Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [417]
Having no fixed loyalties, they operated as mercenaries, and after peace was restored, were ostracized by both farmers and samurai alike. By the Edo era, those not content with being bandits or highwaymen often sought their fortunes in the new capital. More than a few succeeded, and this breed of leaders was once described as having “righteousness for bones, love of the people for flesh and gallantry for skin.” In short, they were popular heroes par excellence.
Slaughter by the Riverside
Life under Yajibei’s half-tiled roof agreed so much with Osugi that a year and a half later she was still there. After the first few weeks, during which she rested and recovered her health, hardly a day passed without her telling herself she should be on her way.
Whenever she broached the subject to Yajibei, whom she didn’t see often, he urged her to stay on. “What’s the hurry?” he would ask. “There’s no reason for you to go anywhere. Bide your time until we find Musashi. Then we can serve as your seconds.” Yajibei knew nothing of Osugi’s enemy except what she herself had told him—that he was, in so many words, the blackest of blackguards—but since the day of her arrival, all of his men had been under instructions to report immediately anything they heard or saw of Musashi.
After initially detesting Edo, Osugi had mellowed in attitude to the point where she was willing to admit that the people were “friendly, carefree and really very kind at heart.”
The Hangawara household was a particularly easygoing place and something of a haven for social misfits; country boys too lazy to farm, displaced rōnin, profligates who had run through their parents’ money and tattooed ex-convicts made up a coarse and motley crew, whose unifying esprit de corps curiously resembled that of a well-run school for warriors. The ideal here, however, was blustering masculinity rather than spiritual manliness; it was really a “dōjō” for thugs.
As in the martial arts dōjō, there was a rigid class structure. Under the boss, who was the ultimate temporal and spiritual authority, came a group of seniors, usually referred to as the “elder brothers.” Below them were the ordinary henchmen—the kobun—whose ranking was determined largely by length of service. There was also a special class of “guests”; their status depended on such factors as their ability with weapons. Bolstering the hierarchical organization was a code of etiquette, of uncertain origin but strictly adhered to.
At one point, Yajibei, thinking Osugi might be bored, suggested that she take care of the younger men. Since then, her days had been fully occupied with sewing, mending, washing and straightening up after the kobun, whose slovenliness gave her plenty of work.
For all their lack of breeding, the kobun recognized quality when they saw it. They admired both Osugi’s spartan habits and the efficiency with which she went about her chores. “She’s a real samurai lady,” they were wont to say. “The House of Hon’iden must have very good blood in it.”
Osugi’s unlikely host treated her with consideration and had even built her separate living quarters on the vacant lot behind his house. And whenever he was at home, he went to pay his respects each morning and evening. When asked by one of his underlings why he displayed such deference toward a stranger, Yajibei confessed that he had acted very badly toward his own father and mother while they were still alive. “At my age,” he said, “I feel I have a filial duty to all older people.”
Spring came, and the wild plum blossoms fell, but the city itself had as yet almost no cherry blossoms. Apart from a few trees in the sparsely settled hills to the west, there were only the saplings that Buddhists had planted along the road leading to the Sensōji, in Asakusa. Rumor had it that this year they were sprouting buds and would blossom for the first time.
One day Yajibei came to Osugi’s room and said, “I’m going to the Sens