Musashi: Bushido Code (98 page)

Hardly had he finished speaking when a crowd of children came running helter-skelter toward them.

"What're you doing here?" shouted the priest sternly. "If you want to play, go down by the river. You mustn't run wild in the temple grounds."

But the children swept on like a school of minnows until they reached the veranda.

"Come quick," cried one. "It's awful!"

"There's a samurai down there. He's fighting."

"One man against four."

"Real swords!"

"Praise to Buddha, not again!" lamented the priest as he hurriedly slipped on his sandals. Before running off, he took a moment to explain. "Forgive me. I'll have to leave you for a while. The riverbank is a favorite place for fights. Every time I turn around, somebody's down there cutting people to pieces or beating them to a pulp. Then men from the magistrate's office come to me for a written report. I'll have to go see what it is this time."

"A fight?" chorused Yajibei and his men, and off they raced. Osugi followed but was so much slower on her feet that by the time she got there the fight was over. The children and some onlookers from a nearby fishing village all stood around in silence, swallowing hard and looking pale.

At first Osugi thought the silence strange, but then she, too, caught her breath, and her eyes opened wide. Across the ground flitted the shadow of a swallow. Walking toward them was a young, smug-faced samurai clad in a purplish-red warrior's cloak. Whether or not he noticed the spectators, he paid them no heed.

Osugi's gaze shifted to four bodies lying in a tangle some twenty paces behind the samurai.

The victor paused. As he did so, a low gasp went up from several lips, for one of the vanquished had moved. Struggling to his feet, he cried, "Wait! You can't run away."

The samurai assumed a waiting stance while the wounded man ran forward, gasping, "This ... fight's ... not over yet."

When he leapt weakly to the attack, the samurai retreated a step, allowing the man to stumble forward. Then he struck. The man's head split in two. "Now is it over?" he shouted viciously.

No one had even seen the Drying Pole drawn.

Having wiped off his blade, he stooped to wash his hands in the river. Though the villagers were accustomed to fights, they were astonished at the samurai's sangfroid. The last man's death had been not only instantaneous but inhumanly cruel. Not a word was uttered.

The samurai stood up and stretched. "It's just like the Iwakuni River," he said. "Reminds me of home." For a few moments he gazed idly at the wide stream and a flock of white-bellied swallows swooping and skimming the water. Then he turned and walked rapidly downstream.

He made straight for Yajibei's boat, but as he began untying it, Jūrō and Koroku came running out of the forest.

"Wait! What do you think you're doing?" shouted Jūrō, who was now close enough to see the blood on the samurai's
hakama
and sandal thongs but took no notice of it.

Dropping the rope, the samurai grinned and asked, "Can't I use the boat?" "Of course not," snapped Jūrō.

"Suppose I paid to use it?"

"Don't talk nonsense." The voice brusquely refusing the samurai's request was Jūrō's, but in a sense, it was the whole brash new city of Edo speaking fearlessly through his mouth.

The samurai did not apologize, but neither did he resort to force. He turned and walked off without another word.

"Kojirō! Kojirō! Wait!" Osugi called at the top of her lungs.

When Kojirō saw who it was, the grimness vanished from his face and he broke into a friendly smile. "Why, what are you doing here? I've been wondering what happened to you."

"I'm here to pay my respects to Kanzeon. I came with Hangawara Yajibei and these two young men. Yajibei's letting me stay at his house in Bakurōchō."

"When was it I saw you last? Let's see—Mount Hiei. You said then you were going to Edo, so I thought I might run into you. I hardly expected it to be here." He glanced at Jūrō and Koroku, who were in a state of shock. "You mean those two there?"

"Oh, they're just a couple of ruffians, but their boss is a very fine man."

Yajibei was just as thunderstruck as everybody else to see his guest chatting amiably with the awesome samurai. He was on the spot in no time, bowing to Kojirō and saying, "I'm afraid my boys spoke very rudely to you, sir. I hope you'll forgive them. We're just ready to leave. Perhaps you'd like to ride downstream with us."

Shavings

Like most people thrown together by circumstance, who ordinarily have little or nothing in common, the samurai and his host soon found mutual ground. The supply of sake was plentiful, the fish fresh, and Osugi and Kojirō had an odd spiritual kinship that kept the atmosphere from getting stickily formal. It was with genuine concern that she inquired about his career as a
shugyōsha
and he about her progress in achieving her "great ambition."

When she told him she'd had no word of Musashi's whereabouts for a long time, Kojirō offered a ray of hope. "I heard a rumor that he visited two or three prominent warriors last fall and winter. I have a hunch he's still in Edo."

Yajibei wasn't so sure, of course, and told Kojirō that his men had learned absolutely nothing. After they had discussed Osugi's predicament from every angle, Yajibei said, "I hope we can count on your continued friendship."

Kojirō responded in the same vein and made rather a display of rinsing out his cup and offering it not only to Yajibei but to his two minions, for each of whom he poured a drink.

Osugi was positively exhilarated. "They say," she observed gravely, "that good is to be found wherever one looks. Even so, I'm exceptionally lucky! To think that I have two strong men like you on my side! I'm sure the great Kanzeon is looking after me." She made no attempt to conceal her sniffling or the tears that came to her eyes.

Not wanting the conversation to get maudlin, Yajibei said, "Tell me, Kojirō, who were the four men you cut down back there?"

This seemed to be the opportunity Kojirō had been waiting for, for his agile tongue set to work without delay. "Oh, them!" he began with a nonchalant laugh. "Just some rōnin from Obata's school. I went there five or six times to discuss military matters with Obata, and those fellows kept butting in with impertinent remarks. They even had the nerve to spout off on the subject of swordsmanship, so I told them that if they'd come to the banks of the Sumida, I'd give them a lesson in the secrets of the Ganryū Style, along with a demonstration of the Drying Pole's cutting edge. I let them know I didn't care how many of them came.

"When I got there, there were five of them, but the minute I took a stance, one turned tail and ran. I must say, Edo has no shortage of men who talk better than they fight." He laughed again, this time boisterously.

"Obata?"

"You don't know him? Obata Kagenori. He comes from the lineage of Obata Nichijō, who served the Takeda family of Kai. Ieyasu took him on, and now he's a lecturer in military science to the shōgun, Hidetada. He also has his own school."

"Oh, yes, I remember now." Yajibei was surprised and impressed by Kojirō's apparent familiarity with such a celebrated person. "The young man still has his forelock," he marveled to himself, "but he must be somebody if he associates with samurai of that rank." The carpenter boss was, after all, a simple soul, and the quality he most admired in his fellow man was clearly brute strength. His admiration for Kojirō intensified.

Leaning toward the samurai, he said, "Let me make you a proposition. I've always got forty or fifty young louts lying around my house. How would it be if I built a dōjō for you and asked you to train them?"

"Well, I wouldn't mind giving them lessons, but you must understand that so many daimyō are tugging at my sleeve with offers—two, three thousand bushels—that I don't know what to do. Frankly, I wouldn't seriously consider going into anyone's service for less than five thousand. Also, I'm rather obligated, just for the sake of courtesy, to stay where I'm living now. Still, I've no objection to coming to your place."

With a low bow, Yajibei said, "I'd greatly appreciate that."

Osugi chimed in, "We'll be expecting you."

Jūrō and Koroku, far too naive to recognize the condescension and self-serving propaganda lacing Kojirō's speech, were bowled over by the great man's largesse.

When the boat rounded the turn into the Kyōbashi moat, Kojirō said, "I'll be getting off here." He then leapt onto the bank and in a matter of seconds was lost in the dust hovering over the street.

"Very impressive young man," said Yajibei, still under the spell.

"Yes," Osugi agreed with conviction. "He's a real warrior. I'm sure plenty of daimyō would pay him a handsome stipend." After a moment's pause, she added wistfully, "If only Matahachi were like that."

About five days later, Kojirō breezed into Yajibei's establishment and was ushered into the guest room. There, the forty or fifty henchmen on hand paid their respects, one by one. Kojirō, delighted, remarked to Yajibei that he seemed to lead a very interesting life.

Pursuing his earlier idea, Yajibei said, "As I told you, I'd like to build a dōjō. Would you care to take a look at the property?"

The field in back of the house measured nearly two acres. Freshly dyed cloth hung in one corner, but Yajibei assured Kojirō the dyer he had rented the plot to could easily be evicted.

"You don't really need a dōjō," observed Kojirō. "The area's not open to the street; no one's likely to intrude."

"Whatever you say, but what about rainy days?"

"I won't come if the weather's bad. I should warn you, though: the practice sessions will be rougher than the ones held by the Yagyū or other schools around town. If your men aren't careful, they might wind up crippled, or worse. You'd better make that clear to them."

"There'll be no misunderstanding about that. Feel free to conduct classes as you see fit."

They agreed on having lessons three times a month, on the third, the thirteenth and the twenty-third, weather permitting.

Kojirō's appearances in Bakurōchō were a source of endless gossip. One neighbor was heard to say, "Now they've got a show-off over there worse than all the others put together." His boyish forelock also came in for considerable comment, the general opinion being that since he must be in his early twenties, it was high time he conformed to the samurai practice of shaving his pate. But only those inside the Hangawara household were treated to the sight of Kojirō's brightly embroidered underrobe, which they got to see every time he bared his shoulder to give his arm free play.

Kojirō's demeanor was quite what might be expected. Though this was practice and many of his students were inexperienced, he gave no quarter. By the third session, the casualties already included one man permanently deformed, plus four or five suffering from lesser injuries. The wounded were not far off; their moans could be heard coming from the back of the house.

"Next!" shouted Kojirō, brandishing a long sword made of loquat wood. At the beginning he had told them that a blow struck with a loquat sword "will rot your flesh to the bone."

"Ready to quit? If you're not, come forward. If you are, I'm going home," he taunted contemptuously.

Out of pure chagrin, one man said, "All right, I'll give it a try." He disengaged himself from the group, walked toward Kojirō, then leaned over to pick up a wooden sword. With a sharp crack, Kojirō flattened him.

"That," he declared, "is a lesson in why not to leave yourself open. It's the worst thing you can do." With obvious self-satisfaction, he looked around at the faces of the others, thirty to forty in number, most of them all but visibly trembling.

The latest victim was carried to the well, where water was poured over him. He did not come to.

"Poor guy's done for."

"You mean ... he's dead?"

"He's not breathing."

Others ran up to stare at their slain comrade. Some were angry, some resigned, but Kojirō didn't give the corpse a second glance.

"If something like this frightens you," he said menacingly, "you'd better forget about the sword. When I think that any one of you would be itching to fight if somebody on the street called you a thug or a braggart ..." He didn't finish the sentence, but as he walked across the field in his leather socks, he continued his lecture. "Give the matter some thought, my fine hoodlums. You're ready to draw the minute a stranger steps on your toes or brushes against your scabbard, but you're tied up in knots when the time comes for a real bout. You'll throw your lives away cheerfully over a woman or your own petty pride, but you haven't the guts to sacrifice yourself in a worthy cause. You're emotional, you're moved only by vanity. That's not enough, nowhere near enough."

Throwing his chest out, he concluded, "The truth is simple. The only real bravery, the only genuine self-confidence, comes from training and self-discipline. I dare any one of you: stand up and fight me like a man."

One student, hoping to make him eat his words, attacked from behind. Kojirō bent double, almost touching the ground, and the assailant flew over his head and landed in front of him. The next instant, there was the loud crack of Kojirō's loquat sword against the man's hipbone.

"That'll be all for today," he said, tossing the sword aside and going to the well to wash his hands. The corpse was lying in a flaccid heap beside the sink. Kojirō dipped his hands in the water and splashed some on his face without a word of sympathy.

Slipping his arm back into his sleeve, he said, "I hear a lot of people go to this place called Yoshiwara. You men must know the district pretty well. Wouldn't you like to show me around?" Bluntly announcing that he wanted to have a good time or go drinking was a habit of Kojirō's, but it was a matter of conjecture whether he was being deliberately impudent or disarmingly candid.

Yajibei chose the more charitable interpretation. "Haven't you been to Yoshiwara yet?" he asked with surprise. "We'll have to do something about that. I'd go with you myself, but, well, I have to be here this evening for the wake and so on."

He singled out Jūrō and Koroku and gave them some money. Also a warning. "Remember, you two—I'm not sending you out to play around. You're only going along to take care of your teacher and see that he has a good time."

Kojirō, a few steps in front of the other two, soon found he had trouble staying on the road, for at night most of Edo was pitch black, to an extent unimaginable in cities like Kyoto, Nara and Osaka.

"This road's terrible," he said. "We should have brought a lantern."

"People'd laugh if you went around the licensed quarter carrying a lantern," said Jūrō. "Watch out, sir. That pile of dirt you're on came out of the new moat. You'd better come down before you fall in."

Presently the water in the moat took on a reddish cast, as did the sky beyond the Sumida River. A late spring moon hung like a flat white cake above the roofs of Yoshiwara.

"That's it over there, across the bridge," said Jūrō. "Shall I lend you a hand towel?"

"What for?"

"To hide your face a little—like this." Jūrō and Koroku both drew red cloths from their obi and tied them kerchief-fashion over their heads. Kojirō followed suit, using a piece of russet silk crepe.

"That's the way," said Jūrō. "Stylish like."

"Looks very good on you."

Kojirō and his guides fell in with the bandannaed throng sauntering from house to house. Like Yanagimachi in Kyoto, Yoshiwara was brightly lit. The entrances to the houses were gaily decorated with curtains of red or pale yellow; some had bells at the bottom to let the girls know when customers entered.

After they had been in and out of two or three houses, Jūrō said leeringly to Kojirō, "There's no use trying to hide it, sir."

"Hide what?"

"You said you'd never been here before, but a girl in the last house recognized you. The minute we went in, she gave a little cry and hid behind a screen. Your secret's out, sir."

"I've never been here before. Who're you talking about?"

"Don't play innocent, sir. Let's go back. I'll show you."

They reentered the house, whose curtain bore a crest shaped like a bitter buckbean leaf, split in three. "Sumiya" was written in rather small characters to the left.

The house's heavy beams and stately corridors were reminiscent of Kyoto temple architecture, but the garish newness nullified the attempt to create an aura of tradition and dignity. Kojirō strongly suspected that swamp plants still thrived beneath the floor.

The large parlor they were shown to upstairs had not been straightened up after the last customers. Both table and floor were strewn with bits of food, tissue paper, toothpicks and whatnot. The maid who came to clean up performed her chore with all the finesse of a day laborer.

When Onao arrived to take their orders, she made a point of letting them know how busy she was. She claimed that she hardly had time to sleep and another three years of this hectic pace would put her in her grave. The better houses of Kyoto contrived to maintain the fiction that their raison d'être was to entertain and please their customers. Here the aim was obviously to relieve men of their money as quickly as possible.

"So this is Edo's pleasure quarter," sniffed Kojirō, with a critical glance at the knotholes in the ceiling. "Pretty shoddy, I'd say."

"Oh, this is only temporary," Onao protested. "The building we're putting up now will be finer than anything you'd see in Kyoto or Fushimi." She stared at Kojirō a moment. "You know, sir, I've seen you somewhere before. Ah, yes! It was last year on the Kōshū highroad."

Kojirō had forgotten the chance meeting, but reminded of it, he said with a spark of interest, "Why, yes; I guess our fates must be entwined."

"I should say they are," Jūrō said, laughing, "if there's a girl here who remembers you." While teasing Kojirō about his past, he described the girl's face and clothing and asked Onao to go find her.

"I know the one you mean," said Onao, and went to fetch her.

When some time had passed and she still hadn't come back, Jūrō and Koroku went out in the hall and clapped their hands to summon her. They had to clap several more times before she finally reappeared.

"She's not here, the one you asked for," said Onao.

"She was here only a few minutes ago."

"It's strange, just as I was saying to the master. We were at Kobotoke Pass and that samurai you're with came walking along the road, and she went off by herself that time too."