Heart of the Ronin (18 page)

* * *

The young man awoke to a cock crowing and a splitting pain in his head. Opening his eyes was an act of sheer will. His eyelids felt as if he had been asleep for a year. His mouth was as dry as a bed of fallen pine needles, and his entire body felt as weak as a sparrow hatchling. His blurred vision took in the dark, thatched ceiling of a house. He heard sounds of incomprehensible activity around him. Voices outside the house, movement inside, the laughter of children, the rhythmic beat of a hammer somewhere. A hunched human shape sat near him with its back turned. He licked his lips, and a dry rattle escaped his throat.

The person sitting nearby turned toward him and became a shaven-headed man dressed in simple linen robes. His face was broad and weathered, and he had many wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. He looked strange to the boy. Then the man smiled, and a look of kind concern shaped his features into a smile. He said something that the young man did not understand.

He moved toward the young man, bringing a bowl with him. He lifted the bowl to the young man’s lips and poured a trickle of cool water into his mouth. It was the sweetest thing he had ever tasted. He gulped at it.

The old man spoke again, and this time the young man thought he heard the words “. . . eyes . . . bright. . . .”

Another shape moved into view behind the man. A woman, her back hunched as if from a great weight, wearing simple clothes like the man, with her hair hidden by a scarf. Her face was lined and wrinkled like the man’s, and her eyes sparkled with curiosity.

The young man wondered what they would do with him now. Was he a prisoner? Somehow, he did not think so. But why had the villagers been so afraid of him?

The woman spoke, and the young man heard the words “. . . look like . . . Ainu . . . dangerous. . . .”

The old man spoke: “. . . don’t think so. His face . . . Ainu . . . wrong.”

The young man said, “Please, more water.” His voice was little more than a hoarse whisper.

The old man smiled. “. . . speaks!” Then he poured more water into the young man’s mouth.

The young man said, “I cannot understand you. You speak strangely.”

The old man listened, appearing to think about the young man’s words. Then he nodded as if he understood. He spoke slowly. “My. Name. Is. Takao. I am a priest in this village. I am sorry . . . frightened of you . . . not dangerous . . . to me. This is my wife, Kayo. We have tried to heal you. You have . . . since yesterday.” This time the young man understood.

He reached up to touch his head and felt it swathed in cloth. The cloth across his forehead was stiff and caked with dried blood.

“Be careful. Your skull was cracked. You must rest and heal a while longer.”

“Thank you for not killing me.”

Takao laughed, and his eyes sparkled. “No need to worry about that now. No one will harm you. . . .”

The young man allowed himself to slip into blackness again, where there was no pain in his head.
 

* * *

His periods of wakefulness grew longer each time. The priest and his wife fed him broth and rice porridge, and the next day he was able to stand without being toppled by dizziness. He was still afraid to go outside, however, for fear of another stone to the forehead.

The old priest tried to put him at ease, telling him that he was so heavily armed and looked so fierce that the villagers thought he was a robber or an Ainu raider. The young man understood. He might have done the same thing in their place.

“What is your name, boy?” the priest asked him one day.

“I don’t have a name.”

Takao’s eyes widened in surprise. “No name? Have you no parents?”

“I have no parents.”

“An orphan? Living in the wilderness? That is terrible!”

The young man did not know what to say.

“Would you like to have a name?”

He nodded.

“What kind of name would you like?”

“I don’t know any names. Perhaps I could be called ‘Bear,’ or ‘Wolf.’
 
”

Takao laughed, and the lines around his eyes seemed to grow deeper. “Kuma? Okami? Do you
want
everyone to be terrified of you?”

“No.”

“Then those names just will not do. They are too fierce. Your name should be strong but not fierce.” The old man thought for a moment, rubbing his chin. “May I give you a name?”

“Yes, please do.” The young man nodded earnestly.

“Then you will be called ‘Ken’ishi.’ You came to us with little more than a sword, and you have been trained to use it. ‘Ken.’ And a stone brought you to my house. ‘Ishi.’ You shall be called ‘Ken’ishi.’
 
”

The young man repeated it to himself a few times, trying to get the feel of it on his tongue. “Is it a good name?” Ken’ishi asked.

“Yes, it is a fine name!” The old man’s smile widened, and his gaze seemed to look into the distance.

“Thank you, Takao. I am Ken’ishi.”

“I am pleased to meet you for the first time, Ken’ishi!” Takao said, chuckling and bowing.

Ken’ishi smiled in return and bowed. “I am pleased to meet you, too.”

“Come, let’s go sit outside. There is a nice breeze.” Ken’ishi followed him and they sat down in the shade of the house. A pleasant cool breeze wafted over them.

Takao picked up a stick. “Here, watch this. I’ll show you how to write your name.” In the dirt, the old man drew two complicated-looking characters. “There. This is your name. ‘Ken.’
 
” He pointed to the first one. “This character can also be read as ‘Tsurugi,’ but I think ‘Ken’ sounds better, yes? Simplicity.”

Ken’ishi nodded.

Takao pointed to the second character. “And this one is ‘Ishi.’ Stone. Let me show you.” He put the stick in Ken’ishi’s hand, adjusted his grip. “Gently. Pretend it’s a brush.”

“What’s a brush?”

Takao paused, then said, “Never mind. Just hold it this way.” Then he took Ken’ishi’s hand in his own and guided him through the first character’s fifteen separate strokes, scratching the character into the dirt. They repeated this process a few times, and then Takao erased all the previous attempts with his hands. “Now, do it yourself.” Ken’ishi’s hand seemed to remember the order and direction of the strokes, and he repeated it flawlessly. Then they repeated the process with the much simpler second character.

This is my name, he thought. I am Ken’ishi.

“Good! Well done!” The old man chuckled.

Ken’ishi smiled, swelling with pride.

They sat in silence for a while. The young man thought about his new name, scratching it over and over into the earth. Ken’ishi.
Let the power begin here,
he thought.
Let my name draw its power from the symbols in the dirt.

Then Takao said, “How long have you lived in the wilderness, Ken’ishi?”

“For as long as I can remember.”

“Alone?”

Ken’ishi told him the story of how he had been raised by his teacher. The priest was surprised that a tengu had been so kind to raise a human child, and that one lived so close by. Tengu were uncommon, but not unheard of in these parts, and were given a wide berth to avoid any instances of unpleasantness. There were old stories of conflict between men and tengu. The tengu race’s dislike for humans, along with their sometimes-foul temper, was well known. Takao said it explained the young man’s lack of etiquette and manners, as well as his strange dialect. He told Ken’ishi that he could stay here as long as he liked. As soon as he was healed, Takao would teach him many things. Takao questioned him about his family, but he could provide no answers.

Takao explained that the villagers thought Ken’ishi to be one of the Ainu people, a strange race who had been driven out in ancient times. The Ainu now lived in lands far away, but they sometimes raided villages in the north in attempts to reclaim their ancestral territory. They were ancient enemies, and the hardy villagers were always on the lookout for them.

Before long, Ken’ishi felt hale and strong, and he began to work around Takao’s house and the small shrine where the priest practiced his rites to the kami of the earth and sky and water, the guardian kami of the village, the spirits of the mountains and forest. It seemed like a lot of effort to please such capricious entities as the kami, but Ken’ishi understood it. He had learned well how to listen to the voices of the spirits. The priest had much responsibility to keep the village safe and prosperous, and if the kami were displeased, the village would suffer.

Every day, Takao made him sit down and learn new characters. Characters for numbers and things and gods. It was slow and difficult, and Ken’ishi often wondered about the purpose of writing, but he was glad that he could write his name. And something about it felt magical, as if the strokes of the characters gave order to unharnessed power.
 

He liked living in Takao and Kayo’s house. It was warm and comfortable, and he had food to eat. He tried to allay the villagers’ distrust and fear by behaving well, and it seemed that as the summer moved toward autumn, they began to accept him, and to become more at ease in his presence. But he could hear whisperings of the kami in the back of his mind, telling him that he could not stay here forever. The villagers might tolerate him, but they would never accept him.

He acquainted himself with the other young men in the village. He sensed the mutual distrust. They were afraid of him, because they had no weapons like his. And he remembered the face of the young man who had felled him with a stone. That young man’s name was Ryoichi, and he was the leader of the young men. Ryoichi considered himself one of the protectors of the village, and to him Ken’ishi was a threat that must be contained. Some of the younger boys were friendly and tried to talk to him, but they eventually stopped coming to see him, and when Ken’ishi saw them in the presence of Ryoichi, they looked away sheepishly. This made Ken’ishi angry. He wanted to fight Ryoichi, to defeat the boy who had become his enemy, but he knew that he did not dare harm anyone. That would only make things worse.

He could not remember ever seeing a girl before he came to the village, but recognized them by the things that his teacher had said. He often watched them, trying to study how their bodies and faces were different from his. Sometimes their beauty entranced him. Like the young men, the young women were afraid of him too. He could sense their eyes on him when he was not looking, but when he smiled at them they ran away. Sometimes when they ran away from him, they giggled; sometimes their eyes were wide with fear. All except for one.

The first time he saw her, he was chopping wood beside Takao’s house in the lingering light just after sunset. He happened to glance a slim, pale shape moving between some houses on the adjacent street higher up the mountain slope. He looked up and saw this same beautiful young woman, with lustrous hair and sharp eyes. She appraised him with an expression of curiosity and amusement before she slipped away out of sight. He saw her the second time a few days later, at sunset, when he was carrying water to the house. He spied her down the street ahead of him. She looked over her shoulder and flashed him a look that said, “Follow me if you think you can!” But he could not. He could not drop the water buckets, so he tried to trot after her without spilling the water. He thought he heard her laugh as she disappeared around a house at the end of the street. His curiosity was aroused, and he decided that the next day he would look for her.

He could not find her the next day, or the day after that, and it troubled him, because he wanted to see her face again. She was so beautiful. One day he decided that he would ask Takao about her that evening after supper. As he was returning from gathering wood in the forest, just before sunset, his arms cradling a large bundle of branches, he was astonished to see her on the path ahead of him, sitting on a rock as if she had been waiting for him.

Her voice was light and musical. “You are slow today, Ken’ishi.” She smiled.

He stammered, “How do you know my name?”

“Oh, come now, don’t be silly. Everyone knows who you are!”

He nodded, conceding that he was well known to everyone in the village, even though he knew almost no one. “But I don’t know who you are.”

“I am Haru. Can you come and talk to me for a while?”

“I’m sorry. I would like to,” he said, “but I have to take this wood back.”

Her lower lip popped out into a lovely pout. Ken’ishi blinked and stared. “That is too bad,” she said. “I have been so looking forward to talking to you.”

“I have been looking for you, too. ‘Haru’ is a nice name. ‘Spring.’ Can I talk to you tomorrow?”

“That would be quite nice.”

“During the day?”

“No, I can’t during the day. I keep my father’s house during the day, and he would not allow me to leave. In the evening, I can sometimes get out for a while. We can meet here tomorrow?”

“Yes!”

“Good, but it must be a secret. Tell no one! My father would beat me if he found out.”

“I will tell no one. Where do you live? Why can I never find you in the village?”

“I live in the forest, in my father’s house. He is a woodsman. I am sorry, but I must go now, and so should you. You must not keep the good priest waiting.”

He nodded. She stepped aside, and as he passed her, he caught her scent. He stopped, astonished. He had never smelled anything like it before. A heady mixture of spring flowers, pine needles, and a warm, earthy, musky scent he could not identify. Her smell was in his nostrils all the way home, even through dinner and into bed. He was hardly aware of the presence of his foster parents while he ate. Her smell was fresh in his mind when he awoke the next morning, and the image of her face in his mind was clear. He could hardly wait for dusk. All day long, he wanted to be with her, to touch her, to feel her, and he imagined what it would be like.

That afternoon, he told Takao that he was going into the woods to practice archery. He took his bow and arrows and practiced with them until the appointed time grew near. When he went to their meeting place and she saw him carrying his weapons, a look of terror crossed her face, and she recoiled away from him.