by Steve Bein
“Shichio here tells me we’ve got a problem,” he said, nodding his head toward the peacock. “Something about a monk.”
So this is Shichio, Daigoro thought. The man put him on edge. Ever since his arrival, his eyes repeatedly drifted to Glorious Victory Unsought. He seemed drawn to it somehow. Daigoro had seen that obsession before, and he knew it never ended well.
But he could not afford to ruminate on that now. The island’s most powerful warlord had asked him a question. “Yes, the abbot of Katto-ji,” Daigoro said. “He is under house arrest. His temple is on the next peak north of here.”
“Is he of the Ikko sect?”
“No, my lord regent. His is a Zen order.”
“Was he ever?”
“Of the Ikko Ikki? No, my lord regent.”
“Does he harbor any Ikko monks? Does he preach insurrection? Does he keep a hidden arsenal in the monastery?”
“No, my lord regent.”
Hideyoshi looked over his shoulder to the peacock—no, Daigoro thought, correcting himself: to General Shichio. He could almost hear Katsushima chiding him. Make the slightest misstep and this man will have your head. Best be careful.
“You see?” the regent told Shichio. “The monk is no threat.”
“We’ve come an awfully long way just to take this boy’s word for it,” Shichio said with a sneer. His voice was so soft that he could barely be heard past the dais, yet Daigoro noticed he used none of the honorifics one would expect in speaking to a man second only to the emperor in rank. Was it because Hideyoshi was so informal that he didn’t require such niceties? Or was it the pride of a preening peacock?
Hideyoshi shrugged. “Lord Okuma,” he said, “I’m sure you understand my concerns. I’ve given an execution order. You haven’t followed it. Even a common platoon sergeant cannot abide disobedience from his troops. In my office insubordination looms larger still.”
“Yes, my lord regent.”
“But I respect your title, your name, and your authority. It does me no good to strip a daimyo’s sovereignty over his fief. I have no use for your anger; what I want is your loyalty. And there’s my problem. The easy solution is to kill you, kill this monk, and sail back home. I’ve killed disobedient daimyo before. So remind me, Lord Okuma, how is it that you show me loyalty by refusing to carry out my will?”
“My lord regent has no desire for enemies in Izu,” Daigoro said, then stopped himself. The abbot’s warning about General Shichio echoed in his mind: this was a man who reshaped words like clay. Daigoro’s answer could already be reinterpreted as a veiled threat; he chose his next words more carefully.
“The abbot is a very popular man. He presides over the funerals of every family within three days’ ride of here. Parents are known to travel twenty ri just to have him bless their babies. Killing him is certain to raise the farmers’ ire, my lord regent; any daimyo who killed him would have a hard time collecting taxes.”
“I see,” said Hideyoshi, but Shichio leaned forward and whispered something in his ear.
“Sir, I agree with Lord Okuma,” said the giant. He shifted to face his liege lord. “It is no secret that you plan to move against the Hojos. Create a disturbance among the northern daimyo and you only create allies for the enemy.”
“And yet disobedience is disobedience,” said Hideyoshi. Shichio gave a little nod. Daigoro wondered whose words had just come from the regent’s mouth.
“Sir,” said the giant, “there is disobedience and then there is obeying the spirit of a command without obeying it to the letter.”
“Why, General Mio,” Shichio said, “I hadn’t expected hairsplitting from you.”
“And I hadn’t expected you to sail the command fleet halfway across the empire to indulge a petty grudge. Someday you’ll have to tell me why this monk is so important to you.”
The peacock glowered. The giant, Mio, shifted again where he sat, rotating to face Daigoro. “Lord Okuma, we have your word that no one outside this Katto-ji will ever see the abbot in question again?”
“On my own life, Mio-dono, you have my word.”
“He will speak with no one outside his monastery?”
“Yes, Mio-dono.”
“And what of visitors to the monastery? Will he speak with them?”
Daigoro bowed low. “My lord regent has only to tell me his preference and I will make it law. Toyotomi-dono, please understand, the abbot had the utmost respect for my departed father. He could have taken the tonsure anywhere, and chose to do it at Katto-ji in order to be close to my father and learn from him. If I command him to a lifetime of silence, he will obey.”
General Mio opened his mouth to ask another question, but Shichio cut him off. Speaking loudly for the first time, he said, “It seems to me that if this man is so beloved by the people, then confining him to his monastery will be no more popular than having him killed. In fact, it may be worse; force him into a vow of silence and he will either violate it or else anger the people further by being present yet refusing to speak to them. So what benefit is it to leave him alive?”
Daigoro’s stomach clenched. He had no answer to that. Outfoxed by a peacock, he thought.
But Mio answered for him. “General Shichio speaks directly to my point,” said the giant. “For all intents and purposes, the abbot is dead to the world. Lord Okuma was not disobedient. He fulfilled the spirit of the regent’s command as fully as anyone could ask of him.”
“No,” said Shichio. “To carry it out fully would be to deliver a bald head in a box.”
“My lord regent,” Daigoro said, his heart pounding; he’d never interrupted commanders of this station before. “The abbot himself offered me just that solution. I turned him down.”
Hideyoshi fixed his overlarge eyes on Daigoro. “Did you? Well, look at the balls on this one.” He laughed and said, “Explain yourself, Lord Okuma.”
“My lord regent, my father told me many times that when we are faced with choosing between taking an easy path and taking a hard one, the path of bushido is almost never the easy path.”
A knowing smile touched Hideyoshi’s lips. “I remember him. I met him only briefly, but I remember thinking, ‘Now this one is a samurai.’”
“He was the best,” said Daigoro.
“You misunderstand me,” said Hideyoshi. “He was an impressive man, your father. The consummate samurai. But this honor of his—this honor of yours—never made the slightest bit of sense to me.”
Daigoro was confused. He was sure his ears had deceived him. He could not have heard the regent, a man the emperor himself had raised to the station of samurai, admit he didn’t believe in honor. It was impossible. Wasn’t it?
Hideyoshi went on. “I’ll grant you, I wasn’t born into all this honor nonsense, but even if I had been, I’m still not sure I would understand it any better. How did it become fashionable to prefer death to disloyalty? Why not praise self-interest? Why not ambition? Aren’t people better suited to pursue their own interests anyhow?”
“I’ve never thought of it that way,” Daigoro said honestly. To him the dictates of honor were as indisputable as the stars in the heavens. They were not something one questioned; they simply were. Those who navigated without them did so at their peril. But Hideyoshi had it right as well: left to their own devices, human beings would surely pursue their own selfish interests, wouldn’t they?
“Think on it,” said Hideyoshi. “I defy you to explain why I should live within the straits of this thing you call honor. Wouldn’t your life be easier without it? Here you are, right in the dragon’s den, and yet if you had killed that monk as I ordered, you and I would never have met. In fact, if you weren’t so damned honor-bound, you could have sent along any old head, neh? You could have lied and saved your skin. Yet here you are. I can kill you at whim. Your honor makes you weaker than me, doesn’t it?”
Daigoro could almost feel the energy bristling from General Mio—and not just from Mio, but from Katsushima too. Both of them wer
e born samurai and both were too incensed to speak. They gave off heat like a pair of volcanoes. Was Hideyoshi goading them? Was he goading Daigoro? Or was he really so ignorant of what it meant to be samurai?
“My lord, I think I am weaker than you,” Daigoro said at last. “But not because of my honor. I am weaker because my influence is smaller. I have a few hundred warriors at my command; you have hundreds of thousands. And yes, I believe you have it right: I think men are naturally inclined not to be honorable but to be selfish. But that is precisely why honor is important; it bids us to transcend ourselves. Without it, we are only clever animals. With it, we can be better than our animal instincts allow us to be.”
“Is that what you think of peasants?” said Hideyoshi. “That we’re animals?”
“No, my lord, I—”
“Let me ask you this: would you agree that the peasants of our country—the clever little animals—would like to see an end to war?”
“Of course, my lord regent.”
“And would you agree that as long as there have been samurai, there has been war?”
“We are born out of war. That is what it means to be a warrior.”
“Don’t you see what that means? As long as there are warriors, war will never end. What we need is an end to it. When every last province is brought under the reign of one man, that man can stop being a warlord. He can simply be a ruler.”
Hideyoshi smiled. It was an ugly thing, his sharp teeth not so different from the sharp rocks jumbled along the coastline. But ugly as it was, there was legitimate kindness in the smile. “Tell me, Lord Okuma, wouldn’t your father have preferred to see the end of all wars?”
“Yes, my lord regent. Without a doubt.”
“Then what good is this honor of yours if it always leads to more fighting? Would it not be better if all samurai abandoned their honor and started thinking more like peasants?”
“Begging your pardon, my lord regent, but I respect my father above all other men. It was his unfailing adherence to bushido that I admired most. If he were still alive, if he were in this room and you commanded me to behead him, I would do it in a heartbeat and I believe he would be proud of me for doing so. To sacrifice family for one’s liege is the hardest path, and it leads to the highest height of honor. But to sacrifice an innocent is the easy path. To sacrifice an innocent to benefit oneself is even worse. And to do so at the expense of one’s liege lord is unforgivable.”
“Who gave you the right to decide what is unforgivable?” said Shichio, his voice loud and sharp, verging on a snarl. His angry outburst was totally at odds with his genteel appearance. “Are you the regent now? Has the emperor given you his blessing?”
Daigoro bowed his forehead to the floor. “My most abject apologies, Shichio-dono. I chose my words poorly.” And you didn’t wait long to capitalize on that, he thought.
Hearing no further objection, Daigoro continued. “My lord regent, you are correct: I could have sent you the head of any bald man. I could have shaved a common criminal. And I could have sent you the head you requested—”
“The imperial regent does not request anything,” Shichio hissed. “He speaks and his underlings obey.”
Again Daigoro’s forehead touched the floor. “As you say, Shichio-dono. A thousand apologies, my lords. A thousand times thousand.”
“Go on,” said Hideyoshi.
“My lord regent, I could have beheaded the abbot as you ordered and all of this business would be over. But to do so would be to kill an innocent for no other reason than to make life easier for my family and myself. Worse yet, I believe it would have been a disservice to you. I believe General Mio is correct, Toyotomi-dono: if I were to kill this abbot, it would strengthen your enemies and drive the northern territories further from your grasp.”
“The regent’s arm extends everywhere,” said Shichio. “Nothing is beyond his grasp. And even if it were, is someone of your station powerful enough to deny him? I think not.”
“And I think you talk more than you should,” said General Mio. “Shut your mouth and let your superior make his own decision in peace.”
Shichio scowled across the dais at Mio but kept his mouth shut. Yet Daigoro noticed a change in Hideyoshi. He sat somewhat taller than before; he’d squared his shoulders and ever so slightly lowered his chin. All this talk of his own power seemed to make him feel more powerful, and in hindsight Daigoro realized that Shichio’s words were aimed not just at Daigoro but at Hideyoshi too. It was as if he’d been inflating the man, puffing him up, stiffening his resolve, yet all the while drawing Hideyoshi’s position closer toward his own, like iron filings shifting their alignment toward a magnet. Daigoro wondered how many others in the room had even noticed. Mio was oblivious, as was Hideyoshi himself. The peacock truly was a master manipulator.
Hideyoshi was quiet for a long time. “Sir,” General Mio said at last, “you must see the logic of the boy’s argument.”
But Daigoro wasn’t so sure. Shichio’s hypnotic song still held sway over him. If the regent were to pass judgment now, it could go either way, and Daigoro was certain that once Hideyoshi made a pronouncement, it would stand as fast as Mount Fuji itself. Shichio had overfed his ego; there was no longer any room for backing down.
Would it be so bad? Suppose the abbot were to die, Daigoro thought. Suppose he died on a Toyotomi sword, or even an Okuma sword at Hideyoshi’s command. One man would go willingly to his death and the Okumas would escape the regent’s wrath. Better still, they would escape the wrath of the regent’s right-hand man, who was not only touched by madness but clearly held greater sway than the more reasonable General Mio. Was that such a bad alternative? Be quiet, a voice in his mind told him. Let the regent pass judgment however he likes.
Katsushima’s voice spoke in Daigoro’s mind too. Patience. Say nothing. You are already poised on the razor’s edge; do not compromise your balance.
And there was a third voice too: his father’s. There is the easy path and the hard path. You know which one to choose.
“My lord regent,” Daigoro said, “there is another way to resolve this dilemma.”
Hideyoshi blinked at him as if he’d just snapped out of a dream. “Oh?”
Daigoro swallowed. He felt his heart plunge down a cold, dark well. He willed his hand to remain steady as he withdrew his wakizashi from his waistband and laid it ceremoniously on the floor in front of him. Then he moved to take off his overrobe and bare his chest.
A samurai always had one final method of protest: seppuku. By all accounts there were few deaths more painful than ritual disembowelment, but no one could question the sincerity of a man who was willing to plunge a knife into his own belly. By sacrificing his own life—something he was certain Shichio would never do—Daigoro could prove his cause was right. Seppuku was a time-honored tradition, one that even Hideyoshi could understand.
Daigoro found his arms had frozen. He could only commit seppuku by first removing his robe, and now his very muscles would not let him do it.
“Yes,” said Shichio. “There is another solution, isn’t there?”
Of course, Daigoro thought. How could he expect Shichio to make this easier? How could he even expect the man to appreciate the gravity of the situation? He was no samurai. He would relish every moment of Daigoro’s suicide. And now Daigoro’s own body threatened to taint the solemnity of seppuku. This was not a moment to lose his resolve.
Daigoro closed his eyes and willed life back into his petrified arms. If suicide was his only recourse, he would face it without fear.
13
“Trial by combat,” said Shichio.
Daigoro opened his eyes in surprise. Shichio was supposed to relish watching him die. He wasn’t supposed to prevent Daigoro from falling on his sword.
“The boy is right,” said Shichio. “Men’s words are proved by steel. If argument cannot settle this, let it be settled by swords.”
“You’re joking,” said General Mio. “You? Fight?”
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br /> “Of course not,” said Shichio. “I have no more interest in fighting this child than he has in fighting me. But surely he has a champion. And surely one of our brave samurai will step up to champion our cause.”
“Your cause,” said Mio.
Daigoro’s whole body began to quiver. He’d come so close to death. In his mind he’d already willed his death, and now it would not come—or at least not by seppuku. If this trial-by-combat nonsense played itself through, he might still be killed, but in that case the abbot’s death would come next. Shichio had anticipated Daigoro’s suicide and the effect it would have on Hideyoshi’s mind. He’d anticipated it and nipped it in the bud. Once again Daigoro had been outfoxed by a peacock.
And yet Shichio had a point. The duel was first invented to settle questions of honor. The tradition of proving one’s word with the sword was as old as the sword itself. If Daigoro refused to duel, it would be tantamount to admitting disloyalty. If refusing to kill the abbot was truly the right course, Daigoro had no choice but to defend it with steel.
But how much blood had been shed needlessly in the name of honor? Daigoro had witnessed his share of duels, including the one that claimed his brother’s life. He’d seen men bloodied and maimed and killed, all in the name of a concept that he had always taken for granted, a concept that he’d never examined in any real depth until Hideyoshi called it into question.
And the duels Daigoro had seen were the best of their kind. How many duels ended in a mutual slaying? Half? More? Often as not, two experts would cut each other down. Two neophytes would do the same, out of sheer inexperience rather than skill. Survival itself was often a grim prospect; the samurai caste was full of men who had defended their honor at the cost of a limb. Daigoro had no taste for it.