At last, during the solemn Festival of the Dead, which was celebrated in mid August, Yuki learned that the girl was a prisoner in Hitotsubashi Yashiki. Keiki had lured her into his palace, and had either induced or forced her to become one of the many concubines allowed a high noble by custom and law. From this last, Yuki reasoned that Keiki could not possibly have discovered her devotion to our cause, else she would surely have been tortured, instead of being honored with the rank of concubine. When I expressed my surprise that her love for Yoritomo had not caused her to commit hara-kiri, Yuki was no less surprised that I had failed to grasp her motive. For love of her dead lord, she had submitted to a fate that to her was worse than death.
“With the permission of my lord,” he added, “I will continue to haunt the vicinity of Keiki’s yashiki. None is more crafty than a geisha. She will be watching for an opportunity to send us word of the schemes and intrigues of the Mito party.”
CHAPTER XXVIII—High Treason
The day after Yuki’s discovery, word at last came from Kyoto, sanctioning the Prince of Owari’s adoption of his kinsman as son and heir. After that, little time was required to comply with law and custom. The opposition of the Mito faction was paralyzed by the sanction of the Mikado. It was a striking instance of the paradoxical nature of the government of this strange land.
In theory, the Mikado was the sacred and absolute Emperor, and the Shogun only the first among his secondary class of nobles. In fact, he was little more than a figurehead in the hands of the Shogunate, and his sanction of government measures was usually given as a matter of course. A strong Shogun, such as Iyeyoshi, could even enforce compliance against the wishes of so powerful an opposition as the Mito party backed by the reluctance of the kuge, or Kyoto nobles. Yet without the Mikado’s sanction, however obtained, the Shogun would have become a rebel, with no other means than sheer military force to hold in subjection the great non-Tokugawa daimios.
One may well imagine the chagrin of the Mito faction over their failure to block my official adoption as the heir of Owari, and their fury when they learned of the Prince’s retirement in my favor. Last of all, the discovery that the Shogun was about to announce his decision in favor of a temporary treaty with the hairy barbarians must have goaded them to madness.
The final ceremony of my accession to the title and position of Prince of Owari was an audience by the Shogun. Before this, in the presence of the counsellors and other high officials of the clan,—many of whom had journeyed from the Province of Owari for the occasion,—my adopted father had abdicated his office of clan chief, and I had received the homage of the samurais. The day appointed for my formal audience was August the twenty-fifth.
Though surfeited with the irksome etiquette and honors of my exalted rank, I looked forward to the audience with keenest impatience. The Prince—as I shall continue to call him—had assured me that it was the last step in my elevation, and vastly more important than my marriage. To me it was important only because it must precede my marriage.