Hawking with Tetsu-ko

Hawking in the brush, Naga begs his father to stop the training and leave Anjiro, where Yabu's eight thousand and a waiting fleet make him a prisoner. Toranaga, for the first time in Naga's life, loses his temper ("Learn patience, puppy!"). The peregrine Tetsu-ko misses a cock pheasant twice, soars away as if gone wild, then stoops and takes it; Toranaga kneels to her with the split head. Calm again, he orders Naga to become the Anjin-san's friend and pupil, and reveals the nine battalions were a feint to bring in a thousand more of his own men. Lying under the overcast he sorts his hawks: Mariko a peregrine, the Anjin-san a short-winged goshawk of the fist. He recalls Buntaro's confession, that he cannot kill or release the wife who has been ice since Korea, and Yabu surrendering the Murasama blade. A carrier pigeon flies in from Osaka as rain begins.

A falconry chapter, and the key to the book's imagery. Toranaga sorts every character into hawk types while Tetsu-ko demonstrates the risk of a bird that may not return. Clavell uses the hunt to reveal the nine battalions as a feint and to give Buntaro's confession without Buntaro present. The pigeon ends it.