Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [358]
Osugi, after her bone-jarring landing, lay on the ground groaning with pain.
“Why, Granny, it’s you!” he exclaimed, surprised that his attacker was neither a Yoshioka man nor one of the irate priests. He put his arm around her to help her up.
“Now I begin to understand,” he said. “You’re the one who told the priests a lot of bad things about me, aren’t you? And since the story came from a courageous, upright old lady, they believed every word of it, I suppose.”
“Oh, my back hurts!” Osugi neither confirmed nor denied his accusation. She squirmed a bit but lacked the strength to put up much resistance. Feebly she said, “Musashi, since it’s come to this, it’s no use worrying about right and wrong. The House of Hon’iden has been unlucky in war, so just cut off my head now.”
It seemed unlikely to Musashi that she was merely being dramatic. Hers sounded like the honest words of a woman who had gone as far as she could and wanted to put an end to it.
“Are you in pain?” he asked, refusing to take her seriously. “Where does it hurt? You can stay here tonight, so there’s nothing to worry about.” He lifted her in his arms, carried her inside and laid her on his pallet. Sitting by her side, he nursed her through the night.
When the sky lightened, Seinen brought the lunch box Musashi had requested, along with a message from the head priest, who, while apologizing for being rude, urged Musashi to be on his way as quickly as possible.
Musashi sent word explaining that he now had an ailing old woman on his hands. The priest, not wanting Osugi at the temple, offered a suggestion. It seemed that a merchant from the town of Ōtsu had come to the temple with a cow and left the animal in the head priest’s care while he went off on a side trip. The priest offered Musashi the use of the animal, saying that Musashi could let the woman ride it down the mountain. In Ōtsu, the cow could be left at the wharf or at one of the wholesale houses in the vicinity.
Musashi accepted the offer gratefully.
A Drink of Milk
The road descending along a ridge from Mount Hiei came out in Ōmi Province, at a point just beyond the Miidera.
Musashi was leading the cow by a rope. Looking over his shoulder, he said gently, “If you want, we can stop and rest. It’s not as though either of us is in a hurry.” But at least, he thought, they were on their way. Osugi, unused to cows, had at first flatly refused to get on the animal. It had taken all his ingenuity to persuade her, the argument that worked being that she could not remain indefinitely in a priestly bastion of celibacy.
Face down on the cow’s neck, Osugi groaned painfully and readjusted herself. At every sign of solicitude on Musashi’s part, she reminded herself of her hatred, silently conveying her contempt at being cared for by her mortal enemy.
Though he was well aware that she lived for no other reason than to take revenge on him, he found himself unable to regard her as a genuine foe. No one, not even enemies much stronger than she was, had ever caused him so much trouble or embarrassment. Her trickery had brought him to the brink of disaster in his own village; because of her he had been jeered and reviled at Kiyomizudera; time and again she had tripped him up and thwarted his plans. There had been times, such as the previous night, when he had cursed her and very nearly given in to the urge to slice her in two.
Still, he could not bring himself to lay a hand on her, especially now, when she was ailing and bereft of her customary verve. Oddly, the inactivity of her vicious tongue depressed him, and he longed to see her restored to health, even if this meant more trouble for him.
“Riding that way must be pretty uncomfortable,” he said. “Try to bear up a little longer. When we get to Ōtsu, I’ll think of something.”
The view to the northeast was magnificent. Lake Biwa was spread out placidly