Musashi: Bushido Code (122 page)

From the sea of clouds beneath them, the mountains of Kai and Kōzuke jutted up like islands. Iori stopped and stood stock still, feet together, arms at his sides, lips tightly set. He stared in rapt fascination at the great golden sphere, imagining himself to be a child of the sun. All at once he exclaimed in a very loud voice, "It's Amaterasu Omikami! Isn't it?" He looked to Musashi for confirmation.

"That's right."

Raising his arms high above his head, the boy filtered the brilliant light through his fingers. "My blood!" he cried. "It's the same color as the sun's blood." Clapping his hands, as he would at a shrine to summon the deity, he bowed his head in silent obeisance, thinking: "The monkeys have a mother. I have none. But I have this goddess. They have none."

The revelation filled him with joy, and as he burst into tears, he seemed to hear from beyond the clouds the music of the shrine dances. The drums boomed in his ears, while the counterpoint of the flutes hovered around the melody of the Dance of Iwato. His feet caught the rhythm; his arms swayed gracefully. From his lips came the words he had memorized only the night before:

"The catalpa bow—

With each coming of spring,

I hope to see the dancing

Of the myriad of gods,

Oh, how I hope to see their dancing—"

Suddenly realizing Musashi had gone on ahead, he abandoned his dance and ran to catch up.

The morning light barely penetrated the forest they now entered. Here, in the approach to the inner shrine, the cryptomerias were of enormous circumference and all about the same height. Tiny white flowers grew in the thick patches of moss clinging to the trees. Suspecting the trees were ancient—five hundred years old, perhaps even a thousand—Iori had an urge to bow to them. Here and there, bright red vine maple caught his eye. Low striped bamboo encroaching on the road narrowed it to a path.

Without warning, the earth seemed to tremble under their feet. Close upon the thunderous report came an unnerving scream and a cascade of sharp echoes. Iori covered his ears with his hands and dived into the bamboo.

"Iori! Stay down!" Musashi commanded from the shadow of a large tree. "Don't move even if they trample on you!"

The gloomy half light seemed infested with lances and swords. Because of the scream, the attackers thought at first the bullet had found its mark, but there was no body in sight. Uncertain as to what had happened, they froze.

Iori was at the center of a circle of eyes and unsheathed blades. In the deathly silence that followed, curiosity got the better of him. He slowly raised his head above the bamboo. Only a few feet away, a sword blade, extending from behind a tree, caught a flash of sunlight.

Losing all control, Iori screamed at the top of his lungs,
"Sensei!
Somebody's hiding there!" As he shouted, he jumped to his feet and made a dash for safety.

The sword leapt from the shadows and hung like a demon above his head. But only for an instant. Musashi's dagger flew straight to the swordsman's head and lodged in the temple.

"Ya-a-h!"

One of the priests charged at Musashi with his lance. Musashi caught the lance and held it tightly with one hand.

Another death cry sounded, as if the man's mouth were full of rocks. Wondering if his attackers could be fighting among themselves, Musashi strained his eyes to see. The other priest took careful aim with his lance and hurtled toward him. Musashi caught this lance too and held it securely under his right arm.

"Jump him now!" screamed one of the priests, realizing that Musashi had his hands full.

His voice stentorian, Musashi shouted, "Who are you? Identify yourselves, or I'll assume you're all enemies. It's a shame to spill blood on this holy ground, but I may have no choice."

Whirling the lances around and sending the two priests off on different tangents, Musashi whipped out his sword and finished off one of them before he had stopped tumbling. Spinning around, he found himself confronting three more blades, lined up across the narrow path. Without pausing, he moved toward them threateningly, one step at a time. Two more men came out and took their places shoulder to shoulder beside the first three.

As Musashi advanced and his opponents retreated, he caught a glimpse of the other lancer priest, who had recovered his weapon and was chasing Iori. "Stop, you cutthroat!" But the moment Musashi turned to go to Iori's rescue, the five men let out a howl and charged. Musashi rushed head on to meet them. It was like the collision of two raging waves, but the spray was blood, not brine. Musashi kept whirling from opponent to opponent with the speed of a typhoon. Two bloodcurdling cries, then a third. They fell like dead trees, each sliced through the middle of the torso. In Musashi's right hand was his long sword, in his left the short one.

With cries of terror, the last two turned and ran, Musashi close behind them.

"Where do you think you're going?" he shouted, splitting one man's head open with the short sword. The black spurt of blood caught Musashi in the eye. Reflexively, he raised his left hand to his face and, in that instant, heard a strange metallic sound behind him.

He swung his long sword to deflect the object, but the effect of the action was very different from the intention. Seeing the ball and chain wrapped around the blade near the sword guard, he was seized with alarm. Musashi had been taken off guard.

"Musashi!" shouted Baiken. He pulled the chain taut. "Have you forgotten me?"

Musashi stared for a moment before exclaiming, "Shishido Baiken, from Mount Suzuka!"

"That's right. My brother Temma's calling you from the valley of hell. I'll see that you get there quick!"

Musashi could not free his sword. By slow degrees, Baiken was taking in the chain and moving closer, to make use of the razor-sharp sickle. As Musashi looked for an opening for his short sword, he realized with a start that if he had been fighting with only his long sword, he would be utterly defenseless now.

Baiken's neck was so swollen it was nearly as thick as his head. With a strained cry, he jerked powerfully on the chain.

Musashi had blundered; he knew that. The ball-chain-sickle was an unusual weapon, but not unfamiliar to him. Years earlier, he had been struck by admiration when he had first seen the hellish device in the hands of Baiken's wife. But it was one thing to have seen it, something else to know how to counter it.

Baiken gloated, a broad, evil grin spreading over his face. Musashi knew there was only one course open to him: he had to let go of his long sword. He looked for the right moment.

With a ferocious howl, Baiken leapt and swept the sickle toward Musashi's head, missing by only a hair's breadth. Musashi released the sword with a loud grunt. No sooner had the sickle been withdrawn than the ball came whirring through the air. Then the sickle, the ball, the sickle . . .

Dodging the sickle put Musashi right in the path of the ball. Unable to get close enough to strike, he wondered frantically how long he could keep it up. "Is this it?" he asked. The question was conscious, but as the tension increased, his body became difficult to control and his responses purely physiological. Not only his muscles but his very skin was struggling instinctively; concentration became so intense the flow of oily sweat stopped. Every hair on his body stood on end.

It was too late to get behind a tree. If he made a dash for it now, he'd probably run into another foe.

He heard a clear, plaintive cry, and thought: "Uh-oh. Iori?" He wanted to look but in his heart gave the boy up for lost.

"Die! You son of a bitch!" The cry came from behind Musashi, then: "Musashi, why're you taking so much time? I'm taking care of the vermin behind you."

Musashi didn't recognize the voice but decided he could focus his attention on Baiken alone.

To Baiken, the most important factor was his distance from his opponent; his effectiveness depended on manipulating the length of the chain. If Musashi could move a foot beyond the reach of the chain or approach a foot nearer, Baiken would be in trouble. He had to make sure that Musashi did neither.

Musashi marveled at the man's secret technique, and as he marveled, it suddenly struck him that here was the principle of the two swords. The chain was a single length, the ball functioned as the right sword, the sickle as the left.

"Of course!" he cried triumphantly. "That's it—that's the Yaegaki Style." Now confident of victory, he leapt back, putting five feet between the two of them. He transferred his sword to his right hand and hurled it straight as an arrow.

Baiken twisted his body, and the sword glanced off, burying itself in the root of a nearby tree. But as he twisted, the chain wrapped itself around his torso. Before he could even cry out, Musashi slammed his full weight into him. Baiken got his hand as far as the hilt of his sword, but Musashi broke his hold with a sharp chop to the wrist. In a continuation of the same motion, he drew the weapon and split Baiken open, like lightning splitting a tree. As he pulled the blade down, he twisted ever so slightly.

"What a pity," thought Musashi. As the story was later told, he even uttered a sigh of compassion as the originator of the Yaegaki Style breathed his last.

"The
karatake
slice," exclaimed an admiring voice. "Straight down the trunk. No different from splitting bamboo. It's the first time I've ever seen it."

Musashi turned and said, "Why, if it isn't ... Gonnosuke from Kiso. What are you doing here?"

"It's been a long time, hasn't it? The god of Mitsumine must have arranged it, perhaps with the aid of my mother, who taught me so much before she died."

They fell to chatting, but Musashi suddenly stopped and cried, "Iori!" "He's all right. I rescued him from that pig of a priest and had him climb a tree."

Iori, watching them from a high branch, started to speak but instead shaded his eyes and looked toward a small flat area beyond the edge of the forest. Kuro, tied to a tree, had caught Okō's kimono sleeve with his teeth. She yanked desperately at the sleeve. In a trice, it tore off, and she ran away.

The lone survivor, the other priest, was hobbling along, leaning heavily on his lance, blood flowing from a head wound. The dog, perhaps crazed by the smell of blood, started making a terrible racket. The noise echoed and reechoed for a time, but then the rope gave way, and the dog went after Okō. When he reached him, the priest lifted his lance and aimed for the dog's head. Wounded in the neck, the beast ran into the woods.

"That woman's getting away," cried Iori.

"Never mind. You can come down now."

"There's an injured priest over there. Shouldn't you catch him?" "Forget it. He doesn't matter anymore."

"The woman's probably the one from the Oinu Teahouse," said Gonnosuke. He explained his presence, the heaven-sent coincidence that had enabled him to come to Musashi's assistance.

Deeply grateful, Musashi said, "You killed the man who fired the gun?"

"No." Gonnosuke smiled. "Not me; my staff. I knew ordinarily you could take care of men like that, but if they were going to use a gun, I decided I'd better do something. So I came here ahead of them and slipped up behind the man while it was still dark."

They checked the corpses. Seven had been killed with the staff, only five with the sword.

Musashi said, "I haven't done anything except defend myself, but this area belongs to the shrine. I feel I should explain things to the government official in charge. Then he can ask his questions and get the incident cleared up."

On their way down the mountain, they ran into a contingent of armed officials at the bridge at Kosaruzawa. Musashi told his story. The captain in charge listened, seemingly puzzled, but nevertheless ordered Musashi tied up.

Shocked, Musashi wanted to know why, since he was on his way to report to them in the first place.

"Get moving," ordered the captain.

Angry as Musashi was about being treated as an ordinary criminal, there was still another surprise coming. There were more officials farther down the mountain. By the time they arrived in the town, his guard numbered no fewer than a hundred.

Brother Disciples

"Come now, no more tears." Gonnosuke hugged Iori to his chest. "You're a man, aren't you?"

"It's because I'm a man ... that I'm crying." He lifted his head, opened his mouth wide and bawled at the sky.

"They didn't arrest Musashi. He gave himself up." Gonnosuke's mild words masked his own deep concern. "Come on, let's go now."

"No! Not until they bring him back."

"They'll let him go soon. They'll have to. Do you want me to leave you here by yourself?" Gonnosuke walked a few paces away.

Iori didn't move. Just then, Baiken's dog came charging out of the woods, his muzzle a dull, bloody red.

"Help!" screamed Iori, running to Gonnosuke's side.

"You're worn out, aren't you? Look, would you like me to carry you piggyback?"

Iori, pleased, mumbled his thanks, climbed on the proffered back and wrapped his arms around the broad shoulders.

With the festival over the night before, the visitors had departed. A gentle breeze wafted bits of bamboo wrapping and scraps of paper along the deserted streets.

Passing the Oinu Teahouse, Gonnosuke glanced inside, intending to go by unnoticed.

But Iori piped out, "There's the woman who ran away!"

"I imagine that's where she'd be." He stopped and wondered aloud, "If the officials dragged in Musashi, why didn't they arrest her too?"

When Okō saw Gonnosuke, her eyes blazed with anger.

Seeing she seemed to be hurriedly gathering her belongings together, Gonnosuke laughed. "Going on a trip?" he asked.

"None of your business. Don't think I don't know you, you meddling scoundrel. You killed my husband!"

"You brought it on yourselves."

"I'll get even one of these days."

"She-demon!" Iori shouted over Gonnosuke's head.

Retreating into the back room, Okō laughed scornfully. "You're fine ones to be saying bad things about me when you're the thieves who broke into the treasure house."

"What's this?" Gonnosuke let Iori slide to the ground and went into the teahouse. "Who are you calling thieves?"

"You can't fool me."

"Say that again, and—"

"Thieves!"

As Gonnosuke grabbed her arm, she turned and stabbed at him with a dagger. Not bothering with his staff, he wrested the dagger from her hand and sent her sprawling through the front door.

Okō jumped up and screamed, "Help! Thieves! I'm being attacked." Gonnosuke took aim and hurled the dagger. It entered her back and the point came out in front. Okō pitched forward onto her face.

From nowhere, Kuro bounded forth and was at the body, first slurping blood hungrily, then lifting his head to howl at the sky.

"Look at those eyes!" exclaimed Iori in horror.

Okō's cry of "Thieves!" had caught the ears of the excited villagers. Sometime before dawn, someone had broken into the temple treasure house. It was clearly the work of outsiders, for the religious treasures—old swords, mirrors and the like—had been left untouched, but a fortune in gold dust, bullion and cash, accumulated over a period of many years, was missing. The news had leaked out slowly and was still unconfirmed. The effect of Okō's scream, the most tangible proof so far, was electric.

"There they are!"

"Inside the Oinu!"

The cries attracted a still larger mob, armed with bamboo spears, boar guns, sticks and rocks. In no time it seemed that the whole village was surrounding the teahouse, thirsty for blood.

Gonnosuke and Iori ducked out the back and for the next several hours were driven from hiding place to hiding place. But now they had an explanation: Musashi had been arrested not for the "crime" he was about to confess but as a thief. It was not until they reached Shōmaru Pass that they shook off the last of the search parties.

"You can see Musashino Plain from here," said Iori. "I wonder if my teacher's all right."

"Hmm. I imagine he's in prison by now and being questioned." "Isn't there any way to save him?"

"There must be."

"Please do something. Please."

"You don't have to beg. He's like a teacher to me too. But, Iori, there's not much you can do here. Can you make it back home by yourself?"

"I suppose so, if I have to."

"Good."

"What about you?"

"I'm going back to Chichibu. If they refuse to release Musashi, I'll get him out some way. Even if I have to tear the prison down." For emphasis, he thumped the ground once with his staff. Iori, who had seen the power of this weapon, quickly nodded his agreement. "That's a boy. You go back and watch over things until I bring Musashi home safe and sound." Placing his staff under his arm, he turned back toward Chichibu.

Iori didn't feel lonely or afraid, nor did he worry about getting lost. But he was dreadfully sleepy, and as he walked along under the warm sun, he could hardly keep his eyes open. At Sakamoto, he saw a stone Buddha by the wayside and lay down in its shadow.

The evening light was fading when he awoke and heard soft voices on the other side of the statue. Feeling rather guilty about eavesdropping, he pretended he was still asleep.

There were two of them, one sitting on a tree stump, the other on a rock. Tied to a tree a little distance away were two horses with lacquered boxes suspended from both sides of their saddles. A wooden tag attached to one of the boxes said: "From Shimotsuke Province. For use in the construction of the west encirclement. Lacquerware Supplier to the Shōgun."

To Iori, who now peeked around the statue, they did not look like the normal run of well-fed castle officials. Their eyes were too sharp, their bodies too muscular. The older one was a vigorous-looking man of more than fifty. The last rays of the sun reflected strongly from his bonnetlike hat, which came down over both ears and projected out in front, concealing his features.

His companion was a slender, wiry youth wearing a forelock that suited his boyish face. His head was covered with a Suō-dyed hand towel, tied beneath his chin.

"How about the lacquerware boxes?" the younger one asked. "That was pretty good, wasn't it?"

"Yes, that was clever, making people think we're connected with the work going on at the castle. I wouldn't have thought of that myself."

"I'll have to teach you these things little by little."

"Careful now. Don't start making fun of your elders. But who knows? Maybe in four or five years, old Daizō will be taking orders from you."

"Well, young people do grow up. Old people just get older, no matter how hard they work at staying young."

"Do you think that's what I'm doing?"

"It's obvious, isn't it? You're always thinking of your age, and that's what makes you so devoted to seeing your mission accomplished."

"You know me pretty well, I guess."

"Shouldn't we be going?"

"Yes; night's catching up with us."

"I don't like the idea of being caught up with."

"Ha, ha. If you scare easily, you can't have much confidence in what you're doing."

"I haven't been at this business very long. Even the sound of the wind makes me nervous sometimes."

"That's because you still think of yourself as an ordinary thief. If you keep in mind that you're doing it for the good of the country, you'll be all right."

"You always say that. I believe you, but something keeps telling me I'm not doing the right thing."

"You have to have the courage of your convictions." But the admonition sounded slightly unconvincing, as though Daizō was reassuring himself.

The youth jumped lightly into the saddle and rode on ahead. "Keep your eye on me," he called back over his shoulder. "If I see anything, I'll signal."

The road made a long descent to the south. Iori watched from behind the stone Buddha for a minute, then decided to follow them. Somehow the idea had formed in his mind that these were the treasure house thieves.

Once or twice they looked back cautiously. Apparently finding nothing to warrant alarm, they seemed to forget about him after a time. Before long, the evening glow was gone, and it was too dark to see more than a few yards ahead.

The two riders were almost at the edge of Musashino Plain when the youth pointed and said, "There, Chief, you can see the lights of Ogimachiya." The road was flattening out. A short distance ahead, the Iruma River, twisting like a discarded obi, shone silvery in the moonlight.

Iori was now being careful to remain inconspicuous. His idea that these men were the thieves had become a conviction, and he knew all about bandits from his days in Hōtengahara. Bandits were vicious men who would commit mayhem over a single egg or a handful of red beans. Unprovoked murder was nothing to them.

By and by, they entered the town of Ogimachiya. Daizō lifted his arm and said, "Jōta, we'll stop here and have a bite to eat. The horses have to be fed, and I'd like a smoke."

They tied the horses in front of a dimly lit shop and went inside. Jōta stationed himself by the door, keeping his eyes on the boxes the whole time he was eating. When he was finished, he went out and fed the horses.

Iori went into a food shop across the street, and when the two men rode off, he grabbed the last handful of his rice and ate it as he walked.

They rode side by side now; the road was dark but level.

"Jōta, did you send a courier to Kiso?"

"Yes, I took care of that."

"What time did you tell them?"

"Midnight. We should be there on schedule."

In the still night, Iori caught enough of their conversation to know that Daizō called his companion by a boy's name, while Jōta addressed the older man as "Chief." This might mean nothing more than that he was the head of a gang, but somehow Iori got the impression they were father and son. This made them not mere bandits but hereditary bandits, very dangerous men he would never be able to capture by himself. But if he could stick with them long enough, he could report their whereabouts to the officials.

The town of Kawagoe was fast asleep, as soundless as a swamp in the dead of night. Having passed rows of darkened houses, the two riders turned off the highway and began climbing a hill. A stone marker at the bottom said: "Forest of the Head-burying Mound—Above."

Climbing up through the bushes alongside the path, Iori reached the top first. There was a lone pine tree of great size, to which a horse was tied. Squatting at the base were three men dressed like rōnin, arms folded on their knees, looking expectantly toward the path.

Iori had hardly ensconced himself in a hiding place before one of the men stood up and said, "It's Daizō, all right." All three ran forward and exchanged jovial salutations. Daizō and his confederates had not met for nearly four years.

Before long, they got down to work. Under Daizō's direction, they rolled a huge stone aside and began digging. Dirt was piled to one side, a great store of gold and silver to the other. Jōta unloaded the boxes from the horses and dumped out their contents, which, as Iori had suspected, consisted of the missing treasure from Mitsumine Shrine. Added to the previous cache, the total booty must have had a value of many tens of thousands of
ryō
.

The precious metals were poured into plain straw sacks and loaded on three horses. The empty lacquered boxes, along with other objects that had served their purpose, were dumped into the hole. After the ground had been smoothed over, the stone was restored to its original position.

"That should do it," said Daizō. "Time for a smoke." He sat down by the pine tree and took out his pipe. The others brushed off their clothes and joined him.

During the four years of his so-called pilgrimage, Daizō had covered the Kantō Plain very thoroughly. There were few temples or shrines without a plaque attesting to his generosity, the extent of which was no secret. Strangely, though, no one had thought to ask how he had come by all this money.

Daizō, Jōtarō and the three men from Kiso sat in a circle for about an hour, discussing future plans. That it was now risky for Daizō to return to Edo was not in doubt, but one of them had to go. There was gold in the storehouse at Shibaura to be recovered and documents to be burned. And something had to be done about Akemi.

Just before sunup, Daizō and the three men began the journey down the Kōshū highroad to Kiso. Jōtarō, on foot, set off in the opposite direction.

The stars Iori was gazing at offered no answer to his question: "Who to follow?"

Under the transparently blue autumn sky, the strong rays of the afternoon sun seemed to sink right into Jōtarō's skin. His head filled with thoughts of his role in the coming age, he was strolling across the Musashino Plain as though he owned it.

Casting a somewhat apprehensive glance behind him, he thought: "He's still there." Thinking the boy might want to talk to him, he'd already stopped a couple of times, but the boy had made no attempt to catch up with him.

Deciding to find out what was going on, Jōtarō chose a clump of eulalia and hid in it.

When Iori reached the stretch of road where he'd last seen Jōtarō, he began looking around worriedly.

Abruptly Jōtarō stood up and called out, "You there, runt!"

Iori gasped but recovered quickly. Knowing he couldn't get away, he walked on past and asked nonchalantly, "What do you want?"

"You've been following me, haven't you?"

"Unh-unh." Iori shook his head innocently. "I'm on my way to Jūnisō Nakano."

"You're lying! You were following me."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Iori started to break and run, but Jōtarō caught him by the back of his kimono.