Sword of Honour

by David Kirk

It was both humbling and exalting.

  ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I shall make my preparations to leave. It will be good to escape this heat, I suppose.’

  ‘Thank you for the honour of your trust, Father,’ said Ujinari, pressed his brow to the floor, his voice full of candour and spirit and all the things Tadanari knew to be good. ‘I swear, I vow to you with all that I can vow that Denshichiro and I will make you proud of us.’

  Chapter Thirty

  ‘I did it,’ said Musashi. ‘Akiyama’s head is being taken to Hiei. It will be cremated and interred . . . It will be burnt, and put with the rest of the body. He is whole again.’

  ‘Good,’ said Ameku, and nothing more.

  She was working on the loom. The mat hung before her was nearly complete, a delicate shade of green as broad either way as a man’s outstretched arms. The wooden levers of the machine counted instances as faithfully as the beating of a heart.

  ‘I made arrangements peacefully,’ said Musashi.

  She nodded.

  She was not moved as he thought she would have been moved. The set of his shoulders lessened. He took his scabbarded swords from out of his belt and sat down upon the two wooden steps that led down into the room where she worked, wanting to sit closer to her, wanting to provoke something from her.

  ‘Will you sing for me?’ he tried.

  Ameku laughed. ‘You, who cry “too much noise in Kyoto, too much noise!” want a song?’

  ‘It’s just tonight. The silence here now is . . .’ He could not find the words to explain.

  ‘I do not want to sing tonight,’ she said. ‘So, no song. A song that you are made to sing, it is no true song.’

  He accepted this. Ameku pinched a reed into a noose, hooked it upon the loom, and her fingers were calloused and worn and yet he saw them as lithe and delicate.

  This mood had hung over him since he had spoken to Tadanari at the cockfight. He felt achievement, and no achievement at all. He felt as though someone had stolen words from his throat and left him mouthing like a carp in silence. The method he had envisioned in the drums fated to be witnessed only by his imagination.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ he said, ‘Denshichiro Yoshioka bows to me before the whole city.’

  ‘What?’ she said, and he explained himself further. She stopped working, and he could see the confusion in her in the tilting of her head. ‘Why, you want this?’

  ‘Because it needs to be . . .’ he said.

  ‘Akiyama’s head is safe. It is done. So do not go there. You trust him? You think he will do this, bow in peace?’

  ‘I have the word of his master.’

  ‘You do not trust this man,’ she said, all but laughing in scorn. ‘I know you do not. So why do you go?’

  ‘What else am I to do? This has to be done.’

  ‘You need to . . . to win?’

  He did not answer, and in that silence gave her one.

  ‘If he bows . . . then what? What do you do?’

  ‘I suppose I shall take my freedom. Go where it dictates.’

  ‘Freedom is a stupid word,’ she said. ‘It is a stupid word in Ryukyu tongue too. Men on Ryukyu say they got freedom, those who go out on the sea. Feel the wind. Think he can go anywhere. What does he do? He comes back to land and the town and the house and the wife and the child, or the sea eats him and the sea is not changed. That, freedom?’

  ‘That is how you think,’ he said entirely neutrally, speaking simply for the sake of filling the void between them.

  Outside a drunk vomited away his misery.

  ‘Go, don’t go,’ she said. ‘It is the same. This hour tomorrow, you have the same future. The only reason to go – hope of sword. The only reason – revenge.’

  ‘It is no revenge, said Musashi. ‘Won’t you listen to me? I have told you that I am not killing. Denshichiro is bowing to me. He is the symbol of all that is wrong in this world, the pompous fools who demand all kneel before them. Those that take all and offer nothing, the unworthy bloated sons of whores that—’

  Ameku cut him off before his fury ignited itself inextinguishable. ‘Musashi, stop your . . . raf raf raf like a dog,’ she said. ‘On and on and on so many words you shout. Every day. Every day. Shout and shout and make for you a nice little wall, build around your heart. Armour.’

  Effortlessly, she cast him down. He sat with his elbows on his thighs, looking up at her. The loom clacked and clacked, a dolorous rhythm. He looked at his swords where they lay before him. He took a breath.

  ‘I cannot return home without having attained a thing of worth,’ he said quietly.

  ‘You think this is such a thing?’

  ‘It must be,’ he said. ‘It must be. The world is wrong and the Way is obscene, and all this must be fought. Someone must fight it. Someone must humble them. Even if I cannot express it fully, if I feel it, if I know it to be right – is it not worthy?’

  ‘Why do you need to speak? Why do you need to tell? If it is good, it is good. Nothing to be said, nothing you say changes it.’

  ‘Because you think me false.’

  He had let more emotion into his voice than he had meant to, and he was embarrassed for this slip, and yet even so she did not answer. Her silence maddened him. He did not know whether he would have preferred her to agree or disagree, only that she would speak. Acknowledge him. She that created so enviously easy with her voice. She with her voice that seemed to him to breach the heavens, that brought beads of dew to the embers and made all as smoke. If only she would sing for him now, perhaps he might be able to pull an answer from the mire.

  But the back of her head was all she offered him.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  On the eastern banks of the river Kamo the Hall of Thirty-Three Doors had stood for four hundred years. At its creation it had been painted brilliant blue and red but this had faded with time and none could bring themselves to risk sullying the memory of what it had been, and so it had been left to assume a grand and sombre darkness. The peak of its sloped and tiled roof was high and its structure immensely long, the eponymous doors contiguous along one side, each five paces across and twice the height of a man separated by a thick beam. To fire an arrow accurately the length of it was considered a challenge, and yearly men would compete in day-long marathons to hit a target at the opposite end, loosing ten thousand arrows or more and hitting six, seven, eight thousand times.

  These thousands of arrows without, and within a thousand and one statues of the Buddha Kannon. A thousand of these for the thousand dimensions of the mortal chiliocosm stood in ten raised ranks. Carved of dark cypress and brushed with gold, each the height of a man with robes flowing from narrow shoulders, epicene faces full of love and behind each of them like a peacock’s tail a halo of arms clutching the myriad implements of Kannon’s grace: lanterns, brushes, icons of swastikas, lotuses, jars of balm, rosaries.

  They arrayed five hundred either side of a great effigy of the enlightened one in the centre, sat cross-legged and representative of the thousand and first dimension, the pure lands beyond to which Kannon had ascended. It dwarfed the others, his golden head from which nine smaller golden heads sprouted surrounded by golden bells hung on golden chains; aureate, so flawlessly aureate his body, his aura. Before him a sheen of incense smoke and the flickering of tall candles, prayers daubed upon the wax in ink, letters slowly devolving with the melting.

  And there shielding this divine host on the lowest rank stood the twenty-eight guardians of Tenbu, their statues of plain and humble darkwood. There Raijin and Fujin cavorting in their tempests, there proud Nanda around whom the dragon of wisdom coiled, four-eyed Hibakara playing his warding biwa lute, fierce Gobujo with a sword in either hand as a symbol of his inhuman might.

  All frozen and still and looking outwards through the thirty-three doors of the hall cast wide open. Compassionate gazes and furious scowls taking in the grounds of the temple and the silent crowd of hundreds of men and women and children that had gathered opposite.
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br />   Between these two hosts, immortal on his right and mortal on his left, stood Denshichiro Yoshioka.

  He waited in solitude. No mark of rank or prestige had the head of the Yoshioka brought with him, no silk awning nor standard of the school nor fine paper parasol held by an attendant to shield him from the light and the heat. He waited with only the sweat upon his brow, his swords at his side and the plain tea-coloured jacket he had always worn.

  Unasked the question amongst those watching, eyes upon Denshichiro’s knees, imagining dust upon them, wondering. The only noise that of the city drifting over the walls of the compound; the beating of the drums at practice, oblivious of any form of observance.

  Musashi strode over the hundred paces of the Shichijo bridge, the wooden planks ringing beneath his feet. He too heard the drums, impossible not to in the streets, passing from the radius of one group to another to another with the separate beats and patterns converging, merging and then separating in his ears.

  The right hand kept the rhythm: bom, a-bom, a-bombombom.

  From the crest of the bridge’s arch he saw the blunted peak of Mount Higashi deep and green, saw the face of Toyotomi’s colossal Buddha gazing out of the massive hall that enshrined it at the Hoko temple, saw the tiers of pagodas reaching skywards. Lastly, saw the red-and-white gate of Rengeo temple, and behind it the mottled roof of the Hall of Thirty-Three Doors.

  On this he focused. His eyes felt as if they were pulsing, throbbing. Perhaps tonight he could sleep.

  He had hauled his rope belt around himself thrice, so tight around him that it cut into his waist, wedged his swords into his flesh, hardened his posture into something taut and unshakeable. It felt good. Prepared him.

  The closer he got to the gate the more people took notice of him, they perhaps gathering to bear witness to the apology and knowing who he was. Some fell in behind him, saying nothing, followed his steps expectantly.

  He crossed the liminal threshold and entered the grounds of the temple beneath a great hanging awning of the Buddhist colours, vertical bands of white-red-yellow-green-purple repeated. Those behind him followed. The enclave was sparse of greenery, no more than a clearly delineated garden and pond in one corner and disparate trees segregated amidst an expanse of grey gravel. Pebbles crunched beneath Musashi’s feet as he walked, dust rising, and habitually he tested it for balance and grip as he walked, dragging his straw sandals.

  The crowd ahead waiting at the Hall were unavoidable. They saw him, or perhaps the smaller mass of those walking behind him, the turning of their heads like wind through grass.

  Distant, the drums still, the left hand batting out the urgency: atta-ta-tata, ta-tata.

  Rounding the corner, and there Denshichiro stood alone beneath the gaze of the great Buddha Kannon. The head of the Yoshioka drew himself up as Musashi approached, swept his jacket back to put his left hand on the scabbards at his waist. The timeless dignified pose. Musashi was glad to see the Yoshioka samurai held it until he came to stop ten paces away from him; pompous idiot would only make falling to his knees appear even more of a concession.

  The pair of them stood looking at each other. There was loathing in Denshichiro’s eyes, identical to that which his brother had worn. Musashi matched it.

  ‘Get on with it, then,’ he snarled. ‘Loud voice, so all can hear.’

  Denshichiro said, ‘I thank you for deigning to grant me the respect of punctuality, Sir Miyamoto.’

  He gave no signal but as he finished speaking there was sudden motion from the crowd, from around the sides of the Hall. Men emerged, samurai. They were not wearing the livery of the school but they were obviously Denshichiro’s men disguised, drawing their swords and quickly moving to surround Musashi in a loose ring. Eight of them.

  Denshichiro, the ninth, said, ‘No fleeing this time.’

  Of course he would say that. Of course he would do this. Fated, and Musashi knew this, had known this despite whatever he might have protested to Ameku. There was black glee on Denshichiro’s face, and Musashi mirrored it.

  Now a real test, a real vindication, and, if he persevered, real proof, real victory.

  The Yoshioka made no move to rush him, confident in their numbers. Denshichiro began binding his sleeves up, jerked his chin for Musashi to ready himself also. A conceited concession born of the certainty of triumph. His sleeves cut away and his arms already bared, Musashi dropped down and sank his sweat-slick hands into the gravel, coated them with the pallid dust. Rendered them corpselike; here the absolute trial, a theory so keenly felt he was staking his life on it.

  He rose, took a breath. With his right hand he drew his longsword and with his left he drew his shortsword. Holding both, he sank into the fighting stance.

  Distant the right: a-bom, a-bom, a-bombombom.

  Distant the left: atta-ta-tata, ta-tata, tata-ta ta atta-ta-tat.

  Together, rhythm.

  Envisioned only days ago, the execution of this technique was unheard of but the inspiration pure. A longsword offered only protection from one direction, easily overwhelmed and surrounded. A spear gave safety in its length but its lethality far less, used best against massed immobile ranks on the battlefield where the point could not be dodged. Two swords together, though: reach and edge and mobility.

  If, as no one had before, you had the strength.

  If, as no one had before, you had the timing.

  From the crowd a murmur of surprise at the sight of both blades. From the Yoshioka samurai only the faintest hints of whatever they might be feeling, their faces locked in the concentration of combat. From the swarm of watching Buddhas impossible love, endless love.

  Prepared, Denshichiro drew his sword, stepped forward. His men did so too, the noose growing taut. Musashi raised his shortsword above his head, held the longsword out before him and turned in a tense, coiled rotation.

  ‘Here,’ said Denshichiro, unheard by Musashi. ‘Me.’

  A tightening in Musashi’s throat, in his spine, in the muscles of his arms. A quivering of his left biceps that he could not contain. Everything balanced now, balanced on the edges of eleven swords, the world seeming to lose colour as the focus came, heat gone, taste gone, smell gone, but touch ultra-aware, the sword grips tight upon either palm, the wrist sensing the balance, waiting, closer, waiting . . .

  The scrape of gravel to his side. Musashi whirled at the noise, and whether the man had stumbled or not he could not tell but it was enough to nominate a target, to spark. Musashi burst forward raising both his swords high as if to strike and he could see or sense the indecision in the samurai’s trained eyes, caught between the double threat of the swords where he had been ruthlessly taught only to anticipate a single. Musashi brought the shortsword down first and the man brought his blade up to parry it. The steel met and Musashi rode the anticipated impact, twisted his body around and from the side brought the longsword down on the man’s arms where they were braced.

  One hand doing the work of two. The edge met flesh above both elbows and cut finely, instantly – the Yoshioka man’s sword caught the light and Musashi was aware for a vivid moment of the queer image of a sword within the sword, some foreign weapon carved upon the blade – and his own steel bucked as it passed all the way through the momentary obstruction of meat and bone, and then there was blood in the air and the severed limbs were falling still clutching the weapon.

  And because they had to understand that this was possible, because Musashi had to understand that this was possible, even though the man was killed he kept going. As the arms and the strangely marked sword clattered to the earth, as the pathetic stumps were spread wide and the scream began, Musashi raked his shortsword across the young samurai’s throat and then stepped back and scythed his longsword around, cleaved the man’s leg off at the thigh.

  Distant, the girls went: Sore! Sore! Sore sore sore sore sore!

  Gurgling and writhing the pieces lay on the ground around him.

  Shock, open now, from the Yoshioka, from
the crowd, as he had intended. But, where their hearts seized, Musashi continued unhindered, knowing that rhythm, that momentum, was vital. He turned on the next man instantly, covered the distance between them in two strides, and lashed at him from the right with the longsword. The same folly – the man moved to block the first attack, leaving his left open, and Musashi’s shortsword took him across the belly.

  One of the samurai leapt in as Musashi righted himself, the Yoshioka man swinging his sword down. Musashi raised both his swords crossed to catch the blade, to cradle it, and then he hauled upwards, stronger, raising the samurai’s arms and exposing the body. He lashed out with his knee into the groin or the belly, connected meaty, and then his shortsword hissed as a spectre as he disentangled it and thrust it deep into flesh.

  Onwards unbroken, driving the dying Yoshioka man backwards and hurling him at the next closest samurai. This man was young and lithe and danced around the body, but his arms were frail and seeing this – no, knowing this, realizing this without seeing – Musashi smashed his longsword around savagely, pure strength, battering the Yoshioka sword out of the way with the flat of his blade and then, before the motion had even finished, before he or the samurai had had a chance to recover from that blow, the shortsword whipped out and took him across the chest.

  Distant the rhythm: a-bom, a-bom, a-bombombom.

  Close, Musashi’s heart: ka-dum, ka-dum, ka-dum.

  It was working, working, and he felt nothing, only did, manifested what ought to be, had to be. The fifth of the Yoshioka came bravely, fearlessly, tapping Musashi’s longsword to the side with a practised feint and closing in so that they were hip to hip. Familiar this move. Already seen on the slopes of Hiei, already repelled. As other men had done before he tried to barge Musashi backwards, and as Musashi had done before he resisted. Looped his right arm over both the man’s, pinning them and his sword to his side, and again with the shortsword he killed, sliding it across the side of the samurai’s throat, slicing something that caused a thin jet of blood to spurt out and hit Musashi in the face.