Ishido presses; Usagi draws

Ishido demands Toranaga's answer to the Council on the marriages he has arranged for Naga and two granddaughters into the houses of Masamune, Zataki and Kiyama, all forbidden by the Taikō's will. Toranaga, brother-in-law to the dead Taikō, calls them minor family matters and swears he will not be the first to break the peace. Clavell recounts Goroda's rise, his assassination, and the peasant Nakamura's twelve years as Taikō. Ishido presses the hostage question: the Lady Ochiba, mother of the Heir, is in Yedo, and now four Regents, with Onoshi and Kiyama defected, demand her return. Then he declares traitors will be executed like common criminals, "even Minowara". Usagi, Hiro-matsu's grandson-in-law, draws his sword on Ishido, who stands unguarded, hoping to die and give the garrison its excuse. Usagi stops himself and begs seppuku. Toranaga refuses him the honour: crucifixion, swords broken, name erased, and Hiro-matsu makes him crawl to his death.

Politics done as a duel of manners, then a body. Clavell pauses for the Goroda–Taikō history because the reader needs it before Ochiba matters. Usagi's drawn sword and Toranaga's refusal of seppuku set the price of one man's lapse, and quietly create Fujiko, the widow who will be handed to Blackthorne.