Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [248]
“Hurry, Otsū!” Jōtarō called impatiently. “Musashi seems to have gone down to the riverbank. This is no time to primp!”
“Where?”
“Down to the riverbank. I don’t know why, but that’s where he went.” The two of them ran together to the end of the bridge, and Jōtarō, with
perfunctory apologies, made a way for them through the crowd to the railing. Musashi was standing by the boat where Osugi was still squirming around,
trying to free her bonds.
“I’m sorry, Granny,” he said, “but it seems Matahachi’s not coming after all. I hope to see him in the near future and try to drum some courage into him. In the meantime, you yourself should try to find him and take him home to live with you, like a good son. That’d be a far better way to express your gratitude to your ancestors than by trying to cut off my head.”
He put his hand under the rush mats and with a small knife cut the rope.
“You talk too much, Musashi! I don’t need any advice from you. Just make up your stupid mind what you’re going to do. Are you going to kill me or be killed?”
Bright blue veins stood out all over her face as she struggled out from under the mats, but by the time she stood up, Musashi was crossing the river, jumping like a wagtail across the rocks and shoals. In no time he reached the opposite side and climbed to the top of the dike.
Jōtarō caught sight of him and cried, “See, Otsū! There he is!” The boy went straight down the dike, and she did the same.
To Jōtarō’s nimble legs, rivers and mountains meant nothing, but Otsū, because of her fine kimono, came to a dead halt at the river’s edge. Musashi was now out of sight, but there she stood, screaming his name at the top of her lungs.
“Otsū!” came a reply from an unexpected quarter. Osugi was not a hundred feet away.
When Otsū saw who it was, she uttered a cry, covered her face with her hands for a moment and ran.
The old woman lost no time in giving chase, white hair flying in the wind. “Otsū!” she screamed, in a voice that might have parted the waters of the Kamo. “Wait! I want to talk to you.”
An explanation for Otsū’s presence was already taking shape in the old woman’s suspicious mind. She felt sure Musashi had tied her up because he had a rendezvous with the girl today and had not wanted her to see this. Then, she reasoned, something Otsū said had annoyed him, and he had abandoned her. That, no doubt, was why she was wailing for him to come back.
“That girl is incorrigible!” she said, hating Otsū even more than she hated Musashi. In her mind, Otsū was rightfully her daughter-in-law, never mind whether the nuptials had actually taken place or not. The promise had been made, and if his fiancée had come to hate her son, she must also hate Osugi herself.
“Wait!” she shrieked again, opening her mouth almost from ear to ear.
The force of the scream startled Jōtarō, who was right beside her. He
grabbed hold of her and shouted, “What are you trying to do, you old witch?” “Get out of my way!” cried Osugi, shoving him aside.
Jōtarō did not know who she was, or why Otsū had fled at the sight of her, but he sensed that she meant danger. As the son of Aoki Tanzaemon and the sole student of Miyamoto Musashi, he refused to be pushed aside by an old hag’s scrawny elbow.
“You can’t do that to me!” He caught up with her and leapt squarely on her back.
She quickly shook him off, and taking his neck in the crook of her left arm, dealt him several sharp slaps. “You little devil! This’ll teach you to butt in!”
While Jōtarō struggled to free himself, Otsū ran on, her mind in turmoil. She was young, and like most young people, full of hope, not in the habit of bemoaning her unhappy lot. She savored the delights of each new day as though they were flowers in a sunny garden. Sorrows and disappointments were facts of life, but they did not get her down for long. Likewise, she