And I regret that they have seen fit to doubt mine!" Min-Orota mounted his horse and gathered up the reins.

'My lord!" cried Kenzo. 'Surely you do not intend to leave us!"

Without thinking, he grasped the chest harness of Min-Orota's steed. A bad move - and a grave breach of etiquette.

The atmosphere in the courtyard suddenly became charged with menace as Min-Orota's escort went for their swords and the watching soldiers took a firmer grip on lance and bow.

Min-Orota's party was hopelessly outnumbered but Kiyo was equal to the situation. 'Stand aside, sir!" he boomed. 'Or by the G.o.ds, I'll have your arm off at the shoulder!" The Chief Steward leapt away from the horse as Min-Orota made it rear up threateningly and launched into a frenzied apology. 'Oh, my lord! My lord! A thousand pardons! It was never my intention to .... ' Coming out of a deep bow he caught sight of Min-Orota's thunderous expression and lapsed into a cringing silence.

'Good!" said Kiyo. 'Now let me inform you of my intentions! I am going to leave this place and return to the post-house at Be-isha to review my position. You have two days in which to re-examine yours.

If I am offered suitable redress for this double affront, I will reconsider your offer of accommodation within the palace until the Shogun returns. If not..."

He let the unspecified threat hang in the air.

For a moment, it looked as if the palace guard - who were gathered in front of the draw-bridge - might bar their exit. Min-Orota did not hesitate. He signalled his retinue to advance with a confident wave and spurred his horse forward. In the absence of the Shogun and Ieyasu, he knew the Chief Steward did not have the authority to order him to stay. Min-Orota might have taken an oath of allegiance to the Shogun, but as one of the seventeen domain-lords of Ne-Issan he was also his social equal.

Taking his cue from Kenzo, the guard commander quickly reformed his men into two ranks on either side of the main gate, and bowed in salute as Lord Min-Orota trotted proudly onto the bridge across the moat, preceded by his two flag-bearers.

When his party reached the open road beyond the Outer Keep, Min-Orota breathed a sigh of relief. One false move in that courtyard and they could have all lost their heads.

Fortunately he had kept his, and had called Kenzo's bluff. Ieyasu's secretary had gone running to the Chief Steward in a last ditch effort to prevent him from leaving.

By polite persuasion, of course - but it was no accident that a large number of guards just happened to be blocking the only exit. They were obviously hoping that the implied threat would help change his mind.

Had Ieyasu been there, it would have worked, but he was the organ-grinder; Shikobu was just one of his monkeys, and Min~Orota knew that Kenzo, the Chief Steward, was a fat effeminate smoothie who became quite unnerved if he was shouted at.

In Ieyasu's absence, it was only natural for his staff to try and keep Min-Orota in their clutches. Now that the listening device in the palace at Sara-kusa had been destroyed, his testimony was invaluable.

But not quite beyond price. He was prepared to reveal all to Shikobu in exchange for definite confirmation that Ieyasu and the Shogun were on their way to the Summer Palace. Given the stink he'd kicked up and his parting demand for an apology, Min-Orota believed that confirmation would not be long in coming.

He was right, but it was pure guesswork. Despite the unveiling of the listening device at Sara-kusa, Min-Orota had not fully grasped the miracle of electronic communications. Ieyasu was able to leave the running of the government in the hands of his secretaries for two weeks because he was in constant radio contact with his staff- and would remain so throughout the entire journey. His grip on the reins of power had not slackened for one minute.

Ieyasu was not, of course, using any of this equipment himself and had never done so. The Shogun's carriage would hardly have been an appropriate place for conducting a conversation via any device powered by the Dark Light. A powerful transmitter concealed in the roof of the palace with an aerial built into a tall flagpole above, sent digitised messages to a compact receiver hidden in the luggage of a secretary who was travelling with him. This in turn, could be accessed electronically by a small, hand-held device similar to that used to extract messages down a phone line from pre-Holocaust answering machines.

This second device, cunningly hidden inside a heavy gold seal of office mounted on a chain around his neck, had a pulsator b.u.t.ton incorporated into the chiselled design on its reverse side. When the seal was pressed between finger and thumb, the b.u.t.ton responded with a series of pulses - indicating that a message was stored in the receiving unit.

Transmitted messages could be prefixed by two codes - Routine or Urgent - whose stored presence was announced by a faster pulse rate. The operator would then have to select a suitable opportunity to access the transceiver, which was fitted with a forty-character LCD and could also provide a print-out using j.a.panese characters on a slim ribbon of paper - a kind of mini-fax.

Because of the secrecy surrounding the use of such devices by Ieyasu's agents, the Federation had gone to considerable lengths to tailor the equipment to suit the highly sensitive operating conditions. Every item was built using state-of-the art micro-circuitry, powered by the tiny, long-lasting batteries of which the Federation were justly proud and - above all, there were no telltale electronic bleeps or flashing status lights.

AMEXICO, who had set up this deal with Ieyasu's intelligence network and had trained a nucleus of operators, was responsible for shipping the basic black boxes into Ne-Issan, but it was up to the Iron Masters to find ways to hide them. They had done so with their usual efficiency: Ieyasu had set up a special workshop to construct simple everyday objects with secret compartments in which a range of devices could be hidden - and several examples were now travelling northwards in close proximity to the Shogun's carriage.

As a result of these arrangements, the news of Lord Min-Orota's arrival at the Winter Palace, his reason for being there, and his heated refusal to speak to anyone other than Ieyasu, soon reached the great man himself. Since he did not know the outcome of the secret meeting at Sara-kusa, he could only speculate on the reasons for Kiyo's apparent anxiety.

Ieyasu knew the listening device inside the council chamber had failed, but even if someone in the Yamas.h.i.ta family had stumbled across it by accident, they would not know what it was - and nor would Min-Orota.

But something had happened to put Kiyo into this agitated state.

Something which he judged to be so sensitive, he refused to divulge it to even the most trusted and high-ranking official.

Anything that sensitive could also be dangerous. Which was why Ieysau intended to make sure it pa.s.sed through his hands first. All knowledge is power. Ieyasu, who was constantly striving to control the flow of all information to the Shogun, believed in telling Yoritomo just enough to keep him happy and feeling involved. Allow him access to all the facts and he might start taking decisions on his own again - like setting up the College of Heralds; a problem that Ieyasu was still trying to unpick.

A second message from the Winter Palace reported Min-Orota's friendly but essentially harmless audience with Lady Mishiko, and the unfortunate circ.u.mstances surrounding his departure from the palace.

Min-Orota believed an apology was in order and Shiboku was of the opinion that revealing the Chamberlain's destination would be an acceptable gesture of good faith that would bring Min-Orota back to the palace, where some judicious flattery could loosen his tongue.

Reasoning that Kiyo Min-Orota could not jeopardise the secrecy surrounding the Shogun's journey to AronGiren if he and his entourage could be persuaded to wait inside the Winter Palace, Ieyasu despatched a message to Shikobu ordering him to reveal their destination to the tetchy domain-lord.

Shikobu, landed with the thankless task of wrapping this information in a face-saving formula, elected to postpone his visit until the following morning. A move which also allowed him to keep a private a.s.signation with a lady of the court who had a.s.sured him of a warm welcome.

It was still light when Min-Orota arrived back at the post-house to find that his staff had prepared the best pavilion for his use: the two courtesans - Cadillac and Roz - had been placed in the second which lay nearby.

The remainder of his retinue now occupied the recently-emptied rooms attached to the post-house where, in their own modest quarters, the owner and his wife sat with the pile of gold coins between them, taking turns to fondle and count it for the umpteenth time.

The wife was thinking of the lengths of rich patterned silk cloth she would buy herself at the market in Fin; the husband was torn between re-tiling the roof and building a new bath-house, and setting up two of his juicier serving-girls in a small brothel near the same market who he could visit while his wife, as usual, spent most of the day doing the monthly shopping.

Their staff, who had had to work doubly-hard to clean out and install new bedding in all the rooms and spruce up the entire post-house from top to bottom, could only think how exhausted they were as they ran back and forth carrying hot water for baths, preparing food and generally waiting hand and foot on a bunch of northern b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who had more money than sense.

Mounting the steps of the second pavilion, Lord Min-Orota ordered his bodyguard to wait on the verandah and went inside. The two Thai servant-women who had been recruited to cater for the needs of the monkey-witches prostrated themselves at his feet in the hall-way.

Min-Orota dismissed them and entered the reception room, sliding the screens shut behind him.

Cadillac and Roz were dressed in the j.a.panese clothes that the Yama-s.h.i.ta had provided, but had removed the elaborate wigs and the heavy white make-up from their faces and necks.

Min-Orota found the juxtaposition of graceful silken kimonos and striped hairy faces momentarily distracting, but once the usual civilities had been exchanged he seated himself in front of this strange pair and launched into a blow-byblow account of his visit to the palace.

On hearing that Ieyasu and Yoritomo had left the palace, Cadillac cursed and translated the news into Basic for Roz. 'That's it. I knew it was going too well."

If he was looking for sympathy he didn't get it. 'Isn't it a little early to be throwing in the towel?" she said.

'Why don't you wait until Lord Min-Orota has given us the whole story."

Cadillac swallowed hard and bowed to the Iron Master.

'I beg you accept my humble apologies, sire. Your words caused my over-hasty imagination to raise obstacles where none exist. Please continue."

'I will,' replied Min-Orota, in Basic. 'But perhaps it would be better to use a language we all understand."

'As you wish, sire,' said Cadillac, in j.a.panese.

'Good. But before we go any further, there's been something on my mind ever since we first met. You have the coloured skin and long hair of a Mute, but you remind me of a long-dog who was sent to my domain by the Yama-s.h.i.ta to show us how to build flying-horses. We discussed the project on several occasions. He seemed to be an honest fellow, but I regret to say he betrayed me?

Having noticed the studied way Min-Orota looked at him during their recent encounters, Cadillac had been wondering when this would come up.

And he believed he could turn it to his advantage. 'You are wrong, sire.

He did not betray you. It was the Toh-Yota and the Federation who destroyed the Heron Pool. The Shogun and the Herald Hase-Gawa planned it all, and it was Ieyasu's agents working hand-in-glove with the long-dogs who helped the murderers escape."