The 47 Ronin Story (2 page)

He walked with long steps over the slick wood, darkly polished by the passage of countless stockinged feet. At one side the corridor was lined by pillars of fragrant cedar separated by painted shoji panels; on the other side rain doors sheltered it from the garden outside, and Lord Asano shivered as they rattled in the wind and he imagined he heard again the dogs of his dreams.

He opened the sliding door to the kitchen and stepped in. It was a large room, floored with rough boards, with a clay-lined central fireplace sunk in the floor. Here, two topknotted samurai from his retinue

sat warming themselves, and as he approached and muttered a greeting they scrambled to their knees and bowed low.

Kataoka, the younger of the two, wiry, with a face like a playful monkey, started to exchange a pleasantry with his master, but changed his mind when he saw his face. Lord Asano was tense by nature, but this morning he appeared more so than usual and Kataoka knew when to keep quiet. The other man, a fierce-looking warrior in his fifties named Hara, was sleepy eyed and not so perceptive; he merely followed Kataoka's lead in sinking back into a cross-legged position by the fire as their master sat down.

"You needn't have gotten up so early," Lord Asano told Hara. "Kataoka is the only escort I'll need today, and all he can do is stand outside and look up at the castle towers and dream of home."

Hara grunted and his glittering eyes showed briefly, then his sleepy Hds drooped again and he lifted his rice bowl close to his face to eat. Kataoka bobbed his head and grinned his monkey smile of pleasure at the honor of being his lord's sole companion on such an auspicious occasion, then coughed as the smoke from the fire blew into his face. Lord Asano reached for the teapot hanging over the fire, but the smoke stung his eyes and he cursed as he flung the kettle back onto its hook.

"Mimura!" he called, and a sudden shuffling in the pantry told him that Mimura had heard.

The servant, a tall, awkward young fellow, entered in great haste and bowed low to his master. As he raised his eyes he saw that the smoke was going everywhere except out the opening in the roof made for it, and he quickly reached into the pit to pull out the green sticks that were causing the trouble.

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Chapter Two

"Who put those in there?" said Lord Asano sharply. "You know better than that, Mimura. Can't you help get this miserable day off to a better start?"

Mimura apologized in a profusion of polite phrases and muttered under his breath about the stupidity of the new fire boy. Then he crossed to the pantry door and called out.

There was an unexplained delay and he called again. This time he was answered by the appearance of the fire boy's head in the doorway, a great shock of black unruly hair over an impudent face. Mimura bawled him out for his carelessness, but if he expected an apology he was disappointed. The boy, in a loud raucous voice, told Mimura that if he was so particular he could make the fire himself and abruptly withdrew, slamming the door shut behind him.

The men at the fire were shocked at this display and Hara was so incensed he leaped to his feet and pulled his long sword.

"What does he mean by talking to one of our servants like that?" he exclaimed as he started for the pantry door.

"No, wait," said Lord Asano in a weary voice of authority. "He's only a boy. Besides, you'll get yourself in trouble if you harm him. The laws are different here; we can't behave as we would at home."

"But to insult your servant is to insult you, too," Hara insisted. "I should at least sht his tongue for him if you won't let me take off his head."

"Sit down—sit down and drink your tea. You've got to get used to the ways of Edo. Here the comings and goings of daimyo from the provinces are so commonplace that they hold no terror for even a lowly fire boy.

Hara, still muttering, put away his sword and sat

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down. He watched carefully as Mimura opened the pantry door and stepped through. In a moment there came the sounds of a slap and a yelp of pain, and Hara smiled as Kataoka laughed out loud.

"That'll take care of the young monkey," he shouted and made the most monkeylike grin at his command. The others smiled and Kataoka was pleased that he had helped his master forget his troubles, if only temporarily.

"I wish all the Edoites were so easily handled," said Lord Asano as he sighed and helped himself to some rice. "But I'm afraid that's not the case. Especially with those who have a little authority."

The two samurai exchanged glances. They knew what their master meant.

"These court dandies all ought to have their heads removed," growled Hara, and Kataoka nodded in agreement. "They talk and dress like women and are just as troublesome."

"Anyway, it'll all be over after today," Lord Asano said. "Then we can go home to Ako and forget this place. Think what it must have been like in the old days when daimyo like my father had to stay here half of every year."

The others agreed that the present arrangement was better than that, and finished eating their rice. Hara looked sorrowfully into the bottom of his bowl and Lord Asano knew what he was thinking.

"At least in the old days we had a little meat and fish to go with our rice, eh, Hara? Well, maybe we will again some day if the Shogun's Life Preservation Laws are ever rescinded. They may benefit the animals, but they don't do us humans much good." He put his bowl down and sighed again. "Most of the laws around here seem only meant to torment us.

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Chapter Two

And the court's rules of etiquette are completely beyond me. If only I didn't have to depend for instructions on someone like Kira!"

He spat out the name like a curse and again Hara and Kataoka exchanged worried looks. They knew he would not elaborate on this subject—it would be beneath him to discuss his personal grievances with them—but from what they had heard they knew that Kira, the court Master of Ceremonies, was making his life miserable. And they also knew there was nothing they could do about it.

Kira's name stuck in Lord Asano's mind like a bone in his throat. He had never known such a miserable time in the capital before, and it was a place he had never enjoyed visiting. This time, however, he was an unwilhng participant in the official proceedings instead of a mere spectator and was thrown into much closer contact with the Sho-gun's underlings. Kira was not even of daimyo rank, having no fief of his own and being ruler of nothing. But the fact that he had been sent to Kyoto some years before to study ceremonial procedure at the court of the Emperor gave him prestige and power that he had since used to good advantage in exacting bribes from those who had to depend on his tutelage.

Lord Asano had written about Kira only the night before in a letter to his chief retainer Oishi. Although Oishi was slightly older, he was less experienced in the ways of the court at Edo than his master, and Lord Asano was able to express his feelings about Kira in the guise of offering advice on how to behave in the capital.

"Kira is the man to watch out for," he had written. '*He enjoys the confidence of the Shogun and appears

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to be a faithful servant, but in truth he is an unscrupulous bribetaker and uses his office solely for his own ends. There is seemingly no way of dealing with such men except to play their game, but this I refuse to do. Consequently, Kira is giving me a rough time of it, even with only one day to go. Regardless of what happens, however, I will not pay Kira for his services, which are supposed to be supplied by the court. This may be a stubborn attitude, but as far as I am concerned it is the only honorable one for a samurai to take. I do not expect that I alone can turn back the wave of decadence that seems to have engulfed the court, but I can try to hold my head above the dirty water as long as there is a breath left in me."

He wondered if Oishi would understand. In Ako there was nothing to compare with the Shogun's court and he himself would not have believed such corruption existed if he had not seen it with his own eyes. Still, Oishi thought like a true samurai and could appreciate his feelings. He doubted that his words would ever be taken as practical advice, but at least it was good to get the matter off his chest.

He finished eating and rose with a sigh.

"Time to put on my 'clown suit,' " he told Kataoka, and together they moved out of the room as Hara sat scowling at the forces that were troubling his master.

At the castle Kira was up early, too. As Master of Ceremonies for all court functions he was obliged to be impeccable in dress as well as in manner and he took pains to maintain high standards. The robes laid out for him were similar in style to those the visiting daimyo and officials of the court would be wearing,

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Chapter Two

but the color scheme he had chosen of dead black with a huge white crest on each oversized sleeve guaranteed him a more striking appearance than any of them.

Although scarcely middle aged, Kira affected to be older because he thought it added to his dignity. Except for two deep frown lines creased into his brow, however, his face was free of wrinkles and his heavy-set body was hard and agile. His teeth, in accord with the latest fashion, were blackened so that when he opened his mouth to speak, his listeners saw only a dark, toothless hole.

Strangely enough, for one in such exalted if temporary power over the daimyo of the land, Kira was worried about the behavior of one of them. Lord Asano was of the old school of samurai and did not seem to realize that in this modern age bribes in the right pockets would do him more good than meaningless affirmations of loyalty to the Shogun. And for this reason he constituted a threat to Kira's way of life.

For three days now Kira had tried by flattery, by hints, and finally by insults to convey the idea to Lord Asano that it was customary to bestow gifts of money on the court Master of Ceremonies for his services. But Lord Asano had continued to ignore him, and Kira's fear was that if he got away with this act of ingratitude it could set a bad precedent. Kira's stipend as a court officer was not large and he had no desire to lose any extra benefits because of Lord Asano's stubbornness. Somehow, there must be a way to get to his man. He had never failed in the past to get what he wanted from these noble young fools and he was determined that this time would be no exception.

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His thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of a breathless servant with the announcement that the Shogun Tsunayoshi wanted to see him immediately. He hurried to put on his robes, cursing because he could not finish dressing in the leisurely way he had planned. Then he hastened out the door and across the palace grounds to the inner palace, wondering all the while what could be troubling the Shogun this early in the morning.

In the twenty-first year of his reign, Tsunayoshi had every reason to be contented. There had been no uprisings against his office for several decades, mainly because his ancestors had been so thorough in uniting the country, first by conquest and then by assigning fiefs in strategic locations to blood relatives. His predecessors had also done him a favor by expelling all foreigners, except for one small group of Dutch traders on an island at the extreme southern tip of the country. The Christian influence had lingered for some time, even after the expulsion, but sixty years before, at Shimabara, the last large-scale massacre of such deviants had left the country free of even this minor annoyance.

Now, after years of peace, the towns were growing, the merchants were prospering, and the arts were flourishing. It was true that the price of rice was going up, due to short supplies from the farmers who seemed strangely unable to get the most from their land, but on the whole Tsunayoshi was free from any pressing problems of state. But that is not to say that he had no problems at all.

As Kira entered, puffing more heavily than was really necessary, he could see that Tsunayoshi was indeed in an anxious state. Kira bowed as low as his robes would permit and then raised his eyes to the tall,

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Chapter Two

thin man in his fifties, who was pacing mincingly up and down the ornate reception room.

Tsunayoshi's concern, it turned out, was not with any pressing matters of state, but rather with how the performance of his dancing group would be received at the ceremonies. He had selected and coached the boys himself and was concerned that they give a good account of themselves. So much so that he had decided another rehearsal was in order and this was why he had summoned Kira. He wanted the boys assembled in the Hall of the Thousand Mats as quickly as possible so they could run through their dance once more before the distinguished guests arrived.

"You don't know how much this means to me," he told Kira, with a womanish wave of his kimono sleeve. "I've worked so hard to make this performance a success—it's just got to come off perfectly!" Kira bowed his head. "I sympathize with Your Excellency but I'm sure you have nothing to worry about. The ceremonies will be carried out smoothly as always."

"The ceremonies, yes—but the dance, that's what's important to me. This is something new for such an occasion and if it fails, I'll be laughed at by everyone."

"No one would think of doing such a thing," Kira reassured him.

"The experts will laugh behind my back even if they don't say anything," Tsunayoshi said knowingly. "But enough of that—everything else is all right, isn't it? No problems at your end, I hope?"

"There are always problems, Your Excellency, but nothing I can't handle myself."

"Good," smiled the Shogun. "That's what I like to hear from my courtiers. I wish they were all as efficient as you."

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Kira smiled back at him, revealing his blackened teeth. "All I know was learned from your example."

He bowed and started to leave, then hesitated and turned back in feigned reluctance. "There is one rather troublesome young daimyo, but I hope I will be able to correct his awkwardness before it embarrasses us."

"You mean Asano, don't you? I've noticed that he doesn't seem as much at ease as the others. Do you want me to speak to him?"