Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [483]
“You don’t seem to understand. Hangawara’s men are watching this house day and night. They’ll pounce on you the minute you step outside. I can’t possibly let you leave alone.”
“I had a good reason for killing Jūrō and Koroku. Kojirō started all this, not me. But if they want to attack me, let them attack.”
Shinzō was on his feet and ready to go. Sensing there was no way of holding him back, Kōsuke and his wife went to the front of the shop to see him off.
Musashi appeared at the door just then, his sunburned forehead moist with sweat. “Going out?” he asked. “Going home? … Well, I’m glad to see you feel well enough, but it’d be dangerous to go alone. I’ll go with you.”
Shinzō tried to refuse, but Musashi insisted. Minutes later, they set off together.
“It must be difficult to walk after being in bed so long.”
“Somehow the ground seems higher than it really is.”
“It’s a long way to Hirakawa Tenjin. Why don’t we hire a palanquin for you?”
“I suppose I ought to have mentioned it before. I’m not going back to the school.”
“Oh? Where then?”
Casting his eyes downward, Shinzō answered, “It’s rather humiliating, but I think I’ll go to my father’s house for a while. It’s in Ushigome.”
Musashi stopped a palanquin and virtually forced Shinzō into it. Despite the insistence of the bearers, Musashi refused one for himself—to the disappointment of the Hangawara men watching from around the next corner.
“Look, he put Shinzō into a palanquin.”
“I saw him glance this way.”
“It’s too early to do anything yet.”
After the palanquin turned right by the outer moat, they hitched up their skirts, pulled back their sleeves, and followed along behind, their glittering eyes seemingly ready to pop out and shoot toward Musashi’s back.
Musashi and Shinzō had reached the neighborhood of Ushigafuchi when a small rock glanced off the palanquin pole. At the same time, the gang started shouting and moved in to surround its prey.
“Wait!” called one of them.
“Just stay where you are, you bastard!”
The bearers, terrified, dropped the palanquin and fled. Shinzō crawled out of the palanquin, hand on sword. Pulling himself to his feet, he assumed a stance and cried, “Is it me you’re telling to wait?”
Musashi jumped in front of him and shouted, “State your business!”
The hoodlums inched closer, cautiously, as though feeling their way through shallow water.
“You know what we want!” spat one of them. “Turn over that yellowbelly you’re protecting. And don’t try anything funny, or you’ll be dead too.”
Encouraged by this bravado, they seethed with bloodthirsty fury, but none advanced to strike with his sword. The fire in Musashi’s eyes was sufficient to hold them at bay. They howled and cursed, from a safe distance.
Musashi and Shinzō glared at them in silence. Moments passed before Musashi took them unawares by shouting, “If Hangawara Yajibei is among you, let him come forward.”
“The boss isn’t here. But if you have anything to say, speak to me, Nembutsu Tazaemon, and I’ll do you the favor of listening.” The elderly man who stepped forward wore a white hemp kimono and had Buddhist prayer beads hung around his neck.
“What do you have against Hōjō Shinzō?”
Squaring his shoulders, Tazaemon replied, “He slaughtered two of our men.”
“According to Shinzō, your two louts helped Kojirō kill a number of Obata’s students.”
“That was one thing. This is another. If we don’t settle our score with Shinzō, we’ll be laughed off the streets.”
“That may be the way things are done in the world you live in,” Musashi said in a conciliatory tone. “But it’s different in the world of the samurai. Among warriors, you can’t fault a man for seeking and taking his proper revenge. A samurai may take revenge for the sake of justice or to defend his honor, but not to satisfy a personal grudge. It’s not manly. And what you’re trying to do right now isn’t manly.”
“Not manly? You’re accusing us of being unmanly?”
“If Kojirō came forward and challenged us in his own name, that’d be all right. But