The Pillow Book of the Flower Samurai (26 page)

‘May I practise the bow first?’

‘The bow? I thought after all this time you would choose your favourite, your strength, the
bokken
.’

‘First the bow, if you do not mind, honourable Akio.’

He nodded and I strapped on my quiver.

‘It ties twice around you.’

‘My suffering is deep,’ I blurted. ‘It was Emi, silly, slow Emi. She spoke of our sessions.’

After a silence, he said, ‘No one can outrun their
karma
.’ He touched my nose with one finger. His dark brown eyes glistened.

I wrapped my arms as far around his chest as they could go and placed my head against his
hitatare
, my cheek hot and wet against the cool spring silk, shielded and safe in the arms of the only person in the world I could trust.

I held on until I heard a bush warbler’s song above us. Gulping, I related the story of the bush warbler and its song the day my father had sold me to Chiba.

He squatted down. ‘Another powerful sign, little one.’

‘Perhaps the bird is a sign of the Right Action. The honourable next Right Action . . .’ I dared to finish although my heart battered like festival drumsticks ‘. . . would be not to see you any more and permit Hitomi to beat me until I die.’

His fingers gripped my shoulders. ‘There is no honour in useless sacrifice. Not to perform what you can and are able for your master is also not honourable, Kozaishō. All life is pain. You know that is what the Buddha teaches us.’

He had said words like Tashiko’s. My chest squeezed with loneliness. ‘I do not think I can stay here in the Village without Tashiko.’

‘Yes, you can. Kozaishō, the honourable action—’

‘I need to escape. Now I have permission to work with you, I can sneak off and—’

‘And what?’ He looked down at me, his hands still on my shoulders. ‘Where would you go? Where is the honour in that? Is that all I have taught you?’ His eyebrows slid together between his eyes and he took away his hands.

Nowhere else to go. Nowhere else to find honour. I lifted my arms up and out to nowhere, then down, like my eyes, in shame. ‘Nowhere, honourable Akio.’

‘To leave, when you are owned and obligated to your master, is a deep breach of honour. Your family’s honour and your own.’

‘Would
seppuku
be the next right action?’

He pulled further away from me. ‘No. Not at all. You are not the first person to endure a great loss. Even a great loss does not damage your honour, or your family’s, enough to justify
seppuku
.’ He put a thick palm on top of my head. ‘You have only gained sorrow.’

He rubbed my head, which reminded me of Second Daughter, one of my lost sisters. I half closed my eyes with the ease of touching and memories.

I shared what I had found out. ‘Goro murdered Tashiko. I saw her neck, Akio. I discovered purple and white silk threads in her wounds. Goro deliberately killed her.’

‘Who?’ His words cooled, like a breeze in summer heat.

‘Daigoro no Goro. Goro, the priest. He admitted it to me at her funeral.’

Akio opened his mouth, then closed it, pressing his lips into a line. He made the noise he taught us to make with the perfect sword strike, the
tachi-kami
.

We gazed at each other, tears running out of my eyes and rage from his.

Carefully and evenly, as if giving me new rules, he said, ‘There is no honour in running away, or in allowing someone else to kill you, or in killing yourself. You know what you must do. You must avenge her murder.’

‘How can I? If I cannot leave here, I cannot find him. If I cannot find him, I cannot kill him. He went to Heian-kyō!’ I screamed, my feet in attack mode, my hands clenched.

‘Kozaishō, are you a samurai or not? You will find a way in this life, or perhaps the next, to exact retribution.’

‘Until the
next
life? A man murdered Tashiko.’ My finger flew against my chest with each word. ‘In
this
place. In
this
life.’

‘Find a way. An honourable way. A samurai way. Until you do, use that anger to relearn the skills you may have forgotten. You will need them, in any case.’

‘I have loved Tashiko since I was sold from my family!’ My tears leaped again.

‘Such a disgrace. To murder her . . . like that.’ He shook his head, but his topknot barely moved in the tranquil spring morning.

‘Especially heinous, Akio, are those men who murder defenceless women. They should be reincarnated as worms in late spring when the birds migrate and are especially hungry. They should return to be ants in a flood and all drown, slowly. They should become krill in the middle of a whale pod and be the last to be eaten. I want their agony and terror to be stretched to the maximum.’

‘So heinous, too, is your display of these emotions, shameful. Here, but especially at the funeral.’

‘Yes.’ I lowered my eyes. The morning sun had brightened and mocked me.

‘Everyone has emotions. A samurai contains them. Emotions should not and cannot control you. A samurai stands by death at every moment. Your emotions, words and actions at the funeral were dishonourable.’

My chin touched my chest. My shame stiffened me. The silence between us thickened with my humiliation.

I touched his arm without his armour for the first time. ‘Yes, Akio, you are right. What must I do? Please help me take the Right Action.’ An early spring gust, heavy with dew, brushed my face; bush clover, the scent of Tashiko’s hair. My throat closed.

He smiled grimly, the air warmed, and the
tsuba
on his sword flashed in the rising light. ‘Master Isamu often shared this saying with me: “Submission is not surrender. Submission is action and has its own valour.”’

I bowed at the wisdom.

‘Kozaishō, I have learned to face the flying arrows. Never turn your back on them. Announce your name to the world. Embrace the inevitable. Face the bright sword.’

That was what I was about to do.

Vengeance must be taken.

By me.

IV. Decision

My exertions for the dances and on the practise field absorbed some of my rage. Practise also provided a quiet time to deliberate.

In the stillness I devised my plan. Escape was not an honourable option. I had to remain alive, in solitude and captivity. I must survive and find Goro. I must to put an arrow through his body and stick his head on a pike. I had to become the Women-for-Play
ch
ō
ja
.

I would alter the only honourable freedom I had: my stories.

I would fashion my stories to gain more control over the men who came to me, thereby amending their attitudes and behaviour towards women. I had to become the
ch
ō
ja
because then I would have connections that would help me find Goro, avenge Tashiko, and protect the women in this place.

Each night and each morning, I lit incense and candles, chanted prayers, and promised Tashiko, ‘Submission is not surrender.’

‘No. I do not think that will work.’ Misuki tossed her head on another of our long walks after the evening meal, safe from other ears and eyes. She had spoken softly. If the birds were silent or took to flight, I would know someone approached.

‘Even with what you accomplished for Emi. I am delighted they allowed it – she loves the laundry. She and Aya talked about you and your stories.’

‘I see,’ I agreed, despite her tactless reminder of Emi’s loose tongue. ‘Why will it not work?’

‘Emi and Aya are . . . Well, they are too trusting, easily deceived. They would agree to almost . . . anything.’ She straightened her shoulders and gestured with her hands. ‘But your customers – are intelligent and educated. Some are of the nobility – others have ranks, even Coloured Hats. Some live in the capital and in what I have heard is the grand Rokuhara city with its estates, each as big as Chiba’s
sh
ō
en
.’

‘You seem to know my customers.’ Did this prove she spied for Rin? ‘With whom should I start?’

‘Well, as they say, to become a Buddha one must first become a novice. But first – first let me calculate the next auspicious day. To begin correctly.’

I humoured her and waited. Especially since I desired to have the first story meticulously designed to the smallest detail. In all of them, brutality focused on the men’s enemies, never their daughters or wives. Never, never again, to women.

Each man will be touched

By my loss of purest love

Guileful, like the Fox

To gather violent harvests

And transmute into respect

My grief was as it had been in the endless days after Tashiko had disappeared from the
sh
ō
en
, like a poor harvest followed by a long winter. In another of my vivid dreams, Tashiko’s spirit appeared in an immense circle of fire and flew through a murky forest.

‘The way out approaches!’ she called, her hands open to embrace me, her face in a Buddha-like smile.

The trees sparkled with sunlight on freshly sprinkled rain. Her hands held books written in gold and silver on dark blue paper. Her eyes flashed with the light. ‘Hold on to the brightness! I will guide you!’

I awoke. Tashiko was gone from my life and I, all alone, was in a dark forest.

I prayed my plan would work. I prayed to a Luck God, the one of Justice, Bishaman. I held on to this small hope.

V. Systems

Misuki said, again, ‘I do not think this will work.’ Her eyes circled up to her pasted-on eyebrows. She and I walked to our work huts. Tashiko’s voice echoed in my steps. Altered stories: the only honourable path, compared to any other. My changes had to change the men to whom I told them.

‘It is a difficult thing to do.’ Akio settled a paw on each of my shoulders. ‘To maintain one’s honour while one takes vengeance can be difficult.’

He did not mention the obvious: that I was Woman-for-Play, small, and in possession of barely passing warrior skills.

On the other hand, Misuki counselled, ‘Fear is only as deep as the mind allows.’ Unlike her other maxims, I appreciated this one.

She and I had discussed each detail of ‘Last Chance’:

There was a Buddhist priest known to transform huts into mansions, old shoes into farm animals, and more. A lazy and greedy man hounded the priest to teach him this magic. After much begging, the priest finally agreed, but on the condition that the man must carry no eating utensils or anything made of metal.

Thinking of his future wealth, the man agreed. Afraid of the priest’s power, he hid a dagger in his loin cloth. When he arrived, the priest pointed a finger where the dagger was hidden and commanded,
‘ALL DISAPPEAR
.’ Suddenly, the man was alone in the middle of the forest, a half-day’s journey from his house, and his dreams of wealth gone. He never saw the priest again.

The man played the Buddhist priest, while I acted the greedy man who begged for favours and appeared despicably grasping. I arranged my robe to open as I begged. That did not work. The greedier I became, the angrier the customer grew.

I reversed the scenario for the next customers. It made them angrier and rougher with me. The exact opposite of what I wished.

I modified ‘Last Chance’ again by a few details. Not one of my clients wanted to beg for material things. None desired to be the greedy man, and none wanted to say,
‘ALL DISAPPEAR
,’ except to be more aggressive with me. Again the reverse of what I had hoped and often painful.

‘What did you expect? A bean-jam cake falling into an open mouth?’ Misuki said later, and made an effort not to smirk, but her balled fists remained pressed into her sides. Then she added a stupid proverb. I did not speak to her for the rest of the day. Displeased with her, I was more upset with myself.

The next morning Akio did not help my spirits. ‘Kozaishō, men truly believe they will reap what they sow, especially so quickly. That is why we must continually be aware of the laws of
karma
.’

My arrows scored the lowest in many days. My footing was faulty. I received more blows from Akio’s
bokken
than ever before. My thoughts were not on my work. That evening, Misuki stayed away and she told most others to do the same.