Sword of Honour (31 page)

Seijuro overswung in his rage, anticipating resistance of flesh and bone, and he staggered almost entirely around. Over his shoulder he looked at Musashi, who had not moved for his sword the
slightest, arms at his side still. Instantly, Seijuro’s sword was around and up into a guard, but there was nothing for him to ward: Musashi did no more than watch him levelly. Seijuro had
given his word, and both men knew it. Indecision in Seijuro’s eyes, the urge to fight on, but conflicted, receding, quelled.

He lowered his sword and spread his arms wide.

Musashi stepped back into the range of his sword. Seijuro did no more than grit his teeth and lift his chin to bare his throat. His men behind him aghast yet bound by dogma, spectators only to
the magnificent futility, and in the crowd a father whispered to the son upon his shoulders, ‘That is being samurai.’

How Musashi would have agreed. He did not prolong it, lashed his sword from the scabbard and struck Seijuro across the chest from pit to pit. But no killing blow this, his strength tempered,
seeking not to cleave but to rake the blade across the flesh, splitting muscle but sparing the vital innards.

Seijuro, expecting death, reacted to the pain with surprise more than anything. He grunted somewhere between a whimper and a further snarl of anger, and fell to his hands and knees. There he
remained. The cord he had bound his sleeves up with had been split, slid off his back like a serpent, hiss and all.

Musashi looked down at him. It was better than he had imagined it could go. Everything planned, calculated to shatter Seijuro’s concentration, as his father Munisai had once goaded Kihei
Arima back in his home village years ago. That man, Musashi had killed, but there would be no murder this night.

He became aware of the crowd, realized that he had them. That he should justify himself. Slowly he raised his sword, showed them the blood upon it.

‘Do you see?’ he said to them. ‘Do you see, Kyoto?’

The crowd said nothing.

‘My name is Musashi Miyamoto,’ he said. ‘And I have come. Of no school, I. Of no Lord. But here I am. You thought this man here invulnerable. His school untouchable. Look now
at what I have done. Look now at your truth. Here was a man who sent others to kill me. But look at him, here, the mighty, the powerful, look at his majesty when he is forced to fight his own
fights. This is the Way! Can you not see it for what it is?’

Behind him Seijuro was crawling away. The breath was rasping from him. Some of his men, the three boys, were kneeling by him, trying to pull his clothes back to see the wound, and he lashed
feebly at them.

‘Everything you hold is false!’ shouted Musashi, the words sounding pure and fine to him. ‘Everything you believe is profane!’ he cried, the victory thrumming warm in his
throat. ‘Do not accept what you have been told, what you are told!’ he told them. ‘Men who do not understand death, who would bare their throat to it, these are the men to whom
you bow? Why? Why follow—’

‘You couldn’t kill him, could you?’ snarled one of the Yoshioka samurai behind him, tears of rage in his eyes. ‘Couldn’t even give him that dignity.’

Musashi turned to face them.

Those that weren’t tending to Seijuro drew their swords.

Chapter Nineteen

How quickly the warmth of victory could vanish, and how quickly the Yoshioka came. The first threw himself at Musashi with a shriek. Musashi stepped back, dodged, lunged in
with immediate riposte. The samurai was quick, though, agile, swerved his body out of the path of his sword just as Musashi had done, and then the other Yoshioka were coming, enveloping, and so
Musashi turned and ran.

Instinct drove him towards light and so he fled towards the city proper. The crowd parted for him, panicking at what they thought themselves immune from now amongst them, the swords and the
blood upon them suddenly real, and the Yoshioka samurai followed close behind.

Sprinting silent, sprinting grim, the streets beyond the crowd bereft of all but the odd startled bystander. The northern fringes of the city nought but the plain hulks of import company
warehouses and sake breweries closed up for the night. Lights though, oil lanterns burning, candle-glow spilling from windows and doorways, flicking past him. Behind him bellowed accusations of
cowardice, commands to stand and fight, the Yoshioka fanning out behind him. How many? Glimpses over his shoulder revealed only motion in the gloom; more than eight, the best he could tell.

Vibration carried through bone from foot to jaw told him he was running at his true limit, teeth jarring with each step. Musashi had no inkling of where he was heading. Took corners as they
came. Found identical streets. He bigger, younger, faster, and the chain of the Yoshioka behind Musashi began to distend. What use distance running to men who fought willing enemies at arm’s
length? Only the youngest, the fittest, remained immediately behind him.

They would hound him through the streets they knew so much better than he. Exhaust him eventually, or corner him. Musashi made his decision. He stopped, turned, held his sword out before him.
The lead Yoshioka did not break his stride, came straight at Musashi, he screaming now. Went for Musashi’s blade, brushed it nimbly out of his path, the motions of it familiar, and familiar
too the way he rammed into Musashi, tried to push him back hip to hip. Encountered before on Hiei; dogmatic offence, found no give, and Musashi lunged with his elbows, his shoulders, drove the
samurai backwards and slew him as he staggered.

Other Yoshioka imminent, three of them at least. Turn, run again. This his only option. Scatter them, pick them off in segregated violence. Breath heaving, curses seething inward. The hand of
Seijuro manifold. On the gates of a Shinto shrine faces of wooden foxes leered at him, malevolent, mischievous, passed. Growing narrower, the streets, buildings pressed tight, more lights, more
voices; residential, mercantile, indiscernible.

Round a corner, a group of men sat grilling fish. Smoke smell, fat smell. Musashi stopped, waited. No time for proper stance or form, vestiges of it only, now came the Yoshioka and he leapt
forward to meet the first of them. Fast, the man caught Musashi’s sword on the flat of his blade, but his resistance only momentary. Musashi overwhelmed him, forced the samurai backwards off
his feet. In stunned watching mouths fish flesh went unchewed.

Second man, sword high,

see

it

and Musashi’s blade around to catch him under his arms, perhaps not lethal but enough; sword dropped, not reclaimed. First man rising, third man near. In a doorway came more onlookers,
summoned by screaming, none intervening. First samurai came horizontal, Musashi’s sword inverted, greeting, once again the two of them locked, then his arms up forcing the Yoshioka sword
above his head, rainbow arc, swords apart and all force dissipated. Tea-coloured back exposed, Musashi’s grip tight, prepared to cut, but denied – third man here now, interrupting.

Slow, that interruption. Musashi saw him coming. His sword swerved in its path from the first man to him, took the samurai’s right hand off at the wrist. Appetites were lost. The hand fell
to the ground, and Musashi felt a spatter of blood on his cheek as the lessened arm began its flailing. Ignored. First man whirling, stabbing, missing, barrelling into Musashi’s stomach still
crouched low, snarling like a boar goring at guts. Spine shining upwards to Musashi, too close to him to cleave, but rakeable; edge of the longsword pressed through silk into flesh, drawing a neat
and bloody chasm from hip to shoulder.

Pushed the samurai down to the earth, and now away, go! These three done but more coming. Wrong. Not done. First man, back split, writhing in the dust, swiped at Musashi as he fled, practically
flopping on his belly to reach, nicked him on the back of the calf. The wound went unnoticed for ten paces, a razor cut so fine it was unfelt, but then Musashi’s stride began to break without
his consent. Warmer than sweat around his ankle. Pace slowed, resorted to lunging gait, still going, still, still . . .

Turned, threw his shortsword at the nearest Yoshioka samurai. Near but too distant. Saw the blade coming, batted it aside. Curse sucked down with taste of bile, hint of blood, the gift of
tortured lungs. Eyes looked out from windows, silhouettes in doorways, dozens of witnesses watching his faltering defiance.

Another corner, and now Musashi found himself alongside a canal, a balustrade running its length. There, ahead, he saw his chance: a bridge, hump-backed, narrow. He could run no more, all but
hopping now, but there, there he could force them to come to him one at a time. Funnelling salvation. On, on, his blood-sodden straw sandal squelching beneath his feet.

Other footsteps, unhindered, not fresh but fast, faster. At first from behind but then to the side, looping around him. The man he had thrown his shortsword at. Must have realized what he was
attempting, ran to put himself between the bridge and Musashi. Grinning, shepherding, waiting for others to arrive.

So close behind him, the Yoshioka not as scattered as Musashi had thought. Into an arc arrayed around him now, eight men, sounds of more still coming, they caging him in against the balustrade
of the canal. No rush now. Breath gathered. Swords steadied. Moving forward in half-steps, feet never leaving the correct positioning. Beneath the wound Musashi’s own foot unfeelable.
Tighter. Closer. Touch of wood from behind.

The balustrade.

One quick stolen glance, behind, down into the canal’s depths. The drop was long, the water shallow. Moon caught a dozen times in separate little pools, white moon, not scarlet, not his
sign, not his assurance, and this moon dancing also in the feeble vein that flowed still. Walls smoothly set stone, bed riddled with rocks and pebbles of all sizes.

Eyes back up to the Yoshioka. Closer. Some happier. Some angrier. Some devoid of anything. Swords out before them or above their heads, eight swords just aching to get closer still, to break his
guard, to cleave his flesh . . .

No choice. Musashi sat his weight on the balustrade, swung his legs over and jumped down into the canal.

Further than it looked, an extra sliver of breath stolen before impact. Feet found no purchase, stones slick and wet, went right out from under him with the speed of his fall barely checked.
Head whipped down, cracked against a rock, his shoulder, his temple, couldn’t tell. Hurt. Left eye lost entirely to wild colour, ear feeling as though it had been ground to gristle. Stunned,
unable to rise, lying sprawled in the water, stared up at Yoshioka staring down at him.

Shouting, shouts. Through the ringing he recognized the word ‘stairway’, saw the Yoshioka pointing along the canal. Beyond the bridge, carved into the wall, and most of the samurai
rushing along to it. One remained keeping vigil, as though Musashi might vanish. Vanish? Vanish.

Up, fool.

Obeyed whatever it was that commanded him. Hauled himself up, grabbed his sword as he rose. Tried running. Water splashing. World unsteady. Head addled, leg dead, staggering too erratic. No more
running. Turned. Saw the many Yoshioka now down in the canal with him. Raised his sword, saw it quivering wildly, water falling from its point.

Seven of them. No room for them to spread out properly. Snarled at them. Tried to spit. No coordination, not even for that. Something at the back of his throat, behind his nose perhaps, clicking
as he breathed. His sword felt weightless, as though his hands were clasping nothing but air, and with this air he would swipe at them, try to cut them.

Wounded leg curved the path of his retreat, found stone at his side, at his back. Once again trapped. Urge to lean against it, to relent. Ignored. Seven samurai, seven swords all of them where
he could see them. Coming at him from the front, and through them he would wade, through the pain and the blows until he succumbed, see how many of them he could drag down to writhe alongside him
in the puddles. Writhing like landed fish. No more. No less.

Uncle,
he thought.
Know that I tried. Know that I tried. Know that I—

‘Cease!’ bellowed a voice. ‘All of you will cease this breach of the peace in the name of the most noble Shogun Tokugawa!’

Up on the street, light and movement. The arc of the bridge suddenly swarming with samurai, helmeted, uniformed black. Swords, spears, men with bows now lining up along the balustrade, arrows
nocked, aimed down into the canal. At the Yoshioka, at Musashi. One man carried a lantern, stood at the arc’s peak:

‘I am Goemon Inoue, honoured with the rank of captain in the service of my most noble Lord, the Shogun Tokugawa, given jurisdiction of all Kyoto in his name! It is my duty to keep the
peace, and I order all of you to sheathe your weapons immediately!’

No swords were moved. The Yoshioka said nothing. Musashi said nothing save for his ragged, clicking panting. Unquestionably outnumbered, the tea-coloured samurai, those still on the street
quelled also. Those in the canal looking up at the Tokugawa, looking at Musashi. He so close. Points of arrows so black they seemed edged with obsidian. Yet the proximity of Musashi was
tantalizing.

‘No,’ said one of them to Goemon. ‘You would not overstep yourself so.’

He began the motion of drawing his sword back, foot beginning to rise. One of the archers loosed. So close but a fine shot regardless, the arrow’s flight straight as light. It took the
Yoshioka samurai in the side of the throat and passed straight through, the shaft the length of an arm yet piercing so entirely that the fletching was all but swallowed by flesh.

A moment of shock as the Yoshioka samurai fell to one knee, grasping at the arrow, hissing blood from his mouth, a moment that Musashi was certain Goemon shared. Then, the reaction: shouting,
weapons bristling, bow strings drawn tauter and swords gripped tighter.

‘Outrage!’ one of the Yoshioka samurai was screaming. ‘Outrage!’

‘See how much more I am willing to commit,’ said Goemon, and his face, his voice were level now, any surprise vanished as though it had never been. ‘Please do.’