Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [462]
Wild blossoms splashed
In confusing disarray.
And that lovely girl,
The flower unpluckable,
Moistened by the dew—
‘Twill only dampen your sleeve, like falling tears.
He stood enchanted. Before he realized it, the water in the moats was taking on a reddish cast and the evening voices of crows reached his ears.
“Oh, no, it’s nearly sundown,” he chastised himself. He sped away and for a time moved along at full speed, paying attention to nothing save the map the guard had drawn for him. Before he knew it, he was climbing the path up Azabu Hill, which was so thickly overhung with trees it might as well have been midnight. Once he reached the top, however, he could see the sun was still in the sky, though low on the horizon.
There were almost no houses on the hill itself, Azabu Village being a mere scattering of fields and farm dwellings in the valley below. Standing in a sea of grass and ancient trees, listening to the brooks gurgling down the hillside, Iori felt his fatigue give way to a strange refreshment. He was vaguely aware that the spot where he was standing was historic, although he didn’t know why. In fact it was the very place that had given birth to the great warrior clans of the past, both the Taira and the Minamoto.
He heard the loud booming of a drum being beaten, the kind often used at Shinto festivals. Down the hill, visible in the forest, were the sturdy cross-logs atop the ridgepole of a religious sanctuary. Had Iori but known, it was the Great Shrine of Iigura he’d studied about, the famous edifice sacred to the sun goddess of Ise.
The shrine was a far cry from the enormous castle he had just seen, even from the stately gates of the daimyō. In its simplicity it was almost indistinguishable from the farmhouses around it, and Iori thought it puzzling that people talked more reverently about the Tokugawa family than they did about the most sacred of deities. Did that mean the Tokugawas were greater than the sun goddess? he wondered. “I’ll have to ask Musashi about that when I get back.”
Taking out his map, he pored over it, looked about him and stared at it again. Still there was no sign of the Yagyū mansion.
The evening mist spreading over the ground gave him an eerie feeling. He’d felt something similar before, when in a room with the shoji shut the setting sun’s light played on the rice paper so that the interior seemed to grow lighter as the outside darkened. Of course, such a twilight illusion is just that, but he felt it so strongly, in several flashes, that he rubbed his eyes as if to erase his light-headedness. He knew he wasn’t dreaming and looked around suspiciously.
“Why, you sneaky bastard,” he cried, jumping forward and whipping out his sword. In the same motion he cut through a clump of tall grass in front of him.
With a yelp of pain, a fox leapt from its hiding place and streaked off, its tail glistening with blood from a cut on its hindquarters.
“Devilish beast!” Iori set off in hot pursuit, and though the fox was fast, Iori was too. When the limping creature stumbled, Iori lunged, confident of victory. The fox, however, slipped nimbly away, to surge ahead several yards, and no matter how fast Iori attacked, the animal managed to get away each time.
On his mother’s knee, Iori had heard countless tales proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that foxes had the power to bewitch and possess human beings. He was fond of most other animals, even wild boar and noisome possums, but foxes he hated. He was also afraid of them. To his way of thinking, coming across this wily creature lurking in the grass could mean only one thing—it was to blame for his not finding his way. He was convinced it was a treacherous and evil being that had been following him since the night before and had, just moments before, cast its malevolent spell over him. If he didn’t slay it now, it was sure to hex him again. Iori was prepared to pursue his quarry to the end of the earth, but the fox, bounding over the edge of a drop, was lost to sight in a thicket.
Dew glistened