TAIKO: AN EPIC NOVEL OF WAR AND GLORY IN FEUDAL JAPAN

When Chikuami got to the embankment, Ofuku was standing there alone. He was only one who wore clothes in the summertime, and he neither swam nor ate red frogs.

'Ah, aren't you the boy from the pottery shop? Do you know where our monkey is hiding?' Chikuami asked.

'I don't,' Ofuku said, shaking his head a number of times. Chikuami intimidated him.

'If you lie to me, I'll go to your house and tell your father.'

The cowardly Ofuku turned pale. 'He's hiding in that boat.' He pointed to a small river craft pulled up onto the bank. When his stepfather ran up to it, Hiyoshi leaped out like a river imp.

Chikuami sprang forward and knocked him down. As Hiyoshi fell forward, he hit his mouth against a stone. Blood ran between his teeth.

'Ow! That hurt!'

'Serves you right!'

'I'm sorry!'

After slapping Hiyoshi two or three times, Chikuami hoisted him up at arm's length and hurried back home. Although Chikuami called Hiyoshi 'monkey,' he did not dislike him. Because he was in a hurry to do away with their poverty, he felt he had to be strict with everyone, and he also wanted to improve Hiyoshi's character—by force if necessary.

'You're already nine years old, you little good-for-nothing,' Chikuami scolded.

Once back home, he grabbed the boy by the arm and hit him several times more with his fist. Hiyoshi's mother tried to stop him. 'You shouldn't be so easy on him,' he barked at her.

When she started to cry, he gave the boy another beating.

'What are you crying about? I'm beating this twisted little monkey because I think it'll do him some good. He's nothing but trouble!'

At first, every time he was beaten, Hiyoshi would bury his head in his hands and beg for forgiveness. Now he just cried and cried—almost in delirium—and used abusive lan­guage.

'Why? Tell me why? You appear out of nowhere and pretend to be my father and swagger around. But my…my real father….'

'How can you say such a thing!' His mother turned pale, gasped, and put her hand over her mouth. Chikuami redoubled his rage.

'Smartass little good-for-nothing!' He threw Hiyoshi into the storage shed and or­dered Onaka not to give him any dinner. From then until it got dark, Hiyoshi's shrieking could be heard coming from the shed.

'Let me out! You fool! Stonehead! Is everybody deaf? If you don't let me out, I'll burn the place down!'

He went on crying, sounding like a howling dog, but around midnight he finally cried himself to sleep. Then he heard a voice calling his name from somewhere near his head. 'Hiyoshi, Hiyoshi.'

He was dreaming of his dead father. Half-awake, he called out, 'Father!' Then he re­alized that the form standing in front of him was that of his mother. She had slipped out of the house and brought him some food.

'Eat this and calm down. Come morning, I'll apologize to your father for you.'

He shook his head and clung to his mother's clothes. 'It's a lie. He's not my father. Didn't my father die?'

'Now, now, why do you say such things? Why be unreasonable? I'm always telling you to be a good son to your father.'

To his mother, it was like being cut by a knife. But Hiyoshi could not understand why she cried until her body shook.

The next day, Chikuami started yelling at Onaka from the time the sun came up. “You went behind my back and gave him food in the middle of the night, didn't you? Because you're so soft, his character will never improve. Otsumi is not to go anywhere the storage shed today either.'

The trouble between husband and wife lasted almost half a day, until finally Hiyoshi's mother went off alone, crying again. When the sun was about to set, she returned, accompanied by a priest from the Komyoji Temple. Chikuami did not ask his wife where she’d been. Sitting outside with Otsumi and working on a straw mat, he frowned. 'Chikuami,' the priest said, 'your wife came to the temple to ask us if we'd take your in as an acolyte. Do I have your consent?'

Chikuami looked silently at Onaka, who stood outside the back gate, sobbing.

'Hm, I suppose it might be all right. But doesn't he need a sponsor?'

'Happily, the wife of Kato Danjo, who lives at the foot of Yabuyama Hill, has agreed, and your wife are sisters, I believe.'

'Ah, so she went to Kato's?' Chikuami's expression was bitter, although he did not object to Hiyoshi entering the temple. He tacitly agreed to the proposal, answering questions in monosyllables.

Giving an order to Otsumi, Chikuami went to put away his farm equipment, and worked for the rest of the day with a preoccupied air.

After he was let out of the storage shed, Hiyoshi received repeated warnings from his mother. All night long he'd been eaten up by mosquitoes, and his face was swollen. When he was going to serve at a temple, he burst into tears. But he quickly recovered.

'The temple'll be better,' he declared.

While it was still light, the priest made the necessary preparations for Hiyoshi, and as the time for departure drew near, even Chikuami seemed a little sad. 'Monkey, when you enter the temple, you must have a change of heart and discipline yourself,' he told the boy. 'Learn to read and write a bit, and let us see you become a full-fledged priest soon.'

Hiyoshi mumbled a short word of assent and bowed. Once on the other side of the fence, he looked back time after time at the figure of his mother, who watched him disappear into the distance.

The small temple was on the top of a rise called Yabuyama, a bit removed from the village. A Buddhist temple of the Nichiren sect, its head priest was of advanced years and bedridden. Two young priests maintained the buildings and grounds. Because of the many years of civil war, the village was impoverished, and the temple had few parish­es. Hiyoshi, responding quickly to his new surroundings, worked hard, as if he were a different person. He was quick-witted and energetic, and the priests treated him with affection, avowing that they would train him well. Every night they made him practice calligraphy and gave him elementary schooling, during which he displayed an unusual talent memorization.

One day a priest told him, 'I met your mother on the road yesterday. I told her you're doing fine.'

Hiyoshi did not understand his mother's sorrow very well, but whatever made her happy made him happy.

But when the autumn of his tenth year came around, he began to find the temple too confining. The two younger priests had gone to neighboring villages to beg for alms. In their absence, Hiyoshi got out a wooden sword he had hidden away, and a handmade staff. Then he stood at the top of the hill, yelling down to his friends, who were getting ready to play war games.

'You enemy troops, you're stupid. Come on, attack me from any direction you like!'

Although it was not at all the usual time, the huge bell suddenly rang out from the bell tower. People at the foot of the hill were taken by surprise and wondered what was going on. A stone went flying down the hill, then a tile, which hit and injured a girl work­ing in a vegetable patch.

'It's that kid up at the temple. He's rounded up the village boys and they're playing al war again.'

Three or four people climbed the hill and stood before the main hall of the temple The doors were wide open and the interior was covered with ashes. Both the transept and the sanctum were in a shambles. The incense burner had been broken. It looked as though the banners had been put to some questionable use, the gold brocade curtain had been ripped and tossed aside, and the drumhead was ripped.

'Shobo!' 'Yosaku!' called parents looking for the children. Hiyoshi was nowhere to be seen; the other youngsters, too, had suddenly disappeared.

By the time the parents got back to the foot of the hill, there was some sort of tremor in the temple. The thickets rustled, stones flew, and the bell rang again. The sun went down, and the children, bruised and bloodied, limped down the hill.

Every night when the priests came back from begging for alms, the villagers would go to the temple and