A few years ago the growing shishi movement had formed themselves into small, secret cells, committing themselves to rediscover bushido—ancient samurai practices of self-discipline, duty, honor, death, swordsmanship and other warlike pursuits, arts long since lost—except for a few Sensei who had kept bushido alive. Lost because for the last two and a half centuries Japan had been at peace under rigid Toranaga rule that forbade warlike pursuits, where, for centuries before, there had been total civil war.
Cautiously the shishi began to meet and discuss and to plan. Swords manship schools became centers of discontent. Zealots and radicals appeared in their midst, some good, some bad. But one common thread joined them—all were fanatically anti-Shōgunate, and opposed to allowing Japanese ports to be opened to foreigners and foreign trade.
To this end, for the last four years, they had waged sporadic attacks on gai-jin, and begun to articulate an unprecedented, all-out revolt against the legal ruler, Shōgun Nobusada, the all-powerful Council of Elders and Bakufu that in theory did his bidding, regulating all aspects of life.
The shishi had conjured up an all-embracing slogan, Sonno-joi: Honor the Emperor and Expel the Barbarians, and had sworn, whatever the cost, to remove anyone in the way.
“Even if they are shishi,” Sanjiro said angrily, “I cannot allow such a public disobedience to go unpunished, however merited—I agree those gai-jin should have dismounted and knelt, as customary, and behaved like civilized persons; yes, it was they who provoked my men. But that does not excuse those two.”
“I agree, Sire.”
“Then give me your advice,” he said irritably. “If they’re shishi as you say and I crush them, or order them to commit seppuku, I will be assassinated before the month is out, however many my guards—don’t attempt to deny it, I know. Disgusting their power is so strong though most are common goshi.”
“Perhaps that is their strength, Sire,” Katsumata had replied. Goshi were the lowest rank of samurai, their families mostly penniless country samurai, hardly more than the warrior peasants of olden times with almost no hope of getting an education, therefore no hope of advancement, no hope of getting their views acted upon, or even heard by officials of low rank, let alone daimyo. “They’ve nothing to lose but their lives.”
“If anyone has a grievance I listen, of course I listen. Special men get special education, some of them.”
“Why not allow them to lead the attack on the gai-jin?”
“And if there is no attack? I cannot hand them over to the Bakufu, unthinkable, or to the gai-jin!”
“Most shishi are just young idealists, without brains or purpose. A few are troublemakers and outlaws who are not needed on this earth. However, some could be valuable, if used correctly—a spy told me the oldest, Shorin, was part of the team that assassinated Chief Minister Ii.”
“So ka!”
This had occurred four years ago. Against all advice, Ii, who was responsible for maneuvering the boy Nobusada to be Shōgun, had also suggested a highly improper marriage between the boy and the Emperor’s twelve-year-old half sister, and, worst of all, had negotiated and signed the hated Treaties. His passing was not regretted, especially by Sanjiro.
“Send for them.”
Now in the audience room a maid was serving Sanjiro tea. Katsumata sat beside him. Around stood ten of his personal bodyguard. All were armed. The two youths kneeling below and in front of him were not, though their swords lay on the tatami within easy reach. Their nerves were stretched but they showed none of it. The maid bowed and left, hiding her fear.
Sanjiro did not notice her going. He lifted the exquisite little porcelain cup from the tray, sipped the tea. The tea’s taste was good to him and he was glad to be ruler and not ruled, pretending to study the cup, admiring it, his real attention on the youths. They waited impassively, knowing the time had come.
He knew nothing about them except what Katsumata had told him: that both were goshi, foot soldiers like their fathers before them. Each had a stipend of one koku yearly—a measure of dry rice, about five bushels, considered enough to feed one family for one year. Both came from villages near Kagoshima. One was nineteen, the other, who had been wounded and now had his arm bound, was seventeen. Both had been to the select samurai school at Kagoshima that gave extra training, including studies of carefully chosen Dutch manuals, which he had begun twenty years ago for those showing special aptitudes. Both had been good students, both were unmarried, both spent their spare time perfecting their swordsmanship and learning. Both were eligible for promotion sometime in the future. The older was called Shorin Anato, the younger Ori Ryoma.
The silence became heavier.
Abruptly he began talking to Katsumata as though the two youths did not exist: “If any of my men, however worthy, however much provoked, whatever the reason, were to commit a violent act that I had not authorized and they remained within my reach, I would certainly have to deal with them severely.”
“Yes, Sire.”
He saw the glint in his counselor’s eyes. “Stupid to be disobedient. If such men wanted to remain alive their only recourse would be to flee and become ronin, even if they were to lose their stipends. A waste of their lives if they happened to be worthy.” Then he looked at the youths, scrutinizing them carefully. To his surprise he saw nothing on their faces, just the same grave impassivity. His caution increased.
“You are quite correct, Sire. As always.” Katsumata added, “It might be that some such men, if special men of honor, knowing that they had disturbed your harmony, knowing you would have no other option than to punish them severely, these special men even as ronin would still guard your interests, perhaps even forward your interests.”
“Such men do not exist,” Sanjiro said, secretly delighted his counselor agreed with him. He turned his pitiless eyes onto the young men. “Do they?”
Both youths tried to maintain their direct gaze but they were overwhelmed. They dropped their glance. Shorin, the older, muttered, “There—there are such men, Sire.”
The silence became rougher as Sanjiro waited for the other youth to declare himself also. Then the younger Ori nodded his bowed head imperceptibly, put both hands flat on the tatami and bowed lower. “Yes, Lord, I agree.”
Sanjiro was content, for now, at no cost, he had their allegiance and two spies within the movement—whom Katsumata would be answerable for.
“Such men would be useful, if they existed.” His voice was curt and final. “Katsumata, write an immediate letter to the Bakufu, informing them two goshi called …” he thought a moment, paying no attention to the rustle in the room, “put whatever names you like … broke ranks and killed some gai-jin today because of their provocative and insolent attitude—the gai-jin were armed with pistols which they pointed threateningly at my palanquin. These two men, provoked, as all my men were, escaped before they could be caught and bound.” He looked back at the youths. “As to you two, you will both come back at the first night watch for sentencing.”
Katsumata said quickly, “Sire, may I suggest you add in the letter that they have been ordered outcast, declared ronin, their stipends cancelled and a reward offered for their heads.”
“Two koku. Post it in their villages when we return.” Sanjiro turned his eyes on Shorin and Ori and waved his hand in dismissal. They bowed deeply and left. He was pleased to see the sweat on the back of their kimonos though the afternoon was not hot.
“Katsumata, about Yokohama,” he said softly when they were alone again. “Send some of our best spies to see what is going on there. Order them to be back here by nightfall, and order all samurai to become battle ready.”
“Yes, Sire.” Katsumata did not allow a smile to show.
When the youths left Sanjiro and had passed through the rings of bodyguards, Katsumata caught up with them. “Follow me.” He led the way through meandering gardens to a side door that was unguarded.
“Go at once to Kanagawa, to the Inn of the Midnight Blossoms. It is
a safe house, other friends will be there. Hurry!”
“But, Sensei,” Ori said. “First we must collect our other swords and armor and money and—”
“Silence!” Angrily Katsumata reached into his kimono sleeve and gave them a small purse with a few coins in it. “Take this, and return double for your insolence. At sunset I will order men to go after you with orders to kill you if you’re caught within one ri.” A ri was about a league, about three miles.
“Yes, Sensei, I apologize for being so rude.”
“Your apology is not accepted. You are both fools. You should have killed all four barbarians, not just one—particularly the girl, for that would have sent the gai-jin mad with rage! How many times have I told you? They’re not civilized like us, and view the world, religion and women differently! You’re inept! You’re fools! You initiated a good attack then failed to press forward ruthlessly without concern for your own lives. You hesitated! So you lost! Fools!” he said again. “You forgot everything I’ve taught you.” Enraged, he backhanded Shorin in the face, the blow savage.
At once Shorin bowed, mumbled an abject apology for causing the Sensei to lose wa, to lose inner harmony, keeping his head bowed, desperately trying to contain the pain. Ori stayed ramrod stiff, waiting for the second blow. It left a livid burn in its wake. Immediately he, too, apologized abjectly, and kept his throbbing head bowed, afraid. Once a fellow student, the best swordsman amongst them, had answered Katsumata rudely during a practice fight. Without hesitation, Katsumata had sheathed his sword, attacked barehanded, disarmed him, humiliated him, broke both his arms and expelled him to his village forever.
“Please excuse me, Sensei,” Shorin said, meaning it.
“Go to the Inn of the Midnight Blossoms. When I send a message, obey whatever I require of you at once, there will be no second chance! At once, understand?”
“Yes, yes, Sensei, please excuse me,” they mumbled together, tucked up their kimonos and fled, thankful to be out of his reach, more frightened of him than of Sanjiro. Katsumata had been their main teacher for years, in both the arts of war and, in secret, other arts: strategy, past, present and of the future, why the Bakufu had failed in their duty, the Toranagas in theirs, why there must be change and how to bring it about. Katsumata was one of the few clandestine shishi who was hatomoto—an honored retainer with instant access to his lord—a senior samurai with a personal yearly stipend of a thousand koku.
“Eeee, to be so rich,” Shorin had whispered to Ori when they had first found out.
“Money is nothing, nothing. The Sensei says when you have power you don’t need money.”
“I agree, but think of your family, your father and mine, and grandfather, they could buy some land of their own and not have to work the fields of others—nor would we have to work like that from time to time to earn extra.”
“You’re right,” Ori said.
Then Shorin had laughed. “No need to worry, we’ll never get even a hundred koku and if we had it we’d just spend our share on girls and saké and become daimyos of the Floating World. A thousand koku is all the money in the world!”
“No, it’s not,” Ori had said. “Don’t forget what the Sensei told us.”
During one of Katsumata’s secret sessions for his special group of acolytes he had said: “The revenue of Satsuma amounts to seven hundred and fifty thousand koku and belongs to our lord, the daimyo, to apportion as he sees fit. That’s another custom the new administration will modify. When the great change has happened, a fief’s revenue will be portioned out by a Council of State, made up of wise men drawn from any rank of samurai, high or low, of any age, provided the man has the necessary wisdom and has proved himself a man of honor. It will be the same in all fiefs, as the land will be governed by a Supreme Council of State in Yedo or Kyōto, drawn equally from samurai of honor—under the guidance of the Son of Heaven.”
“Sensei, you said any? May I ask, will that include the Toranagas?” Ori had asked.
“There will be no exception, if the man is worthy.”
“Sensei, please, about the Toranagas. Does anyone know their real wealth, the lands they really control?”
“After Sekigahara, Toranaga took lands from dead enemies worth yearly about five million koku, about a third of all the wealth of Nippon, for himself and his family. In perpetuity.”
In the stunned silence that followed, Ori had said for all of them: “With that amount of wealth we could have the greatest navy in the world with all the men-of-war and cannon and guns we could ever need, we could have the best legions with the best guns, we could throw out all gai-jin!”
“We could even carry war to them and extend our shores,” Katsumata had added softly, “and correct previous shame.”
At once they had known he was referring to the tairō, General Nakamura, Toranaga’s immediate predecessor and liege lord, the great peasant-general who then possessed the Gates and had therefore, in gratitude, been granted by the Emperor the highest possible title a lowborn could aspire to, tairō, meaning Dictator—not that of Shōgun, which he coveted to obsession but could never have.
Having subdued all the land, chiefly by persuading his main enemy Toranaga to swear allegiance to him and his child heir forever, he had gathered a huge armada and mounted a vast campaign against Chosen, or Korea as it was sometimes called, to enlighten that country and use it as a stepping-stone to the Dragon Throne of China. But his armies had failed and soon retreated in ignominy—as in previous eras, centuries before, two other Japanese attempts had failed, equally in disaster, the throne of China a perpetual lodestone.
“Such shame needs to be eradicated—like the shame the Sons of Heaven have suffered because of the Toranagas who usurped Nakamura’s power when the man died, destroyed his wife and son, levelled their Osaka castle, and have pillaged the heritage of the Son of Heaven for long enough! Sonno-joi!”
“Sonno-joi!” they had echoed. Fervently.
In the dusk the youths were tiring, their headlong flight racking them. But neither wanted to be the first to admit it so they pressed on until they were at the threshold of woods. Ahead now were paddy swamps on either side of the Tokaidō that led to the outskirts of Kanagawa just ahead, and to the roadblock. The shore was to their right.
“Let’s … let’s stop a moment,” Ori said, his wounded arm throbbing, head hurting, chest hurting, but not showing it.
“All right.” Shorin was panting as hard and hurting as much but he laughed. “You’re weak, like an old woman.” He picked a dry patch of earth, sat down gratefully. With great care be began to look around, trying to regain his breathing.
The Tokaidō was almost empty, night travel being generally forbidden by the Bakufu and subject to severe cross-questioning and punishment if not justified. Several porters and the last of the travellers scurried for the Kanagawa barrier, all others safely bathing or carousing at the Inns of their choice—of which there was a multitude within the post towns. Throughout the land, trunk road barriers closed at nightfall and were not opened until dawn, and always guarded by local samurai.
Across the bay Shorin could see the oil lamps along the promenade and in some of the houses of the Settlement, and amongst the ships at anchor. A good moon, half full, was rising from near the horizon.
“How is your arm, Ori?”
“Fine, Shorin. We are more than a ri from Hodogaya.”
“Yes, but I won’t feel safe until we’re at the Inn.” Shorin began massaging his neck to try to ease the pain there and in his head. Katsumata’s blow had stunned him. “When we were before Lord Sanjiro I thought we were finished, I thought he was going to condemn us.”
“So did I.” As he spoke Ori felt sick, his arm throbbing like his heaving chest, his face still afire. With his good hand he waved absently at a swarm of night insects. “If he … I was ready to go for my sword and send him on before us.”
“So was I but the Sensei was watching very closely and he would have killed both of us before
we moved.”
“Yes, you’re right again.” The younger man shuddered. “His blow almost took my head off. Eeee, to have such strength, unbelievable! I’m glad he’s on our side, not against us. He saved us, only him; he bent Lord Sanjiro to his will.” Ori was suddenly somber. “Shorin, while I was waiting I … to keep myself strong, I composed my death poem.”
Shorin became equally grave. “May I hear it?”
“Yes.
“Sonno-joi at sunset,
Nothing wasted
Into nothing
I spring.”
Shorin thought about the poem, savoring it, the balance of the words and the third level of meaning. Then he said solemnly, “It is wise for a samurai to have composed a death poem. I haven’t managed that yet but I should, then all the rest of life is extra.” He twisted his head from side to side to the limit, the joints or ligaments cracking, and he felt better. “You know, Ori, the Sensei was right: we did hesitate, therefore we lost.”
“I hesitated, he’s right in that, I could have killed the girl easily but she paralyzed me for a moment. I’ve never … her outlandish clothes, her face like a strange flower with that huge nose more like a monstrous orchid with two great blue spots and crowned with yellow stamens—those unbelievable eyes, Siamese cat eyes and thatch of straw under that ridiculous hat, so repulsive yet so—so attracting.” Ori laughed nervously. “I was bewitched. She is surely a kami from the dark regions.”
“Rip her clothes off and she’d be real enough, but how attractive I … I don’t know.”
“I thought of that too, wondering what it would be like.” Ori looked up at the moon for a moment. “If I pillowed with her I think … I think I’d become the male spider to her female.”