Shōgun

Toranaga trotted up and dismounted, offering the lure. Obediently the goshawk left her prey and then, as he deftly concealed the lure, she settled on his outstretched gauntlet. His fingers caught her jesses and he could feel her grip through the steel-reinforced leather of the forefinger perch.

"Eeeeee, that was well done, my beauty," he said, rewarding her with a morsel, part of the hare's ear that a beater sliced off for him. "There, gorge on that but not too much-you've still work to do."

Grinning, the beater held up the hare. "Master! It must be three, four times her weight. Best we've seen for weeks, neh?"

"Yes. Send it to the camp for the Anjin-san." Toranaga swung into the saddle again and waved the others forward to the hunt once more.

Yes, the kill had been well done, but it had none of the excitement of a peregrine kill. A goshawk's only what it is, a cook's bird, a killer, born to kill anything and everything that moves. Like you, Anjin-san, neh?

Yes, you're a short-winged hawk. Ah, but Mariko was peregrine.

He remembered her so clearly and he wished beyond wishing that it had not been necessary for her to go to Osaka and into the Void. But it was necessary, he told himself patiently. The hostages had to be released. Not my kin, but all the others. Now I've another fifty allies committed secretly. Your courage and Lady Etsu's courage and self-sacrifice have bound them and all the Maedas to my side, and through them, the whole western seaboard. Ishido had to be winkled out of his impregnable lair, the Regents split, and Ochiba and Kiyama broken to my fist. You did all this and more: You gave me time. Only time fashions snares and provides lures.

Ah, Mariko-chan, who would have thought a little slip of a woman like you, daughter of Ju-san Kubo, my old rival, the arch-traitor Akechi Jinsai, could do so much and wreak so much vengeance so beautifully and with such dignity on the Taikō, your father's enemy and killer. A single awesome stoop, like Tetsu-ko, and you killed all your prey which are my prey.

So sad that you're no more. Such loyalty deserves special favor.

Toranaga was at the crest now and he stopped and called for Tetsu-ko. The falconer took Kogo from him and Toranaga caressed the hooded peregrine on his fist a last time, then he slipped her hood and cast her into the sky. He watched her spiral upward, ever upward, seeking a prey that he would never flush. Tetsu-ko's freedom is my gift to you, Mariko-san, he said to her spirit, watching the falcon circle higher and higher. To honor your loyalty to me and your filial devotion to our most important rule: that a dutiful son, or daughter, may not rest under the same heaven while the murderer of her father still lives.

"Ah, so wise, Sire," the falconer said.

"Eh?"

"To release Tetsu-ko, to free her. I thought the last time you flew her she'd never come back but I wasn't sure. Ah, Sire, you're the greatest falconer in the realm, the best, to know, to be so sure when to give her back to the sky."

Toranaga permitted himself a scowl. The falconer blanched, not understanding why, quickly offered Kogo back and retreated hastily.

Yes, Tetsu-ko was due, Toranaga thought testily, but, even so, she was still a symbolic gift to Mariko's spirit and the quality of her revenge.

Yes. But what about all the sons of all the men you've killed?

Ah, that's different, those men all deserved to die, he answered himself. Even so, you're always wary of who comes within arrow range-that's normal prudence. This observation pleased Toranaga and he resolved to add it to the Legacy.

He squinted into the sky once more and watched the falcon, no longer his falcon. She was a creature of immense beauty up there, free, beyond all the tears, soaring effortlessly. Then some force beyond his ken took her and whirled her northward and she vanished.

"Ah, Tetsu-ko, thank you. Bear many daughters," he said, and turned his attention to the earth below.

The village was neat in the lowering sun, the Anjin-san still at his table, samurai training, smoke rising from the cooking fires. Across the bay, twenty ri or so, was Yedo. Forty ri southeast was Anjiro. Two hundred and ninety ri westward was Osaka and north from there, barely thirty ri, was Kyoto.

That's where the main battle should be, he thought. Near the capital. Northward, up around Gifu or Ogaki or Hashima, astride the Nakasendō, the Great North Road. Perhaps where the road turns south for the capital, near the little village of Sekigahara in the mountains. Somewhere there. Oh, I'd be safe for years behind my mountains, but this is the chance I've waited for: Ishido's jugular is unprotected.