CHAPTER SIXTY

ONE WHO LIVES BEYOND MY WORLD

The shoreline of Miya’s waterfront was lined with fishing smacks, excursion boats, and trading scows. Shouts of “Who’s for the boat?” could be heard from the ferry landing. Miya was the largest town between Edo and Kyoto, and today it was particularly busy with pilgrims. Cat was glad she and Kasane and the rnin had left Okazaki at the first ringing of the dawn bell. As it was, they would be lucky to obtain passage on a ferry at all, much less soon.

Ise Bay at this point was six and a half ri across. Unless they left soon, darkness would fall long before they arrived at Kuwano. At Yokkaichi, the post station after Kuwano, the road branched off toward the great shrine at Ise, so the Tkaid should be less crowded beyond there.

Cat and Hanshiro sat on a bench in front of a small tea stall near the bay. Hanshiro seemed to be idly observing the maelstrom of activity, but Cat knew he had drawn into himself. He had the look she had come to recognize while walking with him from Okazaki. He had an impressive and irritating way of appearing at once remote from and aware of absolutely everything. Cat wasn’t used to being ignored.

Glancing sideways at him now, Cat had difficulty imagining him smiling. If she hadn’t seen him do it, she wouldn’t have believed him capable of it. He looked as austere as a stone Buddha.

She turned her attention back to Kasane, who was making her way around the waiting kago and pack horses and stacks of freight on the broad beach. Her progress was slow. She kept appearing and disappearing among the travelers and porters and inn touts, the merchants and vendors and beggars.

The name on the papers Hanshiro had gotten for Kasane was Hachibei, and she was now dressed in the livery of his servant. Cat worried that Kasane wouldn’t be able to carry off her disguise as a young man. Maybe she would be overcharged by the ferrymen. Maybe something terrible would happen to her for which Cat would feel forever responsible.

“She’ll make a mistake.” When Cat leaned over to whisper to Hanshiro, her shoulder brushed his. To anyone passing by, they looked like a pair of lovers exchanging surreptitious endearments.

“The servant’s job is to bargain with porters and ferrymen,” Hanshiro answered. “If she’s to pass as a servant, she has to behave as one.”

“You’re asking too much of her,” Cat muttered.

“And you expect too little.” Hanshiro finished his tea. He rose, bowed, and retired to the dense stand of bushes next to the tea house.

He was relieving himself when three young samurai swaggered toward him. They wore the wide sashes of dandies and wastrels. They had put lead weights in the padded hems of their quilted robes to make them swing. Their swords were longer than the average. That they had been drinking was evident. Their faces were florid, their talk was loud, and their gait was wobbly.

Without glancing at them, Hanshiro reflexively checked the angle of the long-sword in his sash. He wasn’t surprised when one of them managed to brush it with his own scabbard anyway. Rnin had no association with a clan that could exact vengeance for their deaths. That made them the preferred targets for brash young men trying to establish reputations as swordsmen. Hanshiro had been accosted many times.

“Saya-ate!” the young ruffian cried. “Scabbard striking!” He and his friends formed a semicircle around Hanshiro.

With his back to them Hanshiro calmly adjusted his clothing. Finally he turned to face the three and nodded ever so slightly. “I apologize for any offense I may unwittingly have committed.”

He made a slight gesture to restrain Cat, who had unsheathed the blade of her new naginata and was standing, narrow-eyed and at attention.

“The affront was too egregious.” The dandy spoke so loudly, people stopped to watch. Soon a ring of spectators had formed around the four men. “The only apology that will satisfy such a breach of etiquette is your blood flowing onto the ground.”

“I do not care to duel with you.”

“Coward!” Rage deepened the red of the young man’s face. “This country beast is afraid of a real warrior,” he informed the crowd. Then he turned on Hanshiro. “My name is Tamagawa Seijuro of the Itto school. Prepare to defend yourself if you can.”

His companions shouted their names, too. All three pulled their right arms out of the sleeves of their jackets, robes, and undershirts, exposing the smooth, unblemished chests of youth. They drew their swords and raised them, ready to strike. The afternoon sun flashed off the blades.

Hanshiro sighed. Best to get this over with before Lady Asano lost her temper and decided to test her naginata and cause annoyance and delay. He left his sword in its scabbard.

Empty-handed and apparently indifferent to the other two, he strode directly at the one who had called him out. The young man retreated slowly before Hanshiro’s steady advance. He was wondering if he had challenged a madman. Then he gathered his resolve.

With eyes bulging he shouted his name and clan and struck. Hanshiro moved his head out of the sword’s path at the last instant. With the edge of his hand he struck the wrist, causing him to release the hilt. In a transfer too deft to see, Hanshiro ended up holding the sword casually in his right hand.

When the man on the left attacked, Hanshiro pivoted, reversed, and shot out his left arm. His opponent flipped over backward, and his sword flew into the air. When it landed Cat moved over and stepped on it.

Hanshiro drew his iron fan from his sash. He stepped into the reach of the third assailant and rapped his right shoulder at the base of the neck. The man dropped his sword, his arm and hand temporarily paralyzed. Hanshiro picked it up and retrieved the third sword from Cat. Then he disappeared into the nearby convenience. He returned without the swords.

With her naginata Cat held the young men at bay while the bystanders taunted them. Hanshiro walked over to them and spoke softly. They retreated to the sake shop across the street, where they watched Hanshiro warily.

“You didn’t spare them shame by finishing them.” Cat slid the blade back into its curved wooden sheath.

Hanshiro resumed his seat at the tea shop. The waitress refilled his cup and bowed lower than she had before.

“Remember what Lao Tzu said,” Hanshiro said.

“‘Weapons are unfortunate instruments. Using them when there is no other choice, that is Heaven’s Way.’

“Besides, if I had killed them, I would have had to fill out papers at the magistrate’s office.”

“I’ve heard of muto, of fighting unarmed an armed opponent, but I’ve never seen it done.”

“Youth and wine are like a whip to a galloping horse.” Hanshiro wrapped coins in a paper to pay the waitress.”Shall we see what bargain our man Hachibei has struck with the redoubtable ferrymen?”

 

 

“Eels! Try our eels,” the captain of the trading boat shouted. “They’ll make you fertile.”

His wife smiled shyly at Cat as she passed the longitudinal section of dark green bamboo across the gunwale to her and received the wrapped coins in return. Cat took off the top half of the bamboo, revealing the long brown slab of eel resting on a bed of white rice in the bottom half. The aroma set Cat’s stomach to rumbling. She pulled off the long slivers that had been sliced into the bamboo’s edge to serve as chopsticks.

“Itami sake! The very best made!” Another boat had pulled up at the ferry’s starboard side. Its owner was selling rice wine and pickles.

Here in the middle of the bay, enterprising peddlers were doing a brisk business with the ferry’s passengers. A forest of hands waved money, received food, and passed it along to whomever had ordered it. When the vendors had taken care of everyone, they cast off and sailed away to intercept the next boatload of customers.

The waters were calm. A fair wind filled the ferry’s sail and kept it steadily on course. The passengers sat on straw mats spread in the broad bilge. They and their belongings were packed side by side like dumplings strung on skewers, but they talked good-naturedly as they ate. They entertained the children headed for Ise and shared food with them.

A group of women known euphemistically as “shampooers” were on their way to Ise, too. “A body that loves is fragile and uncertain,” they sang. Their voices were sweet and wild and strangely fitting here, as though capable of calming a restless sea. Their song brought sudden, stinging tears to Cat’s eyes.

The body that loves
Is fragile and uncertain,
A floating boat.
The fires in the fishing smacks at night burn red,
My heart burns red.
Wooden stakes hold up the nets
Against the tide of Uji.
The tide is against me.

When they finished their performance, a doctor from Echigo prescribed his special powder for seasickness. A diviner began casting fortunes for a price.

The captain was not the wild-haired pirate Kasane now connected with every vessel. Still, she had become increasingly anxious as the thatched roofs of Miya dwindled, then disappeared. One who had been bitten by a snake feared even a rotted rope.

Kasane had gone pale when the captain asked for a donation to the Sea God and a crewman with a bamboo ladle made his way through the press to collect it. She had been sure they all would be robbed and thrown overboard.

“Does your eyebrow itch?” Hanshiro seemed to enjoy teasing Kasane. “If so, it means your lover must be about to visit you.”

“No, Your Honor.”

“It should itch. Traveler must be close behind us now.”

He was making a gallant effort to calm Kasane’s fears, but he was only partially successful. Having him as a bad dog at her side on shore was reassuring. But even he couldn’t appease the Sea God if he decided to sink the boat.

“Traveler is a firm-grained individual,” Hanshiro added.

The lack of gender in the language aided Kasane’s masquerade. A listener could not tell from the conversation if Hanshiro’s servant’s admirer was male or female. And Kasane was doing rather well at imitating a boy. She had been watching Cat do it for the past ninety ri.

“Do you know the individual?” she asked.

“I had the privilege of traveling a short way with the person. Seemed quite taken with you.”

Kasane leaned against the travel box, which was wedged among the equipment in the stern of the boat. Lost in her own thoughts, she withdrew into herself. A smile played across her face now and then, like a riffle of wind on still water.

Cat hadn’t slept at all the night before, and she was exhausted. But she sat stiffly. Hanshiro had arranged a place for her next to the gunwale so she could have an unobstructed view and fresh air. He was on her other side, however, and forced by circumstance to sit pressed tightly against her. She had been aware of his warmth, the hardness of his body, and the steady rise and fall of his breathing since they’d left port.

The sun disappeared behind mountains stark against a sky a-blaze with color. The sliver of the new moon was setting with the sun.

The passengers finished their meals and settled down for the voyage. Some of them dozed off, their chins dropping onto their chests. Kasane slept with her head back and her mouth slightly open. Cat blinked and pinched her arm to keep herself awake. She was mortified to think that, asleep, she might do something hideously vulgar, like drool or snore or let her mouth hang open.

As the sky darkened Cat realized they still had a long way to go. The crewmen lit fires in the metal baskets that hung out over the long, pointed prow of the boat. Other points of light, the cold luminescence of shrimp, glittered in the black water around them. Cat dozed, and the rocking of the boat carried her back to the evening excursions she had enjoyed with her mother in the waters off Ak.

“Those are the lanterns of the Dragon God.” Cat heard her mother’s s sweet voice. She remembered the feel of her mother’s heavy silk brocade coat sleeve brushing against her cheek as she pointed to the lights on the black water.

“ … the spirits of the Taira warriors.” Hanshiro’s voice sounded distant, hollow in the darkness. Cat realized she must have fallen asleep.

“Where?” She sat up straighter and took deep gulps of the cold, damp air. The boat was quiet now, except for the creaking of the rigging and of the rudder in its cradle. She could see the dark forms of the sleeping passengers silhouetted against the starlit sky.

“There.” He leaned partly across her to point at the lights moving through the mist in the distance.

“They’re only fishing boats.”

“Are you sure?”

“‘Since I am convinced,’” Cat recited the poet-priest Saigyo’s poem. “‘That reality is in no way real, how am I to admit that dreams are dreams?’ Or spirits are spirits?” she added. “Or fishing boats are fishing boats?”

“‘A sunset with clouds like the Sea God’s banners.’” Hanshiro recited.

Cat was almost asleep. She murmured something, a recognition of the poem, perhaps, that was between a sigh and a sleepy moan. Her head fell back against Hanshiro’s arm until it was cradled in the crook of his shoulder. His hand trembled as he wrapped that side of his cloak around her to keep her warm. He laid his cheek gently on the shiny fragrance of her hair.

At the sunset hour … As the words echoed in his thoughts, he felt a kinship with the nameless poet who had suffered five hundred years ago as he did now.

At the sunset hour
The clouds are ranged like banners
And I think of this:
Think of what it means to love
One who lives beyond my world.