Musashi: Bushido Code (17 page)

"How dare you patronize me! I can walk on this road with my eyes closed. Be careful yourself, you old fool."

Just then a voice greeted them from behind. "You two are pretty spry, aren't you?"

They turned to see the owner of the teahouse on horseback.

"Oh, yes; we just had a rest at your place, thank you. And where are you off to?"

"Tatsuno."

"At this hour?"

"There's no doctor between here and there. Even on horseback, it'll take me at least till midnight."

"Is it your wife who's sick?"

"Oh, no." His brows knitted. "If it were my wife, or one of the children, I wouldn't mind. But it's a lot of trouble to go to for a stranger, someone who just stopped in to take a rest."

"Oh," said Uncle Gon, "is it the girl in your back room? I happened to glance in and see her."

Osugi's brows now knitted as well.

"Yes," the shopkeeper said. "While she was resting, she started shivering, so I offered her the back room to lie down in. I felt I had to do something. Well, she didn't get any better. In fact, she seems much worse. She's burning up with fever. Looks pretty bad."

Osugi stopped in her tracks. "Is the girl about sixteen and very slender?" "Yes, about sixteen, I'd say. Says she comes from Miyamoto."

Osugi, winking at Gonroku, began poking around in her obi. A look of distress came over her face as she exclaimed, "Oh, I've left them back at the teahouse!"

"Left what?"

"My prayer beads. I remember now—I put them down on a stool."

"Oh, that's too bad," said the shopkeeper, turning his horse around. "I'll go back for them."

"Oh, no! You've got to fetch the doctor. That sick girl's more important than my beads. We'll just go back and pick them up ourselves."

Uncle Gon was already on his way, striding rapidly back up the hill. As soon as Osugi disposed of the solicitous teahouse owner, she hurried to catch up. Before long they were both puffing and panting. Neither spoke.

It had to be Otsū!

Otsū had never really shaken off the fever she caught the night they dragged her in out of the storm. Somehow she forgot about feeling sick during the few hours she was with Takezō, but after he left her she'd walked only a short way before beginning to give in to pain and fatigue. By the time she got to the teahouse, she felt miserable.

She did not know how long she had been lying in the back room, deliriously begging for water time and time again. Before leaving, the shopkeeper had looked in on her and urged her to try to stick it out. Moments later she had forgotten he'd ever spoken to her.

Her mouth was parched. She felt as if she had a mouthful of thorns. "Master, water, please," she called out feebly. Hearing no reply, she raised herself on her elbows and craned her neck toward the water basin just outside the door. Slowly she managed to crawl to it, but as she put her hand on the bamboo dipper at the side, she heard a rain shutter fall to the ground somewhere behind her. The teahouse was little more than a mountain hut to begin with, and there was nothing to prevent anyone from simply lifting out any or all of the loosely fitted shutters.

Osugi and Uncle Gon stumbled in through the opening.

"I can't see a thing," complained the old woman in what she thought was a whisper.

"Wait a minute," Gon replied, heading toward the hearth room, where he stirred up the embers and threw on some wood to get a bit of light.

"She's not in here, Granny!"

"She must be! She can't have gotten away!" Almost immediately, Osugi noticed that the door in the back room was ajar.

"Look, out there!" she shouted.

Otsū, who was standing just outside, threw the dipperful of water through the narrow opening into the old woman's face and sped downhill like a bird in the wind, sleeves and skirt trailing behind her.

Osugi ran outside and spat out an imprecation.

"Gon, Gon. Do something, do something!"

"Did she get away?"

"Of course she did! We certainly gave her enough warning, making all that noise. You would have to drop the shutter!" The old woman's face contorted with rage. "Can't you do something?"

Uncle Gon directed his attention to the deer-like form flying in the distance. He raised his arm and pointed. "That's her, right? Don't worry, she doesn't have much of a head start. She's sick and anyway she only has the legs of a girl. I'll catch up with her in no time." He tucked his chin in and broke into a run. Osugi followed close behind.

"Uncle Gon," she cried, "you can use your sword on her, but don't cut off her head until after I've had a chance to give her a piece of my mind."

Uncle Gon suddenly let out a scream of dismay and fell to his hands and knees.

"What's the matter?" cried Osugi, coming up behind him.

"Look down." Osugi did. Directly in front of them was a steep drop into a bamboo-covered ravine.

"She dived into that?"

"Yes. I don't think it's very deep, but it's too dark to tell. I'll have to go back to the teahouse and get a torch."

As he knelt staring into the ravine, Osugi cried, "What are you waiting for, you dolt?" and gave him a violent shove. There was the sound of feet trying to gain a footing, scrambling desperately before coming to a stop at the bottom of the ravine.

"You old witch!" shouted Uncle Gon angrily. "Now just get on down here yourself! See how you like it!"

Takezō, arms folded, sat atop a large boulder and stared across the valley at the Hinagura stockade. Under one of those roofs, he reflected, his sister was imprisoned. But he'd sat there from dawn to dusk the previous day and all day today, unable to devise a plan to get her out. He intended to sit until he did.

His thinking had progressed to the point where he was confident he could outmaneuver the fifty or a hundred soldiers guarding the stockade, but he continued to ponder the lay of the land. He had to get not only in but out. It was not encouraging: behind the stockade was a deep gorge, and at the front the road into the stockade was well protected by a double gate. To make matters worse, the two of them would be forced to flee across a flat plateau, which offered not a single tree to hide behind; on a cloudless day such as this, a better target would be hard to find.

The situation thus called for a night assault, but he'd observed that the gates were closed and locked before sunset. Any attempt to jimmy them open would doubtless set off a cacophonous alarm of wooden clappers. There seemed no foolproof way to approach the fortress.

"There's no way," Takezō thought sadly. "Even if I just took a long shot, risked my life and hers, it wouldn't work." He felt humiliated and helpless. "How," he asked himself, "did I get to be such a coward? A week ago I wouldn't have even thought about the chances of getting out alive."

For another half day his arms remained folded over his breast as if locked. He feared something he couldn't define and hesitated getting any closer to the stockade. Time and time again he upbraided himself. "I've lost my nerve. I never used to be this way. Maybe staring death in the face makes cowards out of everyone."

He shook his head. No, it wasn't that, not cowardice.

He had simply learned his lesson, the one Takuan had taken so much trouble to teach, and could now see things more clearly. He felt a new calm, a sense of peace. It seemed to flow in his breast like a gentle river. Being brave was very different from being ferocious; he saw that now. He didn't feel like an animal, he felt like a man, a courageous man who's outgrown his adolescent recklessness. The life that had been given to him was something to be treasured and cherished, polished and perfected.

He stared at the lovely clear sky, whose color alone seemed a miracle. Still, he could not leave his sister stranded, even if it meant violating, one last time, the precious self-knowledge he'd so recently and painfully acquired.

A plan began to take shape. "After nightfall, I'll cross the valley and climb the cliff on the other side. The natural barrier may be a blessing in disguise; there's no gate at the back, and it doesn't seem heavily guarded."

He had hardly arrived at this decision when an arrow whizzed toward him and thudded into the ground inches from his toes. Across the valley, he saw a crowd of people milling about just inside the stockade. Obviously they'd spotted him. Almost immediately they dispersed. He surmised it had been a test shot, to see how he'd react, and deliberately remained motionless upon his perch.

Before long, the light of the evening sun began to fade behind the peaks of the western mountains. Just before darkness dropped, he arose and picked up a rock. He had spotted his dinner flying in the air over his head. He downed the bird on the first try, tore it apart and sank his teeth into the warm flesh.

While he ate, twenty-odd soldiers moved noisily into position and surrounded him. Once in place, they let out a battle cry, one man shouting, "It's Takezō! Takezō from Miyamoto!"

"He's dangerous! Don't underestimate him!" someone else warned.

Looking up from his feast of raw fowl, Takezō trained a murderous eye on his would-be captors. It was the same look animals flash when disturbed in the midst of a meal.

"Y-a-a-h-h!" he yelled, seizing a huge rock and hurling it at the perimeter of this human wall. The rock turned red with blood, and in no time he was over it and away, running straight toward the stockade gate.

The men were agape.

"What's he doing?"

"Where's the fool going?"

"He's out of his mind!"

He flew like a crazed dragonfly, with the war-whooping soldiers in full chase. By the time they reached the outer gate, however, he'd already leapt over it. But now he was between the gates, in what was in fact a cage. Takezō's eyes took in none of this. He could see neither the pursuing soldiers nor the fence, nor the guards inside the second gate. He wasn't even conscious of knocking out, with a single blow, the sentinel who tried to jump him. With almost superhuman strength, he wrenched at a post of the inner gate, shaking it furiously till he was able to pull it out of the ground. Then he turned on his pursuers. He didn't know their number; all he knew was that something big and black was attacking him. Taking aim as best he could, he struck at the amorphous mass with the gatepost. A good number of lances and swords broke, flew into the air and fell useless to the ground.

"Ogin!" cried Takezō, running toward the rear of the stockade. "Ogin, it's me—Takezō!"

He glared at the buildings with fiery eyes, calling out repeatedly to his sister. "Has it all been a trick?" he wondered in panic. One by one he began battering down doors with the gatepost. The guards' chickens, squawking for dear life, flew in every direction.

"Ogin!"

When he failed to locate her, his hoarse cries became nearly unintelligible.

In the shadows of one of the small, dirty cells he saw a man trying to sneak away.

"Halt!" he shouted, throwing the bloodstained gatepost at the weasel-like creature's feet. When Takezō leaped at him, he began to cry shamelessly. Takezō slapped him sharply on the cheek. "Where's my sister?" he roared. "What have they done to her? Tell me where she is or I'll beat you to death!"

"She . . . she's not here. Day before yesterday they took her away. Orders from the castle."

"Where, you stupid bastard, where?"

"Himeji."

"Himeji?"

"Y-y-yes."

"If you're lying, I'll . . ." Takezō grabbed the sniveling mass by its hair. "It's true—true. I swear!"

"It better be, or I'll come back just for you!"

The soldiers were closing in again, and Takezō lifted the man and hurled him at them. Then he disappeared into the shadows of the dingy cells. Half a dozen arrows flew by him, one sticking like a giant sewing needle in the skirt of his kimono. Takezō bit his thumbnail and watched the arrows speed by, then suddenly dashed for the fence and was over it in a flash.

Behind him there was a loud explosion. The echo of the gunshot roared across the valley.

Takezō sped down the gorge, and as he ran, fragments of Takuan's teachings were racing through his head: "Learn to fear that which is fearsome. . . . Brute strength is child's play, the mindless strength of beasts. . . . Have the strength of the true warrior . . . real courage. . . . Life is precious."

The Birth of Musashi

Takezō waited on the outskirts of the castle town of Himeji, sometimes keeping out of sight under Hanada Bridge but more often standing on the bridge unobtrusively surveying the passersby. When not in the immediate vicinity of the bridge, he would make short excursions around town, careful to keep his hat low and his face concealed, like a beggar's, behind a piece of straw matting.

It baffled him that Otsū had not yet appeared; only a week had gone by since she swore to wait there—not a hundred but a thousand days. Once Takezō had made a promise, he was loath to break it. But with every passing moment he grew more and more tempted to be on the move, though his promise to Otsū was not the only reason he made his way to Himeji. He also had to find out where they were keeping Ogin.

He was near the center of town one day when he heard a voice shouting his name. Footsteps came running after him. He looked up sharply, to see Takuan approaching, calling, "Takezō! Wait!"

Takezō was startled, and as usual in the presence of this monk, felt slightly humiliated. He had thought his disguise was foolproof and had been sure that no one, not even Takuan, would recognize him.

The monk grabbed him by the wrist. "Come with me," he commanded. The urgency in his voice was impossible to ignore. "And don't make any trouble. I've spent a lot of time looking for you."

Takezō followed meekly. He had no idea where they were going, but he once again found himself powerless to resist this particular man. He wondered why. He was free now, and for all he knew they were headed straight back to the dreaded tree in Miyamoto. Or perhaps into a castle dungeon. He had suspected they had his sister locked up somewhere in the castle's confines, but he hadn't a shred of evidence to back this up. He hoped he was right: if he, too, was taken there, at least they could die together. If they had to die, he could think of no one else he loved enough to share the final moments of precious life with.

Himeji Castle loomed before his eyes. He could see now why it was called the "White Crane Castle": the stately edifice stood upon huge stone ramparts, like a great and proud bird descended from the heavens. Takuan preceded him across the wide arcing bridge spanning the outer moat. A row of guards stood at attention before the riveted iron gate. The sunlight glancing off their drawn lances made Takezō, for a split second, hesitant to pass. Takuan, without even turning, sensed this and with a slightly impatient gesture urged him to keep moving. Passing under the gate turret, they approached the second gate, where the soldiers looked even more tense and alert, ready to fight at a moment's notice. This was the castle of a daimyō. It would take its inhabitants a while to relax and accept the fact that the country was successfully unified. Like many other castles of the time, it was far from accustomed to the luxury of peace.

Takuan summoned the captain of the guard. "I've brought him," he announced. Handing Takezō over, the monk advised the man to take good care of him as previously instructed, but added, "Be careful. He's a lion cub with fangs. He's far from tamed. If you tease him, he bites."

Takuan went through the second gate to the central compound, where the daimyō's mansion was located. Apparently he knew the way well; he needed neither a guide nor directions. He barely raised his head as he walked and not a soul interrupted his progress.

Heeding Takuan's instructions, the captain didn't lay a finger on his charge. He simply asked Takezō to follow him. Takezō silently obeyed. They soon arrived at a bathhouse, and the captain instructed him to go in and get cleaned up. At this point Takezō's spine stiffened, for he remembered all too well his last bath, at Osugi's house, and the trap from which he had narrowly escaped. He folded his arms and tried to think, stalling for time and inspecting the surroundings. It was all so peaceful—an island of tranquility where a daimyō could, when not plotting strategies, enjoy the luxuries of life. Soon a servant bearing a black cotton kimono and
hakama
arrived, bowing and saying politely, "I'll lay these here. You can put them on when you come out."

Takezō nearly wept. The outfit included not only a folding fan and some tissue paper, but a pair of long and short samurai swords. Everything was simple and inexpensive, but nothing was lacking. He was being treated like a human being again and wanted to lift the clean cotton to his face, rub it to his cheek and inhale its freshness. He turned and entered the bathhouse.

Ikeda Terumasa, lord of the castle, leaned on an armrest and gazed out into the garden. He was a short man, with a cleanly shaven head and dark pockmarks lining his face. Although not dressed in formal attire, his countenance was stern and dignified.

"Is that him?" he asked Takuan, pointing his folding fan.

"Yes, that's him," answered the monk with a deferential bow.

"He has a good face. You did well to save him."

"He owes his life to you, your lordship. Not me."

"That's not so, Takuan, and you know it. If I just had a handful of men like you under my command, no doubt a lot of useful people would be saved, and the world would be the better for it." The daimyō sighed. "My trouble is that all my men think their sole duty is to tie people up or behead them."

An hour later, Takezō was seated in the garden beyond the veranda, his head bowed and his hands resting flat on his knees in an attitude of respectful attentiveness.

"Your name is Shimmen Takezō, isn't it?" Lord Ikeda asked.

Takezō glanced up quickly to see the face of the famous man, then respectfully cast his eyes downward again.

"Yes, sir," he answered clearly.

"The House of Shimmen is a branch of the Akamatsu family, and Akamatsu Masanori, as you well know, was once lord of this castle."

Takezō's throat went dry. He was, for once, at a loss for words. Having always thought of himself as the black sheep of the Shimmen family, with no particular feelings of respect or awe for the daimyō, he was nonetheless filled with shame at having brought such complete dishonor on his ancestors and his family name. His face burned.

"What you have done is inexcusable," continued Terumasa in a sterner tone. "Yes, sir."

"And I am going to have to punish you for it." Turning to Takuan, he asked, "Is it true that my retainer, Aoki Tanzaemon, without my leave, promised you that if you captured this man, you could decide and mete out his punishment?"

"I think you can best find that out by asking Tanzaemon directly." "I've already questioned him."

"Then did you think I would lie to you?"

"Of course not. Tanzaemon has confessed, but I wanted your confirmation. Since he is my direct vassal, his oath to you constitutes one from me. Therefore, even though I am lord of this fief, I have lost my right to penalize Takezō as I see fit. Of course, I will not permit him to go unpunished, but it is up to you what form the punishment is to take."

"Good. That is exactly what I had in mind."

"Then I assume you have given it some thought. Well, what shall we do with him?"

"I think it would be best to place the prisoner in—what shall we say?—'straitened circumstances' for a while."

"And how do you propose to do that?"

"I believe you have somewhere in this castle a closed room, one long rumored to be haunted?"

"Yes, I do. The servants refused to enter it, and my retainers avoided it consistently, so it went unused. I now leave it as it is, since there is no reason to open it again."

"But don't you think it's beneath the dignity of one of the strongest warriors in the Tokugawa realm, you, Ikeda Terumasa, to have a room in your castle where a light never shines?"

"I never thought of it that way."

"Well, people think of things like that. It's a reflection on your authority and prestige. I say we should put a light there."

"Hmm."

"If you'll let me make use of that chamber, I'll keep Takezō there until I'm ready to pardon him. He's had enough of living in total darkness. You hear that, don't you, Takezō?"

There was not a peep from Takezō, but Terumasa began laughing and said, "Fine!"

It was obvious from their excellent rapport that Takuan had been telling Aoki Tanzaemon the truth that night at the temple. He and Terumasa, both followers of Zen, seemed to be on friendly, almost brotherly, terms.

"After you've taken him to his new quarters, why don't you join me in the teahouse?" Terumasa asked the monk as he rose to leave.

"Oh, are you planning to demonstrate once again how inept you are at the tea ceremony?"

"That's not even fair, Takuan. These days I've really started to get the knack of it. Come along later and I'll prove to you I'm no longer simply an uncouth soldier. I'll be waiting." With that, Terumasa retired to the inner part of the mansion. Despite his short stature—he was barely five feet tall—his presence seemed to fill the many-storied castle.

It was always pitch dark high in the donjon, where the haunted room was located. There was no calendar here: no spring, no fall, no sounds of everyday life. There was only one small lamp, lighting a pale and sallow-cheeked Takezō.

The topography section of Sun-tzu's
Art of War
lay open on the low table before him.

Sun-tzu said:

"Among topographical features,

There are those that are passable.

There are those that suspend.

There are those that confine.

There are those that are steep.

There are those that are distant."

Whenever he came to a passage that particularly appealed to him, like this one, he would read it aloud over and over, like a chant.

He who knows the art of the warrior is not confused in his movements. He acts and is not confined.

Therefore Sun-tzu said, "He who knows himself and knows his enemy wins without danger. He who knows the heavens and the earth wins out over all."

When his eyes blurred from fatigue, he rinsed them with cool water from a small bowl he kept beside him. If the oil ran low and the lamp wick sputtered, he simply put it out. Around the table was a mountain of books, some in Japanese, some in Chinese. Books on Zen, volumes on the history of Japan. Takezō was virtually buried in these scholarly tomes. They had all been borrowed from Lord Ikeda's collection.

When Takuan had sentenced him to confinement, he had said, "You may read as much as you want. A famous priest of ancient times once said, 'I become immersed in the sacred scriptures and read thousands of volumes. When I come away, I find that my heart sees more than before.'

"Think of this room as your mother's womb and prepare to be born anew. If you look at it only with your eyes, you will see nothing more than an unlit, closed cell. But look again, more closely. Look with your mind and think. This room can be the wellspring of enlightenment, the same fountain of knowledge found and enriched by sages in the past. It is up to you to decide whether this is to be a chamber of darkness or one of light."

Takezō had long since stopped counting the days. When it was cold, it was winter; when hot, summer. He knew little more than that. The air remained the same, dank and musty, and the seasons had no bearing on his life. He was almost positive, however, that the next time the swallows came to nest in the donjon's boarded-over gun slots, it would be the spring of his third year in the womb.

"I'll be twenty-one years old," he said to himself. Seized by remorse, he groaned as if in mourning. "And what have I done in those twenty-one years?" Sometimes the memory of his early years pressed in on him unrelentingly, engulfing him in grief. He would wail and moan, flail and kick, and sometimes sob like a baby. Whole days were swallowed up in agony, which, once it subsided, left him spent and lifeless, hair disheveled and heart torn apart.

Finally, one day, he heard the swallows returning to the donjon eaves. Once again, spring had flown from across the seas.

Not long after its arrival, a voice, now sounding strange, almost painful to the ears, inquired, "Takezō, are you well?"

The familiar head of Takuan appeared at the top of the stairs. Startled and much too deeply moved to utter a sound, Takezō grabbed hold of the monk's kimono sleeve and pulled him into the room. The servants who brought his food had never once spoken a word. He was overjoyed to hear another human voice, especially this one.

"I've just returned from a journey," said Takuan. "You're in your third year here now, and I've decided that after gestating this long, you must be pretty well formed."

"I am grateful for your goodness, Takuan. I understand now what you've done. How can I ever thank you?"

"Thank me?" Takuan said incredulously. Then he laughed. "Even though you've had no one to converse with but yourself, you've actually learned to speak like a human being! Good! Today you will leave this place. And as you do so, hug your hard-earned enlightenment to your bosom. You're going to need it when you go forth into the world to join your fellow men."

Takuan took Takezō just as he was to see Lord Ikeda. Although he had been relegated to the garden in the previous audience, a place was now made for him on the veranda. After the salutations and some perfunctory small talk, Terumasa lost no time in asking Takezō to serve as his vassal.

Takezō declined. He was greatly honored, he explained, but he did not feel the time was yet right to go into a daimyō's service. "And if I did so in this castle," he said, "ghosts would probably start appearing in the closed room every night, just as everyone says they do."

"Why do you say that? Did they come to keep you company?"

"If you take a lamp and inspect the room closely, you'll see black spots spattering the doors and beams. It looks like lacquer, but it's not. It's human blood, most likely blood spilled by the Akamatsus, my forebears, when they went down to defeat in this castle."