47 Ronin Page 2

  In the town Oishi had seen once thriving farmers begging for jobs because they were not allowed to fight back against the pests that destroyed their crops. Foxes, badgers, birds, and insects ran rampant in the fields while those who had planted the seed stood by helplessly.

  Oishi knew that poultry was secretly being sold in the back rooms of some otherwise respectable shops, but on the whole violations of the law were few. Not only was the administrative machinery of the Shogun’s government extremely effective in catching lawbreakers, but the penalty for injuring any living thing was severe. For taking the life of an animal, the punishment was the execution of the “criminal” himself.

  There were others who were as badly off as the farmers. The occupations of hunter, trapper, and tanner had become obsolete and these men, too, were crowding the towns, seeking some way to support their families. To their consternation, they found that jobs were scarce and food prices high, boosted out of reach of the common people by the scant supply of farm products. The only commodity seemingly available at a low price was a young girl to sleep with, due to the growing number of farmers’ daughters who had been sold into the brothels to tide their families over the bad times.

  As always, Oishi had skirted the so-called pleasure quarters when touring the town with Lord Asano’s daughter, but now the houses of prostitution were increasing so fast that they spread right out onto the main road and were impossible to avoid. Shocking was the word for it, and he was certainly going to bring it to his master’s attention when he returned.

  As yet his own class had not felt the economic pinch—the samurai were paid out of funds that came from selling the rice grown on their lords’ fiefs at the going high prices—but their lives had been affected by the Shogun’s edict in other ways.

  There was no more archery practice or competition, because they could not pluck goosefeathers for their arrows. There was no more falconry because all the birds had been set at liberty and even the Shogun’s Master of Hawks had been discharged. Horsemanship was becoming a lost art because the horses’ hooves could not be pared or their manes clipped under penalty of banishment. But worst of all, in Oishi’s mind, was the general laxity of morals that was spreading from the Shogun’s capital down into the provinces.

  As the son of a samurai, Oishi had spent his childhood in the study of Confucian ethics as part of the necessary training of a soldier who must learn loyalty as well as fierceness on the field of battle. Because of this, he was shocked at reports that the dancing and play-acting that overran Shogun Tsunayoshi’s capital at Edo (Tokyo) was beginning to have a softening effect on the samurai quartered there. He had even heard rumors that samurai had been seen in the Kabuki theaters of Kyoto, the city of pleasure as well as of temples, but these he found hard to believe.

  Such things had been going on for some time, but Oishi had not been aware of just how bad things had gotten in town until today. He began to compose in his mind the report he would make to Lord Asano, and as he thought of her father he turned toward the little girl riding beside him. She smiled at him but then her expression became more serious. She, too, had noticed a change in the countryside.

  “Uncle,” she asked him, “why are all the farms so messy looking? They’re none of them kept up well at all. Don’t you think you ought to report the farmers to my father for not properly doing their jobs?”

  Oishi laughed heartily and she was reassured before he spoke that things were not as bad as they seemed. “Let’s not blame the farmers until we know their side of it, too, shall we?”

  “But what excuse could they have for neglecting their fields so?”

  “It’s not because they want to neglect them, little daughter. It’s the animals they’re forbidden to kill by the Life Preservation Laws that are ruining the land.”

  “But why are we forbidden to kill the animals—especially those that annoy us so?”

  “Because the Shogun has said it is wrong to take the life of an animal and because we are loyal to our master, your father, and would not think of bringing shame on him by disobeying the orders of his lord, the Shogun.”

  “But why did he make this hard law in the first place?”

  Oishi sighed. As much as the law hurt, he could understand Tsunayoshi’s reasons for promulgating it.

  “Because more than anything else in the world he wants a child. A sweet, pretty child like you. He lost one you know—a little boy four years old who died. And his priest has told him that in order to have another, he must atone for some sin committed in a previous life—one in which he most likely wantonly destroyed some living thing. You’ve seen that we don’t use dogs in our tournaments any more—that’s because our Shogun was born in the Year of the Dog and to kill a dog is now punishable by death.”

  “Even if one should attack you?”

  Oishi mused for a moment. “In that case it might be all right—but it would be a good idea to have witnesses that the dog took the first bite.”

  He smiled at her and the little girl smiled back, but she was not sure whether he was joking or not. She decided she would ask her father about it when he got home from Edo.

  With a shout she kicked her little feet into her horse’s flanks and lurched into a gallop. “I’ll race you home,” she cried, already ten lengths ahead, her long hair flying.

  Oishi gave the fierce cry of the attacking warrior and galloped after her. He maintained the distance between them, and together they moved over the winding road and up the final hill. At the top they came in sight of the castle, far below in the middle of a large plain, strategically located so that invaders could not approach unseen. It was always a spectacular sight with its high stone walls and white tile-topped towers, but on this occasion neither of them paused to appreciate the view.

  The sinking sun was throwing long clutching shadows behind them as they raced down the hill toward the gate. It crossed Oishi’s mind that when the same sun rose again in the morning it would be the beginning of Lord Asano’s last day in Edo. He hoped all was going well at the ceremonies in the Shogun’s capital where the etiquette was so unfamiliar and demanding. Lord Asano was not noted for his patience and the less he had to participate, the better. Anyway, he would soon know the whole story. As the little girl entered the gate, well ahead of him as always, and he followed to receive the salutes of the sentries, the thought came again: tomorrow would be the last day.

  Chapter Two

  Dawn broke coldly over Edo, the capital city of old Japan. It was to be a bleak, sunless day. The chill wind that rolled down from the high snow-covered mountains rattled the rain doors of the farmhouses on the outskirts, then lifted a billow of dust along the post road from the southwest as it entered the city.

  On its way it picked up the stench of human excreta from the rice fields, the incenselike odor of smoke from the charcoal fires in the kitchens of early-rising housewives, and finally the saltiness of the briny sea off the flat waters of Edo Bay.

  At ground level the wind lost its force in the narrow alleyways that twisted through the maze of flimsy wooden structures that were both homes and places of business to nearly seven hundred thousand merchants and artisans. Above the tile-topped roofs it continued gustily on toward the higher ground in the center of the city, dipped to cross a rock-lined moat, and became random among the watchtowers and palaces of Edo Castle where the Shogun Tsunayoshi, the supreme ruler of the land, held his court.

  As it moved pungently, invisibly along, the wind also acquired a sound. Sweeping through a graveyard and the public execution grounds, it startled a mongrel cur and set him howling, which in turn set off others around him until in no time the air was filled with the dismal wailing of a thousand stray dogs. The sound swelled and became more menacing as it forced its way into the hovels of beggars and the mansions of the nobility, to enter the sleeping ears of poor and rich alike. . . .

  Lord Asano, daimyo of the province of Ako, still boyishly good-looking at thirty-five, was riding with his chief retaine
r Oishi through a misty landscape, running down a deadly wild boar that was menacing the farmers. As they moved into the ever thickening fog, an eerie hum began to throb in Lord Asano’s ears and his horse reacted nervously. Behind him, Oishi pulled up to a prudent halt, but Lord Asano impatiently spurred his own mount forward and disappeared from sight.

  “My Lord Asano!” Oishi called in sudden anxiety. “Come back, come back!”

  But Lord Asano’s stubborn pride would not let him turn back and he pressed on through the dense vacuum of the fog until the unearthly sound became a screech and then a deafening howl. He felt a stab of terror as he was sucked into the sound and lost all sense of direction. In the dazzling white of the fog he was sightless and felt himself lose his balance and start to fall. The howling grew louder and he knew he must fight for his life to escape the demons that were waiting to devour him. He cried out for help and in that instant he woke in his villa near the Shogun’s castle to hear the howling of the dogs of Edo fading away on the wind that had brought it.

  “Husband!” his wife cried out as she raised herself to watch him struggling to draw his sword from the scabbard beside him. “What’s the matter?”

  Fully awake now, he shook his head and threw down the sword. “The dogs,” he muttered. “The damned dogs.”

  “Go back to sleep,” she said, as a soothing smile came over her pretty round face. “You should be used to them by now.”

  “I’ll never get used to them, or to anything else about this miserable place.”

  “Only one more day,” she reminded him. “Then we’ll go home to Ako and our daughter.”

  “One more day,” he repeated in a tone that was both forlorn and hopeful. “One more rotten day.”

  He tried to go back to sleep but his heart was still pounding from his nightmare and his eyes would not close. He watched restlessly as the light of dawn slipped through the window shutters and crept across the tatami mats to his bed on the floor. Lord Asano sighed and rolled out of the heavy quilts to stand shivering for a moment in his underclothes, then put on a padded robe to slide open the paper-paneled door and step into the cold corridor beyond.

  He walked with long steps over the slick wood, darkly polished by the passage of countless stockinged feet. At one side the corridor was lined by pillars of fragrant cedar separated by painted shoji panels; on the other side rain doors sheltered it from the garden outside, and Lord Asano shivered as they rattled in the wind and he imagined he heard again the dogs of his dreams.

  He opened the sliding door to the kitchen and stepped in. It was a large room, floored with rough boards, with a clay-lined central fireplace sunk in the floor. Here, two topknotted samurai from his retinue sat warming themselves, and as he approached and muttered a greeting they scrambled to their knees and bowed low.

  Kataoka, the younger of the two, wiry, with a face like a playful monkey, started to exchange a pleasantry with his master, but changed his mind when he saw his face. Lord Asano was tense by nature, but this morning he appeared more so than usual and Kataoka knew when to keep quiet. The other man, a fierce-looking warrior in his fifties named Hara, was sleepy eyed and not so perceptive; he merely followed Kataoka’s lead in sinking back into a cross-legged position by the fire as their master sat down.

  “You needn’t have gotten up so early,” Lord Asano told Hara. “Kataoka is the only escort I’ll need today, and all he can do is stand outside and look up at the castle towers and dream of home.”

  Hara grunted and his glittering eyes showed briefly, then his sleepy lids drooped again and he lifted his rice bowl close to his face to eat. Kataoka bobbed his head and grinned his monkey smile of pleasure at the honor of being his lord’s sole companion on such an auspicious occasion, then coughed as the smoke from the fire blew into his face. Lord Asano reached for the teapot hanging over the fire, but the smoke stung his eyes and he cursed as he flung the kettle back onto its hook.

  “Mimura!” he called, and a sudden shuffling in the pantry told him that Mimura had heard.

  The servant, a tall, awkward young fellow, entered in great haste and bowed low to his master. As he raised his eyes he saw that the smoke was going everywhere except out the opening in the roof made for it, and he quickly reached into the pit to pull out the green sticks that were causing the trouble.

  “Who put those in there?” said Lord Asano sharply. “You know better than that, Mimura. Can’t you help get this miserable day off to a better start?”

  Mimura apologized in a profusion of polite phrases and muttered under his breath about the stupidity of the new fire boy. Then he crossed to the pantry door and called out.

  There was an unexplained delay and he called again. This time he was answered by the appearance of the fire boy’s head in the doorway, a great shock of black unruly hair over an impudent face. Mimura bawled him out for his carelessness, but if he expected an apology he was disappointed. The boy, in a loud raucous voice, told Mimura that if he was so particular he could make the fire himself and abruptly withdrew, slamming the door shut behind him.

  The men at the fire were shocked at this display and Hara was so incensed he leaped to his feet and pulled his long sword.

  “What does he mean by talking to one of our servants like that?” he exclaimed as he started for the pantry door.

  “No, wait,” said Lord Asano in a weary voice of authority. “He’s only a boy. Besides, you’ll get yourself in trouble if you harm him. The laws are different here; we can’t behave as we would at home.”

  “But to insult your servant is to insult you, too,” Hara insisted. “I should at least slit his tongue for him if you won’t let me take off his head.”

  “Sit down—sit down and drink your tea. You’ve got to get used to the ways of Edo. Here the comings and goings of daimyo from the provinces are so commonplace that they hold no terror for even a lowly fire boy.”

  Hara, still muttering, put away his sword and sat down. He watched carefully as Mimura opened the pantry door and stepped through. In a moment there came the sounds of a slap and a yelp of pain, and Hara smiled as Kataoka laughed out loud.

  “That’ll take care of the young monkey,” he shouted and made the most monkeylike grin at his command. The others smiled and Kataoka was pleased that he had helped his master forget his troubles, if only temporarily.

  “I wish all the Edoites were so easily handled,” said Lord Asano as he sighed and helped himself to some rice. “But I’m afraid that’s not the case. Especially with those who have a little authority.”

  The two samurai exchanged glances. They knew what their master meant.

  “These court dandies all ought to have their heads removed,” growled Hara, and Kataoka nodded in agreement. “They talk and dress like women and are just as troublesome.”

  “Anyway, it’ll all be over after today,” Lord Asano said. “Then we can go home to Ako and forget this place. Think what it must have been like in the old days when daimyo like my father had to stay here half of every year.”

  The others agreed that the present arrangement was better than that, and finished eating their rice. Hara looked sorrowfully into the bottom of his bowl and Lord Asano knew what he was thinking.

  “At least in the old days we had a little meat and fish to go with our rice, eh, Hara? Well, maybe we will again some day if the Shogun’s Life Preservation Laws are ever rescinded. They may benefit the animals, but they don’t do us humans much good.” He put his bowl down and sighed again. “Most of the laws around here seem only meant to torment us. And the court’s rules of etiquette are completely beyond me. If only I didn’t have to depend for instructions on someone like Kira!”

  He spat out the name like a curse and again Hara and Kataoka exchanged worried looks. They knew he would not elaborate on this subject—it would be beneath him to discuss his personal grievances with them—but from what they had heard they knew that Kira, the court Master of Ceremonies, was making his life miserable. And they also knew there was
nothing they could do about it.

  Kira’s name stuck in Lord Asano’s mind like a bone in his throat. He had never known such a miserable time in the capital before, and it was a place he had never enjoyed visiting. This time, however, he was an unwilling participant in the official proceedings instead of a mere spectator and was thrown into much closer contact with the Shogun’s underlings. Kira was not even of daimyo rank, having no fief of his own and being ruler of nothing. But the fact that he had been sent to Kyoto some years before to study ceremonial procedure at the court of the Emperor gave him prestige and power that he had since used to good advantage in exacting bribes from those who had to depend on his tutelage.

  Lord Asano had written about Kira only the night before in a letter to his chief retainer Oishi. Although Oishi was slightly older, he was less experienced in the ways of the court at Edo than his master, and Lord Asano was able to express his feelings about Kira in the guise of offering advice on how to behave in the capital.

  “Kira is the man to watch out for,” he had written. “He enjoys the confidence of the Shogun and appears to be a faithful servant, but in truth he is an unscrupulous bribetaker and uses his office solely for his own ends. There is seemingly no way of dealing with such men except to play their game, but this I refuse to do. Consequently, Kira is giving me a rough time of it, even with only one day to go. Regardless of what happens, however, I will not pay Kira for his services, which are supposed to be supplied by the court. This may be a stubborn attitude, but as far as I am concerned it is the only honorable one for a samurai to take. I do not expect that I alone can turn back the wave of decadence that seems to have engulfed the court, but I can try to hold my head above the dirty water as long as there is a breath left in me.”