Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [134]
“Hold on a minute!” Kizaemon laughed, and his face, with its red mouth behind his spiky beard, looked like the inside of a broken chestnut burr. “No, you can’t cut my head off.”
“Well, then, look at the letter.”
“Come in here.”
“Why?” Jōtarō had a sinking feeling he’d gone too far.
“I admire your determination not to let your master’s message go undelivered. I’ll read it.”
“And why shouldn’t you? You’re the highest-ranking official in the House of Yagyū, aren’t you?”
“You wield your tongue superbly. Let’s hope you can do the same with your sword when you grow up.” He broke the seal of the letter and silently read Musashi’s message. As he read, his face became serious. When he was finished, he asked, “Did you bring anything along with this letter?”
“Oh, I forgot! I was to give you this too.” Jōtarō quickly pulled the peony stem from his kimono.
Silently, Kizaemon examined both ends of the stem, looking somewhat puzzled. He could not completely understand the meaning of Musashi’s letter.
It explained how the inn’s maid had brought him a flower, which she said had come from the castle, and that upon examining the stem, he had discovered that the cut had been made by “no ordinary person.” The message continued: “After putting the flower in a vase, I sensed some special spirit about it, and I feel that I simply have to find out who made that cut. The question may seem trivial, but if you would not mind telling me which member of your household did it, I would appreciate your sending a reply by the boy who delivers my letter.”
That was all—no mention of the writer’s being a student, no request for a bout.
“What an odd thing to write,” thought Kizaemon. He looked at the peony stem again, again examining both ends closely, but without being able to discern whether one end differed from the other.
“Murata!” he called. “Come look at this. Can you see any difference between the cuts at the ends of this stem? Does one cut, perhaps, seem to be keener?”
Murata Yozō looked at the stem this way and that, but had to confess that he saw no difference between the two cuts.
“Let’s show it to Kimura.”
They went to the office at the back of the building and put the problem to their colleague, who was as mystified as they were. Debuchi, who happened to be in the office at the time, said, “This is one of the flowers the old lord himself cut the day before yesterday. Shōda, weren’t you with him at the time?”
“No, I saw him arranging a flower, but I didn’t see him cut it.”
“Well, this is one of the two he cut. He put one in the vase in his room and had Otsū take the other one to Yoshioka Denshichirō with a letter.”
“Yes, I remember that,” said Kizaemon, as he started to read Musashi’s letter again. Suddenly, he looked up with startled eyes. “This is signed ‘Shimmen Musashi,”’ he said. “Do you suppose this Musashi is the Miyamoto Musashi who helped the Hōzōin priests kill all that riffraff at Hannya Plain? It must be!”
Debuchi and Murata passed the letter back and forth, rereading it. “The handwriting has character,” said Debuchi.
“Yes,” mumbled Murata. “He seems to be an unusual person.”
“If what the letter says is true,” Kizaemon said, “and he really could tell that this stem had been cut by an expert, then he must know something we don’t. The old master cut it himself, and apparently that’s plain to someone whose eyes really see.”
Debuchi said, “Mm. I’d like to meet him…. We could check on this and also get him to tell us what happened at Hannya Plain.” But rather than commit himself on his own, he asked Kimura’s opinion. Kimura pointed out that since they weren’t receiving any shugyōsha, they couldn’t have him as a guest at the practice hall, but there was no reason why they couldn’t invite him for a meal and some sake at the Shin’indō. The irises were already in bloom there, he noted, and the wild azaleas were about to blossom. They could have a little party and talk about swordsmanship and things like that. Musashi would in all likelihood be glad to come, and the old