Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [428]
Shinzō had been away on a trip when Kojirō arrived at the school. Since Kojirō had claimed that he wanted to ask some questions about military textbooks, his interest seemed genuine and he had been introduced to the master. But then, without asking a single question, he began arguing with Kagenori presumptuously and arrogantly, which suggested that his real purpose was to humiliate the old man. When some students finally got him into another room and demanded an explanation, he reacted with a flood of invective and an offer to fight any of them at any time.
Kojirō had then spread allegations that Obata’s military studies were superficial, that they were no more than a rehash of the Kusunoki Style or the ancient Chinese military text known as the Six Secrets, and that they were spurious and unreliable. When his malicious pronouncements got back to the ears of the students, they vowed to make him pay with his life.
Shinzō’s opposition—the problem was trivial, their master ought not to be disturbed by matters of this sort, Kojirō was not a serious student of military science—had proved futile, though he had also pointed out that before any decisive step was taken, Kagenori’s son Yogorō, who was away on a long journey, should be consulted.
“Can’t they see how much useless trouble they’re causing?” lamented Shinzō. The fading light of the lamp dimly illuminated his troubled face. Still racking his brain for a solution, he laid his arms across the open books and dozed off.
He awoke to the murmur of indistinct voices.
Going first to the lecture hall and finding it empty, he slipped on a pair of zōri and went outside. In a bamboo grove that was part of the sacred cornpound of the Hirakawa Tenjin Shrine, he saw what he had expected: a large group of students holding an emotion-charged council of war. The two wounded men, their faces ashen, their arms suspended in white slings, stood side by side, describing the night’s disaster.
One man asked indignantly, “Are you saying ten of you went and half were killed by this one man?”
“I’m afraid so. We couldn’t even get close to him.”
“Murata and Ayabe were supposed to be our best swordsmen.”
“They were the first to go. Yosobei managed by sheer guts to get back here, but he made the mistake of drinking some water before we could stop him.”
A grim silence descended over the group. As students of military science, they were concerned with problems of logistics, strategy, communications, intelligence and so on, not with the techniques of hand-to-hand combat. Most of them believed, as they had been taught, that swordsmanship was a matter for ordinary soldiers, not generals. Yet their samurai pride stood in the way of their accepting the logical corollary, which was that they were helpless against an expert swordsman like Sasaki Kojirō.
“What can we do?” asked a mournful voice. For a time the only answer was the hooting of the owls.
Then one student said brightly, “I have a cousin in the House of Yagyū. Maybe through him we could get them to help us.”
“Don’t be stupid!” shouted several others.
“We can’t ask for outside help. It’d only bring more shame on our teacher. It’d be an admission of weakness.”
“Well, what can we do?”
“The only way is to confront Kojirō again. But if we do it on a dark road again, it’ll only do more damage to the school’s reputation. If we die in open battle, we die. At least we won’t be thought of as cowards.”
“Should we send him a formal challenge?”
“Yes, and we have to keep at it, no matter how many times we lose.” “I think you’re right, but Shinzō isn’t going to like this.”
“He doesn’t have to know about it, nor does our master. Remember that, all of you. We can borrow brush