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"Yes, Father." Naga watched him, perplexed, afraid to ask questions as always, yet wanting to know everything. He could not fathom how his father could be so detached after such a hideous meeting. To bow Zataki away with the due ceremony then, at once, to summon his hawks and beaters and guards and halloo them away to the rolling hills beyond the forest, seemed to Naga to be an unearthly display of self-control. Just the thought of Zataki made Naga's flesh crawl now, and he knew that the old counselor was right: if one tenth of the conversation had been overheard, samurai would have leapt to defend their lord's honor. If it weren't for the threat that hung over his revered grandmother's head, he would have rushed at Zataki himself. I suppose that's why my father is what he is, and is where he is, he thought....

His eyes picked out horsemen breaking from the forest below and galloping up toward them over the rolling foothills. Beyond the dark green of the forest, the river was a twisted ribbon of black. The lights in the inns blinked like fireflies. "Father!"

"Eh? Ah Yes, I see them now. Who are they?"

"Yabu-san, Omi-san and . . . eight guards."

"Your eyes are better than mine. Ah yes, now I recognize them."

Naga said without thinking, "I wouldn't have let Yabu-san go alone to Lord Zataki without-" He stopped and stuttered, "Please excuse me."

"Why wouldn't you have sent Yabu-san alone?"

Naga cursed himself for opening his mouth and quailed under Toranaga's gaze. "Please excuse me, because then I'd never know what secret arrangement they would have made. He could, Father, easily. I would have kept them apart - please excuse me. I don't trust him."

"If Yabu-san and Zataki-san plan treachery behind my back, they'll do it whether I send a witness or not. Sometimes it's wiser to give a quarry extra line - that's how to catch a fish, neh?"

"Yes, please excuse me."

Toranaga realized that his son didn't understand, would never understand, would always be merely a hawk to hurl at an enemy, swift, sharp, and deadly.

"I'm glad you understand, my son," he said to encourage him, knowing his good qualities, and valuing them. "You're a good son," he added, meaning it.

"Thank you, Father," Naga said, filled with pride at the rare compliment. "I only hope you'll forgive my stupidities and teach me to serve you better."

"You're not stupid." Yabu's stupid, Toranaga almost added. The less people know the better, and it's not necessary to stretch your mind, Naga. You're so young - my youngest but for your half brother, Tadateru. How old is he? Ali, seven, yes, he'd be seven.

He watched the approaching horsemen a moment. "How's your mother, Naga?"

"As always, the happiest lady in the world. She'll still only let me see her once a year. Can't you persuade her to change?"

"No," said Toranaga. "She'll never change."

Toranaga always felt a glow when he thought of Chano-Tsubone, his eighth official consort and Naga's mother. He laughed to himself as he remembered her earthy humor, her dimpled cheeks and saucy bottom, the way she wriggled and the enthusiasm of her pillowing.

She had been the widow of a farmer near Yedo who had attracted him twenty years ago. She had stayed with him three years, then asked to be allowed to return to the land. He had allowed her to go. Now she lived on a good farm near where she was born - fat and content, a dowager Buddhist nun honored by all and beholden to none. Once in a while he would go to see her and they would laugh together, without reason, friends.

"Ah, she's a good woman," Toranaga said.

Yabu and Omi rode up and dismounted. Ten paces away they stopped and bowed.

"He gave me a scroll," Yabu said, enraged, brandishing it. "...We invite you to leave Izu at once for Osaka, today, and present yourself at Osaka Castle for an audience, or all your lands are now forfeit and you are hereby declared outlaw.'" He crushed the scroll in his fist and threw it on the ground. "Today!"

"Then you'd better leave at once," Toranaga said, suddenly in a foul humor at Yabu's truculence and stupidity.

"Sire, I beg you," Omi began hastily, dropping abjectly to his knees, "Lord Yabu's your devoted vassal and I beg you humbly not to taunt him. Forgive me for being so rude, but Lord Zataki . . . Forgive me for being so rude."

"Yabu-san, please excuse the remark - it was meant kindly," Toranaga said, cursing his lapse. "We should all have a sense of humor about such messages, neh?" He called up his falconer, gave him the bird from his fist, dismissed him and the beaters. Then he waved all samurai except Naga out of earshot, squatting on his haunches, and bade them do the same. "Perhaps you'd better tell me what happened."