Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [174]
Among the passengers were several people the rich merchants might well have questioned as to what they were getting out of life—a wandering priest, some rōnin, a Confucian scholar, a few professional warriors. Most of them, after witnessing the beginning of the ostentatious card game, sat down beside their baggage and stared disapprovingly at the sea.
One young man was holding something round and furry in his lap, telling it from time to time to “Sit still!”
“What a nice little monkey you have. Is it trained?” asked another passenger.
“Yes.”
“You’ve had him for some time, then?”
“No, I found him not long ago in the mountains between Tosa and Awa.” “Oh, you caught him yourself?”
“Yes, but the older monkeys almost scratched me to pieces before I got away.”
As he talked, the young man concentrated intently on picking fleas off the animal. Even without the monkey, he would have attracted attention, for both his kimono and the short red cloak he wore over it were decidedly fancy. His front hair wasn’t shaved, and his topknot was tied with an unusual purple band. His clothing suggested he was still a boy, but these days it wasn’t as easy as it used to be to tell a person’s age from his apparel. With the rise of Hideyoshi, clothing in general had become more colorful. It was not unknown for men of twenty-five or so to continue to dress like boys of fifteen or sixteen and leave their forelocks uncut.
His skin glowed with youth, his lips were a healthy red, and his eyes were bright. On the other hand, he was solidly built, and there was a certain adult severity about his thick eyebrows and the upward curve at the corners of his eyes.
“Why do you keep squirming?” he said impatiently, rapping the monkey sharply on the head. The innocence with which he was picking off the fleas added to the impression of youthfulness.
His social status was also difficult to ascertain. Since he was traveling, he wore the same straw sandals and leather socks everyone else wore. So there was no clue there, and he seemed perfectly at home among the wandering priest, the puppeteer, the ragged samurai and the unwashed peasants on board. He could easily be taken for a rōnin, yet there was something that hinted at a higher status, namely the weapon slung slantwise across his back on a leather strap. It was a long, straight battle sword, large and splendidly made. Nearly everyone who spoke to the youth remarked on its fineness.
Gion Tōji, standing some distance away, was impressed by the weapon. Yawning and thinking that not even in Kyoto were swords of such high quality often seen, he grew curious as to its owner’s background.
Tōji was bored. His trip, which had lasted fourteen days, had been vexing, tiring and fruitless, and he longed to be once again among people he knew. “I wonder if the runner arrived in time,” he mused. “If he did, she’ll certainly be at the dock in Osaka to meet me.” He tried, by conjuring up Okō’s face, to alleviate his boredom.
The reason behind his trip was the shaky financial condition of the House of Yoshioka, brought on by Seijūrō’s having lived beyond his means. The family was no longer wealthy. The house on Shijō Avenue was mortgaged and in danger of being seized by merchant creditors. Aggravating the situation were countless other year-end obligations; selling every single family possession would not produce enough funds to meet the bills that had already piled up. Faced with this, Seijūrō’s only comment had been, “How did this happen?”
Tōji, feeling responsible for having encouraged the Young Master’s extravagance, had said that the matter should be left up to him. He promised that he would settle things somehow.
After racking his brains, he’d come up with the idea of building a new and bigger school on the vacant lot next to the Nishinotōin, where a much larger number