The Tokaido Road

by Lucia St. Clair Robson

They had made their way through the busy, brightly lit district of stores and sake shops and riverfront restaurants around the bridge. They had passed the gate into HonjM ward and walked down the quiet, residential streets to the Circle Inn. Hanshiro had carried Cat, still sleeping, through the small side door in the front gate.

  Now it was time for him to prepare for the night ahead.

  He ignored the new clothes he had bought when he intended to pledge his sword to Lady Asano’s cause. Instead he put on his old hakama and jacket and wadded coat. He wrote a message for Cat should she wake up, although that didn’t seem likely. She had been sleeping so soundly when they arrived, he had felt as though he were carrying a body from which the spirit had fled. She had barely awakened long enough to bathe.

  Hanshiro settled his swords precisely in his sash. When he left, his stockinged feet made no noise on the boards of the corridor.

  Viper was waiting for him outside. He was flanked by a merry band of carpenters and roofers, plasterers and stonemasons. They appeared to have been celebrating early the arrival of the New Year.

  At Spring Hill Temple Hanshiro had realized that Viper was determined to help Cat whether she wanted him to or not. So he wasn’t surprised to see that while he and Cat had been sleeping Viper had been enlisting the aid of men from HonjM ward’s otokodate, the society of “brave men.” Hanshiro, however, thought of them by the less flattering name of machiyakko, town underlings. For Hanshiro, an alliance with Viper and his friends was as cautious as it was temporary.

  Many of the shMgun’s bannermen entertained themselves by roaming about the city and brutalizing merchants and laborers. For protection, some of the merchants funded societies formed by the local artisans and guild bosses. Sometimes the otokodate also fought with low-ranking samurai and rMnin, many of whom now made their living by theft and extortion.

  To otokodate, a rMnin like Hanshiro was a potential enemy. And to those of the samurai class, common street brawlers like Viper and his friends were beneath contempt. But the otokodate were skilled with a variety of weapons, many fashioned from the tools of their trade. They asked no member about his past, which was just as well, since many were gamblers and men with stained histories.

  The otokodate claimed that they were sworn to help the downtrodden. Hanshiro, however, had often found them to be disposed to violence for its own sake and to be dishonest when it profited them. He also knew that among the various leaders of otokodate, Chubei of HonjM was one of the most powerful.

  There must have been thirty or forty of Chubei’s men here now. Their small topknots were fashionably askew, and their sidelocks stood out in disorderly fringes from their florid faces. The reinforced linings of their collars were stained, their cuffs frayed, and their jackets much mended and patched. A few carried ladders or used their long rules as walking sticks. Others had stuck their hands into the fronts of their jackets to warm them. Most carried their tools—mallets and planes, chisels and adzes—dangling from their sashes.

  “Propitious dreams,” they shouted as they bowed to Viper and Hanshiro. They went off discussing where they could buy sake and women at this hour. Their straw sandals squeaked in the snow. They left a wake of laughter in the quiet of the street.

  Hanshiro turned to Viper. He knew he would have to be diplomatic in rejecting the kago man’s help and that of his friends. They were an unpredictable lot. Insulting them would surely cause trouble for Cat and Oishi and his men.

  “Regulations forbid that the ‘chastisement of an enemy be attended with riot,’ ” he said.

  “Everything will be done with discretion, Your Honor.” Viper gave his sly, ingenuous smile. He was a bit more circumspect with Hanshiro than with Lady Asano, but not much.

  “Good evening.” The man who joined them from a side street was dressed in the dark blue trousers and tight-sleeved wadded jacket of an artisan.

  He carried a carpenter’s long-handled adze with a mattock-shaped steel blade. His short legs were bowed, but his chest was round and solid as a rice bale. He had big, callused hands, and his arms strained the black canvas arm guards. His bushy brows almost met at the concave bridge of his nose. A shaggy mustache sprouted from under the lumpy end of that nose like rank grass from under a boulder.

  “Good evening,” he said.

  Hanshiro nodded in reply to Chubei’s bow. He had met the boss once, many years ago, while intervening for a young wastrel in debt to a gambling boss in HonjM.

  “So, Tosa, tonight you’re not here to bargain for the balls of a young dandy.”

  “No.” Hanshiro was impressed with Chubei’s memory. The affair had happened long ago.

  “It grieves me to observe,” Chubei said with a smile, “that sons are quite inferior to their fathers these days and that grandsons rarely offer hope for improvement.”

  “Just so,” Hanshiro said politely. “As for what brings me to HonjM, Viper and I were just discussing the regulations concerning the proper conduct of a vendetta.”

  “Ah, yes. The dog shMgun’s regulations.” Chubei’s grin widened. “ ‘The chastisement of an enemy may not be attended with riot.’ ” He spoke in a low voice, but it carried in the silent street. From somewhere behind a nearby wall a dog began barking.

  “Is there a place we can talk in private?” Hanshiro asked.

  “Certainly.”

  Chubei lit a lantern and led Viper and Hanshiro through the narrow back streets to the large shed, open on two sides, that sheltered his cluttered workshop. Hanshiro sat on the rough-hewn surface of a huge cypress log that was being dressed as a beam. Viper and Chubei sat cross-legged among the fragrant curls of wood that the apprentices’ adzes had shaved off the log. Around them were stacked the beams and posts of the house Chubei had been engaged to build.

  “This is no ordinary street brawl,” Hanshiro said. “It involves men of great honor who are determined to right an infamous wrong.”

  “I’m not a fool, Tosa.” Chubei’s voice was still cordial, to show he meant no real offense. But he was no longer smiling. “I know who is involved.”

  “Who else knows?”

  Chubei chuckled. “Viper told only me, but everyone suspects. Edo has been waiting two years for this night.”

  “Then the object of the endeavor might suspect, too.”

  “No more than usual. For two years Kira’s been as suspicious as a cat with its head in a bag. He rarely peeks out from behind his walls.” Chubei stroked his mustache lovingly. “My wife’s cousin is a rice dealer. He says the food bills for Kira’s extra bodyguards are ruinous. He’s only recently sent some of Uesugi’s bowmen back to Azabu, probably so his son can feed them for a while.”

  “If Kira had done the honorable thing and opened his belly,” Viper said, “or even shaved his head in penance and taken holy orders, folk might have felt more kindly toward him.”

  “It’s more important to shave the heart than to shave the head,” Chubei said. “And Kira’s heart is as hard as ever. Many’s the man, even among us wretched Edokko, who would like to see him pay.”

  “This isn’t a matter for commoners.” Hanshiro looked hard at Chubei. He had to make this very clear. “For them to participate would sully the honor of the men involved. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, Tosa,” Chubei said. “It’s understood.”

  Chubei rose and walked to the open side of the shed. He stood in the rectangle of moonlight and looked up. “My old and tender friend Viper has suggested an evening stroll to view the moon.” He threw open his arms, as if to embrace the full moon, which was almost directly overhead. Then he turned to face Viper and Hanshiro. “Mairimasho ka? Shall we go?”

  For the next hour Chubei showed Hanshiro which street gates would be open and which would be locked. He showed him where the vantage points would be and where the blind alleys were. He introduced him to the gate guards and to the men of the fire watch. And when Hanshiro parted company with him he gave him two brown canvas firemen’s coats.

  When H
anshiro returned to the inn he slipped in the small side door that he had paid the night attendant to leave open for him. He padded down the dimly lit hall to the room he shared with Cat.

  He took off his old clothes and put on the white satin loincloth, the new undershirt of wadded habutae silk, and the black-and-white wadded silk robe and black hakama. An undertaking such as tonight’s required purity of heart and mind, body and dress.

  He knelt and shook Cat’s hip gently.

  “Is it time?” Cat sleepily ran a hand over her skull, fuzzy now with a six-day growth of dark hair.

  “Yes.”

  She rose and pulled her quilted sleeping robe closer around her. She went to the low desk, mixed ink, and wrote what she dared not say aloud. “What did you speak to sensei about?”

  While Hanshiro wrote a reply, she knelt and tied on his leggings.

  “I offered to watch for messengers trying to reach Uesugi to ask for reinforcements.”

  “Viper is plotting something.” Cat’s nervousness showed in her calligraphy, but her only fear was that some outsider would interfere with Oishi’s plan.

  “I know.” Hanshiro put down the brush and helped Cat tie her hakama cords. Then he wrapped her long sash three times around her waist. As he bent down to tie it in a warrior’s dragonfly knot, he leaned over her shoulder and whispered in her ear. “He and HonjM’s boss showed me the area while you slept. But they understand that they must not interfere.”

  When Cat had dressed she draped a large cloth over her bare head. She folded the sides down along her cheeks and tied it under her chin. Hanshiro lit incense in his shallow, bowl-shaped black-lacquer helmet. If things went awry tonight, if warfare broke out in HonjM and his head were taken, it would be fragrant.

  He and Cat lit more incense in front of the ornate lacquered cupboard that housed the altar. They each put their palms together, bowed their heads, and prayed to Amida Buddha and to the god of warriors. In unison they softly chanted the Diamond sutra.

  Every phenomenon is like a dream,

  an illusion, a bubble, a shadow;

  It is like dew and also like lightning.

  So is all to be seen.

  They burned their messages to each other. Hanshiro stuck his swords into his sash and put his coat over them. He hung his helmet from the sash. He tied the quiver on his back so the fan of arrows stood up over his head. He picked up his long bow.

  When he gave Cat the heavy fireman’s coat, tears welled up suddenly in her eyes. She stroked the stiff canvas.

  “My father ...” She paused until her voice was steady enough to go on. “My father took great care with his fire brigade.”

  Lord Asano’s fire company had numbered more than fifty men, picked from the strongest and handsomest of the AkM-Asano retainers. They were better equipped and trained than any in their part of Edo. Cat remembered how proud she had always felt when she had watched them drill. They had looked so impressive in their leather coats, with their pikes and fire hooks on their shoulders.

  Hanshiro helped Cat adjust the hood of the coat. He held her face in his big hands and laid his forehead against hers. He brushed her lips with his. She picked up the naginata, and they went out into the silence of the snowy street.

  CHAPTER 78

  THE ULTIMATE OF SWORDSMANSHIP

  As in all of Edo, gates shut off most of HonjM’s narrow side streets. The gatekeepers slept inside the small gate houses. Those of the main street, a thoroughfare that ran north from the Ryogoku Bridge, were open to facilitate movement in case of fire. Hanshiro and Cat strode down the center of it. A light snow earlier in the evening had covered the layer dirtied by the day’s traffic. It silenced the tread of their sandals, but they made no special effort to be quiet.

  They had no need to skulk. They were going about their duties as part of HonjM’s latest innovation, a merchants’ fire brigade. Of course, paired swords, a naginata, a seven-foot bow, and a quiver full of arrows weren’t standard fire-fighting equipment, but Chubei had assured Hanshiro that no one would interfere with him and Lady Asano.

  They entered HonjM’s commercial district. The streets were lined with the dark wooden shutters of shops and tenements. Hanshiro led the way past fire buckets stacked against a large house. Like the others here, the house fronted directly on the roadway. The ladder to the fire watch’s rooftop lookout leaned against the first-floor overhang.

  Cat started up it. She climbed past the first- and second-story eaves to the small platform built above the roof peak. This was Chubei’s house. Between it and the open workshop behind it was a small garden, exquisitely designed and ethereally beautiful in the moonlight. Cat was astonished to find it attached to a carpenter’s house.

  Edo was built on low land that was fairly level. For as far as Cat could see stretched the jumble of snow-covered roofs, none more than two stories high. Except for a distant five-storied pagoda, only rooftop drying racks and spindly fire towers rose above the undulating expanse of white.

  When Cat turned around, her naginata hit the bronze bell hanging from the center of the platform’s roof. In the stillness it set up a metallic rumble that seemed loud enough to wake the whole district or at least the household sleeping below her.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered as Hanshiro’s head appeared. Her breath formed a cloud in the cold air, and she shivered.

  “Don’t worry,” Hanshiro said. “It could hardly be heard from below.”

  The full moon seemed inordinately large and almost close enough to touch. It was beginning to descend in the southern sky, but it lit everything with a silvery clarity. The snow reflected and intensified the light. From the platform, Cat and Hanshiro could see the Sumida River and the Ryogoku Bridge to the west.

  To the north and east were the residences of the lords. Their walled compounds of gardens and outbuildings, servants’ quarters, family shrines, and rambling houses were scattered among the pines. In Edo’s crowded center near the walls of the shMgun’s castle, the lords’ “upper” mansions were set one against each other. That was why so many of the government’s retired officials had chosen to build their “middle” mansions here.

  The middle mansions were where the lords’ families lived and where they had room to quarter their retainers in barracks along the inner side of the wall facing the street. Kira’s middle mansion only had two small rooms next to the armory near the gate. His guards were crowded into them.

  “Which is Kira’s?” Cat asked.

  Hanshiro pointed with his fan. “Where the branches of the pine hang over the wall.”

  Cat found the gate of Kira’s compound. She studied the barracks roofs and the inner courtyard where the palanquins and carriages of guests were received. Beyond the courtyard’s low wall lay Kira’s garden and private quarters.

  Cat followed the angular meandering of the mansion’s roof-lines. She memorized the wings and ells, the verandas and covered corridors, connecting the main part of the house with the family’s rooms at the rear of it. Somewhere under those roofs Lord Kira was sleeping.

  “The men should pass by here,” Hanshiro said. “Yogoro’s rice shop is past the brewery, three blocks down and across the street.”

  The brewery was easy to distinguish from the other shops. Its symbol, a huge brown globe of dried cypress needles, hung from the second-story gable. Nothing stirred in the streets except the occasional cat and a rat that scuttled along the white plaster walls of a warehouse. But Cat stared as though she could have looked through the roof of the rice shop and seen the men inside. She tried to imagine what they were doing, what they were saying. What they were feeling.

  Cat and Hanshiro stood with their hands on the railing and their sleeves touching and surveyed the moonlit, snow-shrouded walls and houses and trees below. The streets and rooftops seemed empty, but they weren’t.

  Cat walked around the platform looking for signs of Viper and his friends. She knew they must be hiding behind the big tubs of water on the roofs or behind fence
s or in the narrow side streets, but she could see no one.

  “They’re very good,” she whispered. Perhaps some of the stories she had heard about the machi yakko hadn’t been exaggerated after all.

  “There.” Hanshiro pointed with his iron fan to a roof several blocks away.

  Moon shadow faintly outlined footprints leading up the roof’s slope to the huge wooden barrel of water, stored there in case of fire. Cat realized that what few traces of the machi yakko she could detect were in the area around Kira’s mansion.

  “Chubei swore his men wouldn’t interfere.” Hanshiro answered Cat’s unspoken doubt. He expected Chubei to keep his word, but he wasn’t surprised to see the machi yakko keeping watch. They wouldn’t miss the chance to see this night’s battle.

  Cat and Hanshiro looked down the street toward the bridge and canal that separated HonjM from Fukagawa, the next ward to the south. If Lord Uesugi sent reinforcements, they would most likely approach from that direction.

  “We’re to ring the fire bell once if we see them coming,” Hanshiro said.

  A temple bell began tolling the seventh watch, the hour of the Tiger. Its notes hung, expectant, on the air. Cat gripped Hanshiro’s arm to keep her own hands from trembling. The hairs on the back of her neck stirred, and her heart pounded. She felt transcendently aware, as though through the walls of Yogoro’s rice shop she could hear the forty-seven men breathe. As though she could smell the incense with which they had perfumed their helmets.

  The last note had faded when Cat heard the faint rasp of a wooden shutter being slid back. The AkM rMnin began fanning out from the front door of the shop. Cat strained to distinguish individuals as they formed into a double line. When they moved out from under the eaves, they and their weapons threw a bristling shadow, like a long, spiked dragon, onto the snow.

  For more freedom of movement, they had wrapped leggings around the bottoms of their hakama. As a disguise they wore the heavy canvas hooded capes of a warriors’ fire brigade. Their sleeves were tied back to reveal mail gauntlets under matching black broadcloth coats with large white triangles around the cuffs and hems. The white design would be easier to see in the dark corridors of Kira’s mansion and would identify the men to each other.