The Tokaido Road

by Lucia St. Clair Robson

  “The words say, ‘Before the first step is taken the goal is reached.’ “

  “How splendid!”

  Kasane didn’t understand the phrase, but she continued to stare at the miracle of writing. Cat watched the travelers stream by. Already the road was crowded. Even though this time between harvest and the New Year’s celebrations was not the season for pilgrimages, the tinkling of pilgrims’ bells was constant.

  “Did you find food?” Cat asked.

  “Yes.” Kasane held up a small cloth tied around a handful of raw rice and shook it. “I held out my pilgrim’s bowl and begged. A kind woman gave me enough for us to eat tonight. Someone else gave me forty coppers.”

  Kasane pulled a pair of cloth arm guards from her sleeve and handed them to Cat. They were shaped like long, fingerless gloves of the sort worn by laborers. Kasane had gotten them from a used-clothing peddler. They had seen hard wear, but she seemed pleased with them. “I used some of the coppers to buy these.”

  “We haven’t money to spare for such things.”

  “They only cost twenty coppers.” Kasane lowered her voice. “They’ll help to hide your hands.”

  When Cat tried one on, a wide flap continued from her wrist across the back of her hand and down to the first row of knuckles. She put on the other one. They did obscure the fact that she hadn’t the hands of a fisherman. “Thank you,” she said.

  Then Kasane gave Cat the crude straw gaiters she had bought. They were itchy, but they disguised the slender curves of Cat’s legs. Next she showed Cat how to wear her cotton towel as a peasant man might. She draped it low on Cat’s forehead, folded the ends over, brought them down across her cheeks, and tied them under her chin. The towel hid her face somewhat and finished her transformation into a fisherman.

  Kasane and Cat hung their rosaries of a hundred and eight prayer beads on their wrists and tied their brass pilgrims’ bells to their sashes. Then they put on their hats and packs. Fortified by the hot tea and leaning on their staffs, they joined the stream of traffic.

  When at an impasse Musashi recommended a mountain and sea change. If one’s opponent is expecting the sea, give him mountains. Cat was now prepared to give the guards at HakMne barrier a loutish peasant lad named Hachibei.

  As the TMkaidM wound up and around the side of the mountain, they could look over the edge and see the hamlets and paddies in the narrow valleys far below. The sides of the mountains were covered with hardwoods, all woven together with wisteria and azalea and saxifrage.

  Young women from the mountain villages hawked sweet dumplings and tea by the side of the road. Occasionally Cat passed a priest or nun begging. Rich merchants plodded by on rented horses led by postboys. Porters and kago bearers exchanged good-natured insults as they passed one another. Groups of pilgrims sang ditties from their home districts or chanted the praise of Buddha. Pairs of couriers jogged by shouting nonsense syllables, “Ei-sassa, ei-sassa, korya, korya, sassa, sassa,” in time to their pounding feet.

  As Cat and Kasane climbed higher, however, the tall cedars closed in over them, shutting out the sky. The small statues of JizM-sama, who protected travelers, became more frequent. Clusters of them, each wearing a small red bib, stood in niches carved from the granite boulders lining the road.

  People grew quiet. Even the kago bearers were saving their breath for the ascent. Cat heard her own gasps over the muffled clop of the horses’ straw-shod hooves on the rocks and the tinkling of bells. In the chill mountain air she began to sweat, and she took off her travel cloak.

  The road became a rocky, narrow trough passing between two rows of towering cryptomeria trees. As it rose toward the clouds, the TMkaidM twisted and turned on itself in short switchbacks. It was bordered by high banks and sheer drop-offs. It was flanked by stands of bamboo and tangled heaps of fallen trunks covered with moss and ferns.

  The trees were immense. The undergrowth was lush and dank. Silvery waterfalls catapulted down granite cliff faces into the deep, green crevices of valleys. The plumb faces of the mountains rose in hazy blue ranges as far as Cat could see.

  As Cat rounded a sharp turn she saw a small figure stumble just ahead. The child was burdened with a load of straw-wrapped bundles tied to a wooden frame and thatched with straw. The frame reached above her head, and it caused her to lose her balance. When she pitched toward the cliff’s edge, Cat grabbed the nearest side pole of the frame and hauled her to safety. The fall was three hundred cho to a river raging over boulders.

  The child staggered and collapsed onto her hands and knees on the rocks of the roadway. Her chest was heaving, and she was gasping for air as she struggled to rise again. She looked about eleven or twelve years old.

  “Wait.” While Kasane held the frame, Cat lifted the broad straw-padded strap from its place just below the child’s collarbone. Then she helped her up, led her to a boulder by the side of the road, and sat her down. Kasane steadied the ladderlike frame and leaned on it patiently.

  “Where are you going?” Cat asked.

  The girl only stared at her with wide, desperate eyes.

  “Where are your people?”

  Nothing.

  “Where do you live?”

  The girl gestured to her mouth.

  “You cannot speak?”

  The child was deaf and mute, but her eyes were eloquent. She was dressed in the rags of a paper shift tied with a wisteria vine. She was barefoot. Her arms and legs were thin as hairpins.

  Cat remembered her father’s mother admonishing her once for helping a servant. By helping her Cat had raised the woman above her proper station and threatened her orderly rebirth in the next life. But Cat also remembered Musui carrying the old woman’s burden of firewood.

  “I’ll carry it.” Kasane reached for the frame.

  “You have the pack to carry, and the bundle.” Cat put her pilgrim’s bell and her rosary into the furoshiki. Then she handed it to Kasane.

  Kasane held the frame, and the child arranged the thick woven straw pad on Cat’s back. Cat lifted the strap over her head and arranged it under her collarbone. She steadied the load while Cat stood up under it and shifted it to balance it. The frame forced her to wear her hat slanted forward and down. It restricted her vision to the stony patch of ground under her feet. Its weight bent her over. She tried to imagine what it must have been like for the child. She beckoned to the girl to follow. Then, leaning on her staff, she began trudging up the narrow road.

  CHAPTER 34

  JUMPING OFF KIYOMIZU TEMPLE

  As Hanshiro sat on the tea house balcony jutting out over a narrow chasm, he had to admire the sagacity of the mad bandit priest. The view from this crag was spectacular. Hanshiro could see all the way to the sparkling waters of the bay of Suruga, but that wasn’t its main advantage. From here he could also see travelers, on their way to the HakMne barrier, toiling along the switchbacks both up and down the mountain. When they passed directly below, they were out of sight of those above and below them on the road. It was an ideal place for an ambush.

  The bandit had been wise in his choice of roosts, but not in his selection of victims. Fifteen years earlier, the crag where this tea house now stood had been the highwayman’s lair.

  He had lived in a cave in the face of the cliff, and he had waited here until likely prey appeared. With his staff and its iron rings and spear’s head strapped on his back, he would swing across the chasm on a retractable rope bridge. In the guise of a mountain priest soliciting donations he would rob travelers of their clothing, their goods, and their money. Then he threw them, still alive, into the abyss.

  Thus he disposed of both evidence and witnesses. And he might have been operating here yet if late one winter afternoon he had not made the mistake of selecting a lone man heading eastward, down the snowy mountain. The traveler had been a seedy-looking individual with rustic written all over his shabby sandals, snow cape, hat, and leggings, all of straw. The bulky cape had hidden Hanshiro’s pair of swords, which were about al
l he had to his name when he’d left Tosa to find employment in the Eastern Capital.

  When the mad priest, red-rimmed eyes wild and staring and topknot all a-bristle, had loomed up in the road, Hanshiro hadn’t sullied his blade on him. His walking staff had sufficed. The priest had joined his victims. The bottom of the crevice was a long way down, giving him time to reflect on his misdeeds before he landed.

  “Is there anything else Your Honor desires?” The girl bowed low.

  “Everything is splendid.” Hanshiro smiled at the child.

  She was the very image of Snow, her mother, whom he could hear giving frantic orders in the kitchen. Hanshiro had asked Snow not to go to any trouble, but he knew the request was futile. He knew Snow had whispered instructions to her fifteen-year-old son as soon as Hanshiro appeared. Even now the boy was speeding down the mountain to buy fresh bonito in Odawara.

  When he returned Snow would toast the fish over a fire of pine needles. She would beat the fillets lightly with straws so the flavor of the smoke would permeate them while they turned a golden brown. If Hanshiro was still there when they were done, she would serve them with soy sauce and garlic. Bonito cooked that way was a specialty of Tosa; and if bonito was available, Snow always prepared it for Hanshiro.

  She would refuse payment, of course. Hanshiro never paid for anything here. He was responsible for Snow and her husband owning this tea house, although the mad priest was also their unwitting benefactor.

  After he killed the priest Hanshiro hadn’t looked for the treasure he must have hidden away. He had been much younger then, and naive. Money of all kinds was distasteful to him. Money tainted with death was anathema. But events turned out as they should on the Great Wheel.

  Another ri down the mountain Hanshiro had found Snow and her husband destitute and in rags. They had been begging in the snow by the side of the road. Their newborn son had been bundled up and asleep on Snow’s back. Hanshiro had assumed that they were the ones who were fated to receive good from the priest’s evil.

  Because the sun’s light had been fading fast, Hanshiro had given them his lantern. He had told them to search in the cave on the jagged precipice that blocked most of the sky above the road. In a way it was Hanshiro’s test of their courage and determination. Because of the priest’s depredations and the mysterious disappearances of travelers, stories abounded about that promontory. The mountain people whispered that demons lurked there, swooping down off the crag to crush the bones of hapless victims and suck the marrow.

  The couple braved the terrors of the accursed place. They found the neatly tied packets of heavy oval gold coins and the sacks of silver and copper in a basket hidden under matting at the rear of the cave. An army of priests marched up the mountain to exorcise the site and the money and to accept a generous donation for their services. Another army of tax collectors arrived to claim the government’s share. A phalanx of officials arranged for them to have the use of the land and received their “thank-money” in turn. With what was left the couple built this tea house.

  They named their aerie Gentle Haven. They added a red-lacquered arc of a bridge over the chasm. They lined the path to their front gate with stone lanterns that glowed cheerfully, welcoming travelers caught by nightfall. They built small shrines to JizM and Benten. They prospered.

  Over the years they had learned not to inquire into the reasons for Hanshiro’s visits. So now, except for a steady flow of tobacco and tea, hot towels, select tidbits, and the sweet sake for which HakMne was famous, no one bothered him. He had sat, straight and still, looking down the TMkaidM, since shortly after dawn. There was no evidence on his face of the emotions scuffling behind his navel.

  He watched the long procession of a daimyM’s entourage wind past. He inspected each person trudging up the slope, each bald-pated nun and peasant, each merchant, clerk, pilgrim, and itinerant pot polisher. He even scrutinized the couriers with their wooden letter boxes bouncing on their backs. Lady Asano would be deranged to try to pass herself off as a messenger, but he didn’t put it past her. She already had proven herself audacious and inventive. And deadly.

  The TMkaidM was so steep and treacherous here, most postboys were reluctant to rent their horses for this leg of the journey. The horses wore out the straw sandals quickly on the rocks, and their feet became tender. The way was littered with discarded horse sandals. As a result there were more of the light, open, mountain kago here than along the coast. A few of them had mats thrown over them to obscure the occupants. Hanshiro knew his quarry might be hidden in one of those, but he doubted it. Kira’s men were checking all kago.

  Hanshiro watched the approach of the peasant family, the ragged child, and the woman in the dirty white pilgrim’s robe. He saw their companion’s wide-brimmed pilgrim’s hat, gloved hands, and tabi-clad feet in tattered straw sandals and dirty white gaiters. They were the only parts visible under the stack of goods. Something was odd about the three as a group, though, and Hanshiro studied them as they made their slow progress up the mountain.

  Pilgrims didn’t usually carry such heavy burdens, but they often did behave strangely. A journey to a far country had a way of changing people. Virtuous farmers and obedient housewives turned frolicsome and licentious. Harlots and scurfy knaves became religious fanatics, determined to crawl the length of the country or wash the feet of every leper they could find.

  Hanshiro suspected that the peasant under the load was performing a self-indulgent penance for petty sins. Maybe he had made a fool of his neighbor’s wife in the communal storehouse. Or diverted a few momme of silver from the tax collection. Or mixed in extra handfuls of chaff with his own tax portion of rice.

  Once the three had passed, Hanshiro transferred his attention to the approaching group of merchants with their bearers and servants. And not far behind them the west country artist, and Hanshiro’s drinking partner, Nameless. Hanshiro watched him until he was out of sight.

  Then he settled back to wait. The day was new. He was sure that by the end of it he would have Lady Asano.

  “What is our lord’s name?”

  “Tsuchiya, lord of Kururi.”

  “Who is the magistrate?” As they walked, Kasane helped Cat memorize the names of the functionaries of their home province. The officials at the barrier might ask them such questions.

  “Yamashita,” Cat panted.

  “How many koku of rice does our lord command?”

  “ Seventy thousand.”

  The child interrupted the drill. She tugged at Cat’s sleeve and pointed upward.

  Cat turned her head sideways, peering out from under the load and up the steep slope. The trail through the huge boulders and the dense tangle of bushes, ferns, and trees was almost invisible. “Do you live up there?” she asked.

  The girl pointed again and pulled at the frame. Kasane helped Cat draw her arms out of the straps. The child tested the straw cords holding the stack of goods together before she let them transfer the straw pad and the frame to her back.

  “You can’t carry such a load up a path that steep.” Cat mouthed the words and gestured, but to no avail. The girl was already on her way.

  With her toes she sought purchases in the rocks and grabbed the bases of bushes to haul herself up the incline. It looked as though the load itself had acquired arms and legs and were crawling up the mountainside. Cat and Kasane watched her until she was out of sight in the luxuriant vegetation and drifting mist.

  May Amida protect you, Cat thought. Then she and Kasane resumed their own journey.

  Without the child’s load on her back Cat felt light-footed, able to run up the mountain. But soon she was gasping for breath again in the thin, biting air. A new weight seemed to press down on her. More weight dragged at each foot as she moved it out in front of her.

  Snow lay in patches on rocks and outcroppings, but Cat was sweating. She passed men struggling up the slope under loads as tall as they were, or resting by the wayside, eyes bulging, muscles quivering with the strain
.

  About the middle of the day Cat and Kasane stopped to sip cups of hot water from the kettle on a boy’s portable brazier. They bought skewers of rice dumplings from a shy young woman who stood by the side of the road. They trudged silently past tiny hamlets clinging to the mountainsides.

  As they climbed higher their afternoon shadows lengthened behind them. Without being aware of it, they drew closer together as they neared Lake HakMne. At the lower end of the long, narrow stretch of water was a saddle in the basalt rock. Straddling it was the fenced compound of the government’s control post.

  Bordering Lake HakMne was a thriving town of inns and tea houses. Shops and baths and a small, insouciant pleasure district lined the main thoroughfare. The women in the souvenir shops offered bowls and boxes decorated with elaborate cherry- and camphorwood inlay.

  The inns’ maids importuned travelers. Touts shouted the advantages of the sulphur waters of their hot springs spas. Dozens of ferries and pleasure boats bobbed at anchor along Lake Hakone’s shoreline. It was a cheerful place, but at the other side stood a government guard. Each traveler who passed him had to be bareheaded. Those on horseback or in kago had to dismount. As Cat passed by him she felt his gaze assessing her.

  The short stretch of the TMkaidM beyond the town was particularly lovely. The roadbed was more level as it followed the ridgeline and passed between an avenue of silent, towering cryptomeria. The huge trees muted the noise of the couriers and the kago bearers and the pilgrims’ bells. Their grandeur didn’t ease Cat’s dread. And she was reproaching herself for leading Kasane into such peril.

  Cat saw the crowd of travelers waiting to pass the barrier about the same time she saw the four severed heads. Each head, with black hair unbound and hanging loose where the men’s shoulders once had been, rested on a narrow shelf fastened atop two posts. The four shelves were lined up parallel with the road and at eye level. Each head sat in a ring of blood-soaked cloth that held it upright.