Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [490]
Kojirō set his cup down on the table and stared straight into Kakubei’s face. Then, very coldly and defiantly, he said, “I’ve changed my mind. Sorry to have put you to so much trouble.” Blood seemed about to burst from his earlobes, already bright red from the drink.
“Wh-what?” stammered Kakubei. “You mean you’re giving up the chance for a position with the House of Hosokawa?”
“I don’t like the idea,” answered his guest curtly, offering no further explanation. His pride told him there was no reason for him to submit to an inspection; dozens of other daimyō would snap him up sight unseen for fifteen hundred, even twenty-five hundred, bushels.
Kakubei’s puzzled disappointment seemed to make no impression on him whatsoever, nor did it matter that he would be regarded as a willful ingrate. Without the least suggestion of doubt or repentance, he finished off his food in silence and returned to his own quarters.
The moonlight fell softly on the tatami. Stretching out drunkenly on the floor, arms under his head, he began to laugh quietly to himself. “Honest man, that Kakubei. Good, old, honest Kakubei.” He knew his host would be at a loss to explain this sudden shift to Tadatoshi, but he knew also that Kakubei would not be angry at him for very long, no matter how outrageously he behaved.
While he had piously denied interest in the stipend, he was in fact consumed with ambition. He wanted a stipend and much more—every ounce of fame and success he could possibly achieve. Otherwise, what would be the purpose of persevering through years of arduous training?
Kojirō’s ambition was different from that of other men only by dint of its magnitude. He wanted to be known throughout the country as a great and successful man, to bring glory to his home in Iwakuni, to enjoy every one of the benefits that can possibly derive from being born human. The quickest road to fame and riches was to excel in the martial arts. He was fortunate in having a natural talent for the sword; he knew this and derived no small measure of self-satisfaction from it. He had planned his course intelligently and with remarkable foresight. Every action of his was calculated to put him closer to his goal. To his way of thinking, Kakubei, though his senior, was naive and a little sentimental.
He fell asleep dreaming of his brilliant future.
Later, when the moonlight had edged a foot across the tatami, a voice no louder than the breeze whispering through the bamboo said, “Now.” A shadowy form, crouching among the mosquitoes, crept forward like a frog to the eaves of the unlighted house.
The mysterious man seen earlier at the foot of the hill advanced slowly, silently, until he reached the veranda, where he stopped and peered into the room. Stooping in the shadows, out of the moonlight, he might have remained undiscovered indefinitely had he himself made no sound.
Kojirō snored on. The soft hum of insects, briefly interrupted as the man moved into position, came again across the dew-covered grass.
Minutes passed. Then the silence was broken by the clatter the man made as he whipped out his sword and jumped up onto the veranda.
He leapt toward Kojirō and cried, “Arrgh!” an instant before he clenched his teeth and struck.
There was a sharp hissing as a long black object descended heavily on his wrist, but the original force of his strike had been powerful. Instead of falling from his hand, his sword sank into the tatami, where Kojirō’s body had been.
Like a fish darting away from a pole striking water, the intended victim had streaked to the wall. He now stood facing the intruder, the Drying Pole in one hand, its scabbard in the other.
“Who are you?” Kojirō’s breathing was calm. Alert as always to the sounds of nature’s creatures, to the falling of a dewdrop, he was unperturbed. “I-it-it’s me!”
“‘Me’ doesn’t tell me anything. I know you’re a coward, attacking a man in his sleep. What’s your name?