Death at the Crossroads

CHAPTER 9

“Sooo yooou caaptuured thaaat samuraiiii.” Kaze couldn’t see the speaker yet, but the voice had the high pitch and long, chanting quality of court nobles. It surprised Kaze to hear it in this rural District where a court noble would not be found, but he had heard enough nobles to know that the accent was an affectation and not something the speaker was raised with.

“Yes, Manase-sama.” The voice of the officious Magistrate.

“Good. Well, let’s see them,” Manase said, using the same singsong inflection.

The two men entered the courtyard. The Magistrate was wearing the same kimono he wore when Kaze first saw him, but Manase’s costume was a surprise. Manase wore a brightly colored kimono with several rich robes. At his sleeves and the hem of the robes, the thick layers of cloth formed a dazzling rainbow that almost illuminated the drab courtyard. On top of Manase’s head was a tall, black-gauze cap, like that of a noble, with a black ribbon coming down around his chin to hold the peaked cap in place. The cut of the robes was old-fashioned, and the District Lord looked like the image on a very old scroll painting stepping off the silk and coming to life.

Manase stopped several feet from the cages. The Magistrate seemed surprised at the District Lord’s abrupt halt, so Manase explained.

“I don’t like to get too near.” He gave an exaggerated sigh. “These types always smell so bad!”

“Yes, yes, my Lord. We can-”

Before the Magistrate could finish, Kaze decided to take a chance. “I am Matsuyama Kaze,” he said in a voice as clear as his painful face would allow. “Although my current circumstances are strange, Lord Manase, I want to repeat my praise for the fragment of Dojoji I saw yesterday. I hope some day to see a complete performance.”

The Magistrate bustled up to Kaze’s cage. “Here, here you. You shut up until you’re spoken to! Daring to address the Lord-”

“Magistrate.”

The Magistrate halted in midsentence and looked at Manase. “Yes, my Lord?”

“Take that man out of that cage and get him a bath and fresh clothes.”

“But my Lord-”

Manase gave a quick, but graceful, flip of his hand. His voice had a tinge of impatience to it. “Do as I order.”

“Of course, of course, my Lord. Fresh clothes and a bath. Right away!”

Manase turned and left the courtyard. The Magistrate also left, but in a few minutes he returned with two guards. They were as badly equipped and loutish as the two guards Kaze had seen at the crossroads. In fact, on closer inspection, they were the guards he had seen at the crossroads.

The Magistrate fumbled in the sleeve of his kimono and came out with a large brass key. It was a rectangular bar of metal with notches filed along one end. He gave the key to a guard, who stuck it in the lock of Kaze’s cage and opened the door.

Kaze unfolded himself from his cramped confinement. As he got to his feet, he felt himself swaying slightly, the legacy of his beating and a night spent stuffed into the cage. He closed his eyes briefly, centered himself, and stopped the swaying.

The Magistrate grabbed Kaze’s arm. It wasn’t to support him but to escort him like some small child or prisoner. Kaze shook off the Magistrate’s hand and glared at him.

The jowly cheeks of the Magistrate were set in hard slabs. His small eyes were like two tiny black pearls in a sea of flesh. They radiated unadulterated malevolence toward Kaze.

“Come on, then,” the Magistrate said, walking out of the courtyard.

As Kaze followed he reflected on the danger of taking anyone too lightly. The Magistrate was a buffoon, but buffoons can be especially dangerous because they will kill out of stupidity. Life is so fragile and brief. It can be snuffed out by a misplaced step or a lack of caution or failing to properly assess the measure of a man.

Kaze was taken to the kitchen area of the manor and fed. The manor was set up as a large rectangle, with several open courtyards in the middle. The courtyards were edged by covered verandas with raised wooden floors and tile roofs. This was the typical design of most country manors, and Kaze was familiar with the general layout without ever having been in Manase Manor before.

Kaze was then given a bath in a wooden ofuro bathtub. The bathtub was chest-high and as wide as the armspan of a man. The wet, fragrant wooden slats of the tub were fitted together so cunningly that no caulking was needed to keep it watertight. Along one wall was a bench, where the occupants of the tub could sit while they relaxed in water up to their necks. A small fire in a copper box was stoked by a serving woman. The box protruded into one wall of the ofuro and heated the water to a satisfying degree of scalding pleasure.

Kaze stripped down and allowed the serving woman stoking the fire to help him scrub down before he got into the tub. He used a wooden scraper and a rag to remove the dirt, wincing in pain but not crying out as the cleaning tools were applied to the dark bruises that mottled his skin. Being naked at an ofuro before a strange woman was something that held no erotic connotations for Kaze. Since childhood he had taken baths in this fashion, with servants of one type or another helping him. The woman scrubbing his naked back was as much a fixture of the ofuro as the bench seat or pile of wood to heat it.

When he was fully clean, the woman dipped water out of the ofuro and rinsed the dirt off him with bucket after bucket of steaming water. Then he climbed up on a small stool and stepped into the scalding water, sinking into the tub and sitting on the bench, letting the water lap at his chin. Kaze let the steaming hot water wash away his aches from the beating and night in the cage.

“Ahh, that feels wonderful,” Kaze said.

The woman made no comment but just looked down sullenly.

“This is a fine ofuro,” Kaze tried again.

“Hai. Yes.” The woman murmured it so softly that Kaze almost didn’t hear her reply.

He closed his eyes and put his head back against the edge of the tub. “Your master must enjoy this ofuro.” The woman made no answer, but instead busied herself shoving some more wood into the copper box.

“Doesn’t he enjoy this?” Kaze asked, curious.

Again answering so softly that Kaze had to strain to hear her, the woman said, “The Lord doesn’t use the ofuro much.” The thought of a Japanese not using an available bath was alien to Kaze, and he paused to contemplate what this meant about the District Lord. He speculated that perhaps the Lord was a devotee of Dutch learning, that strange set of beliefs and superstitions brought by the smelly Europeans. Kaze had never met one of these strange creatures, but they were notorious for not bathing like civilized human beings. These large, hairy barbarians brought with them a whole slew of fantastic stories about the customs of their homeland. Most people would be ashamed of the things the barbarians seemed proud of, and the stories about them that Kaze had heard alternatively fascinated and disgusted him. They were notorious liars, and Kaze thought that anyone who would follow their outlandish customs or believe their silly tales must be feeble-minded. Still, Tokugawa Ieyasu kept several around him, and so did Nobunaga and Hideyoshi before him, but Kaze thought they must be kept as pets, the same way one would keep an interesting dog.

He tried to engage the serving woman in more conversation to find out about Lord Manase’s household, but she responded only with a few grunts and bobs of her head. Since becoming a ronin, Kaze had become accustomed to a style of treatment he had not been exposed to previously. Even the peasants treated him with less respect, though he was still a samurai. Yet Kaze wasn’t sure if the servant’s reticence was rudeness or something else.

She did provide Kaze with a copper mirror when he requested one, and Kaze studied the damage to his face. It was puffy and purple in spots, but Kaze dismissed the beating as work done by amateurs. He had been in worse fights, fights where he couldn’t move for a week after the battle was over, and he had been the winner.

The kimono that Kaze was given after the bath was a deep indigo blue with a white crane on the back. The crane pattern was created by protecting areas of the cloth with a thick paste, then putting the cloth in an earthen jar filled with dye. The cloth was left to sit for weeks, staining the fibers a deep blue, as blue as the deepest lakes or the Inland Sea itself. Later the cloth was removed and the paste cleaned off. A white pattern on a blue cloth was the result. This pattern was a very delicate one. The crane, a symbol of long life and prosperity, showed the outline of individual feathers.

Kaze’s own clothes, which were simple utilitarian things, were taken to be cleaned. They would be ripped apart at the seams, washed in a stream, put on special frames, starched, and then resewn when they were dry. The various panels of the kimono would be swapped around to even out wear on the garment.

After the bath, Kaze was fed miso soup, rice, and pickles. Finally, Kaze was taken into Lord Manase’s presence. As he followed the serving girl leading him, Kaze noticed that the manor was in need of repair. A few errant tiles were seen peeking over the edge of the roof, and some of the shoji screens had holes where crude paper patches had been applied. Despite Manase’s fine kimonos and sumptuous Noh outfits, the District did not seem a prosperous one.

Kaze was shown to an eight-mat room that functioned as Lord Manase’s study. The room was dark, and Kaze could see that wooden shutters were used instead of shoji, leaving Manase to sit in a perpetual gloom as light filtered through the shutters in compressed slits. Manase was sitting on a zabuton cushion with a folded paper scroll spread out before him on the floor. Kaze could see that the scroll was an old one and that the writing on it was in hiragana, the fluid cursive script, often used by women, that spelled words phonetically. Kaze sat on the tatami mat a respectful distance from Lord Manase.

Without looking up, Manase asked, “Have you ever read The Tale of Genji?”

“Many years ago.”

“What did you think of it?”

“Lady Murasaki was a genius.”

Manase looked up in surprise and give a tittering laugh. He covered his mouth with his hand, just like a maiden. Kaze noted that Manase had his teeth blackened, like a Court noble in Kyoto. It puzzled and disturbed Kaze to see this rural District Lord adopting the language, clothes, and customs of the Court. It seemed out of place and presumptuous.

“A genius! A woman genius!” Manase gave another high-pitched laugh. “I can’t say I have ever heard of a woman being called a genius before.” Manase’s face had a light dusting of rice powder on it. His eyebrows were shaved, and small false eyebrows were painted high on his forehead.

“I judged her work, not her sex. No man I know wrote about life six hundred years ago with such passion and interest.”

Manase nodded his head. “In that I suppose you’re right. I’ve tried to read all I can about the courtly life of that period, and I keep coming back to The Tale of Genji over and over again. If a woman can be a genius, she was one, but it’s strange to hear you call her that.”

Kaze said nothing.

Manase folded up the scroll and said, “You’re also a devotee of Noh.”

“I used to be, in times past. It’s been many years since I’ve seen a Noh play. That’s why it was a real pleasure to see you that day.”

“And how did you know it was me?”

“A Noh dancer learns balance and grace. His walk can be quite distinctive. When you were practicing Dojoji I was able to observe your walk for a long time. When I saw you enter the courtyard I saw the same walk.”

Manase laughed again. “That’s a useful trick, identifying a man by his walk.”

“It can be useful on a battlefield. You can see someone from far away and still tell who he is.”

“Surely the crest on his helmet will tell you that.”

“No, not always. A man can wear any helmet. Sometimes the crest on the helmet doesn’t identify the man. It’s a popular ruse in war to have someone else wear a leader’s helmet to confuse the enemy.”

“But I was able to identify General Iwaki Sadataka by his helmet. I would have been a complete fool to kill the wrong man and take his head to Tokugawa-sama.”

Kaze had a hard time picturing this dandy killing anyone, much less a famous general like Iwaki, but the manor they were sitting in showed that the Lord had been rewarded for something.

“If that happened, who do you think would be more surprised?” Kaze asked. “Lord Tokugawa or the man who lost his head because it was found under the wrong helmet?”

Manase gave his high-pitched, tittering laugh again. “You’re a droll fellow. I like you! It’s so deadly dull in this little backwater. Like your name, a fresh wind is always welcome.”

Kaze nodded. “How did you come to kill General Iwaki, if I may ask?”

“It was during the battle of Sekigahara,” Manase said in the tone of a man reciting something he’s said many times before. “Sekigahara was a confusing battle with two hundred thousand warriors present. In the morning the forces against Tokugawa-sama outnumbered his troops, but he had made secret agreements to get support from many of the lords who were supposed to be fighting against him. At the proper time, these troops would turn on their own army and help the Tokugawas. In addition, Tokugawa-sama had made arrangements for several other lords to remain neutral and not enter the battle at all. Despite that, it was a desperate battle, and it wasn’t decided until the forces who had agreed to turn against their own army did so.

“Toward the end of the battle General Iwaki became separated from his guards. I managed to come across him when he was alone and kill him.” Manase gave a flip of his hand. “The General was an old man but still skillful with the sword. I was lucky to kill him.”

“He was separated from his guards?”

“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.”