Musashi: Bushido Code (48 page)

"Where's that?"

"Ha, ha! You've come to Ise, and you don't even know the Arakida family?" The baby at her breast began to fret, and the woman, forgetting about her guests, started to sing a lullaby in the local dialect.

Go to sleep, go to sleep.

Sleeping babies are sweet.

Babies who wake and cry are naughty,

And they make their mothers cry too.

Thinking he might at least learn something by taking a look at the blacksmith's weapons, Musashi asked, "Are those the weapons your husband wields so well?"

The woman grunted, and when he asked to examine them, she nodded and grunted again.

He took one down from its hook. "So this is what they're like," he said, half to himself. "I've heard people are using them a good deal these days." The weapon in his hand consisted of a metal bar about a foot and a half long (easily carried in one's obi), with a ring at one end to which a long chain was attached. At the other end of the chain was a heavy metal ball, quite substantial enough to crack a person's skull. In a deep groove on one side of the bar, Musashi could see the back of a blade. As he pulled at it with his fingernails, it snapped out sideways, like the blade of a sickle. With this, it would be a simple matter to cut off an opponent's head.

"I suppose you hold it like this," said Musashi, taking the sickle in his left hand and the chain in his right. Imagining an enemy in front of him, he assumed a stance and considered what movements would be necessary.

The woman, who had turned her eyes from the baby's bed to watch, chided him. "Not that way! That's terrible!" Stuffing her breast back in her kimono, she came over to where he was standing. "If you do that, anyone with a sword can cut you down with no trouble at all. Hold it this way."

She snatched the weapon from his hands and showed him how to stand. It made him queasy to see a woman take a battle stance with such a brutal-looking weapon. He stared with open mouth. While nursing the baby, she had appeared distinctly bovine, but now, ready for combat, she looked handsome, dignified and, yes, beautiful. As Musashi watched, he saw that on the blade, which was blackish blue like the back of a mackerel, there was an inscription reading "Style of Shishido Yaegaki."

She kept the stance only momentarily. "Well, anyway, it's something like that," she said, folding the blade back into the handle and hanging the weapon on its hook.

Musashi would have liked to see her handle the device again, but she obviously had no intention of doing so. After clearing up the fulling block, she clattered about near the sink, evidently washing pots or preparing to cook something.

"If this woman can take a stance as imposing as that," thought Musashi, "her husband must really be something to see." By this time he was nearly sick with the desire to meet Baiken and quietly asked the groom about the Arakidas. The groom, leaning against the wall and baking in the warmth of the fire, mumbled that they were the family charged with guarding Ise Shrine.

If this was true, Musashi thought, they would not be difficult to locate. He resolved to do just that, then curled up on a mat by the fire and went to sleep.

In the early morning, the blacksmith's apprentice got up and opened the outside door to the smithy. Musashi got up too and asked the groom to take him to Yamada, the town nearest Ise Shrine. The groom, satisfied because he'd been paid the day before, agreed at once.

By evening they had reached the long, tree-lined road that led to the shrine. The teashops looked particularly desolate, even for winter. There were few travelers, and the road itself was in poor condition. A number of trees blown down by autumn storms were still lying where they had fallen.

From the inn in Yamada, Musashi sent a servant to inquire at the Arakida house whether Shishido Baiken was staying there. A reply came saying that there must be some mistake; no one of that name was there. In his disappointment, Musashi turned his attention to his injured foot, which had swollen up considerably overnight.

He was exasperated, for only a few days remained before he was due in Kyoto. In the letter of challenge he had sent to the Yoshioka School from Nagoya, he had given them the choice of any day during the first week of the New Year. He couldn't very well beg off now because of a sore foot. And besides, he had promised to meet Matahachi at the Gojō Avenue bridge.

He spent the whole of the next day applying a remedy he had once heard about. Taking the dregs left after making bean curd, he put them in a cloth sack, squeezed the warm water out, and soaked his foot in it. Nothing happened, and to make matters worse, the smell of the bean curd was nauseating. As he fretted over his foot, he bemoaned his stupidity in making this detour to Ise. He should have gone to Kyoto straight away.

That night, with his foot wrapped up under the quilt, his fever shot higher and the pain became unendurable. The next morning, he desperately tried more prescriptions, including smearing on some oily medicine given him by the innkeeper, who swore his family had used it for generations. Still the swelling did not go down. The foot began to look to Musashi like a large, bloated wad of bean curd and felt as heavy as a block of wood.

The experience set him to thinking. He had never in his life been bedridden for three days. Aside from having a carbuncle on his head as a child, he couldn't remember ever having been ill.

"Sickness is the worst kind of enemy," he reflected. "Yet I'm powerless in its grip." Until now he had assumed his adversaries would be coming at him from without, and the fact of being immobilized by a foe within was both novel and thought-provoking.

"How many more days are there in the year?" he wondered. "I can't just stay here doing nothing!" As he lay there chafing, his ribs seemed to press in on his heart, and his chest felt constricted. He kicked the quilt off his swollen foot. "If I can't even beat this, how can I hope to overcome the whole House of Yoshioka?"

Thinking he would pin down and stifle the demon inside him, he forced himself to sit on his haunches in formal style. It was painful, excruciatingly so. He nearly fainted. He faced the window but closed his eyes, and quite some time passed before the violent redness in his face began to subside and his head to cool a bit. He wondered if the demon was yielding to his unflinching tenacity.

Opening his eyes, he saw before him the forest around Ise Shrine. Beyond the trees he could see Mount Mae, and a little to the east Mount Asama. Rising above the mountains between these two was a soaring peak that looked down its nose at its neighbors and stared insolently at Musashi.

"It's an eagle," he thought, not knowing its name actually was Eagle Mountain. The peak's arrogant appearance offended him; its haughty pose taunted him until his fighting spirit was once again stirred. He could not help thinking of Yagyū Sekishūsai, the old swordsman who resembled this proud peak, and as time passed, it began to seem the peak
was
Sekishūsai, looking down at him from above the clouds and laughing at his weakness and insignificance.

Staring at the mountain, he became for a time oblivious of his foot, but presently the pain reasserted its claim on his consciousness. Had he rammed his leg into the fire of the blacksmith's forge, it couldn't have hurt any more, he thought bitterly. Involuntarily he drew the big round thing out from under him and glared at it, unable to accept the fact that it was really a part of him.

In a loud voice he summoned the maid. When she did not appear promptly, he beat on the tatami with his fist. "Where is everybody?" he shouted. "I'm leaving! Bring the bill! Fix me some food—some fried rice—and get me three pairs of heavy straw sandals!"

Soon he was out on the street, limping through the old marketplace where the famous warrior Taira no Tadakiyo, the hero of the "Story of the Hōgen War," was supposed to have been born. But now little about it suggested a birthplace of heroes; it was more like an open-air brothel, lined with tea stalls and teeming with women. More temptresses than trees stood along the lane, calling out to travelers and latching on to the sleeves of passing prospects, as they flirted, coaxed and teased. To get to the shrine, Musashi had to literally push his way through them, scowling and avoiding their impertinent stares. "What happened to your foot?"

"Shall I make it feel better?"

"Here, let me rub it for you!"

They pulled at his clothing, grabbed at his hands, grasped his wrists. "A good-looking man won't get anywhere frowning like that!"

Musashi reddened and stumbled along blindly. Utterly without defense against this kind of attack, he apologized to some and made polite excuses to others, which only made the women titter. When one of them said he was as "cute as a baby panther," the assault of the whitened hands intensified. Finally, he gave up all pretense of dignity and ran, not even stopping to retrieve his hat when it flew off. The giggling voices followed him through the trees outside the town.

It was impossible for Musashi to ignore women, and the frenzy their pawing hands aroused in him took long to subside. The mere memory of the scent of pungent white powder would set his pulse racing, and no amount of mental effort could calm it. It was a greater threat than an enemy standing with sword drawn before him; he simply did not know how to cope with it. Later, his body burning with sexual fire, he would toss and turn all night. Even innocent Otsū sometimes became the object of his lustful fantasies.

Today he had his foot to take his mind off the women, but running from them when he was barely able to walk, he might as well have been crossing a bed of molten metal. At every other step, a stab of anguish shot to his head from the sole of his foot. His lips reddened, his hands grew as sticky as honey, and his hair smelled acrid from sweat. Just lifting the injured foot took all the strength he could muster; at times he felt as if his body would suddenly fall apart. Not that he had any illusions. He knew when he left the inn that this would be torture and he intended to survive it. Somehow he managed to stay in control, cursing under his breath each time he dragged the wretched foot forward.

Crossing the Isuzu River and entering the precincts of the Inner Shrine brought a welcome change of atmosphere. He sensed a sacred presence, sensed it in the plants, in the trees, even in the voices of the birds. What it was, he could not say, but it was there.

He groaned and collapsed on the roots of a great cryptomeria, whimpering softly with pain and holding his foot in both hands. For a long time he sat there, motionless as a rock, his body aflame with fever even as his skin was bitten by the cold wind.

Why had he suddenly risen from his bed and fled the inn? Any normal person would have stayed there quietly until the foot healed. Was it not childish, even imbecilic, for an adult to allow impatience to overcome him?

But it was not impatience only that had moved him. It was a spiritual need, and a very deep one. For all the pain, all the physical torment, his spirit was tense and throbbing with vitality. He lifted his head and with keen eyes regarded the nothingness around him.

Through the bleak, ceaseless moaning of the great trees in the sacred forest, Musashi's ear caught another sound. Somewhere, not far away, flutes and reeds were giving voice to the strains of ancient music, music dedicated to the gods, while ethereal children's voices sang a holy invocation. Drawn by this peaceful sound, Musashi tried to stand. Biting his lips, he forced himself up, his unwilling body resisting every move. Reaching the dirt wall of a shrine building, he grasped it with both hands and worked his way along with an awkward crablike movement.

The heavenly music was coming from a building a little farther on, where a light shone through a latticed window. This, the House of Virgins, was occupied by young girls in the service of the deity. Here they practiced playing ancient musical instruments and learned to perform sacred dances devised centuries earlier.

Musashi made his way to the rear entrance of the building. He paused and looked in, but saw no one. Relieved at not having to explain himself, he removed his swords and the pack on his back, tied them together, and hung them on a peg on the inside wall. Thus unencumbered, he put his hands on his hips and began hobbling back toward the Isuzu River.

An hour or so later, completely naked, he broke the ice on the surface and plunged into the frigid waters. And there he stayed, splashing and bathing, dunking his head, purifying himself. Fortunately, no one was about; any passing priest would have thought him insane and driven him away.

According to Ise legend, an archer named Nikki Yoshinaga had, long ago, attacked and occupied a part of the Ise Shrine territory. Once ensconced, he fished in the sacred Isuzu River and used falcons to catch small birds in the sacred forest. In the course of these sacrilegious plunderings, the legend said, he went totally insane, and Musashi, acting as he was, could easily have been taken for the madman's ghost.

When finally he leaped onto a boulder, it was with the lightness of a small bird. While he was drying himself and putting on his clothes, the strands of hair along his forehead stiffened into slivers of ice.

To Musashi, the icy plunge into the sacred stream was necessary. If his body could not withstand the cold, how could it survive in the face of life's more threatening obstacles? And at this moment, it was not a matter of some abstract future contingency, but one of taking on the very real Yoshioka Seijūrō and his entire school. They would hurl every bit of strength they had at him. They had to, to save face. They knew they had no alternative but to kill him, and Musashi knew just saving his skin was going to be tricky.

Faced with this prospect, the typical samurai would invariably talk about "fighting with all his might" or "being prepared to face death," but to Musashi's way of thinking, this was a lot of nonsense. To fight a life-or-death struggle with all one's might was no more than animal instinct. Moreover, while not being thrown off balance by the prospect of death was a mental state of a higher order, it was not really so difficult to face death if one knew that one had to die.