Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [461]
Glancing up, the woman shouted, “Nitwit!” and picked up a rock.
Swallowing hard, Iori dodged the missile and made for, the far end of the bridge. In all his years on the barren plain of Hōtengahara, he had never seen anything so frightening as the woman’s angry white face in the dark.
On the other side of the river, he found himself before a storehouse. Next to that was a fence, then another storehouse, then another fence, and so on down the street. “This must be it,” he said when he came to the fifth building. On the gleaming white plaster wall was a crest in the form of a two-tiered woman’s hat. This, Iori knew from the words of a popular song, was the Yagyū family crest.
“Who’s there?” demanded a voice from inside the gate.
Speaking as loudly as he dared, Iori announced, “I’m the pupil of Miyamoto Musashi. I’ve brought a letter.”
The sentry said a few words Iori could not catch. In the gate was a small door, through which people could be let in and out without opening the great gate itself. After a few seconds, the door slowly opened, and the man asked suspiciously, “What are you doing here at this hour?”
Iori thrust the letter at the guard’s face. “Please deliver this for me. If there’s an answer, I’ll take it back.”
“Hmm,” mused the man, taking the letter. “This is for Kimura Sukekurō, is it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“He’s not here.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s at the house in Higakubo.”
“Huh? Everybody told me Lord Yagyū’s house was in Kobikichō.”
“People say that, but there’re only storehouses here—rice, lumber and a few other things.”
“Lord Yagyū doesn’t live here?”
“That’s right.”
“How far is it to the other place—Higakubo?”
“Pretty far.”
“Just where is it?”
“In the hills outside the city, in Azabu Village.”
“Never heard of it.” Iori sighed disappointedly, but his sense of responsibility prevented him from giving up. “Sir, would you draw me a map?”
“Don’t be silly. Even if you knew the way, it’d take you all night to get there.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Lot of foxes in Azabu. You don’t want to be bewitched by a fox, do you?”
“No.”
“Do you know Sukekurō well?”
“My teacher does.”
“I’ll tell you what. Since it’s so late, why don’t you catch some sleep over there in the granary, and go in the morning?”
“Where am I?” exclaimed Iori, rubbing his eyes. He jumped up and ran outside. The afternoon sun made him dizzy. Squinting his eyes against the glare, he went to the gatehouse, where the guard was eating his lunch.
“So you’re finally up.”
“Yes, sir. Could you draw me that map now?”
“You in a hurry, Sleepyhead? Here, you’d better have something to eat first. There’s enough for both of us.”
While the boy chewed and gulped, the guard sketched a rough map and explained how to get to Higakubo. They finished simultaneously, and Iori, fired up with the importance of his mission, set off at a run, never thinking that Musashi might be worried about his failure to return to the inn.
He made good time through the busy thoroughfares until he reached the vicinity of Edo Castle, where the imposing houses of the leading daimyō stood on the land built up between the crisscross system of moats. As he looked around, his pace slowed. The waterways were jammed with cargo boats. The stone ramparts of the castle itself were half covered with log scaffolding, which from a distance resembled the bamboo trellises used for growing morning glories.
He dawdled again in a broad, flat area called Hibiya, where the scraping of chisels and the thud of axes raised a dissonant hymn to the power of the new shogunate.
Iori stopped. He was mesmerized by the spectacle of the construction work: the laborers hauling huge rocks, the carpenters with their planes and saws and the samurai, the dashing samurai, who stood proudly supervising it all. How he wanted to grow up and be like them!
A lusty song rose from the throats of the men hauling rocks:
We’ll pluck the flowers
In the fields of Musashi—
The