We passed by in a solemn silence broken only by the tinkle of the priest’s bell and the scuffle of heavy sandals. The Mito men had respected the dead, not, I surmised, through any desire to honor Owari, but because an attack on the cortege would have been considered little less than sacrilegious by the other clans.
With no thought of danger to divert me from grief, the long march on to Uyeno seemed to drag out to dreary infinity. Yet at last we passed up the wide Hirokoji Street and through the Black Gate of Uyeno. Park and mortuary chapels and monasteries were not unlike those of Shiba, and the great temple of To-yei-zan hardly less grand than Zozoji. But I had no heart for such wonders as the vast stone lantern and vaster bronze Buddha, the myriad-handed image of Kwannon, and the beautiful paintings, arabesques, and sculptures of gates and ceilings. The tombs and temples of shoguns were nothing to me. I was looking upon the coffin of my friend.
When the gorgeously robed priests had ended their chanted ritual, I rose in turn with the other mourners, to bow before the coffin and lay incense upon the smoking censer and withdraw to my place. When all had taken the last farewell, the etas bore him into the tomb.
“My lord,” murmured Yuki, “it is ill advised for us to linger. We should return without delay to the outer moat, and cross over through the official quarter. To repass Mito Yashiki would be to incur great risk.”
“What!” I demanded. “Are we to skulk from our enemies on our return from his funeral? Let others do as they choose. We return as we came.”
His eyes flashed with martial fire. “My lord speaks as a true samurai! His attendants will go with him gladly.”
“The hawks poise. Do not go, my lord,” whispered a voice behind me.
“Kohana!” I exclaimed, and I turned about swiftly. I saw her slender figure gliding in amongst a group of the women mourners. In a moment I had lost sight of her. Yuki sprang to overtake her, but I stopped him with a gesture.
“Come,” I said. “Let the hawks swoop. They will find heron beaks awaiting them.”
Fifty men, all mail-clad under their white robes, followed me out through the Black Gate and down Hirokoji Street. Our sandals were bound on tight, and we swung along at a brisk road pace that promised to carry us past Mito Yashiki a good half-hour before sundown. We had no wish either to slip by unseen or to be ambushed in the dark.