The gardener, then the earthquake

Blackthorne walks to Toranaga with Naga, still sick with the horror of three days ago: the rotting pheasant was buried and the old gardener Ueki-ya beheaded for disobeying his mock-solemn order. He had raged at Fujiko, thrown away the sword she offered him for her own life, then wept by the cypress knowing he alone was to blame. Mariko explains through Toranaga how the dying gardener asked for the honour, how Toranaga ruled the Anjin-san samurai so the law could take its course and lent his own sword for a clean death. Then the earth roars. A fissure splits the plateau; Blackthorne drags Toranaga back from its lip, slides down after Mariko when a second cleft swallows her, and Toranaga's hand holds them both until the chasm closes. The two men laugh and try to urinate into the crack, and Blackthorne offers Fujiko's sword, samurai to samurai. "Tomo, neh?" His house is a burnt-out ruin.

The gardener's execution and the earthquake are placed together so that a death by law is followed by a death by nature, and Blackthorne's guilt is answered by the ground opening. Clavell writes the rescue as the physical bond between Toranaga and the pilot. The offered sword closes the friendship the falcon chapter predicted.