Death at the Crossroads (9 page)

“Oh yes. The guards were quite mortified by their carelessness. I understand they all committed
seppuku
on the battlefield to atone for their lack of fidelity.”

“This is the first time I’ve heard of a general getting separated from his guards.”

“I said Sekigahara was a very confusing battle. Armies were first on one side, then the other. It was hard to know who was fighting whom, and enemies in the morning were allies by that afternoon.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Were you at Sekigahara?”

Kaze laughed. “Oh, I’ve never been in such a famous battle. Sekigahara changed Japan, because the forces that supported the late Taiko’s widow and heir were defeated. Now the widow and the Taiko’s young son are entrenched in Osaka Castle, and Tokugawa-sama
is the real ruler of Japan. Rumor says he will soon declare himself Shogun, so you received this district from the hands of a future Shogun. I’m just a ronin, and one who is frankly a little envious that you had a chance to distinguish yourself in battle and receive this district as your reward.”

Manase looked petulant. “It’s a miserable little 150-koku district and far removed from all the things I love.” In theory, Manase could provide many fighting men if he was called to do so by the new Tokugawa government, although usually he would be asked to take to the field with only a fraction of the theoretical total. It was a small district compared to some of the fifty-thousand- and hundred-thousand-koku districts ruled by major lords, but Tokugawa Ieyasu was notoriously tightfisted.

“If I may be impolite and ask, where is your original home?” Kaze asked.

“I come from Ise,” Manase said, naming an ancient district at the edge of the Inland Sea. “I long for the shimmering waters of Ise Bay and the taste of fresh sea bream. I felt closer to the Gods there. His Majesty, the Emperor, comes to Ise to consult with the gods Amaterasu-o-mikami and Toyouke-no-o-mikami at their home in the Grand Shrines.”

“Those shrines are made of unpainted
hinoki
wood, Japanese cypress?”

“Of course.”

“Were you ever there for a
sengu-shiki
ceremony?”

“When I was a young man. They do it only every twenty years, and thousands of pilgrims come to see it.”

“During the ceremony they actually dismantle the shrine buildings and construct entirely new ones?”

“Yes. The pilgrims and the populace get bits of the shrines as talismans. Oh, the happiness to get a bit of the sacred shrine is something to behold.”

“You must miss it terribly.”

Kaze was surprised to see a tear well up in Manase’s eye. “Oh yes,” he said. “This rural life has very few compensations.”

Kaze sat in silence while Manase recovered himself.

“This conversation has taken a melancholy turn,” Manase said. “I had intended to take advantage of the rare sight of a cultured man in this backwater.” He pointed to a large block of wood in the corner of the room, as thick as the span of a man’s hand. “Would you like to play a game of
go
? Only the imbecile Magistrate plays here, and he hardly gives one a game.”

Kaze nodded and slid across the mat to the go board. He moved it between the two of them and took one of the brown, covered, monkeywood bowls from the top. Kaze took the lid off his bowl as Manase took a second bowl from the top of the board. Inside were white go stones made of shell: pearlescent, thick, and expensive. Manase’s bowl held black stones, equally thick. The top of the board was crisscrossed with nineteen lines, forming a grid.

Since Manase had black, he moved first. He took a stone between the tips of two of his fingers and set it down on an intersection of the grid with a decided snap, a move that made a pleasing “click” sound on the thick go board. The board had a sound hole and small legs on the bottom to magnify and enhance this sound.

The opening moves, which followed standard patterns called
joseki
, went quickly as the two men snapped down stones. Go is a game of position and territory. Once a stone is placed it can’t be moved except to remove it from the board if it is completely encircled by the enemy’s stones. The winner secures the largest territory, either through strategy or “killing” the opponent’s stones.

Early in the game Manase made a move that invited Kaze to start a fight along one side of the board. Without comment, Kaze declined the gambit and played a stone at a bigger point; a place that secured more territory for him. “I would have thought you were a fierce fighter,” Manase commented after Kaze made his move.

“Fighting without purpose is the activity of fools,” Kaze said.

“Meaning?”

“
Gomen nasai
. I’m sorry. I meant that I am willing to fight when the stakes are right, but I must know what I am fighting to accomplish.”

“You wouldn’t fight just because your Lord told you to?”

“Of course, a samurai’s first duty is to obey his Lord. But I could be more effective in fighting if I understood what the objective is.”

“How do you reconcile that with unquestioned obedience?”

“I am not questioning; I am simply understanding the purpose.”

“A strategist,” Manase said teasingly, placing a stone that started an attack on Kaze’s territory.

“No, a realist,” Kaze said, responding with a stone that threatened to encircle Manase’s attacking stone.

Manase stopped to ponder the board for a few minutes. “I misjudged you,” Manase said. “I mistook your calm nature for a lack of fighting spirit. Now I see you’re quite willing to fight when it suits you.” He placed a stone down to support his attacker.

The battle on the go board continued to ebb and flow, with both players locked in a struggle to assure the survival of their stones. Manase would constantly offer Kaze a perceived opening, but, upon study, Kaze would see that the moves were cunning traps designed to get him to commit to a course of action that would eventually lead to disaster.

After Kaze refused one such gambit, Manase gave his affected laugh and said, “It’s quite frustrating playing you.”

“Why?”

“You never accept my invitations.” Manase clicked down a stone.

“I will when the time is right.” Kaze answered with a stone of his own.

“When will the time be right?” Another stone.

“There is a time for everything.” Kaze paused to study the board. “Patience is the coin that buys the proper time.” He placed his stone.

“In that you are like Tokugawa-sama,” Manase said.

Kaze, who disliked being compared to the new ruler of Japan, said, “Why do you say that?”

“Haven’t you heard the story they’ve recently made up to show the character of the last three rulers of Japan?”

“No.”

“It’s really quite amusing. They say Nobunaga-sama, Hideyoshi-sama, and Tokugawa-sama were looking at a bird on a limb, and they wanted the bird on the ground. I’ll kill it, Nobunaga-sama says, and that will bring it to the ground. I’ll talk to it, Hideyoshi-sama says, and convince it to come to the ground. And I will sit, Tokugawa-sama says, and wait until the bird wants to come to the ground itself.”

Kaze had to laugh. The story was both irreverent toward the leaders of Japan and illustrative of their characters. “But,” Kaze added, “at Sekigahara, Tokugawa-sama stopped waiting. He attacked, and he won.” Kaze placed a stone to start an attack on Manase’s position on the go board.

The play of the stones became increasingly rapid, with the click of pieces played sounding quicker and quicker as the battle between the two men was joined. Go was a common game for a warrior because it taught the need for proper timing of attacks, the value of evaluating the biggest move, and the virtue of anticipating an enemy’s response. It held a fascination that prompted the proverb, “A go player will miss his own father’s funeral.”

Despite Manase’s maneuvers and stratagems, Kaze played a calm and steady game, and by the end Kaze had a fifteen-point advantage and victory. “You’re a stronger go player than I imagined,” Manase said, as he scooped stones into his bowl.

“I was just lucky.”

“There is no luck in go. Like
shogi
, Japanese chess, the game is all skill. It’s not like dice or war, where luck is everything.”

“There’s no skill in war?”

Manase placed the lid on his bowl. “Only the skill to take advantage of the opportunities that luck has brought you. Now that you have beaten me at go, we’re even.”

Kaze gave him a quizzical look.

“It was my strategy to use a net to capture you,” Manase explained. “I knew the Magistrate and his miserable guards could never capture someone as strong as you were described to be without some kind of clever stratagem. Now that I’ve met you, I see I was right.”

“That strategy was a good one. I’ll remember it.”

“Yes, I’m sure you will. We’ll have to see about some other game to see who the eventual winner will be between us.”

“Such as?”

“Oh, poetry composition or something similar. Please be my guest for a few days. I’ve already instructed the Magistrate to return your sword to you. If you stay, it will give me a chance to study you and see what would be the best thing to challenge you with next.”

“Thank you. I will stay briefly, but I can’t impose on you. I’ll be just as happy to continue staying with the charcoal seller.”

Manase giggled, his humor, which had been soured by the go game, seeming to return. “Oh, that’s quite impossible. You see, I intend to crucify that charcoal seller.”

“W
hy do you want to crucify the charcoal seller?” Kaze asked, surprised.

“Oh, for the death of that merchant at the crossroads.”

“But the charcoal seller didn’t do that.”

“You found him standing over the body yourself.”

“But the man was killed with an arrow. The charcoal seller had no bow.”

“He probably hid the bow. You know that weapons have been forbidden to peasants since the time of Hideyoshi-sama’s great sword hunt, which is almost twenty years now. The recent war between the Toyotomis and the Tokugawas has allowed the peasants to gather arms again, so I know they all have their secret cache. They claim they need them for defense against bandits, but peasants are notoriously greedy. They’ll often kill if there’s a few coppers in it for them. You just interrupted the charcoal seller before he could rob the merchant.”

“Perhaps the charcoal seller interrupted a bandit—”

“Oh, don’t go on,” Manase said. “If the charcoal seller didn’t kill that merchant, then I’m sure it was someone else from this village. Killing one peasant is as good as killing another. It serves as a lesson
to all of them. Please don’t bother me with this talk about the charcoal seller again. It’s quite boring. Instead, come with me. I want you to meet someone.”

Manase rose, and protocol required Kaze to stand, too. Kaze noticed that Manase wore trousers that were long and trailed behind him. His feet in the trouser legs rubbed against the tatami mats, making an exotic swish-swish sound as Manase walked. It took practice to walk in this kind of pants, and they were normally reserved only for officials of the Imperial Court. Kaze followed behind, his cotton tabi gliding silently. The sound of the long legs of Manase’s trousers rubbing across the tatami reminded Kaze of happier days, in a life long before his current wandering state.

Kaze couldn’t enjoy the sound made by Manase’s passage, however. He had come to like the charcoal seller, and Manase’s plans to crucify Jiro did not sit well. Kaze was not repelled by the thought of death. He had been raised to believe that death is just a part of the natural cycle of life and rebirth all men must go through. With hundreds of crimes carrying the penalty of death, he had also seen countless executions and had even ordered several himself.

What bothered him was the prolonging of death. He knew some men derived pleasure from the suffering of others, and he wondered if the strange District Lord leading him through the passages of the seedy villa was such a man. Kaze believed that death, when necessary, should come cleanly and quickly. There were good ways to die and bad ways to die, and crucifixion was not a good way to die.

Some lords who favored crucifixion also favored the novel Christian cross, an invention that came into Japan with the smelly Christian priests and pale, Western traders who were little more than pirates. But given Manase’s proclivities toward old things, Kaze was sure that a traditional Japanese cross would be used: Two poles set into the ground to form an X, the arms of the victim tied to the top of the X so he was hanging. The pull of the earth would settle the victim’s lungs and other organs, and the man would die an agonizing
death of slow asphyxiation. For a small, wiry man like Jiro, that kind of death could take many long days.

Kaze wondered what was the best tactic for saving the old peasant’s life, but before he could formulate an idea, Manase came to a shoji screen door and stopped. “Sensei?” he called softly, placing his face next to the door.

From behind the screen, Kaze could hear a low murmuring, like someone reciting a sutra. The murmuring stopped for a moment, then an old, cracked voice said, “Is it time for a treat?”

Manase gave that high, tittering laugh of his and slid back the shoji screen. He entered with Kaze in tow. “No, Sensei,” Manase said, settling down on the tatami mat. “Later on the servants will give you mashed
azuki
beans sweetened with honey, but right now I want you to meet a guest of mine.”

Kaze sat down slightly behind Manase and looked at the curious creature before him. He was a very old man with wisps of scraggly gray hair clinging to the side of his head and an equally thin and scraggly beard. His eyes were covered with a white sheen that made the man blind. His kimono was clean but patched in numerous places.

Seeing Kaze’s gaze on the kimono, Manase leaned over and said in a low voice, “He won’t give up that kimono. He claims all other kimonos are too rough and scratchy. How amusing!”

“I can hear that,” the old man said. “I may be blind, but I can hear very well, don’t you know. Why have you disturbed my studies?”

“Of course, Sensei,” Manase said in a placating voice. “It’s just that we get so few visitors worth talking to that I thought I’d introduce you to a samurai we have staying with us, Matsuyama Kaze.”

“Matsuyama Kaze? What kind of name is that? It sounds like an odd name to me.”

“It is an odd name, but it suits a strange fellow,” Kaze spoke up. “I am glad to meet you, Sensei. Please be kind to me.” The last phrase was a common greeting instead of a real request.

“Be kind? Be kind? First let me see your lessons.”

Kaze looked at Manase for guidance. “He sometimes thinks he’s still teaching,” Manase said. “He goes in and out with great frequency, thinking he’s in the past and then remembering he’s in the present. Just have patience. His mind will return to the moment after he’s drifted a bit.”

“My young Genji, my shining prince, how can you expect to take up the mantle of courtly duties if you don’t study? Do you want to embarrass your household and all your ancestors? People will laugh at you!” The old man shook a withered finger in Kaze’s direction.

“I have no doubt people will laugh at me,” Kaze said kindly. “I apologize to you, Sensei, for not having my lessons completed.”

The old man’s head snapped up, like a snoozing sentry suddenly startled by the coming of his captain. “Lessons? What lessons? Is someone here to meet me? Do you want to study the classics? I’m blind now, but I can still recite them from memory. I say them over and over again so they will not flutter from my mind like an escaping bird.”

“I am Matsuyama Kaze. I am glad to meet you, Sensei.”

“I am Nagahara Munehisa.” He put his hands before him on the mat and gave a short bow. “I used to be classics master in the household of Lord Oishi Takatomo. I once had the honor of reciting part of the
Kojiki
before His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor.”

“Nagahara Sensei, that is a great honor indeed. You must be a scholar of exceptional merit to recite our oldest history before His Majesty.”

“You are too kind. It was the Imperial Household that asked for the
Kojiki
, but the
Genji
is my real love.”

“I am honored to meet such a distinguished scholar.” Kaze placed his hands before him on the mat and gave the blind old man a deep bow, even though the old scholar could not see the compliment.

“Ah yes, the
Kojiki
, the
Kojiki
. The remembrances of Hieda no Are, an old, old woman. Like the
Genji
, another tale from a woman.
She was sixty-five when her legends were recorded. Did you know I’m sixty-three?”

“No, Sensei, I didn’t.”

“Yes, I’m …” The old man paused, a confused look coming over his face. Suddenly he seemed quite stern. “So you would rather see the horse races than study your classics? Bushido is more than swords and horses and armor, young master. Bushido, the way of the warrior, is also about knowing the classics of Japan and even China. To be a superior man, you must be a cultured man. And a young lord in your position must be a superior man. I am your teacher, your Sensei, and I am responsible for you. Do you want others to laugh at you, bringing shame to both you and your household? You are a most willful boy, sneaking out to see those races!”

Kaze looked at Manase for guidance. The District Lord took a fan from his sleeve and started cooling himself. He had a look of complete indifference on his face. Kaze returned his attention to the old man and said, “Yes, Sensei. Thank you for correcting me.”

The old scholar didn’t seem to hear Kaze’s reply. Instead he started mumbling to himself again at a rapid pace. Kaze couldn’t make out all the words, but he caught “Heike” and “battle” and “mirror in the seas.” Kaze thought he must be reciting the story of the ancient battle between the Minamoto and the Taira for the leadership of Japan.

Manase gracefully stood to leave, and protocol required Kaze to follow. In the hallway outside the Sensei’s room, after the shoji screen door was closed, Manase gave his little laugh again and said, “How boring. He’s gone again. He’ll recite for quite some time. He’s afraid of forgetting the things he used to be able to read, so he tries to recall them to memory by repeating them over and over. He keeps forgetting more and more of the stories, however, and then tries even more desperately to remember what he has left. When I first bought him, he could recite the most marvelous stories, especially from the era of Genji. That was almost six hundred years from today, but that old
man could make it seem as alive and modern as if the world of Genji were just outside the walls of this villa.”

“You bought him?”

“Oh, yes. A man was leading him around the countryside like a performing bear, putting on shows where he would recite stories and get paid a few coppers. I paid off his handler and brought him into my household. He really was a classics master in Lord Oishi’s household, but he gets less and less useful to me. Lately he just wants sweet treats like some kind of child, and his ability to concentrate and carry on an interesting conversation gets less and less.” Manase sighed, “I suppose that eventually my only link to the world of Genji will be the books I have, because that old man will go completely crazy or die.”

“You seem especially interested in the world of Genji.”

“Yes. That’s how I try to live my life.”

“But that was six hundred years ago!”

“But it was the pinnacle of our life and culture. The people of Japan have been in a decline ever since. I still try to follow the customs and beliefs of the age of Genji. That was a time when there truly were shining princes, and men of refinement could pursue the highest aesthetic interest. After three hundred years of constant warfare our heritage was lost. No wonder old courtly arts and customs are dying, and rough, swaggering bushi rule.”

“You mean Lord Tokugawa?”

Manase caught himself. “Certainly not! Tokugawa-sama is a most cultured man. I’m talking about other lords.”

“Of course. How stupid of me. Please accept my apologies for not properly understanding your comments.”

“Well, yes. I accept your apologies. I was just upset because the old man slips deeper and deeper into his private world, depriving me of the entertainment I bought him for.”

“I can see where that would upset you.” Kaze stared blandly at the District Lord.

“Well, I must attend to some duties now. Please stay for a few
days. Despite your strange ways, you’re an amusing fellow in this dreary backwater.”

“Can I ask one final thing before you go, Lord Manase?”

“What is it?”

“If I find the villager hiding a bow, would you let the charcoal seller go?”

Manase studied Kaze for several seconds. “You are a most peculiar fellow. The peasants hide their weapons, and it would take weeks to search all their filthy huts to see where they put them. That charcoal seller will be crucified in a few days, and I won’t delay things for a foolish search. But I’m a reasonable man, and if you can somehow find out what weapons the villagers have in that time, then of course I’ll arrest the one with a bow and crucify him instead. As I said, it’s all the same to me which villager is killed for this murder. It might as well be the one who actually did it.”