Ryoma : Life of a Renaissance Samurai by Hillsborough, Romulus

Guns and Glory
On the morning of September 18, Ryoma left Nagasaki aboard the Shinten Maru, a steamer his company had chartered from Hiroshima Han, carrying contraband of 1,200 carbines. After all the years of running, struggling and risking his life for the nation, this champion of freedom would return to his native Kochi; not hiding below deck as he had recently been compelled to do, but laden with guns and glory, and armed with the will and a way to bring down the Tokugawa Bakufu.
Accompanying Ryoma were Yonosuke, Toranosuke, Sakutaro, Okauchi and a Kyoto samurai by the name of Toda Uta. On the morning of their second day out, steaming westward through the Sea of Genkai, they encountered a storm just off the northern coast of Kyushu.

"This engine's not big enough to handle it," Ryoma told Toranosuke as the two stood on the bridge, waves pounding the sides of the small ship. "We'd better stop at that island up ahead and wait it out."

Soon they landed, and found that there was only one small village on the entire island. Most of the houses were thatched, and fronted by old wooden fences. Nearby was a Buddhist temple, the tiles atop its white earthen outer wall gray from the elements. Beyond the temple was an ancient graveyard, near which was a dilapidated Shinto shrine. A grove of pines, their tops curbed away from the sea by the wind which howled through the branches, covered the land just in front of the dock, where several junks were moored. Further out, the harbor was dotted with the tiny boats of local fisherman, and beyond was anchored the triple-masted Shinten Maru with its contraband of rifles.

"I'm starved!" Toranosuke said, as the six samurai approached one of the houses.

"Chickens!" Yonosuke blurted, pointing at three fat hens sitting in a coop near the entrance of the house. Upon entering they found an old wooden table, which stood atop an earthen floor. "Yes?" an old man greeted them cautiously.

"Can we get something to eat here, old man?" Toranosuke asked.

"I'm sorry. All I can offer you is rice or sake."

"What about those chickens we saw outside?" Ryoma said. "We can eat them."

"Those are my chickens!" the old man croaked. "You must be joking."

"Right now I'm too hungry to joke," Ryoma said. "So if you'd just cook a couple of those chickens, we'll eat them and be on our way."

"No!" the man said firmly, shaking his gray head, and tugging on long, gray whiskers. "Those chickens are not for eating."

"Not for eating?" Okauchi echoed, partly amused, mostly annoyed. "Then what are they for?"

"They're my pets."

"I think he's serious," Yonosuke whispered to Ryoma.

"Can you believe it?" Ryoma snickered under his breath. "We were able to buy thirteen hundred of the world's best rifles in Nagasaki, but this old man won't even sell us a couple chickens."

And so they left the house to have a look around the rest of the village. "Chickens!" Sakutaro screamed. "There are chickens all over the place!" Indeed almost every house in the village had a chicken coop in front.

"Chickens!" Yonosuke shouted, as the six men stopped in front of one of the coops, inside of which were several fat hens.

"We'd like to buy a few of those hens," Okauchi said to a young girl who had come out of her house to look at the rare spectacle of six samurai.

"What do you want them for?" the girl asked suspiciously.

"To..."

Before Okauchi could answer, Ryoma said, "To keep as pets," and the girl agreed to sell four of the chickens to them. But since they couldn't very well ask her to butcher and cook them, they asked for a sack instead, into which Toranosuke stuffed the squawking birds and carried them away to a deserted beach. Here Yonosuke butchered the chickens with his short sword, washed them in seawater, grilled them over an open fire, and the six hungry men finally had their meal.

That evening they returned to their ship, and at dawn the next morning continued on their journey westward through the Sea of Genkai. By midday they reached the Port of Shimonoseki just in time to see another ship, flying the Satsuma crest, hasten eastward out of the harbor.

"I wonder what that's all about," Ryoma said to Yonosuke, as the Satsuma ship's whistle screamed and black smoke spewed from the smokestack.

Upon landing they went directly to the mansion of the merchant Ito Kuzo, which was also the Shimonoseki office of the Kaientai and the residence of Ryoma's wife.

Oryo was there to greet them, as was Kuzo, to whom Ryoma introduced Toda, the Kyoto samurai who had accompanied him from Nagasaki. Toda, age twenty-five, was a retainer of Sanjo Sanetomi, the leader of the banished court nobles. He had recently come from Dazaifu, the nobles' place of exile, to investigate the revolution which was about to happen in Kyoto. In Nagasaki he happened upon Ryoma, who suggested they travel to Kyoto together, via Tosa Han.

Soon a maid served Ryoma and the others a meal of grilled mackerel pike, stewed vegetables, miso soup and steamed white rice, and as they were eating an unexpected but welcome visitor appeared.

Ryoma had not seen Ito Shunsuke since the latter had interpreted for Katsura Kogoro at a meeting aboard a Dutch warship nearly two and a half years before. "I've just bought thirteen hundred carbines in Nagasaki," Ryoma informed, pointing toward the harbor, and drawing a look of intense interest from Katsura's right-hand man.

"Then you have them with you?" Ito asked, to which Ryoma replied that of the 1,300 rifles, one hundred he had left behind with his men in Nagasaki, two hundred he would send to Osaka with his men, and the remaining one thousand he would personally deliver to Tosa.

Soon Ryoma's three men left for Osaka, and Ito Shunsuke joined Ryoma at Natural House, the private cottage at Kuzo's estate where Oryo had been living for the past seven months. "What's the latest word from Kyoto?" Ryoma asked as Oryo served hot tea.

The Choshu man carefully sipped the tea, then confirmed everything Ryoma had previously imagined, and more. Indeed the Great Play in Kyoto was about to begin. Goto was having trouble promoting the plan for peaceful restoration. Saigo had made it clear that he was no longer willing to put off his war plans, an attitude with which the Choshu men were in perfect harmony. "And with large companies of Satsuma troops due to arrive in Kyoto before the end of this month," Ito informed, "Saigo will have ten thousand men under his command there."

"What about the Choshu Army?" Ryoma asked, to which Ito replied that Lord Iwakura was now making the necessary arrangements at court to receive Imperial sanction for an equal number of Choshu troops to join their Satsuma allies in Kyoto. "Which means," Ito said triumphantly, "Choshu will no longer be an 'Imperial Enemy.' After that, Satsuma troopships bound for Kyoto will stop at the Port of Mitajiri in Choshu to pick up our troops." Ito finished his tea, and in his excitement slammed the empty cup down. "And then there's Hiroshima," he said in a low voice, before telling Ryoma about that clan's recently formed secret alliance with Satsuma and Choshu.

"Then it looks like war," Ryoma said grimly, as if resigned to the fact.

"Yes. And since Hiroshima borders Choshu on the west, once war breaks out it will serve as an important land route for our troops advancing west toward Kyoto. But can we really count on Tosa?"

"I don't know," Ryoma groaned. "But when I deliver the rifles I'm going to find out. Even if the conservatives in Kochi won't back us, I think Inui will."

"What about Goto?"

"If there's war, then I'm going to have to get Goto out of Kyoto so that he can't interfere once Inui arrives there."

"Sakamoto-san," Ito said hesitantly, "if Tosa doesn't need the carbines..."

"Yes?" Ryoma gave Ito a long, hard look, as if anticipating what the younger man was about to say.

"Choshu will be glad to take them off your hands." This was Ito's way of saying, as tactfully as the situation allowed, that if Tosa still could not be counted on to fight against the Bakufu, the Choshu Army could certainly use 1,000 new carbines, for which they would be willing to pay.

"If Tosa backs out, the rifles are yours," Ryoma agreed with a short snicker, then asked about the Satsuma steamer he had seen leaving the harbor earlier in the day.

"That was Okubo." As Ito explained, Okubo was on his way back to Kyoto, from where he had come a few days earlier to confirm with Katsura the final war plans, including the deployment of Choshu and Satsuma troops to the Imperial capital.

"Where's Katsura-san?" Ryoma asked. "At Yamaguchi Castle, with the daimyo." "Is he due back in Shimonoseki soon?" "In the next day or two." "Then I'll wait that long to see him."

Later that night Ryoma and Oryo were alone in their room. The pale luster of the mid-autumn moon shimmering on the sea filtered through the window, and the red glow from the brazier mixed with yellow lantern light to produce an atmosphere conducive to their first time alone together in nearly five months.

"When are we going to have that house of our own in Nagasaki that you've talked about?" Oryo asked.

"As soon as I set things straight in Kyoto," Ryoma replied, sitting up and filling a pipe of tobacco.

"Exactly what things are you talking about?" Oryo asked, although she already knew the answer, then reached into the brazier with a pair of long sticks to light Ryoma's pipe with a burning coal.

"The future of Japan," Ryoma said matter-of-factly, exhaling white smoke. "But what about our future?"

"You have to understand. The very fate of Japan rests on my shoulders." Maybe it was the nonchalance with which Ryoma spoke these awesome words. Or perhaps it was the complete absence of heroics in his voice, or the uncharacteristic grimness in his dark brown eyes. But whatever the reason, Oryo suddenly felt a subtle chill deep inside, as a black notion fleeted through her mind, and she shuddered, if only for an instant, at the thought that she may never see her husband again. The sullen surge passed, and Oryo said in a singsong tone, as if to assure herself that he would indeed return to her, "I can count the number of times we've been alone together since our marriage." So could Ryoma. Their happiest time together was their honeymoon at the hot springs in the Kirishima mountains of Satsuma during the previous spring. In June Ryoma had brought Oryo to the Kosone mansion in Nagasaki to study the moon guitar, before he and his men went off to the war at Shimonoseki. The couple did not see each other again until the end of July, from which time they lived together at Nagasaki headquarters until autumn. After that Ryoma saw little of Oryo, as he spent the remainder of the year traveling between Nagasaki and Shimonoseki to get his company back on its feet. In February Ryoma had brought Oryo to Ito Kuzo's mansion for fear she might be arrested by the Nagasaki Magistrate. From this time on, Ryoma had even less time to spend with his wife, because soon after the Kaientai was established that spring came the Iroha Maru Incident in April. Although Ryoma had been able to spend nine days with Oryo at Natural House while preparing for his legal battle with Kii, they did not meet again for over a month. But this reunion only lasted a few brief moments, because Ryoma soon left for Osaka with Goto aboard the Tosa steamer Yugao, when he composed his Great Plan at Sea. During the entire Icarus Affair he had been able to spend only half a day with Oryo in Shimonoseki en route from Tosa to Nagasaki, but since he was accompanied by Sasaki and Okauchi the couple did not have a moment to themselves. And now at the end of September Ryoma had returned to Oryo; but with the very fate of the nation resting on his shoulders he could not spare her more than a day or two. "And sometimes I wonder," Oryo continued in the same singsong tone, "if we'll ever have much time to ourselves at all."

When word arrived on the next evening that Katsura's return to Shimonoseki would be delayed, Ryoma decided he could wait no longer. He wrote a letter to the Choshu leader, expressing his anticipation that war was imminent, and his regret for not being able to see him, then returned to his ship with Okauchi and Toda to deliver the 1,000 carbines to Tosa and urge that han to put its military support behind Satsuma and Choshu.

The engine of the Shinten Maru clamored at full steam, propelling the small ship southeastward under a moonlit sky from Shimonoseki through the shimmering Sea of Suo. By midmorning of the second day out the ship headed southward through the Strait of Bungo, which separated the east coast of Kyushu from western Shikoku, and spread out into the vast blue Pacific. The autumn moon again shone in the clear night sky as the ship cut sharply northward around Point Ashizuri, the southwestern extremity of Shikoku, and continued at full speed into Tosa Bay. By the time she anchored at the Port of Urado, an orange sun had already risen in the east, and Ryoma was standing alone on the bow, filled with nostalgia at his first sight of Kochi in over five and a half years.

"Katsurahama," he uttered the name of the long sandy beach which welcomed him home beyond the crashing waves. To the left of the beach was the pine-studded Cape of the Dragon King, to the right the verdant Dragon-Head Cape, where someday would stand the magnificent bronze statue of Sakamoto Ryoma—the short sword at the left hip, the right hand inside the kimono grasping perhaps a pistol or perhaps a book of international law, the eyes squinting out at eternity and the vast Pacific. Ryoma stood on the fore-deck of the steamer, squinting at the pines on the cliff above the beach, where six years ago he had confided in Hirai Kao his decision to flee Tosa. "No matter what happens," he had told her, "I swear to overthrow the Bakufu," but was nevertheless at an utter loss as to how he would do it. He had even wondered on that moonlit autumn night in 1861, which now seemed a lifetime ago, if he would ever see the beach of Katsurahama again. But now he was back, as the leader of a private navy, commanding a ship.

"Katsurahama," Ryoma repeated aloud, to which Okauchi, who had joined him on the foredeck, replied anxiously, "Yes, that's Katsurahama. But Sakamoto-san, what are you going to do? It would be dangerous for you to land without permission, or at least some kind of warning." Okauchi had cause to worry. Tosa opinion was divided among three opposing factions: those led by Inui, who were raring for war; those led by Goto, who supported Yodo's peace initiative; and the conservatives, who opposed it for fear of punishment by a Bakufu outraged at their lord's audacity. It was the conservatives whom Ryoma intended to urge to support Goto or Inui, depending upon how the Shogun would react to the peace plan. Okauchi rightly worried that if Ryoma, who was not only officially an outlaw, but one of the Bakufu's most wanted men, landed in Kochi without taking the necessary precautions, the pro-Tokugawa conservatives would not hesitate to kill him. "And the same goes for Toda-san," Okauchi said of the retainer of Lord Sanjo, the champion of the anti-Bakufu Loyalists.

"Take these," Ryoma said, reaching into his kimono and handing two letters to Okauchi. One of them was addressed to a Tosa minister by the name of Watanabe Yakuma, whom Ryoma had met briefly in Nagasaki. Ryoma had chosen to deal with Watanabe because, as he had told Okauchi earlier, "with Goto and Yui away in Kyoto, he's the only minister left in Kochi with any brains." Yoshida Toyo, who had hand-picked Watanabe over a decade before, would have certainly agreed. Ryoma's letter informed of his arrival at Urado Port aboard a Hiroshima steamer carrying 1,000 carbines, the likes of which people in Tosa had never seen, and of the latest news from Kyoto, including the reports of imminent war and the deployment of Satsuma and Choshu troops. Then the outlaw asked the minister, "What's happening in Tosa? What's happening with Minister Goto? I heard in Shimonoseki that he's having a very difficult time proceeding with the plan in Kyoto. What's happening with Inui?" In short, Ryoma would risk his life to convince the Tosa conservatives that this was their last chance, that if the Shogun refused to abdicate peacefully, then they must choose the Emperor over the Bakufu, or perish, and that they must not vacillate any longer.

The other letter, which Ryoma had received from Katsura before leaving Nagasaki, summarized the situation among the Satsuma and Choshu leaders, and the reasons why Tosa must fight on the side of these two clans.

"Deliver these to Minister Watanabe," Ryoma told Okauchi, "and arrange for me to meet with him as soon as possible." After telling Okauchi that he would wait for him at such-and-such a house in the little fishing village behind the pines, Ryoma lowered a small boat into the water on the port side of the ship, then yelled at the top of his lungs, "Toda-san, we're going ashore."

Lord Sanjo's retainer followed Ryoma into the tiny boat, which the latter paddled through the waves to the sandy beach. Okauchi remained aboard ship to steam slowly through the narrow, shallow estuary which was Kochi Bay, to visit Minister Watanabe in the castletown.

It was late afternoon before Okauchi reached Watanabe's home, informed him that Sakamoto Ryoma had returned to urge Tosa to support Satsuma and Choshu in Kyoto or be left in the dust after the Imperial forces would defeat the Tokugawa. War was imminent and Ryoma had brought one thousand rifles for Tosa's army if it would promise to fight. "And Ryoma asked me to give you these," he said, handing the two letters to the minister, who read them immediately. Watanabe was obviously stunned by the urgency of the situation, and agreed without hesitation to meet Ryoma that evening. "You say he's waiting near Katsurahama?" Watanabe asked.

"Yes."

"Then the Matsugahana Teahouse would be a good place for us to meet. It's just east of the castletown, north of Katsurahama, on the other side of the bay. Bring Ryoma there tonight at six."

"I will," Okauchi said with a low bow.

"But keep it secret," the minister demanded. He was as concerned for Ryoma's safety as he was for his own welfare. "Officially Ryoma's a criminal. I can't let people know I'm going to meet him."

Okauchi went directly to the little fishing village behind the pines near Katsurahama, to retrieve Ryoma. When the two men arrived at the Matsugahana Teahouse shortly after dusk, Watanabe and two others were waiting in a private room, which looked out into a lantern-lit garden.

Taking a seat with Okauchi opposite the three Tosa officials, Ryoma placed a long object—slightly wider than his sword and concealed in purple cloth—between himself and Minister Watanabe. On his right he placed his sword, and in his right hand held a cup, into which Watanabe poured unrefined sake. "I've brought this from home," the minister said, "because I thought that anything stronger might impede our discussion."

Ryoma relished the white, creamy sweet Tosa brew, the first he had had in years, then began lecturing the three elite officials about the urgency of the situation in Kyoto. He spoke in a slow, deliberate voice, backing himself up with facts, and avoiding the emotional rhetoric and theoretical dogma of so many of his comrades. His purpose for returning to Tosa had not been to convert its conservative elite to Imperial Loyalism, but to convince them to send troops to Kyoto to support Satsuma and Choshu. "A civil war is upon us," Ryoma said. "Two large companies of Satsuma troops, and three of Choshu, are expected to reach Kyoto any day now. Hiroshima has united with Satsuma and Choshu, and Lord Iwakura has assured them of the support of the Imperial Court." Then losing his composure, Ryoma slammed his fist on the floor and shouted, "It's only a matter of days before the fighting starts." His message hit the three officials like a brick in the face, as if awakening them from a dumb slumber. "That is, unless the Shogun agrees to abdicate peacefully, which he will not do without being convinced that he has no alternative. And this is why Tosa must," Ryoma paused to emphasize imperativeness, "I repeat, Tosa must support Satsuma and Choshu militarily, because one lousy piece of paper will not be enough to convince him." The "lousy piece of paper" was Ryoma's plan for peaceful restoration which Yodo had endorsed and Goto had delivered to the Bakufu in Kyoto in the form of a petition. "The Shogun must be forced into accepting the plan as his only alternative to total destruction."

"And if the Shogun should refuse even then?" Watanabe asked.

"Then he must be crushed militarily, as Saigo and Iwakura are so anxious to do." By mentioning the names of the two powerful leaders, Ryoma hoped to impress upon Watanabe the legitimacy of his plea. "Tosa only has a few days left to decide its own future. If Tosa fails to act now, then it will surely lose its chance to participate in the historic drama which is about to unfold in Kyoto. It will forfeit the opportunity to be of any significance in the new Imperial government which will replace the Bakufu." To emphasize the displeasure of Choshu and Satsuma over Tosa's vacillation, he told the officials of Katsura's recent likening of their clan to a "fickle woman," then took a deep breath, finished his cup of white sake, and as a final convincer removed the cloth cover from the rifle. "There are another one thousand of these aboard my ship," he said. "There is no better rifle in the world. It's British-made, and can fire seven consecutive rounds without reloading. One thousand Tosa troops armed with these rifles could take on an army of thirty thousand." Indeed the carbines which Ryoma had managed to purchase from the Dutch trader in Nagasaki were far superior to the guns of the Tokugawa armies, which consisted mostly of single-shot rifles and even muskets. "But one of the Choshu men told me just the other day that if Tosa won't accept them, then Choshu certainly will."

"Accept them?" Watanabe blurted. "Sakamoto-san, not only will we accept them, but we will use them, if necessary." In short, the three Tosa officials had agreed in principal to take military action against the Bakufu if the Shogun should refuse to abdicate peacefully, and the alliance between Tosa, Satsuma and Choshu, once and for all, seemed settled. "But we still have to convince Lord Yodo," the minister said. ''Can you?" Ryoma asked.

"After what you've just told us," Watanabe said, "I don't see that we have any other choice."

"Then I'll take another drink." Ryoma smiled, raised his cup for the minister to refill. To say the least, he was relieved. Not only would he be able to report to Saigo of Tosa's military support, and to Goto of the conservatives' endorsement of the plan for peaceful restoration, but he no longer had to worry about how he would repay the loan for the rifles.

Ryoma did not return to the little fishing village in the pines near Katsurahama until dawn the next morning. He slept undisturbed until early afternoon, when Okauchi came to inform him that Watanabe had already begun working to persuade Lord Yodo. "And," Okauchi added, "he asked if you wouldn't like to go home."

"Go home," Ryoma muttered. In fact, he had had no intentions of seeing his family. He was officially a criminal, and did not want to do anything to jeopardize them. "Go home," he repeated slowly, then got up to look out a window which faced the pines, because he did not want his friend to see the tears in his eyes. He had not been home since that rainy spring night years ago when he received the Yoshiyuki sword from his sister Ei, and fled Tosa with Sonojo.

Yes, Sakamoto-san," Okauchi said. "Minister Watanabe said that he'd

make the necessary arrangements with the administrative office for you to visit your family, and that there would be no problem, as long as you use discretion."

"Discretion," Ryoma laughed lightly to keep from weeping. He had longed to see his family for years, all the while wondering if he would ever see them again. "Discretion," he repeated, though not without a trace of sadness. "Here I am risking my life to bring them guns, and they tell me to use discretion to visit my own family." Again Ryoma laughed to himself, turned around to face his friend. "Tell Watanabe that I'll use discretion or anything else he wants But tell him that I want to see my family."

Ryoma invited Toda to accompany him to his brother's house, and that afternoon they took a small skiff northward, deep into the bay, until they reached the estuary of the Kagamigawa. "My sister Otome and I used to swim here as children," Ryoma told the Kyoto samurai, who seemed more impressed by the black and white tower of Kochi Castle, looming above the center of the town which extended to the northern bank of the river. Rather than risk attracting attention to themselves by taking the boat up the Kagamigawa, they alighted here and walked two miles along the river to Ryoma's home. The black tile roofs of the lower-samurai houses glistened in the late afternoon sun, dark orange persimmons hung heavily on the trees, and by the time they passed the Hineno Dojo Ryoma's nostalgia had peaked. But his heartbeat increased when they turned right down the narrow road leading to his brother's house just north of the river, and when he caught sight of his niece Harui, who screamed, "Uncle Ryoma!" he was ecstatic.

So was Harui, who had gotten married and borne two children since Ryoma had last seen her. She had also put on so much weight that Ryoma had more trouble than he expected, when, much to the surprise of the reserved Toda, he hugged her and lifted her off her feet. "Harui!" he hollered, forgetting his promise of discretion, then put her down and ran through the front gate of his house. Otome and Gombei were both there to greet him; in fact they had been waiting. The people at the administrative office had been so concerned with keeping Ryoma's return a secret, that they had notified Gombei beforehand, advising him to "use discretion." But like Ryoma, Otome had little use for discretion; unable, if not unwilling, to wait a second longer, she burst through the front door, and with tears in her eyes, literally threw herself at her brother, screaming "Ryoma! Ryoma! Ryoma!" so loudly that Gombei came running out of the house to calm her down.

"I almost forgot," Ryoma howled, putting his arm on Toda's shoulder, and introducing the samurai from Kyoto, who was obviously taken aback by the blatant display of emotion. If fact, Toda had never seen anything like it. The subdued behavior common among samurai families seemed foreign to the Sakamoto family. To Toda, who was born and raised among the traditional and intricately structured ambiance of the Imperial capital, Ryoma's family seemed more like a household of merchants than warriors.

"I'm back!" Ryoma said to his brother who was old enough to be his father, as they all sat in the living room, around a large wooden brazier.

"Yes, you are," Gombei said, trying to hide his emotions, which seeped from his eyes when he took his younger brother's hands to look at the scars from the near fatal attack almost two years before at the Teradaya.

"I've brought you a present," Ryoma said, grinned at his sister, then drew his revolver from his kimono. "An American Smith and Wesson, just like the one that saved my life in Fushimi," he said proudly, handing the pistol to Otome. As Ryoma had anticipated, his sister showed more interest in the revolver that did his brother.

"No, Ryoma," Otome said. "I couldn't take it from you."

"I'll get another one," Ryoma assured, unloaded the cylinder and began explaining to Otome how to shoot.

Otome had recently separated from her husband, a man much smaller than herself, whose womanizing the strong-willed woman would not stand for. Indeed Otome was a strong woman. It was Otome who had raised Ryoma after their mother died, reprimanded him when he cried, put a practice sword in his hand and insisted he take up fencing. As Ryoma had boasted to people all the way from Nagasaki to Edo, Otome was almost as tall as him, and weighed nearly as much. She could out-wrestle, out-swim, and out-ride many a man, and with a sword in her hand was a good match for most. She shunned housework and cooking, and excelled at the manly arts of poetry, music and drawing. It had not been mere flattery when Ryoma had written her two years ago, "you have a reputation for being tougher than Ryoma"; and now he was sure that Otome's reputation for marksmanship would soon spread throughout the castletown.

But not as quickly as word of his return. After all, the ronin and younger brother of lower-samurai Sakamoto Gombei, once known as a "runny-nosed, bed-wetting crybaby," and later as "Kochi's greatest boaster," was now famous throughout Japan as a leader of the movement to topple the Bakufu and restore the Emperor to power. He was the commander of a private navy, and mingled freely with the most prominent men in Japan, including feudal lords, the leaders of Satsuma and Choshu, high-ranking Tokugawa officials and celebrated scholars. The attempts at discretion by the administrative office notwithstanding, the news of Sakamoto Ryoma's homecoming spread so rapidly that by evening his house was filled with friends and relatives whom he had not seen in years.

The party was conducted in typical Tosa fashion. Sake cups were never empty, as Harui, her mother and several of the women guests were kept busy serving trays of sliced raw fish—bonito, sardines and horse mackerel; dried squid and octopus; small saucers of fresh laver, stewed vegetables and other condiments for local brew, which was ladled from a huge wooden cask at the center of the room. People sang to the music of a three-stringed shamisen, which Otome, Gombei and Ryoma took turns playing.

And while most had come to celebrate Ryoma's homecoming, others, namely several former members of the Tosa Loyalist Party, had other motives. "Ryoma," one of them burst out amid the drunken revelry, his voice barely audible for the music and singing that filled the house, "let's flee Tosa tonight."

"How can I flee?" Ryoma laughed. "I've already done that twice."

"You say you've come back on a steamer which belongs to Hiroshima?" another confirmed.

"That's right," Ryoma said, filling several sake cups.

"Then let's take it tonight to Osaka, so we can fight in the war in Kyoto."

"Yes," another man said, "if we don't side with Satsuma and Choshu this time, Tosa will be left behind in the dust."

These were Ryoma's sentiments exactly. But as he was unable to tell them of Minister Watanabe's promise of the previous night, he filled their cups and roared, "You're absolutely right! But wait just a little longer." Not only was Ryoma an expert at persuasion, but over the past several years he had become quite adept at the art of dissuasion, particularly when it came to hotheaded comrades whose drastic plans threatened common goals. At any rate, Ryoma was not about to let his friends undo the success he had achieved diplomatically in Kochi, before he could get to Kyoto to help Goto in a last-ditch effort to achieve a peaceful restoration.

After spending a week with his family, during which time Ryoma was officially pardoned for having fled Tosa, he could wait no longer to get back to Kyoto. The rifles had been unloaded, the terms of payment settled, and on the morning of October 1 the Shinten Maru was ready to sail. "We should reach Osaka tomorrow," Ryoma told Toda as they hastened through the castletown toward Kochi Bay.

Things, however, did not go that smoothly, despite Ryoma's impatience to leave. Although their ship did sail that morning, rough seas off the eastern coast of Tosa compelled them to take the longer route to Osaka, sailing west around Shikoku, and heading back through the calm waters of the Inland Sea. But when the Shinten Maru reached the Port of Susaki, there was engine trouble. "This ship will never make it," Ryoma groaned, then sent Okauchi overland to Kochi to arrange for the use of the Butterfly, the smaller, faster steamer which Tosa had recently purchased from Satsuma. It was on the Butterfly that the Kameyama Company had transported its initial shipment of 7,000 rifles to Choshu two years earlier, and it was aboard this same ship that Ryoma was now beside himself with impatience to get to Kyoto before the Great Play could begin without him. After having lost several crucial days, Ryoma finally left Tosa, steaming at full speed along the direct eastern route, despite the wind and the waves. When Ryoma reached Osaka-Kyoto the next day, news both ominous and auspicious awaited him.