Nine nights on the road

Nine days to Mishima, and every night Mariko slips from her maid Chimmoko's side into Blackthorne's adjoining room, Yoshinaka's security arrangements unwittingly making it easy. "At long last I know what love means"; she is sure she has doomed him, afraid only for him. Gyoko and Kiku, watching her adoration shout from her face, pray to reach Yedo before the discovery and blame. Omi overtakes them and asks Kiku to join him for eternity; she refuses, bound by the contract. Yoshinaka chooses not to see what he sees. Alvito rides with Blackthorne under a truce, teaching Japanese for tales of the world, while Brother Joseph, now Uraga-noh-Tadamasa with bladeless sword hilts, is kept apart. Brother Michael's remark that the lovers' souls touch shatters the priest; at the fork to Numazu he turns his back on Mariko's wave. They promise to stay inside their private world until First Bridge at Yedo. Mishima appears through the mist, Fuji beyond it.

The road chapter, nine nights of a love affair told mostly through the people who notice it. Clavell lets Gyoko, Kiku, Yoshinaka and Alvito each register the lovers, which makes the secret public before it is spoken. Uraga's bladeless hilts are the visual marker of a man between two worlds.