Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [506]
They seemed willing to accept this role, Munenori observing that Musashi was old enough to have a family and Ujikatsu saying that he had reached a satisfactorily high level of training.
Munenori suggested that one of these days Otsū should be summoned back from Koyagyū and given in marriage to Musashi. Then Musashi could set himself up in Edo, where his house, along with those of Ono Tadaaki and Yagyū Munenori, would form a triumvirate of the sword and usher in a golden age of swordsmanship in the new capital. Both Takuan and Ujikatsu concurred.
Specifically, Lord Ujikatsu, eager to reward Musashi for his kindness to Shinzō, wanted to recommend him as a tutor to the shōgun, an idea the three of them had explored before sending Shinzō for Musashi. And having seen how Musashi reacted to their test, Munenori himself was now ready to give his approval to the plan.
There were difficulties to be overcome, one being that a teacher in the shōgun’s household also had to be a member of the honor guard. Since many of its members were faithful vassals of the Tokugawas from the days when Ieyasu had held the Mikawa fief, there was a reluctance to appoint new people, and all candidates were investigated with great thoroughness. However, it was felt that with recommendations from Ujikatsu and Munenori, together with a letter of guarantee from Takuan, Musashi would get by.
The sticky point was his ancestry. There was no written record tracing his ancestry back to Hirata Shōgen of the Akamatsu clan, nor even a genealogical chart to prove he was of good samurai stock. He assuredly had no family connections with the Tokugawas. On the contrary, it was an undeniable fact that as a callow youth of seventeen he had fought against the Tokugawa forces at Sekigahara. Still, there was a chance; other rōnin from former enemy clans had joined the House of Tokugawa after Sekigahara. Even Ono Tadaaki, a rōnin from the Kitabatake clan, which was at present in hiding in Ise Matsuzaka, held an appointment as tutor to the shōgun despite his undesirable connections.
After the three men had again gone over the pros and cons, Takuan said, “All right then, let’s recommend him. But perhaps we should find out what he himself thinks about it.”
The question was put to Musashi, who replied mildly, “It’s kind and generous of you to suggest this, but I’m nothing but an immature young man.”
“Don’t think of it in that way,” said Takuan with an air of candor. “What we’re advising you to do is become mature. Will you establish a house of your own, or do you plan to make Otsū go on indefinitely living as she is now?”
Musashi felt hemmed in. Otsū had said she was willing to bear any hardship, but this would in no way lessen Musashi’s responsibility for any grief that might befall her. While it was acceptable for a woman to act in accordance with her own feelings, if the outcome was not a happy one, the man would be blamed.
Not that Musashi was unwilling to accept the responsibility. On the whole, he yearned to accept. Otsū had been guided by love, and the onus of that love belonged to him as much as to her. Nevertheless, he felt it was still too early to marry and have a family. The long, hard Way of the Sword stretched before him yet; his desire to follow it was undiminished.
It did not simplify matters that his attitude toward the sword had changed. Since Hōtengahara, the sword of the conqueror and the sword of the killer were things of the past, no longer of any use or meaning.
Nor did being a technician, even one who gave instruction to men of the shōgun’s retinue, excite his interest. The Way of the Sword, as he had come to see it, must have specific objectives: to establish order, to protect and refine the spirit. The Way had to be one men could cherish as they did their lives, until their dying day. If such a Way existed, could it not be employed to bring peace to the world and