Musashi: Bushido Code (56 page)

"It's all right now," he said soothingly, but Akemi's forearm said otherwise. The blood flowing over the white skin gave the bite the appearance of a large crimson peony.

Kojirō shivered at the sight. "Isn't there any sake? I should wash it with sake.... No, I guess there wouldn't be any in a place like this." Warm blood flowed down the forearm to the wrist. "I have to do something," he said, "or poison from the dog's teeth might cause you to go mad. He has been acting peculiarly these past few days."

While Kojirō tried to decide what could be done in a hurry, Akemi screwed her eyebrows together, bent her lovely white neck backward and cried, "Mad? Oh, how wonderful! That's what I want to be—mad! Completely stark, raving mad!"

"Wh-wh-what's this?" stammered Kojirō. Without further ado, he bent over her forearm and sucked blood from the wound. When his mouth was full, he spat it out, put his mouth back to the white skin, and sucked until his cheeks bulged.

In the evening Tanzaemon returned from his daily round. "I'm back, Akemi," he announced as he entered the temple. "Were you lonesome while I was gone?"

He deposited her medicine in a corner, along with the food and the jar of oil he had bought, and said, "Wait a moment; I'll make some light."

When the candle was lit, he saw that she was not in the room. "Akemi!" he called. "Where could she have gone?"

His one-sided love turned suddenly to anger, which was quickly replaced by loneliness. Tanzaemon was reminded, as he had been before, that he would never be young again—that there was no more honor, no more hope. He thought of his aging body and winced.

"I rescued her and took care of her," he grumbled, "and now she's gone off without a word. Is that the way the world is always going to be? Is that the way she is? Or was she still suspicious of my intentions?"

On the bed he discovered a scrap of cloth, apparently torn from the end of her obi. The spot of blood on it rekindled his animal instincts. He kicked the straw matting into the air and threw the medicine out the window.

Hungry, but lacking the will to prepare a meal, he took up his
shakuhachi
and, with a sigh, went out onto the veranda. For an hour or more, he played without stopping, attempting to expel his desires and delusions. Yet it was evident to him that his passions remained with him and would remain with him until he died. "She'd already been taken by another man," he mused. "Why did I have to be so moral and upright? There was no need for me to lie there alone, pining all night."

Half of him regretted not having acted; the other half condemned his lecherous yearning. It was precisely this conflict of emotions, swirling incessantly in his veins, that constituted what the Buddha called delusion. He was trying now to cleanse his impure nature, but the more he strived, the muddier the tone of his
shakuhachi
became.

The beggar who slept beneath the temple poked his head from under the veranda. "Why are you sitting there playing your recorder?" he asked. "Did something good happen? If you made lots of money and bought some sake, how about giving me a drink?" He was a cripple, and from his lowly viewpoint, Tanzaemon lived like a king.

"Do you know what happened to the girl I brought home last night?"

"She was a nice-looking wench, wasn't she? If I'd been able, I wouldn't have let her get away. Not long after you left this morning, a young samurai with a long forelock and a huge sword on his back came and took her away. The monkey too. He had one of them on one shoulder, one on the other."

"Samurai ... forelock?"

"Uh. And what a handsome fellow he was—handsomer by far than you and me!"

The humor of this sent the beggar into a paroxysm of laughter.

The Announcement

Seijūrō arrived back at the school in a foul mood. He thrust the falcon into a disciple's hands, curtly ordering him to put the bird back in its cage.

"Isn't Kojirō with you?" asked the disciple.

"No, but I'm sure he'll be along presently."

After changing his clothes, Seijūrō went and sat down in the room where guests were received. Across the court was the great dōjō, closed since the final practice on the twenty-fifth. Throughout the year, there was the coming and going of a thousand or so students; now the dōjō would not be open again until the first training session of the New Year. With the wooden swords silent, the house seemed coldly desolate.

Desperate to have Kojirō as a sparring partner, Seijūrō inquired of the disciple repeatedly whether he had returned. But Kojirō did not come back, neither that evening nor the following day.

Other callers came in force, however, it being the last day of the year, the day to settle up all accounts. For those in business, it was a question of collecting now or waiting until the
Bon
festival of the following summer, and by noon the front room was full of bill collectors. Normally these men wore an air of complete subservience in the presence of samurai, but now, their patience exhausted, they were making their feelings known in no uncertain terms.

"Can't you pay at least part of what you owe?"

"You've been saying the man in charge is out, or the master is away, for months now. Do you think you can keep putting us off forever?"

"How many times do we have to come here?"

"The old master was a good customer. I wouldn't say a word if it were only the last half year, but you didn't pay at midyear either. Why, I've even got unpaid bills from last year!"

A couple of them impatiently tapped on their account books and stuck them under the nose of the disciple. There were carpenters, plasterers, the rice man, the sake dealer, clothiers and sundry suppliers of everyday goods. Swelling their ranks were the proprietors of various teahouses where Seijūrō ate and drank on credit. And these were the small fry, whose bills could hardly be compared to those of the usurers from whom Denshichirō, unknown to his brother, had borrowed cash.

Half a dozen of these men sat down and refused to budge.

"We want to talk with Master Seijūrō himself. It's a waste of time to talk to disciples."

Seijūrō kept to himself in the back of the house, his only words being: "Tell them I'm out." And Denshichirō, of course, would not have come near the house on a day like this. The face most conspicuously absent was that of the man in charge of the school's books and the household accounts: Gion Tōji. Several days earlier, he had decamped with Okō and all the money he'd collected on his trip west.

Presently six or seven men swaggered in, led by Ueda Ryōhei, who even in such humiliating circumstances was swollen with pride at being one of the Ten Swordsmen of the House of Yoshioka. With a menacing look, he asked, "What's going on here?"

The disciple, while contriving to make it plain that he considered no explanation necessary, gave a brief rundown of the situation.

"Is that all?" Ryōhei said scornfully. "Just a bunch of moneygrubbers? What difference does it make as long as the bills are eventually paid? Tell the ones who don't want to wait for payment to step into the practice hall; I'll discuss it with them in my own language."

In the face of this threat, the bill collectors grew sulky. Owing to Yoshioka Kempō's uprightness in money matters, not to mention his position as a military instructor to the Ashikaga shōguns, they had bowed before the Yoshioka household, groveled, lent them goods, lent them anything, come whenever summoned, left when they were told, and said yes to anything and everything. But there was a limit to how long they could kowtow to these vain warriors. The day they allowed themselves to be intimidated by threats like Ryōhei's was the day the merchant class would go out of business. And without them, what would the samurai do? Did they imagine for a moment they could run things by themselves?

As they stood around grumbling, Ryōhei made it perfectly clear that he regarded them as so much dirt. "All right now, go on home! Hanging around here won't do you any good."

The merchants grew silent but made no move to leave.

"Throw them out!" cried Ryōhei.

"Sir, this is an outrage!"

"What's outrageous about it?" asked Ryōhei.

"It's completely irresponsible!"

"Who says it's irresponsible?"

"But it
is
irresponsible to throw us out!"

"Then why don't you leave quietly? We're busy."

"If it wasn't the last day of the year, we wouldn't be here begging. We need the money you owe to settle our own debts before the day is out."

"That's too bad. Too bad. Now go!"

"This is no way to treat us!"

"I think I've heard enough of your complaints!" Ryōhei's voice grew angry again.

"No one would complain—if you'd just pay up!"

"Come here!" commanded Ryōhei.

"Wh-who?"

"Anyone who's dissatisfied."

"This is crazy!"

"Who said that?"

"I wasn't referring to you, sir. I was talking about this ... this situation." "Shut up!" Ryōhei seized the man by his hair and threw him out the side door.

"Anybody else with complaints?" growled Ryōhei. "We're not going to have you riffraff inside the house claiming paltry sums of money. I won't permit it! Even if the Young Master wants to pay you, I won't let him do it."

At the sight of Ryōhei's fist, the bill collectors stumbled all over each other in their rush to get out of the gate. But once outside, their vilification of the House of Yoshioka intensified.

"Will I ever laugh and clap my hands when I see the 'For Sale' sign posted on this place! It shouldn't be long now."

"They say it won't be."

"How could it be?"

Ryōhei, vastly amused, held his stomach with laughter as he went to the back of the house. The other disciples went with him to the room where Seijūrō was bent, alone and silent, over the brazier.

"Young Master," said Ryōhei, "you're so quiet. Is something wrong?"

"Oh, no," replied Seijūrō, somewhat cheered by the sight of his most trusted followers. "The day's not far off now, is it?" he said.

"No," agreed Ryōhei. "That's what we came to see you about. Shouldn't we decide on the time and place and let Musashi know?"

"Why, yes, I suppose so," said Seijūrō pensively. "The place ... Where would be a good place? How about the field at the Rendaiji, north of the city?" "That sounds all right. What about the time?"

"Should it be before the New Year's decorations are taken down, or after?" "The sooner the better. We don't want to give that coward time to worm his way out."

"How about the eighth?"

"Isn't the eighth the anniversary of Master Kempō's death?"

"Ah, so it is. In that case, how about the ninth? At seven o'clock in the morning? That'll do, won't it?"

"All right. We'll post a sign on the bridge this evening."

"Fine."

"Are you ready?" asked Ryōhei.

"I've been ready all along," replied Seijūrō, who was in no position to answer otherwise. He had not really considered the possibility of losing to Musashi. Having studied under his father's tutelage since childhood, and having never lost a match to anyone in the school, not even to the oldest and best-trained disciples, he couldn't imagine being beaten by this young, inexperienced country bumpkin.

His confidence, nonetheless, was not absolute. He felt a tinge of uncertainty, and characteristically, instead of attributing this to his failure to put into practice the Way of the Samurai, wrote it off as being due to recent personal difficulties. One of these, perhaps the greatest, was Akemi. He'd been ill at ease ever since the incident at Sumiyoshi, and when Gion Tōji had absconded, he had learned that the financial cancer in the Yoshioka household had already reached a critical stage.

Ryōhei and the others came back with the message to Musashi written on a freshly cut board.

"Is this what you had in mind?" asked Ryōhei.

The characters, still glistening wet, said:

Answer—In response to your request for a bout, I name the following time and place. Place: Field of the Rendaiji. Time: Seven o'clock in the morning, ninth day of the first month. I swear on my sacred oath to be present.

If, by some chance, you do not fulfill your promise, I shall consider it my right to ridicule you in public.

If I break this agreement, may the punishment of the gods be visited upon me! Seijūrō, Yoshioka Kempō II, of Kyoto. Done on the last day of [1605].

To the Rōnin of Mimasaka, Miyamoto Musashi.

After reading it, Seijūrō said, "It's all right." The announcement made him feel more relaxed, perhaps because for the first time it came home to him that the die was cast.

At sunset, Ryōhei put the sign under his arm and strode proudly along the street with a couple of other men to post it on the Great Bridge at Gojō Avenue.

At the foot of Yoshida Hill, the man to whom the announcement was addressed was walking through a neighborhood of samurai of noble lineage and small means. Conservatively inclined, they led ordinary lives and were unlikely to be found doing anything that would excite comment.

Musashi was going from gate to gate examining the nameplates. Eventually he came to a stop in the middle of the street, seemingly unwilling or unable to look further. He was searching for his aunt, his mother's sister and his only living relative besides Ogin.

His aunt's husband was a samurai serving, for a small stipend, the House of Konoe. Musashi thought it would be easy to find the house near Yoshida Hill but soon discovered there was very little to distinguish one house from another. Most were small, surrounded by trees, and their gates were shut tight as clams. Quite a few of the gates had no nameplates.

His uncertainty about the place he was seeking made him reluctant to ask directions. "They must have moved," he thought. "I may as well stop looking."

He turned back toward the center of town, which lay under a mist reflecting the lights of the year-end marketplace. Although it was New Year's Eve, the streets in the downtown area still hummed with activity.

Musashi turned to look at a woman who had just passed going the other way. He hadn't seen his aunt for at least seven or eight years, but he was sure this was she, for the woman resembled the image he had formed of his mother. He followed her a short distance, then called out to her.

She stared at him suspiciously for a moment or two, intense surprise reflected in eyes wrinkled by years of humdrum living on a tiny budget. "You're Musashi, Munisai's son, aren't you?" she finally asked.

He wondered why she called him Musashi rather than Takezō, but what actually disturbed him was the impression that he was not welcome. "Yes," he replied, "I'm Takezō, from the House of Shimmen."

She looked him over thoroughly, without the customary "oh"s and "ah"s as to how large he had grown or how different he looked from before. "Why have you come here?" she asked coolly in a rather censorious tone.

"I had no special purpose in coming. I just happened to be in Kyoto. I thought it would be nice to see you." Looking at the eyes and hairline of his aunt, he thought of his mother. If she were still alive, surely she would be about as tall as this woman and speak with the same sort of voice.

"You came to see me?" she asked incredulously.

"Yes. I'm sorry it's so sudden."

His aunt waved her hand before her face in a gesture of dismissal. "Well, you've seen me, so there's no reason to go any farther. Please leave!"

Abashed at this chilly reception, he blurted out, "Why do you say that as soon as you see me? If you want me to leave, I'll go, but I can't see why. Have I done something you disapprove of? If so, at least tell me what it is."

His aunt seemed unwilling to be pinned down. "Oh, as long as you're here, why don't you come to our house and say hello to your uncle? But you know what kind of person he is, so don't be disappointed at anything he might say. I'm your aunt, and since you've come to see us, I don't want you to go away with hard feelings."

Taking what little comfort he could from this, Musashi walked with her to her house and waited in the front room while she broke the news to her husband. Through the shoji he could hear the asthmatic, grumbling voice of his uncle, whose name was Matsuo Kaname.

"What?" asked Kaname testily. "Munisai's son here? ... I was afraid he'd show up sooner or later. You mean he's
here,
in this house? You let him in without asking me?"

Enough was enough, but when Musashi called to his aunt to say good-bye, Kaname said, "You're in there, are you?" and slid the door open. His face wore not a frown but an expression of utter contempt—the look city people reserve for their unwashed country relatives. It was as though a cow had lumbered in and planted its hooves on the tatami.

"Why did you come here?" asked Kaname.

"I happened to be in town. I thought I'd just ask after your health." "That's not true!"

"Sir?"

"You can lie all you want, but I know what you've done. You caused a lot of trouble in Mimasaka, made a lot of people hate you, disgraced your family's name and then ran away. Isn't that the truth?"

Musashi was nonplussed.

"How can you be so shameless as to come to call on relatives?"

"I'm sorry for what I did," said Musashi. "But I fully intend to make the proper amends to my ancestors and to the village."