The Tokaido Road

by Lucia St. Clair Robson

  Hanshiro looked around the tiny room. Several of the paper panes in the sliding screens were ripped. The high shelf to the gods was dusty. The picture scroll in the alcove was faded. But the room opened onto a corner of the garden, and the embers in the firewell gave off a comforting warmth. Hanshiro took his long-sword from his sash and sat cross-legged on the tatami next to the well. He laid the sword on a silk cloth at his right side with the honed edge facing outward. He put Cat’s letter next to it.

  The kneeling waitress slid open the paper wall panel facing the garden. She stood, carried in the footed tray, knelt, and set it down. “Eels eaten on the Ox’s day are good for your health.” She fanned the embers and added a few pieces of charcoal. Then she poured a cup of tea, bowed, and retreated, sliding the door closed behind her.

  Hanshiro left the letter on the floor, a mute and puzzling companion for his meal. He ate three steaming helpings of rice from the large covered dish and three skewers of eel grilled with sweet soy sauce to a dark, glossy brown.

  When he poured the last of the tea into his rice bowl, the water was almost clear from passing so often through the leaves. He stirred the remaining few grains of rice into it and drank it. He wiped his mouth and fingers with one of the paper napkins in his wallet, folded the napkin into a tiny packet, and slipped it into his sleeve.

  Only then did he pick up the letter and hold it in his big, square hands. The ideograms that spelled “To Traveler” had been drawn by a calm hand. Even after all Lady Asano had been through, she betrayed no fear or excitement in the subtleties of the strokes that made each character.

  Hanshiro closed his eyes, concentrating all his senses into the tips of his fingers. He imagined the warmth of Lady Asano’s touch on the paper. He felt himself melt into her body as she wrote. For an instant he looked out from her eyes. His hands were shaking when he unfolded it.

  He had rationalized that reading the letter would lead him quickly to Lady Asano so he could protect her from her enemies; but he felt like a thief. He felt like an impotent man who pays to watch from behind a screen the pillowing of others. His face grew hot as he read what Cat had written.

  Oh, to be the moon

  shining in the still of night

  On my lover’s bed.

  And then, “Prayers to Inari. The Floating Weed.” He understood the message in “Prayers to Inari, the Rice God,” but the poem seemed to be no more than the insipid peasant verse it was. Was she indeed carrying on a flirtation with a farmer? Had grief driven her mad? Had he misjudged her completely?

  He carefully refolded the letter and retied it in the flat knot. A woman would detect the tampering immediately, but Hanshiro was sure Traveler wouldn’t notice.

  When he heard the whispers in the next room, they were a welcome diversion. He had expected the thieves to wait until he stopped for the night and was asleep, but they looked the type to be short of patience as well as cunning.

  He pretended to study the refolded letter as he listened. He distinguished at least five voices. The two who had been eyeing his swords since he’d entered the outskirts of Mitsuke were machi yakko, town underlings. They were almost certainly intent on illicit gain. Each carried a single sword of his own. Hanshiro assumed their accomplices did, too.

  As a rule, swords were paid for not by quality or decoration, but by the inch. Kanesada blades were another matter, however. The price these thieves could receive for Hanshiro’s matched pair would either support their families for life or make quite an impression at the brothels and card games for a much shorter time.

  While Hanshiro waited for the whispering to stop, he thought of sensei, his teacher. He remembered him as he had last seen him, silhouetted by the sun shining through the paper screen of the tiny tea house in his garden. That was the day sensei had given Hanshiro the swords.

  They both had known that the tea ceremony would be the last time they would see each other, yet neither had spoken of parting. And although sensei had intended to award a certificate of mastery to Hanshiro, he made no comment about his favorite student’s decision to leave.

  “The sword of the New Shadow school is the sword that gives life.” Sensei had spoken in his usual soft voice. He had looked with affection at the blades resting on their low ebony stand. They had shone softly in the sunlight filtering through the paper screens. “Its purpose is defense, not offense,” sensei had continued. “The New Shadow school aims not to slash, not to take, not to win, not to lose. “

  Sensei had always seemed so old, possessed of a wisdom that could only have come from a long life. Hanshiro realized with a start that twenty-three years ago, when he had become sensei’s disciple, the master had only been as old as Hanshiro was now.

  Two of the men next door raised their voices as though in argument, Hanshiro knew the others were using the noise to cover their approach. He sensed the change in the pressure of air in his room as they lifted a panel from its tracks behind him and slid it silently open. He felt them watching him. He had met their sort before. He knew they were likely to be crude but vicious fighters.

  As he sat, Hanshiro wove his hands through the intricacies of the nine-symbols-cutting, the esoteric hand signs affected by ninja, or “warrior wizards.” He knew it would impress them. Then he picked up the three slender skewers that had held the grilled eel and tossed them into the air. With a move too fast for the eye to follow, he drew the short-sword from the scabbard in his sash and struck. The skewers dropped to the tatami, each in two pieces, sliced lengthwise. He gathered the six pieces, threw them up, and cut each one in half as they fell.

  He solemnly replaced his sword in the sheath. He rested his hands on his thighs with his elbows out and continued staring straight ahead while the men next door left quietly and quickly.

  Yagyu Muneyoshi, the founder of the New Shadow school, had written more than a hundred poems about being a swordsman. As Hanshiro thought about Cat, he remembered the one that seemed most appropriate.

  Though I may win fights with a sword

  I’m but a stone boat on the sea called life.

  When he left the inn he returned to the temple and replaced the letter exactly where he had found it. Then he went to the transport office. He had to dicker and cajole and pay a high price, but he managed to rent a horse without a postboy to lead it at a walk. He mounted and set off at a brisk canter for Futagawa and the famous temple to Inari.

  CHAPTER 53

  CLOUDS OF BEWILDERMENT

  Because Cat and Kasane started from Mitsuke late in the afternoon, the hour of the Dog was half over by the time they were approaching Maisaka. Cat could see the lanterns of travelers, though. They were taking advantage of the level terrain and hurrying to reach the ferry at the treacherous stretch of water called Now Broken.

  When she reached a fairly deserted area of the highway, Cat showed Kasane the “floating step.” The courtesans had originally used it, but it had caught on among women of fashion in both capitals. Cat was still trying to teach Kasane the various arts of attracting a man. She was hoping Kasane’s suitor would become so taken with her that he would lure her away from Cat’s dangerous company.

  “Turn your body like this.” Cat swiveled slightly at the waist. “Move your feet as though you’re kicking sand with your toes.”

  Kasane laughed behind her sleeve as she minced along. Cat put her hands on Kasane’s shoulders and turned them a bit more.

  “Stand as though you’re about to glance back over your shoulder at your lover,” she said. “Your body should express your melancholy at leaving him. Or you can look as though you’re inviting him to follow you.” Cat stood back to assess the effect. “It’s more effective if you’re wearing geta.”

  The hollow whap of a hand drum interrupted them. It was being played by a woman who stood near a red torii gate leading to a small ShintM shrine.

  “Stop here. Stop here,” she called. “Learn what the Love-Knowing Bird predicts for your future.” She rattled a narrow wooden box with
a hole at one end. “All my fortunes concern love.”

  Kasane slowed as she passed and glanced wistfully back over her shoulder. Cat recognized the look. Diviners lined the steps of every temple and shrine and haunted most street corners. From time to time Cat herself had been tempted to pay for a glimpse at fate’s plans.

  Cat held out a ten-mon piece. The woman took it, drew her hand into her wide sleeve, and deposited it. Then she shook the box until a narrow strip of bamboo slid from the hole.

  Kasane pulled it out and read the number painted on it. “Sixty-four.”

  Cat sighed. The number was an unlucky one. Cat feared Kasane was in for disappointment. The woman searched through her basket of paper fortunes until she found one, folded lengthwise, with “sixty-four” written on it.

  Kasane unfolded it, but all she could see was the shadowy hint of a drawing.

  “The ink is invisible until you hold it up against the light.” The woman held out her lantern.

  “Look!” Kasane moved aside so Cat could see the characters emerging, pale and spidery, next to the darkening picture of a crudely drawn bird.

  “ ‘The person who draws this paper,’ “ Kasane read, “ ‘let that one live by the heavenly law and worship the blessed Kannon. As for love, the one desired is betrothed.’ ” Kasane looked at Cat, alarm and despair in her eyes.

  Cat started to tell her that the woman was a fraud, that her foolish fortunes meant nothing. But she thought better of it. She gave the woman another ten-mon coin. “Try another, elder sister.” She smiled at Kasane, who looked as though she feared the bamboo marker would sting her.

  Cat noticed that the woman tilted the box so a bamboo slip from the other side fell out. Cat was sure the box had a partition inside, separating the good from the bad. She was also sure the diviner regularly gave her customers a bad fortune first. Few people would walk away without trying for a better one.

  “ ‘Ninety-nine.’ ” Kasane looked at Cat for reassurance. Cat smiled. Ninety-nine was propitious.

  “ ‘The person who draws this paper,’ “ Kasane read, “ ‘let that one worship the gods of prosperity. If anything is lost, it will be found. If one is sick, recovery is certain. If one loves, she will win the affection of her beloved.’ ”

  Kasane beamed as Cat steered her back onto the road. The drumming took up again behind them.

  “Ei-sassa, ei-sassa, ei-sassa.” A mail carrier trotted by chanting in rhythm to his footsteps. As usual, Kasane stared after him longingly. Maybe he was the one carrying her lover’s next letter to Futagawa. “Ei-korya, sassa, sassa. “ He disappeared into the darkness.

  “Have you thought about what you’ll do if you find Traveler himself at the temple gate instead of just his sentiments?”

  “No, mistress.” Kasane blushed. “The petty affairs of such a one as I merit no thought until you’ve found Oishi-sama. Until the great wrong done your father is avenged.”

  “Do you love him?”

  Kasane blushed a deeper crimson and ducked behind her sleeve. “I don’t know,” she murmured.

  “What if he turns out to be a disastrous character?”

  “It’s impertinent of me to disagree, mistress, but he couldn’t. His poems are so heartfelt.”

  “I don’t mean to be cruel, elder sister, but the poems of men are usually prompted by a part of them that’s quite distant from their hearts.”

  “A flute.”

  Cat laughed. “Yes, the part that rules them resembles a flute, but they prefer to have someone else play it for them.”

  Then Cat heard the music. The flute player’s only audience was an old man with a pilgrim’s staff, bell, and pack and a small satchel of food around his neck. The two of them were standing next to a roadside shrine under a few gnarled pines on a small knoll. Behind the trees stretched rice paddies.

  “Why is he playing in the dark?” Kasane asked.

  “Night and day are the same to him,” Cat whispered. “He’s blind.”

  The flute player finished his piece and slid the flute into a sack.

  “There’s no rush to reach Maisaka,” he said.

  Cat almost jumped when he spoke to her. His sightless eyes stared straight at her.

  “Why? “she asked.

  “They’re all running around as if their heads were on fire.”

  The musician was a young man with a shaved head. He was dressed in a faded hakama and robe and a torn black coat of wadded cotton. He chuckled. “A delegation of red-haired barbarians is on its way to the Eastern Capital and has reached Maisaka. The populace is in a frenzy to catch a glimpse of them. And others are possessed by Ise fever.” He took his fan and a chopstick from his sash. “Bide a while and hear the story of Yoshitsune and Benkei at the barrier.”

  “Clearly we were born at an auspicious hour,” the old pilgrim said. “To partake of such an august talent as yours.”

  The old man’s shabby paper robe and cloak were covered with dust. His tiny topknot was thin and gray. He stood with a rapturous look on his face while the minstrel chanted, marking the rhythm of his lay by scratching the chopstick across the ribs of the fan. Cat waited politely, and Kasane listened spellbound.

  When the minstrel finished Cat bowed and put paper-wrapped coppers into his bowl. The old pilgrim did the same.

  “I give thanks that destiny has allowed us the privilege of hearing you, honorable sir,” he said. Then he hurried after Cat and Kasane.

  “Are you pious folk bound for the Sun Goddess’s holy shrine?”

  “Yes,” Cat answered.

  “Ah, how fine! So are we.” He smiled brightly at them.

  Kasane looked around for the old man’s companion but saw no one. Cat assumed he was possessed of a gentle madness.

  “For thirty-eight years my wife and I would go arm in arm to look at the cherry trees growing on the embankment near our humble house.” He seemed serenely unembarrassed by this self-indulgent talk of affection for the woman he had married. For him, shame had indeed been left behind when he traveled. “We sat under the trees at sunset and dreamed of visiting the sacred shrine.

  “My wife collected discarded mussel shells and sold them at the lime kiln. She saved in a tea canister the coppers she earned. At planting time I cleaned the other farmers’ ditches. I earned a copper for every six feet cleared. I added the coins to the canister. Then, when the children were grown, my dear wife became ill. And so we had to postpone the pilgrimage until now.”

  His eyes sparkled in the moonlight. “But what a marvelous journey it’s been for us. We’ve enjoyed sitting in the shade of a pine and opening our little tub of sake. We watch the pilgrims go by singing and ringing their bells, tan, tan, tan.”

  “Excuse my rudeness, sir.” Kasane blurted it out before Cat could nudge her into silence. Cat had noticed the brocade bag hanging around his neck. It was the kind that usually contained wooden mortuary tablets. “Is your wife waiting for you in Maisaka?”

  “My wife is here, dear child.” He held up the stoppered bamboo tube that hung on a cord next to the bag. “When we have seen the shrine of the Heaven-Shining-Great-August-Deity together, we’ll go to Mount Koya. I’ll beseech the monks there to bury her ashes” —he tapped the bamboo tube—”and add her memory to the prayers they raise from the altars. The Buddhas will usher her spirit into the bliss of Amida’s Pure Land.”

  “My sister and I would be honored by your company and that of your wife,” Cat said.

  The blind musician had been right. Maisaka was in chaos. All the lodgings were full. Travelers’ belongings filled the courtyards and overflowed into the streets. The crowd, however, was concentrated around the inn where the delegation of Dutch traders was staying.

  Normally the folk who lived along the TMkaidM were too worldly to become excited about the unusual. The road, after all, provided a daily parade of the unusual. Many people had seen the two elephants that passed through a decade ago, with all the pomp and status of the most powerful daimyM.

&n
bsp; The red-haired foreigners traveled the road twice a year on their way to and from Edo and their audience with the shMgun. But now Maisaka was filled with simple pilgrims from the outlying hamlets and from the villages between the official post stations. To make matters worse, a sake shortage had caused a shortage of goodwill as well.

  The Dutch traveled in palanquins that were carried into the wide entryways of the first-class inns before unloading so the occupants couldn’t be seen from the street. The foreigners were forbidden by law to show themselves once they stopped for the night. But that didn’t stop the populace from trying to see them.

  In spite of the police’s efforts to disperse them, people had climbed onto the roofs of the buildings around the Dutchmen’s inn. Cat and Kasane and the old pilgrim stopped to listen to an altercation between a policeman and a group of indignant farmers.

  “Our miserable lives will pass without once seeing a foreign devil,” a woman shouted. “It’s most unkind of you to keep this great sight to yourself.”

  The argument was interrupted by a loud crash and screams. A roof had collapsed under the weight of the people on top of it. The owners of the other shops and houses ran into the street, shouting pleas and threats to those on their own roofs. Cat and her companions hurried through the turmoil.

  “My cousin’s house is not far,” the old man said. “It’s on the old road around the bay. It’s a humble place, but you can stay there with me tonight. Walking around is better for the young lady anyway. Crossing this particular stretch of water is bad luck for marriages.”

  Cat was quite willing to avoid the ferry. She feared that Kira’s men might be watching for her there. She didn’t realize that as she traveled farther from Edo their threat lessened. Kira had more difficulty communicating with them. The description of Cat grew more and more vague with time and distance. The men who had survived earlier encounters with her had exaggerated the circumstances until it was impossible to say what they had been.