Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [13]
Takezō had loved his mother, but she had left his father and moved away when he was still small, leaving him alone with Munisai, a martinet who wouldn’t have known how to spoil a child in the unlikely event that he had wanted to. In his father’s presence, the boy had always felt awkward and frightened, never really at ease. When he was nine years old, he’d so craved a kind word from his mother that he had run away from home and gone all the way to Harima Province, where she was living. Takezō never learned why his mother and father had separated, and at that age, an explanation might not have helped much. She had married another samurai, by whom she had one more child.
Once the little runaway had reached Harima, he wasted no time in locating his mother. On that occasion, she took him to a wooded area behind the local shrine, so they wouldn’t be seen, and there, with tear-filled eyes, hugged him tightly and tried to explain why he had to go back to his father. Takezō never forgot the scene; every detail of it remained vividly in his mind as long as he lived.
Of course, Munisai, being the samurai he was, had sent people to retrieve his son the moment he learned of his disappearance. It was obvious where the child had gone. Takezō was returned to Miyamoto like a bundle of firewood, strapped on the back of an unsaddled horse. Munisai, by way of greeting, had called him an insolent brat, and in a state of rage verging on hysteria, caned him until he could cane no more. Takezō remembered more explicitly than anything else the venom with which his father had spat out his ultimatum: “If you go to your mother one more time, I’ll disown you.”
Not long after this incident, Takezō learned that his mother had fallen ill and died. Her death had the effect of transforming him from a quiet, gloomy child into the village bully. Even Munisai was intimidated eventually. When he took a truncheon to the boy, the latter countered with a wooden staff. The only one who ever stood up to him was Matahachi, also the son of a samurai; the other children all did Takezō’s bidding. By the time he was twelve or thirteen, he was almost as tall as an adult.
One year, a wandering swordsman named Arima Kihei put up a gold-emblazoned banner and offered to take on challengers from the village. Takezō killed him effortlessly, eliciting praise for his valor from the villagers. Their high opinion of him, however, was short-lived, since as he grew older, he became increasingly unmanageable and brutal. Many thought him sadistic, and soon, whenever he appeared on the scene, people gave him a very wide berth. His attitude toward them grew to reflect their coldness.
When his father, as harsh and unrelenting as ever, finally died, the cruel streak in Takezō widened even more. If it had not been for his older sister, Ogin, Takezō would probably have gotten himself into something far over his head and been driven out of the village by an angry mob. Fortunately, he loved his sister and, powerless before her tears, usually did whatever she asked.
Going off to war with Matahachi was a turning point for Takezō. It indicated that somehow he wanted to take his place in society alongside other men. The defeat at Sekigahara had abruptly curtailed such hopes, and he found himself once again plunged into the dark reality from which he thought he had escaped. Still, he was a youth blessed with the sublime lightheartedness that flourishes only in an age of strife. When he slept, his face became as placid as an infant’s, completely untroubled by thoughts of the morrow. He had his share of dreams, asleep or awake, but he suffered few real disappointments. Having so little to begin with, he had little to lose, and although he was in a sense uprooted, he was also unfettered by shackles.
Breathing deeply and steadily, holding on to his wooden sword tightly, Takezō at this moment may well have been dreaming, a faint smile on his lips as visions of his gentle sister and his peaceful hometown cascaded like a mountain waterfall before his closed, heavily