Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [525]
“Who’s that?” asked Tōji.
“Just a customer,” answered Okō.
“Wake him up and get him out of here.”
Okō delegated this task to the girl servant, who went to the far corner and shook the man until he sat up.
“Get out,” she said bluntly. “We’re closing up now.”
He stood up, stretched and said, “That was a nice nap.” Smiling to himself and blinking his large eyes, he moved quickly but smoothly, wrapping the matting around his shoulders, donning his basket hat and adjusting his pack. He placed his staff under his arm, said, “Thanks a lot,” with a bow and walked quickly out the door.
Okō judged from his clothing and accent that he was not one of the local farmers, but he seemed harmless enough. “Funny-looking man,” she said. “I wonder if he paid his bill.”
Okō and Tōji were still rolling up blinds and straightening up the shop when Baiken came in with Kuro.
“Good to see you,” said Tōji. “Let’s go to the back room.”
Baiken silently removed his sandals and followed them, while the dog nosed around for scraps of food. The back room was only a broken-down lean-to with a first coat of rough plaster on the walls. It was out of earshot of anyone in the shop.
When a lamp had been lit, Baiken said, “This evening in front of the dance stage, I overheard Musashi tell the boy they’d go up to the inner shrine tomorrow morning. Later I went to the Kannon’in and checked it out.”
Both Okō and Tōji swallowed and looked out the window; the peak on which the inner shrine stood was dimly outlined against the starry sky.
Knowing whom he was up against, Baiken had made a plan of attack and mobilized reinforcements. Two priests, guards at the treasure house, had already agreed to help and had gone on ahead with their lances. There was also a man from the Yoshioka School, who ran a small dōjō at the shrine. Baiken calculated he could mobilize perhaps ten freebooters, men he’d known in Iga who were now working in the vicinity. Tōji would carry a musket, while Baiken would have his chain-ball-sickle.
“You’ve done all this already?” asked Tōji in disbelief.
Baiken grinned but said nothing more.
A diminutive sliver of moon hung high above the valley, hidden from view by a thick fog. The great peak was still sleeping, with only the gurgling and roaring of the river to accentuate the silence. A group of dark figures huddled on the bridge at Kosaruzawa.
“Tōji?” Baiken whispered hoarsely.
“Here.”
“Be sure to keep your fuse dry.”
Conspicuous among the motley crew were the two lancer priests, who had the skirts of their robes tucked up ready for action. The others were dressed in a variety of outfits, but all were shod so as to be able to move nimbly.
“Is this everybody?”
“Yes.”
“How many altogether?”
They counted heads: thirteen.
“Good,” said Baiken. He went over their instructions again. They listened in silence, nodding occasionally. Then, at a signal, they scurried into the fog to take up positions along the road. At the end of the bridge, they passed a milestone saying: “Six Thousand Yards to the Inner Shrine.”
When the bridge was empty again, a great company of monkeys emerged from hiding, jumping from limbs, climbing vines, converging on the road. They ran out onto the bridge, crawled under it, threw stones into the ravine. The fog toyed with them, as if encouraging their frolic. Had a Taoist Immortal appeared and beckoned, perhaps they would have been transformed into clouds and flown off with him to heaven.
The barking of a dog echoed through the mountains. The monkeys vanished, like sumac leaves before an autumn wind.
Kuro came up the road, dragging Okō along with him. He’d somehow broken loose, and though Okō had eventually got hold of the leash, she hadn’t been able to make him go back. She knew Tōji didn’t want the dog around to make noise, so she thought maybe she could get him out of the way by letting him go up to the inner shrine.
As the restlessly shifting fog began to settle in the valleys like snow, the three peaks of Mitsumine