Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [563]
“Not yet!” shouted the boy. As though kicking the floor away from him, he leaped high in the air, clearing Hyōgo’s shoulder. Hyōgo reached out with his left hand and lightly pushed the boy’s feet upward. Ushinosuke did a somersault and landed behind Hyōgo. He was up in a split second, running to retrieve his sword.
“That’s enough,” said Hyōgo.
“No; once more!”
Grabbing his sword, Ushinosuke held it high over his head with both hands and flew like an eagle toward Hyōgo. Hyōgo’s weapon, aimed straight at him, stopped him dead in his tracks. He saw the look in Hyōgo’s eyes and his own filled with tears.
“This boy has spirit,” thought Hyōgo, but he pretended to be angry. “You’re fighting dirty,” he shouted. “You jumped over my shoulder.”
Ushinosuke did not know what to say to that.
“You don’t understand your status—taking liberties with your betters! Sit down, right there.” The .boy knelt and put his hands out in front of him to bow in apology. As he came toward him, Hyōgo dropped the wooden sword and drew his own weapon. “I’ll kill you now. Don’t bother to scream.”
“K-k-kill me?”
“Stick out your neck. For a samurai, nothing is more important than abiding by the rules of proper conduct. Even if you are only a farm boy, what you did is unforgivable.”
“You’re going to kill me just for doing something rude?”
“That’s right.”
After looking up at the samurai for a moment, Ushinosuke, resignation in his eyes, lifted his hands in the direction of his village and said, “Mother, I’m going to become part of the soil here at the castle. I know how sad you’ll feel. Forgive me for not being a good son.” Then he obediently extended his neck.
Hyōgo laughed and put his sword back in its scabbard. Patting Ushinosuke on the back, he said, “You don’t think I’d really kill a boy like you, do you?”
“You weren’t serious?”
“No.”
“You said proper conduct is important. Is it all right for a samurai to play jokes like that?”
“It wasn’t a joke. If you’re going to train to become a samurai, I have to know what you’re made of.”
“I thought you meant it,” said Ushinosuke, his breathing returning to normal.
“You told me you hadn’t had lessons,” said Hyōgo. “But when I forced you to the edge of the room, you jumped over my shoulder. Not many students, even with three or four years of training, could execute that ploy.”
“I never studied with anyone, though.”
“It’s nothing to hide. You must have had a teacher, and a good one. Who was he?”
The boy thought for a moment, then said, “Oh, I remember how I learned that.”
“Who taught you?”
“It wasn’t a human being.”
“A goblin maybe?”
“No, a hemp seed.”
“What?”
“A hemp seed.”
“How could you learn from a hemp seed?”
“Well, way up in the mountains there are some of those fighters—you know, the ones who seem to disappear right in front of your eyes. I watched them train a couple of times.”
“You mean the ninja, don’t you? It must have been the Iga group you saw. But what does that have to do with a hemp seed?”
“Well, after hemp’s planted in the spring, it doesn’t take long before a little sprout comes up.”
“Yes?”
“You jump over it. Every day you practice jumping back and forth. When it gets warmer, the sprout grows fast—nothing else grows as fast—so you have to jump higher every day. If you don’t practice every day, it’s not long before the hemp is so high you can’t jump over it.”
“I see.”
“I did it last year, and the year before that. From spring till fall.”
Sukekurō came into the dōjō just then and said, “Hyōgo, here’s another letter from Edo.”
After Hyōgo read it, he said, “Otsū couldn’t have gone very far, could she?” “Not more than five miles, probably. Has something come up?”
“Yes. Takuan says Musashi’s appointment has been canceled. They seem