Toru: Wayfarer Returns (Sakura Steam Series Book 1)

by Stephanie R. Sorensen

  “My great-great-great-grandfather was made samurai for saving his lord’s life. So I get to be born samurai. It happens, every century or so. The lords need good intelligent men around them. So sometimes they graft in some good healthy peasant stock like my ancestors. Technically, you were born a samurai, but we cannot tell anyone. Anyway, if Lord Aya decides it is so, then samurai you shall be. Maybe he’ll marry you to Masuyo-sama and adopt you as his heir. Then you’ll be a daimyō someday too, like your father and father-in-law! Maybe you can convince Lord Shimazu to release me from his service so I can come and be your chief retainer. You should not have cut down Lord Aya’s forest. You should be thinking of it as your own forest—“

  “Enough! I’m not going to be a daimyō, marry Masuyo-sama or pick you to be my chief retainer! Let’s keep our story straight here. I’m a fisherman. I’m a treasonous traitor in danger every second from the Shogun’s blade.” Tōru rubbed the back of his neck. “I have a train network, telegraph system, five Babajis, sixteen factories, seven kinds of weapons and a dozen dragon dirigibles to build before my American friends show up and blow up our country. So I am kind of busy, and I need your help. Not your marital advice, legends about sea lions or plans for my conquest of the west.”

  “I said nothing about conquering the west! Although it’s not a bad idea. Allied with your father and future father-in-law we could completely dominate.”

  “Will you ever stop! Most of all I need a friend. And sleep.”

  “Sleep, and saké. First, saké!”

  Horse grooming finished, the two young men went back to the castle, renewing their friendship long into the night.

  CHAPTER 7

  SAMURAI

  “New eras don’t come about because of swords;

  they’re created by the people who wield them.”

  – Manga artist Nobuhiro Watsuki

  The sky was still dark when Tōru awoke to Obata standing above him.

  Lord Aya’s chief retainer never said much. Now he said nothing at all. Tōru leapt up and dressed with haste. When Tōru was ready, Obata nodded. He carried Tōru’s daishō swords, given him by Lord Shimazu of Satsuma. “Let’s go.”

  He led Tōru to the training field. He grunted and pointed at protective practice gear waiting by the field. Tōru put on leather and wooden gear to protect head, arms and chest. A variety of practice swords were on hand as well, from bamboo shinai, both the long daitō and the shorter shōtō used in two-handed nitō fighting styles, and dangerous wooden bokutō blades. Even without an edge, they were deadly weapons in the right hands.

  Obata stood motionless waiting for Tōru at the center practice square.

  Tōru stood before him, ready at last. He bowed deeply, and Obata returned the bow.

  “Onegai shimasu,” cried Tōru. He moved to a ready stance.

  Obata watched Tōru with snake-steady unblinking eyes.

  Tōru, like most young men, found standing still a major trial. He rushed at Obata with an overhead blow. Obata parried easily and swatted Tōru on the arm. Chastened, Tōru held his position this time. Slowly they circled, feinting, occasionally attacking, neither moving out of a defensive ready position. Tōru saw an opening and slashed straight and true, landing a solid blow.

  “Well done. Again.”

  For hours, as the sun rose high in the sky, and the sweat ran down his face, Tōru faced Obata. He thirsted. His arms got so heavy he could barely lift them. Blisters tore open his feet. The older man was impervious to heat, hunger, thirst and exhaustion. On he drove them.

  “Mō ichido. Again.”

  “Again.”

  “Dame da. Bad. Again.”

  “Again.”

  “Yosh’. Good. Again.”

  Finally, with the sun directly overhead, Obata bowed to Tōru and put away his swords.

  “Tomorrow, same time.”

  As Obata left the field, a groom walked up, bringing Tōru his horse and lunch. Tōru thanked him, nuzzled the horse and devoured his meal. He understood. He was to train his horse, nurturing the bond between horse and rider that can make the difference between life and death on the battlefield.

  He pretended not to notice Obata watching him from the sidelines. He no longer had to pretend to be unable to ride. Much rested upon proving he could ride and ride well. He worked with the horse, basic paces at first, just to get acquainted. The groom brought out obstacles and training dummies. Tōru shot from the saddle, slashed at straw dummies from the saddle and dodged obstacles. Everything not aching from the morning’s workout was soon in pain from the afternoon’s exertions. As the sun set, the groom appeared again to return the horse to the stable. Tōru looked around, but Obata had vanished.

  Tōru went into the stable to thank his horse.

  Masuyo was there, waiting for him. She had brought tea and onigiri rice balls for him to eat. He was glad to see her, but too tired to do more than smile as he brushed down his horse.

  “Tomorrow he will test you on writing and history,” said Masuyo. “I overheard my father telling him what to cover.” She handed him an armload of books and scrolls. “You write a good hand. But you’ll need to know these histories. Obata is especially fond of the Sengoku Warring States period.” She indicated two scrolls. “His family played a key role, although they were eventually defeated. He will ask you not only the history, but also why leaders made the choices they did. Have good answers.”

  Tōru looked at her helplessly.

  “I cannot read all these tonight!”

  “You can read some. Sleep when you are dead, fisherman, if you want to be a samurai of my father’s house.”

  She left.

  Tōru read.

  Tōru slept.

  Tōru awoke again in the darkness before dawn, shaken awake by a silent Obata.

  Swords first, then history.

  Again they battled all morning.

  At noon, this time Obata indicated they should go into Lord Aya’s study, where two small tables awaited them. They ate a silent lunch together at low tables, seated on the tatami mats.

  “Copy this.” Obata unrolled one of the scrolls he’d rescued from the stable, opening it to a famous passage about a final battle before the unification of the country. “Here to here.”

  Tōru spent a long time grinding his ink.

  He had an industrial revolution to run, and he was sitting here grinding ink like Chinese scholars had done for thousands of years. The tutors his father had provided for him as a boy during his visits to Shimazu Castle were adamant about the importance of grinding the ink long and well. He feared Lord Aya might refuse his father’s request to make him a samurai because he considered Tōru illiterate and unprepared. He knew his captor and host had grown fond of him, but he also knew Lord Aya resented the request from Lord Shimazu. He sought excuses to avoid making him a samurai.

  So Tōru ground ink, lots of ink.

  When he could delay no more, he copied the passage, writing in an elegant hand. He puzzled over a few characters, archaic ones he did not know well. Perfection was the standard, he knew. And he had not written a word except in his journal for two solid years. He did his best.

  Obata sat silently reading.

  Finally Tōru was done.

  Obata examined his work.

  Tōru could not read his expression.

  Obata asked him questions about the passage. The leaders, the politics, the economics, the whys and wherefores of the period. He asked Tōru what the peasants thought of the leaders. He asked why the leader had chosen to fight a battle he knew he could not win. He asked if Tōru knew the poem the leader had composed on the eve of battle.

  Tōru did not know the poem. He did not know what the peasants thought, or the lords, although he answered anyway. He dodged and parried the questions, flying at him as hard and fast as Obata’s sword blows had landed on him in the morning. He answered questions until dusk darkened the room.

  “Mō ichido ashita,” grunted Obata as he turned away
.

  Tōru bowed to Obata as he vanished into the dusk.

  For ten more days, Tōru battled Obata with sword and brush. He was made to compose poems. He was forced to fight blindfolded against three men at once as they thrashed him with wooden training swords. He was made to ride to the far coast and back on his new horse in a single afternoon, a journey usually made in a day. He was asked about economics, marriage customs, the political structure of the Shogunate and how it relates to the Emperor and His court.

  His head spun. Blisters opened on his feet and hands and thighs. His muscles ached all the time. His head hurt from reading all night and being bludgeoned with swords and words all day.

  Masuyo did what she could, bringing him medicines and bandages and any intelligence she could gather about the next day’s examinations. Jiro slipped him saké at night, although Tōru was too worn down to enjoy it much. Saigo Takamori brought him textbooks and notes from his own university days. Tōru thanked them, and struggled on.

  Finally, on the eleventh day, as the afternoon drew on and the sun burned through the windows of the study, Obata suddenly stopped, mid-sentence in an arcane inquisition into the methods for assaulting high ground on horseback or with ground forces.

  “Ofuro. You stink. Take a bath. Now.”

  Tōru bowed his thanks for the unexpected order and went to the baths. Surprisingly, he found a full hot bath drawn and ready. Usually the ofuro was only available in the evenings. When he emerged, his swords and ragged clothing were gone. He found instead a formal hakama and coat decorated in the crest of House Aya. He dressed and stepped outside.

  All the retainers and samurai of House Aya were gathered up in rows, with war pennants flying. Tōru hastily smoothed his wet hair and stepped into the bright afternoon sun.

  Obata, silent as ever, appeared at his elbow.

  Together they walked forward to a dais, erected in the courtyard, upon which sat Lord Aya and several of his top retainers, along with his ally Lord Tōmatsu. They bowed to Lord Aya and his chief retainers.

  Obata cleared his throat. He spoke louder and used more words than Tōru had ever heard him speak in all their time together.

  “Aya-sama, as you requested, I have examined this Himasaki Tōru who was castaway and lived among the barbarian Americans for two years. I tested him in combat with katana and shōtō swords, with rifle and pistol, on horseback and on foot. I explored his knowledge of history, military tactics, geography and poetry.”

  Tōru stood ramrod straight as the torrent of words continued.

  “His knowledge of history is weak. He is confused about several key domains in the East, but otherwise has a solid grasp of the geography of the Emperor’s domain. He is eager to share his knowledge of foreign geographies. He is competent at calculations and mathematics and reads well. He writes a good hand, but cannot compose a poem or a coherent essay. I gave him several opportunities, but he failed them all.”

  Tōru braced himself for worse.

  “He rides well, this fisherman, although how and where he learned this ability while fishing I was unable to discover for your lordship.”

  Tōru wasn’t sure, because he had never seen Obata smile, but he thought he saw the edge of a smile play at Obata’s lips.

  “He can hit targets with bow and rifle at distances as well as any of your men can achieve, standing or on horseback. This fisherman has been trained by a master swordsman in single sword and double-sword styles, and performs superbly at both defensive and offensive kata. He is overly fond of foreign military ideas, but demonstrates an excellent grasp of our traditional tactics. He is an adequate archer. More focus and concentration would help him here as in many other endeavors. He is tainted by his foreign ideas and excessively eager to try new things before mastering the old.”

  “Obata, what is your recommendation?” Lord Aya asked.

  Obata bowed low.

  “Aya-sama, this fisherman is among the finest fighters of all your men, well-educated for someone of his youth and skilled in military tactics and strategy. Were it not for his absurd story of washing up on our shores after visiting the Americans, I would swear to you he was a son of a high-ranking samurai, provided with an ideal military education from birth. I recommend you claim his talent, strength and skill for your own, make exception to the hereditary laws governing our warriors, and name him a samurai of House Aya.”

  “Then let it be so!” Lord Aya stood.

  The gathered men remained silent.

  One of his retainers handed Lord Aya Tōru’s daishō swords.

  Obata held out his hands. A servant gave him a bare razor and bowl of soap and water. He signaled to Tōru, who knelt and bent his head before Obata. Obata shaved the top of Tōru’s scalp, tying back what hair there remained into a ragged queue in an attempt at the samurai chonmage hairstyle.

  “He has short American barbarian hair. He will have to grow his hair to be a proper samurai.”

  The men laughed.

  “Dōmo arigatō gozaimashita, Sensei,” Tōru spoke his gratitude to Obata-san. He was certain he saw a small smile as Obata nodded curtly and turned away.

  Lord Aya stepped forward with Tōru’s swords.

  “Take these and wear them well, as a samurai of House Aya, Himasaki Tōru, cast up to us from the Western Sea.”

  Tōru knelt and swore oaths of loyalty to Lord Aya and his house.

  He rose in his new garb, wearing his swords legally for the first time as a samurai. He turned toward the men. Lord Aya’s fighters beat their weapons and banners and roared their approval. Saigo Takamori stood in their ranks, wearing his full armor and crest of House Shimazu, cheering for Tōru. Jiro, sooty and filthy as ever, had slipped away from his forges and mills to witness his friend’s ascent. His broad smile was even bigger than usual.

  And Masuyo.

  Tōru had grown accustomed to her unconventional men’s clothing and Jiro-inspired foul-mouthed jokes. He had come to respect her fierce intelligence and spirited defense of her ideas. He knew better than to challenge her on anything she had had more time to think about than he had. He had accepted her as a peer and friend, as he did Saigo Takamori, or his childhood friend Jiro. Their work together had eclipsed the fact of her womanhood and beauty.

  He gasped when he saw her, then, standing off to one side. She stood under the shade of a pavilion, surrounded by her ladies. They were a flock of gaudy birds, all in their finest kimonos, trailing the long sleeves only young maidens wear, their hair oiled and piled high, flashing with glittering pins and jewels. Masuyo-sama looked like a princess, not the daughter of a minor daimyō. She looked like a goddess, flown down from some mist-shrouded mountaintop to witness his ceremony. She looked—she looked at him.

  She met his gaze. She inclined her head to him in the smallest of greetings. Her usual wide-mouthed smile was instead a proper lady’s slight curve of red-painted lips on a white-powdered face. Alien, and so beautiful.

  Tōru stood, spellbound.

  “I’m hungry, lad. Let’s go eat.” Obata cheerfully grumbled at Tōru and nudged him along.

  A generous feast awaited the lords and men in the main hall. The men sang rude songs in Tōru’s honor. They made him compose bad poetry and composed their own worse poems. Many bottles of saké gave all in the toasts to Tōru, his bad poems and the exploits of all the samurai of House Aya back into the shrouded mists of history. They ate and drank too much, long into the night. Finally the newly made samurai was carried off and put to bed.

  A revolution that needed his attention could wait no more.

  1852 Autumn

  CHAPTER 8

  PREPARATIONS

  “All things are ready, if our mind be so.”

  – William Shakespeare, Henry V

  Tōru awoke the next morning at the usual pre-dawn hour for Obata’s torment sessions, his head aching. He had done it. He had won Obata’s support, enough to overcome Lord Aya’s distaste at accepting an unlikely command from Lord Shimazu. Lord A
ya had defied all tradition and named him a samurai.

  He had knelt and sworn loyalty to Lord Aya before all his retainers.

  He was no longer a castaway fisherman.

  He was Himasaki Tōru, samurai of House Aya.

  The Shogun would still take his head if he learned of Tōru’s return from America.

  Sobering thought.

  At least this way he would be wearing a pair of swords when the Shogun’s men came for him. They would not find a fisherman.

  Tōru threw off the covers and dressed quickly in the chilly winter dawn.

  He had to get back to work.

  He had to be ready before the Shogun’s men chased down rumors of a fisherman returned from America with Bibles and guns. Japan had to be ready before American warships steamed up to Edo and began firing huge at the capital. Russian, British, French, Dutch. It didn’t matter. He had to be ready to face them all.

  Masuyo was waiting for him in the lab, along with Jiro and Takamori. The two men roared another round of congratulations in spite of their own thumping heads. Masuyo was back in her customary unconventional clothing. This morning she wore a pair of black silk pants she had fashioned for herself on his sewing machine, patterned after the blue jeans she had found in his possessions. Tōru found the innovation fascinating but he was not sure if her father knew or approved of snugly fitted black silk pants on his daughter. All he knew is whether she wore a maiden’s kimono or strange clothing of her own design, he found it increasingly difficult to breathe around her. Or speak without stammering. This was unfortunate, as they had much to do. He needed to be able to speak calmly with all his teammates.

  “Tōru-san, ohayō.” Her voice was soft and haunting as she greeted him, even as she slapped a long list into his hand. “Congratulations. We are happy for you, but we’ve lost weeks while you have been riding around playing warrior with Obata-san. We’re falling behind on everything. I’ve come up with some improvements we need to make. This is a list of items we need. And here—,” she handed him a stack of diagrams, “are some ideas Jiro and Takamori and I have been working on.”