They had gathered in sumptuous splendor, round the laden trays, with
Ieyasu in place and Hideyori at his left, as became an honored guest.
Kitagira was there, too; he had been discovered hiding at Ibaraki, and
in consideration of Hideyori's presence was allowed or compelled to
witness the shogun's placing of his own valuation.
With being told that Hideyori had not the intelligence to cope with
Hidetada, and deciding that only Yodogima stood between himself and
ultimate supremacy, Ieyasu estimated carefully the former, and planned
the necessity of immediate action against the latter.
He had grown old in the harness, would thence witness a widening of the
channel: the prop that he had visioned must inure to the swift, for
Hideyori justified a mother's confidence.
The lotus studding the ponds below lagged lazily in the breeze that
fanned them off the coast at Ozaka. Softened evidences of his good taste
toned and inspired every nook and cranny of those immaculate halls and
safely trodden grounds, but steel had marked each turn toward their
advance. Must steel again assert superiority? Would he die fighting? Why
should man at first despise, then relish, the olive? In his younger days
Ieyasu, too, had balked at culture, but with ripened years it had
become a slogan, compelling, all-forceful, and inevitable.
"I'll crush him, untutored man, vain infant, inspired mongrel; endowed
with better wit than I, he lacks only the wisdom--but his mother! Oh,
well; she might as well be Christian, and dangle her bells at church;
the taiko's jingle shall be split, and men can very well spare their
better halves, in the pursuit of a less obstreperous divertisement--
"Hideyori, my lad, what do you think of women?"
"They are the pendulum in a clock."
"Pouff! I'll make cogs and spindles of them. Kitagira, show this young
man thence he came, and send Hidetada hither; I am satisfied; either of
you have more brains than pluck; the sword is master, and not a
balancer. Hence; and let me strike while the blood yet runs hot; I have
neither time to wait nor patience to woe a goddess that isn't mine;
Ozaka must fall."
"I thank you for the entertainment, also for losing your head, horonable
host," vouchsafed Hideyori, in parting; "the former, because it is meet
to respect gray hairs: the latter, that honest men may make due
defense. You need not spare Kitagira, or his kind, for escort; a newer
generation makes it possible for me to leave here, not as you once
entered there--in a woman's palanquin--but as the defender of my own
fortune, and the builder of a nation's hope--both the usefulness and the
sacredness of mothers: no less their motherhood."
Hideyori withdrew, the more a man, if such had been his failing. His
elder at arms and with diplomacy, had thrown to the winds all the finer
notions that the younger had been taught about man's province and
woman's part. Look as he would into the fading realities of a living
yesterday, adjure from scenes imagined against the dawning to-morrow as
he did, the one thought that man is a free agent and beholding only to
the God that lives within drove him toward his destiny like the
thundering waters of a mighty gorge leap and laugh their way to the calm
and peace always lying somewhere in the untimed, but certain beyond. And
as he tramped along, looking to the right and to the left, there
appeared myriads of living atoms answering to the same call that so
eagerly gladdened his step, and when the sun burst through, upon these,
their faces turned heavenward--only the dead and unborn failed a natural
appeal, Amaterasu had written Ieyasu down, and the younger man hastened
to accept the responsibility.
"Woman a slave to man, men the creature of state, and the state no
better than a mechanism? Hearken not the vulture, but to arms: Christ
died upon the cross; let these hills and valleys grow green in the blood
of Hideyori; a mother's will and not a father's way is the final test of
a beginningless God."
Harunaga had taught him better than Yodogima believed; there lay behind
his spirit an abiding distaste for anything and everything smacking of
unearned felicity; the getting of something by sufferance were a crime;
profit at the expense of some other man's effort betokened inanity; the
trading of wares or of benefits lay beneath him; commercialism was
robbery, and diplomacy worse; deception belonged to the devil, and God
had always won, must always win.
The bribe, therefore, offered to him, by Ieyasu, the master fibber, the
safe, sane, and sound merchant of goods and other things, had no effect
upon the high-born, reenergized, and rightly tutored Hideyori. The sop
thrown out by the one to the other, of accepting new territories in
exchange for real manhood--as in the case of Ieyasu, of Hideyoshi,
thence past--fell upon deaf ears; as had the attempt to seduce Yodogima,
his mother, with privileges of building temples, casting bells, and
otherwise demeaning herself according to the predetermined notions of
the man who would use her for a plaything.
"I cannot express my love for you," promised she, to her idol, upon his
return and the departure of their two hostages, held as a guarantee;
"you convince me that there is something better in man than the greed of
instinct. Possession is the ultimate goal, but of the heart and not the
belly--hence harakiri is a virtue and no man would despoil the
fountain-head. But, my son, have you considered well the means?"
"Yes, mother--truth is invincible."
"Yet it, like all nature, is subject to hindrances; the waters tumbling
down their natural courses are oft-times retarded with log-jams, the
banks break, and the producing land is flooded."
"Only for the inevitable good of their enforced fertilization."
"Are you sure that we, in our day, do not confront the immediate
necessity of such replenishment? Are the rice-fields abundant, the dikes
strong, and the waters free?"
"Let me answer with a question: if the fields are hungry, will denial,
deception, or putting off, stay the hand of reckoning? Is it making
history to shoulder posterity with the evil of to-day's cowardice? Is it
manly? Is it godlike? If so, then we, too, can makeshift honorably. If
not, I would crush the hydra-headed monster in his den. Let him not,
through our stupidity, carelessness, or cursedness, fasten his tentacles
upon the unborn--most compelling of God's previsioning--sons and
daughters in whom alone we shall survive hell and attain heaven."
Yodogima bowed in her son's presence; she could not speak for the pride
arising out of a greater sentiment; words would have voiced the colder
side of life; attributes only of the soul moved her to make some
recognition of this fancied, hoped-for, and willed higher reach. All the
felicities of a life earnestly lived seemed answered in that one likened
expression. Then why should he have burdened her with further
obligation? What lacked she yet of the great circle that encompasses
creation?
"Do not bow, my mother," requested he, his voice modulated as if to
penetrate deeper than heart; "it is I who should kneel; maternity is the
keynote of existence, and when it has thought to command, and not obey,
men shall have reached indeed the threshold of greatness. Arise, that I
may do what in the future men shall learn of necessity."
"Must I, too, do service?"
"Yes; it is ordained of equality."
"Then I'll do it, and see you, each, that his spear is in order, for the
battle shall be to the quick."
Before Hideyori could at all respond; Jokoin snatched up the bugle, and
running to the rampart's edge, blew a blast that brought the loyal
speeding; no live man would fail a summons as vital: the one call that
has lifted antiquity's veil, makes the day worth its enduring, and
rouses better expectations of the future: Sanada shouted:
"Let me fight; the princess foresees, and progression is her right," and
Goto, Ono, the young and the vigorous, those patriots and their martyrs,
Christian or Pagan, rallied to the defense of liberty.
Only Kuroda, Fukushima, and the hirelings of content, their kind,
refused accession to Yodogima's stand.
"When you are as old as we, the wells of enthusiasm shall have dried,"
whined they, walking out at the gate--thrown open by Kyogoku, the
instrument of Esyo--regretting only that their convenience and
Yodogima's indiscretion made it more delectable for them to break an
uncrossed faith than perform a sworn duty.
They walked out, and others came in, in legion. The Christians
responded, to a man, and no such stalwart soldiery had before
gathered--in any cause. The edict against these Christians, on the one
hand, and the attempt upon Hideyori, on the other, had brought to
Yodogima's support a force and a promise that jarred for once the
understanding of Ieyasu. Policy had been his stronghold, from the
first; the one battle risked and fought, at Sekigahara, had been forced
and won at the instance of Yodogima, and the reaper of its booty knew
it, had extended his hand as recompense, and in the frenzy of madness
brought about an unthought catastrophe, seemingly as needless as
destructive.
Only the pinched of face and sycophant at heart surrounded him now; men
waxing corpulent, and others anxious to coddle them; the philosopher
because he could afford to be one; possessors of endowed chairs at
colleges, the gifts of one another; builders of libraries, in the hope
of perpetuating doubtful memories; merchant princes, and financial
jugglers, these and their like, who lap for favors, jostled each other
in the crying of peace--that their interests might not be disturbed.
Ieyasu looked them over.
"And this is what Hideyoshi's democracy really developed! A war, and all
the men at the enemy's beck and call. Had I Yodogima's strength I'd
close these doors--but I can; I'll make the barons defend their own
vested interests. Diplomacy shall yet avail the state," resolved he,
cold and set.
"Esyo?"
"What is it," demanded she.
"Tell Yodogima that Ieyasu would like to call, in conference, at her
pleasure. Will you do me the kindness?"
"Yes, honorable father-in-law. When, please?"
"Forthwith, my good Esyo."
Esyo went, but delivered instead an ultimatum.
"I came to thank you for the loan of Kyogoku, Yodogima," said she,
artfully.
"But he played me a trick?"
"Did you expect more?"
"No; not of him; but of you."
"And you shall not be disappointed; you may keep the infant; women are
cheap, and shoguns dear--do you observe the pattern, of my gown,
Yodogima? I trust I wear it, becomingly, you perceive?"
"Yes, Esyo; I understand, now. It has taken me a long time to believe a
sister could play another false--you have my protection beyond the
lines, and my best wishes always: tell your father-in-law that I accept
his challenge, and that war alone can determine the issue."
Esyo could not await her own return, so couriers were advanced with the
intelligence. Upon her arrival, much excitement but little enthusiasm
lingered at Fushima. Kuroda, Fukushima, and others of the daimyos were
there in council with Ieyasu--the new shogun, Hidetada, had already
prepared to march.
"It is your fault, Kuroda, and Fukushima, and you my spineless schemers,
that hostilities have begun, and--"
"Cannot their leaders be bought?"
"You shall have to fight, or surrender to the Christians; Yodogima is
not purchasable."
Levies were hastened forward, and the treasures brought in; Ieyasu had
succeeded, and greed for once stood compelled to surrender its power
unto determined men, or subject themselves to the leadership of a man
who hated no less the influence of plethoric wealth upon state than
dreaded the consequences of a partial democracy among men. The
Christians had become the instrument; and diplomacy proved the means
with which Ieyasu divided the nation and equipped himself to enforce
centralization.
Yodogima had builded upon broader lines: her star seemed the brighter.