Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [307]
Takuan poured him some sake. The old man drank.
“You’re a wily man, Takuan. In the world we live in, priests like you are cunning, merchants smart, warriors strong and noblemen stupid. Ha, ha! Isn’t that so?”
“It is, it is,” agreed Takuan.
“The noblemen can’t do as they please because of their rank, but they’re shut out of politics and the government. So all that’s left for them to do is compose poetry or become experts at calligraphy. Isn’t that the truth?” He laughed again.
Though Mitsuhiro and Nobutada were as fond of fun as Shōyū, the bluntness of the ridicule was embarrassing. They responded with stony silence.
Taking advantage of their discomfort, Shōyū pressed on. “Yoshino, what do you think? Do you fancy noblemen, or do you prefer merchants?”
“Hee-hee,” tittered Yoshino. “Why, Mr. Funabashi, what a strange question!”
“I’m not joking. I’m trying to peer deep into a woman’s heart. Now I can see what’s there. You really prefer merchants, don’t you? I think I’d better take you away from here. Come with me to my parlor.” He took her by the hand and stood up, a shrewd look on his face.
Mitsuhiro, startled, spilled his sake. “A joke can be carried too far,” he said, yanking Yoshino’s hand from Shōyū’s and pulling her closer to his side.
Caught between the two, Yoshino laughed and tried to make the best of it. Taking Mitsuhiro’s hand in her right hand and Shōyū’s in her left, she put on a worried look and said, “What am I ever going to do with you two?”
For the two men, though they neither disliked each other nor were serious rivals in love, the rules of the game dictated that they do everything in their power to make Yoshino Dayū’s position more embarrassing.
“Come now, my good lady,” said Shōyū. “You must decide for yourself. You must choose the man whose room you will grace, the one to whom you will give your heart.”
Takuan jumped into the fray. “A very interesting problem, isn’t it? Tell us, Yoshino, which one is your choice?”
The only person not participating was Nobutada. After a time, his sense of propriety moved him to say, “Come now, you’re guests; don’t be rude. The way you’re acting, I daresay Yoshino would be delighted to be rid of you both. Why don’t we all enjoy ourselves and stop bothering her? Kōetsu must be all by himself. One of you girls go and invite him to come here.”
Shōyū waved his hand. “No reason to fetch him. I’ll just go back to my room with Yoshino.”
“You will not,” said Mitsuhiro, hugging her tighter.
“The insolence of the aristocracy!” exclaimed Shōyū. Eyes sparkling, he offered Mitsuhiro a cup, saying, “Let’s decide who gets her by holding a drinking contest—right before her eyes.”
“Why, of course; that sounds like good fun.” Mitsuhiro took a large cup and placed it on a small table between them. “Are you sure you’re young enough to stand it?” he asked playfully.
“Don’t have to be young to compete with a skinny nobleman!”
“How are we going to decide whose turn it is? It’s no fun just swilling. We should play a game. Whoever loses has to drink a cupful. What game shall we play?”
“We could try staring each other down.”
“That would involve looking at your ugly merchant’s face. That’s not play; it’s torture.”
“Don’t be insulting! Um, how about the stone-scissors-paper game?” “Fine!”
“Takuan, you be referee.”
“Anything to oblige.”
With earnest faces, they began. After each round, the loser complained with appropriate bitterness and everyone laughed.
Yoshino Dayū slipped quietly out of the room, gracefully trailing the bottom of her long kimono behind her, and walked at a stately pace down the hallway. Not long after she left, Konoe Nobutada said, “I must go too,” and took his leave unnoticed.
Yawning shamelessly, Takuan lay down and without so much as a by-your-leave, rested his head on Sumigiku’s knee. Though it felt good to doze here, he also felt a pang of guilt. “I should go home,” he thought. “They’re probably lonely without me.” He was thinking of Jōtarō and Otsū, who were together again at Lord Karasumaru’s house. Takuan had taken