Musashi: Bushido Code (61 page)

The others caught up with him, then stood nailed to the ground, gaping at the sight before their eyes. Seijūrō, clad in a kimono with a blue flowered design, a leather strap holding back his sleeves and a white cloth tied around his head, lay with his face buried in the grass.

"Young Master!"

"We're here! What happened?"

There was not a drop of blood on the white headband, nor on his sleeve or the grass around him, but his eyes and forehead were frozen in an expression of excruciating pain. His lips were the color of wild grapes.

"Is ... is he breathing?"

"Barely."

"Quick, pick him up!"

One man knelt and took hold of Seijūrō's right arm, ready to lift him. Seijūrō screamed in agony.

"Find something to carry him on! Anything!"

Three or four men, shouting confusedly, ran down the road to a farmhouse and came back with a rain shutter. They gently rolled Seijūrō onto it, but though he seemed to revive a little, he was still writhing in pain. To keep him quiet, several men removed their obis and tied him to the shutter.

With one man at each corner, they lifted him up and began walking in funereal silence.

Seijūrō kicked violently, almost breaking the shutter. "Musashi ... is he gone? ... Oh, it hurts! ... Right arm—shoulder. The bone ... O-w-w-w! .. . Can't stand it. Cut it off! ... Can't you hear? Cut the arm off!"

The horror of his pain caused the men carrying the improvised stretcher to avert their eyes. This was the man they respected as their teacher; it seemed indecent to look at him in this condition.

Pausing, they called back to Ueda and Jūrōzaemon. "He's in terrible pain, asking us to cut off his arm. Wouldn't it be easier on him if we did?"

"Don't talk like fools," roared Ryōhei. "Of course it's painful, but he won't die from that. If we cut his arm off and can't stop the bleeding, it'll be the end of him. What we've got to do is get him home and see how badly he's injured. If the arm has to come off, we can do it after proper steps have been taken to keep him from bleeding to death. A couple of you go on ahead and bring the doctor to the school."

There were still a lot of people about, standing silently behind the pine trees along the road. Annoyed, Ryōhei scowled blackly and turned to the men behind him. "Chase those people away," he ordered. "The Young Master's not a spectacle to be stared at."

Most of the samurai, grateful for a chance to work off their pent-up anger, took off on the run, making vicious gestures at the onlookers. The latter scattered like locusts.

"Tamihachi, come here!" called Ryōhei angrily, as if blaming the young attendant for what had happened.

The youth, who had been walking tearfully beside the stretcher, shrank in terror. "Wh-what is it?" he stammered.

"Were you with the Young Master when he left the house?"

"Y-y-yes."

"Where did he make his preparations?"

"Here, after we reached the field."

"He must have known where we were waiting. Why didn't he go there first?"

"I don't know."

"Was Musashi already there?"

"He was standing on the knoll where ... where ... "

"Was he alone?"

"Yes."

"How did it go? Did you just stand there and watch?"

"The Young Master looked straight at me and said ... he said if by any chance he should lose, I was to pick up his body and take it to the other field. He said you and the others had been there since dawn, but I wasn't under any circumstances to let anyone know anything until the bout was over. He said there were times when a student of the Art of War had no choice but to risk defeat, and he didn't want to win by dishonorable, cowardly means. After that, he went forward to meet Musashi." Tamihachi spoke rapidly, relieved to get the story told.

"Then what?"

"I could see Musashi's face. He seemed to be smiling slightly. The two of them exchanged some sort of greeting. Then ... then there was a scream. It carried from one end of the field to the other. I saw the Young Master's wooden sword fly into the air, and then ... only Musashi was standing. He had on an orange headband, but his hair was on end."

The road had been cleared of the curious. The men carrying the shutter were dejected and subdued but kept scrupulously in step so as to avoid causing further pain to the injured man.

"What's that?"

They halted, and one of the men in front raised his free hand to his neck. Another looked up at the sky. Dead pine needles were fluttering down on Seijūrō. Perched on a limb above them was Kojirō's monkey, staring vacantly and making obscene gestures.

"Ouch!" cried one of the men as a pine cone struck his upturned face. Cursing, he whipped his stiletto from his scabbard and sent it flying with a flash of light at the monkey, but missed his target.

At the sound of his master's whistle, the monkey somersaulted and bounced lightly onto his shoulder. Kojirō was standing in the shadows, Akemi at his side. While the Yoshioka men directed resentful eyes at him, Kojirō stared fixedly at the body on the rain shutter. His supercilious smile had deserted his face, which now bore a look of reverence. He grimaced at Seijūrō's agonized moans. With his recent lecture still fresh in mind, the samurai could only assume that he had come to have the last laugh.

Ryōhei urged the stretcher bearers on, saying, "It's only a monkey, not even a human being. Forget it, get moving."

"Wait," Kojirō said, then went to Seijūrō's side and spoke directly to him. "What happened?" he asked, but did not wait for an answer. "Musashi got the better of you, didn't he? Where did he hit you? Right shoulder? ... Oh, this is bad. The bone's shattered. Your arm's like a sack of gravel. You shouldn't be lying on your back, being bounced along on the shutter. The blood might go to your brain."

Turning to the others, he commanded arrogantly, "Put him down! Go ahead, put him down! ... What are you waiting for? Do as I say!"

Seijūrō seemed on the verge of death, but Kojirō ordered him to stand up. "You can if you try. The wound isn't all that serious. It's only your right arm. If you try walking, you can do it. You've still got the use of your left arm. Forget about yourself! Think of your dead father. You owe him more respect than you're showing now, a lot more. Being carried through the streets of Kyoto—what a sight that would be. Think what it would do to your father's good name!"

Seijūrō stared at him, his eyes white and bloodless. Then with one quick motion, he lifted himself to his feet. His useless right arm looked a foot longer than his left.

"Miike!" cried Seijūrō.

"Yes, sir."

"Cut it off!"

"Huh-h-h!"

"Don't just stand there! Cut off my arm!"

"But ..."

"You gutless idiot! Here, Ueda, cut it off! Right now!"

"Y-y-yes, sir."

But before Ueda moved, Kojirō said, "I'll do it if you want."

"Please!" said Seijūrō.

Kojirō went to his side. Grasping Seijūrō's hand firmly, he lifted the arm high, at the same time unsheathing his small sword. With a quick, startling sound, the arm fell to the ground, and blood spurted from the stump.

When Seijūrō staggered, his students rushed to his support and covered the wound with cloth to stop the blood.

"From now on I'll walk," said Seijūrō. "I'll walk home on my own two feet." His face waxen, he took ten steps. Behind him, the blood dripping from the wound oozed blackly into the ground.

"Young Master, be careful!"

His disciples clung to him like hoops to a barrel, their voices filled with solicitude, which turned rapidly to anger.

One of them cursed Kojirō, saying, "Why did that conceited ass have to butt in? You'd have been better off the way you were."

But Seijūrō, shamed by Kojirō's words, said, "I said I'll walk, and walk I will!" After a short pause, he proceeded another twenty paces, carried more by his willpower than by his legs. But he could not hold on for long; after fifty or sixty yards, he collapsed.

"Quick! We've got to get him to the doctor."

They picked him up and made quickly for Shijō Avenue. Seijūrō no longer had the strength to object.

Kojirō stood for a time under a tree, watching grimly. Then, turning to Akemi, he said with a smirk, "Did you see that? I imagine it made you feel good, didn't it?" Her face deadly white, Akemi regarded his sneer with loathing, but he went on. "You've done nothing but talk about how you'd like to get back at him. Are you satisfied now? Is this enough revenge for your lost virginity?"

Akemi was too confused to speak. Kojirō seemed at this moment more frightening, more hateful, more evil than Seijūrō. Though Seijūrō was the cause of her troubles, he was not a wicked man. He was not blackhearted, not a real villain. Kojirō, on the other hand, was genuinely evil—not the type of sinner most people envisioned but a twisted, perverse fiend, who, far from rejoicing in the happiness of others, delighted in standing by and watching them suffer. He would never steal or cheat, yet he was more dangerous by far than the ordinary crook.

"Let's go home," he said, putting the monkey back on his shoulder. Akemi longed to flee but could not muster the courage. "It won't do you any good to go on looking for Musashi," mumbled Kojirō, talking to himself as much as to her. "There's no reason for him to linger around here."

Akemi asked herself why she did not take this opportunity to make a dash for freedom, why she seemed unable to leave this brute. But even as she cursed her own stupidity, she could not prevent herself from going with him.

The monkey turned its head and looked at her. Chattering derisively, it bared its white teeth in a broad grin.

Akemi wanted to scold it, but couldn't. She felt she and the monkey were bound together by the same fate. She recalled how pitiful Seijūrō had looked, and despite herself, her heart went out to him. She despised men like Seijūrō and Kojirō, and yet she was drawn to them like a moth to a red-hot flame.

A Man of Parts

Musashi left the field thinking, "I won." He told himself: "I defeated Yoshioka Seijūrō, brought down the citadel of the Kyoto Style!"

But he knew his heart was not in it. His eyes were downcast, and his feet seemed to sink into the dead leaves. A small bird on the wing, rising, exposing its underside, reminded him of a fish.

Looking back, he could see the slender pines on the mound where he had fought Seijūrō. "I only struck once," he thought. "Maybe it didn't kill him." He examined his wooden sword to assure himself there was no blood on it.

This morning, on his way to the appointed place, he had been expecting to find Seijūrō accompanied by a host of students, who might very well resort to some underhanded maneuver. He had squarely faced the possibility that he himself might be killed, and to avoid looking unkempt at the end had carefully brushed his teeth with salt and washed his hair.

Seijūrō fell far short of Musashi's preconception. He had asked himself if this could really be the son of Yoshioka Kempō. He could not perceive in the urbane and obviously well-bred Seijūrō the leading master of the Kyoto Style. He was too slender, too subdued, too gentlemanly, to be a great swordsman.

When the greetings were exchanged, Musashi thought uncomfortably: "I should never have gotten into this fight."

His regrets were sincere, because his aim was always to take on opponents who were better than he. One good look was sufficient; there had been no need to train for a year just to have this bout. Seijūrō's eyes betrayed a lack of self-confidence. The necessary fire was absent, not only from his face but from his whole body.

"Why did he come here this morning," wondered Musashi, "if he has no more faith in himself than this?" But Musashi was aware of his opponent's predicament and sympathized. Seijūrō was in no position to call the fight off, even if he wanted to. The disciples he'd inherited from his father looked up to him as their mentor and guide; he had no choice but to go through the motions. As the two men stood poised for battle, Musashi cast about for an excuse to call the whole thing off, but the opportunity did not present itself.

Now that it was all over, Musashi thought: "It's too bad! I wish I hadn't had to do it." And in his heart he prayed, for Seijūrō's sake, that the wound would heal quickly.

But the day's work was done, and it was not the mark of a mature warrior to stand around moping over the past.

As he quickened his pace, the startled face of an elderly woman appeared above a patch of grass. She'd been scratching about on the ground, apparently looking for something, and the sound of his footsteps brought a gasp to her lips. Dressed in a light, plain kimono, she would have been almost indistinguishable from the grass, except for the purple cord holding her cloak in place. Though her clothing was that of a layman, the kerchief hiding her round head was that of a nun. She was small of build and genteel in appearance.

Musashi was as astonished as the woman. Another three or four steps and he might have trampled on her.

"What are you looking for?" he asked genially. He glimpsed a string of coral prayer beads on her arm, just inside her sleeve, and a basket of tender wild plants in one hand. Her fingers and the beads trembled slightly.

To put her at her ease, Musashi said easily, "I'm surprised to see the greens up so early. I guess it's really getting to be spring. Hmm, I see you have some nice parsley there, and some rape and cottonweed. Did you pick them all yourself?"

The old nun dropped the basket and ran, shouting, "Kōetsu! Kōetsu!" Musashi watched bemused as the little form retreated toward a slight rise in the otherwise flat field. From behind it rose a wisp of smoke.

Thinking it would be a shame for her to lose her vegetables after going to all the trouble of finding them, he picked them up and, basket in hand, started off after her. After a minute or so, two men came into view.

They had spread a rug on the sunny southern side of a gentle slope. There were also various implements used by devotees of the tea cult, including an iron kettle hanging over a fire and a pitcher of water to one side. Taking the natural surroundings for their garden, they had made themselves an open-air tea room. It all looked rather stylish and elegant.

One of the men seemed to be a servant, while the other's white skin, smooth complexion and well-composed features brought to mind a large china doll representing a Kyoto aristocrat. He had a contented paunch; self-assurance was reflected in his cheeks and in his posture.

"Kōetsu." The name rang a bell, for there was at this time a very famous Hon'ami Kōetsu living in Kyoto. It was rumored, with considerable envy, that he had been granted an annual stipend of one thousand bushels by the very wealthy Lord Maeda Toshiie of Kaga. As an ordinary townsman, he could have lived magnificently on this alone, but in addition he enjoyed the special favor of Tokugawa Ieyasu and was frequently received in the homes of high noblemen. The greatest warriors of the land, it was said, felt constrained to dismount and walk by his shop on foot, so as not to give the impression that they were looking down on him.

The family name came from their having taken up residence on Hon'ami Lane, and Kōetsu's business was the cleaning, polishing and appraising of swords. His family had gained a reputation as early as the fourteenth century and had flourished during the Ashikaga period. They had later been patronized by such leading daimyō as Imagawa Yoshimoto, Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

Kōetsu was known as a man of many talents. He painted, excelled as a ceramist and lacquer-maker and was regarded as a connoisseur of art. He himself considered calligraphy to be his forte; in this field he was generally ranked with acknowledged experts like Shōkadō Shōjō, Karasumaru Mitsuhiro and Konoe Nobutada, the creator of the famous Sammyakuin Style, which was so popular these days.

Despite his fame, Kōetsu felt that he was not fully appreciated, or so it would seem from a story that was going around. According to this tale, he often visited the mansion of his friend Konoe Nobutada, who was not only a nobleman but currently Minister of the Left in the Emperor's government. During one of these visits, the story went, the talk turned naturally to calligraphy and Nobutada asked, "Kōetsu, who would you select as the three greatest calligraphers in the country?"

Without the slightest hesitation, Kōetsu answered, "The second is yourself, and then I suppose Shōkadō Shōjō."

A little puzzled, Nobutada asked, "You start with the second best, but who is the best?"

Kōetsu, without so much as a smile, looked directly into his eyes and replied, "I am, of course."

Lost in thought, Musashi stopped a short distance from the group.

Kōetsu was holding a brush in his hand, and on his knees were several sheets of paper. He was studiously sketching the flow of water in a stream close by. This drawing, as well as earlier efforts lying scattered about on the ground, consisted solely of watery lines of a sort that, to Musashi's eye, any novice might be able to draw.

Looking up, Kōetsu said quietly, "Is something wrong?" Then, with steady eyes, he took in the scene: Musashi on one side and on the other his mother trembling behind the servant.

Musashi felt calmer in the presence of this man. He was clearly not the sort of person he came into contact with every day, but somehow he found him appealing. His eyes held a profound light. After a moment they began to smile at Musashi, as if he were an old acquaintance.

"Welcome, young man. Has my mother done something wrong? I'm forty-eight myself, so you can imagine how old she is. She's very healthy, but there are times when she complains about her eyesight. If she's done anything she shouldn't, I hope you'll accept my apologies." Placing his brush and pad on the small rug he was sitting on, he started to put his hands on the ground and make a deep bow.

Hurriedly dropping to his knees, Musashi stopped Kōetsu from bowing. "Then you're her son?" he asked in confusion.

"Yes."

"It is I who must apologize. I don't really know what made your mother afraid, but as soon as she saw me, she dropped her basket and ran off. Seeing she'd spilled her greens made me feel guilty. I've brought the things she dropped. That's all. There's no need for you to bow."

Laughing pleasantly, Kōetsu turned to the nun and said, "Did you hear that, Mother? You had the wrong impression entirely."

Immensely relieved, she ventured out from her place of refuge behind the servant. "Do you mean the rōnin didn't intend to harm me?"

"Harm? No, not at all. See, he's even brought back your basket. Wasn't that considerate of him?"

"Oh, I'm sorry," said the nun, bowing deeply, her forehead touching the prayer beads on her wrist. Quite cheerful now, she laughed as she turned to her son. "I'm ashamed to admit it," she said, "but when I first saw the young man, I thought I detected the smell of blood. Oh, it was frightening! I broke out in goose pimples. Now I see how foolish I was."

The old woman's insight amazed Musashi. She had seen right through him and without really knowing, had put it very candidly. To this woman's delicate senses, he must indeed have seemed a terrifying, gory apparition.

Kōetsu, too, must have taken in his intense, penetrating look, his menacing mane of hair, that prickly, dangerous element that said he was ready to strike at the slightest provocation. Still, Kōetsu seemed inclined to search out the good in him.

"If you're in no hurry," he said, "stay and rest awhile. It's so quiet and peaceful here. Just sitting silently in these surroundings, I feel clean and fresh."

"If I pick a few more greens, I can make some nice gruel for you," said the nun. "And some tea. Or don't you like tea?"

In the company of mother and son, Musashi felt at peace with the world. He sheathed his bellicose spirit, like a cat retracting its claws. In this pleasant atmosphere, it was hard to believe he was among perfect strangers. Before he realized it, he had removed his straw sandals and taken a seat on the rug.

Taking the liberty of asking some questions, he learned that the mother, whose religious name was Myōshū, had been a good and faithful wife before becoming a nun, and that her son was indeed the celebrated aesthete and craftsman. Among swordsmen, there was not one worth his salt who did not know the name Hon'ami—such was the family's reputation for sound judgment with regard to swords.

Musashi found it difficult to associate Kōetsu and his mother with the picture he had of how such famous people should look. To him they were simply ordinary people he had met by accident in a deserted field. This was the way he wanted it to be, for otherwise he himself might grow tense and spoil their picnic.

Bringing the kettle for the tea, Myōshū asked her son, "How old do you suppose this lad is?"

With a glance at Musashi, he replied, "Twenty-five or -six, I imagine." Musashi shook his head. "No, I'm only twenty-three."

"Only twenty-three," exclaimed Myōshū. She then proceeded to ask the usual questions: where his home was, whether his parents were still alive, who had taught him swordsmanship, and so on.

She addressed him gently, as though he were her grandson, and this brought out the boy in Musashi. His manner of speech slipped into the youthful and informal. Accustomed as he was to discipline and rigorous training, to spending all his time forging himself into a fine steel blade, he knew nothing of the more civilized side of life. As the old nun talked, warmth spread through his weather-beaten body.

Myōshū, Kōetsu, the things on the rug, even the tea bowl, subtly fused into the atmosphere and became part of nature. But Musashi was impatient, his body too restless, to sit still for long. It was pleasant enough while they were chatting, but when Myōshū began staring silently at the teakettle and Kōetsu turned his back to continue his sketching, Musashi became bored. "What," he asked himself, "do they find so entertaining about coming out here like this? Spring's only barely begun. It's still cold."

If they wanted to pick wild greens, why not wait until it was warmer and more people were around? There would be lots of flowers and fresh green plants then. And if they wanted to enjoy a tea ceremony, why go to the trouble of lugging the kettle and tea bowls all the way out here? A well-known, prosperous family like theirs would surely have an elegant tea room in their house.

Was it to sketch?

Staring at Kōetsu's back, he found that by twisting a little to the side he could see the moving brush. Drawing nothing but the lines of flowing water, the artist kept his eyes on the narrow brook wending its way through the dry grass. He concentrated solely on the movement of the water, again and again trying to capture the flowing motion, but the exact feel seemed to elude him. Undeterred, he went on drawing the lines over and over.

"Urn," thought Musashi, "drawing's not as easy as it looks, I guess." His ennui receding for the moment, he watched Kōetsu's brush strokes with fascination. Kōetsu, he thought, must feel very much as he himself did when he faced an enemy swordpoint to swordpoint. At some stage he would rise above himself and sense that he had become one with nature—no, not "sense," because all sensation would be obliterated at that moment when his sword cut through his opponent. That magic instant of transcendence was all.

"Kōetsu's still looking at the water as an enemy," he mused. "That's why he can't draw it. He has to become one with it before he'll succeed."

With nothing to do, he was sliding from boredom into lethargy and this worried him. He must not let himself go slack, even for a moment. He had to get away from here.

"I'm sorry I disturbed you," he said brusquely, and started retying his sandals.

"Oh, are you leaving so soon?" asked Myōshū.

Kōetsu turned around quietly and said, "Can't you stay a little longer? Mother is going to make the tea now. I gather you're the one who had a bout with the master of the House of Yoshioka this morning. A little tea after a fight does you good, or at least that's what Lord Maeda says. Ieyasu, too. Tea is good for the spirit. I doubt whether there's anything better. In my opinion, action is born of quiet. Stay and talk. I'll join you."