Ten Things I Hate About Mitsuhide

Chapter 16 - Coffee Talk

By the time Sho arrived the next morning, Mitsuhide had already left for his reconnaissance du jour. I was disappointed to find myself alone (well, alone with Sho). Maybe 'Kyubei' and 'Kaya' weren't a suitable pair for any detective work, but one would think that 'Katsu' could accompany Mitsuhide. Four eyes are better than two.

Last night, I thought that we'd managed to move our working relationship to something more equitable. More friendly. Apparently I was wrong. Maybe it had been the sake after all.

It would be an exaggeration to say that I was sulking, but apparently, I was in enough of a #mood that Sho asked me if I had had a fight with 'Master Kyubei'.

"He doesn't fight. He issues orders and presumes we'll follow them... and why do you ask?" It occurred to me that she might have passed him on his way out the door. "Did he say anything to you?"

"Oh yes!" She pulled a folded paper out of her kimono. "He said to give this to you and told me to remind you that you were not to leave the house." She frowned and looked rather pouty herself. Since our visit to the docks was not to be repeated, I suppose she was feeling deprived of a Shojumaru stalking opportunity.

The message was sealed – if Sho had opened it to read it, she had done a good job erasing the evidence. But once I scanned the two lines he'd written, I realized there was nothing in it that needed to be hidden from her anyway. "Kaya, I am headed inland to consult with a clan about a wayward shipment. I expect you will not leave the machiya during this time."

Not exactly a code, but the unwritten message was that he had gone to Azuchi to talk to Nobunaga. It would have been nice if he had told me this last night. Or, given that he was so autocratic, he could have awakened me to give me his instructions in person. I sighed. "He's gone out of town for a day or so."

"Oh." Sho sighed too, probably at the realization that there would be no trips to the docks for a while. Then she suddenly smiled. "That gives us plenty of time to play with your hair. I can practice different styles on you."

Oh. Joy.

***

After four days – four! - of being Sho's human Barbie doll and four evenings of searching the machiya for Aki's letter (only to conclude that Mitsuhide must have taken it with him), with no word at all from Mitsuhide, I was ready to tear the building down. By hand. Azuchi was half a day away. He could have gone there and back twice over – or at least sent Kyubei with a message.

Even a message telling me to continue to stay put.

Maybe he hadn't realized he'd be gone this long. Maybe, in fact, if he had thought he would be gone for almost a week, he wouldn't have put me under soft house arrest. I'd learned my lesson about investigating on my own, and I was smart enough to know that our investigation had reached a point where I needed to step out of Mitsuhide's way. However, unrelated all that, there was a certain Portuguese merchant who had information about my father.

Maybe when Mitsuhide said, 'don't leave the building' what he meant was 'don't investigate Shojumaru without me.'

If I were just going to visit an old friend... surely that would be ok.

When Sho arrived for my daily hair model punishment, I put the question to her as well. "Do you think that Kyubei meant that we couldn't leave at all, or just that we couldn't go back to the docks?"

"He said don't leave, but... perhaps he really meant don't go anywhere dangerous." And with that statement, she became not my maid, but my co-conspirator. "Is there somewhere you wish to go?"

"A family friend – a merchant – I would like to visit him... and his wife." I mentally married Francisco off, as Sho would likely feel more comfortable with that sort of duty visit. One that I intended to pay by myself. "His machiya is near the warehouse district. If you want to visit Hiko" (and by that I meant take a peek at Shojumaru), "you could do that while I was on my visit."