Sword of Honour

by David Kirk

  There before him, the drummers: the two hands together, in unison, forming the rhythm of the universe. One alone would not suffice, the beat of that malformed and unfelt, but two, two together, fulfilling all possible potential.

  In them, in him.

  Clarity.

  Clarity.

  On the surface of the water all the rings now passing through one another, perfect circles cast immaculate and interlocking, and here, now, not in the solitude of wilderness but rather in the finest city upon the earth, at long last amongst his fellow people, Musashi felt a moment of pure wellbeing, of belonging, of righteousness.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  The cheer went up for the champion, echoed through the streets of Maruta, continued, grew. A gang of men roving, shouting and waving fists, eyes locked on the warrior that strode ahead of them: a black and red rooster on a leash. Upon the creature’s head was placed a miniature samurai helmet, delicate and crested in gold leaf, someone having been to a dollmaker’s. Around its bristling chest were loosely collared a tiny pair of swords doubtlessly appropriated from the same set.

  Those they passed they gathered up in their wake, itinerant rivermen, drunks, gamblers, Musashi. Before them all the rooster strutted back and forth, not scared by the clamour but thriving in it, his talons and his spurs white and sharp, his tail up resplendent. They made their way to a large shack of some sort down by the river, its true purpose unclear and inside of which more men were crowding. A ring had been formed by crates and planks and all manner of things set into an angular attempt at a circle and within this waited another rooster, this one white and wearing a leather hood, clawing at the earth.

  ‘When that hood comes off, a truly diabolical hellbeast will be unleashed,’ the owner of the white bird was shouting. ‘Within this rooster beats the heart of a tiger, he’ll tear the throat out of a boar, let alone a scrawny old bantam such as he faces this day! Fearless! Your money’s safe on him, mark my words!’

  ‘Close your ears to these lies, good men!’ said the owner of the avian samurai as they strode in. ‘I bring to you my undefeated warrior, victor of seven bouts, the pride of the shit stacks! You cannot argue with experience! You know on which one to bet, wise brothers, oh, how you do!’

  Swagger and pomp, and all around the ring money was changing hands, the excitement rising. Musashi let it pass before him. He had focus on the coming duel, his body aching with the pleasant burn of exploring the potential of what he had envisioned in the drums. The thrill of theorizing and creating anew, fervour and anticipation building in him as he found it, this thing of his devising, not only possible but practical. Familiar even, as though his body had walked the steps before, or was always meant to walk them.

  He rubbed his tired eyes and leant against the wall at the back of the crowd, his only real interest in this cockfight as a diversion, something to keep him awake and fill the span of time from now until his meeting with Denshichiro.

  The black-and-red rooster was carefully divested of its helmet and its swords and then placed into the ring, kept on its leash as the betting was finalized. The white rooster sensed its presence, feathers bristling and its talons beginning to tap with what some argued was nervousness and others claimed was bloodlust. A lengthy debate, the weight of it growing with each additional coin.

  ‘The red one was wearing the helmet, yes?’ asked an ageing man to Musashi’s side.

  He nodded, not interested in meeting the man’s eyes.

  ‘Perhaps I best bet on him,’ said the man, taking a pouch from his waist and rummaging inside for coins. ‘Which one are you going for?’

  ‘I’ve no money,’ said Musashi.

  ‘I’ll front you a bet, if you wish.’

  ‘No.’

  Ambivalent, the man ambled over to speak with the bookmaker. Inside the ring the two roosters were growing more agitated, the white one beginning to caw beneath its hood, the red one now testing the extent of its leash, cantering at its limits. His bet made, the man returned to Musashi’s side with a wooden chit in his hand. He was out of place here, all but bald, his legs bare beneath a plain black kimono belted loosely. This a fine garment compared with the rough jerkins and jackets others wore, with the tattered and sleeveless kimono upon Musashi.

  Musashi crossed his bare arms, tried to make his desire for solitude apparent. The man persisted oblivious, flapping the lapels of his clothing to fan his chest: ‘Maruta, Maruta. Rare I venture up out here any more, but fun when I do. Not from Kyoto, are you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What think you of our fair city?’

  ‘It is what it is.’

  ‘A pity to hear words so jaded from one so young.’

  His tone amiable and ignored by Musashi. At the back of the crowd a man turned to look back at the pair of them. Had a good long look this time, having glanced back several times before, and then his eyes went wide. He turned back to the ring without saying anything. It was not Musashi or his swords he had been examining.

  ‘Surely you’ve been outside of Maruta?’ said the man. ‘You can’t judge Kyoto on what happens here, honest as it is. What have you seen of the true city? Where have you been?’

  Musashi rubbed his nose, sniffed, looked only at the roosters.

  ‘You must have been to some of the temples, at least? Even if you’re not pious, you have to see them. Beautiful buildings, just beautiful. Achievements. Chionin, Kiyomizu, Tofuku . . . No? None of them?’

  ‘I’ve been to Hiei.’

  ‘Ah, Hiei.’ The man nodded. ‘Enryaku temple. That was beautiful, back in the day. What does it look like now?’

  ‘Dead. Burnt.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said the man sadly. ‘I can’t bring myself to go and look. Such a shame. The late Lord Oda’s work . . . An outsider lessening Kyoto.’

  Above them all the cry went up from the umpire that betting was closed and that the fight was nigh. He stood on a chest and gesturing with a crude imitation of a gourd-shaped fan like a man adjudging a cultured wrestling bout would use. Those clustered closest to the ring were forced to their knees, those behind them into a squat, those at the back onto their straining toes. The two combatants were picked up by their respective owners and taken to opposite sides of the ring. There squatting they made the final preparations, the owner of the red cooing something unheard, the owner of the white repeatedly flicking his bird on the back of the head.

  Musashi and his apparent companion alone were bereft of excitement, the ring barely visible to them. The man was unyielding: ‘When did you come to the city?’

  ‘A week or two past.’

  ‘Ahh, that’s time enough. You must have formed some opinion, however small. I’d like to hear it, just for the sake of idle curiosity. Mine the fortune to have been here so long I forget how others view what is common to me.’

  Musashi exhaled through his nose: ‘If you want to know, I hate the cleanliness there. People always brushing, sweeping, polishing. Staring at you if you dare to defile it. Wasting so much time fighting against what is natural.’

  ‘So you would prefer a city dusty and falling into disrepair?’

  ‘I would prefer a city full of people concerned with things higher than appearance. A city clean from the inside.’

  ‘A lofty desire.’

  Musashi grunted, crossed his arms anew.

  The fight was imminent now. The umpire of the contest stood in a wide squat, raised his rickety bamboo approximation of a fan high in one hand. Hush fell, breaths were held. The two owners nodded their readiness. The fan slashed down, the hood upon the white bird was ripped off and then the two roosters were hurled into the centre of the ring to wild cheers.

  They met in the air in a scrabbling flurry of claws and wings and beaks and then fell to the ground still fighting. The white one jumped and the red one rose to meet it, necks extending, feet gouging, feathers on end, and when they clattered to the ground for the second time they backed apart from one another. The men roared and s
tarted to beat upon the crates, goading them on. The roosters, though, were wary, circled each other as around them their feathers drifted slowly down.

  ‘Evenly matched, it seems,’ muttered the man. ‘I thought the red one had weight on the other. I suppose white is a misleading colour, lessening. Tell me: after that opening flurry, which one has your favour?’

  ‘I don’t know. I haven’t seen a cockfight before.’

  ‘You’re a samurai, aren’t you? Can you not discern their fighting spirits?’

  ‘They’re just birds.’

  ‘But surely they have some telltale—’

  ‘What are you doing out here?’ snapped Musashi. ‘Can’t find this in the city proper?’

  ‘In truth I came to speak to you, Sir Miyamoto.’

  In an instant, in the saying of that sentence, the man’s entire comportment changed, his guise shed. Musashi looked at him anew and the image of Denshichiro screaming in the garrison of the Tokugawa came to him, of a voice commanding him into silence.

  ‘I know you,’ said Musashi, alarmed. ‘You’re of the Yoshioka.’

  ‘Tadanari Kozei, of the ward of—’ he began, but did not finish as Musashi made for his swords anticipating a rush of tea-coloured samurai from outside. Kozei placed a hand on the young man’s wrist before he could draw his weapons, neither gentle nor restraining, spoke evenly: ‘I came alone, and I came unarmed. I only wish to speak with you.’

  ‘You are without swords. I doubt you are unarmed.’

  Tadanari released Musashi, smiled. From his belt he took a folding fan, which he revealed to be plated with iron, strong and thick enough to parry a sword, and his long tobacco pipe the metal mouthpiece of which ended in a point sharp enough to stab.

  ‘These are only the tools of common sense,’ he said. ‘But, as you see, you have your swords and I do not. Furthermore you bested Seijuro, who was half my age and a superior swordsman. I am quite at your mercy. Will you calm yourself, and listen to what I have to say?’

  In the ring the white rooster sank down, spread its wings, flared its tail and brayed long and piercing. Musashi leant back against the wall.

  ‘Thank you,’ said the bald samurai. He replaced the fan and the pipe at his belt, and then he too turned to look at the fight once more. ‘It is clear you are a man of skill with the blade. Firstly I must ask, as a matter of martial respect: who did you study under?’

  ‘Munisai Shinmen.’

  ‘Is that so? I saw Munisai fight in Osaka, when he was named the Nation’s Finest. Your style had been described to me. It does not sound much like his methods.’

  ‘He died when I was a child. Since then I have taught myself.’

  ‘Of course. Might I ask of Munisai’s death? I was suspicious of—’

  ‘He chose it for himself.’

  The red rooster suddenly dashed towards the white one and butted it backwards, and the low men of Maruta all sensing blood, longing for it, began a roar that died feeble when the two roosters did not follow through with claw or beak, settled for merely shrieking at one another and circling once more.

  ‘Tadanari Kozei,’ said Musashi, ‘Akiyama spoke of you. You’re the one who sent him to kill me. Is it you who wields the power at the school?’

  ‘My counsel is valued.’

  ‘But not your hand. What worth that? Do you value it yourself, or is that why you sent another to enact your will? Coward.’

  Tadanari bore the insult entirely impassively. In the crowd an errant flailing elbow knocked a hand clutched full of coins open, copper scattering across the earth amongst feet. The owner of the money sank desperately to his knees, began to grope blindly with clawed hands through the legs around him.

  ‘I read the late Sir Akiyama’s thoughts upon you, of your character,’ said Tadanari, ‘of how you think, of what you value, and I do not think the school of Yoshioka are who you believe us to be. We are not high-born, you know. We are not the inheritors of centuries of prestige. No noble bloodline flows through me: my great grandfather was a cobbler. The great-great-grandfather of the young heirs Denshichiro and Seijuro was in turn a dyer of silk. That, the roots of the Yoshioka. A humble craftsman who discovered the shades of the colour of tea, and from the rolling of the presses and the hauling of vats found strength and dexterity in his arms, which he turned to the sword. Raised himself up, won renown, founded the school of which my ancestor was the first student. Is this not what you speak so highly of?’

  ‘Then bring out your ancestors to meet me,’ said Musashi. ‘You cannot? Then do not speak of their virtue to me. I am concerned with you. You now ruling the Yoshioka, the inheritors of that “virtuous struggle”. Are you humble? Tell me: would you have a man perform seppuku for you?’

  ‘Seppuku is a noble choice.’

  ‘It is an abomination! The greatest abomination! And you, all like you, revel in it. Not humble but fancy yourselves gods; you are a devourer of decent men, of men who could be decent given the chance.’

  The vehemence of his words broke Tadanari’s façade for but an instant, the slighest muscle rippling beneath the corner of his eye: ‘That, the source of your hatred?’

  ‘I hate it all, everything you stand for.’

  ‘Hate is a very short and sad thing to live your life in thrall to.’

  ‘In this world it is necessary.’

  Tadanari said nothing for a while. One of the owners was lashing a whip, cracking it down on the dais beneath him again and again as though his rooster would understand the threat and throw itself forward. ‘You will think as you will think,’ he said. ‘But I do not believe that we should be enemies. Duly I have come to negotiate an ending to our feud.’

  ‘Negotiate?’ snorted Musashi. ‘Where were the negotiations when you sent Akiyama on my trail? Or on Mount Hiei?’

  Tadanari ignored the question. ‘We are both disciples of the blade, are we not? It is evident you are a man of rare skill. Our school is always searching for exceptional talent. Your ability and our renown together could be a formidable combination.’

  ‘Are you offering me a place amongst you?’

  Tadanari looked at him earnestly. In the ring wings were thrashed wide to intimidate, to boast, yet the roosters circled still. Musashi laughed bitterly.

  ‘If the thought of working with us in particular has grown too distasteful,’ said Tadanari carefully, ‘we have fine relations with Lords the length of the country. There are always positions as swordmasters available somewhere, not necessarily in Yoshioka colours. We could recommend you thoroughly to one of them, far from Kyoto if you so desire. Honshu, Kyushu, Shikoku . . . Wealth and prestige on all of them.’

  ‘I have no desire to serve.’

  ‘I see,’ said Tadanari.

  ‘From where has this urge for bargaining sprung?’ said Musashi. ‘It was Denshichiro who demanded the coming duel. Adamant upon it. Does he even know you are here?’

  ‘I speak on his behalf, whether he is aware of it or not.’

  ‘Then why do you want to bargain now?’

  The bald samurai was spared answering by a flurry from within the ring; the owner of the red rooster hooked a staff under the body of his champion and flicked it towards the white. The two creatures engaged in another frantic exchange, squawking and thrashing as the pair of them climbed up each other, and then upon the earth amidst the shed feathers a spatter of blood fell. The crowd roared, even though they could not tell from which cockerel it had fallen.

  ‘Sir Miyamoto—’

  ‘Stop calling me “sir”,’ spat Musashi. ‘I don’t need it. I don’t need to be meaninglessly flattered to know my own worth. Do you, Kozei?’

  ‘Musashi, then,’ said Tadanari. ‘Where do you see this ending, really, should you pursue it? What do you stand to gain personally from, say, killing Denshichiro? What do you think that would prove?’

  ‘That you, and all that think like you, can be beaten. That this world made in your despicable image is finite – can be finite. The perv
ersity of the Way, which is a cult of death, which swallows all hope and goodness. Nebulous and foglike and corrupt to the core. But my way! I show my way, which is as light. Is not codified, not taught and driven into unwilling skulls but felt. Known. True. All these things beating in the hearts of all men. That the reason I fight, I speak, to show that if it is believed it must be dispelled. If it is written it must be unwritten. If it stands tall it must be burnt low. This the only recourse for your world, and then the world will be as it ought. Living. Alive. Honest.’

  Oh, the saying of these words, of words like these at the times they conjured themselves, felt so wonderful to Musashi. The heat that burnt in the throat, in the heart, it was the absolute perfect certainty of youth. When he spat them everything was clear, explained, elucidated by their very being. He did not need to consider their meaning or ponder the depths of himself: all he needed was to say and to find his vindication.

  Tadanari heard these words, and said, ‘But are you honest, Musashi?’

  ‘What?’ said Musashi, unsettled for a moment, pierced, and then a sneer deflected the spoken blow as surely as a sword against a sword. ‘Of course I am. Counter to you, to all of you.’

  ‘Honesty is purity,’ said Tadanari. ‘Purity is focus. You, however, set your rage and your enemies as broad as the sky.’

  ‘Nothing easier to read than the sky. Nothing more honest.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Tadanari. ‘Then would your true satisfaction lie in killing every last man of the Yoshioka? There is a third brother, too, a child. Would you kill him also on account of his name? You who speak so passionately of the abomination of seppuku, of the sanctity of life? Are you at your base a charlatan bent on nothing more than selfish murder?’

  The white rooster suddenly dashed and soared through the air, too quick for the red one, clawing fierce at its eyes. Its spur gouged deep, bursting, and the red rooster shrieked and bolted half blinded. It skittered and leapt in a mad flapping of wings, vaulting the boundary of the ring, and then it was amongst the spectators. Men staggered back and fell over one another in a mess of limbs and feathers as the rooster thrashed frenzied over all their prostrate forms, scrabbled until it found earth beyond the bodies and then gone, out of the hall and out of sight.