Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [633]
Musashi finished his carving and brushed the chips from his hakama. “Do you have something I could put around me?” he asked.
“Are you cold?”
“No, but the water’s splashing in.”
“There should be a quilted coat under the seat.”
Musashi picked up the garment and threw it over his shoulders. Then he took some paper from his kimono and began rolling and twisting each sheet into a string. When he had accumulated more than twenty of these, he twisted them together end to end to make two cords, which he then braided to make a tasuki, the band used to tie sleeves back when fighting. Sasuke had heard that making tasuki from paper was a secret art, passed down from generation to generation, but Musashi made the process look easy. Sasuke watched with admiration the deftness of his fingers and the grace with which he slipped the tasuki over his arms.
“Is that Funashima?” asked Musashi, pointing.
“No. That’s Hikojima, part of the Hahajima group. Funashima’s a thousand yards or so to the northeast. It’s easy to recognize because it’s flat and looks like a long sandbar. There between Hikojima and Izaki is the Strait of Ondo. You’ve probably heard of it.”
“To the west, then, that must be Dairinoura in Buzen Province.” “That’s right.”
“I remember now. The inlets and islands around here were where Yoshitsune won the last battle against the Heike.”
Sasuke was growing more nervous with each stroke of the scull. He had broken out in a cold sweat; his heart was palpitating. It seemed eerie to be talking about inconsequential matters. How could a man going into battle be so calm?
It would be a fight to the death; no question about that. Would he be taking a passenger back to the mainland later? Or a cruelly maimed corpse? There was no way of knowing. Musashi, thought Sasuke, was like a white cloud floating across the sky.
This was not a pose on Musashi’s part, for in fact he was thinking of nothing at all. He was, if anything, a little bored.
He looked over the side of the boat at the swirling blue water. It was deep here, infinitely deep, and alive with what seemed to be eternal life. But water had no fixed, determined form. Was it not because man had a fixed, determined form that he cannot possess eternal life? Does not true life begin only when tangible form has been lost?
To Musashi’s eyes, life and death seemed like so much froth. He felt goose pimples on his skin, not from the cold water but because his body felt a premonition. Though his mind had risen above life and death, body and mind were not in accord. When every pore of his body, as well as his mind, forgot, there would remain nothing inside his being but the water and the clouds.
They were passing Teshimachi Inlet on Hikojima. Unseen by them were some forty samurai standing watch on the shore. All were supporters of Ganryū, and most were in the service of the House of Hosokawa. In violation of Tadatoshi’s orders, they had crossed over to Funashima two days earlier. In the event that Ganryū was beaten, they were ready to take revenge.
This morning, when Nagaoka Sado, Iwama Kakubei and the men assigned to stand guard arrived on Funashima, they discovered this band of samurai, upbraided them severely and ordered them to go to Hikojima. But since most of the officials were in sympathy with them, they went unpunished. Once they were off Funashima, it was not the officials’ responsibility what they did.
“Are you sure it’s Musashi?” one of them was saying.
“It has to be.”
“Is he alone?”
“He seems to be. He’s got a cloak or something around his shoulders.” “He probably has on light armor and wants to hide it.”
“Let’s go.”
Tensely eager for battle, they piled into their boats and lay in readiness. All were armed with swords, but in the bottom of each boat lay a long lance.
“Musashi’s coming!”
The cry was heard around Funashima only moments later.
The sound of the waves, the voices of the pines and the rustling of the bamboo grass blended