Musashi: Bushido Code (58 page)

Osugi's heart leaped as she whispered, "Now!"

At that precise moment, Musashi sprang to his feet. Jumping nimbly over a pool of water, he started walking briskly along the river's edge. Osugi, taking care not to alert him to her presence, hurried along the dike.

The roofs and bridges of the city began to form gentle white outlines in the morning mist, but above, stars still hovered in the sky and the area along the foot of Higashiyama was as black as ink. When Musashi reached the wooden bridge at Sanjō Avenue, he went under it and reappeared at the top of the dike beyond, taking long, manly strides. Several times Osugi came close to calling him but checked herself.

Musashi knew she was behind him. But he also knew that if he turned around, she would come storming at him, and he'd be forced to reward her effort with some show of defense, while at the same time not hurting her. "A frightening opponent!" he thought. If he were still Takezō, back in the village, he would have thought nothing of knocking her down and beating her until she spat blood, but of course he could no longer do that.

In reality he had more right to hate her than she him, but he wanted to make her see that her feeling toward him was based on a horrible misunderstanding. He was sure that if he could just explain things to her she would cease regarding him as her eternal enemy. But since she'd carried her festering grudge for so many years, there was no likelihood that he himself could convince her now, not if he explained a thousand times. There was only one possibility; stubborn though she was, she would certainly believe Matahachi. If her own son told her exactly what had happened before and after Sekigahara, she could no longer consider Musashi an enemy of the Hon'iden family, let alone the abductor of her son's bride.

He was drawing near the bridge, which was in an area that had flourished in the late twelfth century, when the Taira family was at the peak of its fortunes. Even after the wars of the fifteenth century, it had remained one of the most populous sections of Kyoto. The sun was just beginning to reach the housefronts and gardens, where broom marks from the previous night's thorough sweeping were still visible, but at this early hour not a door was open.

Osugi could make out his footprints in the dirt. Even these she despised.

Another hundred yards, then fifty.

"Musashi!" screamed the old woman. Balling her hands into fists, she thrust her head forward and ran toward him. "You evil devil!" she shouted. "Don't you have ears?"

Musashi did not look back.

Osugi ran on. Old as she was, her death-defying determination lent her footsteps a brave and masculine cadence. Musashi kept his back to her, casting about feverishly in his mind for a plan of action.

All at once she sprang in front of him, screaming, "Stop!" Her pointed shoulders and thin, emaciated ribs trembled. She stood there a moment, catching her breath and gathering spit in her mouth.

Not concealing a look of resignation, Musashi said as nonchalantly as he could, "Well, if it isn't the Hon'iden dowager! What are you doing here?"

"You insolent dog! Why shouldn't I be here? I'm the one who should ask you that. I let you get away from me on Sannen Hill, but today I'll have that head of yours!" Her scrawny neck suggested a game rooster, and her shrill voice, which seemed set to whisk her protruding teeth out of her mouth, was more frightening to him than a battle cry.

Musashi's dread of the old woman had its roots in reminiscences from his childhood days, the times when Osugi had caught him and Matahachi en gaged in some mischief in the mulberry patch or the Hon'iden kitchen. He had been eight or nine—just the age when the two of them were always up to something—and he still remembered clearly how Osugi had shouted at them. He had fled in terror, his stomach turning somersaults, and those memories made him shiver. He had regarded her then as a hateful, ill-tempered old witch, and even now he resented her betrayal of him when he returned to the village after Sekigahara. Curiously, he had also grown accustomed to thinking of her as one person he could never get the best of. Still, with the passage of time, his feelings toward her had mellowed.

With Osugi, it was quite the opposite. She could not rid herself of the image of Takezō, the obnoxious and unruly little brat she had known since he was a baby, the boy with the runny nose and sores on his head, his arms and legs so long that he looked deformed. Not that she was unconscious of the passage of time. She was old now; she knew that. And Musashi was grown. But she could not overcome the urge to treat him as a vicious urchin. When she thought of how this little boy had shamed her—revenge! It was not only a matter of vindicating herself before the village. She had to see Musashi in his grave before she ended up in her own.

"There's no need for talk!" she screeched. "Either give me your head, or prepare to feel my blade! Get ready, Musashi!" She wiped her lips with her fingers, spat on her left hand and grabbed her scabbard.

There was a proverb about a praying mantis attacking the imperial carriage. Surely it must have been invented to describe the cadaverous Osugi with her spindly legs attacking Musashi. She looked exactly like a mantis; her eyes, her skin, her absurd stance, were all the same. And as Musashi stood on guard, watching her approach as he might a child at play, his shoulders and chest gave him the invincibility of a sturdy iron carriage.

In spite of the incongruity of the situation, he was unable to laugh, for he was suddenly filled with pity. "Come now, Granny, wait!" he begged, grabbing her elbow lightly but firmly.

"Wh-what are you doing?" she cried. Both her powerless arm and her teeth shook with surprise. "C-c-coward!" she stammered. "You think you can talk me out of this? Well, I've seen forty more New Years than you, and you can't trick me. Take your punishment!" Osugi's skin was the color of red clay, her voice filled with desperation.

Musashi, nodding vigorously, said, "I understand; I know how you feel. You've got the fighting spirit of the Hon'iden family in you, all right. I can see you have the same blood as the first of the Hon'idens, the one who served so bravely under Shimmen Munetsura."

"Let go of me, you—! I'm not going to listen to flattery from somebody young enough to be my grandchild."

"Calm down. It doesn't become an old person like you to be rash. I have something to say to you."

"Your last statement before you meet your death?"

"No; I want to explain."

"I don't want any explanations from you!" The old woman drew herself up to her full height.

"Well, then, I'll just have to take that sword away from you. Then when Matahachi shows up, he can explain everything to you."

"Matahachi?"

"Yes. I sent him a message last spring."

"Oh, you did, did you?"

"I told him to meet me here on New Year's morning."

"That's a lie!" shrieked Osugi, vigorously shaking her head. "You should be ashamed, Musashi! Aren't you Munisai's son? Didn't he teach you that when the time comes to die, you should die like a man? This is no time for playing around with words. My whole life is behind this sword, and I have the support of the gods and bodhisattvas. If you dare face it, face it!" She wrested her arm away from him and cried, "Hail to the Buddha!" Unsheathing her sword and grasping it with both hands, she lunged at his chest.

He dodged. "Calm down, Granny, please!"

When he tapped her lightly on the back, she screamed and whirled around to face him. As she prepared to charge, she invoked the name of Kannon. "Praise to Kannon Bosatsu! Praise to Kannon Bosatsu!" She attacked again.

As she passed him, Musashi seized her wrist. "You'll just wear yourself out, carrying on like that. Look, the bridge is just over there. Come with me that far."

Turning her head back over her shoulder, Osugi bared her teeth and pursed her lips. "Phooey!" She spat with all the breath she had left.

Musashi let go of her and moved aside, rubbing his left eye with his hand. The eye burned as if a spark had struck it. He looked at the hand he had put to his eye. There was no blood on it, but he couldn't open the eye. Osugi, seeing he was off guard, charged with renewed strength, calling again on the name of Kannon. Twice, three times she swung at him.

On the third swing, preoccupied with his eye, he merely bent his body slightly from the waist. The sword cut through his sleeve and scratched his forearm.

A piece of his sleeve fell off, giving Osugi the chance to see blood on the white lining. "I've wounded him!" she screamed in ecstasy, waving her sword wildly. She was as proud as if she had felled a great tree in one stroke, and the fact that Musashi wasn't fighting back in no way dimmed her elation. She went on shouting the name of the Kannon of Kiyomizudera, calling the deity down to earth.

In a noisy frenzy, she ran around him, attacking him from front and back. Musashi did no more than shift his body to avoid the blows.

His eye bothered him, and there was the scratch on his forearm. Although he had seen the blow coming, he had not moved quickly enough to avoid it. Never before had anyone gotten the jump on him or wounded him even slightly, and since he had not taken Osugi's attack seriously, the question of who would win, who lose, had never crossed his mind.

But was it not true that by not taking her seriously, he had let himself be wounded? According to
The Art of War,
no matter how slight the wound, he had quite clearly been beaten. The old woman's faith and the point of her sword had exposed for all to see his lack of maturity.

"I was wrong," he thought. Seeing the folly of inaction, he jumped away from the attacking sword and slapped Osugi heavily on the back, sending her sprawling and her sword flying out of her hand.

With his left hand Musashi picked up the sword, and with his right, lifted Osugi into the crook of his arm.

"Let me down!" she screamed, beating the air with her hands. "Are there no gods? No bodhisattvas? I've already wounded him once! What am I going to do? Musashi! Don't shame me like this! Cut off my head! Kill me now!"

While Musashi, tight-lipped, strode along the path with the struggling woman under his arm, she continued her hoarse protest. "It's the fortunes of war! It's destiny! If this is the will of the gods, I'll not be a coward! ... When Matahachi hears Uncle Gon died and I was killed trying to take revenge, he'll rise up in anger and avenge us both; it'll be good medicine for him. Musashi, kill me! Kill me now! ... Where are you going? Are you trying to add disgrace to my death? Stop! Cut off my head now!"

Musashi paid no attention, but when he arrived at the bridge, he began to wonder what he was going to do with her.

An inspiration came. Going down to the river, he found a boat tied to one of the bridge piers. Gently, he lowered her into it. "Now, you just be patient and stay here for a while. Matahachi will be here soon."

"What are you doing?" she cried, trying to push aside his hands and the reed mats in the bottom of the boat at the same time. "Why should Matahachi's coming here make any difference? What makes you think he's coming? I know what you're up to. You're not satisfied with just killing me; you want to humiliate me too!"

"Think what you like. It won't be long before you learn the truth." "Kill me!"

"Ha, ha, ha!"

"What's so funny? You should have no trouble cutting through this old neck with one swift stroke!"

For lack of a better way of keeping her put, he tied her to the raised keel of the boat. He then slid her sword back into its scabbard and laid it down neatly by her side.

As he started to leave, she taunted him, saying, "Musashi! I don't think you understand the Way of the Samurai! Come back here, and I'll teach you." "Later."

He started up the dike, but she was making such a racket, he had to go back and pile several reed mats over her.

A huge red sun sprang up in flames above Higashiyama. Musashi watched fascinated as it climbed, feeling its rays pierce the inner depths of his being. He grew reflective, thinking that only once a year, when this new sun rose, did the little worm of ego that binds man to his tiny thoughts have the chance to melt and vanish under its magnificent light. Musashi was filled with the joy of being alive.

Exultant, he shouted in the radiant dawn, "I'm still young!"

The Great Bridge at Gojō Avenue

"Field of the Rendaiji ... ninth day of the first month . . ."

Reading the words made Musashi's blood surge.

His attention was distracted, however, by a sharp, stabbing pain in his left eye. Lifting his hand to his eyelid, he noticed a small needle stuck into his kimono sleeve, and a closer look revealed four or five more embedded in his clothing, shining like slivers of ice in the morning light.

"So that's it!" he exclaimed, pulling one out and examining it. It was about the size of a small sewing needle but had no threading eye and was triangular instead of round. "Why, the old bitch!" he said with a shudder, glancing down toward the boat. "I've heard about blow needles, but whoever would have thought the old hag could shoot them? That was a pretty close call."

With his usual curiosity, he gathered the needles one by one, then pinned them securely into his collar with the intention of studying them later on. He'd heard that among warriors there were two opposing schools of thought regarding these small weapons. One held that they could be effectively employed as a deterrent by blowing them into an enemy's face, while the other maintained that this was nonsense.

The proponents held that a very old technique for the needles' employment had been developed from a game played by seamstresses and weavers who migrated from China to Japan in the sixth or seventh century. Although it was not considered a method of attack per se, they explained, it was practiced, up until the time of the Ashikaga shogunate, as a preliminary means of fending off an adversary.

Those on the other side of the fence went so far as to claim that no ancient technique ever existed, although they did admit that needle-blowing had been practiced as a game at one time. While conceding that women may have amused themselves in this fashion, they adamantly denied that needle-blowing could be refined to the degree necessary to inflict injury. They also pointed out that saliva could absorb a certain amount of heat, cold or acidity, but it could do little to absorb the pain caused by needles puncturing the inside of a person's mouth. The reply to this, of course, was that with enough practice, a person could learn to hold the needles in the mouth painlessly and to manipulate them with the tongue with a great deal of precision and force. Enough to blind a man.

The nonbelievers then countered that even if the needles could be blown hard and fast, the chances of hurting anyone were minimal. After all, they said, the only parts of the face vulnerable to such attack were the eyes, and the chances of hitting them weren't very good, even under the best conditions. And unless the needle penetrated the pupil, the damage would be insignificant.

After hearing most of these arguments at one time or another, Musashi had been inclined to side with the doubters. After this experience, he realized how premature his judgment had been and how important and useful randomly acquired bits of knowledge could subsequently prove to be.

The needles had missed his pupil, but his eye was watering. As he felt around his clothing for something to dry it with, he heard the sound of cloth being torn. Turning, he saw a girl ripping a foot or so of red fabric from the sleeve of her undergarment.

Akemi came running toward him. Her hair was not done up for the New Year's celebration, and her kimono was bedraggled. She wore sandals, but no socks. Musashi squinted at her and muttered; though she looked familiar, he couldn't place the face.

"It's me, Takezō ... I mean Musashi," she said hesitantly, offering him the red cloth. "Did you get something in your eye? You shouldn't rub it. That'll only make it worse. Here, use this."

Musashi silently accepted her kindness and covered his eye with the cloth. Then he stared at her face intently.

"Don't you remember me?" she said incredulously. "But you must!" Musashi's face was a perfect blank.

"You must!"

His silence broke the dam holding back her long-pent-up emotions. Her spirit, so accustomed to unhappiness and cruelty, had clung to this one last hope, and now the light was dawning that it was nothing more than a fantasy of her own making. A hard lump formed in her breast, and she made a choking sound. Though she covered her mouth and nose to suppress the sobs, her shoulders quivered uncontrollably.

Something about the way she looked when crying recalled the innocent girlishness of the days in Ibuki, when she'd carried the tinkling bell in her obi. Musashi put his arms around her thin, weak shoulders.

"You're Akemi, of course. I remember. How do you happen to be here? It's such a surprise to see you! Don't you live in Ibuki anymore? What happened to your mother?" His questions were like barbs, the worst being the mention of Okō, which led naturally to his old friend. "Are you still living with Matahachi? He was supposed to come here this morning. You haven't by any chance seen him, have you?"

Every word added to Akemi's misery. Nestled in his arms, she could do no more than shake her weeping head.

"Isn't Matahachi coming?" he persisted. "What happened to him? How will I ever know if you just stand here and cry?"

"He ... he ... he's not coming. He never ... he never got your message." Akemi pressed her face against Musashi's chest and went into a new spasm of tears.

She thought of saying this, of saying that, but each idea died in her feverish brain. How could she tell him of the horrid fate she had suffered because of her mother? How could she put into words what had happened in Sumiyoshi or in the days since then?

The bridge was bathed in the New Year's sun, and more and more people were passing by—girls in bright new kimono going to make their New Year's obeisance at Kiyomizudera, men in formal robes starting their rounds of New Year's calls. Almost hidden among them was Jōtarō, his gnomish thatch of hair in the same disheveled state as on any other day. He was nearly in the middle of the bridge when he caught sight of Musashi and Akemi.

"What's all this?" he asked himself. "I thought he'd be with Otsū. That's not Otsū!" He stopped and made a peculiar face.

He was shocked to the core. It might have been all right if no one were watching, but there they were chest to chest, embracing each other on a busy thoroughfare. A man and a woman hugging each other in public? It was shameless. He couldn't believe any grownup could act so disgracefully, much less his own, revered
sensei.
Jōtarō's heart throbbed violently, he was both sad and a little jealous. And angry, so angry that he wanted to pick up a rock and throw it at them.

"I've seen that woman somewhere," he thought. "Ah! She's the one who took Musashi's message for Matahachi. Well, she's a teahouse girl, so what could you expect? But how on earth did they get to know one another? I think I should tell Otsū about this!"

He looked up and down the street and peered over the railing, but there was no sign of her.

The previous night, confident that she would be meeting Musashi the next day, Otsū had washed her hair and stayed up till the early hours doing it up in proper fashion. Then she had put on a kimono given her by the Karasumaru family and, before dawn, set out to pay her respects at Gion Shrine and Kiyomizudera before proceeding to Gojō Avenue. Jōtarō had wanted to accompany her, but she had refused.

Normally it would be all right, she had explained, but today Jōtarō would be in the way. "You stay here," she said. "First I want to talk to Musashi alone. You can come along to the bridge after it gets light, but take your time. And don't worry; I promise I'll be waiting there with Musashi when you come."

Jōtarō had been more than a little peeved. Not only was he old enough to understand Otsū's feelings; he also had a certain appreciation of the attraction men and women felt for each other. The experience of rolling about in the straw with Kocha in Koyagyū had not faded from his mind. Even so, it remained a mystery to him why a grown woman like Otsū went around moping and weeping all the time over a man.

Search as he might, he could not find Otsū. While he fretted, Musashi and Akemi moved to the end of the bridge, presumably to avoid being so conspicuous. Musashi folded his arms and leaned on the railing. Akemi, at his side, looked down at the river. They did not notice Jōtarō when he slipped by on the opposite side of the bridge.

"Why is she taking so much time? How long can you pray to Kannon?" Grumbling to himself, Jōtarō stood on tiptoe and strained his eyes toward the hill at the end of Gojō Avenue.

About ten paces from where he was standing, there were four or five leafless willow trees. Often a flock of white herons gathered here along the river to catch fish, but today none were to be seen. A young man with a long forelock leaned against a willow branch, which stretched out toward the ground like a sleeping dragon.

On the bridge, Musashi nodded as Akemi whispered fervently to him. She had thrown pride to the winds and was telling him everything in the hope that she could persuade him to be hers alone. It was difficult to discern whether her words penetrated beyond his ears. Nod though he might, his look was not that of a lover saying sweet nothings to his beloved. On the contrary, his pupils shone with a colorless, heatless radiance and focused steadily on some particular object.

Akemi did not notice this. Completely absorbed, she seemed to choke slightly as she tried to analyze her feelings.

"Oh," she sighed, "I've told you everything there is to tell. I haven't hidden anything." Edging closer to him, she said wistfully, "It's been more than four years since Sekigahara. I've changed both in body and in spirit." Then, with a burst of tears: "No! I haven't really changed. My feeling toward you hasn't changed a bit. I'm absolutely sure of that! Do you understand, Musashi? Do you understand how I feel?"

"Mm."

"Please try to understand! I've told you everything. I'm not the innocent wild flower I was when we met at the foot of Mount Ibuki. I'm just an ordinary woman who's been violated.... But is chastity a thing of the body, or of the mind? Is a virgin who has lewd thoughts really chaste? ... I lost my virginity to—I can't say his name, but to a certain man—and yet my heart is pure."

"Mm. Mm."

"Don't you feel anything for me at all? I can't keep secrets from the person I love. I wondered what to say when I saw you: should I say anything or not? But then it became clear. I couldn't deceive you even if I wanted to. Please understand! Say something! Say you forgive me. Or do you consider me despicable?"

"Mm. Ah . . ."

"When I think of it again, it makes me so furious!" She put her face down on the railing. "You see, I'm ashamed to ask you to love me. I haven't the right to do that. But ... but ... I'm still a virgin at heart. I still treasure my first love like a pearl. I haven't lost that treasure, and I won't, no matter what kind of life I lead, or what men I'm thrown together with!"

Each hair of her head trembled with her sobbing. Under the bridge where her tears fell, the river, glistening in the New Year's sun, flowed on like Akemi's dreams toward an eternity of hope.

"Mm." While the poignance of her story elicited frequent nods and grunts, Musashi's eyes remained fixed on that point in the distance. His father had once remarked, "You're not like me. My eyes are black, but yours are dark brown. They say your granduncle, Hirata Shōgen, had terrifying brown eyes, so maybe you take after him." At this moment, in the slanting rays of the sun, Musashi's eyes were a pure and flawless coral.

"That has to be him," thought Sasaki Kojirō, the man leaning against the willow. He had heard of Musashi many times, but this was the first time he had set eyes on him.

Musashi was wondering: "Who could he be?"

From the instant their eyes met, they had silently been searching, each sounding the depths of the other's spirit. In practicing the Art of War, it is said that one must discern from the point of the enemy's sword the extent of his ability. This is exactly what the two men were doing. They were like wrestlers, sizing each other up before coming to grips. And each had reasons to regard the other with suspicion.

"I don't like it," thought Kojirō, seething with displeasure. He had taken care of Akemi since rescuing her from the deserted Amida Hall, and this patently intimate conversation between her and Musashi upset him. "Maybe he's the kind who preys on innocent women. And her! She didn't say where she was going, and now she's up there weeping on a man's shoulder!" He himself was here because he'd followed her.

The enmity in Kojirō's eyes was not lost on Musashi, and he was also conscious of that peculiar instant conflict of wills that arises when one
shugyōsha
encounters another. Nor was there any doubt that Kojirō felt the spirit of defiance conveyed in Musashi's expression.

"Who could he be?" thought Musashi again. "He looks like quite a fighter. But why the malicious look in his eye? Better watch him closely."

The intensity of the two men came not from their eyes but from deep inside. Fireworks seemed about to shoot from their pupils. From appearances, Musashi might be a year or two younger than Kojirō, but then again it might be the other way around. In either case, they shared one similarity: both were at that age of maximum impudence when they were certain they knew everything there was to know about politics, society, the Art of War and all other subjects. As a vicious dog snarls when it sees another vicious dog, so both Musashi and Kojirō knew instinctively that the other was a dangerous fighter.

Kojirō was the first to disengage his eyes, which he did with a slight grunt. Musashi, despite the touch of contempt he could see in Kojirō's profile, was convinced deep down that he'd won. The opponent had given in to his eyes, to his willpower, and this made Musashi happy.

"Akemi," he said, putting his hand on her shoulder.

Still sobbing with her face to the railing, she did not reply.

"Who's that man over there? He's somebody who knows you, isn't he? I mean the young man who looks like a student warrior. Just who is he?"

Akemi was silent. She had not seen Kojirō until now, and the sight threw her tear-swollen face into confusion. "Uh ... you mean that tall man over there?"