We kowtowed and glided from the audience chamber past an increeping group of chamberlains. In the anteroom, when I received back my sword and dirk from the old gate captain, Keiki eyed him sharply, but was called away by Midzuano. Ii Kamon-no-kami and Abe Ise-no-kami followed the Prince, Satsuma, and myself through another exit, and asked me many politely worded questions as we clattered along on our high clogs.
Leaving the palace enclosure by one of the lesser bridges, we crossed the outer enclosure of the citadel to the Sakaruda Gate through a small army of grotesquely armored hatamotos. It was the first time that I had seen Japanese in full war-harness, and bizarre as was the effect of their dish helmets, wing-like shoulder brassards, and the padded robes under their plate and chain mail, I must confess that they presented a most formidable appearance even to one acquainted with modern firearms.
Outside the Sakaruda Gate I was relieved to find Yoritomo waiting for us with a guard of half a thousand Owari retainers, all clad in armor as complete as that of the hatamotos. He himself wore a wondrous suit of gilded armor that glittered resplendent in the light of the swaying lanterns. He rode an armored stallion, but had brought a norimon for me.
The need of this escort became clear when we marched away through the official quarter. I had left the broad streets swarming with a silk-clad panic-stricken mob. I came back to find them all but jammed with mailed and helmetted samurais whose wild fear had given place to the fury of despair. Many among them,—for the most part Mito retainers,—wore their armor shrouded with white mourning robes, in token of devotion to death in battle.
Ii and Abe had turned aside to their yashikis, which were near at hand, eastward from the gate. We moved in the opposite direction, and having escorted Satsuma and his cortege to his yashiki, finally won our way through the crowded streets to the outer moat and across into Owari Yashiki.
A few minutes later I was alone in my apartments with Yoritomo, relating all that had befallen me since our parting at sunset. Throughout the account my friend listened with intense interest, but with no comment except an exclamation of profound astonishment that the Princess should have confessed her love to me.
When I had quite finished, he shook his head in a puzzled manner, and said: “In all the temples and at thousands of samurai garden shrines, prayers are being made for the gods to send a great wind against the tojins. If all the tojins are as favored by the gods as one I know, there will be no typhoon.”
“I have won the favor of Azai. How can I fail to possess the favor of the gods?” I replied, not altogether in jest.
He clanked his golden armor in an impatient gesture. “Namida! We speak of women and love, when the fate of Nippon hangs in the balance! There is one thing you have not told me. What was the message Yuki handed to you when you were mounting your horse? He says that a geisha gave it to him for me. He did not presume to read it, but as he could not reach my norimon through the midst of the Satsuma men, he gave the note to you, not knowing that you cannot read Japanese.”
I searched in my bosom, and drew out a crumpled bit of paper. As Yoritomo smoothed it on the palm of his steel gauntlet, he nodded. “The writing of Kohana. You are right in suspecting that the attack in the garden enclosure of the Princess was not due to chance. It was an ambush laid by Keiki and Midzuano. They hoped you would be cut down by the hatamotos as you entered the citadel. That failing, Gengo deliberately misled you into the forbidden enclosure of the women, that Midzuano might set the guards of the inner gate upon you. The guards did not know it was a plot. They were loyally seeking to avenge the outrage committed by one of the hairy barbarians who had violated the sacred enclosure of the palace women. None other than Azai or the Shoguness could have saved you.”