"A samurai does not work just for the sake of a meal. He is not a slave to food. He lives for his calling, for duty and service. Food is something extra, a blessing from heaven. Don't become the kind of man who, in pursuit of his next meal, spends his life in confusion."

It was already close to midnight.

Kochiku, who was a sickly baby, was suffering from some childhood illness and had been crying almost incessantly. He was lying on bed of straw and had finally stopped nursing.

"If you get up, you'll freeze, it's so cold," Otsumi said to her mother. "Go to sleep."

"How can I, when your father isn't home yet?"

Onaka got up, and she and Otsumi sat by the hearth, working diligently on handiwork left unfinished that evening.

"What's he doing? Isn't he coming back again tonight?"

"Well, it is New Year's."

"But no one in this house-and especially you-has celebrated it with so much as a single millet cake. And all the time we have to work in the cold like this."

"Well, men have their own pastimes."

"Although we go on calling him master, he doesn't work. He only drinks sake. When he does come home, he abuses you all the time. It makes me mad."

Otsumi was of an age when a woman would ordinarily go off to get married, but she would not leave her mother's side. She knew about their money problems, and not even in her dreams did she think of rouge and powder, much less of a New Year's dress.

"Please don't talk like that," Onaka said in tears. "Your father isn't reliable, but Hiyoshi will become respectable someday. We'll get you married to a good man, although you can't say your mother has picked her own husbands well."

"Mother, I don't want to get married. I want to stay with you forever."

"A woman shouldn't have to live like that. Chikuami doesn't know it, but when Yaemon was crippled, we put aside a string of coins from the money we received from his lord, thinking that it would be enough for your marriage. And I've collected more than seven bales of waste silk to weave a kimono for you."

"Mother, I think someone's coming."

"Your father?"

Otsumi stretched her neck to see who it was. "No."

"Who then?"

"I don't know. Be quiet." Otsumi swallowed hard, suddenly feeling uneasy.

"Mother, are you there?" Hiyoshi called out of the darkness. He stood stock-still, making no move to step up into the other room.

"Hiyoshi?"

"Uh-huh."

"At this time of night?"

"I was dismissed from the pottery shop."

"Dismissed?"

"Forgive me. Please, Mother, forgive me," he sobbed.

Onaka and Otsumi nearly tripped over their feet in their haste to greet him.

"What will you do now?" Onaka asked. "Don't just stand there like that, come inside." She took Hiyoshi's hand, but he shook his head.

"No, I have to go soon. If I spend even a single night in this house, I won't want leave you again."

Although Onaka did not want Hiyoshi to come back to this poverty-stricken house, she could not bear to think of him going right back out into the night. Her eyes opened wide. "Where are you going?" she asked.

"I don't know, but this time I'll serve a samurai. Then I'll be able to set both of your minds at rest."

"Serve a samurai?" Onaka whispered.

"You said you didn't want me to become a samurai, but that's what I really want to do. My uncle at Yabuyama said the same thing. He said now's the time."

"Well, you should talk this over with your stepfather too."

"I don't want to see him," Hiyoshi said, shaking his head. "You should forget about me for the next ten years. Sis, it's no good for you not to get married. But be patient, all right? When I become a great man, I'll clothe our mother in silk, and buy you a sash of patterned satin for your wedding."

Both women were weeping because Hiyoshi had grown up enough to say such things. Their hearts were like lakes of tears in which their bodies would drown.

"Mother, here are the two measures of salt the pottery shop paid me. I earned it working for two years. Sis, put it in the kitchen." Hiyoshi put down the bag of salt.

"Thank you," said his mother, bowing to the bag. "This is salt you've earned by going out into the world for the first time."

Hiyoshi was satisfied. Looking at the happy face of his mother, he was so happy himself that he felt as if he were floating. He swore he would make her even happier in the future. So that's it! This is my family's salt, Hiyoshi thought. No, not just my family's, but the village's. No, better yet, it's the salt of the realm.

"I guess it'll be quite a while before I'm back," Hiyoshi said, backing toward the outer door, but his eyes did not move from Onaka and Otsumi. He already had one foot out the door when Otsumi suddenly leaned forward and said, "Wait, Hiyoshi! Wait." She then turned to her mother. "The string of money you just told me about. I don't need it. I don't want to get married, so please give it to Hiyoshi."

Stifling a sob in her sleeve, Onaka fetched the string of coins and handed them to Hiyoshi, who looked at them and said, "No, I don't need them." He held the coins out to his mother.

Otsumi, speaking with the compa.s.sion of an older sister, asked, "What are you going to do out in the world without money?"

"Mother, rather than this, won't you give me the sword Father carried, the one grandfather had made?"

His mother reacted as though she had been struck in the chest. She said, "Money will keep you alive. Please don't ask for that sword."

"Don't you have it anymore?" Hiyoshi asked.

"Ah... no." His mother admitted bitterly that it had long since been sold to pay for Chikuami's sake. "Well, it doesn't matter. There's still that rusty sword in the storage shed, isn't there?"

"Well... if you want that one."

"It's all right if I take it?" Though he cared about his mother's feelings, Hiyoshi persisted. He remembered how badly he had wanted the shabby old sword at the age of six, and how he had made his mother cry. Now she was resigned to the idea of his growing up into what she had prayed he would never become-a samurai.

"Oh, well, take it. But Hiyoshi, never face another man and draw it from its scabbard. Otsumi, please go get it."

"That's all right. I'll go."

Hiyoshi ran into the storage shed. He took down the sword from the beam where it hung. As he tied it to his side, he remembered that six-year-old boy in tears, long years past. In that instant, he felt that he had grown up. "Hiyoshi, Mother wants you," said Otsumi, looking into the shed. Onaka had set a candle in the small shrine on the shelf. In a small wooden dish she had put a few grains of millet and a small pile of the salt Hiyoshi had brought. She joined her hands in prayer. Hiyoshi came in, and she told him to sit down. She took down a razor from the shrine. Hiyoshi's eyes opened wide. "What are you going to do?" he asked.

"I'm giving you your coming-of-age ceremony. Though we can't do it formally, we'll celebrate your departure into the world." She shaved the front of Hiyoshi's head. She then soaked some new straw in water and tied his hair back with it. Hiyoshi was never to forget this experience. And while the roughness of his mother's hands as they brushed his cheeks and ears saddened him, he was conscious of another feeling. Now I'm like everybody else, he thought. An adult.

He could hear a stray dog barking. In the darkness of a country at war with itself, it seemed that the only thing that grew greater was the barking of dogs. Hiyoshi went outside.

"Well, I'm off." He could say nothing else, not even "take care of yourselves"-it stuck in his throat.

His mother bowed low in front of the shrine. Otsumi, holding the crying Kochiku came running out after him.

"Good-bye," Hiyoshi said. He did not look back. His figure got smaller and smaller until it disappeared from sight. Perhaps because of the frost, the night was very bright.

Koroku's Gun A few miles from Kiyosu, less than ten miles west of Nagoya, was the village of Hachisuka. Upon entering the village, a hat-shaped hill was visible from almost any direction. In the thick summer groves at noon, only the song of the cicadas could be heard; at night the silhouettes of large bats on the wing swept across the face of the moon.

"Yo!"

"Yo!" came the reply, like an echo, from within the grove.

The moat that took its waters from the Kanie River pa.s.sed around the cliffs and large trees on the hill. If you didn't look closely, you probably wouldn't notice that the water was full of the dark blue-green algae found in old natural ponds. The algae clung to the weathered stone ramparts and earthen walls that had protected the land for a hundred years, and, along with it, the descendants of the lords of the area, and their power and livelihood.

From the outside, it was almost impossible to guess how many thousands or even tens of thousands of acres of residential land were on the hill. The mansion belonged to a powerful provincial clan of the village of Hachisuka, and its lords had gone under the childhood name of Koroku for many generations. The inc.u.mbent lord was called Hachisuka Koroku.

"Yooo! Open the gate!" The voices of four or five men came from beyond the moat. One of them was Koroku.

If the truth were known, neither Koroku nor his forebears possessed the pedigree they boasted of, nor had they held rights to the land and its administration. They were a powerful provincial clan, but nothing more. Though Koroku was known as a lord, and these men as his retainers, there was, in fact, something rough and ready about this household. A certain intimacy was natural between the head of a household and his retainers, but Koroku's relationship with his men was more like that which existed between a gang boss and his henchmen.

"What's he doing?" Koroku muttered.

"Gatekeeper, what's keeping you?" yelled a retainer, not for the first time.

"Yooo!"

This time, they heard the gatekeeper's response, and the wooden gate opened with a thud.

"Who is it?" They were challenged from the left and right by men carrying metal lamps shaped like bells on stalks, which could be carried on the battlefield or in the rain.

"It's Koroku," he answered, bathed in the lamplight.

"Welcome home."

The men identified themselves as they pa.s.sed through the gate.

"Inada Oinosuke."

"Aoyama Shinshichi."

"Nagai Hannojo."

"Matsubara Tak.u.mi."

They proceeded with heavy footsteps down a wide, dark corridor and into the interior of the house. All along the corridor, the faces of servants, the women of the hous hold, wives and children-the many individuals who made up this extended family-greeted the chief of the clan, come back from the outside world. Koroku returned the greetings, giving each at least a glance, and arriving at the main hall, he sat down heavily on a round straw mat. The light from a small lamp clearly showed the lines on his face. Was he in a bad mood? wondered the women anxiously, while they brought water, tea and black bean cakes.

"Oinosuke?" Koroku said after a while, turning to the retainer sitting farthest away from him. "We were well shamed this evening, were we not?"

"We were," Oinosuke agreed.

The four men sitting with Koroku looked bitter. Koroku seemed to have no outlet for his bad mood. "Tak.u.mi, Hannojo. What do you think?"

"About what?"

"This evening's embarra.s.sment! Wasn't the name of the Hachisuka clan shamefully blackened?"

The four men withdrew into a deep silence. The night was sultry, with no hint of a breeze. The smoke from the mosquito-repellent incense drifted into their eyes.

Earlier that day, Koroku had received an invitation from an important Oda retainer to attend a tea ceremony. He had never had a taste for such things, but the guests would all be prominent people in Owari, and it would be a good chance to meet them. If he had turned down the invitation, he would have been ridiculed. People would have said, "How pretentious they are, putting on airs. Why, he's nothing more than the leader of a gang of ronin. He was probably afraid to show his ignorance of the tea ceremony."

Koroku and four of his followers had gone to the affair in a very dignified manner. During the tea ceremony, an akae water pitcher had caught the eye of one of the guests and in the course of the conversation, a comment had slipped carelessly from his lips.

"How odd," he said. "I'm sure I've seen this pitcher at the house of Sutejiro, the pottery merchant. Isn't it the famous piece of akae ware that was stolen by bandits?"

The host, who was inordinately fond of the pitcher, was naturally shocked. "That's absurd! I only recentiy bought this from a shop in Sakai for nearly one thousand pieces of gold!" He even went so far as to show a receipt.

"Well," the guest persisted, "the thieves must have sold it to a Sakai dealer, and through one transaction after another it finally came to your honored house. The man who broke into the pottery merchant's house was Watanabe Tenzo of Mikuriya. There is no doubt about that."

A chill went through the a.s.sembled guests. Clearly the man who spoke so freely knew nothing about the family tree of his fellow guest, Hachisuka Koroku. But the master of the house and quite a number of the other guests were well aware that Watanabe Tenzo was Koroku's nephew and one of his chief allies. Before he left that day, Koroku swore to investigate the matter fully. Koroku had felt himself dishonored, and had returned home angry and ashamed. None of his dejected kinsmen could come up with a plan. If it had been a matter involving their own families or retainers, they could have dealt with it, but the incident revolved around Tenzo, who was Koroku's nephew. Tenzo's household in Mikuriya was an offshoot of this one in Hachisuka, and he always had twenty to thirty ronin in residence.

Koroku was even angrier because he was related to Tenzo. "This is outrageous," he growled, feeling contempt for Tenzo's evil ways. "I've been stupid, ignoring Tenzo's recent behavior. He's taken to dressing up in fine clothes and keeping a number of women. He's brought the family name into disrepute. We'll have to get rid of him. As it is, the Hachisuka clan will be seen to be no different from a band of thieves or a bunch of shameless ronin. A sad state of affairs for a family that is usually regarded as one of the leading provincial clans. Even I, Hachisuka Koroku, hear in public that I am the leader of bandits."

Hannojo and Oinosuke looked down at the ground, embarra.s.sed at suddenly seeing tears of grief in Koroku's eyes.

"Listen, all of you!" Koroku looked directly at his men. "The roof tiles of this mansion bear the crest of the manji cross. Although it is now covered with moss, the crest has been pa.s.sed down from the time of my distant ancestor, Lord Minamoto Yorimasa, to whom it was awarded by Prince Takakura for raising an army loyal to him. Our family once served the shoguns, but from the time of Hachisuka Taro, we lost our influence. So now we are merely another provincial clan. Surely we're not going to rot away in the country and do nothing about it. No, I, Hachisuka Koroku, have vowed that the time has come! I have been waiting for the day when I might restore our family name and show the world a thing or two."

"This is what you've always said."

"I have told you before that you must think before you act, and protect the weak. My nephew's character has not improved. He has broken into the house of a merchant and done the work of a thief in the night." Chewing his lip, Koroku realized that the matter had to be settled. "Oinosuke, Shinshichi. The two of you will go to Mikuriya, tonight. Bring Tenzo here but don't tell him the reason. He has a number of armed men with him. He's not a man, as they say, to let himself be captured with a single length of rope."

The following dawn came amid the chirping of birds in the forested hills. One house among the fortifications caught the morning sun early.

"Matsu, Matsu!"

Matsunami, Koroku's wife, peeked into the bedroom. Koroku was awake, lying on his side under the mosquito netting.

"Have the men I sent to Mikuriya last night returned yet?"

"No, not yet."