Year of the Demon

uphold and a ronin who had forsaken all other relationships when he wedded himself to his sword.

“We can be thankful for small mercies, at least,” said Katsushima, who submerged himself until the waterline was just at his lower lip. The very picture of contentment, he said, “At least your mother chose not to fly from her birdcage today.”

“Damn you,” Daigoro said, his anger suddenly spiking. He pounded the rim of the bath with his palm. “Must you speak that way?”

His fatigue was to blame. The entire day had taxed him emotionally, and now his temper was like a willful horse, stronger than him and too hard to control. But like it or not, there he was in the saddle. He did his best to rein his feelings in. “I beg your pardon, Goemon. That was unkind. But it is unseemly to speak of her that way. She is no house pet. She’s my mother.”

Katsushima closed his eyes. “That she is.”

“Is it not bad enough that I have to sedate her day and night? Is it not bad enough that I’m likely to empty the last of my coffers buying all those poppies for Yagyu to milk? You are the only friend I have left. I will not have you berating my own mother. I cannot bear it.”

“How did I berate her? I said she had a good day. She didn’t run off foaming at the mouth.”

Again Daigoro felt that spike of anger. It hit him like a physical thing, stabbing through his veins. He was not certain that the volcano heated the water; his own rage was more than hot enough to make it steam. “First she’s a bird in a cage, and now she’s a rabid animal. What would you have me do, Katsushima? Cull her to spare the rest of the herd?”

“Your words, not mine.” Unlike Daigoro, he kept his voice low and calm.

“Now you’re provoking me on purpose.”

“Am I?” Katsushima gave Daigoro a stern stare. “Or are you finally giving voice to the thoughts you’ve kept to yourself in the darkest of nights? You are not blind, Daigoro: you must see your family would be better off without her.”

“So what do you suggest? That I murder my own mother?”

“I do not suggest anything. I say your family would be better off without her.”

“And what would you have me do? Expel her from her own home? Banish her from the compound? Would that satisfy you?”

“I would be satisfied if you put an end to your temper tantrum and examined your decisions honestly. You are unwilling to sacrifice your sword, unwilling to sacrifice your mother, unwilling to sacrifice your monk, and now you and your family have become quarry. And, as you may have noticed, so have I. I’ve stood by you every step of the way. Have I not earned the right to speak my mind?”

“She is my mother.”

“This has nothing to do with your mother. It’s to do with your refusal to make hard decisions.”

“I drew my blade against the most powerful man in the empire today, and I did it just to save a peasant boy that any other daimyo would sacrifice as easily as he’d part with a piss pot. You tell me that wasn’t a hard decision.”

“You did it because you were afraid of losing your friend. That’s not hard; it’s not even noble. Any common thief would have done the same.”

Daigoro wanted to punch him. He wanted to jump out of the water, grab Glorious Victory, and call him out then and there. And it wasn’t because Katsushima had compared him to a thief; it was because he wasn’t sure Katsushima was wrong.

Until now Daigoro thought of himself as noble for risking his life to save a lowborn servant like Tomo. Now he had his doubts. Katsushima had spoken the truth: even bandits would murder to save their friends. Was defending Tomo a selfless act or a selfish one? Hindsight was never perfect; how could he know for certain?

The fact that he couldn’t be sure of his own motivations made Daigoro even angrier. He slammed his fist down like a hammer on the rim of the pool. The black lava rock was sharp enough to cut the fleshy part of his hand, but Daigoro didn’t care. “Damn it, Katsushima, what need was there for him to die? And why does she have to be pregnant? And why can none of this be easy? Just for one day, why can it not be easy?”

Katsushima rose from the bath. “You’ve never understood me. My choices. How I could stomach the thought of going ronin. I think you’ve just gotten your first glimpse.”

Daigoro dropped his bleeding hand back into the water. As it plopped through the surface it made a little wave—a fleeting phenomenon, a manifestation so ephemeral that it could hardly be said to have happened. It made Daigoro think of the word ronin, “wave man.” A samurai without his liege lord was said to be as free as a wave on the ocean, owing nothing to anyone, dependent on no one. But Daigoro’s classical education had something very different to say about waves.

He remembered discussing the Tao Te Ching with his father when he was very young. He’d been confused by the idea that the wave and the ocean were just two faces of one thing, so his father had taken him down to the beach. “Tell me where the ocean ends and the wave begins,” his father had said. “Which drops belong to the wave but not to the ocean?”

It was impossible to answer, of course. There were no oceanless waves, nor were there waveless oceans. And if no boundary could be found between those two, how could there be a boundary between the wave named Daigoro and the ocean called House Okuma? How could Daigoro be himself without being an Okuma? Son of Tetsuro and Yumiko. Brother to Ichiro, husband to Akiko, father to the next little wave on the Okuma sea. There was no Daigoro except Okuma Daigoro.

Was a ronin any less dependent? If so, then why had Katsushima stood back-to- back with him, with fifty swords pointed at their throats? Wouldn’t he have expressed true independence by simply standing back and observing?

Katsushima began the long, moonlit walk back to the compound, and Daigoro punched the surface of the water again. He almost wished he’d gone through with his attempted seppuku. There was no point in doing it now—as an act of protest, it had to be done in full view of the regent—but if his courage hadn’t failed him then, he could have solved his two greatest problems: how to protect his family and how to fulfill his father’s dying wish. By committing the ultimate sacrifice, he would have convinced the regent of the abbot’s innocence. In addition, once Daigoro was dead there would be no disgrace in parting with Glorious Victory Unsought. His father had bequeathed her to Daigoro, and Daigoro would have kept her until the end. If Shichio wanted her after his death, so be it. If he still wanted to kill the abbot, so be it. No one could say Daigoro hadn’t done his utmost to fulfill his duty.

A chill ran over his body, in spite of the heat of the bath. It came not on the midnight breeze, but with the realization that seppuku was still an option. He had only to ride to Kyoto. Hideyoshi had a palace there. Daigoro could request an audience, carry out his ritual disembowelment, and see his family protected once and for all. Better yet, perhaps he could find a way to make a bid for Shichio’s neck. Suicide was far more honorable than execution, but Daigoro would gladly suffer the shame of a death sentence if he earned it by driving Glorious Victory through Shichio’s heart.

Either way, he had no choice but to ride to Kyoto. The road would be long and hot, and he knew death awaited him at the end. It was inevitable. So long as Okuma Daigoro lived, all of the Okumas would be under threat.

So unless he could conjure some third option before he reached Hideyoshi’s palace, his fate would be to commit seppuku or to be executed for the murder of one of the regent’s top aides. He hoped Katsushima would still be willing to ride with him. If it came to seppuku, Daigoro would need a second, and if it were execution, he would need someone to deliver his head to his family.

Whatever the outcome, he hoped Katsushima would acknowledge his willingness to make the difficult choice.

35

Daigoro had been as far as Hakone before, the last time to disastrous results: Ichiro was killed—brutally,