Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [93]
“He used to be a samurai. A real honest-to-goodness samurai!”
At first Musashi looked astonished, but actually the answer explained several things, not the least of which was how the boy had learned to write so well. He asked the father’s name.
“His name is Aoki Tanzaemon. He used to have an allowance of twenty-five hundred bushels of rice, but when I was seven he left his lord’s service and came to Kyoto as a rōnin. After all his money was gone, he left me at the sake shop and went to a temple to become a monk. But I don’t want to stay at the shop. I want to become a samurai like my father was, and I want to learn swordsmanship like you. Isn’t that the best way to become a samurai?”
The boy paused, then continued earnestly: “I want to become your follower—go around the country studying with you. Won’t you take me on as your pupil?”
Having blurted out his purpose, Jōtarō put on a stubborn face reflecting clearly his determination not to take no for an answer. He could not know, of course, that he was pleading with a man who had caused his father no end of trouble. Musashi, for his part, could not bring himself to refuse out of hand. Yet what he was really thinking of was not whether to say yes or no but of Aoki Tanzaemon and his unfortunate fate. He could not help sympathizing with the man. The Way of the Samurai was a constant gamble, and a samurai had to be ready at all times to kill or be killed. Mulling over this example of life’s vicissitudes, Musashi was saddened, and the effect of the sake wore off quite suddenly. He felt lonely.
Jōtarō was insistent. When the innkeeper tried to get him to leave Musashi alone, he replied insolently and redoubled his efforts. He caught hold of Musashi’s wrist, then hugged his arm, finally broke into tears.
Musashi, seeing no way out, said, “All right, all right, that’s enough. You can be my follower, but only after you go and talk it over with your master.” Jōtarō, satisfied at last, trotted off to the sake shop.
The next morning, Musashi rose early, dressed, and called to the innkeeper, “Would you please fix me a lunch box? It’s been nice staying here these few weeks, but I think I’ll go on to Nara now.”
“Leaving so soon?” asked the innkeeper, not expecting the sudden departure. “It’s because that boy was pestering you, isn’t it?”
“Oh, no, it’s not his fault. I’ve been thinking about going to Nara for some time—to see the famous lance fighters at the Hōzōin. I hope he doesn’t give you too much trouble when he finds out I’m gone.”
“Don’t worry about it. He’s only a child. He’ll scream and yell for a while, then forget all about it.”
“I can’t imagine that the sake man would let him leave anyway,” said Musashi as he stepped out onto the road.
The storm had passed, as if wiped away, and the breeze brushed gently against Musashi’s skin, quite unlike the fierce wind of the day before.
The Kamo River was up, the water muddy. At one end of the wooden bridge at Sanjō Avenue, samurai were examining all the people who came and went. Asking the reason for the inspection, Musashi was told it was because of the new shōgun’s impending visit. A vanguard of influential and minor feudal lords had already arrived, and steps were being taken to keep dangerous unattached samurai out of the city. Musashi, himself a rōnin, gave ready answers to the questions asked and was allowed to pass.
The experience set him to thinking about his own status as a wandering masterless warrior pledged neither to the Tokugawas nor to their rivals in Osaka. Running off to Sekigahara and taking sides with the Osaka forces against the Tokugawas was a matter of inheritance. That had been his father’s allegiance, unchanged from the days when he served under Lord Shimmen of Iga. Toyotomi Hideyoshi had died two years before the battle; his supporters, loyal to his son, made up the Osaka faction. In Miyamoto, Hideyoshi was considered the greatest of heroes, and Musashi remembered how as a child he had sat at the hearth and listened