Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [92]
“What’s that rascal up to?” muttered the innkeeper. “He’s taking a long time with the sake.”
“How old is he?”
“Eleven, I think he said.”
“Mature for his age, don’t you think?”
“Mm. I suppose it’s because he’s been working at the sake shop since he was seven. He runs up against all kinds there—wagon drivers, the paper-maker down the way, travelers, and what have you.”
“I wonder how he learned to write so well.”
“Is he really that good?”
“Well, his writing has a certain childish quality, but there’s an appealing—what can I say?—directness about it. If I had a swordsman in mind, I would say it shows spiritual breadth. The boy may eventually be somebody.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean become a real human being.”
“Oh?” The old man frowned, took the lid off the pot and resumed his grumbling. “Still not back. I’ll bet he’s dawdling somewhere.”
He was about to put on his sandals and go for the sake himself when Jōtarō returned. “What have you been up to?” he asked the boy. “You’ve been keeping my guest waiting.”
“I couldn’t help it. There was a customer in the shop, very drunk, and he grabbed hold of me and started asking a lot of questions.”
“What kind of questions?”
“He was asking about Miyamoto Musashi.”
“And I suppose you did a lot of blabbering.”
“It wouldn’t matter if I did. Everybody around here knows what happened at Kiyomizudera the other day. The woman next door, the daughter of the lacquer man—both of them were at the temple that day. They saw what happened.”
“Stop talking about that, won’t you?” Musashi said, almost in a pleading tone.
The sharp-eyed boy sized up Musashi’s mood and asked, “Can I stay here for a while and talk with you?” He started washing off his feet, preparing to come into the hearth room.
“It’s all right with me, if your master won’t mind.”
“Oh, he doesn’t need me right now.”
“All right.”
“I’ll warm up your sake for you. I’m good at that.” He settled a sake jar into the warm ashes around the fire and soon announced it was ready.
“Fast, aren’t you?” said Musashi appreciatively.
“Do you like sake?”
“Yes.”
“But being so poor, I guess you don’t drink very much, do you?” “That’s right.”
“I thought men who were good at the martial arts served under great lords and got big allowances. A customer at the shop told me once that Tsukahara Bokuden always used to go around with seventy or eighty retainers, a change of horses and a falcon.”
“That’s true.”
“And I heard that a famous warrior named Yagyū, who serves the House of Tokugawa, has an income of fifty thousand bushels of rice.”
“That’s true too.”
“Then why are you so poor?”
“I’m still studying.”
“How old will you have to be before you have lots of followers?” “I don’t know if I ever will.”
“What’s the matter? Aren’t you any good?”
“You heard what the people who saw me at the temple said. Any way you look at it, I ran away.”
“That’s what everybody’s saying: that shugyōsha at the inn—that’s you—is a weakling. But it makes me mad to listen to them.” Jōtarō’s lips tightened in a straight line.
“Ha, ha! Why should you mind? They’re not talking about you.”
“Well, I feel sorry for you. Look, the paper-maker’s son and the cooper’s son and some of the rest of the young men all get together sometimes behind the lacquer shop for sword practice. Why don’t you fight one of them and beat him?”
“All right. If that’s what you want, I will.”
Musashi was finding it difficult to refuse anything the boy asked, partly because he himself was in many ways still a boy at heart and was able to sympathize with Jōtarō. He was always looking, mostly unconsciously, for something to take the place of the family affection lacking from his own boyhood.
“Let’s talk about something else,” he said. “I’ll ask you a question for a change. Where were you born?”
“In Himeji.”
“Oh, so you’re from Harima.”
“Yes, and you’re from Mimasaka,