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bject of outside interest she was an even greater

danger than before.

Yes... steps would have to be taken . . .

Yama-Shita had also been told of what the house-women had said

regarding the samurai and two red-stripes, found dead at the

Midiri-tana post-house.

There was a suggestion that the men might have been killed by ninja,

but the two women knew next to nothing about the incident and

Yama-Shita did not have any independent source of information that

would have enabled him to link the killings with the raid on the road

convoy. The paper placed on Noburo's chest identifying him and his two

companions as ronin and enemies of the Se-Iko had been spirited away

before it could become public knowledge. Midiri-tana was in the domain

of the Mitsu-Bishi, allies of the Shogun, and they had responded to an

appeal from the summer palace at Yedo to lay a veil of secrecy over the

whole affair.

The contents of the anonymous letter, penned by the Herald Toshiro

Hase-Gawa and addressed to a member of the Se-Iko family, might have

helped YamaShita make the connections which would have confirmed the

suspected identity of the puppet-master. But the letter revealing the

location and method of entry to the ronin's hidden base camp never

arrived at its destination.

Someone who had been ordered to keep a discreet watch on the Herald's

movements observed him entrust a shopkeeper at Ari-dina with the task

of dispatching a sealed document via the postal service, and it was

intercepted soon after being handed over the counter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Having used his position as a Herald of the Inner Court to secure Steve

a job as a roadrunner, Toshiro Hase-Gawa left Ari-dina and returned to

the Summer Palace on Aron-giren. By changing mounts at post-house inns

along the way, he was able to ride at full gallop for hour after

hour.

Even for a seasoned rider like Toshiro it was an exhausting exercise,

but he pressed on into the evening of each day, snatching a hot bath

and a few hours' rest before rising at 0300 to resume his journey

through the same grey twilight world he had left the night before.

Arriving at Yedo, the Herald exchanged the customary round of greetings

with Kamakura, the ever-hopeful guard-captain, then, as protocol

demanded, he presented his credentials to the Court Chamberlain's

office. Ieyasu was unable to receive him personally, being indisposed

with an intestinal complaint which had begun to plague him with

increasing frequency.

To the principal private secretary who was holding the fort in his

absence, Toshiro expressed his profound regrets at hearing of his

illustrious master's ill health, and he asked him to convey personally

to Ieyasu his respectful, yet heartfelt, good wishes and fervent hopes

for a speedy recovery. The secretary responded in the same fulsome

manner, assuring the Herald that the Chamberlain would be deeply

gratified by his expressions of concern and goodwill. Et cetera, et

cetera.

The ritual exchange ended with a series of bows and with Toshiro

wondering if the Shogun had finally managed to find a poisoner with

sufficient knowledge and subtlety to slip something past the

troublesome old fox.

Yoritomo, the twenty-eight-year-old Shogun, received the Herald in his

study on the first floor of the palace, overlooking the landscaped pool

dotted with lilies and alive with red and white carp. The last message

from samurai-captain Noburo, sent by carrier pigeon on the same day

that Clearwater had been released, had put an end to the speculation

about her identity. Once again, the Herald's sources of information

had proved utterly reliable.

Toshiro knelt before the raised section on which the Shogun sat with

five of his bodyguards. As soon as the usual formalities had been

dispensed with, the Herald assumed a cross-legged position and

proceeded to relate his' own face-to-face meeting with Clearwater at

Midiri-tana. It was, of course, a highly edited account: he said