by Steve Bein
“You’ll die of old age, then. You’ll sit here and let that sword rust in its scabbard.”
“If I am that lucky, yes.”
Ichirō barked a scornful laugh. “Well, you’ve got no shortage of luck, neh? Look forward to your senility, little brother. For my part, I look forward to spilling my blood to make Okuma a greater name.”
With that he stormed away, alone, leaving Daigoro with the sea breeze at his back.
33
Returning to the compound, Daigoro brushed the dust from his feet, entered his study, and drew Glorious Victory. It was slow on the draw, so long that even when he pulled the scabbard back with his left hand he could scarcely clear the tip of the blade. Once again Daigoro had to imagine what strength his father must have had to wield the sword one-handed.
Was it possible the blade was cursed? He’d heard legends of cursed swords, even of cursed Inazuma swords, but he’d never heard anyone speak ill of Glorious Victory. On the contrary, he’d heard countless stories of his father’s sword, and all of them sung its praises. But Daigoro knew almost nothing of how the sword had come to be in his father’s possession. At one time his father had had two brothers, but they had both died in war when Daigoro was still in swaddling clothes. Had the sword caused enmity between them? When Daigoro’s grandfather died, did he pass the sword directly to his son Tetsurō, or did the three brothers fight over it first? Daigoro had never heard those stories. Had this weapon stirred animosity in his house before?
Or was it just Ichirō’s nature to covet the sword? If so, why was it not bequeathed to him? Daigoro had no desire for it; he wanted only to fulfill his father’s will, and to follow the path of Bushido. As Daigoro understood them, these two were one and the same. Why could Ichirō not see that?
Daigoro felt his heart racing, felt the heat creeping into his skin even in the cool shade of his study. Better to put his mind somewhere else, he decided. He wrapped his left hand around the base of the pommel, settled his right foot, and experimentally attacked the air in front of him.
He slashed a ceiling tile, nearly burying the blade in one of the rafters. The sword was too long for indoor use, at least for overhead swings. Red faced, Daigoro resheathed it and limped outside.
He found a quiet place near the sake stores where he could practice unobserved. With each thrust and parry, his feeble right knee threatened to give out. His wrists and forearms lacked the strength to stop the blade with any precision. As it sliced through the hot afternoon air it hissed, and the pitch of the hiss told him this was the sharpest blade he’d ever encountered. That was no surprise: Inazuma steel was said to hold an edge better than any other. But this sword would demand more of him than any other. He needed strength to complement its power, balance to make the most of its reach. Lacking these, he tried shorter swings, tighter movements. The sword sang in the air; he could almost hear it asking him for more. More speed, more ferocity, longer cuts, wider arcs. Still he could not manage it, and now he felt he was disappointing not only his father but also his father’s sword.
When at last he allowed himself to relax, he found his body covered in sweat and the sun drawing close to the treetops beyond the compound wall. Sand shifted underfoot behind him, and he turned to see the Zen abbot who had presided over his father’s funeral. The abbot had been watching him, Daigoro guessed; Daigoro had been too focused on his exercises to notice. Now the abbot walked away, a preternatural grace to his movements that Daigoro found both admirable and mysterious. Where did it come from? Was it enlightenment made visible in the body’s movements? Daigoro didn’t think so. If anything, the abbot actually reminded him of his father. There was balance, strength, and sureness in the old man’s steps; he moved like an expert swordsman facing an opponent.
But he was only there for a moment, disappearing behind the sake storehouse on whatever errand had brought him here. Now Daigoro could hear voices on the far side of the storehouse. Shuffling toward the commotion, he saw the Okuma samurai arrayed in the courtyard for sword practice and, on the opposite end of the courtyard, the abbot exiting the main gates of the compound.
Tired as he was, Daigoro limped forward to join the last rank of warriors. His father would have asked no less of him. Usually Daigoro and Ichirō did not take part in swordsmanship exercises with the common troops. Theirs was the family that headed the Okuma clan, and Okuma the clan that led so many others. They were not royalty, but they were as close to it as anyone in the region, and so they had always trained under their own sword master. But their father had always told them they were not too good to train with the men. Better, he said, to train beside them from time to time, to be certain their swordsmanship was all it should be.
As the nearest samurai noticed Daigoro among them, they bowed deeply, then resumed their attention stance as if he were no more than a passing shadow. Daigoro stood likewise, and did his best to keep up with them as they began their exercises.
No sooner had they started than Daigoro was dripping with sweat. His burning muscles begged for release. At fifteen, Daigoro had already been practicing swordsmanship for eleven years, but the samurai around him had been training for longer than he’d been alive. Most were battle hardened, and none had spent the afternoon training with a sword too big for him. It was not long before Daigoro noticed he had stopped sweating entirely. Soon after that, tingling white spots came to dance before his eyes.
Still he pushed himself. His feeble right leg wobbled and threatened to buckle. His forearms were so fatigued that he could hardly make a fist. Still he trained on.
“Stop!”
All motion ceased on the courtyard; then, as one, Daigoro and all the other Okuma samurai sheathed their swords and bowed. Daigoro thanked the gods the exercise was over. He was on the verge of vomiting; his eyes tingled and his ears rang; he could scarcely see the man in front of him for all the dancing spots.
“Your exercises will continue,” barked the sword master at the head of the throng, “under Lord Okuma Ichirō. The lord has honored us by offering to train us today. You will listen carefully to what he has to say, and you will thank him for honoring us with his presence.”
With one voice the battalion shouted, “Thank you, Okuma-dono!”
Daigoro could not see his brother, but he imagined the sword master bowing to Ichirō and Ichirō returning the courtesy. Daigoro heard the footfalls of wooden sandals on the veranda some thirty paces ahead, and in his mind’s eye he envisioned Ichirō standing before the throng. “You are also honored by my brother’s presence today,” he heard Ichirō say. “Lord Okuma Daigoro stands at the rear. He deserves your gratitude as well.”
Again the samurai shouted their thanks, and though he could not even see most of them Daigoro offered them a slight bow. He followed along as Ichirō ordered all of them to form a circle and be at ease. Wordlessly the samurai obeyed, kneeling in a ring around empty sand. “Today we spar,” said Ichirō. “Your targets will be the torso, the arms, and the head.” He called two names to be the first to fight.
The man seated next to Daigoro had been named, and a boy dashed over to him and delivered a bokken, a stout wooden sword the same size as a katana. The samurai accepted it, tied back his sleeves, and entered the circle in a ready stance. The tingling spots had thinned enough for Daigoro to see another warrior enter from the opposite side of the ring. Ichirō marched over to sit at Daigoro’s right.
“You look sick, little brother. Have you been training too hard in this heat?”
“It’s no more than Father would expect of me,” said Daigoro.
“Indeed.”
Ichirō nodded, and the bokken clacked loudly with the first exchange of blows. The match was over as soon as it had begun: an attack, a parry and counterattack, and one man hit the sand clutching his ribs.
The second match lasted longer: the bokken clashed three times before the loser dropped. Succeeding bouts varied in length, and in each case the previous winner faced the next man to enter the circ
le. Five or six duels had passed when Ichirō whispered, “What do you say, Daigoro? Have you recovered enough to fight?”
He hadn’t. Only now was his breath coming without labor. He’d not yet begun sweating again; his body wanted water. “The enemy does not wait for recovery,” he said. “I’ll fight whenever my name is called.”
“Okuma Daigoro!” Ichirō shouted, even as the samurai who’d lost the last bout picked himself off the ground. The samurai bowed to Daigoro, offered him the grip of the bokken, and went to take his place in the circle, nursing a badly bruised forearm.
The bokken was light compared to Glorious Victory, its weight very close to that of the average steel katana. Daigoro made a mental note to have a new bokken fashioned, one as long and as heavy as his father’s ōdachi. He closed his aching hands around the polished wood and nodded to Takeyama, the samurai who had won the last two bouts.
Takeyama circled him, and Daigoro shifted awkwardly on his right foot to compensate. There was a sudden lunge, a sword smashed aside, and Daigoro’s blade crashed down on Takeyama’s collarbone. Takeyama fell, gripping his shoulder, and Daigoro nearly fell with him. He hopped on his left foot and willed the white spots away.
The next opponent circled him a long while, then crumpled when Daigoro landed a thrust to his breastbone. “Do not go lightly when fighting your lords,” Ichirō called to the circle. “We face the same enemies you do; if you will not attack us in earnest, how can you expect us to fight well?”
Daigoro blinked hard and took a deep breath. Had the last two gone easy on him? Had they noticed he was barely standing, and slackened their attacks accordingly? If they had, Daigoro hadn’t noticed. Exhausted as he was, though, he knew such details could easily have passed him by.
“Let me show you how to face a lord of your clan,” said Ichirō, and he tied back his sleeves. Wrapping his fingers around the bokken, he rose from his knees into a fighting posture and advanced on Daigoro.
Daigoro positioned himself for defense and fought back a wave of nausea. His brother’s sword slashed at him through a field of fluttering white specks. He flicked his weapon to parry, but Ichirō’s blade swooped low and smashed his right knee. Daigoro went down in a heap.
“I’m sorry,” Ichirō said immediately, offering Daigoro a hand. “I shouldn’t have struck at the leg during sparring. I saw the opening and I took it. I was too eager to show these men proper aggression. Please, I beg your pardon.”
Daigoro regained his footing without his brother’s assistance. The act of standing upright was enough to bring on a surge of nausea. He was so light-headed he feared fainting. Summoning all his attention to the grip of his sword, he fought back the sickening swell in his throat and ground his toes in the sand.
Ichirō came at him again. Daigoro stabbed at his belly, but Ichirō batted the bokken aside, battered Daigoro’s forearms with a downward blow, then chopped him in the ear.
Again Daigoro crumpled to the ground. His breath came desperately. The courtyard had disappeared behind a cloud of tingling white. His brother’s voice came only faintly, though he was certain Ichirō stood close enough to reach out and touch him. Ichirō was saying something about aggressiveness in fighting. Daigoro could make little sense of it. He cared only for water, and getting out of the sun, and water again.
It seemed odd to need so much effort to stand, for he was so faint that his body seemed weightless. Nevertheless his right leg struggled with the task of carrying him to a place of shade, where he ordered the nearest soldier to fetch him a water bucket. It was the better part of an hour before he could pay attention to the sparring. Even when his wits finally returned to him, the same questions flitted back and forth through his mind, as distracting as a cloud of mosquitoes that would not leave him be: Was his father’s sword cursed? Did it have a hold on Ichirō? And if so, what would it take to break the curse?
34
He was an embarrassment, Mother,” Ichirō was saying. “He fell twice before the entire garrison, and hobbled off like a wizened old man.”
“Your brother is infirm,” their mother replied. It was evening, the air was still and humid, and their mother wore white under pale yellow. Her shimmering black hair was drawn back in a long tail, and she knelt behind a short red-lacquered table, where a cup of tea gave gave birth to thin, rising ribbons of steam. She and her two sons knelt on broad cushions in the same wide hall where the guests of the funeral had gathered. The last light of sundown painted the rice paper windows orange.
“Infirm since birth,” she said after sipping her tea, “and two and a half years younger than you, neh? As I heard the story, you beat him mercilessly, and in front of a host of our own samurai, no less. Don’t you tell me he’s the embarrassment.”
Ichirō bowed low, a wisp of his black hair touching the tatami. “Begging your pardon, Mother, I meant only to demonstrate the truth.”
“And what truth is that?”
“That he cannot defend Father’s sword. He ought not to be the one carrying it.”
Their mother’s eyes shifted from Ichirō to Daigoro. “And you?” she said. “You’ve been silent so far. What do you have to say for yourself?”
I was exhausted, Daigoro thought. Beyond exhausted; scarcely able to stand. He declared the leg an illegal hit, then struck me in the leg—my weak leg, in fact. Daigoro could have said any of these things, but instead he wondered how his father would have replied. What response did the code of Bushido demand?
“Infirmity is no excuse for a samurai,” he said finally.
“There,” said Ichirō, “you see? I should be the one to bear the sword.”
“Begging your pardon, but I think you misunderstand,” said Daigoro. “Infirmity is no excuse, but Father knew as much when he bequeathed me Glorious Victory. Please, Mother, do not ask me to relinquish the sword. If you do, I cannot obey you. Infirm or no, I will uphold my father’s wishes as best I can.”
Their mother nodded, a pensive look on her face, but Ichirō bristled. “I am the head of your clan. She is your mother. Are you suggesting you won’t give up the sword even under direct commands from both of us?”
“I will retain it until death takes me,” said Daigoro, “and even then I hope the one who takes the sword has to cut my fingers from it one by one. Father would expect no less.”
“Mother, do you see? He’s become impudent! Please, try to talk some sense into him.”
Her first response was to take a sip of tea. Her second was to touch a finger to her already immaculate hair. “There is no question,” she said at last, “that of the two of you, Ichirō is the better swordsman.”
Ichirō nodded at this, his eyes all but glowing with triumphant light.
“There is also no question,” she added, “that the sword was left to Daigoro.”
Ichirō sank back on his heels, looking as though he’d been kicked in the ribs and was trying not to show pain. Daigoro did his best to retain equanimity; an untamed urge in the back of his mind wanted to ask why his brother could not do the same.
“It is my wish,” their mother said, “that my husband’s sword remain with the most worthy Okuma samurai. It is beyond me to choose which one of you that may be. I find both of my sons worthy, and a mother cannot be asked to choose between them. I am sorry, but I’m afraid you must work this out between yourselves.”
35
At last the heat wave abated, but to Daigoro the atmosphere of the compound was no less stifling. Ichirō said nothing to him, but his silence was blaring to the point of distraction. Daigoro donned his swords, fitted his chestnut horse with a saddle specially made to accommodate his shriveled right leg, and rode off for Kattō-ji.
The temple sat atop a craggy pyramid of black rock. Kudzu and other windswept shrubs draped the jagged black in a carpet of emerald. Not for the first time, Daigoro wondered which came first, the kudzu or the name Kattō-ji, Temple of the Twining Vines. Both were ancient, but was the temple named Kattō-ji because of the vines alre
ady growing there, or did the monks cultivate the vines because their temple was called Kattō-ji? He’d asked one of the monks once; his answer was, “Vines are vines, temples are temples.”
Halfway to the temple, Daigoro gingerly lowered himself from his saddle and tethered his mare to a weathered yew. He stood on the edge of one of the few flat, open places on the little mountain, and the wind buffeted the leaves and whipped at his clothing. He drew Glorious Victory and held it in a ready stance.
Between the wind and the weight of the sword, he could not have asked for a better way to test his balance and footwork. With the wind off the ocean as his only companion, he advanced and withdrew, parried and struck and counterstruck. Now and then he would attempt the mighty one-armed slashes his father used to execute so easily, and after each one Daigoro fought to retain his balance and his grip on the sword.
For all of that, he could feel Glorious Victory’s power. His every muscle was needed to control it, and as such, the strength of every muscle was behind each movement. Already he felt stronger than he’d been the day before. Could it be that it was not the man who made the sword powerful, but the sword that forged the man?
“That is a fine blade.”
The voice came from behind him; Daigoro’s heart jumped like a hooked fish. He whirled and raised his sword to face—
The abbot. The old man wore priest’s robes of the deepest blue, and his bald head glistened in the light filtering through the leaves of the yew tree. “I thought you were a horse thief,” said Daigoro.
“Oh, no,” said the abbot, “just a thief of silence today. I beg your pardon; I should not have interrupted.”
“Where are you going?”
The aging priest extended a finger toward the hilltop. “Back home.” His eyes fell on the sword again. “More than fine,” he said. “A masterpiece. Are an old man’s eyes going blind, or could that be an Inazuma?”
“Yes,” Daigoro said hesitantly. “You know a lot about swords for a man who will not shed blood even to eat. How?”
