Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [388]
There was a huge larch tree in the very middle of the flat area on which they stood. Pointing at it, Musashi led them there.
“Make your preparations, Gonnosuke,” he said calmly.
Gonnosuke needed no urging. In a moment he was standing before Musashi with his staff pointed toward the ground.
Musashi stood empty-handed, arms and shoulders relaxed.
“Aren’t you going to make any preparations?” asked Gonnosuke. “What for?”
Gonnosuke’s anger flared. “Get something to fight with. Anything you want.”
“I’m ready.”
“No weapon?”
“I have my weapon here,” Musashi replied, bringing his left hand up to his sword hilt.
“You’re fighting with a sword?”
Musashi’s only reply was a crooked little smile at the corner of his mouth. They were already at the stage where he couldn’t afford to waste breath talking.
Underneath the larch tree sat Gonnosuke’s mother, looking like a stone Buddha. “Don’t fight yet. Wait!” she said.
Staring at each other, not making the slightest move, neither man seemed to hear. Gonnosuke’s staff was waiting under his arm for the opportunity to strike, as if it had breathed in all the air on the plateau and was about to exhale it in one great screeching blow. His hand glued to the underside of his sword hilt, Musashi’s eyes seemed to pierce Gonnosuke’s body. Inwardly, the battle had already begun, for the eye can damage a man more seriously than sword or staff. After the opening slice is made with the eye, the sword or staff slips in effortlessly.
“Wait!” called the mother again.
“What is it?” asked Musashi, jumping back four or five feet to a safe position.
“You’re fighting with a real sword?”
“The way I fight, it doesn’t make any difference whether I use a wooden sword or a real one.”
“I’m not trying to stop you.”
“I want to be sure you understand. The sword, wood or steel, is absolute. In a real bout, there are no halfway measures. The only way to avoid risk is to run away.”
“You’re perfectly right, but it occurred to me that in a match this important, you should announce yourself formally. Each of you is meeting an opponent the likes of whom he will encounter only rarely. After the fight’s over, it’ll be too late.”
“True.”
“Gonnosuke, give your name first.”
Gonnosuke bowed formally to Musashi. “Our distant ancestor is said to have been Kakumyō, who fought under the banner of the great warrior of Kiso, Minamoto no Yoshinaka. After Yoshinaka’s death, Kakumyō became a follower of the saint Hōnen, and it is possible that we are from the same family as he. Over the centuries, our ancestors have lived in this area, but in my father’s generation we suffered dishonor, which I shall not name. In my distress, I went with my mother to Ontake Shrine and vowed in writing that I would restore our good name by following the Way of the Samurai. Before the god of Ontake Shrine, I acquired my technique for using the staff. I call it the Musō Style, that is, the Style of the Vision, for I received it in a revelation at the shrine. People call me Musō Gonnosuke.”
Musashi returned his bow. “My family is descended from Hirata Shōgen, whose house was a branch of the Akamatsus of Harima. I am the only son of Shimmen Munisai, who lived in the village of Miyamoto in Mimasaka. I have been given the name Miyamoto Musashi. I have no close relatives, and I have dedicated my life to the Way of the Sword. If I should fall before your staff, there is no need to trouble yourself about my remains.”
Retaking his stance, he cried, “On guard!”
“On guard!”
The old woman seemed scarcely to breathe. Far from having danger thrust on herself and her son, she had gone out of her way to seek it out, deliberately placing her son in front of Musashi’s gleaming sword. Such a course would have been unthinkable for an ordinary mother, but she was fully confident she had done the right thing. She sat now in formal style, her shoulders leaning slightly forward and her hands placed primly, one on top of the other, on her knees. Her body gave the impression of being small and shrunken;