Chapter I, Part X ~ Ichigatsu, Tenbun 20 (January, 1551), There and Back Again
I rode for days with the feeling of guilt gnawing away at my stomach, every glance from my escorts - for they were mine now, only I being privy to most of Inomata-sans thoughts and fears for the negotiations - seeming to me to be a silent accusation; I knew that some of them, had they found enough proof, would have cut me down in an instant.
To them, as to my former liege, I was an upstart and a usurper from a family of filthy samurai bound to the land and the dirt it was formed from. They on the other hand were each of them descended from noble lines, from the bushi who had risen up and otherthrown the soft and effeminate houses of Kyoto in centuries past, men who still yelled their family line as they rode into battle and men who believed that wars were still won with duels of man against man.
In short, they were relics of a past that no longer existed in Japan, old campaigners who would sit about a fire and speak of acts which their glorious ancestors had comitted in the name of one Emperor or another; even with the invasions by the Mongols and their allies, gathered from many places and peoples, knowing of men fighting in massed ranks and the changes they had bought to the art of waging war even in Japan, and even with the arrival of the Nanban traders and their crucified God - as well as their 'guns' which could kill a man from many feet away - these bags of wind continued to look down their noses at me and my ancestors.
These things concerned me only for so long, swirling amidst my thoughts of Uijimasa-san, and eventually disappearing as we crossed into Mikawa. The province we moved through was one ripe with the stench of fear and suppressed anger, the lands of Miakawa openly raided and extorted by men of the Hatekeyama, every peasant commune we passed through gazing up at us from their toiling in the fields as we passed, their eyes full of loathing for these peacocks mounted on horses and bearing their blades at their side. It seemed that were were as hated and despised as the Hatekeyama, but certainly not as much as Imagawa Hisako-tono.
One headman told us that Hisaka-tono had retreated into his largest castle and refused to come out, while a passing merchant advised us to turn back because all hope of reasoning with the daimyo of the Imagawa was lost; it was not until I met him myself that I realised what truths the peddler had spoken! Hisako-sama had indeed fled into his keep, only letting us enter after much talk, declining to offer us so much as tea or fodder for our horses. He then insulted me, offended that a mere page had been sent to treat with him, to ask that he allow his only son to be taken back to Hojo lands and protected from the fate that was sure to befall them both if they remained. It was the only time that I ever saw some sympathy from those stiff Hojo retainers that accompanied me.
"My Lord," I remember pleading, my arms outstretched as I leant forward on my knees, "Hatekeyama Yoshikuni will destroy you! He has men in numbers, wealth and land. You cannot hope to match him. Please, allow us to take your son Ujizane where he will be safe."
"Hah!" He snorted, "you would make him a Hojo vassal when the time is right, and the Imagawa give their freedom to no-one! Do you hear me, page? No-one!"
It was, and always had been, a lost cause. I had slain Inomata-san because it had been the situation I was placed in, only to find that Hisako-tono was as crazed as a rampaging bullock. Had Ujiyasu-tono and his son known what I would do? Had it all been a scheme to rid themselves of Inomata-san, while at the same time knowing that the Imagawa would never accept our terms?
Whatever the truth of it, negotiations had failed; on my way back to the Hojo heartlands, passing the same merchant we had seen before, he told us that Mikawa had fallen, Hisako-tono and his son both slain, and the Hatekeyama-shi had now become the new lords of Mikawa in a mere matter of days since our departure.
I could not wait to return to Kai, though I did not know what I might find.