1616, Sunpu
The shutters are drawn against the cold, yet the room smells of damp ash and medicine, and every cough leaves a sour taste at the back of my mouth. At Sunpu they step softly now. Even the messengers from Edo kneel as if noise itself might finish me. I keep the memoranda close, weighted under the inkstone, because once papers leave my reach they return improved, softened, made fit for sons and priests. My fingers stiffen around the brush before I have written half a page. That is a poor bargain after so many years of forcing this body to wait, bend, endure. Hidetada governs, yes, but governance is not possession, and men grow bolder the moment they think succession has become routine. I built peace by knowing where fear belonged. If I leave the ordering of that peace to grateful descendants, they will misunderstand it at once, and they are already waiting for me to stop speaking.
