For the first time, I saw someone more scared than I was.
The boy had been sent to the Oda castle as a hostage.
His name was Takechiyo. Heir to the Matsudaira of Mikawa, they said. His father had wavered between the Oda and the Imagawa, and in the end the boy had been handed over to us. A game piece, in short. A piece of tender years, used in the dealings between one house and another.
My retainers looked at the boy and said this:
"A fine hostage we have taken. He shall make a fine card for holding Mikawa in check."
A card.
My retainers said the word as though it were the most natural thing in the world. We've got ourselves a good piece. A handy stone. They said that, and laughed together.
Yes—to the world, this boy was just a card. A stone set down to keep the Imagawa in check. A life that, if it came to it, could be beheaded as an example, and no one would miss.
I hated that, unbearably. Counting lives as if they were stones. I've never been able to like that way of talking, not since I was little.
From the shadows of the corridor, half my body hidden behind a pillar, I stole a look at the boy. Walking straight into a room full of people is hard for me. Just being in the same place as someone makes my back prickle, and I end up looking for nothing but escape routes. So peeking from behind things like this had become a habit.
He was sitting in the corner of the room, his small body curled up even smaller. Hugging his knees, meeting no one's eyes, just listening hard to the footsteps beyond the sliding door. When the footsteps came closer, his shoulders jerked. When they went away, he let out the smallest breath.
Ah, I thought.
I know that way of sitting. I know that way of listening.
Those are the eyes of someone who knows he could be killed at any time. Someone who can't settle unless his back is against the wall. Someone who doesn't want to let anyone within a blade's reach.
Just like me.
Me, I may be called by the grand name of heir to the Oda. But on the inside, I'm no different from that boy. Since the day I was born, I've lived afraid of nothing but this: when will my throat be cut in my sleep, when will I be poisoned, when will my own kin betray me. When a meal tray is brought in, I suspect poison. When a floorboard creaks in the corridor at night, I leap up. I'm afraid of turning my back on anyone, so I sleep with my back to the wall. I've kept up a life like that for years now.
The only difference is that I have nowhere to run, and he has no home to go back to. That's all.
Something deep in my chest twisted tight with pain. I can't just leave him, I thought.
To have to live with eyes like that, like me, from so young. That was too cruel.
Before I knew it, my feet were moving.
Me, who was supposed to be afraid of people. Me, who was supposed to hate, more than death, letting anyone within reach. Me, who'd supposedly go leagues out of my way rather than approach anyone. For some reason, I'd walked right up to the boy and crouched down in front of him.
Takechiyo's shoulders jerked, and he looked up at me.
In his wide eyes, fear stood out plain. The young lord of the Oda, notorious as a fool, crouching right in front of him—what was he going to do? I could tell that was what he was thinking, as clearly as if I were holding it in my hand. Was he going to be tormented? Or was his head finally going to be cut off? The boy had the face of someone bracing for that.
I knew.
Because I always look at people with those eyes, too. Every time someone comes toward me, the first thing I suspect is that they've come to kill me. Eyes like that.
I lowered my voice so as not to frighten him. I meant to lower it, but nerves turned it instead into a voice that crawled along the ground. Takechiyo's shoulders jumped again. Oops, I thought, and opened my mouth.
It was something I'd always wanted to ask someone. Something I couldn't ask my retainers, or my father.
"Hey," I said.
"Are you—scared of dying too?"