Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [53]
“Now what’s all this? Is my comrade in arms turning against me?”
“Have a heart, Takuan! When I hear you talk like that, I hate you, I really do. If you intend to kill him, then kill him and be done with it! Takezō is resigned to dying. Let him die in peace!” She was so outraged she grabbed frantically at Takuan’s chest.
“Be quiet!” he said with uncharacteristic brutality. “Women know nothing of these matters. Hold your tongue, or I’ll hang you up there with him.”
“No, I won’t, I won’t!” she screamed. “I should have a chance to speak too. Didn’t I go to the mountains with you and stay there three days and three nights?”
“That has nothing to do with it. Takuan Sōhō will punish Takezō as he sees fit.”
“So punish him! Kill him! Now. It’s not right for you to ridicule his misery while he’s lying up there half dead.”
“That happens to be my only weakness, ridiculing fools like him.” “It’s inhuman!”
“Get out of here, now! Go away, Otsū; leave me alone.”
“I will not!”
“Stop being so stubborn,” Takuan shouted, giving Otsū a hard shove with his elbow.
When she recovered, she was slumped against the tree. She pressed her face and chest to its trunk and began wailing. She had never dreamed Takuan could be so cruel. The people in the village believed that even if the monk had Takezō tied up for a while, eventually he’d soften and lighten the punishment. Now Takuan had admitted that it was his “weakness” to enjoy seeing Takezō suffer! Otsū shuddered at the savagery of men.
If even Takuan, whom she’d trusted so deeply, could become heartless, then the whole world must indeed be evil beyond comprehension. And if there was no one at all whom she could trust…
She felt a curious warmth in this tree, felt somehow that through its great, ancient trunk, so thick that ten men with arms outstretched could not encompass it, there coursed the blood of Takezō, flowing down into it from his precarious prison in the upper branches.
How like a samurai’s son he was! How courageous! When Takuan had first tied him up, and again just now, she had seen Takezō’s weaker side. He, too, was able to weep. Until now, she’d gone along with the opinion of the crowd, been swayed by it, without having any real idea of the man himself. What was there about him that made people hate him like a demon and hunt him down like a beast?
Her back and shoulders heaved with her sobs. Clinging tightly to the tree trunk, she rubbed her tear-stained cheeks against the bark. The wind whistled loudly through the upper branches, which were waving broadly to and fro. Large raindrops fell on her kimono neck and flowed down her back, chilling her spine.
“Come on, Otsū,” Takuan shouted, covering his head with his hands. “We’ll get soaked.”
She didn’t even answer.
“It’s all your fault, Otsū! You’re a crybaby! You start weeping, the heavens weep too.” Then, the teasing tone gone from his voice: “The wind’s getting stronger, and it looks like we’re in for a big storm, so let’s get inside. Don’t waste your tears on a man who’s going to die anyway! Come on!” Takuan, sweeping the skirt of his kimono up over his head, ran toward the shelter of the temple.
Within seconds it was pouring, the raindrops making little white spots as they pummeled the ground. Though the water was streaming down her back, Otsū didn’t budge. She couldn’t tear herself away, even after her drenched kimono was clinging to her skin and she was chilled to the marrow. When her thoughts turned to Takezō, the rain ceased to matter. It didn’t occur to her to wonder why she should suffer simply because he was suffering; her mind was consumed by a newly formed image of what a man should be. She silently prayed his life would be spared.
She wandered in circles round the foot of the tree, looking up to Takezō often, but unable to see him because of the storm. Without thinking, she called his name, but there was no answer. A