Sword of Honour (47 page)

But the back of her head was all she offered him.

Chapter Thirty-one

On the eastern banks of the river Kamo the Hall of Thirty-Three Doors had stood for four hundred years. At its creation it had been painted brilliant blue and red but this had
faded with time and none could bring themselves to risk sullying the memory of what it had been, and so it had been left to assume a grand and sombre darkness. The peak of its sloped and tiled roof
was high and its structure immensely long, the eponymous doors contiguous along one side, each five paces across and twice the height of a man separated by a thick beam. To fire an arrow accurately
the length of it was considered a challenge, and yearly men would compete in day-long marathons to hit a target at the opposite end, loosing ten thousand arrows or more and hitting six, seven,
eight thousand times.

These thousands of arrows without, and within a thousand and one statues of the Buddha Kannon. A thousand of these for the thousand dimensions of the mortal chiliocosm stood in ten raised ranks.
Carved of dark cypress and brushed with gold, each the height of a man with robes flowing from narrow shoulders, epicene faces full of love and behind each of them like a peacock’s tail a
halo of arms clutching the myriad implements of Kannon’s grace: lanterns, brushes, icons of swastikas, lotuses, jars of balm, rosaries.

They arrayed five hundred either side of a great effigy of the enlightened one in the centre, sat cross-legged and representative of the thousand and first dimension, the pure lands beyond to
which Kannon had ascended. It dwarfed the others, his golden head from which nine smaller golden heads sprouted surrounded by golden bells hung on golden chains; aureate, so flawlessly aureate his
body, his aura. Before him a sheen of incense smoke and the flickering of tall candles, prayers daubed upon the wax in ink, letters slowly devolving with the melting.

And there shielding this divine host on the lowest rank stood the twenty-eight guardians of Tenbu, their statues of plain and humble darkwood. There Raijin and Fujin cavorting in their tempests,
there proud Nanda around whom the dragon of wisdom coiled, four-eyed Hibakara playing his warding biwa lute, fierce Gobujo with a sword in either hand as a symbol of his inhuman might.

All frozen and still and looking outwards through the thirty-three doors of the hall cast wide open. Compassionate gazes and furious scowls taking in the grounds of the temple and the silent
crowd of hundreds of men and women and children that had gathered opposite.

Between these two hosts, immortal on his right and mortal on his left, stood Denshichiro Yoshioka.

He waited in solitude. No mark of rank or prestige had the head of the Yoshioka brought with him, no silk awning nor standard of the school nor fine paper parasol held by an attendant to shield
him from the light and the heat. He waited with only the sweat upon his brow, his swords at his side and the plain tea-coloured jacket he had always worn.

Unasked the question amongst those watching, eyes upon Denshichiro’s knees, imagining dust upon them, wondering. The only noise that of the city drifting over the walls of the compound;
the beating of the drums at practice, oblivious of any form of observance.

Musashi strode over the hundred paces of the Shichijo bridge, the wooden planks ringing beneath his feet. He too heard the drums, impossible not to in the streets, passing from the radius of one
group to another to another with the separate beats and patterns converging, merging and then separating in his ears.

The right hand kept the rhythm:
bom, a-bom, a-bombombom.

From the crest of the bridge’s arch he saw the blunted peak of Mount Higashi deep and green, saw the face of Toyotomi’s colossal Buddha gazing out of the massive hall that enshrined
it at the Hoko temple, saw the tiers of pagodas reaching skywards. Lastly, saw the red-and-white gate of Rengeo temple, and behind it the mottled roof of the Hall of Thirty-Three Doors.

On this he focused. His eyes felt as if they were pulsing, throbbing. Perhaps tonight he could sleep.

He had hauled his rope belt around himself thrice, so tight around him that it cut into his waist, wedged his swords into his flesh, hardened his posture into something taut and unshakeable. It
felt good. Prepared him.

The closer he got to the gate the more people took notice of him, they perhaps gathering to bear witness to the apology and knowing who he was. Some fell in behind him, saying nothing, followed
his steps expectantly.

He crossed the liminal threshold and entered the grounds of the temple beneath a great hanging awning of the Buddhist colours, vertical bands of white-red-yellow-green-purple repeated. Those
behind him followed. The enclave was sparse of greenery, no more than a clearly delineated garden and pond in one corner and disparate trees segregated amidst an expanse of grey gravel. Pebbles
crunched beneath Musashi’s feet as he walked, dust rising, and habitually he tested it for balance and grip as he walked, dragging his straw sandals.

The crowd ahead waiting at the Hall were unavoidable. They saw him, or perhaps the smaller mass of those walking behind him, the turning of their heads like wind through grass.

Distant, the drums still, the left hand batting out the urgency:
atta-ta-tata, ta-tata.

Rounding the corner, and there Denshichiro stood alone beneath the gaze of the great Buddha Kannon. The head of the Yoshioka drew himself up as Musashi approached, swept his jacket back to put
his left hand on the scabbards at his waist. The timeless dignified pose. Musashi was glad to see the Yoshioka samurai held it until he came to stop ten paces away from him; pompous idiot would
only make falling to his knees appear even more of a concession.

The pair of them stood looking at each other. There was loathing in Denshichiro’s eyes, identical to that which his brother had worn. Musashi matched it.

‘Get on with it, then,’ he snarled. ‘Loud voice, so all can hear.’

Denshichiro said, ‘I thank you for deigning to grant me the respect of punctuality, Sir Miyamoto.’

He gave no signal but as he finished speaking there was sudden motion from the crowd, from around the sides of the Hall. Men emerged, samurai. They were not wearing the livery of the school but
they were obviously Denshichiro’s men disguised, drawing their swords and quickly moving to surround Musashi in a loose ring. Eight of them.

Denshichiro, the ninth, said, ‘No fleeing this time.’

Of course he would say that. Of course he would do this. Fated, and Musashi knew this, had known this despite whatever he might have protested to Ameku. There was black glee on
Denshichiro’s face, and Musashi mirrored it.

Now a real test, a real vindication, and, if he persevered, real proof, real victory.

The Yoshioka made no move to rush him, confident in their numbers. Denshichiro began binding his sleeves up, jerked his chin for Musashi to ready himself also. A conceited concession born of the
certainty of triumph. His sleeves cut away and his arms already bared, Musashi dropped down and sank his sweat-slick hands into the gravel, coated them with the pallid dust. Rendered them
corpselike; here the absolute trial, a theory so keenly felt he was staking his life on it.

He rose, took a breath. With his right hand he drew his longsword and with his left he drew his shortsword. Holding both, he sank into the fighting stance.

Distant the right:
a-bom, a-bom, a-bombombom.

Distant the left:
atta-ta-tata, ta-tata, tata-ta ta atta-ta-tat.

Together, rhythm.

Envisioned only days ago, the execution of this technique was unheard of but the inspiration pure. A longsword offered only protection from one direction, easily overwhelmed and surrounded. A
spear gave safety in its length but its lethality far less, used best against massed immobile ranks on the battlefield where the point could not be dodged. Two swords together, though: reach and
edge and mobility.

If, as no one had before, you had the strength.

If, as no one had before, you had the timing.

From the crowd a murmur of surprise at the sight of both blades. From the Yoshioka samurai only the faintest hints of whatever they might be feeling, their faces locked in the concentration of
combat. From the swarm of watching Buddhas impossible love, endless love.

Prepared, Denshichiro drew his sword, stepped forward. His men did so too, the noose growing taut. Musashi raised his shortsword above his head, held the longsword out before him and turned in a
tense, coiled rotation.

‘Here,’ said Denshichiro, unheard by Musashi. ‘Me.’

A tightening in Musashi’s throat, in his spine, in the muscles of his arms. A quivering of his left biceps that he could not contain. Everything balanced now, balanced on the edges of
eleven swords, the world seeming to lose colour as the focus came, heat gone, taste gone, smell gone, but touch ultra-aware, the sword grips tight upon either palm, the wrist sensing the balance,
waiting, closer, waiting . . .

The scrape of gravel to his side. Musashi whirled at the noise, and whether the man had stumbled or not he could not tell but it was enough to nominate a target, to spark. Musashi burst forward
raising both his swords high as if to strike and he could see or sense the indecision in the samurai’s trained eyes, caught between the double threat of the swords where he had been
ruthlessly taught only to anticipate a single. Musashi brought the shortsword down first and the man brought his blade up to parry it. The steel met and Musashi rode the anticipated impact, twisted
his body around and from the side brought the longsword down on the man’s arms where they were braced.

One hand doing the work of two. The edge met flesh above both elbows and cut finely, instantly – the Yoshioka man’s sword caught the light and Musashi was aware for a vivid moment of
the queer image of a sword within the sword, some foreign weapon carved upon the blade – and his own steel bucked as it passed all the way through the momentary obstruction of meat and bone,
and then there was blood in the air and the severed limbs were falling still clutching the weapon.

And because they had to understand that this was possible, because Musashi had to understand that this was possible, even though the man was killed he kept going. As the arms and the strangely
marked sword clattered to the earth, as the pathetic stumps were spread wide and the scream began, Musashi raked his shortsword across the young samurai’s throat and then stepped back and
scythed his longsword around, cleaved the man’s leg off at the thigh.

Distant, the girls went:
Sore! Sore! Sore sore sore sore sore!

Gurgling and writhing the pieces lay on the ground around him.

Shock, open now, from the Yoshioka, from the crowd, as he had intended. But, where their hearts seized, Musashi continued unhindered, knowing that rhythm, that momentum, was vital. He turned on
the next man instantly, covered the distance between them in two strides, and lashed at him from the right with the longsword. The same folly – the man moved to block the first attack,
leaving his left open, and Musashi’s shortsword took him across the belly.

One of the samurai leapt in as Musashi righted himself, the Yoshioka man swinging his sword down. Musashi raised both his swords crossed to catch the blade, to cradle it, and then he hauled
upwards, stronger, raising the samurai’s arms and exposing the body. He lashed out with his knee into the groin or the belly, connected meaty, and then his shortsword hissed as a spectre as
he disentangled it and thrust it deep into flesh.

Onwards unbroken, driving the dying Yoshioka man backwards and hurling him at the next closest samurai. This man was young and lithe and danced around the body, but his arms were frail and
seeing this – no, knowing this, realizing this without seeing – Musashi smashed his longsword around savagely, pure strength, battering the Yoshioka sword out of the way with the flat
of his blade and then, before the motion had even finished, before he or the samurai had had a chance to recover from that blow, the shortsword whipped out and took him across the chest.

Distant the rhythm:
a-bom, a-bom, a-bombombom.

Close, Musashi’s heart:
ka-dum, ka-dum, ka-dum.

It was working, working, and he felt nothing, only did, manifested what ought to be, had to be. The fifth of the Yoshioka came bravely, fearlessly, tapping Musashi’s longsword to the side
with a practised feint and closing in so that they were hip to hip. Familiar this move. Already seen on the slopes of Hiei, already repelled. As other men had done before he tried to barge Musashi
backwards, and as Musashi had done before he resisted. Looped his right arm over both the man’s, pinning them and his sword to his side, and again with the shortsword he killed, sliding it
across the side of the samurai’s throat, slicing something that caused a thin jet of blood to spurt out and hit Musashi in the face.

Lashes, blood in his lashes, blinking red, on his lips, in his mouth, which hung open with concentration. Ignored, focus on the enemy alone, no taste, no colour. The sixth tried the same as the
fifth, as he had been schooled. Musashi saw the feint coming again, let the man move his longsword and then simply held his shortsword out. The samurai impaled himself upon it to the guard,
screamed, dropped his sword and clutched at Musashi’s wrists.

But Musashi, moving as steady as the tide, hauled himself free, spread his arms wide, headed for the seventh. Invited the attack but the man skittered back with his blade up before him. Two
great feinting sweeps of Musashi’s longsword in time to the beat that he alone heard and then the true attack, he dropping to one knee and trying to take the samurai’s leg. The man got
his sword down and braced, parried, but the inversion of his weapon left him tangled. Musashi rose to his feet, advancing, always advancing, and thrust his shortsword through the gap in the knot of
his arms.

The eighth screamed as he came with his sword high above his head, committing everything to the charge with magnificent futility. His only thought was to kill, and he was fast. The blade came
down and Musashi jinked backwards, twisting his body around in the air to bring the longsword to bear, and then, just as he had done to Akiyama, he leant forward at full stretch and let his reach
do the killing, slicing the man upon the chest whilst inviolate himself.