Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [390]
Thwarted in this do-or-die attack, Gonnosuke stumbled forward off balance, exposing his back. Musashi moved with the speed of a peregrine falcon, and a thin flash of light connected with the dorsal muscles of his adversary, who, with the bleat of a terrified calf, stumbled, and fell face down on the ground. Musashi sat down with a thud on the grass, holding his hand to his stomach.
“I give up!” he shouted.
No sound came from Gonnosuke. His mother, too stunned to speak, stared blankly at his prostrate form.
“I used the ridge of the sword,” said Musashi, turning to her. Since she did not seem to comprehend, he said, “Get him some water. He’s not badly hurt.”
“What?” she cried in disbelief. Seeing there was no blood on her son’s body, she staggered to his side and threw her arms around him. She called his name, brought him water, then shook him until he came to his senses.
Gonnosuke gazed vacantly at Musashi for a few minutes, then walked over to him and bowed his forehead to the ground. “I’m sorry,” he said simply. “You’re too good for me.”
Musashi, seemingly awakening from a trance, grasped his hand and said, “Why do you say that? You didn’t lose; I did.” He opened the front of his kimono. “Look at this.” He pointed to a red spot where the staff had struck him. “Only a little more and I’d have been killed.” There was a tremor of shock in his voice, for the truth was he had not yet figured out when or how he had suffered the wound.
Gonnosuke and his mother stared at the red mark but said nothing.
Pulling his kimono together, Musashi asked the old woman why she had cautioned her son about his hips. Had she observed something faulty or dangerous in his stance?
“Well, I’m no expert in these matters, but as I watched him using all his strength to hold your sword off, it seemed to me he was missing an opportunity. He couldn’t advance, couldn’t retreat, and he was too excited. But I saw that if he simply dropped his hips, holding his hands the way they were, the end of the staff would naturally strike your chest. It all happened in an instant. At the time, I wasn’t really conscious of what I said.”
Musashi nodded, regarding himself fortunate to have received a useful lesson without having had to pay with his life. Gonnosuke, too, listened reverently; no doubt he had also gained a new insight. What he had just experienced was no ephemeral revelation but a journey to the boundary between life and death. His mother, perceiving him to be on the brink of disaster, had taught him a lesson in survival.
Years later, after Gonnosuke had established his own style and become known far and wide, he recorded the technique his mother had discovered on this occasion. Though he wrote at some length of his mother’s devotion and of his match with Musashi, he refrained from saying that he had won. On the contrary, for the rest of his life he told people that he had lost, and that the defeat had been an invaluable lesson to him.
Musashi, having wished mother and son well, proceeded on from Inojigahara to Kamisuwa, unaware that he was being followed by a samurai who inquired of all the grooms at the horse stations, as well as of other travelers, whether they had seen Musashi on the road.
A One-Night Love Affair
Musashi’s injury was painful, so instead of spending time in Kamisuwa to make inquiries about Otsū and Jōtarō, he went on to the hot springs at Shimosuwa. This town, on the banks of Lake Suwa, was quite a large one, with the houses of ordinary townsmen alone numbering over a thousand.
At the inn designated for use by daimyō, the bath was covered by a roof, but otherwise the pools situated along the roadside were open to the sky and available to anyone who wanted to use them.
Musashi hung his clothes and swords on a tree and eased himself into the steaming water. As he massaged the swelling on the right side of his abdomen, he rested his head against a rock on the edge of the pool, closed his eyes and savored a groggy, pleasurable sense of wellbeing. The