Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [381]
Gonnosuke ended by saying, “It sounded to me as though the boy was Jōtarō. What do you think?”
“I’m sure of it,” said Musashi. “I suppose the best thing to do would be to go to Narai as quickly as possible and look up this man Daizō. Thanks to you, I at least have an idea what to do.”
“Why not spend the rest of the night at my house? You can start out in the morning, after you’ve had some breakfast.”
“May I do that?”
“Sure. If we cross Nobu Pond, we can get home in less than half the time it took us to get here. I asked the man and he said we could use his boat.”
The pond, at the end of a short downhill walk, looked like a gigantic drumhead. Encircled by purple willow trees, it must have been twelve or thirteen hundred yards in diameter. The dark shadow of Mount Koma was reflected in the water, along with a skyful of stars.
With Musashi holding the torch and Gonnosuke poling, they slid silently across the middle of the pond. Far redder than the torch itself was its reflection in the smooth water.
Poisonous Fangs
From a distance, the torch and its reflection suggested a pair of firebirds swimming across the serene surface of Nobu Pond.
“Somebody coming!” whispered Matahachi. “All right, we’ll go this way,” he said, tugging at the rope he had tied Otsū with. “Come on!”
“I’m not going anywhere,” protested Otsū, digging in her heels. “Stand up!”
With the end of the rope, he lashed her across the back, then lashed and lashed again. But every stroke reinforced her resistance.
Matahachi lost heart. “Come on now,” he implored. “Please walk.”
When she still refused to stand, his anger flared again and he seized her by the collar. “You’ll come whether you like it or not.”
Otsū tried to turn toward the pond and scream, but he quickly gagged her with a hand towel. Eventually he managed to drag her to a tiny shrine hidden among the willows.
Otsū, yearning to have her hands free to attack her abductor, thought how wonderful it would be to be transformed into a snake, like the one she could see painted on a plaque. It was coiled around a willow, hissing at a man who was putting a curse on it.
“That was lucky.” Sighing with relief, he pushed her into the shrine and leaned heavily against the outside of the grille door, intently watching the little boat coast into an inlet some four hundred yards away.
His day had been totally exhausting. When he’d tried to use brute force to take her, she’d made it clear she’d rather die than submit. She’d even threatened to bite off her tongue, and Matahachi knew her well enough to know it was no empty threat. His frustration brought him to the verge of committing murder, but the very notion sapped his strength and cooled his lust.
He couldn’t fathom why she loved Musashi instead of him, when it had, for so long, been the other way around. Didn’t women prefer him to his old friend? Hadn’t they always? Hadn’t Okō been immediately drawn to Matahachi when they’d first met her? Of course she had. Only one explanation was possible: Musashi was slandering him behind his back. Pondering his betrayal, Matahachi worked himself into a fury.
“What a stupid, gullible ass I am! How could I have let him make such a fool of me? To think I was in tears listening to him talk about undying friendship, about how he treasured it! Ha!”
He upbraided himself for ignoring Sasaki Kojirō’s warning, which resounded in his ears. “Trust that scoundrel Musashi and you’ll live to regret it.”
Until today he’d wavered between liking and disliking his childhood friend, but now he loathed him. And although he couldn’t bring himself to voice it, a solemn prayer for Musashi’s eternal damnation took form in his heart.
He had become convinced that Musashi was his enemy, born to thwart him at every turn and eventually destroy him. “The lousy hypocrite,” he thought.