Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [254]
Kojirō turned on her angrily. “What is this?” he demanded.
“Akemi!” said one of the samurai. “What’s she doing here?”
“Why did you come?” Kojirō snapped. “Didn’t I tell you not to?” “I’m not your private property! Why can’t I be here?”
“Shut up! And get out of here! Go on back to the Zuzuya,” shouted Kojirō, pushing her away gently.
Akemi, panting heavily, shook her head adamantly. “Don’t order me around! I stayed with you, but I don’t belong to you. I—” She choked and began to sob noisily. “How can you tell me what to do after what you did to me? After tying me up and leaving me on the second floor of the inn? After bullying and torturing me when I said I was worried about Musashi?”
Kojirō opened his mouth, ready to speak, but Akemi didn’t give him the chance. “One of the neighbors heard me scream and came and untied me. I’m here to see Musashi!”
“Are you out of your mind? Can’t you see the people around you? Shut up!”
“I won’t! I don’t care who hears. You said Musashi would be killed today—if Seijūrō couldn’t handle him, you’d act as his second and kill Musashi yourself. Maybe I’m crazy, but Musashi’s the only man in my heart! I must see him. Where is he?”
Kojirō clicked his tongue but was speechless before her vitriolic attack.
To the Yoshioka men, Akemi seemed too distraught to be believed. But maybe there was some truth in what she said. And if there was, Kojirō had used kindness as a lure, then tortured her for his own pleasure.
Embarrassed, Kojirō glared at her with unconcealed hate.
Suddenly their attention was diverted by one of Seijūrō’s attendants, a youth by the name of Tamihachi. He was running like a wild man, waving his arms and shouting. “Help! It’s the Young Master! He’s met Musashi. He’s injured! Oh, it’s awful! A-w-w-ful!”
“What’re you babbling about?”
“The Young Master? Musashi?”
“Where? When?”
“Tamihachi, are you telling the truth?”
Shrill questions poured from faces suddenly drained of blood.
Tamihachi went on screaming inarticulately. Neither answering their questions nor pausing to catch his breath, he ran stumbling back to the Tamba highroad. Half believing, half doubting, not really knowing what to think, Ueda, Jūrōzaemon and the others chased after him like wild beasts charging across a burning plain.
Running north about five hundred yards, they came to a barren field stretching out beyond the trees to the right, quietly basking in the spring sunlight, on the surface serene and undisturbed. Thrushes and shrikes, chirping as though nothing had happened, hastily took to the air as Tamihachi scrambled wildly through the grass. He climbed up a knoll that looked like an ancient burial mound and fell to his knees. Clutching at the earth, he moaned and screamed, “Young Master!”
The others caught up with him, then stood nailed to the ground, gaping at the sight before their eyes. Seijūrō, clad in a kimono with a blue flowered design, a leather strap holding back his sleeves and a white cloth tied around his head, lay with his face buried in the grass.
“Young Master!”
“We’re here! What happened?”
There was not a drop of blood on the white headband, nor on his sleeve or the grass around him, but his eyes and forehead were frozen in an expression of excruciating pain. His lips were the color of wild grapes.
“Is … is he breathing?”
“Barely.”
“Quick, pick him up!”
One man knelt and took hold of Seijūrō’s right arm, ready to lift him. Seijūrō screamed in agony.
“Find something to carry him on! Anything!”
Three or four men, shouting confusedly, ran down the road to a farmhouse and came back with a rain shutter. They gently rolled Seijūrō onto it, but though he seemed to revive a little, he was still writhing in pain. To keep him quiet, several men removed their obis and tied him to the shutter.
With one man at each corner, they lifted him up and began walking in funereal silence.
Seijūrō kicked violently, almost breaking the shutter. “Musashi … is he gone?