Jade Palace Vendetta (Samurai Mysteries) Read online

  “In other words, when you have achieved mastery of the sword, you are using the sword much like a total novice uses a sword, based truly on instinct and not based on conscious thought of one move with the sword or the next. That’s why, when I say you are close to being a novice with the sword, it is, in fact, high praise. It means you’ve come the full circle from someone very inexperienced to someone whose mastery of the weapon now rivals mine.”

  “But Sensei, how can I achieve this last step? This use of something inside me to gain more skills?”

  “Perhaps you can’t achieve this step. Most people go through all their lives without understanding what is inside themselves—that core, that essence that makes them themselves. Some few achieve this consciousness late in life, as their years of study and meditation bear fruit. You had something from the first time I met you that let me know that you had an inner core wtih great possibilities.”

  “But Sensei, you’re always criticizing me!”

  “Yes. I am. And those criticisms are always true. But that doesn’t mean that the greatness is not still inside you. It simply means that my expectation for you is merely perfection. When you’re not achieving perfection, that’s when I’m criticizing.

  “Let me explain to you the final secret of the Yagyu school of fencing. After a student has mastered all its secrets, he is told one final secret and asked to meditate on its meaning. The student is asked the meaning of ‘the moon in the water.’ Do you know its meaning?”

  “That the moon is so lofty that we can only capture a watery image of it here on Earth?”

  The Sensei shook his head and sighed. “Perhaps I was wrong about your progress. That answer is neither Zen nor accurate.”

  Kaze thought furiously and said, “It means that it is the nature of water to reflect the image of the moon, just as it is the nature of the moon to be reflected. All bodies of water have this ability to reflect in their nature, from the great sea to a lowly mud puddle. Yet the water has no conscious desire to reflect the moon. It is simply inherent in every body of water. By the same token, the moon has no desire to be reflected by countless bodies of water, it is simply inherent in its nature, too. Thus it is with men. Some are destined to be reflected, and others have it in their nature to reflect.”

  The Sensei nodded. “You always surprise me, which is why you are my favorite pupil. A teacher is always happy to be pleasantly surprised by a student. That is the proper answer and, if you were a Yagyu student, you would receive a fancy piece of paper attesting to your skill and the completion of your training. As my student, you will receive no such paper. Instead, your life will be the testament of the training you have received from me. It’s time to leave me and return to your parents.”

  “But, Sensei!” Kaze protested. “I still have so much to learn from you! Surely my training could not be finished.”

  “Baka! Fool! I don’t know why I’ve bothered with you all these years. You are so exasperating! Urusai!”

  Kaze cringed but was determined to stand his ground. He didn’t want to leave the Sensei.

  More kindly, the Sensei said, “There is really no more I can teach you. It is time for you to teach yourself. Your life with me was just a temporary dream, just as all of life is an ephemeral moment. It’s now time for you to leave this dreamlike existence and return to your life and your karma. You must go down from our mountain retreat and enter the world of men and women again. You’re still young, and it is time for you to see what kind of man you will become.”

  Kaze was heartbroken and thought of a thousand stratagems to stay. But the Sensei was insistent, and Kaze knew he must follow his orders. He had to return to his family and the life that was laid out for him.

  The next day, as Kaze was about to go, the Sensei stood, his eyes watery as he fought to control his emotions. The Sensei’s white mane framed his weathered face. His back was as straight as a fine spear’s shaft, and he refused to let his thick shoulders sag, despite the emotional burden they were bearing. The power of the Sensei’s suppressed emotions washed over Kaze. Despite the lack of outward reaction, it made Kaze realize the bond he had with this old man who had been educating him for many years and the debt he owed him. Kaze gave one final, formal bow to his beloved teacher.

  “Go!” the old man said, his voice husky. “And look only forward. Look neither to the side nor behind. Simply advance, as I have taught you to do.”

  Kaze turned on his heels and did exactly that.

  The clanging from the forge stopped. Kaze hopped off the tree limb with graceful agility and made his way to the swordsmith’s domain. The forge was in a wooden structure open on three sides. Kannemori was talking to one of his assistants. Although the swordsmith had aged, he was still a small bull of a man, with thick muscles in his neck and shoulders, a bald head, and a quick smile at all times, except when he was working on a sword. Then he was the picture of concentration and seriousness.

  Kannemori looked up at the sight of a ronin approaching the forge. The man was of average height but very muscular about the arms and shoulders. He walked like a swordsman. Each step maintained a centered balance so that, if he were suddenly attacked, he could immediately take a defensive or offensive posture. He did not shave his pate, and his long hair was gathered at the back of his head in a topknot. He was handsome, and Kannemori judged the man to be in his early thirties. There was something about the set of his squared jaw and the sharp glance of his dark brown eyes that evoked a memory from long ago.

  Then the swordsmith remembered. The Sensei’s young pupil. The one who had come to Kamakura over two decades ago. The promising young man that the Sensei called, out of the hearing of the young lad, his most promising student. Kannemori told an assistant to take away the blade he was working on. He would finish it tomorrow. Kannemori gave a quick bow to the shrine and then walked out to meet the man, wiping the perspiration from his face with a white cloth.

  He said, “Is it you? The Sensei’s pupil?” He gave a wide grin.

  The man looked surprised. “Yes, it is, Kannemori Sensei. But now I’m known as Matsuyama Kaze, not by my former name.”

  Kannemori considered that and knew the reason instantly. “Are the Tokugawa looking for you?”

  “Yes. Especially Lord Okubo.”

  “Lord Okubo,” Kannemori said thoughtfully. “That is a bad enemy to have.”

  “Nonetheless, he is the enemy I have.”

  “And how can I help you, Mr. Wind on Pine Mountain? Do you need lodging or help in some other way?”

  “I need a sword.”

  Kannemori eyed the sword in Kaze’s scabbard. It was a fine, but not exquisite, sword with a tsuba with a falling cherry blossom design. His expert eye could see that the sword was not the mate to the scabbard. It was clearly a stopgap measure. “What happened to your sword?”

  “It broke during a duel with the owner of the sword I now carry.”

  “Broke?”

  “Yes, Kannemori Sensei. I don’t know why. It was a fine Kiyohara blade, and it had served me faithfully from the day it was first presented to me by my former Lord.”

  Kannemori rubbed his chin. “It broke….” His voice trailed off as he contemplated the meaning of this event. Swords sometimes did break, but they were invariably inferior weapons, katana forged by worthless swordsmiths, usually to equip common foot soldiers. A fine blade like a Kiyohara would not break, except for a reason. “Who was the man you were fighting when it broke?”

  “A bandit chief. He was intent on killing a merchant I came across on the Tokaido Road. Even after my sword broke, I was able to kill him.”

  “And now you carry his sword?”

  “Yes. A dead man’s sword. I would like to replace it with one of your blades, if you would sell one to me.”

  “For the Sensei’s pupil, I will always have a blade. Always.”

  Kaze gave the master craftsman a deep, formal bow, keeping his back straight. “Thank you, Kannemori Sensei.”

&
nbsp; Kannemori returned the bow, but not quite as deeply. “Come, let us go to my house. I want a bath, and then we shall share some sakè.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Evil buzz and a

  habit of tormenting me.

  Die, pernicious fly!

  As the two men walked to the swordsmith’s house, which was located a respectful distance from the holy ground of the forge, Kannemori listened to Kaze’s story of his search for the daughter of his former Lord and Lady. The fact that Kaze had been searching for almost three years didn’t surprise him. Kannemori took it for granted that a pupil of the Sensei’s would exert any effort to fulfill a pledge.

  As he approached his house, Kannemori was greeted by his wife, who immediately took charge of his guest. She led Kaze to a sitting room to give him food and tea while the swordsmith took a bath. In the bathhouse, his assistants had already stoked the fire and prepared the ofuro. It was strange, but even on the hottest day of summer, when he had been laboring diligently in front of a blazing fire, he craved a hot bath instead of a cold one. The hot bath seemed to cool him off much more than a cool one would.

  His assistants dutifully scrubbed his back, as they did every working day. Kannemori had not been blessed by sons, but in the three daughters that had survived childhood, he had found all the joy that a man could expect. His daughters had been married long ago, all to swordsmiths in Kamakura, and taken into other households, but the visits from his grandchildren were now the supreme moments of his life, second only to forging an exceptionally fine blade. He knew, of course, which katana would go to the Sensei’s pupil.

  His assistants rinsed him off before he entered the bath. After the master was done, the assistants would get to bathe and then, finally, the women of the house, starting with his wife. The scalding hot water of the bath eased his aching muscles. He knew that he would soon have to appoint one of his assistants his successor, adopting him as a son and grooming the chosen assistant to replace him at his craft. The adopted son would take the name Kannemori, to continue a line that had been unbroken for five generations. Kannemori sighed. He was getting old. Such was the wheel of life—the old replaced by the young. He stretched as the hot water washed away his aches. Perhaps that replacement would not be quite yet. Still, the demand for weapons had slackened considerably since Sekigahara and the coming of peace. Maybe it would be a good time to retire.

  Kannemori got out of the bath and dried himself with a small damp towel. The hot water did not have to be absorbed by the towel. It dried off when the excess was taken up. An assistant helped him into a more formal kimono than he would normally wear because of his guest.

  Asking his assistant to fetch the key, Kannemori went to the plaster treasure storage located behind the main house. Opening the door, he entered by himself and immediately went toward a hinoki wood chest at the back of the cramped treasure room. Opening it, he took out a bundle wrapped in a purple cloth and left to join his guest, leaving the assistant to lock up.

  He found the Sensei’s pupil in the formal sitting room, enjoying some gomoku rice. His wife gave him a small smile and immediately leaned over to pick up an iron kettle filled with sakè that had been sitting in a pot of hot water to warm it. Kannemori put the bundle on the floor and sat down across from the samurai. He was pleased that the samurai had the good manners to ignore the bundle, even though he must have known what was in it and must have been curious to see them.

  As the guest, the samurai was served first, a splash of sakè poured into a small porcelain saucer. The samurai then insisted on taking the kettle from Kannemori’s wife and serving the swordsmith himself. The two men toasted. “To the Sensei and happier times,” Kannemori said.

  Seeing the two men were intent on serious talk, Kannemori’s wife left them to start preparing supper.

  Kannemori reached over and poured another drink for the samurai. The samurai took the kettle and repeated the act for the swordsmith.

  “Oishi! Good!” Kannemori said, smacking his lips after draining his saucer.

  “Yes, it is,” agreed the samurai.

  “Do you still sit in trees?” Kannemori asked suddenly.

  “I was a young man then,” Kaze said, a bit embarrassed. It was unseemly for a full grown man to indulge in childish things.

  “But…” Kannemori prompted.

  “But I still do it, Kannemori Sensei.”

  Kannemori laughed and said, “I asked not because I wanted to embarrass you, but because of something the Sensei and I used to speculate about when you were a lad.”

  “What’s that, Kannemori Sensei?”

  “Have you ever been to the temple Kenchoji?”

  “No, Kannemori Sensei.”

  “Kenchoji has the first garden laid out in Zen style, and by the lake in the garden was Yogo no Matsu, the shadow pine, an especially lovely tree. On one occasion the priests of the temple were gathered in a room overlooking the garden when they saw a branch on this beautiful tree suddenly dip toward the ground. Lord Abbot Doryu immediately started a conversation with someone sitting on the branch that no one else could see. The Abbot said he was a man in costly court robes and asked where he came from. The man said ‘Tsurugaoka,’ the hill of cranes.”

  “Where the Hachiman Shrine is?” Kaze asked.

  “The same. Today that tree is called Reisho, the Cold Pine, and the monks swear that the stranger on the branch was the God Hachiman, the God of War himself. When you were a boy, the Sensei and I talked about your love of sitting on tree limbs, and we speculated about whether this was related to your precocious skill with the sword. I thought it might be a sign that Hachiman himself had touched you.”

  “And the Sensei?”

  “The Sensei said I had spent too much time near a clanging forge and that my senses were addled!” Kannemori laughed. “Still,” Kannemori said thoughtfully, “even an addled fool can sometimes see something a wise man cannot.”

  The two men poured drinks for each other again.

  “I suppose Tokugawa will declare himself Shogun soon,” Kaze said, wanting to change from a subject that made him uncomfortable. He left off the “san” or “sama” honorific normally used with Tokugawa’s name.

  Kannemori looked surprised. “Haven’t you heard? Tokugawa-sama declared himself Shogun months ago.”

  Kaze was stunned. “I’ve been wandering the mountains and had not heard the news. I knew Tokugawa was thinking of declaring himself Shogun when he claimed descent from the Minamoto. I’m still surprised he dared to do it.”

  “He received the imperial decrees earlier this year,” Kannemori said. The reception of imperial appointments, including one as great as Shogun, the supreme military dictator of Japan, was almost an anticlimactic affair. The official decrees appointing Ieyasu would be sent from Kyoto, probably written in the emperor’s own hand. Each decree would be in a separate box. Ieyasu would receive the imperial delegation in his reception room, sitting on a dais. A box would be handed to an assistant, who would take it out of the room. The box would be opened and the decree, often consisting of only a line or two, would be read to see what honor was bestowed. Then the decree would be replaced by a bag of gold and the box would be returned to the delegation. Ieyasu would then be told what honor had been assigned. No doubt, in addition to Shogun, Ieyasu had received decrees granting many other old Court titles, such as Minister of the Right, which made him the military commander of Kyoto. The more titles granted, the more bags of gold flowing into the imperial coffers.

  “After being appointed Shogun, Tokugawa-sama went to Kyoto to celebrate,” Kannemori continued, “and he’s just returned to Edo to check on the progress of his new castle and to see how the town is being rebuilt after the great fire last year. Edo is now a bustling place, full of growth.”

  “And also full of charlatans, cheats, and enemies. Men like the Tokugawas,” Kaze said. “There was a Shogun who ruled for only thirteen days. Tokugawa’s rule will not be that short, but he may not enjoy a long dyn
asty. I truly need a new sword now.”

  “I will give you my finest sword. However, I wish you would reconsider your feelings about the Tokugawas. A sword is not just an instrument for killing. It should be an instrument of righteousness. Do you know the story of the blade of Okazaki Masamune and that of his pupil, Muramasa?”

  “No, Kannemori Sensei, I don’t.”

  “As you know, Okazaki Masamune-san was a master swordsmith who worked in Kamakura several hundred years ago. His forge was just in the next valley, as a matter of fact. I consider Masamune-san to be one of the finest swordsmiths ever. Today his blades are valued above all others as reflections of the swordsmith’s art. What isn’t commonly known is that his pupil, Muramasa, was perhaps an even finer craftsman, looking at his blades from a purely technical standpoint.

  “One day a Lord who owned both a Masamune-san blade and a blade by his pupil, Muramasa, decided to test them. Now, the standard way to test a blade is to use it to execute a condemned prisoner or to cut at the body of an already killed prisoner. This Lord, however, decided to try a new kind of test.

  “He took the two blades to a swiftly moving stream and thrust the pupil Muramasa’s blade into the rapidly flowing water. It was the month of no Gods, and in the water were many fallen leaves. As the leaves touched the edge of the Muramasa blade, the edge was so keen that the leaves were all cut in two, just from their contact with the sword. The Lord was then curious to see if Masamune-san’s blade was as sharp, so he removed the pupil’s blade from the water and replaced it with the master’s blade.”

  “And was it as sharp?” Kaze asked.

  “The Lord never found out,” Kannemori answered. “When he put Masamune-san’s blade in the water, he was amazed to see that the leaves in the water avoided the blade, keeping away from the sharp edge. You see, the pupil’s sword was a wonderful weapon, with as keen an edge as can be imagined. But this weapon was just a weapon. Masamune-san’s blade was more than a weapon. It was an expression of Masamune-san’s spirit, a spirit intent on righteousness, not just killing. The result was that even the leaves wanted to avoid the sharp edge of the sword.”