Child of Vengeance Read online

Bennosuke could not answer, and at that a grim light of vindication came into Dorinbo’s eyes.

  “Thus you see the insidious form of samurai chivalry. I’m surprised Munisai has managed to drill it into you so soon,” said the monk. “Where men think themselves brave for saving another—but only save those who happen to bear the same name. Let the others burn, for out of the million million things upon this earth, the only ones worth concern are the ones bound to you by such an incidental thing as blood.”

  “But you don’t share my blood, do you?” said Bennosuke coldly.

  He immediately regretted it. The bitterness that had crept onto Dorinbo’s face as he had spoken vanished instantly, replaced by a moment of genuine hurt. The monk turned away and returned to his work.

  Bennosuke watched him. He was angry and ashamed and he felt tears form behind his eyes. Though he wanted to he knew that he could not bring himself to explain that he had not charged out of conscious choice but out of furious instinct, that he had been too scared to fight Arima before his uncle’s humiliation removed any thought higher than kill from his mind. It was better to be thought of as wicked or callous than as a coward or a mindless beast.

  “I’m sorry,” said the boy eventually. It was all he could allow himself.

  “You don’t need to say that, Bennosuke,” said the monk, and he looked up for a moment with a sad empty smile. “I thought I might guide you toward the path of the scholar. That you might seek to better the world rather than batter it, but … Blood really is incidental, isn’t it? You really are the son of Munisai—you were born to be samurai.”

  I have failed were the words he neglected to speak, but Bennosuke could see them written all over the monk, in the deadness of his eyes and the hollowness of his voice. The boy could not bear to see that disappointment, and so he put his head down and returned to weaving. When he thought his eyes dry and he could breathe without tightness in his chest, words came back to him.

  “Why can’t I be both?” he asked.

  “Both of what?” asked Dorinbo.

  “A samurai, and a scholar.”

  “One defeats the other. Why do you think the samurai consider it a punishment to shave your head and take a monk’s vows?”

  “I don’t know, but … why can’t a samurai use his strength to seek enlightenment?”

  “Because it’s like trying to examine darkness with a flaming torch—one destroys the other. To think on things needs a great calmness. To fight, something else entirely.”

  “I disagree. There’s a moment between day and night that is equal, isn’t there? Right before the dawn. Why can’t a man be that?”

  “Because that’s not the way men are, Bennosuke. It’s sad but true,” said Dorinbo, sighing once more.

  “No, you’re wrong. That is the kind of man I will become.”

  “Indeed,” said his uncle, but his voice was empty.

  There was another jump in his memory, another night lost, and now here he was playing with grass like he was a child again. Munisai had summoned him at last, and he could put it off no longer. Bennosuke tossed the stalk to one side as he stood, and as he walked through the village he could feel the nervous eyes of the peasants on his back. He paid them no heed.

  “I SUPPOSE,” MUNISAI began, “you are aware that Arima was not actually a sword-saint?”

  “Yes, Lord,” said Bennosuke.

  Munisai was kneeling on a cushion, a pan of water boiling before him. Though he was arrayed in a formal posture, the weight of his body upon his calves beneath him, he had exposed his wound to the afternoon air; it looked ugly naked, the slight stench of rot in the air. The samurai clenched and unclenched his left fist as he spoke, and though Bennosuke was sitting a polite and formal distance away, he could not help but notice the feebleness of it.

  “What were the clues?” Munisai asked.

  “When I countered his strongest attack, his technique afterward was unbelievably weak.”

  “And what does that teach you?”

  “That a true master knows more than to focus on only one kind of weapon or attack, Lord.”

  “Very astute,” said Munisai, and leaned forward to pour the boiling water into a small pewter dish where a small mound of green tea powder awaited. “There’s a foolish mentality that pervades Japan: men focus on a single school of swordsmanship, one style, one weapon, one attack until they are perfect at it. That’s a beautiful thing, until someone learns how to counter it. Then what good is it? The key to being a good swordsman is to be a good spearman, a good archer, and a good horseman as well. To that end, tell me what your martial training has been this week.”

  “Seven hours with the longsword, three with the short. Five hours unarmed combat, and two with the spear. Four hours archery, and two of weapon throwing. With the staff—”

  “We all saw your staff training. Short, messy, but practical. Show me …” Munisai said, and swirled the tea around the dish as he deliberated. “Show me your shortsword technique.”

  Bennosuke bowed, rose to his feet, drew his weapon from its scabbard, and began running through the rhythmic patterns he’d practiced. Left slash, downward slash, parry, riposte, right slash, rotate the blade, thrust, pa—

  Munisai suddenly lashed out with his good arm, throwing the dish like a discus. Bennosuke saw the motion out of the corner of his eye, too late to stop it crashing into the side of his head. The dish shattered, the water not scalding but hot enough. Bennosuke clutched his face.

  “Be mindful of your peripherals, boy, at all times. That is where the attack that claims you will come from,” said Munisai.

  “Is that where your wound came from?” said Bennosuke acidly. Munisai bristled.

  “Clean that up, and fetch me a new dish!” he barked, and Bennosuke grudgingly obeyed. When he had finished he returned to kneeling. Munisai was silent for a spell, drinking from his fresh saucer, and slowly Bennosuke felt the rancor drain out of the room.

  “Did you notice how I goaded Arima?” said Munisai eventually. “How I made him do what I wanted simply with my voice, made him so angry he became reckless? Now he is dead because of it, and I suppose there is a lesson there for both of us. We should try to be calm with each other.”

  Bennosuke was surprised at that. It was the first civil thing he could recall Munisai saying to him in months. In the silence that followed, the boy allowed his gaze to rise to find the man looking at him differently also; eyes evaluating him meticulously. When Munisai spoke next his words were slow and considered, his voice somber:

  “You must be berated,” he said. “What you fought with Arima was not a duel proper. You gave no warning—you struck as you shouted your intention to attack and hit him first as he turned. There must always be a warning, even if only a matter of instants. The other must prepare himself. This is what civilizes the act of killing, raises it above common murder. As samurai, we must observe this. What you fought was an ambush, nothing more.”

  Bennosuke began to protest, but Munisai raised a finger that silenced him. “I say this only as a matter of protocol, however, for what matters most is—you won. At thirteen, you won. I must admit, boy, there is great potential in you.”

  To his surprise, Bennosuke found himself embarrassed by the compliment. “How old were you when you first killed a man?” he asked, trying to divert attention.

  “Fifteen. A battlefield. My first lethal duel was at seventeen,” said Munisai.

  “How did you feel?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did you feel proud, or happy, or …?” the boy asked, and then hesitated at the look of incomprehension on Munisai’s face.

  “I never felt much of anything. I was young and stupid and thought the world was mine, so I never doubted my victory,” he said, and then his brow creased further and he carried on as though the words were alien to him. “What a strange question. Why do you ask? How do you feel?”

  “I … don’t know. It felt good when I knew I had won. I felt powerful,
I suppose,” said Bennosuke, uncomfortably. “But I’ve been thinking. There was this strange look in his eyes—”

  “Eye,” said Munisai blackly.

  “Whatever it was, it was strange in a way I can’t describe. It was …”

  “Honest,” finished Munisai.

  “Yes,” agreed Bennosuke slowly. Munisai let a small smile cross his mouth.

  “One thing you will learn is that although men will laugh and cry, shout and beat their chests, it is more often than not a masquerade. But of course there are some times in our life when we cannot pretend to be anything other than what we are, and right before we die is one of them.”

  “Arima begged and cried,” said Bennosuke, seeing the man’s face once more.

  “Yes. He was not a strong man, and so he is dead.”

  “So, what I did was … justified? Dorinbo said that all death is cruel.”

  “My brother is wise in his arts, but his realm is that of life. You and I, we are samurai, and our realm is death. My knowledge of such things supersedes his—ignore his advice on this.”

  “Yes, Lord,” said Bennosuke, though he still felt indecision. He turned his eyes to the floor once more and pondered. Munisai watched the boy for a few minutes, slowly sipping his tea. When the dish was empty, he grunted and then spoke.

  “Very well,” he said, and with his good hand he slowly reached for his longsword where it lay to his side and slid it between the pair of them. The curve of the weapon was perfect and elegant, the lacquer scabbard glimmering.

  “This is the sword awarded to me when I was named the Nation’s Finest,” said Munisai. “It was forged one hundred years ago by the master swordsmith Sengo Muramasa in Ise province. Its steel was tempered in the great fires, folded fourteen times so that it might prove true, and then cooled with water from the holiest of our shrines. Its weight is faultless, its sharpness beyond compare. Legend states that were I to dip this sword into a river, leaves caught in the current would split themselves against the blade, then reform whole after they passed, so clean would be its cuts. Four warriors wielded it before I have: Ichiro Murasaki, who wandered the length of Japan; Yosuke Ishimura, who defeated all but his brother; Takuya Fukushige, who was loved by all he met; and Toshiro Aibagawa, who was hated by all but his master. Hold it.”

  Hesitantly, Bennosuke reached forward and placed his hands on the sword. He lifted it slowly, awestruck, and felt a sudden exhilaration rush through him. Here was the meaning of samurai—what he held was to him an instrument of God.

  “How does it feel?” asked Munisai.

  “Incredible, Lord. It’s like the ghosts of those men are with me now. The weapon is beautiful, and it—”

  “It’s a tool, boy, nothing more. I made that history up. It is not done for a samurai to lose himself to mystique—you should be able to do your duty equally as well with the cheapest blade forged by the most hopeless of apprentices,” said Munisai. Castigated, Bennosuke cast his eyes down and made to replace the weapon, but Munisai raised his hand in a halting gesture. “No, keep it. It’s yours now.”

  “Lord?” asked Bennosuke.

  “A boy cannot kill a man. Thus you must become a man.”

  Bennosuke was silent. He considered the weapon in his hands for a moment, and then slowly placed it beside himself. Then he bowed low, placing his forehead on the ground and holding the pose. Munisai was surprised at the boy’s restraint, the mature observation of protocol in place of gushing. He remembered how his senses had been dazzled and his chest had swollen what felt like threefold when he had been granted the longsword many years ago.

  “Rise, Bennosuke Shinmen,” said Munisai slowly, and the boy did as he was bidden. When he had returned to a kneeling position, Munisai nodded to him.

  “A sword may just be a tool, but a name is not. You carry my name, and you are a man now. You must act accordingly. Do you understand?” he said. Munisai then produced a folded sheave of paper sealed with his personal crest and held it out to the boy. “This is formal acknowledgment of you as my son, of your ascension to adulthood, and of your eligibility for service and duty.”

  Bennosuke hesitated. The sword he would accept without question, for that had been his dream as long as he could remember. But if he took the document it meant that he also formally acknowledged Munisai as his father. He thought of the blinding rage of the past months, of the fantasies of one day killing the man.

  Perhaps Munisai knew this. He did not force the paper on Bennosuke; he held his hand out steady, waiting to see if he would take it. It was another challenge, but within his eyes Bennosuke saw something different. Rather than amusement at his weakness and failure, there seemed a desire for him to overcome. For the first time, Munisai was looking at him as though he were human.

  Thoughts of Yoshiko and his peasant father whose name he would never know came to him. But as he looked into their murderer’s eyes, he could not deny that the acknowledgment there gave him pride. The sessions with the armor, the long doubt of his youth—finally some of that could be dispelled.

  There was the opportunity to make some grand, dramatic gesture by smashing the paper away and spitting and raging, but he knew he would not do it, for it would be a charade only. In the months since he had learned the truth, what had taken hold was what Dorinbo had asked him immediately afterward—did he ever truly know his mother? To whom did he owe loyalty but an imagined specter?

  Guilt lingered, though, and Munisai saw the indecision in him. After a long moment the samurai spoke in a voice quiet enough that even if others had been present would be heard by the pair of them alone.

  “Do you think this world is perfect, boy?” he said. “Do you think this is the way I would have wanted it? Life is what it is. Surrender your immaculate hopes and bear what you can. That is all we can do.”

  Though he could not explain why just then, Bennosuke reached for the letter, and as he took it from Munisai’s hands he bowed his head low. In later years he would think back and acknowledge that maybe Munisai was right. They were not perfect but fundamentally hollow, and each filled some of the absence within the other as a phantom approximation of necessity for son or father. It was too bleak to be alone, and so they could do nothing but cling to each other as broken beings, as human beings.

  “Good.” Munisai nodded, and a rare, small smile crept across his face for a moment. “Good. Now—you cannot stay in Miyamoto weaving prayers any longer. The sky is blue, water is wet, and samurai serve; it is time for you to learn to do so. Go to the town of Aramaki and report to Captain Tomodzuna there. He is a man I trained myself, a good man, and I trust him and all those beneath him. You will serve him alongside those men.”

  “Doing what?” asked Bennosuke.

  “Whatever he asks of you. Listen to him. Learn from him. Report to him and no one else—and remember that he knows me, and he will know that you are my son. Do not disgrace yourself. Do not disgrace me.”

  “What of you, Lord?”

  “I will join you in a matter of weeks. There is business I have to attend to. Secret orders from our Lord Shinmen,” said Munisai, and at the sudden interest in the boy’s face he added, “Secret enough that I cannot tell even you.”

  “I understand, Lord,” said Bennosuke.

  “You will leave tomorrow—prepare yourself,” said Munisai.

  “I understand, Lord,” the boy repeated, and this time he bowed once more, rose, and left.

  Munisai watched Bennosuke go, determination in the boy’s eyes. He smiled to himself. How easy the young were to fool—“secret orders” indeed. He had had no word from Lord Shinmen. These “orders” were given by himself to himself and they were but one word: heal.

  His enfeeblement had dragged on too long; he needed to be strong again. He reasoned that training Bennosuke every day, with the exertions tearing constantly at the wound, must have been hindering any progress, and his hope was that given a few weeks to rest and tend to it gently in solitude, the flesh might start to me
nd.

  The alternative, that perhaps it was mangled beyond repair already …

  The other worry—that of the Nakata—was also taken care of by sending Bennosuke to Aramaki. Once he joined Captain Tomodzuna, the samurai’s cadre of men would become a shield for the boy. An attack on one of them would be an attack on all of them, and though the captain kept his men well drilled and Munisai did not doubt their courage or ability to physically protect the boy, the real strength of their shelter was that they were Shinmen’s men in Shinmen’s town.

  Hayato would not be able to get at Bennosuke without starting a bloodbath with allies of his father, and that was a political affront the brat would not be afforded. Going for Munisai as an individual as he had done was an entirely different thing, for it was expected that one who held the title of Nation’s Finest would receive challenges from time to time—why not Arima, on behalf of his master?

  Neither would he be able to seek Bennosuke out as he had done with Munisai, for the notion of a lord calling a thirteen-year-old without rank or prestige to duel was so absurd it would invite ridicule. Though Bennosuke had spat in his face and that might draw some long enmity, that was a lingering trouble for the future. This was now, and for now the boy was safe under Tomodzuna.

  In any case, Munisai expected that the young lord was back at his father’s side safe in his court, refusing to admit to anyone what had happened and how badly he had lost his gamble. Reputation was everything to a vain coward like Hayato, he well knew.

  Everything to men who carry swords, the sneering ache of his wound reminded him. Munisai set his face and concentrated on squeezing his fist tight enough that he might hold a blade, and he found that he could not feel his fingertips upon his palm.

  The owning of the sword put Bennosuke into another daze; trying its weight and searching for the balance of it, obsessing over its every inch like a blind man reading lines upon a face. He allowed himself the conceit of swaggering through the village with it at his side several times, but was disappointed when the reactions of the peasants were much the same—to them he was still one who controlled their life and death at a whim, only now he had a slightly longer reach.