Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [31]
“Are the men from the village hunting for me again today?”
Silence.
“Are you one of them?”
The man jumped to his feet, shaking his head like a deaf-mute. “No, no, no!”
“That’s enough,” shouted Takezō. Taking a firm grip on the man’s neck, he asked, “What about my sister?”
“What sister?”
“My sister, Ogin, of the House of Shimmen. Don’t play dumb. You promised to answer my questions. I don’t really blame the villagers for trying to capture me, because the samurai are forcing them to do it, but I’m sure they’d never do anything to hurt her. Or would they?”
The man replied, too innocently, “I don’t know anything about that. Nothing at all.”
Takezō swiftly raised his sword above his head in position to strike. “Watch it! That sounded very suspicious to me. Something has happened, hasn’t it? Out with it, or I’ll smash your skull!”
“Wait! Don’t! I’ll talk! I’ll tell you everything!”
Hands folded in supplication, the trembling charcoal-maker told how Ogin had been taken away a prisoner, and how an order had been circulated in the village to the effect that anyone providing Takezō with food or shelter would automatically be regarded as an accomplice. Each day, he reported, the soldiers were leading villagers into the mountains, and each family was required to furnish one young man every other day for this purpose.
The information caused Takezō to break out in goose pimples. Not fear. Rage. To make sure he’d heard right, he asked, “What crime has my sister been charged with?” His eyes were glistening with moisture.
“None of us knows anything about it. We’re afraid of the district lord. We’re just doing what we’re told, that’s all.”
“Where have they taken my sister?”
“Rumor has it that they’ve got her in Hinagura stockade, but I don’t know if that’s true.”
“Hinagura …” repeated Takezō. His eyes turned toward the ridge that marked the provincial border. The backbone of the mountains was already spotted with the shadows of gray evening clouds.
Takezō let the man go. Watching him scramble away, grateful to have his meager life spared, made Takezō’s stomach turn at the thought of the cowardice of humanity, the cowardice that forced samurai to pick on a poor helpless woman. He was glad to be alone again. He had to think.
He soon reached a decision. “I have to rescue Ogin, and that’s that. My poor sister. I’ll kill them all if they’ve harmed her.” Having chosen his course of action, he marched down toward the village with long manly strides.
A couple of hours later, Takezō again furtively approached the Shippōji. The evening bell had just stopped tolling. It was already dark and lights could be seen coming from the temple itself, the kitchen and the priests’ quarters, where people seemed to be moving about.
“If only Otsū would come out,” he thought.
He crouched motionless under the raised passageway—it was of the sort that had a roof but no walls—which connected the priests’ rooms with the main temple. The smell of food being cooked floated in the air, conjuring up visions of rice and steaming soup. For the past few days, Takezō had had nothing in his stomach but raw bird meat and grass shoots, and his stomach now rebelled. His throat burned as he vomited up bitter gastric juices, and in his misery he gasped loudly for breath.
“What was that?” said a voice.
“Probably just a cat,” answered Otsū, who came out carrying a dinner tray and started crossing the passageway directly over Takezō’s head. He tried to call to her, but was still too nauseated to make an intelligible sound.
This, as it happened, was a stroke of luck, because just then a male voice just behind Otsū inquired, “Which way is the bath?”
The man was wearing a kimono borrowed from the temple, tied with a narrow sash from which dangled a small washcloth. Takezō recognized him as one of the samurai from Himeji. Evidently he was of high rank, high enough to lodge at the temple and pass his evenings eating and drinking his fill while his subordinates and the villagers had to scour mountainsides day and night searching for the fugitive.