Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [8]
“Oh, that’s okay, you just have to be careful. Ishida Mitsunari and some of the other generals haven’t been caught yet. They’re keeping a close watch on this area and the roads are crawling with Tokugawa troops.”
“They are?”
“So even though you’re only foot soldiers, Mother said that if we’re caught hiding you, we’ll be arrested.”
“We won’t make a sound,” Takezō promised. “I’ll even cover Matahachi’s face with a rag if he snores too loudly.”
Akemi smiled, turned to go and said, “Good night. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Wait!” said Matahachi. “Why don’t you hang around and talk awhile?” “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Mother’d be angry.”
“Why worry about her? How old are you?”
“Sixteen.”
“Small for your age, aren’t you?”
“Thanks for telling me.”
“Where’s your father?”
“I don’t have one anymore.”
“Sorry. Then how do you live?”
“We make moxa.”
“That medicine you burn on your skin to get rid of pain?”
“Yes, the moxa from hereabouts is famous. In spring we cut mugwort on Mount Ibuki. In summer we dry it and in fall and winter make it into moxa. We sell it in Tarui. People come from all over just to buy it.”
“I guess you don’t need a man around to do that.”
“Well, if that’s all you wanted to know, I’d better be going.”
“Hold on, just another second,” said Takezō. “I have one more question.” “Well?”
“The other night, the night we came here, we saw a girl out on the battlefield and she looked just like you. That was you, wasn’t it?”
Akemi turned quickly and opened the door.
“What were you doing out there?”
She slammed the door behind her, and as she ran to the house the little bell rang out in a strange, erratic rhythm.
The Comb
At five feet eight or nine, Takezō was tall for people of his time. His body was like a fine steed’s: strong and supple, with long, sinewy limbs. His lips were full and crimson, and his thick black eyebrows fell short of being bushy by virtue of their fine shape. Extending well beyond the outer corners of his eyes, they served to accentuate his manliness. The villagers called him “the child of a fat year,” an expression used only about children whose features were larger than average. Far from an insult, the nickname nonetheless set him apart from the other youngsters, and for this reason caused him considerable embarrassment in his early years.
Although it was never used in reference to Matahachi, the same expression could have been applied to him as well. Somewhat shorter and stockier than Takezō, he was barrel-chested and round-faced, giving an impression of joviality if not downright buffoonery. His prominent, slightly protruding eyes were given to shifting when he talked, and most jokes made at his expense hinged on his resemblance to the frogs that croaked unceasingly through the summer nights.
Both youths were at the height of their growing years, and thus quick to recover from most ailments. By the time Takezō’s wounds had completely healed, Matahachi could no longer stand his incarceration. He took to pacing the woodshed and complaining endlessly about being cooped up. More than once he made the mistake of saying he felt like a cricket in a damp, dark hole, leaving himself wide open to Takezō’s retort that frogs and crickets are supposed to like such living arrangements. At some point, Matahachi must have begun peeping into the house, because one day he leaned over to his cellmate as if to impart some earth-shattering news. “Every evening,” he whispered gravely, “the widow puts powder on her face and pretties herself up!” Takezō’s face became that of a girl-hating twelve-year-old detecting defection, a budding interest in “them,” in his closest friend. Matahachi had turned traitor, and the look was one of unmistakable disgust.
Matahachi began going to the house and sitting by the hearth with Akemi and her youthful mother. After three or four days of chatting and joking with them, the convivial guest became one of the family. He stopped going back to the woodshed even at night, and the rare times he did, he had sake on his breath