Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [464]
As Yagyū Sekishūsai’s favorite among his sons and grandsons, Yagyū Hyōgo enjoyed a special status among the “fellows of the south.” He had also distinguished himself in his own right. At the age of twenty, he had been summoned by the famous general Katō Kiyomasa and given a position at Kumamoto Castle in Higo Province at a stipend of fifteen thousand bushels. This was unheard of for a man so young, but after the Battle of Sekigahara, Hyōgo began to have second thoughts about his status, because of the danger inherent in having to side with either the Tokugawas or the Osaka faction. Three years earlier, using his grandfather’s illness as a pretext, he had taken a leave of absence from Kumamoto and returned to Yamato. After that, saying he needed more training, he had traveled about the countryside for a time.
He and Otsū had been thrown together by chance the previous year, when he had come to stay with his uncle. For more than three years prior to that, Otsū had led a precarious existence, never quite able to escape from Matahachi, who had dragged her along everywhere, glibly telling prospective employers that she was his wife. Had he been willing to work as an apprentice to a carpenter or a plasterer or a stonemason, he could have found employment on the day they arrived in Edo, but he preferred to imagine they could work together at softer jobs, she as a domestic servant perhaps, he as a clerk or accountant.
Finding no takers for his services, they had managed to survive by doing odd jobs. And as the months passed, Otsū, hoping to lull her tormentor into complacency, had given in to him in every way short of surrendering her body.
Then one day they had been walking along the street when they encountered a daimyō’s procession. Along with everyone else, they moved to the side of the road and assumed a properly respectful attitude.
The palanquins and lacquered strongboxes bore the Yagyū crest. Otsū had raised her eyes enough to see this, and memories of Sekishūsai and the happy days at Koyagyū Castle flooded her heart. If only she were back in that peaceful land of Yamato now! With Matahachi at her side, she could only stare blankly after the passing retinue.
“Otsū, isn’t that you?” The conical sedge hat came low over the samurai’s face, but as he drew closer, Otsū had seen that it was Kimura Sukekurō, a man she remembered with affection and respect. She couldn’t have been more amazed or thankful if he had been the Buddha himself, surrounded by the wondrous light of infinite compassion. Slipping away from Matahachi’s side, she had hurried to Sukekurō, who promptly offered to take her home with him.
When Matahachi had opened his mouth to protest, Sukekurō said peremptorily, “If you have anything to say, come to Higakubo and say it there.”
Powerless before the prestigious House of Yagyū, Matahachi held his tongue, biting his lower lip in angry frustration as he sullenly watched his precious treasure escape from him.
An Urgent Letter
At thirty-eight, Yagyū Munenori was regarded as the best swordsman of them all. This hadn’t kept his father from constantly worrying about his fifth son. “If only he can control that little quirk of his,” he often said to himself. Or: “Can anybody that self-willed manage to keep a high position?”
It was now fourteen years since Tokugawa Ieyasu had commanded Sekishūsai to provide a tutor. for Hidetada. Sekishūsai had passed over his other sons, grandsons and nephews. Munenori was neither particularly brilliant nor heroically masculine, but he was a man of good, solid judgment, a practical man not likely to get lost in the clouds. He possessed neither his father’s towering stature nor Hyōgo’s genius, but he was reliable, and most important, he understood the cardinal principle