by Ronan Frost
*
The narrow window stood open, admitting a chill mountain air cascading delightfully across my sleeping pallet where I lay warm beneath the heavy blankets. The dawn sky outside was a clear and a rosy pink, the tops of evergreens standing still and silent, their burdens of snow poised upon sagging branches. How long had I been awake and staring at that view? The panic that had gripped me earlier had fled, as had the insidious cold that had eaten its way up from my fingers and toes. I still hurt, but it was the dull throbbing of a body under repair. Moving my hands beneath the blankets I could flex my fingers and feel the texture of the fabric.
I lay there some time, my attention drifting until the warming sun sloughed snow from a branch with sudden flick and drumming tattoo of soft wetness on the ground brought me back to wakefulness. I moved slowly push away the blankets, feeling the stale captured warmth of air dissipate quickly into the chill of the unheated room. I sat upright, shivering and naked. My travel worn clothes had been laundered and were folded on the tatami by the bed. I felt raw, exposed both physically and emotionally, and hurried to dress into the farmer boy’s clothing. I found my feet, pausing a moment as my head spun. What had happened to me? It felt like I had been on a long journey not of this world, and I had a sensation that what had happened to me was no ordinary healing. In some strange way I wore my body oddly; just like the farmer boy’s clothes, it felt like it was not my own.
With sudden resolve I slid open the door upon its well-waxed tracks and stepped out into a corridor. At its end, the staircase was narrow and dark and I had to move carefully, feeling my way forward. My gait was hobbled from the shrinking pain of the tender and soft soles of my feet that adhered to the floorboards, my steps mincing as the long muscles in my legs refused to stretch. Wryly, I reflected that I felt like an animated version of the koto, the thirteen-stringed long-boarded instrument I had sometimes heard in the court of Lord Date. The discordant plucking and twanging of those muscles, however, was far from the sweetly sad tones of such music.
I came from the stairs and into the lonely vastness of the main room, crossing it with slow steps.
“Excuse me,” I called out in soft query, but my voice was swallowed by that emptiness. I was aware of something growing by invisible degrees, like a lengthening shadow as the sun sank. This place of devotion where the gods and spirits were revered had the effect of bringing their presence all the more into this world, the act of prayer and belief giving them very real form and substance. I had to escape, to find someone living. I dashed stiff-legged towards the door and the floorboards gave slightly underfoot, as if those eternal souls had found their voice, but whether benign or malevolent I could not discern. I fancied that somewhere in those creaks and calls was the voice of my drowned brother.
I stepped into my boots that were neatly aligned at the entryway and, clutching myself against the cold, stepped outside.
The oppressive feeling lifted. It was a clear winter’s day, a low sun in a clear blue sky. Long shadows of the towering sugi trees reached over the clearing, and the sunlight that made it through the canopy was sparse and patchy. The stairs where I stood were in shadow, and my breath condensed and swirled. From my vantage atop the stairs, I saw the network of stone paths, swept clear of snow, every stone and twig looking as if it were carefully placed and tended. Nothing stirred. The stillness of the air mirrored the quiet in my mind, and I was reminded of the silence that comes the day after the fury of a typhoon.
Standing was becoming painful upon my ravaged feet and, spying a patch of inviting sunlight at the base of the stairs, I crabbed downward. As I walked there came a distant clack of wood upon stone, a few steps, and then silence again. I knew it could only be the sound of the tengu-geta. I moved in the direction that I had heard it, and rounding a bend in the path saw a lone figure. It was the groundskeeper, his head bowed and features hidden beneath the brim of a round straw hat. He still wore those distinctive goblin-sandals, somehow finding balance upon the single vertical planks as he squatted and worked at the earth with a small hoe.
I approached, my soft boots quiet upon the flagstones, yet his hearing must have been sharp for he spoke as soon as I was within range.
“Good morning boy. You’re looking much better.” His smile was genuine yet held a fond sadness, as if I had caught in him in the midst of somber thoughts.
I nodded, tongue thick in my mouth, unable to find any words, confused as to how I felt about this mysterious old man. He had brought me back from a dark place - by dint of means of this world or another I was not sure. I was struck by a sudden thought: surely he had seen the crosshatching of scars across my back, evidence of the beatings I had endured. He must know I am a failure, unreliable and incompetent.
The old man raised his face and the light of the sun shone under the brim of his broad hat, and for the first time I really noticed his features. His wrinkled skin, even now in mid-winter, was tanned and suffused with a ruddy health. His eyes, however, were the most striking. There was no look of scorn there, only a deep calmness and kindness.
“I didn’t have a chance to introduce myself,” he said. “My name is Tosabo Yobutomo of Haguro.”
My mind fumbled to untie the name; the bo suffix. “You are a monk?”
Yobutomo tilted his head quizzically. “Of course! What do you think I was?”
“I… I thought you a groundskeeper.”
Yobutomo laughed. “That I am, too! Look, I’m sorry about before, the drugs in the tea. Oh, please, take a seat, before you fall down.”
He indicated to a low stone wall, and as he did so I noticed suddenly that all four fingers on his right hand were missing at the second joint, scarred over like old tree stumps. I sat upon a square-cut stone at the base of the skeleton of a tree. The dry cold pressed through the fabric of my pants, finding that my short exertions had taxed me, and took a few deep breaths. I knew Yobutomo attempted to ingratiate himself to me, and instinctively I retreated inwards, shutting out my emotions, falling deeper and deeper into myself.
“You tricked me.”
“It was the most effective way to get you the care you needed, you were in quite a state.”
“What did you do to me?”
Yobutomo’s eyes twinkled. “The magic of the yamabushi.”
Seeing my reaction, he gave a laugh and clapped his hands together. “No, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I can tell what you are afraid of, but don’t worry, you didn’t talk. Well, nothing coherent in any case. What secrets you have are still your own. Please sit, rest. Excuse me, allow an old man to continue his chores.”
He gave a smile and walked a few paces back to the vegetable garden, his shoes clattering against the stone path, to pick up his hoe and continue his work.
The chill of the temple, my disorientation, and the memories of my dreams of Aki had shunted my mind into a protective knot, and I suspected Yobutomo knew a lot more than he was letting on.
I tried to force myself to relax, to lay claim on my senses once again. By degrees, I opened my awareness. I sat in a patch of sun that pierced the trees, and I focused on its warmth, making that my only thought, letting it soak into my being and dissipate that inner tension. I realized it felt good to be outside, with the sounds of the birds and the smell of the earth. Yobutomo evidently did not feel the need to fill the silence with empty words. He shuffled along the small field in a squat, the basket by his side slowly filling with uprooted vegetables.
There came a sound from the forest, muffled by distance. It was so faint I was not sure if I had imagined it, but Yobutomo stopped his task and cocked his head.
Yobutomo guessed my unasked question.
“A yamabushi sounds his approach,” he said.
I shook my head slowly, indicating my confusion, moved by that that unearthly sound. Its rich bass quickened my blood, stirring ancient memories.
“It is a conch-shell, the voice of Buddha. It is how the yamabushi communicate.” Yobut
omo straightened his back and stepped towards me, all the while his eyes on the forest towards the sound. “Often we yamabushi are dispersed throughout the mountains, with no fixed home, sleeping alone under the stars in the mountains. Even those who are married and have children embark on long solitary runs lasting days or weeks, close to nature and in communion with the world. It may look deserted now, but this place serves as a central point to gather and to train, and many will return tonight, you will see.”
My lips firmed into a tight line.
Yobutomo smiled disarmingly. “Don’t worry, my boy.”
The sound of the conch shell came again, much louder this time, sung in three distinct pitches. We waited, and it wasn’t long before a group of three men broke free of the forest, climbing the steep trail to enter the clearing of the temple grounds. They wore layered clothes; long hems reaching past their knees and long flowing sleeves. As they ran their feet shot from beneath their robes to tread lightly upon the ground, their legs wrapped in a binding that became a part of their flexible shoes, split at the toe. They showed no signs of fatigue, slowing their pace as they approached, as if their momentum were a thing to be reined in.
“Yobutomo, it is good to see you,” said the foremost, the palms of his hands pressed together as he bowed. Despite the chill in the air beads of sweat glistened on his face, his skin glowing. His two companions remained silent at his flanks, likewise flushed.
“Welcome back, Hatano. This lad is staying here for a short while until he recovers from his injuries.”
For a brief moment I thought I saw the glint of metal of the edge of a long blade beneath the monk’s gown as he bowed a greeting.
“You are injured?” asked Hatano.
Eyes downcast, shoulders hunched, I tried to find the words among those swarming through my mind to force into my mouth. “Not so badly.”
“You are fortunate to find Yobutomo, he is a master healer.”
Yobutomo made a dismissive sound. “The boy is young; his body did all the healing.”
“You are as humble as you are skilled,” quipped Hatano.
Yobutomo nodded in the direction of the temple, an invitation to start walking. “So tell me, Hatano, did the meeting go well?”
“An alliance between the Takeda clan and the yamabushi is likely,” Hatano said as we passed a neatly trimmed square of hedge, walking along the smoothed round flagstones, reaching the base of the towering temple. “It comes at an opportune time, news has come from Kyoto that Warlord Oda is extending his protection to the Jesuit missionaries, and has slaughtered many Buddhist priests.”
“Then a continuation of war is inevitable,” said Yobutomo.
“And the very nature of war is changing. We’ve had reports that Nobunaga has worked on improving the effectiveness of the arquebus.”
“An archer can fire off fifteen arrows in the time it takes a gunner to load and fire one of those contraptions, that’s if it’s not raining and the damp hasn’t affected the powder. No, we need not concern ourselves with those.”
“Nobunaga thinks otherwise,” said Hatano. “He is producing them in large numbers, recruiting and arming vast numbers men to wield them.”
Yobutomo sucked in his breath and held it, considering. He released it with whistle between pursed lips. “If our enemy places such confidence in such devices then we would be wise to investigate further.”
Throughout the afternoon a score more yamabushi monks returned to the temple, mostly alone, all dressed similarly in robes of yellow and white. Hatano took me under his wing and fetched a meal for me and we sat together at a low table and ate. The meal consisted of a small portion of rice, miso soup, and a plate berries, pine needles, and bamboo shoots. Although spare, I could tell it had been prepared with care, and it tasted delicious. We did not speak as we ate, the room huge and empty about us, with Hatano seemingly content with his own thoughts. Bleeding through the walls from outside came sounds of the other yamabushi as they trained, the clack of wood upon wood of practice swords.
I suddenly realized my mind had been wandering yet at the same time taking in everything, for it was my instinct now after years of Master Masakage’s training. I shook my head, reminding myself that I was far from Miyamori Castle, and never again would I report to my Master.
“Are you in pain?” Hatano asked.
I shook my head, keeping my gaze downcast into my empty bowls as I replied. “I was just thinking.”
Hatano smiled.
“You were directing your thoughts, or were your thoughts directing you?”
I glanced up from beneath my fringe and shook my head. “I’m not much of a philosopher.”
Hatano lifted a porcelain pot and two small cups between the spread of his fingers and poured a clear liquid into both. He passed one of the cups to me.
“Sake?” I asked. “But you are monks, you can’t drink.”
“We may be monks, but we are not ascetics.” Hatano threw back his head and with obvious relish tipped the entire contents of the cup into his mouth in one quick motion. A smile played at his lips. “The purpose of our teachings is not to torture the body, but to discover the joy of life.”
I put the cup to my lips, feeling the vapor rush into my nose, but before I could tip it into my mouth there came a sudden shout of alarm from the other room. We both looked in stunned shock as Yobutomo staggered through the door, his back arched unnaturally, a shadowy figure at his back. He struggled to breathe, the blade of a glinting knife held to the flesh of his exposed throat.
Hatano was on his feet in an instant and crouched into an aggressive stance, a katana in his hand, his flowing monk robes an obscuring wall. I had not even seen where his weapon had come from.
The intruder jerked Yobutomo like a doll and shouted at Hatano.
“The boy, hand him over!”
I saw Yobutomo give a fierce shake of his head before his eyes flashed with pain, a thin line of blood welling beneath the blade at his throat.
“Who are you?” demanded Hatano.
“Give me the boy!”
The intruder wore the garb of a peasant villager, his head cowled with a cloth wrap, yet there was no mistaking that voice. Heat crashed through my body, washing outwards to my extremities like a wave and with it raising my skin in terrified gooseflesh, turning my muscles into nothing more than wet dough. I tried to stand but in the rush of fear and guilt I simply skidded on the floor like a lamed animal, wild-eyed and useless.
Master Masakage.
“Let him go,” ordered Hatano. He shuffled forward between us, his katana flashing silver in the torchlight, his legs splayed in readiness of battle.
Master Masakage gave Yobutomo a twist. “Do not play games. That boy is mine, give him to me now and I will leave you to your business.”
“You are mistaken; he is nobody’s boy. He is with us. Let him go, and make your way from this place.”
From beneath that dark cowl Master Masakage’s eyes narrowed to slits, seeking me out and holding me in that terrible gaze. “You have made many suffer, foolish boy! Yes, that’s right, I can see you flinch! Many have suffered!”
“What did you do to her?”
“The laundry wench? Ha, come with me and see for yourself! Her head is on a stake alongside all those other betrayers.” His voice dropped. “I will see to it that your head sits alongside hers. Lovers until the end!”
Then with a sudden twist Yobutomo threw Masakage over his shoulder, a move so swift and natural it seemed he did not need to apply any physical force. My senses returned with a rush as Masakage slammed bodily to the floor upon his back. My eyes found Yobutomo again, startled at the transformation in the old man. I did not see where he had gotten it but he now held a wakizashi in his left hand, the single edged blade as long as his forearm, slender and keen in the lamplight. In the stumps of his missing fingers of his right he held the now empty lacquered sheath.
Hatano started forward to give aid, his weapon raised, bu
t Yobutomo stopped him with a glance. Masakage’s instincts were swift and he was on his feet, knife in hand. The cries of alarm would bring the other monks running; he knew he had only seconds to strike. I had never seen anyone move so fast as he did, a blur of motion beggaring the eye. Somehow Yobutomo moved his blade upwards in time to deflect the backhanded slash. Master Masakage twisted and his second attack came as a continuation of the first, slashing across the knuckles of Yobutomo’s knife hand. There was none of the easy fluidity that I had seen in choreographed sparing between men in practice; here everything happened on instinct alone, a scuffle without pattern or hesitation, only deadly intent. Yobutomo twisted his grip and angled his opponent’s swipe. There was a keen scraping sound and both men were flung apart; Master Masakage’s knife had penetrated Yobutomo’s perimeter, the slice meant to open arteries in the wrist had been thwarted by the leather kote braces hidden under the sleeves of the monk’s robe. Again, Hatano hesitated, sensing that Yobutomo’s strength was fading and ready to leap to his aid.
Master Masakage feigned to one side, his blade trying to exploit the weakness on Yobutomo’s exposed right. Yobutomo turned with him. I saw from the flicker in his eyes that he had heard sounds of approaching feet. The yamabushi would be here in moments.
An upward slash forced Yobutomo to defend his face, both weapons clashing skyward, and Masakage danced in, striking with his left elbow into the concavity just below Yobutomo’s ribs. Breath whooshed out of the old man. Masakage spun his bulk upon his heels, his knife plunging down, yet Yobutomo twisted his shoulders and, with the consummate skill of a samurai, flicked his wakizashi and deflected the strike away. With two quick mincing steps away he put distance between him and his opponent to favor his longer blade, Yobutomo swiped a wide seemingly desperate arc to gain breathing room. Masakage saw the opening in the after-stroke and leapt in with a driving stab, realizing too late that the move had been a ploy. With a quick twist of his wrist, Yobutomo sent his opponent’s blade spinning to the darkened corner of the room.
At last the monks who had been training in the yard rushed into the room with a thunder of feet upon the tatami. They all bore weapons, the room suddenly full of glinting steel. I found a moment for wonder – what kind of monks were these that held weapons so deftly and fought with such skill?
Masakage lay on the floor, arms over his head.
“I’m unarmed. Please, I’m unarmed!” he cried.
Yobutomo’s wakizashi pushed into an artery throbbing just beneath the surface of Masakage’s neck.
“You do not belong here,” said Yobutomo calmly. “Who do you serve?”
Don’t hurt him! I wanted to yell, surprising myself with the flood of emotion. My Master was a wielder of words and information, he was no warrior, and despite all he had done, he was still the man who had raised me. Hatano held my shoulder, his grip tight.
“I serve justice!” spat Masakage. “I seek that boy traitor who caused the death of the father of the great Lord Date!”
I shrunk before the pointed finger that seemed to drive daggers into my flesh. Hatano moved himself fractionally, protecting me.
Yobutomo cocked his head. “The father of the One-Eyed Dragon is dead? How?”
“Deliver the boy to me, and I will leave this place.”
“Even if I were inclined to bargain with you, the yamabushi have no love for the Date clan,” said Yobutomo. “And you didn’t answer my question – how did Date’s father die?”
I swallowed, my throat dry. Just as I was about to give voice to my protests Masakage twisted and flicked his feet beneath him, coming up with something that flashed silver in the lamplight. Yobutomo yelled something. Hatano pummeled into me, shoving me to one side, his body atop of mine. An enormous crash of rending wood filled the room as I hit the floor, my ears ringing. My vision smothered into darkness as I was pushed again, something hard and sharp pushing into the soft spot below my ribs. When I struggled free Masakage was gone, the slats of the shutters burst outwards.
A handful of monks raced off in pursuit, throwing themselves through the broken shutters. With rising dread, I pushed at the dead weight pinning me to the ground, the weight of a body, a head lolling face upturned to mine. Hatano stared straight ahead, eyes wide, unblinking. Half a metallic disc protruded from his right temple, the other half driven clean into his brain, dead before he had even hit the floor.
Everything seemed to be happening at once. Several of the monks kneeled close and took his body and one took Hatano’s head in his lap. There were shouts for a bandage. There was little blood, but then the disc was withdrawn and it seemed a bucket had been upturned. I crabbed backwards as the sticky spreading pool reached my socks. A pair of hands grabbed my shoulders and Yobutomo dropped to his haunches, looking me eye-to-eye. He spoke urgently and the lines of kindness around his eyes were gone.
“That man, who was he?”
I could only shake my head. “It’s impossible. How… how did he find me?”
“Boy, listen to me: do you know him?”
I swallowed, found my voice. “He was my master.”
“Your master?”
Yobutomo glanced at Hatano’s body upon the floor. The monks were chanting some strange tongue in unison. With shock I saw Hatano’s eyelids give a flicker.
“Speak, boy!”
I forced my attention back to Yobutomo. “He serves Lord Date at Miyamori castle. He is a scroll master, an advisor.”
“No, he is no advisor. He is shinobi.”
The hidden one: the very antithesis to the code of honor that the samurai warrior strove toward, the very characters used to write the word consisted of a blade above a heart. They work in darkness, using deception and underhand machinations in blatant contempt of the honors of warfare and sanctity of life, despised by all ranks of men, and even those lords who employ their services do not make such dealings public.
Shame washed over me and I shook my head, my darkest secret exposed to the world.
“Is that what you are? To kill one of us?” The monk’s eyes were level and close to my own.
I shook my head emphatically at the accusation.
“So you are a spy?” he demanded.
I sunk my head into my shoulders, turning aside as best I could, and I would have fled had not the monk held both my shoulders.
“Yes. No. I was.”
“You disobeyed your master?”
“I made a… mistake.”
“And you knew your master pursued you?”
“It’s not possible!”
“You are quick to underrate your master’s skills. Why did you not warn us?” His grip about my shoulders tightening and anger flashed in his eyes. He bowed his head, and when he raised it again that look was gone. “If only we had been ready,” he said softly.
There was a shout and thump as Hatano’s body gave a heave and his back arched backward like a fish. The monks struggled to hold him, fighting against something unseen but very real, and in flash of shadow I thought I saw dark claws of ethereal hands.
Yobutomo released me and stood, striding to Hatano’s side. “Stop! He has gone. We cannot struggle any more!”
The chanting continued as one of the yamabushi monks refused to relent. Hatano’s vacant eyes rolled back in his head until only the whites showed, his arms clubbing erratically through the air, the tendons in his neck standing out like cords of rope.
I slunk down, clutching my knees to my chest and quivering with the empty fatigue of shock. The soles of my socks were beginning to harden with Hatano’s congealed blood. I could not bear to watch, but could not close by eyes for fear of what I might see, for Master Masakage’s words still rang in my head, of Aki’s death. I refused to believe that any of this could be happening.
“Enough!” shouted Yobutomo. “Hashiba, stop this, now!”
The monk ceased chanting, and immediately Hatano’s body stopped thrashing. A heavy, bated silence fell. The air was very still for a beat, broke
n suddenly by a returning runner.
“He’s gone,” reported the monk, still breathing heavily from his exertions. “There’s no trace at all of him.”
“He’s dangerous,” said Yobutomo pensively. He shook his head, then turned in my direction. “Why, boy? Why didn’t you warn us death was on your heels?”
I threw myself at his feet, my head pressed to the matting.
“I failed my duty, I have betrayed my family, and I have brought death to your home. The debt is mine. If it will bring him back, take my life.”
The monk looked up and I could not tell if the tremble in his clenched fists were from grief or barely suppressed anger. “Be careful what debts you lay claim to, boy.”