Sword of Honour (27 page)

‘Are you pulling a jape on us, lad?’

‘No! He has to be here!’

‘Do you see him?’

‘Perhaps he has returned to the enclave,’ said another of the samurai. ‘He must have slept there. Perhaps we should seek him there.’

‘That seems the wisest course.’ A third.

‘In the enclave proper?’ A fourth. ‘That’s . . . Here on the slopes is foul karma, but . . .’

‘We have our orders.’

‘Do not doubt my conviction. Just . . . On sanctified ground? Before the monks themselves?’

Leave, bastards!
And the wood now wet against Musashi’s lip, soft against his feet and he certain, certain that some revealing wooden howl from the statue’s strain was
imminent.

‘You don’t have to!’ said the boy. ‘He’s here, he must be!’

‘He’s not. Are you blind?’

‘Have you looked inside?’

‘Yes! There’s nothing there. Are you suggesting he melted into the shadows?’

‘What about those statues? They’re big.’

Musashi’s heart was bisected a dozen ways by ice.

Footsteps slowly coming in.

One pair only, no doubt the leader gazing up with slow acknowledgement that the size of Raijin or Fujin was great enough to conceal a man.

Which was he looking at? Did it matter? He was here, would check both.

Indecision tortuous.

And then Musashi felt the statue start to tip irrevocably backwards, the groaning of the wood clear.

What a delusion, decision.

Doomed to it, Musashi pushed back with all his strength in his arms, one foot flat on the wall behind him. Teeth gritted, he shoved the statue forwards, and he felt the weight lift from him
suddenly; it lurched away and then toppled forwards. The samurai saw the sickly face of Raijin rush down to meet him, and what Musashi heard was an impact like a bag of wet sand bursting open.

Everything bursting, rushing outwards: fragments of rotten wood, the cauldron of sand and incense shattered, the chest of coins scattered vomiting forth its wealth, Musashi hurling himself off
the dais already going for his longsword. He hurtled out of the door of the temple and slashed at the first thing he saw, figures all around him, and kept going, heading for the stairway.

Shouts and screams and none of them moved, too slow, too shocked, and Musashi knew he would leave them behind, felt the thrill of escape until he crested the stairs and saw a samurai standing
halfway down them. The motion of his body took him down a half-dozen of the steps before he could stop himself, and there he was, pinned. One Yoshioka in front, and then he turned back and saw
three from behind.

From within the temple the sound of screaming, true agony, pleading.

The Yoshioka samurai on the stairs below sank into a taut stance of combat, levelled his sword, and the ones following from above did not rush blindly down after him but rather descended slowly
in similar guarded posture. They had him trapped between their jaws and they realized this. Cautiously Musashi matched their descent step for step until he was equidistant between the samurai above
and below. He brought his sword down to the defensive position at his waist, realized there were ribbons of blood on it, that he had claimed a victim on his dash outward. He sought what balance
there was on the narrow steps. The Yoshioka assumed their postures in turn, readied themselves, grips adjusted, blades raised or lowered. Not a word spoken, concentration ultimate.

Behind and above them all a young face peered down, rapt.

‘Come on, you sons of whores,’ Musashi snarled, trying to look each of the men in the eye, gauging which would attack first. ‘Get what you came for.’

Things happened in a flurry.

One of the samurai above attacked as Musashi turned his gaze away from him, skittering down the steps to slash at him from over his head. Musashi was coiled, prepared, whirled his body to one
side and sidestepped the blow.

The samurai misjudged the depth of the stairs, staggered, overextended, now astride three steps with his leading leg hopelessly far forward, thigh exposed. Musashi brought his own sword down
through that thigh, felt the bucking of the steel in his hands as it cut, saw man and leg fall separate.

Fresh screams unheard, for the samurai below took his chance, lunged at Musashi instantly. His thrust was too hard, and the old stones of the stairs gave way beneath his feet, rocks and earth
tumbling downwards. The samurai stumbled forwards, feet scrabbling at nothing, a hand taken from the sword to catch himself.

Musashi lashed out with a kick, caught the man beneath the chin as he fell. Crack of bone and teeth as the jaw snapped shut. The samurai twisted and fell on his back, and began to tumble down
the stairs. Musashi followed his descent dreading the quaking of the stones beneath him, making his feet as light as he could.

The two Yoshioka samurai above gave shouting chase, and down the stairs now an avalanche cascaded, bodies, stones, swords. Ten steps from the bottom the ground went out from under Musashi, and
the first he knew of this was when his shoulder met the earth. Overbalanced in his motion, he rolled completely over and rattled down the rest of the way.

When he came to rest it took long moments to right himself, to sort his legs from his arms, to find his sword. Rising, a Yoshioka samurai was upon him. The man bounded over the last handful of
the steps and the debris at the base of the stairway and rushed him, met the point of Musashi’s blade with his own and brushed it aside. He followed through the gap he made with his body,
keeping Musashi’s sword away, crashed into Musashi hip to hip. The samurai sought to drive him backwards or knock him prone once more, but Musashi was heavier, stronger, absorbed the force of
the blow, felt it in the hollow of his chest, and then pushed back.

An ankle hooked behind the Yoshioka’s robbed him of his feet, the samurai’s spine to earth and his sword without strength. Musashi stabbed down, took the samurai through the chest,
but rather than scream the man abandoned his longsword, reached up and grabbed Musashi’s wrists. The other Yoshioka coming – two of them, not one, how? – and the dying man hung on
even though he was impaled, held Musashi tight. Fatal glee in his eyes, defiant, and Musashi snarled and put his foot on the man’s stomach and hauled, pulled his sword and his hands free.

But too late, surrounded now by the other two samurai in the small clearing at the foot of the stairway. The pair of samurai were cautious, knew he was dangerous, kept their distance. Musashi
moved one way and so would they, rotating around him, keeping him directly between them. One bled freely from the mouth, red flecks flying with the heaving of his breath; the man Musashi had
kicked, likely bitten through his tongue.

‘Kill him,’ sputtered the dying samurai on the floor. ‘Finish him!’

They heeded him, but they did not come blindly. They came instead probingly, one an instant after another, and frantically Musashi parried their attacks. Again. Again. He would greet the first
one, turn his sword away, and then, before he could exploit the opening in a riposte, he would have to turn and swing wildly to repel the partner behind, flailing or skipping away to keep them both
at distance. Defend only, no chance to finish them. Slowly they would grind him down, he knew, far more exhausting for him than them. This perhaps their strategy, not even really trying to take
him, merely provoking further exhausting flurries from him at the reaches of his sword without real risk to themselves.

No doubt they were wondering how long it would be before his hands became numb and he fumbled with his weapon. Not long, it felt. The breath was rasping between his teeth now, his shoulder
thrumming where it had connected with stone, knees, ankles taut and harrowed.

Here on a Buddhist mountain?
Musashi thought.
Ahh, Shinto for the living, and Buddhism for the—

No.

Doomed. No choice. Go. Move. Last chance. He threw himself at the samurai with the bloody mouth, screamed as he went, final cadence of his lungs. Down came his sword and up came the man’s,
met, locked and Musashi snarled as though they were caught in bitter ultimate contest, he trying to force his blade into the crown of the man’s head.

From behind the other samurai came, one pace, two paces, and then Musashi let go of his longsword with his right hand, maintained the hold with his left, spun and hurled his shortsword in the
motion of its draw. The blade hit the rushing samurai, met him on his knuckles clasped on his weapon, glanced away. Not lethal, not even grievous, but blood drawn, the samurai stumbling, his sword
falling.

Instantly, Musashi’s right hand back to his longsword, attention to the first man, and in the lapse the samurai had pushed Musashi’s longsword wildly up. The samurai had not expected
the vanishing of the downward force, now staggered forwards in his thrust, sought purchase in the ground, and he and Musashi whirled around each other. Musashi quicker, close, very close, down to
one knee and his longsword slashed across, taking the belly from collar to point.

The other, the last samurai, had picked up his sword, but his left hand was mangled, bleeding, unable to hold the weapon, only cradle it in his palm. Right hand only. Fear in his eyes at this.
But he did not run, levelled the point of his sword at Musashi. Musashi in turn snarled and charged, and he had no mercy in his heart, only anger, drew his sword back and smashed it across, leading
with the blunt edge, aiming not for flesh but for steel. Two hands against one; the Yoshioka’s sword was battered from his grip. Musashi did not prolong it, rotated the sword in his grip,
drew it back and then hewed it down through the man’s shoulder.

The blade wedged itself to rest level with the sternum.

Perhaps the samurai screamed. Musashi could not tell, pulse rushing around his ears stealing any other sound. When the man fell he took Musashi’s sword with him, wedged still, prying it
from numb hands. Musashi in turn collapsed to his knees, gasping for breath. He felt as though the length of him was trembling. Sweat warm upon his brow and yet pooled cold on his back. He pressed
his head to the earth for some time, and simply enjoyed the feel of the hard stones there, the leaves.

In the trees around him the insects had not noticed at all, singing on, the rhythm of the universe undisturbed. This calmness, this ambivalence when he heard it sent fresh rage into his heart,
and he stared upwards at the sky, at the heavens and the gods to whom he had prayed.

‘That was your answer?’ he howled. ‘That was your answer?’

The shouting of that ended it, left him feeling empty. Musashi could think once more. On the trail he saw other monks coming, dark robes flowing behind them. He left them the bodies. He got to
his feet and hauled his longsword free of the Yoshioka corpse and ran.

Musashi arrived at the graveyard. He called out. No one answered. He moved through the rows and columns of the tombs, exhausted feet stumbling on the worn stones. He rounded the corner where he
had left the pale-eyed samurai in peaceful contemplation.

Took it all in. Stood there panting, sheathed his sword, put his hands upon his thighs and did no more than simply behold for some time.

Beheld Akiyama’s corpse where it had been left.

Ruined beyond all dignity, cut to pieces in a frenzy, dismembered utterly. All that held it in semblance of a whole were the tatters of his clothes. His crypt was spattered with the violence,
gouted streaks of blood gathered in the stone gouges that formed the two characters of his name.

Of his head, there was no sign.

Chapter Sixteen

The Katsura in the west and the river Kamo in the east, veins around the heart of Kyoto, as the summer star Orihime has her Hikoboshi. The surface of the Kamo a languid opal
mirror set with mother ducks leading fledglings in flightless chains, breached by the poles of pagodas and the stones of bored children, and around the Shijo bridge a series of little islands upon
which people gathered to watch plays from afternoon to evening.

The land of the islands was technically the river and so legally untaxable. Troupes of aspirant actors would duly set up stages there, lay out narrow planks from shore to island to island across
which the city folk would balance, coming all summer long to be entertained. No high art of the noh theatre here, the actors not in masks but in caricature makeup, the plays mostly bawdy and lewd
and quick, an entire scene gone by in the time it would take a noh actor to enunciate his entrance in achingly protracted song.

Tadanari liked this. There was art and then there was art. He was a patron of the higher theatres over in west Hongan ward, too, but for now he stood fanning himself at the back of a seated
crowd watching a tale unfold with women playing men and men playing women. A courtier of rank had slept with a sea nymph, a forbidden taboo, and consequently his penis had fallen off. Now he and
his servant were conducting a search through the palace covertly trying to locate it, asking others if they had seen it without revealing the proud courtier’s emasculation.

When the phallus-errant was at last found and the play was done, Tadanari put some money into the bowl they handed around, and then, still smiling, made his way back into the city. He wanted to
take it all in, a memory to last until autumn, for tomorrow he left for his estate upon the coast and the breeze there. The heat here in Kyoto’s high summer was unbearable, and so he would
depart and return with the dry heat and the red leaves and the susuki grasses caressing the sky.

Imbibe, then, the things that mattered: the streets themselves, close enough that a man could just about hold a spear horizontally. He passed a maker of noodles with his uncooked wares cut from
wafer thin to wider than a thumb draped over racks of bamboo poles like willow branches; a crafter of sandals painting patterns of blue flowers upon a white field on the wooden insole of a
woman’s sandal, behind him shelves and shelves of all designs; an artisan who worked in gold leaf hoping for commissions, examples of his works laid out glittering – screen doors,
vases, shrine cabinets – and a big man in his employ who loomed, imposing, to anyone who stared too salaciously upon the gold.