Sword of Honour

by David Kirk

  Musashi looked down at him. It was better than he had imagined it could go. Everything planned, calculated to shatter Seijuro’s concentration, as his father Munisai had once goaded Kihei Arima back in his home village years ago. That man, Musashi had killed, but there would be no murder this night.

  He became aware of the crowd, realized that he had them. That he should justify himself. Slowly he raised his sword, showed them the blood upon it.

  ‘Do you see?’ he said to them. ‘Do you see, Kyoto?’

  The crowd said nothing.

  ‘My name is Musashi Miyamoto,’ he said. ‘And I have come. Of no school, I. Of no Lord. But here I am. You thought this man here invulnerable. His school untouchable. Look now at what I have done. Look now at your truth. Here was a man who sent others to kill me. But look at him, here, the mighty, the powerful, look at his majesty when he is forced to fight his own fights. This is the Way! Can you not see it for what it is?’

  Behind him Seijuro was crawling away. The breath was rasping from him. Some of his men, the three boys, were kneeling by him, trying to pull his clothes back to see the wound, and he lashed feebly at them.

  ‘Everything you hold is false!’ shouted Musashi, the words sounding pure and fine to him. ‘Everything you believe is profane!’ he cried, the victory thrumming warm in his throat. ‘Do not accept what you have been told, what you are told!’ he told them. ‘Men who do not understand death, who would bare their throat to it, these are the men to whom you bow? Why? Why follow—’

  ‘You couldn’t kill him, could you?’ snarled one of the Yoshioka samurai behind him, tears of rage in his eyes. ‘Couldn’t even give him that dignity.’

  Musashi turned to face them.

  Those that weren’t tending to Seijuro drew their swords.

  Chapter Nineteen

  How quickly the warmth of victory could vanish, and how quickly the Yoshioka came. The first threw himself at Musashi with a shriek. Musashi stepped back, dodged, lunged in with immediate riposte. The samurai was quick, though, agile, swerved his body out of the path of his sword just as Musashi had done, and then the other Yoshioka were coming, enveloping, and so Musashi turned and ran.

  Instinct drove him towards light and so he fled towards the city proper. The crowd parted for him, panicking at what they thought themselves immune from now amongst them, the swords and the blood upon them suddenly real, and the Yoshioka samurai followed close behind.

  Sprinting silent, sprinting grim, the streets beyond the crowd bereft of all but the odd startled bystander. The northern fringes of the city nought but the plain hulks of import company warehouses and sake breweries closed up for the night. Lights though, oil lanterns burning, candle-glow spilling from windows and doorways, flicking past him. Behind him bellowed accusations of cowardice, commands to stand and fight, the Yoshioka fanning out behind him. How many? Glimpses over his shoulder revealed only motion in the gloom; more than eight, the best he could tell.

  Vibration carried through bone from foot to jaw told him he was running at his true limit, teeth jarring with each step. Musashi had no inkling of where he was heading. Took corners as they came. Found identical streets. He bigger, younger, faster, and the chain of the Yoshioka behind Musashi began to distend. What use distance running to men who fought willing enemies at arm’s length? Only the youngest, the fittest, remained immediately behind him.

  They would hound him through the streets they knew so much better than he. Exhaust him eventually, or corner him. Musashi made his decision. He stopped, turned, held his sword out before him. The lead Yoshioka did not break his stride, came straight at Musashi, he screaming now. Went for Musashi’s blade, brushed it nimbly out of his path, the motions of it familiar, and familiar too the way he rammed into Musashi, tried to push him back hip to hip. Encountered before on Hiei; dogmatic offence, found no give, and Musashi lunged with his elbows, his shoulders, drove the samurai backwards and slew him as he staggered.

  Other Yoshioka imminent, three of them at least. Turn, run again. This his only option. Scatter them, pick them off in segregated violence. Breath heaving, curses seething inward. The hand of Seijuro manifold. On the gates of a Shinto shrine faces of wooden foxes leered at him, malevolent, mischievous, passed. Growing narrower, the streets, buildings pressed tight, more lights, more voices; residential, mercantile, indiscernible.

  Round a corner, a group of men sat grilling fish. Smoke smell, fat smell. Musashi stopped, waited. No time for proper stance or form, vestiges of it only, now came the Yoshioka and he leapt forward to meet the first of them. Fast, the man caught Musashi’s sword on the flat of his blade, but his resistance only momentary. Musashi overwhelmed him, forced the samurai backwards off his feet. In stunned watching mouths fish flesh went unchewed.

  Second man, sword high,

  see

  it

  and Musashi’s blade around to catch him under his arms, perhaps not lethal but enough; sword dropped, not reclaimed. First man rising, third man near. In a doorway came more onlookers, summoned by screaming, none intervening. First samurai came horizontal, Musashi’s sword inverted, greeting, once again the two of them locked, then his arms up forcing the Yoshioka sword above his head, rainbow arc, swords apart and all force dissipated. Tea-coloured back exposed, Musashi’s grip tight, prepared to cut, but denied – third man here now, interrupting.

  Slow, that interruption. Musashi saw him coming. His sword swerved in its path from the first man to him, took the samurai’s right hand off at the wrist. Appetites were lost. The hand fell to the ground, and Musashi felt a spatter of blood on his cheek as the lessened arm began its flailing. Ignored. First man whirling, stabbing, missing, barrelling into Musashi’s stomach still crouched low, snarling like a boar goring at guts. Spine shining upwards to Musashi, too close to him to cleave, but rakeable; edge of the longsword pressed through silk into flesh, drawing a neat and bloody chasm from hip to shoulder.

  Pushed the samurai down to the earth, and now away, go! These three done but more coming. Wrong. Not done. First man, back split, writhing in the dust, swiped at Musashi as he fled, practically flopping on his belly to reach, nicked him on the back of the calf. The wound went unnoticed for ten paces, a razor cut so fine it was unfelt, but then Musashi’s stride began to break without his consent. Warmer than sweat around his ankle. Pace slowed, resorted to lunging gait, still going, still, still . . .

  Turned, threw his shortsword at the nearest Yoshioka samurai. Near but too distant. Saw the blade coming, batted it aside. Curse sucked down with taste of bile, hint of blood, the gift of tortured lungs. Eyes looked out from windows, silhouettes in doorways, dozens of witnesses watching his faltering defiance.

  Another corner, and now Musashi found himself alongside a canal, a balustrade running its length. There, ahead, he saw his chance: a bridge, hump-backed, narrow. He could run no more, all but hopping now, but there, there he could force them to come to him one at a time. Funnelling salvation. On, on, his blood-sodden straw sandal squelching beneath his feet.

  Other footsteps, unhindered, not fresh but fast, faster. At first from behind but then to the side, looping around him. The man he had thrown his shortsword at. Must have realized what he was attempting, ran to put himself between the bridge and Musashi. Grinning, shepherding, waiting for others to arrive.

  So close behind him, the Yoshioka not as scattered as Musashi had thought. Into an arc arrayed around him now, eight men, sounds of more still coming, they caging him in against the balustrade of the canal. No rush now. Breath gathered. Swords steadied. Moving forward in half-steps, feet never leaving the correct positioning. Beneath the wound Musashi’s own foot unfeelable. Tighter. Closer. Touch of wood from behind.

  The balustrade.

  One quick stolen glance, behind, down into the canal’s depths. The drop was long, the water shallow. Moon caught a dozen times in separate little pools, white moon, not scarlet, not his sign, not his assurance, and this moon dancing also in the feeble vein t
hat flowed still. Walls smoothly set stone, bed riddled with rocks and pebbles of all sizes.

  Eyes back up to the Yoshioka. Closer. Some happier. Some angrier. Some devoid of anything. Swords out before them or above their heads, eight swords just aching to get closer still, to break his guard, to cleave his flesh . . .

  No choice. Musashi sat his weight on the balustrade, swung his legs over and jumped down into the canal.

  Further than it looked, an extra sliver of breath stolen before impact. Feet found no purchase, stones slick and wet, went right out from under him with the speed of his fall barely checked. Head whipped down, cracked against a rock, his shoulder, his temple, couldn’t tell. Hurt. Left eye lost entirely to wild colour, ear feeling as though it had been ground to gristle. Stunned, unable to rise, lying sprawled in the water, stared up at Yoshioka staring down at him.

  Shouting, shouts. Through the ringing he recognized the word ‘stairway’, saw the Yoshioka pointing along the canal. Beyond the bridge, carved into the wall, and most of the samurai rushing along to it. One remained keeping vigil, as though Musashi might vanish. Vanish? Vanish.

  Up, fool.

  Obeyed whatever it was that commanded him. Hauled himself up, grabbed his sword as he rose. Tried running. Water splashing. World unsteady. Head addled, leg dead, staggering too erratic. No more running. Turned. Saw the many Yoshioka now down in the canal with him. Raised his sword, saw it quivering wildly, water falling from its point.

  Seven of them. No room for them to spread out properly. Snarled at them. Tried to spit. No coordination, not even for that. Something at the back of his throat, behind his nose perhaps, clicking as he breathed. His sword felt weightless, as though his hands were clasping nothing but air, and with this air he would swipe at them, try to cut them.

  Wounded leg curved the path of his retreat, found stone at his side, at his back. Once again trapped. Urge to lean against it, to relent. Ignored. Seven samurai, seven swords all of them where he could see them. Coming at him from the front, and through them he would wade, through the pain and the blows until he succumbed, see how many of them he could drag down to writhe alongside him in the puddles. Writhing like landed fish. No more. No less.

  Uncle, he thought. Know that I tried. Know that I tried. Know that I—

  ‘Cease!’ bellowed a voice. ‘All of you will cease this breach of the peace in the name of the most noble Shogun Tokugawa!’

  Up on the street, light and movement. The arc of the bridge suddenly swarming with samurai, helmeted, uniformed black. Swords, spears, men with bows now lining up along the balustrade, arrows nocked, aimed down into the canal. At the Yoshioka, at Musashi. One man carried a lantern, stood at the arc’s peak:

  ‘I am Goemon Inoue, honoured with the rank of captain in the service of my most noble Lord, the Shogun Tokugawa, given jurisdiction of all Kyoto in his name! It is my duty to keep the peace, and I order all of you to sheathe your weapons immediately!’

  No swords were moved. The Yoshioka said nothing. Musashi said nothing save for his ragged, clicking panting. Unquestionably outnumbered, the tea-coloured samurai, those still on the street quelled also. Those in the canal looking up at the Tokugawa, looking at Musashi. He so close. Points of arrows so black they seemed edged with obsidian. Yet the proximity of Musashi was tantalizing.

  ‘No,’ said one of them to Goemon. ‘You would not overstep yourself so.’

  He began the motion of drawing his sword back, foot beginning to rise. One of the archers loosed. So close but a fine shot regardless, the arrow’s flight straight as light. It took the Yoshioka samurai in the side of the throat and passed straight through, the shaft the length of an arm yet piercing so entirely that the fletching was all but swallowed by flesh.

  A moment of shock as the Yoshioka samurai fell to one knee, grasping at the arrow, hissing blood from his mouth, a moment that Musashi was certain Goemon shared. Then, the reaction: shouting, weapons bristling, bow strings drawn tauter and swords gripped tighter.

  ‘Outrage!’ one of the Yoshioka samurai was screaming. ‘Outrage!’

  ‘See how much more I am willing to commit,’ said Goemon, and his face, his voice were level now, any surprise vanished as though it had never been. ‘Please do.’

  Three of them did. Goemon lashed his hand forward in clear command and they were riddled with arrows instantly. Two collapsed before they had taken but a step, the third reached Musashi but there was no strength in his arms; Musashi turned his sword aside and the samurai followed after it as though it were his anchor, guiding him down into the water’s embrace.

  The remaining three Yoshioka howled their anger, demanded the Tokugawa to come down and fight them fairly, but they had judged it impossible to reach Musashi and thus attain glory a moment prior and they did not change their minds now. They backed away, sheathed their swords. The other few men of the Yoshioka came down from the street and together they bore the bodies away, up and out of the canal all the while with the arrows of the Tokugawa aimed at them, and where they went after that Musashi could not care.

  Only when they were out of sight did he allow himself to slump backwards, rest his weight against the wall, sheathe his sword. Suddenly he could feel the water flowing around his toes and the pain of all his wounds, his leg, his head, he realized the skin upon the back of his left arm had been grazed clean away, sticky with blood, and how wonderful that was.

  ‘You,’ called Goemon down to him, opening his eyes. ‘You would be the duellist Miyamoto, correct?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Musashi. His voice was rasping, his throat still clicking oddly.

  ‘You should come, spend the night in the garrison with us,’ said Goemon, the rim of his circular helmet lit up like a halo. ‘For your own safety.’

  ‘Have I a choice?’ said Musashi, looking up at him and all his men.

  ‘No,’ said Goemon, and he smiled. ‘I rather think you haven’t.’

  Interlude I

  The sky is blue and the sea is blue, but different types of blue, the names of which she never learns. Only half-remembered this chain of images, soundless, she so very young, the figures on the white gold of the beach distended and blurry in her recalled sight, but she remembers the shape: two legs, two arms, five fingers, two eyes, one nose, one mouth, yellow teeth, black hair blowing in the wind, white gulls eddying above. All these things she knows she has seen, actually seen, that she could not have possibly conjured in a pleading dream.

  Then darkness.

  ‘In we go,’ comes Mother’s voice. On the girl’s shoulder a hand materializes, tender, ushering her forwards. Toes feel the pebble-edges of earthen steps, and she descends.

  ‘Who’s here?’ says the girl, after the gentle squeeze of Mother’s hand tells her to stop.

  ‘Kind old lady Rimi,’ says Mother, ‘who brings us the ropes she weaves. Tamagusuku, who brought us that nice turtle shell he found last summer. Wibaru, who brings us the fruit from his tree. Arakachi, who brings us the razor clams he finds upon the beach. And Shimabuku, who cuts the lumber for us.’

  ‘Can you help us?’ says a man in front of her.

  There is something in the voice that the girl has not heard before, that she does not like; a desperate deference. She waits for Mother to answer. Mother, though, does not, and the discomfort grows as the girl starts to wonder in the silence just to whom the man, the adult, is being deferent and desperate to.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ the girl asks eventually.

  ‘It’s old Fija,’ says Mother, above and behind. ‘He’s sick. He’s been sick for a long time now. We all want to help him. Do you want to help him?’

  ‘Yes,’ says the girl out of childish instinct to please before she actually considers it, and then she quails. ‘How?’

  Mother places a hand on either one of her shoulder blades and leads her forward once more. After a few shuffled steps, soles on ash and sand, the girl is pressed gently down to her knees. Hands take her hands and place them upon something clammy and c
oarse; the girl’s fingers slowly map out and recognize a palm much larger than her own, find a thumb onto which they clasp.

  ‘Closer,’ says Mother.

  Fingertips on the back of her head. The girl’s face is lowered. She hears a wheezing, sad, short, like the tiniest length of paper being torn again and again. Closer, because she still does not understand. What assaults her then is a smell, so revolting that it takes a moment for the scale of the disgust to register, vile, violating in its closeness.

  ‘She grimaces!’ came old lady Rimi’s sudden voice, hysteric and loud. ‘Oh, she sees them upon him! Devil-spirits clinging to him, dragging him away from this life! He’s doomed! He’s doomed!’

  Later the girl sniffles into Sister’s lap. The difference in the scent of the salt of her own tears and the sea salt worn into Sister’s clothes is stark. Sister’s fingers feel like lapping lagoon waves as they run through her hair again and again, soothing in their repetition.

  ‘I wanted to help,’ says the girl. ‘I really did.’

  ‘It’s over now,’ says Sister.

  ‘They didn’t tell me how.’

  ‘They didn’t tell you because they don’t know either.’

  ‘But that’s not fair.’

  ‘It’s not, is it?’ says Sister, and now her fingers part and straighten, the girl feeling a familiar tugging on her scalp as she begins to plait.

  ‘Is Fija going to die?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘Because I couldn’t help him?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘What?’ wails the girl. Fresh sobbing.

  ‘You’re wiping your nose all over my skirts,’ says Sister soon enough. ‘Please stop.’

  ‘It’s not fair,’ says the girl again.

  ‘You mustn’t be angry about it. It is what it is. The sadness repeats itself across the waves.’