The rumor that someone I couldn't escape was coming turned out to be true.
Saito Dosan, the Viper of Mino. His daughter was to marry me. Her name was Kicho.
If it were a marriage meeting, I could drive her off as usual by going full fool. Drain the gourd, gnaw a dried persimmon, stuff my cheeks with the rice cakes at my waist, and leave my seat without a word. That way, most such talks simply vanish on their own, from their side.
Women are frightening. I can't read what they're thinking at all. She could be smiling sweetly while hiding a blade in her sleeve. So every time a woman came near, I played the fool and ran. No one in this castle has noticed that it's running.
But this wasn't a marriage meeting.
It was an alliance between the Oda and the Saito.
A pact between two provinces, so they wouldn't cross blades. And as proof of it, one human being was being loaded into a palanquin and carried here. Whatever antics I pulled, however much the other side hated it, there was no turning back now.
The household was giddy.
"Join hands with the Viper of Mino, and the Oda's back is secure. A most auspicious thing."
"To think the daughter of Dosan himself shall become her ladyship. Owari may rest easy now."
"The young lord must be awaiting her most eagerly."
One of the retainers said that and studied my face. I silently gnawed a dried persimmon. If I keep quiet, they nod to each other on their own: "How serene the young lord is."
—That's not it.
I was the only one who'd gone pale. Sweat was seeping into my palms.
Think about it. Saito Dosan is a man who seized his lord's house, drove out his father-in-law, and even crossed blades with his own son—the greatest villain of the warring age. Do you really think a man like that would send his darling daughter just to get along with us?
No.
She's a spy.
Dosan means to slip his daughter in beside me and have her sniff out the inner workings of the Oda. Once he knows his son-in-law is a useless fool, the soldiers of Mino can march in any time. This princess Kicho is a living pair of eyes and ears, sent to size me up.
In other words, from now on I'd be sleeping on the same bedding as an enemy spy.
I'm afraid of people. I'm afraid of women. I'm terrified of letting anyone within reach.
And of all people, I would be lying pillow to pillow every night with someone who might well have come to cut my throat in my sleep. And in the inner chamber, alone with her, with no way out.
Just thinking about it gave me a sharp, grinding pain in the stomach. Something cold settled in the pit of my belly. My stomach goes like this the moment anything frightens me.
You can't be serious.
The day of the bridal procession came.
A long procession filed solemnly into the castle. A dazzling palanquin. Ladies-in-waiting in attendance. Lines of porters bearing loads. Banner after banner flapping in the wind. The household greeted it all with bright faces, but to my eyes it looked like nothing but an enemy army passing through the castle gate.
Every last lady-in-waiting looked like an assassin. Weren't there soldiers hidden in the baggage? Weren't there eyes glinting behind the palanquin's curtain, taking aim at me? I stood beside the gate, arms folded, glaring hard at the procession. I was only doing it because I was terrified.
But I heard later that the attendants had been shaking in their sandals. "A young lord with a face as fearsome as the rumors said." Far from a fool, he was like an ogre, they said.
—No. I was just scared of you.
What kind of face would the woman in that palanquin turn on me? Wasn't she hiding a blade in her sleeve? At night, when we were alone, wouldn't she press it to my throat once I'd fallen asleep?
Cold sweat ran down my back.
I wanted to run.
But there was nowhere left to run to.
That night, before the sliding door of the inner chamber where the bedding had been laid out.
I stood frozen, facing a battlefield called the wedding night.