The Tokaido Road

by Lucia St. Clair Robson

  Stuck into the ground beside each was a narrow plank with a square plaque nailed to it. The plaques were inscribed with the crimes of the heads’ owners. As they walked slowly past them Cat read the plaques to Kasane.

  “This one killed a bird.” Cat considered the irony of Tokugawa Tsunayoshi’s law making the killing of any living thing punishable by death or exile. “This one tried to sneak around the barrier.”

  “Why does the third one have a doll’s head with it?”

  “He was a wandering puppeteer. He was suspected of being a spy.”

  Cat read the fourth plaque, then she read it slowly again. The fourth man had been beheaded for the murder of two samurai in Hiratsuka and a merchant in Odawara. Was that a coincidence, or had he paid the price for Cat’s crime?

  Kasane whimpered as she moved closer to Cat. She once had seen a man decapitated in her village. He had been caught trying to bribe the assessor to overlook his newest field. She had passed the exposed head each day, and she had studied it as though it were an artifact. Now she realized she might suffer the same fate.

  Cat sat down under three huge cedars growing from a grassy hillock near the flight of stone steps leading to a temple. She set the bottom of the bundle on the slope behind her and leaned against it. She spread her legs in a most unladylike way and rested her forearms on her knees.

  “What will happen to us, mistress?” Kasane spoke in a low voice as she massaged Cat’s calves. They were knotted and quivering with the strain of the climb.

  Cat reached out and tilted up Kasane’s chin so she could look into her eyes. “Turn back now, elder sister.” Her voice was low and intense. “I’ll say you took ill and returned to our village.”

  “They’ll find me on the road. They’ll execute me anyway.”

  “Don’t be silly. They don’t know the whereabouts of every peasant.” But Cat knew she would never convince Kasane of that.

  Kasane was sure the government’s spies kept it apprised of the comings and goings of each of its thirty million subjects. She assumed the shMgun knew to a grain how much millet the people of her village harvested from their tiny fields and how many fish they caught. It knew the decisions made in each meeting of each of the hundreds of thousands of groups of five heads of households in each of the thousands of villages scattered throughout the land.

  If it hadn’t taken her into custody yet, that was only because it hadn’t cared to. That made her determination to try to fool the barrier guards even more astonishing.

  “I will stay with you, mistress.”

  “Then we have jumped off Kiyomizu temple.” Cat could tell that Kasane had no idea what she was talking about. “Kiyomizu temple sits on a mountainside near the Western Capital,” Cat said. “It has a sheer cliff in front of it. To jump off the terrace of Kiyomizu temple means one has done a rash deed and cannot turn back.”

  Cat used her round fan with “Souvenir of Totsuka” written on it, to brush the dust off her trousers. “The official at the barrier will demand our permits. I’ll give them both to him. Say nothing unless he asks you a question. A woman may take you aside and search you, but they don’t usually pay much attention to peasants.”

  Cat took a deep breath and closed her eyes briefly. Sitting down had been a mistake. Her body rebelled at the thought of getting up and walking again. She used her staff to haul herself to her feet.

  “Dewa mairo?” She smiled at Kasane. “Shall we go?”

  CHAPTER 35

  NEITHER GATE NOR INTERIOR

  Four of the barrier guards were warming their hands at a brazier beside the roofed gate in the high picket fence. Cat envied the carefree travelers coming out of that gate. They had passed the barrier and now were headed down the mountain toward Odawara. Beyond the gate was the compound with its outbuildings, guard barracks, and the long, low wooden structure where the officials were.

  Through the openings between the fence slats Cat and Kasane could see travelers, scribes, couriers, and flocks of minor officials scurrying to and fro. Pack drivers reloaded baggage that had been checked. Postboys fed and curried their mounts.

  The gate guards wore broad white headbands tied in the center of their foreheads, just below their shaved crowns. They looked identical in uniforms of dark orange hakama and persimmon-colored kimono, each with a broad white stripe across the chest and the hollyhock crest of the Tokugawas.

  The men at the brazier talked in low voices while the deputy guard, in black tabi and a knee-length black-and-white hakama over a black kimono, sorted out the travelers. He allowed official messengers and members of the upper class to pass without waiting, then priests, pilgrims, and farmers. Merchants, artisans, beggars, and entertainers were held until last.

  “Your passes.” The deputy guard glanced at the permits Cat held out. “Over there.” With his fan he motioned Cat and Kasane toward the pilgrims and farmers waiting in the cedar grove.

  Some of the travelers were eating food they had bought in Odawara. Others were massaging their sore feet. A few had fallen asleep, sprawled on the ground with their travel cloaks wrapped around them and their heads leaning against their travel boxes or packs. Four or five young men, dressed as pilgrims, were playing cards. Another pilgrim was rattling his rosary and praying loudly.

  Nearby, the kago bearers traded boasts of their sexual exploits. Their bone-sore passengers walked around to loosen stiffened muscles and joints. One of them was suffering from kago sickness. He vomited into the bushes while the bearers made jokes about him. A line of people waited at the shed housing the privies. Peddlers of tea and rice cakes circulated among the crowd.

  Cat lowered her heavy bundle to the ground. Kasane set her pack on its short legs. She unrolled one of the mats for Cat to sit on, then she took off her tattered sandals and stepped onto the far end of it. She knelt and sat back on her heels. She pulled her paper travel cloak tight around her and twisted her fingers in it so their quivering wouldn’t be so noticeable. She stared at the swords bristling from the guards’ sashes.

  Cat thought about taking her guidebook from the front of her jacket and distracting Kasane by reading from it, but she reconsidered. A fisherman who could read would be noticed.

  “Won’t you try my mushroom tea? It’s the very finest.” The old man crouched, set down the portable brazier and the heavy wooden water bucket balanced on his carrying pole. “Only five coppers, Your Honor.” He tucked his head under his arm and sneezed into his sleeve, which was tied back with a straw cord.

  “We’re fine, thank you.” Cat politely avoided the ugly word no. She would have liked a cup of hot tea, though. Now that she had stopped walking, the wind was chilling the sweat on her body. But she knew to a copper how little money they had left, and she knew she must spend it frugally.

  When the old man had taken up his burden again and trotted off, Kasane looked around, then tugged surreptitiously at Cat’s sleeve.

  “He gave me a folded paper, mistress,” she whispered.

  “The old tea peddler?”

  “Yes. I think it’s from that same young man.”

  “The one at the inn last night?”

  “Yes. He’s at the tea stand across the way.” Kasane glanced up obliquely. “He’s waving his sleeve at me. What should I do?” She was agitated, but at least her mind was off the ordeal facing her at the barrier.

  “This is an intrigue between the two of you,” Cat murmured without looking up. “Hide the letter in your sash and don’t let on you’ve told me.”

  Cat didn’t need this foolishness distracting her from the problems ahead, but still she had to stifle a smile.

  “Bring the fingers of your right hand to your lips,” she said.

  “Then reach over and lightly touch your left shoulder. Dip your sleeve gracefully as you return your hand, very, very slowly, to your lap.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You’re acknowledging that you received his letter and will give it attention as soon as you can.”


  “Hurry up!” The guard waved the farmers and pilgrims toward the gate.

  The command was unnecessary. People grabbed their bundles and rushed to be first in line. Cat and Kasane ran barefoot to the fence and put their sandals on while they waited to enter. One daimyM’s small procession had just passed, which was the reason for the delay. If a large one were to arrive, they could all be stranded here for another day while hundreds of retainers were cleared.

  As Cat entered the compound she saw the last of the upper-class travelers. The woman was dressed in a shabby paper robe rented from the tea shop just outside the gate. Two guards and a woman hired at the tea shop to serve as a go-between were escorting her toward a small building. Cat glanced over at Kasane’s pale face. She had seen her, too.

  “They only inspect women of the upper class,” Cat whispered.

  The line edged slowly toward the squat building. The broad swags of white bunting hanging from the wide front eaves snapped in the wind. The draperies were emblazoned with the Tokugawa crest, and they formed a sort of corridor. The gently pitched roof was weighted with stones to keep the cedar shingles from blowing off in the fierce mountain storms. The wooden shutters were slid back to reveal the large room inside.

  “I’m frightened,” Kasane whispered.

  “You’re a peasant. They expect you to be frightened. But I expect you to be calm.”

  Cat could feel her heart pounding as she moved with the line of travelers crossing the noisy compound. What if her act didn’t fool them? What if they took Kasane away for a search and frightened her into exposing Cat? What if they found the yawara stick in Cat’s sleeve? It seemed like years ago that Viper had given it to her. The guards would recognize it as a weapon.

  In this world, if you go into the mountains and decide to go deeper and yet deeper, you will emerge at the gate. Cat thought of Musashi’s words. In my school of the long-sword there is neither gate nor interior. There is only the spirit.

  When she and Kasane reached the checkpoint they held their pilgrims’ hats in their hands, and with heads bent respectfully, they entered the chill shade under the eaves, behind the draped curtains. They knelt on the wide bench that ran the length of the building and bowed low. The bench put them below the raised floor of the room. They faced at a properly obsequious angle to the captain of the guard. The guard himself knelt below the three officials who sat on a tatami-covered platform.

  Now that the upper-class travelers had passed, the officials were relaxing. One leaned on an elbow cushion and smoked. With chopsticks the other two picked tidbits off the plates set on lacquered stands in front of them. Off to one side, the scribe sat at his low writing desk. His brush was poised to enter Cat’s name, age, district, and village on the register.

  “Your papers.” The captain waited for his assistant to take the travel permits from Cat and give them to him. “Have you funds enough to support you?”

  Cat gave him the cloth sack she had tucked inside her jacket. The captain loosened the drawstring and spilled the silver and strings of coppers into his hand.

  “I suppose you plan to beg to eke this out.”

  “We were told we could depend on the piety and generosity of those kind souls we meet along the way.” Cat knocked her head abjectly on the bench.

  “Simpletons.” The captain tossed the sack back to Cat. “Don’t try selling your sister to cover your expenses. Pass quickly through this province. If you’re caught spying or disobeying the law, you will be punished.”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  While the scribe entered the information on the permits into his ledger, Cat listened to the conversation passing among the three officials. She almost panicked when she realized they were talking about the man whose fate was to be beheaded in her stead.

  “Which one is it?” The man who was smoking had just arrived.

  “The last head,” said the younger man.

  “The ugliest one,” said the older.

  “Fast work.” With brass chopsticks the smoker picked an ember from the brazier and relit his pipe.

  “Witnesses saw him kill a merchant for his purse outside Odawara last night. The police arrested him at a low-class brothel in Miyanoshita. After the torturer applied the ‘lobster,’ they only had to show him the investigation whip. He began crowing like a cock. He confessed to the two murders in the bathhouse in Hiratsuka.”

  “How did one peasant manage to kill two samurai!”

  “He said they were drunk. He told a very funny story just before the executioner barbered him. We were all amused.”

  Cat was concentrating so hard on the conversation that she didn’t hear the captain of the guard say, “Next.” He rapped his fan sharply on the tatami when Cat didn’t respond. “Move along.”

  “Forgive me, Your Honor.” Cat retrieved the permits the assistant held out and scrambled clumsily off the bench.

  She purposely moved too slowly to avoid the assistant’s rod. When he brought it down across her shoulders the pain surged down into the small of her back and up her neck, where it spread out behind her ears. She yelped and scuttled off, sideways, bowing as she went.

  Cat and Kasane walked across the compound and through the gate. They hurried past the kago men who rushed to congratulate those who had passed the barrier and collect the coppers the relieved travelers gave them for luck. Cat, however, had no coppers to spare.

  She and Kasane paused at the chapel to JizM and gave thanks for their safe passage. Then they walked quickly past the shops and tea houses. In spite of the pain throbbing in her back and head and shoulders, Cat felt like laughing. Passing the barrier had been easier than she had dared hope. Being a faceless peasant had its advantages.

  Once beyond the village Kasane spoke first. “I’m sorry he hurt you. I’ll rub your shoulders when we stop tonight.”

  “Pain is a matter of indifference.” This pain, in fact, proved that Cat had fooled the guard. He would never have hit her had he known she was of a samurai family. She whirled to face Kasane and walk backward down the trail. “I don’t see your young man behind us.”

  Kasane turned to look.

  “Give me the letter.” Under her wide-brimmed hat Cat still wore the towel Kasane had tied under her chin, and she grinned out from it. The smudges of dirt Kasane had rubbed onto Cat’s face made her look young and mischievous.

  Kasane gave Cat the letter. “You were very good at the barrier, younger brother,” she whispered.

  Cat unwrapped the heavy outer paper and took out the soft pliable sheet folded inside. The folds were well done, simple, yet with a certain rustic elegance. Kasane’s suitor was a peasant with artistic sensibilities.

  “ ‘If the wind blows . . .’ ” Cat read. “ ‘And bends the temple willows; won’t you bend too, in love’s wind?’ ” Cat looked up in mock disapproval. “He’s a bold fellow!”

  “He’s only a farmer.” Kasane defended him diffidently.

  “It is said that a curse will fall on anyone who refuses to gratify the love of another. “Cat gave the letter back to Kasane. “It is said that if a person suffers obsession of the heart and is not relieved, his or her spirit will return after death to take vengeance.”

  Kasane was unable to find in her limited experience anything to say about such a complication. She was terrified of ghosts in general. The idea that one might have animosity for her personally almost paralyzed her with fear.

  “I think this is just an infatuation of the road.” Cat took pity on her and stopped teasing. “Maybe he wants a marriage not entered into the book at the temple. Do you want to discourage him?”

  “I don’t think so,” Kasane said almost inaudibly.

  “Then we’ll send him an answer tonight.” Cat was amused by this flirtation, but she was wary of it, too. It could put her and Kasane in jeopardy.

  Cat also felt protective, brotherly, in fact. Kasane was so naive. So inexperienced. A man could easily make a fool of her.

  Cat was composing a p
oem to send to Kasane’s suitor when she saw a man and woman struggling by the side of the road. The attacker had a hand over his victim’s mouth so she could make only muffled cries.

  The few other travelers in the vicinity hurried past; but Cat brandished her walking staff and advanced, stiff-legged, toward them. The thief saw her coming and shoved the woman into her. Then he ran into the thick undergrowth and disappeared.

  Kneeling in the road and sobbing incoherently, the woman clung to Cat’s waist. She looked middle-aged and quite respectable, although she was hysterical and disheveled by the attack.

  “Calm yourself, auntie,” Cat said. “He’s gone now.” She was pleased to see that Kasane still clutched her own staff in a fighting position. She wouldn’t be the first peasant to become a samurai, Cat thought.

  Cat helped the woman to her feet. “Do you live nearby?”

  Still sobbing, the woman pointed up the mountain. She bowed repeatedly as she backed toward a narrow path. Cat and Kasane continued down the trail with her thanks following them.

  “You’re a brave one, Kasane.”

  “I was frightened, but I knew you could beat him.”

  Cat turned off onto a side trail, screened by bushes.

  “Plant your feet like so.” She demonstrated a fighting stance. “Hold your staff up.”

  Kasane stood as she was told, and Cat did a reverse grip spin. She cracked her staff against Kasane’s, not with full force, but hard enough to send a shock up her arms.

  “That’s the basic strike. Now you try it. Use the force of the spinning shaft to knock me over.”

  Kasane hit at Cat’s staff timidly.

  “Hard.”

  Kasane hit a little harder.

  “As hard as you can.”

  Cat felt the beginning of the tingle that meant Kasane was applying force, but she knew she had a great deal of strength she wasn’t using.

  “We’ll practice later,” Cat said. “While we walk we can play the priest game.”

  “How is it played?”

  “You carry both our packs until you see a priest. Then I have to carry both of them until I see one, and so on.”