Buntaro Asks for Blackthorne to Be Executed

Buntaro’s request to execute Blackthorne turns private jealousy and injured honor into a matter for Toranaga to judge, while exposing how carefully Toranaga manages the people around him. Buntaro asks for permission to take Blackthorne’s head in Mariko’s presence; Toranaga refuses to settle the matter immediately, instead preserving Blackthorne’s usefulness and sending Buntaro on a confidential mission. The exchange leaves the threat unresolved, but makes its timing subject to Toranaga’s command.

A grievance brought before Toranaga

Toranaga summons Buntaro into the room while Mariko is already present. She is numb as she bows to her husband, who does not acknowledge her. The arrangement gives the request a public and formal character: Buntaro says he wanted to state it in front of Mariko and before Toranaga, rather than act without first declaring his intention. His appeal is not an accusation that she has encouraged Blackthorne. When Toranaga presses him directly on that point, Buntaro says that such a suspicion would oblige him to take Mariko’s head as well. He calls that possibility unthinkable.

Buntaro identifies two grounds for his request. He dislikes the way Blackthorne looks at his wife, and he remains unable to live with the shame of Blackthorne’s insult to him at Anjiro. He also presents the foreigner as a continuing irritation to his household’s harmony and a possible source of trouble for Toranaga. The appeal thus moves between personal humiliation and service to his lord: Buntaro speaks from wounded pride, yet frames Blackthorne’s removal as something that might also benefit Toranaga.

Mariko’s duty and Toranaga’s refusal

Asked to respond, Mariko does not defend herself against Buntaro’s grievance or challenge his authority as her husband. She says she will do whatever he decides, unless Toranaga overrules him, and identifies this submission as her duty. Her answer leaves the decision with Toranaga while making plain the danger implicit in Buntaro’s proposal: his request could extend beyond Blackthorne to her, if he believed she had betrayed him.

Toranaga does not grant the request at once. He orders Mariko to leave for Osaka in three days, prepare the way for him, and wait there. Buntaro, meanwhile, is to accompany Toranaga as commander of his escort when Toranaga departs. Only after Buntaro has acted as Toranaga’s second may he, or one of his men, do the same with Blackthorne, with or without Blackthorne’s approval. The sequence does not erase the threat; it places it after Buntaro’s service to Toranaga and makes its execution contingent on the lord’s timetable.

Blackthorne’s reprieve and Buntaro’s new duty

When Buntaro begins to offer further advice, Toranaga cuts him off sharply, warning that another unsolicited intervention will bring the command to slit his belly in a Yedo cesspool. The rebuke makes the limits of Buntaro’s standing unmistakable: even while his grievance receives consideration, he may not dictate Toranaga’s decisions. Toranaga then tells him that Blackthorne’s head may be taken soon, but that he needs it still attached to his shoulders a little longer. Blackthorne’s temporary safety is therefore neither pardon nor reconciliation; it is a reprieve governed by political necessity.

Toranaga immediately gives Buntaro a separate assignment. He is to ride at dawn to Mishima and relieve his father for a few days, then continue north by way of Takato. Toranaga has a private written message for his mother there, and Buntaro must deliver it into her hands alone. He is to tell no one of the detour, take twenty men, and gallop to Takato. Toranaga warns that Lord Zataki may try to prevent the delivery and says he will send a carrier pigeon to request safe conduct. The confidential errand gives Buntaro an urgent obligation beyond the household dispute, while showing why Toranaga cannot yet afford to dispose of Blackthorne—or let Buntaro act on his own schedule.

An execution request kept under control

The scene binds personal honor to political command without allowing either to resolve the other. Buntaro’s shame remains real to him, and Toranaga does not dismiss the possibility that Blackthorne will eventually be killed. Yet the foreigner’s life is temporarily necessary, and Buntaro’s movements are redirected toward a message whose delivery may be obstructed. Toranaga’s answer therefore functions as both delay and control: he acknowledges the requested violence as a future possibility but reserves its timing, while assigning Buntaro a task whose secrecy and urgency leave little room for independent action.

The encounter also places Mariko between the two men without making her the cause of their conflict. Buntaro voices suspicion about Blackthorne’s attention but refuses to accuse her of encouraging it; Mariko answers through the language of marital duty, and Toranaga determines what happens next. The request ends not with Blackthorne’s execution, but with a conditional threat, Mariko’s imminent departure for Osaka, and Buntaro’s dawn ride toward Takato. Each outcome remains subject to Toranaga’s larger purposes.