– I –

In which an oath is given and a sword received

To those who fought for him and to those who fled his sword, the First Lord and founder of Sendai, Date Masamune, was known as Dokuganrya, the one-eyed dragon. In battle his armor was black, and adorning his helmet was a sliver of gold shaped like the moon’s waxing crescent.

When his sister Mizuki turned sixteen, she married a wellborn warrior who fought at her brother’s side. By eighteen, she was a childless widow. In her twenty-first year, she became the mistress of her brother’s chief advisor Katakura Kojuro and conceived a son. When the boy was born, she asked her brother to name him, and Date Masamune called him Shiro. Like his paternal grandfather, a monk who became a Samurai, the boy was born with six fingers on his right hand. It was an omen of promise and a coveted advantage in swordsmanship.

Katakura Kojuro lived with his wife and family within the estate of the Shiroishi Castle, which had been given to him by Date Masamune. After Shiro was born, Kojuro was harried by his wife for fathering such an illustrious bastard and nagged into ending his affair with Mizuki. She raised the boy with Date Masamune and his wife and children within the walls of the far grander Sendai Castle. Mizuki was long and willowy, and Shiro grew tall and handsome with well-formed limbs.

In his thirteenth year, the boy became a Samurai, and the Lord summoned him to his private garden. Shiro had never been there before. The pebbles of the garden were raked to perfection, and there was a scent of wet pine and cedar. He found Date Masamune kneeling on dark wide floorboards so polished he could see his reflection. Off to the side there were paper panels with borders painted a deep red.

‘Your mother is my only sister,’ the Lord said, ‘but this castle and my name must go to my sons. She is not betrothed to your father, and his castle and name shall go to the sons he has had with his lawful wife.’

Shiro tried not to stare at the scar where the Lord’s left eye had been. Gouged out in battle, it had been sewn shut many years before and over time had smoothened into a marbled star.

‘But the blood of my father runs through you,’ the Lord continued, ‘and my blood runs through you, and you have sworn fealty to me upon this day and you will follow the Way of the Warrior. Tell me you know all of this to be true.’

They were kneeling side by side facing a boulder with moss growing in the crevices. The boulder rested against a stunted Akamatsu tree.

‘I know all of this to be true, my Lord.’

As Date Masamune next spoke, he kept his eye upon the boulder, never once looking at the boy, and when he finished, the boy knew it was time to rise and leave.

‘Nevertheless you are a Prince,’ he said, ‘and shall be as a son to me, and wherever you go I too shall be with you, and if anyone ever scorns you it will be as if they are scorning me. For as long as you live our warrior’s life, you and your descendants shall never lack for anything. Behind me is the sword that was mine in the battle of Odawara. My name and seal are etched upon it, and now it is yours.’

Masamune lowered his head. Shiro rose and bowed and took the sword and raised it to his head before backing away, holding it out in front of him. As he passed by the guards, they bowed to him, for they had heard what the Lord had said. Masamune stayed for another half an hour observing the bark of the tree and the damp place where the boulder met the earth.