable attack. But none had come. Instead, astoundingly, Nakamura had sent his revered and beloved mother into Toranaga's camp as a hostage, ostensibly to visit her stepdaughter, Toranaga's new wife, but still hostage nonetheless, and had, in return, invited Toranaga to the vast meeting of all the daimyos that he had arranged at Osaka. Toranaga had thought hard and long. Then he had accepted the invitation, suggesting to his ally Beppu Genzaemon that it would be unwise for them both to go. Next, he had set sixty thousand samurai secretly into motion toward Osaka against Nakamura's expected treachery, and had left his eldest son, Noboru, in charge of his new wife and her mother. Noboru had at once piled tinder-dry brushwood to the eaves of their residence and had told them bluntly he would fire it if anything happened to his father.

Toranaga smiled, remembering. The night before he was due to enter Osaka, Nakamura, unconventional as ever, had paid him a secret visit, alone and unarmed.

"Well met, Tora-san."

"Well met, Lord Nakamura."

"Listen: We've fought too many battles together, we know too many secrets, we've shit too many times in the same pot to want to piss on our own feet or on each other's."

"I agree," Toranaga had said cautiously.

"Listen then: I'm within a sword's edge of winning the realm. To get total power I've got to have the respect of the ancient clans, the hereditary fief holders, the present heirs of the Fujimoto, the Takashima, and Minowara. Once I've got power, any daimyo or any three together can piss blood for all I care."

"You have my respect - you've always had it."

The little monkey-faced man had laughed richly. "You won at Nagakude fairly. You're the best general I've ever known, the greatest daimyo in the realm. But now we're going to stop playing games, you and I. Listen: tomorrow I want you to bow to me before all the daimyos, as a vassal. I want you, Yoshi Toranaga-noh-Minowara a willing vassal. Publicly. Not to tongue my hole, but polite, humble, and respectful. If you're my vassal, the rest'll fart in their haste to put their heads in the dust and their tails in the air. And the few that don't - well, let them beware."

"That will make you Lord of all Japan. Neh?"

"Yes. The first in history. And you'll have given it to me. I admit I can't do it without you. But listen: If you do that for me you'll have first place after me. Every honor you want. Anything. There's enough for both of us."

"Is there?"