Musashi: Bushido Code (42 page)

"You stay out of this! He's my son, and I'll punish him as I see fit, with no help from you. Just keep quiet and mind your own business! ... Matahachi, you ungrateful ... I'll show you!"

It is said that the older people grow, the simpler and more direct they become, and watching Osugi, one could not help but agree. At a time when other mothers might have been weeping for joy, Osugi was seething with rage.

She forced Matahachi to the ground and beat his head against it.

"The very idea! Running away from your own mother! You weren't born from the fork of a tree, you lout—you're my son!" She began spanking him as though he were still a child. "I didn't think you could possibly be alive, and here you are loafing around Osaka! It's shameful! You brazen, good-for-nothing ... Why didn't you come home and pay the proper respects to your ancestors? Why didn't you so much as show your face just once to your old mother? Didn't you know all your relatives were worried sick about you?"

"Please, Mama," begged Matahachi, crying like a baby. "Forgive me. Please forgive me! I'm sorry. I know what I did was wrong. It was because I knew I'd failed you that I couldn't go home. I didn't really mean to run away from you. I was so surprised to see you, I started running without thinking. I was so ashamed of the way I'd been living, I couldn't face you and Uncle Gon." He covered his face with his hands.

Osugi's nose crinkled, and she, too, started to bawl, but almost immediately she stopped herself. Too proud to show weakness, she renewed her attack, saying sarcastically, "If you're so ashamed of yourself and feel you've disgraced your ancestors, then you really must have been up to no good all this time."

Uncle Gon, unable to restrain himself, pleaded, "That's enough. If you keep on like that, it'll surely twist his nature."

"I told you to keep your advice to yourself. You're a man; you shouldn't be so soft. As his mother, I have to be just as stern as his father would be if he were still alive. I'll do the punishing, and I'm not finished yet! ... Matahachi! Sit up straight! Look me in the face."

She sat down formally on the ground and pointed to the place where he was to sit.

"Yes, Mama," he said obediently, lifting his dirt-stained shoulders and getting into a kneeling position. He was afraid of his mother. She could on occasion be an indulgent parent, but her readiness to raise the subject of his duty to his ancestors made him uncomfortable.

"I absolutely forbid you to hide anything from me," said Osugi. "Now, what exactly have you been doing since you ran off to Sekigahara? Start explaining, and don't stop till I've heard all I want to hear."

"Don't worry, I won't hold anything back," he began, having lost the desire to fight. True to his word, he blurted out the whole story in detail: about escaping from Sekigahara, hiding at Ibuki, becoming involved with Okō, living off her—though hating it—for several years. And how he now sincerely regretted what he'd done. It was a relief, like throwing up bile from his stomach, and he felt much better after he'd confessed.

"Hmm . . ." mumbled Uncle Gon from time to time.

Osugi clicked her tongue, saying, "I'm shocked at your conduct. And what are you doing now? You seem to be able to dress well. Have you found a position that pays adequately?"

"Yes," said Matahachi. The answer slipped out without forethought, and he hastened to correct himself. "I mean, no, I don't have a position."

"Then where do you get money to live on?"

"My sword—I teach swordsmanship." There was the ring of truth in the way he said this, and it had the desired effect.

"Is that so?" said Osugi with obvious interest. For the first time, a glimmer of good humor appeared in her face. "Swordsmanship, is it? Well, it doesn't really surprise me that a son of mine would find time to polish his swordsmanship—even leading the kind of life you were. Hear that, Uncle Gon? He is my son, after all."

Uncle Gon nodded enthusiastically, grateful to see the old woman's spirits rise. "We might have known," he said. "That shows he does have the blood of his Hon'iden ancestors in his veins. So what if he went astray for a time? It's clear he's got the right spirit!"

"Matahachi," said Osugi.

"Yes, Mama."

"Here in this area, who did you study swordsmanship under?"

"Kanemaki Jisai."

"Oh? Why, he's famous." Osugi had a happy expression on her face. Matahachi, eager to please her even more, brought out the certificate and unrolled it, taking care to cover Sasaki's name with his thumb.

"Look at this," he said.

"Let me see," said Osugi. She reached for the scroll, but Matahachi kept a firm grip on it.

"See, Mama, you don't have to worry about me."

She nodded. "Yes, indeed, this is fine. Uncle Gon, look at this. Isn't it splendid? I always thought, even when Matahachi was a baby, that he was smarter and more capable than Takezō and the other boys." She was so overjoyed she began spitting as she spoke.

At just this moment, Matahachi's hand slipped, and the name on the scroll became visible.

"Wait a minute," said Osugi. "Why does it say 'Sasaki Kojirō'?"

"Oh, that? Why, uh, that's my nom de guerre."

"Nom de guerre? Why do you need that? Isn't Hon'iden Matahachi good enough for you?"

"Yes, fine!" replied Matahachi, thinking fast. "But when I thought it over, I decided not to use my own name. With my shameful past, I was afraid of disgracing our ancestors."

"I see. That was good thinking, I suppose. Well, I don't imagine you know anything about what's gone on in the village, so I'll tell you. Now pay attention; it's important."

Osugi launched into a spirited account of the incident that had occurred in Miyamoto, choosing her words in a way calculated to spur Matahachi to action. She explained how the Hon'iden family had been insulted, how she and Uncle Gon had been searching for years for Otsū and Takezō. Although she tried not to get emotional, she did get carried away with her story; her eyes moistened and her voice thickened.

Matahachi, listening with bowed head, was struck by the vividness of her narrative. At times like this, he found it easy to be a good and obedient son, but whereas his mother's main concern was family honor and the samurai spirit, he was most deeply moved by something else: if what she was saying was true, Otsū didn't love him anymore. This was the first time he had actually heard this. "Is that really true?" he asked.

Osugi, seeing his face change color, drew the mistaken conclusion that her lecture on honor and spirit was taking effect. "If you think I'm lying," she said, "ask Uncle Gon. That trollop abandoned you and ran off with Takezō. To put it another way, you could say Takezō, knowing you wouldn't be back for some time, lured Otsū into going away with him. Isn't that right, Uncle Gon?"

"Yes. When Takezō was tied up in the tree, he got Otsū to help him escape, and the two made off together. Everybody said there must have been something going on between them."

This brought out the worst in Matahachi and inspired a new revulsion against his boyhood friend.

Sensing this, his mother fanned the spark. "Do you see now, Matahachi! Do you understand why Uncle Gon and I left the village? We're going to have our revenge on those two. Unless I kill them, I can't ever show my face in the village again or stand before the memorial tablets of our ancestors."

"I understand."

"And do you see that unless we avenge ourselves, you can't return to Miyamoto either?"

"I won't go back. I'll never go back."

"That's not the point. You've got to kill those two. They're our mortal enemies."

"Yeah, I guess so."

"You don't sound very enthusiastic. What's the matter? Don't you think you're strong enough to kill Takezō?"

"Of course I am," he protested.

Uncle Gon spoke up. "Don't worry, Matahachi. I'll stick by you."

"And your old mother will too," added Osugi. "Let's take their heads back to the village as souvenirs for the people. Isn't that a good idea, son? If we do, then you can go ahead and find yourself a wife and settle down. You'll vindicate yourself as a samurai and earn a fine reputation as well. There's no better name in the whole Yoshino area than Hon'iden, and you will have proved that to everyone beyond a doubt. Can you do it, Matahachi? Will you do it?"

"Yes, Mama."

"That's a good son. Uncle Gon, don't just stand there, congratulate the boy. He's sworn to take revenge on Takezō and Otsū." Seemingly satisfied at last, she started to rise from the ground with visible difficulty. "Oh, that hurts!" she cried.

"What's the matter?" asked Uncle Gon.

"The ground is freezing. My stomach and hips ache."

"That's not so good. Are you coming down with piles again?"

Matahachi, in a show of filial devotion, said, "Climb on my back, Mama."

"Oh, you want to carry me? Isn't that nice!" Grasping his shoulders, she shed tears of joy. "How many years has it been? Look, Uncle Gon, Matahachi's going to carry me on his back."

As her tears fell on his neck, Matahachi himself felt strangely pleased. "Uncle Gon, where are you staying?" he asked.

"We still have to find an inn, but any will do. Let's go look for one."

"All right." Matahachi bounced his mother lightly on his back as he walked. "Say, Mama, you're light! Very light! Much lighter than a rock!"

The Handsome Young Man

Gradually obscured by the wintry noonday mist, the sunlit island of Awaji faded into the distance. The flapping of the great sail in the wind drowned out the sound of the waves. The boat, which plied several times each month between Osaka and Awa Province in Shikoku, was crossing the Inland Sea on its way to Osaka. Although its cargo consisted mostly of paper and indigo dye, a distinctive odor betrayed it was carrying contraband, in the form of tobacco, which the Tokugawa government had forbidden the people to smoke, sniff or chew. There were also passengers on board, mostly merchants, either returning to the city or visiting it for the year-end trading.

"How's it going? Making lots of money, I bet."

"Not at all! Everybody says things are booming in Sakai, but you couldn't prove it by me."

"I hear there's a shortage of workmen there. Heard they need gunsmiths." Conversation in another group went along similar lines.

"I supply battle equipment myself—flagstaffs, armor, that sort of thing. I'm certainly not making as much as I used to, though."

"Is that so?"

"Yes, I guess the samurai are learning how to add."

"Ha, ha!"

"It used to be that when the freebooters brought in their loot, you could re-dye or repaint things and sell them right back to the armies. Then after the next battle, the stuff would come back and you could fix it up and sell it again."

One man was gazing out over the ocean and extolling the riches of the countries beyond it. "You can't make money at home anymore. If you want real profits, you have to do what Naya 'Luzon' Sukezaemon or Chaya Sukejirō did. Go into foreign trade. It's risky, but if you're lucky, it can really pay off."

"Well," said another man, "even if things aren't so good for us these days, from the samurai's viewpoint we're doing very well. Most of them don't even know what good food tastes like. We talk about the luxuries the daimyō enjoy, but sooner or later they have to put on their leather and steel and go out and get killed. I feel sorry for them; they're so busy thinking about their honor and the warrior's code they can't ever sit back and enjoy life."

"Isn't that the truth? We complain about bad times and all, but the only thing to be today is a merchant."

"You're right. At least we can do what we want."

"All we really have to do is make a show of bowing down before the samurai, and a little money makes up for a lot of that."

"If you're going to live in this world, might as well have a good time." "That's the way I see it. Sometimes I feel like asking the samurai what they're getting out of life."

The woolen carpet this group had spread for themselves to sit on was imported—evidence that they were better off than other elements of the population. After Hideyoshi's death, the luxuries of the Momoyama period had passed largely into the hands of merchants, rather than samurai, and these days the richer townspeople were the ones with elegant sake-serving sets and beautiful, expensive travel equipment. Even a small businessman was normally better off than a samurai with an allowance of five thousand bushels of rice per year, which was considered a princely income by most samurai.

"Never much to do on these trips, is there?"

"No. Why don't we have a little card game to pass the time."

"Why not?"

A curtain was hung, mistresses and underlings brought sake, and the men began playing
umsummo,
a game recently introduced by Portuguese traders, for unbelievable stakes. The gold on the table could have saved whole villages from famine, but the players tossed it about like gravel.

Among the passengers were several people the rich merchants might well have questioned as to what they were getting out of life—a wandering priest, some rōnin, a Confucian scholar, a few professional warriors. Most of them, after witnessing the beginning of the ostentatious card game, sat down beside their baggage and stared disapprovingly at the sea.

One young man was holding something round and furry in his lap, telling it from time to time to "Sit still!"

"What a nice little monkey you have. Is it trained?" asked another passenger.

"Yes."

"You've had him for some time, then?"

"No, I found him not long ago in the mountains between Tosa and Awa." "Oh, you caught him yourself?"

"Yes, but the older monkeys almost scratched me to pieces before I got away."

As he talked, the young man concentrated intently on picking fleas off the animal. Even without the monkey, he would have attracted attention, for both his kimono and the short red cloak he wore over it were decidedly fancy. His front hair wasn't shaved, and his topknot was tied with an unusual purple band. His clothing suggested he was still a boy, but these days it wasn't as easy as it used to be to tell a person's age from his apparel. With the rise of Hideyoshi, clothing in general had become more colorful. It was not unknown for men of twenty-five or so to continue to dress like boys of fifteen or sixteen and leave their forelocks uncut.

His skin glowed with youth, his lips were a healthy red, and his eyes were bright. On the other hand, he was solidly built, and there was a certain adult severity about his thick eyebrows and the upward curve at the corners of his eyes.

"Why do you keep squirming?" he said impatiently, rapping the monkey sharply on the head. The innocence with which he was picking off the fleas added to the impression of youthfulness.

His social status was also difficult to ascertain. Since he was traveling, he wore the same straw sandals and leather socks everyone else wore. So there was no clue there, and he seemed perfectly at home among the wandering priest, the puppeteer, the ragged samurai and the unwashed peasants on board. He could easily be taken for a rōnin, yet there was something that hinted at a higher status, namely the weapon slung slantwise across his back on a leather strap. It was a long, straight battle sword, large and splendidly made. Nearly everyone who spoke to the youth remarked on its fineness.

Gion Tōji, standing some distance away, was impressed by the weapon. Yawning and thinking that not even in Kyoto were swords of such high quality often seen, he grew curious as to its owner's background.

Tōji was bored. His trip, which had lasted fourteen days, had been vexing, tiring and fruitless, and he longed to be once again among people he knew. "I wonder if the runner arrived in time," he mused. "If he did, she'll certainly be at the dock in Osaka to meet me." He tried, by conjuring up Okō's face, to alleviate his boredom.

The reason behind his trip was the shaky financial condition of the House of Yoshioka, brought on by Seijūrō's having lived beyond his means. The family was no longer wealthy. The house on Shijō Avenue was mortgaged and in danger of being seized by merchant creditors. Aggravating the situation were countless other year-end obligations; selling every single family possession would not produce enough funds to meet the bills that had already piled up. Faced with this, Seijūrō's only comment had been, "How did this happen?"

Tōji, feeling responsible for having encouraged the Young Master's extravagance, had said that the matter should be left up to him. He promised that he would settle things somehow.

After racking his brains, he'd come up with the idea of building a new and bigger school on the vacant lot next to the Nishinotōin, where a much larger number of students could be accommodated. According to his reasoning, this was no time to be exclusive. With all sorts of people around wanting to learn the martial arts and the daimyō crying for trained warriors, it would be in the interests of everyone to have a bigger school and turn out a great number of trained swordsmen. The more he thought about it, the more he deluded himself into thinking it was the school's sacred duty to teach Kempō's style to as many men as possible.

Seijūrō wrote a circular to that effect, and thus armed, Tōji set out to solicit contributions from former students in western Honshu, Kyushu and Shikoku. There were many men in various feudal domains who had studied under Kempō, and most of those still alive were now samurai of enviable status. As it turned out, however, for all the earnestness of Tōji's pleas, not many were ready to make substantial donations or subscribe on such short notice. With discouraging frequency, the answer had been, "I'll write you about it later," "We'll see about it the next time I'm in Kyoto," or something equally evasive. The contributions Tōji was returning with amounted to but a fraction of what he'd anticipated.

The endangered household was not, strictly speaking, Tōji's own, and the face that came to mind now was not Seijūrō's but Okō's. But even hers could divert him only superficially, and soon he became fidgety again. He envied the young man picking the fleas off his monkey. He had something to do to kill time. Tōji walked over and tried to strike up a conversation.

"Hello, there, young fellow. Going to Osaka?"

Without actually raising his head, the young man lifted his eyes a bit and said, "Yes."

"Does your family live there?"

"No."

"Then you must be from Awa."

"No, not there either." This was said with a certain finality.

Tōji lapsed into silence for a time before he made another try. "That's quite a sword you have there," he said.

Seemingly happy to have the weapon praised, the young man rearranged himself to face Tōji and replied genially, "Yes, it's been in my family a long time. It's a battle sword, but I plan to get a good swordsmith in Osaka to remount it, so I can draw it from my side."

"It's too long for that, isn't it?"

"Oh, I don't know. It's only three feet."

"That's pretty long."

Smiling, the youth replied confidently, "Anybody should be able to handle a sword that long."

"Oh, it could be used if it was three feet long, or even four feet," said Tōji reproachfully. "But only an expert could handle it with ease. I see a lot of fellows swaggering around with huge swords these days. They look impressive, but when the going gets rough, they turn and run. What style did you study?" In matters pertaining to swordsmanship, Tōji could not conceal a feeling of superiority over this mere boy.

The young man flashed a questioning look at Tōji's smug face and replied, "The Tomita Style."

"The Tomita Style is for use with a shorter sword than that," said Tōji authoritatively.

"The fact that I learned the Tomita Style doesn't mean I have to use a shorter sword. I don't like to be imitative. My teacher used a shorter sword, so I decided to use a long one. That got me thrown out of the school."

"You young people do seem to take pride in being rebellious. What happened then?"

"I left Jōkyōji Village in Echizen and went to Kanemaki Jisai. He'd also discarded the Tomita Style, then developed the Chūjō Style. He sympathized with me, took me in as a disciple, and after I'd studied under him four years, he said I was ready to go out on my own."

"These country teachers are all quick to pass out certificates."

"Oh, not Jisai. He wasn't like that. In fact, the only other person he had ever given his certificate to was Itō Yagorō Ittōsai. After I made up my mind to be the second man to get formally certified, I worked at it very hard. Before I was through, though, I was suddenly called home because my mother was dying."

"Where's your home?"

"Iwakuni in Suō Province. After I went home, I practiced every day in the neighborhood of Kintai Bridge, cutting down swallows on the wing and slicing willow branches. That way I developed some techniques of my own. Before my mother died, she gave me this sword and told me to take good care of it, because it was made by Nagamitsu."

"Nagamitsu? You don't say!"

"It doesn't bear his signature on the tang, but it's always been thought to be his work. Where I come from, it's a well-known sword; people call it the Drying Pole." Though reticent earlier, on subjects he liked he would talk at great length, even volunteer information. Once started, he rattled on, paying little attention to his listener's reaction. From this, as well as from his account of his earlier experiences, it appeared that he was of stronger character than might have been inferred from his taste in clothes.

At one point, the youth stopped talking for a moment. His eyes grew cloudy and pensive. "While I was in Suō," he murmured, "Jisai took sick. When I heard about it from Kusanagi Tenki, I actually broke down and cried. Tenki was at the school long before I was and was still there when the master was on his sickbed. Tenki was his nephew, but Jisai didn't even consider giving him a certificate. Instead he told him he'd like to give me a certificate, along with his book of secret methods. He not only wanted me to have them but had hoped to see me and give them to me personally." The young man's eyes moistened with the recollection.

Tōji had not the slightest whit of empathy with this handsome, emotional youth, but talking to him was better than being alone and bored. "I see," he said, feigning great interest. "And he died while you were away?"

"I wish I could have gone to him as soon as I heard of his illness, but he was in Kōzuke, hundreds of miles from Suō. And then my mother finally died about the same time, so it was impossible for me to be with him at the end."

Clouds hid the sun, giving the whole sky a grayish cast. The ship began to roll, and foam blew in over the gunwales.

The young man continued his sentimental tale, the gist of which was that he had closed up the family residence in Suō and, in an exchange of letters, had arranged to meet his friend Tenki on the spring equinox. It was unlikely that Jisai, who had no close kin, had left much property, but he had entrusted Tenki with some money for the young man, along with the certificate and the book of secrets. Until they met on the appointed day at Mount Hōraiji in Mikawa Province, halfway between Kōzuke and Awa, Tenki was supposedly traveling around studying. The young man himself planned to spend the time in Kyoto, studying and doing some sightseeing.