The Tokaido Road

by Lucia St. Clair Robson

  “She once helped a young woman who believed in her.” As Cat began her story, the heaps of matting at the other fires stirred and moved closer so the people huddled under them could hear better.

  “At a time now past there was a small shrine to the goddess of mercy at the top of a mountain.” Cat spoke in the guttural, drawn-out rhythm of the storyteller. It turned the telling of this old tale into a performance.

  “A young wife who lived in the valley worshiped Kannon-sama devoutly. Every evening, when she finished her work, she went to the shrine to pay homage to the statue of the goddess. The young woman’s husband grew suspicious of her nightly trips. He was sure she was being unfaithful. Jealousy gnawed like a rat at his soul until he could stand it no more. He took his sword to be sharpened.

  “One night, after she had left, he hid in the dark woods by the path. When she passed on her way home he swung his sword at her, cutting deep into her shoulder.”

  By now the various pieces of matting were sitting upright. They framed dark faces with shaggy black hair. The outcasts were listening raptly.

  “He wiped the blood from the blade and went home, satisfied that he had punished his wicked wife and sent her to be reborn much lower on the Great Wheel. When he arrived at his house he was astonished to see there the woman he thought he had hacked to death. He took a lantern back to the place where he had ambushed her and found drops of blood in the road.

  “Then he went home again and asked her, ‘Didn’t you feel something strange when you passed the eight-limbed pine tree at the stream?’ ‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘For a moment my blood turned cold in my veins.’ “ Cat lowered her voice to a husky whisper.

  Her audience drew closer to the comfort of the fire.

  “When the husband went out the next morning, he found a trail of blood from his house all the way up the mountain to the shrine. The statue of Kannon-sama had a long cleft on her shoulder, in the exact place he had struck his wife the night before.” Cat paused eloquently. “So the tale’s been told, and so it’s been handed down.”

  “Ma!” A murmur rose from the listeners.

  “The merciful goddess substituted herself to save the faithful wife.” The young woman seemed to find comfort in the story.

  “That’s right,” Cat said.

  After a short silence the grandfather spoke. “Why are you two young people alone on the road?” He looked at Cat with milky eyes that seemed to see through her.

  “My sister and I are the children of poor but loving parents.” Cat spoke in the same detached voice as the young woman, as though her story had happened to someone else. “Our mother and father rose before dawn and worked until long after dark to provide for us.

  “Because our father was the farmers’ representative, he was responsible for delivering the five-families’ assessment to the headman. He discharged his duty punctually, but he absent-mindedly left without getting a receipt for the rice.

  “The next day the headman claimed the rice had never been delivered. He accused our father of stealing it. Our father protested his innocence. He begged the headman to clear his name, but to no avail.

  “While we and our mother were in the yard, heckling what little rice was left after four koku out of every five had been taken for taxes, our father threw a rope around a beam in the kitchen. He tied one end to a pillar and put the other around his neck. He stood on a bucket, then kicked it out from under him. We found him hanging there when we returned at nightfall.”

  Kasane wiped her eyes on her sleeve. She knew Cat was making up the story, but she was crying anyway.

  “Our mother went mad with grief.” Cat sighed sadly. “She shaved her head and disappeared.”

  Cat regretted lying to people whose own troubles were so great, but she had no choice. In any case, her father truly had been betrayed and had killed himself. Her mother had shaved her head and become a nun.

  “We have vowed to visit every temple until we find her.”

  “May Amida Buddha help you,” the young woman murmured. She held out a small packet wrapped in a bamboo sheath. “I was saving this for the morning meal, but we can always beg more.” She saw that Cat was about to protest. “As a holy gift, Your Honor.”

  One could not refuse a pious gift to pilgrims. Tears stung Cat’s eyes as she bowed low and took the package. She opened it, split the crisp, toasted rice cake inside and gave half to Kasane.

  The most ferocious-looking of the men knelt in front of Cat and bowed. The wadded cotton of his ancient jacket showed through the huge rips in it. “A token of gratitude for the story of the substituting Kannon-sama.” He held out a short cylinder of coppers wrapped in a scrap of grimy paper.

  ‘ ‘Thank you.” Cat was so affected by the kindness, she could hardly speak. It wasn’t just that he had given her money when he obviously had almost none himself. He had not given her the coins naked, as one would toss them to a beggar.

  “Amida bless you,” she said softly. “As you travel, may no wind stir the pine trees along the road. May those you meet be polite and generous. May ferrymen not overcharge. And may the young and the blind walk safely alone.”

  Cat took off her travel cloak and draped it over the sleeping child. “My sister is tired,” she said. “We’re going to sleep now.” She pressed her comb into the young woman’s hand. It was one of the few things she had had on her when she and Kasane had fled Mishima.

  “You’re too kind to the unworthy, Your Honor.” But the young woman smiled as she tucked the cloak around the boy. Then she began running the comb through his hair. “Oyasumi-nasai,” she called softly to Cat. “Rest well.”

  Cat joined Kasane, who was trying to make herself comfortable on the bare, cold gravel. She had left her torn paper cloak laid out for Cat to sleep on, but Cat gestured for Kasane to lie on it. Cat curled up behind her, with her back to the river and her face toward the direction of possible attack.

  She fitted her body to the curve of Kasane’s back and hips and legs. She laid her staff alongside Kasane, where she could reach forward and grab it in an emergency. She pulled the rest of the cloak as far over them both as she could, but she felt the cold air blowing in from the river. Her feet were icy.

  For a time she lay with her head pillowed in the crook of her right arm and her left arm along Kasane’s hip. She listened to the river murmuring over rocks. She tensed at the hollow sound of running footsteps overhead. When they diminished in the distance, she relaxed. The feet probably belonged to a courier on an urgent mission that sent him on through the darkness.

  “Do you think we’re too close to the water, younger brother?” Kasane could see the moonlight sparkling on the ripples. She flinched when something splashed.

  Kasane was right to worry about kappa, river imps. Fishy-smelling and naked, they came ashore from time to time at night to steal cucumbers and melons. They also raped women, sucked the blood and livers of horses through their anuses, and dragged people into the water to drown.

  “We have no cucumbers, older sister,” Cat teased. “Or are you hiding some that the river imps might be after?” She tickled Kasane, who giggled and twisted to avoid her fingers.

  “One mustn’t laugh at kappa-sama,” Kasane said softly. “It annoys them.”

  “Have you ever seen one?”

  “No. But many years ago a man and woman in my village did.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “As kappa usually look. He was small and green, with a long nose and a dishlike head and a tortoise shell on his back.”

  “Where did they see him?”

  “The wife of the most prosperous man in the village was very beautiful. One night when she went to the privy she felt a cold touch on her buttock.”

  “Is that so! He grabbed her in the privy?”

  “Yes.” Kasane giggled again. “But she was the daughter of a masterless samurai, and not one to be trifled with. She shouted, ‘Scoundrel,’ and saw a shaggy little man run away.

  “
The next night she took her short-sword with her to the privy. When he grabbed her in the same spot, she cut off his hand. He ran away shrieking. The woman took the hand to her husband.”

  “Was it webbed?”

  “Yes. Her husband told her the kappa must have fallen in love with her. He kept the hand until the next night when the kappa came and begged him for it. Before he would give it back he made the imp sign a pledge promising never to harm the people of Pine village.”

  “Did he keep his promise?”

  “Yes. It’s said that the man’s descendents still have the paper stored with the scrolls of their ancestors. But we children were cautious. Whenever we went near water we said, ‘Mr. Kappa, we belong to Pine village. Please, don’t play tricks on us.’ “ Kasane fell silent for so long, Cat assumed she was asleep.

  “You’re so beautiful, mistress,” Kasane whispered at last. “Be careful when you go ‘somewhere.’ “

  “I’ll always take a weapon into the privy with me, elder

  sister.” Cat smoothed Kasane’s hair. “I’m sorry I couldn’t find a better place to spend the night,” she murmured.

  “There’s no help for it and a sorely pressed bird isn’t choosy about branches.” Kasane snuggled up against Cat. “Oyasumi-nasai, “ she said. “Rest well.”

  “Oyasumi-nasai. “

  CHAPTER 40

  ARTS FOR SALE

  Cat had purposely picked a quiet spot on the teeming grounds of Numazu’s main temple. She had set up her booth near a small door in the temple’s side wall. The door had not been used in such a long time that kudzu vines had covered it.

  The priests’ kitchen had been destroyed recently by fire, and they had set aside this day to solicit donations for its rebuilding. The faithful had flocked here from Numazu and from the hamlets scattered for several ri around. Farmers dragged small carts loaded with grain while their wives, many of them with babies strapped on their backs, pushed from behind. Others carried coils of rope, fardels of bamboo poles, and rolls of cloth.

  The usual vendors of tea and dumplings, fans and willow withes, of lurid papier-mâché masks and paper birds, had gathered, and the occasion had turned into a fair.

  “You have a mouth as big as a stew pan!” Cat spoke in the explosive, guttural syllables and fierce nonsense words of the aragoto style of acting, the “rough stuff.” She was taking both roles, which required her to prowl back and forth behind her booth made from a plank laid across two upturned tubs.

  To emphasize the moment, she rapped one of a pair of oaken blocks down on the plank. She paused, then hit the two blocks alternatively again and again. The intervals between the sharp sounds grew shorter until she was beating a frantic tattoo, a flurry of ratcheting clacks that signaled high drama just ahead.

  She left the blocks on the plank and posed with her right arm held stiffly outward and her hand clenched into a fist. Her left hand rested on the butt of the stick stuck into her sash as a sword.

  She stuck out her left leg with her toes pointed upward and rolled her head, ending by looking over her right shoulder. She crossed her left eye in the direction of her imaginary opponent and froze in a burlesque of Ichikawa Danjuro’s dramatic mie. The mie wasn’t called for in this comic interlude, which made it all the more ridiculous.

  “That’s what we’ve been waiting for!” Someone shouted out the usual kabuki encouragement. The audience roared with laughter, luring more people away from the competition in Cat’s vicinity.

  Cat had cut a wide strip from the bottom of Kasane’s black paper travel cloak and had wrapped it around her head. Another long piece covered the lower half of her face. It was the usual disguise of someone who didn’t want to be recognized. Bandits wore them, but so did illicit lovers, priests, and samurai when they frequented the gay districts. Cat knew a host of stories-romantic, comic, tragic, and terrifying—that required her to wear a mask.

  She was playing both of the bumbling bandits in the old farce The Literate Highwaymen. She had reached the part of the play where they attacked each other.

  Cat turned away from her audience. She wound one arm up around her neck and the other across her side, gripping at the small of her back. “The way we are grappling must be a wonderful sight.” She twisted and swayed so it appeared as if the hands belonged to someone else and she was struggling with him.

  “If we should die, no one would see this heroic scene,” she shouted over her shoulder. “ And who would notify our wives? “

  “We could leave a note.” She assumed the guttural growl of the second bandit. “What do you think?”

  “We can’t write a note.” Cat wrestled ferociously with herself. By now the laughter caused people to come running from distant parts of the temple compound. “Our arms are locked.”

  “Let’s count ‘One, two, three,’ and at ‘three’ we’ll both let go at once.”

  The sword swallower, the diviner, and the magician glowered at Cat. The blind lute player bowed gracefully to circumstance and went off in search of a quieter corner.

  Cat hadn’t intended to draw undue attention to herself. She only wanted to earn a few coppers for the day’s food. At most she had hoped to make enough to pay the ferryman to take her and Kasane across the Kano River.

  Kasane was doing her part, too. She had cajoled a bamboo ladle from a shopkeeper and was now circulating through the grounds, begging with it. Cat knew that begging was an honorable and virtuous activity, but she hated doing it. She suspected that the old saying might be true—one who had been a beggar for three days could not stop. She preferred entertaining. Of course, entertaining was considered a form of begging and was neither honorable nor virtuous. And Cat suspected Musashi wouldn’t have approved.

  In his Earth Book he deplored the trend toward “arts for sale,” men thinking of themselves as commodities. But he had been referring to those who advertised their schools of martial strategy, selling their prowess for profit. Cat was merely selling her wit.

  She had fabricated her mask, using the scissors that had been with her through seven falls and eight rises, as the old saying went. She had scrounged the materials for her booth from the construction site at the charred kitchen and had gone into business. Now she was regretting her success and the attention it was drawing.

  She would have regretted it more if she had known that Hanshiro stood at the edge of the crowd. He had come to make a donation to the temple and, while he was at it, to ask discreetly if a certain brother and sister had sought pilgrims’ lodging. Instead he waited behind a tall, moss-covered stone lantern and listened.

  Hanshiro was now in disguise himself, not because he thought he could fool Cat, but to be less conspicuous. He wore a blue cotton towel over his head and tied under his chin. He wore the wide bamboo hat, loincloth, fringed short apron, and belted padded jacket of ayakko, the lowest ranking of a lord’s retainers. When a mischievous wind blew up the tail of his jacket, it revealed a matched pair of bare, muscular buttocks.

  Hanshiro had rolled his long-sword into the mat strapped across his back. He wore his short-sword in his sash and his iron fan tucked out of sight inside his coat. He carried his few belongings in a small furoshiki slung from his staff.

  He had cozened the barrier scribe into revealing the names on Lady Asano’s and her companion’s travel papers, but he knew he would have to proceed cautiously. Alarming Lady Asano would undoubtedly cause a commotion that would be disastrous for all concerned.

  Mistress Cat was continuing to cut an astonishing swath through her enemies and managing to remain anonymous while she did it. According to Hanshiro’s usual informants at the transport office in Mishima, a dangerous pair of thieves was on the loose. A young peasant and his sister had attacked and bested five Edo samurai at a low-class guest house two nights before.

  They had beaten the men senseless and thrown them into a ravine. The samurai had suffered broken bones and bruises. When questioned by the authorities, they were mysteriously vague about the encounter
, and the local magistrate was holding them in custody until the matter could be looked into.

  The actual battle had been shrouded in night’s black cloak. However, plenty of witnesses and lanterns had been on hand when the men were pulled from the ravine. Even so, Hanshiro found it almost impossible to believe that one small woman and a peasant accomplice had overcome five of Kira’s retainers.

  Whatever had happened behind that wretched inn, Lady Asano was certainly complicating Lord Kira’s life. He must be bowel-locked in fear.

  Hanshiro smiled inwardly at the thought of it.

  “Thank you all.” When her performance was over Cat bowed into the applause and the shower of coppers. She stood back until the last of the coins had fallen on the plank, then she began collecting them. Her audience drifted off to see the magician exhale bees.

  Keeping the tall stone lantern between Cat and himself, Hanshiro backed away, turned on his straw-clad heel, and melted into the throng. Now he knew what voice the Lady Cat was using in her disguise as Hachibei of Pine village in the province of Kazusa. He retired to the small pleasure district hard by the temple’s main gate to drink tea, allow his heart to slow to its normal pace, and ponder his next move.

  “Hachibei ...” Kasane set her ladle on the plank of Cat’s booth. It contained thirty-seven coppers. She was flushed and out of breath. ‘ ‘I saw him!”

  “Who?” Cat was seated on an upturned tub, but she pulled her staff closer and studied the milling crowd for enemies.

  “The young man. The pilgrim. Please write the poem for me.”

  Cat counted out some of the precious coins. Love, after all, was more important than food. “Buy a bit of ink, a brush this thick ...” She held up her little finger. “And two sheets of paper. Honsho paper if you can find it.” Cat added more coins for a better grade of paper. Kasane deserved it, and besides, in worshiping love one should not distinguish between the highest and the lowest.

  Kasane darted off.

  “Forgive my rudeness. . . .” The voice was husky and musical. Its owner spoke with an Osaka accent. A pale, graceful hand laid two silver coins called “little drops,” wrapped in scented, lavender-colored paper, next to the coppers Cat was counting out on the rough board. “Are you interested in employment? ”