The girl stepped nearer to her mistress and stared at her dismayed.
“The truth is now known to you,” whispered Azai. “We love.”
Again Setsu grasped her dirk. “Only an evil tojin would dare speak of such a matter to the Shogun’s daughter!”
Death was nearer to me than when the hatamoto struck at me in the yashiki of the High Court.
“Through my heart, to her heart!” I repeated.
The girl glanced doubtfully to Azai. I forced a smile. “The Princess has proposed that she and I should unite ourselves by passing through the gate of death. I have answered that I will wed her in this life.”
“The tojin is unwilling to give proof as to the trueness of his love,” she jeered.
To this there was only one answer that could convince her. I knelt and placed the point of my dirk to my heart.
“The tojin belief is that sincerity comes from the heart,” I said. “Say the word, and I will prove my love without asking the maiden to sacrifice herself to join me. I trust her soul to find mine when the time comes for her to leave this life.”
There was no pretence in my words. I had lived too close to Yoritomo to escape the influence of his Buddhistic philosophy and his samurai contempt for death. My love for my little Madonna Princess was greater than my love of life, and I knew that only a love equal to my own could have enabled her to overcome the extreme modesty and reserve of her breeding. I believed that death would unite us in the next life, if not in many future lives; while, if Setsu opposed me, I could not hope to win my darling in this life.