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

complain. But when the priests returned that evening, they could only stare at each other in shock. The incense burner in front of the altar had been split per fectly in two. The donor of this precious vessel was a man by the name of Sutejiro, who was a pottery merchant from the village of Shinkawa and one of the temple's few remaining parishioners. At the time he had made the gift to the temple, three or four year; earlier, he had said, 'This incense burner was fired by my master, the late Gorodayu. I have cherished it as a keepsake. He decorated it from memory, and he took particular care in applying the blue pigment. In offering it to this temple, I assume it will be treatec as a treasured article until the end of time.'

Ordinarily it was kept in a box, but just a week earlier Sutejiro's wife had visited the temple. The incense burner had been taken out and used, but had not been put away again.

The color drained from the priests' faces. Added to their worries was the possibility that if they reported this to the old head priest, his illness would worsen.

'It was probably Monkey,' said one.

'Right,' another agreed. 'None of those other little devils could do this kind of evil.

'What can we do?'

They dragged Hiyoshi in and thrust the pieces of the broken vessel in his face. Hiyoshi could not remember breaking the incense burner, but said, 'I'm sorry.'

The apology made the priests even angrier, because the boy spoke calmly and seemed to be without a trace of remorse. 'Heathen!' they called him, and tied his hands behind his back and bound him to one of the large pillars of the temple.

'We're going to leave you here for a few days. Maybe you'll get eaten by rats,' the priests said.

This sort of thing happened to Hiyoshi all the time. When his friends came the next day, he thought bitterly, he would not be able to play with them. And when they did come, they saw he was being punished and ran off.

“Untie me,' he called out after them. 'If you don't, I'm going to beat you up.'

Elderly pilgrims and the village women who made their way up to the temple made fun of him. 'Say, isn't that a monkey?'

At one point he was calm enough to mutter to himself, 'I'll show you.' His small body, pressed against the great temple pillar, was suddenly filled with a feeling of great power. He kept his lips shut about such things and, well aware of his predicament, put on a defiant face, cursing his fate.

He fell into a deep sleep, only to be awakened by his own drooling. The day was frightfully long. Thoroughly bored, he gazed at the broken incense burner. The potter had written an inscription in small characters on the bottom of the vessel: 'Made with good omen, Gorodayu.'

The nearby village of Seto and, in fact, the entire province was famous for pottery.  This had never interested him before, but looking at the painted landscape on the incense burner, his imagination took off.

Where is that, I wonder?

Mountains and stone bridges, towers and people, clothing and boats, the like of which he had never seen before, were painted in indigo on the white porcelain. It all left him deeply puzzled.

What country is that? he wondered.

He could not guess. He had a young boy's cleverness and thirst for knowledge and, desperate for an answer, he strained his imagination for an answer that would fill this emtiness.

Could there really be such a country?

While he was thinking hard about this, something flashed in his head—something he had been taught or had heard, but had forgotten. He racked his brains.

China! That's it! It's a picture of China!

He was pleased with himself. As he looked at the glazed porcelain, he flew to China in his imagination.

At long last the day came to an end. The priests returned from their begging. Instead of finding Hiyoshi in tears, as they had expected, they saw that he was grinning.

“Even punishment is useless. He's beyond our help. We'd better send him back to his parents.”

That evening, one of the priests gave Hiyoshi some supper and took him down the hill to the house of Kato Danjo.

Kato Danjo lay down next to the lamp. He was a samurai, used to being exposed to battle morning and night. On those rare days when he could relax, he found staying at home much too peaceful. Tranquillity and relaxation were things to be feared—he might become used to them.

'Oetsu!'

'Yes?' Her voice came from the direction of the kitchen.

'Somebody's knocking at the gate.'

'It's not the squirrels again?'

'No, somebody's out there.'

Wiping her hands, she went to the gate and came back right away, saying, 'It's a priest from the Komyoji. He's brought Hiyoshi.' A look of distress swept over her young face.

'Aha!' Danjo, who had expected this, said, laughing, 'It seems that Monkey has got­ten a leave of absence.' Danjo listened to the priest's recital of recent events. Having spon­sored Hiyoshi's entrance into the temple, he now apologized to all concerned and took charge of Hiyoshi.

'If he is unfit to be a priest, there's nothing to be done. We'll send him back home to Nakamura. You should no longer feel under any obligation to keep him. I'm sorry he's been nothing but trouble.'

'Please explain the matter to his parents,' the priest said, and as he turned to go, his step became lighter, as if a heavy load had been lifted from his shoulders. Hiyoshi cut a lonely figure. He looked around curiously, wondering whose house he had come to. He had not stopped here on his way to the temple, nor had he been told that relatives lived close by.

'Well, little boy, have you had anything to eat?' Danjo asked with a smile. Hiyoshi shook his head.

'Have some cakes, then.'

While he was munching on the cakes, Hiyoshi eyed the spear suspended over the door, and the crest on the armor chest, then looked hard at Danjo.

Is there really something wrong with this boy? Danjo asked himself. He had his doubts. He stared back, but Hiyoshi neither turned his eyes away nor looked down. There was no trace of the imbecile in him. He smiled rather charmingly at Danjo.

Danjo laughed as he gave in. 'You've gotten quite big, haven't you? Hiyoshi, do you remember me?'

This focused a hazy memory in Hiyoshi's mind of a man who had patted him on the head when he was six.

As was the custom with samurai, Danjo almost always slept at the castle at Kiyosu, or on the battlefield. The days he was able to stay at home with his wife had been few. He had returned unexpectedly the day before, and would go back to Kiyosu the next day. Oetsu wondered how many months would pass before they spent another day together.

A troublesome child! Oetsu thought. Hiyoshi's arrival was inopportune. She looked up, embarrassed. What would her in-laws think? Could this really be her sister's child?

She could hear Hiyoshi's screechy voice from her husband's sitting room: 'It was you with all those samurai on the riverbank that day, riding a horse.'

'You remember, do you?'

'Sure.' He went on in a familiar tone of voice, 'If that's the case, you're a relative of mine. You and my mother's younger sister are engaged.'

Oetsu and the maid went to the living room to get out serving trays. Oetsu felt uncomfortably cold, listening to Hiyoshi's language and his loud country boy's voice, Opening the sliding door, she called to her husband.

'Dinner's ready.'

She saw that her husband was arm-wrestling with Hiyoshi, whose face was bright red, buttocks raised like a hornet's tail. Danjo, too, was acting like a child.

'Dinner?' he said absently.