And with bated breath those captains, now scattered and broken, looked
on, powerless to see and helpless to act. Yodogima threw open her doors
to the patriots: Ieyasu closed his against all but the wise, and no
such cloud had risen since the days of Ashikaga.
"My daughter shall not become the wife of this stripling, Hideyori,"
declared Esyo, at the shogun's repeated threat.
"Yes she will," replied he, coldly considering the prospects, from
another standpoint altogether.
Esyo stared balefully at the floor, and Ieyasu labored watchfully the
trend of her reasoning; he would not force the issue at Ozaka, not just
yet, and he knew that Yodogima would regard her sister's feelings. A
cloud, also, had risen in the direction of Jokoin. The banishment of the
Christians had roused her ire, particularly as Takiyama had been ordered
into seclusion, and with both sisters, his own sons, the Christians, and
Yodogima against him the small prospect at hand of squeezing out the
house of Hideyoshi would be forever dissipated.
"I am an old man, Esyo," said he, after a short reflection, "and would
make Hidetada my successor; suppose I do it now; resign, and persuade
his appointment instead, as shogun; would it be asking too much in that
event, to expect your reasonable consent to this marriage?"
Esyo deliberated. It had been her one ambition from the day she landed
in Hideyoshi's camp, a victim if a meddler. Would she quit the pleasure
of frustrating Yodogima, as she believed, to gain the eminence so long
and craftily sought? The bare thought of needing to decide pained her;
she would have snatched both, the gratification and the honor, but this
Ieyasu, her father-in-law, the shogun, had never been pressed to
extremes, while in a corner, and she faltered.
"Upon one condition," concluded she, presently.
"That seems fair," chanced he; "what is it?"
"That you kill Hideyori."
"Before, or after?" inquired the shogun, without so much as smiling.
"Presumably you may think it as easily done," retorted she, the pride of
blood, for the nonce, asserting some sort of peculiar sway.
The Taira, however, had measured swords with the Minamoto centuries
before Esyo inadvertently condescended to vouchsafe this one lonely
thrill, and Ieyasu perhaps, therefore, sooner learned to attend the
reckoning that awaited him, in this his final effort to dislodge an
intrepid foe. Were the last fight to have been fought with a man, the
battle-scarred Ieyasu had buckled on his armor, and gladly; but look as
he might, heed whom he chose, Yodogima, a love of his and an offspring
of theirs, rose up, out of the smoldering embers, to bid and to
challenge.
"My God! I cannot face her--oh, yes; I can; she is nothing to me--curse
the Christians! I'll slay them--"
"No you won't," threatened Jokoin, in her way, having entered shortly
after Esyo's withdrawal, in the course of the hearer's meditation;
"they've got powder to burn, of a right good quality--just in from
Hirado, the foreigners' hold out--and a pound of it is worth a lot of
valor--"
"I'll double the price; tell your friends that Ieyasu is in the market
for powder."
"And a wife, as well. But you can't have Yodogima; she's given you the
mit."
"Silence, child; will you never use modesty; you are in the presence of
the shogun?"
"Oh, I wonder--indeed I'm not; you have no right to be shogun, and what
isn't right isn't; there now! I shall take my orders from Hideyori:
perhaps marry him, if Takiyama, Goto, Sanada, and all the rest worth
while--"
"You have a husband."
"So have you a wife; and, what is more, my husband is willing; and, I am
sure, you can't say as much; and, better still, Esyo wants her daughter
to marry Kyogoku--don't you think you could use him; he is as good as
forty women, at that?"
"Kyogoku! Perhaps--he may know more about them than I do," sighed the
shogun, hopelessly entangled, undoing the riddle she had unwound for his
special edification. "I'll let you off, however; though, I ought to send
you as company for Takiyama."
"Send me? I'd like to see you do it; banish me, if you dare!"
"I'll harness the whole of you, if you don't mind your p's and q's. And
to convince you that I mean just what I say I am this very day going to
send the infant daughter of Hidetada, together with a retinue, to Ozaka.
No doubt you yourself will have advised Hideyori--whom I have had
appointed Nai-dai-jin--in advance something of my expectations so that
he may be prepared to take my granddaughter as wife upon arrival. I
shall, out of consideration for you, forego any more forceful
intelligence."
"He shall do nothing of the kind, is not a nai-dai-jin, nor will
Yodogima harbor your spies--not if I can prevent it. Neither do I care
to be bored with your concern for me."
"Oh, ho--there are worse lovers."
"None as inane, whom I know."
"Tut, tut--louder and more of it."
"You haven't begun to hear from me."
"No?"
"N-o-o-?--I'm off."
The shogun had not misjudged Jokoin, in the least, yet did not wish at
all to enforce any kind of restraint. Unable to fathom Esyo, there was
danger of estranging Hidetada himself--for the wife had quite dominated
and held him verily subject to her own stronger will--while Hideyasu,
not yet wholly without some influence, still refused to become entirely
reconciled to his naturally unexpected displacement. There were, also,
rumors around that certain of the captains and daimyos who had sided
with him as against Ishida were growing nervous about his attitude
toward the taiko's heir. Whether it were because of their own
jealousies, or due to Yodogima's influence, he could not satisfactorily
determine, as indited; he had rewarded them all, liberally, for their
services, if deserving, while the princess had estranged some by her
friendliness to Harunaga; whatever the case the breach must be held over
till his forces had been raised and insured to the likelihood of
Yodogima's. His contention about the Christians had enthused the
populace, but open hostilities against Hideyori, so soon after, would
certainly lose him the advantage at first gained.
Diplomacy were his most available instrument, just then, however drastic
the conclusive threshing.
"Are you certain about this boy, Hideyori's incapacity, Kitagira?"
inquired he--soon after Jokoin had left--doubtfully. "You have
persistently told me that he were no match for Hidetada; I should like
to know, of my own knowledge; cannot you arrange a meeting?"
"One thing at a time, my lord; if he marry your granddaughter, what
better proof need anyone?"
"Just so. Therefore see you that the marriage take place."
Kitagira made no answer, but drawing his own conclusions, from that last
answer, as to the shogun's own capableness, trudged off toward Ozaka,
with the intentionally betrothed in his arms, fully decided upon
escaping to his own miserably allotted fief, should he fail of the
mission imposed.
At Ozaka a storm of protest went up from all but Yodogima. She had
threatened something worse. Esyo arriving first, Jokoin after, and the
trundled granddaughter lastly, everybody had had ample occasion to hit
upon something--save alone Ieyasu; who by remaining at home surveyed
better the feelings engendered with the ruse.
"Take the brat away," shouted Kyogoku, still vigilant at the gate.
"No," commanded Yodogima; "let the mother decide; she is present, and of
right should elect a daughter's husband."
"I can save you trouble," suggested Hideyori; reluctantly, however, for
the baby looked pretty; "I am already engaged--"
"To Jokoin," interposed Harunaga; "I have the mikado's permission."
A storm of applause followed upon the one side, occasioning as violent
denunciation from the other. No one except the shogun had for a long
time so much as thought of profaning the precincts of celestial Kyoto,
let alone essaying to voice a message thus sacredly emanating.
"Who is this Harunaga?" demanded Fukushima, most cruel and savage, an
old captain of the guard and relative to Oyea, but not averse to
Christian tolerance. "What right has he to put words into the mouth of a
taiko's son?"
Kuroda, still older, and more devoted to the sympathies of Yodogima,
grumbled accordance.
Esyo held her tongue; she wanted her daughter--strange to believe,
except as she knew--married to Kyogoku, and deemed it best not to
interfere.
"Oh, I guess, you are not so much, Mr. Fukushima; we have Sanada, Goto,
and a few more equally as reliable; if you want to rebel, I think we
shall be able to make out; what say you, Esyo?" put in Jokoin,
boastfully.
"I give my daughter to Kyogoku."
"What? He is married," threatened Kitagira, nervously.
"He can divorce me," replied Jokoin, concernedly.
"Without authority?" inquired Kyogoku, gasping at some vain law instead
of a better wit.
"I have it, and shall use it," declared Hideyori.
"You have not been appointed, are not an official," reasoned Fukushima.
"Yes, he has; he is nai-dai-jin; Ieyasu just now told me so, and I am
sure an Interior Great Minister can do anything he likes," threatened
Jokoin, more confident than discreet.
They all ran about with glee, those of the Christians present; that one
so near conversion, as Hideyori, had been raised to some exalted
position were enough to enthuse them; but Yodogima meditated; the
confusion thereat had left her as doubtful as Ieyasu had been perplexed
with Jokoin's entanglement. Yet she would not restrain Hideyori in his
exultation from irretrievably committing himself by exercising only once
the authority; she wanted to accommodate her sisters, especially Esyo,
and perhaps Jokoin--possibly herself--so the power was invoked.
Ieyasu laughed when informed of the circumstance, and sending for
Jokoin, told her that now he should encounter little discouragement in
winning her over.
"I want you to be my wife, Jokoin," said he, without a wrinkle or a
quaver; "you are the last of the family, and are single again; what say
you to feasting Hideyori: don't you think he might be gotten rid of in
some such way?"
Jokoin's eyes opened wide. The sister to Yodogima had never heard that
one's former lover talk in that way before. It seemed impossible that
the great Ieyasu, an unsuspected character, if self-inflicted shogun, a
lifelong aspirant to her sister's hand, should so belittle himself as to
banter respect however much else.
"I shall speak with Yodogima; you overwhelm me," replied Jokoin,
dumfounded at her own sensibility.
"Please do; tell her that I wish to marry you; that I would spread a
befitting feast; that I beseech a fool to attend; that Hideyori may
judge of what he has missed; that your extravagance would swamp a
younger man--all this, and more: say that Esyo, her sister, wants to
kill Hideyori, and that I know of no better means of encompassing that
event."
Jokoin hurried away, fully determined never to return; the ghost of
Hideyori already betokened a reality at every turn in the road, and from
the moorland hard by arose the whisperings and the wailings of a
repentant sister--Esyo's voice rang ominously in her ears.
Yodogima, contrary to expectations, brightened at the thought of sending
Hideyori into the enemy's camp. He had shown himself the man to foil
Ieyasu's contemplated espionage at its inception: what greater capacity
might be discovered if brought face to face with a man whose extremity
had induced so flagrant a mouthing.
"Tell Ieyasu that Hideyori shall attend with pleasure, not his marriage
revel, but more the witless unmaking of as pampered a braggadocio as an
humbler memory of Hideyoshi and Nobunaga combined might have fairly
conduced. Tell him that he would eat the rice-cake these two worthies
made; but in the doing he shall choke for lack of throat. Let him know
that Yodogima lives, and so long as there is a Taira alive justice shall
be done: no man's religion is to be the occasion of his persecution, my
sisters may do as their God tells them to do, and Hideyori must reign."
"I couldn't remember to say all that, at once, and I had rather remain
here," sighed Jokoin, her great opened-up eyes dancing at the prospect.
Sitting there unconscious of another obligation, Yodogima considered
also her resources. Though remembering well the countenance of Kuroda,
and Fukushima's measured words, on that memorable morning, she could but
believe them true to their trust. To her way of thinking, no more
probable course had conformed to an aim attainable; the life she lived
breathed, at every stride, of action, inviolable; their traditions known
so well, Buddha's precepts, and Christ's faith all cried in her ears,
"do," "do," "do"; a constant struggle had made her what she was--the
face of Shin Hachiman (statue of Hideyoshi, the new War God) looked down
from its pedestal at Kyoto, imploring her to stay the hand of Ieyasu:
how becomingly could a faithful wife, and a mother, have concluded
otherwise?
"Then Hideyori may pronounce it, at the banquet table; he is my son, and
the worthy mouthpiece of a nobler purpose than feasting."