Musashi: Bushido Code (39 page)

"Isn't it dark in there?" called the woman.

"No, I can see well enough."

"I'll bring you a lamp."

"No need to. I'm going out."

"Aren't you going to wash?"

"No. Later."

He rushed out into the field and swiftly moved away from the shabby house. A few minutes later he looked back to see a group of samurai, no doubt from the castle, come from beyond the miscall thus in the field. They entered the sweetshop from both front and rear.

"That was a close call," he thought. "Of course, I didn't really steal anything. I just took it in custody. I had to. He begged me to."

To his way of thinking, as long as he admitted that the articles were not his, he had committed no crime. At the same time, he realized he could never again show his face at the construction site.

The miscanthus came up to his shoulders, and a veil of evening mist floated above it. No one could see him from a distance; it would be easy to get away. But which way to go was a difficult choice, all the more so since he strongly felt that good luck lay in one direction and bad luck in another.

Osaka? Kyoto? Nagoya? Edo? He had no friends in any of those places; he might as well roll dice to decide where to go. With dice, as with Matahachi, all was chance. When the wind blew, it would waft him along with it.

It seemed to him that the farther he walked, the deeper he went into the miscanthus. Insects buzzed about him, and the descending mist dampened his clothes. The soaked hems curled around his legs. Seeds caught at his sleeves. His shins itched. The memory of his noonday nausea was gone now and he was painfully hungry. Once he felt himself out of the reach of his pursuers, it became agony to walk.

An overwhelming urge to find a place to lie down and rest carried him the length of the field, beyond which he spotted the roof of a house. Drawing nearer, he saw that the fence and gate were both askew, apparently damaged by a recent storm. The roof needed fixing too. Yet at one time the house must have belonged to a wealthy family, for there was a certain faded elegance about it. He imagined a beautiful court lady seated in a richly curtained carriage approaching the house at a stately pace.

Going through the forlorn-looking gate, he found that both the main house and a smaller detached house were nearly buried in weeds. The scene reminded him of a passage by the poet Saigyō that he had been made to learn as a child:

I heard that a person I knew lived in Fushimi and went to pay him a call, but the garden was so overgrown! I couldn't even see the path. As the insects sang, I composed this poem:

Pressing through the weeds,

I hide my tearful feelings

In the folds of my sleeve.

In the dew-laden garden

Even lowly insects weep.

Matahachi's heart was chilled as he crouched near the house, whispering the words so long forgotten.

Just as he was about to conclude the house was empty, a red light appeared from deep inside. Presently he heard the pining strains of a
shakuhachi,
the bamboo flute mendicant priests played when begging on the streets. Looking inside, he discovered the player was indeed a member of that class. He was seated beside the hearth. The fire he had just lit grew brighter, and his shadow loomed larger on the wall. He was playing a mournful tune, a solitary lament on the loneliness and melancholy of autumn, intended for no ears but his own. The man played simply, without flourish, giving Matahachi the impression he took little pride in his playing.

When the melody came to an end, the priest sighed deeply and launched into a lament.

"They say when a man is forty, he is free from delusion. But look at me! Forty-seven when I destroyed my family's good name. Forty-seven! And still I was deluded; contrived to lose everything—income, position, reputation. Not only that; I left my only son to fend for himself in this wretched world... . For what? An infatuation?

"It's mortifying—never again could I face my dead wife, nor the boy, wherever he is. Ha! When they say you're wise after forty, they must be talking about great men, not dolts like me. Instead of thinking myself wise because of my years, I should have been more careful than ever. It's madness not to, where women are concerned."

Standing his
shakuhachi
on end in front of him and propping both hands on the mouthpiece, he went on. "When that business with Otsū came up, nobody would forgive me any longer. It's too late, too late."

Matahachi had crept into the next room. He listened but was repelled by what he saw. The priest's cheeks were sunken, his shoulders had a pointed, stray-dog air, and his hair was sheenless. Matahachi crouched in silence; in the flickering firelight the man's form summoned up visions of demons of the night.

"Oh, what am I to do?" moaned the priest, lifting his sunken eyes to the ceiling. His kimono was plain and dingy, but he also wore a black cassock, indicating he was a follower of the Chinese Zen master P'u-hua. The reed matting on which he sat, and which he rolled up and carried with him wherever he went, was probably his only household possession—his bed, his curtain, and in bad weather, his roof.

"Talking won't bring back what I've lost," he said, "Why wasn't I more careful! I thought I understood life. I understood nothing, let my status go to my head! I behaved shamelessly toward a woman. No wonder the gods deserted me. What could be more humiliating?"

The priest lowered his head as though apologizing to someone, then lowered it still farther. "I don't care about myself. The life I have now is good enough for me. It's only right I should do penance and have to survive without outside help.

"But what have I done to Jōtarō? He'll suffer more for my misconduct than I. If I were still in Lord Ikeda's service, he'd now be the only son of a samurai with an income of five thousand bushels, but because of my stupidity, he's nothing. What's worse, one day, when he's grown, he'll learn the truth."

For a time he sat with his hands covering his face, then suddenly stood up. "I must stop this—feeling sorry for myself again. The moon's out; I'll go walk in the field—rid myself of these old grievances and ghosts."

The priest picked up his
shakuhachi
and shuffled listlessly out of the house. Matahachi thought he saw a hint of a stringy mustache under the emaciated nose. "What a strange person!" he thought. "He's not really old, but he's so unsteady on his feet." Suspecting the man might be a little insane, he felt a tinge of pity for him.

Fanned by the evening breeze, the flames from the broken kindling were beginning to scorch the floor. Entering the empty room, Matahachi found a pitcher of water and poured some on the fire, reflecting as he did so on the priest's carelessness.

It wouldn't matter much if this old deserted house burned to the ground, but what if instead it were an ancient temple of tsuka or Kamakura period? Matahachi felt a rare spasm of indignation. "It's because of people like him that the ancient temples in Nara and on Mount Kōya are destroyed so often," he thought. "These crazy vagabond priests have no property, no family of their own. They don't give a thought to how dangerous fire is. They'll light one in the main hall of an old monastery, right next to the murals, just to warm their own carcasses, which are of no use to anyone.

"Now, there's something interesting," he mumbled, turning his eyes toward the alcove. It wasn't the graceful design of the room nor the remains of a valuable vase that had attracted his attention, but a blackened metal pot, beside which stood a sake jar with a chipped mouth. In the pot was some rice gruel, and when he shook the jar, it made a cheerful gurgling sound. He smiled broadly, grateful for his good fortune and oblivious, as any hungry man might be, to the property rights of others.

He promptly drained off the sake in a couple of long swallows, emptied the rice pot and congratulated himself on the fullness of his belly.

Nodding sleepily beside the hearth, he became conscious of the rainlike buzz of insects coming from the dark field outside—not Only from the field but from the walls, the ceiling and the rotting tatami mats.

Just before drifting off to sleep, he remembered the bundle he had taken from the dying warrior. He roused himself and untied it. The cloth was a soiled piece of crepe dyed with a dark red sappanwood dye. It contained a washed and bleached undergarment, together with the usual articles travelers carry. Unfolding the garment, he found an object the size and shape of a letter scroll, wrapped with great care in oil paper. There was also a purse, which fell with a loud clink from a fold in the fabric. Made of purple-dyed leather, it contained enough gold and silver to make Matahachi's hand shake with fear. "This is someone else's money, not mine," he reminded himself.

Undoing the oil paper around the longer object revealed a scroll, wound on a Chinese-quince roller, with a gold brocade end cloth. He immediately sensed that it contained some important secret and with great curiosity put the scroll down in front of him and slowly unrolled it. It said:

CERTIFICATE

On sacred oath I swear that I have transmitted to Sasaki Kojirō the following seven secret methods of the Chūjō Style of swordsmanship:

Overt—Lightning style, wheel style, rounded style, floating-boat style

Secret—The Diamond, The Edification, The Infinite

Issued in the village of Jōkyōji in the Usaka Demesne of Echizen Province on the _____ day of the _____ month.

Kanemaki Jisai, Disciple of Toda Seigen

On a piece of paper that seemed to have been attached later, there followed a poem:

The moon shining on

The waters not present

In an undug well

Yields forth a man

With neither shadow nor form.

Matahachi realized he was holding a diploma given to a disciple who had learned all his master had to teach, but the name Kanemaki Jisai meant nothing to him. He would have recognized the name of Itō Yagorō, who under the name Ittōsai had created a famous and highly admired style of swordsmanship. He did not know that Jisai was Itō's teacher. Nor did he know that Jisai was a samurai of splendid character, who had mastered the true style of Toda Seigen and had retired to a remote village to pass his old age in obscurity, thereafter transmitting Seigen's method to only a few select students.

Matahachi's eyes went back to the first name. "This Sasaki Kojirō must have been the samurai who was killed at Fushimi today," he thought. "He must have been quite a swordsman to be awarded a certificate in the Chūjō Style, whatever that is. Shame he had to die! But now I'm sure of it. It's just as I suspected. He must've wanted me to deliver this to somebody, probably someone in his birthplace."

Matahachi said a short prayer to the Buddha for Sasaki Kojirō, then vowed to himself that somehow he would carry out his new mission.

To ward off the chill, he rebuilt the fire, then lay down by the hearth and presently fell asleep.

From somewhere in the distance came the sound of the old priest's
shakuhachi.
The mournful tune, seemingly searching for something, calling out to someone, went on and on, a poignant wave hovering over the rushes of the field.

Reunion in Osaka

The field lay under a gray mist, and the chill in the early morning air hinted that autumn was beginning in earnest. Squirrels were up and about, and in the doorless kitchen of the deserted house, fresh fox tracks crossed the earthen floor.

The beggar priest, having stumbled back before sunrise, had succumbed to fatigue on the pantry floor, still clutching his
shakuhachi.
His dirty kimono and cassock were wet with dew and spotty with grass stains picked up while he wandered like a lost soul through the night. As he opened his eyes and sat up, his nose crinkled, his nostrils and eyes opened wide, and he shook with a mighty sneeze. He made no effort to wipe off the snot trickling from his nose into his wispy mustache.

He sat there for a few minutes before recalling that he still had some sake left from the night before. Grumbling to himself, he made his way down a long hallway to the hearth room at the back of the house. By daylight, there were more rooms than there had seemed to be at night, but he found his way without difficulty. To his astonishment, the sake jar was not where he had left it.

Instead there was a stranger by the hearth, with his head on his arm and saliva seeping from his mouth, sound asleep. The whereabouts of the sake was all too clear.

The sake, of course, was not all that was missing. A quick check revealed that not a drop of the rice gruel intended for breakfast remained. The priest turned scarlet with rage; he could get by without the sake, but rice was a matter of life and death. With a fierce yelp, he kicked the sleeper with all his might, but Matahachi grunted sleepily, took his arm from underneath him, and lazily raised his head.

"You ... you ... !" sputtered the priest, giving him another kick.

"What are you doing?" cried Matahachi. The veins popped out on his sleepy face as he jumped to his feet. "You can't kick me like that!"

"Kicking's not good enough for you! Who told you you could come in here and steal my rice and sake?"

"Oh, were they yours?"

"Of course they were!"

"Sorry."

"You're sorry? What good does that do me?"

"I apologize."

"You'll have to do more than that!"

"What do you expect me to do?"

"Give them back!"

"Heh! They're already inside me; they kept me alive for a night. Can't get them back now!"

"I have to live too, don't I? The most I ever get for going around and playing music at people's gates is a few grains of rice or a couple of drops of sake. You imbecile! Do you expect me to stand silently by and let you steal my food? I want it back—give it back!" His tone as he made his irrational demand was imperious, and his voice sounded to Matahachi like that of a hungry devil straight from hell.

"Don't be so stingy," said Matahachi disparagingly. "What's there to get so upset about—a little rice and less than half a jar of third-rate sake."

"You ass, maybe you turn your nose up at leftover rice, but for me it's a day's food—a day's life!" The priest grunted and grabbed Matahachi's wrist. "I won't let you get away with this!"

"Don't be a fool!" countered Matahachi. Wresting his arm free and seizing the old man by his thin hair, he tried to throw him down with a quick yank. To his surprise, the starved-cat body didn't budge. The priest got a firm grip on Matahachi's neck and clung to it.

"You bastard!" barked Matahachi, reassessing his opponent's fighting power.

He was too late. The priest, planting his feet solidly on the floor, sent Matahachi stumbling backward with a single push. It was a skillful move, utilizing Matahachi's own strength, and Matahachi did not stop until he banged against the plastered wall on the far side of the adjacent room. The posts and lathing being rotten, a good part of the wall collapsed, showering him with dirt. Spitting out a mouthful, he jumped up, drew his sword and lunged at the old man.

The latter prepared to parry the attack with his
shakuhachi,
but he was already gasping for air.

"Now see what you've got yourself into!" yelled Matahachi as he swung. He missed but went on swinging relentlessly, giving the priest no chance to catch his breath. The old man's face took on a ghostly look. He jumped back time and again, but there was no spring in his step; he appeared to be on the verge of collapse. Each time he dodged, he let out a plaintive cry, like the whimper of a dying man. Still, his constant shifting made it impossible for Matahachi to connect with his sword.

Eventually Matahachi was undone by his own carelessness. When the priest jumped into the garden, Matahachi followed blindly, but the moment his foot hit the rotted floor of the veranda, the boards cracked and gave way. He landed on his backside, one leg dangling through a hole.

The priest leaped to the attack. Grabbing the front of Matahachi's kimono, he started beating him on the head, the temples, the body—anywhere his
shakuhachi
happened to fall—grunting loudly with each whack. With his leg caught, Matahachi was helpless. His head seemed ready to swell to the size of a barrel, but luck was with him, for at this point pieces of gold and silver began dropping from his kimono. Each new blow was followed by the happy tinkling of coins falling on the floor.

"What's this?" gasped the priest, letting go of his victim. Matahachi hastily freed his leg and jumped clear, but the old man had already vented his anger. His aching fist and labored breathing didn't stop him from staring in wonder at the money.

Matahachi, hands on his throbbing head, shouted, "See, you old fool? There was no reason to get excited over a little bit of rice and sake. I've got money to throw away! Take it if you want it! But in return you're going to get back the beating you gave me. Stick out your silly head, and I'll pay you with interest for your rice and booze!"

Instead of responding to this abuse, the priest put his face to the floor and began weeping. Matahachi's wrath abated somewhat, but he said venomously, "Look at you! The minute you see money, you fall apart."

"How shameful of me!" wailed the priest. "Why am I such a fool?" Like the strength with which he had so lately fought, his self-reproach was more violent than that of an ordinary man. "What an ass I am!" he continued. "Haven't I come to my senses yet? Not even at my age? Not even after being cast out of society and sinking as low as a man can sink?"

He turned toward the black column beside him and started beating his head against it, all the time moaning to himself. "Why do I play this
shakuhachi?
Isn't it to expel through its five openings my delusions, my stupidity, my lust, my selfishness, my evil passions? How could I possibly have allowed myself to get into a life-and-death struggle over a bit of food and drink? And with a man young enough to be my son?"

Matahachi had never seen anyone like this. The old man would weep for a moment, then ram his head against the column again. He seemed intent on beating his forehead until it split in two. More numerous by far were his inflictions on himself than the blows he had dealt Matahachi. Presently, blood began to flow from his brow.

Matahachi felt obliged to prevent him from torturing himself further. "Look now," he said. "Stop that. You don't know what you're doing!"

"Leave me alone," pleaded the priest.

"But what's wrong with you?"

"Nothing's wrong."

"There must be something. Are you sick?"

"No."

"Then what is it?"

"I'm disgusted with myself. I'd like to beat this evil body of mine to death and feed it to the crows, but I don't want to die a stupid fool. I'd like to be as strong and upright as the next person before I discard this flesh. Losing my self-control makes me furious. I guess you could call it sickness after all."

Feeling sorry for him, Matahachi picked up the fallen money and tried to press some of it into his hand. "It was partly my fault," he said apologetically. "I'll give you this, and then maybe you'll forgive me."

"I don't want it!" cried the priest, quickly withdrawing his hand. "I don't need money. I tell you, I don't need it!" Though he had previously exploded in anger over a bit of rice gruel, he now looked at the money with loathing. Shaking his head vigorously, he backed away, still on his knees.

"You're an odd one," said Matahachi.

"Not really."

"Well, you certainly act strange."

"Don't let it worry you."

"You sound like you come from the western provinces. Your accent, I mean.

"I guess I would. I was born in Himeji."

"Is that so? I'm from that area too—Mimasaka."

"Mimasaka?" repeated the priest, fixing his eye on Matahachi. "Just where in Mimasaka?"

"The village of Yoshino. Miyamoto, to be exact."

The old man seemed to relax. Sitting down on the porch, he spoke quietly. "Miyamoto? That's a name that brings back memories. I was once on guard duty at the stockade in Hinagura. I know that area fairly well."

"Does that mean you used to be a samurai in the Himeji fief?"

"Yes. I suppose I don't look it now, but I used to be something of a warrior. My name is Aoki Tan—"

He broke off, then just as abruptly went on: "That's not true. I just made it up. Forget I said anything at all." He stood up, saying, "I'm going into town, play my
shakuhachi
and get some rice." With that, he turned and walked rapidly toward the field of miscanthus.

After he was gone, Matahachi started wondering whether it had been right of him to offer the old priest money from the dead samurai's pouch. Soon he'd solved his dilemma by telling himself there couldn't be any harm in just borrowing some, provided it wasn't a lot. "If I deliver these things to the dead man's home, the way he wanted me to," he thought, "I'll have to have money for expenses, and what choice do I have but to take it out of the cash I have here?" This easy rationalization was so comforting that from that day on he began using the money little by little.

There remained the question of the certificate made out to Sasaki Kojirō. The man appeared to have been a rōnin, but mightn't he instead have been in the service of some daimyō? Matahachi had found no clue to where the man was from, hence had no idea where to take the certificate. His only hope, he decided, would be to locate the master swordsman Kanemaki Jisai, who no doubt knew all there was to know about Sasaki.

As Matahachi made his way from Fushimi toward Osaka, he asked at every teahouse, eating house and inn whether anyone knew of Jisai. All the replies were negative; even the added information that Jisai was an accredited disciple of Toda Seigen elicited no response.

Finally, a samurai with whom Matahachi struck up an acquaintance on the road displayed a glimmer of recognition. "I've heard of Jisai, but if he's still alive, he must be very old. Somebody said he went east and became a recluse in a village in Kōzuke, or somewhere. If you want to find out more about him, you should go to Osaka Castle and talk to a man named Tomita Mondonoshō." Mondonoshō, it seemed, was one of Hideyori's teachers in the martial arts, and Matahachi's informant was fairly sure he belonged to the same family as Seigen.

Though disappointed at the vagueness of his first real lead, Matahachi resolved to follow it up. Upon his arrival in Osaka, he took a room at a cheap inn on one of the busier streets and as soon as he was settled in asked the innkeeper whether he knew of a man named Tomita Mondonoshō at Osaka Castle.

"Yes, I've heard the name," replied the innkeeper. "I believe he's the grandson of Toda Seigen. He's not Lord Hideyori's personal instructor, but he does teach swordsmanship to some of the samurai in the castle. Or at least he used to. I think he might have gone back to Echizen some years ago. Yes, that's what he did.

"You could go to Echizen and look for him, but there's no guarantee he's still there. Instead of taking such a long trip on a hunch, wouldn't it be easier to look up Itō Ittōsai? I'm pretty sure he studied the Chūjō Style under Jisai before developing his own style."

The innkeeper's suggestion seemed sensible, but when Matahachi began looking for Ittōsai, he found himself in another blind alley. As far as he could learn, the man had until recently been living in a small hut in Shirakawa, just east of Kyoto, but he was no longer there and hadn't been seen in Kyoto or Osaka for some time.

Before long, Matahachi's resolution flagged and he was ready to drop the whole business. The bustle and excitement of the city rekindled his ambition and stirred his youthful soul. In a wide-open town like this, why should he spend his time looking for a dead man's family? There were plenty of things to do here; people were looking for young men like him. At Fushimi Castle, the authorities had been single-mindedly implementing the policies of the Tokugawa government. Here, however, the generals running Osaka Castle were searching out rōnin to build up an army. Not publicly, of course, but openly enough so that it was common knowledge. It was a fact that rōnin were more welcome and could live better here than in any other castle town in the country.

Heady rumors circulated among the townspeople. It was said, for instance, that Hideyori was quietly providing funds for such fugitive daimyō as Gotō Matabei, Sanada Yukimura, Akashi Kamon and even the dangerous Chōsokabe Morichika, who now lived in a rented house in a narrow street on the outskirts of town.

Chōsokabe had, despite his youth, shaved his head like a Buddhist priest and changed his name to Ichimusai—"The Man of a Single Dream." It was a declaration that the affairs of this floating world no longer concerned him, and ostensibly he passed his time in elegant frivolities. It was widely known, however, that he had in his service seven or eight hundred rōnin, all of them firm in their confidence that when the proper time came, he would rise up and vindicate his late benefactor Hideyoshi. It was rumored that his living expenses, including the pay for his rōnin, all came from Hideyori's private purse.