Musashi: Bushido Code (90 page)

"Come down from there!" Gonnosuke shouted. Staff in hand, he glared at Musashi. "You ran away! You figured I'd challenge you and ducked out. Come down, fight me one more time!"

Musashi stopped between two rocks, leaned against one of them and stared silently at Gonnosuke.

Taking this to mean that he was not coming, Gonnosuke said to his mother, "Wait here. I'll go up there and throw him down. Just watch."

"Stop!" scolded his mother, who was astride the cow. "That's what's wrong with you. You're impatient. You have to learn to read your enemy's thoughts before you go flying into battle. Supposing he were to throw a big rock down on you, then what?"

Musashi could hear their voices, but the words were not clear. As far as he was concerned, he'd already won; he already understood how Gonnosuke used his staff. What he found upsetting was their bitterness and their desire for revenge. If Gonnosuke lost again, they would be that much more resentful. From his experience with the House of Yoshioka, he knew the folly of fighting bouts that led to even greater hostility. And then there was the man's mother, in whom Musashi saw a second Osugi, a woman who loved her son blindly and would bear an eternal grudge against anyone who harmed him.

He turned around and began climbing.

"Wait!"

Held back by the strength of the old woman's voice, Musashi stopped and turned around.

She dismounted and walked to the foot of the cliff. When she was sure she had his attention, she knelt, put both hands on the ground and bowed deeply.

Musashi had done nothing to cause her to humble herself before him, but he bowed back as best he could from the rocky path. His hand went out as though to help her up.

"Good samurai!" she cried. "I am ashamed to appear before you like this. I'm sure you have nothing but scorn for my stubbornness. But I'm not acting out of hate or spite or ill will. I ask you to take pity on my son. For ten years he's practiced all by himself—no teachers, no friends, no truly worthy opponents. I beg you to give him another lesson in the art of fighting."

Musashi listened silently.

"I would hate to see you part from us like this," she continued emotionally. "My son's performance two days ago was shoddy. If he doesn't do something to prove his ability, neither he nor I will be able to face our ancestors. Right now he's nothing more than a farmer who lost a fight. Since he's had the good fortune to meet a warrior of your stature, it would be a shame for him not to profit from the experience. That's why I've brought him here. I implore you to heed my pleas and accept his challenge."

Her speech ended, she bowed again, almost as though she were worshiping at Musashi's feet.

Coming down the hill, he took her hand and helped her back up onto the cow. "Gonnosuke," he said, "take the rope. Let's talk this over while we walk. I'll consider whether I want to fight you or not."

Musashi walked slightly ahead of them, and though he had suggested discussing the question, said not a word. Gonnosuke kept his eyes suspiciously on Musashi's back, now and again absently flicking a switch at the cow's legs. His mother looked anxious and worried.

When they had gone perhaps a mile, Musashi grunted and turned on his heel. "I'll fight you," he said.

Dropping the rope, Gonnosuke said, "Are you ready now?" He looked around to check his position, as if ready to have it out right then and there.

Ignoring him, Musashi addressed his mother. "Are you prepared for the worst? There's not a whit's difference between a bout like this and a fight to the death, even if the weapons are not the same."

For the first time, the old woman laughed. "No need to tell me that. If he loses to a younger man like you, then he may as well give up the martial arts, and if he does that, there'd be no further point in living. If it turns out that way, I'll bear you no grudge."

"If that's the way you feel, all right." He picked up the rope Gonnosuke had thrown down. "If we stay on the road, there'll be people in the way. Let's tie the cow up, then I'll fight as long as you wish."

There was a huge larch tree in the very middle of the flat area on which they stood. Pointing at it, Musashi led them there.

"Make your preparations, Gonnosuke," he said calmly.

Gonnosuke needed no urging. In a moment he was standing before Musashi with his staff pointed toward the ground.

Musashi stood empty-handed, arms and shoulders relaxed.

"Aren't you going to make any preparations?" asked Gonnosuke. "What for?"

Gonnosuke's anger flared. "Get something to fight with. Anything you want."

"I'm ready."

"No weapon?"

"I have my weapon here," Musashi replied, bringing his left hand up to his sword hilt.

"You're fighting with a sword?"

Musashi's only reply was a crooked little smile at the corner of his mouth. They were already at the stage where he couldn't afford to waste breath talking.

Underneath the larch tree sat Gonnosuke's mother, looking like a stone Buddha. "Don't fight yet. Wait!" she said.

Staring at each other, not making the slightest move, neither man seemed to hear. Gonnosuke's staff was waiting under his arm for the opportunity to strike, as if it had breathed in all the air on the plateau and was about to exhale it in one great screeching blow. His hand glued to the underside of his sword hilt, Musashi's eyes seemed to pierce Gonnosuke's body. Inwardly, the battle had already begun, for the eye can damage a man more seriously than sword or staff. After the opening slice is made with the eye, the sword or staff slips in effortlessly.

"Wait!" called the mother again.

"What is it?" asked Musashi, jumping back four or five feet to a safe position.

"You're fighting with a real sword?"

"The way I fight, it doesn't make any difference whether I use a wooden sword or a real one."

"I'm not trying to stop you."

"I want to be sure you understand. The sword, wood or steel, is absolute. In a real bout, there are no halfway measures. The only way to avoid risk is to run away."

"You're perfectly right, but it occurred to me that in a match this important, you should announce yourself formally. Each of you is meeting an opponent the likes of whom he will encounter only rarely. After the fight's over, it'll be too late."

"True."

"Gonnosuke, give your name first."

Gonnosuke bowed formally to Musashi. "Our distant ancestor is said to have been Kakumyō, who fought under the banner of the great warrior of Kiso, Minamoto no Yoshinaka. After Yoshinaka's death, Kakumyō became a follower of the saint Hōnen, and it is possible that we are from the same family as he. Over the centuries, our ancestors have lived in this area, but in my father's generation we suffered dishonor, which I shall not name. In my distress, I went with my mother to Ontake Shrine and vowed in writing that I would restore our good name by following the Way of the Samurai. Before the god of Ontake Shrine, I acquired my technique for using the staff. I call it the Musō Style, that is, the Style of the Vision, for I received it in a revelation at the shrine. People call me Musō Gonnosuke."

Musashi returned his bow. "My family is descended from Hirata Shōgen, whose house was a branch of the Akamatsus of Harima. I am the only son of Shimmen Munisai, who lived in the village of Miyamoto in Mimasaka. I have been given the name Miyamoto Musashi. I have no close relatives, and I have dedicated my life to the Way of the Sword. If I should fall before your staff, there is no need to trouble yourself about my remains."

Retaking his stance, he cried, "On guard!"

"On guard!"

The old woman seemed scarcely to breathe. Far from having danger thrust on herself and her son, she had gone out of her way to seek it out, deliberately placing her son in front of Musashi's gleaming sword. Such a course would have been unthinkable for an ordinary mother, but she was fully confident she had done the right thing. She sat now in formal style, her shoulders leaning slightly forward and her hands placed primly, one on top of the other, on her knees. Her body gave the impression of being small and shrunken; it would have been hard to believe that she had borne several children, buried all but one of them, and persevered through innumerable hardships to make a warrior out of the lone survivor.

Her eyes emitted a flash of light, as though all the gods and bodhisattvas of the cosmos had gathered in her person to witness the battle.

In the instant when Musashi unsheathed, Gonnosuke felt a chill go through his body. He sensed instinctively that his fate, exposed to Musashi's sword, had already been decided, for at this moment he saw before him a man he had not seen before. Two days earlier, he had observed Musashi in a fluid, flexible mood, one that might be likened to smooth, flowing lines of calligraphy in the cursive style.

He was unprepared for the man who faced him now, a study in austerity, like a square, immaculately written character with every line and dot in place.

Realizing that he had misjudged his adversary, he found himself unable to swing into a violent attack, as he had done before. His staff remained poised but powerless above his head.

While the two men confronted each other silently, the last of the morning mist cleared away. A bird flew indolently between them and the hazy mountains in the distance. Then all at once a shriek split the air, as though the bird had plummeted to earth. It was impossible to tell whether the sound came from the sword or the staff. It was unreal—the clapping of one hand that followers of Zen talk about.

Simultaneously, the two fighters' bodies, moving in perfect coordination with their weapons, shifted positions. The change took less time than it takes for an image to be transmitted from the eye to the brain. Gonnosuke's strike had missed. Musashi had defensively reversed his forearm and swept upward, from near Gonnosuke's side to a point above his head, narrowly missing his right shoulder and temple. Musashi then employed his masterful return strike, the one that had previously brought all opponents to grief, but Gonnosuke, seizing his staff near the ends with both hands, blocked the sword above his own head.

Had the sword not met the wood obliquely, Gonnosuke's weapon would doubtless have been split in two. In shifting, he had thrust his left elbow forward and lifted his right elbow, with the intent of striking Musashi in the solar plexus, but at what should have been the moment of impact, the end of the staff was still a fraction of an inch from Musashi's body.

With sword and staff crossed above Gonnosuke's head, neither could advance or retreat. Both knew that a false move meant sudden death. Though the position was analogous to a sword-guard-to-sword-guard impasse, Musashi was aware of the important differences between sword and staff. A staff ostensibly had no guard, no blade, no hilt, no point. But in the hands of an expert like Gonnosuke, any part of the four-foot weapon could be blade, point or hilt. Thus the staff was far more versatile than the sword and could even be used as a short lance.

Unable to predict Gonnosuke's reaction, Musashi could not withdraw his weapon. Gonnosuke, on the other hand, was in an even more perilous position: his weapon was playing the passive role of blocking Musashi's blade. If he allowed his spirit to waver for so much as an instant, the sword would split open his head.

Gonnosuke's face paled, he bit his lower lip, and oily sweat glistened around the upturned corners of his eyes. As the crossed weapons began to waver, his breathing became heavier.

"Gonnosuke!" cried his mother, her face more pallid than her son's. She raised her torso and slapped her hip. "Your hip's too high!" she shouted, then fell forward. Her senses seemed to have left her; her voice had sounded as though she were spitting blood.

It had appeared that sword and staff would remain locked until the fighters turned to stone. At the sound of the old woman's cry, they came apart with a force more frightening than that of their coming together.

Musashi, slamming his heels into the ground, leaped backward a full seven feet. The interval was spanned in a flash by Gonnosuke and the length of his staff. Musashi barely managed to jump aside.

Thwarted in this do-or-die attack, Gonnosuke stumbled forward off balance, exposing his back. Musashi moved with the speed of a peregrine falcon, and a thin flash of light connected with the dorsal muscles of his adversary, who, with the bleat of a terrified calf, stumbled, and fell face down on the ground. Musashi sat down with a thud on the grass, holding his hand to his stomach.

"I give up!" he shouted.

No sound came from Gonnosuke. His mother, too stunned to speak, stared blankly at his prostrate form.

"I used the ridge of the sword," said Musashi, turning to her. Since she did not seem to comprehend, he said, "Get him some water. He's not badly hurt."

"What?" she cried in disbelief. Seeing there was no blood on her son's body, she staggered to his side and threw her arms around him. She called his name, brought him water, then shook him until he came to his senses.

Gonnosuke gazed vacantly at Musashi for a few minutes, then walked over to him and bowed his forehead to the ground. "I'm sorry," he said simply. "You're too good for me."

Musashi, seemingly awakening from a trance, grasped his hand and said, "Why do you say that? You didn't lose; I did." He opened the front of his kimono. "Look at this." He pointed to a red spot where the staff had struck him. "Only a little more and I'd have been killed." There was a tremor of shock in his voice, for the truth was he had not yet figured out when or how he had suffered the wound.

Gonnosuke and his mother stared at the red mark but said nothing.

Pulling his kimono together, Musashi asked the old woman why she had cautioned her son about his hips. Had she observed something faulty or dangerous in his stance?