Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [128]
Putting the finishing touches on the single peony he was arranging in an Iga vase, Sekishūsai asked Otsū, “What do you think? Is my flower arrangement alive?”
Standing just behind him, she said, “You must have studied flower arranging very hard.”
“Not at all. I’m not a Kyoto nobleman, and I’ve never studied either flower arranging or the tea ceremony under a teacher.”
“Well, it looks as though you had.”
“I use the same method with flowers that I use with the sword.”
Otsū looked surprised. “Can you really arrange flowers the way you use the sword?”
“Yes. You see, it’s all a matter of spirit. I have no use for rules—twisting the flowers with your fingertips or choking them at the neck. The point is to have the proper spirit—to be able to make them seem alive, just as they were when they were picked. Look at that! My flower isn’t dead.”
Otsū felt that this austere old man had taught her many things she needed to know, and since it had all begun with a chance meeting on the highroad, she felt she had been very lucky. “I’ll teach you the tea ceremony,” he would say. Or: “Do you compose Japanese poems? If you do, teach me something about the courtly style. The Man’yōshū is all well and good, but living here in this secluded place, I’d rather hear simple poems about nature.”
In return, she did little things for him that no one else thought of. He was delighted, for example, when she made him a little cloth cap like the tea masters wore. He kept it on his head much of the time now, treasuring it as though there were nothing finer anywhere. Her flute playing, too, pleased him immensely, and on moonlit nights, the hauntingly beautiful sound of her flute often reached as far as the castle itself.
While Sekishūsai and Otsū were discussing the flower arrangement, Kizaemon came quietly to the entrance of the mountain house and called to Otsū. She came out and invited him in, but he hesitated.
“Would you let his lordship know I’ve just come back from my errand?” he asked.
Otsū laughed. “That’s backwards, isn’t it?”
“Why?”
Y•
“You’re the chief retainer here. I’m only an outsider, called in to play the flute. You’re much closer to him than I. Shouldn’t you go to him directly, rather than through me?”
“I suppose you’re right, but here in his lordship’s little house, you’re special. Anyway, please give him the message.” Kizaemon, too, was pleased by the way things had turned out. He had found in Otsū a person whom his master liked very much.
Otsū returned almost immediately to say that Sekishūsai wanted Kizaemon to come in. Kizaemon found the old man in the tea room, wearing the cloth cap Otsū had made.
“Are you back already?” asked Sekishūsai.
“Yes. I called on them and gave them the letter and the fruit, just as you instructed.”
“Have they gone?”
“No. No sooner had I arrived back here than a messenger came from the inn with a letter. It said that since they’d come to Yagyū, they didn’t want to leave without seeing the dōjō. If possible, they’d like to come tomorrow. They also said they’d like to meet you and pay their respects.”
“Impudent boors! Why must they be such a nuisance?” Sekishūsai looked extremely annoyed. “Did you explain that Munenori is in Edo, Hyōgo in Kumamoto, and that there’s no one else around?”
“I did.”
“I despise people like that. Even after I send a messenger to tell them I can’t see them, they try to push their way in.”
“I don’t know what—”
“It would appear that Yoshioka’s sons are as shiftless as they’re said to be.” “The one at the Wataya is Denshichirō. He didn’t impress me.”
“I’d be surprised if he did. His father was a man of considerable character. When I went to Kyoto with Lord Kōizumi, we saw him two or three times and drank some sake together. It appears that the house has gone downhill since then. The young man seems to think that being Kempō’s son gives him the right not to be refused entry here,