Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [548]
“Just like him, aren’t you? Never say die. But I like the way you stick up for him. If he ever dies, come to me. I’ll put you to work sweeping the garden or something.”
Not knowing Kojirō was only teasing, Iori was insulted to the marrow. He picked up a rock. When he raised his arm to throw it, Kojirō fixed his eyes on him.
“Don’t do that,” he said in a calm but forceful voice.
Iori, feeling the eyes had hit him like two bullets, dropped the stone and ran. He ran on and on until, completely exhausted, he collapsed in the middle of Musashino Plain.
He sat there for two hours thinking about the man he looked up to as his teacher. Though he knew Musashi had many enemies, he thought of him as a great man and wanted to become a great man himself. Believing he had to do something to fulfill his obligations to his master and ensure his safety, he resolved to develop his own strength as quickly as possible.
Then the memory of the terrifying light in Kojirō’s eyes came back to haunt him. Wondering whether Musashi could defeat a man that strong, he pessimistically decided even his master would have to study and practice harder. He got to his feet.
The white mist rolling down from the mountains spread over the plain. Deciding he should go on to Chichibu and deliver Kojirō’s letter, he suddenly remembered the horse. Fearing bandits might have got hold of it, he searched frantically, calling and whistling at every other step.
He seemed to hear the sound of hooves coming from the direction of what he took to be a pond. He ran toward it. But there was no horse, no pond. The shimmering mist receded into the distance.
Seeing a moving black object, he approached it. A wild boar stopped rooting for food and charged dangerously close to him. The boar was swallowed up in the reeds and in its wake the mist formed a white line, looking as if it had been spread by a magician’s wand. As he gazed at it, he became conscious of gurgling water. Going closer, he saw the reflection of the moon in a rocky brook.
He had always been sensitive to the mysteries of the open plain. He firmly believed that the tiniest ladybird possessed the spiritual power of the gods. In his eyes, nothing was without a soul, neither fluttering leaves nor beckoning water nor driving wind. Surrounded now by nature, he experienced the tremulous loneliness of autumn nearly gone, the sad wistfulness that must be felt by grasses and insects and water.
He sobbed so hard his shoulders shook—sweet tears, not bitter ones. If some being other than a human—a star perhaps, or the spirit of the plain—had asked him why he was weeping, he wouldn’t have been able to say. If the inquiring spirit had persisted, soothing and coaxing him, he might finally have said, “I often cry when I’m out in the open. I always have the feeling the house in Hōtengahara is somewhere near.”
Crying was refreshment for his soul. After he had cried to his heart’s content, heaven and earth would comfort him. When the tears were dry, his spirit would come forth from the clouds clean and fresh.
“That’s Iori, isn’t it?”
“I believe it is.”
Iori turned toward the voices and the two human figures standing out blackly against the evening sky.
“Sensei!” cried Iori, stumbling as he ran toward the man on horseback. “It’s you!” Beside himself with joy, he clung to the stirrup and looked up to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.
“What happened?” asked Musashi. “What are you doing out here alone?” Musashi’s face seemed to be very thin—was it the moonlight?—but the warmth of the voice was what Iori had hungered for weeks to hear.
“I thought I’d go to Chichibu—” The saddle caught Iori’s eye. “Why, this is the horse I was riding!”
Gonnosuke, laughing, said, “Is it yours?”
“Yes.”
“We didn’t know who it belonged to. It was wandering around near the Iruma River, so I regarded it as a gift from heaven to Musashi.”
“The god of the plain must have sent the horse to meet you,” said Iori with perfect sincerity.
“Your horse, you say? That saddle couldn’t belong to a samurai getting less