Seas of Fortune(165)

Another samurai, young Watari Yoshitsune, sat quietly beside Hosoya’s corpse. After a moment of quietly studying the grim tableaux, Date Masamune spoke to him.

“You were his kaikatsu?” The kaikatsu was the “second,” who delivered the killing stroke that put the principal out of his misery. It was in theory an honor to be named as kaikatsu, but samurai were not eager for this honor. Not out of squeamishness, but because if they botched the beheading stroke, it was extremely embarrassing.

“Yes. I was privileged to be a student at Muso Shinden-ryu.” That was the school, founded by Hayashizaki Jinsuke Shigenobu, at which iaijitsu, the art of sword-drawing, was taught.

“Thank you for serving him so well,” said Masamune. The praise was honest; Yoshitsune had halted the beheading stroke just short of completion; the strip of skin tethered Jinbei’s head to his body, keeping it from flying off and rolling about in an unseemly manner.

Masamune picked up Jinbei’s jisei, his death poem, which lay beside his last cup of sake.





Old warriors dream

of battles of youth.

Grasses sway

over comrades’ graves.

The winds still.





Jinbei had also left behind a letter, which revealed Jinbei’s purpose in committing suicide. It was not kan-shi, because Jinbei acknowledged the logic of Masamune’s orders. It was fun-shi; Jinbei’s resolution of his unhappiness over what he saw as the unavoidable degradation of the samurai by common labor. The last straw was the failure of the rice harvests at both Niji Masu and Salinas; to him, it meant that the sacrifice they had made was purposeless.

Masamune folded the two papers into a fold of his hakama. “Kindly summon all of the samurai at this settlement. I wish to address them about Jinbei’s death.”

* * *

Date Masamune didn’t seem to be shouting, but his voice could be heard across the assembly ground. “Jinbei was like a forest giant, whose great canopy long sheltered the Date clan. But what happens to a forest giant when the typhoon blows? Its virtue becomes a vice, as its many leaves and branches catch and multiply the force of the wind. The tree tries to stand fast against the onslaught. It stands unbending, because the girth of its trunk gives it no other choice. When the sky clears, either the tree still stands, or it lies on the ground, dead.

“New Nippon is a new land, and in it we must emulate the saplings, not the ancients. We must bend with the wind when the alternative is ruin.”

* * *

Chiyo told First-to-Dance about the ritual suicide of Hosoya Jinbei, whom she had known since she was a little child.

“But why would he kill himself?” asked First-to-Dance.

“The way of the samurai is found in death,” Chiyo told her.

First-to-Dance would have questioned her further, but they were interrupted by a summons from Chiyo’s father.

As they walked to his receiving room, First-to-Dance thought about what Chiyo had said. The way of the samurai is found in death. First-to-Dance had told her people that the Japanese were the Guardians of the Land of the Dead to serve her own purposes, not because she had believed it herself. But perhaps the spirits had spoken through her, and revealed a truth. Perhaps the samurai, the bearers of the two swords, were indeed the Guardians.

* * *

A week later, Masamune addressed his samurai once again. “I have thought about the duties of retainers to their lord, and of the lord to his retainers. To prosper in this new land we must change some of our ways, but perhaps I tried to change too many ways too quickly.

“So, for the time being, my samurai are not required to help with the farming and fishing. However . . .” He let them wait for the completion of his thought.

“However, only those samurai who volunteer to help in that way will be permitted to join in the expeditions I will be sending out. Perhaps to enjoy the glory of finding a place where rice will flourish.

“Dismissed.”

* * *

The guardsman standing on the watchtower at the Kawa Machi castlelet saw smoke rising from Point Piños. It faded, then a second column rose into the sky. This was clearly a signal, from a lookout on the point, and not a forest fire.

The Kawa Machi soldier grabbed the conch shell that hung nearby, and blew. An officer clambered up the ladder to see for himself. He looked, and said, “Beat the Great Gong.”

By the third beat, samurai were already pouring out of the barracks, bows or arquebuses in hand, and swords in their scabbards.

By the time they had reached the battlements, Kawa Machi had sent up a smoke signal of its own. Soon, there were black clouds of warning above Andoryu/Monterey, and Niji Masu/Watsonville, and Kodachi Machi/Santa Cruz, too. Signal guns boomed repeatedly.