Musashi: Bushido Code (132 page)

"Laugh if you will, but I've been spending my free time reading Lao-tsu and Chuang-tsu. The conclusion I've come to is that life is enjoyment. Without enjoyment, what use is there in living?"

"Well, well," exclaimed Sado, feigning surprise.

They talked for another hour or so, over cups of fresh tea served by Daisuke's wife.

Eventually Sado said, "I fear I've stayed too long, wasting your time with my chatter. Nuinosuke, shall we be going?"

"Don't hurry off," said Yukimura. "My son and his wife have made some noodles. Poor country food, but I wish you'd have some with us. If you're planning to stop over at Kamuro, you have plenty of time."

Daisuke appeared just then to ask his father if he was ready to have the meal served. Yukimura stood up and led the way down a corridor to the back part of the house.

When they were seated, Daisuke offered Sado a pair of chopsticks, saying, "I'm afraid the food isn't too good, but try some anyway."

His wife, not accustomed to having strangers around, diffidently held out a sake cup, which Sado politely refused. Daisuke and his wife lingered a moment longer before excusing themselves.

"What's that noise I can hear?" asked Sado. It sounded rather like a loom, though louder and with a slightly different quality.

"Oh, that? It's a wooden wheel for making cord. I'm sorry to say, I've had to put the family and servants to work braiding cord, which we sell to help with the finances." Then he added, "We're all used to it, but I suppose it might be annoying to anyone who's not. I'll send word to have it stopped."

"No, that's all right. It doesn't bother me. I'd hate to think I was holding up your work."

As he started to eat, Sado thought about the food, which sometimes provides insight into a man's condition. But he found nothing revealing there. Yukimura was not at all like the young samurai he had known years before, but he seemed to have shrouded his present circumstances in ambiguity.

Sado then thought about the sounds he heard—kitchen noises, people coming and going, and a couple of times the clink of money being counted. The dispossessed daimyō were not accustomed to physical labor, and sooner or later they would run out of treasures to sell. It was conceivable that Osaka Castle had ceased to be a source of funds. Still, the idea of Yukimura in tight straits was oddly disturbing.

He had been aware that his host might be trying to piece together bits of conversation to form a picture of how things were going with the House of Hosokawa, but there was no indication of this. What stood out about his recollections of their meeting was that Yukimura had not asked about his visit to Mount Kōya. Sado would have answered readily, for there was nothing mysterious about it. Many years ago, Hosokawa Yūsai had been sent by Hideyoshi to the Seiganji and had stayed for quite some time. He had left behind books, some writings and some personal effects, which had become important keepsakes. Sado had gone through them, sorted them out and arranged for the temple to turn them over to Tadatoshi.

Nuinosuke, who hadn't moved from the veranda, cast an anxious look toward the back of the house. Relations between Edo and Osaka were strained, to say the least. Why was Sado taking a risk like this? He didn't imagine Sado to be in any immediate danger, but he'd heard that the lord of Kii Province, Asano Nagaakira, had instructions to keep a strict watch on Mount Kudo. If one of Asano's men reported that Sado had paid a secret visit to Yukimura, the shogunate would become suspicious of the House of Hosokawa.

"Now's my chance," he thought, as the wind suddenly swept through the forsythia and kerria blossoms in the garden. Black clouds were forming rapidly, and it began to sprinkle.

He hurried down the corridor and announced, "It's starting to rain, sir. If we're going to leave, I think now is the time."

Grateful for the opportunity to break away, Sado stood up immediately. "Thank you, Nuinosuke," he said. "By all means, let's be on our way."

Yukimura refrained from urging Sado to stay overnight. He called Daisuke and his wife and said, "Give our guests some straw rain capes. And you, Daisuke, go with them to Kamuro."

At the gate, after expressing thanks for Yukimura's hospitality, Sado said, "I'm sure we'll meet again one of these days. Maybe it'll be another day of rain, or maybe there'll be a strong wind blowing. Until then, I wish you the best of health."

Yukimura grinned and nodded. Yes, one of these days ... For an instant each man saw the other in his mind's eye, mounted on horseback and carrying a lance. But for the present there was only the host bowing amidst falling apricot petals and the departing guest in a straw cape streaked with rain.

As they walked slowly down the road, Daisuke said, "It won't rain much. At this time of year, we have a little shower like this every day."

Still, the clouds above Senjō Valley and the peaks of Kōya looked threatening, and they unconsciously quickened their pace.

Entering Kamuro, they were greeted by the sight of a man sharing the back of a horse with bundles of firewood and tied so tightly he couldn't move. Leading the horse was a white-robed priest, who called Daisuke's name and ran toward him. Daisuke pretended not to notice.

"Someone's calling you," said Sado, exchanging glances with Nuinosuke. Forced to take notice of the priest, Daisuke said, "Oh, Rinshōbō. Sorry, I didn't see you."

"I've come straight from Kiimi Pass," said the priest in a loud, excited voice. "The man from Edo—the one we were told to watch for—I spotted him in Nara. He put up quite a fight, but we took him alive. Now, if we take him to Gessō and force him to talk, we'll find out—"

"'What are you talking about?" broke in Daisuke.

"The man on the horse. He's a spy from Edo."

"Can't you shut up, you fool!" hissed Daisuke. "Do you know who the man with me is? Nagaoka Sado of the House of Hosokawa. We rarely have the privilege of seeing him, and I'll not have you disturbing us with your silly joke."

Rinshōbō's eyes, turning to the two travelers, betrayed his shock, and he barely caught himself before blurting out, "House of Hosokawa?"

Sado and Nuinosuke were trying to look poised and indifferent, but the wind whipped at their rain capes, making them flap out like the wings of a crane and rather spoiling their efforts.

"Why?" asked Rinshōbō in a low voice.

Daisuke drew him a little to one side and spoke in a whisper. When he returned to his guests, Sado said, "Why don't you go back now? I'd hate to put you to any more trouble."

After watching them until they were out of sight, Daisuke said to the priest, "How could you be so stupid? Don't you know enough to open your eyes before you open your mouth? My father wouldn't be pleased to hear about this."

"Yes, sir. I'm sorry. I didn't know."

Despite his robes, the man was no priest. He was Toriumi Benzō, one of Yukimura's leading retainers.

The Port

"Gonnosuke! ... Gonnosuke! ... Gonnosuke!"

Iori couldn't seem to stop himself. He called the name over and over and over. Having found some of Gonnosuke's belongings lying on the ground, he was convinced the man was dead.

A day and a night had passed. He'd been in a walking daze, oblivious of his weariness. His legs, hands and head were spattered with blood, his kimono badly torn.

Seized by a spasm, he would look up at the sky and cry, "I'm ready." Or stare at the ground and curse.

"Have I gone crazy?" he thought, suddenly feeling cold. Looking into a puddle of water, he recognized his own face and felt relieved. But he was alone, with no one to turn to, only half believing he was still alive. When he'd awoken at the bottom of the ravine, he couldn't remember where he'd been the past several days. It didn't occur to him to try to go back to the Kongōji or Koyagyū.

An object glinting with the colors of the rainbow caught his eye—a pheasant. He became aware of the fragrance of wild wisteria in the air and sat down. As he tried to make sense of his situation, thoughts of the sun captured his mind. He imagined it as being everywhere—beyond the clouds, among the peaks, in the valleys. He shifted to a kneeling position, clasped his hands, shut his eyes and began praying. When he opened his eyes a few minutes later, the first thing he saw was a glimpse of ocean, blue and misty, between two mountains.

"Little boy," said a motherly voice. "Are you all right?"

"Hunh?" With a start, Iori turned his hollow eyes toward the two women who were staring at him curiously.

"What do you suppose is wrong with him, Mother?" asked the younger woman, regarding Iori with distaste.

Looking puzzled, the older woman walked over to Iori, and seeing the blood on his clothes, she frowned. "Don't those cuts hurt?" she asked. Iori shook his head. She turned to her daughter and said, "He seems to understand what I say."

They asked his name, where he had come from, where he had been born, what he was doing here, and whom he had been praying to. Little by little, as he searched around for the answers, his memory came back.

More sympathetic now, the daughter, whose name was Otsuru, said, "Let's take him back to Sakai with us. Maybe he'd be useful in the shop. He's just the right age."

"That might be a good idea," said her mother, Osei. "Will he come?" "He'll come.... Won't you?"

Iori nodded and said, "Uh-huh."

"Come along then, but you'll have to carry our luggage."

"Uh."

Iori acknowledged their remarks with a grunt but otherwise said nothing on the journey down the mountain, along a country road and into Kishiwada. But among people again, he became talkative.

"Where do you live?" he asked.

"In Sakai."

"Is that near here?"

"No, it's near Osaka."

"Where's Osaka?"

"We'll take a ship from here and go to Sakai. Then you'll know."

"Really! A ship?" Excited by the prospect, he rattled on for several minutes, telling them how he'd ridden any number of ferryboats on the way from Edo to Yamato, but though the ocean wasn't far from his birthplace in Shimōsa, he'd never been out to sea in a ship.

"That'll make you happy, then, won't it?" said Otsuru. "But you mustn't call my mother 'Auntie.' Say 'Madam' when you speak to her."

"Uh."

"And you mustn't answer 'Uh.' Say 'Yes, ma'am."'

"Yes, ma'am."

"That's better. Now, if you stay with us and work hard, I'll see you're made a shop assistant."

"What does your family do?"

"My father's a shipping broker."

"What's that?"

"He's a merchant. He owns a lot of ships, and they sail all over western Japan."

"Oh, just a merchant?" sniffed Iori.

"'Just a merchant'! Why—!" exclaimed the girl. The mother was inclined to overlook Iori's bluntness, but the daughter was indignant. Then she hesitated, saying, "I suppose he's never seen merchants other than candy sellers or clothing salesmen." The fierce pride of the Kansai merchants took over, and she informed him that her father had three warehouses, large ones, in Sakai and several tens of vessels. She gave him to understand that there were branch offices in Shimonoseki, Marukame and Shikama, and that the services performed for the House of Hosokawa in Kokura were of such great importance that her father's ships had the status of official vessels.

"And," she went on, "he's allowed to have a surname and carry two swords, like a samurai. Everyone in western Honshu and Kyushu knows the name of Kobayashi Tarōzaemon of Shimonoseki. In time of war, daimyō like Shimazu and Hosokawa never have enough ships, so my father is just as important as a general."

"I didn't mean to make you angry," said Iori.

The two women laughed.

"We're not angry," said Otsuru. "But a boy like you, what do you know of the world?"

"I'm sorry."

Turning a corner, they were greeted by the tang of salt air. Otsuru pointed to a ship tied up at Kishiwada Pier. It had a capacity of five hundred bushels and was loaded with local produce.

"That's the ship we'll go home in," she said proudly.

The ship captain and a couple of Kobayashi agents came out of a dockside teahouse to meet them.

"Did you have a nice walk?" asked the captain. "I'm sorry to say we're very heavily loaded, so I couldn't keep much space open for you. Shall we go on board?"

He led the way to the stern of the ship, where a space had been partitioned off with curtains. A red rug had been spread, and elegant Momoyama-style lacquered utensils contained an abundance of food and sake. Iori had the feeling he was entering a small, well-appointed room in a daimyō's mansion.

The ship reached Sakai in the evening, after an uneventful voyage up Osaka Bay. The travelers went directly to the Kobayashi establishment, facing the wharf, where they were welcomed by the manager, a man named Sahei, and a large group of assistants who had gathered at the spacious entrance.

As Osei was going into the house, she turned and said, "Sahei, will you look after the child, please?"

"You mean the dirty little urchin who came off the ship?"

"Yes. He seems quick-witted, so you should be able to put him to work... . And do something about his clothes. He may have lice. See that he washes well and give him a new kimono. Then he can go to bed."

Iori didn't see the mistress of the house or her daughter for the next few days. There was a half-length curtain separating the office from the living quarters in the back. It was like a wall. Without special permission, not even Sahei dared go beyond it.

Iori was given a corner of the "shop," as the office was called, in which to sleep, and though he was grateful for being rescued, he soon became dissatisfied with his new way of life.

The cosmopolitan atmosphere into which he'd been dropped had a certain fascination. He gaped at the foreign innovations he saw on the streets, at the ships in the harbor and the signs of prosperity evident in the way people lived. But it was always, "Hey, boy! Do this! ... Do that!" From the lowest assistant to the manager, they made him chase around like a dog, not at all like their attitude when speaking to a member of the household or a customer. Then they turned into fawning sycophants. And from morning to night, they talked of money, money. If it was not that, it was work, work.

"And they call themselves human beings!" thought Iori. He longed for the blue sky and the smell of warm grass under the sun and decided any number of times to run away. The yearning was strongest when he remembered Musashi talking about ways of nourishing the spirit. He visualized how Musashi had looked, and the face of the departed Gonnosuke. And Otsū.

Matters came to a head one day when Sahei called, "Io! Io, where are you?" Getting no answer, he stood up and walked to the black-lacquered
keyaki
beam forming the threshold of the office. "You there, the new boy," he shouted. "Why don't you come when you're called?"

Iori was sweeping the walk between the office and the storehouse. He looked up and asked, "Were you calling me?"

"Were you calling me,
sir!"

"I
see."

"I see,
sir!"

"Yes, sir."

"Don't you have ears? Why didn't you answer me?"

"I heard you say 'Io.' That couldn't be me. My name's Iori ... sir."

"Io's enough. And another thing. I told you the other day to stop wearing that sword."

"Yes, sir."

"Give it to me."

Iori hesitated a moment, then said, "It's a keepsake from my father. I couldn't let go of it."

"Impudent brat! Give it to me."

"I don't want to be a merchant anyway."

"If it weren't for merchants, people couldn't live," Sahei said forcefully. "Who'd bring in goods from foreign countries? Nobunaga and Hideyoshi are great men, but they couldn't have built all those castles—Azuchi, Jurakudai, Fushimi—without the help of merchants. Just look at the men here in Sakai—Namban, Ruzon, Fukien, Amoi. They're all carrying on trade on a large scale."

"I know that."

"How would you know?"

"Anybody can see the big weaving houses at Ayamachi, Kinumachi and Nishikimachi, and up on the hill Ruzon'ya's establishment looks like a castle. There are rows and rows of warehouses and mansions belonging to rich merchants. This place—well, I know madam and Otsuru are proud of it, but it doesn't amount to anything by comparison."

"Why, you little son of a bitch!"

Sahei was barely out the door before Iori had dropped his broom and fled. Sahei summoned some dock workers and ordered them to catch him.

When Iori was dragged back, Sahei was fuming. "What can you do with a boy like that? He talks back and makes fun of all of us. Punish him good today." Going back into the office, he added, "Take that sword away from him."

They removed the offending weapon and tied Iori's hands behind him. When they fastened the rope to a large crate of cargo, Iori looked like a monkey on a leash.

"Stay there awhile," said one of the men, smirking. "Let people make fun of you." The others guffawed and went back to their work.

There was nothing Iori hated more than this. How often Musashi and Gonnosuke had admonished him not to do things he might be ashamed of.

First he tried pleading, then promised to mend his ways. When this proved ineffective, he switched to invective.

"The manager's a fool—crazy old fart! Let me loose and give me back my sword! I won't stay in a house like this."

Sahei came out and shouted, "Quiet!" He then tried to gag Iori, but the boy bit his finger, so he gave up and had the dock workers do it.

Iori tugged at his bonds, pulling this way and that. Already under a terrible strain from being exposed to public view, he burst into tears when a horse urinated and the foamy liquid trickled toward his feet.

As he was quieting down, he saw something that almost made him faint. On the other side of a horse was a young woman, her head protected from the sweltering sun by a broad-brimmed lacquered hat. Her hemp kimono was tied up for traveling, and she carried a thin bamboo pole.

In vain, he tried to cry out her name. Stretching his neck out, he almost choked with the effort. His eyes were dry, but his shoulders shook with his sobbing. It was maddening, Otsū was so near. Where was she going? Why had she left Edo?

Later in the day, when a ship tied up at the pier, the neighborhood became even busier.

"Sahei, what's this boy doing out here, looking like a trained bear on exhibit? It's cruel to leave him like that. It's also bad for business." The man calling into the office was a cousin of Tarōzaemon. He was usually called Namban'ya, the name of the shop where he worked. Black pockmarks added a certain sinisterness to the anger in his face. Despite his appearance, he was a friendly man and often gave sweets to Iori. "I don't care if you are punishing him," he continued. "It's not right to do it out on the street. It's bad for the Kobayashi name. Untie him."

"Yes, sir." Sahei complied immediately, all the while regaling Namban'ya with a detailed account of how useless Iori was.

"If you don't know what to do with him," said Namban'ya, "I'll take him home with me. I'll speak to Osei about it today."

The manager, fearing the consequences when the mistress of the house heard what had happened, suddenly had an urge to soothe Iori's feelings. Iori, for his part, wouldn't have anything to do with the man for the rest of the day.

On his way out that evening, Namban'ya stopped in Iori's corner of the shop. A little drunk but in high spirits, he said, "Well, you won't be going with me after all. The women wouldn't hear of it. Ha!"

His conversation with Osei and Otsuru did have one salutary effect, however. The very next day Iori entered a temple school in the neighborhood. He was allowed to wear his sword to school, and neither Sahei nor the others gave him further trouble.

But still he was unable to settle down. When he was inside, his eyes often strayed to the street. Every time a young woman even remotely like Otsū passed, his color changed. Sometimes he ran out for a closer look.

One morning toward the beginning of the ninth month, a prodigious quantity of luggage began arriving by riverboat from Kyoto. By midday, chests and baskets were piled high in front of the office. Tags identified the property as that of samurai in the House of Hosokawa. They had been in Kyoto on business similar to that which had brought Sado to Mount Kōya, looking after the posthumous affairs of Hosokawa Yūsai. Now they sat drinking barley tea and fanning themselves, some in the office, some under the eaves outside.