Musashi: Bushido Code (32 page)

Arriving at the Wataya, she dismounted and tied her horse to a tree in the garden.

"Welcome!" called Kocha, coming out to greet her. "Are you staying for the night?"

"No, I've just come from Koyagyū Castle with a message for Yoshioka Denshichirō. He's still here, isn't he?"

"Would you wait a moment, please?"

In the brief time Kocha was gone, Otsū created a mild stir among the travelers who were noisily putting on their leggings and sandals and strapping their luggage to their backs.

"Who's that?" asked one.

"Who do you suppose she's come to see?"

Otsū's beauty, a graceful elegance seldom encountered in the country, kept the departing guests whispering and ogling until she followed Kocha out of sight.

Denshichirō and his companions, having drunk until late the night before, had only just arisen. When told that a messenger had come from the castle, they assumed it would be the man who had come the day before. The sight of Otsū with her white peony came as a distinct surprise.

"Oh, please forgive the room! It's a mess."

With abjectly apologetic faces, they straightened their kimonos and sat properly and a little stiffly on their knees.

"Please, come in, come in."

"I've been sent by the lord of Koyagyū Castle," Otsū said simply, placing the letter and the peony before Denshichirō. "Would you be so kind as to read the letter now?"

"Ah, yes ... this is the letter? Yes, I'll read it."

He opened the scroll, which was no more than a foot long. Written in thin ink, suggestive of the light flavor of tea, it said: "Forgive me for sending my greetings in a letter, rather than meeting you in person, but unfortunately I have a slight cold. I think a pure white peony will give you more pleasure than the runny nose of an old man. I send the flower by the hand of a flower, with the hope that you will accept my apology. My ancient body rests outside the everyday world. I hesitate to show my face. Please smile with pity on an old man."

Denshichirō sniffed with contempt and rolled up the letter. "Is that all?" he asked.

"No, he also said that although he'd like to have a cup of tea with you, he hesitates to invite you to his house, because there is no one there but warriors ignorant of the niceties of tea. Since Munenori is away in Edo, he feels that the serving of the tea would be so crude as to bring laughter to the lips of people from the imperial capital. He asked me to beg your pardon, and tell you that he hopes to see you on some future occasion."

"Ha, ha!" exclaimed Denshichirō, putting on a suspicious face. "If I understand you correctly, Sekishūsai is under the impression we were looking forward to observing the niceties of the tea ceremony. To tell the truth, being from samurai families, we don't know anything about tea. Our intention was to inquire personally after Sekishūsai's health and persuade him to give us a lesson in swordsmanship."

"He understands that perfectly, of course. But he's spending his old age in retirement and has acquired the habit of expressing many of his thoughts in terms of tea."

In obvious disgust, Denshichirō replied, "Well, he hasn't left us any choice but to give up. Please tell him that if we come again, we'd like to see him." He handed the peony back to Otsū.

"Don't you like it? He thought it might cheer you up on the road. He said you might hang it in the corner of your palanquin, or if you're on horseback, attach it to your saddle."

"He meant it to be a souvenir?" Denshichirō lowered his eyes as though insulted, then with a sour face said, "This is ridiculous! You can tell him we have peonies of our own in Kyoto!"

If that was the way he felt, Otsū decided, there was no point in pressing the gift on him. Promising to deliver his message, she took her leave as delicately as she would have removed the bandage from an open sore. In ill temper, her hosts barely acknowledged her departure.

Once in the hallway, Otsū laughed softly to herself, glanced at the shiny black floor leading to the room where Musashi was staying, and turned in the other direction.

Kocha came out of Musashi's room and ran to catch up with her. "Are you leaving already?" she asked.

"Yes, I've finished what I came to do."

"My, that was fast, wasn't it?" Looking down at Otsū's hand, she asked, "Is that a peony? I didn't know they bloomed white."

"Yes. It's from the castle garden. You can have it, if you like."

"Oh, please," said Kocha, stretching out her hands.

After bidding Otsū good-bye, Kocha went to the servants' quarters and showed everyone the flower. Since no one was inclined to admire it, she went disappointedly back to Musashi's room.

Musashi, sitting by the window with his chin in his hands, was gazing in the direction of the castle and thinking hard about his objective: how could he manage, first, to meet Sekishūsai and, second, to overcome him with his sword?

"Do you like flowers?" Kocha asked as she entered.

"Flowers?"

She showed him the peony.

"Hmm. It's nice."

"Do you like it?"

"Yes."

"It's supposed to be a peony, a white peony."

"Is it? Why don't you put it in that vase over there."

"I don't know how to arrange flowers. You do it."

"No, you do it. It's better to do it without thinking how it's going to look." "Well, I'll go and get some water," she said, taking the vase out with her. Musashi's eye happened to light on the cut end of the peony stem. His head

tilted in surprise, though he couldn't pinpoint what it was that attracted his

attention.

Casual interest had become intent scrutiny by the time Kocha came back. She put the vase in the alcove and tried sticking the peony in it, but with poor results.

"The stem's too long," said Musashi. "Bring it here; I'll cut it. Then when you stand it up, it'll look natural."

Kocha brought the flower over and held it up to him. Before she knew what had happened, she had dropped the flower and burst into tears. Small wonder, for in that split second Musashi had whipped out his short sword, uttered a vigorous cry, slashed through the stem between her hands, and resheathed his sword. To Kocha, the glint of steel and the sound of the sword snapping back into its scabbard seemed simultaneous.

Making no attempt to comfort the terrified girl, Musashi picked up the piece of stem he had cut off and began comparing one end of it with the other. He seemed completely absorbed. Finally, taking notice of her distraught state, he apologized and patted her on the head.

Once he had coaxed her out of her tears, he asked, "Do you know who cut this flower?"

"No. It was given to me."

"By whom?"

"A person from the castle."

"One of the samurai?"

"No, it was a young woman."

"Mm. Then you think the flower came from the castle?"

"Yes, she said it did."

"I'm sorry I scared you. If I buy you some cakes later, will you forgive me? In any case, the flower should be just right now. Try putting it in the vase." "Will this do?"

"Yes, that's fine."

Kocha had taken an instant liking to Musashi, but the flash of his sword had chilled her to the marrow. She left the room, unwilling to return until her duties made it absolutely unavoidable.

Musashi was far more fascinated by the eight-inch piece of stem than by the flower in the alcove. He was sure the first cut had not been made with either scissors or a knife. Since peony stems are lithe and supple, the cut could only have been made with a sword, and only a very determined stroke would have made so clean a slice. Whoever had done it was no ordinary person. Although he himself had just tried to duplicate the cut with his own sword, upon comparing both ends he was immediately aware that his own cut was by far the inferior one. It was like the difference between a Buddhist statue carved by an expert and one made by a craftsman of average skill.

He asked himself what it could mean. "If a samurai working the castle garden can make a cut like this, then the standards of the House of Yagyū must be even higher than I thought."

His confidence suddenly deserted him. "I'm nowhere near ready yet."

Gradually, however, he recovered from this feeling. "In any event, the Yagyū people are worthy opponents. If I should lose, I can fall at their feet and accept defeat with good grace. I've already decided I'm willing to face anything, even death." Sitting and mustering up his courage, he felt himself grow warmer.

But how was he to go about it? Even if a student arrived at his doorstep with a proper introduction, it seemed unlikely Sekishūsai would agree to a match. The innkeeper had said as much. And with Munenori and Hyōgo both away, there was no one to challenge but Sekishūsai himself.

He again tried to devise a way of gaining admittance to the castle. His eyes returned to the flower in the alcove, and the image of someone the flower unconsciously reminded him of began to take form. Seeing Otsū's face in his mind's eye quieted his spirit and soothed his nerves.

Otsū herself was well on her way back to Koyagyū Castle when suddenly she heard a raucous shout behind her. She turned to see a child emerging from a clump of trees at the base of a cliff. He was clearly coming after her, and since children of the area were much too timid to accost a young woman such as herself, she brought her horse to a halt out of sheer curiosity.

Jōtarō was stark naked. His hair was wet, and his clothes were rolled up in a ball under his arm. Unabashed by his nudity, he said, "You're the lady with the flute. Are you still staying here?" Having eyed the horse with distaste, he looked directly at Otsū.

"It's you!" she exclaimed, before averting her eyes in embarrassment. "The little boy who was crying on the Yamato highroad."

"Crying? I wasn't crying!"

"Never mind. How long have you been here?"

"Just came the other day."

"By yourself?"

"No; with my teacher."

"Oh, that's right. You did say you were studying swordsmanship, didn't you? What are you doing with your clothes off?"

"You don't think I'd jump in the river with my clothes on, do you?" "River? But the water must be freezing. People around here would laugh at the idea of going swimming this time of year."

"I wasn't swimming; I was taking a bath. My teacher said I smelled sweaty, so I went to the river."

Otsū chuckled. "Where are you staying?"

"At the Wataya."

"Why, I've just come from there."

"Too bad you didn't come to see us. How about coming back with me now?" "I can't now. I have an errand to do."

"Well, bye!" he said, turning to go.

"Jōtarō, come see me at the castle sometime."

"Could I really?"

The words were barely out before Otsū began to regret them, but she said, "Yes, but make sure you don't come dressed the way you are now."

"If that's the way you feel about it, I don't want to go. I don't like places where they make a fuss about things."

Otsū felt relieved and still had a smile on her face when she rode back through the castle gate. After returning her horse to the stable, she went to report to Sekishūsai.

He laughed and said, "So they were angry! Fine! Let them be angry. There's nothing they can do about it." After a moment, he seemed to remember something else. "Did you throw the peony away?" he asked.

She explained that she had given it to the maid at the inn, and he nodded his approval. "Did the Yoshioka boy take the peony in his hand and look at it?" he asked.

"Yes. When he read the letter."

"And?"

"He just handed it back to me."

"He didn't look at the stem?"

"Not that I noticed."

"He didn't examine it, or say anything about it?"

"No."

"It's just as well that I refused to meet him. He's not worth meeting. The House of Yoshioka might just as well have ended with Kempō.

The Yagyū dōjō could quite appropriately be described as grand. Situated in the outer grounds of the castle, it had been rebuilt around the time when Sekishūsai was forty, and the sturdy timber used in its construction gave it an air of indestructibility. The gloss of the wood, acquired over the years, seemed to echo the rigors of the men who had undergone training here, and the building was ample enough to have served as samurai barracks during times of war.

"Lightly! Not with your sword point! With your gut, your gut!" Shōda Kizaemon, seated on a slightly elevated platform and clad in under robe and
hakama,
was roaring angry instructions at two aspiring swordsmen. "Do it again! You don't have it right at all!"

The target of Kizaemon's scolding was a pair of Yagyū samurai, who though dazed and bathed in sweat fought doggedly on. Stances were taken, weapons readied, and the two came together again like fire against fire.

"A-o-o-oh!"

"Y-a-a-ah!"

At Yagyū, beginners were not allowed to use wooden swords. Instead they used a staff devised specifically for the Shinkage Style. A long, thin leather bag filled with strips of bamboo, it was, in effect, a leather stick, with no handle or sword guard. Though less dangerous than a wooden sword, it could still remove an ear or turn a nose into a pomegranate. There were no restrictions regarding what part of the body a combatant could attack. Knocking down an opponent by striking him horizontally in the legs was permitted, and there was no rule against hitting a man once he was down.