Spirit of the Ronin

by Travis Heermann

  Two drill yards, those of Barracks Five and Six, stood between her and the practice yard where Master Higuchi schooled her in the ways of the naginata. The men of Barrack Five stood outside, slapping their arms against the cold, preparing for their morning exercises.

  Around a bend of the central keep, she entered the domain of Barrack Six, but here there was a punishment in progress.

  The warriors stood at attention as another man, who was lashed to a cross, was flogged with a bamboo cane. She could not see his face. A pool of sick dread formed in her belly. With so many new recruits, many of them from lowly backgrounds and thus not schooled in the behavior and expectations of true samurai, such punishments had become almost commonplace in recent weeks. Her husband had assured her that once a few examples were made, the recruits would shape up. She could hardly disapprove if the alternatives were casting them out or demanding their seppuku.

  Crossing the yard now would interrupt the proceedings, so she waited off to the side, unnoticed.

  The man on the cross bore each resounding blow with a quiet, unfathomable stoicism. His voice counted out the strokes, calm and quiet and steady, as if he were in a trance, as if the pain did not touch him. Angry, scarlet welts crisscrossed his muscled back, weeping blood.

  The burgeoning amazement was plain on the sergeant’s face.

  “Twenty-seven,” the man called.

  Something was familiar about his voice.

  His forehead pressed against the wood. From her vantage point behind and to the left of him, she could not see his face.

  Then he turned his face toward her. “Twenty-eight.”

  Her heart burst through her ribcage and fell at her feet.

  Some sound must have escaped her.

  His gaze swept toward her.

  Their eyes met.

  The next blow fell.

  Ken’ishi’s mouth opened, but no sound came forth.

  The sergeant administering the blows paused for a heartbeat in his terrible rhythm. But the look of amazement on his face changed to something else, something harder. He struck again.

  Still, Ken’ishi did not speak.

  From this distance she could read nothing in the implacable mask of his face.

  Another blow fell, and his body convulsed with pain as if for the first time.

  Several of the men glanced toward her. She dared not reveal she knew this man, or the potential ripples of effect could be disastrous for him. She gave not a moment’s thought toward herself. Only for him. If it became apparent to anyone that she knew him, his life would be in danger.

  She wiped all expression from her face and looked away. Willed the tears not to come, she stood taller, straighter, held her naginata with greater solemnity.

  Finally, after four more blows, Ken’ishi found his voice again. But now its gasp made it barely audible. “Twenty-nine!”

  His face turned away and he slammed his forehead into the wood—once, twice, thrice.

  The sergeant struck again.

  “Thirty!” Ken’ishi called, and then he sagged unconscious against the ropes.

  With a deliberate pace that she hoped painted a picture of calm disinterest, she began to cross the yard.

  At the sight of her, the sergeant called out, “Honor to Lady Otomo!”

  All the men hurriedly prostrated themselves, pressing their foreheads to the earth as she passed. She hurried her step and kept her gaze steadfastly forward, so that she would not have to see Ken’ishi’s ravaged body lying in the dirt.

  An eternity of stricken heartbeats later, she rounded the corner, out of sight, and then she fled. Once she reached her own practice yard, she leaned against the whitewashed plaster and slid to the ground, trembling.

  “Within this body solidified by desire is concealed the absolutely desireless and upright core of the mind. This mind is not in the body of the Five Skandhas, has no color or form, and is not desire. It is unwaveringly correct, it is absolutely straight. When this mind is used as a plumbline, anything done at all will be right-mindedness. This absolutely straight thing is the substance of right-mindedness.”

  —Takuan Soho, “The Clear Sound of Jewels”

  Ken’ishi sat near the fire inside his barrack. The bowl of rice cupped in his hands had long since gone cold. Sensation had returned to his arms. Strangely, parts of him warmed, allowing him to feel the cold again. The night’s chill had permeated his bones, made them feel like frozen boughs buried in his flesh.

  He stared into the coals, unable to muster a coherent thought. His mind was an empty room, like the abandoned hovel he had found in the forest before arriving here, filled with nothing but dust and forgotten detritus.

  Outside in the practice yard, the rest of Barrack Six drilled.

  Ushihara sat across from him, his bowl of rice empty. “Aren’t you going to eat yours?” he asked.

  Ken’ishi blinked and offered him the bowl.

  Surprise flashed on Ushihara’s face. “Truly?” Then he snatched it.

  Ken’ishi’s back burned as if covered in hot coals, but he did not care. This kind of pain would heal.

  An old wound had been opened, one that cut deeper than any wound of the flesh.

  A storm of emotions hung ready to crash over him, but squelched somehow, as if he had put the storm in a kettle and covered it with a lid. A strange moment passed over him, that he must be watching some other poor fool’s life unfolding before him. Such a cruel twist of fate could hardly be believed.

  “When we were bound,” Ken’ishi said, “you told me that someone had put you up to it.”

  Ushihara stopped chewing. “I-I didn’t say anything like that. You must have been dreaming.”

  Abject terror blanched his face, but Ken’ishi lacked the strength to force the truth from Ushihara.

  Around midday, the men in the yard filed inside with fresh bowls of rice and roasted fish on skewers.

  Michizane sat down next to Ken’ishi, giving Ushihara a hateful look. Ushihara could not meet his gaze. “How are you feeling, Ken’ishi?”

  Ken’ishi said, “I have not yet crossed to the realm of the dead.”

  “Everyone is talking about how you withstood the pain. Thirty-five strokes as if they were nothing at all! How did you do it?”

  Ken’ishi took a deep, painful breath and let it out.

  When Michizane saw no answer forthcoming, he said, “Tomorrow we begin archery practice. How are you with a bow?”

  “I can shoot.”

  “What about on horseback?”

  “I have only ridden one horse. We did not shoot.”

  “They say Captain Tsunemori is a master horsebowman. Perhaps he’ll instruct us. I expect some of us barely know how to sit astride a horse, much less fire a bow at the same time.” He glared pointedly at Ushihara.

  Ushihara turned to face the wall, shoulders hunched.

  Sergeant Hiromasa approached, his face hard, eyes like chips of basalt. “Ken’ishi, tomorrow you will be a unit leader. Do not disappoint me again.”

  Ken’ishi tried to jump to his feet, but his muscles allowed only a painful unfolding. He stood at attention. “Thank you, Sergeant. I will bring honor to Lord Tsunetomo.”

  “See me before morning drill for your command roster.”

  Hiromasa turned and left them all gaping in shock.

  Ken’ishi sank back down beside Michizane, the lid on the cauldron of his emotions threatening to blow off. But this was a different sort of shock.

  Michizane smiled. “It seems you have made an impression.”

  * * *

  Ken’ishi roused himself before dawn the next morning, preparing himself for anything that might come. In spite of what should have been a great success in being promoted to unit leader, he felt as if an invisible sword hovered just over his head. Someone in the castle had put Ushihara up to goading Ken’ishi into a fight. If anyone discovered that he and Lady Kazuko had been lovers before her marriage, both their lives would be destroyed. He did not ca
re about his, but she would be disgraced, possibly cast out.

  The enormity of the web of circumstances that had brought them both to this place at this time staggered him. He could sense the innumerable gossamer threads weaving him into the fabric of the universe, twining him with Kazuko, Kiosé, plus others he had encountered, but now those threads seemed hidden from him. Silver Crane had ignored his pleas for answers. The sword kept its mysteries well hidden.

  The expression on Kazuko’s face was as indelible as a woodblock print in his mind. There had been surprise, but more than anything she looked like someone who had just encountered her worst enemy, the person who could destroy everything. Perhaps in that she was right, at least. The thought of causing her any harm, purposefully or inadvertently, sickened him. Surprise and fear on her face, and then...nothing. Her expression had become a blank wall, a Noh mask.

  His muscles still felt like knotted, overstretched ropes, and the touch of the robe on his back chafed at the bruised, scabbed weals. At least he had blankets to warm him, even though sleep fled his every attempt to grasp it.

  He stood outside the tiny room of the barrack sergeant with two other newly appointed unit leaders and Sergeant Hiromasa. Hiromasa gave each of them a list of the ten men under their command. Ken’ishi noted that Michizane and Ushihara were among his men.

  As Hiromasa outlined the duties of unit leaders, Ken’ishi found himself grateful for this distraction. His body wracked by pain, his torso a sizzling cavern, he had lain on his side or his belly in his bunk all night, wide-awake. The more he yearned for sleep, the more it eluded him. His eyes felt puffy and full of grit, but none of that would deter him.

  When he had found himself in command of an imperiled group of scouts during the invasion, thrust into that position by his own exploits, assuming command had felt natural. But all of that had been little more than an attempt to organize a desperate patch of order in a sea of chaos and death. Here, his mind floundered between attentiveness to everything that Hiromasa was telling him and fear that he would fail to remember any of it.

  As night faded and he stood at the forefront of his ten men, leading them in exercises that warmed the sleep out of them, he spied a lone hawk sitting on the peak of the barrack roof. Its gray feathers blended with the morning sky, and its sharp eyes watched the proceedings with unusual interest.

  A moment later, he recognized the hawk as the same one that had spoken to him in the rain, at a crossroads, as the typhoon descended upon the battlefields of northern Kyushu. The hawk was his old master and teacher, the tengu, Kaa. In its gaze was the mixture of exasperated impatience and incredulous amusement Ken’ishi knew so well. The tengu came and went at the strangest times. Seeing him here now made Ken’ishi stumble, disrupting the cadence of the drill.

  For an hour, the hawk watched. Before long, several of the men of Barrack Six had noticed its presence and called to it. Its unwavering gaze seemed to judge them as a horse trader might examine a crop of foals. Ken’ishi did not see the hawk fly away. One moment it was simply gone, and he could only continue with the spear drills and wonder at the purpose for Kaa’s presence. The tengu did nothing without a purpose.

  The afternoon brought a cart full of bows and arrows. Straw targets were erected. Since some of his men were peasant-born, like Ushihara, he had to instruct them in the most basic knowledge of how to string a bow, how to nock an arrow, and how to shoot without hitting their comrades.

  By the end of the day, a modicum of satisfaction had chewed a few holes in his black mood. His skill with the bow remained undiminished, and in the instruction, the men found a new way to respect him.

  Ushihara was still sullen, but he worked as hard as anyone, even though the pain must still have been crippling. Ken’ishi suppressed his own pain, much as he had done under the efforts of Green Tiger’s torturer. Ken’ishi thought Ushihara would not try to cause trouble for him again.

  But who had put the man up to making trouble in the first place? How could Ken’ishi have enemies here already? Could he trust anyone? Even Michizane? Until he knew more, however, he would give Ushihara the widest berth.

  “Calculating people are contemptible. The reason for this is that calculation deals with loss and gain, and the loss and gain mind never stops. Death is considered loss, and life is considered gain. Thus, death is something such a person does not care for, and he is contemptible.”

  —Hagakure, Book of the Samurai

  Yasutoki regarded the two men—Ushihara and Takuya—as they deposited their buckets of charcoal in the corner of his office.

  “Have you any further work for us, Lord?” Takuya said.

  “That will be all,” Yasutoki said. “You may return to your barrack.”

  The two of them bowed and turned to leave. Ushihara’s expression was nervous, expectant. As Takuya slid open the door, Yasutoki said, “Oh, I do have one more thing. Ushihara, please stay a moment longer. This will not take long, I assure you.”

  Takuya bowed and departed.

  As soon as the door slid shut, Ushihara prostrated himself before Yasutoki, trembling with fear, whispering, “Forgive me, Lord! I tried!”

  “Then how is it that he has been promoted?” Yasutoki asked, his voice steady and measured.

  Ushihara shook his head. “I don’t know, Lord!”

  “What am I to do? I am a loyal servant of Lord Tsunetomo. It is my duty to ensure the smooth workings of my lord’s estates and pass forward to him any information that might be deemed...unpleasant. I thought it strange to find a man named Ushihara—an unusual name, to be sure—on the rolls of my lord’s new recruits. I had heard recently of an eta, one of the unclean, a gravedigger by the name of Ushihara, a man wanted for the murder of a wealthy Kagoshima merchant.” A man with whom Green Tiger had had numerous profitable business dealings. “This other Ushihara is not you, I am quite certain. At least, for now. Of course, if I believed you and this other Ushihara to be the same man, I would have to have you arrested immediately, after which doubtless you would be tortured to death.”

  Ushihara trembled, sweat trickling down his face.

  Yasutoki said, “So I must ask the question. What can you do for me now?”

  “I can’t bear another flogging, Lord.”

  “Flogging is the most lenient punishment you are likely to experience ever again,” Yasutoki said. What kind of fool would still answer to a name that had been so tainted with a death sentence? Was he actually stupid enough to think that he would be safe here, hundreds of ri from the crime?

  Ushihara cringed.

  Yasutoki said, “I will ask you again, what can you do for me now?”

  “A dagger across his throat in the dead of night, Lord?”

  Yasutoki had considered the possibility of having Ken’ishi murdered. But such a brazen assassination would raise uncomfortable questions, such as why Ushihara had met twice, privately, with the lord’s chamberlain. Tsunemori already despised Yasutoki; he would be quick to point an accusing finger, and he was one of the few men with the status and rank to get away with it.

  No, Yasutoki would have to find another instrument if Ken’ishi were to be killed. First he must determine if Ken’ishi possessed Silver Crane. He had already attempted to bring the man into his employ, many times, and been refused, many times, even under the coercion of torture. Would Ken’ishi be more willing to work for the lord’s chamberlain than for Green Tiger? Again, too many chances for Green Tiger to be recognized. Best to continue watching Ken’ishi from a distance. As long as Silver Crane was close, available for snatching at any moment, Yasutoki could tolerate his presence. Besides, now that Ken’ishi was here, he would make a perfect lever with which to pry Kazuko into doing his will.

  “For now, I want you to pay attention to his sword. Study it. In a few days, you will tell me what you know of it.”

  “I don’t know anything about swords, Lord. What do you want me to study?”

  Yasutoki let out a controlled breath between tightened li
ps. “Tell me of any designs on the scabbard. Tell me what the hilt looks like. Tell me what the guard looks like.” Those details would tell him everything he needed to know. And then he could act from that knowledge. “Serve me well, and you will be rewarded. Betray me, and you’ll wish for that other Ushihara’s punishment.”

  Frost covers the reeds of the marsh.

  A fine haze blows through them,

  Crackling the long leaves.

  My full heart throbs with bliss.

  —The Love Poems of Marichiko

  After so many days of training, a day of rest was declared. The men were free to venture out of the castle. It was a chill, windy day, with a sky swathed in gray clouds.

  Ken’ishi’s back still pained him, but it was no longer a field of raw flames. Everyone else had gone to town for hot saké to warm their bones. Ken’ishi practiced sword drills alone, trying to focus his scattered mind, when a familiar voice called out to him.

  “Always practicing, eh, Sir Ken’ishi?” Ishitaka said as he approached.

  Ken’ishi sheathed Silver Crane, and they bowed to each other. Ken’ishi had not seen Ishitaka since that day in Hakozaki some weeks before, in the aftermath of the typhoon. Doubtless being the son of Captain Tsunemori entailed many duties far above the heads of lowly spearmen. Ishitaka’s beaming face and infectious grin betrayed his youth. He was only sixteen, but had been trained from birth to be a warrior of the Otomo clan. Their experiences in battle against the Mongols had turned them into comrades, despite the vast difference in their respective status.