Musashi: Bushido Code (121 page)

The Demon’s Attendant

The dogs of Mitsumine were a feral breed, said to result from the crossing of dogs brought by immigrants from Korea more than a thousand years earlier with the wild dogs of the Chichibu Mountains. Only a step removed from the wild stage, they roamed the mountainside and fed like wolves on the other wildlife in the region. But since they were regarded as messengers of the deity and were spoken of as his "attendants," worshipers often took home printed or sculptured images of them as good-luck charms.

The black dog with the man following Musashi was the size of a calf.

As Musashi entered the Kannon'in, the man turned, said, "This way," and beckoned with his free hand.

The dog growled, tugged at his leash—a piece of thick rope—and began sniffing.

Flicking the leash across the dog's back, the man said, "Shh, Kuro, be quiet."

The man was about fifty, solidly but supplely built, and like his dog, he seemed not quite tame. But he was well dressed. With his kimono, which looked like a priest's robe or a samurai's formal wear, he wore a narrow, flat obi and a hemp
hakama. His
straw sandals, of the sort men wore at festivals, were fitted with new thongs.

"Baiken?" The woman held back, to keep away from the dog.

"Down," commanded Baiken, rapping the animal sharply on the head. "I'm glad you spotted him, Okō."

"Then it was him?"

"No doubt about it."

For a moment, they stood silently looking through a break in the clouds at the stars, hearing but not really listening to the sacred dance music.

"What'll we do?" she asked.

"I'll think of something."

"We can't let this chance go to waste."

Okō stared expectantly at Baiken.

"Is Tōji at home?" he asked.

"Yes; he got drunk on the festival sake and fell asleep."

"Get him up."

"What about you?"

"I've got work to do. After I make my rounds, I'll come to your place."

Outside the main shrine gate, Okō broke into a trot. Most of the twenty or thirty houses were souvenir shops or teahouses. There were also a few small eating establishments, from which emanated the cheerful voices of revelers. From the eaves of the shack Okō entered hung a sign saying "Rest House." On one of the stools in the dirt-floored front room sat a young servant enjoying a catnap.

"Still sleeping?" asked Okō.

The girl, expecting a scolding, shook her head vigorously.

"I don't mean you—my husband."

"Oh, yes, he's still asleep."

With a disapproving click of her tongue, Okō grumbled, "A festival's going on, and he's sleeping. This is the only shop that isn't full of customers."

Near the door, a man and an old woman were steaming rice and beans in an earthen oven. The flames struck the only cheerful note in the otherwise gloomy interior.

Okō walked over to where a man was sleeping on a bench by the wall, tapped him on the shoulder and said, "Get up, you! Open your eyes for a change."

"Huh?" he mumbled, raising himself slightly.

"Oh, my," she exclaimed, as she backed away. Then she laughed and said, "I'm sorry. I thought you were my husband."

A piece of matting had slipped to the ground. The man, a round-faced youth with large, questioning eyes, picked it up, pulled it over his face and stretched out again. His head rested on a wooden pillow and his sandals were spattered with mud. On the table next to him were a tray and an empty rice bowl; by the wall, a travel pack, a basket hat and a staff.

Turning back to the girl, Okō said, "I suppose he's a customer?"

"Yes. He said he's planning to go up to the inner shrine early in the morning and asked if it was all right to take a nap here."

"Where's Tōji?"

"I'm over here, stupid." His voice came from behind a torn shoji. Reclining in the next room, with one foot hanging out into the shop, he said sullenly, "And why carry on about me taking a little snooze? Where've you been all this time, when you should have been tending to business?"

In many ways, the years had been even less kind to Okō than they had to Tōji. Not only was the charm of her earlier years no longer evident, but running the Oinu Teahouse required her to do a man's work to make up for her shiftless spouse, since Tōji made a pittance hunting in the winter but did little else. After Musashi burned down their hideout with its trick room at Wada Pass, their henchmen had all deserted them.

Tōji's bleary red eyes gradually focused on a barrel of water. Pulling himself to his feet, he went over to it and gulped down a dipperful.

Okō leaned on a bench and looked over her shoulder at him. "I don't care if there is a festival going on. It's about time you learned when to stop. You're lucky you didn't get run through by a sword while you were out."

"Huh?"

"I'm telling you you'd better be more careful."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Did you know Musashi's here at the festival?"

"Musashi? Miyamoto ... Musashi?" Jolted into wakefulness, he said, "Are you serious? Look, you'd better go hide in the back."

"Is that all you can think of—hiding?"

"I don't want what happened at Wada Pass to happen again."

"Coward. Aren't you eager to get even with him, not only for that but for what he did to the Yoshioka School? I am, and I'm only a woman."

"Yeah, but don't forget, we had lots of men to help us then: Now there's just the two of us." Tōji hadn't been at Ichijōji, but he had heard how Musashi had fought and had no illusions about who would end up dead if the two of them ran into each other again.

Sidling up to her husband, Okō said, "That's where you're wrong. There's another man here, isn't there? A man who hates Musashi as much as you do."

Tōji knew she was referring to Baiken, whom they had become acquainted with when their wanderings brought them to Mitsumine.

Since there were no more battles, being a freebooter was no longer profitable, so Baiken had opened a smithy in Iga, only to be driven out when Lord Tōdō tightened his rule over the province. Intending to seek his fortune in Edo, he had disbanded his gang, but then, through the introduction of a friend, had become the watchman at the temple's treasure house.

Even now, the mountains between the provinces of Musashi and Kai were infested with bandits. In hiring Baiken to guard the treasure house, with its religious treasures and donated cash, the temple elders were fighting fire with fire. He had the advantage of being intimately familiar with the ways of bandits, and he was also an acknowledged expert with the chain-ball-sickle. As the originator of the Yaegaki Style, he might possibly have attracted the attention of a daimyō, had it not been for the fact that his brother was Tsujikaze Temma. In years long past, the two of them had terrorized the region between Mount Ibuki and the Yasugawa district. Changing times meant nothing to Baiken. To his way of thinking, Temma's death at the hands of Takezō had been the ultimate cause of all his subsequent difficulties.

Okō had long since told Baiken about their grievance against Musashi, exaggerating her rancor in order to cement her friendship with him. He had responded by scowling and saying, "One of these days ..."

Okō had just finished telling Tōji how she had caught sight of Musashi from the teahouse, then lost him in the crowd. Later, on a hunch, she had gone to the Kannon'in, arriving just as Musashi and Iori were leaving for the outer shrine. This information she had promptly imparted to Baiken.

"So that's the way it is," said Tōji, taking courage from the knowledge that a dependable ally had already been lined up. He knew Baiken, using his favorite weapon, had beaten every swordsman at the recent shrine tournament. If he attacked Musashi, there was a good chance of winning. "What did he say when you told him?"

"He'll come as soon as he finishes his rounds."

"Musashi's no fool. If we're not careful—" Tōji shuddered and uttered a gruff, unintelligible sound. Okō followed his eyes to the man sleeping on the bench.

"Who's that?" asked Tōji.

"Just a customer," answered Okō.

"Wake him up and get him out of here."

Okō delegated this task to the girl servant, who went to the far corner and shook the man until he sat up.

"Get out," she said bluntly. "We're closing up now."

He stood up, stretched and said, "That was a nice nap." Smiling to himself and blinking his large eyes, he moved quickly but smoothly, wrapping the matting around his shoulders, donning his basket hat and adjusting his pack. He placed his staff under his arm, said, "Thanks a lot," with a bow and walked quickly out the door.

Okō judged from his clothing and accent that he was not one of the local farmers, but he seemed harmless enough. "Funny-looking man," she said. "I wonder if he paid his bill."

Okō and Tōji were still rolling up blinds and straightening up the shop when Baiken came in with Kuro.

"Good to see you," said Tōji. "Let's go to the back room."

Baiken silently removed his sandals and followed them, while the dog nosed around for scraps of food. The back room was only a broken-down lean-to with a first coat of rough plaster on the walls. It was out of earshot of anyone in the shop.

When a lamp had been lit, Baiken said, "This evening in front of the dance stage, I overheard Musashi tell the boy they'd go up to the inner shrine tomorrow morning. Later I went to the Kannon'in and checked it out."

Both Okō and Tōji swallowed and looked out the window; the peak on which the inner shrine stood was dimly outlined against the starry sky.

Knowing whom he was up against, Baiken had made a plan of attack and mobilized reinforcements. Two priests, guards at the treasure house, had already agreed to help and had gone on ahead with their lances. There was also a man from the Yoshioka School, who ran a small dōjō at the shrine. Baiken calculated he could mobilize perhaps ten freebooters, men he'd known in Iga who were now working in the vicinity. Tōji would carry a musket, while Baiken would have his chain-ball-sickle.

"You've done all this already?" asked Tōji in disbelief.

Baiken grinned but said nothing more.

A diminutive sliver of moon hung high above the valley, hidden from view by a thick fog. The great peak was still sleeping, with only the gurgling and roaring of the river to accentuate the silence. A group of dark figures huddled on the bridge at Kosaruzawa.

"Tōji?" Baiken whispered hoarsely.

"Here."

"Be sure to keep your fuse dry."

Conspicuous among the motley crew were the two lancer priests, who had the skirts of their robes tucked up ready for action. The others were dressed in a variety of outfits, but all were shod so as to be able to move nimbly.

"Is this everybody?"

"Yes."

"How many altogether?"

They counted heads: thirteen.

"Good," said Baiken. He went over their instructions again. They listened in silence, nodding occasionally. Then, at a signal, they scurried into the fog to take up positions along the road. At the end of the bridge, they passed a milestone saying: "Six Thousand Yards to the Inner Shrine."

When the bridge was empty again, a great company of monkeys emerged from hiding, jumping from limbs, climbing vines, converging on the road. They ran out onto the bridge, crawled under it, threw stones into the ravine. The fog toyed with them, as if encouraging their frolic. Had a Taoist Immortal appeared and beckoned, perhaps they would have been transformed into clouds and flown off with him to heaven.

The barking of a dog echoed through the mountains. The monkeys vanished, like sumac leaves before an autumn wind.

Kuro came up the road, dragging Okō along with him. He'd somehow broken loose, and though Okō had eventually got hold of the leash, she hadn't been able to make him go back. She knew Tōji didn't want the dog around to make noise, so she thought maybe she could get him out of the way by letting him go up to the inner shrine.

As the restlessly shifting fog began to settle in the valleys like snow, the three peaks of Mitsumine and the lesser mountains between Musashino and Kai rose against the sky in all their grandeur. The winding road stood out white, and birds began to ruffle their feathers and chirp a greeting to the dawn.

Iori said, half to himself, "Why is that, I wonder?"

"Why is what?" asked Musashi.

"It's getting light, but I can't see the sun."

"For one thing, you're looking toward the west."

"Oh." Iori gave the moon, sinking behind the distant peaks, a cursory glance.

"Iori, a lot of your friends seem to live here in the mountains."

"Where?"

"Over there." Musashi laughed and pointed to some monkeys clustered around their mother.

"I wish I was one of them."

"Why?"

Y•

"At least they have a mother."

They climbed a steep part of the road in silence and came to a relatively flat stretch. Musashi noticed the grass had been trampled by a large number of feet.

After winding around the mountain for a while more, they reached a level area where they were facing east.

"Look," cried Iori, looking over his shoulder at Musashi. "The sun's coming up.

"So it is."