The Tokaido Road (1991)(528p)

by Lucia St. Clair Robson

  Her heart thumped faster when she thought of the HakMne barrier. The officials there were said to be able to identify a person’s village by the nuances of dialect. If Cat carried the travel permit of Hachibei, the peasant woman’s younger brother, she would have to speak with his accent. She had almost discarded the one person who could instruct her in it.

  So far Cat’s companion had spoken as little as possible. That was commendable in a peasant, but Cat realized she had to hear Kasane speak so she could imitate her. She wondered what she could possibly talk about with a commoner. Certainly not art or drama or literature. Cat slowed and took up a position just ahead of Kasane’s right elbow.

  “How did you come to have your younger brother’s papers?” she asked.

  “He put most of his things in my pack so he wouldn’t have to carry so much.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Gone.” Kasane stared at her feet as she plodded doggedly along under her burden.

  “Tell me what happened to him.” To ask such a direct and personal question was rude, but Cat was desperate.

  “I should not bore your estimable person with my insignificant troubles, master.”

  “It doesn’t matter if you bore me ...” You gourd, Cat thought. She resisted the desire to beat conversation out of Kasane with her staff. “To fool the guards at the barrier I have to speak like your brother, Hachibei, from Pine village. Tell me everything that happened, in great detail, so I can study your accent. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, master.” Kasane took a deep breath. “Several days ago nine of us left our village—my only brother and I, the president of the Ise club, and the six people who won the lottery.”

  “The lottery?”

  “Yes. Each month members of the Ise club pay a few bu into the club fund. Each year those who win the lottery use the money to pay for their trip. When we left, there was a great celebration with speeches and gifts.”

  In fact, at the time, the leavetaking had been the most exciting event of Kasane’s life.

  “The president chose to travel at this time of year because the inns’ rates are lower. And the geomancer promised unusually warm weather. We spent the first night at a poor inn, and someone...” Kasane hesitated again. She blushed a deep pink.

  “Go on.” Cat tried to be patient.

  “In the dark, on the way back from the convenience, someone thought my bed was his own. When I told him he was mistaken, he hurried off.”

  In spite of herself Cat had to smile. Pilgrims were supposed to put aside all carnal thoughts. But away from the watchful eyes of family and neighbors, pious journeys often turned into frolics.

  “Some rough-looking men were staying at the inn, too, and I was frightened. I took my pack and slept in the empty closet where they store bedding. When I crawled out the next morning I discovered that the president of the club had run away and taken the treasury with him.”

  Cat almost laughed out loud. So far it was a tale worthy of a stage farce. “Why didn’t you all turn around and go home?”

  “The others had a few coins set aside, and they decided to beg along the way to eke them out. Then a boatman offered us a ride across the water to Oiso. He said it was his pious gift to pilgrims. He even left a seat for Funadama-sama in his boat.”

  Like everyone else in the fishing village where Kasane was born, she had heard the faint tinkling sound that came occasionally from the beached boats at night. She knew then that Funadama-sama, the lovely goddess of fishermen, was moving around in them.

  “And the boatman turned out to be a pirate.” Already Cat was adopting the peculiar rhythm and pronunciation of Kasane’s speech.

  “Yes.”

  Kasane’s voice sounded strained. Cat glanced around and was surprised by the anguish on her face. Cat was embarrassed that she had caused such a public display of emotion. She moved farther ahead of Kasane and asked no more questions.

  Behind her, Kasane walked as if in a trance. She was remembering that terrible boat ride. “One thickness of a plank ...” went the fishermen’s proverb about boats. “Below, hell.”

  Once again Kasane cowered in the bow as the captain stood at the huge sweep in the stem. His hair had come loose from its queue, and long tendrils of it whipped like eels around his head. His face was contorted, as though the storm raged in him as well as in the waters of the bay.

  The men of Pine village knelt in the center of the open boat and held on to the boom. They fell against each other as they tried to follow orders and undress in the pitching vessel. With his long knife the pirate made a sweeping gesture toward the leeward gunwale. Brandishing knives and staves, his crew rushed the naked pilgrims. Kasane’s brother cried out as he was pushed overboard with the others.

  “Pray for me, elder sister,” he shouted. “Do not let my soul become a homeless ghost.”

  Kasane watched, helpless, as he sank below the side of the boat until only his hand was visible on the gunwale. Then someone smashed it with a stave. The fingers became shorter as they slipped, then disappeared. Kasane continued staring at the splintery wood where they had been.

  One pirate held up a stained, waterlogged pilgrim’s robe. “Country people. They wear cheap goods.”

  The others laughed as they rifled the men’s packs. Kasane tried to listen for her brother’s voice, but over the flapping of the sail, the roar of the storm, and the pirates’ laughter she couldn’t hear the cries of the drowning men.

  She pressed as deeply into the angle of the bow as she could and stared down at the black bilge water in which she sat. She didn’t look up when the captain’s bare feet filled her view. He grabbed her hair and pulled her head back. She went rigid and mute with shame and terror as he knelt on one knee, reached up under her robe, and probed her with his finger. “This one’s homely, but unspoiled,” he shouted. “We can sell her. Tie her up.”

  As a crewman pulled Kasane’s hands behind her and the rough straw rope cut into her wrists, Kasane heard a faint tinkling sound. It wasn’t lovely Funadama-sama, the goddess of fishermen. One of the pilgrim’s brass bells was rolling back and forth on the pitching floor.

  Now, as Kasane walked behind Cat’s straight, indifferent back, she wiped her eyes with the thin towel Cat had given her and blew her nose into it. In the days since her brother’s death Kasane hadn’t even been able to pray properly for his soul, and the tinkling of the bell on a passing pilgrim sent a shudder of grief through her.

  CHAPTER 29

  A CUDGEL FROM A BAMBOO BUSH

  Just before Hiratsuka, the TMkaidM became a raised causeway through the brown rice paddies that covered a broad plain. On both sides the paddies came up to the huge pines that lined the road. The mountains of HakMne that hunched against the ashen sky to the southwest were the same dark gray as the clouds closing in overhead.

  Raveled strands of lightning flicked at the mountain peaks. The branches of the pines stirred fitfully. A kago bearer trotted by with his empty conveyance strapped to his back. As a pack horse driver hurried his animals past Cat and Kasane, the bells on the harnesses had an urgency to them.

  Cat stopped at a stand selling religious accessories to those going to the small temple in the grove of ancient pines nearby. She bought two bundles of slender incense sticks, two small bowls of rice and tiny cups, and a pair of deep orange Mino persimmons. She chose the persimmons with care, picking the largest, so ripe and swollen with sweet juice that they seemed about to burst.

  Cat divided her purchases with Kasane. “For your brother,” she said gruffly.

  Kasane tried to thank her, but she was too overcome to speak. She bowed low over the things in her outspread hands.

  Together they rinsed their mouths and hands at the chapel’s big stone basin. They put the bowls of rice and cups of water in front of the altar. They lit the incense in the coals of the brazier kept there for that purpose. Then they each put their palms together and bowed their heads. Cat prayed for the repose of her father’s soul and
Kasane for her brother’s.

  They resumed their journey in silence and were just entering Hiratsuka when the first large drops splattered on the brim of Cat’s hat. A gust of wind tore umbrellas and blew people’s clothes about them. It set the pines to lashing, and Cat and Kasane had to lean into it to walk. The few remaining travelers ran for shelter.

  “Stop!” The cry came from the stable next to the government transport office. It was loud and imperious, and Cat heard it, of course. She shifted her grip on her staff so she could use it as a weapon and kept moving.

  “Halt, you!” Two men moved away from the stable.

  As the rain began falling in torrents, Cat dodged into an alley. She tucked her chin down, pulled her elbows in, and ran, splashing mud all over herself. She darted at random down one narrow passageway, then another.

  She was trying to lose the peasant woman while she was at it. Being caught with Cat would mean trouble for Kasane. But Kasane had been ill used by so many people, she had come to think of Cat as a champion of sorts. She was determined not to be left behind. Burdened as she was, however, Kira’s men soon passed her.

  Cat could hear the men gaining on her. When she saw the back door of a bathhouse slightly open, she slipped inside and slid it shut behind her. She ran down the dark back hallway while the wind rattled the heavy wooden shutters across the front of the building and rain drummed loudly on the cedar shingles of the roof.

  Cat almost collided with an off-duty attendant on her way to take a bath herself. She was wearing an unbelted cotton robe with a small towel draped over one shoulder. She screamed and threw up her hands, and the toiletries flew out of the basin she was carrying. She charged through a sliding screen to avoid being trampled by Kira’s men.

  Cat found the maneuvering space she needed in the large, high-ceilinged room of the bath itself. A square cypress tub with sides as high as Cat’s waist stood in the center of it. It was big enough to accommodate eight or nine bathers. Round wooden buckets for washing were stacked in pyramids against the walls. Wooden grates covered the long drains that ran around the edges of the room. One wall near the entrance was covered with broad shelves for clothing.

  Two more attendants were taking advantage of the off-hour leisure. Naked, they gossiped as they scrubbed themselves with small bags of rice bran. They had been anticipating a long soak in the bath. They had slid off the wooden lid so that one edge rested on the floor and the other against the rim. Steam rose from the water.

  They stared, with mouths open and bran bags poised, as Cat rushed in. When they saw the expression on her face they screamed and fled, leaving their clothes behind on the shelves. Cat whirled to face the door. She raised her staff in a fighting stance and poised her weight on the balls of her feet. Kira’s men followed with their long-swords drawn.

  Cat backed up until the side of the tub almost grazed the backs of her legs. The steam rising from it enveloped her, giving her a ghostly appearance. When outnumbered, take the offensive, was Musashi’s advice. With a cry she charged. She maneuvered toward the left, pressing their off sides and keeping them in front of her. She thrust and blocked without the interference of conscious thought, sensing the men’s moves before they made them.

  She knew she couldn’t hold out long against the two of them. She wasn’t well trained in the use of the staff, and in any case it lacked the reach and menace of the naginata. Her only advantage was desperation and the fact that Kira’s men had been ordered to capture her if possible and kill her only as a last resort. Kira didn’t want to be linked to a murder he couldn’t claim was an accident.

  Musashi taught that a warrior must strike slow and hard, like the flow of deep water. Cat must feel the strength welling up within her. She must strike from the muscles of the abdomen and swing into the blow with her entire body. Cat’s staff resounded each time it blocked a steel blade. The shock of the blows numbed her fingers. Cat knew she was barely holding them at bay, and she was beginning to flag. Soon they would close and disarm her.

  From the corner of her eye she saw Kasane enter the room. Kasane had taken off her pack and the furoshiki. As she raised one of the heavy wooden washtubs high over her head, the sleeves of her pilgrim’s robe fell back, revealing the sinuous muscles of someone used to hard work. Kasane heaved the bucket at the man closest to her.

  He saw it coming, but not soon enough. He hadn’t been expecting a cudgel from a bamboo bush, an attack from a peasant. The tub hit him squarely on the side of the head. He toppled facedown into the bath, with his legs sticking out over the side. Other than the waving of his sleeves in the turbulent water, he didn’t move.

  Kasane stared at him with a dazed look, as though her hands and arms and shoulders had acted without the permission of their owner. As though their imprudence were likely to get her into a great deal of trouble. Cat took advantage of the diversion to strike.

  With a crunching sound, the staff connected with her opponent’s skull. Cat felt the give of bone through her fingers and up into her arms. As the man’s sword clattered to the floor and he crumpled, Cat whacked him across the back of the shoulders for good measure.

  “Help me put him in the water.” With numb fingers and throbbing arms, Cat grabbed him under the armpits. Kasane picked up his legs. Together they swung him into the tub. Water cascaded over the sides and rushed across the floor and into the drains along the walls.

  “Go check the alley, “Cat said. “Hurry. The police are surely coming. I’ll be right behind you.”

  As soon as Kasane left, Cat heaved the first man’s legs into the water, too. Then she pulled the heavy lid up over the tub. It was designed to fit snugly inside the pale cypress walls and to float on the water. It pressed the men under. Maybe they would be rescued before they drowned, but Cat didn’t care if they weren’t.

  She looked longingly at the fallen swords but left them. Even one of them would be too hard to hide and too likely to be traced. Instead she scooped up a robe and sash left on the shelf. She grimaced to herself as she thought of the old saying, “A liar is the beginning of a thief.” In her case, a murderer was the beginning of a thief.

  Only a short time had passed between Cat’s darting into the bathhouse and her reemergence into the empty alleyway. She put the stolen robe in Kasane’s pack. Then she took the furoshiki from her and settled it onto her own back. Relieving Kasane of half her burden was small thanks for saving Cat’s life.

  Beyond the end of the covered alleyway, Cat could see the storm raging. Trees whipped to and fro. The rain fell so heavily that she couldn’t see the building across the street.

  Cat knew she and Kasane couldn’t stay in Hiratsuka. The police would be searching for her and for Kasane too if anyone had seen her hit the samurai. They would surely set up roadblocks and post notices. Oiso was only three-quarters of a ri away.

  Cat put a spare cord over her hat and tied it tightly under her chin. Kasane did likewise. They both put their raincapes on over their packs and belted them around the waist to keep them from shredding in the gale.

  When Cat reached the end of the alleyway’s shelter, she bent over to shield her face from the sting of the wind-driven rain. Leaning into the storm, she set off for Oiso. Without a word of complaint or protest, Kasane pulled down her hat brim and followed.

  Hanshiro decided to seek shelter in Hiratsuka until the storm abated. He was sure Lady Asano wouldn’t be traveling in weather like this. When he saw the people clustered under straw mats and raincoats in the downpour outside the bathhouse, he went to investigate.

  The crowd parted to make way for him and his swords. He could hear the high, shrill babble of women’s voices inside. He found the room where the cedar tub was and stood quietly behind the police and Hiratsuka’s magistrate, the bath’s manager, attendants, and servants.

  He was startled to see the two corpses laid out on the floor.

  They were still bright red, parboiled by the bathwater, which had heated up considerably under the wooden lid.
>
  Hanshiro almost smiled. He had to admit the wench was a woman of arm. She had persistence, length of heart. But if they connected her with this murder, she was doomed.

  “He was a ghost!” One of the women who had been washing when the fight started now clutched a loose bathing robe about her. Her hairdo was disheveled, and she hadn’t even bothered to put on makeup. “I saw right through him.”

  The second attendant disagreed. “He was a demon. He had horns. He had the face of a fox and the ears of a badger.”

  Hanshiro listened a while longer to make sure no one here would be able to describe Lady Asano to him. But she was close, probably hiding somewhere in Hiratsuka. Finding her would be like searching for a thing in a bag.

  Lady Asano had turned her flight into musha-shugyo, training that took the form of a journey. A warrior went on a pilgrimage of sorts to challenge other sword players and sharpen his own skills.

  Hanshiro was amused by the thought that he would have to exercise some care in capturing her. This would be more entertaining than he had anticipated.

  The tiger’s loose in the market, he thought as he hitched up his raincape around his shoulders, pulled down his hat brim, and walked out into the storm.

  CHAPTER 30

  A DEVIL TIED UP IN DARKNESS

  The room Kasane was to share with the seven sages at the See No Evil in Oiso looked as though a typhoon had passed through. Combs, cosmetic brushes, and lacquered boxes of powders and tiny jars of hair oil lay scattered among tangled combings of black hair on the crude straw mats. Robes and underclothes were strewn in every corner. When the seven bathhouse attendants went on pilgrimage, they left tidiness behind, along with their other obligations.

  The mess was hardly noticeable in the See No Evil. Usually clutter in an establishment like this was found in the servants’ hall. But the See No Evil was a chaos of broken furniture and rice mortars, parts of looms, tools, lumber, mildewed account books, stacks of dusty tubs and earthenware jugs and torn straw matting. Swags of blackened cobwebs hung from the high beams.