Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [403]
The floor of the room was covered with reed mats. Along one wall were neat little piles of dried herbs and a collection of mortars and other tools used to make medicine. Musashi found the pleasant aroma of the herbs soothing; it seemed to beckon him to close his eyes and sleep. His body felt dull and swollen to the tips of his extremities. But he knew better than to give in to the sweet temptation.
He was aware there was something afoot. The herb gatherers of Mimasaka never had storage sheds like this; theirs were never located where dampness accumulated and were always at some distance from dense foliage. By the dim light of a small lamp resting on a mortar stand beside his pillow, he could see something else that disturbed him. The metal brackets holding the room together at the corners were surrounded by numerous nail holes. He could also discern fresh wooden surfaces that must previously have been covered by joinery. The implication was unmistakable: the room had been rebuilt, probably a number of times.
A tiny smile came to his lips, but he did not stir.
“Takezō,” Okō called softly. “Are you asleep?” Gently sliding the shoji aside, she tiptoed to his pallet and placed a tray near his head. “I’ll put some water here for you,” she said. He gave no sign of being awake.
When she was back in the cabin itself, Tōji whispered, “Is everything all right?”
Closing her eyes for emphasis, she replied, “He’s sound asleep.”
With a satisfied look, Tōji hurried outside, went to the back of the cabin and waved a lighted musket fuse, whereupon the men below pulled the supports out from under the room, sending it crashing down into the valley—walls, frame, ridgepole and all.
With a triumphant roar, the others sprang from their hiding places, like hunters from behind portable blinds, and rushed down to the riverbank. The next step was to extricate the corpse and the victim’s belongings from the debris. After that, it would be a simple matter to gather up the pieces and rebuild the room.
The bandits jumped into the pile of planks and posts like dogs falling on bones.
Arriving from above, others asked, “Have you found the body?” “No, not yet.”
“It’s got to be here somewhere.”
Tōji shouted raucously, “Maybe he struck a rock or something on the way down and bounced off to the side. Look all around.”
Rocks, water, the trees and plants of the valley, were taking on a bright reddish cast. With startled exclamations, Tōji and his henchmen looked toward the sky. Seventy feet above, bright flames spouted from the doors, windows, walls and roof of the cabin. It had turned into a huge ball of fire.
“Quick! Hur-r-ry! Get back up here!” The piercing summons came from Okō, and sounded like the howl of a woman gone mad.
By the time the men had made their way up the cliff, the flames were dancing wildly in the wind. Unprotected from the shower of sparks and embers, Okō stood tied securely to a tree trunk.
To a man, they were dumbfounded. Musashi gone? How? How could he conceivably have outwitted them all?
Tōji lost heart; he did not even send his men in pursuit. He had heard enough about Musashi to know they’d never catch him. On their own, however, the bandits quickly organized search parties and flew off in all directions.
They found no trace of Musashi.
Playing with Fire
Unlike the other principal routes, there were no trees lining the Kōshū highroad, which joined Shiojiri and Edo by way of Kai Province. Used for military transport during the sixteenth century, it lacked the Nakasendō’s network of back roads and had only recently been upgraded to the status of a main artery.
For travelers coming from Kyoto or Osaka, its least agreeable feature was a dearth of good inns and eating places. A request for a box lunch was likely to bring forth nothing more appetizing than flat rice cakes wrapped in bamboo leaves or, even less appealing, balls of plain rice done up in