Kiri's litter at dusk

At dusk Kiri, cloaked and veiled under a vast hat, comes weeping to her curtained litter; sixty armed Browns wait under Yabu and Buntaro, Mariko's thick-necked, horn-helmeted husband. Ishido arrives unannounced with two hundred Grays to "pay his respects". Buntaro plants himself in the gateway, calls the castle a manure pile and spits; hands go to sword hilts on both sides until Hiro-matsu steps from the shadows, his sword loose, and stares his son down. Ishido holds off, enters with the five guards protocol allows, bows to the veiled figure, and leaves. As Sazuko slips on the steps, every eye goes to her except Blackthorne's: he sees "Kiri" scuttle into the tea hut and back into the litter, and for an instant meets the eyes of Toranaga. The gate bars behind them and the column moves off for the ship.

The escape from Osaka begins as a costume trick, and Clavell tells it so that only Blackthorne, the outsider, sees the swap. The gateway standoff introduces Buntaro through violence held one inch short, with Hiro-matsu's stare as the book's model of authority. The barred gate is a countdown.